Sometimes the Wolf (12 page)

“She’ll turn up,” Luke said, his voice a little loose with alcohol. “She always does.”

When Sheri came in they’d finished off two pitchers and were ordering a third. Whatever tension Drake had felt between Gary and Patrick at the trailhead was now gone. The two of them telling stories that Drake barely recalled from when he was a child. Gary doing most of the talking as Patrick nodded his head and filled in all the little details Gary had skipped over.

Sheri pulled a chair to the end of the table and sat with her purse in her lap, the strap still on her shoulder, ready to go.

“You want a glass?” Drake asked, raising his hand to signal Jack.

When the next pitcher came Sheri said she’d just share with Drake. The guys crowded up around the table as the logger at the end of the bar started in on some Zeppelin. Nobody left in the place and Jack—with his arms crossed over his chest and a distant look in his eye—kept watch over the logger at the opposite end of the bar.

“You want to get out of here soon?” Sheri asked quietly.

Drake turned and looked at the three other men and nodded. Luke halfway through the story about a young bear that had gotten itself stuck in an outhouse the summer before last.

“If I leave,” Drake said to his father, “you think you’ll be fine to get home on your own?”

“You’re going to trust me?” his father said, a smile half cocked on his lips.

“It’s fine,” Drake said, feeling a little loose with the alcohol. “You know the way home. We’ll leave the door open for you.”

Drake was tired, too, and they left the three men talking over their beers, saying good-bye to Jack and giving the logger a wide berth as they went by. The man singing along to the music now and Drake wondering how much more Jack was willing to take.

A LITTLE PAST
one
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M
. Drake got up to answer the door. It was about the time he estimated that his father would have been kicked out of the bar, give or take fifteen minutes for the walk home. The door had been left unlocked so that Patrick might let himself in. But Drake got up anyway, figuring maybe his father was drunk and hadn’t even tried the doorknob yet.

Drake came into the living room a little fuzzy from the pitchers they’d drunk, leaning his weight on the handle and pulling back on the door. He was dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of his old basketball warm-ups, planning to go right back to bed as soon as he let his father in.

Agent Driscoll stood on the porch when Drake opened the door. He pushed through and came into the living room, giving the room a quick once-over and then coming back to Drake. “Is he here?” Driscoll asked.

Drake studied the Impala parked in their drive for a quick second, looking to see if anyone else was inside before he closed the door. Driscoll was standing in the middle of the living room, the hallway light on behind him. His suit jacket crumpled at the armpits and along the sleeves.

“Your father?” Driscoll said.

“No,” Drake said. “Not that I know of.” Drake walked by Driscoll and went down the hallway to his father’s room. He opened the door and flipped on the lights. No one there and the sheets looking just as they had earlier in the day when Drake and Patrick had sat talking.

Drake came out of the room and went into the bathroom, throwing on the lights. He even went as far as to pull the curtains back on the shower and look in on the tub.

Driscoll was there in the bathroom doorway when Drake turned around. “I lost him about thirty minutes ago,” Driscoll said.

“You’ve been following him?” Drake came out of the bathroom and looked down the hallway toward his own bedroom. There was a light on under the doorway.

“You thought because I told you to keep an eye on him, I’d just hand it off?”

Drake led Driscoll back into the living room. He spread his fingers up into his hair and brought them down across his eyes. “He didn’t do it, Driscoll. He’s not the guy you’re looking for.”

“You told him?”

Drake turned and looked at Driscoll, the man waiting on a response. “What did you think I was going to do?”

“I thought you’d remember your duty as a law officer.”

“He’s my father, Driscoll.”

“Christ.”

“He didn’t do it.”

“Two years ago, when we first met, you were ready to throw away the key. Now you’re acting like he never put you in this position.”

At the far end of the hallway Drake saw the bedroom door open and Sheri come out wearing her robe. She was looking at Drake, but her eyes darted toward Driscoll for a moment and Drake saw the surprise in them, followed quickly by disgust. The last time they’d had a full conversation together Driscoll had said something about not wasting taxpayer money on repeat offenders, preferring instead if they just got offed beforehand. Drake liked to think that Driscoll had been joking. Sheri had never seen the comedy in it.

“Long time no see,” Driscoll said to Sheri as she took a seat on the sofa and kept a steady watch on Drake.

“What’s this about?” she asked Drake.

Drake shrugged, wishing his father would walk in and they could all just go back to bed.

“Your father-in-law has disappeared,” Driscoll said.

“What do you mean disappeared?” Sheri asked.

“He’s missing. Gone. Vanished off the face of this earth,” Driscoll said. “Though I think the better definition of what happened is he’s on the run.” Driscoll had his arms crossed and each of his hands buried in his armpits. He was bouncing slightly on the heels of his feet.

“What is this man doing here?” Sheri asked Drake.

Drake didn’t have an answer for her that would make the situation any better and he asked Sheri if she would stay up and wait to see if Patrick came home, and if he did to call Drake straightaway. Drake led Driscoll out onto the porch and closed the door.

“She still doesn’t like me very much,” Driscoll said.

“It’s late,” Drake said. “She’s tired.”

“I don’t know about all that,” Driscoll said, “but thanks for trying.”

“So what happened, Driscoll?”

“I was waiting on your father when he came out of the bar and halfway home he goes running into the woods.”

“Did he see you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Then why did he run?”

“I was walking behind him, two or three hundred feet back. I don’t know how he would have noticed me.”

“You didn’t try to go after him?”

“Of course I chased after him. I was shining my light around. It’s a fucking funhouse in there, everything looks exactly the same: tree trunk, fern, tree trunk, fern . . . you want me to go on?”

“I get it,” Drake said. “He really took off running?”

“I’ve called in a favor with some of my guys from Seattle, but they won’t be here for a couple more hours.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Drake said. “I’m here. I can help you find him.”

Driscoll looked to be thinking that over. “Fine,” he said. “It would take them too much time to get here as it is.”

“What channel are you using on your radio?”

Driscoll told him the channel and where Patrick had gone off the road.

“I’m going to take my cruiser out,” Drake said. “I want to shine the spot around a bit and see what I can see,” Drake said.

“I know he’s your father but I want you to be careful, Drake. Don’t do anything stupid and get yourself hurt. I want you to call me on the radio if you see anything. Even if it’s just a flicker of something, you’ll let me know first.”

“I know,” Drake said. He was watching the forest beyond the fall of the house lights. The gravel shining white under the reach of the exterior lights, and the dark forest all around, circling them in. “Maybe he saw you, Driscoll. Maybe he just spooked? He’d been drinking a lot at the bar. This could all be one big mistake.”

“If he’s not guilty, what does he have to hide?” Driscoll said. He was down at the Impala now with the door open. “No heroics, Drake.” Driscoll closed the door and pulled away. His red taillights still visible up the drive when Drake got in his own vehicle and brought it around toward the lake road.

Drake ran a circuit around the lake, as far south as he was willing to bet his father could get on foot, then again north. When he’d finished, he turned up into the forest and followed the road past the Fish and Wildlife Quonset hut, shining the spot all over the parking lot and down the sides of the metal exterior. He went all the way up to the border crossing and talked with the guard there, giving the man a description of his father. Not a single car gone past in the last two hours, either south or north.

When he came into town he was feeling frustrated and betrayed. His father was out there and he was running. There was no other explanation.

Driving past the Buck Blind he eased the car to a stop. He sat there with the engine running. The dash lights giving the inside of the car a green aura of light and the bar shut down with its windows dark. Drake got out anyway just to feel the air on his skin. Cool in the night with the smell of pine resin like menthol on the wind.

He sat back down in the cruiser and took the radio in his hand, intending to contact Driscoll, but as he sat there his eyes caught the reflection of an upstairs window in the rearview mirror. The window was a block down on the opposite side of the street and Drake knew it right off as Gary’s place over the Laundromat.

Drake knocked and waited. He was standing at the top of the wood stairs that led to Gary’s place, a good view back toward the lake and the moon shining on the water. No one came to the door and he looked around at the window with the light still on and then he pounded the door several times with the heel of his palm.

Gary came to the door almost as soon as Drake finished. “I figured it was you,” Gary said. He stepped aside and let Drake into the crowded apartment.

“You know he’s gone, then?”

“I know.”

“And you were waiting to tell me . . .”

Gary shook his head. “More of a feeling,” he said. He crossed to the kitchenette and took a beer from the fridge. He offered it and then when Drake wouldn’t take it he opened it himself. “Driscoll wasn’t going to leave him alone. You know that.”

“That doesn’t mean he can just run out on his problems.”

Gary grinned. “That’s what you think?”

“What else is there?”

“You sure you don’t want a beer?” Gary asked. He stood waiting for an answer and when none came he walked back into the living room and sat heavy in the solitary lounge chair. “Driscoll’s fucking obsessed with the man.”

“Should he be?”

“Your father’s trying to make things right, that’s all I know. He fucked up.”

“Where is he?” Drake asked, his eyes darting over the apartment. Pictures on the wall that had been there as long as Gary lived in the place, a gun rack against the back wall, and the old television in a corner below the kitchen counter. The whole place lit dull yellow by a single floor lamp standing at one end of the room. “He’s not here, right?”

“Be my guest.” Gary waved at the open room, telling Drake to have a look.

When Drake came back into the living room Gary was still sitting there sipping from the beer. “I think I might be going crazy,” Drake said. He rested his back on the door and then slid to the floor, cupping his face in his hands and rubbing at his eyes with his fingers.

“It’s okay, son. Driscoll has that effect on people.”

Drake looked up. “My father has that effect on people.”

“Don’t worry about Patrick. He knows what he’s doing.”

“He said nothing to you?” Drake asked. “He just took off? He doesn’t have a car. He doesn’t have more than twenty dollars in his wallet.”

“Honestly,” Gary said, “I don’t know where he is. All I know is he’s a resourceful guy.”

For a time, after coming out of Gary’s apartment, Drake sat in his cruiser listening to the blank fuzz of the radio, not knowing what to do. Every once in a while he took a call from Driscoll, relaying his position, and then letting the radio go silent again. No one was out on the streets, and Drake didn’t see a single car pass in all the time he sat watching the road. Eventually Driscoll got Drake on the radio and told him to go home.

Sheri was still up. A pot of coffee steaming on the counter when he came in, Sheri sat on the couch waiting on him to say something. He shook his head and went through to the kitchen and poured himself some of the coffee. The clock on the stove said it was three
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“I’ll wake you up if anything happens,” Drake said. He was back in the living room now and he put a hand out for Sheri and helped her up off the couch.

“How long have you known about Driscoll?” Sheri asked.

“A few days now.”

“Do you believe whatever he’s saying about Patrick?”

“No,” Drake said. “But Driscoll is saying things about other people besides my dad. I don’t know what to think, really.”

“Like who?”

“Like Gary,” Drake said.

Sheri shook her head and he knew she didn’t believe him. “Patrick is smarter than this.”

“I hope so.” He led her back through the hallway and closed the door behind her. After a time he saw the light go out under the door and he walked back to the living room. His coffee cup sat steaming on the table. He picked it up and drank a quarter of it in one long gulp. He was sitting on the couch with the television turned on low to the late-night infomercials when he began to nod off. His eyelids falling once, then twice, and his chin diving onto his chest for a moment before rising once again. The clock on the stove said four thirty
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M
. There were birds chirping in the trees outside, but the sky was still dark.

WHEN HE WOKE
up there was a big man wearing a padded flannel—eating milk and cereal from a bowl—in Drake’s kitchen. Another man, blond and slightly built, sat across from Drake on the opposite couch wearing a black suit. Both were staring at Drake.

“Help yourself to some Frosted Flakes,” Drake said.

The man in the kitchen took another spoonful and stood chewing it like a cow with its cud. He was much larger than the other man, the muscles beneath his pink temples working in parallel motion with his jaw. His forehead glistening slightly with oil or sweat and his dark eyes appearing like two pinpricks beneath the girth of his brows.