Of Saints and Shadows

HIS MEMORY IS LIKE A TORNADO ACROSS time, touching down to pick up a single event or person and carrying it away until it is dropped in favor of something else. Most of the events are catastrophes, most of the people are dead. When he wants to think of something pleasant, he has to concentrate. But such is the nature of memory, and of time.

His name is Octavian. But it isn’t, really. Or at least, it was not always. He has been a prince, a warrior, a monster, a murderer, a wanderer, and a thief Now he can only observe and remember.

The radio alarm clicked on at 9:30 P.M., but Peter Octavian had been awake for almost half an hour. He hit the snooze with none of the annoyed reluctance that usually accompanies such an act. He was in a good mood. He had something to do tonight. Not as if he usually had trouble finding something to do, but he always preferred that it find him. Often the nightly news was his only source of entertainment, and that he loved. It amused him so to see the bickering between nations and individuals. He had become quite good at predicting events long before they happened. One of his favorite observations was that “history repeats itself.”

Peter stood up from bed and walked in darkness to the shutters that hid the outside from him, and him from it. He opened them and looked out. The moon and the stars were very bright, effectively illuminating the street eight floors below. He opened the window a bit and let the cold air in, sucking it into his lungs. Snow; tomorrow, maybe tomorrow night.

He left the window open and walked to the bathroom. Eyes shut, he flicked on the overhead lights. He yawned and stretched. Already naked, having slept that way, he stepped into the shower and pulled the curtain. He loved the steam and the hot water, and the chill that he knew would run up his spine when he got out. He had left the window open for that purpose. The shower was a strange thing for Peter. He hardly sweated, so he never smelled particularly bad. His hair looked clean without washing. But this could not prevent his hair from becoming disheveled as he slept, so he washed it.

He rinsed his long brown mane and stepped out, anticipated chill giving him a shiver. He toweled dry and went to the mirror, blew dry his hair, and pulled it into a ponytail, slipping an elastic around it. As he brushed his teeth, shining the smile that had won thousands of hearts (but when was the last one?), he could hear the radio in the other room. The snooze timer had given up, and the deejay was yattering about something.

“Just about a quarter to ten in the city, and a chilly thirty-one degrees right now outside WZXL. Here’s a little reminder from yours truly that you’ll be in big trouble if you don’t pick up some sweets for your sweetheart. And, with a little reminder of their own, here’s the Spinners with ‘Cupid.’ ”

He stepped out of the bathroom, still naked, and shut off the radio. The phone rang and he began to get dressed as the answering machine picked up on the third ring.

“Octavian Investigations. No one is here at the moment, but if you leave a message and your telephone number, someone will get back to you as soon as possible.”

“Peter. Frank. Just calling to check in. I spoke to Ted Gardiner earlier, but the cops haven’t got a clue. If you need anything from me, please call.”

Peter pulled his brown leather bomber jacket over the blue cotton oxford shirt, effectively hiding his armpit holster. Inside the holster was his .38. If it was good enough for Spenser ...

Really, though, it was for show. If he had to hurt somebody, it was just as easy, and generally more satisfying, to do it with his hands. The part of him that craved that satisfaction frightened and revolted him, but he refused to deny its existence.

To overcome something, he knew, one must first accept it. So he did. But he kept a tight rein on that atavistic urge. Very tight.

Tonight he was on a personal job. Frank Harris was a friend, one of the few Octavian could claim, and his only daughter had disappeared. Peter knew better than most what it was like to lose someone, he’d lost plenty over the years, and he’d do whatever could be done.

Frank had given him little enough to work with. Janet Harris worked for a big Boston law firm as a paralegal. Six days earlier—that would have been Wednesday—Janet left work at her usual time, went to her usual bar with her usual friends, and left early with an unusual but far from extraordinary headache.

The cops, as usual, had done no more and no less than what was mandatory and then gave up the girl for lost. They figured she had run away with the milkman, or some such, and had unofficially quit on Monday night.

It was Tuesday, and Frank and Peter had spoken three times during the day. Normally, Octavian would have been up by 5:30, but he’d been out of state for a few days—and out during the day—and he’d needed some rest. He probably would have woken up earlier if Frank hadn’t kept interrupting his slumber. But how do you explain such an unnatural need for rest?

The first things to draw his attention were the eyes of Courteney MacGoldrick, which were giving him a very vigorous appraisal. Caught in the act, she blushed slightly, but did not look away. He kept his eyes locked on hers as he crossed the room and gave her a long-practiced, lopsided grin.

The grin won her over, but it wasn’t the only thing she noted. His eyes were gray, flecked with silver, which gave them a slightly hypnotic quality. His six-foot-four frame was wiry, and he carried himself like an old western gun-fighter. His face was ageless, but most people’s best guess, and Courteney MacGoldrick’s, since she happened to be thinking about it right then, was that he was probably in his early to midthirties.

“Janet came in a lot. Flirted a lot, a nice, funny woman. But she left alone, always. Only once talked about a guy at work she was attracted to, I don’t remember his name. The night I saw her last, she got a headache after two beers and left. I already talked to the cops, but I’m sure nothing will come of that.”

Out the door and into the street, on his way back to the State House parking lot, where he had left his car, he thought of her, and then forgot her, storing only what she told him. He had driven tonight, which was rare, but he was in the mood for music and had picked up the latest Seal disc. He hoped there was no ticket on the Volvo.

Sirens pierced the air and Peter winced. His ears were sensitive. An ambulance and police car sped past, rounded the corner, and stopped in front of the garage beneath the secretary of state’s building. Peter was right behind, following on foot. He couldn’t help it. He survived by curiosity and a sort of prescience that told him which things deserved his attention. This was one of them.

Two cop cars were already there when this latest arrived with the ambulance. The paramedics were getting out their gurney and wheeling it inside. He hoped that Janet Harris would not be on it when they returned. It seemed he had spent several lifetimes delivering bad news, and he was tired of it.

“Octavian.” The voice belonged to Ted Gardiner, a lean, black plainclothes detective with few manners but a lot of charm. He smiled at Peter. They weren’t good friends, but there was respect there, and that was about as close as Peter usually got.

“Come on in.” Gardiner ushered Peter through the door. “It’s actually pretty interesting. I ... Hey, you know, you need to get out more. A little Florida vacation. You need a tan.”

Ted smiled. He knew about Peter’s aversion to the sun, a medical thing, he’d been told, and he was just sarcastic enough not to care whether it upset the PI or not.

Ted smiled at him and then mustered up his serious face, which was rare. They had arrived at the scene, and the paramedics were bagging the body. Peter saw that the car door was open, and a lot of photographs were being taken of the interior. He looked at the corpse with the back of its head gone.

“Martin, Roger Francis,” Gardiner informed him. “Age, thirty-three. Occupation, yuppie. Cause of death, pistol fired approximately six inches from the victim’s forehead. Clean shot. Roger was nice enough to roll down the window for the guy. Motive, definitely not robbery—cash and credit cards still in the guy’s wallet. Unless, of course, there was something of significant value in Roger’s briefcase, because it seems our man rifled through that particular piece of baggage. The other ambulance had come and gone by the time you showed up.”

“The janitor walked in on the thing. From what we know, he probably saw the guy who did it. But he won’t be talking to anyone for a day or so. Bullet in the chest can do that to a guy.”

“As long as these boys don’t mind.” Ted motioned to the paramedics, who stepped back to allow Octavian access to the body.

“He’s only been dead about an hour and a half, which puts the murder somewhere between ten and ten-thirty,” Peter answered. “He smells of beer. If you check his work area, and don’t find any trace of alcohol, then he must have gone somewhere local to drink and come back here afterward. Find out where he went, and what was in the briefcase, and you’ll be that much closer to finding his killer.”

“Elementary,” Peter said, and winked. He was wondering whether or not to get involved, and decided against it. If he was supposed to be involved, the mystery would follow him until he paid attention to it. But just in case ...

“Ted, do me a favor. Call me tomorrow and let me know how this thing turns out. And while you’re at it, scoop me a copy of the missing-persons file on Janet Harris.”

“Yeah, sorry. God, it’s awful. Frank’s been holding up, but just barely. And officially, I’m not even supposed to be on that case.”

He walked to the lot where his car was parked—there was indeed a ticket—and decided to see if Janet Harris’s roommate, Meaghan, was still awake. It was twelve midnight, exactly.