An Unusual Occupation Read online

  “Is it soon for him?” Nick asked.

  “It’s not scheduled to happen for a long time,” Bob said. At least, I can’t sense his death, which means it’s not for a long time. “So for the meantime, it’s up to him to make the right choices. Since you’re here to guide him, I don’t imagine I’ll see him for quite some time once I’m done at the school.”

  “You really do work as a sub?” Nick asked in surprise. “It’s not just some cover you use?”

  “Death doesn’t pay enough to live on,” Bob answered.

  26

  Goodbye

  October 16, 2006

  I find myself happily regretful to leave tomorrow. I have one last class, and I can say goodbye to everyone. By everyone, I must admit, I mean David. It took him a while, as it did with the rest of the family, to pick himself up after Drew’s death.

  Nick was key. He sat with the family and told them what I wished I could have. He told them that wherever Drew was, the dog was happy. They keep his collar in a little glass case on top of the entertainment center with a picture. The faded Polaroid showed a Drew only a few years old and forty pounds lighter. That same happy, self-aware smile of his was just as prominent when he was a puppy as it was nine years later when he died.

  While helping to clean up, I accidentally bumped the glass case, and Nick yelled at me. I understood. I feel sorry for any poor fool that goes anywhere near that case.

  I’ve decided to try this again. Each time I go to Transport someone’s soul, I’m going to make an effort to help him like I did with Drew. It should be easier, so long as my next Transport is human. For now, I have to say goodbye to a new friend.

  When David walked into class, he discovered a series of equations. Each problem had a small dash underneath. To the right, Mr. Drifter had scribbled a key. He wrote a letter that corresponded to a number.

  The tardy bell rang, and the students were taking the chance to share a few last words as Mr. Drifter stood up.

  “Greetings, all,” he began. “On this, my last day, I feel somewhat lethargic.”

  His students stared at him. David knew if he just looked dumbfounded enough, his teacher would translate.

  “I’m feeling lazy,” Mr. Drifter explained. “So I’ve written a set of problems on the whiteboard that I’m quite confident will take you the entire class to finish.”

  “What if we pull a Gauss?” Karen asked. She smiled at her reference to the first time she had met the substitute. She shined that smile at David, too. It didn’t make him feel as awkward as it used to. He still felt funny, but in a good way.

  “Then I suppose you’ll have the rest of the class to quietly do as you like,” Mr. Drifter said with a smile. “When you answer each of the thirteen questions, write down the letter that corresponds to the answer.”

  “What will the letters spell out?” David asked.

  “My last message to you all,” Bob answered.

  He means me, David told himself proudly.

  Mr. Drifter took a seat and let his students get to work. Some giggled as they figured out the riddle. Others got done as quickly as they could and took the rest of the class to talk to each other.

  It took David all of five minutes to figure out not just the message, but also the pattern his teacher had used to write it. He smiled to himself and began writing his own set of equations.

  “Mr. Taylor,” the teacher said. “If you need help—”

  “I’m good,” David interrupted.

  Mr. Drifter shrugged and pulled out a book. Does he ever stop reading? David had noticed three different book covers through the time Mr. Drifter had been his sub, and the teacher looked nearly done with the fourth. As it happened, Mr. Drifter finished the book just as his students put their desks back in order.

  David was still working as the bell rang. Knowing how a thing worked didn’t make it much easier for David to complete his project. The class rushed out as David put on the final touches.

  Mr. Drifter walked to David’s desk. David smiled, but he left without saying anything. He left his last message for his teacher in his assignment. Mr. Drifter’s riddle, thirteen letters, was his way of saying goodbye. “I’ll miss you all,” the paper said.

  David had spent the class writing his own reply in the same code. Mr. Drifter would figure it out. The message was simple, and it was the best thing David could think of saying.

  “I’ll miss you, too.”

  27

  A Wonderfully Terrible Night

  October 17, 2006

  Everything went about as poorly as it could last night. What I do is important, and I can’t even explain it to people. Choice leads us to fate. I just wish I didn’t have a hand in executing the latter.

  “I’m the luckiest man alive,” Detective Richard Hertly told his wife as she stood before him in a long, black dress. She was beautiful. Everything about her—her petite frame, her curly, blonde hair, her bright-green eyes—was perfect. In front of this overweight, overworked, under-intelligent, under-attractive, washed-up cop was the perfect woman. And she’s mine.

  “Don’t you forget it, Richard,” Linda Hertly told him. She gave him that special smile of hers and walked up to him. They kissed for a moment. The soft and playful gesture was a taste of things to come. It was going to be a great night.

  The plan was simple enough: A trip to a great restaurant, a visit to the ballet, and a walk in the park. The park was the best part. It didn’t matter if there were a thousand people there; it was still just he and Linda. They’d walk for hours, lie in the grass, and look at the stars.

  On their first date, Richard had tried to impress her by telling her the names of constellations. There was the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, Scorpio, Orion, and ... and ... and ... he choked. Any confidence he had drained. She gave it back to him by making up names for whatever she wanted. They spent most of the night naming the stars. The stars had been theirs since that night. Yes, the park was the best part, but what happened when they went home would be a close second.

  “No interruptions?” she asked. She had the most wonderful way of lowering one eyebrow and raising the other. That meant he had better answer right.

  “Kyle has babysitting duty tonight,” he said. She curled one side of her mouth in a half smile. That meant he had answered correctly. He knew every face and every tone. If colleges gave out degrees in Linda Hertly, he’d be professor, dean, and valedictorian.

  She turned her back to him. He saw her back framed by the lowered zipper. She turned to look at him and smiled. Slowly, he lifted the zipper all the way up. He caressed her back with his free hand as he did. His free hand ended at her chin. They kissed again. The soft ones were the best.

  “You needed this,” she said, starting to fix his tie. It was always a little too loose. “You sure he’s the bad guy?”

  “You said no interruptions,” he said. Her lips flattened, indicating that he’d said something moronic. “I know. I promised I’d talk to you about my work more, but not tonight.” Her lips filled out. That meant he was given a stay of execution.

  She walked out of the bedroom, and he followed her to the front closet. He helped her put on a silk scarf. God only knew how it kept her warm, but she knew he loved to see her neck. Her hair was up; the dress was modestly low-cut, and the scarf framed her face and shoulders. This was going to be a great night.

  He owed it all to Linda and Kyle. Somehow, he’d managed to get two things right in life: His wife and his partner. So what if he was a little too much or too little of everything else? He opened the door for her and they headed out to enjoy the evening.

  Detective Kyle LeShea was just getting used to the idea of how long his night was going to be. Drifter had just finished running errands. The previous day was his last as a substitute, but he traveled to the district office for some reason. A few quick questions told Kyle they’d offered Drifter a permanent job for a third time, which he had politely refused. From the district office, Drifter drove s
traight home. Kyle didn’t bother trying to hide his presence. The guy knew he was being followed, and it kind of gave Kyle a kick to know how much it bothered him.

  What bothered Kyle was that Drifter was genuinely a nice guy. When the detective first started his little surveillance mission, he twitched every time Drifter so much as ordered coffee, which he did every night at 8:30. The guy was like a clock. All he did was read and teach. Who could possibly read that much?

  The most surprising thing Drifter did, Kyle thought as he followed the suspect off the freeway, was send a letter. Who sends letters anymore? Kyle was a little curious to know whom Drifter wrote to. Other than spending time with the Taylors, Drifter didn’t really socialize.

  Drifter parked at his home and went inside. The smart-ass actually waved to Kyle on the way in. So the guy taught, tutored, read—relentlessly—and went to get coffee every night. Kyle was stumped.

  He leaned his car seat back and got comfortable. Drifter would be inside reading for a couple of hours. The detective tried to figure out what bothered him so much about Drifter. If Richard was right, this guy should be crawling out of his skin. No killer, spree or serial, ever stopped, much less cold turkey. Not only had this guy stopped, if he ever had hurt a soul, but he seemed content and happy. Sure, he might have been involved in that swimming accident, but that was a pretty damn big if. Even Richard thought that accident was just an accident, which either meant it was, or Drifter was getting better at cleaning up after himself.

  But if he wasn’t involved, what was he doing at that hospital? True, all they had on Bob was that he was there. So even if he could throw out the old lady and the accident victims, why kill a guy bound to die in a few days? Why watch them die? What was the reward? What did he get out of watching it?

  What was that connection to the Taylors? The first day on the stakeout, Kyle worried that Drifter had targeted one of them, but killers don’t associate with their victims. Drifter didn’t act anything like a killer, so why turn off Rojas’s heart monitor? Unless Drifter was there to watch the dog die, that train of thought was a dead end.

  Kyle scrubbed at his head in frustration. Every thought just ran around in circles. Richard always knew how to follow the evidence. Kyle would never make sergeant. He just ran on instinct more than anything else. Richard would break this case. He checked his watch. They should be heading out to dinner right about now.

  Not Kyle. He’d be having terrible pizza while he watched a guy read. His partner owed him one, and he’d make good on that debt. Richard Hertly never let anyone down. So why get all hot and bothered about Drifter? Kyle tried to follow the evidence.

  He had no way to tie Drifter to the old lady. No blood and no proof that Drifter even knew the fire had happened, which meant there was nothing there to work with. That left Kyle with the accident victim, Tom. Someone matching Drifter’s description was there.

  The problem there was everyone matched Drifter’s description. Hell, I match his description, he thought to himself. For the sake of argument, Kyle decided if anything pointed to Drifter, he’d conclude it was Drifter.

  That meant Drifter was there when Tom died. Problem was there weren’t any injuries to Tom that didn’t happen in the accident. That left depraved indifference. If that was the case, couldn’t Drifter argue there were more than a hundred people who could have called for help? Drifter could even argue that he didn’t have his cell phone on him. There was nothing there. Why didn’t killers just confess?

  So Rojas was the best case they had, and they had nothing. Drifter had those bases covered. Then there was the Taylor family. He was perfectly within his right to go there and help a kid with his homework. He was never alone with anyone but Nick Taylor and that pig of a dog. Kyle couldn’t help but laugh every time he saw that chubby animal. Apparently, the dog had died a few days back. Could Drifter have ... ? Kyle pushed the idea out of his mind again. He’d asked about the dog’s death, and Drifter had helped bury it. If he’d had a hand in hurting that dog, the family wouldn’t have defended him so much.

  Basically, Kyle had nothing. This was definitely going to be a long night.

  Bob was grateful for the detective’s distance. It was bad enough to be followed, but if the policeman got too close to Bob or the Taylors, everything would be lost.

  Oddly enough, the detective was the least of Bob’s worries. Sergeant Hertly was the larger concern of the two. Although the detective was rude in the beginning, Kyle had seemed to start to see Bob in a different light. Richard wouldn’t be nearly so easy to cool off.

  As annoying as those two might’ve been, Bob was nearly finished with his work and ready for a change. He wanted to sit in his comfortable chair in his enormous library and read.

  In a few hours, he’d go out for his usual hot chocolate and try to finish his book. Before that, he’d try to work out exactly how he’d pulled off the past few days.

  Bob was fairly certain his police worries would go away as soon as they realized they had nothing on him. That left the pleasant thought of David’s concert at the talent show. It made him glad that he made the challenge to the kids. He smiled every time he thought of David up on that stage.

  Bob put aside his book and hopped off his couch. He wanted to read something a little more inspiring. He started looking through the books he had loaned to David so the boy could write his song. He walked over to the stacks of his library and smiled. Books were the best things. They grew old but never died. They stayed with a person. Books included several wonderful people for anyone willing to meet them, and as many times as a character in a story might die, he or she can be brought back just by returning to page one.

  Real people only have so many pages, and no one could ever return to page one when it was all over. Bob shifted through the poetry books he’d loaned out.

  He started scanning the poets. Bob thought that Dylan Thomas was as good a book as any to read. He let a finger run down the spine of the leather book before tucking it under an arm. Dylan was a fine poet, but Bob wasn’t a fan of “raging against the dying of the light.” If death is something to rage against, then it’s because something in life was undone.

  When I die, who would care? Would someone write my memoriam? Bob considered Drisc, but Drisc would sooner stop drinking as start writing. At least Bob kept his journals. They served to comfort him. If anyone cared to know who he was, they had a way. Though it’s unlikely anyone will.

  He brought the book back to the table by his large, blue chair and decided to try a little more reading. Soon, he thought. He’d have to do something very soon, and he’d have to do it right.

  So far, perfect, thought Sergeant Richard Hertly as a waiter brought a cart of food to the table. The candlelight atmosphere made his Linda look absolutely stunning in her dress. He sat on the far side of the table. His black jacket and white shirt made him look as slim as he could, but he always felt a little too uncomfortable in the outfit.

  Looking at Linda was worth it. He could be in any outfit or setting, as long as he had her. He ordered the steak medium-rare. She ordered her usual of chicken pasta Alfredo, and they both decided on red wine. They sat at a round table in the corner of the restaurant’s cozy dining area. A single candle lit each table, and crystal chandeliers reflected the light around the room.

  A string quartet played in the corner opposite the happy couple. Richard had planned the evening well. It was time to give the signal. He raised his glass. “A toast to us,” he said. “Now and forever.”

  She smiled. It was their toast. He’d used the phrase in his wedding vows, and he meant them to this day. “And always,” she said, finishing the vow. Richard smiled at his wife, and the quartet was right on time. She recognized the melody immediately.

  “‘Every Breath You Take!’” she said in a whisper. It was their wedding song. It wasn’t original, but he didn’t care. He loved her with every breath he took.

  “I’ll be loving you,” he said. It was his own twist on the song,
but it fit for him, corny and cliché though it was.

  “You planned this,” she said, giving him that lopsided smile. He’d done well.

  “I owe you for how I’ve been lately.”

  “I owe you for marrying me.”

  “That’s my line.”

  “No, I think not,” she said. She leaned across the table to share another kiss with him. They sat down to their meal.

  “Don’t you dare,” she said. The tone was dangerous. It meant she was half serious, which meant he was already halfway into trouble.

  “What?” he asked, as if he needed to.

  “You’re making that face,” she said. “No work.”

  Comments like that made him want to carry a mirror around with him. It wasn’t fair for her to know him better than he knew himself. Sure, he knew her better than anyone, but he never used it against her.

  “It’s not work, exactly,” he said. He had only let his mind drift for an instant, and she’d caught him. “I have such a wonderful life. I don’t like thinking anyone got cheated out of theirs.”

  He shrugged it off. He tried to hide his faces by studying how slowly he cut his steak.

  “There’s only one thing to do about it,” she said calmly. She took a moment to try some of her pasta.

  “I know,” he said.

  “Not this time,” she replied. She had a different sort of smile. This was her “I have a secret I’m about to tell you” smile.

  “I’m all ears,” he said. And neck and belly; how’d she ever fall in love with me?

  “Live,” she said simply. She took another bite of her pasta, as if that was all the explanation she needed to offer.

  Apparently, he gave her a confused expression. He knew because she always laughed when he gave that face. “For every life that’s cut short, we should cherish that extra moment we get,” she explained. “The only way to fight death is to live.”