the Pallbearers (2010) Read online

  the Pallbearers (2010)

  Cannell, Stephen - Scully 09

  Published: 2011

  The PALLBEARERS

  STEPHEN CANNELL

  *

  Chapter 1

  In 1976 America Was Just Coming Out Of A Protracted Depression called the Vietnam War, but back then I was still deep in the middle of mine. I was twelve years old, and boy was I pissed.

  It was early in May on that particular spring morning and I was huddled with some other children on Seal Beach around 9th Street. We were staring out through a predawn mist at the gray Pacific Ocean while consulting Walter Dixs old surf watch to time the AWP--which is what Walt called the Average Wave Period between the incoming swells. Walt called swells the steeps.

  The beach we were on was about fifteen miles from the Huntington House Group Home, which was in a run-down neighborhood in Harbor City, a few minutes southeast of Carson. There were four of us gathered around Walt, all wearing beavertail wet suits with the sixties-style long flap that wrapped around under your crotch and left your legs uncovered. We were his lifers. The yo-yos. The kids who kept getting thrown back. All of us knew we would probably never get another chance at a foster family or adoption because we were too ugly or too flawed or we had lousy county packages, having already been placed too many times and then returned with bad write-ups.

  But there were other reasons we didn't make it. We were an angry group. I held the Huntington House catch-and-release record, having just been sent back for the fifth time. My last foster family had called me incorrigible, unmanageable, and a liar. Probably all pretty accurate classifications.

  The four of us had been specifically chosen for different reasons by Walter "Pop" Dix for that mornings sunrise surf patrol. Of course we had all desperately wanted to be picked, but it wasn't lost on any of us that we'd earned the privilege because of a variety of recent setbacks. Pop understood that, even though we'd failed, it didn't mean we were failures. He also understood our anger, even if nobody else did. Pop was the executive director of Huntington House and was the closest thing to a father I'd ever known.

  "Okay, cowabungas. Big rhinos out der. We gonna bus' 'em out big time," he said, glancing up from the watch to the incoming sets, speaking in that strange-sounding Hawaiian pidgin that he sometimes used when we were surfing. "We pack large dis morning. Catch us one big homaliah wave, stay out of de tumbler and it be all tits and gravy, bruddah."

  He grinned, kneeling in the sand wearing his Katin trunks, displaying the surfer knots on the tops of his feet and knees--little calcium deposits caused by a lifetime of paddling to catch up to what Pop called the wall of glass.

  Pop was a tall, stringy, blue-eyed guy with long blond hair just beginning to streak with gray. He was about forty then, but he seemed much younger.

  There was an Igloo cooler with juice and rolls in the sand before us, packed by Walter's wife, Elizabeth, for after surfing. We'd take our clean-up set at around seven thirty, come in and shower by the lifeguard station, eat, and change clothes in the van. Then we would pack up and Walt would drop us at school by eight thirty.

  Pop had been born on the North Shore of Hawaii, which he said made him "kamaaina to da max." His parents had taught school there and he'd ended up in L. A. after the army. That was pretty much all I knew about him. I was too caught up with my own problems to worry about much else.

  Because he'd been raised on the North Shore and taught to surf by the old-timers there, Pop was a throwback surfer, what the Hawaiians called a logger. His stick was a nine-foot-long board with no fins and a square tail--very old school. On the nose, he had painted his own crescent symbol, an inch-high breaking curl with the words "Tap the Source" in script underneath. Pop said the source was that place in the center of the ocean where Kahuna, the god of the waves, made "da big poundahs"--double overhead haymakers with sphincter factor.

  Other than a couple of Hawaiians and one or two Aussies, Pop was one of the few surfers left who rode a cigar-box surfboard, a 1930s Catalina Hollow made by Tom Blake. Once it had water inside from too many rides, it got heavy in the nose and was a bitch to stay up on. The rest of us had new polyurethane shorties with a dolphin-fin skeg for speed. The boards and wet suits belonged to the Huntington House Group Home and were only used for special occasions like this.

  We were sad children whose dark records were clinically defined in the terse cold files kept by Child Protective Services. But our nicknames were much crueler than our histories because we bestowed them on each other.

  Nine-year-old Theresa Rodriguez knelt beside me, holding her short board. She had been set on fire by her mother shortly after birth but had miraculously survived. Terry was damaged goods, with an ugly, scarred face that looked like melted wax. Everyone knew Theresa was a lifer from the time County Welfare had first put her in Huntington House at the age of five. She was chosen for this mornings field trip because she had no friends and never got much of anything, except from Pop. We called her Scary Terry.

  Also kneeling in the sand that morning was Leroy Corlet. Black, age eleven. Leroy's dad was in prison, his mother was dead of a heroin overdose. He had been sexually molested by the uncle he'd been sent to live with until a neighbor called Child Protective Services and they took him away. We called him Boy Toy behind his back, but never to his face because Leroy wasn't right in the head anymore. He was a violent nutcase who held grudges, and if you pissed him off, he'd sneak into your room in the middle of the night while you slept and beat you in the face with his shoe. He couldn't stand to be touched.

  Pop had picked him that morning because he had just failed a special evaluation test at elementary school and was being held back for the second time in four years. He'd been sulking in his room for the last two days. No foster family wanted him either.

  Next to Leroy was fifteen-year-old Khan Kashadarian. Half-Armenian, half-Arab or Lebanese. He'd been abandoned at age ten and was living in an alley in West Hollywood when he was picked up and shoved into the welfare system. Khan was fat, and a bully. We had given him two nicknames: Sand Nigger and Five Finger Khan, because he stole anything you didn't keep locked up. I didn't know why Pop picked him to be with us. As far as I was concerned, we'd have all been better off if he was dead. Even though he was three years older and a hundred pounds heavier, I'd had six or seven violent fights with Khan. I lost them all.

  I was small back then, but I didn't take any shit. I was willing to step off with anybody at the slightest hint of insult. I got along with no one and had convinced myself that my five ex-foster families were a bunch of welfare crooks who were milking the system.

  "No floatwalling," Pop said, his blue eyes twinkling. Floatwalling was paddling out beyond the surf but never going for a wave, not to be confused with backwalling, which was acceptable behavior because you were treading water, waiting for the big one.

  Then the sun peeked above the horizon, the sign that it was time for us to paddle out.

  "Let's go rhino chasing, bruddahs!" Pop said.

  We picked up our boards and started down toward the early-morning break. I was fuming inside. I couldn't believe nobody wanted me, even though I insisted I didn't want or need anybody. Before we got to the water, Pop put out a hand and turned me toward him, as the others moved ahead. He lowered his voice and dropped the Hawaiian pidgin.

  "Get your chin up, guy. There's a place for you, Shane," he said softly. "Sometimes we have to wait to find out where we belong. Be patient."

  I nodded, but said nothing.

  "Until you get picked again, you've always got a place with me." Then he flashed his big, warm grin and switched back to pidgin, trying to get me to smile. "I always want you, bruddah. What's a matta
you? Your face go all jam up. You no laugh no more, haole boy?"

  I glanced down at the sand, shuffled my feet. But I didn't smile. I was too miserable.

  "Come on then." Pop put a hand on my shoulder and walked with me to the water.

  I was Shane Scully, a name picked for me by strangers. No mom, no dad. No chance. I had nobody, but nobody messed with me either. My nickname around the group home was Duncan because I was the ultimate yo-yo.

  All any of us had was Pop Dix. He was the only one who cared, the only one who ever noticed what we were going through and tried to make it better.

  And yet we were all so self-involved and angry that, to the best of my knowledge, none of us had ever bothered to say thank you.

  *

  PART 1

  Now

  Chapter 2

  "This hotel is gonna cost us a fortune" I said, looking at the brochure of the beautiful Waikiki Hilton. The photo showed a huge structure right on the beach in Honolulu. "You sure you got us the full offseason discount?"

  I called this question inside to my wife, Alexa, while sitting out in our backyard in Venice, holding a beer and warming my spot on one of our painted metal porch chairs. Our adopted marmalade cat, Franco, was curled up nearby. He looked like he was asleep, but he was faking. I could tell because he was subtly working his ears with every sound. Cat radar. The colorful evening sky reflected an orange sunset in the flat mirrored surface of the Venice Grand Canal. It was peaceful. I was feeling mellow.

  Alexa came out of the sliding-glass door wearing a skimpy string bikini. She looked unbelievably hot--beautiful figure, long legs, coal-black hair, with a models high cheekbones under piercing aqua-blue eyes.

  "'la-da," she said, announcing herself with her own chord. She stood before me, modeling the bathing suit. "You like, mister? Want kissy-kissy?"

  I grabbed her arm and pulled her down onto my lap.

  "You are not wearing that in public. But get thee to the bedroom, wench." I grinned and nuzzled her behind the ear as I picked her up to carry her inside.

  "Put me down." She laughed. "We'll get to that later. I'm trying to pack."

  We were leaving tomorrow for Hawaii. It was our annual two-week LAPD-mandated vacation. I could hardly wait to get away. As usual, we'd timed our vacation periods to coincide, and for fourteen glorious days I'd have no homicides to investigate, no gruesome crime-scene photos or forensic reports to study, no grieving families to console. Only acres of white sand and surf with my gorgeous wife in paradise.

  . Alexa had worked twelve-hour days for a week to get her office squared away so she could afford the time off. Alexa is a lieutenant and the acting commander of the Detective Division of the LAPD. She's about to make captain, and the job will then be made permanent. That makes her technically my boss. I'm a D-3 working out of the elite homicide squad known as Homicide Special, where we handle all of L. A.'s media-worthy, high-profile murders. It's a good gig, but I was feeling burned out and needed some time away.

  "Put me down. That's a direct order, Detective," she said, faking her LAPD command voice.

  "You can give the orders in that squirrel cage downtown, but at home it's best two out of three falls, and in that outfit, get ready to be pinned."

  "You brute. Stop making promises and get to it, then." She kissed me.

  I was trying to get the sliding-glass door opened without dropping her. I barely made it, and lugged her across the carpet into the bedroom, which was littered with her resort outfits. It looked like a bomb had gone off in a clothing store. Bathing suits, shorts, and tops scattered everywhere.

  "What happened in here?" I said and dropped her on the bed, then clove on top of her.

  Sometimes I can't believe how lucky I am to have won her. I'm a scarred, scabrous piece of work with a nose that's been broken too many times and dark hair that never quite lays down. Alexa is so beautiful she takes my breath away. How I ended up with her is one of my life's major mysteries.

  I reached for the string tie on her bikini and she rolled right, laughing as I grabbed her arm to pull her back. Just then, the phone rang.

  "If that's your office again, I'm gonna load up and clean out that entire floor of gold-braid pussies you work with," I said, only half in jest.

  The phone kept blasting us with electronic urgency. It was quickly ruining the moment. Alexa rolled off the bed and snatched it up.

  "Yes?" Then she paused. "Who is this?" She hesitated. "Just a minute."

  She turned toward me, covering the receiver with her palm. "You know somebody named Diamond Peterson?"

  "No, but if she's related to Diamond Cutter, tell her she's killing her little brother."

  "Stop bragging about your wood and take this." Alexa grinned, handing me the phone.

  I sat on the side of the bed and put the receiver to my ear.

  "Yes? This is Detective Scully."

  "You're a police detective?" a female voice said with a slight ghetto accent. She sounded surprised.

  "Who is this again?"

  "Diamond Peterson. I'm calling from Huntington House Group Home." The mention of the group home shot darkness through me. Memories of that part of my life were negative and confusing. I now only visit them occasionally in dreams.

  "How can I help you, Ms. Peterson?" I asked cautiously.

  "It's about Walter Dix. Since you're in the police, I assume you've heard."

  "Heard what? Is Pop okay?"

  "Not hardly." She hesitated, then let out a breath that sounded like a sigh and plunged ahead. "Pop's dead."

  A wave of feelings cascaded through me. When they settled, the emotion on top was guilt. I had left Walt and the group home in my rearview mirror decades ago. I had been studiously ignoring the man who had injected the only bit of positive energy into my life growing up--the man to whom I probably owed a large portion of my eventual survival. Pop provided a thread of hope that had been all that was left when I hit rock bottom eight years ago.

  Even during my lowest days, because of Pop, I clung to the belief that there was still some good in the world despite the fact that by the time I reached my mid-thirties, I'd managed to find almost none.

  It was hard to know the complete mixture of events that had finally led to my salvation. The easy ones to spot were Alexa, and my now-grown son, Chooch, who was attending USG on a football ride. But Pop was also there in a big way. He had somehow convinced me that it was possible to survive a horrible start where I was left unattended in a hospital waiting room, a nameless baby with no parents, who was then shuffled off to a county infant orphanage. Child Protective Services had finally placed me at Huntington House at the age of six, but by then I was already starting to rot from the inside.

  It marked the beginning of a life of loneliness, which was only occasionally interrupted by a parade of strangers. Once or twice a year I was forced to put on my best clothes and stand like a slave waiting to be purchased. "This is Shane, he's seven years old. This is Shane, he's nine. This is Shane, he's twelve."

  All the rejection, all the rage--Pop had seen me through it with his crinkly smile, the weird seventies surfer lingo, the sunrise surf patrols. "Shane, there's a place for you. You have to be patient." All these years later, it turned out he was right.

  But once I'd survived it, I'd turned my back on him. I'd moved on. It was too painful to go back there and revisit that part of my life, so I hadn't. I'd left Pop behind as surely as if I'd thrown him from a moving car.

  The memory made me feel small as I stood in our bedroom scattered with Alexa s colorful clothing. I'd been getting ready to run off to paradise but had just been pulled back with one sentence from a woman I didn't know.

  "Dead?" I finally managed to say.

  "Suicide. He went into his backyard yesterday and blew his head off with a shotgun."

  Diamond Peterson was talking softly, trying to mute the devastating news with gentle tonality. It wasn't working. I knew from years of police work in homicide that there is no good
way to deliver this kind of information.

  My stomach did a turn. I felt my spirits plunge.

  "I've been meaning to stop by and see him," I said. It was, of course, completely off the point and pretty much a huge lie.

  "He left a note in his desk," she said. "It was written a week before he died. He wanted you to be one of his pallbearers."

  Chapter 3

  Diamond Peterson told me that the funeral was going to be at the old Surfers' Church located on Cliffside Drive, overlooking the public beach at Point Dume. It was scheduled for the day after tomorrow, when we were planning to be in Hawaii.

  I hung up and turned to face Alexa, who could read my devastation. She knew bad news was coming.

  "Problems?"

  "Yeah." I stood there, trying to get the right words.

  "Come on, buddy. Just lay it on me," Alexa said. "Something go wrong with one of your current cases?"

  "You remember Walter Dix?"

  She frowned slightly, found the memory, and nodded. "From the group home?"

  "He's dead."

  Her expression changed, saddened by sympathy. Tm so sorry, Shane. I know how important he was to you growing up."

  "Suicide," I said, trying to fit that idea into a mosaic of things I knew about Pop. Some guys are suicide types--brooders, drinkers, mood flippers, tight winds. Pop was none of those. He was the perennial optimist, a hang-loose guy who loved to laugh.

  Even though he ran a foster-care home packed with depressing social casualties, he saw the world as a place of constant opportunity. There was always a party wave out there. He knew it was coming and would be large enough for all of us to ride. He believed in miracles.

  He didn't seem to me like someone who would commit suicide. But then, how did I really know? I'd ditched him like a bad date. I hadn't been back there to see him in years. And the few times I did go, I'd been awkwardly subdued. We'd been on the same page when I was a kid, but we struggled to communicate as adults. I'd told myself the reason for this was that all we had in common were bad memories of my childhood, which neither of us wanted to revisit.