The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [58]
The decision made by Matt’s parents to move out of state arrived with the summer of Matt’s junior high graduation, their idea of a safer and more affordable home in Nevada taking a heat-stricken toll and a plunge into regret, which returned them to their L.A. hometown three years later.
Matt returned wanting to be a cop.
He wanted Max to visit him again.
And he was just about ready to search for monsters.
A two-year college endeavor began soon after high school was conquered and the need for income brought him an unarmed surveillance position at Captain Security in Norwalk. Three days after receiving his guard card, he was enticed from his night post when Max showed up with a tailored job offer with his cable documentary production crew effective at once. During this short time, Max disclosed certain remarkable case discoveries, information, and insights into his continuing escapades concerning what came to be the Erlandson case. By the time he turned twenty, Matt McGregor had earned an associate degree in Criminology and was well on his way through police academy training, heading at breakneck speed towards his prized role in life, towards tremendous change and achievement, towards a loving wife and the three sons she would bear for him.
As far as Max Polito was concerned, Matt was no longer the brilliant mischievous youth to look down to, but an adult to look up to with mutual respect, a hard-nosed expert in the arts of interrogation and investigation who, after all this time, was still stubborn enough to intrude into the dark treacherous passageways of the curious and the dangerous in a high-wire dare-walk between truth and lies.
And Matt McGregor had been there more often than not, calling Max’s attention each time a page of God’s storybook would fall and then positioning him directly below it, just like the way it all began.
***
Since the call a little more than an hour before, Max inwardly anticipated this urgent meeting, though outwardly he contained his hopes with speculation and trained sensibility; he couldn’t deny that this excursion could promise exciting revelation for all he knew, whispered hints of unearthly clues which could back the Erlandson/Nigel saga further into the corner where the show-and-tell spotlight would keep them there, would keep them there for Max to show and tell all.
He journeyed down the uneven sidewalk, past an alleyway and rounding the corner of a small building, discarding his spent cigarette as he went.
At once his objective materialized before him, a less-than-average spiritless stretch of one-story refuge, a likely haven of indulgences and wanton deeds, of abusive domestic brawls and stained bedsheets. And, by the looks of things, of murder as well. Now and again. Max shrugged off an impulsive sneer of disregard as he continued his approach towards what now seemed to be a routine drama for this section of neighborhood and he stifled the unwelcomed notion that today’s episode was disappointingly common. He clung to the wish of a connection between this discovery and the recent discovery of Nigel, being that the locations were so close to each other.
He sidestepped into a driveway, onto the motel property, and towards his first view of yellow crime scene ribbon adorning a hedged walkway near the head of the parking lot. A young uniformed officer emerged without warning into Max’s path from seemingly nowhere, his upraised palm commanding a halt. In a voice dry and monotone, the officer instructed him to keep away from the center area of the building, to keep off the property unless he currently occupied a room, and asked him if he occupied one.
The officer was interrupted by a more animate voice from behind him. “Now does this gentleman look to you like the type of sorry, snot-ragged, bottom-of-the-barrel-scraper you’re used to seeing in a room here, officer?”
The officer turned towards the voice, then back towards Max and to the voice again, then apologized and walked away.
Lieutenant Matt McGregor approached, stopped and