Okay, let’s head back to the streets of San Francisco for a look around the memory warehouse with Harry & Co. Yes, yes, this one has 88 keys everywhere you look, so go slow and enjoy the sights. San Fran is always nice this time of year…

[Blue Jays \\ I Dreamed Last Night]

A short one today, so grab a cup of cardamom tea and take a minute to settle in.

1.3

“You come in early,” Captain Sam Bennett said to Callahan as he walked into the Homicide Bureau and over to the coffee pot, “or were you here all night?”

Callahan stifled a yawn and nodded. “All night. Got called in around 0100, got a weird one down at the marina?”

“Weird? What happens down there that isn’t weird?”

Callahan shook his head as he watched Bennett pour his coffee. “Girl walking from the yacht club to her house saw a black thing and screamed…”

“A black thing?” Bennett grumbled sarcastically. “Now that is weird…”

“…but then this thing comes for her, and then a couple of workers from the yacht club hear her scream and run over to see what’s goin’ down and the black thing turns and it just obliterates one of ‘em. The other guy gets the girl back up to the parking lot and then calls us. Divers went in looking but they couldn’t find anything…”

“No body?” Bennett asked, his curiosity now piqued.

“No body, and I mean nothing.” Callahan shook his head as he recalled the bloody sand. “One of the divers said he saw something like a big green bubble, but…”

“Oh come on. What is this – some kind of April Fool’s Day bullshit? Like maybe the diver farted in his wetsuit and a big green bubble…”

But Callahan shook his head. “I saw it too, Captain. So did DiGiorgio.”

“A big green bubble? You saw a big green bubble – and that’s our prime suspect in your homicide case?”

“We saw a greenish glow underwater, but as soon as the divers went in to investigate the thing just moved off into deep water…”

Bennett looked up from his coffee when he heard that. “Possible submarine?”

“Maybe, but it would have to be pretty goddamn small to operate in that water. The depth around there is in the ten to fifteen feet range – at low tide – which it was.”

“You said the victim was obliterated? Anyone hear a weapon discharged?”

“No, and that’s weird too, Captain. There was blood everywhere, even on the woman’s legs, and a huge blood trail led down to the water, but there was nothing solid. No bone, no tissue residue, and the divers couldn’t find anything in the water so I had the Crime Scene people get as much of a sample as they could, just in case…”

“In case of what, Callahan? What kind of case are you calling this, because the DA sure isn’t going to call this one a homicide.”

“Sir?”

“Well, hell, Callahan, from what little you’ve told me this could have been some kind of goddamn sea creature, maybe an octopus or a squid of some kind, but it sure doesn’t sound like one human being killed another.”

Callahan shrugged. “Unless it was someone dressed up in some kind of costume…”

“That disappeared in a glowing green submarine? Seriously? That was more likely some sort of bioluminescence…”

“So what do you want me to do with this, with my report?”

“How did patrol sign off on it?”

“Signal One – homicide – according to their shift sergeant, but I assume the first watch lieutenant approved that.”

“Hell, Briggs ought to know better than that,” Bennett growled, putting his coffee on his desk before he turned and looked out his window – at the mass of humanity walking in and out of the jail complex. “Well, hell. You’d better go over to Steinhart, over to the Academy of Sciences, and see if anyone has any idea what kind of animal could have done this. Then you’d better go talk to that girl, the one who first saw this creature. See if she can help us get this investigation pointed in the right direction.”

“Okay.”

“Before you do anything else, head on home and get a few hours of rack time, and then…ahem…don’t forget to drag a razor over that furry thing growing on your neck.”

Callahan grinned. “Aye-aye, Skipper!”

“And don’t call me skipper!” Bennett shouted as his newest detective walked out of the bureau.

+++++

Callahan knocked on the glass door and waited; a few minutes later a young woman who appeared to be a nurse of some sort came to the door and opened it. “Yes?” the nurse said expectantly. “Can I help you?”

“Inspector Callahan, San Francisco Police. I need to speak to Miss Weyland, please.”

The nurse looked uncertain, as if she simply didn’t know how to respond to a cop at the door, but she nodded her head slowly then simply pulled the door to and disappeared down a marble-tiled hallway that led into the depths of the large, very upscale house.

“Swell,” Callahan growled as he watched her walk off, but he just stood there, waiting. A minute or so passed and then an elegantly dressed white-haired man came down the same marbled hallway, and the man came directly to the door and opened it wide.

“You’re with the Police Department?” the man asked.

And Callahan nodded. “Callahan. Homicide. I’m going to need to speak further with Miss Weyland. Are you her father?”

“Would this be about last night?” the man said, a little evasively.

“Yessir.”

“I see. Well, perhaps you weren’t aware, but Devlin, Miss Weyland, is unwell and has been most of her life. She hallucinates, she sees things that aren’t really there, so is it possible that she hallucinated the events of last night, Mr. Callahan?”

“No sir. There were other witnesses.”

“I see. I didn’t know that. I came here earlier this morning and had to sedate her – as I thought she had hallucinated these events, but you’re telling me they actually happened?”

“Yessir. Excuse me, but are you a physician?”

“Yes. I’m the head of psychiatry up at St Francis General.”

“I don’t know what you’ve been told, Doctor, but a man from the yacht club was – well, for want of a better word, he was vaporized – and directly in front of Miss Weyland – and another employee of the club witnessed these events. Two other employees located a little further from the scene observed some of this as it happened, as well,” Callahan replied, cataloguing the physician’s appearance as they faced off, filing away the details in his mind – just in case: white buttoned down shirt, laundered, heavy starch; an Hermes necktie, tannish gold with a small riding crop motif; black slacks, pressed, Gucci belt, Gucci loafers; hair on the medium long side, whitish-blond, kept clean and combed, parted on the left; eyes hazel, with contact lenses; watch, Rolex Submariner; no wedding band or other jewelry. 

The physician still seemed unconvinced as he spoke now: “She said something about a large black creature taking one of the employees into the water, then something green, a green glow, taking them away. She really wasn’t all that coherent, Mr. Callahan, so I’m not sure if that’s exactly what she observed or not.”

“You said she hallucinates, Doctor? Is she psychotic or schizophrenic, something like that?”

“Something like that,” the physician repeated casually, offhandedly, as if that diagnosis was out of bounds for this discussion.

“Do you think I could talk with her?”

“As I said, Mr. Callahan, she’s heavily sedated.”

“Is she conscious?”

“Yes. Yes, she is.”

“Then I’d like to speak with her. Now, please, if that’s at all possible.”

“Do you have a warrant, Officer?”

“Do I need one, sir?”

“Well, you see, though I also happen to be Dev’s father, I am also her guardian, so I have a direct say in the matter.”

Callahan nodded. “I see. Does she play the piano?”

“Yes. She’s quite good, actually. Why do you ask?”

“We had a moment out there, sir. Something almost personal, and it had to do with playing the piano.”

“Do you play?” the physician asked quietly, almost kindly.

Callahan nodded. “She asked if I played Debussy, and when I replied Gershwin she said that was even better.”

“Indeed. She didn’t mention that.” The physician stood aside and held the door open. “My name is Peter, by the way. Peter Weyland. Won’t you come in?”

A little off balance now, Callahan smiled at the change that had come over Weyland as they walked into the house; he could see into the living room from the foyer and his eyes went to a massive concert grand in the far corner of the room. Next to a corner that seemed to be all glass, the Steinway was bathed in pure light – and Callahan had never seen a more seductively majestic setting to sit and play in his life – but when he turned to face Weyland he found that the physician had disappeared.

But a moment later he came back, only now with his daughter in hand.

She was hardly recognizable, he thought when he saw her now. Hunched over and with her face sallow and gray, the young woman he’d seen last night was gone now, subsumed by and inside the confines of the world her medications granted. Her slippered feet shuffled along unsteadily and her auburn hair was an unkempt nest that seemed wildly out of place inside this house.

And then she saw Callahan standing in the foyer.

And then she stood straighter in an instant and her face brightened as color returned, and when she smiled at Callahan he felt the strength of her in his bones. Suddenly and quite unbidden, she walked up to him and she held his eyes in her own and the house came alive with strange magic inside the suddenly slower passage of time. And then, after she came to Callahan she reached out and took his hands again, but this time she clasped them together inside her own, then brought them to the side of her face.

“Gershwin?” she whispered to him, her voice weak but taking strength from him.

“Yes. He’s always been my favorite.”

“Show me.”

“What? Now?”

“Please?”

So Harry walked over to the Steinway and after he got comfortable he began fingering an extremely simplified rendition of Summertime, but just a few bars…then he blew into an explosive phrasing of the Rhapsody…a real window-rattling romp…before he settled into the oppressively languid Second Prelude, playing through to the end – then he turned and looked her in the eye: “And what would your music tell me?” he asked, wondering what she might choose to tell the story of the moment.

And after she sat beside him she addressed the keyboard and closed her eyes before she drifted in Schwarzwald’s Second – but just as she meandered into the second bar he stopped her.

“Please,” he whispered, “anything but that.”

“Why?”

“She’s – my mother.”

“What?”

“Imogen,” he struggled to say, “is my mother.”

“Callahan,” she sighed. “Oh yes, I remember reading about her now. What was it like? To grow up with that music all around you?”

His mind drifted to the green house between Monterrey and Carmel, to the avocado trees and blackberry brambles – and the storms that came when she played… “I’m not sure I could find the words,” he started to say, but then he looked away. “It was…our life was very complicated.”

“So, that’s where Gershwin comes from. Point–counterpoint, wouldn’t you say?”

“I guess maybe it’s obvious now, but I’ve always been an open book. Just like Gershwin is an open book.”

“I doubt that very much,” she whispered, then she leaned into him, placed the side of her face on his shoulder in a way that felt a little too familiar. And yet oh-so-strangely familiar.

Then, perhaps out of guilt Callahan looked around the massive living room for her father, but he had simply left the room and now not even the nurse was present. “Would you mind telling me about the medications you’re taking?” he asked.

“I would if I knew what they are. Why?”

“Your father? He doesn’t tell you?”

She shook her head. “No. But I’m not really interested.”

“What are the side effects?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I was wondering, do they keep you from playing?”

“Oh. Sometimes. I think more than anything else they make me sleepy, and then I can’t concentrate. And sometimes my fingers feel heavy, like they’re made of lead.”

“I can’t imagine what that must feel like,” he said. “To be cut off from something so elemental.”

“You do understand, don’t you?” she whispered, now rubbing up against his shoulder – and to him it felt like in a very feline gesture of acceptance, so much so that he almost expected her to start purring.

“I think I would feel lost without music, but I wouldn’t want to presume…”

“You don’t have to.”

“Inspector Callahan?” Doctor Weyland said as he came back into the room. “Have you been able to talk about last night’s trouble?”

Callahan pulled away from Devlin and stood. “No sir. This isn’t going how I expected.”

“I dare say. Perhaps you should come by in the morning. I’ll have Devlin up and ready to go by nine.”

Callahan knew a dismissal when he heard one, so he nodded and sighed before he turned to her again. “Perhaps, if you feel up to it in the morning we could walk down to the water, or maybe over to the yacht club. It might stir your memory…”

“Better yet, Callahan,” her father said, “why don’t you come out with us. We were planning on a day out on the water, so when the tide turns at eleven why don’t you count on spending the afternoon with us?”

Callahan nodded. “If it’s still alright with you, I would like to come by at nine – and I’ll need to come with another detective.”

“Yes. That’s probably best.”

Harry could feel her disappointment – but worse still, he was sure she could feel his own. Something wasn’t right about all this, and he knew it. If word of his behavior today got back to Captain Bennett, his career in homicide would be over.

Yet he drove back to the bureau trying to understand what had just happened to him. Inrushing feelings for a girl he didn’t know, overwhelming dendritic impulses flowing from notes in a score to a hazy shade of memory he hardly recognized as his own. What was she doing to him – if not casting a spell…?

He turned on Bryant then turned hard onto Harriet Street, then into the lot and he sat there for a few minutes, watched Charlie McCoy pulling his radar gun from a saddlebag as he talked to Captain McKay. He shook his head at the thought then wondered how his old friend managed to keep riding and working Traffic now that he’d turned 50. 

“And what the fuck are you gonna do when you turn 50?” he asked the eyes in the rearview mirror.

Callahan tried to shake off the sudden funk; he got out of the puke green Ford and crossed the street and walked into the main lobby, flashed his badge and was buzzed into the bowels of the building, then rode up to the fourth floor in silence. Bennett was in his office working on another stomach ulcer, while Frank DiGiorgio and Carl Stanton were at their desks pounding away on ancient gray Underwood typewriters.

“Callahan!” Bennett growled, his voice rattling the windows. “What the hell have you been up to?”

“Steinhart, then at the Weyland residence – talking to that witness.”

“Find out anything at the aquarium?”

“No, nothing. Everyone there was all wound up about some kind of pre-historic fish someone found in Africa. A coelacanth, I think they called it. Ugly fucker, too.”

“Uh-huh. A Doctor Weyland called, wanted to know if you could interview his daughter tomorrow – on some fucking boat. You wanna tell me what’s goin’ on with that?”

“The girl, the witness, is apparently schizophrenic and was heavily sedated. The doctor, her father, thought I might have better luck talking to her in the morning.”

“Uh-huh,” Bennett said, not at all pleased. “So let me get this straight. You wanna go sailing tomorrow? On the taxpayers’ dime? With this dame?”

Callahan shrugged. “I have plenty of OT, Captain. You wanna call it comp-time?”

“Not if you are interviewing a witness in an official capacity. I mean, I assume this will be official, right?”

“Yessir.”

“Take Carl with you. He looks like he probably owns a pair of boat shoes…”

“Ah, c’mon, Captain,” DiGiorgio chimed in, “can’t I go?”

“You?” Bennett sneered. “Shit. If you stepped on a fuckin’ sailboat the fucker would tip-over.”

“Hey, fuck you very much, Skipper,” DiGiorgio replied, grinning.

“And the horse you rode in on, Fatso,” Bennett grumbled. “And don’t call me skipper!”  

“Right – Skipper!”

“Stanton!” Bennett growled. “You free tomorrow?”

“No sir. Court, 0800.”

“Fuck. Well Callahan, looks like you’re taking me sailing tomorrow. Pick me up here at 0700 and we’ll go get breakfast.”

Harry nodded, then he looked away and sighed, because it suddenly looked like tomorrow was going to be a very long day.

(c) 2023 adrian leverkühn | abw | fiction, plain and simple

[The Animals \\ San Francisco Nights]