He took the pen.
He signed his name.
He handed it back to her.
She didn't smile. She didn't frown or laugh or nod. She didn't do anything but lay her head against the pillow and close her eyes.
"Thank you," she said.
Just like that, she fell asleep. It was so swift that he watched with alarm, making sure he saw her chest rise and fall with each breath, however shallow those breaths were. She wasn't dying. This wasn't her swan song. Not yet.
He put envelope in the Bible, the pen on the end table, and slipped out of the room. On his way out, he hesitated outside Zoe's room, then left without knocking on her door.
* * *
After checking on his house—there was yellow crime tape over door, but no cops yet on the scene—he drove down to the gas station and tried ringing Quinn again. A nasty old pick-up was spitting out clouds of diesel in his direction. This time the Chief came on the line.
"Kill anyone else last night?" he said.
"Not to my knowledge," Gage said.
"Might be a good idea for you to lay low, pardner."
"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing."
"Liar," Quinn scoffed.
"Hey, there's just a difference between thinking and doing."
"Based on your behavior at my place last night, I think a bit more thinking and a bit less doing would be helpful."
"It sure would. But while I'm doing some thinking, it would be nice to have an update on whatever you've found out."
Quinn sighed. "Well, there isn't much so far. We searched Pence's apartment, and there's some kinky porn there, but nothing that would indicate he kept any girls on the premises. Brisbane and Trenton are talking to some of the folks this morning at The Gold Cabaret to see if they can dig up anything useful on him. The hotel room where we played poker was already cleaned by the maid service, so there's nothing for us to check as far as glasses. Kind of doubt it was any of those guys, though. I've known them for years. But I'm going to do some digging just to be sure."
Gage still hadn't fully ruled out Quinn, much less anyone else, but he could do some of his own checking. "What about John Larson? He's about the same build. Maybe a little shorter, but I didn't get that great a look at him."
"Yeah, I thought the same thing. He flew out of PDX yesterday and there's no record of him flying anywhere afterwards. All right, I gotta call on the other line. Check back in later and I'll tell you if I've got anything new."
"All right."
"And Gage?"
"Yeah?"
"Stay out of trouble."
Chapter 20
Gage had no intention of staying out of trouble. He thought about calling Carmen but decided against it. Not yet. He wanted to head over to The Gold Cabaret and ask some questions of his own, but first he'd see Alex.
The shop was technically closed Thursdays, but of course Alex was there, the neon sign glowing OPEN in its big green letters. Alex was at the computer behind the counter, a stack of jacketless hardbacks next to him. He looked up at Gage over the rims of his glasses. The bags under his eyes were bigger than usual.
"Can I help you find a book, sir?" he said.
"Yeah," Gage said, "I need a how-to book on investigating a murder. Got any good ones?"
Alex leaned back in his swivel chair, folding his arms across his chest. His perpetual frown deepened. "I think we're clean out."
"Well, that's too bad. Here's what I don't get. If you're going to be open every damn Thursday anyway, why not change your sign? It's confusing people."
"Hmm," Alex said. "You do have a point there. You're quite a smart fellow."
"It's just a suggestion, for God's sake. You don't have to get snarky about it."
Alex nodded. "You're right. I'm being entirely too snarky. And I think you need to get yourself a dog."
"What?"
"Well, if you want to come home and kick the dog, then I'm a poor substitute. This, my friend, is what we call in the parlance of pop psychology, anger transference. What happened last night that put you in this foul mood?"
With anyone else, it would have been enough to get a rise out of Gage, but they'd known each other too long. There was a dry look, a snicker, then they both laughed. The tension gone, Gage filled Alex in on his previous night's brush with death, his encounter with Chief Quinn, and everything else he'd learned.
"Wow," Alex said. "I thought those bruises looked fresh."
"Nice of you to notice."
"Oh, I noticed. I just figured you'd get around to it eventually. Still, the case isn't what's bothering you."
"Huh?"
"Come on, spill the beans. What's troubling poor old Garrison Gage?"
"I was nearly killed and that's not enough?"
"Not for you. What do I have to do, beat it out of you with a stick?"
Of course he was right. It was about Mattie and Zoe. Or more specifically, about the document he'd just signed giving him power of attorney over Mattie's affairs. Or even more specifically, about what that would mean when Mattie passed and Zoe became his responsibility. He told Alex all about this, feeling a little like a guest on a talk show. Tune in tonight. A retired private investigator who mostly hates people grapples with the possibility of raising a teenager. Ratings gold.
When he was finished, Alex drummed his fingers on a stack of hardbacks. After a moment, he said, "So what do you think?"
"About what?"
"What do you mean, about what? I mean about Mattie dying and you taking responsibility for Zoe."
"I think it's a terrible idea," Gage said. "I think I should find someone else. Not just dump her in foster care, but someone I know and trust."
"Good."
"Good? What do you mean good?"
Alex shrugged. "I mean I agree with you. You'd be better off finding someone else."
"Really? You don't think after everything I've done in my life that I can't watch over one sixteen-year-old-girl?"
"As a man who once had a sixteen-year-old girl of his own," Alex said, "I'd answer that with an emphatic 'no.'"
"Jesus. Have a little faith in me."
"It's not about faith. It's about my firsthand experience with budding female hormones. In fact, I'm learned in all matters related to the fairer sex. You should listen to me."
"Uh huh. How many times you have been married again?"
"Don't change the subject. My point is some men are cut out to be fathers and others aren't. You fall into the latter category. It's not the worst thing in the world. It's better to accept it about yourself before you get in over your head."
"Mattie's not asking me to be her father," Gage said.
"Oh, she isn't? What role do you think she wants you to play, hall monitor?"
"Zoe's pretty mature. She's practically an adult."
"Right. Then why does Mattie need you at all? Why not just emancipate her?"
"I said she's practically an adult. What I mean is she probably won't need a whole lot of watching over."
Alex smirked. "Right."
"I'm serious. It's just to make sure she stays out of trouble. Help her out if she gets into a fix. That sort of thing."
"My friend, that sort of thing all by itself keeps most grown men pacing the floor at nights."
Gage shrugged. "I'm up most nights anyway."
"Believe me, it's not the same thing. Anyway, you're not going to be taking custody of her, so it's a moot point."
"But what if I was?"
"Was what?"
"Taking custody of her," Gage said. "What if it wasn't a hypothetical? Is it such a crazy idea? Maybe I wouldn't be so bad at it. I mean, I've never even tried, how would I know? I certainly couldn't be any worse than a lot of the sorry excuses for fathers out there. Who knows where she'd end up otherwise? It'd be on my conscience if I pass the buck on this one."
Gage realized he'd been going on quite a bit, so he looked over at Alex and found that the bastard was wearing self-satisfied grin; he pr
actically exuded smugness. Gage scratched his chin.
"I feel like I've fallen into some sort of trap," he said.
Alex feigned innocence. "A trap? Whatever are you talking about?"
"I'm thinking you engineered this whole song and dance just to get me to admit that maybe this isn't such a terrible idea after all."
"Did I?"
"Christ, Alex, stop with the shtick. You made your point."
Alex leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, looking like a bookie who'd just cleared a cool million. "I didn't make any point. You did."
"Uh huh. Then why do you look so damned happy?"
Alex smiled. "Because, my friend, I just got you to talk to the only person you ever really listen to—you."
At that moment, the door chimed and a bedraggled-looking man wandered into the store. He smelled like cheap wine and looked like he'd spent the last decade of his life sleeping in a cardboard box. His long, braided blond hair and gaunt face made Gage think of Willie Nelson. He placed a moldy paper sack full of books on the counter. His green ski parka was taped at the elbows with duct tape.
Duct tape.
"Oh my God," he said.
"What?"
"I think I just figured out who put that message on my doorstep," he said. He shook his head. "Duct tape. Of course."
"Duct tape?"
"I'll talk to you later."
"Gage?" Alex said. "Gage, come on, don't leave me in susp—"
But Gage was already out the door, hobbling as fast as his bad knee would take him.
* * *
It was one of those fortuitous coincidences that seemed to happen in every case—a moment or event that sparked a memory or helped him put a couple pieces of the puzzle together.
When the homeless guy had wandered into Alex's store, Gage remembered a different homeless man who'd wandered into a different store a few days earlier—the bum who'd come into TP Piercings and Body Art while Gage was talking with the owner. At the time, it hadn't seemed to mean anything, but looking back it was pretty clear the homeless man could have heard their entire conversation. Plus he was just the sort of jittery fellow who might have seen something happen to the girl but was too nervous to approach the police about it.
More importantly, the duct tape the guy had used to repair his boots was the sort of thing that would have made that strange footprint Gage had found on his driveway. It was a leap, of course, and it might have been nothing, but the only way to tell was to find the bum.
The sky was clear except for a blot of clouds blocking the sun like a tissue on a yellow button. Gage spent the next two hours cruising Highway 101, from one end of the town to the other, searching for the Jerry Garcia lookalike on a bike with a wooden trailer. He drove in alleys and parking lots. He searched Big Dipper Park, the library, and even the city parking garage. No luck.
Where else would a homeless man frequent? He checked the two main beaches on the north side of town and talked to a couple homeless people who told him the guy was known as Dan the Can Man, but they didn't know much about him except that he was fanatical about all his junk, calling it "the treasures of his travels." Gage headed south to some of the beaches down there.
He'd just passed the road that lead to his house when he heard the siren. He glanced in his rearview mirror and saw the ambulance blazing up the highway, lights flashing. Edging to the right, he started for the shoulder, thinking it was probably some unlucky tourist at the Inn at Sapphire Head; and then he saw the ambulance turn.
Onto his road.
All at once, his veins turned to ice, his breath caught in his throat, and his vision tunneled to the flashing light in his rearview mirror. He told himself it couldn't be. He told himself there was still a chance it was for someone else. She had so many more good days ahead of her—not forever, and maybe not for long, but good days, enough of them that she could stop counting them for a while. Enough that he could stop counting them, too.
And he knew it was all a lie.
* * *
Turning the wheel.
Driving fast, screaming up the drive.
Seeing the ambulance on the lawn, lights flashing.
The front door to the house wide open.
Ramming into the boxwood bushes, laying them flat.
In the house, down the hall.
Voices. Radio static. Crying.
A human tent folded over Mattie, checking pulse, checking eyes.
Zoe crying in the corner.
Silence.
A dreadful silence.
* * *
At some point, hours later—after the medics pronounced her dead, after consoling a sobbing Zoe in his arms, and after the ambulance pulled away, lights off—two sober-faced men in dark suits carried the body that was once Mattie Pelling to a black limo and finally down the road to some hot oven where that body could be turned to dust.
Gage didn't remember getting in his van. He didn't remember driving across town to the Bugle's office, and he didn't remember walking up those rickety steps. He didn't remember any of that. He remembered Zoe shouting something at him, though he couldn't remember what it was, and slamming the door so hard plaster rained from the ceiling. Then he remembered standing in front of Carmen's desk, her hugging him tightly, pressing her face against him as his body suffered through some strange seizure-like convulsion that didn't feel like grief. He still wasn't crying. He just wasn't himself and his body didn't know what to do about it, a body that had been transported from Mattie's house (no longer Mattie's house, someone else's house now, something would have to be done about that) into that embrace in a single instant. Even later, when things seemed clearer and he looked back on it all with a more dispassionate view, that feeling of being transported never changed. A door slammed and he jumped through time and space.
* * *
"What am I doing here?"
"Shh. It's all right."
"Carmen?"
"Yes. Lay back down. It's okay."
"Are we . . . at your place?"
"Uh huh. Come on. Lay against me now. It's okay. Shh. There now."
"I was in your office. I was in your office and now I'm here. I . . . is that the rain outside?"
"Yes, it's raining."
"I thought maybe it was someone whispering out there. I thought maybe it was someone talking. What time is it?"
"Shh. It doesn't matter."
"I like that. When you rub my hair. My mother used to do that."
"I know. You told me that earlier."
"I did?"
"Yes."
"Carmen?"
"Yes, Garrison?"
"Did we . . . ?"
"No."
"Okay."
"I wouldn't do that unless you wanted to."
"Okay. Good . . . Carmen?"
"Yes, Garrison?"
"I want to."
Chapter 21
Gage listened to the ticking of the clock on the wall and the rain tapping on the shake roof. He was naked except for a pair of boxers. His back and neck felt slick with sweat; the leather couch stuck to his bare legs. He was listening to his breathing, wondering what was making it happen, wondering why he took the breaths he did.
There was a concrete reality to it all, a certainty of person and place that had been missing the past twelve hours. He had been vapor and now he was ice.
"You okay?" Carmen said.
He looked up and saw her standing in the hall, the green light from the oven's digital clock playing across her naked body, all the shapes and contours and curves of her. He could hardly see her at all, a few triangles of flesh, a few crescents of shadow, but he saw her with his hands. His hands saw the silky smoothness of her blonde hair, so soft he'd had to touch it twice to make sure it was really there. His hands saw the soft underbelly of her breasts, the slope of her thighs, the firmness of her calves. His hands saw the hollow place on her long neck, the little pillow of her belly, the coarse little hairs between her legs. She stood in darkness
, but he saw her as if she stood under the glare of the sun.
He did his best to smile and it felt like his face was a plaster mold. "I'm okay."
"You don't sound okay."
"I'm really okay."
She sat next to him, placing a hand on his bare knee. Her hand felt moist and hot. Was she really that warm or was his own body that cold? She was like a radiator, a fire of flesh and blood.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.
"Not really," he said.
"That's fine. You don't have to."
"I loved her, though."
He didn't know where it had come from. He'd never once thought of the words love and Mattie in the same sentence, but of course saying it out loud he could see that it was true. It was not a sexual kind of love. It was nothing like his love for Janet. He didn't know why he'd felt the need to say it out loud. It wasn't something he'd said much in the past. It had been one of Janet's complaints. He couldn't even remember saying it at his mother's funeral.
"It's okay that you loved her, you know," Carmen said.
"I just . . . didn't think this would ever happen. I know that's ridiculous. I know, sitting here, that it was obviously inevitable. But I still didn't think it would happen."
"That's okay, too."
A thought suddenly occurred to him. "I need to check on Zoe," he said, rising. "Jesus, I can't believe I just ran off without—"
"Garrison—"
"—taking care of her. I've got to—"
"Stop," Carmen said.
She took hold of his hand, but he was too full of dread to stop, and his momentum pulled her to her feet. He started for the door, but she put her arms around him in a big bear hug, holding him tight, pressing her breasts against his back. She was so hot it was like being held by a branding iron.
"Carmen—"
"It's okay, Garrison," she said.
"I've got to—"
"We dropped her off, don't you remember? We went back to the house and she said she wanted to go to her friend Angie's. That Angie would understand. Don't you remember? You told me later that you understood, that she needed somebody she trusted and it was obvious she didn't trust you yet. That's what you said. Don't you remember any of that?"
The Gray and Guilty Sea Page 21
