by Bill Cameron
She smiles, tight and bitter. “Just seemed like a good idea at the time.” She strokes my forehead, a mother’s gesture. “It’s all so complicated.”
Isn’t everything?
“Mitch came home from work with something his firm was doing. Pro bono work for an environmental advocacy group. It was no big deal. He does a lot of that sort of thing and usually I don’t pay much attention. But he left a stack of papers sitting on the kitchen table and something caught my eye. My father’s name.”
“What did your father have to do with environmental advocacy?”
“My family has a lot of land, thousands of acres in Givern Valley, a lot of it wetlands. One of the things Mitch’s client did was facilitate land swaps between private owners and the Bureau of Land Management, or with the Nature Conservancy, groups like that. The goal is to move threatened habitat into protection. My father’s name was on a memo, one of a list of people who had been approached by this organization. Federal policy has been shifting in recent years to be more favorable to private land owners and I guess environmental groups are trying to get more land under protection before policy makes it too difficult to arrange affordable deals. I don’t know the specifics, but this group had approached my father and made an offer for his wetlands, but he wasn’t interested. According to the memo, they were working on better offers for the listed land owners who resisted their initial overtures.”
“And you called him about it.”
“How did you know?”
“That woman, she was your sister, right? She said she heard her father talking to you about Danny.”
Her expression darkens, a confirmation. I wait, too weak to push her on the matter. She doesn’t make me wait long.
“I was calling him to tell him I would make the deal.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When I left, he gave me the land. Everything, to protect it.”
“And no one knows.”
She nods. “If anyone looks hard enough, they can find out. Officially he sold the land to a holding company with layers of lawyers to hide my interest, and then leased it back. The details aren’t important. The point is he couldn’t make any deals without my signature. So I called to tell him it was okay. He should take whatever they offered so long as it was enough for him to retire. If there was anything left for Danny, that was fine. But the point was I didn’t care about the land. I live here now. I have a new life. I’m married to a man whose values are very different from the values of the place I came from. I wanted to be free.”
“How did your father feel about it?”
“He hated the idea of the Kern homestead going to dirt worshippers.”
“But you told him to sell anyway.”
“The whole world is changing around us. If I can’t save the life my father lives, maybe I can at least keep Hiram Spaneker from taking it away from him.”
From what little I’d seen of him, it was hard to argue. I force a nod past the pain. “But Myra had an opinion on the matter.”
“You’ve seen her.” She gestures toward the body. “One of the reasons my father gave it all to me was to keep it out of her hands.” She looks away from me, her eyes welling up. “She killed him, I believe. Someone did. I saw a news story online a day or so after the last time he and I spoke.”
That’s easy to believe. If not her, then Big Ed with her help.
“What was supposed to happen up here?”
“Hiram said he would trade Danny for the Kern land.” She draws a breath. “I knew better than that though.”
“You were going to kill him.”
“The threat against my family needed to end.”
I’m not sure what to make of this young woman beside me. For all her evident regret, she exudes a degree of conviction I’ve never known myself. I have no way of comprehending what she’s been through to bring her to this end. So determined, so focused. Danny, a boy who wasn’t even her blood, yet who she would protect unto death.
She turns to me. “What are you going to tell the police?”
“I plan to die during questioning.”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you turned me in. And so long as Danny is safe, I don’t care.”
I take my time responding. In one sense, I’ve already answered. I answered when I took the gun from Eager, when I waded into the storm. I answered when I put Myra down like a rabid dog. I answered when I let the stranger take the gun and leave. After all that, was I going to up and turn over this young woman for the crime of protecting the child she loves?
“Near as I could see, Lu, that old fellow and his henchman were trying to steal your boy. The police might take issue with you going solo, but they’ll get over it. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve done nothing wrong.”
She drops her head. I feel the heavy shake of her sobs. I try to raise an arm to comfort her. After a moment, she speaks into my jacket. “Do you think he’ll be okay?”
“Who?”
“Eager.”
I don’t want to tell her what I’m sure is true.
“I told him to go to the hospital, but he wouldn’t and I was too focused on Danny to insist.”
“Eager wouldn’t have listened if you had.”
“He got hurt because of me. And now he’s dead, isn’t he?”
A shadow seems to cross over her face. I wish there was some comfort I could offer her. All I have feels like thin gruel. “He wanted to protect you.”
“He always has, since the day we met.”
“Three years ago.”
“At first, he thought I was the one who died up here that day. A couple of weeks later, when he saw me with Danny, I realized what I had to do. Who I had to be.”
“And he helped you.”
“Do you think he’ll be okay?”
I’m not sure what she’s asking me. I’m not a religious man, and if she is herself, it’s a side of her I’ve never seen. Mitch’s religion always seemed to be the Church of Mitch, but there was obviously more at work in that house across from my own than I’ve ever understood. I stare into the darkness, uncertain and in pain. Afraid I don’t know the right thing to say. Ruby Jane would know. My Ruby Jane. But she isn’t here, and it’s just me, battered and gut-shot, and now a felon in my own right. Am I being asked to judge whether Eager will find his way to heaven or hell? How can I even know? But I understand now all he cared about was Luellen. Ellie. This young woman. “He loved you.” My voice sounds more hesitant than my intent, but I can see in her eyes her recognition of the truth in my words. “I think he’s fine, Luellen. Maybe for the first time in years.”
Fresh tears fall, joining the rain on her cheeks and flashing blue and red in the darkness. For a moment the sight confuses me, and I think it’s a trick of my own fading consciousness. What’s next, a tunnel of light? I chuckle, surprised it doesn’t hurt too bad. One more sign I’m dying, I guess. I look into the sky, which has grown brighter. The branches of the fir trees and Harvey’s Scott’s arm stand out in stark relief against a breathing grey flood. Through shreds in the clouds I catch a glimpse of Orion’s Belt. The cold flutters against my face like tatters of lace. An unlikely snow in Portland in November. Yet I know the snow sometimes kisses the hilltops while down in the flats below we are granted only the numbing, indifferent rain. The lights continue to flash and I rotate my head, slowly, weakly, then laugh again. Not the tunnel of light after all.
Just a patrol car.
November 19 - 5:22 pm
Find What You Find
Swirling faces in the blue and red light, some I recognize, many I don’t. Michael Masliah, Sergeant Kuhl. EMTs swarm over me like flies. Masliah gazes down at me with sad-eyed pity before he gently leads Luellen and Danny to his car. Kuhl looks like he wants to spit on me, as if a button in the belly is less than I deserve. Maybe he’s right. The pain in my stomach is so great I feel nothing when they insert the IV. I do feel something when the first compress is packed into my wound. “Can you hear me,
sir? Can you hear me?” Jesus, yes. “Can you hear me?” Yes, goddammit. But I’m talking only in my head. “Sir, sir?” A light flashes in my eyes. “What? I you.” Then there’s Susan. I don’t see her arrive. “Okay, sir, we’re going to lift you, okay?” She’s just there, materialized like a phantom, stalking at the perimeter of the scene, scowling at the bodies. She doesn’t even know who these people are yet, Myra the tweaker, George the Flea. Only the name Big Ed Gillespie will mean anything to her, though knowing it won’t help her frame of mind. But her expression softens when she gets to Luellen, who sits clutching Danny against her chest in the back of Masliah’s car.
Then she sees me.
The EMTs heave me onto a gurney. I want to scream, hold it back. They’re prepping me for transport. Straps and tubes, blood pressure cuff on my arm. I hear a sound, beeping, and wonder about Mitch. Somewhere inside I know there’s little time to waste. I tell them I need to talk to Susan. “Sir, there’s no time. We need to get you moving.” Susan steps forward, promises to make it quick. One of them argues but I cut him short. “If I die en route to the hospital, I’ll be really pissed if you didn’t let me talk to the lieutenant.” I think they’ve given me something for the pain, or maybe Susan is surrounded by some locus of lucidity.
“Take too long and you will die.”
I believe him. My legs are cold and my hands tingling. I don’t care. “Susan, you need to understand something. Luellen was only thinking about Danny. Okay? It was all about making sure Danny was safe.”
“I don’t even know what that means.” Her voice is cold and far away.
“Just believe her when you talk to her, okay?”
“Believe her? What about you? You’re Batman now? What the hell were you thinking?”
The beep continues, all in one ear. Blue and red light flashes to my right. Alcohol vapor stings my nostrils. I don’t have time, or energy, to explain about finding Danny in the yard, about Big Ed’s appearance. “It all went sideways. I did my best.”
She’s pressing her lips tight against her teeth. Her hair is damp with rain. “We found Eager.”
“Is he—?”
“Yes.” She shakes her head. “Jesus, Skin.”
“I would have called you if I could. Check my back deck. You’ll find my phone, smashed. Big Ed’s doing.”
“What would I find if I had Justin Marcille check you for gunshot residue?”
There’s no good answer for a question like that. The fact she’s asking at all tells me she knows exactly what she’d find. “A lot of crazy shit was going down. I guess you’ll find what you find.”
“How about the gun? Will I ever find that?”
Not something I’d want to bet on, either way. If the man with the hole in his head gets away, maybe not. But someone in his condition? Maybe a uniform will come across him, or his body, halfway down the hill or halfway across the state, gun in hand, roaming eye rolling.
She retrieves a pack of Marlboros from her coat pocket. Sometime during the day she crossed a line. Will the cigarettes make it home with her, or will she do what I did for months before I finally quit—buy a pack, smoke one, toss the rest with a pledge to never buy another? Expensive. She throws a sour, defensive look my way as she lights up and jets smoke upward like she wants to obscure the sky. “What are the chances I’ll ever find out what happened up here?”
“A young woman recovered her child, unharmed, from a would-be kidnapper. A psychotic tweaker and a couple of brutal thugs are dead. Fuck it. It’s a win all around for the good guys.”
She’s not happy. In her shoes I wouldn’t be either. The way things developed today, everything that could go wrong for her has. Just as well I’m one foot in the grave. It’s no matter to me enough confusion was wrought even Mitch Bronstein—a man who drew down on a street full of cops—may walk without ever being charged. To the extent justice has been served here atop Mount Tabor, it’s vigilante justice—something no good cop ever wants. A bunch of bad guys are dead and a mother and child are safe, and that’s all well and good, but the whole situation stinks from Susan’s perspective. And me in the middle of it. Former cop, former partner. Batman indeed. I’m supposed to know better than to get hip deep in the shit. But even Susan had to admit sometimes you take what you can get, be it verdict reached at trial or fondue fork in the eye.
I hear her sigh. The energy required for thought is suddenly more than I have. I close my eyes, against my will. I feel myself moving. “Susan?” I turn my head and blink, but she isn’t there. I look from side to side, see only grim-faced paramedics. Hear the tip-tap of the rain. And Charm. Charm Gillespie. Hutchison. Whatever her name is. There she is, rising up out of the darkness into the red and blue light of the patrol cars and the ambulances. When did I speak to her husband? Six hours earlier? She must have driven like her ass was on fire to get here in that time.
She heads right toward me, indifferent to the tubes in my arms and the blood on my shirt. “Where’s my son?”
One of the paramedics tries to front her. I lift my head, the weight of a stone.
“Mrs. Gillespie—”
An arm appears and slows Charm’s advance. “Susan ...” I can’t remember why I should feel grateful she would try to protect me. But Susan isn’t interested in me. I don’t even know if she can see me. “Mrs. Gillespie, you need to understand—”
Charm throws off Susan’s arm. “Damn it, bitch, I know he’s dead. I don’t need any soft focus bullshit out of you. Just take me to him.”
Susan’s shoulders drop, a capitulation built of weariness. I’m sorry for my part in it. She gestures toward the trees rising on the north slope. Charm diverts mid-stride, Susan beside her. Before either take more than a few steps, I croak Charm’s name, try to wave with my IV-stabbed arm. The EMTs are pissed, but I croak again and Charm turns and looks at me.
“Charm.”
Her expression is the familiar sneer she’s worn as long as I’ve known her. “You gonna die too, Detective?”
Probably. It hurts too much to shrug. “How’d you know to come here?”
She just shakes her head like I’m a fucking idiot. “Where the hell else would he be?”
Not Quite Three Years Earlier
I Can Do This
It was the kind of unexpected warm, sunny day that sometimes crops up in late February, a cruel tease before a long, damp spring. The clear air reminded her of the air that blew across her father’s barley in June, and for a moment a cloud seemed to pass in front of the sun. She brushed a loose hair off her face and drew a breath.
I can do this.
She stood on the porch of the new house. Our house, she thought, though the idea seemed foreign to her still. Being part of an our. Mitch claimed the porch would need paint, probably the whole house, and he’d complained about a squeaky board. She walked the porch from end to end, pausing to look through the broad front window into the still empty living room, but all she heard was her own soft footfalls and the high breeze through the trees behind the house across the street. She went to the rail, brushed the cool wood with her fingertips. Our porch rail. Then she felt a presence at her back, and before she could turn, heard Mitch’s voice. “You’re singing again.”
As soon as he spoke, she heard the music in the back of her throat, the song Luellen had hummed over Danny’s stroller that day under Harvey Scott’s dour gaze. She flushed and looked at her hands.
“What are you thinking about, sweets?”
“Nothing.”
“Sure you are. You always sing like that when you think.”
“I had no idea.”
But she did. She’d caught herself humming the tune over Danny’s crib at night, and as he fussed in his stroller when she was first learning his habits. Eager noticed it too.
“Well, does this belong to you?”
She turned. Mitch stood in the wide front doorway, a wiggling Danny in his arms.
“I’m not sure. Does he have a name tag?”
�
�No, but he keeps saying Da. Could that be a name?”
“He might just be agreeable. Where did you find him?”
“Crawling through the kitchen cupboards.”
She held out her arms and Danny reached for her as if she’d always been his. She took him from Mitch and hugged him tight. “You’re so big. Do you belong to me?”
“Da.”
“I think I’ll keep you then.”
Mitch crossed the porch and planted his hands on the rail next to her. It creaked under his weight.
“See?”
“It’s fine.”
“The porch is fine, maybe, but of the ten thousand houses we looked at, why’d you have to pick the one with a dump across the street?”
She hitched Danny onto her hip. The house across the street wasn’t much to look at. Grey siding overdue for paint, a slight slouch to the porch. No doubt the boards squeaked underfoot. The houses on either side were much nicer, with crisp-edged landscaping, clearer colors, sharper lines. Clean windows, hanging baskets. She knew she didn’t have to explain herself. Mitch understood the situation. She was doing her part, looking after his son, holding the family together, meeting his needs from basement to bedroom. His part was simple enough, and Lord knew he was no Stuart.
She looked back to the grey house. In the dirt below the slumping porch, she saw a purple flash, spring’s first crocuses at least a month earlier than she ever saw them back in Givern Valley.
“It’s not that bad. Eager says the man who lives there is a police officer, a good man.”
“Thank god we relied of the broad experience of Eager Gillespie Realty.”
“Mitch, please.” She didn’t want to argue with him. It wasn’t something she was used to, not yet. The whole pose, wife and mother. Our fight.
“I suppose if there’s one thing Eager knows, it’s cops.”
“He’s been through a lot more than you realize.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Mitch looked at the house again. “Whatever. Maybe we won’t get robbed, at least.”