Day One (30 page)

Three Years, Three Months Before

BONANZA, OR: An Oregon State Police trooper discovered the body of an elderly man last night in a ditch off W. Langell Valley Road three miles south of Bonanza, according to a state police spokesman. The Klamath County Sheriff’s Department was called in to investigate the death.

The victim was identified as Pastor Sanders of Westbank, Oregon. A pickup truck registered to Mister Sanders was also found nearby.

Sgt. Joanne Ellison, a spokeswoman for the Klamath County Sheriff’s Department, said the death is being treated as “suspicious in nature,” but would provide no further details, pending an investigation.

—Othello, Act 5, Scene 2

November 19 — 3:15 pm

M
y front door is locked, something I forget to do more often than not. Susan would have ensured her team took care of such details when they pulled out. They had no way of knowing I’d left my keys in the little drawer of the mail stand next to the front door. I look through the front window from the porch. Everything is neat and tidy, table tops clear, chairs in place, all more orderly than when the cops appeared this morning. Susan would have seen to that too.

I stick my hands in my pockets and turn, stare out at nothing. The street is now quiet, the only sign of the morning’s chaos the trampled patch of grass in front of the Bronstein house and the yellow warning tape crisscrossing the porch. A year or so back, Luellen and I traded keys, though I took some convincing. She thought it would be nice if we could look after things for each other, feed the cat and bring in the mail while the other was away. Not that I ever go away, but a spare key with the neighbor would serve as a hedge against moments like this. I guess we didn’t anticipate her husband facing off against SERT. I breathe, try to ignore the tightness in my belly. After a moment, I make for the side gate. I
can usually pop the spring lock on the back door, assuming I didn’t engage the deadbolt.

I’m not a pride-and-joy kind of person, but if I were, the back yard would be mine. The plants are mostly northwest native, climate zone appropriate and selected to attract local birds. With the help of Ruby Jane and Pete I designed the space to have a natural quality, soft-edged and shaggy, full of color in the spring and summer and dark evergreen during the rainy season. The deck is large enough for me and a guest or three when the weather cooperates and my mood is tolerant of invasion. Not a big yard, private and suited to my temperament.

A lot of the birders I know live for the unusual sighting, for the chance to add a check mark to their book. I’m content to sit on the deck and watch the finches work the nyjer thistle feeders or listen to the sparrows bicker over the millet. This late in the year only a few stragglers linger. With the cold now pushing west from the Columbia Gorge, the juncos will soon arrive from the hills, which means the arguments will move from the feeders hanging from the arbor at the back of the yard to those on the ground. By then, I’ll settle for watching through the kitchen window. I may possess an Oregonian’s inbred tolerance for rain and chill, but even I have my limits.

As I climb up onto the deck, I can still make out the shadow of a blood stain in the wood, evidence of a past act of violence I was lucky enough to miss. Been meaning to get the deck sanded and resealed for almost a year and a half—focused and on task I’m not. I head for the back door, stop when I hear a quiet burble behind me, a soft coo like a pigeon. I turn and see him standing in the ivy at the back of the yard, half among the branches of the maple tree that hang over the fence from the yard next door. He’s peering up into the tree, though I can’t tell what he’s looking for. Danny Bronstein.

“Hey there, little fellow.”

He glances my way, but I’m not nearly as interesting as whatever’s up in the tree. I jump off the deck, walk over and crouch next to him. He’s wearing a Big Bird pajama top and a pair of blue overalls, both damp. He must have been caught out in the rain earlier. At least he’s wearing shoes. The afternoon temperature is hovering around sixty, unusual but not unheard of this deep into November. He’s not acting as though he’s cold.

“You doing okay, Danny?” I still can’t tell what he’s fixated on in the branches overhead.

“Mister Skin.” His voice is a whisper. No surprise there. At his most raucous, Danny is a quiet child.

“What are you doing here, little fellow? Where’s your grandpa?”

His expression is blank. I can’t tell if he’s afraid or at ease. I don’t know how he got here. Luellen has brought him over dozens of times. He knows my backyard almost as well as he knows his own. He’s helped me fill the feeders and pointed with delight when a flock of bush tits sweeps through. But I can’t remember him coming back here on his own. I don’t think he’s ever crossed the street without his mother.

“Did your grandpa leave you here?”

In response, he looks at me through round, moist eyes, then turns and points at the arbor. “Feed the birds.” The hanging feeders are less than half full, and this time of year they don’t need replenishment often. But Danny isn’t concerned with the details of urban migratory patterns. He wants to pour the seed into the cylindrical feeders. He continues to point until I smile. “Sure, we can feed the birds, but then I think we need to get you to your mommy. Okay?”

“Mommy isn’t here.”

“We’ll find her, little guy.” Like I have a clue. But I can make a call, and until Susan tracks Luellen down, she’ll keep Danny safe.

He heads across the yard for the garage door. He knows where I keep the seed. I follow and push the door open. Together we fill the feed scoop with black oil sunflower seeds. I let him carry it.

When I step back out into the daylight, I see a figure on my deck, a man. He’s tall and broad and crew cut. His brown, leathery face suggests a lot of time out in the sun. He’s got one hand stuck in his pocket, the other tucked up under his chin—an odd, strangled gesture. His dark coat is a little heavier than the cool afternoon demands, and his eyes squint against the grey-white dazzle scattered by the thin overcast. I feel Danny press the feed scoop against the back of my leg as he looks up at the big man from behind me.

“Who the hell are you?”

The man’s jaw pulses. “No one you want to fuck with.” His voice has a mechanical quality, almost metallic. “Bring the boy. We are leaving.”

I push back half a pace. “I don’t think so.”

“Do not argue with me.” He lifts his pocketed hand without pulling it free of his coat. For a moment, the image is almost comical, a slapstick robber pretending his finger is a gun. But his face remains hard and cold, draining any humor from the situation. Suddenly I realize why his voice sounds so strange—why he keeps one hand pressed to his throat. He’s using an artificial voice box. I can make out the black, cylindrical device between his fingers.

“What do you want?”

“I want you to not give me a reason to take my hand out of my pocket.”

A cold, liquid sensation percolates through me. “You realize there are cops all over the place. A team is right across—”

“Shut up.” I can see in the weight of his eyelids he knows the lie for what it is. He draws a heavy breath. “I got no time for bullshit.”

“Maybe we can talk about this.”

“There is nothing to talk about. I will take your phone and any weapon.” He lowers the electrolarynx. If I’m going to try something, now is the time. But I realize just as quickly I won’t, not with even the chance of a gun in his pocket. Not with Danny here.

He knows it too.

I retrieve my cell phone. “I’m not armed.” He lowers his hand and takes my phone, drops it on the deck and crushes it beneath his boot heel. I look down at the cracked plastic and glass, thinking Ruby Jane would say this is my big chance to get the iPhone she’s always wanted. The big man pats me down, one-handed.

Danny doesn’t take his eyes from the man’s hand, seems fascinated by the electronic voice. I’m not fascinated. I once knew a cop who used a voice box after he lost his larynx to cancer. Lifetime smoker, like me. His cancer found his esophagus; mine settled in my bladder. Guess I’m the lucky one, though I’m not feeling too lucky right now. The big man’s throat is a tangle of scar tissue. His jaw seems slightly askew, as if broken and poorly set. It’s no stretch to realize the injury occurred under circumstances that precluded professional medical care.

He raises the device back to his throat. “We will go out through the gate, walking slowly, two men and a boy. No big deal. You get in the Cadillac out front without a fuss, maybe you live through the day.”

“Listen, friend—”

“I am not your friend.”

A knife’s edge of fear slashes through my belly. I run the odds, and they’re not good. My neighbors are all gone, those who don’t work having cleared out once the morning’s excitement boiled down to mere procedural tedium. No news vans, no helicopters buzzing overhead. And now the cops have left too, which means it’s just me standing between Luellen’s little boy and this armed mountain of flesh and scar tissue.

He catches my eye, his expression almost thoughtful. “Whatever you are thinking, I am here to tell you, do not try it. If you fuck with me, I will rain hell down on you.”

The atonal quality of his mechanical voice only adds to the awful dread hanging in the still air between us. I take the feed scoop from Danny and set it on the deck, then grab his hand and lead him around the corner of the house to the gate. The man follows, enough steps behind to ensure he’ll have time to react if I try anything. Not that he has anything to worry about. I’m about fifteen years past trying anything.

Danny and I go through the gate, stop when he tells us to hold up. He takes a quick look around, seems content with what he sees. The one hand remains in his coat pocket. He gestures with his chin and I continue to my empty front yard. No cops, no earnest staring onlookers. There’s a frightful calm in the air. Nothing moves now, but it’s hard to forget that just a few hours earlier bullets were flying. Mitch’s dried blood stands out, stark against the lemon paint on the wall next to his front door. I wonder if Jase will have to scrub it off.

The man points to a battered, land yacht-era Fleetwood of indeterminate color parked across the driveway of the house next door. Any other day my neighbor, a graphic designer with a home office and a deep commitment to his own entitlement, would have been all over it, making phone calls and pitching a public fit.

“Why do you want the boy?”

“Buckle him in the back, then get in next to him.” I hesitate. “Do not give me a reason to kill you. It would be too much hassle to deal with your body. But if you cause trouble I might change my mind.”

There’s a woman in the front seat of the Cadillac, passenger side. She draws hard on a cigarette, then tosses the butt out through her open window. Even when I still smoked I didn’t tolerate butts on
my walk, but I don’t get the impression she’ll give a damn about my feelings on the matter. She’s sitting hunkered down, like she’s afraid of being noticed, and I can see in a glance why. Her sunken cheeks and wild, darting eyes are the hallmark of the committed crank head. She glares our way as the big man urges us across the front lawn. I don’t like the darkness in the hungry gaze she fixes on little Danny at my side. I stop, pull Danny against me.