The Night Season (6 page)

CHAPTER

9

Susan had lost
sight of Archie.

She’d hung up with 911, and now she couldn’t find him in the water. It had only been a minute. But it seemed like longer. She realized she was hugging Archie’s coat to her chest.

People who drowned in the Willamette were usually never seen again.

There were more lights now. More National Guard soldiers. The mob was growing as they moved along the promenade, everyone at a slow jog, eyes on the water where the lights all met. A small head bobbed. Rubber boots smacked against the pavement. Wet slickers squeaked. Puddles splattered. The seawall was higher in some places, where the construction process was further along, and they all had to strain to see over it, their heads bobbing up and down at the wall’s edge like paparazzi.

People already had their camera phones out, taking low-res video of the dancing light on the dark water. These days, everyone was a reporter.

“Got ’em,” someone snapped.

Susan’s throat swelled as she saw Archie in the light.

The throng burst into spontaneous applause.

“He’s still gotta get him out,” the Guard soldier named Carter said under his breath.

It was true. They all watched, riveted, as the shape that was Archie circled the shape that was the kid, two heads in the water. Susan couldn’t look, and at the same time she couldn’t look away. Archie was still an arm’s length from the kid, who seemed to be shrinking in the water, so much so that it was difficult to keep sight of him in the rough current.

“Why doesn’t he just grab him?” Susan asked.

“He’s trying to get him from behind, under the arms,” Carter said. And then, as if to explain his sudden authority, he added, “Lifeguard, all four years of high school.”

Suddenly, the two forms joined. Archie had him. He had the boy.

There was more applause and another soldier joined Carter and Susan. “They’re slowing down,” the new soldier said.

Susan hadn’t noticed until he said it, but he was right. They weren’t moving nearly as fast. That was good, wasn’t it?

“He’s swimming against the current, Captain,” Carter said.

That didn’t make sense. He couldn’t fight it, couldn’t get back to them, couldn’t get to the seawall. And even if he did, what then? There were rusty metal ladders that led up the concrete from the water, but they were only every hundred feet or so. What were the odds he’d be able to get to one?

“What’s he thinking?” the captain asked. “He’s going to exhaust himself.”

Susan knew what that meant. If Archie lost strength, they’d go under. They’d drown.

She saw Carter glance away from the light, upriver, then back at Archie and the kid. “The bridge,” he said. “Captain, I can get them from the bridge.”

The captain hesitated.

“I won the fifty-yard freestyle at State,” Carter said. “I’m six-foot-two. If someone holds on to me, I can reach them. We can pull them out of there. I can do this. Sir.” He bent his head toward Archie and the kid, who were now nearly holding ground. “He’s buying us time.”

The Steel Bridge, built in 1912, was one of Portland’s oldest. It was a double-lift bridge, which meant that the whole middle of the structure could be lifted straight up to allow vessels to pass underneath. It was also a double-decker bridge, cars and light rail on the top deck, trains and pedestrians below, and the lower deck was only twenty-five feet from the river, at normal levels.

But the river was not at normal levels. The river was high. Very high. So high that the lower deck was probably only five feet above the water. They could reach him.

“Let’s go, soldier.” Carter passed the light to someone else and followed the captain. They ran, tapping other soldiers on the shoulders, until there were a half dozen of them sprinting for the bridge. Susan splashed along the pavement after them, still clutching Archie’s coat, like it was a part of him, like if she held it tightly enough she might be able to will him out of the water.

The center of the bridge was up. It had been up since that morning, when the city had ordered it raised indefinitely so that it wouldn’t short out and get stuck in the down position. It would be hard to get to him from there. If Archie didn’t get to the side, he’d wash right under the bridge and there’d be no way to get him. North of the Steel Bridge the river widened and the park gave way to condos and the port.

Susan chased the soldiers as they dashed down the promenade and onto the bridge’s concrete pedestrian walkway. They ran to the drop-off, where the rest of the bridge had been lifted, and climbed over the safety gate. Carter knelt down on the edge of the walkway. “All you have to do is hold on to my ankles, and when I have them, pull us up,” he said to the others, as if it were that simple.

Susan strained to see Archie and the kid fighting the current in the light. They were close. Maybe thirty feet away, maybe fifty. “They’re almost here,” she said.

Carter handed her a black flashlight off his belt. “Turn this on and hold it so he can see us.”

She would be his light, so he knew they were there, so he’d come to them.

Suddenly calm with purpose, Susan tied Archie’s coat around her waist, turned the flashlight on, and lay flat on the wet bridge so she could get as close to Carter as possible. Then she hooked her feet through the safety gate, extended the flashlight off the end of the walkway, and pointed it south. She turned the flashlight on and off, hoping to catch Archie’s attention. Unlike most of Portland’s other bridges, the Steel Bridge was not festooned with lights. It was an old girl: functional, practical. Just streetlights on the upper-deck roadway, and a few lights along the length of the bottom deck.

See me,
Susan willed Archie.
See me.

She could feel the weight of Archie’s gun in his coat, like a fist. The wet concrete and metal was cold but Susan pressed the side of her face into it, trying to get her arm even lower. She could feel tears hot on her cheeks, or rain, or both.

“He’s coming this way,” she heard someone say from above.

“Lower me,” Carter said.

Susan could hear them just behind her scrambling to hold on to his legs, the grunts as they dangled him off the edge. She couldn’t turn her head. Couldn’t see if he was low enough, if he could even reach them. Instead she concentrated on the flashlight. On, off. On, off. She had a task. She could do this right. She would not fuck this up.

The lights were almost under her now, and she could see the back of Archie’s wet head.

Carter started hollering. “Here, here. I’ve got you. Over here.”

It happened fast. Carter lurched. He lurched so hard that Susan could feel the walkway shudder under her chest. The other soldiers struggled to hold on to him, and then everyone was there, pulling, shouting, groaning. Susan let the flashlight fall out of her hand into the river and grabbed on to someone, she didn’t even know who, pulling with all her strength.

They got Carter up, and with him, Archie and the kid. A boy. A little boy. Carter sat on his haunches, shoulders heaving. Archie was on his side, sopped and visibly shivering. The boy, who appeared to be about eight, was nearly cyanotic. He wasn’t shivering. Susan knew that was a bad sign.

The soldiers had to pry him out of Archie’s arms.

Two of the soldiers started peeling off the boy’s wet clothes, a hooded sweatshirt, a long-sleeved shirt, jeans. He complied limply, eyes open, but unresponsive. As they tossed away his wet clothes, they wrapped him in their own coats. Susan crawled on her knees to Archie. The captain was next to him, struggling to pull a sodden wool sweater over Archie’s head. Archie was trying to help, but his fingers fumbled uselessly. Susan helped pull the sweater off.

“You did it,” she said to him. “You got him.”

She could hear sirens now, and shouting. She hadn’t noticed it until then, but the crowd had followed them onto the bridge. They parted in the middle to make way for the EMTs, who came running forward with rolling gurneys. Claire was with them, in the lead, showing them where to go. Somehow she got the safety gate open.

Archie was still shaking badly. Susan and the captain unbuttoned his drenched shirt and got it off of him. He crossed his arms across his chest. He was reflexively hiding his scars, Susan thought, even though it was too dark for anyone to see them. The captain took off his own jacket and put it around Archie’s shoulders.

Susan could hear Archie’s teeth chattering. She untied his sodden coat from her waist and draped it over his shoulders on top of the other.

“Hey,” he said. “You didn’t lose it.”

The EMTs were upon them. Black rain pants. Red jackets. Billed caps. There were four of them, and they moved quickly and quietly.

Claire took charge, answering their questions. What happened? How long had they been in the water? Susan was glad they were talking to Claire. She didn’t think she could talk without crying.

An EMT took the jackets off Archie and wrapped him in a Mylar survival blanket. It looked like it was made out of aluminum foil, like something an astronaut would sleep under. Archie tried to wave the EMT away. “Take care of the boy first,” he said. He tried to pull himself to his feet, but faltered, and the EMT took him by the shoulders and guided Archie back down. Susan put her arm around him, taking his weight as the EMT got him seated.

The EMT sat on his heels and looked Archie in the eye, making sure he had his attention. “You’re hypothermic,” the EMT said. “We need to get you warm. No sudden movements. You move around, you send all that cold blood in your extremities to your heart. You want to have a heart attack?”

Next to them one of the gurneys was raised, and the boy, wrapped in another space blanket, was wheeled away through the hushed crowd.

“Is he okay?” Archie asked.

“He will be,” the EMT said.

Susan and Claire stepped aside as two EMTs gingerly positioned Archie on the remaining gurney and strapped him in. Susan’s father had been wheeled from the house strapped to a gurney just like it when she was fourteen years old. He never came home.

Archie seemed to sense what she was thinking. “I’ll see you soon,” he told her.

She picked his coat up from where it lay on the concrete and laid it over his lap.

The EMTs raised the gurney and its legs extended.

“Wait,” Archie said. He lifted his head and looked around, his eyes settling on Susan. “The guy who grabbed us. It was Carter, wasn’t it?”

Susan nodded.

“I want to talk to him,” he said.

Susan looked around and quickly spotted Carter and motioned him over. “Hey,” Archie said to him. Archie smiled weakly. “You did good, kid.”

Carter straightened. “Yes, sir.”

They were moving then. The EMTs pushed Archie through the crowd, one on either end of the gurney. Some people applauded, some took pictures. Susan and Claire tried to shield Archie from the flashes. Susan knew it was no use. His picture would be everywhere online by midnight. She wondered if these people recognized him—Archie Sheridan, hero cop, the one who’d been tortured by Gretchen Lowell, the one who’d caught her, twice. They probably didn’t. But eventually someone would.

They cleared the bridge. Susan could see the rotating red and blue lights of two ambulances. They’d parked on the promenade.

“Do you want me to call anyone?” Claire asked Archie gently.

Archie was looking around, taking in his surroundings. Susan thought she could see his brain clearing. He wasn’t shaking as hard anymore. “This is the Steel Bridge?” he said.

Claire nodded.

“Henry,” Archie said. “Find Henry.”

CHAPTER

10

The two women
were alone.

The
Herald
reporter he recognized. Her photograph ran next to her column. The hair was a different color, but it was definitely Susan Ward. He would not have known her a week before, but he had studied her face since then, his fingertips tracing over the column he’d clipped until the newsprint smeared.

The other woman wore a gold badge around her neck.

He’d watched them move from the light into the dark of the plaza after the ambulance left.

They made him curious.

The organism of the crowd was reconfiguring itself, volunteers finding their way back to their stations at the seawall. Everyone was interested in something else—the cops in the edge of the bridge where the boy and man had been brought up; the TV crews in the witnesses; the National Guard soldiers in dispersing bystanders. No one noticed the two women in the dark.

Except for him.

The cop had a flashlight. He watched, didn’t move. He could see Susan Ward’s profile in the edge of the flashlight beam, and she reminded him of a squirrel in the road, equal parts focus and terror. The cop handed her something and Susan fiddled with it and then a slender beam of light appeared. A penlight. Its uselessness made him smile.

“What rock was it?” the cop asked.

“‘Mighty Willamette. Beautiful friend,’” Susan said. Her hair was a wet helmet around her head. She had a hood on her coat, but it was back, either forgotten or neglected. He could almost feel her shiver.

He knew the quote.

The plaza was centered on a cobblestone path that traveled beside a slanted stone wall. Rising out of the wall was a collection of carefully arranged stones in the style of a Japanese rock garden. A haiku was carved into each stone, like a collection of graves. A cherry orchard, as jagged and black as any nightmare, stretched the length of the path.

The women walked, and he followed. He stayed five feet behind, creeping along the grass at the edge of the path, the sound of his footsteps lost in the splatter of rain.

He was drawn to them.

“Search the ground,” the cop said. “In a grid pattern, like this.” He watched as she demonstrated, moving the circle of the flashlight’s beam up and down and then across on the path in front of them, and then on the stone embankment to the left and the grass to the right. Neither of the women saw him. The waterfront was noisy, and he moved slowly. He was used to the dark. Besides, they were focused on the ground, and the surrounding night was filled with shadows.

“I’ll start over there,” the cop added. “We’ll meet in the middle.”

He could not believe his luck as the cop trotted away into the darkness, leaving him with Susan.

The trill in his chest started.

“So I bet that homeless guy is long gone by now,” Susan said.

The cop was gone, the only sign of her a bobbing flashlight beam.

He moved forward, catching up to Susan, pressing his feet, heel to toe, oh so gently on the grass. His blood pulsed in rhythm with the river.

“I handcuffed him to the bench,” the cop said from the other end of the plaza.

“Should we go back for him?” Susan asked.

“Let him get wet,” the cop said.

He was just two steps behind the reporter now—they were completely in sync. Susan moved the penlight in a grid pattern on the ground in front of her. Each search pattern took eons and he reveled in their secret closeness.

He could kill her. In a heartbeat. He would not even break a sweat doing it.

“You know, the plaza was dedicated in 1990, dedicated to the memory of those who were deported to internment camps during World War II,” she said. She seemed nervous now, busying herself with chatter. He wanted to believe that she sensed he was there, that animal instinct kicking in, the peripheral anxiety of prey. “There was a thriving Japantown in Portland before the war,” she said. “But then residents were sent to camps and most of them lost everything. Their businesses were closed. When they got out, there weren’t very many reasons to stick around.”

The cop didn’t answer.

“Did you know that the original state constitution made it illegal for a black person to step foot into Oregon?” Susan asked. Her head turned down, another grid pattern. “It’s no wonder people thought the Vanport flood was some sort of conspiracy.”

He stiffened at the word.

Vanport.

Susan stopped and her head lifted. He could see her breathing quicken and her shoulders draw back.

“Keep looking, Susan,” said the cop from the darkness.

“I am,” groaned Susan, shining her penlight on the stone embankment to her left. “What are we looking for exactly?”

“A clue,” the cop said. “Signs of a struggle. That sort of thing.”

Vanport.

Her leather purse was open, and she wore it across her shoulder so the purse itself rested against her hip.

He cupped his hand over the edge of it and let the item drop from his fingers.

Then he took a step back, and then another.