The Night Season

by Chelsea Cain

  He wondered if it was even a top story. Probably no one cared. Probably the news was all flood watch, all the time. The kid’s parents hadn’t even noticed he was gone, why would anyone else?

  Archie could still feel the cold of the river in his bones.

  “There,” Heil said.

  They were under the Burnside Bridge. Archie felt himself exhale, suddenly lighter on his feet, and it took him a moment to realize it was the foreign sensation of being outside without being rained on. The concrete slab of bridge above them was supported by massive concrete pillars. This bridge had been built in the nineteenth century and then rebuilt in the 1920s. It wasn’t bad, with its Italian Renaissance towers and pretty metal railings. But that was up top. Down here it was dank and dirty. Much of the year, weekends brought Saturday Market booths, with their utensil mobiles and hemp necklaces. But in the winter there was no market, and the gap under the bridge became a shelter for homeless people trying to get out of the rain.

  It was crowded down there now, but not with the homeless. National Guard trucks, volunteers handing out coffee, Parks and Recreation vehicles—it was a regular tailgate party. At the center of the action—dwarfing all but the largest National Guard vehicles—was the Portland PD’s massive new mobile command center. The only sign of the usual tenants was an abandoned shopping cart. Archie spotted two of his detectives, Mike Flannigan and Martin Ngyun, one on either side of the man who’d had Henry’s phone. Only he wasn’t wrapped in plastic anymore—he was cloaked in a gray wool blanket. There was a woman with them. She worked in social services. Archie wasn’t sure how he knew—something about how she stood, chest wide, feet apart, unintimidated by the ambient chaos.

  The lights under the bridge were different than the construction lights illuminating the seawall project; these rotated, white and orange, so that everything shifted color at five-second intervals. The effect was part disaster zone, part nightclub.

  Flannigan gave the woman a soft push forward. She gave him a dirty look.

  “This is Mary Riley,” Flannigan said to Archie. “From the Mission.”

  The Portland Rescue Mission ran a soup kitchen and shelter on Burnside, among other charitable activities. The soup kitchen fed so many that sometimes the line of homeless people out front would stretch for blocks along the sidewalk of the Burnside Bridge directly above them.

  “I need to get back,” Riley said. Her brown hair was tucked up into a fleece cap and she was wearing a Columbia Sportswear jacket with a corduroy skirt and tights.

  “She identified him for us,” Flannigan continued. “His name’s Dan Schmidt, but he goes by”—he lifted his fingers and made air quotes—“Otter. He’s schizophrenic. Off his meds. From what we can interpret, he found the phone on the path of the Japanese American Plaza. Picked it up. Didn’t see anything. He keeps mentioning this person Nick. Also, something about a spaceship and Ronald Reagan. We ran his prints. He’s in the system, but nothing violent.”

  Archie could see how Dan Schmidt got his nickname. With his wet brown hair and bushy beard, wide flat nose and overbite, he did look like an otter.

  “He’s harmless,” Riley said matter-of-factly. “Now can I get him out of the cold?”

  Otter didn’t even look at them, eyes glued to a spot on the ground. Who knew what was in his rattled brain? With the right pills he might have a whole different story, might be able to describe exactly what had happened to Henry. But they couldn’t force meds on him, not without getting a court order, and they couldn’t prove he’d done anything wrong. There wasn’t a law against picking up a dropped cell phone. If he hadn’t picked it up, they never would have found Henry in time. He’d be dead.

  “Who’s Nick?” Archie asked Otter.

  Otter shuffled his feet. “River people,” he muttered. His eyes flicked up and looked out across the Willamette to the Eastbank Esplanade. It was a popular camping spot for the down-and-out.

  “You know this guy Nick?” Archie asked Mary Riley.

  “He’s kind of their leader,” Riley said. “Lives under the Hawthorne, I think. But I haven’t seen him all week.”

  The street people who lived around the river were their own tribe. The city had long ago stopped fighting their presence. As long as they didn’t sell heroin to stroller moms or drink in public, they were left alone. Most of them stuck to the east side, where much of the esplanade was inaccessible to cars and there were plenty of places to hide.

  If Otter couldn’t tell them anything about what had happened to Henry, maybe Nick could. It was a place to start.

  “You’ve got room for him?” Archie asked Riley, with a nod at Otter. “If I need to find him later?”

  “I’ll make room,” Riley said.

  Archie glanced back at all the activity behind them, the trucks and equipment and people. The place stank with exhaustion and anxiety. All that work, and they were still at the mercy of the river’s whims.

  Mary Riley handed him her card. “I’m taking him now, and getting some sleep. You can call me in the morning if you want to agitate him more.”

  Archie was just tucking the card away when he heard his name. He could tell by the looks on his detectives’ faces that it was important. He turned to see Chief Eaton standing outside his command trailer, hailing Archie with an arm. Lorenzo Robbins stood next to him, towering over him a good foot.

  There was good news and there was bad news, and Archie mostly dealt with the latter. He could recognize it at a distance—a reluctance around the mouth, a slope of the shoulders—and he could tell with one look that Lorenzo Robbins had bad news, and that the chief didn’t yet know what it was.

  Archie hung his head and jogged over to them.

  Chief Eaton was in full-dress rain gear, fancy cap and everything. But he got points for not being in bed. “You wanted him. There he is,” Eaton said to Robbins. “Now tell us what you’ve got.”

  Robbins took a deep breath and looked at Archie. Somewhere under the bridge, the beeps of a backing truck sounded. “We’ve identified the toxin,” Robbins said. “But you’re not going to like it.”

  CHAPTER

  17

  He saw the picture of the boy on the news. He was alive. Wanted for questioning. The detective from the plaza was in critical condition. Poisoned, they said.

  The other three were still listed as drowning victims. Flood-related tragedies. It happened. Eighteen people had died across the state since the flooding had begun. He had read about them all. Mudslides. Boating accidents. Cars swept off rural roads. The Herald always seemed to turn up breathless accounts from some witnesses or survivor. He had seen one story about an elderly man who had been swept away trying to rescue his wife after the creek surged on their farm. The neighbors saw him dive in after her. Heard her cry for him. Then she was gone. They said they could see his head above water for a while, looking at the spot where she had been. Maybe he was waiting for her to come up for air. But she never did. And then he went under, too. His three, they didn’t seem that special compared to that. To have a good story, you needed someone to tell it.

  He thought about that as he prepared the tank.

  It was only twenty gallons, small for an aquarium, but things got heavy quickly when you figured ten pounds for every gallon of water. He gently washed the rectangular tank out with warm water from the tap. Detergents and soaps were pollutants to such an otherwise pristine environment. He poured a blue aquarium gravel mix from the bag into a small clean bucket he had waiting on the bottom of the sink, and ran the tap over the gravel until the water ran clear. He rolled the pebbles under his fingertips. The blue was the color of the ocean from a travel postcard. It was why he had chosen such a pretty backdrop to Scotch-tape behind the glass—an image of a Greek island, white stucco houses and red roofs, alabaster cliffsides descending into that blue, blue water. He lowered the under-gravel filter plate into place at the bottom of the tank, and then carefully poured the clean gravel into the tank, making a bright azure floor thre
e-quarters of an inch deep.

  He positioned the filters and heater, and then lowered the tank into the sink under the faucet. He put a small plate on the bottom of the tank directly under the faucet stream, to keep the gravel from getting unsettled. And he turned the tap back on.

  It took some time to fill the tank three-quarters full.

  But he didn’t allow himself to get distracted. Instead he arranged his plants and decorations. Small plants in the front, taller in the back. He’d chosen a nice castle for this one, and a diving helmet and an arched bridge. When the water reached the three-quarters mark, he added these in, careful to press them securely into the gravel. He stepped back and admired the marine landscape.

  Then he filled the tank to the top.

  He unfolded the top of a small cardboard box and lifted the creature inside by the scruff of its neck.

  The hamster had tiny black eyes and a quivering pink nose. Her belly was white, her head and back and ears apricot. Her little pink hands were clenched in panicked fists at her chest.

  He dropped her into the tank and sealed the cover into place.

  Wet, she looked like an entirely different animal. Tiny and slick, those pink feet uncurled, paws churning at the water. Her whiskers glanced against the surface, ears flat back, eyelids fluttering.

  She would hold on for a while. They all did.

  When she finally gave in, he’d let her rest for some time at the bottom of the tank, apricot fur feathering dreamily against the blue gravel.

  And then he’d take apart the tank, wash it all, and start again.

  He heard the back door open, and the rain get loud.

  “There you are,” he said.

  The boy streaked by behind him. His wet hospital gown clung to his scrawny knees.

  The hamster swam and swam.

  The man glanced up next to the window over the sink where he’d taped the column that Susan Ward had written, and wondered if she’d found what he’d left in her purse.

  CHAPTER

  18

  Susan hunched over her computer at the Herald, yawned, and tried to focus on her monitor. Never take Chinese uppers on an empty stomach. This was what Susan’s mother, Bliss, had told her. It wasn’t even real speed. It was just some herb in gel caps in a bottle with Chinese characters on it. Bliss had gotten it from her acupuncturist, and given it to Susan before she’d gone on her yoga cruise. It was just like Bliss to head off on a three-week yoga cruise through the Caribbean days before the flood of the century. She was lucky that way. The ship had a media blackout policy, for “cleansing” purposes. Bliss had no idea what was going on back in Portland. This left Susan in charge of the goat and the compost pile and the leaky basement.

  Susan had moved back into her childhood home eight months before. It was supposed to be temporary. Then it was supposed to be just until she saved up enough for a down payment on a loft in one of those redeveloped warehouses in the Pearl District.

  Living with Bliss had its pros and cons. Susan’s mother wore her hair bleached and dreadlocked, boycotted anything plastic, and had recently gotten a medical marijuana card for unspecified “anxiety.” But Susan could live there for free. And if you liked brown rice, a lot, Bliss made a pretty good meal. What Susan didn’t like to admit was that, after what she’d been through over the last year, as crazy as it was, home felt safe.

  She shouldn’t have taken the Chinese uppers. But it was two in the morning. And Ian was demanding copy. He’d already gone ballistic on her for staying at the hospital with Henry and Archie rather than hightailing it back to the paper. She had really pissed him off this time. He wouldn’t even pay for the cab.

  “That’s it?” Ian blustered. He’d been eating sour-cream-and-onion potato chips from the vending machine. Susan could smell them on his breath. He sat down on the edge of her desk, nearly knocking her purse onto the floor. She emphatically moved the purse to the other side of her keyboard. “You write a two-thousand-word column on some old skeleton they found at a dog park, and I get three hundred words on a half-murdered cop?” Ian said.

  “Derek already wrote the news story.”

  “You were there when he was found. I want to know what he looked like. I want to feel him dying on the page.”

  “He’s my friend,” Susan said.

  “You’re a journalist. Act like one. I want a rewrite in twenty minutes.”

  “No.”

  “I can fire you.”

  Susan ignored him.

  Ian threw his hands in the air. “You know what?” He sputtered for a few seconds and then pointed at her. “You’re fired.”

  Susan looked at him sideways. Was he kidding? “You can’t do that.”

  “Ian,” Derek said.

  Ian jabbed his thumb at Derek. “I can buy two of him to replace one of you,” Ian said to Susan. “You’re not that special.” He smoothed his ponytail back into place. “Pack a box,” he said. “I’m calling HR.” And he walked away.

  He was serious.

  This wasn’t happening. This was all a Chinese-speed-induced hallucination. This was why people shouldn’t do drugs.

  She moved her purse onto her lap and held it there.

  “Do you want me to help you find a box?” Derek asked.

  CHAPTER

  19

  “Tetrodotoxin,” Robbins said.

  Archie had no idea what that was, but Robbins had been right—he didn’t like the sound of it. Chief Eaton evidently didn’t, either, because he immediately put a hand on Robbins’s shoulder, motioned for Archie with the other, and steered them both away from the others, back toward the mobile command center. Up close it looked even bigger and newer, not a scratch on its shiny black paint job. Eaton led them around the back of the vehicle. Archie had never been inside. But he imagined rows of flat-screen monitors and red telephones. Lights surrounded the trailer, like it was for sale as part of some showroom display. But at least they could see each other.

  Eaton lowered his voice: “Tetro-what?” he asked Robbins.

  The truck was idling and diesel fumes were thick in the air. Eaton coughed and loosened his tie.

  Bioterrorism. Archie knew that’s what the chief was thinking. It’s where the mind went these days. Archie didn’t know what tetrodotoxin was, and he didn’t care. They’d identified it. They’d found what was poisoning Henry. Now they could help him.

  “Tetrodotoxin,” Robbins said. “It’s a neurotoxin produced by a bacteria. TTX for short.”

  Neurotoxin. That didn’t sound good.

  “What are we talking about here?” Archie asked.

  Robbins hesitated, then reached inside his jacket, retrieved a folded piece of paper, unfolded it, and handed it to Archie. Archie recognized the format. It was a Wikipedia page.

  Archie scanned the headers: Classification, Behavior, Feeding, Breeding, Venom. An image to the right showed a fleshy spade-shaped creature with soft tentacles. It was beige, and spotted with incredibly bright blue rings. Eaton leaned close, squinting to see the page over Archie’s shoulder.

  “What is it?” Eaton asked.

  Archie looked up at Robbins. Was this a joke? Robbins met Archie’s gaze without a trace of levity.

  “A blue-ringed octopus,” Robbins said.

  “An octopus,” Archie repeated. It sounded as ridiculous said aloud as it did when he said it in his head.

  No one spoke for a moment. There was noise. Voices around them, idling diesel engines, radios crackling, orders being barked, the constant hum of the rain, the rushing river—but it was also oddly silent, the noises that were supposed to surround them absent. The Burnside Bridge was up, so there were no cars driving overhead. Naito Parkway, which ran parallel to the park, was closed to all but emergency personnel. No squawk of birds or kids laughing or dogs barking.

  “Detective Sobol was attacked by an octopus?” Eaton said. There was no judgment to it; just a man in charge repeating information he’d been given by an expert. Archie could see why the g
uy had been promoted.

  Robbins leaned close to them, his face tense. “Not just Henry—the three other victims, too. All tested positive for TTX.”

  It made one thing make sense. “The puncture wounds on the palms,” Archie said. “But couldn’t someone have isolated the poison? Be injecting it with a syringe?”

  “The point of entry on the palms is from a beak, not a needle,” Robbins said. “A blue-ring delivers venom by puncturing its prey with its beak. But let me be clear, this isn’t accidental. This thing is being used as a weapon.”

  “So what’s the antivenom?” Archie asked.

  “There is no antivenom.”

  Which meant there was no cure. Which meant that Henry was still dying. Archie felt a wave of nausea rush over him, and he reached out and steadied himself on the back of the trailer.

  “The treatment is palliative care,” Robbins said quickly. “Keeping him breathing. Keeping his heart beating. He’s lucky Claire and Susan found him when they did. If he can make it twenty-four hours, odds are he’ll recover.”

  Eaton pulled some more at his tie, and looked around them at the National Guard, the cops, the massive sandbag effort that had drawn thousands of volunteers to the river’s edge. He didn’t look so calm anymore. “Wait a minute, son,” he said to Robbins. “You’re saying that there’s some sort of deadly octopi in the water?”

  Archie could see Robbins bristle at “son.”

  “Octopuses,” Robbins said. “‘Octopi’ would only be correct for a second-declension Latin noun. ‘Octopus’ is a Greek third-declension masculine. And no, that’s not what I’m saying.”

  Archie was doing math. He had last talked to Henry at six. It was now nearly three A.M. Nine hours had passed. That left fifteen to go. Fifteen hours between life and death. It didn’t used to seem like such a long time. You could drive from Portland to Los Angeles in fifteen hours. Now it seemed like a lifetime. For Henry, it might be.

  Three people had been murdered.