From a Dead Sleep (25 page)
He paced over to his pals’ tent and dropped to a knee. In a single motion, he latched onto the bottom of an exposed steel pole and yanked it free of its propped-up position before guiding it outside of the tent. The triangular-shaped canvas slowly deflated behind him as he made his way back to the fire pit. He turned over a thick, sawed log and took a seat on the flat end. After collapsing the top portion of the pole inside the bottom, he held one end to his mouth and guided the other down, just above the ash at the center of the pit. A couple strong breaths exposed some residual ember that still had a little life left in it. He gathered some reasonably dry twigs and formed them in the shape of pyramid above the ember. After ten minutes or so of repetitious puffs through the pole, he had a small flame going.
A sense of pride triggered a grin below his hunched shoulders and he glanced over at his friends’ tent, wishing they were awake to marvel at his achievement. Despite having half of their tent sunken flat around their bodies, neither had budged and the blustering snoring had continued on unaltered.
After adding sticks and dry leaves to feed the fire and absorbing its welcome warmth for a few minutes, he grabbed a large frying pan from an Army-green duffle bag inside his tent. It hadn’t been used in a while and hadn’t been cleaned all that well since its last use, so he took it down to the water with a half-depleted roll of paper towels. He squatted along the edge of the shore where a narrow inlet formed a lazy whirlpool of motion and submerged the face of the pan. When he lifted it back out of the water, his peripheral vision caught what he assumed was a trapped log bobbing horizontally against the rocks. He turned his head to take a closer look and his eyes expanded to their brinks.
The pan fell from his hand, causing a splash he didn’t hear.
He was back up on his feet in a flash and screaming his friends’ names so loudly and alarmingly that they thought he was being attacked by a bear. Still half-plastered with throbbing headaches, they joined him at the shore moments later.
All three gazed at the mangled, bloated human body before them, covered almost entirely in black.
S
ean stood at the base of a short embankment blanketed with dead, matted leaves from the previous fall. New, thick blades of grass stemmed out from under them like green whiskers. He wished he had brought binoculars, but in his rush to leave Winston, he had not thought to. He was sure though that the digits along the face of the building read “114.” Like the last house he’d perused, the garage faced away from the road. The style of the home, however, looked much different.
It was a multilevel building that sprouted up from a sloped landscape that had no real yard. Instead, the terrain was composed of large, decorative rock that accentuated staggered bushes and trees, similar to the raw forest that surrounded the residence. A curved row of concrete steps began parallel to the driveway and led up to a secondary row of wooden steps attached to a railed front porch. The edge of a larger sun-porch could be seen wrapped around the backside of the home. The building itself was constructed of dull, gray brick with sections of sprawling windows, and the roof had a mild angle to it. It wasn’t as flashy or homey as the house he’d just left. It was probably a bit older. Still, it was just as large and conveyed a wealthy aura that was unmistakable.
The driveway was paved but sported a similar route to the long, cobblestone one he had walked down after leaving the two boys. It led to a closed garage door whose color matched the brick.
His eyes had traced numerous windows multiple times over the past few minutes. There had been no movement from inside. He was unsure of how to approach the situation. A cop would just walk right up and knock, ask some direct questions, but he knew that an out- of-uniform rent-a-cop wouldn’t command the same respect. Sean looked down and evaluated his appearance. A slept-in sweatshirt and dirty jeans. He doubted the sprinkler guy gimmick would work on anyone other than a couple of kids.
A dull, pounding sound caught his ear. Footsteps . . . coming fast from down the hill behind him. After a few seconds, he was sure they were only getting louder. Most of the forest was lush with trees, but he had little cover between where he stood and whoever was coming his way—nowhere to hide in time without causing a commotion. He dropped to one knee in an attempt to make himself less visible, careful not to make a sound.
A figure in navy blue apparel emerged from the crest of a small hill to his right. It was a woman jogging. Her eyes hadn’t met his. Thin, white earphones hugged her head above a blonde ponytail. It flipped from side to side with each stride. She was concentrating on pushing her way up the hill along a worn dirt path that Sean hadn’t noticed until just then. He stayed perfectly still and was careful not to make any movements that would catch her attention. Her snug tank top accentuated her athletic frame, and he took notice of her shapely legs that stemmed up from a pair of white Nikes. She passed maybe twenty feet from him, so close that he could hear the music from the little speakers in her ears. She looked young. He guessed somewhere in her twenties. After she disappeared behind some aspens, he directed his gaze back up at the house. A few seconds went by before he heard footsteps again. This time, they came from the driveway. It was the same woman, now nearly sprinting as she made her way up toward the house.
“
She
lives there?” he whispered under his breath.
Was this who
received the dead man’s letter?
When she reached the garage, her shoulders collapsed and her hands went to her knees.
He could hear her heavy breathing. He watched her glance at her watch, then press some buttons on a keypad beside the garage door. The door rose steadily without much noise. As it began to lift, she dropped to a squatting position, seemingly impatient and eager to look inside where a single car resided in the two-car garage. It was a black Audi. The sight seemed to anger her, as he was sure he heard her drop of an f-bomb. He found it a bit amusing. She walked inside and disappeared from view as the garage door steadily lowered back down.
Sean’s fingers scratched the back of his head.
“Well, what the hell was I expecting?” Lisa asked herself out loud before reaching a hand back behind her head and setting her hair free from the ponytail in her kitchen. Her legs felt tight from her run.
She peered over at the answering machine resting on the counter. The digital display read “0.” She took a breath and made her way through the kitchen, snagging a bottled water from the fridge before strolling into the living room. Still breathing hard, she found herself gazing at a framed picture of her and her husband set on a two-inch thick redwood mantel in front of her, propped up at a slight angle. The photo had been taken at a friend’s anniversary party a year and a half ago. Him in a black suit and her in a dynamic red dress. Both smiling. She pulled it face-down along the mantel.
An unexpected knock at the door brought a jolt of excitement that shook awake her fatigued body. In one quick motion, she positioned the picture back in place. With a wide grin that lit up her face, she raced to the front door, taking a moment to stop beside a large horizontal mirror on the wall to check her hair.
Not ideal
, but she didn’t care. Her heart flapped briskly like a wild bird that had just been freed from captivity. She swung open the door, ready to wrap her arms tightly around her husband, but the reunion was not to be.
Before her stood not her spouse but a tall, imposing figure—the sight of which instantly erased her joyous smile and the gleam in her eye. The man’s broad shoulders nearly eclipsed the sunlight that had made its way through the arms of a towering tree above. He looked rough to Lisa, with his unshaven, weathered face and grimy clothes. He was completely out of place in the upscale, spread-out community that surrounded her. Even for someone who worked the grounds or maybe maintained equipment, he didn’t look right. She was certain she had never seen him before. She never forgot a face.
“Hi,” she heard herself timidly say.
“Hey,” answered the man, whose lumbering hand went quickly to the back of his head where he appeared to scratch an itch.
A large black bird balancing on a tree limb high above them cackled loudly.
Lisa waited for the strange man to state his business. He was clearly uncomfortable and seemed almost confused. In a way, it reminded her of the behavior she’d seen from boys back in high school who were building up the nerve to ask her out on a date. But this wasn’t high school, and the prolonged awkwardness was beginning to send a chill up her spine. She felt like a fool for opening the door before looking outside, and even had an impulse to quickly slam it shut and turn the deadbolt before any possible harm could come to her.
Sean read fear in her eyes as he stood there facing her and understood the obvious tension she felt from his presence.
Just say something
, he said to himself.
There were several ways that he could have eased into a conversation with the woman to try and pry information out of her—information that would have helped explain the hard-sought identity of the man from the bridge. However, there was something in his gut that told him that the answers didn’t need to be extracted through one of his bullshit stories. He’d come so far, and the woman standing before him didn’t appear the slightest bit threatening. It was time to be bold and direct, and hope that he was making the right call.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” he began. “But I think someone you know is dead.”
“What?” she yelped. She clearly thought she hadn’t heard him correctly. “What do you mean? Who are you?”
He shook his head at his own poor phrasing. He then forced himself to breathe and looked her straight in the eyes.
“My name is Sean. Sean Coleman. Three days ago, I was in Winston, Colorado. That’s where I live. I saw a man kill himself.” He noticed the confusion and fear spreading in her. He kept talking. “That same man sent something to this address before he died.” He could only imagine what thoughts had to be sprinting through this young lady’s mind.
She said nothing and appeared almost paralyzed by his words.
“Listen, I know I sound crazy here,” he said with a forced chuckle. “But I’m telling you the truth. I’m here because his body fell from a bridge and into a river . . . and it’s gone. I don’t know his name, and no one even believes me, that I saw what I saw. I just know that he sent something to this house, so you must know him.” He realized he was rambling, but the required words were coming out.
“And if you
don’t
know him, maybe I
have
gone crazy,” he concluded with a tremble in his voice.
Sean watched her body begin to shake and her eyes begin to well up. Her hand latched onto the doorframe as she turned faint, trying to steady herself. Her eyes left his and went blankly up over his shoulder. He didn’t read doubt in her reaction but rather morbid realization.
She barely managed to ask, “What did he look like?” It came out in a quick gasp before she looked as if she swallowed some bile.
“He had really blonde hair and . . .”
Before he could continue, she let out a piercing howl that echoed off the surrounding trees, making birds there quickly flee. She collapsed down to her knees in a heap before Sean could catch her by the arm.
Her hands went to her face and her eyes bulged in terror. “Oh, God!” she screamed. “Oh, God!”
“T
hat’s him,” he answered somberly.
Lisa closed her moist eyes and lowered her head. The framed photo she’d taken from the mantel dropped from her trembling hands and cartwheeled across the lush, carpeted floor. It ended face-up.
Sean experienced a guilty sense of vindication. After all, he had proven them all wrong—Lumbergh, Jefferson, Coltraine . . . even Uncle Zed. And Sean wasn’t one to let them forget it. He thought of the exuberant grin that would surely be pinned across Toby Parker’s loyal face once he learned of the news—the news that son of a bitch Roy Hughes would have to write about in the paper for the whole town of Winston to read. Sean fought back the urge to smirk.
The end zone dance would come later, though. Right now he was audience to a world of pain. He had leveled a wrecking ball against the young, broken lady who stood adrift before him. Her face, twisted with emotional pain, told a story of helplessness and disarray.
Sean understood loss. He understood the pain and the tears of this woman who had abruptly been left by someone vitally important to her. Someone irreplaceable.
“You should sit down,” he suggested, nudging his head toward an armchair just beside them.
Lisa found herself seated at the center of the surrounding room. The living area now felt completely foreign and unwelcome to her, as if she was in someone else’s home. The walls seemed taller than before, the ceiling so high above that she couldn’t tell where it met the walls. The large, rugged man beside her who had altered her world in a snapshot of time felt like part of the room rather than a person. She observed him as if he were a painting—a brash canvas covered with abstract meanings and untold origins.
Sean examined the sprawling interior of the affluence that encircled him. Large leather couches, framed art and lacquer vases everywhere, an imposing fireplace built with enameled river rock, and the largest coffee table he’d ever seen. Its glossy, oak top was about the dimensions of the pool tables with which he was all too familiar. Lights were everywhere—dome lights, track lights, tall lamps, a large chandelier above. At the edge of the living room stood a wide open kitchen with a glistening hardwood floor, stone countertops, stainless steel appliances, and a towering, ceiling-mounted rack that hosted a hodgepodge of metal pots and pans.
His gaze traced a spiral, steel staircase that led up to an upstairs area. He assumed it led to the lofted room above that looked out over the living room. This woman and her late husband had money.