Gotta trust someone sometime.
That’s not your usual schtick.
So sue me.
Life advice from Zoe? That’s a first. But we’ve reached an understanding, or at least an acceptance, and if I can reconcile with her, I should be able to do the same with Jane.
The detective is looking at me quizzically.
“Okay.” I say. “Okay. But it’s a little bit weird.” And I tell her, as simply as I can, about the vision. And how I’d followed up the clues in order to catch a killer.
“So,” she says, “you’re telling me you’re psychic.”
“No.” I pause. “Well, maybe.” I pause again. “I don’t really know what that means. I only know what I’ve experienced.”
Jane nods, her expression thoughtful. “I guess it worked out this time.”
I think of all the stumbles and mistakes I’ve made, rookie errors while I sought to reconcile the visions with reality. “I guess.”
She looks away across the river, at the bridge or maybe the hills.
“Detective, can you come over here?” calls one of the officers.
We both look up, but it’s Jane who answers, “In a minute.” Then she says to me, “I’ll be in touch.” And she walks away.
I go back up to the trail where the Reverend Seth Takahashi is waiting. He puts a blanket around my shoulders, and we watch as the police take Eric North away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
THE NEXT DAY, after spending the morning making statements and filling out forms at the police station, I get a call from Elizabeth Harkness. She asks me to come to Victoria’s apartment one last time. I have mixed feelings about this, but I do it.
The apartment is clean and barren. All the odds and ends of a life once lived are gone, the closets and cupboards are bare. Elizabeth is taping the top of a cardboard box as I enter. Her face bears its usual armor of impeccable makeup.
“Audrey.”
“Elizabeth.”
Her hands pause in their duty, and she stares down at the box. I wonder about the tectonic shifting going on inside her spirit, none of which is apparent on her features. I’m surmising that there’s something, anyway. No one can lose a child and be unmoved.
She says, “You found the killer.”
“Yes.”
Her hands shift slightly, picking at the tape on the box. I stand at parade rest, waiting, wondering why she called me here.
“Audrey…”
“Yes?”
“Do you think I did the right thing? With Victoria? How I raised her?”
I blow through my bangs. “I think you did what you felt was right.”
“But was it? Am I, somehow, at fault?”
I sigh. Impossible to unweave the tangled snarl of the universe and all its might-have-beens. But. “You didn’t make North do what he did. Those choices were his own.”
She nods, distracted by some inner thought process. “Still. I should have been a better mother.”
It’s easy to criticize, to judge and engage in armchair quarterbacking. Easy to opine ‘I wouldn’t have done that but this.’ And with no guarantee that anything would be better in the long run. There’s only one universal, so that’s what I say: “All of us should be better than we are.”
Another long moment of silence, both of us thinking our separate thoughts. Elizabeth Harkness leaves the box and opens her pink Fendi handbag. “I have something for you.” She takes out an envelope and hands it to me.
“What is this?”
“Payment for services rendered.” She squares her shoulders. “To thank you.”
“Ms. Harkness — Elizabeth — I don’t need you to —”
“I know I did not hire you. That you may have already been paid. Call it a reward, if you like. It’s all I have to offer.”
Conflict. Chagrin. And a tiny bit of greed flickering in the corner.
I did observe that we should all be better.
“All right. Thank you.” I put the envelope in my pocket, unopened. “I am sorry, Ms. Harkness. For your loss.”
She nods, and there doesn’t seem to be anything more for me to say, except, “Have a safe trip back to Portland.”
The familiar sights and scents of the Portway Tavern feel bittersweet. The place is still warm and familiar, but one thing is changing. Claire Chandler, newly released from jail, is leaving.
“The place won’t be the same without you,” I say.
“Come on outside. I’ve got something to show you.”
I follow her to the gravel parking lot in back of the building. Braced on its kickstand is a brand new Harley. Our faces reflect in the glossy teal paint of the tank and saddlebags. The chrome gleams with the promise of the open road. It’s a beautiful machine.
“Wow,” I say. “Sweet ride.”
“Thanks.” She takes a deep breath. “It’s a Road Glide Special touring bike, with a Milwaukie-Eight 114 V-twin engine. I can go to the horizon and back on this baby.” She caresses the handlebar. “I need to get away from here for a while. Going on a little trip.” We stand quietly and she states, “Daniel’s life insurance paid for it.”
“Bessie Stringfield would be proud. I’m glad at least one good thing came out of all this.”
“Me, too.” She looks at me sidelong, then extends her hand. Her grip is firm. “Thanks, Audrey. For catching the killer. Lighting a fire under my lawyer. Saving me from the Big House.”
“You’re welcome. But you didn’t need my help, not really. You were innocent.” I think back to our original conversation in the coffee shop, regarding why people disappear: men because of finances, women because of danger. But the stats don’t reflect the nuances, or the courage it takes to change direction, when that change is undertaken voluntarily.
I’ll miss her, but I respect and admire Claire for her decision. She’ll be back one of these days, and even if she isn’t, just the thought of her crisscrossing the country on her Harley makes me smile.
Claire’s eagerness to start her journey shames me into continuing my own. I set up an appointment to talk to Phoebe.
“This is a comfortable chair,” I say.
“It’s meant to be.” My neighbor and therapist cocks her head and waits.
“We arrested a murderer Friday night.”
Her eyebrows go up. “Indeed?”
I nod. “I knew it was him. But getting him to confess was another matter.”
“Why do you think confession is so important?”
“I didn’t have any evidence.” But that doesn’t really answer her question. And I know she will just keep asking. I struggle for a bit. “We needed to arrest him. And confession makes it easier. So we don’t have to fight him so much later.”
“Why is that?”
“Once he admits what he’s done, some of the resistance goes away. He knows he has to face the truth.”
“And did he stop fighting? Once he had confessed?”
“No.” I remember the coldness of the river. “He tried to kill me.”
Her eyes widen for a split second, but she quickly regains her aplomb. “It seems didn’t succeed.”
“No.”
“Why do you think he tried to kill you? Even after he confessed?”
I snort. “Because he still didn’t want to admit it. Not really. Anyone who knew he’d abused Victoria had to go.” In the end, he couldn’t face the truth about himself; even as he was driven to reveal it. An endless cycle of internal conflict.
Phoebe says, “Sometimes we can’t control who we are. But we can accept it, and work to be better.”
Zoe. The visions. Stepping stones to an unseeable future. A bridge going off into the fog. But I have to take those steps, because if I don’t, I’ll end up like Eric and so many other perps. Doomed to an endless mental cycle of denial and anguish and concealment.
I see a long road ahead. But somewhere in the fog, I hope, I’ll get to the other side of the river.
Safe in my own house, with sunlight
flooding the empty rooms and a view of a freighter navigating the deep river channel, I can face the question I’ve been avoiding for days.
Who did you kill, Zoe?
For once she is silent. I poke at my own hazy recollections.
When the raid went down at the Baxter Building, I had no advance warning. Whether that was an oversight on the part of my handler, or a policy decision by someone higher up, I truly don’t know. The cocaine I’d ingested earlier with Sonny and Blue and Kirstin was singing in my head. The late morning sun wasn’t cheerful; it only illuminated the squalor and smears and accumulated trash. The residents were all sacked out in their rooms sleeping off another night of business and self-poisoning. But even then I’d thought the place was unusually quiet.
I hiked up the stairs to my own room. I heard the footsteps a flight or two below, but didn’t clock them as a follower. The space I’d laid claim to had once been a studio apartment. No place to hide but the closet and I made sure it was empty, per my usual habit. But I forgot to lock the door. And then I swallowed a downer to counteract the coke, so I could get some sleep.
The opposing drugs fought a civil war in my system. My tolerance was far less advanced than the typical user, and I could barely make sense of my surroundings. When Sonny barged in, it was so unexpected I thought he might not be real. He disabused me of that notion soon enough, yanking me up from my bed and slamming me up against the wall. I thought he was going to rape me. Instead, he pulled a wicked blade and held it up for me to see. It glittered in the dirty sunlight.
“I hate cops,” he said.
“What?” I said, struggling to stay in character. To be Zoe, feisty but responsive to the psychological power of a dealer. I forced a giggle. “I’m no cop.”
“Liar.” The back of his hand smashed my cheek, and the back of my head bounced off the wall. Colored lights exploded in my vision. He pressed a forearm against my throat. I scratched his face, tried to knee him in the balls. Then felt the cold plunge of the blade into my upper right chest.
“I got you, pig.” I’d drawn blood on his face, and it dribbled across his teeth as he smiled. Then he punched me again, kicking my back, my gut as I hit the floor. My blood felt warm and liquid as it left my body.
I don’t know why he didn’t kill me. Maybe he thought he had, that I’d bleed out. Or maybe he didn’t want to be known as a cop-killer and suffer all the bad juju that would bring down on his head. Whatever it was, I doubt he had an attack of conscience at the last minute.
I didn’t see him leave, but I knew I was alone. Blinked in and out of awareness. When the shots and shouts began to echo up from the street, I was overcome with terror. Didn’t know what was happening. With the desperation of a wounded animal I crawled to the closet. There was a nasty mattress in there, for the nights when I wanted to hide. And in my drug-and-pain addled state, I knew I didn’t want to be found.
Wadded up some bedding and pressed it to my wound.
Left the door open a crack so I could see.
Heard someone calling Zoe’s name.
In. Out. Grayness. Blackness.
Someone is here, in the room.
Someone is here, on the bed. There’s a knife on the floor next to my hand. Shouts. Shots. Screams. The vision comes, overlaying what I can see of the empty room. I see police. Colleagues. Detective Janke. Detective O’Malley. Narc squad. Talking with Sonny. Exchanging packets of cash. Jokes and feral smiles. I blink. It’s not real. Is it? No. It can’t be. Anger. Disbelief.
I’m alone, aren’t I?
Who is with me? Who is this figure of cooling flesh? What happened?
Just taking care of a little business. Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.
That was the first time I heard Zoe’s voice as something separate from my own internal monologue. Of course, at the time I didn’t realize a splinter of my identity had peeled away from the core. I seemed to drift away from my body, looking down on the humped form beside me. External vision interrupted by flashes of the internal one.
What was happening to me? Something more than coke. And I remembered with languid terror that the downer had come from Sonny, too. Made with God knew what.
If something new had been born from my psyche that day, something else had died. Because after it all went down — the stabbing, the raid, the hospital — I was a different person.
Who did you kill, Zoe?
I gulp, swallow, shudder. Come back to myself, back to the house in Astoria. Look out the windows to the river, blue and beautiful and ever-flowing.
Maybe I don’t want to know the answer.
The house smells like fresh air and newly-mown grass. I’ve opened all the windows. The filmy sheers flutter in the wind. I sit cross-legged on the floor, contractors’ business cards arranged like game of solitaire. The commitment, both monetary and metaphorical, makes my chest constrict.
Move forward, remember?
I choose one, take a deep breath, and punch in the number.
A gruff voice answers. “Joe Ferguson, construction.”
“I have a foundation that needs repair.”
He asks for details, I give them to him. The cracks, the subsidence, the broken slab. I hide nothing, and he takes everything in, arranging to come by in a day or so to see for himself. I hang up, satisfied.
Outside, a heron swoops over the roof of the neighboring house, heading for the river. I can imagine looking out at this view forever. At last, I can imagine making this place my home.
Author’s Note
I hope you enjoyed your sojourn in Astoria with Detective Audrey Lake. I’d be eternally grateful if you’d take a few minutes to leave some stars and/or a review at Amazon or Goodreads. Writers need readers, and reviews are a great way to show your support and spread the word to other folks who might enjoy this story.
If you’re interested in hearing about Audrey’s next adventure, sign up for Case Notes, my free newsletter. You’ll get early notice of the next book plus other tidbits. Thanks for reading and sharing. For more information visit my website at www.nichelleseely.com.
Read on!
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank Kendra Griffin, Kathy Mendt, and Phyllis Neher, my Colorado writing group for their tireless support and marvelous critique. They helped make this book a thousand times better. Thanks also to my mother Norma Seely for showing me first-hand the persistence and dedication it takes to be a writer, and my sister Elia Seely for reading the work over and over again even as she was working on her own novel.
My husband Aaron deserves a trophy of his own for his unfaltering support, his cooking ability, and his willingness to read and comment. Believe me when I say an honest reader’s perspective is just as valuable, maybe more so, as that of another writer.
I wrote this novel during the Covid-19 pandemic, so most of my research was conducted on the Internet by necessity. Apologies for any mistakes.
Lastly, thank you, the reader, for taking a chance on a debut author. I hope you enjoyed meeting Audrey Lake and immersing yourself in the mossy streets of Astoria. To hear about Audrey’s next case, sign up for the Case Notes newsletter here. Or visit my website at www.nichelleseely.com.
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