Free The 56th Man by J. Clayton Rogers

few options.
    Back in the living room, he took up the same
speculative stance he had assumed on his first night, next to the
invisible easy chair in which the body of Jerry Riggins had been
discovered. The scene sprang to life--or death--in his mind. But
there were too many gaps in his mental reconstruction. The
Christmas tree--had there been gifts underneath it? Often
Christians who celebrated the season put lights on their trees. Ari
had seen this in pictures. Had there been lights on Jerry's tree?
Had they been switched on? Had there been a fire in the fireplace?
And there was the blood. How much was there? What was the splatter
pattern like?
    He looked again at the fireplace. Something
was hanging down in the back. Ari had a reliable memory, and he
didn't recall seeing that when he last stood here. Resting on his
haunches, he saw it was the chimney’s damper handle. Ari went down
on his hands and knees and leaned inside the hearth. Twisting his
head, he tried to peer past the open damper and smoke shelf. Too
dark. He reached inside as far as he could and encountered nothing
more than the cool lining.
    Pulling out, he began to knock his hands
together, then stopped. They were still clean. Everything about the
fireplace was clean. Not so much as a smudge on the log rack, the
brass andiron, the little black poker, shovel and broom. He looked
up to find the cat watching him from the bottom of the stairs.
    "Ah. You're wondering, too. Why would the
damper be open if the fireplace has never been used?"
    Weariness overtook him. He went up to the
studio to find the computer humming loudly in the bare, enclosed
space. In the heat of the cat chase he had forgotten he had turned
it on. Dropping into the chair, he went online and checked his
email. He did not find it surprising to find a message in his
inbox, but the heading startled him:
    A FRIENDLY REMINDER.
    He opened the message.
    ‘ Ted's Custom Lawn Care & Landscape
Design Service wants to remind you that you will soon be due for a
lawn manicure. Thank You!’
    Ari glanced at the sender's address:
tedslawncare.net.
    Junk mail? Spam? Or some form of American
humor?
    He spent a few minutes perusing the news, the
gruesome mayhem of bombings, shootings and beheadings in the Middle
East. Then he logged off and lay down on his mattress, his bones
settling in with a slight ache as he stretched out.
    He was just drifting off when something
tucked itself in the crook of his knees. He controlled his reflex
with the memory of Carrington's glower as he read his text message
in the restaurant. Was someone telling him that he had been unable
to find the secret buried somewhere in the Riggins' house? Or could
the message have been:
    "The cat got in."
    The cat was kneading the mattress, purring
softly. Ari let it stay, accommodating himself as best he
could.
     

SEVEN

    When Omar called him earlier
that evening, and Ghaith asked how he had gotten his private office
number, Omar explained that a mutual friend, a leading member of a
prominent shura , had given it
to him in strictest confidence. All hell had broken loose in the
country, but the Ministry was well-protected from looting.
Americans stood guard outside the complex in Central Baghdad, just
as they had sent their army to fend off plunderers at the Ministry
of Oil. Ghaith had not been forced to relocate, and under the
Multi-National Security Transition Command – Iraq, the old phone
numbers were still operable. It was quite possible that Omar had
formed an odd allegiance to the imam, a well-known Twelver Ghaith had met years earlier.
Just to be on the safe side, Ghaith called up someone he knew well,
an assistant imam. He confirmed that Omar was a follower of the
moderate cleric.
    Omar showed up in a white
Toyota pickup—only borrowed, he told Ghaith, but the policeman
riding shotgun in the back added a kind of official sanction to the
mysterious proceedings. The circle seemed complete. Omar's youthful
craving for martyrdom had been