by T. J. Klune
I hesitate, only because Cal doesn’t know the full story here either. But I’ve already opened my mouth, so I spill the rest of the story about the night I stood under the sheriff’s window. I get to the part about Walken threatening Traynor, and Corwin lets out a low whistle. “That guy’s got some balls if he tries to bully Traynor. That is not a man I would want to fuck with.”
“Tell me about it,” I grumble. Corwin arches an eyebrow at me and I show him my arm, the bruises still identifiable as fingers wrapped around my wrist. Cal lets out another growl as Corwin touches my hand gingerly. Corwin pulls out his phone and says, “May I?” I nod and he snaps some photos, first one side and then the other.
“You didn’t tell me any of this,” Cal says through gritted teeth. “Why couldn’t I see it? The thread? What is going on here?”
“What?” Corwin asks, bewildered.
I panic for a moment and shake my head at Corwin. “We’ll talk about this later,” I say to Cal.
“Planning on it,” he snaps at me.
“You think my father was murdered too, don’t you?” I ask Corwin. It feels odd, this certainty I feel. Having validation, after so long wondering on my own, is surreal.
He sits back against the booth and drums his fingers on the table with one hand, looking at the photo of my wrist on his phone with the other. “I talked to him three more times,” he finally says, “over a period of two months. Tried to trace the number each time he called, but he was smart. The numbers were for disposable cell phones. Couldn’t even ping them on any cell tower. He was quick with the phone calls.”
“I looked at his cell phone records after he died,” I say, wondering just how I missed all of this, how I could have been so blind. My father must have gone to great lengths to keep this hidden from us. I can’t help but feel anger toward him, that he could have kept this to himself, that he was making secret phone calls to the FBI without saying a damn thing about it. “The one for the store phone too. Never found anything that wasn’t supposed to be there. He made sure of that.”
“Hey,” Corwin says with alarm. “That’s not why I’m here, Benji. I’m not trying to dig at old wounds or say anything disparaging against your father. What he did was a brave thing, contacting us like he did. He didn’t have to. He could have kept on going with his life and not said a word. He spoke up.”
“And he died,” I snap. “He fucking died for it. What the fuck does that do for me?”
Corwin looks sympathetic when he says, “Sometimes we have to risk everything for the chance to do one thing right. I’d like to think your father knew that.”
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
His eyes widen. “What?”
“You convinced him to meet with you,” I say coldly. “That’s where he was going that morning. Not to see any friends. He was going to meet with you. He didn’t want to. He told you he didn’t. But you made him go anyway.”
Corwin flinches as if I’ve raised my hand to him. “The last time he called, I told him it was important for my case that he come in and meet me face to face. I told him that unless he was a material witness, nothing he’d told me would mean a damn thing. I couldn’t find enough proof to support the claims. I’d tried to convince him the other times he’d called, but… I pushed him this time. Hard.” Corwin looks away. “I told him to think about his son. Did he want his son to grow up in a place where he could be exposed to this bullshit? What if they found out he was speaking to me? Wouldn’t that put his family in danger?”
“You used us against him? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“You have to understand,” Corwin pleads. “I thought I was about to lose this case. I had a witness who wouldn’t even give me his name, and a bunch of loose information that wasn’t connecting. I couldn’t find a damn thing about Walken or Griggs to support this. No evidence of money laundering, no embezzlement. The town books were in order. Hell, Roseland was audited in 2005 and passed with flying colors. There was nothing.”
“What I understand,” I grind out, “is that you killed my father.”
Corwin closes his eyes. “He finally relented. We set up a meeting. I offered to meet him halfway, but he wanted to come to Eugene. Said he wanted to get as far away as he could before he would meet me. We were supposed to meet at a park. Still wouldn’t tell me his name. Told me he was a big guy. That he’d be wearing a John Deere hat.”
“Oh, God,” I whisper.
I gave him that hat when I was eight years old. I’d been so proud of myself for
saving up money, doing extra chores and not telling anyone why. I wanted it to be a surprise. I’d convinced my mom to take me to the store to buy it, telling her she needed to wait in the car because I wanted to do it on my own. I’d gone in and told the clerk I needed the largest size because my father had the biggest head ever. I’d counted out the crumpled dollars carefully, adding coins when I ran out of paper. The clerk had wrapped the hat (so green it was, the words JOHN DEERE in bright yellow, like the sun) in tissue paper before putting it into a brown paper bag. I marched out of that store, feeling high and mighty for thinking of this all on my own. He would love it, I knew. He would think it was the greatest thing in the world.
But that quickly gave way to nerves a day later: Father’s Day, the reason I thought to buy it for him to begin with. I cursed myself as I nervously handed him the paper sack, wondering why I hadn’t saved a bit more money to get wrapping paper. He would hate it, I knew. It was such a dumb present. It was awful. Even as my mother murmured to him that this was all from me, that I’d thought of this all on my own, I felt my face burn. He lifted the tissue paper off as if he was unwrapping the greatest gift in the world. There was such reverence in his eyes, such excitement that I almost couldn’t bear the thought of disappointment taking over, a crushing look that would show how much I had failed. But it never came. He lifted the hat out of the paper, brushing his fingers along the brim gently. His eyes went back and forth as he read over the two words there. His voice was a little rougher than usual when he spoke. “You got this all on your own for me?” he asked, touching the hat again. I nodded at him, unable to speak. “Well, isn’t that… just something,” he said. “Isn’t that just fine. Why, it might be the finest hat I own. You know what we have to do to it, Benji?”
“Crack the brim,” I said, finding my voice, feeling very warm. “That’s right.” And with that, he took the brim between his two big hands and started to mold it in a semicircle, shaping the green. After, he put it on his head, and it fit just right without him having to undo the snaps on the back. “Very handsome,” my mother said with a smile.
He turned back to me and said, “Well?”
“Looks good, Dad,” I said. But inside, I was screaming with joy, knowing I’d done something right in his eyes. And only a moment later I found myself being pulled upward into a hug that seemed to go on for days.
“Thanks, Benji,” he said, kissing my forehead. “It’s the best present I ever got.”
He wore it almost every day.
“I gave him that hat,” I mutter to Corwin. “Years ago. It was found floating in
the cab of the truck when he was pulled out of the river. Have it back at the house with some other things.” Things that were his, things that I keep away from everyone else. The hat, given to me by an officer whose name I couldn’t remember. A shell casing. A photo of him and me, sitting side by side up in the mountains on a dirt road on a hunting trip when I was four or five, him feeding me a piece of jerky. A yellowed note that says, Benji, make sure you rake the leaves today after school. Just get around Little House and I’ll help you with the rest this weekend. Love, Pops. Things that would have meant absolutely nothing to anyone else, but meant everything to me.
“He was a great man,” Cal whispers in my ear. “You know this.” Corwin nods at my words, looking slightly ill. “I waited,” he says. “I waited at the park for hours. No one ever showed. I wondered if he’d gotten scared and flaked
on me. It never crossed my mind that something happened to him. I just thought he’d worked himself up too much to actually show. It’s happened before. So many times.
“I went back to Eugene and never heard from the guy again. Eventually, it was made clear by the Agent in Charge that my time would be better spent on projects of merit rather than ones that had nothing to support them. I was told in no uncertain terms to drop it, that obviously it was going nowhere, and I had a witness who no longer wanted to play ball.” He smiles sadly at me. “I saw the news story about your father. About his accident. I figured it was him. The timing was a bit off, though. We were supposed to meet at two, and he’d apparently crashed in the early morning. It would have been too early for him to leave to meet me. But then they showed a video of him speaking at a Chamber of Commerce meeting, and that voice… I knew it was him.”
“Why didn’t you do anything then?” I ask, wiping my eyes.
“It all comes down to proof, Benji. There was no proof of foul play. The official police report listed it as a single-vehicle accident. There was no evidence of a second vehicle involved. Nothing on the coroner’s report to suggest foul play. The timing wasn’t right. The Old Forest Highway ends at I-10, yeah, but even if he was going to I-10, who’s to say he was driving to Eugene?”
“I know. I’ve read all the reports. I’ve thought of all these scenarios. Probably many more times than you ever have.”
He nods, like he expected that. “Then you should know there’s nothing there. It was officially ruled as a single-vehicle accident possibly precipitated by speed and the road conditions due to the rain. The report was signed off by Griggs.”
I eye him carefully. “But you don’t believe it, do you? Not now. You think something happened.”
“Yes,” Corwin says, and I sigh. “I think somehow, someone found out your father was speaking to me and decided to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. I think your dad was run off the road and left in the river to drown. I came here a few weeks ago because of that dead file. I was told it was done. I almost believed it was done. But….” He shook his head. “There was something there, I know it. It can’t just all be coincidence. It just can’t.”
“What do you want me to do?” I ask, suddenly unsure about all of this. It’s one thing to be on the phone with the man, and it’s another to hear confirmation of what I’ve long suspected. Now that it’s at hand, I feel small and weak. Uncertain and indecisive.
“Nothing,” Corwin says, a stern edge to his voice. “Especially now that Traynor is involved. Benji, the things that man has done would curdle your stomach. It’s best to keep your distance, as much and as far as you can. I’m going to be sniffing around town a bit. This is officially off the record, at least for the moment. The wife thinks I’m out of town on some work training, and work thinks I’m on vacation. I’m going to take a few days and just look around and see what I can see. Griggs is in on this, I’m sure of it. Walken too. If what your father told me is correct, they could be supplying methamphetamines up and down the West Coast.”
“Arthur Davis,” I say, his name coming out of nowhere. “You might want to check into Arthur Davis.”
He opens his phone and types something into it. “Why him?”
I tell him the story of the attempted robbery, how Arthur dropped Traynor’s name and how the attempted robbery ended in the gunman’s supposed suicide. By the time I finish, Corwin is shaking his head, his jaw set. “Jesus,” he says. “I mean it, Benji. You need to keep your fucking distance. These people are animals. You need to keep yourself safe. If anything comes from this, we have bias intimidation of a witness and assault and battery against Traynor. Don’t suppose you called the cops after he left.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m sure Griggs would have loved to take that report.”
Cal growls at him again. “You don’t need to worry about him. It is not your job. It is my job. And I am more than ready to do what is asked of me.”
Corwin stares at him. “You’re an odd duck, you know that?”
“I am not a duck at all,” Cal snarls. “You just do your job and let me do mine. Benji belongs to me and no one will take him from me.”
“Hush,” I tell him lightly. “Nothing is going to happen to me. And besides, I can take care of myself. I have for a long time.” Cal looks at me like that is the stupidest thing I’ve ever said.
“You guys been together a long time?” Corwin asks bluntly.
“Yes,” Cal says at the same time I say, “A few days.”
Corwin stares.
“Long story,” I say as I flush.
He nods. “I’ll be in touch, Benji. Just keep doing what you are doing, and don’t let anyone know yet that you spoke to me. If you see me around Roseland, act like you don’t know me. If the shit starts to hit the fan, you call me. That number I gave you is a separate private number. Most people don’t know I have it, not even my wife.” I arch my eyebrow at him, and he rolls his eyes. “Not like that. I deal with some shady people sometimes with what I do, and I don’t want to bring my work home with me. And sometimes, like now, I don’t want to bring things into my work. Not yet. We clear?”
I nod. He stands up from the booth, dropping a twenty on the table. He starts to walk away but pauses at the edge of the booth. He doesn’t look down at us. “I’m sorry about your dad,” he finally says. “I… I always wanted to say that. You know, how sorry I am. What he tried to do was a very brave thing. You have every right to hate me, but the only thing I’ve ever wanted was to help people and to put the bad guys away. I like to think that maybe your… Big Eddie was like that too.”
I nod again, blinded by tears.
He leaves. That is the last time I see him alive.
I’m not the one who physically killed Agent Joshua Corwin, though it might as
well have been me. It is my fault just the same. Had I not called him, he might not have found a reason to come back to Roseland. He might have escaped the pattern, even if it seems to have been calling to him. Who’s to say he wouldn’t have been freed from it? Had I not involved him, he might be with his family instead of lying in a morgue a hundred miles away in the coastal town of Bandon, his bloated body having washed up on a rocky beach four days after we met in the grimy diner.
The what ifs haunt me almost as much as my own memories do. I lost my father to something I still don’t quite understand. He was taken from me, yes, and even if I believe more and more that his death was not an accident, a small part of me still questions whether it could be true. What I can’t question is the fact that I helped to take Corwin away from his family. His daughters will not have their father because of me. His wife will not have a husband because of me.
I don’t know much about Corwin’s last hours. I didn’t see him around Roseland in the days that followed our meeting. All I know is that Abe came in, his hands shaking slightly as he grabbed a newspaper off the stack near the front door. He flipped the paper over and showed me the story in the bottom right-hand corner with the headline: Body in Bandon Identified as FBI Agent. Even as those words blurred and my head started to pound, I read on, and Cal came up behind me and wrapped his big arms around me, holding me close. Agent Corwin had been found facedown on a beach outside Bandon, Oregon, by an older gentleman out for his morning walk. He told police he first thought it was a large sack washed ashore, and that he was going to pick it up and throw it away. He hated litter on the beaches, he said. But when he’d gotten closer, he’d seen white hands, which went to arms and a torso, the face down and turned away. The older gentleman said he froze for a moment, that he could not believe what he was seeing. That he hadn’t seen a dead body since he’d fought in World War II, and that he realized not enough time had passed between the last time and now. Not having his cell phone on him, he stumbled back and headed for the nearest set of stairs, where he flagged a passing motorist who called the police.
Since Corwin was found naked, he had no form of identification. All of his
teeth had been pulled from his head. His fingers had been cut off, as were his toes. An obvious attempt to keep him from being identified quickly. I haven’t been able to work up the courage to find out if these atrocious things were done before or after he was killed. I don’t think my sanity could take knowing.
A sketch of his face had been plastered all over the coastal news, and word quickly spread of the John Doe. I heard vague talk of this dead man but didn’t make the connection. Why would I? Even before the FBI could be called in to help with the investigation, one of Corwin’s colleagues saw the sketch. There was no question as to the John Doe’s identity. Agent Joshua Corwin had been murdered, they said. Shot through the back of his head. Based upon the angle of the bullet wound, he would have most likely been on his knees at the time. Hearing that only made the news worse.
Did he beg? Did he plead for his life? Did he tell the shooter he had a family waiting for him, he didn’t want to die, he just wanted to go home? Did he cry out his daughters’ names? Did he whisper that he loved his wife?
Did he pray?
That’s the one that gets me the most, especially as I watch my own angel as he cups my face, as he brushes the tears from my cheeks, never recoiling from the anger in my eyes. Did Joshua Corwin pray for release? Did he ask God to save him? If he did, why was the prayer not answered? Where was Corwin’s guardian angel? Where was the guardian angel of Bandon? Why was Corwin’s thread not seen? I’d met the man. I saw his strength. His thread would have been as bright as the sun.
These are questions Calliel can’t answer. Or maybe he won’t, I don’t know. He says he still can’t remember a lot of what happened before he fell from On High. I want desperately to believe him. I think part of me even does believe him.
“God has a plan,” he says quietly, later that night. He’s curled around me as I shake in the dark. He strokes my back gently. “I know it may not seem like it at times, and it’s hard to understand and it always seems unfair, but my Father has a plan, Benji. I’ve seen it in the shapes. In the patterns. The design. This is nothing you did. This is not your fault. If anything, it’s my Father’s. And I think I can truly understand anger now. I hurt for you, Benji. Oh, how I hurt for you. I don’t want you to be sad. I don’t want you to cry. You’ve done so much of that, and I don’t want to see it anymore. I’d do anything not to see it anymore. I’d do anything if I could just see you smile at me. I understand anger, yes. I’m angry at what I’ve seen in the shapes. That damn pattern. That bastard design. But most of all, I am angry with my Father for hurting you. I don’t want you to hurt anymore. I don’t want you to hurt ever again. I would take all of it from you if I could. You are mine, and I would take it all.”