My name is Angela Wellman. I'm hoping you can help me locate Garrison Gage. When I was searching online, I came upon your articles about the girl who washed up on your beach last winter and your interviews with him. If he has an email can you pass this along? Or you can give him my cell phone at 981-555-2356. It's very important that I get in touch ASAP. He knows me. My last name was Reid back in Montana. I really appreciate your help.
The word "Montana" brought it all back—the raven-haired beauty, barely twenty-two and fresh out of Lewis-Clark State College in Idaho, with a teaching certificate and a burning passion for science. When he first wandered into her senior biology class, he'd mistaken her for a student. In fact, because of her young freckled face, short stature, and bird-like bones, he'd pegged her as even younger than him, an underclassman who'd wandered into his class by mistake. That impression went away as soon as she spoke. She was smart and funny, peppering her opening lecture with Einstein fart jokes. At least half the boys in the class had been in love with her before the end of that first period—including him.
Turned out later, to his great surprise, that the feeling was mutual.
When Gage looked up, Carmen was still studying him. She wore the expression of a mom who'd just caught her son with Oreo cookie crumbs all over his face. It irritated him, a feeling which put more edge in his voice than was warranted and probably didn't help alleviate her worries.
"When did this come in?" he said.
"Who is she?"
"Did you have this long?"
"Jesus, it came in today. This morning."
"All right." He glanced at the paper again. She went by Wellman now. Married. Kids maybe? She'd never seemed the type to settle down. "You reply to her?"
"Why would I do that?"
"Carmen, I'm just asking, all right?"
"No. I didn't write her back. She could have been some weirdo—some woman with cats who read the articles and developed an infatuation with you. Can I ask who she is, or is it some big secret?"
"She's . . . a teacher I had in Red Castle."
His hesitation had been brief, but it was long enough for her to pick up on it. She watched him silently, then made a motion as if to push a strand of hair behind her ear—but with the shorter haircut, there was nothing there. She didn't seem to notice.
"A teacher, huh?" she said. "That's interesting."
"Well, was a teacher. I don't know what she does now."
"Did you know her well?"
She'd tried to say it casually, but the anxiousness in her face was harder to hide. Was this woman a threat? That's what she really wanted to know. And what could Gage tell her? He should tell her everything, of course, that would be best, but he needed to talk to Angela first. That time back in Montana—he'd buried those memories so deep he'd need time to dig them out, brush the dirt off them, study them under the light of the sun. He didn't want to do that in front of Carmen.
There was still Bruzzi to deal with too—which actually gave him a way to deflect this line of questioning for the time being. "I guess that depends on what you mean by well," he said. "She was only at our school a year. I'll tell you more after I talk to her, okay? There's something else I need to tell you about right now, something you need to know."
There was a distracted air about Carmen as he began to recount his two recent run-ins with Bruzzi, but she became a lot more attentive when he told her who Bruzzi was. She already knew Gage's whole sordid past, the official details from when she'd researched him shortly after they first met, and the more personal stuff in drips and drabs over the past few months as she teased it out of him with all the skill of a top-flight reporter—which she was through and through, having earned her chops at the Detroit Free Press before giving up that life to be her own boss in Barnacle Bluffs. In many ways, she knew the story of Janet's death better than Gage himself, since she had the benefit of objectivity where he tended to fog up all the unpleasant stuff because of all the guilt that came along for the ride. He liked to look at his past through smoked glass. It was easier that way.
"You really think he's here for revenge?" she asked when he was finished.
"You have a better idea?"
"Not really. He was really sitting in his car right outside, huh?"
"Yep. Don't worry, though. He's not catching me by myself any more. I have a friend with me." When her eyebrows raised, he opened his coat so she could see his holster.
"Ah," she said. "Why doesn't that make me feel better?"
"Hey, I'm not that bad of a shot."
She wrinkled her nose. "Don't be an idiot. If what Alex said is true, you're one of the best there is. I assume you finally got around to getting a concealed weapons permit for that thing?"
"Why would I need that?"
"Garrison—"
"Relax, I took care of it."
"Well," she said, still sounding nonplussed, "that makes me feel at least a little better. But I really don't like this. I think you should call the police."
"I will when there's something for them to do. Right now, they'd just get in the way."
"Uh huh. And what, exactly, are they going to get in the way of?"
"You'll be the first one to know."
She grimaced. "See, now that's what makes me nervous. What about Zoe? Have you told her about this?"
"No. She didn't give me much of a chance."
"Teenage girls never do. Maybe she should come stay with me until this thing blows over."
"I thought about asking you that," Gage said. "That's until I saw Bruzzi outside your office. Now I'm thinking maybe you should come stay with me."
She let a little smile sneak past the worry. "I'm over at your place half the nights anyway. It's Zoe I'm worried about. Maybe she could stay with Alex?"
He nodded. "Maybe."
"Speaking of Alex—"
"Right, tonight. Probably should cancel it."
She shook her head vigorously. "Right now he's just trying to intimidate you. If you start changing your life around because of him, then he's already won. If he already knows you're friends with Alex, it won't matter. If he doesn't know—well, we'll just have to do a little cloak and dagger and make sure he doesn't follow us."
"I love it when you get all spy versus spy on me. You sure?"
"As long as Alex is."
"Alex? I think he'd like to invite ol' Blue Face over for dinner. Then he could poison the bastard and get it over with."
She laughed. "You know, if Alex was single, I think you'd really have something to worry about."
"Tell me about it. Those bags under his eyes are a natural aphrodisiac. And don't even get me started on the permanent ink stains on his fingers. You want to come to my place after you leave work? Then we'll go over together."
"All right," she said. "But call me if you need help with Zoe. I don't want her there by herself."
"I was thinking she might come with us."
Carmen laughed sharply.
"Well, it was a thought," Gage said.
"This is a seventeen-year-old Goth girl, remember?" Carmen said. "She wouldn't be caught dead at a dinner party with a bunch of old fogies."
"She prefers the term nihilist. And who are you calling an old fogie? You have to be one to even use that term."
She smiled impishly. "I'll take it back if you can prove otherwise—when we're alone."
"We're alone now."
"I think we've had this discussion already," she said. "I'm still not quite over the botched hair moment."
"Ah. Long memory there."
"Funny," she said, "you thinking five minutes is a long time. Anyway, about Zoe—"
"She'll be somewhere safe. I promise. Now, before I botch things up any more, I will take my leave."
He gave her a parting kiss. Halfway to the door, he had another reminder on how good her memory was.
"Gage?" she said.
He stopped and looked at her.
"Are you going to call her or not?"
"Angela?"
She gave him a look that told him that playing dumb was not the most brilliant move.
"Right," he said, "yes, I need to do that."
"It's okay if you want to make the call in private."
Her tone was actually saying the exact opposite, which should have been clue enough that doing otherwise was perilous, but he couldn't quite make himself do it. He wasn't sure why yet.
"Well," he said, "it could be a case. There's the confidentiality thing, you know. If that's what it is, I'll ask her if it's okay if I bring you in on it."
It may have been an artful dodge, but it was still a dodge and she knew it. He knew it too. She gave him an almost imperceptible nod, more of a nod to herself as if she was deciding something, then swiveled to face her computer. He wanted to say more but knew he would just make it worse. He opened the door. Another truck was chugging past on the highway, so he almost didn't catch her last muttered comment.
"That's odd," she said, "I thought you said you were retired."
* * * * *
Twenty minutes later, standing at the gas station at the foot of his hill, Gage was surprised to find that his fingers left sweat marks on the shiny metal buttons as he punched Angela's number. When the phone began to ring, his heart pounded like it seldom did any more—a loud drumming in his ears. In an instant, he felt eighteen again, all those years in between gone, calling her at her little cottage by the rail road tracks. Waiting for her to answer. Hoping she was still there.
"Hello?"
Her voice was slightly huskier than he remembered, but it was definitely her. He heard a television in the background, the droning voice of a news anchor. Currents of air from the cars passing on the highway kicked up dust, swirling it into his eyes. He leaned farther inside the half-open booth, one hand gripping the metal and glass side, the other pressing the plastic closer to his ear.
"It's me," he said, a strange warble in his voice. What the hell was wrong with him? "Garrison. Garrison Gage."
"Oh!" she said. "Garrison! It's—it's good to hear your voice. You must have . . . That reporter forwarded you my email?"
There was nervousness on her end too. He was about to answer when a couple of roaring Harleys rolled into the gas station, and he was forced to wait until they killed their engines.
"That's right," he said. "Well, she told me about it. I don't have email."
"Oh. Where are you, anyway? It sounds like you're outside."
"Yeah. At a gas station. I'm—"
"I'm so glad you called, Garrison," she said, cutting him off, and that's when he realized it wasn't so much nervousness in her voice as worry. "I—I didn't know who else to call. I've-I've kind of been following you. Your career. Googled you now and then. Probably should have called you before now—sorry, but the way things . . . Well, that's water under the bridge. Right?
There was a lot packed into that question. Even now, after so many years, he didn't feel like giving her an absolution.
"What's this about, Angela?" he pressed.
"Oh. Well, I knew you were out there in Barnacle Bluffs because I read those articles in the local paper about you and that girl. And then when we were coming to Oregon, I thought, maybe I should contact you. Maybe you would know what to do. I don't know what to do. and Loren, he refuses to do anything. Says he won't be intimidated."
"Loren? Who's Loren? Your husband?"
"No. He's—my boss. Loren Sparrow? Have you heard of him?"
He had. He'd even read a few of the man's books—prompted by Zoe, who was a huge fan. The Beautiful Godless Universe. Religion and Other Man-Made Evils. Evolutionary biologist at Harvard. Frequently appeared on CNN and other shows when they wanted an articulate representative of the atheist point of view. He'd been compared to Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens in his fierce antipathy toward religion, but Gage had seen snippets of all three of them and thought Sparrow left them in the dust. Zoe had also forced him to watch some incident on YouTube when a famous evangelist, incensed at some putdown, had charged Sparrow during a debate and Sparrow, a black belt in Karate, had dropped his red-faced attacker with a swift kick to the side of the head. Apparently the video had been viewed more than four million times.
"If it's the famous Loren Sparrow I'm thinking of—" he began.
"The same," she said. "I need your help, Garrison. He needs your help. It's all this . . . Oh, I don't want to talk about it on the phone. It's terrible. I want to talk to you in person. Can I come see you tonight?"
"Tonight? So you're in Oregon?"
"Yes," she said. "Flew into Portland this morning. Loren's got a lecture at Arlene Schnitzer tonight, then another tomorrow in Eugene at the Hult Center. It'll be late, but if I cut out a little early I think I could be there by 10. Is that too late?"
"What kind of trouble is this, Angela?"
"I'll tell you about it when I see you. Oh gosh, I'm so glad you called, Garrison. I feel better already. I know you'll think of something. You were always smart."
"Not always," he said.
He wasn't even aware of the double meaning implied in his answer until there was a pause. It was only a few seconds, but when she spoke again her voice was softer, more tender. He didn't like it.
"Garrison—"
"I wish you'd tell me what the trouble is now," he said.
"About Montana—"
"That way I'd have some idea if I could help you or not."
"I never meant it to end the way it—"
"Let's not."
"What?"
"Let's not talk about that now. Okay? It can wait. Really."
"Oh."
"It's waited a long time. It can wait a little longer. Maybe forever."
"You're mad."
"No, honey, I'm not mad. I'm just—this is surprising, that's all. There's stuff going on. This kind of came out of the blue."
For once, the highway behind the phone booth was still. She was so quiet he could hear her breathing. "I don't mean to intrude," she said softly.
"You're not. It's just—I don't do this any more, Angela. You should know that. I'm not in the business any more. When Janet died—"
"I read about that. I'm so sorry."
Now he was irritated. Something about her trying to fit the magnitude of his loss, and her own clumsy attempt at extending condolences, into a couple of clumsy sentences set him on edge. What was he, just some serialized comic strip she'd been following? Find out next week what happens to Prince Valliant. And where was she five years ago? If she'd been following him, why hadn't she contacted him then? Condolences meant nothing when it was all stimulus and response, no special effort required, no real emotional investment.
He was starting to remember the real Angela, both the good and bad of her.
"Anyway," he said, his throat thick, "I can't promise you I can do much. I'm pretty rusty."
"Please," she begged. "I don't know who else to talk to. I'll pay you."
"It's not about the money. I don't need money."
"Just a few minutes—"
"Relax, will you? I'll see you. Where do you want to meet?" He knew she was probably expecting to have him invite her to his place, but he wasn't doing that with Bruzzi around. And even if Bruzzi wasn't, Gage wasn't sure he'd want her there. He wanted neutral ground. "I can meet you at a bar or—"
"I don't know. I'm going to stay overnight, then head down to Eugene in the morning for Loren's show. Can I call you when I get to Barnacle Bluffs?"
"I don't have a phone."
"You don't have a phone?"
It was the same incredulous tone as always. He shifted the phone on his ear. "Why does that always shock everyone?" he said. "No, I don't have a phone. No email. No fax machine. No iPad and no Kindle and no Facebook account and no goddam Twitter crap either. I don't have a Web page. I don't blog. I have plenty of other ways to waste time and I don't need technology to help me do it."
This time, she was silent for a long time.
"Well,"
she said.
"Sorry," he said, and he was.
"It's all right. I know this is . . . weird. I appreciate you seeing me. Maybe—maybe if you suggest a place for me to stay? Is there a hotel close by? Not too expensive. I don't need anything fancy. You can go to the desk and ask for me. I'll tell them to ring me when you do. We can—we can go to a bar. I won't take much of your time."
"Time I got plenty of," he said. There weren't any really good places to stay on his end of town, but there were some close ones. There was a motel just down the hill that was a bit run down, but he could walk to it in a few minutes from his house, using some of the back streets. If Bruzzi was at the bottom of his drive waiting for his van, he'd never see Gage leave on foot. "There's a place called Barnacle Cove," he said. "It's definitely not fancy, but it's cheap."
"Okay. What if they're booked?"
"They won't be. Not on a Wednesday in December."
"Oh."
"You sure you don't want to tell me what the problem is now?"
She hesitated. "No. No, I'll tell you when I get there. There could be people—no, no better wait."
"Okay."
"Garrison? I really appreciate this."
"Ten o'clock, right?"
"Yes. I'll be there."
Gage hung up the phone before he could say what he really felt like saying: You better be there. Unlike last time.
Chapter 5
There were lots of things that Zoe was good at—she was one of the smartest people Gage knew, at any age—but probably the best was her mastery of the look of utter contempt when he said something that irritated her. It was a skill that most teenage girls had; Zoe was just so good she could have taken it on the road.
"You want me to go where?" she said.
The green glow of the stereo behind her provided the only light in the room. He could barely hear her over her over the thumping bass and the whine of multiple electric guitars. It was a Mastodon song she'd been playing a lot lately, something about death and oblivion—a nice cheerful number, as usual. She was glaring at him from her place on the mattress on the floor, no frame for her; she'd disassembled it upon moving and left it to rust on the back patio. She'd also refused to use the pretty oak chest of drawers he'd picked up at the auction for a steal, preferring to store her clothes in her two ratty suitcases. Some of her clothes, anyway. At least half of them were scattered on the gray carpet like oil slicks on concrete.
A Desperate Place for Dying Page 4