by Bill Cameron
“She’s stronger than me, Kadash. She’s stronger than anyone I’ve ever known.”
Susan nods at me. She wants me to keep going. I turn around. Mitch is staring at me now, his eyes fixed on my own. I shift in the chair.
“I want to tell you about what happened on the porch.”
Stay off of the porch. I smile, turn my hands over. “The thing is, Mitch, everyone saw what happened on the porch. What we need to know is what happened in the kitchen.”
It takes him a minute. “I wasn’t there.”
“But you have to know—”
“Kadash, I shot the kid on purpose. I’m sorry now, but I did. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know if I believe him. I think back to the moment when Mitch stepped out the front door, the piddly little gun in his hand. He looked scared, confused, like a man who went to sleep in a feather bed and woke up in a nest of spiders. I can’t believe he looked out at the scene before him, the cops, the barricades, the helicopters overhead, and even noticed Eager, let alone targeted him.
“Come on, man. Don’t be ridiculous—”
“I’m not.” The heart monitor is ticking up again, 105 ... 109 ... I can see his blood pressure fluttering too. Sweat glistens on his cheeks and forehead. “She loves him, Kadash. She doesn’t love me. She loves him.”
... kinda has a thing for my stepmom ...
“It’s always him she turns to. I’m never anything but part of her disguise. She loves that stupid kid. I’m just an afterthought.” 111 ... 114 ... His chest starts to jump.
I hear movement at the door, and I know Seres is on his way to shut me down. I need more. Stay off the porch.
Fuck it.
“Mitch, was Eager there earlier, before everything happened?”
“Not Eager. Not at first.”
“Who was there at first?”
“I don’t know who they were.”
“Danny’s grandfather? Can you tell me who he is?”
“I don’t know.”
126 ... 127 ... 132 ...
“But you’ve known Eager since before he tagged your door, haven’t you?”
His eyes look troubled for a moment, but then he nods.
“What did you want me to do when you asked me to look for the tagger?”
“Arrest him.”
I’m not a cop, I almost say. His answer is nonsense, and he knows it.
“You wanted me to scare him off, something like that?”
He doesn’t answer, which is answer enough.
“Tell me about this morning.” Susan is at my back, her hand on the back of my chair. “How did Eager end up there?”
“She called him.”
“Luellen called him? On the phone? How?”
“On his cell.”
I find myself rubbing my eyes. “Where did Eager Gillespie get a cell phone?” Though I assume he stole it.
“She never tells me anything.”
Then Seres is next to me. “That’ll be enough. I need you both to leave now.”
I turn to him. “Wait, just a couple more questions—”
“I said now, and I mean it.” 140 ... 142 ...
Susan pulls me away. I can hear voices out in the corridor, but I can’t make them out. People in scrubs have clustered around Mitch’s bed—Seres, nurses. I can hear a sound now, beeping, the beeping of Mitch’s heart monitor. I’m not sure why I couldn’t hear it before, maybe it had to cross some threshold. Susan leads me out through the door. I almost walk through Jessup. She glares up at me, her eyes black. Moose and Frannie are there too, but they won’t look at me. “Skin, let’s talk this through.” Susan’s voice is a question, Jessup’s a reprimand. “I was rather hoping you wouldn’t fuck this up, Kadash.” Seres pushes through us, a nurse in his wake. Jessup plants herself in front of me, arms across her chest, hip thrown out in pose I imagine she uses on stage. She opens her mouth, but I cut her off. “I don’t work for you anymore.” Then I spin away from all of them, head for the elevator. Susan is right behind me, still talking, but she’s little more than a buzzing in my ears. All I can hear is the beeping, 143 ... 145..., and the echo of Mitch’s voice. Mitch, my annoying, idiot neighbor.
She loves that stupid kid. I’m just an afterthought.
I stop at the elevator doors, punch the call button. Susan stops beside me. I look at her sideways, angry, frustrated. Feeling useless and empty. It was never about Jase, about one of those lopsided teenage relationships, younger kid looking up to the older. Jase was just an excuse, a reason for Eager to hang around. He put up with Jase so he could be near her.
I don’t look at her, speak into the elevator doors. “Susan, you think maybe you can put some effort into finding Eager now?”
November 14, Overnight
Shadow Slinking
Shadow paid no attention to the sleet. It had been unseasonably warm for the whole shallow depth of his recollection, a circumstance he also failed to note. Now, the cold and wet soaked him to the skin, but he ignored the bitter itch crawling up his biceps and thighs. He walked along a road in a county he couldn’t name, near a town he’d never heard of. The sky overhead was swirling and bright despite the late hour. A word came to mind, a word from the time before memory. Skyglow. Somewhere, somewhen, in a group of people whose faces eluded him a man spoke of the stars and skyglow. Skyglow hid the stars, the man’s voice said from beyond a curtain of mist. Tonight the clouds hid them too, clouds illuminated by skyglow. From behind the curtain the man’s voice spoke as if skyglow was something to dislike, but the sleet fell from a shiny mackerel sky, and Shadow smiled.
Skyglow, skyglow. “S-s-s ...” He could say it, he knew he could say it. But he didn’t need to. “S-s-s ...” Skyglow came from cities, the voice told him suddenly. He could say that too. “City.” A word swallowed by the sounds of sleet. The word surprised him, stumbling from his mouth so readily, but he didn’t know why. Something was different about it. “S-s-s-see ... See city.” He blinked and walked and hummed a sing-song tune. “City see, see city, city city skyglow.”
Something.
He stopped. Stopped on the road and looked all around. The road was empty and long, with wide fields on either side. He remembered fields, fields not so flat as these. Fields of grain on rolling hills huddled below steep rises and mountain crags. Fields growing out the of mist. Far ahead, in the darkness beneath the glowing sky he saw a light. Not skyglow, not starlight. A yellow-gold gleam, a point of glowing silence in the night.
Shadow smiled and continued on his way, slogging through the sleet toward the light. His legs and arms itched. He was a moth in the night, moving toward and away from something. Sometimes the mist gave him a glimpse that meant nothing to him of where and who. A woman with dark hair. He saw her on the bike, spoke, called out of the darkness. But she shouted and snapped. Maybe she couldn’t see his smile. Wasn’t he smiling? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember the woman with dark hair.
Shouting? Snapping?
The images boiled in the darkness and made no sense. But the light drew him forward until he found himself standing in front of a house. Dark house under a bright sky, small round light glowing like the sun, a teeny-tiny sun, next to a door.
He slipped through the darkness, slipped through the door. It opened under his hand as though that was what a hand was for. The room beyond was a cavern of shadow, an extension of himself. He felt his way along, surprised by warmth. Shivering; he’d been shivering but now he felt snug. The room smelled salty. He ran his hands over countertops without knowing what they were, felt metal and plastic. A single spot of orange blinked in the darkness. He put his finger over it, hid the tiny light. It came from a pot on the counter, surface warm. Not on the stove. He knew the word, stove, and this was something else. He felt with his hands, lifted the lid and heard the simmering sound. Salty steam flooded the room and his stomach spoke.
“S-s-starving.” He knew the word. “Star
ving.” He blinked. He could see, a little, here and there. Shapes formed in the shadows, extensions of himself. Canisters on the counter, a sack of bread. The pot simmering, filled with soup. “Soup.” He didn’t have a thought. He opened the sack and took a slice of bread, dipped it in the soup. Savored the salty broth. His stomach spoke and he smiled, swallowed stew-soaked bread. Saw the spoon, a long wooden spoon. “S-s-spoon.” He stirred the soup and sipped from the spoon, scooped and swallowed. Salt pork and string beans. He ate spoonful after spoonful, swallowed until his stomach stopped speaking, swallowed until he heard the sound.
Then he stopped.
The room was brighter now as his eyes found light he hadn’t noticed before. The sound came from another room, a stirring, a shuffling. He set down the spoon and followed the sound in the shadows. Sound in the mist. “Shhhh ...” Shadow, slinking in the darkness. The mist opened before him and he remembered a face, two faces. Angry, screaming faces. Shooting, shooting. Shotgun shooting. He blinked and the mist closed in again and he found himself in another room. Soft chairs and sofa. A room he remembered from a dark place beyond the mist. This room? Like this room?
The sound, the stirring. A tip-tap in the dark drew his eyes down to the floor. Two gleams gazed back. Eyes, he saw them as eyes. They were eyes, eyes gleaming out of a shadow, extension of himself. He blinked and the shadow coalesced into a shape. A short, shimmying shape. He kneeled down and the shape slipped up to him.
A dog. He didn’t know the word, but he recognized the shape. Small and round with frizzy fur. It shimmied and shook and when he reached out his hand it licked his fingers. He smiled and scratched the dog’s chin, then heard a sound out of the darkness as it wiggled some more. Laughter, laughing. The sound was laughter. Shadow was laughing. The dog sidled up and pressed against his cold wet leg, its body alive and aquiver. He laughed and scratched and the dog’s tail wagged.
“Silly, silly ...”
Smiling Shadow, sated with soup. He didn’t know the sensation, didn’t recognize the simple pleasure of a quiet moment with a creature pleased with his companionship. He only knew the voices and faces that slid out of the mist. But as he scratched the dog, contented, the mist closed in and surrounded him with silence. Sweet silence he hoped would never end.
But end it did, suddenly, with screaming.
November 15
Woman Escapes Prowler By Fleeing House
AURORA, OR: Melody Palmer of Aurora escaped a prowler last night who entered her house while she slept. There was no sign of forced entry, leading police to speculate that Mrs. Palmer had left a door unlocked.
Mrs. Palmer reported being awakened by a sound she believed to be her dog, a miniature poodle prone to epileptic seizures. She went downstairs to check on the dog and encountered the intruder, whom she described as 5’6” to 5’8” with dark skin and wearing a cloth wrapped around his head, which Mrs. Palmer described as a “turban.” The man reportedly threatened her and she fled through the back door. She ran to a neighbor’s house, who called the police.
The intruder had fled by the time police arrived. Nothing of value was stolen, though police confirmed the presence of wet footprints in the living room and kitchen. Area residents reported seeing a stranger in the vicinity earlier that day who fit the description given by Mrs. Palmer. Police continue to investigate.
Three Years, Three Months Before
Drop Everything
Sometimes you just have to drop everything and go.
Theirs was an unlikely bond, Ellie and Luellen, two girls too different to be anything but friends, too similar to recognize the gulf between themselves. Country girl and townie, one whose future stretched no further than her own reflected gaze in the bathroom mirror, the other whose path roamed to the limits of her imagination. As the yearswore on, they saw each other less and less often, but it wasn’t until Luellen fled the valley that Ellie came to recognize her relationship with Luellen as a kind of sanctuary. In her friend’s absence, her life grew increasingly bounded by the inescapable disquiet she felt when Stuart returned home drunk and insistent.
Two months after the first, a second note arrived from Portland, a single short paragraph:
I’m still finding my way. This address is for a mailing center. I’ve rented a box so you can write back. As I move around, I don’t want to miss any of your letters.
Ellie needed a week to gather the courage to write to Luellen about her parents’ deaths. The response was so long coming Ellie feared Luellen might never write again.
I killed them, same as if I was driving that car myself. I waited too long to write and tell them I was okay.
Ellie wished things were different. In dribs and laser-printed drabs, Luellen admitted she wished things were different too. Details trickled in over the subsequent months, but there was no further talk of her parents or of life back in Givern Valley. Only snatches of a new life far away. She asked Ellie to burn her notes after she read them.
I’ve moved again. Things are complicated, but I’m hoping they settle down soon.
Then, a few weeks later ...
I start a job this week. It’s nothing much, answering phones and setting appointments for a small clinic, but it’s enough to help me get by.
The longest arrived right before Christmas.
I’ve rented a room in a house near a city park called Mount Tabor. I guess it was a volcano once, but now it’s covered with trees and paths and playgrounds. I like to climb to the top and sit next to this statue of a grumpy-looking old guy. I like him. People ride their bikes and walk their dogs. The whole city is laid all around you, and on clear days you can see all the way to Mount Hood. It’s beautiful. I wish you could see it.
Ellie replied, Maybe someday I will. She didn’t believe her own words. Yet now she was here in Portland, free of her cage at last. Until she saw Hiram’s man outside the Ship Shop.
Doesn’t he understand I’m not who I am? Portland Ellie, not Givern Ellie. Givern Ellie died on a railroad bridge in a dark corner of nowhere.
She couldn’t quite remember the man’s name. Ed something, last name started with a G. He’d been a county deputy until he was run out of the department for offenses rumored to include everything from drunk driving to assault and extortion. After that he served as one of the Hiram’s hired apes. Ellie had never spoken with him, though she remembered a time when he’d pulled the pickup over. It was shortly after she and Stuart were married, and as always Stuart was driving too fast. But Deputy G didn’t write a ticket. He and Stuart leaned against the tailgate and spoke in hushed tones. Ellie sat alone in the cab and wondered what the two had to talk about. All Stuart would say was what a shame it was the man’s wife refused to live in Givern, and then up and left him anyway after he agreed to commute from K-Falls.
She rose from the bench and headed for the café. People would be there, city people, Portland people, people slurping milk foam from the surface of their lattes as they read the paper or surfed the internet on their laptops. Two short blocks to safety, a brief stroll on any other rainy day. She felt isolated and exposed as she moved past the windowless brick wall at her side. She glanced over her shoulder, eyes flicking up and down the street. And hesitated.
The man was gone.
Ellie reached out to the wall beside her, but found no reassurance in the cool touch of brick and mortar. She drew a breath and tried to convince herself she’d imagined things. Weariness and anxiety after a long trip and a short night had deceived her, transformed a stranger into Hiram’s deputy. Then, she simply missed seeing hi go. He probably had no interest in her personally, just some guy staring at her breasts. All that pudding. Even Reverend Wilburn— him on the downhill tumble past sixty—paid more heed to her chest than her face when he lectured her.
But what if she was wrong?
Be smart, Pastor Sanders had told her. Go quiet. The smart response was to assume he was here for her, and that meant she had to get out of sight. If Luellen came for her mail, Ellie
would miss her, but that was better than being caught by Hiram’s man.
She started moving again, eyes sliding up and down the empty street. Near the corner she came to a solid wooden door with worn plastic letters affixed beside the lock. MACHI E WORKS— NO S LICITING. She tried the knob, but it only vibrated under her touch. When she knocked, the sound was so hollow it threw a shiver through her. She darted through the crosswalk without waiting for an answer.
There was too little traffic, no one on foot. Ellie almost wished the woman with the spongy hips was still around. Or that boy on the skateboard. Someone to notice if Hiram’s man reappeared. She passed a knickknack shop and a martial arts studio, a specialty pet supply store across the street. Used furniture. Hand thrown pottery. Wine and cheese. Doors were locked, interiors still and dark. Signs in the windows indicated business hours starting later in the day. The other direction, a couple of blocks back, there was a convenience store, but she didn’t want to retrace her steps. She continued on, crossed at the next corner, then paused outside an auto shop. Through a half-open window she could hear activity: the rattle of a pneumatic wrench, the tinny whine of talk radio. She looked through the glass door, hopeful. But the face behind the counter chilled her. Blue striped shirt over a barrel chest, embroidered name Dutch over the left pocket. Razor stubble and a crew cut. Deputy G had a crew cut too.
What could she say? “Someone is following me.”
“I don’t see nobody.” He’d probably grin and direct his voice to her pudding.
The auto shop was separated from the café by a narrow parking lot surrounded by a black, wrought iron fence. A dozen paces further, no more. She hesitated at the open gate leading into the lot, scanning for movement. A car went past on Hawthorne, moving quickly, driver’s eyes fixed ahead. The lot was half full of cars and trucks with crumpled hoods, dented fenders, shattered glass. The long, cinder block wall of the coffee shop facing the lot had only a few windows of frosted industrial glass. She saw no one, continued on. Ten paces more. Six. Before she could clear the open gate, a hand clamped onto her upper arm. She gasped, twisted, dug in her heels. The grip was too strong. She looked up into Deputy G’s great round face. Mountain air and growth hormone.