The Night Season (21 page)

CHAPTER

44

“There,” Claire said.
“See?”

Archie had seen it. Henry’s eyelids had fluttered. Claire reached for Archie’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

Henry had been breathing on his own for almost thirty minutes.

The oxygen mask was gone, and Archie could see Henry’s face again. His chin and scalp were prickly where salt-and-pepper hair the color of his mustache had grown out to stubble, but his color was better. His blood pressure was up. He looked like he was alive.

Claire let go of Archie’s hand, picked a scab of dried saliva from the corner of Henry’s mouth, and flicked it on the floor.

The room seemed weirdly quiet without the sound of the artificial respirator.

The doctors and nurses were in and out at a regular clip. Everyone was smiley.

Henry’s eyes fluttered again.

“There,” Claire said.

Her face lit up every time it happened.

Henry’s neurologist swept into the room for the fourth time in ten minutes. She was Indian and wore her thick black hair in a braid that hung against the back of her white lab coat. She glanced at the monitor.

“He fluttered again,” Claire said.

The neurologist smiled. “That’s a good sign,” she said, and she typed something into Henry’s chart and left.

“She doesn’t think he’ll wake up,” Claire said.

“He’ll wake up.”

Claire rocked her head back and gazed at the ceiling. “I shouldn’t have called you,” she said. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“This is important.”

She blinked at the ceiling for a long moment and then looked at Archie. “Go,” she said. “Try to find that kid.”

Archie hesitated.

“Go,” Claire said.

Archie stood up. “Call me if anything changes?”

“Yep.”

He reached his hand out and laid it on Henry’s chest. The cloth of the hospital shirt felt insubstantial. Archie coughed and lifted his hand to his mouth. “Okay,” he said.

He turned and made it a few steps.

“Archie?” Claire said.

“Another flutter?”

“No,” she said.

He turned. Claire was standing now, both hands over her mouth, eyes shiny with tears.

Henry’s eyes were open.

Archie hurried back to the bedside beside Claire.

Henry’s lids were heavy, his eyes slits. But they were open.

The neurologist appeared, briskly ushering Claire and Archie toward the foot of the bed.

She whipped an ophthalmoscope out of her lab coat pocket and shone it back and forth between Henry’s eyes.

“Henry?” she said in a loud clear voice. “Can you hear me?”

Claire gripped Archie’s arm.

Henry squinted at the light. “Yeah,” he croaked.

“Oh my God oh my God oh my God,” said Claire. She let go of Archie, squeezed around the doctor, and took one of Henry’s hands in hers.

Henry gazed up at her and smiled. “Hey, baby,” he whispered.

Claire laid her head gently on Henry’s chest. Tears streamed from her eyes and her shoulders shook, but the grin on her face was luminous.

“Do you know your last name?” the doctor asked.

“Sobol,” Henry rasped.

“Do you know who the president is?”

Henry touched the back of Claire’s neck with his hand.

“Gary Hart.”

The doctor stiffened.

He coughed. “Kidding.”

“I need to talk to him,” Archie said.

The doctor raised a hand. “Not now,” she said.

“Archie?” Henry said, lifting his head to look around the room.

“Do you remember what happened?” Archie asked.

“He’s not going to remember anything,” the doctor said. “His brain has been through a terrific trauma.”

Henry lifted his hand from Claire’s neck and made a beckoning motion at Archie.

Archie inched forward, past the neurologist, and leaned in as close as he could.

Claire didn’t move.

A stain from her tears spread on the thin cotton of Henry’s hospital gown.

Henry’s voice was barely more than a rasp. “White male. Early forties. Rubber waders. He had a kid with him.”

CHAPTER

45

The defroster in
Susan’s Saab didn’t work, so she had the windows rolled down to keep the windshield from fogging up. Rain slapped her in the face. She hunched forward over the steering wheel and squinted in an attempt to make out shapes in the darkness ahead.

The traffic lights on Division Street were all out. Some of the streetlights had blown. Even with the porch lights and house lights, it was hard to see the street. Susan slowed as she crossed the railroad tracks. She didn’t see any other cars on the road. Apparently everyone was taking this curfew thing pretty seriously.

Her radio was blasting. A DJ broke in with a news update. The serial killer had claimed another victim. Sauvie Island was flooding. The port was flooding. Swan Island was flooding. The Willamette was expected to crest later that night. Susan changed the station.

She didn’t realize how deep the water was until she was in it.

It had pooled in the intersection, creating a vast black swamp. The water surged around her tires and she could feel the pressure of it pressing against the car. “Fuck,” she said. She put the car in reverse and turned around to back up. But the engine stalled.

Her heart skipped a beat as she turned the ignition key once, twice, three times.

“No,” she said. “No, no, no, no.”

Not even a sputter.

She sat up a little in her seat and peered over the hood of her car. The headlights were still on, skimming the surface of the water, illuminating the rain. Then they went out.

The radio stopped.

It was dark and still and quiet. And the car started to slide. It happened slowly at first, an almost imperceptible shift, something more like vertigo than actual motion. Then it fishtailed.

Susan didn’t have time to react. Not that there was anything she could do. She just held on and braced for impact.

It didn’t come.

She unclenched her eyes and looked around.

She was still in the intersection, only now she was facing up Twelfth Avenue. The car had stopped moving.
The car had stopped moving?

Yes.

She looked out the window. She was still in the water. It was all around her. She tried the handle, half expecting the pressure of the water to pin it closed, but it opened, skimming over the top of the water. She grabbed her purse off the passenger seat and stepped out of the car. The water was maybe five inches deep, above her ankle. She could feel its chill through the rubber of her boots.

She already had her phone out when she turned and saw her car moving again. It floated peacefully for a moment, before scraping along a parked pickup truck and coming to rest nuzzled against it.

Susan dialed 911.

All the operators were busy.

“You’re kidding me,” Susan said.

They were probably up to their eyeballs with calls. Flooding. Mudslides. Traffic accidents. Citizens concerned about their neighbor’s aquarium.

She called Archie. He didn’t pick up.

She looked up and down Division Street, and then up and down Twelfth Avenue. She didn’t see any headlights coming.

At least her car was out of the path of traffic.

She wrote a note on a page from her notebook and tore it out.
My car hit your pickup truck
, read the note.
Sorry
. She added her name and cell number. She waded over to the pickup and tucked it under the windshield wiper. The paper was already wet enough that the ink was bleeding.

She was across the intersection when she realized that her laptop was in the backseat of the car. She decided to leave it. She was twenty-three blocks from home, and she didn’t want it getting rained on.

She put her hood up and started walking.

It wasn’t that far. They were short blocks. And she remembered that Heil was going to an address around here. She decided to take Division most of the way, and keep an eye out for his car. She had to walk through deep puddles on the sidewalk in places, but she had her rainbow boots on. And it was relatively warm out. That was the bright side—if all this was coming down as snow, Portland might be even more screwed. After a few blocks she’d worked up enough body heat that she had to unzip her raincoat.

A few more blocks after that, she’d had enough.

Her feet hurt. She was getting blisters between her toes. She needed Band-Aids. Her jeans were soaked.

She lit a cigarette and called Archie again. Once again, his voice mail picked up after one ring. It was making her a little mad. “It’s me,” she said. “Susan. Again.” She didn’t know what he could do, just that he could do something. Call a tow truck or something. Get her a ride. Then she saw the mint-green Nissan Cube.

She searched out a street address off a nearby house. The two thousand block of Division.

“Never mind,” she said to Archie’s voice mail. “I see Heil.” And she hung up.

It had to be Heil’s car. How many mint-green Nissan Cubes had been sold nationwide? Five? Six, maybe?

He was parked in front of a weird little boxy house with a steeply pitched roof. The houses on either side looked pretty similar. The house number was 2051. It seemed familiar. She thought she remembered that being the first address from his list.

Curb space was plentiful, so Heil probably would have parked right out front.

It had to be the house.

Susan stood in the rain, suddenly filled with uncertainty. Rain pelted her coat. She’d call him. She’d call and tell him she was outside, explain what had happened, and ask for a ride.

She looked up his number in her contact list and clicked on it. It rang. He didn’t pick up.

He was probably interviewing the aquarium nerd and didn’t want to be interrupted.

She stood there some more. She could feel strips of wet hair sealing to the sides of her face.

She took a drag off the cigarette.

It was just a ride. She’d talk to him, and then she’d wait on the porch.

She hurried up the walk, took the four steps up the stoop in one leap, and rang the doorbell before she lost her nerve. At the last moment she remembered to put out the cigarette.

A man answered the door. He had dark hair. Maybe in his forties. Archie’s age. He didn’t look like him, though. He was round in all the places Archie was angular. Not fat, just a little soft. But he was taller than Archie. He loomed.

Susan looked up and smiled. “Is Detective Heil here?” she asked.

“Come on in,” he said. “He’s right here.”

She only blanched for a second. Heil was inside. Plus the guy had a kid. She could see
Star Wars
toys on the living room carpet behind him.

He held the door open for her.

She thanked him as she stepped inside.

CHAPTER

46

Susan didn’t notice
the man’s army-green chest-high rubber waders until she got inside. They were held up by black suspenders over a golf shirt. The boots were beaded with water up to the knees. A trail of wet footprints led down the carpeted hall behind him.

“Basement’s flooded,” he explained.

Susan didn’t move from just inside the door. “That sucks,” she said.

Rain smacked against the front window. It sounded like water boiling.

The living room was small but organized. Paperbacks were lined up perfectly on the bookshelf. The CDs were housed in wicker CD towers. He had a gray leather couch, and one of those rattan half-shell chairs a lot of people bought in the seventies and which had been populating thrift stores ever since. There was a deck of Uno cards on the glass coffee table. Besides the
Star Wars
figures, it was the only other sign of a kid in the room.

She didn’t see Heil.

The man stooped and started gathering up the action figures. “I think the storm runoff put pressure on the water main,” he said. “Your friend’s downstairs. He was helping me move a few things.”

Susan’s shoulders relaxed a little.

He dropped the action figures in a shoe box and put the shoe box on the coffee table next to the Uno deck. “You can come in,” he said. “Take a seat. I’ll give him a shout.”

She started to take off her boots.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ve already tracked muck all over the rug. I have to get a steam cleaner in here anyway. Can I take your coat?”

“Um, sure,” Susan said. She could feel rivulets of water running down her neck and between her breasts. She peeled off the wet vinyl slicker and held it out, and he hung it on a hanger in a closet by the door. Susan caught a glimpse of the black jacket Heil had been wearing on the hanger next to it.

“You’re drenched,” he said. “Hold on, I’ll get you a towel.”

She stood dripping on the mat while he disappeared down the hall, presumably to the bathroom.

She was chilled now that she was inside. Her black jeans stuck to her skin, gathering too tightly in all the crevices. When she got home, she was taking a bubble bath.

A door creaked open. There followed the sound of shuffling downstairs, and then a muffled voice. Good. He was telling Heil she was here. He’d be up in a minute, and they could go. If he wanted to be a Good Samaritan he could come back after he took her home.

She looked around the room some more. He had a framed Wyland poster above the couch—a glowing moon rising over a pod of orcas. There was a shooting star in the purple and pink sky. White cursive script ran across the poster below the image.

Susan inched forward to read it. It was a quote from the artist.

THE SEA IS FILLED WITH LIGHT AND CONSCIOUSNESS.

Gag me
, she thought.

“Here you go,” the man said, tossing her a thick magenta towel.

She caught it and dried her face, and then squeezed a tablespoon of water from her hair. “Thanks,” she said. She looked behind him, but he was alone. “Did you tell Heil I was here?”

“He’ll be right up,” the man said. “Have a seat.”

Susan rubbed the towel along her legs, patted down her neck, wrung her hair out again, and then lifted her sweater up, slipped the towel underneath, and, as delicately as she could, blotted her chest and underarms. “Excuse me,” she said. Then she folded the damp towel, set it on the couch, and perched carefully on it. The couch wasn’t real leather anyway.

He sat in the rattan chair. His waders squeaked. “Shouldn’t be long,” he said.

She looked around some more. The whale print was the only marine-related thing in the room. He didn’t seem like much of an aquarium nerd to her.

“So you’re into fish?” she said.

“I have a few aquariums. They’re all in the basement. That’s what your friend was helping me with. They’re running on emergency power now, but the generators won’t last, and once the systems shut down I’m going to have a lot of dead fish on my hands.”

It was suddenly making sense. Heil was the kind of guy who’d get suckered into some sort of massive goldfish airlift. The man probably had Heil doing all the heavy lifting.

The man. She still didn’t know his name.

She held a hand out and smiled. “I’m Susan Ward,” she said.

He leaned forward and shook her hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said.

Then he glanced toward the basement. “I should get back down there,” he said. “There’s a lot to do.”

“I’ll come with you and say hello to Heil,” she said.

He looked at her boots. “It’s deep,” he said.

She ran her hand over her hair—it felt like seaweed. “I don’t think I can get any wetter.”

She followed him to the basement door. There was a big industrial flashlight on the carpet and he picked it up, turned it on, and pointed it down the steep, skinny wooden stairs. “I had to throw the breaker,” he said. “Most flood-related deaths are due to electrocution.”

But it wasn’t dark, exactly. She could see light reflecting on the water.

“I’ve got those IKEA push lights,” he said. “Battery-operated. You just stick them right on the wall.”

“Heil?” Susan called.

“He’s in the aquarium room,” the man said.

“The what?”

“It’s the old root cellar. I’ll show you.”

She could already taste the sourness of old concrete and laundry detergent in her mouth.

She should have just walked home.

“You go first,” Susan said.

“Sure,” he said. They both had to turn sideways for him to get by her and for a moment they were face-to-face, or rather face-to-bottom-of-chin. Then he pressed against the wall and slipped past her.

When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he shone the flashlight back for her to follow. The water came up to just below his knees.

Susan took each stair carefully, one hand on the rough concrete wall, one hand on the splintered wooden railing. “Have you called someone?” she asked.

“Half the basements in town are flooded,” he said. “They say it might be four days.”

She got to the bottom, to the water’s edge. The stairs led to a large unfinished room with a washer and dryer in the corner next to a stained utility sink. Two round lights the size of salad plates were affixed to two of the walls, providing about as much light as you’d find in a bar bathroom. Just enough to do your business, but not enough to see anything that might trouble you.

The man turned off the flashlight, but didn’t put it down. There was nowhere to put it. The water was opaque and bobbed with basement flotsam—a box of dryer sheets, a Christmas ornament, a soccer ball.

Susan dipped the toe of her boot in the water and felt for the edge of the step. Then another, and another. Until she was standing on the basement floor. When she took the last step she heard a sucking sound, and cold water rushed into the tops of her boots, filling them.

“I want to see Heil,” Susan said. Her feet felt heavy and cold. She had to drag them to take a step.

“He’s in here,” the man said, wading to a far door. The door was the newest thing in the room.

“I told him I could handle it,” the man continued. “But he said he wouldn’t leave until he’d saved the queen angel. They’re expensive. Five, six hundred.”

“Dollars?” Susan said, trudging after him.

“Sure. Your friend recognized her right away. Apparently he’s a bit of an aquarium enthusiast himself.”

He opened the door and Susan was engulfed in tranquil blue light.

She heard Heil shout her name from somewhere inside the room. But she didn’t have time to respond. All at once she was stumbling, her center of gravity gone, her feet out from under her. She didn’t know why at first. Then she realized that she’d been pushed from behind. She couldn’t recover from it—she fell forward, belly-flopping into the water with a splash. It was disgusting. She got water in her mouth. In her eyes. In her hair. She flipped over and sat up, the water to her armpits, and looked accusingly at the door. It was closed. He’d pushed her in and closed the door behind her.

“Asshole,” she said struggling to get up.

“Susan,” she heard Heil say again. She looked over and saw him now, standing in the water in front of a wall of ghostly blue tanks. He glanced at the water, his face tense. He was perfectly still. “Don’t move,” he said.