by Alex Grecian
“There are always coincidences,” Travis said.
“You better eat that biscuit before it goes cold.”
Travis reached for the sheriff’s peace offering and broke it in half, letting the crumbs fall to the floor. He took a small bite.
“Cards on the table, I don’t like you, Dr. Roan.”
“That is hardly a revelation,” Travis said. He took another small bite of the biscuit.
“I don’t expect you like me much, either. But I keep thinking you’re not going away.” He threw his hands up. “So just explain to me how all these things come together. How you and two dead bodies happened in my county.”
Travis swallowed the last bite of biscuit and rubbed his hands together. “These people I hunt have been hiding for more than seventy years, here and there, all over the world. They have different names, they work now as bakers and plumbers and all manner of things, blending in with the people around them. They rarely make mistakes. But always there is someone who sees them, someone who recognizes them. And every time I go to verify these sightings, there is someone who asks me about the coincidence.”
“Still,” Goodman said, “it’s one thing when people are living in the same place. They’re bound to bump into each other. You can’t live in a town like Paradise Flats or Phillipsburg or even Hays without knowing just about everybody around you. Like if your Nazis all stayed in Germany, I guess they’d get seen a lot. Hard to hide there. But we’re talking about people who ran thousands of miles away from each other. And it’s been decades. It’s too much to think they’d spot each other now. It don’t wash.”
“The world is getting smaller, as they say. People travel more. And if you pass someone in a mall that you once saw at another mall, that is a much different thing than if you pass someone in a mall who tortured you or starved you or raped you.” Travis frowned. “Please excuse me. I become angry sometimes. I understand your disbelief, Sheriff, but these are not people you would forget if you had spent years of your life being hurt by them.”
Goodman squinted at him and picked up the empty paper plate from the cot. He folded it in half and began to twist it in his hands.
“An example,” Travis said. “Many years ago, when I was starting out in this job, and this was before Bear and I crossed paths, I was sent to London to find a man who had been seen there. Not a Nazi, but a man who had helped hide many Nazis, who had helped them travel. They had escape routes they called ‘ratlines’ to move Nazis out of Germany to places like South America and Africa, you understand?”
“Sure.”
“I was staying in a hotel in Greenwich and I went out into the city every day looking for him. Every night, I would return to the hotel, a very good place, but old. Every night, I would order a hamburger and a baked potato from room service. I would sign the bill without paying attention, and then eat and fall asleep. I would wake up the next morning and start again. One night, the man brought me my hamburger on the big tray with the tiny bottles of ketchup and mustard and the tiny shakers of salt and pepper, but this time I decided to pay with cash. I was worried that I had put too much on my room charge and my father would scold me.”
“Your father?”
“He is in charge of the Foundation. Since my grandfather died. So I asked the man who had brought my hamburger to wait a moment. This was the same man who had brought my dinner for, what? Five nights in a row? He had been my room service waiter the entire time I was there. You see this coming?”
Goodman’s mouth twisted into a smirk. “He was the guy you were looking for.”
“I went to find my wallet, and there on my desk was the file with his photo clipped to it. He was older, you know, and had shaved his mustache, changed the color of his hair, even tattooed his neck and hands with bright distracting patterns. But I made the connection at last. He saw the photograph at the same time I did.” Travis sat back and rubbed the side of his nose with his index finger.
“And you caught him?”
“Sorry?”
“You caught him, right?”
“Oh, yes. He never even tried to run. When he realized I was there to find him, he surrendered. I think he was relieved. Happy to stop hiding.” Travis sighed. “But it was a big coincidence. It was a coincidence that someone saw him there and called the Foundation. And it was a coincidence that he brought me a hamburger every night for almost a week without someone else working that shift. If he had only taken that night off, maybe he would be a free man even now.”
“So,” Goodman said. “Coincidences.”
“Maybe they are not what we think they are. Maybe we pull at one another’s threads all the time. Spiders and flies crawling across webs we cannot see.”
Goodman stood back up and stared at the twisted paper plate in his hand. “I wish to God you’d just left Burden County when I asked you to.”
“Perhaps if you had been more polite about it.”
Goodman chuckled. “Well, soon’s as I finish processing your paperwork, I’ll let you go. I’m gonna ask you real polite to just head on back home. If there’s somebody here like you say, you leave him to me.” He nodded once, as if settling the matter, and opened the door. “You hang tight now, Doc.” He left, and Travis heard the lock engage.
Travis settled back on the cot and looked around at the bare walls.
“Spiders and flies,” he said.
4
There was a rented Ford Mustang parked in front of Emmaline’s house and a man was sitting on the porch next to Maddy. It took Skottie a long minute to recognize him, and when she did the brief spike of alarm at seeing a strange man with her daughter was replaced by a different sort of worry.
“How did I not recognize that man right off?”
Bear shifted in the seat next to her and looked up as if trying to figure out what she was asking.
“Talking to myself, boy,” she said. “Great. How often do I do that?” About as often, she thought, as I mistake my husband for a total stranger.
When she pulled into the driveway, Brandon Foster stood and stepped down off the porch. He wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t have his angry face on. While Skottie took that as a promising sign, her own expression didn’t change.
Skottie jammed on the brake and put the Subaru in park. Maddy was hanging back on the porch. She looked tense and ran down the steps close behind her father.
“Mom, Dad’s here. He even picked me up early and we got ice cream.” Her face brightened when she saw Bear. “Is that our dog?”
“No,” Skottie said. “Maddy, go in the house.”
“She can hear us,” Brandon said. “It’s healthy for kids to know that their parents argue.”
Brandon was big and blond, with freckles dusted across the bridge of his nose, solid under a layer of fat that he called his “bulletproof belly.” Skottie had once liked that softness that hid his strength. They had met nearly a dozen years ago. Brandon was a beat cop then, and Skottie was in the academy. There had been a string of drive-by shootings, and Skottie had spotted the perpetrator’s car and called it in. Brandon had been the first responder, and they had both been excited and proud of their roles in the case. They had gone for a drink at the end of their shift to wind down and had woken up next to each other the next morning. Three weeks later they were married, and ten months after that Maddy had joined them. She favored her mother in nearly every way, but she had her father’s freckles.
“Maddy, I told you to go in the house.”
“Grandma wouldn’t let him inside,” Maddy said. She was ignoring Skottie, too keyed up and distracted. “Whose dog is that, Mom?”
“A friend’s. We’re taking care of him for tonight. Just for tonight.”
“What’s his name? Can I pet him?”
“No.” Next to her daughter, Bear was as big as a horse. Maddy could probably ride the dog around the front yard if he
let her, and Skottie knew that thought had already occurred to Maddy. “I mean, try not to surprise him.”
Brandon was watching them, patiently waiting, maybe even hoping Skottie was as distracted as Maddy was, that his presence would be accepted along with the dog’s. Skottie felt jangled and uptight and wanted to get her husband off Emmaline’s property. But she didn’t want to upset Maddy.
“His name’s Bear, baby. Hold out your hand and say amiko, okay? Amiko.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just do it!” Skottie immediately regretted raising her voice. Why had Brandon forced them into an adversarial situation by showing up with no notice? How could that help anything? “Please, Maddy, it means friend.”
“Where did you get that dog?” Brandon said. “Is it dangerous?”
“Amiko,” Maddy said. “Hi, Bear. Amiko.” She held out her tiny hand for Bear to sniff while Skottie held her breath.
Bear licked Maddy’s palm and sat down in the snow. Maddy approached and ran her fingers through the dog’s thick black mane. Bear looked up at Skottie, and she could swear he was smiling. She let out a sigh of relief.
“Honey, he’s been out at the lake all day,” Skottie said. “He’s probably dirty.”
“I don’t mind, Mom. Does he know other words?”
“I think so, but most of them are in another language, honey, and I don’t remember what it is. Portuguese, maybe?”
“I can look it up,” Maddy said. Now that she had a task, she had forgotten that she didn’t want to go inside the house and leave her father and mother to face off against each other. “Come on, Bear!”
She turned and ran up the porch steps and Bear stood up.
“Wait, baby,” Skottie said. She put a hand on Bear’s head, wondering if she’d be able to hold him back if he decided to chase Maddy. “Don’t run, okay, Maddy? That might make Bear excited. And why don’t you leave Bear with me for a minute. I’ll bring him in when I’m done out here.”
“You’re not gonna leave him outside all night?”
“No, I think we’d need a fence or a little house for him. It’s gonna get cold tonight.”
“You do what your mama says,” Brandon said.
Maddy nodded and trudged the rest of the way across the porch. As soon as the screen door shut behind her, Skottie could hear Emmaline scolding the girl. There was no love lost between Skottie’s mother and Brandon.
When Brandon had moved up to detective and then to homicide, Skottie had opted for the Illinois Highway Patrol. This division in their careers had led to divisions in their marriage. Brandon had belittled the IHP, had told her once that her whole job was to sit in her car all day and pass out tickets while he was out there risking his life to make the world a better place. She had not forgotten the comment and had not accepted his many apologies. Brandon had begun to drink more, had stopped coming home after his shifts. And Skottie had been fine with that. When he did come home, there was usually a fight.
“You didn’t need to back me up,” Skottie said. “I told her to go inside, she was gonna go inside.”
“I know that,” Brandon said. “That wasn’t disrespect. I was helping.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“It’s good for kids to see parents back each other up. So Maddy can’t play us off each other.”
“What, did you just read a book about raising kids?”
“As a matter of fact, yeah. Look, Skottie, I’m trying to be better. It’s been six months. That’s a long time for my family to be apart from me, but I stayed outta your way, gave you space like you asked. You have any idea how hard that was for me?”
“You waited six months to see your daughter.”
“Can we just talk? I know I screwed up, and I’m doing my best here to show you respect.”
“I don’t have anything to talk about,” Skottie said.
Brandon took a step toward her and Bear nudged her aside, moved closer to Brandon. The dog’s mane was crackling as if a wave of static electricity were moving through it. Skottie was struck again by how eerie the dog’s silence was, and Brandon apparently felt it, too, because he stepped back and raised his hands.
“Call the damn dog off,” he said.
“He can feel the tension. Nothing I can do about that, so maybe it’s safer for you if you keep your distance.”
“You know I’m not gonna hurt you, Skottie.”
“Do I?”
“That was one time.”
“You don’t get two chances.”
Brandon looked away. He ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “You got no idea how sorry I am for that. You gotta know I’d do anything to make it up to you and Maddy. You know me. You know . . .” His voice trailed off, and Skottie almost felt sorry for him. Then she remembered.
During a particularly vicious argument one night, Brandon had hit her. They had stood there for a moment, both of them stunned, then Skottie tried to hit him back. He blocked her fist and she swung again. He blocked her blow again, but when she raised her hand the third time she saw something in his eyes, a subtle change in his expression. He left his hands down at his sides and let her hit him.
He had apologized then, had cried and begged her, had reminded her that it was the first time and promised it was the last. But Skottie had quietly packed a suitcase, put Maddy in the car, and driven away.
Six months gone by.
Brandon sat down on the porch steps. He kept his eye on Bear, but the dog was relaxed again. It seemed as long as Brandon kept his distance, Bear would leave him alone.
“I got the papers you sent,” Brandon said. “But I don’t think you want that. You don’t want to put Maddy through that.”
“No,” Skottie said, “I don’t. But it’s the next step, and I’ve got to move forward with my life. I don’t wanna go back to Chicago, and I don’t wanna be with you anymore, Brandon.”
“I waited too long. I should have come before now.”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference.” I didn’t even recognize you at first, she thought. I moved on whether I really meant to or not.
Brandon folded his arms across his knees and watched a shaggy V of geese migrate across the sky, a month later than all the others and with no hope of catching up. Finally he nodded. “Okay. I’ll give you more time. But I want Maddy. You can’t keep her from me.”
“I won’t let you take her back to Chicago.”
“You want her to grow up in Hays? What’s she gonna do here? At least in—”
“Hey, I grew up here.”
“You were the only black girl in your graduating class. You told me yourself.”
“So more black people is what I needed? More than my mother?”
“You got out of this town the first chance you got.”
“And the last person who hurt me was you.”
He blushed. “I found a good divorce attorney, Skottie. He’s expensive and I’d rather not—”
“I thought you were worried about putting Maddy through this stuff.”
“Just . . . Dammit, just let me have her for the weekend. I’m at a hotel here. That big one down the road. I took some vacation days. Let me have some time with her and I promise I’ll bring her back after. Not playing games with you, Skott.”
“No.”
The screen door opened again and Maddy took the porch like an invading army. “It’s Esperanto, Mom. I looked it up. Amiko!”
“Esperanto,” Skottie said. “That’s right.”
“Bear,” Maddy said. “Bear, venu ĉi tien. Is that right, boy? Venu ĉi tien?”
Bear pulled himself to his feet and shambled up the porch steps to Maddy, knocking Brandon into a snow-covered hedge, seemingly by accident, but Skottie wondered whether it was a purposeful snub. The dog seemed to pick up on physical cues like a second lan
guage. Esperanto and body language. He pushed against Maddy, nearly knocking her over, and she squealed in delight.
“How did you . . .”
“The computer has a recording of how to say things. All you have to do is put in what you wanna say and it says it for you.”
“Even in Esperanto?”
“We can talk to him, Mom! I bet he knows lots and lots of words. He’s like a code dog! Bear, amiko!”
The dog obligingly licked Maddy’s face, covering her from chin to forehead in slobber. Maddy laughed and fell down and Bear lay next to her. The dog was so big that Skottie couldn’t see any trace of her daughter behind him.
Brandon regained his feet and brushed the snow off his jeans. He shot the dog a nasty look, but let it go at that. “What do you say, Skottie?”
Maddy’s head popped up from behind the mass of black fur on the porch. “Mom, can I go? Dad’ll bring me home in time for school Monday, right Dad?”
She’d been listening. Skottie shook her head, not turning her daughter down, but registering the fact that she couldn’t win this fight without hurting both Maddy and Brandon. And maybe herself, too.
Brandon looked at her and raised his eyebrows. He pressed his lips together in a half smile, an expression of questioning innocence that had always worked with her.
“Come back Friday, after lunch,” Skottie said. “Can you do that?”
“I’ll be here,” Brandon said.
“Yay! Thanks, Mom!”
“Don’t be early,” Skottie said. “I’ll have her ready at two o’clock.”
“You’ll see me then,” Brandon said. “And Skottie, pack a bag for yourself, too, if you decide you wanna come along.”
He didn’t wait to see how she might respond to his suggestion. He walked away across the top of the snow to a rental car parked across the street. Skottie noticed that Bear’s eyes followed Brandon until the car pulled away from the curb.