The Gray and Guilty Sea

by Scott William Carter

  "Go back to the house, honey!" Quinn shouted.

  There was the shuffling of slippers on the concrete. Quinn let go of his lock on Gage's legs and tried to scramble toward the woman. After briefly resisting—and seeing that the Beretta was in the other direction, by the back tire—Gage let him go.

  While Quinn staggered towards the woman, who was just now coming into view, Gage stretched and groped for the Beretta. When he'd gotten it in his hand, he spun over, pointing it at Quinn. The chief was moving to intercept the woman, trying to steer her toward the door.

  For a moment, Gage thought she was old, because she was thin and stooped, bony and slight in a worn flannel robe. But then he saw her face and realized that she probably wasn't even as old as Quinn—forty-five maybe. Her red hair was thin, but the color was vibrant—too vibrant, really, a candy shop red. As bright as her hair was, though, her skin had a washed-out look, like weathered granite.

  "Who's here?" she said.

  Quinn folded her into his arms, pressing her against his chest with a hand on the back of her head. He tried to steer her away, but she managed to turn her head and look at Gage. Her eyes were dead. They saw him but didn't see him. It was a look that froze Gage in his tracks.

  "Is he the dealer?" she said. She was resisting being turned. As small and frail as she was, she was doing a pretty good job of holding her ground.

  "Shh," Quinn said. "No, no. He's no one. I just—let's go back into the house."

  "Dealer?" Gage said.

  Now they both looked at him. Quinn saw the Beretta still in Gage's hand and grimaced.

  "So what, you going to shoot me now?" he said. When the woman started to speak, Quinn shushed her, pressing her head against his chest. "Go ahead, Gage. Nothing I can do to stop you."

  Gage lowered the Beretta. "What did she mean, dealer?"

  "Who is he?" the woman asked, her voice taking a frantic edge. "Who's this man? What does he want?"

  "Shh. It's all right, Ginger." And then, to Gage, he added: "I'm taking my wife back to the house. We're done here. I'm going to pretend none of this ever happened and so should you."

  "Not so fast," Gage said. "I want to know what she meant. You dealing drugs?"

  "That's right, Gage. I'm dealing drugs. Why don't you call it in, okay? You can even use my phone. I know you don't have one of your own."

  Then Gage put it together. Ted Kraggel. The smell of marijuana that clung to his clothes. "Oregon has a medical marijuana law. Why didn't you go that route?"

  Quinn snorted. "The doctors, nobody can diagnose her. All we know is she gets migraines something fierce. The weed—it's the one thing that helps."

  "Still, even migraines—"

  "Why you arguing this with me, Gage? I could only press so hard. I mean, think about it. A man in my position. Busting growers during the day, lighting joints for his wife at night. You were the one who dug up that stuff about Ginger's past. All that stuff would come out, too, once people found out my wife was smoking pot. The details would be lost in the smear campaign. I mean, Jesus. I thought you were this great detective. I'm starting to wonder."

  With Gage's adrenaline subsiding, shame took its place. How easy it'd been to strap himself into the roller coaster of his emotions. It never used to be that way. Reason and logic usually prevailed. What had happened to him? He was only a shadow of the man he once was. Shame turned to disgust. Disgust turned to self-pity. He steeled himself against it, because that was one roller coaster he wasn't willing to ride.

  Quinn glared, hugging his wife close. It would have been the proper time to issue an apology. It would have made things better, for certain. But Gage didn't know how.

  Instead he slipped his Beretta into his jacket and said, "Let me tell you what happened tonight."

  * * *

  When the story was finished, the circus began. Quinn called it in, then followed Gage back to his place. There they were met by a dozen uniformed cops, the detectives Brisbane and Trenton, paramedics, and eventually the coroner, everybody marching all over his house as if he wasn't even there. He felt like a ghost at an estate sale following his own death. Carmen soon showed up, too.

  The bartender's name was Robert Pence, Bob to most. Divorced three times, convicted of assault and battery on numerous occasions over the years, two restraining orders, moved to Barnacle Bluffs three years earlier from Los Angeles. Brisbane was sent to notify next of kin and question everyone who worked at The Gold Cabaret. After the body was carted away, the bloodstains on his linoleum looked like an abstract painting by Jackson Pollock.

  Forensics crawled all over his place, gathering clues. Gage himself was grilled for a couple hours by Quinn and Trenton. There really wasn't much more that he could tell them that Quinn didn't already know. They figured the bartender must have slipped him something at some point earlier, but Gage wasn't ready to narrow it down to the bartender just yet. There were people at that poker game who'd seen Gage more recently—Jaybee, Hamlin, Logan. There was Jimmy Lourdenback. And there were all the other people he'd interacted with during the day.

  Eventually, exhaustion overcame him. His thoughts were like a weak radio signal, everything coherent lost in the static. His eyeballs felt like scratchy marbles. Carmen noticed Gage's sluggish responses to Quinn's repeated questions—who else did he talk to, where else had he been?—and asked if maybe they could pick this up again later, if needed. When Quinn gave his approval, Carmen took Gage by the elbow. It wasn't until they'd passed through his front door that he resisted.

  "Wait a minute," he said. "Where we going?"

  The first glimmerings of day appeared as a gray smudge over the trees. Their breath fogged in the porch light. A garbage truck somewhere down the highway was beeping.

  "My place," she said.

  He raised his eyebrows. She rolled her eyes, exasperated.

  "Don't get any ideas," she said. "You just can't stay here."

  "I can't?"

  "Garrison, someone tried to kill you tonight!"

  He shrugged as if to say so what, and she shook her head angrily.

  "I can't believe you!"

  "I just don't want the rats to think they can chase me out of my own hen house."

  "Garrison, you can't stay here."

  She was right, of course. Was he really so shallow that he needed to prove his manhood? Yes, he was that shallow. But it was more than that. He had some kind of death wish. He was just too cowardly to pop some pills and say good night. No, he was like some drunk matador doing his best to piss off the bull. There was a case to solve. There was no time for his own games.

  "All right," he said, and when she started for her car he added, "but I'm going to a hotel."

  "What?"

  "Just following your own logic, Carmen. If somebody's following me, I'm not leading them to someone else's place."

  "Ah." There was disappointment on her face. It was unmistakable. "Okay. Well, you want me to drive you?"

  "Thanks, but no. I've got the van."

  "Okay. You want me to come over for a while?"

  He saw the imploring look in her eyes. The risk she was taking.

  "Probably not a good idea," he said.

  "All right."

  "Who knows who's watching me. No need to put you at risk, too."

  "I see."

  But she didn't. He could see that by the way her gaze turned inward. The way she was falling away from him, even while standing still. She turned toward her Toyota.

  "Okay, I'll see you in the morning at the station."

  "Carmen."

  She didn't answer. He followed her. When she opened her door, he touched her on the shoulder.

  "Carmen, hey."

  She looked at him.

  "Thanks for coming over. I appreciate it."

  Carmen climbed into her car. There was laughter from within the house. It was jarring, but he knew it was just another way of dealing with the gruesome nature of the crime. Cops needed to cope, just like everyone else.
He started to say something else, but she closed the door—not quite a slam, but close. Not looking at him, she turned the key. He saw his own vague reflection in her window, a dark shape. The moisture on the glass looked like plastic wrap.

  She put the car in gear, still looking forward, but then didn't go. She rolled down her window a few inches. When she spoke, she still didn't look at him.

  "It's okay to need somebody, Gage. Really."

  He was still searching for a response when she eased down the drive. He watched her tail lights disappear into the pre-dawn darkness, like embers in a dying fire. What she said stung, but not so much the meaning. It was her calling him Gage instead of Garrison.

  It was like she was already pulling away.

  Chapter 19

  Thursday morning, after waking at the Motel 6 a half mile from his house, Gage called the police station from the phone in his room. The front desk had no news for him, and neither Quinn nor the detectives were in yet.

  The sky looked like wrinkled metal, but at least it wasn't raining, though it must have come down like a monsoon during the night. There were enough puddles in the parking lot that he had to be careful where he put his cane. His body felt like it had been taken apart and put back together with some of the pieces missing; joints he didn't even know he had hurt like hell. He also had a pulsing headache—most likely the after-effects of whatever nasty drug had gotten into his system.

  He read both The Bugle and The Oregonian in the hotel lobby while inhaling generous portions of what passed for a continental breakfast—cold scrambled eggs and some bagels as hard as bricks. There was nothing in either paper about his ordeal the previous night, which was no surprise considering how late it had happened. The Bugle did have a story on the case, under the headline, "Girl's Tragic Life and Death Raises Many Questions." It was all about her life, from the moment her parents died up until the moment she was found dead on the beach by "a local hermit." He laughed out loud at that one.

  There was an accompanying article about the police investigation. It didn't say much except that the police were investigating all possible leads, but there was a hint of criticism in it, a few words here and there that implied negligence or downright incompetence. He knew Quinn was going to hit the roof.

  After a quick shower and shave, he headed home to check his place, stopping at Mattie's. It was a few minutes after seven when he tapped on the front door, but he didn't want to wait any longer. He had this gnawing sense of dread that he couldn't shake.

  Zoe answered, rubbing her eyes, wearing a long black T-shirt and apparently nothing else. One of the black cats meowed around her bare legs.

  "Sorry," Gage said. "Didn't mean to wake you."

  "S'okay," she said, yawning. "It's just sleep. Not like I need it or anything."

  "She up?"

  She shrugged and walked away. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. The place smelled of burnt popcorn. The curtains were all shut. He heard faint music coming down the hall and assumed it was from Zoe's room, but when he got closer he could tell it was coming from Mattie's. He knew the singer, too—Harry Chapin, who was singing "A Better Place to Be," a soulful tale about love and loneliness. Gage knew the song well. Janet had been a big Chapin fan. She'd often joked that if Chapin had been the sort of guy to have groupies, she probably would have been one of them.

  He nudged open the door. He was surprised to find the curtains open, the room filled with early morning light. Mattie was sitting up in bed, propped up by pillows, wide awake. She petted the orange tabby in her lap and smiled at Gage.

  "Hello, old friend," she said.

  There was color in her cheeks and sparkle in her eyes. Her gray hair, freshly combed, lay on her white lace nightgown like silk. It was the best she'd looked in months. The room smelled strongly of pine, and he didn't know why until he spotted the green candle at her bedside table, a tiny trail of smoke rising from the flame.

  "Well, hello," Gage said, speaking louder to be heard over the music. "You certainly look chipper today."

  "I feel as chipper as a wood chipper," she said. "But what about you? You look like hell."

  "Thanks."

  "No, seriously now. What happened to you?"

  "I fell in the tub."

  "Uh huh. I think it has something to do with all those cop cars going up towards your place last night. I'm thinking you're getting mixed up with the wrong folks, that's what I think."

  "Like you, you mean?"

  She snorted. "Go ahead and make jokes. But I ain't no wilting flower, darling. I can take the gruesome stuff, too."

  "I don't doubt it."

  "And I would have appreciated you letting me know you were okay."

  "Next time I fall in the tub, I'll let you know."

  "All right, all right, you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. Let's talk about something else. Go ahead and turn off the jukebox, hon. It's right here on the end table. I'd do it myself, but I want to conserve my energy to talk to you."

  "We can listen to the rest of it if you want."

  "I've listened to it three times already, darling. Really, I don't even need it on anyway, because I can listen to it anytime in my head. Go ahead now."

  He turned off the little boom box, then sat on the edge of her bed. She was so small and frail, hardly more than a skeleton, that it was hard to tell what was her and what was merely a wrinkle in the bedspread. Still, he was glad to see the life on her face.

  "He's quite a singer," Mattie said. "He always makes me think about things."

  "I like Chapin, too."

  "Do you? That's good. You know, one thing I always take away from that song, and everything I been going through lately only makes me believe it more: You get a chance for love, Gage, you jump at it. It might end quick or it might last forever, but it's always better to jump. You hear me?"

  He thought about Carmen. He thought about all the years of loneliness that stretched out before him. It was funny. He hadn't thought of them as being lonely years until lately. Something had definitely changed.

  "I hear you," he said.

  "So I'm glad you stopped by," she said.

  "Oh?"

  "Yes. I've been thinking maybe it's about time we contacted hospice."

  "I see."

  She nodded. "I can tell this isn't really what you expected me to say, was it? You were waiting for me to say something about custody of Zoe. Well, that's coming, too. But first things first. It's about time I got somebody in here to be my . . . how should I put it? My chauffeur on that last drive, I guess."

  "Mattie, please."

  "Well, it's true," she said. "And speaking of Zoe, I can't put her through this no more. I can't believe I did it this long. I'm going to kill her right along with me. So here's the problem. It's why I've been putting it off. I just flat can't afford it."

  "I'll take care of it," Gage said.

  "Yeah, I figured you would. I figured you'd offer just that fast, too. I'm not even going to pretend to be noble—telling you I'll make it up to you, pay you back, that sort of thing. Because we both know that ain't true. All I can say is I appreciate it. I do. It'll help Zoe, and that's the thing makes it easier to swallow. So thank you."

  "You're welcome," he said.

  She took his hand and placed it on top of her other hand, sandwiching it between the two. Her skin was surprisingly warm. "But it does make it harder to go ahead and ask you this other thing. I need to sign over a power of attorney to you."

  Gage started to pull away, not even realizing he was doing it until she held him firm. "Now?" he said.

  "Yes, now."

  "But—but you're looking better. We've got time—"

  "No, Garrison, I'm on borrowed time as it is. We both know it. Let's not play this little game. If you're going to do this thing, you've got to do it now."

  "You've got the papers here?"

  She looked at the end table. Next to the boom box, there was a white envelope partially sticking out of a
black leather Bible. He'd never seen a Bible in her room before.

  "That's it?" he said.

  "Yep," she said. "Right there in the Book of James."

  "But don't we need a—"

  "—a notary?" she finished. "A friend of mine, a man I used to date, is a notary in town, and I already got him to sign it and put his stamp on it. I've put my name on it, too. Now all you have to do is add your John Hancock."

  "That's not exactly how it's supposed to work," Gage said.

  "Well," she said, "my life wasn't supposed to work this way, either. He'll say he was here, so it'll stand up in court. That's all that matters."

  She let go of his hand and retrieved the envelope, then took the paper out, smoothed it on her lap, and handed it to him. He skimmed it. It did look like everything was there that needed to be. She got a blue ballpoint pen out of the drawer, scribbled it on a white pad, and held it out to him.

  "Moment of truth, pal," she said.

  He didn't look at the pen. He looked at her eyes. He saw how much she wanted this, how desperate she was. If he said no, then nothing he'd ever done for her would matter. Those were just little things. Easy things. If it was easy for him, if it didn't take something from him, then it didn't matter. Not really. This mattered.

  Everything inside him screamed not to do it, that it would bring nothing but trouble for both him and Zoe. And that may have been true—he had every reason to believe it would be true, knowing how their personalities mixed—but he also knew, deep down, it was just fear. He'd never been entrusted with that kind of responsibility. It had been enough being trusted to take care of his wife, to be there when it mattered, and just look how that turned out.

  "Mattie—" he began.

  "Garrison, for fuck's sake, just sign the damn paper! I need you!"

  It stunned him—not just her voice, but the pink pinpricks flashing on her cheeks, the bulging veins on her neck and her hands, her pupils as big as saucers. She thrust the pen out like it was a dagger. It shocked him out of his hesitation. There were two choices. No delaying. He had to choose now.