Every Day Above Ground

by Glen Erik Hamilton

  He’d said that, like whatever was wrong wasn’t my fault, and that it would be simple to fix. I knew at least one of those was a lie. His car—well, the car he had been driving—had killed Trey dead. Granddad had dragged the body off into the trees almost immediately, right after he had bundled me into the backseat. We were out of the arboretum before another car passed.

  That wasn’t going to be easy to clean up. Was it?

  Riding in the car, I had told him—between wiping my eyes, so embarrassing—about Trey and Kassie and Quincey, and that I had been at the mansion when they had burgled it. He had turned from the winding road to look at me.

  “Fucking hell,” he’d said. And he hardly ever talked like that.

  I had a lot of questions, but Granddad had told me there would be time later. Hollis was at the house minutes after we arrived, which I didn’t understand, but I was too groggy to ask how.

  Now I was rested and sitting on the hearth in front of the fire Granddad had built, and eating leftover fried chicken from the fridge. Life was weird.

  Granddad took the bloodstained plastic knife out of his pocket. The sight of it made me stop chewing.

  “You know what this is?” he said.

  I nodded. “Trey used it to kill Quincey.”

  “I expect so. I found it on the hill in front of the house, right there.”

  “I must’ve dropped it. I’m sorry.”

  The corner of his mouth twisted up. “Now that’s the last time you’ll apologize tonight, Van. Yeah?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re not in trouble. If anything, I’m more to blame. For one, I stupidly left my burner phone in my car back here in Seattle. That’s why you haven’t been able to reach me. And then there’s this.” He tapped the knife. “You know that in prison, men have to defend themselves. I made this—started making it—in jail.”

  “A shank,” I said.

  “Where’d you hear that? Television, of course. A little old, that word, but yes. It’s a blade. I started making it in the shop from a piece of plastic I’d traded cigarettes for.” He turned the knife over, considering it. “Making something like this can be a slow process. A few passes on the belt sander each day, while the guards and other cons are distracted. I would hide it in the shop in between.” He tossed the knife onto the coffee table. “And then hardly before I’d started, the damn thing went missing.”

  “Somebody stole it?”

  “I wasn’t sure. But it worried me, because my fingerprints would be on the plastic. It would be simple for someone to finish the job, make it into a weapon and use it in jail, and I’d be sunk. Then somebody popped to me that our friend Trey was the one who had it. That was bad news.”

  “He didn’t like you?”

  “Liking didn’t enter into it. Trey is mad. Crazy, not angry. You understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If Trey had the blade, then he would find a way to use it. To manipulate the situation. Some men are like that. They see a weakness and they can’t help themselves. They have to sink their teeth into it.”

  I was definitely done with the chicken now.

  “Trey was released before I could do anything about the problem,” Granddad said, in a tone that made me think it was very lucky for Trey that he hadn’t stayed in jail. “After I got out—the night of, in fact—he and Quincey got hold of me and said they wanted to meet to discuss a job. They needed my contacts to sell the artwork from the mansion. That’s when I had a small idea of what Trey intended.”

  “To frame you for the mansion. And Quincey.”

  Granddad chuckled. “I wasn’t that clever. I thought he was going to use the blade to force me to give up my share. Buy the damn thing back from him.” He shook his dark head. “The man was a thief, and sometimes violent. I knew that much. But he was much worse besides. A psychopath. You know that word from TV, too?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, it’s often used wrong. Not every psychopath kills people. Trey figured he could tie me to the burglary with our screwdriver, and frame me for Quincey with the blade. You see the tape he wrapped around the handle? I will wager you that under that tape are my prints, clean as ever. If the case ever got that far, the forensics lot could find them. No one would ever connect Trey with either crime.”

  “But if you were arrested, you could tell—” The look on Granddad’s face stopped me. I knew what he was going to say before he said it.

  “There would be no arrest,” Granddad said. “I would just disappear. That’s why Trey was here tonight. He knew I was due back from Portland with the money, after fencing the artwork.”

  “He was going to kill both of us,” I said. Wow, my voice sounded calm for something like that.

  Granddad nodded. “That’s why I was upset when Trey saw you, here at the house. You were something I cared about.”

  A weakness he could sink his teeth into. I shivered.

  “He’s dead, right?” I said.

  “You don’t have to worry.”

  “I’m not. Not about him coming back, I mean. What about his . . .”

  “I’ve moved him. And Quincey.”

  “Where?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” he said, standing up, and I could tell sharing time was about over. “I want you to get some sleep.”

  There was one more thing, and I asked it, knowing it might tick Granddad off. “Why were you casing Trey’s house?”

  That twist of a smile again. “Saw me there, did you? I was waiting for a time when he and the girl wouldn’t be home. I went in and searched the place carefully. No blade. So”—he stretched and yawned, his arms nearly reaching the ceiling—“Plan B. Carry out the burglary—Trey wasn’t a fool, it was a good score—and then Hollis and Willard and I had planned to have a long talk with the man when I got back from Portland.”

  Which explained how Hollis had been here so fast. After Trey had been—Ugh. I was pretty sure the sound of Granddad’s car hitting Trey would be bouncing around my head for a long time. Worst earworm ever.

  “Enough of that,” Granddad said. “Go to bed. Happy Christmas.”

  It was Christmas now. Past midnight.

  Kassie.

  “Go,” Granddad said.

  I went upstairs and stripped down to my shorts. Halfway through brushing my teeth, I heard Granddad go out the front door and down the porch to the steps. Toothbrush still in my mouth, I walked into his bedroom to look out his window to the street. Almost all of our neighbors had unplugged their Christmas lights for the night, and our block was back to its usual weak yellow color under the streetlamps.

  Granddad stood on the sidewalk. A dull brown panel van was parked in front of our driveway. Its door opened and Mr. Willard got out. Easy to recognize him; he looked almost as large as the van itself.

  The bodies are in the van, I thought, and shivered again. And then I realized: That was the van Trey had chased me in. He would have had to put me and Granddad somewhere, after—

  Nope. Definitely not thinking about that anymore tonight.

  In the morning, after breakfast, I told Granddad I was going to Davey’s. He had rescued my bike from the bushes sometime during the night; I found it leaning on the front porch, with a few new scrapes. I jumped on and pedaled up to Kassie’s house.

  There was another car in their driveway, a Cadillac. Not an old convertible one like Hollis drove, but new and wine-colored with a white leather roof.

  I went up and knocked on the door, hoping Kassie would answer. When it swung open an older lady in red glasses and a red polo shirt with green Christmas trees on it blinked her eyes at me.

  “Um,” I said. “Is Kassie home?”

  She looked a little puzzled, but called for Kassie and kept looking at me while we waited.

  “Are you a friend of hers?” the lady said.

  I nodded, and then remembered manners. “I’m Van.”

  “How do you do,” she said, like we were at tea or something.

  K
assie came running up. “Van!” she said. Her face looked happy, right then, but her eyes were a little red. “Come in.”

  “Merry Christmas,” the lady prompted.

  “Right. Merry Christmas.” Kassie grabbed my arm and tugged me inside. The house smelled of bacon and muffins, and even though I’d eaten, my mouth watered. The lady shut the door and followed us, almost hovering.

  A tall old man with white hair and freckles stood cutting celery at the kitchen counter. I got creeped out. The man looked a lot like Trey, same height and everything. Plus the carving knife.

  “Van, this is my grandpa and grandma, Earl and Liesl,” Kassie said, very formally. I guess she got that from the grandma. I said hi.

  “Merry Christmas, Van,” said Earl. “How do you two know each other?”

  Even his questions sounded like Trey’s. Coming here was a bad idea.

  “Our schools meet,” Kassie said smoothly, “for sports.”

  “What do you play?” Liesl said.

  I remembered what we’d told Trey about Balewood playing Hovick. “I write about the basketball games. Girls’ and boys’. For the paper.”

  “We’ve been trying to get to one of those games,” said Liesl.

  “Since Trey can’t. Or won’t,” Earl said, muttering.

  Kassie tugged again at my arm. “Let’s go out back.”

  It was freezing outside but I didn’t mind at all. At least I wasn’t in that kitchen.

  “Did you and your grandfather already open presents?” Kassie said. “What’d you get?”

  “Money, mostly. Granddad never knows what to buy.” Then, in case that sounded ungrateful, “I got a couple of Game Boy games I asked for. And a multi-tool.”

  “What’s that?”

  I pulled it out of my pocket and showed off the pliers and files and screwdriver and other things. Kassie loved how it all folded up. She said it was like a boy’s version of Polly Pocket, and then she had to explain what the heck that was.

  “What did you get?” I said.

  Kassie’s face crumpled. “We haven’t opened yet. We’re waiting for Dad.”

  Right. I felt stupid.

  “He’s coming,” Kassie said. “He said he’d be late, last night. But he’s coming.”

  Trey wouldn’t be, of course. I knew so many things that Kassie and her grandparents didn’t, I wasn’t even sure what I could talk about. If I should talk about anything at all.

  I hadn’t told Granddad I was going to see Kassie. He would have ordered me to stay away for good. Too risky, he would have said. No connections.

  So why had I come?

  “Let’s play something,” I said. “You pick which.”

  She smiled, and tucked her hair behind her ear, like when after she’d kissed me. “I’d like that.”

  It felt cruel somehow, keeping my mouth shut. This Christmas would just get tougher for her, the longer her father didn’t show. And the really bad news about him would arrive soon enough, I guessed. I knew what was coming, couldn’t help it, couldn’t ever tell.

  But I could be here. Try and make right now a little better.

  “Six to two,” I reminded her. “I’ll let you win today. My gift.”

  Kassie laughed. “You are so mean.”

  Sometimes I was. Not today.

  Forty-Two

  Mick O’Hasson had drifted off. The second time he’d zoned out since we’d started talking. Not fully asleep, just coasting on whatever cocktail of drugs the doctors had prescribed for him, while he lay in his hospital bed regaining strength.

  I was riding a little high myself, on a fistful of painkillers. Even with pharma blunting the worst of it, my neck wouldn’t turn all the way to the left, and I limped as I made my way down the hall to splash cold water on my face at the drinking fountain. One nurse looked at me sideways, maybe suspecting that I had wandered away from my own sickbed. Ten minutes left in visiting hours. I’d intended to come earlier, but after leaving Cyndra with Addy, exhaustion had knocked me down and kept me there most of the day. When I finally rose, I moved like I was underwater.

  O’Hasson was awake again when I stepped back into the room. He looked at me and sniffed.

  “What were we talking about? Cyndra,” he said, answering his own question. “The old gal told you she’s sleeping a lot, right? Must be why I nodded off. Power of suggestion.” His mouth twitched, just a hint of his habitual grin returning.

  “Addy’s worked in hospitals. She says a lot of rest is what Cyndra needs most right now.”

  “And she doesn’t remember what happened to her?” he said. I’d told him Cyndra’s story already, but I couldn’t blame him for wanting some reassurance.

  “She remembers driving to Pacific Pearl and sneaking up to the building and moving some pallets to look through a window. Then somebody stuck a bag over her head. After that, she has just vague impressions of being in a truck. They must have doped her almost immediately.”

  Mick bowed his head, and it took me a moment to realize he was giving thanks.

  “That’s what Cyndra can remember right now,” I cautioned, “and she’s handling it like a champion. But Addy told me she’s woken up a few times, crying out. She’s going to need help, Mick.”

  “I wanna see her.”

  “One of us will bring her by in the morning. Hey.”

  “I’m here,” he said, jolting back to full consciousness.

  “I’m sorry for threatening you. Especially in front of Cyndra. It was stupid of me.”

  O’Hasson shook his head, making the vinyl underneath the cotton pillowcase squeak. “Screw that. Your buddy died.”

  “Doesn’t justify it.”

  “You got Cyndra back for me. That’s it, far as I care.” He stuck out a hand. I shook it.

  He looked around the austere room, with its flat white walls and curtains the color of a parched desert, and every piece of furniture on casters. “Am I sick of these places. In the morning, I’m gone.”

  “Not yet. The doc’s got a specialist coming to talk to you tomorrow.” And before O’Hasson could get more than half a word of protest out of his mouth, I added, “Let the cancer clinic here take a look at you. You can afford better than the state minimum now.”

  “I know my own fuckin’ prognosis.”

  “Then you’re guaranteed not to get any bad news. How many patients can say that?”

  “Nowhere to go but up? That’s your sales pitch?”

  “Your daughter will kick your ass if you don’t. That’s all the pitch I need.”

  He laughed, not quite able to turn it sour. “Look who’s the sympathetic type after all.”

  The following morning, Hollis and I agreed to meet at Bully Betty’s, before the bar opened for the day. He came straight from the funeral home where he’d been helping Nakri make arrangements for Corcoran. Lifting the metallic blue suitcase over the sill of the bar’s service door made my bones creak. My body was stiffer than ever, but my mind was finally letting me rest. I was coming off of the first real sleep I’d managed in two days.

  “Damnation,” Hollis said. “You got it back.”

  I gave him the short version of events as I unlocked the door and put on a pot of coffee. By the end of it, Hollis was seated in a booth, looking like I’d slapped him with a dead squid.

  “Jesus, boyyo,” he said at last. “Jesus.”

  “Yeah, he probably helped me out, there at the end.”

  “The woman killed herself. And took both those sinful fucks with her.”

  “I don’t know if Ingrid intended to die. But I’m sure if she knew it meant taking the Slatterys with her, she’d have made the same choice a thousand times over.”

  “Laughing as she falls into the abyss. God, the madness of it,” Hollis said.

  Ingrid Ekby had given her life—and maybe her humanity—to find and kill Joe Slattery. He’d damaged her so deeply that the wounds had never healed. Because she wouldn’t let them? Or because she had tried and found it impossible?<
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  “And that’s half of the gold there? The suitcase you took off the bastards who killed Jimmy?”

  “Less O’Hasson’s share, yeah.”

  “What about yours?”

  “We’ll get to that. How’s Nakri?”

  “Forged of steel, that lady. She’d have to be, married to Jimmy.” Hollis allowed himself a small smile. “Maybe all Cambodian women are that way. Or she’s holding herself together for the children.”

  I had seen the news story. Seattle man found shot and robbed in Magnuson Park. Corcoran’s kids would go on thinking their stepdad had been the victim of an unsolved mugging, though I’m sure Nakri would believe there was more to the story than that. We couldn’t tell them any part of the truth, even if it meant knowing that the men who’d killed Jimmy C. had come to bad ends themselves. That knowledge might not be any solace anyway.

  Hollis cleared his throat. “Listen, about what I said. You moving Jimmy like that—”

  “It was unacceptable.”

  “I couldn’t have done it. And it had to be done.”

  “Jimmy would have treated me better, if the situation were reversed. No matter what he thought of me personally.”

  Hollis hesitated, and then got up and found mugs and poured the coffee for us. He nearly spilled the hot brew while shying away from a thatch of dreadlocks dangling from the ceiling.

  “This is a very strange place, did I mention?” he said.

  “Weird enough to suit me.”

  “D’you know why Jimmy needled you so much? He was scared of Dono—hell, nothing to that, sometimes even I was frightened of your man. And you’re so much like him. But.” Hollis waved a finger at me. “You’ve compunctions your grandfather didn’t. Ideals. Jimmy was a little scared of those, too.”

  “Here’s to him,” I said.

  We drank. The coffee helped my aches as much as the codeine.

  Hollis looked at the blue suitcase, leaning against the stool at the end of the bar. “It should feel like more of a victory, shouldn’t it? We’ve got the money. We lost Jimmy, but damn near every one of those shit-eaters paid with their lives, too.”