The Goodbye Man

by Jeffery Deaver

  Odd how a rewards job in the wilderness of Washington State triggered memories and emotions with roots from a very different life, in a very different era.

  Ah, Russell . . . Where are you? What are you doing at this moment?

  If you’re doing anything at all.

  Now, as Erick dozed beside him in the sedan, Shaw piloted the smooth-driving vehicle west.

  Forty-five minutes to Tacoma.

  His brother and father occupied his thoughts for a good portion of the drive.

  Other images intruded occasionally. The group of curious men and women in their blue and black garb.

  The brunette in particular, her run-in with the thickset bully.

  And, of course, Adam Harper.

  Whose death rested squarely at Colter Shaw’s feet.

  13.

  He thought it best to take Erick Young directly to the Pierce County Public Safety Office to surrender.

  He’d considered reuniting him with his family and then calling the authorities but the case was already fraught with changing narratives and actors. He did, however, call the boy’s parents ahead of time and tell them that Erick was all right, and that they should meet him at the PSO.

  Shaw’s private eye, Mack, had tracked down a seasoned criminal attorney and sent Shaw the man’s number. The two had a brief conversation about the nature of the crime and what Erick had told Shaw on the drive—his version of the incident at the church, which Shaw believed.

  “Well, this’s one for the books,” the lawyer, Bob Tanner, had said in a courtroom-ready baritone.

  Shaw had left it to the attorney to coordinate with the parents and the detective about the surrender to the authorities. Now, in the rental, parked a few blocks away from the Safety Office, Shaw felt his phone hum.

  “Mr. Shaw?” said Tanner.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m here in the back of the station, with Erick’s parents. The detective you talked to, Johnson, he’ll be handling the processing. I know him. He’s a good man. No games, no showboating, no perp walks. The press is still in the dark.”

  “We’ll be there in five,” Shaw told him and disconnected. “Erick, you ready?”

  The boy was looking at an old-fashioned diner. Acme Chili and Sandwich Company. “Mark and I went there, I guess, a couple of times. We had brown cows. You know what that is?”

  “No.”

  “A root beer with ice cream. Like we were kids again. And fries. Yeah, I’m ready.”

  Shortly, they were pulling up behind the old redbrick building—an early twentieth-century police house if ever there was one. Erick’s parents stood beside two older men, both large and unsmiling and in dark suits. The lawyer’s garb was more distinguished, though the other’s was accessorized by a shiny gold badge on his belt.

  Shaw climbed out and helped Erick from the car, the detective lifting his eyebrow at the restraints. Shaw cut the zips off and soon the boy was in proper cuffs, hands behind his back. Then the detective looked toward Erick’s mother and nodded, a prearranged signal for a permissible hug. She threw her arms around him. His father stepped forward and embraced the two of them.

  “Sorry, Mom. I’m . . . sorry.” The boy’s eyes swelled with tears.

  Crying as well, Emma Young stroked his cheek.

  Detective Chad Johnson was a calm man in his forties. He said to the parents, “We’ll get to processing. He’ll be arraigned and there’ll be a bail hearing. He’ll be able to call you at some point soon.”

  Shaw went to the rear of his car and opened the trunk, where he’d put the paper bag holding the Smith & Wesson he’d taken from Adam. “Detective?”

  “Yessir?”

  “It’s the weapon.”

  Johnson took the bag.

  “You’ll want my prints for comparison.”

  “We have them, Mr. Shaw.”

  When you get a concealed carry permit, your prints are scanned and sent to a national registry. Interesting that the detective had gone to the trouble already.

  Shaw added, “It hasn’t been discharged since I’ve been in possession.”

  “That’s helpful to know. We’ll want a statement from you about Adam Harper too.”

  “Anytime.”

  Johnson and Erick started away, along with the attorney. Erick stopped, turned back. “Mr. Shaw. Thank you. You, like, saved my life.” Then, without waiting for a response, he was led by the detective through the station’s back door.

  Shaw returned to the parents. He said, “I don’t know how it’s going to fall out. His story’s different from what we thought at first.”

  “Mr. Tanner told us. I checked him out. He’s a good lawyer. Really good.”

  Mack’s connections were always really good.

  “Somebody else burned that cross.” Emma’s face was staunch. “I knew it. And that poor boy, Adam. He was innocent too. Self-defense. But he still killed himself. What on earth was that about?”

  What indeed?

  Picturing him diving from the ledge, the leap, the arc, the fall.

  Picturing too the smile on his face just before.

  A voice from the street in front of the PSO. “Where is he? Ah, I’ll bet that’s him there!”

  The man turned out to be short, round and dressed in a dark, pinstripe suit. His age was around fifty. With him was a woman in a pink and yellow floral dress and a black cotton coat that covered only three-fourths of the frock. She was around the same age as her companion.

  “Mr. Shaw. You’re Mr. Shaw?” He walked past Erick’s parents.

  “I am.”

  The man and the woman were both smiling. Their eyes were intense.

  “I’m Lucas Slarr, executive director of the Western Washington Ecumenical Council.” He thrust a hand out and they gripped palms. “This is Kitty McGregor, WWEC president.” She too shook, just as firmly as Slarr, though more enthusiastically. They nodded to the Youngs, clearly not caring who they were. Shaw was the hero in this feature film.

  “Kitty, do the honors.”

  She withdrew an envelope from her sizable beige purse. “Mr. Shaw, we’ve received confirmation from Hammond County that you successfully apprehended Adam Harper.”

  “I found him, yes.”

  Slarr added, “And the Public Safety press office here said that Erick Young’s been brought in.”

  McGregor said, “The terms of the reward offer had nothing to do with the fact that one of the suspects in that terrible crime died. That wasn’t your fault.”

  No, he thought, it was entirely my fault.

  “On behalf of all the churches in the western Washington area, I’m pleased to present you with this.”

  Shaw took and opened the envelope. Inside was a certificate on parchment paper, 5 by 7 inches, depicting a radiating cross and an image of Jesus in the center, looking earnest and kind and more than a little Aryan.

  To Mr. Colter Shaw, for courage in championing the cause of Jesus Christ Our Savior.

  In addition to the parchment sheet of paper, there was a check in the amount of $50,000.

  In the law of contract, a binding agreement can be made by an offer and an acceptance—with words only. Fred promises to loan Sam money, and Sam promises to repay. Bang, that’s a contract, enforceable by both sides.

  But a reward is a special kind of contract; it’s unilateral, meaning that it does not become binding until the reward seeker completes the job. Shaw had had no obligation to pursue the young men but once he’d succeeded, a contract magically came into existence, and he was owed the money.

  That the facts at trial would probably show that the Ecumenical Council had posted a reward for tracking down the wrong individuals did not negate Shaw’s right to the money. They’d wanted Adam and Erick, and that’s whom they got. Shaw had collected perhaps three hundred or so rewards over
the years. He didn’t think he’d ever earned one for a crime the suspect had not committed. Under other circumstances he might have returned it, or a portion, but not today.

  Slarr: “Do you think in the last minutes of his life, Adam repented his sins?”

  Shaw suspected not, largely because it appeared he hadn’t sinned at all. “One can only hope.”

  “Amen,” Kitty McGregor said. They shook Shaw’s hand again and walked up the alley.

  As he turned back to the Youngs, he heard a booming voice. “You son of a bitch!”

  Colter Shaw had only a few seconds’ warning before the palm slammed into his back, knocking him forward. Not quite to the ground but almost.

  He turned to face a furious Dalton Crowe.

  14.

  Oh my,” Larry Young said.

  He seemed to be considering confronting the man but Dalton Crowe outweighed Erick’s father by fifty pounds. He was intimidation personified. The big, swarthy man shot him a warrior’s glare and Larry stayed put.

  Shaw regarded Crowe calmly. He knew that the man wasn’t going to do more than try to rough him up a bit—especially given that they were within shouting distance of the Public Safety Office.

  The Youngs now relaxed somewhat, noting that Shaw didn’t seem troubled by the slap or bluster or glowering face.

  “Dalton,” Shaw said pleasantly.

  “You led me on a wild goose chase.”

  A phrase coined in Romeo and Juliet, by the witty and doomed Mercutio. Wild goose chase . . . While there was no TV in the Shaw household on the Compound, the children read and read and read. And often acted out plays, Shaw’s specialty being Henry V.

  Crowe continued, “There was no yellow fucking Volkswagen Beetle. That wasn’t sporting. You owe me that money.” A nod toward the check in Shaw’s hand. “That’s mine.”

  He reached for it. Shaw leaned forward and looked with utmost—and unnerving—calm right into Crowe’s eyes. The man eased back.

  Shaw could very well have waited until later: the privacy of a hotel or in his Winnebago or in the Youngs’ own living room. But because Adam Harper had died under his watch, and because Erick Young was sitting scared as a mouse in a holding cell and because Shaw’s shoulder still hurt from Dalton Crowe’s love tap, he decided that now was the perfect moment. He pulled his fountain pen from his jacket pocket. He looked to the Youngs. He asked, “Your bank account, it’s joint?”

  “Our . . . ?”

  “Your checking account, both your names on it?”

  “Oh.” Emma looked perplexed. “Well, yes. But—”

  Crowe grumbled, “What’s this?”

  Shaw endorsed the check over to the Youngs and handed it to Larry. This is why he had no intention of returning the reward.

  “The fuck?” Crowe snapped.

  Shaw said to the couple, “Tanner won’t come cheap.”

  Emma said, “I know. But we’ll get a bank loan. We can’t accept this.”

  Crowe: “They can’t accept it.”

  “It’s done,” Shaw said.

  Crowe bristled, then seemed to sense this was a battle he could not win. He pointed a finger at Shaw. “I will get you for this, my friend.” He stalked off down the alley.

  Larry waved the check. “If there’s any left over—”

  “Get Erick some help. Better therapy than he’s had.”

  “We will,” Emma whispered.

  Shaw wanted to be gone. He said goodbye to the Youngs and walked back to the rental car. In his mind he heard the exchange between Stan Harper and himself.

  Then why did my son kill himself?

  I don’t know the answer to that.

  He now supplemented his response: Not yet.

  15.

  Through the windshield Shaw stared ahead at the redbrick walls of the Public Safety Office. He powered up his router and computer and went online, then composed an email to Mack.

  He started the car and pulled out of the alley.

  A half hour later he was back at the Tacoma RV park, after dropping the poor Kia at the rental company, offering a mea culpa that was heartfelt but not of much significance, given the damage waiver. The new paint job would be on Hertz. The clerk was unfazed.

  Stepping inside the homey Winnebago, he was thinking of what lay ahead. As he’d sat in that comfortable lawn chair in Silicon Valley not long ago, he’d been considering which of the two missions to strike out on: going after the reward for Erick and Adam, or driving back to the Compound in the Sierra Nevadas and pursuing the mystery involving his late father.

  A professor and amateur scientist—both the political and the natural variety—Ashton Shaw had made a discovery, one so significant and controversial that his life and those of his colleagues were put in danger. He warned his associates about the risks, and promptly moved his wife and three children to a large spread in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There he learned survival skills and trained the children in the same edgy arts.

  Ashton appeared to the world to have given up exploring his discovery, while all the time secretly continuing to pursue it. He would travel to places unknown, presumably looking into more details surrounding his finding—whatever it might be.

  Shaw might have put his father’s concerns and secretive efforts down to the man’s growing breaks with reality had not several incidents occurred. First, there was Ashton’s untimely death and the deaths of several colleagues. Second, just last week, Shaw’s own close call with the people he believed were responsible for the deaths. They were a ruthless woman named Braxton and her hired killer, Droon, whom Shaw had been thinking of earlier. Shaw had evaded the pair and learned that his father’s discovery was hidden somewhere on the family land, near where Ashton had died, Echo Ridge.

  Shaw needed to find the secret. What on earth could it be? Something that exposed corruption in the government? Evidence of other crimes? An invention, maybe a drug that could topple a big pharma company? A military mystery?

  He didn’t try to guess.

  Never speculate without substantial facts.

  A good rule, one of his father’s. Shaw followed it closely much of the time.

  Yes, the secret was a burning question and, now that the reward job here was done, his plans to return to the quest would have put him on the road at first light.

  Would have . . .

  The quest would have to wait. Plans had changed.

  Because of an image seared into Colter Shaw’s mind; Adam Harper’s eerily calm leap into eternity.

  His phone dinged with an incoming email. He read the thread, which began with his query to Mack.

  To: MMack333@dcserversystem.net

  From: ColterShawReward@gmail.com

  Re: Request for information

  Please find any available information about a self-help-style organization called “Foundation” or “the Foundation.” Logo is an infinity sign. There’s a facility located near Snoqualmie Gap, Washington State.

  To: ColterShawReward@gmail.com

  From: MMack333@dcserversystem.net

  Re: Request for information

  Probably the Osiris Foundation, a California C corporation (for profit; unusual, since most of these organizations prefer 501(c)(3) status, nonprofit). Link to the home page for their website is below. Self-help operation of some kind. Very little information on Clearnet, nothing on the dark web. No Wikipedia listing. No social media accounts—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. That is unusual too. I found several online ads for the organization on websites offering help for bereavement, terminal or serious illness, depression and anxiety. Likely the Foundation wants to control its public image and employs scrubbers to eliminate references online.

  Shaw scrolled down to the link and clicked on it. He was directed to the site’s home page.

  ∞

  THE OSIRIS FOUNDATION />
  Where the Yesterday Is the Key to a Better Today and a Perfect Tomorrow™

  Are you depressed, grieving because of losing a loved one, anxious, troubled, lonely, overwhelmed? Are you plagued by regret and the bad decisions you’ve made?

  The Osiris Foundation may be just what you’re looking for. We’ll teach you to make fundamental changes in your approach to life so that you’ll find the happiness, contentment and comfort you deserve. You’ll never be troubled again.

  Our program, called the Process™, is an intensive three-week course at our beautiful mountainside camp in Washington State. The Process™ brings together traditional spiritual teaching and modern medical and psychological methods. It’s helped hundreds of people achieve a happy and contented life.

  Read the testimonials of those who have successfully completed the Process™ by clicking here: Testimonials.

  Contact us for an application by clicking here: Applications.

  About our founder and director: Master Eli created the Osiris Foundation four years ago. Orphaned at a young age, he graduated from prestigious schools and pursued a successful career in business. But he was troubled by all the suffering and discontent he saw around him: both professional and personal. He sold his businesses and traveled the world, studying philosophy, theology, medicine and science. From those experiences, he developed the Process™. Master Eli oversees the training at the Osiris Foundation camp from May through September. In the fall and winter months, he travels to the Far East, meditating, and studying with renowned spiritual leaders.

  Mack’s email continued:

  Eli is probably David Ellis, 41. His internet presence is largely scrubbed too. No web or social media imprint I could find. But corporate and government filings link him to the limited liability corporations that own the Foundation. History of real estate development and running brokerage houses in Florida and California but no records of filings since the inception of the Osiris Foundation. No criminal record.