Deadfall

by Stephen Wallenfels

  She frowns at my clumsiness, scans the slope, and starts climbing.

  PORTLAND, OR.

  ELEVEN MONTHS AGO

  15

  Ty said, “I’ve answered that question already, like twenty times.”

  Detective Ostrander leaned his bulky frame onto the metal table separating him from Ty and Cory. He leveled his gray eyes at Ty and said, “True. But you didn’t answer it for me.”

  “Which part of our father just died in an inferno is confusing you?”

  “The part where he was cooking meth in a shed and the door was locked. From the outside.”

  Cory looked at Ty, stunned. “It was?”

  Ty shrugged. “Could be. I was kinda busy.”

  “Maybe this will get your memory juices flowing.” Detective Ostrander slipped a full-page black-and-white photo out of a file folder in front of him. He pushed it midway across the table. It stopped next to a box full of donuts that a female officer named Benitez brought two hours ago along with clothes and sneakers for both of them. The T-shirt barely covered Cory’s gut and smelled like it came out of someone’s locker. Ty glanced at the photo, gave it to Cory. The photo had two halves. The top half showed what remained of the shed. The image sickened Cory, thinking about his father trapped in all that heat. Nothing was left except the blackened propane stove on its side and the mini fridge that was partially melted. Luckily there was no body, at least from what he could see in the charred rubble. The bottom image was a close-up of what had to be the door. Cory recognized the heavy-duty lock and latch. The lock was closed. Cory wanted to believe it was a mistake, or an accident, or some other explanation that Ty would reveal very soon and end this. He pushed the image back to Detective Ostrander.

  “In case you’re wondering,” the detective said, “those are shingles in the background. We found this part of the door on the roof of the garage.” His eyes stayed fixed on Ty.

  “Okay,” Ty said, shifting in his seat just a little. “So it was locked. I didn’t do it.”

  “I’m not saying you did. But neither did your father. I’m thinking you saw more than what you’re saying. So let’s start from the part where…” Detective Ostrander pulled a sheet of paper out of the folder and read, “ ‘Ty smelled smoke and left his upstairs bedroom to investigate.’ ” He returned the sheet to the folder. “What exactly did you see when you went downstairs to investigate?”

  Ty leaned toward Detective Ostrander and whispered, “Is this the room where you grill the bad guys?”

  “No,” Detective Ostrander said, sighing. “That’s a different room in a different building. There are no vending machines or magazines in that room. And these chairs are more comfortable.”

  Cory took exception to most of what he said. The vending machine didn’t vend. The newest magazine of the bunch was a Car and Driver from six months ago. And these folding picnic chairs, with their creaking metal frames and thin, worn-out cushions, were uncomfortable from the moment they first sat in them, which, according to the clock on the wall, was over two hours ago. Cory couldn’t check his phone for the time because it was lost in the fire—along with everything else he owned.

  Ty waved at one of two ceiling cameras. “Is this interrogation being recorded?”

  “It’s not an interrogation,” the detective said. “And yes, it is being recorded.”

  Ty asked Cory, “Can he do that? Legally, I mean? Record us without our permission?”

  “Probably,” Cory said.

  “It’s for your protection,” the detective said.

  “Do we need protection?” Cory asked.

  The detective looked at him. Then without a hint of a smile, he said, “Not from me you don’t.”

  Ty asked, “Do we need a lawyer?” He reached for a donut, took one bite, and put it back. It joined all the other donuts with just one bite. Detective Ostrander tried to smile. Maybe this offering was intended to put them at ease, but from where Cory sat, it had the opposite effect. He looked at Ty and tried to silently convey the urgent message sparking in his brain: Stop messing with this guy.

  Giving up on the smile, the detective said, “Look. I know you guys have had a long night. I know your lives have been turned upside down. Your dad is dead. Your house is gone. And from what I’ve read in your files, your mom is MIA. So far no one has stepped up to take you in, other than”—he referred to another sheet in the file—“Mr. Stanislaus Tirkutala, aka Bad Beard, aka Tirk. And there is no way in hell we’re going to release you into the custody of that particular individual. It’s a shitty deal. I get all that. But I have a job to do, okay? My job is to catch the bad guys. Because if I don’t catch the bad guys, they get to keep being bad.”

  Cory thought, Did he really just say that?

  Ty looked at Cory. “I think this is where he tells us that we can do it the easy way or the hard way.”

  Detective Ostrander said, “I gave up on easy after the first donut.” He pulled two pictures out of the file and slid them across the table. They were grainy black-and-whites of Benny at a Kawasaki dealership parking lot shaking hands with a salesman, then sitting on the very same black Ninja motorcycle that Ty kicked over last night. Cory noted the time and date stamps on the photos were 10:35 a.m. and 10:39 a.m. yesterday. Detective Ostrander studied their stunned faces for a few seconds, then said, “See, the thing is we’ve had our eyes on your father’s business partner for three years. So when your dad shows up, we’re all over his little enterprise. We knew the tow truck business was a front to launder the drug money Tirk was taking in. Since the previous help left town in a hurry, we had several conversations with your father. He eventually came around to agreeing that the best play for him was to help us cut off the head of the snake. Four days after our conversation your dad buys this motorcycle. Not a very bright thing to do. Now this motorcycle is no longer at your residence—excuse me, former residence. We know it was there recently because we found one of the mirrors in the driveway. Which brings us to where we are now. Sitting at this table at seven forty-five a.m. on Black Friday. Let’s get this over with so we can all watch the games on TV.” He attempted another smile. It lasted two seconds. “If either of you saw or heard anything outside of your statement in this report, now is the time to tell me.” He turned to Cory first.

  Cory’s head was still spinning from this latest revelation. Benny was working with the cops? That could explain Tirk’s recent visit. But what happened to the motorcycle? And why was the shed door locked? Who did it? And why wasn’t Ty surprised when the detective told them it was locked? He looked at his brother, hoped for some kind of a reaction. A gesture, a smile. Tears, rage—especially rage. But nothing shook out. Ty just stared at the picture of Benny and the motorcycle without blinking. Not even once.

  Cory said to Detective Ostrander, “It all happened like I said. I was sleeping. Ty woke me up. There was an explosion. We ran out of the house. There was another explosion.”

  “When did you find out that your father was in the shed?”

  “Ty told me on the street.”

  “Did you try to go back?”

  Cory swallowed, looked at his hands. “No.”

  Detective Ostrander refocused on Ty. “So it’s up to you. Let’s go around this block one more time. Tell me what you saw.”

  Without taking his eyes off the picture, Ty said, “So Benny died trying to help you?”

  After a beat, “Yes.”

  “That means he was your snitch?”

  “The correct term is confidential informant.”

  Ty put the picture down. He reached into the donut box and grabbed an apple fritter. It was the last remaining donut that hadn’t been touched. He took a bite, put it back. Then he looked directly at Detective Ostrander and said, “Can we have some more donuts?”

  Detective Ostrander stiffened, closed his eyes, opened them. Cory expected to see anger flaring, but it wasn’t there. More than anything, he just looked tired. The detective shook his head, stood, and
said to the camera, “I tried. Send her in.” Then, to Cory and Ty, he said, “You guys are in the eye of a Cat Five shitstorm. This thing that happened last night—that’s just the wind toying with the cellar door. And Ty, your priors could be a factor here. You put a kid in the hospital with your fists and that kind of history doesn’t exactly paint you as the picture of innocence. So the next time you and I have a conversation, you’d better check your attitude at the door.” He pulled a business card out of his jacket pocket, tossed it onto the table. “I can help, but the next move is yours. If you get a change of heart, or find Jesus, or grow a damn conscience. Whatever it takes—call me. I’m sorry about what happened. I really am. Good luck, boys.” He walked out of the room.

  Cory and Ty sat in silence, neither looking at the other. Thanks to what Detective Ostrander just told them, Cory was 99 percent sure that Ty was holding out on him. What he needed to know was why. He wondered if maybe Ty wanted to tell him but the opportunity hadn’t presented itself. That didn’t hold up under scrutiny, though. They had a few hours alone after the ride to downtown Portland, in a police car. They attempted to sleep for a couple hours on cots in a small room under small blankets. They showered in a locker room, put on their “new” clothes, and waited in these chairs for their new reality to start forming. On several occasions during brief moments of privacy, Cory had asked Ty about the fire, if he knew what happened to Benny, why he didn’t come out of the shed. All Ty said was that Benny was probably too high or passed out or whatever. He said nothing about the door being locked from the outside.

  Cory looked at Ty and was about to demand that he tell him the truth, no matter how bad it was, but there were voices outside the room. One of them had the barrel-chested rumbles of Detective Ostrander. The other was female, and she wasn’t happy. He couldn’t understand most of the words, but she clearly said I can’t do that. The detective rumbled something that included an expletive starting with f. Then the voices stopped and footsteps walked away.

  A few seconds later the door banged open. A woman in jeans with short curly black hair, a name badge around her neck, an open black sweater down to her knees and high black boots, stepped in.

  Ty said, “Are you another detective? Because if you are, we’re running low on maple bars.”

  Cory hissed, “Stop being an idiot.”

  She walked up to them and said, “My name is Stellah Deshay. I’m a caseworker with CPS.” She shook their hands; her grip was firm, her smile was wide. Then in a surprisingly decent impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger, she said, “Come with me if you want to live.”

  PORTLAND, OR.

  ELEVEN MONTHS AGO

  16

  She told them in the hall, “You can call me Ms. Deshay if you want, although Stellah is my preference. And that’s Stellah with an h, but it’s silent and does absolutely nothing except hang out next to the a and confuse people. I don’t know why my parents did that to me, but they did. I guess in the scope of life, that little old h isn’t a big deal. So let’s just forget it’s there, okay?”

  Stellah led them to a lobby-looking room with blue vinyl chairs arranged around a coffee table, and a TV on the wall tuned to ESPN. A mustached police officer with Crandall on his name tag sat on a stool behind a counter, looking very unhappy to be there. But he brightened when Stellah stepped up to the counter. He said, “I thought you transferred to Bend?”

  “Someone with more seniority but less brains got the job,” she said. “Looks like I’ll be bothering you for another year. But I’m starting to like this soggy city. The rain. The gray. The coffee. It’s growing on me.”

  “Like a toenail fungus,” he grunted.

  “This is Ty and Cory Bic.” She handed in her name badge. “Are there any personal effects?”

  He checked his computer. “Stand by,” he said, and exited through a door behind the counter. He emerged thirty seconds later with a small transparent garbage bag containing miscellaneous clothes. He handed the bag to Stellah over the counter. “Probably should’ve tossed these. The whole room smells like smoke.”

  She handed the bag to Cory. Ty was focused on a football player being interviewed by a smiling blonde on ESPN. Cory felt a searing jolt of pain in his gut where Benny punched him last night. Stellah asked, “Is this everything?”

  Blinking through the pain, Cory said, “That’s it. Just clothes. We didn’t have time to get anything else. I…I don’t even have my phone.” He realized as he said it that his phone had his mother’s number. He hadn’t bothered to memorize it, and now it was gone. Ty managed to snag his own phone, but he made a big deal of erasing her number on New Year’s Day. And the only pictures Cory had of her and him together were on his phone, which he had stupidly not bothered to back up to the cloud. Now it was like the final strand of an unraveling rope had just snapped. And he knew with an aching certainty that his mother’s face would fade into a history that was doing its best to be forgotten.

  Crandall back on his stool said, “Where are you going? Without being specific.”

  “Somewhere with coffee.”

  “Detective O said nothing too close.”

  “He made that abundantly clear.”

  “But not too far.”

  “Sweetie, this isn’t a road trip.”

  “You ready to roll?”

  She looked at Cory and Ty, then smiled at Crandall. “I guess.”

  He picked up a phone, said into the handset, “Tell O the package is ready,” and hung up. Cory looked at Ty to see if he was catching any of this. To see if it made sense to him. But Ty’s eyes were glued to the TV. It was a commercial for a razor.

  “Is all this really necessary?” Stellah asked.

  “Probably not,” Officer Crandall said, “but this is O’s party. Last night’s event really got his blood boiling. Losing his second CI in three months. That’s not the kind of streak that’ll help his career.”

  “Or the CIs,” she said.

  “Yeah. That too.” He nodded toward Cory and Ty. “And speaking of boiling blood, what did these kids say to O? He came outta that room like someone just peed in his coffee.”

  Stellah said, “One too many donut jokes.”

  Officer Crandall smiled. “I can see that. He picked ’em up at Voodoo himself, which he never does. Said he waited through a line out the door.”

  A short, compact woman in street clothes walked into the lobby. She scanned Cory and Ty, her dark eyes intense and not exactly friendly. Cory noted the Kevlar vest under her open coat and the black handle of a holstered gun. Officer Crandall said, “Detective Jenkins, this is Stellah De—what’s your last name again?”

  “Deshay.”

  “Stellah Deshay from CPS. They’ll be stopping for coffee—somewhere.”

  “We met last year in juvie court,” Stellah said, shaking her hand.

  “I remember,” Detective Jenkins said. “I believe you called the judge a gavel-wielding blowhard. To his face. How could I forget a moment like that?”

  Stellah frowned at the memory. “I left my senses at home that day.” Then nodded to Cory and Ty. “So how does this work?”

  “I’ll follow you to your first destination. Hang out for a couple minutes to make sure you didn’t pick up any unwanted attention, then if it all looks good, I’ll go. From that point on they’re in the wind. Unless”—and she aimed those dark eyes at Ty and Cory—“you have something helpful for Detective O. This is your last chance.”

  “How many last chances do we get?” Ty asked.

  Cory said, “I told him everything I know.”

  Ty pointed to the TV. “This dude with the dreads is fulla shit. Pittsburgh’s gonna beat the spread and crush Atlanta by twenty-four. You can tell him that.”

  Detective Jenkins said, “Are you the one that wasted O’s donuts?”

  Ty smiled. “Tell him thanks for getting Voodoo. That was special.”

  Detective Jenkins muttered to Stellah, “Good luck placing these two,” and opened the door.r />
  TANUM CREEK

  NOW

  17

  Five minutes after leaving Anvil Rock my legs turn into twin demons of screaming pain. I can’t imagine doing this in her shoes and in her state. I shamelessly grab every branch and rock I can reach to keep from falling backward. She plows ahead in grim silence. One bit of good news—for some unknowable reason the ground is a little harder on this side. We aren’t leaving as many tracks as we did on the trail up to Anvil Rock. That should make us a little harder to hunt. At least something is going our way.

  I say, “Let’s look for a place to crash.”

  She shines the light in a sweeping arc. Stops on a big boulder about ten feet up and twenty feet to our left. I doubt there’s anywhere flat to sit, but it’s big enough to hide us both from anyone climbing up from below.

  “That’ll work,” I say, and notice that our breath is clouding in the beam of the headlamp.

  We trudge up to the boulder. I shed my pack and pull out one of two water bottles. The one I leave in my pack is full. This one is down to half, minus whatever we drink tonight. That won’t be enough for Stumptown. I’ll risk a hike down to the creek in the morning and refill them when my legs are fresh. Before giving her the water, I dig out my first aid kit and show her the bottle of ibuprofen. She stares in disbelief, as if I had just turned a pinecone into a brick of solid gold. She extends her hand, palm up. I open the bottle and shake out three pills. She motions for more.

  “It hurts that much?”

  She nods at her hand.

  I shake out two more.

  She scowls at me, nods at her hand.

  I say, “Five is enough. I’ll give you more before we leave.” She’s not happy with that call but swallows the pills. I give her the water bottle. She washes down the IBs with a long, hearty drink. I think about pulling it away, then remind myself that I’m going to replenish the water tomorrow morning. She returns the bottle to me with two inches in the bottom. I take three big gulps and finish it. I dig out one of the sleeping bags and lay the pack next to the rock for us to sit on. She starts to bend down and I get a whiff of the gas. I say, “Wait. Do you want to change out of those jeans? I have an extra pair of sweatpants in my pack.” The fierce look she gives me has no room for interpretation. I’m fine with whatever. The sooner we turn off the headlamp, the better. But I see she’s starting to shiver. That could be a problem. Rather than ask her a question and risk another icy glare, I reopen the pack and snag Ty’s hoodie. I show it to her and say, “You need this. I’ll help you put it on.” She stares at the sweatshirt. Maybe she has an issue with the logo. I say, “It’s the University of Oregon. Do you have a problem with ducks?” The answer must be no because she raises her good arm. I pull the sweatshirt over her arm, head, and down over her sling, trying hard not to bump it but failing because my breath keeps fogging the light, so I can’t see. He body tenses with pain and a faint squeak leaks out. For once I’m glad she can’t talk.