"Father and son. You couldn't meet two people who are more different. Jack seems to think it's his fault that Gregory is the way he is. . but I don't want to get into town gossip. It's a sad story."
"I'll bet. Psychotics always make me sad, especially when they're pushing women around or trying to take off my head. It seems to me that you've got a town bully on your hands."
Mosely grimaced again, nodded slightly. "Gregory's got his problems, that's for sure. He's a pain in the ass, always full of piss and vinegar, and always looking for a fight. Town bully, yes, but when the town bully's father is a bona fide war hero, sometimes you have to tread lightly. Gregory's obsessed with the fact that he was too young for Vietnam. He thinks he could have been a war hero-and it doesn't help that his father has kind of soured on the whole war and Vietnam thing. Some people around here think Jack has lost his patriotism."
"It looked to me like he'd lost his leg."
"That too. But Gregory kind of feels cheated, like he's John
Wayne forced to act in a Shirley Temple movie, if you know what I mean."
"So why doesn't he enlist in the Marines or some other branch of the service? The Vietnam War may be over, but the last I heard, the armed forces were still in business."
Mosely's response was a thin smile and a slight shake of his head.
I asked, "More town gossip?"
He nodded.
"Let me guess," I continued. "They either wouldn't take him or they threw him out on a Section Eight. Mental problems."
"Column B. It's good that you know."
"Why? What difference does it make?
Mosely studied me for some time, then said: "I'm sure you've seen the movie where the sheriff says to some guy that trouble follows him wherever he goes."
"Ah, I think I've got it. You're the sheriff, and I'm the handsome, mysterious stranger who's just come to town."
"You're no stranger, Dr. Frederickson. And trouble does tend to follow you around, doesn't it? I'm trying to tell you that Gregory Trex is a very dangerous man, and he's not about to forget that you humiliated him in front of all his veteran buddies. The man's a PKA champion, and if you meet again, he may not be so easy to surprise. I don't want anybody hurt, but if I did try to warn you to get out of town, you'd be the one quoting old movies." He paused, leaned forward in his chair, and narrowed his eyelids. "I don't suppose you would consider going back to New York as soon as possible?"
"Thanks for the warning, Chief. Trex shouldn't be too hard to spot; I'll watch out for him."
He nodded, and grunted softly. He didn't seem too pleased with my answer. "How's Garth?"
"You know my brother?"
The man with the gray eyes and hair nodded again. "I don't know if he remembers me, but I remember him, all right. Good cop with a big rep-not only for doing his own work but for the way he handled himself when he'd get tangled up with all those cockamamie cases that used to come your way. We worked out of the same precinct; he was with homicide, and I was with safe and loft. I put in my twenty years in New York, applied for this job last year, and got it. I like it real well in Cairn. Pulling down a New York pension and being chief of police in a town like Cairn is what New York City police detectives dream of when they dream of heaven. But then, I guess Garth found his own heaven when he teamed up with you, didn't he? I hear you two guys are doing really well."
"Yeah. Garth has always considered me an angel."
"So, how is he?"
"He's fine."
Mosely frowned, leaned back in his chair, and glanced at the ceiling. "Didn't I hear something a couple of years back about him being the head of some kind of religious cult?"
"Garth is fine, Chief. I'll tell him you say hello."
Suddenly the intercom on Mosely's desk buzzed. Cairn's chief of police looked surprised. He waited until it buzzed a second time, then punched an orange button at its base. "What is it?"
A male voice, presumably the dispatcher's, came over a speakerphone on the side of the intercom. "You've got a phone call, Chief."
"Emergency?"
"Not exactly."
"Tell whoever it is to call back later. I'm in conference."
"Mr. Culhane, Chief."
Dan Mosely looked even more surprised, and then his gray eyes glinted with annoyance. "Tell him I'll get back to him," he said curtly, and punched a black button. He was just starting to turn back toward me when the intercom buzzed again. He punched the orange button. "I said-!"
"Mr. Culhane’s pretty insistent, Chief. I just thought you should know."
Mosely's annoyance flashed to anger, and his face flushed, making the acne scars on his neck stand out like a necklace of flawed pearls. "I'll take it out there," he snapped and punched the black button again. Then he rose and strode stiffly from the room.
I waited, idly rubbing my sore wrist while I stared out the small window in his office at the river. There was a marina to the east, and a covey of sailboats gently bobbed in the wake of a passing powerboat. Under a full moon, the river shone like a great silver highway. Mosely was back in less than a minute. His anger had passed, and now he looked merely embarrassed. I felt a little sorry for him. It seemed there were a few shadowy, dank corners in the heaven he'd found, and Elysius Culhane lurked in one of them, obviously expecting the chief of police to be at his beck and call; in another corner lurked a murderous young thug the police were expected to ride herd on, while at the same time protecting him from the consequences of his actions.
"Like I said, Frederickson," Mosely said in a low voice as he sank back down into the leather swivel chair behind his desk, "your reputation precedes you. You make people nervous."
"Why should I make Elysius Culhane nervous?"
"Ah, you've met Mr. Culhane?"
"We exchanged a few unpleasantries at the art exhibit."
"Mmm. Culhane has sort of taken Gregory Trex under his wing, in a manner of speaking."
"That's a pretty big hawk wing, Chief."
"Yeah, well, Culhane seems to think that he can straighten the boy out by acting as the sort of strong father figure he thinks the boy needs."
"A father who's a war hero and who lost his leg in Vietnam isn't a strong enough figure?"
Mosely averted his gaze and once more seemed embarrassed. "Culhane saw you get in the squad car, and he thinks maybe you don't quite understand the situation here and what happened back at the gallery. I told him I was filling you in on some background-"
"Chief, I don't have the slightest interest any longer in what happened earlier or in town gossip. That's not what I'm here to talk about."
Now he returned his gaze to my face. He looked surprised and perhaps a little relieved. "Huh? But I thought. ."
"I came to talk about a friend of mine who died here on Monday. Michael Burana."
Mosely again leaned back in his chair and again stared up at the ceiling as he ran the fingers of both hands through his thick, curly hair. He seemed to be trying to collect his thoughts. "The
FBI agent," he said at last. "The one who let the CIA defector slip away to the Russians."
"He didn't let anyone slip away to Russia. That escape took split-second timing, with help from someone who knew a whole lot about FBI surveillance procedures. Maybe Michael should have been on the scene, but he wasn't; even he had to sleep once in a while. He was the man in charge of the surveillance team, so he was the one who took the fall and all the bad publicity. But that's neither here nor there. He's dead now. Like I said, he was a close friend of mine."
"And you have questions about his death?"
"Uh-huh."
He took his gaze from the ceiling, leaned forward in his chair, folded his hands on top of his desk, and looked at me with a puzzled expression. "You read the news reports?"