A Perfect Grave (11 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

H
ome from school, Brady came through the door the usual way.

A pack-drop to the hall floor and a beeline for the fridge.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Have a good day?”

“Uhh-huh. No math homework. I thought we had chocolate milk.”

“You finished it last night. How’re you feeling?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Did you take your medicine at lunch?”

“Yup, did the doctor tell you what I got, or anything?”

Brady turned with the orange juice box he’d started at breakfast. “Today, I told Justin and Ryan about the MRI, how it was like going into a deep-sleep chamber in space. They thought it was cool.”

Rhonda watched his attention go to the papers, then to the booklet as he read the title:
Will I Go to
Heaven?
She watched him blink a few times, open it, and begin reading. Awareness rolled over him and Rhonda felt the light in their lives darken.

Brady didn’t move.

She watched his chest rise and fall as he continued reading, understanding.

His eyes rose from the booklet to hers.

“Mom?”

“I know. We need to talk, sweetheart.”

He set the booklet and the unfinished juice box on the counter.

“Let’s go to your room.”

Brady’s room was all hard-core boy: walls papered with posters of Superman, King Kong, Spider-Man, and the Mariners; shelves lined with adventure books, model Blackhawk choppers and Humvees. In one corner, his skateboard rose like a rocket from his clothes heap. On his small desk, the secondhand computer Rhonda had picked up at a church donation sale. It was the best she could do. The N key stuck but Brady never complained.

Taking it all in, Rhonda succumbed to the reality that she might never see Brady’s life go beyond his world right here and now. That she might never see him with his first girlfriend, his first car, never see him graduate from high school, go to college, start a career, get married, never hold her first grandchild.

“Don’t cry, Mom.”

Rhonda sat him on his bed next to her.

“Oh sweetheart. I’m sorry.”

“I’m really sick with something and I could die, right?”

She searched his eyes.

“Brady.”

“Mom, am I right?”

She nodded.

“How did you know?”

“By the way you hugged me at the doctor’s office and stuff. I just knew it was serious.”

She looked at him.

“And before, at the hospital, by the way everyone was acting and being so nice to me, the nurses, the doctors, like being all extra nice and everything.”

Her eyes were shiny as she nodded.

“So is it cancer or leprosy or something?”

“You have a mass of cells, a tumor in your head and you’re going to need an operation to remove it.”

“Will it hurt?”

“No,” she shook her head, “but you have to have it.”

“And if I don’t have it, I could die, right?”

Rhonda’s chin crumpled, her tears flowed.

“Yes.”

“And if I have the operation, I won’t die, right?”

“Yes, the chances are tons better that you’ll be fine with the operation.”

“So when do I have it?”

“In a couple of months.”

Brady thought for a long moment.

“How’d I get this tumor? Is it hered—hair—did, you know, was I born with it?”

“They’re not sure.”

“Could it be from the time Dad hit me for dropping the drill on his foot?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the doctor kept asking me if I ever played sports, or got hit hard in the head. I never told him about Dad. I didn’t think it was right.”

“I understand, honey.”

“I don’t hate him or anything. Sometimes I miss him.”

“Me, too.”

“So how did I get it?”

“No one knows for sure how people get them.”

Brady looked at everything in his room, his secondhand computer, his old clothes, aware of how his mother struggled with money.

“This operation will probably cost us a lot, huh?”

Rhonda stared at the crumpled tissue in her hands.

“Don’t worry about that. I’m going to get a second job. Nights likely, just to help us through a tight patch. So I’ll talk to Alice about having someone watch you.”

“Mom, I’m old enough to watch myself.”

“I’m not old enough to let you watch yourself.”

Suddenly Rhonda felt the breath squeeze out of her as Brady locked his arms around her, holding her tighter than ever.

“I don’t want to die, Mom. I don’t want to go away from you.”

Rhonda fought to find her voice.

“I’m not going to let that happen. I’m going to be right here with you. You’re going to be brave and have the operation and be as good as new and I’ll be beside you every step of the way, okay?”

Brady didn’t answer. He buried his face under her chin.

“Okay, sweetheart?”

She felt him nod.

“We’re in this together,” she said.

She heard him sniffle before he pulled away, wiped his tears, then took her hand and held it tight. They sat that way for a long time, saying nothing, just sitting there, like the time they sat near the edge of the Grand Canyon.

Eventually Brady pulled away from her.

“Mom, there’s something I want to do and I want you to say it’s okay.”

“What is it?”

“I have to show you something. Wait here.”

He ran down the hall to his bag and rummaged through it before returning with a hastily folded page ripped from the newspaper. He unfolded it and passed it to her.

Slain Nun’s Memorial Will Be at Shelter

After she’d finished reading the story under the headline in the
Mirror,
she looked at Brady.

“I want to go to Sister Anne’s funeral at the shelter.”

“Why?”

“She came to our school once with these other nuns.”

“I know, and they helped with the big auction for charity.”

“Sister Anne had asked me to help her move some boxes and she started talking to me. I didn’t even know her, but she was asking me about Dad, and how we were doing. I guess a teacher told her that he had died and stuff. She seemed almost worried, like she knew me or something.”

“Nuns can be nice like that.”

“She was really nice and I liked her. She said she was going to pray for us.”

“That was kind.”

“I never told anybody this, but because she was so nice, and taking a picture, smiling, talking like she knew me and stuff, it kinda felt like she was my guardian angel.”

“Oh, honey.”

“So can we go? It’s going to be downtown at the shelter.”

Rhonda reviewed the time and location of the memorial service for Sister Anne Braxton.

“You really want to do this?”

Brady nodded.

“All right.”

Brady took the newspaper from her and reread it.

“Mom, why would anyone want to kill her?”

“That’s a question only God can answer, sweetie.”

“And one other person.”

“Who?”

“The person who killed her.”

She pulled him close and looked out the window. Outside, a gentle wind lifted the branches of the elm trees, carrying a few dead leaves down the street, where they skipped over the sedan parked at the end of the block in the shade of a big-leaf maple tree.

Chapter Twenty-Three

N
othing was working.

Jason was on his phone in the newsroom holding for a cop source. The tenth one he’d tried today. And here it was early in the evening, the clock ticking closer to the first-edition deadline and nothing.

Absolutely zip for a fresh angle to advance the story of Sister Anne’s murder. Tapping his pen, he noticed that his hands were sweaty.

Wait. He had an idea. A long shot but worth a try. He could—

“You there, Wade?”

“Yeah,” he squeezed the phone, “you hearing anything? Anything new?”

“Just what I see in today’s
Times
and the
P-I.
”

“Thanks.”

He tossed his pen and cursed.

He did not need to be reminded that his competition had killed him with reports about investigators building a suspect pool of violent ex-cons who’d had run-ins with the nun. Both papers played their stories big today on their front pages. And all day they mocked Jason like a victorious middle finger.

What goes around, comes around.

Yeah, well he’d beaten them earlier with his story about the knife from the shelter being used as the murder weapon.

Jason’s boss didn’t care. Yesterday’s news was today’s fish wrap and Reep had been in his face to break another exclusive.

“The
Mirror
has to own this story, Wade. Anything less is unacceptable.”

Jason had tried everything. Right from the get-go. This morning his old man had gone to his own sources to try to coax the names of any new potential suspects from them. So far, every effort had dead-ended. And Jason’s calls to Grace Garner had not been returned.

For a moment, Jason let his thoughts go to his dad’s revelation about his past.

What really happened to him?

“Wade!”

Reep stood at his office doorway beckoning him with a crooked finger, then rolled up his sleeves, as if preparing for a fight.

“You’re still not on the sked. What have you got for me?”

“An idea.”

“And how do I get that into the paper?”

“Listen, it’s going to take time—”

“No, you listen. You’ve got jack. And sitting in here on your ass just doesn’t cut it. I want something for tomorrow’s paper. Something that will put us back out front. You’ve only got a couple of hours.”

“I’ve got to try to find a guy who—”

“You’re taking Cassie with you.”

“Eldon, it’d be better if I go alone, it could be dangerous.”

“Stop the horseshit. You’re forgetting that I assigned Cassie to this story with you. Do as you’re told.”

Cassie was wearing a V-neck sweater, jacket, and form-fitting jeans that complemented her figure as they headed across the
Mirror
parking lot to his Falcon.

She never smiled as she sipped from her Styro cup of cafeteria coffee.

Before Jason started the car, she opened her notebook. The sound of her flipping pages filled the awkward silence. Jason stared at her for a moment.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” he said. “I had no part of your screwup with Brian Pillar.”

She looked away from him and out the window.

“That’s not how I remember it.”

“Then your credibility with me is dead.”

“Why don’t you let me handle my credibility?”

Jason looked at her.

“I’m searching for a man who may have talked to the nun’s killer. This is my story, you’re just along for the ride.”

“You’d better start the car.”

Jason shook his head then slid “Radar Love” into his player and laid six feet of rubber pulling out of the lot. Like most reporters, he functioned with a nearpsychic connection to his deadline. He never wasted time. The clock was ticking on him.

It always was.

The sun had set as they came upon the edge of the Pioneer Square District. Jason parked the Falcon in an alley near a loading zone. As sirens wailed, he got out and started for the Compassionate Heart of Mercy Shelter.

Cassie didn’t move.

“Coming?”

She hesitated. “It’s creepy downtown at night.”

“Figures,” Jason said.

He headed for the shelter to the sound of Cassie changing her mind: car door opening and closing, shoes clicking as she hurried after him. He refused to slow down. The shelter’s serving of the evening meal had already ended and Jason clung to the hope that he could catch some of the men before they vanished into the night.

Taking stock of the lingering stragglers, he approached a group of men huddled in a dim corner, passing a paper bag among themselves.

“Excuse me. I’m sorry to trouble you, but I’m looking for a man who comes here.”

Cold hard eyes met his, then went to Cassie.

“Who’re you?” a voice asked.

“Jason Wade, a reporter with the
Mirror.
”

“And what does she do?”

Mumbling, the swish of liquid and soft, dark laughter went round the circle.

“Whatever it is,” one said, “I bet she does it real nice.”

The men laughed.

“She’s a reporter, too,” which was harder for Jason to swallow than the stuff they were drinking. “I don’t know the name of the guy I’m looking for, but he’s kinda heavyset, maybe in his late forties. Has long hair and a beard, maybe wears a field jacket with desert camouflage and military pants.”

“Sounds like Coop. You’re talking about Coop,” one man said.

“Dark, intense eyes?”

“Angry eyes. That’s Coop. Didn’t come down tonight. He’s taking things real hard. Sister Anne is the only one who could get through to him, and her funeral’s going to be right here in the shelter tomorrow. So he’s having a hard time.”

“You know where he lives, where I can find him?”

“He stays near the International District. But you’d best keep away from him.”

Jason took a note. “A mission, hostel? You got an address?”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“I know but it’s important that we talk to him tonight. Please, do you have an address?”

“Here.” Scarred, ruddy hands reached for Jason’s pad and pen. “I’ll draw you a map, but I would not be messing with him.”

The man’s sketching was clear and neat. Jason studied it, realizing that although the location was near, getting to Coop’s place would not be easy.

“Be careful, he doesn’t take kindly to people. Period.”

“What’s his full name?”

“Psycho,” one of them chuckled.

“Shut up! You don’t know him,” a voice from the circle said. “John Cooper. But he likes to be called Coop.”

“What’s his story? I mean why call him that other name?”

A long silence passed.

The glass neck of the bottle flashed and liquid sloshed.

“You find him and you’ll find out.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

T
he International District wasn’t far from Pioneer Square, its southern fringes just north of the stadiums where the Mariners and Seahawks played.

According to the men at the shelter, Jason would find John Cooper there, near the edge of the International District, at the location marked by the “X” on the map they’d drawn for him.

He parked his Falcon next to a Dumpster, near a back alley, took stock of his surroundings, then double-checked the map. Hing Hay Park, the boutiques, markets, restaurants, and the slopes of Kobe Terrace, laced with private gardens, were not far. Neither were First Hill with its million-dollar condo views of Seattle’s skyline and Yesler Terrace—the area near Sister Anne’s town house.

Look in another direction and it was a whole other world.

Beyond the parking lots, the chain-link fences, and the old site of the homeless encampment, Interstate 5 cut a multilane swath through Seattle, the traffic droning like an ominous chant lifting to the sky. Concrete columns rose to support the freeway, along with vast sloping retaining walls that disappeared from view to meet its underbelly in a darkness deeper than the night.

“He’s up in there,” Jason nodded to the sloping wall under the overpass. “Let’s go, we don’t have much time before deadline.”

“Climb up there? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“They said he lives up there, under the overpass.”

“They also called him Psycho and warned us to leave him alone.”

Jason said nothing. He was fishing for something in his pocket.

“Jason, you can’t see anything. It’s so creepy.”

He tested the batteries of his penlight. They were strong.

“Stay in the car if you can’t handle it. I don’t have a lot of time.”

Sirens echoed amid the canyons of Seattle’s glittering skyscrapers as he set out to ascend the vast incline. He didn’t care if Cassie came. He preferred to go alone. He didn’t have time to babysit her.

Newspapers and fast food take-out bags skipped along, propelled by the rush of the traffic that flowed above and the gusts off Elliott Bay that fingered their way through the city. The stench of urine and bird shit assailed him as he progressed. It was like stepping into the great yawning jaw of some nether region. He used his penlight to find his way to the summit where the narrow beam revealed walls encrusted with multiple coatings of cascading guano, the gagging smell mingling with those of engine exhaust, motor oil, and rubber.

Pigeons cooed, then several dark things scurried near his feet ahead of him. Claws scraping. He glimpsed tails, matted fur. Rats. It was gross, but Jason was undaunted. He’d faced worse.

His light caught the fragment of a red blanket beckoning from a crevasselike opening between two large concrete walls. The blanket served as a curtain, suspended from a guano-layered drainage pipe, dripping with foul-smelling water.

This was it.

“Mr. Cooper!” Jason raised his voice over the rumble of the traffic. “Jason Wade from the
Seattle Mirror
! We met at the shelter! Can I have a word with you, sir?”

No answer. Jason waited then repeated his call, louder the second time.

Again, no response.

Cooper was there.

Physically.

Mentally, he was in the busy market near the Syrian border beyond Tal Afar. In one hand he held a bottle. The other was tight around the handle of a knife, ready for the attackers.

Seattle’s traffic above him was roaring like the firefight.

It would be different this time—this time Coop would kill them all. Button up.

Save his crew.

Then they would stop screaming.

Out front, Jason drew back the blanket.

It was like the crack at the entrance of a spider’s hole. The smell was powerful. His light reached partway down a narrow corridor lined with blankets, plastic sheeting, a shopping cart, wooden crates. He followed one electrical cord from a utility maintenance outlet to a hotplate, utensils. An assortment of mismatched spoons, forks.

Knives.

Jason glimpsed pair after pair of combat boots, shoes, sneakers, jackets, parkas, pants, sweaters, worn woollen socks, tattered shirts. Heaps of toilet paper under plastic sheets, cans of dried goods, beans, soup, stews, boxes of dried cereal. Rations.

It’s like the guy’s still at war, Jason thought.

More blanket curtains led to other chambers deeper down.

A lull in the traffic and Jason heard a bottle swish.

“Coop! Coop! Can you hear me?”

Something moved in the blackness beyond the curtain. Jason couldn’t see anything.

“Get out! Get out!”

The attackers were coming and coming. Cooper
gripped his knife. He could hear Yordan, Bricker, Rose, calling him.

Coop!

They were next to him now—getting closer.

“Get the fuck out!”

“Coop!” Jason shouted. “Hold on! It’s Jason Wade. We talked, remember? Are you okay? Sir, it’s Jason Wade from the
Mirror.
You wanted to help me!”

Help me help me help me.

Jason’s words seemed to echo before they died in the sudden thunder of traffic hammering overhead, followed by an anguished groan from the other side of a blanket.

“Reporter?” Coop repeated.

“Yes, you spoke to me about Sister Anne, you wanted to help me. Remember?”

“Leave me alone.”

“Coop, please, help me.”

Coop help me.

Jason could not know how the phrase he’d spoken cut into Cooper.

“Sir, you wanted me to know about the man.”

“What?”

“The man who took the knife from the shelter. The man who argued with Sister Anne before she was murdered.”

Coop processed the information, his memory flickering back.

“Did they find that mother?” He shouted. “Because he’s the one—I just know—the way he hurt her.”

He’s the one.

Jason felt something tingling at the back of his neck.

“He’s the one?” Jason repeated. “Did you see something, did you talk to police?”

“No goddam cops. I never talk to them.”

“But why do you think—?”

“Because I goddam heard him talking to Sister. This goof was so angry. Sister took him to the little office to be alone, but I was watching over her. She’s my angel, and he was making her upset.”

Jason’s penlight was in his mouth, shining on his pad. He wrote fast before withdrawing it to ask another question.

“Tell me what you heard, Coop, can you tell me, please?”

“He wanted something from her.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. She wanted to forgive him but, no, no, he was angry, he didn’t want that from her.”

“Forgive him for what?”

“His sins.”

“What sins?”

“We all have sins.”

“Coop. Who’s this man? Tell me about this man.”

Traffic pounded overhead, reminding Jason that his deadline was coming fast. Damn it. He had no time to get a photographer up here to get a pic of Cooper in tomorrow’s paper. Cooper likely wouldn’t even agree to it.

“You want to know who this man was?” Coop asked.

“Yes.”

“He could be anybody.”

“I don’t understand. Did you ever see him before, did you know him?”

“I don’t even know myself, man.”

An anguished groan and a bottle sloshed.

“I couldn’t save them.”

“Who?”

“Yordan, Bricker, and Rose. My crew. I was their commander. I tried. It happened so fast. I tried to close the hatch but they were on us so fast.”

Jason didn’t understand.

“It must’ve been hard for you, Coop.”

“They’re always talking to me. I can hear ‘em just like we was still there. It’s always the same. Why’d you leave us, Coop? Why? Sister Anne understood. She told me to forgive myself.”

The bottle swished.

“But I can’t.”

“Did you try to get help, Coop?”

“Nothing can save me now. Sister said she’d forgiven me. She said she’d pray for me. And she did. And for a while there, my crew left me alone. But then they started coming back. Asking me the same thing: Why, Coop? I told them I tried. I swear, I tried to close the hatch! But those mothers just kept coming, kept climbing on us so fast, man I tried. I tried and tried to save them.”

“I know, Coop,” Jason said. “Tell me about the man.”

“Once I told Sister I couldn’t take it anymore. I told her to stop. To stop forgiving me, stop praying for me. I wasn’t worth it. I told her that. But she wouldn’t stop.”

“Coop, please tell me about the man.”

“No, you tell me, asshole! You tell me, now that she’s gone, gone like Yordan, Bricker, and Rose, they’re all gone and now she’s gone, so you tell me who’s going to pray for me now? I can never be forgiven for what I’ve done!”

“What do you mean, Coop? What did you do?”

Traffic hummed but no answer came.

Slowly, Jason pulled back the curtain and the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

Cooper was squatting against the wall, swinging his knife.

The blade glinting in the weakening light.