The Lovely Wicked Rain: An Oregon Coast Mystery (Garrison Gage Series)

by Scott William Carter

  "I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave," she said with a tremulous voice.

  "Without buying any magazines?" Gage said.

  She blinked a few times, her lashes long and dark. She wore enough makeup that it clung to her face like a plate of armor. For somebody who'd just been out in a hell of a storm, the makeup looked awfully fresh. Had she actually touched herself up? He couldn't see much of her through the tiny crack in the door, but what he could see was a short woman in a floral print dress, her pearl necklace too big to be anything but fake. She had a small mouth and a slight double chin. It was hard to pinpoint her age because of the makeup, but he guessed late forties, like Arne.

  "I'm sorry?" she said.

  "I'm not selling anything."

  "I know who you are. I'm not supposed to talk to you."

  "Who told you that? Arne?"

  "Please leave. I don't want any trouble." She started to close the door.

  "I think your son's innocent, Mrs. Cooper," Gage said.

  That got her attention. She blinked those long lashes of hers a few more times, searching his eyes. The door was only open a few inches. Gage felt the heat within the house streaming out, brushing past his face.

  "I just want to help your son, ma'am," Gage said. "That's the only reason I'm here. If you think there's any chance that your son didn't do this, you really should talk to me."

  She hesitated. "I really have to go."

  "Mrs. Cooper, please. I just want to talk. Give me five minutes. You can kick me out at any time. I like your son. He's a good kid, and I'd hate for him to spend the rest of his life in prison for something he didn't do."

  This got her to tear up, though she gamely kept the waterworks at bay. They were hanging on the edge. Any more pushing and he knew he'd lose her, so all he could do was wait.

  "I don't know," she said.

  "Just a few minutes."

  "Arne—"

  "He doesn't have to know."

  Then, as if they were conducting some clandestine exchange, she unlatched the chain, leaned out a little farther, and glanced around the neighborhood. Satisfied, she stepped back and allowed Gage into the house, closing the door quickly behind him. Standing there on the red brick foyer, dripping on the tiles, Gage felt as if he'd just surfaced from a deep dive.

  The first thing he encountered—it was impossible not to, since it was a huge and positioned right in front of the door—was a massive picture of Jesus, set behind glass and framed in oak. Thomas Kinkade prints of glowing cottages filled the rest of the walls. A staircase led off to the left, an alcove to a kitchen to the right, and straight ahead, beyond the foyer, he saw a tidy living room with a leather couch, two matching wingback chairs, and a flat-screen television that took up nearly an entire wall. He spotted more Thomas Kinkade prints and dozens of little white porcelain angels.

  "It's a very nice living room," he said.

  "Thank you," she said, wringing her hands together.

  "You really like angels, I see." Gage was trying to make conversation, loosen her up a little. If someone touched her on the shoulder from behind right now, he was pretty sure she'd scream.

  "Yes," she said. "They—they remind me to walk God's path."

  "It's good to have those reminders."

  "And they also—also remind me that none of us are beyond redemption."

  "Even Jeremiah?" he asked.

  Tears sprang up in her eyes, so fast it was as if he'd hit a button, and she blinked them away. "All of us. Otherwise—otherwise there would be no reason to go on living. You just need to read the Bible. If more people read the Bible and stayed true to it, the world would be a better place. There's so much wickedness out there."

  Gage, whose own opinion about religion was a bit more complicated, decided that now was not the time to engage in a philosophical discussion. "I want to help your son, Mrs. Cooper."

  "I don't see how. There's so much evidence … everyone seems so sure. I don't—I don't know what can change things. I've prayed and prayed. Arne says we just have to hope the lawyer can get a lighter sentence. Insanity plea. I don't know."

  "Do you have a lawyer yet?"

  "No. No, Arne is working on it."

  Water dribbled onto Gage's face, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand, which didn't do a whole lot of good since the back of his hand was like a wet sponge. He was conscious of how fragile she was. She was like one of her figurines. It wouldn't take much to shatter her. "Well, I'd like to start with the assumption he's innocent. It can't hurt, right? Let's just assume he didn't do it and go from there. Can I ask you a few questions?"

  "I don't know. I have to start working on dinner. Arne will be home soon."

  Gage decided to take a bit of a chance. "Ma'am … Jeanie … Can I call you Jeanie? Your son's life hangs in the balance. Don't you think dinner can wait?"

  For a moment, Gage thought he'd gone too far. All over her face, around her eyes and her mouth, there was lots of quivering and twitching. A watery veil fell over her eyes.

  "Yes," she said, as if she'd made a very important decision.

  "Did you know about your son's friendship with Connor Fleicher?"

  "Just a little. I took Jeremiah to lunch once. I asked—I asked him if he had made any friends. He mentioned Connor."

  "Was there anything unusual about their friendship?"

  "Like what?"

  Gage didn't know how far he could go. Judging from Arne's reaction, he was guessing that if Jeremiah was gay and admitted it to himself, it was doubtful he would have admitted it to his parents. "Did his feelings toward Connor seem … more intense than a usual friendship?"

  "I don't know," she said. "I didn't … I didn't see him much. He stopped coming to church. Said he had his own chapel there. He stopped by the house a couple times to get some things, usually when Arne was at a game." The blinking came in rapid-fire sequence. The hands were wringing with such force that Gage was afraid she might break her fingers.

  "I take it the two of them didn't get along?" Gage asked. "Your husband and Jeremiah?"

  Jeanie shook her head, though it wasn't so much a no as if she were trying to shake off an unpleasant thought. "Arne loves him," she said.

  "Did they fight a lot?"

  "Not recently."

  "But they did? Before?"

  She nodded. "They're very different. Arne loves sports. It's his life. Jeremiah, he's a quiet boy. Reading. Star Trek. He loves Star Trek. Doctor Who. All those science-fiction shows. Some others. Battlestar Galactica. Arne didn't understand. I told him—told him …"

  "It's all right," Gage said.

  "I told him that Jeremiah's just different. He's not going to be into sports, but Arne never gave up. Kept making Jeremiah go to all those camps. Football. Basketball. Soccer. Even tennis. He just wanted Jeremiah to like a sport, any sport. But it just wasn't to be. But a couple years ago he just sort of gave up. And that's when the fights stopped. They didn't really talk much. I prayed a lot, hoping they'd find their way back together, but … It's too late now."

  "Jeanie, this is a tough question to ask, but … Did you think he might ever be suicidal?"

  "Arne? No. He'd never do anything like that."

  Gage thought it was strange that she should immediately assume he was talking about her husband. "Jeremiah. Did you ever think your son might think of his taking his own life?"

  "What? No, not Jeremiah. No, he wouldn't do that to me."

  "Did you know that I caught him with your husband's gun?"

  "He what?"

  "Your husband's revolver. I caught him with it on the beach about a month before he started at the college, during a big storm. He was shooting into the sand. He kept saying he was a coward. Why would he say that?"

  She shook her head. "I don't—I don't understand. I never knew. I didn't know."

  "Did you know that Arne had a gun?"

  "Yes. For protection."

  "But you never knew that Jeremiah took it?"

&
nbsp; "Not before. Just that they, they caught him with it. At the college."

  "Did you ever catch him with it before?"

  "No. No, he didn't like guns. Arne took him to the shooting range once when he was, oh, maybe ten. Another one of those things. Jeremiah, he came home crying."

  "Jeremiah," Gage said.

  "What?"

  "I just noticed that you haven't been calling him Jerry."

  She nodded, not so much in agreement than as if he had made an observation she needed to consider. "He goes by both. He goes by both Jerry and Jeremiah."

  "He told me he prefers Jeremiah."

  "Oh?"

  "Jeanie, did your son have many other friends? Especially recently? Anyone else he talked about other than Connor?"

  "Well … your daughter. Zoe. He mentioned her a few times."

  "Anyone else?"

  "Not really."

  "Not really?"

  She chewed at her bottom lip. He could see that her tank was running low. Any minute he was going to lose her. The rain, in a rhythmic beat, swished against the roof like the bristles of a broom. Inside, safely ensconced with her figurines and her figurative paintings, they were safe and dry and isolated from the harsh realities of the world. Gage got the sense that this was the only place Jeanie Cooper felt even remotely comfortable, and that wasn't saying much.

  "I mean, not real people," she said finally. "Maybe people on the computer. He spent a lot of time on the Internet, especially the last few years."

  "What did he do on there?"

  "I don't know. I don't really know."

  "But you said you thought he was interacting with people on the Internet. What makes you think that?"

  "I don't know."

  "Jeanie … Mrs. Cooper, please. This could be important."

  She shrugged. "He just … a couple times, he talked about some of the, what do you call them, places he talked to people on the Internet. Hangouts."

  "Facebook?"

  "No, he hates Facebook. He says it's a popularity contest. He likes to go to places around his shows."

  "Message boards? Fan forums?"

  Her eyes brightened. "Yes, that's it. Fan forums. For his shows. If he has any other friends, that's where they'd be. There was one called SpacedOut. I think that was the one he went to the most. Sometimes, when he'd be sitting with his laptop, I'd see over his shoulder that he was typing a message in one of those places. And he'd be smiling. Happy. I didn't bother him about it, because it was one of the few things that made him happy. Makes him happy."

  Gage had noticed that she'd been drifting between the present and past tense when referring to her son, but it wasn't unusual. Back in New York, he'd run into this before, people with a loved one facing life in prison or worse, trying to cope, trying to come to terms that the person they'd cared so much about may not be playing a meaningful part of their life in the years ahead. It was part of the grieving process, of letting go, and it said something about Jeanie Cooper that she was already engaged in it.

  "Did the police take his laptop?" Gage asked.

  "I guess so. He took it with him to school."

  "Did he have anything else he used to get on the Internet? A home computer? An iPad?"

  "No. No, just the laptop." She squeezed her hands together a little more. Her left eye was visibly twitching. "I think, I think you should go now."

  "I'd like to see his room," Gage said.

  "Um, no. I don't think so. Not right now."

  "It might help."

  "How?"

  "Anything could help at this point. I'm just trying to get a better picture of Jeremiah as a person."

  "There's not a lot there. Some science-fiction models. Some posters. A year or so ago, he got rid of almost everything from his childhood. Toys, stuffed animals—he said it was time to leave it behind. He did it when I wasn't here, or I would have stopped him. Have him box it up and keep it. Maybe, maybe give some of those things to his own kids someday. If he had them. You know." Her voice fell off sharply, to a whisper, then silence, as if someone abruptly turned down the volume.

  "Did something happen at the time?"

  "No. Maybe. I don't know. It was after he came back from one of those conventions he liked to go to. A Star Trek thing."

  "In Portland?"

  "Yes. Yes, I think so."

  "Aren't you the one who took him?"

  "No, Arne did." There must have been a surprised look on Gage's face, because Jeanie continued a bit defensively. "He does love Jeremiah. He may wish that Jeremiah was more like him, but that doesn't mean he doesn't love him. He wants him to be happy. We both want him to be happy."

  "I just can't imagine your husband hanging out with Klingons."

  "Oh, he didn't stay. He went to visit a friend of his who coaches at Portland State. I think you better go now. He should be home soon. He won't be happy you're here."

  "One last thing," Gage said, though there were actually lots more questions he'd like to ask her. "I'd like your permission to talk to Jeremiah."

  "What?"

  "I'm afraid the police won't allow me to talk to him without parental approval."

  "Oh, I don't know."

  Gage stepped a little closer, lowering his voice. "Jeanie, if I don't talk to him, I'll never be able to prove he's innocent. I don't think Jeremiah did this. I can't explain why yet. But I bet your son can. I bet he knows a lot more than he's telling us."

  "Arne—"

  "It's not just up to him. Jeremiah is your son too."

  "He'd be very upset."

  "If he finds out, probably," Gage acknowledged.

  "He'll find out."

  "I'm not going to lie to you. He probably will."

  Her eyes grew wide as the rest of her appeared to shrink, like a mouse huddling in the corner. "He gets so angry."

  "Does he get violent when he's angry?"

  "What?"

  "I mean, does he hit you? I don't want to put you in danger."

  "No! He's never touched me or Jeremiah. He just … yells a lot. Sometimes he breaks things. But he's never hurt me."

  "All right," Gage said, "I know I'm still asking you to take a risk. But it's for Jeremiah. I can help him. I might be the only person who can right now. I just want you to make one phone call. Tell them who you are. Ask to speak to the chief or one of the detectives. Tell them you're giving your permission for Garrison Gage to talk to your son. Can you do that for me, Jeanie? It could make all the difference."

  "I don't—"

  "Please."

  He put his whole weight into the word, really leaning into it. The extra emphasis seemed to work, breaking her briefly out of her funk. She looked at him, searching, as if what she was supposed to do was written on his face.

  "Okay," she said.

  "You'll do it?"

  "Yes."

  Gage looked at her, waiting. She looked back, not seeming to comprehend.

  "Do you have a phone in the living room?" he asked.

  "Oh," she said, "you mean now."

  "No better time than the present."

  * * *

  The rain was still pounding—if anything, it was raining harder—when Gage parked the van in front of the police station.

  The light was poor. Even at midday, it felt like dusk, the coiled gray clouds choking off the sun. Gage, pride getting the better of him, left his cane in the car and paid for it by slipping on the wet sidewalk by the door and nearly going down, only saving himself by grabbing the handle of the glass door. And who should be waiting for him, leaning on the front counter, but Detective Brisbane, he of the bags under his eyes, the rumpled and ill-fitting shirt, and the pallor of a corpse.

  He lifted a paper cup in greeting, and his eyes had an amused glint to them. Behind him, Madge, their bosomy dispatcher, pecked quietly on her keyboard, her black headset disappearing into her great bob of dark brown hair. The harsh glare of the fluorescent lights shone in the white countertop like a deep scratch; the base of the cou
nter was carpeted like the floor, in a swirling pattern of browns and blues. "Nice little dance step there," Brisbane said. "Man, aren't you a sorry sight. You fall in Big Dipper Lake or something?"

  "I'm here to see Jeremiah," Gage said.

  Brisbane, obviously in no rush, took a sip from his coffee. The office behind the front counter, a series of cubicles tall enough that the occupants were hidden, hummed with activity, clicks and beeps, a dozen murmuring voices on a dozen phone calls.

  "We video the front door, you know. I'll have to get the tape. Upload it to YouTube."

  "What's YouTube? The nickname for your toilet?"

  "Bet it will get a million hits."

  "You think? It can't be as popular as that time you wrestled naked with Trenton in hot mud. That move you pulled, grabbing his love handles, was really something."

  Madge snickered, which for her was the equivalent of a lengthy soliloquy. For a dispatcher, she was remarkably quiet, hardly ever speaking other than through the headset. Brisbane glared at her, but she took no notice.

  "Jeremiah," Gage said.

  Brisbane downed the rest of his coffee, then leaned over the counter and tossed the cup into the garbage. Taking his time. He loosened his tie, which was already plenty loose. He propped himself up with his elbows, nodding, looking Gage up and down as if sizing him up for a fight. Gage wondered when Brisbane had last been in a fight, other than to fight into his clothes each morning, which was the only way to explain their consistently disheveled appearance. No clothes could get that wrinkled unless someone was trying to beat the crap out of them.

  "Yeah, Jeanie Cooper called," Brisbane said.

  "Imagine that."

  "And we can't seem to get in touch with Arne at the moment. He was in the process of getting an attorney. If he'd gotten one, we wanted to make sure your visit was all right."

  "You have one parent's approval," Gage said. "You shouldn't need another."

  "Yeah, well, we like to cover our bases."

  "Since when?"

  "Since you got involved, Gage. Anyway, you can talk to the kid, but there's a hitch. I'm going to be your escort."

  "Are you going to wear a tiara?"

  Brisbane shook his head, rueful and sad as always, and motioned for Gage to follow. A short hall with locked doors, one of which was the interrogation room he and Zoe had been in the previous day, led to a thick metal door with a barred center window. The police officer on duty searched Gage, took his Beretta, then waved them past.