The Forgetting Place (23 page)

R
ichard Davenport did not look like a depressed man, which is only to say that he put up a good front. Besides, the workings of people's inner worlds are seldom revealed to others. He had a short, reedy build and a gaunt, clean-shaven face that conjured images of a bird of prey. His nose was long and thin, a little too sharp at the end, and the wire-rimmed glasses he wore had a tendency to inch along its bridge until a quick dart of his index finger sporadically pushed them back up again. He did not seem displeased or even particularly surprised to find Haden and me inside his house, but he did watch me with a touch of distrust that made me uncomfortable and eager to leave. Haden, as well, seemed impatient for the two of us to move on, but he took advantage of the resources available by locating a pair of shears and shortening my splint so that I would have use of my right hand. Richard did indeed have supplies in the house to repair Haden's laceration, but he elected to suture the wound himself rather that turn the task over to me.

Instead of remaining in the house and enduring Richard's suspicious glances, I found my way back outside and waited for Haden there. Kneeling down in the soft grass, I practiced
loading and unloading the Remington, but before long I heard arguing from inside the house. A few minutes later, Haden emerged through the back door.

“We should go,” he said, walking past me at a hurried clip without breaking his stride.

“What is it?” I asked, falling in step behind him as we crossed the yard and entered the woods.

“He's called the police on us. Or rather, on you,” he advised me over his shoulder, quickening his gait so that he was almost jogging now. I did my best to follow him, the smaller branches yielding or snapping as I shouldered past.

“What the hell for?” I asked. “Breaking into his house?”

“You're wanted. By the police. The incident at Menaker, it made the paper. They say you attacked an orderly there. Nearly killed him.”

Paul,
I thought.
Jesus
. I couldn't believe Wagner was trying to pin that on me.

Sirens could be heard in the distance, rapidly getting louder, and Haden doubled his pace. A police patrol car must have been close by when Richard called. I had to run to keep up with Haden.

“The orderly . . . they're talking about . . . is a friend of mine.” I was breathing hard now as we tore through the woods. Somewhere behind us I could hear the sound of a dog barking. “Paul was attacked . . . because he was trying to protect Jason. I told you all this . . . this morning.”

“I know,” he said. “But that's not what the paper says.” We had reached the embankment, and Haden was near an all-out run now. I had fallen behind, but I saw him reach the boat, and he began flinging away the branches he'd used to camouflage
the craft. “
Hurry up!
” he urged without bothering to look up in my direction, his fingers working furiously to untie the rope. The sound of barking had stopped, but I could hear something coming through the woods, moving much faster than any human being was capable. The rifle was still in my arms.
Was it loaded or unloaded?
Didn't matter, I decided. If that was a police dog, there was no way I could shoot it.

“
Get in!
” Haden ordered, already pushing the boat away from the shoreline. I could hear the animal panting behind me—so close now—and as I splashed through the shallow water and dove into the boat I didn't turn to look back, knowing that seeing it closing those final few yards wouldn't make one bit of difference.

There was a final thrust as the boat was pushed one last time, the vessel tipping a bit as Haden vaulted into it from the water, the thud of his boots landing on the floorboards. He was behind me, rotating the oars into the water, trying to distance us from the shore. I turned in time to see the German shepherd launch its body at the rowboat. Its fur bristled as it arced through the air, the snout pulled back into a snarl. It was angled
right at me,
and without thinking I swung with my right arm, crossing my body hard and fast. The splint connected with the side of the dog's head just as its paws touched the front of my shirt.

The shepherd's momentum carried it forward, its body rotating so that it struck me with its left flank. The impact sent me stumbling backward, tripping over the seat behind me as I fell to the floor of the boat. The dog's body ricocheted to the right, struck the gunwale, and a second later was in the water. Haden pulled at the oars, backing us away, the dog's front nails scratching for purchase on the side of the boat.

“Sorry,” I called to the animal as we reached a safe distance in the middle of the creek. It was back on the shore now, barking once again.

“
Sorry?
” Haden asked, rotating the oar blades back into the boat, then lowering the propeller into the water and firing up the motor.

I looked back at him. “I didn't mean to hurt him.”

Haden shook his head. “I think he's fine.”

“I hope so,” I responded, the agony in my shattered forearm awakening in a fury now that the adrenaline was spent.

Haden turned the boat around so the bow was facing outward, then gunned the motor as we headed for the mouth of the Magothy River and the open waters of the Chesapeake Bay beyond.

T
he Chesapeake Bay is roughly two hundred miles long and separates Maryland's Eastern Shore from the remainder of the state. Whereas the Baltimore-Washington corridor is among the busiest thoroughfares on the Eastern Seaboard, residents of the Eastern Shore have been blessed with the opportunity to enjoy a quieter, more tranquil existence. The numerous inlets and waterways give refuge to an abundance of waterfowl, and the grasses of the low-lying marshes stretch on for mile upon mile with only the breeze and the occasional local fisherman to disturb them. In Maryland, two parallel bridges span the width of the Chesapeake, connecting Anne Arundel County to the west and Kent Island to the east. In this section of the Bay, it is just over four and a quarter miles from one side to the other. Still, the water can be choppy, the swells dangerous for small vessels on days when the wind is really up. As Haden pointed us toward the Eastern Shore and the immense structure of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge loomed high above us, I was grateful that today was not one of those days.

It's an odd thing to hear the drone of traffic so high above you, the waves lapping spiritedly at the sides of your boat while the
gulls cruise low along the waterline, eyeing you as if there were parts of your body they'd prefer to simply pluck off with their beaks. The light wind, the motor, the traffic overhead all made it too noisy for conversation, but I stole a look back at Haden a few times during that crossing, and he refused to meet my gaze. I'd read James A. Michener's
Chesapeake
many years ago, and the opening line—
For some time now they had been suspicious of him
—came to me as I looked out across the Bay. I shivered at the recollection, although the day was getting warm, and I wondered why it was that we as human beings can never truly trust one another.
It is the fatal flaw in our species,
I thought,
that silent ever-present potential for lethality we all carry inside of us, and the reason we do not trust one another is because we do not trust ourselves. We know all too well what we are capable of.

I assumed Haden planned to dock at the harbor on Kent Island, but he seemed to change his mind as we drew closer, pointing our bow to the island's northern peninsula and leaving the bridge behind us. The water grew rough as we approached, and I began contemplating how long it would take us to swim to shore if it came to that, but then we were around the point and into a more protected area and the waves settled. We were still heading east, toward a smaller island that appeared to be a wetland marsh. We'd covered about half the remaining distance when the boat's motor sputtered, our forward progress slowing to intermittent lurches and then stopping altogether as it went dead.

“No more gas,” Haden said, and motioned for me to switch seats with him so he could work the oars.

After the persistent whine of the motor, the thrum of traffic crossing the Chesapeake, a day populated by gunfire and
barking, it was suddenly very quiet now—as if we'd passed through a thin white veil into a small, gardened courtyard about which the world had long since forgotten. I could hear birds calling from the island's trees ahead of us, but they were still far away. We'd moved from the Bay into the mouth of the Chester River, and things were calm, the surface disturbed only by the passage of our boat and the rhythmic glide of the oars through the water.

As we neared the island I could see there were no houses, only the sounds of shore birds and the soughing of the wind through the tall grasses. Haden craned his neck upward as a large winged animal passed overhead.

“Turkey vulture,” he said, bringing us into the shore and hopping out of the boat.

The bird settled onto a branch some fifty feet away, watched us disembark. I looked back over my shoulder at it, unsettled by its persistent, patient glare.

“Would they eat humans?” I asked.

“They're scavengers. They'd eat just about anything dead.”

Maybe he was tired, or frightened like I was, but his tone sounded irritable and I couldn't help but assume it was directed at me.

“I'm sorry I got you into this,” I told him. “I didn't mean for things to turn out this way.”

“No,” he said, scanning the open grassland. He held his hand out for the rifle, and I gave it to him, watched him pull back the bolt handle and check the chamber. “I need a few more rounds,” he said, and I reached into my pocket and handed them to him one at a time while he loaded the magazine.

“You work there?” he asked. “At the state hospital?”

“For five years now,” I told him.

“And these special agents who contacted you, they showed you their badges and everything, right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Richard,” he said, running a hand across his face. “He didn't believe that story you told me. The newspapers, you see, they've got it all turned around. They say you attacked that man—the orderly.”

“I told you I didn't.”

“I know, I know,” he said. “And I believe you, Lise. I do. It's just that . . .”

“It's just what?”

“It's just that there are some things that don't add up.”

“Such as?”

“Such as those FBI agents who contacted you—Linder and Remy.”

“I know,” I said. “I don't know why I couldn't reach them. All I can think is that maybe they were captured—”

“Lise,” he said, cutting me off. “Richard called the FBI—the Baltimore field office where they said they worked. He did it right before he called the police.”

“And?” Something was approaching in the distance, a soft mechanical whir that became choppier as it neared. The turkey vulture spread its wings and lifted off, heading for the far end of the island.

“And they don't have any agents with the last name of Linder or Remy, either in the Baltimore office or elsewhere.”

“But I saw their IDs,” I insisted, although it was beginning to dawn on me how foolish I'd been to trust them, how foolish I'd been to trust anyone.

“What if they were connected to Al-Termir instead?” he
suggested. “What if they were only using you to confirm Jason's location, to keep tabs on him until it was time to take him?”

“Are you saying I may have actually
helped
them capture him? And when it was over, Linder and Remy—or whoever they were—simply disappeared?”

The whirring noise was louder now, and we both looked skyward. A helicopter was approaching from the south.

“Shit,” Haden said, his voice sounding as if it were close to the point of resignation. “Stay low and follow me.”

He turned and disappeared into the high grass that composed much of the island. I followed, crouching at the waist. “Keep your head down and don't look up,” I heard him say from up ahead, but it was hard to tell exactly where the voice was coming from. The blades of the helicopter were loud in my ears. I could feel the rotor wash pressing down on me, the grass being pushed flat.
There's no way they don't see us,
I thought, my chest and stomach no more than a foot above the wet earth. The downward current of air moved on ahead of us, and I experienced a moment of hope that we'd somehow gone undetected, but then the helicopter turned, gained some altitude, and began moving in slow circles above us.

“THIS IS THE POLICE,” a voiced bellowed over the chopper's external speaker. “STAND UP, PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR, AND MOVE TOWARD THE ROADWAY.”

“It's over, Lise,” Haden called back to me, standing so that his head and upper torso appeared above the top of the grass. I hesitated a moment, then stood as well. I could see the road they were referring to, a single finger of blacktop that extended down the center of the island. A black van was pulling to a stop at the edge of the asphalt some fifty yards away. Several men emerged
from the vehicle, none of them in uniform. Four of the men lifted assault rifles to the ready position as we approached, the helicopter continuing to circle overhead, and it occurred to me that it too had no identifying markings.

“They'll take us in and we'll explain it to them,” Haden was saying, and I could see that his hands were empty, the Remington left behind in the grass. I took a few more steps forward, saw it lying there in his wake. “Leave the weapon,” he called back to me, as if reading my mind. “Don't give them any excuse to shoot us.”

I looked up at the men, their faces more distinguishable now. They watched us approach through the sights of their guns—a firing squad awaiting orders to shoot. A fifth man climbed out of the vehicle and joined them. He was dressed differently from the others—in a tan overcoat despite the heat of the day, his face obscured by the low-riding brim of his fedora.

“
Haden, wait!
” I exclaimed. “
That's the man I saw
—”

But it was too late. By then they were already firing. A few steps ahead of me, I saw Haden's body jump as the first round took him high in the chest. He let out a soft grunt of surprise, the hands of murderous men finally catching up to him five years after the war. The next shot caught him in the throat, and he fell backward at my feet, his body cradled in the soft grasses of the marsh.

“
No!
” I screamed, dropping to my knees and pressing my hands against the wounds, trying to hold back the rush of blood pumping out through the newly formed circle in his neck. “
No, no, no . . .”
was all I could manage as the life drained out of him with sickening speed. I could hear the sound of footsteps pushing through the high grass, the sound of someone yelling orders, but it barely registered in my mind.

Haden reached up and touched the side of my face. His hand had gone to his chest as he fell and it was covered with blood. I could feel the wet mark it left behind on my cheek.

“It's okay, Lise,” he told me. “You're going to be okay now.”

But
he
was the one who'd been shot, and I shook my head violently back and forth. “Don't die on me, Haden,” I said, the tears spilling down my face. “Please don't die on me.”

He brought a finger to my lips, shushing me.
His flesh is cold,
I thought,
much too cold,
but before I could say anything further he locked eyes with me and whispered, “No, Lise. I was never what you needed.”

A moment later his gaze slid away. He looked up at the sky and it had begun to rain, the drops washing away much of the blood from his chest and neck, and he looked clean—cleaner, perhaps, than he'd ever hoped to be again. “Oh,” he said, as if God himself had extended a hand down to lift him away from this Earth, and in the next instant he was dead. I laid my head against his chest and wept until I could hear the boot steps of the men as they gathered around me, then a loud crack and a shooting pain in my head as everything went dark.