“At first you thought she was like any other customer,” prompts the trim blond reporter. She might have been the younger, less confident sister of the helmet-haired one I’d just seen. The microphone she is holding in front of the RV salesman’s face is quivering faintly with her excitement. This can be career-making. We can smell that in the zealous way she licks her top lip, flips back her shellacked hair. She is almost overcome with the excitement of it all. She has caught a prized peach. She is going to squeeze all the juice out of him that she can.
“That’s right. She even had a suitcase. She wheeled it into my office.”
The best and most solid lies are built on a well-created foundation of truths. Every liar knows this. I watch the screen carefully to see where the lies kick in. It is seamless. The guy is good.
“At what point did you know you were in danger?”
I snort at the TV. The interview keeps rolling.
“Like I said, at first I thought she was just like any other customer. The suitcase made me wonder a bit, but that didn’t seem impossible. I sell RVs, after all. But then when we sat down to make a deal and she pulled the weapon on me. Demanded the keys. That was really when I knew.”
“Did she mention Atwater?”
“No, she didn’t. But the RV she took from me was the one they found him in, so it stands to reason.”
Actually, he is right enough about that, which would explain the seamless lying. But for the knife, he thought it was the truth. I retract my scorn. He is pretty much going with the script I’d fed him. All systems go.
“But you haven’t come forward until now, nearly a week later. Why?”
“She had my home address.” This is a lie, of course. Though still seamless. “I don’t know how she got it. But she threatened my family.”
“And you’ve come to us now.”
“She asked me to keep it to myself for a week. But then the RV was returned to me by the police.”
The tidy blond ends the segment by turning to the camera. “The possibility of Atwater having an accomplice has not been floated before now. Dana, we don’t know if this person is a lover, relative, friend … or something else entirely. But learning of her existence has raised many questions. And with William Atwater at large, it might be some time before we have acceptable answers. This is Sebring Mahoney reporting from San Pasado. Back to you, Dana.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THE POSSIBILITY OF an accomplice spreads quickly through the media circus. In a culture dominated by the news cycle, new fodder is candy and this is all of that. All news sources in all mediums and medias jump on it instantly. It is like watching a worm wriggle under the sand. You can follow the shape of the thing, but you can’t quite see what it is.
It is something new to chew on while I watch. Really, while the whole country watches. Maybe the world. There are implications here. For one thing, it seems possible to me that the laser-like attention being leveled on Atwater and San Pasado might bring some negative responses. Not just people resentful that their charming little town is now notorious: the center of attention in a heinous crime. Beyond that, though, the news cycle is a monstrously hungry beast. Spit it up and move on. There needs to be some new aspect to the story constantly in order for it to stay fresh and on top. But, of course, real life just doesn’t work that way: new things don’t appear just so that the story currently under the microscope stays daisy fresh. So sometimes, in apparent desperation to keep their stories going, some of the connections offered up are pretty thin. That’s how it seems to me anyway. And it strikes me that it is possible that this RV angle—and with it the presence of an “accomplice”—is one of those: a thin connection only polished and then milked in order to keep the story flowing.
This thought is confirmed once I flip stations and word of Atwater’s “accomplice” has spread through the circus. Everyone is reporting it, everywhere. Following the lead. It seems possible to me that all this attention aimed in my direction cannot ultimately be a good thing. That it might, in the end, lead to a weakness in the armor of invisibility I’ve worked so hard to surround myself in, though I’ve been careful with details. I make a mental note to be extra careful in my motions and activities. Renfrew, the RV salesman, appears to be playing ball and sticking to the vague story we concocted, but he is far from a sure thing. I think of the oiliness in him. The avarice. Anything is possible.
And then the screen pulls my attention back. The whirling logo of The Renton Report has caught my attention. As the intro music eases back, we can see Grady Renton readying himself to opine. From the look of his serious expression, what he’s about to say will be well thought out and considered, though it always is. That’s his style: the stuff he says is generally worth listening to, that’s why he gets the colorful logo and the big chair. Renton is a good-looking East Coast blueblood who has spent the last couple decades at the top of the news chain. He adds opinion and a bit of poetry to the run-of-the-mill reportage he shares. I watch him now with mixed emotions. I don’t know what to expect.
“An accomplice for Atwater is a frightening thought. Does that mean we are now looking for another Gardener? Is this accomplice someone who has shared in the planting of his crops? The thought terrifies me. And it should terrify you.”
It even terrifies me until I remember that Grady is potentially talking about me. That makes me blink and reconsider. After all, what do we really know about anyone? In a world where Atwater has wreaked havoc on a small community, everything seems possible. It’s not a heartening thought.
A few channels over, on The Blair Donner Show, they have gone so far as to hire a sketch artist to sit with Renfrew, the RV salesman, and they’ve come up with a drawing of a woman who, fortunately, looks so little like me it is comical. The woman in the drawing has wide-set, startled-looking eyes and a feral mouth. She is perfectly coifed and sharply attired. I am pleased to see that Renfrew has taken a few liberties and not been completely honest with the artist. At least, that’s how it seems because no one would ever recognize me from what is being presented. I feel certain that was his intent: it could not be so far off otherwise. It puts my mind at rest. Slightly.
But it is all so diverting, it is troublesome. Had the topic not been so dire, it would also have been funny: watching the contortions the media presenters are going through in order to keep the spotlight not only on the story, but on themselves. And is the story served by these actions? And will it help justice ultimately be served? Well, that isn’t really the point, is it? The point is to grab more eyeballs for their stats. Sell more soap and this-year’s-model cars. It’s not easy. As a result, you can almost smell them sweat. It is a difficult road. In a world of dwindling viewership, it’s often the oiliest presenter who wins. The coverage offered up illustrates it. I’m sickened by it. And I can’t look away.
I don’t leave my hotel room for two days. I live on room service and the twenty-four-hour news cycle. Inhaling it. It is as though I am possessed. The smallest tidbit of news from the front could change the whole trajectory of the reportage. This fact worries me. How did things like this ultimately impact the case? And it didn’t seem to me even a question that it would. Rather, I wonder: How could it not? Bombarded with “facts,” it becomes impossible to not form an opinion. And the opinion has to be based on partially seen truths and weighted opinions.
When I finally decide to leave the safe nest of my hotel room, the circus follows me home. In the cab on my way to the airport, I see his face. In the first-class lounge waiting for my flight, I hear his name, hear the anxiety rising. Overheard on other people’s computers, spied on headlines, whispered in lineups. It is everywhere.
It is everywhere.
William Atwater’s name has reached mythic proportions, his deviancy amplified by constant exposure and total saturation. We as a culture are as enthralled by him as we are frightened. And it is awful. I can’t get away from it. And even if I could, I can’t look away.
I get home bef
ore my new plants have completely dried up. I get home in time to save them. Standing in the twilight, increasing the pressure of the hose and the distance the water will travel by holding my thumb over the opening. Vowing again to get a nozzle for the sprayer the next time I’m in town, while feeling the pleasure of using innovation and my body to solve a problem. From ethereal to real. There’s something that pleases me in that.
And I don’t miss a beat. I get quickly back into the pattern I’d created the first time around, settling down in front of newsfeed into my laptop, outwardly calm. Passive. Inwardly seething, twisting, writhing.
I spend weeks like this and I don’t remember anything of that time that isn’t media watching. I know I must have done other things. There must have been food consumed, walks taken, books read and considered. But I don’t remember any of that. I remember only the vile passing of hours while I consider his face and his actions, his childhood, and his future. I consider everything that is offered to me.
I am beyond saving, or so it seems, until I am shaken loose by the only thing that could have saved me. A text comes in, and I prepare to phase back into the land of the living for a little while, at least. The land of the living and the nearly dead.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
MY FIRST THOUGHT is an inward groan. Reflexive. Then I realize an assignment might be just what I need. I am growing pale in my inactivity. If nothing else, an assignment will get me out of the house and away from newscasts for a little while. I try not to think about the irony of that: a phase in my life when I consider leaving the house in order to kill someone for money to be an expedition that at least gets me into the fresh air.
Unusually, it is not an overnight assignment. A few hours’ drive to the major center nearest me. It looks easy peasy. Straight in and out. I opt to take my own car as far as the suburbs, then jump on light rapid transit for the move into the core of the city.
LRT is always a good move for me and I take it when I can. I like that it’s the most environmentally friendly choice. Also, I think there is even less risk of detection or observation when I’m just another face in a sea of commuters.
Being anonymous gives me room to breathe. Allows me to focus on the job at hand. I can’t afford to get things wrong. In my line of work, there can be no mistake.
So I take the LRT downtown. Living in the sticks has gotten me sensitized again to the sights and sounds and even smells of the city. Once I’m there, it is like I am a child again. The buildings so tall, towering above me. I think about the birds up there, among the tallest buildings, silently winging their way above the symphony of human sound below. Even that’s not correct. Living in the country, I have learned that birds don’t fly silently at all. In the quiet of the forest or the stillness of an open field, you can hear the wind move through their wings. It’s a gentle “whoosh, whoosh, whoosh,” which startled me the first time I heard it: made me crane my head up to see what could be making the sound, endlessly surprised to find it synchronized with the flight of a bird.
Now in the city, though, I don’t hear that sound. Endless noise drowns it out and the smells overwhelm me, too. Sun on concrete. Restaurant grease at full heat. A salad of flowers beneath a dressing of motor oil. Nothing smells quite like a city in full sun.
I find my target easily enough. The instructions I was given are good. He is younger and better looking than my targets tend to be. Maybe close to thirty, but not yet there. It will be a shame, though it mostly always is. You can’t think about that part. It just makes it worse.
He is beautifully dressed: pressed trousers, trim sports coat, loafers shined. In general, there is the look and air of Ivy League and old East Coast money about him. I wonder vaguely, as I mostly never do, about who might want this splendid young creature taken out, but the possibilities are too numerous, and it’s a fool’s errand in any case. Jealous sibling, angry stepfather, jilted lover: whoever paid for this hit has their reasons. Thinking about it only makes one despair for the fate of the world. It’s possible my heart could have held that at one point. But not anymore. Not today.
As a target, he proves to be as easy as he looks. From his office at a blue-chip investment firm downtown, I follow him to a tidy apartment building on the west side. There is no doorman so it is easy to watch for a while and wait for an opportunity.
It doesn’t take long. It is early evening and I follow a pizza delivery person into the building. When the pizza goes left, I go right and set off on the coordinates I’ve been given. The target’s apartment is on the top floor of a modest but well-kept older building, and all of that is in keeping with the old money vibe I’ve had from him since the beginning.
Aware of the peephole, the Bersa is behind my back when I knock. I can stand up to that: I’m not at all scary-looking. Even if I were trying to be scary looking, I wouldn’t be. He swings the door open right away, meets my eyes, friendly but not overly curious. He likely thinks I am here on some neighborly call—a cup of sugar, an open house—or that maybe I’m a political canvasser who sneaked into the building and will be easily sent away. I just have that look.
With him standing and smiling in front of me—“Can I help you?”—I step out of my own way, bring the silenced gun up without hesitation, and plug him solidly between the eyes. I note as he collapses that my shot has been eerily accurate. If he’d had a solid red “X” marked on his forehead, I could not have gotten it more dead on. With that shot, I figure he is dead before he hits the ground, and so I know it is impossible to believe in the questioning look I think I detect on his face. A sort of partly formed “Why?” If he’d articulated the question, I wouldn’t have been able to answer. But, of course, he is beyond articulation.
The door opened inwards and he has fallen backwards, into his apartment. There was a spray of blood, but what has flown into the walls of the hallway has only been a spattering. Anyone passing this way would be unlikely to notice.
I pick up my spent cartridges, then move his leg a few inches and am about to close the door with him entirely on the inside of his apartment when I hear a whimper. I cast my eyes heavenward, though I’m not sure why, then bring them back to focus beyond the door and into the apartment to the outline of a very small dog. At first, I think it is some sort of miniature canine—a bichon frise or a yorkie or something else permanently tiny—then I realize it is a puppy and he is wearing a collar attached to a leash. It is as though they had been just about to head out for a walk.
The creature is small and fair and I figure it is a golden retriever puppy—another blueblood, like his late master. He has a black nose that glistens wetly and earnest eyes of a color that harmonizes eerily with his coat. Those eyes regard me calmly, though I can tell he is afraid. The smell of the gun, I suppose. And also, the collapse of his master. To the dog I probably don’t look particularly scary, but scary things have happened and he’s smart enough to know that requires some caution.
I am about to close the door, leave them both behind, but as I move to do so, I realize that I simply cannot. It is one thing to leave a dog alone. Or to leave a corpse alone. But leaving a dog—especially a puppy—alone with the corpse of his master apparently is the line I cannot cross. Funny how there can be a line you don’t recognize until you’re standing right over it.
I grab the leash, hoping the dog will cooperate, grateful when he does. He moves forward with caution and then with more enthusiasm as he realizes we are on a mission that will take him outside.
He relieves himself as soon as we get out of the building, and I figure he’s been waiting for this all day, while his owner was at the office. He produces a fast number one a couple of times and then an epic number two. I feel guilty not picking it up, but push myself over the guilt. In the picture I have been painting this afternoon, not scooping is not my greatest crime.
With the dog in tow, I retrace my steps: a few blocks to the LRT. I worry for a minute about the status of dogs on trains, then realize I will just have to chance it
and hope for the best. Human nature being what it is, people are more likely to “tut tut” than actually say anything, and I determine that, if they say anything directly, I will ask them to call a cop, the sort of passive-aggressive move it pleases me to even think about.
The dog and I take the LRT to the suburbs and back to the park-and-ride lot where I left my car. I worry for a second that the dog won’t cooperate, but he likes the car. He jumps right in and sits happily in the back, clearly not aware that I have killed his master, or not connecting this current turn of events—this miraculous and unexpected ride—with the scary, life-changing events of an hour before. As I drive, I wonder idly about the genetic mutation that has occurred to make dogs such big fans of rides in cars.
The dog and I take the car directly to the safety of my house. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Except for the necessary purchase of a tank of gas, we don’t stop at all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
BACK AT MY forest home, it is quiet. So quiet. Quiet beyond what I’ve ever noticed before, despite the company of the dog. I can barely move beyond the stillness. And it’s odd: I should be hungry. I should by now need food. But I have, for the moment, lost my appetite. Or something. I keep seeing the questioning look in the splendid eyes as he fell. The thick shock of dark chestnut hair. The blood spattering onto the walls of his hallway. I try to shake it off, but I can’t quite. That look. There was nothing particularly remarkable about this engagement, and there has been no change in me. And yet, somehow, I feel changed.
The dog is an easy addition. It is like he has always been here, a part of me. He is happy eating the food I offer him from my refrigerator and freezer. It appears he enjoys steak, lightly cooked. And steamed carrots. And chicken breasts, grilled. Thawed lamb stew. I determine I’ll have to find dog food someplace, but in the meantime, since I nibble around the edges of the food I prepare for the dog, I figure both of us are eating better than we might have done before. Though, in fairness, the young Ivy Leaguer—looking gentleman had appeared to be the sort that would have stocked his pantry with high-quality dog food for his baby best friend. I chastise myself for not checking what the dog was being fed before I took him out of the apartment, then realize the foolishness of the thought. After what I’d done, I couldn’t really hang around taking notes and grabbing supplies.
Endings Page 16
