Black River (11 page)

Thursday, October 19

7:07 p.m.

C
orso leaned against the wall and watched as Robert Downs sorted through the remnants of his father’s life. He was a tall thin young man, with a full head of lank brown hair that was going to be gone before he saw forty. The single overhead bulb sent his shadow lurching over the walls and ceiling as he pawed through the dozen cardboard boxes.

Ten minutes later, Downs sat on the patched plastic couch with his head bent forward and his hands hanging down between his knees. “It’s not much, is it?”

“I guess he had all he needed,” Corso offered.

“Not a scrap of paper—” he began.

“Cops probably took all the paperwork.”

Downs tapped his temple. “Of course. I’m not thinking very clearly,” he said.

“You’ve had quite a shock.”

Downs looked around, as if seeing the place for the first time. “The manager, Mr….”

“Pov,” Corso said.

“Yes. Mr. Pov showed me the apartment he lived in. There’s an old woman living in there now, but she said it was okay.”

“Nice of her.”

“It was…it wasn’t what I expected.”

“Your father led a simple life.”

“I had no idea. His letters always said he was in building maintenance.”

“He was.”

Robert Downs ran a well-manicured hand through his lank hair. “But I always assumed it was…somehow…” He searched for a phrase, didn’t find anything suitable, and gave up.

“Something a bit more grandiose,” Corso suggested.

Downs nodded. “Like he had his own firm or something.”

“When was the last time you saw your father?”

“You mean like in person?” He read Corso’s expression. “A couple of times he sent a videotape for Christmas, and I saw him that way.”

“In the flesh.”

“When I was eleven. He lived in southern California then. I went out to LA for two weeks. He took me to Disneyland. He had a nice apartment in Santa Monica, just a few blocks off the beach.”

“What year was that?”

“Nineteen eighty-one.”

“Long time.”

Downs agreed. “My mother was bitter,” he said. “She’d have preferred I never saw him again.”

“What was she bitter about?”

“She always claimed he fooled around on her.”

“I take it they didn’t correspond?”

“Oh, no,” he said. “I was six or seven before she even admitted I had a father and that he was alive on the West Coast somewhere.” He rolled his eyes. “It took me three years to get her to send me to California.” He looked around again and jammed his hands into his pockets. “How could he live in a place like this?”

“His ex-wife says it’s because he was sending all his money away to keep you in college and medical school.”

His face was the color of ashes. “I had no idea he was living this way,” he complained to the ceiling. “Those apartments…they’re hovels.” He stepped over to the storage unit and pawed at an open box of housewares. “I mean, look at the man’s dishes.” He gestured with the back of his hand. “This is it?” he demanded, of nobody in particular. “
This
is the total of a man’s life, some broken-down furniture and a few cardboard boxes?”

Something in his tone annoyed Corso. “So then, if you’d known he was living in poverty, you’d have sent him his money back and enrolled in the state university?”

Downs’s eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth to defend himself and then changed his mind. The muscles along his jawline rippled like snakes. He cupped his face in his long fingers and stayed that way for quite a while.

“You’re right,” he said finally. “I was being a first-class asshole, wasn’t I? I mean, who the hell am I to be judging him? After everything he did for me…everything he gave up…and here I am, standing around judging the quality of the guy’s life like I’m Martha Stewart or something.”

Downs turned away from Corso and leaned his forehead against the chain link. He took several deep breaths and then began to cry. Corso watched until the shaking of his shoulders stopped; then he stepped into the storage area, found a roll of paper towels, and tore off a couple.

It took Robert Downs a few minutes to put himself back together. He honked three times into a towel and dropped it onto the floor.

“Why would anybody want to kill my father?” he asked.

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“The police called me yesterday morning.”

“Where were you?”

“Boston. I live in Boston.” He retrieved the other paper towel from his pants pocket and wiped his nose. “They asked me what I wanted done with the body.” He looked to Corso, as if for forgiveness. “They had to say his name twice before I realized who it was they were talking about. That it was my father who was dead. And that I was…that nobody else had come forward for his remains.”

“You know the details?” Corso asked.

“They said he was found in his truck. Buried in a hillside.”

“Shot.”

“That’s what they said.”

“My source says the medical examiner’s office is going to report nine bullet wounds from three different weapons.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Corso agreed. “None of this makes any sense.”

They stood in silence. Somewhere out in the parking lot a car engine shuddered to a stop. A car door closed. They listened as the sound of footsteps faded to black.

“You going back to Boston?” Corso asked.

Downs wandered around in a circle, as if confused. “I’m…I mean, I was….” He looked at his watch.“I’m getting married in three weeks,” he said absently, then reached inside his sport jacket and came out with an airline ticket. “I’ve got a flight back in the morning, but I think…I think I’m going to stay for a while.”

“Might not be a good idea for you to be mucking about in this,” Corso said.

“Why’s that?”

Corso told Downs about Dougherty.

“And you think what happened to your friend was a result of her looking into my father’s death?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“How could—”

“I have no idea,” Corso interrupted. “But I’m going to keep turning over rocks until something crawls out.”

“I can’t just leave,” Downs said. “I don’t know why, but I can’t. It’s like I found something and lost it all at the same time.” He looked to Corso for agreement. “You know what I mean?”

Corso said he did. He remembered his own father’s army trunk with the big brass padlock, how his father kept it stored under a tarp in the garage rafters. In the years after he returned from the war, he’d opened it only once, when a friend from his army days had stopped by one hot August afternoon. They sat together all day, stripped down to their undershirts, sweating together in that stifling oven of a garage, talking quietly gether in that stifling oven of a garage, talking quietly and looking at pictures. Together they drank a whole bottle of whiskey and then, late in the afternoon, they’d put their heads together and cried.

He could still hear the dry crack of the wood when, the day after his father’s death, he’d torn the hasp off with a crowbar and rolled back the lid. He could still feel the stinging of his cheeks as he tried to ignore his guilt—the terrible guilt—about the sense of relief he’d felt when the VA doctor told them his father had passed away. About how his first thought hadn’t been about the loss of a father or its effect on those he loved but had, instead, been about the trunk in the rafters and how now, in death, he might solve the riddle of his father in some fashion that had not been possible in life.

“It’s a high-profile case. The cops are giving it the full treatment.”

“That’s what they said.” Downs waved a hand. “There’s nothing I can do, I know that. But…somehow…for some reason I don’t understand, I can’t go back to Boston until I try to sort things out here. Does that sound crazy?”

“Yeah, it does,” Corso said. “But sometimes life’s like that.”

Robert Downs ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t know where to begin.”

“Maybe I can help you there.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have a car?”

“Sure. A rental Chevy.”

“Then start with the cops,” Corso said. “Contrary to rumor, they’re real good at what they do. Go see them first thing in the morning. See what they’ve come up with so far. While you’re there, get a copy of your father’s financial records.”

Downs started to ask a question, but Corso cut him off. “If it’s not about sex, it’s probably about money.”

“But my father didn’t have a—”

“Let’s eliminate the obvious, and then we can work from there.”

“Okay.” Downs sighed. “First the police.”

“Get an official death certificate,” Corso said. “Somewhere down the line you’re going to need it.”

“Then?”

Corso reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a business card.

“When you get that done, call me and we’ll go down to the school district where he worked.”

“Oh, listen, you don’t have to…. I didn’t meanto—”

Corso held up a moderating hand. “Mr. Downs,” he said, “if you knew me at all, you’d know my offer’s got nothing to do with charity. With you or without you, I’m going to find out what happened to my friend and why.” He turned the hand palm up. “If, somewhere in the process, I can help you to come to grips with a father you never knew, all the better. What’s true is that I think you can be of use to me.”

“How so?”

“You’ve got the bona fides. You’re his son and heir. The cops are going to give and tell you things they wouldn’t tell anybody else. School districts are the most clamped-down, tight-mouthed organizations in the world. Other than admitting that somebody did indeed work for them, they generally won’t divulge a thing.”

“What makes you think they might know something worthwhile?”

“Your father spent a third of his life at work. As far as I’m concerned, that makes it a one-in-three chance that whatever your father got mixed up in was work-related.”

“But what about…I mean, I saw it on TV. You’re covering that gangster trial, aren’t you?”

“Tomorrow’s the day they try to tie Balagula to his businesses. Eight hours of charts and graphs, all of which I’ve seen before. If I’m going to miss a morning, tomorrow’s the one.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Good.”

Thursday, October 19

8:21 p.m.

L
ake Union lay flat and still, its surface gleaming like black oil beneath the full moon. Corso felt the unseen eyes the minute he got out of the car. He slowed down, allowing his vision to adjust to the darkness as he scoured the shadows for movement, looking for that slight vibration of line that separates blood from blackness. He whistled softly as he walked back up the line of cars toward the street. A Metro bus hissed by on Fairview Avenue, its bold advertising placards inviting folks to visit the Experience Music Project. Nobody between the cars. Nobody out on the sidewalk. He walked over and checked along the fenceline. Nothing.

He gave an exaggerated shrug, lengthened his stride, and began walking quickly back toward the dock. And then stopped dead, held his breath, listened. No doubt about it: He heard the click of heels. He was still working on what to do next when the sound of voices snapped his head around.

They were coming up from C dock. In the dim purple light, they seemed almost to emerge from the asphalt as they climbed the ramp to ground level. It was the couple from
Grisswold
, a Hans Christian forty-seven, about a quarter of the way down the dock. Marla and Steve Something-or-other from Gig Harbor. They used the boat maybe twice a year. When he’d left this morning, they’d been standing on the dock with Marty Kroll. Looked like Marty’d been giving them an estimate on refinishing the brightwork.

Marla tried to work up a smile and failed. “Hi, Frank,” she said. She was pushing fifty. Tall and dark, she moved with a girlish grace that belied her years.

“Hey, how’s it going?” Corso said.

“It’s
going
to cost the better part of fifteen grand,” Steve growled.

Steve was a big beefy specimen, red-faced and loud. Prone to sandals and Hawaiian shirts regardless of the weather. He sold something.

“Without new sails,” Marla added.

“Which is
at least
another ten.” Steve said.

Sympathizing about the cost of boat repairs with other owners was de rigueur. Especially on those fateful days when day-trippers find out why you can’t let sailboats sit around for years.

“Those kinda boat units will kill you,” Corso said.

“I’m gonna put her up for sale,” Steve announced. Over Steve’s shoulder, Corso thought he saw movement among the dark pillars that supported the marina office.

“We’ll still have to do the work,” Marla said. “And we won’t have the boat.”

Steve looked to Corso. “Whoever buys it’s gonna want a survey,” Corso said. “She’s right. Nobody’s going to give them a loan unless everything’s in order.”

“Shit,” Steve spit out into the night air.

Marla tugged at his elbow. “Come on, honey. We’ll get a bite and you’ll feel better.”

“Better be Burger King or something cheap,” Steve grumbled as she moved him along. “I just wanted a place we could stay in the city,” he groused. “Hell, we coulda flown over. Stayed at the Four Seasons. We coulda…”

Corso had seen it before, but it was always a little sad to see a grown man finally come to understand the folly of boat ownership. He wondered if Steve had ever uttered the much used line about how a boat is a hole into which you throw money. Now he knew what all real boaters know. Every minute of every day, your boat is rotting away beneath you, and all you can hope to accomplish, with all the sandpaper and Cetol, the brass polish and bottom paint, is an uneasy stalemate with the elements.

He watched as they got into a gray Cadillac Seville, backed out into the lot, and drove off. He stood still for another moment, waiting until the Cadillac’s taillights were nothing but a red smear at the end of Fairview Avenue, before he turned and started down the ramp.