Read Online Angel City by Jon Steele - Free Book Online

your boyfriend?”
    â€œFiling today’s stat report with Berne.”
    â€œI hope you’re telling the inspector I’ve been a good girl.”
    â€œ
Bien sûr.
I also told him you qualified on the firing range. How was the shop this morning?”
    â€œMaking more candles than I’m selling, but who cares?”
    â€œMax asleep?”
    â€œYeah, he’ll be out for a couple hours. I’m going to have a hot bath.”
    Officer Jannsen checked her watch. Katherine shrugged and walked off. Their voices chased each other back and forth down the hall.
    â€œI know, tea before bath.”
    â€œSee, you are a good girl.”
    â€œThis must-be-punctual-in-all-things stuff makes me want to scream sometimes.”
    â€œIt’s good for you. Builds character.”
    â€œYou say that about everything I hate doing.”
    â€œI know. It’s the best part of my job.”
    Katherine walked down the stairs and into the sitting room. It was a large open space with a high timbered ceiling, floor-to-ceiling windows looking out to the edge of a forest. Mount Hood, across the river in Oregon, peaked above the trees and pointed to that glowing spot in the clouds where the sun was hiding. It was a nice view. Sometimes she’d see a deer walking through the trees. Sometimes a small black bear or a fox; sometimes it’d be one of the Swiss Guards patrolling the perimeter with a Brügger & Thomet submachine gun in his hands. But now, there were only the trees.
    She picked up a copy of
The
New Yorker
from the sofa. She thumbed through the pages on her way to the kitchen, checking if there were any cartoons she’d missed. Monsieur Booty was already sitting by his food dish. If the beast had fingers instead of claws, they’d be tapping the floor.
    â€œOh, get a grip.”
    She dropped the magazine on the kitchen table, opened a cabinet, and pulled out a bag of cat food. She fed the beast, scratched it behind the ears, then walked to the sink and turned on the water pump. She picked up the kettle and filled it from the tap. She looked out the window, saw the small garden at the back of the house. The garden, like the front of the house, backed up to dense forest; in fact, the whole place was surrounded by dense forest. And each time she looked at it, she felt safe. She switched on the kettle, opened her box of magic teas. That’s what she called them, anyway.
    They were from a health food shop in Grover’s Mill and they came in mason jars. Her doctor in Portland prescribed them as part of her recovery. This one in the morning, that one at midday; this tea for afternoons, that one before bed. It was part of her daily regimen. Along with no cigarettes, no alcohol, no drugs. Then again, with a box of magic teas, who needs dope? Especially when the teas had names sounding like the exotic strains of weed she used to buy at her favorite head shop on Santa Monica Boulevard. Morning Light, Midday Buzz, Night Clouds. She prepared the afternoon blend, Violette’s Garden. Something for the remembrance of pleasant memories, the man at the shop told her. There was a quote from some dead poet on the back label:
    Each violet peeps from its dwelling to gaze at the bright stars above.
    â€”Heinrich Heine
    The kettle clicked off. Katherine saw rain pelting the kitchen window.
    â€œNot here, Heinrich old boy. This is the land the stars forgot, and the sun most days.”
    She poured the boiling water into the teapot to brew. She inhaled the fragrance and a feeling of calm came over her, the way it always did. She arranged the pot and cup and saucer on a tray, and she carried it to the table. She lit a candle, sat down. She curled up her legs and pulled her bulky sweater over her knees. She watched the candle burn.
    When she first came to the house, this comfy cabin in the middle of a wooded nowhere, nine and a half kilometers from the nearest town, she was in a daze. The last thing she