by Alex Grecian
“We’re a little bit the same, you and me,” she said. “Suspicious of everybody, but holding out hope, huh?”
Bear snorted and stood, turned in a circle, and lay back down. She shook her head and silently scolded herself for talking to the dog as if he could understand her. Maybe if she spoke in Esperanto … She was beginning to understand why Travis Roan trusted the dog more than he did other people. But she still couldn’t understand why he had trusted her so easily.
She cleaned out the coffeepot for the following morning, poured herself a glass of wine, and sat in Emmaline’s old rocking chair by the window, staring out at the darkness while fat raindrops hit the glass every few seconds. She didn’t think she had many options.
Her first instinct was to drive out to Ruth Elder’s old house in Phillipsburg and confront Rachel in person. But she knew that would be the end of her career in Kansas. The more she thought about the situation, the angrier she got, so she decided to sleep on it, come back to it fresh in the morning with a clearer, and possibly wiser, head.
But that still left the question of why. Why threaten her with a lawsuit in the first place? Skottie hadn’t even met Jason Bloom and had barely spoken with his wife. She was more convinced than ever that there was indeed a Nazi in the general area. But she felt certain there was something else going on, and she was too good at her job to leave it alone.
She sat down with a pen and a notepad and wrote down everything she had seen or heard about since arriving back in Kansas, everything that didn’t seem to sit right or that was currently unsolved. Then she put the list in order from major crimes to minor, big questions to small. The hidden Nazi wasn’t at the top of the list.
There were two dead bodies. Possibly both homicides, although one or both might also be suicides or accidents. Two bodies gave her something to work with. She grabbed her phone and dialed Keith Johnson back. He picked up after the first ring.
3
The street looked radically different in the dark, with rain pelting down on the slick pavement and the gritty shingles. He stood in the shadows near the community garden and watched the quiet houses, all connected by the wraparound privacy fence that extended for three city blocks around the church.
The moving van was gone, and there was a lamp in the window of number 437. Travis moved quickly. Despite the signs warning that the neighborhood was under video surveillance, he still didn’t see any cameras in use. But if they were hidden somewhere under the eaves or behind cracks in the fence, the rain would decrease their range and effectiveness. Unless the church had sprung for something state of the art and very expensive, right now the entire street would look like a grainy blur. The cameras, if there were cameras, were there to discourage vandals, not a trained huntsman.
He darted across the road and flattened himself against the fence, slid along until he came to the covered porch of 437. He vaulted the railing and stood for a moment in front of the door, scanning the street in both directions for any sign of movement. When he was confident that he hadn’t been observed, he knocked lightly on the door. He listened and heard nothing from inside. The quality of lamplight in the window didn’t change; no shadows moved across the glass. He knocked again and tried turning the knob, then pulled out his bump key and unlocked the door.
Inside it was dim and empty, the single lamp shedding more light on the street outside than it did inside the front room. Boxes had been stacked randomly along the walls, next to plastic-covered furniture. Travis locked the front door and moved quickly through to the kitchen, which was in a similar state of disarray. A box had been opened on the island counter and silverware was piled next to the sink, crumpled newspapers strewn carelessly on the floor. He flicked a light on in a tiny bathroom and checked the empty medicine cabinet, then went back through the kitchen and up the stairs to the second floor. There were three bedrooms along a hallway, two on Travis’s left and one on the right, and a small bathroom at the end with the door standing open. Travis looked in the first bedroom on the left and saw several sets of iron bunk beds, identical to the beds he had seen in the church’s outbuildings. They were shoved into the room with no space between them so that it would be virtually impossible to use them, or even to close the bedroom door. The bedrooms across from it looked the same.
When he was satisfied that he was alone in the house, he returned to the front room and uncovered an armchair. He folded the plastic sheeting and set it on a heap of boxes all labeled living room in Rachel Bloom’s distinctive handwriting, then dragged the chair so that it faced the dark kitchen. He sat and took his Kimber Eclipse from the holster under his arm.
Then he waited.
4
“Put that away,” Skottie said. “Time to wind down for the night.”
Maddy surrendered her phone with a minimum of fuss.
“I caught a Horsea today,” she said.
“Is that good?”
“It’s a Pokémon. You know?”
“Oh. Well, is it good?”
“It’s okay,” Maddy said. “It’s not good for fighting electric monsters.”
“Then maybe we should stay away from electric monsters.” Skottie glanced at the small bookcase next to the bed. Like the bed and the room, the books there had once belonged to her, and looking at them now she felt oddly wistful. She remembered reading them under her covers in this same room. The top shelf held books by Walker Percy, Harper Lee, Walter Mosley, and Ralph Ellison, but the shelf beneath that was filled with older books that had been passed down to her by her mother, from Emmaline’s own childhood. Skottie scanned the titles and smiled. There were Raggedy Ann and Andy and the Nice Fat Policeman and the first three Oz books sitting next to the Anna Apple series about a spunky British girl: The Wandering Wood, The Faery Fountain, A Balloon to the Moon, and her favorite, The City Under the Sea. Anna Apple had always fallen into strange adventures and emerged better off than before, thanks to the friends she made along the way. Skottie remembered them fondly: the kindly old nutcracker, the Babushka that contained endless smaller versions of herself, and the strange twins, Margaret Marigold and Peggy Petunia, who were never in the same place at the same time. Skottie had read about them so many times that the books were falling apart.
She reached out and touched their spines.
“You okay, Mom?”
Startled from her reverie, Skottie jumped. “Of course, baby. Why?”
“You have a funny look on your face.”
“I just remembered something, that’s all. Do you want me to read to you like I used to?”
“No,” Maddy said. “I want Bear to sleep in here with me.”
“Absolutely not.” Skottie sat down on the edge of Maddy’s bed and smoothed the blanket over her daughter’s thin body. The blanket was festooned with cartoon characters she didn’t recognize, elastic dogs and vampire girls, and she wondered where it had come from. Emmaline must have gone shopping. “Did you brush your teeth?”
“Of course I brushed my teeth,” Maddy said.
“Don’t tell me ‘of course.’ You didn’t brush ’em last night.”
“Can Bear sleep in here or not?” Maddy smacked her hands silently down on the blanket.
“I already said no,” Skottie said. “Did you wash your face?”
“Yes. But where will he sleep?”
“I put some old blankets on the floor in the living room for him. You can read for fifteen minutes, and then I want you to turn off your light. It’s been kind of a weird day, and you need your sleep.”
“Bear will get lonely out there. And scared. He’s never been here before.”
“He’s a dog. They usually sleep outside. He’ll be fine.” But Skottie already saw a chink forming in her armor. Travis had said something about Bear sleeping in hotel beds. He was no ordinary dog.
“I’ll stay in the living room with him,” Maddy said. This compromise seemed to make perfect sense to her.
“No, you will not.”
“Why don’t y
ou like Bear?”
“I like Bear very much.” Skottie smiled as she realized that she really did like the dog. But she also realized she would have to lay all her cards on the table or Maddy would never accept her decision. “He’s a good dog, baby, but he’s also a stranger to us. I’m responsible for you, and I don’t know what Bear might do tonight. I need to keep you safe, and I don’t know him well enough to feel good about you two sleeping in the same room.”
As if on cue, Bear padded into the room, his claws ticking gently against the hardwood. He glanced at the bed and sniffed, as if acknowledging that it was too small to accommodate him, then turned in a circle and plopped down on the floor at the foot of Maddy’s bed. He smacked his lips and yawned wide, rested his head on his paws, and closed his eyes.
Maddy grinned at her mother, silently daring her to drag the dog back out of her room. Skottie frowned and weighed her options. She was reasonably sure she could order Bear to leave and he would, but Maddy would be devastated and there would be a fight. The dog had brought her daughter out of her shell—only a little, but it was progress—and Skottie didn’t want to create yet another wedge between them.
“Fine,” she said.
Maddy wiggled happily and Skottie saw her involuntarily lean forward, about to give her mother a hug. But she caught herself and sat back, clapped her hands instead. Bear looked up at the sound, saw that he wasn’t needed, and laid his head back down. Skottie noticed that one of his eyes didn’t shut all the way, and she wondered if he slept like that all the time, always on partial alert.
“I give up,” she said. “He can sleep in here. But your door stays open all night, and if you get scared or you feel uncomfortable, I want you to holler. I’ll be right across the hall.”
“I know where your room is, Mom. For God’s sake.”
“I’m just reminding you. And watch the language.”
“Can I have my phone back? I won’t play with it.”
“If you won’t play with it, then what’s the point of having it?”
Maddy shrugged.
“I’ll plug it in in the kitchen,” Skottie said. “You can have it in the morning.”
“Okay. Thanks, I guess.”
“You sure you’ll be okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” Maddy said. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
Nothing could sound less true to Skottie, but she was glad for the moment, and grateful to the dog for helping to create it. She stood and kissed Maddy on the forehead and left the room, glancing back once to make sure Bear was staying put.
“Sleep tight, you two.”
5
Travis had just finished writing a text message when he heard muffled footsteps and the unmistakable sound of a door being opened at the back of the house. He hit send and put his phone away, then sat up straighter in his chair and picked up the Eclipse from his lap.
A light went on in the kitchen.
“Hello!” A voice carried through to the living room, deep and masculine, with a faint German accent. “I’ve come alone and unarmed. Don’t shoot me.”
A moment later an old man stepped into the light and stopped, framed in the doorway. Travis recognized him from his photograph in the church hallway. He was using a cane to steady himself and his shoulders were stooped a bit, but he seemed strong and healthy in all other ways.
“The right Reverend Rudy Goodman,” Travis said. “Or should I call you Rudolph Bormann?”
“No, no, I haven’t been called that in many years. May I come in? This knee gives me fits in wet weather. I’d like to sit.”
Travis gestured at the plastic-covered couch against the wall close to Rudy. “By all means.”
“Thank you.” Rudy sat and rested the cane beside him against the cushions. He put up his hands and smiled. “You aren’t going to shoot me, are you? I assure you, I’m as harmless as I look.”
“I doubt that.” Still, Travis lowered the gun back to his lap.
“You know my names, but you haven’t introduced yourself.”
“I am Dr. Travis Roan.”
“Like the horse.”
“Like the Noah Roan Foundation, which sent me to find you.”
“Well done, boy.”
“Where is Rachel Bloom?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Rachel Bloom. These boxes are all from her mother’s house.”
“Ah, may I?” Rudy reached for his jacket pocket, and Travis tightened his grip on the Eclipse. “Just my phone,” Rudy said. He pulled out a flip phone and opened it, peered down at the tiny screen. “The Bloom woman is getting on a plane even now. I’m …” He shook his head and smiled again at Travis, then patted his chest and found a pair of reading glasses in another pocket. “The vision goes along with the hearing at my age.” He put the glasses on and looked at his phone again. “I’m mistaken. Her plane took off an hour ago, almost. On her way to New York, to her husband, and good riddance.”
“On a plane?”
“Yes, her husband works for my law firm. I should say, it’s not my firm, but this church is one of their biggest clients.”
“You are lying. Why would you have kept her mother’s things?”
“What a boring woman she must have been. I haven’t found a single thing of interest in these boxes. But I’ll keep looking.”
“I do not believe you let Rachel go.” Travis pointed the gun at Rudy and waved the barrel in the direction of the front door. “Stand up. You and I are going to move this conversation somewhere less private.”
“Not necessarily. Are you, by any chance, related to someone named Ransom Roan?”
Travis hesitated.
“I thought as much. There’s a resemblance.” Rudy sat back and folded his hands over his small belly.
Travis lowered the Eclipse back to his lap. “Is he still alive?”
“Yes.” Rudy snorted and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Well, not by much, but he is among the living.”
“How did you catch him?”
“It was surprisingly easy.”
“I do not believe you.”
Rudy shrugged. “I really don’t care whether you believe me.” He leaned forward and picked up his cane, passing it back and forth between his hands as he talked. “You’ve met my son Heinrich? He’s currently keeping Ransom Roan company. In a few minutes, he will kill him. He will do this unless I arrive, alone and unharmed, at their location.”
“Call him. Tell him to bring my father here.”
Rudy shook his head. “That would be foolish of me. No, we’re working on a deadline here, and my knees are no longer what they once were. It will take me a bit to get there and give him the order to stand down. So we ought to get down to business.”
“How long? How much time?”
Rudy glanced at his watch. “We have roughly fifteen minutes.”
Travis calculated quickly. His father had to be somewhere within the church compound, but there was no way to check every room of every surrounding house in fifteen minutes, much less the church building itself. Unless Rudy was lying and Ransom was already dead at the bottom of the lake.
“What do you want?”
“Not much. I’m an old man, Dr. Roan. May I call you Travis?”
“No.”
“Petty of you. Anyway, I don’t have long to live. I’ve made my peace with that. The lightning showed me what waits beyond all this.” He waved a hand at the stark room, indicating the world outside its walls. “It will be glorious. And this place, this existence has given up all of its secrets to me. There’s nothing left for me here.”
“Then end it. Kill yourself. You can use my gun.”
Rudy chuckled. “No, thank you. I have loose ends to tie up before I go. Family matters, mostly. Miles to go before I sleep, isn’t that what they say? I would like to walk those miles unmolested. I want you to leave here, go back to your Foundation and tell them their witness was wrong. There is no evidence left anyway. Ruth Elder is dead, her daugh
ter is under my control. Everyone else you might have talked to is dead now. Every single strand of your case against me has been cut. You have nothing. So go home, Dr. Roan. Go home and live your life and let me live mine. That’s all you have to do. Absolutely nothing. In a month or a year, perhaps five years, I’ll be dead of natural causes. And this will all be over. My church will continue on, but I will not. The slate will have been wiped clean. Maybe you’ll even come to my funeral, just to be sure it’s really me in the coffin.”
“And what about your victims?”
“Which ones?”
“You were responsible for the deaths of thousands in that camp.”
“Ancient history. Did you know them personally? No, of course not.”
“They deserve justice.”
“Oh, they got justice. Perhaps it’s not the justice you would prefer. Maybe I was always on the right side of things and you are a self-righteous child who doesn’t understand the ambiguities of history. Who’s to say you’re right and I’m wrong?”
“There is no gray here. You are a murderer and a monster. And I think you have continued your murderous ways, even here and now.”
Rudy sighed and pushed himself up from the couch. “Be that as it may. We will agree to disagree about my level of responsibility. We won’t talk about all the people I’ve helped through my church and my charitable acts, the people I’ve rescued from starvation, cured of illness and disease, the wounds I’ve healed, the bones I’ve knitted back together. Who’s to say how it all balances out in the end? I won’t be judged by you. I’m going to walk out of this room and you’re not going to stop me unless you want your father to die.” Rudy looked again at his watch. “He has less than ten minutes left. If you’re thinking of shooting me and rescuing him, I should tell you that you’ll never find him. At least, not in time.”
Travis sat unmoving and watched Rudy limp away. From the kitchen, Rudy’s voice came again. “Go home, Dr. Roan. Go home.” The back door opened and then closed, and Travis heard a latch catch. He picked up his gun and put it in his shoulder holster and stood. He put the chair where he had found it against the wall and left by the front door.