Day One

by Bill Cameron

  “A thing?” I try to keep the sudden interest out of my voice.

  “I guess it makes sense. She’s hot enough to give a squeaker like Eager wood.”

  It unnerves me a bit to hear Jase speak of his stepmother like this. To me, Luellen is the mom of the little boy who calls me Mister Skin, whose plants I’ve watered during Bronstein family excursions. Still, she possesses a beguiling self-assurance; I can see why Eager would be drawn to her. Her country-girl loveliness and finely turned figure are only a part of it.

  “Did she reciprocate?”

  “You mean, does she like him back?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She was nice to him, but she’s nice to everyone.”

  “Is that why he tagged your house? Because of how he felt about Luellen?”

  “How should I know? We never talked about stuff like that. Whatever he thought about Lu was between him and his right hand.”

  The resonating whir of skateboard wheels under the bridge seems to increase in pitch. Jase takes a half step back, finds himself up against the fence. His eyes tell me he thinks I’m going to hit him. I’m tempted. Probably get my ass kicked for my trouble though, if not by Jase then by the other skaters. Burnside Skatepark is not a place that tolerates shit from outsiders, and I doubt I can count on Push to help me if the situation blows up. He might enjoy playing the tough for me with a sloppy tub of attitude like Jase Bronstein, but no more than that. Still, I lower my brow, move a step in on Jase and ball my fists at my side. There’s more I want to know, and I figure I might as well press while I’ve got him off-balance.

  “You know, Jase, I’m not sure why you think it’s a good idea to give me attitude. The cops are looking for you. Cops who are my friends. You can’t run from a crime scene like that.”

  “She did.”

  “Luellen?”

  “She left first. Cop turned his back and she zaps. I wasn’t gonna stick after that.”

  “Jase, you were in that house this morning. You saw what happened, and a lot of people wanna know about it. You tell me now, maybe I can keep them off your back.”

  “I told you, my dad freaked out and we ran. That’s it.” He’s blinking now, head swinging side to side. I can smell his sweat, vinegar tinted with nicotine. I’m on the edge of something, but he doesn’t want to give it to me. “I got nothing to do with any of this. Never have.”

  “What about Danny? Luellen said he was with his grandfather. Do you know who that is? I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”

  “You don’t give a fat fuck about helping me.” Suddenly he draws himself up, kicks the tail of his board. It pops up into the air and he grabs it with one hand, thrusts it toward me like a spear. I jump back in time to avoid taking a jab in the batteries. “This is what I know about, man. This.” The bottom of the board is covered with scratched and faded stickers: band names I don’t recognize, skateboard logos I do. Element, Black Label. “Fuck my father, fuck Luellen, and fuck Eager. I ain’t taking a bullet for bullshit’s got nothing to do with me.”

  At that, he turns and sprints under the bridge down 2nd. I let him go; couldn’t catch him if I wanted to. But I can’t help but wonder about the darkening bruise I saw on the back of his neck as he spun away from me.

  Push skates up to the fence.

  “Everything cool, man?”

  “Yeah. No worries.”

  But it’s not cool. Jase knows a lot more than he’s telling, not the least why he said his dad was packing heavy metal when all Mitch had was a peashooter. I wave to Push, head in the direction Jase ran. There is no sign of him, just the old brick buildings of Eastside Industrial, the scent of wet asphalt, delivery trucks belching exhaust. I pull out my phone, dial Susan’s cell. She doesn’t answer, but I leave a message telling her I saw Jase at Burnside, summarize our chat. If she wants to send a car down to look for him, she can. As I head up to the bus stop on MLK, I think about how part of me didn’t want to reach out to Susan, considering her attitude toward me earlier. But all the cop hasn’t been burned out of me yet. She’s the lieutenant, after all, and it’s just a phone call.

  The Last Few Years

  Stay Away From the Kid

  She was officially Jane, but I called her the Tabor Doe, as if she was a disoriented deer that wandered into a hunter’s bullet in the middle of town. She was hardly my only open file left after more than six years in Homicide.

  There were the gang shootings, drive-bys where you have a pretty good idea who pulled the trigger, but the evidence is too thin to make an arrest. Much as such cases rankled, you had to figure justice would be served in the end, most likely bloody street justice. So be it.

  Harder for me to take was the six-year-old girl found beaten to an unrecognizable pulp in her basement, two parents baffled and heart-broken upstairs. Portland’s own Jon Benet Ramsey, perhaps, but one who didn’t make national headlines because she was neither pretty enough nor her mother and father wealthy enough to merit the attention of anyone but me and Susan and a gaggle of crime scene examiners. Maybe there was a little frowny-faced coverage on local news—it’s been a while. We turned up nothing on her behalf. Susan and I agreed the father did it, but we could never build a proper case. Nothing probative, just a lot of murk in his piece of shit alibi—fly fishing with a brother whose girlfriend never heard about no goddamn fishing trip—and a wife who assured us that, no, oh no, she couldn’t say what happened but she knew it couldn’t be him—he was a good father. He loved his little girl so. His credit card statements and browser history indicated he loved barely legal porn too, the kind where the girls look like they’re fourteen even if the fine print claims they’re all voting age.

  Sure.

  No other leads ever developed, but a year or so later mom shoved a fondue fork through dad’s eye after she caught him surfing porn again, this time on her laptop. The fork didn’t kill him, but did damage not unlike a massive stroke—maybe worse than dying. He’s in a chair now, unable to hold his head up on his own or control his bowels. His wife got a good lawyer and skated on the assault charge, then divorced him. Moved to Bend, left him living in an assisted care facility out in East County.

  No trial, no conviction. Eats through a straw, I hear. Sometimes you take what you can get.

  The Tabor Doe was different. We never identified her, sure. But the real pisser is we have a window into the events of that day, a window forever fogged over. Eager Gillespie knew what happened, but between his mother and her lawyer, the fog would only thicken with the passage of time. Since we couldn’t get past Mother Cerberus, we focused on, “He was a cop!” And there was only one likely candidate.

  In the early days of the investigation, when we weren’t reading missing persons reports, we pieced together the bits and pieces of Big Ed Gillespie’s background. During his sworn days, he’d served as a deputy in the sheriff’s sub-station in Givern Valley, an out-of-the-way district in southeastern Klamath County. The sub-station rated only two full-time deputies, their primary duty dealing with DUIs and domestic violence in the unincorporated areas of the valley. Westbank, the valley’s only town, had its own police force: four officers, two part-time staffers, and a chief. Most of the time the deputies deferred to the townies.

  Armed with the broad strokes of Ed Gillespie’s history, Witt Deiter dragged Susan and I along for a visit to Charm, tried to convince her to let Eager talk to us.

  “Mrs. Gillespie, you understand Eager made a statement at the scene, don’t you?”

  “You call that a statement?”

  “He mentioned a cop. As you’re well aware—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Big Ed used to be a cop a million years ago. What the fuck of it?”

  “By your own account, he was in town the day before the murder.”

  “What ... the fuck ... of it?” Charm had little patience for Deiter. I was inclined to side with her in that regard, if little else.

  “I’m sure you can see why this information is of interest to us.�
��

  “Eager has nothing to say.”

  “Mrs. Gillespie, if you’re worried about what your ex-husband might do if—”

  That brought out barking laughter. “I am not afraid of Big Ed Gillespie.” She firmed her chin and stared Deiter down. “I know how you sick pukes work. Anything Eager says, you’ll figure out a way to turn it around and make it his fault. So here’s the way it is. Eager didn’t see nothing, he doesn’t know nothing, and there’s nothing you can say or do to change that. You hear what I’m saying, fuckwit?”

  Witt bristled at what I’m sure he thought was a shot at his name, but ended the interview without incident. On the drive back to the Justice Center, he announced a new strategy: catch Eager in the act of committing some petty larceny or vandalism and play a little carrot-and-stick to compel him to talk. All well and good, but Susan and I had enough to do without spending our time chasing juvenile misdemeanors. Lieutenant Hauser backed us up; the Tabor Doe wasn’t our only case. Deiter had to settle for flagging Eager’s jacket at the DA’s office and hoping the kid got caught doing something serious enough to provide leverage. Susan and I went back to reviewing missing persons files and working cases with a future. Meantime, I put Eager out of my mind.

  He had other plans.

  I’d have to dig out my notes to remember exactly when it started. Late October, or thereabouts. I came home from work one day and saw Eager gliding down the middle of my street on a battered skateboard. He wore a brown DC hoodie and a dark blue knit hat pulled down to his eyebrows. His ears stuck out under his hat through long, feathery hair. His low-slung jeans bunched on his ankles above checkerboard Vans. He didn’t seem to notice me, but I could see his head bouncing from house to house. I got the sense he was looking for something. Or someone. I waited until he rolled out of sight before I parked and went inside.

  A few days later, he caught me dragging the recycling bin to the curb. “Hey, Detective Kadash! This your place?”

  “What are you doing here, Eager?”

  “Just skating. You know how it is. A man can’t never get enough board time.”

  Deiter wouldn’t be thrilled if he knew I was talking to Eager without benefit of counsel. But that’s not the first thing that popped into my mind. A person of interest in an open homicide now knew where I lived. The thought generated a little fillip of anxiety as Eager rolled to a stop at my curb.

  “I guess I can see your point.”

  “Fucking hell, yeah.” He jumped the board up onto the parking strip, then kicked it up into his hand. “I only live a few blocks away.”

  I swallowed. “I know.”

  “Your street has too many cars on it.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Wanna see some shreds?”

  “Maybe some other time.” I told myself he was just a nitwit skate punk. It’s not like my address was classified information.

  “Okay. Whatever.” With that he was off, scraping down the street and bouncing between parked cars. I had to give him credit. He knew some shreds. Near as I could tell, anyway. I’m not big on the X Games.

  He started showing up more and more often, usually on his board, sometimes without. He didn’t care if it was raining, sunny, hot or cold. If he wanted to skate, he’d skate. If he wanted to visit, he’d visit. Sometimes I’d hear about some trouble he got into, small- time stuff usually. Shoplifting, maybe a car prowl. He was always scheming, but it was never enough to trip Deiter’s Eager Meter. Never enough to lever him into talking about the Tabor Doe.

  I can’t say why I never told Deiter what was going on. Maybe I just didn’t like him. Maybe it was other things, my slow descent into senescence. When Eager’s visits started, I was a year and a half away from a cancer diagnosis that would eventually lead to my retirement, but I was still working cases with Susan.

  I knew it was a dangerous game. If we ever got enough of a break to open Eager up about that day on Mount Tabor, our “casual” encounters could taint the case. Maybe I was already planning my exit without realizing it, though in a weakly rationalized gesture to professionalism I decided to steer clear of any discussion of Big Ed. I told myself if I remained aloof but not unfriendly, perhaps I’d establish a bit of rapport with the little pissant.

  Over the next few weeks, I would learn more than I ever wanted to know about skateboard decks, truck geometry, wheels and bearings. Eager endlessly described his deck—a carbon fiber/birch composite with kicktails at both ends—and his trucks, a half dozen sets that he swapped out depending on how he wanted to roll. Ceramic bearings for speed runs, steel for when he was just messing around. I could make little sense of any of it, but it all sounded expensive. But when I said as much one day he abruptly decided to head over to the park to practice some bluntslides and kickflips and shit. I didn’t see him for a week. Then he was back again, jabbering about grinds and aerials like I had a clue what the hell he was talking about.

  It all seemed benign, almost to the point that I found myself questioning our official suspicion toward him. Then, shortly before Christmas, I caught a glimpse of the flip side of Eager Gillespie. The older couple across the street put their house on the market and moved to Panama. Eager displayed an interest in the place. I caught him more than once on the porch, looking in the windows, or poking around in the yard.

  “Eager, don’t get any ideas about that house.”

  “What the fuck hell you talking about, Skin?” I have no idea how he found out people called me Skin.

  “I know the kind of stuff you get into. Just because we’re friendly, don’t think I won’t bust your ass if I catch you in that house.”

  “I’m not gonna do nothing.” His indignation threw a snap into his tone.

  “I’m telling you up front so there’s no misunderstanding.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” As he skated away, he showed me both middle fingers. “Asshole!”

  I wouldn’t see him again for months. Mitch and Luellen moved in to the house some time after the first of the year, along with little Danny and Jase and a mountain of Kitchen Kaboodle boxes, Hive Modern furniture, and Video Only’s finest brushed-aluminum crap. I figured at that point, the security of the house was their problem.

  The next time I saw Eager he was wrapped in a blanket and sitting in a wheelchair at the end of the off-ramp from I-205 at Division. He’d propped a sheet of cardboard in front of the chair, a poorly lettered plea:

  Hungary, Outdors, anthing helps. ‘God’ bless!

  I pulled off onto the shoulder and got out of my car. Eager jumped out of the chair and bolted away under the 205 overpass. I let him run. Someone else was with him, another kid, broad-backed, dark-haired and losing his pants as he fled. I collapsed the wheelchair and hefted it into the trunk of my car.

  Two days later I arrived home to find Eager sitting on my porch, skateboard across his lap. I couldn’t tell if he was rolling on ceramic or steel. His expression was guarded but also a bit hopeful. “What can I do for you, Eager?” I sat down on the top step next to him. It was a warm March day, a dry respite between two long rainy stretches.

  He didn’t want to make eye contact, dropped his chin and mumbled something into his shoulder.

  “What’s that? You missing something, you say?”

  I inspected the crabgrass in the lawn as I waited him out.

  “Ain’t my chair.” He looked up, and I felt myself soften under the ache in his eyes.

  “Whose is it?”

  He pointed across the street. I turned and looked, but all I saw was Mitch and Luellen’s place. “What are you saying?”

  “Jase got it from his grandmother’s house. She doesn’t know because she only uses it if her scooter gets fucked up. But I guess she’s talking about selling it. I need to get it back to him.”

  I didn’t realize Jase and Eager knew each other. The Bronsteins hadn’t lived there long, though Mitch had already started his campaign to annoy the living shit out of me. I’d met Jase i
n passing, one of those encounters that featured the teenager grunting monosyllabically as his father badgered him about being polite. I wasn’t insulted by the kid’s manner, but Mitch had his own ideas about the way the world worked. Reason enough for me to make friends with Luellen and little Danny instead.

  I suppose Jase and Eager met at school, and I guess I could see what brought them together. Close enough in age, isolated, troubled boys. But as I gazed at the slight form beside me on the stoop, it occurred to me Eager and Jase may not be friends. Eager seemed anxious. Jase was a lot bigger than he was, a gangsta-wannabe type in sagging pants and football jerseys. The kid looked like a phony to me, but perhaps to Eager he exuded a kind of attractive menace, a street strength Eager craved for himself.

  “I wouldn’t have thought Jase would be your style.”

  “Have you seen the shit he packs? I mean, damn.”

  Yeah, I’d seen the iPod, the two-hundred-dollar shoes. Mitch loved his toys, and he wasn’t stingy about sharing the wealth with his kid.

  “I mean, seriously, man. He’s got an Xbox and a PS2. MacBook— supposedly for homework, hah! But the serious rig is his Alienware. Man, that fucker can play WoW with full pixel-shaders, nineteen-twenty by twelve-hundred and pin the gauge. Like, a hundred-andten plus framerate.”

  “Wow?”

  “World of Warcraft?” He stared, shocked, at my blank face. “Man, you are out of it. Even my mom knows what WoW is.”

  “If it doesn’t involve a hex map or doubling down on an ace, I don’t play.”

  He looked at me like I was speaking Swahili. What can I say? The feeling was mutual.

  “Tell you what, Eager. You come help me get the chair out of the trunk of my car, maybe we can talk about a few things.” It was a risky move, but there had been no movement on the Tabor Doe and I figured if Eager told me something of significance, I’d work out a way to use it later.

  “I’m not supposed to talk to you.”

  “So I’ve been told. But it’s not like you ever do anything else Charm tells you.”

  That earned me a quick smile, but no talk. We walked down to my car. I popped the trunk and together we hoisted the folded wheelchair out onto the sidewalk. Eager relaxed at the sight. He nodded and smiled and tugged at his ear, then pushed off.