Out of the Cold Dark Sea

by Jeffrey D Briggs

  She slapped his jaw. “Bad boy, Harry.” Harry, Hewitt, Walt, it almost didn’t matter. This time all he could do was moan and sag back to the floor.

  She pinned his right arm to the floor with her knee and placed the nail gun against the soft part of his wrist. She squeezed the trigger. His body arched and sank back down, all the while twitching like a butterfly with its wings pinned to a board. His right arm didn’t move. Patting him down, she found the gun in his boot.

  “You did come prepared.” She tossed it away.

  She straddled him again, pressing the nail gun to his forehead. Her hand shook so much she didn’t know if she could hang on to it and finish the job. One more shot, one more. She jammed the nail gun against his eyeball to steady her hand. She aimed up, to drive the nail deep into his brain. One more shot. For Lance, for herself, for a future that now would never happen.

  His words came out slurred, but she understood him. “Pull that trigger . . . you’ll get needle . . . cop killer.”

  “I don’t think so,” she responded. “Self-defense against a corrupt cop implicated in a string of murders? A bad cop who invaded my home and tried to kill me? Sounds pretty straightforward for any jury to decide I was only protecting myself.”

  “Still . . . can’t . . . prove anything.”

  “Oh, but I can. Look up asshole. That’s a camera. I just recorded your breaking and entering, blowing Manny’s poor head to kingdom come, and your little confessional.”

  She leaned into the nail gun.

  “Daddy! I found Beatrice! She’s hungry and says you’re taking too long to feed her.”

  Martha almost squeezed the trigger at the shock of Rebecca’s voice coming up the stairwell. She heard her steps, saw her enter the doorway, Beatrice in her arms. It took a moment for the scene to register in the young girl’s mind. When it did, she dropped the cat and her hands came up to her mouth. She screamed and screamed and screamed.

  It took Martha a moment to realize the monster the girl was screaming at wasn’t Harry Callison. It was her. The nail gun clattered to the floor.

  She clutched her good hand to her chest, afraid her heart had burst. She was Walt Boudreau. She was Hewitt Wilcox and Harry Callison and the burnt-faced killer who had shot Trammell, all in one.

  She struggled to her feet. In a fog, she stumbled to the coffee table, found the iPhone, and dialed 911. Rebecca, paralyzed in the doorway, kept on screaming.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The police had not taken kindly to having one of their own nailed to the floor. But Metcalf’s return from Utah and the first viewing of the video shot from the hidden camera limited Martha’s stay in jail to a single night. Her attorney, Kirk Eckersley, earned his rather substantial fee, practically living that first week at the police station with her. Near the end, he refused to allow her to answer Metcalf’s question, “You intended to kill him, didn’t you?”

  Maybe Eckersley was afraid she would tell the truth, maybe he felt like the detective had overstepped his jurisdiction. So he replied for her. “What she intended, Detective, is irrelevant. All we know for sure is what she did—she subdued a corrupt police officer who entered her home with the very clear intent to kill her. Badgering my client with hypothetical scenarios will not change those facts.”

  Martha offered nothing in response.

  Metcalf stopped calling shortly after that, and the investigation proceeded without further involvement from Martha.

  A month passed while Martha’s body healed. Her mind was much slower to follow. Whether her heart would ever be whole again, she didn’t know.

  One weekend, she drove the five hours out to Neah Bay with James MacAuliffe at the invitation of Lance Trammell, Senior. In this remote corner of the country, where ocean and forest differed little from the centuries before, he planned to scatter the ashes of his oldest son. Tall and lean, with gray sprinkled throughout an unruly mop of hair, Trammell Senior wore blue jeans and a turtleneck. Dark eyes set deep in a handsome face weathered by sun and wind made her look away. His handshake was firm but brief.

  That Sunday morning, they stood on the bluff overlooking Cape Flattery. Light rain dampened the still morning. MacAuliffe stood at her side. No one had expected John to leave his hermitage in the woods to say farewell to his brother. He didn’t disappoint them.

  Trammell Senior leaned over the bluff and emptied the urn. For a brief moment, Lance drifted and danced among them. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, his time upon the stage complete.

  She took MacAuliffe’s arm. She didn’t know if he needed support and comfort at this final goodbye, but she knew she did. Strawberries, the Louvre, and Shakespeare . . . Would she ever find them again?

  She and MacAuliffe each placed an arm around Trammell Senior, as he sank to his knees and wept.

  The floor of the Carriage House was ruined by the bloody fight with Callison. Her body began to respond to the physical labor of ripping out the old floor, cutting boards, carrying them upstairs, whapping the new tongue-and-groove bamboo floor lengths with a rubber mallet, and nailing them in place. At first, each thunk thunk thunk of the nail gun carried the echos of Rebecca’s screams. Martha never looked away, never flinched. She faced the young girl and the demon she had become.

  In time, with each thunk of the nail gun, with each drop of sweat she rubbed into the new wood, Rebecca visited her less often. She sometimes felt the loss, the child's presence there to guide her back to being human.

  She resumed her yoga workout on the cold cement floor of the garage. With each session, she found she could hold the meditative trance a little bit longer—two minutes, five, fifteen. She knew a state of forgiveness and peace was in there, but it would take hard work to find it and hold it. With each “namaste,” she began her quest anew.

  When it came time to put the final finish on the new floor, she boarded Beatrice and Dante with the Heiden girls and went to visit her father in Sault Ste. Marie. Before departing, she emailed her resignation letter to Carey, Harwell and Niehaus. She had taken Crystal to lunch to warn her of its impending arrival. Her assistant, young in years, was wise in experience. She had already lined up a new position within the company. Only if the letter actually came in, of course. Of course, Martha said, smiling for the first time in weeks. It was from Crystal that Martha learned that Ben Matthews had fought for and won a settlement from the insurance company for her pro bono clients, Zahit Göksu and his son. The settlement may not have achieved justice, but it would keep the elder Göksu from going bankrupt from the medical expenses of caring for his brain-dead son.

  From the airport in Minneapolis, where she would catch a puddle jumper for the hop over Lake Superior, she wrote Matthews a personal note of appreciation. She was grateful for his efforts with the Göksu family, but even more, she valued his role in making her a better attorney. Her only regret was that her needs now took her in a different direction. She had no idea what those needs were, but she was certain they didn’t include continuing at CH&N. With no small sense of irony, she sealed and stamped the envelope and her departure from CH&N—just as Hewitt had always wanted her to do.

  The wind blew hard across the ice. Martha burrowed deep into her down jacket and faced the wind with resolve on the spot where Gran had waited for hours, truck lights beaming out across the frozen lake, a beacon by which she might find her way home.

  “I still need that light, Gran,” Martha whispered, in prayer. “I still need it. Still miss you, I can’t tell you how much.”

  Visiting the cemetery, Martha brushed the snow away from the modest headstones and placed a single red rose on each grave. Gran. Rachel.

  When she returned to her father’s house, he sat in his easy chair, watching Alex Trebek on Jeopardy! The twins had warned her of her father’s failing memory, but she didn’t see it, as he routinely beat the buzzer with his answers. She pulled up a chair, with no purpose other than to enjoy what time she had with her father.

  Back home in the Carriage House, unwilling t
o delay the last task any longer, she called MacAuliffe. “I need to do something, and . . . and I guess I don’t trust myself. You free?”

  She picked him up outside the office of the Ballard Gazette. “You’ve lost some weight,” she said, as he slid into the Mini Cooper. He seemed to collapse into the seat, bringing with him the smell of cigarettes.

  “Not eating and working eighteen hours a day will do that to you.”

  “How’s the paper?”

  “I’m keeping things afloat. Barely. I don’t know how Lance did it. I’m going to have to lay someone off pretty soon. We just aren’t getting the ad revenues.”

  “That has to be tough,” Martha said. She thought about how the “big story” might have brought new life to the paper, and how it had taken the life of the only man she had loved.

  “And I miss him,” MacAuliffe said. “A lot actually. We were friends a long time.”

  Martha squeezed his hand. “I miss him, too, and we’d been friends just a short time.”

  She found parking and they walked a couple of blocks through Pioneer Square. Store fronts in the historic center of Seattle looked gray and dreary. They ignored a couple of panhandlers.

  A queue of men extended down the block from the Union Gospel Mission sign, some with bags and backpacks, some with possessions stuffed into black plastic bags, some young, some old. A few were neat and clean shaven, most were not. Martha and MacAuliffe went to the back of the line. MacAuliffe didn’t look too out of place among the homeless of Seattle.

  In front of them, a man paced with the nervous energy of someone desperately needing a bathroom. He was middle-aged with a scraggly beard and long, dirty hair streaked with gray. He smelled like a walking dumpster. He carried a rolled-up sleeping bag and a Nordstrom’s shopping bag. Two coats covered an addict’s emaciated body. He kept muttering to himself as he paced. Finally, he snapped out loud, “This ain’t the women’s place. This is men’s only.”

  “I know,” Martha said. She nodded toward MacAuliffe. “It’s his first time. I wanted to make sure he didn’t screw it up and go hungry again.”

  The man reached out his hand and offered a mostly toothless smile. “Welcome, bro. Call me Chet. The good Lord is looking out for you if you made it here. You’ll be okay. You’ll be okay here.”

  “Thanks, Chet,” MacAuliffe said. “I’m Mac. Appreciate it.”

  Finally, the line started to move. As they entered the building, Mac whispered to Martha, “You know how to show a guy a good time.”

  She smiled and said, “They provide overnight accommodations, as well.”

  “It’s nice to see you smile again,” MacAuliffe said.

  Inside, Martha removed her stocking cap. The buzz cut had grown out a half an inch or so. They worked their way toward the dining room. Almost immediately, Martha recognized Mitch Adair from his photo as one of Santa’s elves at the gay Christmas gala. Short and pudgy, wearing round wire-rim glasses and a hair net, Adair plopped mashed potatoes on the plates of the men coming through the meal line. A dirty white apron protected a button-down oxford shirt and khaki slacks.

  Martha took a deep breath. Was she ready for this? Did she want to start down the path that would lead her to Hewitt? She scanned the rest of the servers, profoundly relieved that he wasn’t among them.

  MacAuliffe sensed her hesitation. “You okay?”

  She almost took him by the hand and left. Instead, she said, “It’s why I needed you to come with me. I promised you a hot dinner. I can’t just walk out on you now.”

  He glanced around the room. “We can leave, Martha. It’s okay. Really.”

  The line shuffled forward, bringing them closer to Adair. The body odor of dozens of homeless men mingled in the hot room with smells of turkey, burnt gravy, Brussels sprouts, and potatoes. Martha hungered for fresh air—and escape. She took MacAuliffe’s hand. If he had pulled her out of line and toward the door, she would have followed. Instead, he just held her hand as if it were a butterfly’s wing. Unwanted, the memory of the clueless Trammell failing to pick up her hints in the hotel until she started taking off her clothes came flooding back. Men were so clueless. She missed him so.

  She squeezed MacAuliffe’s hand and let it go. They moved closer to Adair’s position in the serving line.

  “Welcome back to the Lord’s temple, Doc,” Chet said to Adair, holding out his plate. When he turned, Martha saw a hand-rolled cigarette tucked behind one dirt-crusted ear. Tobacco or marijuana, she couldn’t tell. “Blessed with God’s love, I hope? Haven’t seen you since the nuptials. Thought you’d abandoned us and ghosted with lover boy. Felicitations in the Lord.”

  Adair steadied Chet’s plate as he scooped on mashed potatoes. “Thank you, Chet. Thank you very much. Yes, I’m feeling blessed. Hugh and I are both feeling blessed.”

  For a man who looked like a dumpling, Adair’s voice came out clear and strong—a voice accustomed to projecting to the back of a classroom.

  Hugh? Nuptials? Feeling blessed? Had Adair been in on Hewitt’s plan? Or could she be wrong and this had nothing to do with Hewitt? The search through Hewitt’s bank records and Adair’s writings told her she was confirming what she already knew. A simmering anger began to roil in her gut. Blessed? What right did they have to feel blessed? Her feeling blessed had ended with a bullet. And Hewitt might as well have sent the gunman who pulled the trigger. Trammell was dead, her heart had been ripped out . . . and Hewitt was feeling blessed?

  “Then, like, spare a bone or two for a friend of the Lord’s?” Chet said.

  “Chet, you know the rules,” Adair said.

  “I ain’t doin’, Doc. Honest as my Baptist brother at a revival. You know I give that up. It’s for my new friend Mac here. First timer. Needs some extra love.”

  “Potatoes are all the extra love I have today.”

  Chet gave a twitchy nod and stepped forward to the gravy.

  “Mashed potatoes?” Adair asked MacAuliffe.

  “Yes, please.”

  “So, first time?”

  Hugh, she reminded herself. Hugh, Hewitt. It was time to find out if they were one and the same. Martha wedged in beside MacAuliffe. “Yeah, first time jitters. He’s pretty shy. I’m just making sure he gets settled okay.” She took a chance. “Chet said you and Hewitt got married. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.”

  “When did this blessed event occur?” MacAuliffe asked. Like Trammell, when given enough clues, he knew what to do. Martha stepped back. “About six weeks ago. It was all rather sudden.” An elfin smile broke across his face. “Hugh insisted we elope. One day, he said, ‘We’re not getting any younger, so what are we waiting for?’ We ran away. I can’t believe it. I’ve never done anything so impulsive in my life.”

  “That sounds wonderful. Where’d you go?”

  “A cabin Hugh knew about out at the beach. Near Moclips. It was ideal. Remote, beautiful, nothing works there. No television, no phones, no Internet. We could have been on the moon—well, a wet moon. Rained the entire time.”

  His face relaxed into an expression that contained all the joy and compassion of a happy man. An innocent man. Martha was certain Adair knew nothing about the fake manuscripts and Hewitt’s plot to discredit the church.

  “But that was okay,” Adair continued, seeming to revel in finding someone who cared for something more than his mashed potatoes. “We strolled the beach—well, as much as Hugh can stroll—ate good food, talked for hours about history, philosophy—about life. Read books and snuggled by the fire. We even adopted a stray dog. It was perfect. A perfect honeymoon. I’ve never been so happy.”

  Martha thought she might get sick right there. Adopted a dog? Snuggled by the fire? Povich. Martoni. Ralph Hargrove. Trammell. Dead, every one of them. Lost their lives while Hewitt strolled the beach with his lover. While she scattered the ashes of her lover to the wind.

  “Hey, got your potatoes, so move on.” The impatient voice came from the man behind MacAuliffe. “The res
t of us are hungry, too. The Doc can lecture another time about his love life.”

  “I’m sorry, please,” MacAuliffe said, stepping out of line and letting the man in to get his mashed potatoes. To Adair, he asked, “How long have you been back?”

  “Just a few days.” For the first time, Adair really looked at him, his round eyes blinking. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

  “No, we haven’t. My first time here.”

  Behind MacAuliffe, Martha stared at the floor, trying to breathe. She had no animosity toward Adair. She suspected he had been used by Hewitt, just like she and Trammell had. She had no doubt that Hewitt cared for Adair—or her, for that matter. But how do you care for someone, love them, and lie to them all at the same time? A paradox Hewitt seemed perfectly comfortable with, had no qualms about.

  Well, she had no qualms about ending this little elf’s misconceptions, his feeling blessed. She stepped forward.

  “Professor Adair, I’m Martha Whitaker, a friend of Hewitt’s.”

  She never heard what he said. What she heard instead was Hewitt laugh. His baritone laugh penetrating the clatter of knives and forks, and of food slopped down on plates, and the shuffling murmur of scores of homeless men. It echoed through her bones. She traced it back to the kitchen, from which a bald man with a clean-shaven face emerged, one hand balancing a tray of cookies, the other hand holding a cane. He was joking with a man carrying a tray of sliced turkey. Then he laughed again, and she was sure.

  At the end of the serving line, he set his cookies down and settled onto a stool. Martha jostled men aside, stepped toward him. He had traded the look of the ancient mariner for just plain ancient. His skin was pale and blotchy. His hand trembled as he passed out cookies. A nametag in shaky handwritten letters read “Hugh Adair.” He said something to the man waiting for a cookie and smiled the wide smile she remembered so well, a smile of welcome, a knowing smile, a smile of sympathy, of understanding life’s hazards, the kind of vulnerabilities that had brought that man to this place. He looked up, startled, and studied her with rheumy gray eyes. “Martha?”