by Amy Stuart
“I’m hopeful she’ll turn up,” Markus says. He presses a finger into his eye.
“Are you all right?” Clare asks.
“Fine.” He lets out a high-pitched laugh. “It’s the middle of the night. I’m tired. What am I doing out here?”
“Sally caught you here too, you said?”
“She sure did. She had a smoking habit she was trying to hide. Trying to kick. She’d walk over to the eddy in the middle of the night for some peace. Smoke her way through half a pack in one go. And she caught me on my way here. We caught each other, I guess.” In the faint light Markus’s features aren’t fully clear, but Clare can see he looks earnest and boyish, an older and paunchy look-alike of his brother, Jordan, his T-shirt untucked and his jeans spotted with stains. “It’s been a terrible week. Devastating. Rebecca and I have been beside ourselves.”
“I’m sure,” Clare says.
It feels impossible to read his body language. In gauging his jumpiness Clare cannot figure what questions to ask, how to possibly make sense of the scene before her. A scene that might scare her in any other state of mind. Markus backs up and gestures for Clare to approach.
“Do you want to check it out?” he asks.
“No,” Clare says. “My mother taught me never to enter a bunker with a stranger.”
“Ha,” he says. “Ha! Right.”
“I’ll just head back. I should try to get some sleep.”
“Right. I’m sorry. I don’t even know what to say. I know it’s preposterous. Skulking around here at night. Sally thought so . . .” Markus draws a closed fist to his mouth to stifle a cry. “I hide baby formula down here.”
“Sorry. Did you say ‘baby formula’?”
“One whole shelf lined with it,” Markus says. “Rebecca—my wife—she’s very keen on holistic measures. We both are. She shuns western medical practices. But our daughter, Willow, she’s been losing weight. They call it ‘failure to thrive.’ Really unusual for a two-year-old. They tend to gobble up anything in sight. But she’s so picky, and a lot of foods make her sick. So I bought her some formula out of desperation. I give her a bottle at night when Rebecca’s sleeping.”
His expression is so somber that Clare must bite her lower lip to avoid any reaction he might misread. His eyes are puffy. A man in mourning, she thinks. A man in pain.
“Once Sally knew about this place she’d come here too. Like a refuge within a refuge. Ha. I’d let her smoke in here even though it made me want to puke.”
Clare decides to prod a bit further. “Helen told me you two were friendly.”
Markus nods, raising a hand to stop Clare from saying more, another effort to keep his tears in check. “I’m sorry,” he says after a minute. “It’s been a lot. William is my daughter’s age. The sweetest boy. So full of life.”
“The cross next to the river. Helen says you put it there.” The words spill from Clare before she thinks better of them. Markus nods.
“I meant it as a memorial.” He pauses, scratching his head. “But now it just looks like . . .”
“A grave marker.”
Markus frowns. “Yes,” he says.
Clare peers over the opening again.
“Actually,” she says, “do you mind if I go down? I’d like to see it.”
Markus rubs his eyes, then waves her to the stairs. Even when she grips the shaky handrail, there is no pain in her shoulder. It feels healed for the first time since Clare was shot. An illusion produced by the pill, she knows, but a relief nonetheless. The bunker is a squat and square room much larger than Clare expected, its walls lined with sheeted metal, each with a caged lightbulb so bright that Clare cannot look at them directly. There are shelves lined with boxes and canned goods along two walls, at least a dozen cans of baby formula, a couch with faded patterns straight ahead. A gun rack high on the far wall. Markus hovers at the bottom of the stairs.
“My dad was convinced we’d be taken out by a bomb, or a meteor, or a tornado or electrical storm that would wipe out the grid,” he says. “This was his means to escape the end of the world.” He pauses and scratches his head again, a tic. “I was away from High River for a long time. Years. When I got back I only remembered vaguely where it was. Took me weeks to actually find it. That’s how well it’s hidden.”
“Do the cops know about the bunker?” Clare asks.
“Nope,” he says. “But that’s just because no one else does. I promised Helen I’d fill it in years ago. But I never did. You’d have a very hard time finding it in the light of day even if you knew it was here. It’s always been my little hideaway. I guess lying about it in the first place is not the kind of thing you can backtrack on.”
“Even the search party never found it? The ones looking for Sally?”
Clare can tell the question has provoked Markus despite his efforts to hide it. He coughs.
“They’ve stuck to the river,” he says. “I’m as surprised as you, to be honest. I keep waiting to get caught.”
The trapdoors mustn’t be more than a quarter mile from the house, however set back in the woods. Hiding from the people closest to you. It seems implausible, but then, Clare thinks of the hunting cabin Jason built at the far edge of their property, a hole in the roof to release the smoke from the fire pit he’d laid at its center, the supplies he’d collected on hooks and plywood shelves. By the time she’d finally discovered it on a spring jog she could tell it had been there a long time, years, even, by the way the earth had already started to reclaim it.
Markus collects a can of formula and sits on the couch, sinking low into it, the look of a lost boy.
“I know it’s bad,” he says, his voice shrill. “Keeping it a secret. Hiding it from my wife. From Helen. Squirreling away cans of formula.”
“You’re trying to do right by your child,” Clare offers.
“Rebecca would say I’m poisoning her.”
“Surely she’d understand if—”
“Every morning Rebecca gives her a tincture of echinacea and almond oil. She thinks that’s what’s helping. Meanwhile, I’m hiding baby formula in a bomb shelter and giving it to my daughter behind my wife’s back. It’s working, though. Willow’s gained five pounds.”
“Well, there are certainly worse things you could be giving her.”
A shadow passes across Markus’s face. Clare can’t read it. She feels wobbly on her feet, the air in here too stale despite the open doors. Markus stands and straightens. It amazes her how quickly a man’s demeanor can change, how a perceived slight can shift his body language, alter him physically.
“We’re all very sorry about Sally and William,” he says, monotone.
“I am too,” Clare says.
“But like I said, there’s reason to hope, isn’t there?”
“I think so,” Clare says.
“Helen told me you’re going in for questioning tomorrow,” Markus says. “Or today, I should say.”
“I am,” Clare says. “Any tips on what I should expect?”
“Don’t let the detective run you in circles. Rourke. Detective Rourke, I mean. He’s not one to follow procedure. He likes to throw his weight around.”
“I think interviewing a friend of Sally’s is pretty standard procedure, isn’t it?”
“Of course. We just want him to respect the process. Follow the obvious leads.”
“What obvious leads?”
“Sally was unwell,” he says. “There’s a whole side to this story that doesn’t seem to interest him.”
“Unwell how?”
“How well do you think you knew her?” Markus asks.
“She was my friend,” Clare says, her voice low, her pulse picking up pace. The light in here feels too bright.
“Are you settling in okay otherwise?” Markus asks, the change of topic so abrupt that Clare shakes her head.
“Yes,” Clare says. “Fine. Thank you.”
The wayward questions and answers are muddling her. Why did she come here? Why did s
he take those pills, her wits fogged as they wear off? Clare’s instincts draw her to the gun rack. Markus follows her gaze.
“Rebecca won’t let me keep them in the house. The guns, I mean. She hates them.”
“Where does she think you keep them?” Clare asks. “If she doesn’t know about this place?”
Markus ignores the question. “Helen and I are the last of the country people. Our parents were country people. They never would have dreamed of the city closing in the way it is now. Ginny and Jordan, they’re city types. Even Rebecca. They don’t understand how country people live. Guns are only evil if you have no practical use for them.”
“My father felt the same way,” Clare says.
“Did he? These belonged to my father. Not much else around here did.”
Did you use your father’s own gun to kill him? Clare thinks to ask. Instead she takes his cue and ascends the stairs to the wet ground of the surrounding woods. When he flicks off the light the blackness is so deep that Clare cannot see her hand when she raises it to her face. Is it not morning yet? When will the day break? Markus switches on a flashlight and hands it to her along with the can of formula. She watches as he closes the trapdoors, pulling thick carpets covered with dirt and leaves on top as camouflage.
“See?” he says, standing and wiping the earth from his jeans. “Gone. Like it was never there. A secret isn’t a secret unless it’s well kept.”
Markus tucks the bottle of formula under his arm and takes her by the elbow, his palm clammy against her skin.
“I need to get home,” Markus says. “I’m pressing my luck at this point.”
“Of course. Your daughter is waiting.”
“She is.” Markus looks to the sky. “An hour to sunrise? Maybe we’ll sleep yet.”
A wave of deep exhaustion hits Clare as they pick their way through the trees. How quickly the effects of the pill have come and gone, Clare thinks. They cut through the trees in silence, then Markus stretches the beam of the flashlight to allow Clare a path back to Helen’s house. She turns to wave in thanks before sliding into the darkness, grateful to be away from him at last.
The police station is a squat old building, the gargoyles of its stone facade a mismatch to the glass condo towers that surround it. The drive in from High River had been full of stilted silences, Jordan offering one-word answers to Clare’s questions, Ginny on her phone in the backseat. And Clare had been too foggy coming down from the pills she’d taken, too anxious to prod beyond setting an agreed meeting time at Jordan’s office. Now it’s been ten minutes since Jordan dropped her at the police station and she stands frozen on the sidewalk in front of its heavy doors, her backpack between her feet, her pulse in her ears. How long did she sleep after leaving Markus and the bunker and returning to her bed? Two hours?
Just play the part, Clare thinks, her fists in tight balls, eyes blinking back tears. They have no way of knowing who you really are.
“You okay?”
A hand rests on Clare’s shoulder. She jolts and turns to see Somers holding a tray with three coffees.
“Yes,” Clare says, the break in her voice betraying her. “I’m early, aren’t I?” She pauses. “Sorry. I’m nervous.”
“Listen,” Somers says. “We all want the same thing, right? To figure out where your friend’s gone?”
“Yes.”
Somers raises the tray. “I got you a coffee. The best in town. We’ll just sit and have a chat. See what we can find out together.”
Clare nods. Somers yanks open the doors and waves Clare in. Inside, a uniformed officer sits at a large wooden desk, his chair reclined at a steep angle, grinning at the screen of his cell phone. Only when Somers clears her throat does he bolt to attention, setting the phone down and sliding it away from him.
“Quiet morning?” Somers asks.
“Yes,” he says, eyes to the desk. “So far. So far.”
Above him is an analog clock: 8:55 a.m. This young officer can’t be twenty-three, the skin on his cheeks pink and free of stubble, the shift in his demeanor telling Clare that Somers is not a detective to be trifled with.
“This is Clare O’Brien,” Somers says. “Can you log her in and call Rourke to say she’s here?”
The young officer lifts the receiver of the phone on his desk. He makes a show out of punching at the keys, all business on Somers’s behalf.
“I’ll see you inside,” Somers says to Clare. “Just need to grab a few things. Rourke will get you settled.”
And then Somers turns a corner before Clare can protest. She remembers this from the cop shows she used to watch with her mother, the divide and conquer, two detectives playing characters for their witnesses, tag-teaming, a way to poke holes in their story. Clare breathes against the tightness returning to her chest.
“Yeah.” The young officer speaks into the receiver. “There’s a woman here to see you. Somers just brought her in. Clare Brien? No. O’Brien? Okay. Yep.” He hangs up and gestures to a stone bench along the far wall. “Wait there. He’s coming for you.”
He’s coming for you. In five years of marriage, Clare only ever visited a police station once. Not to report her husband, but to spring him after a drunken brawl outside his favorite bar. The officer who’d helped her with the bail forms was the same one who’d arrived at her home months earlier when she’d called 911 on Jason. If that officer remembered Clare, if he had any notion that he and his partner had not arrested Jason but instead convinced her not to press charges, to let him sleep it off in his own bed instead, he pretended otherwise as they sat at his desk and settled the conditions of Jason’s bail.
Now the bench is cold against Clare’s legs. When Rourke appears, Clare stands and hikes her backpack onto her good shoulder.
“Very punctual,” he says.
“I try to be.”
“Come in.” Rourke props the door open with his foot. “Somers is just grabbing some paperwork. She’ll join us in a minute.”
In the station proper a few officers sit at desks laid out haphazardly around the room, some plain-clothed and others in uniform. The air-conditioning blasts so forcefully from the vents that it lifts the ends of Clare’s hair, goose bumps coating her arms. Rourke places his hand on her high back and weaves her through the desks and down a hall to an interrogation room.
“We’re not trying to be intimidating,” he says, showing her to her seat. “It’s quieter in here. We can talk in private.”
We’ll just sit and have a chat, Somers had said outside. The good cop.
“Do you want to wait for Somers?” Rourke says.
“Do you?”
Detective Rourke frowns and looks around at the bare room. “I’ll go see what’s up. Give me a minute.”
When he leaves, Clare adjusts herself in the hard-back chair and tucks her backpack under it. It feels like a movie set, the spare gray of this room, this metal table and two facing chairs, a third chair ghostly in the corner, the rectangular window on one wall, its mirrored glass. Is someone on the other side, peering through? Clare glares into it to meet the invisible gaze.
Rourke returns and sets the coffee tray Somers had been carrying on the table, removing two of the cups and setting one in front of Clare. She lifts it and inhales its scent. Rourke searches his pockets for a pen. Once ready, he takes a sip of his coffee and looks up.
“Can I have your full name?”
“Clare Anne O’Brien.”
First and middle name the same. Last name picked by Malcolm, this time a more common O name. O’Brien, he’d said.
“And you know Sally Proulx.”
Clare recites the details for him, the times and places turned over and over so that they’d feel rote under this line of questioning. Rourke writes in point form, dabbing a hard period at the end of every line, underlining with silly flourishes. The fabric of his sports coat is pilled at the elbows and collar. He is handsome, Clare thinks, olive-skinned and sandy-haired, an athlete’s build.
“You’
re close friends with her?”
“I was. For a brief time.”
“Let’s not use past tense,” he says, scrutinizing her. “Until we know—”
“No,” Clare interrupts. “I meant I was friends with her. And then I wasn’t. We knew each other distantly growing up. We connected again later.”
“Right.” Rourke rubs at his chin, tapping his pen to the page. In how many of those cop shows did this very scene play out? The detective shifting in his seat, a coy exchange across the table.
“And what are you doing here now?” Rourke asks.
“You asked me to come.”
“No,” he says. “Not here. I mean, why did you come to High River?”
“Sally reached out. By e-mail. As I mentioned yesterday.”
“When?”
“A while ago. A month? I’m not sure exactly.”
“Do you have a copy of the e-mail?”
Clare makes a point of sitting up straight in the chair. She knows her lines. She will not get flustered.
“No,” she says. “I told Somers yesterday. I deleted it. Sally asked me to.”
“Why? Did she say she was in trouble?”
“Sally was always in trouble,” Clare says. “She told me where she was.” Clare thinks of her conversation with Raylene. He’d been getting sick a lot. “She told me William had been having some health issues. She said she was sorry for how we left things. That she wished her life had taken different turns. That she hoped we’d see each other again someday.”
“Did you reply?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Clare shrugs. She thinks of the skills gleaned on her first case in Blackmore. The tricks. Keep your false identity closely aligned with your true one. Never evade questions. Stay vague. What if it was Grace sitting here, answering questions about Clare? After Clare left she had written endless notes to Grace, narrating the whole story of her departure on motel pads, sometimes repentant and other times full of accusations, adaptations she’d scribble out, then rip up and flush down the toilet. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Grace to know, it’s that a part of her felt certain Grace didn’t care, that her oldest and only friend was glad she was gone.
