When Abigail receded into an inner shadow, the man’s voice came through a speaker above the closed door behind her. Above the speaker was another camera, aimed again right at me.
“Can I help you, Mr. Bear?” he asked. His voice was thin and unhurried.
“I’m a private investigator working for Representative Todd Spencer. I need just a few minutes of your time.”
“Are you part of any media or news organizations?”
“I am not.”
“Please give me a few minutes to get ready,” said the presumed Dan Morrison. “Abigail, you may offer Mr. Bear some water.”
She handed me a cold bottle from a small refrigerator behind the counter.
“Thanks, Abigail. I see the motel is full, or almost.”
“For the heat and pool. Excuse me.”
She turned away and went through the door behind her. Before that door closed, I glimpsed the room beyond, sunlit through the shades, a plaid stuffed chair, a coffee table, an IV drip station waiting in the corner.
I sipped the water and looked at the brochures. Stared into the camera over Abigail’s door. I don’t like being maybe watched, but maybe not. The camera lens was about the diameter of a .45-caliber bullet.
“Mr. Bear,” the man’s voice said through the speaker, “exit the lobby and go right, to bungalow six at the end of the first row. The door is open.”
I considered Abigail’s closed door, then pushed back outside. The blinds banged on the glass. When I got to bungalow six, the door was cracked.
“Come in.”
It was dark inside at first, even with the sunlight following me in. A man sat on a retro orange vinyl sofa.
“Please sit in front of me.”
The folding chair was small and wooden, and I wondered if it would agree with my 240 or so pounds. I sat. The chair so far, so good.
My eyes adjusting to the dark, I looked directly at Dan Morrison, his face shaded by a black ball cap, bill tugged down low. Aviator sunglasses. A long-sleeved black shirt buttoned all the way, black pants, black canvas sneakers, black socks. White tufts of hair below the cap.
“I have no refreshment to offer you,” he said.
“The water is good.”
“Do not look at me with pity.”
“I promise not to.”
The room focused around me: bookshelves, an old-style TV — possibly black-and-white — in one corner facing a recliner. Blinds on the windows, which faced the parking lot and pool. Framed photographs on the walls, California’s natural wonders, mostly.
“How is Todd?” he asked. As through the intercom, his voice was thin and faint, as if coming from a longer distance.
“He would tell you he’s running for reelection against some big money,” I said. “And campaigning hard. I can tell you he’s anxious and worried. His wife Julie went missing four days ago. They found her car abandoned out by Harrah’s in Valley Center. There are signs of foul play.”
Morrison seemed to think about this. His expression was impossible to read behind the sunglasses and steep black bill of the ball cap. In the shuttered light I could see the flesh coiled on his cheeks, evidence of fire and surgery. His nose and lips looked incomplete, like features that had never matured. Features made for a life in darkness.
“Do you think Todd is responsible for her disappearance?” he asked.
“Should I?”
“I’m not qualified to say. I know little of Todd except what happened in Iraq. I know nothing of his wife. I can’t help but think you’ve wasted your time coming all the way out here.”
“Go to the man’s character,” I said. “I want to know how he behaved that day in Fallujah.”
A long, air-conditioned pause. He was considering.
“I was in that city the day your Humvee went up,” I said. “Over in Queens, going door-to-door.”
“Do you think about it a lot?” he asked.
“Not anymore.”
Morrison grunted softly. Maybe a dry chuckle. “I think about it every day,” he said. “I admire people like you, who forget.”
“Almost forget.”
“Do you use alcohol or drugs?”
“Not drugs.”
“Being a Native, you must have your issues with the drink. I used to drink oceans of bourbon and eat pills by the handful. Finally overdosed but the skies cleared. A good doctor. She got me through, and I haven’t self-medicated for four years. I take aspirin when my skin heats up.”
“I admire that.”
“No pity, Mr. Bear. I asked you once.”
I considered explaining I felt no pity in my admiration, but that would have been a small truth within a larger lie: I did pity him, and the world did too. But why should Dan Morrison have to endure that? Why shouldn’t he be able to live in a remote desert motel, unavailable?
“We had to make a run to the palace,” he said. “Uday’s old place in Volturno.”
“I remember it,” I said.
“We were on a humanitarian mission that day.” I heard the controlled emotion in his thin voice. Forced calm. “We had a transport truck full of food and medical supplies for the friendlies. Not one Iraqi showed up to claim a handout. Not even kids. The imams would have them arrested or worse. You must remember the saying, If you deal with Americans, you die.”
“Certainly,” I said.
“Spencer and I were part of security. It was a terrible road. The insurgents were thick in Fallujah by then — twenty-four different groups we considered ‘hard core.’ And even Saddam’s enemies were starting to hate us. We’d been making lightning raids every day and there was always collateral damage. Or so the Iraqis claimed.
“No trouble on the way in. We sat in that Humvee like a couple of nervous rats while the rations and first aid kits were loaded out. Todd acted a little above things. Cocky. Like he wasn’t born to die or get blown up in this dirty little war. He talked about running for office when he got home. Looking back now, I think he was terrified. I know I was. Our Humvee had just been up-armored with an add-on kit and some improvised stuff. Hillbilly armor. Which made it more prone to roll over. At any speed, a Humvee is a rollover waiting to happen. As you know.”
“I saw one do that,” I said.
Morrison studied me for a moment, then stood and walked into the kitchen. I heard a refrigerator open and close. He was a wiry man of average height. He moved slowly, with a hint of the spectral in his sunglasses, tufts of white hair and the all-black clothing. He carried himself with heavy deliberation, like an older man, or a warrior who had been wounded once and forever. I knew from my investigation that Morrison was forty-five — three years older than me.
He set another bottled water on the table in front of me. Sat again and picked up a remote to open the blinds on one of the front windows, allowing in slightly more light.
“When we started back, Todd and I were on point, not the rear guard. It’s all about seeing, as you know. You’re looking for those roadside bombs in anything that looks harmless and common — a ruined tire, a dead dog, a pile of trash, a blown-out vehicle that wasn’t there last time. The insurgent bomb makers were crafty. The bombs that worry you most are the ones you never see, the ones set off by phone. And that’s what we hit. One of the big boys. Made by Rocket Man himself. Remember him?”
“It was big news when we nailed him.”
“Caught him at home, with a bomb schematic up on his computer screen. Anyway, the hajis had dug in after we’d passed through, somehow dodging our patrols and helos and surveillance drones. In broad daylight. I used to think their Allah was a better god than ours, the way they could get away with things like that.