Deadfall

by Stephen Wallenfels

  “It was always dark. I never saw what he looked like. Whenever he took me upstairs he made me wear a hat over my eyes. He said if I took it off he would kill me.” She starts to cry.

  “What’s wrong?” It’s a stupid question. Because like, what isn’t wrong?

  “One time he took Yana upstairs. Usually it was pretty fast. Never more than a few minutes. This time she didn’t come back and didn’t come back…” She takes a breath, wipes at the tears. “Then the door opened. He said, ‘Listen up, buttercup. Here’s what happens when you run.’ He threw something down at me. A piece of clothing. It was wet. I could feel it slippery on my hands and face. Then he…” She takes a deep breath. “He turned on a torch. I was holding Yana’s sweater. It was covered with blood.”

  I think about her scratching HE WILL KILL US in the snow. All the bruises on her legs and back.

  “Astrid. I’m so sorry….”

  She breaks down into deep, shuddering sobs. I don’t know what to do. The horror of this and everything else overwhelms me. It’s too much. Just too fucking much. I stroke her hair, cry with her. It goes on until we run out of energy and tears. We fade into a silence that is heavy and deep and suffocating. As the candles burn down and the flicker-light dims and the world spins without us beyond our little hole in the side of a hill, she says, “That’s enough remembering for me. It’s your turn.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “What was the bad situation you were running from?”

  After her story, my sordid tale feels like a day in Disneyland.

  I say, “I think we’ve had enough remembering for one day.”

  “No. You said you’re a felon. I want to know why.”

  “All right.” It’s my turn to take a breath. “It all started on the best day of my life. Harvey took us fishing.”

  LUSTER, OR.

  FIVE MONTHS AGO

  39

  “You talked to her?” Cory said. He and Ty were in the rock room, duffel bags by the door, at the ungodly hour of 5:35 a.m., when he’d brought up Kayla’s name. They were waiting for Tony to pick them up for some mystery adventure he had yet to define. He was late as usual. But that was okay with Cory. Baseball games, martial arts tournaments, work, school, babysitting, and campaign obligations had conspired to keep them both busy.

  He hadn’t exchanged another word with Kayla since the gazebo, which was over two weeks ago. But she did smile at him in the hall, and he caught her looking at him yesterday during a school assembly. She signaled for him to call her. He did during his break at Bravo, but she didn’t answer and her voice mail wasn’t activated.

  “Yeah, we talked,” Ty said. “But I wouldn’t call it a conversation.”

  “When? Where?”

  “A month ago. At a party.”

  “A month ago?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I forgot.”

  “You forgot?”

  “It didn’t seem like that big a deal. Unlike when you forgot to tell me about Stellah’s visit. It took you like, three whole days, to get around to remembering that Oh, by the way, here’s Benny’s ashes and this picture from Detective Donut.”

  Cory stared at Ty. He kept that secret for three days because he was afraid that Ty would toss the ashes out the window. And he had other plans for that bottle.

  Cory said, “What did you talk about?”

  “I asked her if the rumor was true.”

  “What rumor?”

  “That Mrs. M fired her when she came home early and caught the nanny smoking weed on the patio while the kids ate tuna sandwiches in the kitchen.”

  Cory compared what he just heard with the conversation he had with Kayla in the gazebo; she told him she “smoked up” to relax when she had to do something she didn’t want to do. From what he could tell she liked Justin and Chloe, and the kids seemed to miss her too. Especially Chloe, who loved Kayla because she drew dresses with her instead of making her do her math homework. Cory didn’t dismiss Ty’s weed smoking rumor outright, but he was…skeptical. “Who told you?”

  “I’ve heard variations from a couple people at work and school.”

  “What did Kayla say?”

  “She said, ‘Ask the judge.’ ”

  “That’s all?”

  “No. Frankie J. dared me for ten bucks to ask her about the other rumor.”

  Frankie J. was Ty’s catcher on the baseball team. They hung out constantly. It was widely known that the only thing bigger than Frankie J.’s ego was his mouth. “What was it?”

  “Frankie heard from his girlfriend that Kayla got caught on the nanny cam making a sex video with Oliver.” Oliver was the son of the mayor, who also happened to be a deacon at the church. “So I asked her if she got nanny-canned by the nanny cam.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Frankie dared me.” Ty smiled. “I had to.”

  “No, you didn’t.” Cory had issues with this version of Kayla. Plus, when Cory did an IP scan of the house he didn’t pick up any wireless cameras. “What did she say?”

  “She tossed her beer in my face, flipped me the bird, and left the party. But that’s okay. I used Frankie’s ten-spot to buy five pounds of Swedish Fish, so it’s all good.”

  “I can’t believe you did that.” Although actually I can.

  “She’s a little strange, that one. Hot in an edgy kinda way. But too intense for me. Speaking of, word is you and her had a meet-up in the ol’ gazebo. I’ve been meaning to ask how that went.”

  Cory found himself missing Portland. For a small town, Luster sure had a lot of eyeballs. “She didn’t tell me much, other than we’re not supposed to talk to her.”

  Tony’s Jeep rolled into the driveway. As they picked up their duffel bags and walked out the door, Ty said, “Did you ask why?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe we should ask Tony. He’s an authority on all things Mott.”

  “No,” Cory said, thinking about the secrecy Kayla used to reach out to him. There had to be a reason. And considering how tight Tony was with Harvey, asking him seemed like a bad idea. “Let’s not.”

  Tony gunned the engine, rolled down a window, and yelled, “Chop, chop!”

  They tossed their gear in the back and climbed into the Jeep.

  “What’s the big hurry?” Ty asked Tony.

  “Harvey’s waiting.”

  Tony hit the gas and they roared down the driveway.

  “Harvey?” Ty said. “I thought he was in Eugene.”

  “He was. Now he’s not.”

  “It’s five a.m. You’re dressed like a lumberjack. We’ve got our duffel bags and we’re meeting Harvey? What’s the freaking deal?”

  Tony grinned. “Relax, guys. It’s all freaking good.”

  Tony took them to a part of Luster Cory had never seen, and he thought he’d seen all there was to see. Tony braked, going from sixty to thirty in two seconds, took a screeching right onto a dark street, then aimed for a tall metal building with big doors and what looked like airplanes lined up out front. As they drew closer Cory spotted Harvey walking around one of those planes, checking under the wings. Tony pulled into a parking spot and looked at his watch. “Two minutes to spare. Am I the bomb or what?” He smiled at his bewildered passengers. “Welcome to Air Harvey. Don’t forget to buckle up. You may experience some turbulence.”

  Cory tasted bile. He choked it down.

  “You okay?” Tony gave him a probing look. “Seems like you’re a little green around the gills.”

  “I’ve never been in a plane.”

  Tony laughed, opened his door. “If you’re gonna pop that cherry, Harvey’s the guy to do it.”

  “Harvey’s the pilot?”

  “It sure as hell ain’t me.”

  “I didn’t know he could fly.”

  Tony said as they approached a waving Harvey, duffel bags in hand, “Sometimes I wonder if his feet ever touch the ground.�
��

  Cory sat in the back next to Tony. Harvey had offered the copilot seat to whoever wanted it and Ty said, “Hell yeah!” Which was fine with Cory. Considering how his stomach had twisted into knots, he didn’t want to throw up all over the controls and crash the plane.

  The earphones helped keep the propeller noise down to a muted roar. After Harvey went through his preflight checklist, he inched the throttle forward. The plane rolled away from the hangar toward the runway. Cory listened to Harvey’s chatter through the headset.

  “Luster traffic Cirrus Four Niner Sierra Whiskey taxiing to runway one. Luster.” The plane rotated ninety degrees and stopped, centered on the runway. “Luster traffic on runway one for a left downwind departure to the southeast. Luster.” Harvey slowly pushed the throttle forward. The propeller screamed; the plane surged. Cory closed his eyes as his stomach threatened to revolt. He focused on breathing, wondered if his death would be mercifully fast or if he would feel the impact before being consumed in a ball of fire.

  The plane accelerated, bumped, then untethered itself from the ground.

  Ten seconds later the plane banked slightly to the left. Harvey said, “Seattle Center, Cirrus Four Niner Sierra Whiskey out of Luster climbing through seven thousand six hundred for eleven thousand five hundred requesting VFR flight following to Sunriver, Oregon.”

  Ty said over the headset, “Holy crap! This is awesome!”

  Cory dared to open his eyes. The plane banked left and leveled as the lights of Luster faded to glowing specs. His stomach settled. A different, better thrill took over. He was airborne.

  A female voice said over the headset, “Seattle Center Four Niner Sierra Whiskey squawk zero-six-five-one, maintain VFR.”

  While the little plane climbed smoothly through a cloudless sky, and an orange ball rose over snowcapped mountains in the distance, Harvey said, “Gentlemen, let’s catch us some fish!”

  LUSTER, OR.

  FIVE MONTHS AGO

  40

  Cory loved the view from on top of the world. Harvey pointed out all the volcanoes—Mount Hood, Mount Adams, Mount Bachelor dotted with skiers, Three Fingered Jack, the saw-toothed Broken Top—all of them shining and white and towering over the lesser but still impressive mountains around them. Harvey said, “Enjoy it, because you don’t often see all the girls out like this, showing off their natural wonders.” With the plane flying smooth and level, and with a window all his own, Cory managed to not think about dying long enough to eat the granola bar Tony offered him.

  Forty minutes after taking off, Harvey was three hundred feet from the deck and lined up for the runway in Sunriver. Cory tensed for the landing, but barely felt it. Tony smiled, like Here we are, business as usual. Instead of parking the plane next to the hangar, Harvey taxied past a few giant homes, up to an even more giant home with a two-car-plus-one-plane garage. He pressed a button on a remote and the plane-size door opened. He shut down the engine and pulled the plane inside using a handheld tow bar. After they removed their gear from the plane, Harvey said to the boys, “Welcome to Riverstone. I trust you will find the accommodations acceptable.”

  After a quick bathroom break, they entered the smaller garage that housed a white BMW SUV, a canoe, a kayak, and at least a dozen bikes of various sizes hanging on hooks next to a tall metal cabinet. Harvey unlocked the cabinet and hauled out the fly-fishing gear. They transferred poles, waders, nets, tackle boxes, and a giant Coleman cooler already filled with sandwiches, beer, and soda into the BMW. Then they headed off, yet again, for points unknown.

  Harvey took them to a section of smooth-flowing water on the Lower Deschutes River, where the wide banks, low bushes, and thin trees were friendly to novice casters. After a thirty-minute lesson on the fundamentals of stroke, timing, and force applied, it became clear that Cory had found the one thing in the physical realm that he performed at a higher level than his brother. While Ty struggled to find a rhythm and hooked everything in sight except a fish, Cory shone. He fed out line and moved his hands smoothly from the ten o’clock to two o’clock positions while keeping the fly in constant motion. After three or four flicks of the rod he’d lay out that big green loop of line and the fly would float down to the current gentle like a leaf falling from a tree.

  Forty-five minutes after touching a fly rod for the first time in his life, Cory landed an eighteen-inch rainbow on a pheasant-tail nymph with a barbless hook. Harvey, nearly thrilled beyond words, told him to wet his hands before touching the fish, keep them away from the gills, snapped a picture of the beaming Bic with his prize, then told him to release it so it could be caught another day. As the fish swam for deeper waters, Cory had an aching desire to email the picture to his father. It lasted three heartbeats, which was how long it took him to remember that Benny now resided in a brown pill bottle at the back of the top drawer in his nightstand and therefore would be unable to check his email account ever again.

  When the fishing was done they lunched on tuna salad sandwiches and soda and beer from the cooler while Harvey told them stories about his childhood growing up poor in Spokane and how he used his talents to rise above it just like they would use their talents to rise above their unfortunate circumstances. Deer munched on grass in the meadow on the other side of the river and eagles circled on thermals up into a ridiculously blue sky and Portland felt a million miles away.

  Just when Cory thought the day couldn’t get better, it did. On the way back to Sunriver, with Tony behind the wheel, Harvey took a call on his cell. “Well,” he growled, “what’s the status?” After listening for a minute he brightened considerably and said, “So it’s all arranged. Excellent. Dinner will be at Riverstone at six o’clock, then cigars and brandy after and we’ll talk. We’ll see you there.” He ended the call, said to Tony, “That was Lester. They’re all in. Who can you get to cater a dinner for nine tonight?”

  Tony said, “That’ll be tough. Maybe the Sunriver Lodge, but this is pretty late notice.”

  “These are heavy hitters. I need this to be perfect.”

  “Understood. Give me my phone. I’ll call them now.”

  Harvey went silent for a minute, then said to Cory over his shoulder, “There’s a decent grocery store in Sunriver village. If I give you the money to buy what you need, do you think you could reproduce your Holy Aioli burgers for my guests tonight?”

  Cory wanted to open the window and scream, YES! YES! YES! He managed to say in a barely restrained voice, “Sure. I can do that. Would your guests like a salad as well?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Charlene’s charred romaine with the lemon-chive vinaigrette would pair quite nicely with the meat, plus I’m thinking a mushroom polenta in case there are vegetarians.”

  “And dessert?”

  “A pear torte?”

  “Excellent,” Harvey said. “Do you need a cookbook?”

  “Nope. I have them all in my head.” Plus two thousand more.

  Harvey said to Tony, “Sounds like you’re off the hook. I found our caterer.”

  Tony said, “Cory, you’re the bomb!”

  Ty shot his brother a puzzled look, like What planet are you from? But a second later he smiled, leaned over to him and whispered, “My bro’s a freaking rock star.”

  For the rest of the ride back to Sunriver, while Harvey discussed microbrews and politics with Tony, and Ty dozed with his earbuds in, Cory typed a shopping list into his phone. When that was done, he closed his eyes and considered this: Out of all the Harveys he knew, he liked River Harvey the best. That uncontested conclusion linked to another thought. He pictured Kayla in the gazebo balanced on a plank, asking him that odd question about being absorbed. Right now, in these soft leather seats with Vivaldi on the stereo, a night of cooking ahead of him, mountains rising up out of every window, he decided: If this is what being absorbed feels like, sign me up.

  Dinner went off without a hitch. Well, almost without a hitch. Cory thought the polenta was a little dry, and the
crème fraîche would have been a better topping for the torte instead of whipped cream, but there wasn’t time to let it sit. Harvey’s guests, two couples—one from Bend, the other from Portland, didn’t seem too concerned. They ate everything he cooked, marveled at the hamburgers, and went away convinced that Harvey would make an excellent senator. They wrote checks to prove how convinced they were, and Lester declared the entire evening a success top to bottom.

  With all the guests departed, Harvey said that he wanted to have a little talk with everyone before they retired for the night. They sat on deck chairs in sweaters and jackets arranged around a gas-fed fire pit, the night sky a blanket of stars above them, and the Deschutes River so close Cory could hear the current whisper as it surged restless against the banks. Occasionally a walker with a headlamp would pass on the walking trail thirty feet from where they sat. Cory wondered if they saw the glowing tip rise and fall from Harvey’s cigar. After ten minutes of spotting satellites and naming constellations Harvey said, “There are matters to discuss, so let’s get down to it.” He nodded to Tony. “If you’ll do the honors, please.”

  Tony pulled two sealed envelopes from his jacket pocket, gave one each to Cory and Ty. The envelopes were thin. Cory didn’t think they contained more than a single sheet of paper.

  “Before you open them,” Harvey said, “I’d like to say how impressed I am with your progress. Steamer, that fastball of yours is turning into the talk of the town.”

  It was the first time Cory had heard Harvey reference Ty’s baseball nickname. Even though “Steamer” was featured prominently on the sports page after every game, it felt strange to hear Harvey use it. He saw it as a sign, and hoped it wasn’t a bad one.

  “You’ve put the baseball team in contention to win the district title for the first time in how many years, Tony?”

  “Ten. The drought is finally over.”