Godspeed

by Nickolas Butler

  “I can’t wait for you to see it,” Gretchen said, the happiness in her voice like the seconds before an unexpected present is unwrapped. “It is unlike anything, Abby, really—any place you’ve ever been. The hot springs, the creek, the river, the mountains . . .” She shook her head, wishing they could be there now, wondering how the men were progressing. “Have we heard anything yet from Bill?” she asked.

  “No,” Abby said. “I actually called him twice today. Once in the morning, and then again just before you came home. Emailed him, too.”

  Gretchen’s mood darkened ever so slightly. She’d known Bill over a dozen years by then, and while he could of course be laconic, in her experience he was also unfailingly considerate, returning phone calls and emails the same day, often within hours. They were friends, after all, and once, very briefly, lovers. In her gut, she feared something was wrong, a chill passing over her, as when a thick, dark cloud suddenly blotted out the sun, with no sign of dissipating.

  “Try him again tomorrow morning. A phone call and an email. And please do me another favor?”

  “Of course,” Abby said. “Anything.”

  Gretchen worried a few strands of hair between her fingers. “If you don’t get Bill, I want you to check in with Cole—Cole McCourt of True Triangle Construction? Remember, I gave you his card? Shake his tree, will you? He should know where Bill is, or, at the very least, when he completed the fireplace, what his plans were. And don’t let them brush you off either. Be firm with them. I want to know what’s going on out there.”

  “Got it,” Abby said. The young woman was gaining an affection for her new employer, this older woman so incredibly confident and direct. “Done.” She jotted herself a note on a paper bar napkin and tucked it into the pocket of her blue jeans.

  And then the maître d’ appeared to escort them to Gretchen’s table, where Albert, as usual, greeted them warmly. It was clear from the light in his eyes that he was pleased to see one of his favorite customers, and at a time other than her usual. After noting the drinks they had carried over from the bar, he hastened away from the table, offering them time to glance over the menu.

  This was pleasing to Gretchen. Sitting at a table with Abby at this steakhouse so familiar to her. And why on earth hadn’t she done so many of these things years ago? Quitting the firm, learning falconry, mentoring a younger person . . . She watched Abby’s face as the younger woman read through the menu, her eyes widening at the prices only to yield a quiet smile as she no doubt reminded herself that she could choose whatever she wanted here—that this was real, this world was possible; that it wasn’t all thirty-nine-cent ramen noodles, shitty apartments, and endless student debt.

  They ordered another round of drinks with their entrées and then sat comfortably in the warm dining room. Abby was the first to break the silence.

  “Was the firm, uh, understanding about your retiring?”

  Touching the rim of her wineglass, Gretchen considered her earliest days as an attorney, when the firm she now worked at had been called Sherman & Perkins, a classy, old-school assemblage of about three dozen attorneys. She actually knew both Sherman and Perkins; they had personally hired her, and even though they’d made a big show out of taking on a woman, and certainly slapped each other on the back for doing so, they were in every other regard regal, both of them, fantastic legal minds who felt that an attorney’s legal education really came on the job, not in some oak-paneled law school lecture hall. She could not recall ever reading a memo about her billables back in those days; the focus was on advocating for their clients and “doing good work.” But both Sherman and Perkins had long since died, following which the firm was sold and then consolidated into no fewer than four multinational factories of law. Soon there were skyrise offices in London and Dubai, Sydney and Shanghai. Partners were annually making well into seven figures, and it was not unheard of for the real rainmakers to pull down eight figures, including generous bonuses, of course. And Gretchen, well, she was a rainmaker, an ever-reliable money-making machine, like a tractor that just never breaks down, never quits, only demands a quart or two of oil every now and again. Turnover, always considerable, had become much more regular, especially among female associates; they would put in four to six years of dedicated work and then, like clockwork, quit in favor of starting a family. Committees were formed and hands were wrung, but really, nothing changed; men were allowed to grow old behind their desks, while women were presented two choices: become mothers, or not.

  In those early years, Gretchen was the only female face in the yearly firm photo. Once, she had been standing beside the elevator bank when she watched a client point at her name on the Sherman & Perkins roster of attorneys (magnetic stainless-steel letters on a framed black felt background). “Didn’t know there even were lady lawyers,” the man said, laughing gruffly. Gretchen had ridden the elevator up those many floors, standing right beside that idiot, knowing full well that he’d taken her for some compliant secretary, the kind of woman who would fetch his coffee with a “yes sir” and a smile. Oh, the pleasure she took, when, some ten minutes later, he was ushered into a meeting room where she introduced herself as his attorney. How he had foundered in that moment, as she stuck out her hand in confident greeting.

  She knew no one would miss her—oh, her billables, sure, but not her—and that blunt fact stung. She imagined being married to a man for decades and then, one day, simply disappearing from his life, but with the ability to spy on him, to become invisible, and watch how he responded. . . . And what if, instead of immediately calling the police, instead of xeroxing thousands of posters with her image and stapling them to telephone poles across town, instead of offering a reward, instead of scouring the world for her, instead of losing sleep and slipping into a desperate depression, he did . . . nothing. His life went on without a hitch, and then, in two or three or four weeks, having found a suitable replacement, he simply continued on, undeterred. How was her commitment to the firm any less serious than a commitment within a marriage, especially when she’d spent more time in the office than in her home?

  She took a long swallow of her Bordeaux and braved a smile.

  “Of course,” she replied. “They were great about it, actually.” Then, clapping her hands to project a lighter mood, she asked, “So, tell me. What is it you want for your life?”

  * * *

  —

  Hours later they returned to the penthouse. Gretchen felt wiped out, exhausted. But after bidding Abby goodnight, she made a point of sending Bill a quick text:

  EVERYTHING OK? PLEASE RESPOND.

  Then she held the phone against her chest and listened to the great prewar building creak and hum under louder punctuations of traffic below, and she could hardly wait to abandon her life here, hardly wait to begin what time she had left out in the mountains.

  And then, unable to sleep for all her exhaustion and excitement, she sat up and began answering farewell emails.

  30

  It was two days after Thanksgiving when the sheriff ambled up the driveway, both gloved hands resting on his belt, snow collecting on the brim of his brown cowboy hat. Cole and Teddy hadn’t even noticed him, so engrossed were they in the work of cleaning up the garage. Already they’d swept the bloody sawdust out the wide-open aperture and into the snow beyond, and later, mopped and bleached the floors. Now they were just applying a second coat of industrial primer over the bloodstains on the walls when the old lawman came calling.

  “Funny thing,” he yelled over the blare of their music. “This is the third time I’ve visited this house already, and nobody’s even moved in yet. That don’t strike me as a good omen.”

  Cole dropped his paintbrush, nearly jumping out of his own skin. They’d put off some appliance deliveries for that day just to clean up the site and to be sure there was no evidence of their crimes. They could certainly explain Bart’s blood, but if there was any other sign left o
ver, some clue pointing toward their involvement in Bill’s or José’s disappearances . . . Cole hustled over to the stereo to turn down the volume.

  “First, it was that contractor,” the sheriff continued, pointing toward the second floor cantilevered out over part of the hot springs. “Took himself a swan dive offa that corner of the house. Then coming back for that drill and filling you fellas in on all that preceded you . . . And now . . .”

  He peered around the site and sucked cold air over his old, yellow teeth.

  “To me,” the sheriff went on, “I just dunno. A place this damn beautiful being gated up and hid away? I ain’t no big government type, but . . . this oughta belong to everyone, seems to me.” He shook his head. “Can you imagine? Having all this to yerself? Like owning a piece of heaven. And I ain’t sure that’s even allowed.”

  The garage door was still open in order to let the fumes from the primer escape, and the sheriff moved in, examining their work.

  “And now, what in the world is that?” he asked, pointing to the floor by the table saw, which they had made a point of not cleaning entirely. “That looks like blood, there. Boys, is that blood?”

  Cole felt Teddy’s eyes burning into him. But he forced himself to relax. They’d gone over everything. They had their story down. Now he would demonstrate for Teddy how easy it was to simply stick to that narrative. Hell, the fact of Bart’s blood might actually work to their advantage; his injury was well-documented, after all; had been from the moment that rescue helicopter landed.

  Cole blew out a cold jet of air as he reached down for the fallen paintbrush. “It is,” he admitted. “Maybe you heard about the medivac that came out here Wednesday?”

  The sheriff removed his hat and scratched at the back of his skull. He was a big man, with shortly cropped white hair and a salt-and-pepper goatee. He was tall to begin with, but taller still in his cowboy boots, and his hands had the wide spread of a former athlete. He snapped his fingers as if remembering a bit of long forgotten trivia.

  “I do remember that,” he murmured. “That was you fellas, now, was it?”

  Cole nodded his head gravely. “Our partner nearly cut his hand off,” he explained, gesturing toward the table saw. “Lost every finger on his left hand. As you can imagine, he lost a lot of blood, too. A half-gallon or more, the doctors said. Teddy here drove him out to the highway, where the helicopter picked him up to fly them to Salt Lake City. We’ve been cleaning up all day.”

  The sheriff squinted in sympathetic agony and walked over to the table saw, touching its sharp steel teeth with his fingertips.

  “Well, boys,” he said, “I am awfully sorry about your partner, but I’m out here today on other business.”

  “Oh?” Cole said, wiping his hands on a rag.

  “See, a feller—or maybe two fellers—haven’t been seen in about three days, and I got word they were working as subcontractors for your company. A stonemason, by the name of Bill Hardy. That name ring any bells? And his assistant, some Mexican—name of José somethingorother?”

  Cole nodded his head. “Two fine workers,” he put in eagerly. “Beautiful craftsmen. Finished up their work a few days ago, in fact—same day our buddy was hurt—I remember that. Left the site that afternoon, I think it was. Before the accident. Figured they were on to their next job, or maybe headed home for the holidays. They pretty much kept to themselves.”

  The sheriff spun the saw blade the way a child might spin the wheel of a downed bicycle.

  “Well, now,” the lawman said, “I called up a friend in the Nevada Highway Patrol, had him make a visit to Bill Hardy’s home, actually, about two hours northeast of Reno. No truck in the driveway or garage. The back door was open, so I looked around and . . . no sign of him. No tools, no dirty clothes . . . Other fella was known to rent a room in Bill Hardy’s house, I guess. Least, that’s what he was doing before they took on this job. Both men were lodged in a nice Airbnb while staying in Jackson Hole. The owner said they were ideal tenants. Found that Mexican’s truck at that property. All their stuff there. No sign of ’em leaving in a hurry. No signs of any struggle. Nothing illegal. And still no sign of the stone-mason’s truck . . . Both of those men, like they just up and disappeared.”

  He let those words hang in the air like huge red snowflakes suspended between the three men.

  “So, I guess you all were the last ones to see those men,” he continued. He let that sit a moment. “Any idea where they might be?”

  Cole looked at Teddy, and they both shrugged their shoulders.

  “Can’t say we do,” Cole said evenly.

  “What about your buddy there,” said the sheriff with a sly sort of grin. “He talk, too? Or cat got his tongue?”

  “I can talk,” Teddy said.

  “Well, boy?” the sheriff said, his smile nowhere to be seen. “Where’d them men disappear to?”

  “José told me he was headed back to Mexico,” Teddy offered brightly, “for Christmas. I remember that. Told me the city, too. Santa María Tonameca. Made me pronounce that part about a hundred times: Ton-a-me-ca.”

  The sheriff stared at him. “Tonameca, huh?”

  Teddy swallowed and nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Ton-a-me-ca?”

  “Swear to god,” Teddy said.

  The sheriff laughed. “Don’t worry, son. I believe you. Just tryin’ to remember the name for my own sake. Ton-a-me-ca, Ton-a-me-ca, Ton-a . . .”

  He wandered in little circles around the garage, peering at their tools and running a hand along a wall.

  “Mind if I look around?” he asked. “I got a little woodshop, m’self. Down in the basement.”

  “Please,” Cole said. “Be our guest.”

  The sheriff was making his way up the stairs when he stopped and, leaning down, said, “Your boss called me the other day. Real nice woman. Wondered why you haven’t been returning her calls.” He stared at both of the men.

  Cole threw his hands up in the air. “Sheriff, I could talk to that woman on the phone every fifteen minutes and she wouldn’t be satisfied,” he scoffed. “It’s like with Bill and José. We just saw them a few ago, couldn’t’ve been happier. You know how it is.”

  The sheriff squinted hard at Cole. “Know how what is?”

  Cole laughed. “Women.”

  The old lawman’s face was implacable for several seconds before he shook his head and offered a wistful smile. “I hear you, brother,” he said. “Been married thirty-one years this spring.” And then he continued pounding up the stairs. “My wife’s still a mystery to me. A mystery I ain’t likely to solve neither.”

  Ten minutes later he returned to the garage, still glancing all around, as if he’d lost his billfold or perhaps a trusty pocketknife, before offering Cole his business card and then trudging down the hill toward his SUV. About halfway to the vehicle, Cole and Teddy watched him pause to light a cheroot and stand there, absorbing the mountains, before he drifted back to them. Cole felt his throat constrict.

  “I’m gonna tell you the god’s honest truth,” the sheriff said, drawing deeply on the cheroot and exhaling a cloud of smoke. “Something happened to them men. And as much as I don’t want to come back here, I may have to. May have to do a proper search of this property. And another thing: Don’t neither of you men leave town without giving my office a call, you hear?”

  “We hear you,” Teddy said, his voice noticeably shaky.

  “Ten-four,” Cole said.

  “All right,” the sheriff said stiffly. “Good day, then, gentlemen. And you hear anything from them men, you let me know.”

  Cole watched the lawman move down the hill toward his truck.

  “I better call Gretchen,” Cole said quietly.

  “Cole,” Teddy said nervously, “I don’t know how else to say it—I’m scared.”

  “It’s gonna be okay,” C
ole said reassuringly. “Look, it was all just a terrible accident. Every horrible part of it. Now that’s the god’s honest truth of it. Bart didn’t mean to kill that man, and neither did I intend to harm José. But they’re gone now, and that’s all there is to it. We just need to . . . we need to focus now, Teddy. That’s all. Focus on what we’ve done right, not the accidents we’ve had to clean up.”

  Teddy neither nodded nor shook his head. He simply wandered back into the house and plodded up the stairs.

  * * *

  —

  Cole sat in his truck on the side of the highway, watching a snowplow curl an endless tube of powder into the ditch while Gretchen lit into him so fiercely that at times he simply set the phone on the dashboard and listened, impressed, while she rained down insult after insult upon him in a veritable avalanche of fury. He’d known it was coming. In the past, he’d been more or less instantaneously responsive, getting back to her just as soon as he could find a cellular signal. But things were different now, and inasmuch as he could, he used that to his advantage.

  When she seemed finished haranguing him, he calmly said, “Well, ma’am, no doubt you heard about Bart?”

  There was a resonant pause on the other end of the line. The very pause he’d counted on.

  “No,” she said. “Why? What?”

  He explained Bart’s injury in great detail, omitting nothing, including the gory scene in the garage and Bart’s present location in a Salt Lake City hospital.

  “So, you see,” he continued, letting a certain indignation rise in his voice, “you’ll excuse us if we don’t answer each and every one of your phone calls immediately. One of my partners is basically crippled for life, ma’am, and as you can imagine, there ain’t too many one-handed builders out there.” He decided to press what advantage he might have. “To be honest, ma’am, we’re of half a mind to walk off the site and call ole Bart a personal injury attorney.”