The Good House Part 36

On the day of an emergency, he thought, you don't walk out of your house without your phone. It was bad enough he hadn't had time to put on his contacts this morning, but he couldn't do without his mobile. He had to go back home.

Besides, he needed a weapon today.

Myles had cut off the news station in his car because Ma preferred music, but he found his favorite AM station with one jab of a b.u.t.ton as he drove east on the Four, back toward Sacajawea. "...back to this bizarre story about the death of Naomi Price, who was found stuffed in a trunk in Canada. Caller, you're saying she was in the Portland area a few days ago?"

A teenage girl sounded like she was hysterical. "Oh, my G.o.d,yes . She signed an autograph for me at the airport last week, and she wa.s.soooooooo beautiful. I'm in line at the gift shop at PDX and I'm, like, 'Isn't that Naomi Price?' And she sees me looking over and shesmiles , all friendly...."

The story had already leaked to the press? There couldn't have been time to notify Naomi's family properly, Myles thought. He'd been at the sheriff's office when Rob Graybold got the news, exactly an hour ago. Somebody up in Vancouver must be whispering,Hey, you'll never guess who we found stuffed in a trunk today . Maybe the farmers who owned the Gran Fury were hawking tickets to their neighbors. Naomi's family must have learned the hard way.

Back when Myles was still writing newspaper obituaries because he hadn't yet moved up to stories about the living, a college professor had died, and the college's public relations department efficiently faxed him a list of friends of the deceased. Calling from the list to get the reactions of people who cared about the dead professor-because Myles had taken pride in writing good obituaries, getting the facts right, resurrecting souls for at least a day-he had identified himself and his business to one of the professor's listed friends. "Could you tell me what kind of man he was?"

The stranger's voice had crumbled. "He's dead?"

Buddy dead.

"Naomi Price, you've got strangers crying on the radio, sweetheart," Myles said as his car pitched gently into his driveway, rolling over roots that felt like speed b.u.mps. "Bless your heart."

Myles looked over both of his shoulders for Tariq's van, surveying the road to the house, the yard near the shed. Clear. He thought he'd seen that van on the way to Riverview, but it had turned out to be an SUV painted the same color, driving toward Longview. Did he really think Tariq would leave himself in sight? Have the van waiting in his driveway?

Myles turned the radio off and got out of his car. He didn't have the stomachache Angie was so terrified of, but his head hurt like h.e.l.l. Myles had studied Rob's face as Rob took detailed notes during his call from police in Vancouver-when they both realized Art knew things Art had no business knowing-and Rob knew a war when he saw one.

Somehow, Art Brunell and Tariq Hill were buddies, twisted soul mates. Maybe Art had managed to get a call to Tariq from jail, or the details of Naomi's murder had been planned far in advance. Maybe Art and Tariq had run into each other in the River Saloon one day years back and struck up a conversation.I'm fine, how 'bout yourself? Kids are a royal pain in the a.s.s, aren't they? How 'bout I kill my kid, and you kill that actress-you know the one? Art had plotted to kill Glenn when the time was right. Then, together, they'd orchestrated the death of Naomi Price, with Art spilling his guts just in time for the sensational discovery of the body.

Their plan, whatever it had actually been, was brilliant in its senseless sickness. Myles had spent years doc.u.menting human sickness, the price of his job as a police reporter back at the New YorkDaily News, the MiamiSun-Sentinel, and thenThe Was.h.i.+ngton Post, when he'd decided he wanted to sit behind an editor's desk instead of reporting from the field. Myles was glad he'd left D.C. before the Twin Towers fell or the sniper rampage in his old backyard, because he'd had his fill of human monstrosity long ago. David Wolde, the black serial killer in Miami, had ruined Myles's appet.i.te for news-gathering. The man's wife, Jessica, had worked with Myles on the Miami newspaper staff. Myles had met David Wolde and the little daughter he killed, his last victim. He'd known that child since she was a baby, and he'd had to write the 1A story about her murder at her father's hands.

No need to blame demons, Myles knew. There were plenty of humans to spread the misery.

Angie didn't understand that. She was shaping every new discovery to fit her conviction that human behavior alone could not explain Art and Tariq. She and Liza had sat under Art's spell, eager to believe his psychopathic fantasies. Myles's brow hardened with anger as he remembered being roused from sleep, summoned to that lunatic's jail cell. Since when could an inmate demand a guest? And why the h.e.l.l would Rob subject Angie to something so awful? Robknew better.

The world had gone insane overnight.

Myles stood in his driveway, nervous about walking into his own house in full daylight. He studied the house again, taking visual inventory. Curtains drawn in the living room. Lights off. No sounds that he could hear, except squabbling seagulls on the water out back.

Still, a deep unease tickled Myles, and he suddenly realized why: It was anempty house. He hadn't thought about it in the commotion; in the haste of packing Ma's things, trying to get her to Riverview before registration closed at noon, and, incidentally, trying to dodge a murderer who might be coming after him personally.

But here he was. He had sent Ma away, and she was gone. Maybe he could bring her back when this problem with Tariq pa.s.sed, but he probably would not. He was losing her.This was the true state of his life, not the bubble of denial he'd been living in the past few months, telling Luisah how good he had it. He didn't have it good. A wonderful actress, a friend of Angie's, had been murdered, and after Angie already had lost so much. He had an ex-wife so unhinged that she still couldn't speak a civil sentence, and she'd only allowed Myles to see his stepson ten times in fourteen years because he had no legal power and she was so jealous of the boy's time. He had one mother dead, another dying. And he'd been doomed to cross paths with men like David Wolde, Art Brunell, and Tariq Hill, who were a mystery to him, who appalled his soul.

On days like today, it was hard to see G.o.d's hand at work in the world.

Are you seeing it yet, Myles?Angie had asked. More and more, Myles couldn't blame her. He had learned the scripture from the Book of Matthew in Sunday school, one he'd memorized to recite for Ma and Pa Fisher:Put on the whole armor of G.o.d, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

"For we wrestlenot against flesh and blood, but against princ.i.p.alities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of the world...against spiritual wickedness in high places," Myles murmured as he walked the S-shaped path to the front door of his first real home, the home G.o.d had brought into his life in answer to his prayers as a boy. This home had been hisevidence of G.o.d. Ma had always expected him to be a preacher, and he might have gone to a seminary if he hadn't loved writing about the world so much. G.o.d still might call him one day.

Maybe G.o.d was calling him today.

Myles climbed the two concrete steps to the narrow porch of his parents' bungalow. "Wherefore take up the whole armor of G.o.d, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, tostand." Myles's voice cracked as he remembered Naomi Price's painfully lovely face, how he'd held her hands and helped her pray. Hot tears moistened his eyes. Myles whispered the rest."Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth."

The front door came open with barely a touch, unlocked. Hardly closed.

Inside, wreckage awaited him.

The living room's furniture was upside down. The sofa and chairs were on their backs, the coffee table's legs in the air. The photographs on the mantel were facing the wall, lined up meticulously. Vandalism was one thing, but this felt planned to the minute. Myles's skin went cold.

The dining room-which Myles had painted and decorated himself, struggling not to lose touch with his life-was a contrast, the picture of rage. The table and chairs had been sliced and splintered to pieces, thrown around the room like cracked chicken bones. His masks were broken. Leftover food from the refrigerator was spattered over the dining room walls and the kitchen floor; streaks of red sauce, grains of cooked rice, curried chicken from Ming's, sour-smelling milk.

The kitchen's black tiles were covered in powdery white flour tracks made by a small dog, by the look of it. Onyx. How they'd orchestratedthat part, Myles didn't know, but the thought that Art might have helped Tariq steal the woman's dog before killing her was another peak in sickness.

They were monsters, both of them. The human kind. And Tariq had been here.

Diego's beautiful Mexican bowl was broken to dust on the tiles, deliberately crushed nearly beyond recognition, but the mobile phone on the floor beside it looked fine. Myles picked it up and dialed 911. The dispatcher picked up on the first ring, but the static was awful. "Emergency," he heard a woman say amidst an ocean's roar.

Myles's head pivoted around the room as he watched for motion, speaking softly. "Darlene? This is Myles Fisher, over at 620 Eagle's Nest. Tariq was here. He's trashed my house."

A sustainedsssssssssssssss sound made it impossible to hear most of what she said, but her voice came back at the end, clear as a summer sky. "...on the Four. The road's blocked, and without units from Cowlitz County, we may not have the personnel to run out there. But I'll tell Rob-"

Myles's line beeped, cutting her off. Myles saw theUNKNOWN CALLER identification, and the back of his neck twitched. He clicked to the incoming line, but he didn't speak. No voice taunted him this time. He only heard music playing, Al Green's "Let's Stay Together." He didn't hear any music playing in the house, so maybe that meant Tariq was gone, Jesus help him.

But gone where?

"What can we do to put a stop to this?" Myles said, his voice even, not betraying the part of him that wanted to curse nor the part of him that wanted to beg. "Tell us what to do."

He heard breathing, or he thought he did, maybe a chuckle huffed into the phone. But whatever the noise, it was the only response before the line died. He lost his connection to Darlene, too. When Myles tried to dial Angie's number at the house, his hands felt as if they'd been immersed in freezing water, rubber weights at the ends of his wrists.

Angie's line was busy. That didn't surprise him. She'd told him the phone wasn't working.

"Rob, you'd better be standing right beside Angie like you promised me," Myles said to himself. He'd have to bring more than this dead-a.s.s phone with him to Angie's.

Myles crept his way quietly through the house, his heart thras.h.i.+ng as he neared each hidden corner. They were clear. He made it to his bedroom, which was worse than the rooms he'd left behind. His computer screen and gla.s.s sliding door had been shattered, his books and picture frames were strewn across the floor, and there was a mud-colored mound in the middle of his bed that reeked of human feces. But the worst was the feces on thewall above his bed, four crude words smeared in s.h.i.+t: SEE YOU SOON SNOOK.

Ma's words. His last good memory with her, when he'd put her to bed and believed she was talking to him; not to Pa Fisher, not to someone of her own invention, but tohim, her son. Had Tariq fed those words to Ma? But when? How? In that instant, it seemed as if the devil had used Ma to say what was on its mind, and the devil had made a special visit so Myles wouldn't mistake whom he had been talking to. A final f.u.c.k-you from h.e.l.l.

"This crazy son of ab.i.t.c.h," Myles said. The back of his neck felt numb. He had to get to Angie before Tariq did.

Myles was afraid he wouldn't find Pa Fisher's wooden bow intact in all this destruction, but as he stepped gingerly over the thick gla.s.s chunks and shards near the deck, he saw the bow against the wall. It had fallen over behind his nightstand, directly beneath the firstS in the stinking message on the wall. "Ugh." Myles covered his nose, stooping to reach for the bow.

It would be too much to ask that the bow's string would be intact. Yet, the string was pulled tight, taut and ready. He hadn't hunted since he was twenty, since Pa Fisher died, but the bow-handle fit his hand just right. Myles had fished this bow out of the back shed soon after he came home, looking for good memories to dull the ache of why he was there. He'd laughed when he found the traditional wooden bow, since Pa Fisher rarely hit anything except tree trunks. Myles had grabbed both the bow and the new box of six aluminum arrows, just in case he might feel nostalgic enough to try hunting again. The arrows were supposed to be under his bed.

"Please, Jesus, let them be there," Myles said, because he didn't think he'd have time to go to the shed and look. He'd used up all his time already.

Pulling up the bedspread to gaze under the bed, Myles forgot what had happened to the rest of his room-and the defilement on the mattress-because it was pristine down here. His hiking boots were on the other side of the bed, standing where he'd left them. Two inches from his nose lay Pa Fisher's camouflage-colored quiver and the box of new arrows, their feathers bright green. Myles didn't even remember bringing the quiver from the shed to his room.

That would have been too much to ask.

"Where's Rob?"

Myles stood in Angela's foyer with a bow readied, its arrow tip sharp. He had a quiver strapped to his leg, and he wore a brown parka, ready to hunt. Seeing him, Angela was pulled out of her lethargy: Myles might be the most welcome sight of her life. She was so relieved, she felt a knot loosen in her chest she hadn't known was binding there.

She'd been almost sure Myles was dead, that he'd died at his house. Maybe he had brushed close to it. "Thank G.o.d, baby," she said, pressing her lips to his. "Was Tariq at your house?"

"I just missed him. Where the h.e.l.l is Rob?" Myles glanced around the house, his eyes unblinking. "I only saw Colin out there."

"There are two deputies here, but Rob had to go. There was a rockslide. He gave me this." Angela showed him the .38 she still held in her hand, keeping her fingers far from the trigger. The gun felt like a living creature, subject to an unexpected, deadly tantrum.

Myles looked more alarmed than impressed. "Rob promised me he'd stayhere."

He was still missing the point. Angela pressed a palm to his cheek, trying to slacken Myles's knitted face. "Myles, hush. This isn't police business. You know it isn't."

Myles's eyes softened as he looked at her, pitying. But the memory of their lovemaking came to his eyes, too, and the pity vanished. He kissed her, cupping the back of her head with both hands. He kissed her hard and long, as if he needed her mouth to breathe. His kiss was ardent at the start, but resigned at the end. Like good-bye, she thought, unable to help it.

When his mouth pulled back, Angela missed the taste of Myles instantly. Kissing him, her thoughts had politely let her be. Now, Angela had a bad feeling that someone she knew and liked had been killed in the rock-slide, another punishment meant for her. But the strongest feeling had been fifteen minutes ago, when she had been sure Tariq was standing on Myles's bed, pressing the linens to his face, trying to smell her.

"Let's get the h.e.l.l away from here," Myles said. "This is the first place he'll come."

"No it isn't," she said, reminding him. Art had said she would be strongest on her grandmother's property, and maybe Tariq knew that, too. She packed the gun Rob had given her into her handbag, which fit her like a knapsack across her shoulder. She had Corey's index cards there, too, safe and ready. "But there's something I need before I go."

He gave her a look of naked confoundment.

"Can you come upstairs with me, Myles? I think it's upstairs. It's high in the house."

"What is it?"

"Something I need." She didn't know enough to explain it beyond that.

Myles glanced toward the living room, the wine cellar, and then, more warily, at the staircase. She'd swept up all the downstairs leaves yesterday-as many as she could, an act of defiance-but the leaves on the stairs and upstairs were still in plain view. Since yesterday, there was a new incursion: cl.u.s.ters of dry leaves wrapped around the staircase by stringy brown vines entangling the handrail and bannister. The vines looked as if they had been growing for years. Myles didn't comment on the dead vines. He probably wasn't letting himself notice them, she thought.

"Did Rob search this house before he left?" Myles asked.

"Rob and three others. Tariq's not here."

"Well, if he isn't now, he was before. Tariq made this mess, Angie. He made a mess at my place, too. And you should a.s.sume he's coming back."

"That's why I need to find what I'm looking for."

Myles considered that, nodding. "All right, let's do it. But quickly."

On the stairs, the leaves were worse than yesterday, in their second or third layer, thick, damp, and spongy beneath their feet. This time, blackened walnut casings-the fruit that covered the sh.e.l.l-were hidden among the leaves, rotting against the floor. Angela nearly slipped on a walnut when she mashed one with her foot on the second-floor landing. "Careful," she warned Myles.

"Sweet Jesus," Myles said. She heard his breathing grow heavier behind her. He must be realizing by now that it wasn't just the leaves that were wrong; the smell was wrong, too. The upstairs smelled dank, as if it hadn't been visited in generations. The air was thin, like a cave.

Upstairs, all the doors were wide open. The doors were open to the bathroom, Gramma Marie's old room on the left, Corey's on the right, Tariq's room down the hall, Naomi's room beyond it, the junk room. And the door was wide open to the attic at the far end of the hall, the last place Rob and the deputies had searched. Angela had closed them all, but she didn't dwell on that.

What bothered her most was Corey's doorway, the first one facing them from the landing. Corey's doorway was blocked by a mountain of leaves, like a giant pile Mr. Everly might have raked up in the yard for burning, as tall as her shoulders.

This mound had not been here a few minutes ago, when Rob had walked straight through that doorway. Angela froze before the mound. As she gazed at it, a voice flew to her from somewhere beyond hearing:I came so you could kiss me. What are you waiting for?

A girl's voice. Not a child, not quite a woman.

The memory of a stench-the smell of Art at his house-came in an instant so quick that Angela almost didn't register it. But it was enough to make her throat gag, and she pressed her hand against her face. This time, the smell was from Corey's room. She hadn't always been able to smell it, but the stench had been here all along, under her nose.

"What, doll-baby?" Myles said.

Angela had forgotten Myles was standing beside her. She could think only of Corey.

"It was here,"Angela said. As knowledge flooded her, Angela's lips bobbed together before she could go on. "It wasin this room. My baby was...my baby wastalking to it and didn't know."

Myles lowered his bow, hugging her with one arm. "Shhhh," he said, his face pained. "Angela Marie, hon, let's go back downstairs. We need to get you out of this house."

A sound came again; something she couldhear, but from beyond her ears. Angela heard a girlish laugh from Corey's doorway. The sound was coming from the leaves.

Angela's thoughts scattered like billiard b.a.l.l.s, hiding in any pockets they could find. Suddenly, she understood: Like Sean had told her, things weren't always what they appeared to be. These leaves were not leaves, not the way she knew them to be. The leaves were another mask over something that didn't want to show its face. Or couldn't.

"You b.i.t.c.h!"Angela spat suddenly at the four-foot mound, at someone her eyes couldn't see. She almost lurched at it, except that Myles held her with such a firm hand.

"Don't,Angela. What are you doing?"

Angela panted, not taking her eyes away from the pile of leaves. She didn't blink.

"Are you back here with me?" Myles said.

There was movement from atop the pile; not much, but enough for her to notice. A curled, dried flakejumped a half-inch and then fell still. Although her heart dove, Angela felt victorious. Whatever this was, it wanted to hide, but she was seeing it better all the time. Shewasn't crazy.

"I'm okay," Angela said, smiling for Myles to prove it. Her eyes tried to go back to the leaves, but she made herself remain fixed on Myles's worried face. He obviously hadn't noticed anything strange about the leaves. He would never believe her.

"You're not behaving like someone who's well."

"I'm fine."

"Angie." Myles ran his fingers beneath her chin, a brotherly flutter.

"You're not fine. Tell me you understand that. Otherwise, I'm going to have to carry you downstairs. Hear me?"

"Will youopen your eyes?" she said. "It's as if you don'twant to see it."

"You're not making your case, sweetheart." Myles's tone was resolute. He would carry her out against her will, she realized. Myles could get them both killed.

Angela backed up a step, in case she would need to run from him. She'd do anything to avoid it, but she might have to. "Myles," she began softly, calming her voice. "Did you enjoy yourself last night, sweetness?"

"Ofcourse," Myles said, blinking.

"Was I just a crazy woman to you last night? You thought you'd better hit it quick before I had a meltdown?"

Two full seconds pa.s.sed before Myles spoke, his expression rigid. "You know me better than that," he said, but his pause told her he'd asked himself the same question.

"I'm no crazier now than I was in your bed."

"Hon, I just think I might have..." Myles paused, maybe trying to soften his words, but the word he chose was not soft. "Misjudged."

"So I'm crazy, period, because you can't decide what another answer might be?"