Expiration Date

by Eric Wilson

  Was there any truth to Freeman’s accusations that Clay was fabricating all this nonsense to restore meaning to his life? Setting himself up as an urban hero?

  No. Too many had died already—Summer, Eve and Mitchell, Mako and Rhea.

  “ ’Bout done there, Son?”

  Gerald topped off the coffee in his blue travel mug and took his seat at the dining nook. Beckoning fingers indicated it was his turn for the newspaper. Clay complied. He placed the other sections back in their original order; with eyes still flitting over the box scores, he folded up the sports pages.

  That’s when he spotted the envelope poking from the bottom.

  “You and Mom have a good time at Mass.” Clay slipped the note into his robe. “I’ll probably be gone when you get back. Gonna head out for some fresh air.”

  “We got room in the truck.”

  “You mean come to Mass with you?”

  “Don’t have to if you don’t want.” The blue lid clicked up, down, up, down. Some rain with a chance of clear skies.

  “No, I’ll come.”

  “Leavin’ right after breakfast. No stragglers.”

  In his bedroom Clay slipped from his bathrobe. He couldn’t remember the last time his father had invited him to anything. He shaved, slapped on some cologne Jenni had bought him ages ago, gelled his hair. From the kitchen the smell of his mother’s hash browns and eggs beckoned.

  Okay. Let’s see what we’ve got.

  He peeled open the latest envelope. Read over the note. Deep in the belly of his nightmares, a theory bubbled up. Far-fetched, yes. But did anything else make sense? How had Detective Freeman phrased it?

  … a sociopath roaming our streets, as if there’s some scheme behind this.

  Clay decided to give Sarge a quick call before breakfast.

  “Why’d you up and run, Son?”

  “Wasn’t ready to go through the meet-and-greet line. Nothing personal. These are your friends, not mine.”

  Clay was standing by the Dodge truck in the parking lot at St. Helen. Although he wasn’t much for rituals and liturgy, he had found serenity in the organ’s reverential tones and in the sacrament of Holy Communion. He’d reflected on Christ’s sacrifice for humanity’s sin, and the wine had sent a brief shiver through him.

  A moment of cleansing. He knew his price had been paid.

  “Doll.” Della squeezed Clay’s arm. “Please come. Father Patrick’s only been with us seven years, and he hasn’t yet met you.”

  “The only polite thing,” Gerald mumbled.

  Clay tried not to drag his polished dress shoes across the pavement.

  Father Patrick was setting things into the trunk of an older Nissan Sentra. Clay felt a tinge of shame. Would the priest see “the sickness” of divorce on him? With a nod and a handshake, they introduced themselves. Father Patrick’s voice was rich and clear, his words even and unhurried. Deep grooves in his tanned skin framed a pair of gentle eyes. Everything about the man implied a relaxed demeanor, an uncluttered life, years of ongoing health.

  None of which matched the date on his skin.

  8.1.0.0.4 …

  The same as Jason. Same as Wendy.

  Clay managed not to flinch as their hands stayed locked in greeting, as the numerals hummed with insistence along his nerve endings.

  Stretched on a towel at Fern Ridge Reservoir, Henna adjusted her yellow bathing suit. Blond hair cascaded over bronzed shoulders. Sunscreen glistened along her body and gave off a coconut scent. She rolled onto her stomach and tucked her face into folded arms.

  “My little sun worshiper, are you deep in meditation?”

  “A.G., it’s been ages since we were out in public together.”

  “Have you gone in the water yet?”

  “It’s so scummy, I’d rather not. I’ll look but not touch.”

  Asgoth’s eyes moved over her, producing a wry chuckle. “I understand.”

  “Anyway, the water scares me. A split second and you can be gone for good.”

  Asgoth recoiled at the truth of her words …

  Shoved. Falling, flailing. Cold depths and deep wounds. Blackness.

  He scanned the Orchard Point Marina, where boat masts bobbed like toothpicks thrust into Jell-O. Near the walking bridge, toddlers splashed with their parents, while teens roamed the walkways, scoping out possibilities from behind tinted sunglasses.

  The place was pregnant with hazards. If only they knew.

  “Henna, the Scandi-Fest is coming up. I’m going to need your assistance.”

  “You know I’m willing. What about the others?”

  “They’ll get their own sets of instructions. We’ve had some setbacks, but Monde is revising his strategy. Right now he’s tracking a Russian man who might possess the knowledge we need to succeed, but I’d be a fool to trust entirely in his plans. I have an alternative, just in case. It involves Mr. Ryker. Can I count on you being available?”

  “Clay Ryker? You’ve said the magic words.”

  “Had a feeling that might arouse you.”

  “Is that a hint of jealousy?”

  “He’s a physically pleasing specimen, it’s true. How can I compete?” A breeze fluttered over the lake as Asgoth touched Henna’s hair.

  She repositioned her face in her arms, purred with approval. “I’m over him.”

  “I’ll take your word.” Asgoth switched to practicalities. “With your connections in JC, do you think you could get a position in one of the festival’s food booths? It’d give you access to the backstage areas.”

  “I’m a vegetarian, so if there’s animal flesh involved, I can’t do it.”

  “But it is possible, Henna? You could find a position?”

  He knew his own candidacy was out of the question. For the past twelve years, he’d attended the annual event in disguise, unnoticed amid the crowded streets. If his true identity were revealed, it could cause unpredictable reactions, and the Consortium insisted that he avoid such histrionics.

  In time, I’ll be able finally to show myself.

  “Sure,” Henna said. “My daughter’s working in one of the booths, serving Fri-Jos. I’ll speak with her, see if she can put me in contact with the right people. Considering the thousands of attendees, the organizers are always looking for warm bodies to put to work.”

  Warm bodies? Asgoth liked the sound of that.

  “I face the same challenge,” he said.

  Clay gripped the metal bars, dwarfed by the pre-WWI locomotive. One century old, she was a thing of beauty, both fierce and quaint. He knew her history well.

  From a Finnish port, Engine 418 had traversed the Atlantic by steamship, then piggybacked across the United States on a Union Pacific flatcar. Twenty-five major cities welcomed her passage. At last the sixty-ton engine reached Portland, Oregon, where she sat neglected for two decades, a target for vandals and thieves. In early 1980 Finnish authorities had intervened so that this historic and valuable relic would be relocated to the Scandinavian-minded haven of Junction City.

  Engine 418 arrived on May 5, 1980.

  Clay, at five years of age, had joined in the fanfare, while local news crews covered the event. Nobody suspected she had secrets yet to unveil. It had taken another young boy to uncover the hidden wooden tube.

  But Kenny Preston’s treasure seemed so innocuous.

  “None of it makes sense. I mean, how does it fit with the dates or the deaths?”

  “Got me on that one,” Sergeant Turney admitted. He had joined Clay at the fence. “And maybe we’re graspin’ at straws. All I know is, Summer visited this train the night she was struck down. And Mr. Coates, he helped paint the engine. The next intended victim, accordin’ to the way you tell it, was Kenny Preston. He’d been explorin’ this thing and found this mysterious object on board, correct? Did you get a look at it?”

  “It wasn’t much. A carved wooden tube with a stone chess piece inside. A black king with some writing around its base. Pretty sure it was in Russian. Maybe it
’s from a set that belonged to Rasputin or the Romanovs. Considering this train’s heritage, it’s certainly possible.”

  “And that’s it? You know nothin’ else about it?”

  “Nothing.”

  Sarge looked disappointed. “But, Clay, you had it in your own hands. Least that’s what Kenny said when I met with him and his mom. Did he give the tube to you?”

  “He did.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

  “Didn’t think it mattered, Sarge. It’s gone.”

  “In Crater Lake?”

  Clay nodded in defeat. Then his eyes snapped up. “But we might be able to find it. I had my GPS unit and marked the spot where I jumped in.”

  “Sakes alive. I’d hafta rescue your butt all over again.”

  Clay grinned.

  “So, kiddo, did this Russian object belong to you?”

  “Well, no. I was supposed to protect it.”

  “From who?”

  “The man who was chasing Kenny, I guess. Some guy in a white Taurus.”

  “A Taurus, you say?” Sarge squeezed shut his dark chocolate eyes. “Boy, it’s enough to gimme a headache.” He peered up at Clay. “Remind me again why you called me here? It’s more than an hour round trip between JC and Corvallis.”

  “There’s something I need to show you.” Clay reached into his pocket. “I explained about my friend Bill Scott and about the numbers, but I should’ve told you about these. Read them for yourself.” He surrendered a set of envelopes. “I got the bottom note this morning. Seems to refer to a detective I talked to at the station.”

  Sarge pawed at the papers while Clay read over his shoulder.

  Your days are numbered, like the others.

  Even a freeman cannot run from the fate he deserves.

  “Detective Freeman?” Sarge pondered the name. “I know of the man.”

  “His date’s coming up. August first.”

  “We’ll give him round-the-clock protection—whatever it takes.”

  “He’s got a brain aneurysm. I don’t think it’ll help.”

  “Hmm. I don’t like this.” Sarge scraped his hand over his short hair. “There’s a thing or two I haven’t told you yet, either. You already know about your belt buckle they found at the Coates place, but detectives have found a second item of yours.” He flipped a sealed Polaroid picture from his pocket so that Clay could see its subject.

  “My high school hall pass?”

  “Count your blessings. Least it’s before the days of photo IDs.”

  “No kidding. But where’d they find this? I lost it that day at the river. Along with the buckle and the rest of my stuff.”

  “So what’s it doin’ at a crime scene off Ivy Street in an apartment rented out to a Victoria Blomberg?”

  “Any relation to Stan Blomberg? He’s my boss.”

  “His daughter. You weren’t messin’ around with her, were you?”

  “No! Definitely not. Is she dead?”

  “Her boyfriend is. Kid named Mako, a bouncer at a local hangout.”

  “Died of a gunshot wound. July twentieth. Yeah, he’s the one who tossed me out of the Raven. I felt his arm and his expiration date, but I had nothing to do with that.”

  “Mako took the bullet on the fifteenth. Don’t worry. You were hundreds of miles away, stuck up on a mountain trail. Know that one for a fact. Not to mention, a coupla neighbors had noticed a guy with an accent and bright blue eyes. Driving a Taurus.”

  “A white one?”

  “How’d you guess? Same guy is after the item from this train—that’s my theory. I’ve got a couple of leads, some fingerprints from a rental car in Eugene.”

  “And you think someone planted my ID card and my belt buckle?”

  “Startin’ to look that way. Like someone’s settin’ you up, tauntin’ you.” Sarge studied the notes in his hand. “Where’d you say you found these?”

  “One was stuck on the seat of my parents’ truck. The others showed up in the Register-Guard, one of which Kenny Preston put there himself.”

  “The same kid?”

  “That’s how I met him, Sarge. Caught him on the doorstep one morning, and he said some lady had asked him to deliver it.”

  “Did he know who she was?”

  “No, but I do. Henna Dixon. She and I were in school together years ago.” Clay looked up. “There’s more to it. She’d have to have been in two places at once to do all this, plus she was sitting on her mother’s sofa the night I got the note in the truck.”

  “What’re you gettin’ at?”

  “I think she has an accomplice.”

  Turney beckoned with his hands. “Let’s hear it.”

  “What if it’s Wesley Scott?”

  “Scooter?”

  “Think about it. What if he was related to Bill Scott? Wesley and William. They could’ve been brothers. This could be Wesley coming back for revenge.” Clay ignored Sarge’s raised eyebrow. “Listen. Each date adds up to thirteen, which is just too crazy to be a coincidence. I think somehow Wesley knows what I did on the thirteenth of March at the river, and he and Henna won’t stop until they drive me to my grave.”

  35

  Under Observation

  Dmitri forked chocolate cream pie into his mouth, then glanced across the plates at his female contact. Svetlana was a hard-jawed woman with dark red hair. Fifteen minutes earlier she had called to arrange this meeting at Shari’s Restaurant on the south end of Salem. She’d told him where she was seated and what she was wearing. If she had on reading glasses when he arrived, he was to abort, make sure he was not followed, then head for the alternate meeting spot at a bookstore downtown.

  “Are you under observation?” he had asked.

  “This I don’t know,” had been Svetlana’s reply. “But I suspect so.”

  Although Dmitri found her without glasses on, he could tell something was wrong. The eyeliner ringing her eyes only amplified their anxiety. This was not his concern, unless it affected her ability to carry out her duties.

  “You are tense.”

  “They’re close by. I can feel this.”

  He nudged her water glass toward her. “Take a drink. Clear your mind.”

  “You think I’m making this up?”

  “I think you’re under stress. This is normal, considering the circumstances.”

  Svetlana pressed her lips together and tried to smile. “Look at this.” She tapped a CD on the table. “The girl you seek is in these photos.”

  Dmitri unfolded his laptop on the cushioned seat, slipped in the disk. Svetlana’s telephoto lens had captured a young woman’s turquoise eyes beneath choppy black hair and a silver eyebrow ring. The second jpeg image showed the woman in a long skirt on the front steps of a charming older home. Her shoulders were straight and proud, as though to compensate for her slight frame.

  A wooden sign declared: Tattered Feather Gallery.

  “Josee Walker,” he mused aloud.

  “Da. She’s a worker at this place. She has a room on the floor above.”

  “She’s an artist?”

  Svetlana shrugged. “I went into the gallery as a customer. She was behind the counter, making notes in a book. The store owner is her roommate.”

  “I need an address.”

  “It’s on Southwest Second Street in Corvallis. Not far away.” Svetlana relinquished a slim file containing newspaper articles, one of the gallery’s brochures, and a brief biography of Ms. Walker. “She is watchful. You must use caution.”

  Dmitri nodded. The file held his attention. Was Gertrude Ubelhaar sending him on a fool’s errand? Or was Josee Walker an actual connection to the Tsars?

  “Svetlana, did you do a search? What does this girl have that is not hers?”

  “With the help of others, da, I searched. We found that she has a bank account in Florence.”

  “On the Oregon coast.”

  “She received an inheritance from her grandfather. A deposit box. Month
s ago she signed in at the bank to view this box for the first time. Thank goodness for modern technology, nyet? Motion and heat detectors are used in many vaults, but security cameras are everywhere. You’ll find this interesting, I think. It’s on a file on the CD.”

  Dmitri stared down at his laptop. His chest contracted. As his fingers led the cursor to the mpeg file, as it loaded and began to play, the restaurant shrank from view, and the screen became his focus …

  Josee, black spiked hair, in a sweater, looking over her shoulder, opening the deposit box on the viewing table, blocking its contents with her back, but allowing a brief peek beneath her arm. Dmitri paused and zoomed in for a glimpse of a felt bag, a twinkle of rose diamonds, a spherical shape.

  One of the lost Fabergé eggs? This would be priceless!

  “How did you get this video recording?” he asked his contact.

  She wrung her hands in her lap. “I cannot give all the details, Dmitri. We had help from a friend of Gertrude Ubelhaar. He put pressure on the new security officer at Bank of the Dunes, and the officer was very relieved when his relationship with his wife’s sister remained secret.”

  “It’s not difficult,” Dmitri noted, “to find weakness in American homes. Blackmail becomes easy, nyet?”

  Without reply, Svetlana whipped her chin over her shoulder. Apprehension sprang into her eyes, and tiny splashes of sweat appeared on her temple. On alert, Dmitri reached for his cell phone weapon and scanned the restaurant, calculating possible threats and escape routes but finding no cause for her dismay.

  Perspiration coated Svetlana’s forehead. “Can I can go with you to the hotel?”

  “Not tonight,” he told her.

  “But I’m without a home. I’m alone and afraid.”

  “You live not far away. Enough teasing, okay. I must keep on task.”

  “Please. I cannot go back.” She rubbed her hand over her forearm, let her eyes slide toward the window. “My apartment’s in shambles. I found my things torn and thrown on the floor.”

  “When?”

  “This morning. Only hours after we talked on the phone.”