“What is this?”
“Payment for services rendered.” She squares her shoulders. “To thank you.”
“Ms. Harkness — Elizabeth — I don’t need you to —”
“I know I did not hire you. That you may have already been paid. Call it a reward, if you like. It’s all I have to offer.”
Conflict. Chagrin. And a tiny bit of greed flickering in the corner.
I did observe that we should all be better.
“All right. Thank you.” I put the envelope in my pocket, unopened. “I am sorry, Ms. Harkness. For your loss.”
She nods, and there doesn’t seem to be anything more for me to say, except, “Have a safe trip back to Portland.”
The familiar sights and scents of the Portway Tavern feel bittersweet. The place is still warm and familiar, but one thing is changing. Claire Chandler, newly released from jail, is leaving.
“The place won’t be the same without you,” I say.
“Come on outside. I’ve got something to show you.”
I follow her to the gravel parking lot in back of the building. Braced on its kickstand is a brand new Harley. Our faces reflect in the glossy teal paint of the tank and saddlebags. The chrome gleams with the promise of the open road. It’s a beautiful machine.
“Wow,” I say. “Sweet ride.”
“Thanks.” She takes a deep breath. “It’s a Road Glide Special touring bike, with a Milwaukie-Eight 114 V-twin engine. I can go to the horizon and back on this baby.” She caresses the handlebar. “I need to get away from here for a while. Going on a little trip.” We stand quietly and she states, “Daniel’s life insurance paid for it.”
“Bessie Stringfield would be proud. I’m glad at least one good thing came out of all this.”
“Me, too.” She looks at me sidelong, then extends her hand. Her grip is firm. “Thanks, Audrey. For catching the killer. Lighting a fire under my lawyer. Saving me from the Big House.”
“You’re welcome. But you didn’t need my help, not really. You were innocent.” I think back to our original conversation in the coffee shop, regarding why people disappear: men because of finances, women because of danger. But the stats don’t reflect the nuances, or the courage it takes to change direction, when that change is undertaken voluntarily.
I’ll miss her, but I respect and admire Claire for her decision. She’ll be back one of these days, and even if she isn’t, just the thought of her crisscrossing the country on her Harley makes me smile.
Claire’s eagerness to start her journey shames me into continuing my own. I set up an appointment to talk to Phoebe.
“This is a comfortable chair,” I say.
“It’s meant to be.” My neighbor and therapist cocks her head and waits.
“We arrested a murderer Friday night.”
Her eyebrows go up. “Indeed?”
I nod. “I knew it was him. But getting him to confess was another matter.”
“Why do you think confession is so important?”
“I didn’t have any evidence.” But that doesn’t really answer her question. And I know she will just keep asking. I struggle for a bit. “We needed to arrest him. And confession makes it easier. So we don’t have to fight him so much later.”
“Why is that?”
“Once he admits what he’s done, some of the resistance goes away. He knows he has to face the truth.”
“And did he stop fighting? Once he had confessed?”
“No.” I remember the coldness of the river. “He tried to kill me.”
Her eyes widen for a split second, but she quickly regains her aplomb. “It seems didn’t succeed.”
“No.”
“Why do you think he tried to kill you? Even after he confessed?”
I snort. “Because he still didn’t want to admit it. Not really. Anyone who knew he’d abused Victoria had to go.” In the end, he couldn’t face the truth about himself; even as he was driven to reveal it. An endless cycle of internal conflict.
Phoebe says, “Sometimes we can’t control who we are. But we can accept it, and work to be better.”
Zoe. The visions. Stepping stones to an unseeable future. A bridge going off into the fog. But I have to take those steps, because if I don’t, I’ll end up like Eric and so many other perps. Doomed to an endless mental cycle of denial and anguish and concealment.
I see a long road ahead. But somewhere in the fog, I hope, I’ll get to the other side of the river.
Safe in my own house, with sunlight flooding the empty rooms and a view of a freighter navigating the deep river channel, I can face the question I’ve been avoiding for days.
Who did you kill, Zoe?
For once she is silent. I poke at my own hazy recollections.
When the raid went down at the Baxter Building, I had no advance warning. Whether that was an oversight on the part of my handler, or a policy decision by someone higher up, I truly don’t know. The cocaine I’d ingested earlier with Sonny and Blue and Kirstin was singing in my head. The late morning sun wasn’t cheerful; it only illuminated the squalor and smears and accumulated trash. The residents were all sacked out in their rooms sleeping off another night of business and self-poisoning. But even then I’d thought the place was unusually quiet.
I hiked up the stairs to my own room. I heard the footsteps a flight or two below, but didn’t clock them as a follower. The space I’d laid claim to had once been a studio apartment. No place to hide but the closet and I made sure it was empty, per my usual habit. But I forgot to lock the door. And then I swallowed a downer to counteract the coke, so I could get some sleep.
The opposing drugs fought a civil war in my system. My tolerance was far less advanced than the typical user, and I could barely make
