A Fistful of Rain

by Greg Rucka

  The wrinkles around her eyes bunched, as if in committee. She looked me over, and her mouth got tighter, more sour. She had one hand on the door, and from her grip, I thought she might be about to slam it on me.

  “Yes, I remember you.”

  “I was wondering if I might come in, speak to you and your husband? Is Mr. Quick here?”

  “Of course he’s here.” She said it strangely, as if I should have known the answer already. “What do you want to talk to us about?”

  “May I come in?”

  She adjusted her hold on the door, and then she pulled it back, opening it wider, puffing a disgusted sigh. She waved me in as if it was easier than refusing me entry, then shut the door and came around, leading the way to the den. The interior, unlike the exterior, had gone through some changes. The architecture was early seventies, with a sunken den, and the carpet had been replaced, thicker than the old, blue instead of the tan I remembered. The couch had been replaced, was now a multisection modular monstrosity, the kind where segments can turn into recliners. Through the glass doors into the backyard, I could see the signs of gardening, preparing for the winter, torn-up plants, a wheelbarrow.

  Gareth Quick was outside, on his knees, working with a trowel in the flower bed.

  “The boys don’t live here anymore?” I asked.

  “No.” Anne said it flatly. She pulled the sliding door open, adding, “Well, come on.”

  I stepped onto the back patio. Gareth Quick looked up from his work, and his eyes went from me to his wife, and there was nothing in them but confusion. He settled the look back on me and smiled.

  “You’re very pretty,” he said. “What happened to your head?”

  “This is Miriam, honey,” Anne told him. “You remember Miriam, don’t you?”

  “Miriam?”

  “Yes, she lived with us for a while, when the boys were in high school.”

  The smile stayed in place. He looked, unlike his wife, as if the years hadn’t had a physical effect on him. Even the haircut was the same, reminiscent of the military, close and neat. Like Anne, he was dressed for gardening, but unlike his wife, the clothes didn’t seem to settle correctly, a little baggy where they should have held tight, a little loose where they should have been snug.

  Physically, he could have been the Parka Man, but I already knew it wasn’t him. It was his voice, it just wasn’t the same.

  And there was absolutely no recognition of me in his eyes.

  “The boys?”

  “Brian and Christopher, honey. Our sons.”

  Alarm crept laboriously across his face.

  “What did they do?” Gareth Quick asked, and his voice dropped and wobbled, just the way it had when he’d found them dragging me through the hallway. “What did those little shits do to you, Miriam?”

  “Nothing,” I assured him. “I’m fine, sir. It’s all right.”

  There were tears in his eyes, and his chin had dropped onto his chest; he wasn’t even looking at us, now. He began to sob.

  “What did we do?” he was saying. “God, what did we do that was so wrong, Annie? What did we do so wrong?”

  “It’s all right, hon,” Anne said, and she dropped to her knees and put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re at home, and I’m here, and there’s nothing to worry about.”

  He pushed her hand away, his sobs racking his thin body.

  “Could you wait inside?” Anne asked, without looking at me, without taking her eyes off him. “In the kitchen, maybe?”

  I nodded and backed off, retreating to the kitchen. It had changed, the cabinets and counters replaced, even the table. I took a chair and waited, and the déjà vu stampeded, and for a moment, it was as if I had never left, all of the wounds raw and open.

  It was almost twenty minutes before Anne came back, and she was leading Gareth by the hand. An open archway past the table had another view of the den, and she brought him past me, that way, and got him settled on the couch. He seemed perfectly fine with that, and she put the remote control in his hand, turned on the television, and the soft noise of morning talk bubbled into the space.

  “I’ll be in the kitchen,” Anne told her husband.

  He nodded, focused on the screen.

  She joined me at the table. “Alzheimer’s.”

  “I didn’t know,” I said, and started to add that I was terribly sorry, but she cut me off.

  “How could you?” She checked over her shoulder, to make certain Gareth was still where she’d left him. He hadn’t moved. “Almost three years, now. He’s not going to be with me much longer.”

  “You’re caring for him by yourself?”

  “A nurse comes during the afternoons, when I have to go to work. I’m part-time, real estate.”

  “I’m a musician,” I told her.

  “Is that what you call it?” Her mouth got smaller, even more bitter. “I’d have thought ‘entertainer’ might be a better word.”

  “I suppose you could call it that, too.”

  “What did you want to talk to us about?”

  I thought about spinning a lie, like I had with Sheila Larkin, but it was clear Anne Quick had very little patience, and what amount of it was left she needed for her husband.

  “I’m trying to find Brian and Chris,” I told her.

  “Why?” This time there was no mistaking the hostility.

  “I need to speak to them,” I said.

  “You going to sue them? Have them arrested? You looking for some sort of revenge?”

  “No, ma’am, I just—”

  “They were perfectly nice boys, you know, they were wonderful boys, until you came into our house. They were just wonderful young men, their father loved them so much, he worked so hard for them, to give them everything they needed. Then we took you in, and you destroyed it.”

  I stared at her. Someone’s memory was playing tricks, and it wasn’t mine.

  “The way you led them on,” Anne Quick continued, her voice like acid. “The way you teased them, they were boys, what were they supposed to think? And now you make a living doing just that, don’t you? Selling a whiff of sex, a little promise here and there, strutting around with a guitar and your drug-addict friends.”

  My mouth had gone dry. Behind Anne, her husband was still watching television, head cocked to one side, eyes bright with fascination, oblivious.

  “I never led them on, ma’am,” I said. “I never did anything to encourage them.”

  “You believe what you want to, that’s fine. I’m sure you don’t think of yourself as a slut now. But you sure as hell were one then.”

  I tried again, trying to ignore the hostility. “I didn’t come here to make any trouble, Mrs. Quick. I’m just looking to contact Chris or Brian, that’s all.”

  “Why? To get them locked up again? To accuse them of attempted rape, to make a big story? Do you need more headlines?”

  “They were arrested?”

  “Don’t act like you don’t know.” She spat it at me. “Don’t act like you don’t know.”

  “Are they in prison?”

  That made her more defensive, as if she’d thought I’d expected that. “No, they’re not, thank you. They’ve been just fine and they’ve stayed out of trouble, so they don’t need you making it worse.”

  “Because if they’ve been in prison,” I said, “I’d hate to think that was my fault.”

  Anne Quick gave me a suspicious appraisal. “What does that mean?”

  “If it was my fault, I mean. If something I did got them in trouble. I’m . . . well, I was hoping I could make it up to them.”

  “And how would you do that?”

  “I’m rich,” I said.

  The hard little eyes seemed to brighten momentarily. Green-eyed monster, I thought. Not jealousy, but greed.

  “You’re going to give my sons money?”

  “I didn’t want to insult them,” I said. “Didn’t want them to think it was charity. I was thinking of it as a gift.”


  She needed a couple of seconds to chew on that. On the couch, Gareth had started flipping channels.

  “I can’t imagine it’s easy taking care of Gareth like this,” I told her. “You must be working very hard.”

  “All the time.”

  “If you’d let me, maybe I could help you out with that, too.”

  “I don’t want charity, either.”

  “Of course not. But you and Gareth, you opened your home to me, and I owe you for that. I’d really like to make it up to you.”

  “Would you, really? Or is it just that you think you can buy what you want?”

  I gambled, then, pushing my chair back and getting to my feet. “I’m sorry to have insulted you this way, Mrs. Quick. I’ll go.”

  She didn’t move and she didn’t speak, so I headed out of the kitchen, had gotten all the way to my hand on the doorknob before she called after me to stop. I heard her coming, hurrying to catch up to me.

  “I apologize,” she said, and it looked like she was choking down rotten meat. “It’s just . . . it’s been very hard, you can imagine.”

  “I understand.”

  “If you’d be willing to help . . . ?”

  “The medical bills,” I said. “Would you let me cover those?”

  “You’d . . . you would do that?”

  “I don’t want to see Gareth suffering,” I told her, and it was the honest-to-God truth. “I’ll have my attorney contact you, he’ll arrange to have the bills come to me.”

  She didn’t speak for a few seconds, possibly because she couldn’t. She finally had to nod.

  “And the boys,” I said. “Where can I find them?”

  “They’re outside of Junction City, that’s near Eugene.”

  “Do you have an address?”

  “I’m sure I do around here somewhere.”

  “If you can get that for me,” I said. “And if you don’t mind me using your phone, I’ll call my attorney, see if we can’t get this bill thing handled right now.”

  Anne Quick, my new best friend, offered to dial for me.

  CHAPTER 32

  Junction City was about another fifty miles or so south of Salem, still heading along Interstate 5. I left Anne Quick talking to Chapel on the phone, and was back on the road before ten, with the Ford following as I went. Once again they weren’t trying to be hidden. They knew I saw them there, and they didn’t care.

  The weather was holding, and the drive wasn’t too bad, except for the part passing Albany, when the stink of the paper mill fell over the road like a shadow of death. When Tailhook first started getting gigs outside of Portland and we’d drive down to perform in Eugene, we’d try to see who could hold their breath the longest going through the zone. Van always won.

  Junction City is a big name for a little community, mostly farming, just northwest of Eugene, in the peppermint fields. I reached it just past eleven. It’s rural, with the slightest of downtowns, and the bare essential of amenities, and I stopped at a mom-and-pop convenience store on the side of the road. I parked on gravel and hopped out, feeling the bruise on my side tighten as I moved. Inside, I bought myself a bottle of Arrowhead and got directions from the middle-aged man behind the counter to the address Anne Quick had provided. He was wearing coveralls and a flannel, and he eyed me and my earrings with some suspicion before determining that I wasn’t here to undermine his way of life. I didn’t correct his assumption.

  The Ford pulled up while I was getting the directions, and Marcus and Hoffman got out. Marcus made straight for me at the counter, then asked the man if there was a bathroom he could use. I almost laughed aloud.

  “Don’t leave without me,” Marcus threw over his shoulder at me, then went to use the facilities.

  Hoffman was stretching by the car when I came outside, arching her back with her arms extended over her head. When she stretched, I could see the gun in the holster on her waist. I unlocked my door and was about to get into the Jeep when she said, “Christopher Quick.”

  I closed the door again, looking at her over the hood, waiting.

  “Son of Anne and Gareth.” She dropped her arms, put the weight of her gaze on me. She still had her sunglasses on, hiding her eyes, but I felt it just the same. “Brother Brian. Both recent guests at OSP.”

  “You gonna tell me what they went in for?”

  “Aggravated assault and attempted rape, the both of them. Why are you talking to the Quicks?”

  “You’re not supposed to be asking me questions,” I told her.

  “Yeah, but here, out in these peppermint fields, you can’t really hide behind your counsel, can you? Why the Quicks?”

  “I stayed with them for a few months when I was a kid. They were one of the foster families I was placed with.”

  “Thought that was Beckerman.”

  “The Beckermans were the last family I was placed with. Before the Beckermans, there were the Quicks. Before Quick, there was Larkin. And in the beginning, there was Bracca, Thomas and Diana.”

  She took it in, then glanced in the direction of the store. Inside, Marcus was at the counter, picking out a piece of beef jerky.

  “I was going to call you,” I said.

  Hoffman turned her sunglasses back to me. “If I’d known you’d become a suspect again, it never would have happened.”

  Marcus came out of the store, then, before I could respond. He handed a bottle of Arizona green tea to Hoffman, opened an RC cola for himself, then settled on the hood of his car, grinning at me.

  “Lot of commuting just to dispose of a body,” he told me.

  He so obviously didn’t believe that was what I was doing, I almost laughed.

  “You tell us why you want to talk to the Quicks, we’ll do it for you,” Hoffman said. “We’re detectives, we could detect. We could determine you’re not a suspect, but instead the kind of person who wants to help us.”

  “You don’t know I’m going to talk to the Quicks.”

  “You’re not in Junction City to enjoy the air.” Marcus took a deep inhale. “God, I fucking hate peppermint.”

  “At least it’s not Albany,” I said.

  “You don’t want to talk to these guys without us there, Miss Bracca,” Hoffman said.

  “Why not?”

  “These are not nice boys,” Marcus said. “Christopher and Brian, they take drugs and they get violent and they have impressive records for such young men. Christopher and Brian have ties to God’s Army.”

  “They’re a band?”

  “They’re a militia,” Hoffman said.

  “White racists, fighting for God’s People against the Forces of Darkness,” Marcus added. “That would be people like my lesbo partner here, and me, a government patsy, and you, you drug-taking promiscuous rock star, you. Declared war on the false government of the USA when abortion was legalized. Don’t like blacks, Jews, Catholics, the whole rigmarole. And they probably won’t like you very much, at all, come to think of it, since you’ve got miscegenation of the races going on, what with a black man playing drums.”

  “They used their time inside to get in good with some of the more passionate racists,” Hoffman said. “Yet another success of the penal system.”

  No wonder Anne had been so hostile, I thought.

  “So you see why we’re kind of concerned with you going to talk to these guys alone,” Hoffman added.

  “Did your father maybe know Chris or Brian while at OSP?” Marcus asked.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Pity. See, if he had, we’d call that a lead. And if you could confirm something like that, well, it would make our job easier.”

  “I don’t know who Tommy knew in prison.”

  “Then why do you want to see these two?”

  “That’s none of your business, and I see a pay phone over there, I can call my lawyer.”

  “Where’s your father?” Hoffman asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “And you’re not looking for him? Tha
t’s not what this is?”

  “No, it’s not.” I pulled my car door open again, climbed back into the Jeep. “Now, sing along with the chorus, you know the words: If you have any further questions, you can talk to my attorney.”

  The Quick brothers lived down a dirt track off Prairie Road, behind an expanse of peppermint field, in a house just outside a line of pine trees.

  I say house, but I’m being generous, because what I really thought when I first saw it was shack. There were power lines coming to it through the trees, electricity and telephone, perhaps, and maybe there was running water, too, but none of those things changed my assessment. The road went from paved to dirt on the way in, a long straight line that wasn’t dusty only because there’d been recent rain.

  More than the out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere feeling that came from the sprawling fields and the distant hills was making me nervous as I pulled up. If Chris and Brian had both been at OSP, that tied all of us together, them, Tommy, me, maybe even Mikel. While I had no idea what prison was actually like, it didn’t seem impossible that Chris or Brian or both had learned who Tommy Bracca was, that it had come out in some conversation or some interaction that the Miriam Bracca they knew as boys was his famous daughter.

  It didn’t take much imagination to see them hatching a plan, then, trying to find a way to use the information to make some money. If they’d gotten out around the time Tommy had, then all either would have needed to do was wait until I came home, and then they could get the whole thing rolling. Pictures and kidnapping and all of it, all wrapped together. Maybe the pictures had been one plan, and Mikel had learned about it somehow, so they’d killed him.

  The more I thought about it, the more I thought that I was headed straight into a lot of trouble. If Chris or Brian was the Parka Man, then they’d already proved themselves dangerous, already proved they weren’t afraid to kill. It meant they knew enough to plant cameras in my home, to get past my alarm, to take pictures of me while I slept.

  The thoughts lingered, expanding with horror as I realized how bad things could have gotten. Whichever Quick had forced me into his truck at gunpoint, whichever Quick had been in my home, he’d had me alone and defenseless and, once, even completely unaware. Jesus, one of them had finally gotten me out of my clothes. If he’d wanted more than just a scare or a photograph, nothing would have stopped him from getting it.