The Rivers Run Dry

by Sibella Giorello

  We climbed until the moss disappeared, replaced by bare deciduous trees and birch bark that peeled in swaths.

  Then I saw the fireplace.

  The house was gone—no walls, no roof—but the rounded river rocks rose twenty feet to blue sky.

  The officer dangled the fabric under the dog’s nose again. Rommel circled the concrete pad, which must have been the house’s foundation.

  Then the dog sat beside the officer’s left foot.

  “Great,” the detective said. “Now what?”

  I walked north, stepping off the concrete and into the woods. The fireplace was at my back, and the forest in front of me was so thick that it obscured the view of Issaquah below. I turned, staring at the long scar down the homestead’s concrete foundation. The earth had settled beneath it, trying to fill in on itself.

  I asked the officer to bring Rommel.

  The dog walked fifty yards into the woods, then stopped.

  I glanced at the officer.

  “Give him a second.” He waved the fabric under the dog’s nose again.

  Rommel’s ears pricked forward.

  “Rommel, find!”

  The dog leaped, snuffling the leaves and the fading ferns, pulling the officer into the forest. I jogged behind them, my memory stirred by the sounds. An image kicked up. I saw the perp’s feet slicing through the underbrush. Rommel was barking up ahead, and I ran faster. When I caught up, the dog pulled against the leash as the officer tried to balance himself on the uneven ground. Moments later, Markel came up behind us, panting.

  A mound of pine boughs were stacked against the mountain. Rommel pawed at the base, whimpering. The officer pulled him back as I came closer and lifted the branches. The green needles were already faded to brown, and the sawed-off limbs leaked sap from their wounds. With the detective beside me, we threw the branches behind us while Rommel barked—hoarse, frustrated—and the clean scent of pine sap mixed with another odor, leaking out from behind the boughs. The smell turned my stomach.

  When all the branches were removed, I flicked on my flashlight, asking the detective to wait while I went inside. Rommel’s bark clapped against the rock walls. The floor climbed at a ten-degree angle, following a coal seam that stretched back some forty feet. But the tunnel was empty. I traced my flashlight along the far wall and saw another coal bed, jumping at a fault line. The miners had dug out that seam, too, following the sudden steep turn, hoping to strike it rich carving a ledge about fifteen feet above the main floor. I found easy footholds below and pulled myself up to the rocky plateau, shining my flashlight into the dark crevice. The stench was worse, a pungent odor of dead blood and rotting meat, and when my flashlight found her, she was curled up with her back to the tunnel.

  I called her name. She did not respond.

  Her emaciated bare arms were wrapped over her head and handcuffs circled her wrists, chained to a steel rod that stood like a flag pole in a gray pool of freshly poured concrete.

  “Courtney,” I whispered.

  The smell rising from her body gagged me. I coughed. Her right hand was a green balloon, the final finger black, truncated at the last knuckle.

  “Courtney.” The Pendleton shirt hung in filthy rags, and when I touched her arm her skin felt cold, clammy. At my touch, she turned her head, dirt ringing her neck. Her eyes were glassy, like a cheap doll.

  “Courtney,” I said softly, “we’ve come to take you home.”

  She didn’t seem to understand the words. I repeated them, slowly.

  And a moment later, she lifted her hands, automatically, like a small child who had grown accustomed to begging.

  chapter twenty-seven

  Personal experience had shown me there’s an inverse relationship between what people think I should feel and how I actually feel, particularly in the trenches.

  After my father was murdered, I applied to Quantico and people extolled my courage. But deep inside I felt only a desperate need for action, nothing heroic about it. When my mother suffered a breakdown, I moved to Richmond in order to take care of her, and the praises I heard had the staggering weight of unearned compliments, as duty was mistaken for valor.

  Those same feelings rushed into my empty heart the week after Courtney VanAlstyne was returned to her parents. I was standing at the cherrywood desk belonging to the SAC, the special agent in charge of the Seattle field office, a man whose seventh-floor windows looked out over Puget Sound. The SAC had the sinewy physique of a dedicated distance runner, graying hair, and a starched white shirt that glowed with purity. His face was by turns placid and honed so firmly it appeared to have been created by a blacksmith. As we spoke, unbidden expressions slipped through his Bureau mask.

  I tried to smile.

  “The Bureau is grateful for your tenacious work, Raleigh,” he was saying. “I’ve received a number of congratulatory phone calls, among them one from the director. He is extremely pleased with the results.” He waited for my thank you, which I gave.

  “Senator Avery’s office phoned as well,” he continued. “And, of course, the VanAlstynes, their appreciation goes beyond words.”

  Behind him, white caps whipped across the surface of the sound. The wind seemed to be coming out of the south, colliding with the tide from the north, where Puget Sound opened to the Pacific Ocean.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “The VanAlstynes want to give you a monetary reward.”

  He waited.

  “That’s not necessary, sir. Or appropriate.”

  “Correct,” he said. “But I’m placing a letter of commendation in your personnel file. The letter goes to you alone.”

  “But there were other agents—”

  He held up his hand, stopping me. “Yes, at one point, we had every agent in Violent Crimes working this case. But it was your tenacity that found Miss VanAlstyne. Alive, no less. That last detail can’t be stressed enough. That’s not the standard out-come on something like this. Your supervisor agrees, you deserve something beyond the usual atta-boy.”

  An “atta-boy” was a letter of commendation for good work.

  “You will receive a $3,000 monetary award from the Bureau,” he said. “It should appear in next month’s paycheck.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  I watched another curious expression sweep over his face. Leaning forward, he picked up a paperweight from his desk, a specimen of polished amethyst. It was the size of his fist.

  “I understand you came to the Seattle office under less than ideal circumstances. Disciplinary transfer?”

  I nodded.

  “I have a letter on my desk from Agent Ngo, regarding the first surveillance operation. Can I presume you know about his complaint?”

  “Yes, sir. Agent Ngo disagreed with my decision to collar the runner.”

  “Correct. Do you know why?”

  “I’ve learned not to explore motive among my colleagues.”

  His lips twitched, almost a smile. “Ernest J. Suggs wasn’t just any runner. He’s our mole.”

  “Mole?”

  “Suggs works as an informant for our organized crime unit. When you submitted the request for surveillance on the poker game, Agent Ngo became concerned. We were already watching the game, using Suggs, to crush the Korean mafia. Ngo was worried your surveillance would blow our cover. And then SWAT goes in after Lucia Lutini, Suggs runs, and Ngo rushes in, trying to preserve his source. Suggs, you can imagine, was confused, thought we were double-crossing him. But Ngo explained it to him in the car. Since the Korean mafia already suspects we’re watching, we had to preserve Suggs’s cover. Ngo took out the stop on the handcuffs, nearly breaking Suggs’s wrist. Our mole launches a lawsuit against the FBI. We look bad.” He shrugged. “But we keep our source.”

  I couldn’t meet his eyes. Glancing out the window, I watched the wind throwing white sheets across the gray water, changing direction as suddenly as a matador’s cape.

  “But, sir, the soil in Suggs’s shoes links him to the a
rea where the girl disappeared. And he knew her, from the casino and the card game. He’s still a possible suspect.”

  He put down the amethyst. “Ngo looked into the soil, after you had the house searched. Suggs admitted it, he went looking for the girl after her disappearance was reported in the paper, after the roommate told him where she went missing. He thought the rich parents would offer him a reward. The simple fact is, our mole is a greedy man. That’s fortunate for us, since he’ll sell out his friends at the right price. But Suggs is clear of any wrong-doing in the VanAlstyne case.”

  “The kiddie porn on his computer?”

  He sighed. “It’s disgusting. We’ll handle that another way. But his greed, it’s caused you some confusion.”

  He waited for me to respond. I felt a temptation to point out what really caused my confusion: Ngo’s obfuscations, my colleagues not leveling with me. And if I pointed that out, I could kiss the commendation good-bye, along with the much-needed cash.

  I nodded, as though this was all perfectly fine, as though this was excellent procedure.

  “Some of our best agents push the limits,” he said, “It’s not what we want, per se, but Quantico is not real life. Your career development, Raleigh, will depend on crucial judgment calls.” He paused. “How did you figure out she was in that cave?”

  I watched the finely honed face, the intelligent eyes, and for one brief moment, I wondered what would happen if I mentioned the clairvoyant who spoke about a place of fire, and the river rock dreams where my late father appeared, speaking to me about what was inside the rocks.

  My career came down to judgment calls.

  “I took an educated guess based on my background in forensic geology,” I said.

  He nodded, satisfied. “I read about your background in the lab. I’m glad you chose to become an agent. Have you enjoyed working in Violent Crimes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Because if you would like to move to another unit, something more . . .” He searched for the correct words, the diplomatic terms that concealed the Bureau’s view of agents who spent their entire career in Violent Crimes, the knuckle-draggers of the agency. “. . . something more long-term,” he said, “it can be arranged. Your supervisor will support any request for transfer. Although I under-stand he would appreciate your staying in his unit.”

  I thanked him. He stood, extending his hand, and I left his office with a numb sensation that seemed to pervade all the way to my feet. I rode the elevator down to Violent Crimes where my desk was already blanketed with fresh manila folders containing new cases, new perps, new paths on an ancient map where X marked a treasure called Justice. And outside, in the wind-whipped autumn air, a man moved freely, bearing a conscience that allowed him to cannibalize a young woman’s soul, to maim her in ways that might never be healed, to demand a bargain he never intended to uphold. Out there, a man lived without punishment, without consequence, just like the man who shot my father in an alley one cold November night and left him to die.

  I picked up the phone, punching the extension for the Tweedles. The twin who answered identified himself by his real name, so I had no idea which one I was speaking to.

  “This is Harmon,” I said.

  “Oh, you,” he said. “What do you want?”

  “Have you looked at the film from the casino?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “We found something and we sent it to Lucia Lutini. She’s a lady. She treats people with respect.”

  “She’s a saint,” I said, hanging up.

  I walked to Lucia’s desk where a Post-It note stuck to the dark computer screen said she was in the second conference room. I walked down the aisles of cubicles, past Jack who was talking on the phone, his feet propped up on his desk. As I passed, he gave me a nod, and when I opened the conference room door, Lucia didn’t turn around. She was gazing at the television. Staccato images flickered in black and white.

  “The Tweedles said they found something,” I said.

  Her brown eyes appeared polished, her expression distant. “Yes. They had a lot to cover. Twenty-four hours times two weeks, plus the September records you found. They isolated three scenes with the girl. She’s stunning.”

  Picking up the remote, she pressed the rewind button. On screen, figures rushed backward, stopped, then moved forward as Lucia hit Play. The camera angle seemed to be above the corridor leading to the main restaurant and bar, the wide alley where I’d seen Stacee Warner coming in and out with her tray.

  “There,” Lucia said. “See her?”

  Her flaxen hair appeared white on the screen, rippling down her back. She walked with confident strides, reminding me of a leggy young colt. Nothing like the creature I met in the cave.

  “And here comes . . .” Lucia said. “There.”

  Courtney had stopped at the edge of the wide alley, apparently waiting, her head turning left and right, the long hair flickering under the bright lights. Then a man appeared. He was taller than Courtney, she had to lift her head to look up at him. But his face was obscured both by the camera angle and by the bill of his baseball cap. He took her elbow, she smiled. They walked away.

  “Let me see that again,” I said.

  Lucia hit Rewind. Courtney walked backward, away from the man. Then back to him. I watched him wrap his fingers around her arm. And I could feel his hand on my own elbow. “He used that same gesture on me,” I said. “On the mountain when he walked me into the forest.”

  Lucia was silent. “Unfortunately, this is all the Tweedles found of him. He’s not in anything else. The other shots show the girl playing cards. She’s a controlled player. Or was.”

  “It’s not the father, is it?”

  “I wondered that too, because of the height. But you saw her reaction. She was happy to see this man. And the father has a rock solid alibi for this day. Although there is one thing.” Lucia set the remote beside the television, leaving Courtney and the man in the baseball hat frozen, mid-stride. “The mother says Courtney didn’t touch those Pendleton shirts for years. And we know she wasn’t on good terms with the father anymore. So why wear his shirt?”

  I waited, not wanting to interrupt her thoughts.

  “Women are essentially creatures of emotion,” she said. “Even the more logical ones, like Courtney VanAlstyne. This man she meets at the casino is quite tall, reminding even the two of us of her father. If he reminds us of Bill Johansen, her reaction might be even more powerful. Let’s assume she misses her father, the man who taught her everything about poker. She dates a father-type, goes hiking with him and wears her father’s shirt, a memento.”

  “I like it. But it’s still speculation. If we could just talk to her.”

  “Impossible.” She shook her head. “The shrinks told the parents not to let us anywhere near her. The Bureau’s not about to defy them with court orders at this point.” She tossed her head toward the TV. “But let me ask you, didn’t that look like a date?”

  I walked back to my desk. Jack was still on the phone, still had his feet propped up, ankles still crossed. There was a smile playing on his lips. I stopped beside his cubicle, sitting on the edge of his desk.

  “You got it,” he said into the phone. He winked at me.

  I reached down, depressing the plastic triangle in the phone cradle, severing his call.

  “What the—Harmon!”

  “Let’s take a walk,” I said.

  Outside the wind blew hard but carried an unseasonable warmth as Jack and I walked up First Avenue. The tips of my hair lashed against my face.

  “If this is about Ngo,” Jack was saying, “you need to take it up with him. The Suggs bit was not my call.”

  At the Italian market on the corner, I turned left, moving into the crowd at Pike Place Market. The chattering noise bounced off the metal roof. Jack jostled into position beside me.

  “Did you hear me?’ he asked.

  “That night in the surveillance va
n,” I said, “you already knew who Suggs was. Is that right?”

  “Yeah, I knew.”

  “So when Ngo told me to come up with the Brush’s name, and I climbed into the cab to think in quiet, how long did you two laugh over that?”

  “You’ve got the wrong idea.”

  “No, Jack. I’ve finally got the right idea. And you’ve got three minutes to explain everything, including Stacee Warner. Starting now.”

  “Stacee?”

  “Two minutes, fifty-eight seconds or McLeod hears you’re on her speed dial.”

  “What?”

  “Tick-tock. Two minutes fifty-five seconds.”

  “What does Stacee have to do with this?”

  “The day we went to the casino, you two already knew each other. I saw it on your faces.”

  He stepped aside, giving room to a man who wore a down jacket and held a copy of Hard Times, the homeless newspaper.

  “Buy a copy?” he asked Jack.

  The sleeves of the black nylon jacket were torn, and white feathers escaped, only to drown in whatever sticky substance had been slathered over the tears. Spit, it looked like.

  Jack yanked out his wallet, handing the guy five bucks. The man stared at the wallet. He handed Jack the paper.

  “Keep it,” Jack said, clapping the man on the shoulder. More feathers jumped from the coat. “You can sell it again.”

  The man thanked him and we walked down the crowded aisle, past the displays of dried cherries and fresh honeycombs and cut flowers tied with ribbons.

  He looked at me. “You don’t give to the homeless?”

  “Don’t change the subject. I want to know about Stacee.”

  “Harmon, you have no idea.”

  “You’re down to less than two minutes.”

  “She’s a source.”

  “Of what—pleasure?”

  “You do have a sense of humor. I was wondering.”

  “One minute forty seconds.”

  “She’s my source on a counterterrorism case. The hiker who saw the Arabs on Mount Si? They were climbing up at night in street clothes, with backpacks? She’s the hiker. She called us about three weeks ago, and I met her out there at Mount Si. She even identified three of them by our surveillance photos. They run a barber shop in the Central District.”