Day One (23 page)

“Frannie and I can take upstairs.”

“Okay. Skin, what do you think?”

I’ve only ever been in the kitchen and living room, and on the rear patio. But I know Mitch has an office on the first floor overlooking the back yard, likely where Justin found the cell phone. Frannie and Moose head up stairs as I lead Susan through the dining room and down a short hallway to the office.

The crime scene team doesn’t seem to have spent much time in here. No powder residue, just the ordered disarray of a room someone actually uses. The furniture is Swedish, lots of blond wood and visible fasteners. Two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, half full of books, mostly popular fiction but also a mix of titles I suppose Mitch uses for work.
Fundamentals of User Interface Design, 21st Century Value-Added Metricity.
Someone may know what that means. The DVDs under the flat-screen television opposite the desk make more sense to me. Mitch seems to favor series television.
Lost, Buffy, The Shield.
I’d almost consider asking to borrow some of it, except that would mean talking to Mitch.

Susan isn’t interested in Mitch’s taste in entertainment. She starts with the desk. I move to a four-drawer file cabinet.

“Skin, any ideas on Mitch’s password for IT?”

“No.”

“Come on. Anything? Just a guess?”

“‘ITHINKIMJESUS.’ All uppercase. Maybe an exclamation point at the end.”

“Can you be serious for a minute?”

“Susan, I hardly know the guy.”

“What do you suggest, then?”

“Look in the desk. Maybe he writes it on a notepad or something.”

“Would Mitch do that?”

“It’s a stupid thing to do, so yeah, he would.”

I catch myself smiling when she sighs. But I also hear her pulling open desk drawers. I open the file cabinet, flip through a row of folders that seem to be connected to his work. A bunch of company names, some I recognize. The folders have sketches and handwritten notes in them, as well as color printouts of what look like magazine ads and billboards. The second drawer has more of the same. Mitch does a lot of work for environmental groups, Nature Conservancy, 1000 Friends of Oregon. Probably thinks that
makes him a radical. The third drawer is dedicated to tax records, IRS and Oregon Department of Revenue returns organized by date and going back to the late 90s. “Susan, tax records here. Maybe you can figure something out about Danny from them.”

“I’ll let the DA know.”

The fourth drawer is bills. Comcast, Qwest, Portland General Electric. Familiar stuff. I start to close the drawer, then have an idea. I look through folder after folder, find what I want near the end. Verizon Wireless. Susan comes up behind me.

“What do you have?”

“Cell phone bills.”

I open the folder and pull out the most recent bill. They’re on a family plan. Four phones. I flip through the pages. “Bingo.”

“What?”

“You think Danny carries a cell phone?”

“Seems like they’re starting younger and younger, but age four would be a stretch.”

“Not according to this. They’ve got four numbers on their plan, one assigned to Daniel Granger.”

“That could be Eager.”

I memorize the number, then hand her the bill. She writes each number in her notebook. “He doesn’t use it much. He only called Luellen’s cell, at least on this bill.”

“Can you do anything with his number?”

“Call it.”

“What if he doesn’t answer?”

“I’ll see what we can do about tracking it.”

It’s not much, but an hour ago we didn’t even know Eager had a phone. Maybe she could get a line on his location. I haven’t kept up with the technology since I retired. Cell phones have had GPS in them for a while now, but how accurate it is I can’t say. I also don’t know if it works if the phone is turned off.

“What’s next?”

Susan takes a second to answer. “We’re good now. Thanks for your help.”

“Susan—”

“What do you want me to say, Skin?”

There’s nothing she can say. I signed the papers, I took the pension. I no longer work for the Portland Police Bureau.

Unless I want to come review cold case files for a stipend.

Her attention returns to the sheaf of pages in her hand. I head for the door. “See ya around, I guess.” I don’t know if she hears me.

Three Years, Three Months Before

H
ard to say what surprised Eager more: that the man in the parking lot was a cop, or that he was Eager’s old man. Cop was bad enough. Cops had this habit of going all wiggy when you stole their shit. Anyone’s shit, though Eager had met cops who’d glance left while he ran right so long as some green passed hands. Hell, one graveyard five-o let him make off with the climate control cluster from a Honda CRV for the Jackson in his pocket and half an ounce of pot.

But that asshole hadn’t been his old man.

For the bulk of his thirteen and three-quarters years, he’d been only vaguely aware he even had a father. His mother rarely acknowledged the existence of Big Ed Gillespie, a name she’d mention in the same tone one might use to talk about the little man from under the basement stairs who crept out at night to spirit away naughty children. Eager couldn’t remember ever seeing his father. There were no pictures of him in photo albums or on the computer. After a few wine spritzers, Eager’s mother might admit a past life in southern Oregon—Eager and his sisters were all born at Sky Lakes Medical Center in Klamath Falls—and would sometimes
grumble about a “leathery fuck who ruined her goddamn life over a goddamn prank.” Not Eager’s father, someone else, though it was never clear exactly who the leathery fuck was. The rest of the time the kids may as well have hatched from eggs for all Charm was willing to reveal. If asked direct questions about Big Ed she would only say, “I’ll roll in dog shit sooner’n discuss that asshole.”

But now he was here. First on the porch last night, hollering and banging, and today outside Hawthorne Auto holding the girl up by her neck.

Eager’d seen the girl earlier. First he thought maybe he could work her for some change, but something about her stopped him. A pretty girl, dark-haired and dusky, with deep shadows beneath her eyes and worry compressing her lips. She smiled thinly at him as he skated past in the rain. Rather than stop, toss out a request for spare change, he’d kept rolling. Something about the smile, about the smooth curve of her cheek and the round brown depth of her eyes grabbed hold of him in the pit of his belly. He glanced back once or twice as he rolled up the block, almost wiped out against a No Parking sign. He was pleased when the bus came and went and she was still there.

He skated to the corner, worked on ollies off the curb. It wasn’t a good spot for skating. No real lift from the sidewalk and too much traffic on Hawthorne, but at least he could keep an eye on her. Not that he could say why she’d need looking after. Just seemed like the thing to do. After a bit, some frizzy-haired fat lady came and sat at the bench, then climbed heavily aboard the next bus. All the while the girl gazed across Hawthorne. Looking for something, he thought.

Or someone, maybe.

She’s probably waiting for her boyfriend.
A wave of doubt swept through him and he spilled out into the street. He jumped up quickly, afraid she’d seen, but she was still staring. At what? The Ship Shop?

Eager forced himself to roll up the side street. It occurred to him watching her was a little weird. Keeping him from business too. Skating off a street corner for half an hour so he could check out some girl on a bench, no matter how pretty she was, didn’t put green in the pocket. He needed to get himself to a spot with more foot traffic. Outside Fred Meyer, say, where people came and went all the damn-dong day.

And if he happened to skate by her on his way down to Freddie’s, well, who could say what would happen? Maybe she’d want to talk. That would be cool. He pictured the conversation, wordless in his mind, and a wave of heat swept through him. He popped a one-eighty and rolled back toward Hawthorne, in time to see her cross the street in front of him.

As she moved, she threw quick, anxious looks over her shoulder. Eager hesitated, but once she disappeared beyond the corner, he followed. Maybe she was being chased by some dirtbag, an aimless drifter with black gums and stolen shoes. Maybe Eager could find some unknown reserve of strength and power. Kick the bastard into the street, arms windmilling, there to get plowed by Tri-Met. She’d fall into his arms in relief and gratitude.

He tugged at his shirt collar as he rounded the corner, certain she’d be waiting.

“I’m in trouble. Will you help me?”

“Anything you need, I’m your man.”

But she was gone.

He stopped, looked up and down Hawthorne. The print shop across the street was open, same with the art supply store. But he could see through the front windows of both joints and she wasn’t in either. Between him and the auto shop on the next block, everything else was closed. He didn’t see any buses. Traffic moved at a steady pace both directions. Didn’t look like anyone could have stopped and picked her up.

She must have been moving faster than he realized. He rolled past the Poekoelan dojo to the next corner. Maybe she had her car in for service and went to pick it up. He crossed 43rd, looked through the window of the auto shop.

There were a couple of chairs in the small waiting area and a plant on the countertop. No girl. Some guy with big arms stood behind the counter. He gave Eager a look and went back to whatever he was doing. Farther up the block, a woman came out of Common Grounds. For a moment Eager thought it was her, blue jacket and dark hair, but when the woman glanced his way she had a pinched face and cats-eye glasses. She scurried across the street, cup of coffee in hand, and got into an Acura RL. Eager watched her drive off, thinking about how he could get eight bills for the RL’s driver side air bag, six for the passenger side. It occurred to him the girl might have just burned rubber, desperate for a coffee.

But a sound from the auto shop parking lot caught his attention. A grunt, maybe a squeal. The lot was surrounded by a tall black fence with a wide open gate. At the far end, the garage door was closed. Parked inside was a beat-up minivan, a couple of Subarus beyond. The sound came from behind the van.

He stopped at the van’s bumper, one foot balanced on his board over the rear truck, the other on pavement ready to push off. At first he didn’t understand what he was seeing. A big man wrestling with himself, crew cut on a bowling ball for a head. Looked to Eager like the fellow was pounding his pud, the way his big shoulders rolled around inside his tan jacket. Then the man moved and Eager saw the girl. His girl. The big man held her pressed against the fence, his hand on her neck. Her face distorted as she struggled, cheeks red, eyes like twin moons.

“Your father-in-law is worried about you.” Big voice, but not loud, steeped in certainty. Something in the big man’s voice caused Eager’s eyes to water. Gone were any fantasies of fearsome heroics,
vanished into vibrating air between buildings. The windows of the auto shop were frosted and closed, the windows of the coffee house the same. They were alone, unseen, unheard, shielded by a wreck. All Eager wanted to do was slink away before anyone noticed. But the look on the girl’s face, the terror and the pain, seemed to yank his voice out of him.

“Heya—?”

The big head turned, big eyes locked with Eager’s. The big hand released the girl. But that only freed up those meat hooks for use on the dumbass with the skateboard. Eager’s nuts seemed to crawl up inside himself.

“Fuck off, kid.” The big voice rattled the windows of the coffee house behind him. “This isn’t none of your business.” Big hand balled into a fist. Eager pushed backward as the girl suddenly lashed out with her foot, connected with the big man’s knee. Eager’s foot rolled a pebble and he fell, tried to catch himself on the minivan. Popped the kicktail of his board with the heel of his other foot. The board shot into the big gut. Eager plopped onto his ass and in an instant the big man was on top of him. Big grunts. Limbs tangled. Eager drew in a breath pungent with the smell of eggs and fried fat.

“You little son of a bitch—”

The girl darted past. Eager sensed the movement, sudden shadow and light, the sound of footsteps on pavement. He’d run too if he could. He wanted to call out to her, tell her he was sorry. But the big chest pressed against his face, big knee crushed his groin. He struggled, twisted, grabbed big flesh. Tears squirted from his eyes, but the big head popped up, suddenly indifferent to Eager’s squirming. He pushed himself up with his big arms. Eager wanted to stop him, but he could only dream of being a hero to a pretty girl who would never know his name. As the big man twisted free of the tangle of boy on the asphalt beneath him, Eager did the only thing he could. He lifted the fucker’s wallet.