He opened his hand, and a golden chain with a medal unraveled and pooled next to the picture. He had seen it come away from the boy as they were lowering him into the grave, and he had pocketed it, his mind already jumping ahead to guilt, blame, and consequences.
He wanted a drink so badly, his eyes kept wandering to the fridge where three cold ones were waiting for him. Yet he couldn’t—wouldn’t—take a sip until he had managed to make sense of what had happened and had made a plan, because as things were, Ronald thought, looking around their simple kitchen, they were well and truly screwed.
I’m no child killer. Still, three boys had been grabbed, and one had been murdered. Washington State had the death penalty, and there was no question where the blade of justice would fall. He could very well repeat, We were only told to scare them, like a mantra all the way down the corridor to the electric chair or whatever they were going to use. It wouldn’t matter. People would line up from Seattle to Walla-Walla to cheer their stupid, miserable deaths.
Gilman had made sure they’d thought it was no more than a bit of work on a summer day, no more than putting the fear of the everlasting into some rich kids who’d tell their daddies to pay up and shut up.
He knew they were no child killers, none of them, and the only way it would work was if they all thought it was an accident. They’d keep their silence, and Gilman would have his hit.
Ronald stood up, went to the fridge, and opened it. The beer mocked him, but he grabbed a bottle of cream soda and drained it where he was standing. He was horrified at what had happened and at his part in it. He felt sorry for the kid, sure—no one should die like that—but he had bigger problems of his own now, and his priority was protecting himself and Vincent. Vincent. Ronald took a deep breath in the stifling heat.
There were things that he could and should do, things that would protect them in case the worst happened, things that would allow him to make a deal with the King County prosecutor’s office and keep them both out of the chair—if it came to that.
Ronald had no illusions about why Timothy Gilman had chosen the three of them for the job: they had done similar intimidation work before, didn’t balk at using a little muscle when necessary, and they were cheap. And yet Gilman had been chosen, too—someone had given him a picture of the kid and said, “This one, not the others, just this one.”
Ronald knew where Tim Gilman lived and where he drank his beer. He would follow the man like the shadow of hell that Gilman was and find out who had ordered the hit. Whatever he’d done, that kid’s father must have really pissed off somebody who didn’t forgive or forget.
It would be an early start, and Ronald checked the clock: 2:17 a.m. The ice cream in his bowl had turned into pink goo. He took one bottle of icy cold beer from the fridge and twisted off the cap.
Chapter 41
“Cameron, your lawyer’s here,” Officer Miller said, and John Cameron regarded him through the bars.
He had not received any visitors since he had turned down Detective Madison’s conversation days earlier, and she had not been back. He knew enough from their meetings to know that petulance wasn’t a natural part of her makeup: if she had not visited, it meant she was busy and the case was progressing.
A lawyer—indirectly—was an emissary of Nathan’s.
Cameron stood up and approached the door to his cell.
Officer Miller took a step back. Their 4:00 a.m. walks through the silent jail and Cameron’s yard time in the middle of the night might have become routine, and yet he didn’t let himself get too comfortable and risk being like the trainer who gets mauled by his favorite big cat because he forgot himself and what he was dealing with.
The drumming started straightaway, metal against metal. If the jail had a soul, that was what it sounded like. Officer Miller braced himself against it and escorted his charge out of D Wing.
Nathan Quinn ran a fingertip against the rough grain of the table. The visiting room in KCJC was Spartan, and, like everyone else there, the furniture was serving its own life sentence.
He was wearing a suit and tie for the occasion—the first time since the night in the forest. His client, Quinn knew, couldn’t have cared less one way or the other; however, the job had its duties and its uniform. His client. Quinn did not know what weeks of incarceration had done to John Cameron, how far back into himself he’d had to retreat to survive. Even though Nathan had been expecting this moment for most of his life, he didn’t know how they would navigate what was coming. This was uncharted territory. It was their first meeting since he had uttered the name of Timothy Gilman on television, since Cameron had found out that Quinn knew, and had always known, about his first kill and about its reasons. And it was the first time since Quinn had seen with his own eyes just what Cameron was capable of: the photographs of Harry Salinger’s injuries should not—must not—be seen by a jury. It was Quinn’s job to make sure that the case was pleaded out of court, and he might have just received the best news he’d had for months.
He heard the lock clang open, and he stood up: it was a small thing, but he wanted his friend to see him standing, even if his walking stick was leaning against a chair.
John Cameron walked into the room flanked by two guards and saw Nathan by the table. Cameron blinked: it was maybe the only show of emotion he was ever going to allow himself in KCJC, and the guards missed it. Quinn didn’t. He knew all too well where they were and the boundaries that the drab room imposed on their communications.
He extended his hand. “Mr. Cameron,” he said.
“Counselor,” his friend replied as he shook it, “it’s good to see you back to work.”
“I’m a medical miracle.”
Cameron gave the smallest of smiles. “You certainly are,” he said, and Quinn was aware that his friend was watching him and evaluating the price he had paid in the forest.
A look passed between them, and they both knew that, had Cameron been aware at the time of what Harry Salinger had had in store for Quinn, he would now be facing a charge of murder in the first instead of attempted murder, and Quinn’s job would be that much harder. Not impossible, just trickier.
“I’m still part of the prosecution case against Salinger as a victim and a witness, but I am consulting in the case against you, and our side has had some rather good news today: three independent experts have declared Harry Salinger legally insane.”
“Is that his defense?”
“No,” Quinn replied. “He has pleaded guilty to four counts of murder, one of kidnapping of a minor in the first degree, and two counts of attempted murder.”
“How long will it take for my appeal?”
“The hearing for the bail appeal will be in a few days, and I’m negotiating with Scott Newton about the plea. Salinger’s insanity status is a very bad hit for them, and there’s nothing they can do about it. He absolutely doesn’t want to go to trial with it: their plaintiff would not look good in court.”
“A trial could be a long way away,” Cameron said, and it hung between them as the statement of intent that it was.
If it was going to go to trial, Cameron would have to hang around in jail waiting for more bleach vials to break over his head or perhaps a time-honored “shiv in the showers” assault. Quinn nodded—message received.
“The hearing will be in a few days,” he repeated, his tone terse and allowing no argument. You will manage a few more days in jail, and I promise I will get you out of here. You will not look for trouble or conjure it out of nowhere.
Cameron acknowledged Quinn’s unspoken promise. He would do his best.
There was too much that could not be discussed in a visiting room—the cogs and gears of the Department of Corrections were whirring around them all the time. Still, there was one subject that could not be avoided.
“Your TV appeal,” Cameron said. “Timothy Gilman?”
“Yes,” Quinn replied, and his gaze never left his friend’s. “A violent man who found a suitable death in a hun
ter’s trapping pit.”
“How long have you known?”
“A very long time.”
“You didn’t share that knowledge.”
“No.”
“Until now.”
“Now the case is moving forward.”
Cameron missed nothing. Quinn wasn’t talking in general; there were specifics there—names, facts, and case numbers. “What can you tell me?”
“We might have three names.”
Gilman and his colleagues.
“Three?”
“Two are very recently dead; one is alive.”
It was a dark irony that at the precise moment when they could finally talk about what had happened on August 28, 1985, the restrictions imposed by their surroundings made it seriously inadvisable.
“It’s a start,” Cameron said. “It’s a start.”
To sit there and talk in riddles seemed ludicrous, but no more so than many other aspects of their friendship.
“Do you need anything?” Quinn asked Cameron, aware of how ridiculous the question sounded.
Cameron smiled a crooked smile, and for the first time he looked like himself.
Quinn nodded. “Days,” he said.
As he left the jail from the visitors’ entrance, Quinn made a quick call to his driver, who had been waiting nearby—the regulations being that he could not wait for him in the jail’s parking lot during the visit—and decided that he’d have to go back to driving himself as soon as possible. He’d have to go back to whatever normal was for him ASAP. And for the first time ever in his life he wondered what that was and if it meant anything anymore.
November 1985. Nathan had not gone back to the East Coast after David’s memorial service. He had stayed in Seattle watching over his parents as reality had dimmed to a never-ending wake with neither color nor relief. The police were doing what little they could, and he felt a constant weight on his chest that would not let him breathe.
The Camerons were in the process of selling their house and moving to the Laurelhurst neighborhood. They wanted to create a whole new set of memories for Jack in a place that bore no connection to August 28 and Jackson Pond.
Nathan had volunteered to look after Jack that Saturday afternoon and leave the parents free to pack. It was a glorious fall day, and he was thinking about a movie, ice creams, and a pizza, too, if Jack was hungry.
Jack had seemed to be recovering very well physically—the cuts on his arms and hand were healing; however, neither he nor Jimmy had ever really talked about what had happened in the forest and, watching the slight little boy, Nathan saw slow changes like roots digging into soft earth and the odd flash of rage that Jack—always aware of his parents’ concern—was quick to cover.
After seeing The Goonies, they walked to Pike Place Market and then two floors down to the home of Golden Age Collectibles. Jack seemed to be in good spirits, and Nathan felt like a very young, very ill-equipped parent. More than anything, he felt Jack’s sharp eyes watching him and knowing that he was measuring his every smile and every joke. Their companionable silence was a comfort to both, though, and Nathan wondered for a moment whether he was looking after Jack or vice versa.
The comics in the shop were always a good diversion, and Jack used some loot left over from a birthday to buy a couple of new ones. They both marveled at the price of the collectors’ editions in the glass case and went to pay. Jack’s school’s picture had been splashed all over the newspapers in the last ten weeks, but, whether out of courtesy or genuine ignorance, the clerk ignored him and rang up his purchase without a second look.
It was the first time since August 28 that Nathan had been alone with Jack. Sitting in the Athenian Restaurant at a table in the back—one with a view over the bay—Nathan felt he had to say something, do something, or he might not bear another day. And it was that understanding as he watched Jack slowly demolish his cheesecake that pushed him to speak. Was that why he had offered to take him out today? So that the boy would be alone with him?
“Jack,” he said, trying to keep his voice soft, “you know that you can tell me anything, right?”
It was so awkward that it made him wince, but Jack looked up.
“I mean,” Nathan continued, “if there was anything you couldn’t say to anyone else, you know, about what happened, you could tell me . . .” The words had just burst out, so rough and crude compared to the subtle phrasing Nathan had turned over and over in his mind.
Jack froze.
Nathan wanted to be there to comfort him and protect him in a way he couldn’t with David, and yet his voice shook as he spoke, and the sudden bubble of grief caught him unprepared.
“If there was ever anything you’d like to say about what happened, anything that could help us find the men who did it . . . would you tell me?”
Jack nodded.
“Is there anything?”
Jack shook his head.
“Anything at all?”
Jack shook his head.
Nathan wiped his face with his hands and looked out to the piers and the ferries for a few minutes. Jack let him, and when their eyes met again, he seemed to Nathan impossibly old.
“I’m sorry,” Nathan whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Chapter 42
Alice Madison ran the shower and then stepped under it, washing away mud and the scent of smoke from her skin. She had driven home at dawn and peeled off her clothes. Her shoulder holster was empty, and she missed the familiar weight. Fynn meant well, but there was no way she could grab a few hours of sleep unless she knocked herself out with a sedative. Which, she reflected, after that kind of night, was probably what doctors were giving to each and every former patient of the Walters Institute.
Madison wrapped herself in a towel and lay back on her bed. The uncertain light was chasing the shadows of the magnolia tree on her ceiling. So much death, so much destruction. It seemed there was little that Peter Conway and his crew were not prepared to do. Fred Kamen’s file had painted a terrifying portrait: they worked for anyone who could pay for their services and were driven by twin hungers: greed and cruelty. Thomas Reed had been shot in the chest: they knew he wasn’t their target; it wasn’t mistaken identity. They’d killed him because he was there. He killed him because he was there. Dead Eyes. And he could have shot her, too. One day she would have to ask him why he didn’t. One day there would be a conversation about what had happened last night, and Madison would make sure he knew just how close they had been to Vincent Foley.
She didn’t feel lucky to be alive; she felt ticked off and wired and buzzing with restless energy that had absolutely nothing to do with rest and a good night’s sleep.
Madison threw on some clothes and got back into her car. Her neighborhood, Three Oaks, was slowly waking up to a colorless morning, and she wished for either hard rain or a blue sky. Anything but the pale, washed-out nothing that seemed to drain all the energy out of the world.
CJ’s Eatery on 1st Avenue opened its doors at 7:00 a.m. for the early breakfast crowd, and Madison found a table to herself. She ordered a lox, egg, and onion scramble with toast and a large black coffee and took out her notepad. People around her were beginning their day—some would go to an office nearby; some would spend time in Pike Street Market and enjoy their vacations—and Madison watched their flow as her thoughts arranged themselves and the memories from the previous night slotted themselves into place.
The food was the fuel she needed, and the coffee helped to clear the cobwebs from the lack of sleep; she jotted down everything Vincent Foley had said and filled five pages of notes. When she reread them, it seemed that most of them were questions.
The shift was present and accounted for, and everybody looked like three hours of sleep and too much caffeine. Madison had great hopes for the traffic cams: they must have picked up Conway’s vehicle speeding away from the Walters Institute, and if they were extremely lucky, he wouldn’t know he had been spotted and torch the vehicle.
He
alth and Safety had been crystal clear about processing the building, and there was no way that the Crime Scene Unit would be allowed in to seek trace evidence to link Reed’s murder to Lee’s and Gray’s. It had been too dark on the roof; however, Madison was reasonably sure that the men she had seen were wearing black clothing and probably gloves: there would be no fingerprints from the doors or the fire escape. If the gods were smiling on them, Ballistics might connect the gun that had killed Ronald Gray and Thomas Reed. Then again, there hadn’t been a whole lot of smiles lately.
Madison put in a call to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department to keep the line of communication open and to find out whether any evidence had been recovered at Jerry Wallace’s place. Conway’s crew had had a busy week.
“Nothing much,” Deputy Walbeck said, sounding brisk and capable. Madison heard her flipping through a pile of reports. “The house was clean: no prints, no evidence, locks intact on all entries. They probably saw him through the windows at the back and took him before he could so much as make a peep. Must have kept the back door open.”
“Yes,” Madison said, “I think that’s what happened, too. Any trace evidence from the victim?”
“No, but South Prairie Creek is very close. If they wanted to get rid of a body, they had ways and means. We’ve been searching the banks in both directions.”
Madison thanked the deputy and left her her cell number. Had Jerry Wallace seen Dead Eyes through the glass as she had done, just moments before his death?
Madison saw Kelly approach. Everybody looked tired today, but he also added a twist of sullenness to it that worked better than a KEEP OUT sign.
“You talked to Quinn, right?” he started.
“You were there,” Madison replied.
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