The Death Catchers

by Jennifer Anne Kogler

  Drake grinned, taking his eyes off the road and fixing them on me. “I can’t believe you’d turn on me so quickly. Especially when a pretty girl like you could bat your eyes at the cops and get us both off, no problem.” Drake snapped his fingers.

  Was it my imagination or had Drake Westfall just called me pretty? I almost asked him to say it again, but stopped myself in time. He continued to tease me for being a turncoat until the moment he pulled into my driveway. He got out and lifted my bike out of the bed of the truck.

  “You could have just let me off at your house,” I said. “It’s only about twenty feet away.”

  “Oh no, no. I offered you a ride home. Not partway home.”

  “Well, thank you,” I said.

  “Of course,” he said.

  I stood there with my fifteen-speed as Drake pulled out of the driveway. Before he put the truck into drive, he poked his head out the window once more.

  “I almost forgot … I’ve got something for you at my house. What are you doing later?” Drake asked, as casually as someone might ask a stranger for the time.

  “Later?” Studying you, I thought. What I said, though, was “homework.”

  “Do you want to come by around five? I’ll be back from practice by then.”

  “My mom won’t let me do anything until I’ve proven to her that I’ve finished my homework.” I immediately thought about what a dork I sounded like.

  “Bring your backpack and say you’re getting help on an assignment,” Drake advised, as if he’d done this before.

  “Okay.” I tried to remain calm until Drake was a safe distance away. As soon as he pulled into his garage, though I’m embarrassed to admit it, I jumped off the ground and ran into the house.

  “You win the lottery or somethin’?”

  I looked up, startled. Bizzy had wheeled close to me and was studying my face.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I haven’t seen ya smile like that in a while, Sweet Pea.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I found out some things about Drake. And I’m going over to his house later. He invited me.” Because Mom had been hovering more than usual for the past day, I hadn’t had a chance to talk with Bizzy since I’d last seen Vivienne le Mort. With both Mom and Dad still at work, now was the perfect time.

  “Let’s go into my room and see if we can’t make somethin’ out of it.”

  Bizzy began pressing me on what I’d learned about Drake.

  “So he loves to draw?” she questioned. “And he doesn’t want anyone to know?” She wheeled to the wall and with the purple marker, she put a bullet point and then the word “artist” under Drake’s name.

  “Not quite sure how it fits, Lizzy-Loo, but I got this feelin’ it’s important somehow.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. We stared at the wall. December 15 was less than two weeks away and we didn’t seem to have the right clues.

  “How come only I can see Vivienne, Bizzy?”

  “I’m sure Vivienne doesn’t know you can see her,” Bizzy offered. “You’ve got to remember that us Hands a’ Fate have the blood of Avalon runnin’ through our veins. It must make you able to see her even when she doesn’t want to be seen. Just like we got that particular weakness with regard to the scream of the banshee.”

  “What was Vivienne le Mort doing to him when she touched Drake?” I asked.

  “I’m still not sure what she’s after,” Bizzy said. “But I think it’s high time we found out for certain, don’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For now,” Bizzy said, “you just concentrate on gettin’ ready for your date with Drake … I’ll fill you in later once I figger out exactly what we’re gonna do.”

  “It’s not a date,” I argued. “He just has to give me something.”

  “You say potato, I say french fries,” Bizzy said, winking in my direction. She paused one moment before she let out a string of laughs, one right after the other.

  Drake hadn’t meant it as a date, I was sure of it. But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t secretly hoping Bizzy was right.

  Dialogue

  Maybe I shouldn’t admit this, Mrs. Tweedy, but whenever I have a reading assignment, I secretly cheer when there’s a lot of dialogue because I know it’ll be a faster read. I’m not alone on that front, I bet.

  One thing about real-life dialogue I don’t like is that when it starts, sometimes you can’t stop it. Some conversations are kind of like a big, round boulder on the top of a huge hill. As soon as you nudge the boulder a little, it gets going down the hill with so much momentum that there’s nothing you can do except get out of the way. I guess, when you’re mid-dialogue and you don’t want to be anymore, you can get up and walk away, but that’s pretty rude. I’ll tell you one thing, Mrs. Tweedy: when I was at Drake’s house, I’ve never wanted to run away from dialogue more in my life.

  The whole thing started out okay. But if I’d known how it was going to end, I would’ve, to use one of Bizzy’s expressions, “packed up the pets ’n’ particulars and headed for the hills.”

  I felt anxious all afternoon as I thought about going over to Drake’s. I actually went to the pharmacy and picked up some lipstick and mascara. Though I had no idea what I was doing (for the first time, I wished I had an older sister) as I fumbled with the tubes, I covered my lips with goop and wanded my eyelashes until they looked good and crusty. I don’t know if I looked any better, but I certainly looked older.

  Drake’s house was a large stone building with a pointed roof and two pine trees growing in the front yard. I had slipped the mascara and lipstick into my backpack in case I needed a touch-up. It and the impending visit weighed heavily on my shoulders as I stood on the Westfall porch and knocked. Mrs. Westfall answered. “Lizzy Mortimer! It’s so nice to see you,” she said, wiping her hands on the front of her red-checkered apron. “Drake said you’d be dropping by this evening. Go on up to his room,” Mrs. Westfall said, ushering me in.

  I took the stairs one at a time.

  The farther I climbed, the closer I got to Drake, and the more the fateful writing on my hand burned.

  Drake’s room was different from what I expected. Though his water polo team pictures hung above his bed, he didn’t have much else in the way of sports memorabilia. In the opposite corner rested a red and white Fender guitar and the multicolored kite Jodi and I’d seen him flying at Cedar Tree Park.

  There were two large posters hanging on his walls. One pictured the members of the Clash, in yellow and black tones, announcing the band’s concert at the Palladium in 1979. On the wall next to Drake’s window, there was a print of a painting that looked like it was from the Renaissance with a gathering of men in bright togas in a large domed cathedral. Drake had his back to me, wearing his headphones and staring at his computer.

  “Hey,” I said.

  Drake spun around and followed my eyes to the poster. He removed his headphones and got up. I set my backpack down by the doorway.

  “Do you know that painting?” he asked.

  “No,” I said as I stepped toward it.

  “It’s called The School of Athens. Most of the famous Greek philosophers are pictured in it,” Drake said, moving to the wall. “That’s Socrates, I think, and there’s Plato.” Drake had pointed at two of the bearded men in the center of the painting.

  “Lizzard-Breath! Long time no see.”

  Drake and I both turned in the direction of the voice. Drake’s older half brother, Damon, stood in the doorway, smirking. Damon was bigger and thicker than Drake. His left arm was covered with tattoos. He always wore an off-kilter Oregon State hat over his bushy black hair.

  “Hey, Damon,” I said, trying not to show my annoyance.

  “It’s been too long. No, wait … it hasn’t,” Damon said, smiling obnoxiously.

  “Go away,” Drake said.

  Damon looked at both of us as if he were watching a very amusing scene from a movie. It took all the self-control I had not to reac
h over and slap him in the face. I’m not one of those people who spends a lot of time disliking others, but I don’t mind admitting that I’ve spent some time hating Damon.

  I have my reasons.

  First of all, there is his nickname for me, “Lizzard-Breath,” which actually may be too unimaginative to be truly hate worthy. Though I hadn’t really been at Drake’s house in a long time, when we were little I would come over and Damon would always call me by that nickname.

  Worse than that, Damon had a cruel streak. At the last birthday party I attended for Drake years ago, Damon came into the living room, reeking of cigarettes. He plopped on the couch right in the middle of the party. In front of everyone, he asked me if they’d let me out of the kennel especially for Drake’s birthday.

  Some of Drake’s other friends laughed. Drake just looked embarrassed and told Damon to shut up. I was pretty young at the time and had no idea what kennel meant until I looked it up in the dictionary that night: “a small shelter for a dog.” When I read the definition, I felt tears swelling, ready to well up into my eyes and spill out.

  I know it was a long time ago, but let’s just say that if I ever have a death-specter about Damon Westfall, I’d have to think twice about saving him. Of course since I couldn’t care less about him, that probably would never happen.

  We all stood in Drake’s room. Drake glanced at his brother, then at me, then walked over to the door and pushed it shut right in Damon’s face.

  “Sure. You two probably want a little privacy,” Damon shouted through the closed door. “But remember that Mom could walk in any minute, lover boy.”

  I knew I was turning red. Drake just rolled his eyes and sat back down in his chair. He swiveled in it so that he was facing me. His hair was still wet from water polo practice and he smelled like soap and chlorine.

  “Don’t pay any attention to him,” Drake said without looking at me.

  “Sorry for sneaking up on you, but your mom let me in.”

  “You can sneak up on me anytime, Lizzy,” Drake said. The warmth Damon had sucked out of Drake’s voice was back.

  I grew nervous. “So, are you a big kite flyer?” I asked, trying not to show it as I pointed to the triangular kite in the corner.

  Drake picked up the kite. He sat on the bed next to it. He nudged the rolling chair toward me. I sat down. Drake’s eyes were brilliant blue in the dim light of his room.

  “Have you ever flown a kite?”

  “No,” I said. “But you have. Jodi and I saw you flying that kite at the park with Roger Riley.”

  “You were spying on me?” Drake asked. Quaking, I honestly thought we’d been discovered. But then Drake laughed, displaying his dimples, and I realized he wasn’t serious.

  “The park’s a pretty public place,” I fired back.

  “I’m kidding,” Drake said. “Roger wanted me to teach him. Do you know Roger at all?”

  “Only what other people say about him.”

  “Everyone gives him a hard time, but he’s a good kid.”

  “Well, you must be a decent teacher. By the end of your lesson, we saw Roger doing some pretty fancy tricks.”

  The side of Drake’s mouth crept up his face. “Maybe it’s a pretty lame thing to do.”

  “It’s just different.”

  “Well, it reminds me of fishing, except it’s more collaborative. At the end of the day, you’re not trying to kill the kite like you are the fish. Once you get the kite flying, you feel its pull on the other end of the line and all you have to do is pay attention and react and the kite should theoretically stay up until there isn’t any wind left to carry it. It’s peaceful, if that makes any sense at all.”

  “It does,” I said. Drake looked at me like he was memorizing my face. I grew self-conscious, but I also felt strangely at ease with Drake. It was like we’d known each other really well in the past and were getting reacquainted after a long time apart. Drake grabbed a small black rectangular object off his desk and held it in his palm. He flipped it open with his thumb. A flame ignited from within the small box.

  “Is that a lighter?”

  “Yeah,” Drake said.

  “You smoke?” I questioned.

  “No. It’s an antique. It belonged to my grandfather during World War II. See?” Drake held out the lighter for me to inspect. It was covered in a rough black material. At the bottom of it, someone had carved in the letters WAW. “Those are his initials,” Drake explained.

  “It’s neat,” I said.

  “My grandfather was a war hero. He said this lighter was responsible for keeping him alive during the Battle of the Bulge. He gave it to me a few years ago, before he passed away. I carry it around with me for luck … it makes me feel better somehow.”

  “People say death is a part of life, but I think it makes a lot of sense to have something to remind you of all the memories you have of a person who’s gone.” Drake flipped the cover of the lighter up and then flicked his wrist and it clacked shut. “Do you miss him?”

  “Yeah. You’re really close with your grandmother, aren’t you?”

  “Definitely. Bizzy’s a bit of a kook, but she’s got this perspective on things that makes you think and laugh all at the same time,” I said. Drake continued lifting the cover of the lighter and closing it.

  “So that’s where you get it from,” Drake said. “Does your grandmother ask as many questions as you do?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, wondering if Drake was insulting me.

  “I’ve just never met anyone who asks so many questions,” he said.

  “Well, it’s amazing what you can find out about a person if you ask the right things,” I said. “People are pretty interesting if you take the time to figure them out.”

  I thought about how much I’d learned about other people by paying attention in the past few days. For instance, I’d learned that Dad always put two heaping spoonfuls of sugar in his coffee at home, but when we were at restaurants, he ordered it black. I now knew that Mom put her hand on Dad’s shoulder when she wanted him to do something in the yard. I noticed that Jodi always played with the left side of her hair when she was nervous, and the right side when she was excited about something. I’d realized Mrs. Bowman never talked about Mr. Bowman and would change the subject if you brought him up and instead talk about her two pugs, Bert and Ernie.

  “Oh? And what have you figured out about me, Lizzy?”

  “For one, you’re a lot different than people think you are,” I said, afraid to look at him.

  “So are you.” Drake put his long legs on the ground and leaned closer to me, his torso bridging the distance between us. I gripped the arms of the rolling chair, willing myself to sit still.

  “Are you wearing makeup?” Drake asked.

  “No,” I said defensively, startled.

  “I wasn’t criticizing. It looks nice,” Drake said, pulling his body back. “You look good without it, too.” Embarrassed, I racked my brain for a new subject.

  “Why is Damon home?”

  Drake’s half brother had packed up to begin his junior year at Oregon State last summer. Watching from our driveway, I, of course, was delighted to see him go. But it was still a little early for him to be home for winter break.

  “He got kicked out of school,” Drake said. Perhaps I hadn’t picked the best subject change.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Part of me wanted to reach out and grab his hand. Maybe all of me did.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Drake said, raising his voice a little. “Damon’s always been a screwup. Now that he’s home all the time, my parents are crazier than ever,” he said.

  “Has your mom handed out any books to strangers lately?” I asked. “Trust me, your parents aren’t any weirder than anyone else’s—even with Damon home.”

  Knock. Knock.

  Drake’s mouth was half-open when the knock came at the door, but he closed it as soon as he heard the noise. Mrs. Westfall poked her head in the roo
m.

  “Your grandma just called,” she said. Her smile was disarmingly wide and bright, just like Drake’s. “She has to run and help a friend tonight … so I told her we’d have you stay for dinner. Sound okay?”

  “Oh … okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “I figured you were too smart to pass up my meat loaf,” Mrs. Westfall responded. “We’ll eat in about twenty minutes.” She left the door a crack open.

  Bizzy had struck again. She’d obviously wanted me to spend more time inside the Westfall household. She really was a master at manipulation.

  “Before I forget,” Drake said. He got up from his bed and picked up a CD off his desk. He handed it to me. “I figured if you like the Dance Hall Crashers, then you need to go back to where it all started with the Selecter. I put some other 2 Tone stuff on there. Mostly British second wave … what inspired things over here.”

  I stared at the CD in my hands. Drake had written “Songs for Lizzy” in large letters and then under that “From Drake.”

  “Thank you,” I said. No one had ever made a mix for me before. Or anything else, really.

  “I hope you like it.”

  As we headed down the stairs to the dining room, I told Drake I needed to wash up before dinner. Once I was back upstairs, I closed the door to the bathroom that Drake and Damon shared. It smelled like boy and it was not very clean. I was washing my hands when I noticed a stack of magazines in the corner by the shower. Almost as if Bizzy was whispering in my ear to investigate further, I picked one up.

  Hot Wheels. The same magazine as the one I’d taken from the tent in the cannery. I dropped it quickly and straightened the stack. Bizzy had told me to write any important discoveries down, but I was sure I’d remember this one.

  I bolted downstairs for dinner, my mind racing.

  Cacophony

  Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m never going to win an award based on my dazzling memory. Things like vocab quizzes and geography tests aren’t, as Bizzy would say, my “strong suit.” Maybe you already know all this, Mrs. Tweedy. But one thing I really liked about this past semester is that you always gave examples for the words we were going to be tested on. It helped my memory lapses tremendously. That’s why I’ll always remember “cacophony.” You said that it was two sounds that didn’t go together at all—like the caw of a crow and the meow of a cat.