Deception Cove

by Owen Laukkanen

  But the dog wasn’t here. Jess was alone, imprisoned in her nightmare. And there was no way she knew of to escape what happened next.

  Six

  Avoid eye contact.

  Mason had learned it pretty quick in the yard. Eye contact was a challenge. A challenge meant a fight. And a fight in Chippewa only led to a couple of outcomes: you kicked someone’s ass and you pissed people off, guards or the guy’s friends; or you got your ass kicked and the yard decided you were easy prey. Fights sucked. Mason had worked hard to avoid them.

  Out in the free world, though, you couldn’t just go through your days not looking people in the eye, not if you wanted anyone to trust you.

  Mason was still learning that. Still retraining his eyes to maintain a connection, training his face out of the slack, expressionless stare he’d cultivated inside. He was still learning to look like a human being again.

  He woke at first light, a dull gray through the motel room’s thin curtains. The parking lot outside his door was empty, ditto the highway beyond. The rain was still falling, a chill, endless trickle that somehow seemed colder and less inviting than a blizzard back home.

  Mason slid the curtain back. Made the bed. At the foot of the bed, he did push-ups and sit-ups, one hundred of each. He’d been lax on the bus ride; no way to exercise. He could feel it now; even a lapse of three days was like a major setback. He wouldn’t let it happen again.

  He showered, and dressed again in yesterday’s jeans and his only spare shirt, then locked up his room and walked across to the lobby. He’d woken the owner last night, an older man who’d come out of the back room rubbing his eyes and yawning, handed Mason a key and told him to come back in the morning, settle up then.

  The man was at the front desk when Mason walked into the lobby. He looked up and smiled, and Mason reminded himself to meet the man’s gaze.

  “Morning,” the man said. “Sleep okay?”

  “I did,” Mason said. “Thank you. I’m going to stick around a couple of days, if that’s okay.”

  “That’d be just fine. Forty dollars a night, or two hundred a week.” The man flipped open a black binder. “You have a driver’s license?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Credit card?”

  “No, sir. But I’d be glad to give you a deposit up front, if you need one.”

  The man looked him over. He was probably fifty or so, Native American, shorter than Mason, but thick, muscles gone to fat. On the wall behind him was a framed picture, a man in desert fatigues, sun-bleached earth and sand in the background. It was an older shot, and Mason realized it was the same guy.

  “Heck,” the man said, “you’re not going to trash my room, are you?”

  “No, sir,” Mason said.

  “So give me the three nights up front, and if you wind up staying longer, we’ll throw it into the weekly. What’s your name, son?”

  “Burke,” Mason said. “Mason Burke.”

  The man wrote Mason’s name in his binder. “Where you from, Mr. Burke?”

  “Michigan,” Mason said. From his back pocket he removed Glen’s envelope. Removed a hundred-dollar bill and a twenty, and slid them across the counter.

  “Here on vacation?”

  “Come to see a friend,” Mason said as the man tucked the money into the cash register. “You wouldn’t know where I could find the sheriff in these parts?”

  The man chuckled, gestured up the highway, west. “Sheriff Wheeler’s up the road at the county seat in Neah Bay, but at this stage of the game, he’s largely ineffectual,” he said. “You want to talk to the law around here, you want Kirby Harwood, and his office is just down the hill with what’s left of the town. Second building up from the government wharf; you can’t miss it.”

  “Harwood,” Mason said. “He the deputy got bit by that dog?”

  The guy cocked his head. “You heard about that already, did you? Yeah, Kirby’s the one. Bit him right on the ass, that dog did. Likely had a good reason, though I can see how Kirby’d disagree. Anyway, sounds like it was the last night of fun that dog’s ever going to have.”

  “Heard that, too. The owner, she’s a veteran or something?”

  “That’s right, Afghanistan. Dog was supposed to be some kind of therapy animal.”

  “You know how I would find her?” Mason asked.

  The man paused and kind of narrowed his eyes. “What’s your business there, Mr. Burke?” he replied. “This whole fiasco doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that’d make the nightly news back home in Detroit.”

  “No, sir,” Mason said. “It didn’t make the news. I’m just wondering why that dog would want to go and bite someone that way.”

  The man studied him a little longer. “I’m afraid I can’t help you,” he said, closing his binder. “This is starting to sound like trouble, and more trouble is the last thing that woman needs right now.”

  “It’s not trouble I’m after,” Mason said. “But I—”

  The man set his hand down on the counter. “Enjoy your stay here in our little town, Mr. Burke,” he said. “Whatever your reasons for being here, I’d appreciate if you didn’t bring them back to my establishment.”

  The town of Deception Cove was a rainy-day kind of place, and would have been so even if the sun had been shining. As Mason walked the main road down the hill to the water, he passed more than a handful of abandoned homes in the trees, fallen-down hulks reclaimed by the rain forest, moss-covered and rotten doorways and windows like black, empty eyes.

  At the bottom of the main road was the town proper, a handful of ramshackle buildings spread along a thoroughfare far too wide for the meager business it was conducting. Beyond this abbreviated downtown was the water, the ocean, and Mason imagined that on clear days the view from the hill must be spectacular.

  It was not a clear day, though, and the view was more gray: thick clouds and low fog obscuring the horizon, slate-black seawater pebbled with rain. The government wharf extended out from the foot of the road on pilings, and from it extended a number of floating docks, empty save for half a dozen decrepit fishing trollers, of which all but a couple looked moments from a watery grave.

  There was a building on the water too, to the west of the government wharf, on the left from Mason’s standpoint. It extended out on stilts, corrugated metal gone rusted brown-red, a half-sunk floating dock of its own. DECEPTION COVE SEAFOODS, the sign on the roof would have read once, though it was now rendered nearly illegible by a succession of graffiti artists of varying levels of talent.

  Nothing much seemed to move as Mason descended the hill. A pickup truck pulled out from somewhere, came up toward Mason, its engine struggling with the incline, windshield wipers working hard, its headlights dim yellow smears against the gray backdrop.

  Mason reached the buildings, found a couple of bars, a grocery store. A marine outfitter and a diner. The sheriff’s deputy’s office and a boarded-up gas station. He stopped at the diner first, ordered eggs, hash browns, and bacon from a tired-looking waitress, ate his breakfast and drank coffee and looked out at the sheriff’s deputy’s office. It was a one-story building, a couple of cruisers and a big, jacked-up red pickup truck out front. Mason paid for his meal, left a generous tip, and walked across the street to the marine supply store.

  The business appeared to function as part machine shop, part general store. It was a small, crowded space, shelves piled to the roof with fishing gear and tackle, rope of various sizes, engine lubricants, tools, and hunting knives, much of it covered in a thin film of dust. Behind the cash register sat a bored-looking man in his seventies, reading a paperback adventure novel through bifocal lenses. He nodded when Mason walked into the store, went back to his reading. Behind him, in a locked display cabinet, was a selection of rifles and shotguns for sale.

  Mason found a package of Jockey shorts and some thick socks. A couple of T-shirts with fishing company logos on them, a Stanfield’s wool sweater, and two pairs of Wrangler jeans. He carried them t
o the front and deposited them on the counter, waited as the man finished his page and dog-eared the novel and stood, wearily, to sort through Mason’s purchases.

  The man moved at a deliberate pace. Mason stood back and looked out through the doorway, watched the rain fall. Read the notices tacked to the bulletin board by the door, someone selling an outboard motor, someone selling a car, a couple of different men looking for deckhand jobs.

  The store owner caught him reading. “Hope you’re not looking for work,” he said, his voice gravel. “There isn’t any.”

  “I’m not looking for work.” Mason glanced out at the rain again. Turned and came back to the counter holding a green oilskin rain jacket. “But I am hoping to stay dry.”

  The man let Mason change clothes in a little bathroom in the back of the store. Mason pulled on the Wranglers, a fresh T-shirt, the wool sweater, new socks. Let himself enjoy the feeling of being clean, dry, warm. Bagged up his dirties and thanked the man at the counter, pulled the oilskin jacket tight and set out into the rain again.

  He didn’t have far to go; the sheriff’s deputy’s office was next door. Both cruisers remained outside, and the big pickup, too. Mason looked it over as he passed. Imagined a life where he drove something like that, something flashy and powerful and gleaming and new, something that screamed Look at me, I’m important to everyone who saw it.

  The deputy’s office was an open-plan kind of deal. A large room, a receptionist by the entrance, a couple of desks, and a private office in back. Somewhere in the building there was bound to be a lockup. Maybe that was where they were keeping Lucy.

  The girl at the front desk looked to be about sixteen, Mason figured, unless people grew up different in this part of the world. She snapped her gum as she looked him over. “How can I help you?”

  “Looking for Deputy Harwood,” Mason told her. “Is he around?”

  The girl swiveled on her chair, hollered into the back. “Kirby!”

  Shortly, the door to the private office swung open, and three men came out, one after another. They were young, all of them in their twenties, ruddy faced and windburned and tall. They were laughing and shoving one another, pistols on their hips and badges over their hearts, a swagger to their step that Mason couldn’t miss. These kids were the law in this town, and they knew it.

  Kirby Harwood turned out to be the eldest of the bunch, though even he couldn’t yet be thirty. He had blond hair, a tight crew cut, a square jaw, and a smirk. He looked at the receptionist and then at Mason, and he nudged the other two men aside and strode to the front of the detachment, a politician’s smile on his face.

  “Kirby Harwood,” he said, his hand outstretched. “What can I do for you, sir?”

  Mason shook the deputy’s hand. “Mason Burke,” he said. “Come to talk to you about the dog that attacked you.”

  Harwood’s smile flickered, just for an instant. Then it was back. “Well, all right, Mr. Burke, was it?” he said. “Why don’t you come on back to my office.”

  Mason could feel the eyes of the other men watching him as he followed the deputy back through the detachment. Wondered why Harwood even bothered with the pretense of privacy; Mason was pretty certain there weren’t many secrets in this town. But he let the deputy guide him into the office anyway.

  The deputy walked with a slight limp, Mason noticed, though he didn’t appear to be in much pain. If he hadn’t recovered fully from Lucy’s bite, he was close.

  The office was small and cluttered, with a cheap plywood desk and a couple of chairs, and a view out over the alley in back, more rain and rust, not exactly a vista. On the desk sat a new-looking iMac computer and a handful of pictures mounted in black frames: a sleek white powerboat, Harwood with some fish. No wife or children, no dog.

  Harwood caught him looking. “Grady-White Express Three Seventy,” he said, proud. “Thousand horses back there, hell of a boat. You do any fishing?”

  “No, sir,” Mason said.

  “You ought to. Best halibut fishing in the world just offshore here. Catch you a hundred-pounder, easy, if you know what you’re doing.”

  “I don’t,” Mason said. “But maybe I’ll give it a try sometime.”

  “I suggest you do.” Harwood sat back, tented his fingers. “Now, you wanted to talk about that dog, you said?”

  “Yes, sir,” Mason said. “I thought I could take her off your hands, if you all haven’t gone and destroyed her yet.”

  Harwood studied him. “Now, why would you want to do that?” he asked. “Take a vicious dog off my hands. You know dogfighting’s a felony around here?”

  “Yes, sir. I don’t want to fight her.”

  “Did Jess put you up to this, then? This some kind of play you all are trying to make?”

  “No, sir,” Mason said. “I just hate to see a good dog put down.”

  He produced Glen’s envelope from his pocket, counted out five hundred-dollar bills. Laid them on Harwood’s desk. “I have five hundred dollars if you’ll sell me that dog,” he said. “And I give you my word I’ll take her out of your hair, out of your jurisdiction, as soon as she’s in my possession.”

  Harwood didn’t answer right away. He leaned back in his chair, tapped his finger on the desk, and looked Mason over some more.

  “What’s your angle here, Mr. Burke?” he said at last. “There’s plenty of dogs that need homes in the world. Plenty cheaper than five bills, to boot. What exactly is so special about this particular dog?”

  “Nothing,” Mason said. “Not a thing. It’s just that I trained that dog, and I know she’s a good one. And before you all go on and get rid of her, I’d like to try to work with her again, see if I can’t iron out whatever mean streak got in her.”

  Harwood studied Mason a little longer, like he was trying to take the measure of the man across his desk. Then, abruptly, he sat forward.

  “Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Burke,” he said. “That dog you say you trained is a proven menace, and it’s the opinion of the county of Makah that she needs to be destroyed. It would be irresponsible of me to do anything else.”

  “She hasn’t been destroyed yet,” Mason said. “Looks like you’ve healed up pretty good, so I guess it’s been a while. What’s the holdup?”

  Harwood colored. “These things just don’t happen overnight,” he said. “But I assure you, that dog’s good as dead.” He stood. “Now, Mr. Burke, if you’ll excuse me, I have a few other issues to deal with today. I wish you the best of luck in your search for a dog.”

  He held out his hand. Mason shook it, let the deputy guide him out of the small office. He crossed the detachment toward the front door, felt every eye in the place watching him, knew there’d be plenty of chatter the moment he stepped outside. Didn’t care.

  The dog was alive. That was a start.

  The motel owner was still behind the front desk when Mason walked back into the lobby.

  “Her name is Lucy,” Mason said before the man had even looked up. “The dog that bit the deputy. I know her, I trained her, and I’m just not willing to believe that she attacked that man without cause.”

  The owner stood up slowly, and for about the tenth time already that day, Mason felt himself being studied. Scrutinized. He fought his prisoner’s instincts, made himself hold the man’s eyes.

  “You’re a dog trainer?” the man said finally.

  “No, sir.” Mason hesitated, but there was no way to do it but just come out and say it. “I’m an ex-con. There was a program where I was locked up; they brought in dogs who needed rehabilitation, gave them to guys like me who needed something to do.”

  The man didn’t say anything. “That dog was a scared little runt when they brought her to me,” Mason continued. “Pretty much nobody gave her a chance. But we got to each other somehow. And I didn’t train a dog who’d go attacking people for no reason.”

  “Oh, son,” the man said. He said it gentle, like maybe Mason would freak out and get violent if he pissed him off, like Mason was some
kind of damaged person who needed extra care.

  “Son, sometimes a dog just goes crazy,” he continued. “We think we know an animal, and then something triggers and it’s all of a sudden something wild again, something we’ve never seen. Happened to me more than once—I’ve had dogs. There’s nothing to it but to move on.”

  “Not this dog,” Mason said. “All due respect, but I know this dog, sir. I just can’t accept that she acted out of turn.”

  “So what are you asking? What is it you’re thinking you’ll do?”

  “I want to talk to the dog’s owner at least. Deputy Harwood didn’t want to play ball, so I’d like to get her side of the story, hear what happened. If nothing else, I just want to understand why Lucy did what she did.”

  The man said nothing for a while. Looked Mason in the eye and seemed to be weighing something.

  “You were in prison?” he said.

  Mason nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said. “There’s a man dead thanks to me, and I deserved to be in there because of it. And I don’t have any designs on going back, but this dog gave me a reason to get up in the morning. I figure I owe her something in return.”

  The motel owner thought some more. Mason held his gaze. Had he made the right decision, being honest with this man? He hoped he hadn’t erased any glimmer of goodwill he’d cultivated here.

  But he realized he felt comfortable, for the first time since his release, telling somebody who he was. He had no choice but to own it, build trust through integrity, and rely on human decency. He’d gambled that this motel owner was as decent a man as any in this town.