Collecting the Dead: A Novel

by Spencer Kope

  The call comes at last; it’s Dex.

  “We got her,” he says. “Pete, too. They’re fine.”

  Seconds later Jimmy’s phone rings. He’s sitting in the passenger seat of the Escape, soaked to the bone and shivering. The rain is finally letting up, so I leave him in the peace of his wife’s voice and give him some space.

  Sad Face’s trail leads away from the Ford in a southwesterly direction, cutting through the mulched flower beds that define the edges of the hotel’s property. It dips down into a depression of rocks and weeds now covered by two inches of storm water. I take little notice of the water as I trudge across the hundred-foot depression; my feet have been at risk of trench foot for the last hour, a little more water isn’t going to hurt. My shoes make a wet squishing sound as I soldier on through.

  On the other side the ground rises six or seven feet on a gentle sloop, leveling off into a sparse scattering of pine trees. Beyond is a strip mall with a gas station, a convenience store, a Domino’s Pizza, and a custom nail salon.

  Sad Face’s trail ends in an empty parking space at the farthest corner of the lot. Any evidence he may have left—a cigarette butt, an empty beer can, signs of an oil leak, blood—has been washed away with the rain.

  I turn my attention to the eaves of the strip mall. There’s nothing above the nail salon; nothing on the Domino’s; nothing on the outside of the convenience store. The gas pumps. That’s where I find them: three cameras watching the pumps from different angles, but not one of them points to the far end of the lot.

  Still, I have to try.

  My phone rings as I’m walking through the front door of the convenience store. It’s Jimmy. He’s exhausted and ecstatic at the same time—you can hear it in his voice. Like a man who just ran a marathon. I tell him where I’m at and ask him to bring the SUV over; my feet have managed to squeeze gallons of water from my shoes and socks and I have no intention of walking through the flooded ravine for a refill.

  Jimmy says he’s on the way and as I end the call I size up the tattooed clerk behind the counter. He’s watching a YouTube video on his smartphone and barely looks up when I approach the counter.

  “What can I get you?” he manages after a second, setting the phone to the side.

  “I need to see your security footage for the last eight hours.”

  “You a cop?”

  “FBI.”

  “Really? Can I see your badge?”

  His tone tells me he’s not trying to verify my credentials, he just wants to see an FBI badge up close. I pull the trifold wallet from my back pocket and hold it out so he can get a good long look.

  “That’s really cool,” he says at length. “So … if I wanted to be an FBI guy, what would I have to do? You have to have, like, college for that, right?”

  “In most cases,” I reply shortly, while thinking, You haven’t got a prayer, buddy. “You also have to pass a background check, a psychological evaluation, and a polygraph before you’re even considered.”

  “Of course,” he replies in a serious tone. “That sounds like the kind of change I need. Like, this is my fourth job in six months and they all pay minimum wage, which I can barely live on, even with food stamps. I bet you guys do pretty good, huh? Paywise, I mean?” He gives me an up-and-down look. “Yeah, you guys make bank. I can tell.” He lowers his voice a little and leans across the counter. “So, like, if you’ve used drugs, would that be a disqualifier?”

  “What kind of drugs?”

  “Marijuana.”

  “You can sometimes get a waiver—”

  “Well, and some Oxycontin, but my therapist says that’s not my fault ’cause it was prescribed to me after my gallbladder surgery.”

  “If it was a prescribed medicine, that’s fine—”

  “It was just the first fifteen that were prescribed. I kinda got hooked ’cause I was crushing them up and snorting them. After that I had to score them wherever I could, which was mostly forty-dollar pills from this guy I used to get my coke from.”

  “Cocaine?”

  “Yeah.” His face suddenly scrunches up. “That’s probably bad, right?”

  I open my mouth to reply and nothing comes out. I close my mouth and then open it again. Still nothing. This guy is not much younger than I am and he probably spends a good amount of time complaining about how he never gets any breaks and how he’s always stuck with dead-end, minimum-wage jobs.

  Even if I took the time and explained to him that all of this—this train wreck of a life he’s living—is his fault, he wouldn’t believe me. It would always be someone else’s fault: a high school teacher, his deadbeat father, his probation officer, his boss, the rich, his ex-girlfriend, global warming. The recipient of the blame would be meaningless because it would be ever-changing. The real culprit, the cause of this broken, dysfunctional life, watches him every morning from the other side of a mirror.

  My father once told me that the easiest lie we tell is the one we tell ourselves, because we already know what we want to believe.

  Just then Jimmy shuffles through the glass entry door, hands buried deep in his jacket pockets. I use the distraction to steer the conversation back on track.

  “How about that security footage?”

  * * *

  Forty-five minutes later we finish reviewing the video from the last of the exterior cameras. Sad Face covered his tracks well. His parking spot was beyond the range of the cameras and his entrance to and egress from the back of the property went undetected. He was either incredibly lucky or he scouted the location carefully before making his move.

  We have nothing.

  Dex calls while we’re on the way back to the hotel to dry off and change clothes. “Jane and Pete have a luxury corner suite at the Chrysalis Inn, courtesy of your boss, Mr. Carlson,” he says. “They also have a security detail that will provide twenty-four-hour coverage. I think you can rest easy.”

  “You made sure they weren’t followed?” Jimmy’s voice is more relaxed.

  “We changed vehicles twice; once at Lynden PD, a second time at the sheriff’s office—inside the sally port where no one could see. We also had deputies running interference and blocking roads behind us. Unless this guy can fly without the benefit of an airplane and see through walls, there’s no way he followed us. They’re safe. They have room service and an incredible view of the water. Oh, and I think Jane’s going to want her own Jacuzzi tub when this is over.”

  “Thanks, Dex,” Jimmy says. “Anything you need, you let me know. I owe you for this.”

  “You owe me nothing. We take care of our own.”

  * * *

  The bag is a mound of supple leather the color of chocolate. It yawns open at the top to reveal a consuming mouth that devours anything placed inside: clothes, books, notebooks, cameras, dirty socks, shaving cream, and the other accoutrements that accompany frequent flights and unpredictable stays.

  A sturdy leather flap folds over the bag’s top—a single massive lip to close the mouth. Three leather straps ending in brushed-nickel buckles serve to bind the mouth shut.

  The mouth never speaks.

  Though a thousand tales are folded into its creases and pressed into its chocolate, the bag remains silent. It bears the smell of leather that has too long marinated in adventure and misadventure, horror and joy. It’s the kind of smell that thrills and satisfies in great gulps so that you find your nose lingering near the open mouth, hoping to be breathed upon.

  On each end of the mouth-bag are pockets small and large, each with its own zipper or strap, and of course there’s the main shoulder strap for lugging the beast around.

  While the travel bag is only a replica of someone’s idea of a vintage early-1900s bag, it manages to capture a certain mix of Indiana Jones, John Wayne, and Allan Quatermain.

  That’s not the reason I bought it, though.

  As a young boy—before my misadventure in the woods—I remember playing in my grandfather’s leather travel bag. It had a sim
ilar look and I remember the straps and particularly the sparkling buckles that tink-tink-tinked when you slapped them together. I was small enough—or the bag was big enough—that I could sit inside and pretend it was a submarine. When the captain gave the order to dive, I’d pull the flap over the top and plunge the inside into darkness, which usually lasted no more than four or five seconds before we resurfaced for air and light.

  The smell was the same.

  Adventure. Misadventure. Trouble and travel.

  When I saw this particular bag on eBay five years ago, the lump in my chest decided for me. I probably overbid—I know I overbid—but I had to have it. When it arrived on my doorstep three days later, I was amazed at how it had shrunk since I was a kid. But this isn’t the same bag as Grandfather’s, I reminded myself.

  But the smell; it was all over the bag.

  Dusky. Musky. Earth.

  Sweet and dry and sharp, tickling the nose.

  Some, upon receiving such a memory-jolting item, a face-slapper, might have tried to once again sit inside the bag as they did in their earliest years. Others might have sat quietly in the dark during the longest hour of night and held the bag to their chest, breathing in the leather, a thousand memories of a grandfather lost too early rolling around in their head until finally condensed into a small company of soldier tears.

  Some might have.

  Pulling the bag from the half nook that the hotel tries to pass off as a closet, I set it on the bed, unbuckle the straps, and start fishing around at the bottom. I’ve become a Zen master of packing over the years, so it takes only seconds to find it.

  It’s light in my hand; heavy on my conscience.

  Removing the Walther P22 semiautomatic from its plastic carry case, I set it naked upon the bed. Next I retrieve the holster, followed by two loaded magazines. Closing the bag, I stuff it back into the half nook. After checking the load on each magazine, I slide one into the grip and chamber a round.

  There’s something about the shushing sound of a slide ramming home, driving a round into the chamber, prepping it for a flight it may or may not take. It’s both reassuring and frightening in one metallic whump.

  Some of my compatriots in law enforcement laugh at my Walther P22. That’s okay. I don’t mind. Sure, a Glock has more stopping power, and it looks really cool and intimidating, but I like the feel of my P22. I’m comfortable with it. Yes, it only fires a .22-caliber round, but if you use the right ammo it can be a nasty little gun. And I always use the right ammo.

  Like my life depends on it.

  Fortunately, I’ve only had to fire the Walther once in the line of duty. Usually Jimmy’s there to handle that sort of thing, but in this case he’d stepped away for a few minutes—too much coffee; another reason I don’t like the stuff.

  I remember it was early November, but the name of the area escapes me. It was in Vermont, though. I remember that. The air was crisp as glass, so cold that it burned your throat on the way to punishing your lungs. White mist poured from your mouth with each breath, followed by a sucking sound and then more white mist. You could feel the cold biting through one layer of clothes after another, working its way in.

  I remember it well.

  And the shine: calico tapioca. Like something a cat would hhwoolps up on the carpet. Though in this case the carpet was made of snow and the hhwoolsping cat was a six-foot-six Irishman named Pat McCourt.

  The remote lakeside cabin might have been mistaken for abandoned save for the thin column of gray smoke pulling at the chimney. We hadn’t expected to actually find him there … meaning our backup was an hour away … meaning we had to hunker down in the cold and just wait … and wait … and wait.

  Good times.

  Then Jimmy’s coffee decided it wanted out—and now, dammit!—and about ten seconds after he disappeared behind a thicket to relieve himself, Pat McCourt trudged out of the woods with a recently expired pheasant dangling from one hand and an over-under double-barrel in the other.

  He was so close I could smell the Jack Daniel’s on his lips and the stench of his clothes, rank from cold perspiration.

  For a slow-motion second we just stared at each other; each startled in a different way. I’m sure that’s the only reason I was able to draw down on him and fire first, though I felt the air move over my head as the shotgun unloaded. When it was all over, I remember standing in snow pulling the trigger over and over again, but nothing was happening. The magazine was empty and Pat McCourt was sprawled motionless on red snow.

  I later learned that my first shot took off McCourt’s trigger finger, three more shots went wild, another found his right arm, another his left eye—that was the money shot, the death blow, the eye for an eye. Where the remaining rounds went I never learned.

  It didn’t matter.

  Jimmy likes to tell people about my shoot-out with Pat McCourt, how I shot the guy’s trigger finger right off. A million-dollar shot! he tells them, like I was Wild Bill Hickok or Wyatt Earp. I’m guessing Hickok and Earp didn’t puke their guts out into the steaming snow after a shooting. Or maybe they leave that part out of the history books.

  Regardless, my gun saved me that day.

  Clipping the holster to my belt, I slide the Walther home and lock it down.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  July 1, 10:39 A.M.

  “It’s a first-edition, first-printing,” my brother’s voice drones over the phone. “I asked him twice. He said it’s got the six blurbs on the back and no price on the front flap.”

  “And it has the eighteen lines of text on the copyright page?”

  “That’s what he said,” Jens replies.

  I’ve been looking for a true first edition of The Hunt for Red October, Tom Clancy’s debut novel and the book that launched a new genre of techno-thrillers. It was also the first work of fiction published by the Naval Institute Press.

  The first printing consisted of five thousand copies, and the book quickly proved popular with submariners in particular, and sailors in general. As such, these early copies had a rough life. Ripped and stained dust jackets, broken spines, water damage, and missing pages were just a few of the horrors that awaited them. Finding a mint copy at a decent price has been a challenge since Clancy died.

  “How much is he asking?”

  “It’s listed for six hundred fifty, but because you’re his faaavorite customer—and he said it just like that,” Jens adds. “Faaavorite. Like you’re a candy bar or something. Anyway, he said you can have it for five-fifty.”

  “That doesn’t sound very favorite to me. Tell him I’ll give him four-fifty.”

  “You want me to PayPal the money if he agrees?”

  “If you don’t mind … and send me a text either way.”

  Jens is about to hang up when he remembers something. “Oh, you got a postcard today; it’s from Heather. She’s in D.C.”

  “What’s it say?”

  “Not much, just, Wish you were here, and it’s got some giant phallic symbol on the front.”

  “Uh-uh. Stop it. What are they teaching you at that university?”

  There’s a pause and I can almost hear him grinning on the other end. “Okay, it’s the Washington Monument,” he confesses. “But if you’re going to send that postcard with the words Wish you were here, people are going to talk. I’m just saying.”

  “I liked you better when you were ten,” I say in a flat voice.

  He’s still snickering when I hang up.

  * * *

  The package arrives at 11:23 A.M., heralded by Tami’s voice over the PA system: “Special Agent Donovan to the front desk, please.” The announcement is repeated, and something in Tami’s tone quickens my pace; Jimmy’s on my heels.

  “Did that sound a little edgy to you?” he asks.

  “If you mean get-your-ass-up-here edgy, then yes.”

  Jimmy shakes his head. “What now?”

  I recognize the delivery person as soon as I walk into the front office. Shawn or Shane,
I don’t remember for certain. He works the day shift at the hotel. Nice enough guy but timid and irritable. Not the normal sort to work the front counter at a chain hotel. He’s standing at the lobby window holding something between his cautious left index finger and timid left thumb.

  Something white, with one corner dipped in wet raspberry.

  Not a scone.

  It’s the size of a small gift box, about three inches on each side and two inches deep. It’s wrapped in white tissue paper and tied off with two strands of narrow red ribbon. The letters FBI jump off the top in bold hues of deep burgundy—fat letters, as if written with lipstick or one of those foam paintbrushes.

  Seth or Saul—the hotel guy—is holding a neatly folded brown paper towel several inches below the package, low enough that you can hear each drop hit—tap … tap … tap—but high enough not to splatter.

  Red drops.

  I suddenly remember the scene from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation where Aunt Bethany shows up with a nicely wrapped gift that’s sticky and wet at the corner. It’s only after Uncle Eddie bravely—stupidly—tastes the seepage that they realized that feeble-minded Aunt Bethany has gift-wrapped her lime Jell-O mold. Something tells me the package in Steve’s hand isn’t Jell-O.

  “Hey, Stan.” I give him a what-up? chin-lift, like we’re old pals.

  “It’s Sheldon, Sheldon Michaels.” His voice is dry: sand blowing against sun-scorched wood; a rasping, scratching, etching voice.

  “Sheldon. Right. I knew that.”

  “Please take this,” he says, unimpressed.

  “Uhhh … no. Not until you tell me what it is.”

  “I have no idea.” He’s impatient; irritated. “The manager ordered me to bring it down here. I refused, but he insisted. Please take it.”

  Jimmy snaps on a pair of latex gloves and approaches the tainted box like a snake charmer moving in on a king cobra. “Where’d it come from?” he asks.

  “Some guy just walked up to the counter about an hour ago. I was going to give it to you when you returned to the hotel, but about fifteen minutes ago Tracy noticed it was leaking out one side … that’s blood, right?”