The Moon Stands Still

by Sibella Giorello

  The house felt beyond empty. Like nobody had ever lived here. His brown chair had the hollowed out appearance of an empty cocoon. I could smell soot, and walked over to the fireplace. A thin layer of black material coated the iron grill, black carbon. A geology term. I reached down, pinching the thin layer, velvety and lush between my fingers. Some paper he’d burned, recently. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

  I passed through the living room and found a half bath, perfectly clean. And the kitchen. That was it for the downstairs, aside from the wrought-iron staircase spiraling upward. The kitchen sink was empty. Countertops bare. And on the wall, one landline phone. I picked up the receiver and pushed the square buttons. The singsong tone of the numbers sounded far away.

  I could hear a distant ringing, three times.

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  “It’s me.” I could barely hear my voice. “It’s me!”

  “Harmon?”

  “I’m at the geologist’s house.”

  “Yeah, you told me. Why are you yelling?”

  I nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see me. I pressed the receiver against my ear, until his voice sounded close, like we were back on his couch again and he was whispering in my hair. I swallowed hard. “He just killed himself.”

  I didn’t hear any reply. I kept talking.

  “He was waiting for me. He told me to come. He set it up, outside. Had a revolver—”

  “Did he threaten you?”

  “No. The opposite. He wanted …”

  “What?”

  “Forgiveness.”

  “From you?”

  “I don’t know. For killing himself?”

  Another silence. Or maybe I really couldn’t hear. “Jack?”

  “Harmon, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I thought a sound, beeping. Like a car door opening, key already in the ignition.

  “What did he say to you, exactly?”

  “He wanted—he wanted to know if God hated him.” That look in his eyes, it was deepest desperation. A scientist skeptical of God, now a man about to discover the truth, by his own hand. Regret. That was on his face, too. “He showed me that notebook you put together.”

  “Stay there. I’m leaving the bar right now.”

  “I’ll call the police.”

  “Is anyone else there?”

  I glanced around the cold and vacant house. “No. I think he lived alone.”

  “I’ll take care of the police, just give me the address, I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

  I repeated the address from memory then added, “If you need to call me, use this number. My cell phone doesn’t get a signal out here. Nobody gets a signal. He liked that, not getting a signal. He smiled the first time he told me about it.”

  “Harmon?”

  I didn’t say anything. I was babbling now.

  “You can’t save people. You know that, right?”

  I hung up the phone.

  45

  But Tim Bureley was right.

  I needed the truth.

  Madame sat outside by the patio door, facing the vast lawn and fire pit. As if that body spread over the chair might get up and attack us.

  “Good girl,” I said through the door.

  I walked up the spiral stairs and found actual rooms, not just partitions. Reaching into the first space, I flicked on the lights. Bedroom, moss-green comforter on a double bed. And a bathroom on the other side. Water drip-drip-dripped in the shower. I found another bedroom, empty except for one twin bed, and a third room at the end of the hallway. An office with a desk under a window. One lamp, already turned on.

  A manila folder waited on top of the desk, with a note paper clipped to its front. I recognized the clear block lettering. The same hand writing I saw on Bureley’s maps. The note had today’s date and a time. I glanced at my watch. Three hours ago. Right before he called me. When he knew I was in Chehalis.

  Raleigh,

  I offer my deepest apologies for not being truthful. I would take everything back, if I could. But after the eruption, the mountain can’t be rebuilt.

  Please keep searching for the truth.

  Always search for it.

  Tim.

  I looked up. The lamp cast my shadow against the window’s slatted blinds. I slipped two fingers between the slats and saw the fire down below, orange and yellow tongues licking at the darkness like Hell begging for the nearby body. And the dog, circling the area now, sniffing the ground again. I tried to feel something, but that asylum numbness covered me.

  I opened the manila folder.

  The first page—if it could be called a page—was a cocktail napkin. Blue ink bled into the cottony paper. I held the thing under the lamp and saw an equation, some kind of trigonometry. Point A. Point B. Point C. A quick calculation of travel time and altitude. And wind speed. I felt a cold sensation, almost sweeping away the numbness. When I turned over the cocktail napkin, the business name was embossed in gold lettering. I didn’t recognize the name, only the place. Portland, Oregon.

  Below that, more of the familiar block lettering. And a date: April 23, 1970.

  I set the napkin aside.

  The next page showed Tim Bureley’s Last Will and Testament. Boilerplate language. He was leaving his vast igneous collection to Portland College. A nephew in Indiana would get the PANGEA truck outside, and the proceeds from any house sale. The next page offered a codicil. Notarized.

  “To Raleigh Harmon, I leave the combination to my wall safe. 41-22-63. I also leave her the contents inside the safe, with the hope she will not judge me too harshly for the choices I’ve made. I made them with love for my late wife, Edna.”

  I glanced around the room. There wasn’t a wall safe. But there was a large oil painting of a mountain hanging on the opposite wall. Blues and grays and plumes of white smoke near the summit, it took me a moment to recognize the crests of Mount St. Helen. Before the eruption.

  Lifting the painting, I found a hinged metal plate in the wall. And a numbered dial. Setting the painting on the floor against the wall, I followed the numbers in Bureley’s codicil. The lock popped and the heavy door swung open. Inside, a notecard was propped against a steel box. More of the same block lettering. More apologies, too.

  I am sorry. Very sorry.

  I pulled out the box, set it on the desk. It was about a foot long and eight inches wide, and looked like an ammo container. I hesitated to unbuckle the lid. Maybe wait for Jack. I glanced at my watch. At least another forty-five minutes until he got here. And patience was not my strength. I unsnapped the latches.

  Gray ash. I pressed a finger down, carefully. The silken grains felt light as air and reached to my wrist. Nothing but ash? I stared down at gray substance, and heard something move behind me. I spun around, ash flinging from my hand.

  The black cat rubbed his side against the door frame.

  “Now you show up.”

  His golden eyes glared at me.

  The cat followed me back to the stairwell, but stayed there as I went downstairs and searched the kitchen until I found plastic sandwich bags. I carried a handful upstairs. The cat was gone.

  In the office, I slipped a bag over each hand and opened a third bag, leaving it open on the desk. Carefully lifting the box, I shook a small amount of ash into the open bag, sealed the top, and put it in my jacket pocket. I closed the box and was sliding it back into the safe when my fingertips touched something on the floor of the safe. Another manila folder. I carried it to the desk and opened it under the lamp.

  The date on the first page looked familiar. The same date as the cocktail napkin. But this paper looked more formal. Some kind of contract. It promised Timothy J. Bureley $40,000. “For services rendered.” Nothing explained those services, or where the money was coming from. But the cold feeling expanded. I found other pages and laid them on the desk, taking out my phone and snapping pictures. For safety’s sake, I began emailing the images to my work mailbox. But there was no Internet.
The images sat in my Outbox.

  Outside, the dog was barking. I looked up, recognizing that tone, the insistent bark. Jack must already be here. I parted the slats, scanned the dark lawn. But all I saw was the glowing embers of fire, and the corpse of Tim Bureley, whose suicide was beginning to make some kind of sense.

  I started to close the file, to put it back in the safe with the steel box on top, when I noticed the last piece of paper inside. It was a drawing. I held it under the lamp. It showed a man, digging in the ground. Behind him, suspended in a sky pinpricked with stars, a large spherical orb hung, shadows on its surface. The moon. A full moon. I pulled the drawing close, eyeing the fine charcoal lines. The cold feeling extended up my arms and across my shoulders to the hairs on the back of my neck.

  “All done?” he asked.

  46

  Pierce Grant stood in the doorway, smiling as if we were the best of enemies.

  “You’re a terrible investigator.” He stepped into the room, holding a gun in his right hand. “I tried to make McLeod see that. But now he’ll believe me. No good investigator would ever leave an unlocked door behind her.”

  Madame’s frantic bark hammered against the outside of the house. She’d be scratching at the door, too.

  Grant flicked the revolver at the open wall safe. “How’d you get the combination?”

  My palms sweat inside the plastic bags. I said nothing.

  “Tim—Tim gave you the combination?” Grant almost chuckled. “Right before he blew his brains out.”

  I held still, hoping he would look at the box inside the safe. But his smile spread, pushing at the flesh until his eyes were slits. Walking to the desk, he picked up the folder. I could smell cold winter night on his clothing. How long was he outside? He must’ve left the bar right after me.

  I moved away but he dropped the file and grabbed my arm, squeezing my bicep.

  “Don’t go anywhere.” He pointed the gun at my heart, patting me down, hard—a butcher slapping a side of beef. When he was done, he reached up and vise-gripped my jaw. The damaged skin felt burned all over again. “Where is it?”

  I grit my teeth. “Where’s what?”

  “The report.”

  “I don’t know what—”

  He squeezed tighter. “The report you’ll turn into the Bureau. About this case.”

  “I haven’t written it.”

  “Bullcrap.” He squeezed my jaw tighter. “Where is it?”

  I peeled back my lips. “In my office.”

  “Nice try.”

  Something clicked. I shifted my gaze, staring into icy eyes. “You—you searched my office.”

  He snaked his fingers around my neck. “Take off the plastic bags.”

  Hands shaking, my first try faltered. Grant sank his fingers deep into my spine. Outside, Madame barked.

  “Pick up the box.”

  I opened my mouth. But there was nothing to say.

  “That’s right, Raleigh. They’ll find your fingerprints all over this crime scene. On all the evidence. Now pick up that box and place it on the desk.”

  He steered me by the neck to the safe and back.

  “Open the top.”

  I hesitated again.

  “Open it!”

  I waited another two seconds, then hooked my fingers into the metal buckles. I held them there. The anticipation pulled Grant closer.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  I held my breath, clamped my eyes shut, and flung the open box into his face. Grant gasped, coughed, let go of my neck. I felt ash smothering the air as I spun and rushed for the open door. I hit the wall, opened my eyes. Clouds of ash, suspended in the air. I staggered, a metallic flavor in my mouth, and fell into the hallway, stumbling for the stairs.

  Behind me, Grant was yelling. I grabbed the iron rail, rubbing dust from my eyes. I was halfway down the spiral when his weight pounced on the iron above, vibrating the hand rail. I jumped the last curve to the floor.

  “You can’t get away!”

  The lights were off. I lifted my hands, feeling in front of me, struggling to remember where the door was. I heard Madame’s bark. Claws scuttling outside. I darted to the right, dropped to a crouch. Grant fired a shot. Glass shattered in front of me. Cold air rushed inside. But I couldn’t hear the dog, the ringing was back in my ears. I ran over broken glass, found a doorknob as something darted in front of me.

  “Now I’ve got you—”

  I flung the door open but dove in the opposite direction. Grant fired again. I ran for the patio. Something brushed against my leg. Madame.

  “Here!” I told her.

  We ran into the darkness, the fire smoldering thirty yards ahead. We ran full speed before I realized my mistake—the cliff.

  “Madame, come!”

  I swung left. The gun fired.

  The dog yelped.

  I drew up, halting.

  She lay on the ground. I dropped to her side. “Oh, my God—Madame!

  “Don’t move!” he called out.

  I ran my hands down her sides. She whimpered, paws twitching, Grant appeared in front of us, his face ashen.

  I swallowed, tasted metal, and glanced at the gun. Revolver. Three shots fired. That left three shots in the cylinder. I slid my left hand down Madame’s body. “I’m going to pick her up. Nothing more.”

  Grant flicked the gun toward the fire pit. “Move over there. Now.”

  I didn’t move.

  “Get. Up.”

  “No.” I knew what he needed. A story. Forensics. He needed the forensics to add up to a good explanation.

  “Your choice.” He aimed the gun at Madame. “You, or the dog?”

  “I’m picking her up.” I lifted her, standing to face him. “You’ll never be able to explain this.”

  “Wrong. McLeod will listen. And I’ll tell him how I found you.”

  Madame was panting—hard. I moved my hand down her side again, feeling for a wound. “What’s the gain here?”

  “Walk.”

  I walked. “Just tell me, why are you doing this.”

  “You’re a problem, Raleigh.”

  I stopped.

  “Keep moving.”

  I took one slow step forward. “I’m doing my job.”

  “Right.”

  I took half-steps. Each one sending forward another piece of the puzzle. “Bureley knew who Cooper was.”

  Grant didn’t reply.

  I stared at the fifteen yards ahead. Bureley’s body already looked stiff. “Why didn’t you bring him in? You’d be a national hero.”

  “I had a better offer. And Tim and I had an agreement, with mutually assured destruction if it was ever broken.”

  I kept my gaze on Bureley’s splayed legs. “But he’s gone. Why not pretend you never knew—”

  “Because you know too much. But I’ll take care of that.”

  My fingers touched a patch of sticky fur. Madame whimpered. “You know who Cooper is, too?”

  “No.” His chuckle sounded colder than the winter air. “But I realized Bureley did, and that was all that mattered.”

  “How did you know?”

  “How?” His voice sounded prideful. “I’m The Finder. Remember?”

  “But how—just tell me how.”

  “Do you hear yourself, Raleigh?” He said my name with disdain. “Tim was right. He said you wouldn’t stop. You need to know, he said. But there’s the problem, Raleigh. I’m smarter than you.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Oh, but I am. And I’ll prove it to you. When that boy on the Columbia River found the money, Bureley contacted us. Local geologist, wondering if he could help. We got calls like that all the time. Everyone wanted to help with the Cooper case. But I was intrigued by Tim’s theory, it made a lot of sense. Almost too much sense. I started looking into his background. Just a humble backwater college professor, in need of money. His wife was diagnosed with MS. He wanted us to hire him. I found some property records. In 1970, Tim
Bureley bought a large piece of land right on the Columbia River. Expensive land. And he paid cash. And he also paid to have five acres cleared. But why clear those acres when you don’t even live here? When you’re short of money? It didn’t take me long to figure it out. Tim Bureley built a landing pad. Right here, right where we’re standing. Five acres cleared and surrounded by forest. One cleared tract of land large enough that with a fire burning at night, a skydiver could find it. Cooper paid him from the stolen money. Only Tim didn’t realize he could never spend that money.”

  The dog’s heart beat under my fingertips. “And none of this information went into the Bureau file.”

  “It’s too bad you brought the dog.”

  My temper flared. “You’re a fraud.”

  “Fraud? Is that what you think I am?”

  “What else do you call it?”

  “Opportunist. The Finder seizes opportunity.”

  I could hear his smile, his smugness. “What did you get for this?”

  “Oh, quite a bit. You’d be surprised how many black-market collectors want to own contraband memorabilia. And money from D.B. Cooper? It sold at a premium, provided I limited the supply. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the buyers now owned something the federal government desperately wanted.”

  A creeping despair crossed my chest. “And Bureley?”

  “What about him?”

  “He was in on all this?”

  “No. I owned Bureley. His wife was still alive when I found out. He begged me not to tell her. Poor thing, she hung on until last year. They always needed the money.”

  “That’s what this is all about, money?”

  “You make it sound like nothing. Money provided Tim’s wife with excellent healthcare. Money pulled me out of a nasty divorce. Money made me The Finder.”

  The Finder. I glanced over my shoulder. Ash clung to him, like some creature raised from the dead. I spat out my words. “You decided—you picked which stolen objects got recovered. How much were they paying you?”

  “Turn around, Raleigh.”