Into This River I Drown (38 page)

Corwin stares at him. “You’re an odd duck, you know that?”

“I am not a duck at all,” Cal snarls. “You just do your job and let me do mine. Benji belongs to me and no one will take him from me.”

“Hush,” I tell him lightly. “Nothing is going to happen to me. And besides, I can take care of myself. I have for a long time.” Cal looks at me like that is the stupidest thing I’ve ever said.

“You guys been together a long time?” Corwin asks bluntly.

“Yes,” Cal says at the same time I say, “A few days.”

Corwin stares.

“Long story,” I say as I flush.

He nods. “I’ll be in touch, Benji. Just keep doing what you are doing, and don’t let anyone know yet that you spoke to me. If you see me around Roseland, act like you don’t know me. If the shit starts to hit the fan, you call me. That number I gave you is a separate private number. Most people don’t know I have it, not even my wife.” I arch my eyebrow at him, and he rolls his eyes. “Not like that. I deal with some shady people sometimes with what I do, and I don’t want to bring my work home with me. And sometimes, like now, I don’t want to bring things into my work. Not yet. We clear?”

I nod. He stands up from the booth, dropping a twenty on the table. He starts to walk away but pauses at the edge of the booth. He doesn’t look down at us. “I’m sorry about your dad,” he finally says. “I… I always wanted to say that. You know, how sorry I am. What he tried to do was a very brave thing. You have every right to hate me, but the only thing I’ve ever wanted was to help people and to put the bad guys away. I like to think that maybe your… Big Eddie was like that too.”

I nod again, blinded by tears.

He leaves. That is the last time I see him alive.

I’m not
the one who physically killed Agent Joshua Corwin, though it might as well have been me. It is my fault just the same. Had I not called him, he might not have found a reason to come back to Roseland. He might have escaped the pattern, even if it seems to have been calling to him. Who’s to say he wouldn’t have been freed from it? Had I not involved him, he might be with his family instead of lying in a morgue a hundred miles away in the coastal town of Bandon, his bloated body having washed up on a rocky beach four days after we met in the grimy diner.

The
what
ifs
haunt me almost as much as my own memories do. I lost my father to something I still don’t quite understand. He was taken from me, yes, and even if I believe more and more that his death was not an accident, a small part of me still questions whether it could be true. What I can’t question is the fact that I helped to take Corwin away from his family. His daughters will not have their father because of me. His wife will not have a husband because of me.

I don’t know much about Corwin’s last hours. I didn’t see him around Roseland in the days that followed our meeting. All I know is that Abe came in, his hands shaking slightly as he grabbed a newspaper off the stack near the front door. He flipped the paper over and showed me the story in the bottom right-hand corner with the headline:
Body in Bandon Identified as FBI Agent
. Even as those words blurred and my head started to pound, I read on, and Cal came up behind me and wrapped his big arms around me, holding me close. Agent Corwin had been found facedown on a beach outside Bandon, Oregon, by an older gentleman out for his morning walk. He told police he first thought it was a large sack washed ashore, and that he was going to pick it up and throw it away. He hated litter on the beaches, he said. But when he’d gotten closer, he’d seen white hands, which went to arms and a torso, the face down and turned away. The older gentleman said he froze for a moment, that he could not believe what he was seeing. That he hadn’t seen a dead body since he’d fought in World War II, and that he realized not enough time had passed between the last time and now. Not having his cell phone on him, he stumbled back and headed for the nearest set of stairs, where he flagged a passing motorist who called the police.

Since Corwin was found naked, he had no form of identification. All of his teeth had been pulled from his head. His fingers had been cut off, as were his toes. An obvious attempt to keep him from being identified quickly. I haven’t been able to work up the courage to find out if these atrocious things were done before or after he was killed. I don’t think my sanity could take knowing.

A sketch of his face had been plastered all over the coastal news, and word quickly spread of the John Doe. I heard vague talk of this dead man but didn’t make the connection. Why would I? Even before the FBI could be called in to help with the investigation, one of Corwin’s colleagues saw the sketch. There was no question as to the John Doe’s identity. Agent Joshua Corwin had been murdered, they said. Shot through the back of his head. Based upon the angle of the bullet wound, he would have most likely been on his knees at the time. Hearing that only made the news worse.

Did he beg? Did he plead for his life? Did he tell the shooter he had a family waiting for him, he didn’t want to die, he just wanted to go home? Did he cry out his daughters’ names? Did he whisper that he loved his wife?

Did he pray?

That’s the one that gets me the most, especially as I watch my own angel as he cups my face, as he brushes the tears from my cheeks, never recoiling from the anger in my eyes. Did Joshua Corwin pray for release? Did he ask God to save him? If he did, why was the prayer not answered? Where was Corwin’s guardian angel? Where was the guardian angel of Bandon? Why was Corwin’s thread not seen? I’d met the man. I saw his strength. His thread would have been as bright as the sun.

These are questions Calliel can’t answer. Or maybe he won’t, I don’t know. He says he still can’t remember a lot of what happened before he fell from On High. I want desperately to believe him. I think part of me even
does
believe him.

“God has a plan,” he says quietly, later that night. He’s curled around me as I shake in the dark. He strokes my back gently. “I know it may not seem like it at times, and it’s hard to understand and it always seems unfair, but my Father has a plan, Benji. I’ve seen it in the shapes. In the patterns. The design. This is nothing you did. This is not your fault. If anything, it’s my Father’s. And I think I can truly understand anger now. I hurt for you, Benji. Oh, how I hurt for you. I don’t want you to be sad. I don’t want you to cry. You’ve done so much of that, and I don’t want to see it anymore. I’d do anything not to see it anymore. I’d do anything if I could just see you smile at me. I understand anger, yes. I’m angry at what I’ve seen in the shapes. That damn pattern. That bastard design. But most of all, I am angry with my Father for hurting you. I don’t want you to hurt anymore. I don’t want you to hurt ever again. I would take all of it from you if I could. You are mine, and I would take it all.”

His words soothe me, even if they cause my chest to hitch.

I think about going to the funeral, but in the end I don’t, unsure if it’s my place. I don’t know if I could stand to see the grief-stricken faces of his family. I don’t know if I would be welcome, even if I would be unknown. I don’t know if I’m already being watched somehow. It doesn’t seem possible that an agent with the Bureau could have driven out to a diner to meet with me without leaving some kind of trail behind. Thoughts of phones pinging off cell towers and recorded conversations bounce around my mind. I don’t know how possible it is or if I’ve seen too many movies. At the very least, I expect the FBI to question me. I
did
call Corwin at his office one time. Surely they will check the call log. Surely they will wonder why he was so far away from home when he died.

The media began to speculate, helping to spread rumors like wildfire. After all, a big thing
did
happen in a small town. A mystery occurred, one that had no answers, so of
course
there was speculation. It was discovered (leaked?) that Corwin worked on a drug task force. Surely that was related somehow? He’d gotten caught up in something related to his work and had paid the ultimate price. Maybe, some thought, he’d been dirty and had been double-crossed. Maybe he was undercover and had been found out. The FBI didn’t release much information, aside from saying they believed someone out there had to know what happened. Anyone with
any
information was urged to step forward. The FBI didn’t take kindly to their own agents getting gunned down. They had some leads, though they declined to reveal what those leads were.

Corwin’s funeral was held on a bright sunny day in Eugene. Abe didn’t want me to go, the fear in his eyes palpable. Cal didn’t want me to go, the anger in his eyes like fire. We didn’t tell my mother. Much went unsaid, though I am sure we all thought it. Traynor. Or Walken. Or Griggs. Or one of their people. Someone had forced Corwin to his knees, stripped him of his clothing and shot him through the back of his head. Did he say anything about me to his killers before he died? Did he tell them I was the one who had called him? Did he tell them what he knew? Did they force it out of him?

Again, so many questions with no answers. I didn’t go to the funeral. I didn’t show my face. I didn’t
step forward
as they had asked. It wasn’t out of fear for myself, not completely. It was out of fear for my family. If I’d shown up to Corwin’s funeral and someone was watching to see who would go, then I ran the risk of endangering everyone I loved. I couldn’t take that chance. I had to protect my family.

Roseland was in the claws of the men who ran it. I could feel the grip tightening around us, and soon there would be no way to struggle for release. There was something coming on the horizon. It felt like things were building, though I couldn’t say to what point that might be. All I knew was that I was stuck in that grip. I couldn’t get out, not anymore. I thought about struggling, but I refused to pull anyone into it with me.

This was the life and death of Joshua Corwin. He lived until I killed him.

these flickering lights

I am
in the river, chest-deep. Shadow of a figure up on the road, hidden by rain. Flashes of crosses and feathers. The current is rough against my skin.

“Benji.” My name is uttered. It’s as loud as I’ve heard it. Is it the river? Is it my father? Is it a guardian angel who I—

need can’t live without must have love love oh god i love

—know will wrap a strong arm around me and pull me from this place? I don’t know. I don’t care. Whatever the whisper is, it says my name like a caress and I lower my head beneath the surface of the river because that’s where it is, that’s what it wants. Who am I to fight it? Who am I to deny it?

The sound of the rain thundering down from above is muffled underneath the surface. I open my eyes and prepare for the sting. It comes, but not as painful as it was before. The world appears a quixotic blue—

blue i shall call you blue because all i have is blue

—and I think about how nice it seems, how soft and wonderful and muted. I don’t know why I never thought of it this way before. It’s safer down here, floating in the deep blue dark, and I think how wonderful it feels just to float. I could float here for the rest of my—

A sharp sound, metal moving against rock.

It grates against my ears and I grit my teeth. But it dislodges something inside me as well, and I no longer want to float in the blue. The river is trying to hold me here, trying to make me forget.
Breathe
, it whispers in my ear.
Open up your mouth and take a deep breath and you will be fine. It’s all blue, you know. Everything down here is blue.

The sound is louder. I see a faint shape outlined ahead.

The truck.

I push forward, twisting through the river. The red truck comes into sharper focus, the cab upside down and pressed against the bed of the river. Its tail end is at an angle and breaches the surface.

I move closer and see the driver’s window is busted out. It must have happened in the impact. It must have been—

A flash of white.

It’s an arm
, I think wildly in the river.
It’s an arm. It’s Big Eddie. It’s my father. The last time I saw my father was in the morgue when he was dead and white and not my father. He was so fucking
white
and the man in scrubs said it was because he had been underwater for a long time, that it was the river’s fault he looked the way he did. This is the river. This is my father. This is—

I’m closer now. My father holds something in his hand that drifts gently up and down. It’s too hazy for me to see it, so I move closer. I don’t want to see my father’s face, I don’t want to see any more of his body trapped here underneath the river, but I must get closer. My chest is starting to burn, and all I
really
want to do is take a great gasping breath, so
all
the blue fills my lungs and
all
the river is within me. It’s so fucking dangerous, this thinking, and part of me is
screaming
to stop, just
screaming
for me to kick to the surface, to pray and pray and
pray
for the angel to pull me away. But I can’t. I won’t. Not when I am so close and can see—

An arm wraps around my chest and pulls me away.

But not before I see the great blue feather in my father’s hand.

Rising up.

Rising down.

This
was the last time I saw my father’s face.

“Are you sure, Benji?” my mother asked, her voice hollow. “I don’t know if you should do this.”

“Let one of us handle it,” my Aunt Mary said, tears leaking from her eyes. She’d been this way since she, Nina, and Christie arrived hours before. “You shouldn’t have to see this. It’s not fair. I don’t want you to hurt anymore.”

“It’s morbid is what it is,” my Aunt Christie said, glancing around, narrowing her eyes. “Why does anyone even
have
to do it?”