CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
If fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, what is the beginning of fear? I have an answer, for myself at least. The beginning of fear is to understand that you are without power. It took me half a lifetime-40 years-to realize this. Oh, I can hear the protestant brayings of those who are "taking responsibility for their own lives," or "are God," but I'm not talking about the mundanities of happiness, success, self-fulfillment weight loss, life without alcohol, or who is okay and who is not. I'm talking about powerlessness in the face of death, in the face of life, in the face of madness, love, disease, desire, in the face of all things beautiful and terrible that govern our every moment whether we know it or not. And I am talking about the fear of truly realizing that your best may not be good enough, that may, in fact, be very little good at all. To understand this is to become fluent in the language of terror, to become intimate with the contours of the pit. It is the wisdom of the man before the firing squad. But fear-true fear-is not a reason for anyone to do something as simpleminded as to surrender. No. The acts of the powerless are among the lasting nobilities of the race. To advance with a stomach knotted in terror is more than courage. Fear is beauty.
All of which is to say that as I lay in bed on the Wednesday morning of July the seventh, bruised and still exhausted by the dismal events of the night before, I tried to separate my world into things over which I had no power and things over which I did. Against Martin Parish's bleak logic, I was temporarily helpless. There was no sense in divesting myself of Alice's body, when Parish had the tape. All an empty grave would prove is that I'd moved her! I had been crudely but effectively neutralized-exactly Parish's goal. Over the cancer cells that raged in Izzy's brain, I had no power. Over the actions of the Midnight Eye, I had perhaps even less. Dread began to work into me. But I knew that there were some things I could still accomplish. I could love Izzy, even if I couldn't save her. I could protect my daughter from the young woman's perils that had apparently befallen her. I could begin to outline my book about the Midnight Eye. I could shower, shave, eat.
"Coffee, Russell?"
Grace stood in the bedroom, a steaming cup in her hands. I had not heard her arrive, but that didn't surprise me: What little sleep I'd had had been the sleep of the dead.
"Russell, where's Isabella?"
I explained.
She set the cup on my nightstand and assayed me with her Monroe brown eyes. "I'm sorry I was gone," she said. "I could have helped."
"Where were you?"
"Does it really matter, Russ?"
"Yes, it does."
"Don't be silly. You look rather under the weather today.
A guy from the phone company installed something on the telephone pole about an hour ago. You slept right through it.
I groaned, sat up in bed, and hooked the coffee mug.
"Tell me if there's anything I can do for you," said my daughter.
"Thank you."
"Isabella didn't leave because of me, did she?"
"She likes you. I think she left because of me."
"Give yourself a little more credit than that," she said then turned and went back down the stairs.
I called Corrine. Izzy was sleeping after a fitful night-the heat, bad dreams, many trips to the bedside commode.
"Thank you for your words last night," said Corrine. "It important we not blame ourselves. I'm starting to understand what you've been going through this last year. She-we all owe you so much."
"Thank you. That's a difficult thing to believe."
"I hope you can use this time to enjoy yourself a little. Get some work done. Was yesterday relaxing for you?"
I thought back to Amber's astonishing reappearance, thought back to last night, to Martin's palpable lunacy and the body I had buried in a grave not a hundred yards from my own front door. "Very relaxing," I told Corrine.
"I'm glad to hear that, Izzy should be awake in another hour."
"I'll be there."
"God bless you, Russell Monroe."
"I would like that."
My Journal piece on the Citizens' Task Force got front page play and a large color photograph of Dan Winters and Erik Wald. The lead article focused on the Midnight Eye, a horrifying photograph of whom-culled by Documents from the home video-took up three columns above the fold. You could see his dark bearded face in the shadow of the stolen car, determine his girth from the size of the arm dangling from the window, sense his self-contained and predatory nature. Carla Dance had not changed a word of my article, though she did run an inset on Russell Monroe, the Task Force volunteer who was writing this special series for the Journal. I sensed Dan Winters's hand in this bit of minor manipulation-I had never told him I'd join his Force-and in the word series, which gave me a very specific idea of what my Journal employment was to entail. I had to smile at Erik's expression in the photo-so grim, so alert, so… indispensable. God only knew how many phone lines were ringing at the Sheriff's Department, particularly on the desk of Erik Wald and the CTF. We had a hit on our hands; I could feel it.
I called surveillance tech John Carfax at County, and he confirmed that he'd installed the intercept device. It was a Positive Control Systems DNR (dial number recorder) that had CNI (call number identification) capacity built in. He told me he could get a trace number in thirty seconds. Under specific orders from Winters, he was to share his information with me.
I called my agent, Nell. I told her I had an inside track on the scariest, weirdest, most haunting serial killer to hit California in years and that I needed money to write the book.
"We won't get a lot," she said. "You haven't made the list since Journey."
"I don't expect a million dollars," I said. "As much up front as you can arrange. I need it."
"I’ll try."
"This will make Helter Skelter and Fatal Vision look like Hardy Boys stuff."
She was quiet for a moment, then sighed. "How come it seems like everybody in California is either writing a mystery or going on a killing spree?"
"Each has his own special gift," I offered.
"I'll try, Russ. That's all I can do."
With this bit of encouragement came the bravery to call my bank and check the balances of my three accounts-something I had not been able to do for nearly six months. They went down to a grand total of eight thousand dollars, about two months' worth. I had been subconsciously preparing myself to sell Izzy's car, my truck (rarely used), and liquidate our retirement money, which, after taxes and penalties, would have give us another year of living. There remained the specter of selling our home in the current bad market. Not to mention the eighty grand I owed the Medical Center.
I began to wonder how I could write anything close to the whole truth, with Martin's tape, with Alice Fultz buried within throwing distance of my typewriter, with my guilty fixation on Amber Mae so central to the story. No, I told myself. You will write the story of the Midnight Eye. The rest will stay consigned to the dark annals of your secret life. Maybe you can put it in a novel someday.
I asked Grace to come with me to see Izzy, but she declined.
"I'm not afraid to be alone up here," she said. "I don’t think those men have any idea where I've gone. In fact, this is the only place I feel safe alone."
"I understand," I said. Besides, there was something I wanted to do in my car, and it wasn't something that I necessarily wanted my daughter to hear.
On my way to Joe and Corrine's, I listened to the tape that had come from Martin's box of "evidence." The voice of the Eye droned on, and I could still make little of it. I began to meditate on just how this tape had come into being and found its way into Amber's stereo. Was it faked? Dubbed from others? An original that Parish had failed to file as evidence in the case of the Midnight Eye? I finally tired of his slurred nonsense, removed the tape, and put it in my pocket. Surely, I thought, there's a safer place to keep this than in my car.