The Night Season (23 page)

CHAPTER

50

Archie hunched against
the weather. The patrol cop who’d found Susan’s car was closing off the intersection, setting up reflective sawhorses so other drivers wouldn’t make the same mistake that Susan had. The pool of standing water was a vast glassy black and deeper than it looked. The raindrops exploded as they hit it, making the water look almost like it was simmering.

Archie had checked the abandoned vehicle report after he’d gotten Susan’s messages. Her Saab, which had drifted into the middle of Twelfth Avenue, had just been called in.

So much for the nap that he’d been planning.

The Saab had clearly been knocked around. The driver’s-side mirror was missing, and the paint job had been scratched bumper to bumper. Archie looked around for what she’d hit, and spotted a pickup truck with a crumpled fender. He made his way over to it and saw a folded piece of paper under its windshield wiper. She’d left a note.

He leaned over the hood, lifted the wiper blade up, and peeled the sopping paper from the wet glass. He recognized the size of the lined paper as a page from Susan’s notebook. The ink had bled, but he could still make out the gist of what she’d written.

He folded the note in half, put it back under the wiper where she’d left it, and returned to the Cutlass.

“Anything?” he asked Flannigan when he got in the car.

“Heil’s still not picking up. Ngyun hasn’t heard from him since he left the office.”

“She said she was going to walk,” Archie said.

Flannigan held up his notebook, showing a page covered in a hurried scribble.

“What’s that?” Archie asked.

“It’s the list of addresses Heil was tracking down. Ngyun found them in the MapQuest history on Heil’s computer.”

Archie took the notebook and tried to make out the words. It looked like it was in another language.

“There are two in this neighborhood,” Flannigan said. “One in Ladd’s Addition, and one at Twentieth and Division.”

Archie looked out the rain-streaked window. The world was a dark and blurry place.

Division would have been on Susan’s way home.

He could tell that Flannigan was thinking the same thing.

“Let’s go,” Archie said.

He backed down Twelfth and took side streets around to Division, avoiding the flooded intersection.

Division was a two-lane street, but it was an arterial and usually busy. Not tonight. Archie only saw one other set of headlights as they made their way east, passing under dark traffic lights and past closed bars. The commercial buildings quickly gave way to the residential ones, with small bungalows on one side and older, larger houses on the other.

Water gushed along the curbside.

“There,” Flannigan said.

Archie saw it, too. Heil’s car.

Flannigan glanced down at his notes and then squinted at the house numbers. “He’s parked right in front of the house,” he said.

Archie turned the wheel and pulled into the driveway, sending a spray of water up from the gutter.

The house was simple and compact. One-story. No frills. The living room light was on, but the curtains were drawn.

It had been over an hour since Susan had left her second voice mail. If she had stumbled upon Heil and everything was fine, they wouldn’t still be here.

Archie and Flannigan got out of the car and walked up to the front door. Archie bent down and picked up a mushy cigarette butt from the concrete stoop. It had berry lipstick around the filter.

He rang the doorbell.

They waited.

No one answered.

The rain flowing through the house’s gutters sounded like a waterfall.

Flannigan banged on the door with the side of his fist.

“Look around back,” Archie said.

Flannigan jogged off across the muddy yard and disappeared around the side of the house.

Archie tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. No one in Portland locked their doors. It was one of the reasons the city had such a high burglary rate.

He opened the door. “Police,” he said. “Anyone home?”

Archie listened. All he could hear was the sound of the overwhelmed gutters and the rain sweeping against the windows.

A trail of wet footprints led away from the door and across the carpet. “Hello?” he said. He took a small step inside, just onto the mat, and looked around.

He unsnapped his holster and put his hand on his gun. His eyes immediately fell on Susan’s purse sitting by the sofa.

His shoulders tensed. “Susan?” he called. “Heil?”

Archie drew his gun. “This is the police,” he said again. “I’m coming in.” He moved slowly into the house and made his way to the kitchen, following the footprints.

Flannigan met him at the back door. “Car’s gone,” he said. “There’s a garage out back.”

“Susan’s purse is in the living room,” Archie said. The footprints ended at the basement door. “Call for backup. I’m going down there.” He swung the basement door open and saw the brown water below. “Shit,” he said.

“This is the police,” Archie yelled. “I’m coming down the stairs.”

He drew his weapon and took the stairs sideways with his gun held at a forty-degree angle. The flooded room at the bottom of the stairs was empty, but there was another door. It had been left ajar and Archie could see the distinctive blue glow of aquarium lights.

He moved into the thigh-deep water, bracing against the cold, and made his way to the door. A round glass Christmas ornament floated past him. “Susan?” he called again.

The door was steel—a fire door—the owner of the house wanted to protect whatever was in there. Archie raised his gun and pushed it open.

The room was full of fish.

The tanks lit the room with an aqua gleam.

There was no one in there. They were gone.

Archie lowered his gun.

Then he saw something in the water.

It bobbed at the surface, a knot of flesh—the size of a golf ball. Archie took a step back. The water in the room was full of blue-ringed octopuses.

He counted a half dozen, at least.

They were all at the surface, limp, not moving.

Dead. Nothing could live in that water for long.

“What’s going on down there?” Flannigan called. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Stay up there,” Archie hollered. “I’ve got dead octopuses down here.” He looked down at the water. He hoped they were all dead.

Archie had backed out of the room and was closing the door when he saw the shadow. It was nothing he could really discern, just a sense of something, a shape, under the water.

Still, he felt a sickening tug at his gut.

There was a person under there.

He holstered his gun and stumbled forward into the room, feeling under the water until his hands found clothing, solid cold flesh, hair. Archie lifted the person’s head and shoulders out of the water.

It was Heil.

The dead blue-rings floated all around them.

“Call for EMTs,” Archie called up the stairs. “It’s Heil.”

Heil’s skin was chilled meat. Archie felt for a pulse and got nothing.

Bodies didn’t sink until the lungs had filled with water.

He needed to get him to a flat surface so he could start CPR.

Archie pulled Heil through the water, out the door, and into the main room of the basement.

Flannigan was at the bottom of the stairs. “Jesus Christ,” he said.

“Help me get him to the kitchen,” Archie said.

Flannigan took Heil under the arms, Archie grabbed under his knees and they half carried, half dragged him up the stairs. When they got to the kitchen they laid him flat on his back on the linoleum, a puddle of brown water already seeping from his clothes.

Flannigan knelt next to Heil’s head, so he could turn it to the side if Heil started coughing up water, and Archie started chest compressions. It was like pushing on rubber.

“He’s dead,” Flannigan said.

Archie kept working. “They can save him.”

“He’s dead, Archie. He’s been dead for a while.”

But Archie didn’t stop. CPR had worked on Henry.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

Archie kept up the compressions. He focused on the count. One. Two. Three. Four. Push.

Flannigan reached out with a shaky hand and closed Heil’s eyes.

The sirens got louder.

Archie heard the emergency vehicles pulling up, then the front door opening.

“In here,” he yelled.

The EMTs trotted in and slid into squats next to him. One took over compressions, while the other checked Heil’s vitals, then peeled back his eyelids and checked his pupillary response with an ophthalmoscope. “He’s dead.”

The first EMT lifted her latex-gloved hands from Heil’s chest. They both looked at Archie and Flannigan.

Archie pulled himself to his feet.

He could hear more sirens now.

A
Star Wars
figure was sitting on the kitchen counter. Archie took a step toward it. He didn’t know which character it was, but could tell that it was supposed to be female.

The kid had been in the house. Maybe even earlier that night.

Archie looked closer. The action figure had a Jolly Rancher on its lap.

Flannigan was still sitting on the floor, back against the wall. “What is it?” he said.

“I don’t know,” Archie said. There was something under the figure—a slip of paper. Archie slid it out and unfolded it. It was a credit card receipt from Aquarium World.

“I know where they are,” Archie said.

CHAPTER

51

Roy could tell
the reporter was afraid.

He liked it.

The boy hadn’t been afraid like that for a long time.

“Do what I want and I won’t hurt you,” he said to her, and he pushed her ahead of him toward the store’s aquarium display. Floodwater had seeped in from outside, and her boots smacked against the wet linoleum as she floundered forward.

“Is that what you told Patrick?” she asked.

The store’s power was off, and the moan of the generator running the tanks echoed through the room. The halide fixtures glazed everything with blue.

He turned to the boy. “I need a trickle filter,” he said. “An overflow box. A protein skimmer, and a couple of power heads.” The boy nodded and went in search of them.

The reporter turned and looked around. “So this is where you get your fish?” she asked.

He had been a faithful customer. Until the detective told him the store had given out his name. It was poor customer service. They deserved to be robbed.

“I need you to help me carry the tank,” he said. He took a step closer to her, but she backed away from him.

“You’ll have to untie me,” she said.

He took another step and she attempted to do the same, but he pinned her against a wall of freshwater tanks.

He put his face next to hers, nuzzling her neck, twisting his tongue around her wet hair, tasting it. “If you try to leave, I’ll punish him,” Roy whispered. He put his open mouth against her ear and licked his lips. “He cries when I punish him.”

He placed a hand flat against her chest and felt her heart fluttering under her breast, her nipple hard under his palm. Good. She was scared again.

If you wanted a loyal dog, the first thing you did was beat the hell out of it.

He pressed against her and reached around her hips with both his hands. He could feel the pant of her breaths against his neck, the wet knit of her sweater against his arms. He slid his hands down her arms to her wrists, and then untied her. She whimpered as he pulled the twine loose. He made sure she saw him drop it to the floor. He didn’t need it anymore.

“Good girl,” he said. He could smell the sweat between them. He bent his head down again and rested his face on the crown of her head.

“I have the stuff,” the boy said.

Roy stepped away from the reporter and she let loose a gasping sob. The boy was looking at them, his arms full of supplies. “Put it over there and get an air pump,” Roy said.

It wasn’t like the boy to interrupt him, and it crossed Roy’s mind that the boy had done it on purpose.

No, Roy decided.

The kid didn’t have the nerve.

CHAPTER

52

Aquarium World was
on Naito Parkway, crammed into the first floor of one of the elegant old buildings facing the river. It had a small sign out front, no parking, and a front window painted to look like a tank full of fish.

Archie and Flannigan had made it to First Avenue, one block west of Naito, with two squad cars behind them.

“SWAT’s having trouble getting through,” Flannigan said. “Half the roads downtown are impassable.”

What had Heil said? Two feet of water was enough to sweep away a car?

“We need to continue on foot,” Archie said.

Downtown was dark and the falling mist was so fine it looked like fog. Water dribbled from awnings and fire escapes and gushed down the curbsides. The three-story buildings that lined First were ornate, their windows and roofs frosted like wedding cakes. But the first-floor storefronts and the offices upstairs had been evacuated, the electricty shut off, and their black windows were now illuminated only by the reflection of streetlights and the emergency beacons of the patrol cars.

The city seemed utterly abandoned. There were no people. No parked cars. Traffic lights were out. Water ran down the pavement like a wild brook. The thin wisps of trees lining the sidewalk shuddered, bare-leaved, in the wind. The whole world glistened wet and black, like the Pacific Ocean at night.

Archie didn’t bother to park. He just stopped the Cutlass in the middle of the road, got out, and walked around to the trunk.

The two patrol cars following them stopped. Their red and blue lights were strangely comforting. They were something familiar in an environment suddenly defined by everything it was lacking—shoppers, office workers, bicyclists, buses, homeless teenagers with their dreadlocks and cardboard signs.

Archie opened the trunk and took off his jacket.

“Suit up,” he called to the uniformed cops, who were already stepping out of their cars. They were both young and skinny, clean-shaven, one light-haired, the other dark. “We’re walking,” Archie said.

He pulled a flak jacket out of the trunk and strapped it on, then handed one to Flannigan.

Flannigan put it on.

No one spoke.

Choppers droned invisibly overhead. They had become such a part of the downtown experience that they barely registered. It was just another sound, like the drum of rain on the hoods of cars.

Archie put his jacket back on over the bulletproof vest and faced Flannigan and the two patrol cops.

Up close, in the light from the headlights, Archie could see the silhouette of fuzz on the blond officer’s upper lip. He was trying to grow a mustache.

“This is a hostage situation,” Archie said. “Protect the victims first. We can always catch the bad guy. We can’t bring someone back from the dead.”

The two officers nodded, their hair already wet.

“Okay,” Archie said. “Follow my lead.”

He leapt, attempting to clear the wide swath of water running along the curbside, but landed ankle-deep and had to take another stride to get to the sidewalk.

Flannigan was next to him, the patrol cops a few steps behind. The trees spit rain at them from their wet, windblown branches.

Archie didn’t draw his gun. He didn’t want the others to. This was a public place, and anyone could appear at any moment. Downtown had been evacuated, but that didn’t mean that people weren’t dense enough to ignore the warnings.

The wet sidewalk sucked at his suede shoes as Archie walked and the cold water squished into his socks.

The name on the Aquarium World receipt was Elroy Carey.

It had been easy to bring up his driver’s license photo once they had a name and address. He was forty-three years old, with a soft, unlined face, rounded shoulders, and eyebrows lifted in surprise. His brown hair was parted on the side. He looked like an overgrown kid.

Carey had gotten his Oregon driver’s license three years ago, and registered a Dodge sedan at the same time. Before that, he’d lived in Everett, Washington, just a couple of hours by car from where Patrick Lifton had disappeared.

Were Archie’s feet somehow getting even wetter?

They had turned onto a side street and were headed down to the parkway. The water on the sidewalk was definitely deeper here. It splashed up Archie’s pant leg as he walked. Standing water. Not wet pavement. Not a puddle. Not storm drain backup. This was a cold inky blanket of water that lapped against the concrete. Archie could see the edge of it slowly creeping up the length of the street.

This water had a current.

Under the noise of the helicopters, under the splatter of the rain, Archie could make out a faint new sound—like a waterfall or a filling bathtub.

Flannigan heard it, too. “What’s that?” he asked.

“The water,” Archie said.

Flannigan squinted up at the starless sky.

“It’s not the rain,” Archie said.

It had started.

Downtown was flooding.

On cue, Flannigan’s walkie-talkie crackled to life. “We’ve got a report of a breach in the seawall,” dispatch reported.

Flannigan pressed the talk button. “This is Flannigan,” he said. “We’re on Ash between First and Naito. There’s two inches of water here, and rising. What’s going on?”

“There’s a hole in sector eight near the Burnside Bridge. You need to get out of there, sir.”

“Are they sending a team to fix it?”

“Roger. But you need to evacuate. We’ve been told that whole wall could give.”

“What happens then?” Archie said.

“What happens then?” Flannigan repeated into the walkie-talkie.

There was nothing but static for a moment. “You ever see a bug hit a windshield?” came the eventual reply. “It’ll be like that. Only you’ll be the bug, and the windshield will be a ten-foot wall of water.”

The two patrolmen glanced at each other.

Archie wasn’t sure if Carey and the others were even downtown. Maybe they hadn’t made it. Maybe the receipt was misdirection. Maybe Archie had misinterpreted it. Maybe Carey didn’t even have Susan or the kid. Maybe they were already dead.

Archie had cost Heil his life. He couldn’t risk any others but his own.

“You better get out of here,” he said.

Flannigan hesitated. “What about SWAT?” he said into the walkie-talkie.

“I’m sorry, sirs. But they’ve been ordered to stand down until we get the all-clear.”

A streetlight popped across the street and began to smoke and send sparks arcing into the night air.

“Don’t go back to the cars,” Archie told them. “Stay on foot. Head west.”

The patrol cops didn’t need their arms twisted. They backed away a few feet, turned, and started to run.

Flannigan didn’t move.

“I know how to swim,” he said.