Collecting the Dead: A Novel

by Spencer Kope

  Bobby’s nickname around the office is GQ and he earns both letters. Buried under the pretty exterior, however, is a smart, ambitious cop with a head for details and a memory like a titanium lockbox. Bobby was with us two years ago for the Natalie Shoemaker homicide; it only seemed fair to give him a heads up.

  Besides, we need a ride.

  “Diane told me what you’re up to,” Bobby says as we get into his unmarked Dodge Charger. “She didn’t tell me why, but then I remembered that she’s really good at playing dumb when it suits her.”

  “Yes, she is,” Jimmy and I say in unison.

  “So, are you gonna fill me in?”

  “It’s this case we’re working in Redding,” Jimmy says. “Steps thinks it’s connected to the Shoemaker homicide.”

  “Really? How?”

  “It’s just a hunch,” I lie, letting the words settle where they fall as I stare out the window. Bobby takes the hint and doesn’t push the issue. We make our way to Interstate 580 and then head north. I let my mind wander, grounded only by the slow count of the mile markers as they flash by in green and white.

  The more I think about the Lake Washoe case, the more I’m convinced the shine is the same. We’ve handled maybe two hundred cases since then, but I remember shine—I have to—and if Redding isn’t a match, it’s uncannily close. Plus, there was something odd about the Lake Washoe case, something I can’t yet remember, something that didn’t mean anything at the time, but that’s now nibbling at the ragged edge of my mind … like a rat let loose in a pantry.

  I need to return to Lake Washoe.

  The signs along the freeway tell me we’re close, and then I see sunlight dancing on water: Washoe Lake. It’s a bit of a misnomer, as the lake is actually a marriage of Big Washoe Lake, Little Washoe Lake, and the marshy Scripps Wildlife Management Area that connects the two. The lakes are shallow—no more than twelve feet deep—and during severe droughts they’ve been known to dry up completely. Almost daily winds beat and flay the shallow waters into a turbid broth.

  Washoe Lake State Park, established in 1977, extends to the south and east of the lake and sprawls across more than eight thousand acres, offering miles of trails and abundant wildlife: mule deer, coyotes, hawks, eagles, even pelicans.

  We turn onto Eastlake Boulevard and travel the short distance to the park entrance. It’s hot when we get out of the car; the stygian-black asphalt of the parking lot soaks up the sun in scorching gulps and belches it back in waves of shimmering heat.

  It’s June in Nevada; what was I thinking?

  The average summer temperature here is hell, with a 25 percent chance of purgatory. I console myself with the knowledge that our hike will be short, mostly level, and through high-desert grasses and shrubs … no forests. The fact that the park sits more than five thousand feet above sea level should help: the temperatures tend to be slightly cooler than, say, Reno to the north, or Las Vegas to the south. Like when you preheat your oven to 425 degrees and the beeper hasn’t gone off yet because it’s only at 350.

  Kind of like that.

  The thermostat on the dash of the Charger reads ninety-four degrees, which is boiling point for anyone from the Pacific Northwest—and I forgot to bring water. As I ponder the sea of scrub and sagebrush beyond the parking lot, I wonder what spontaneous human combustion feels like. Is there a warning? Do you feel a tingling sensation first—a growing heat at your fingertips and toes—or do you just burst into flame with a big wooomp that sucks the air out of the room?

  Let’s hope we don’t find out.

  From the visitors’ center we strike north along the equestrian trails. The path is completely deserted as we trudge over sunbaked earth, and for a moment I imagine that all the other hikers have already burst into flames and added themselves to the sand and dust at our feet. Or, wisely, they’ve all retreated to cooler areas during this, the hottest part of the day. Really, it’s a toss-up.

  Memories flood back in the form of familiar landmarks.

  We’re getting close.

  The Sierra Nevada Mountains are to my left, rising majestic, silent, and eternal over the desert valley, their crooked backs cutting into the sky. The wind is absent this afternoon, leaving the lake unmolested and looking like so much polished glass. A stunted pine, twisted by the desert winds, stands to our right, no more than a bush, but stubborn and determined.

  I remember it.

  Turning off the path, we pick our way through the low brush. A roadrunner darts from the bushes at our feet, startling other birds to flight. I remember the birds, so many of them, so many different kinds and colors.

  Then we’re upon it, a small outcropping in the middle of flat scrub; memories and images muscle themselves to the front of my mind, escapees from my subconscious where I try to contain them.

  I remember it all; unwillingly.

  On the other side of the outcropping was Natalie Shoemaker; her body, ravaged by coyotes and buzzards, was shoved up under the lip of the jutting rock. Unceremoniously deposited like so much garbage or an unwanted toy cast aside.

  That, too.

  I remember.

  Circling around the mound, I feel my left hand rising to my glasses and then slipping them off before dropping back to my side. I see Natalie’s silhouette upon the rocky ground: prussian blue and bubbles, still beautiful. Time, wind, and rain have blurred the image to a weathered and diluted stain. Other shine surrounds her; I see Bobby and Jimmy and myself among them … and one more, the one I came for: brilliant amaranth and rust.

  And now I remember something else.

  Cursing, I search the ground a moment, and then I’m walking briskly north, away from the formation, twenty feet, thirty, fifty feet. And then it’s before me upon the ground, exactly as I remember it, undisturbed. I fall to my knees and feel the scorched sand burning through my jeans, but all I can do is stare. It all makes sense now, the tree, the shirt nailed below the scalp, the smudge on the car window.

  From the ground a face looks up at me, a face made from the wind-worn rocks of the high desert: Two eyes, a nose, a dark, downturned mouth—all enclosed by a circle of rocks. It’s not the have-a-nice-day face of pop culture. No, it’s just the opposite.

  “I should have remembered,” I say to no one in particular.

  A hot breeze kicks up from the east.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  June 22, 12:45 A.M.

  It’s late when we land at Bellingham International Airport and ease Betsy into Hangar 7. It’s been twenty-one hours since we left for Redding yesterday morning. Since then we’ve been in the woods, in the desert, and in the air four times—all that on little food and less sleep.

  I’m spent.

  Still, the revelations of Washoe Lake have cast this case in a new light: two bodies dumped two years and two hundred miles apart, a single suspect confirmed through shine, and a calling card in the shape of a face with a downturned mouth. It’s horrifying and intriguing at the same time.

  After discussing the case with Walt and Jimmy late into the evening, I thought I’d be able to sleep on the flight north, but it wasn’t to be. Every time I closed my eyes, visions of rock formations and scalps hanging from trees pushed them open again. Jimmy didn’t say much during the flight, and after landing we barely muttered good night to each other before piling into our cars and making for home.

  The quiet of my bedroom finds me restless.

  Time drifts by in the darkness.

  I’m staring at the glowing red numbers of the digital clock at 3:08 A.M. and somehow I imagine a downturned face hidden among the block-shaped numbers. Some cases get under your skin like that. They crawl into your brain and start pushing buttons and pulling levers. This is going to be one of those cases; God help us.

  Eventually exhaustion takes me.

  I sleep … but I don’t sleep well.

  * * *

  The night, dark.

  The body, cold.

  A hard moon rises above an aegis of restless clou
ds, lifting the black of the forest and replacing it with a lesser shade just beyond twilight. In the distance a mountain squats mean and hard, like a slate-blue troll leaning against the night sky. Its massive shoulders bend and sag under a blanket of cold white snow.

  Where am I?

  Where’s Jimmy?

  A keening gale is in the treetops, a harbinger, sending the branches into a frenzy of snapping wooden screams as they claw at one another, tossed about in the unforgiving wind. And as I watch, the tempest falls upon the mountain, breaking over the dome and spilling down its slopes, chewing snow and rock and tree, turning the slate-blue giant into a boiling sea of gray.

  The body remains, neither noticing the storm, nor caring.

  I can’t see him from where I’m standing, but I know he’s there, this young boy of eight. How do I know that? Jimmy? How do I know he’s eight? The boy is tucked under the snow-covered log twenty feet in front of me, his small body curled into a fetal position, huddled against the cold. I know he’s there because I saw the remnants of his last breath only moments ago, a weak white smoke in the dark; just a puff, and then it was lost in the wind.

  Eight years old; he’s too young to die alone in the woods at night.

  He lies still now, without breath, without life.

  Where’s Jimmy?

  I want to run to the boy, to wrap him in my coat and blow warmth, blow life, into his lungs, but my legs are frozen, my feet immobile, trapped. I can do nothing for him but watch and wait.

  I am the eyes in the woods; he who waits.

  There’s a change in the wind, a change in the howl and the roar of its blustering temper tantrum, something hidden within the cacophony. I strain to hear, leaning forward, then back, twisting my head from side to side to find its direction. It’s elusive because it’s all around me. There it is again, more distinct, separate from the wind if only for a second, but what was it?

  Wolves?

  It sounded like the remnant of a howl, just a scrap of sound: there and then gone. My eyes turn back to the log, to the hollowed-out snow and to the soil beneath it, to the darkness over and around the body. I feel like I’m waiting for something, trying to understand something, but it’s just beyond the edge of remembrance.

  There it is: a howling or baying, louder this time. It comes from behind me, where the trees march off into miles of darkness, through valleys and up hills, across rivers and away from mountains.

  Where’s Jimmy?

  A blanket of shadow presses in on me and I should feel fear, but I don’t. I should run from the wind, away from such sounds and such sights and such horrors, but I don’t. I should feel cold … but I can’t.

  The wolves are near.

  I hear wailing, howling, barking.

  Barking?

  Not wolves—dogs!

  Jimmy, if that’s you, hurry.

  There’s still time.

  The dogs are closer now and coming on fast.

  I hear voices muffled in the wind, and shouts snatched from the throat and tossed high among the branches. There are at least four distinct voices, but the wind continues to murder their words as they draw near. The dogs are baying constantly now, louder and louder. The voices follow behind, urging them on, and there’s something else, something I can’t make out. The dogs break through the underbrush and race past me, finding the log and the cold hollow tomb below. They pace back and forth before the fallen fir; their tone is now different, more urgent.

  The voices are close: yelling, shouting, calling. I finally see them as they emerge from the forest behind me, seven, no, eight men, exhausted, struggling forward, calling. There’s that word again, only this time I hear it.

  “Maaagnus.”

  The man in front is shouting my name; again and again he shouts it. “Magnus. Maaagnus.” As he nears I wave my arms and yell, “I’m here, Jimmy, I’m here!” but he runs right by me without seeing.

  I recognize his face as he passes. His features are hardened by fear, desperation, and fatigue; still, he’s younger than I remember. It’s not Jimmy, though.

  “Dad!” I shout as he passes, but he doesn’t hear. He’s at the log now, pulling the snow back with shovellike hands. He reaches in and pulls the small body out, pulls the young boy from the darkness into the night, and cradles him in his arms.

  “I’m here, Magnus. I’m here.”

  I remember the cold, the wind, the dark.

  I remember I was eight.

  I remember I was dead.

  Wake up.

  At first I think the forest is speaking, but then I recognize my own voice.

  Wake up.

  Wake up.

  Wake up.

  I’m sitting up in bed, my right hand trembling ever so slightly; it’s barely noticeable anymore. Nineteen years have passed since that night in the forest. The eight-year-old boy is long gone, replaced by a twenty-seven-year-old man. The dream is the same, though, always the same. As time passes, it visits less frequently, maybe once every month or two.

  I tell myself it’s because I’m finally getting over it. The truth, I fear, is that there are now too many nightmares competing for my sleeping hours. The bodies are stacked like cordwood outside the door to my dreams, each with its own horrid tale, and each with its own monster.

  Now there’s a new monster among the woodpile.

  CHAPTER NINE

  June 22, 9:35 A.M.

  The hangar appears deserted when I pass through the outer cipher door, but so often appearances are deceiving. I’ve barely stepped inside when I hear them from across the open expanse of the cavernous hangar. Two voices—female—having a raucous good time, it would seem, laughing, squealing, and talking back and forth faster than a Wimbledon tennis match.

  Stranger still, this cacophony is coming from Diane’s office.

  As I cross the hangar floor and skirt around Betsy’s right wing, I can just make out someone’s head as she leans back in the chair facing Diane’s desk. More laughter, and then the head is gone again. The overgrown ficus tree just inside Diane’s door and the elevated deck outside our row of second-story offices obscure the view.

  Foresight and hindsight.

  Most people think they’re opposites or at least that they’re quite different from one another. They’re not. They’re actually the same thing, only separated by time. When I started walking up those steps, had I had a little foresight I could have run, but by the time I pause in front of Diane’s office, it’s too late.

  In hindsight I realize I should have run.

  See what I mean? It’s all in the timing.

  Rising from her desk, Diane says, “Good morning, Steps,” in the warmest of voices; she’s devious that way. “Did you get some breakfast?”

  I hold up a half-eaten granola bar in one hand and a Diet Pepsi in the other.

  “Oh,” she says pointedly. “That’s healthy.”

  “This,” I say, thrusting out the granola bar, “is healthy. This”—I wave the soda bottle—“is caffeine. I didn’t sleep well. We didn’t land till sometime after midnight.”

  “Twelve thirty-seven A.M., I saw.” Then she drops the hammer. “Since you’re here, let me introduce you to Miss Heather Jennings … but … wait … I believe you two already know each other, don’t you?”

  Evil.

  Devious.

  Heather swivels in her seat and gives me a generous smile.

  She smells good, like coconut and citrus; all tropical-island-like. Suddenly the hangar is stuffy and hot, and my cheeks are flush with warm blood as my palms begin to sweat. She’s beautiful, smart, sweet; impossible to hate. Damn her.

  “So,” Diane says, turning back to Heather, “I’ve made reservations at the Hearthfire Grill for six o’clock, if that works?”

  The Hearthfire? That was our restaurant.

  “That’s perfect,” Heather says, rising from her chair and hitching her bag up onto her shoulder.

  “Do you need a ride?” Diane asks.

  �
��No, I drove my Honda up.”

  “The convertible?”

  Heather nods, a grin on her face.

  “I just love that car,” Diane trills. She’s practically pawing Heather’s arm; it’s disgusting. “Do you remember how to get there?”

  “Sure, I can find it. I’ve got my GPS. Besides, Steps took me there a half dozen times.” Turning, she eyes me from top to bottom, a coy smile on her face, neither approving nor disapproving. “Is it still his favorite restaurant?”

  “They know him by name. I’m surprised he doesn’t have a reserved parking spot.”

  “I go there maybe three times a month,” I say in protest, but then realize I’m really not part of this conversation.

  “Thanks, Diane,” Heather purrs.

  “My pleasure, hon.”

  Then, just like that, she’s down the stairs, across the hangar, and out the door, taking the coconut trees, oranges, limes, and the tropical breeze with her.

  “Nice to see you two are still so chummy,” I say, wiping my brow and pouring on the sarcasm in my very best how-could-you? voice. “Dinner at the Hearthfire Grill? That’s nice. Special.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Diane replies, her eyes all a-twinkle.

  * * *

  The surveillance video from Bellis Fair Mall is sitting on my desk when I flip on the light: a single disk in a white paper sleeve. I expected more, but a note attached to the disk indicates that mall security reviewed five days of video and copied only those segments where there was a car parked in the spot I indicated. “Thank yooou, buddy,” I say softly as I slide the DVD into the computer. Instead of spending hours scanning through irrelevant video, my search has been reduced to seven short clips.

  The first video shows a mother and her daughter in an eighties-style station wagon with wood-grain siding. Wagons, vans, SUVs, and the like are always good vehicle choices for killers, but I know from previous video that Leonardo is a dark-haired male, average in every way.

  Clip two is what appears to be a teenage boy in a beat-up red and white Bronco, and this is followed by a family in a motor home, a man in a black sedan, another man in a burgundy sedan who parks for a while and then leaves without ever stepping foot out of the car, two women in a Subaru with bikes on the roof, and lastly, a white fifteen-passenger van loaded down with boys on some kind of outing. The top of the van bristles with canoes and pixelated lumps that might be suitcases; more gear is strapped to the back.