Eerie (3 page)

Angela returned with a rolling tray, and Grant waited until she was gone before examining the food. It was corn chowder. Not clam. And definitely not Boston.

“Well, she was right about the chowder part. Let’s see what we have here.”

Grant tasted it.

“Not bad. Your turn.”

His father’s eyes followed the spoon down to the bowl. Grant submerged it and brought it up carefully.

“It’s pretty hot.”

His father leaned forward slightly to meet it.

“What do you think?”

A dribble escaped. Grant wiped his chin with the napkin.

“They doped you up pretty good this time, huh?”

His father’s eyes were vacant and heavy.

It went on like this. The son feeding his father slow spoonfuls. When the bowl was empty, he pushed the tray aside. Through the barred windows of the visiting room, the sky was darkening fast. Grant could scarcely make out the stand of evergreen trees on the southern perimeter of the grounds.

He talked about the weather. How it hadn’t flurried yet. About the downtown Christmas traffic which he knew would be waiting for him on the drive home. He talked about work. About Sophie. A movie he’d seen last month. The World Series had come and gone since his last visit, and Grant gave a blow-by-blow of how the St. Louis Cardinals made a record-breaking comeback against the Braves in the Wild Card standings, culminating with their victory over the Rangers in game seven.

“You would’ve cried,” he said.

All the while his father watched him quietly through a glassy-eyed daze that could have been mistaken for listening.

Grant finally stood. Inevitably, in these moments of departure, the stab of loss would run through Grant like a sword. He knew it was coming—every time—but there was no bracing against it. His father had been a great man—kind and brave and a pillar of comfort to his children even through the loss of Grant’s mother, his wife, even in the face of his own private hell. Grant couldn’t help but to wonder what his life might have become if his father could’ve looked him in the eyes and spoken his mind, his wisdom? And still the question persisted that had haunted Grant since the night of the accident, that the seven-year-old boy inside of him would never let go—does something in the shell of you still love me?

He kissed his old man on the forehead. “Merry Christmas, Pop.”

Ten minutes later, he was one of thousands on the congested 520 bridge, slowly making his way home in the early December dark.

Chapter 3

The Space Needle and the cone of Christmas lights at the top made fleeting appearances between the buildings as Grant inched his way home through downtown holiday traffic. First Avenue was a parking lot. As would be the Aurora Bridge that separated him from the kitchen where an expensive bottle of scotch waited—a gift from his Secret Santa at the precinct.

Grant turned the radio off and let his head rest against the window.

Should have cut out of work earlier.

Always ended up staying late at the hospital.

As the traffic crept over Pine, he caught a glimpse of the Macy’s star, white-lit and forty feet high. Further up, the Westlake Center Christmas tree stood surrounded by glum shoppers who had been at it for too long—beat down by the eternal drizzle, Christmas Muzak, traffic noise, Salvation Army bells, and pleas for spare change.

Home was Fremont. For Grant it couldn’t be anywhere else. In a few minutes he’d be over the Aurora suicide bridge with its high iron fences and winding down the hill into that bright artsy neighborhood on the banks of the Lake Union canal. The rest of the city was a Frankenstein of retro and contemporary architecture. Charming in a schizophrenic way. But Fremont had somehow braced itself against the last thirty years of sprawl. Something timeless about it he just couldn’t get enough of.

He found a decent parking spot a block away from his building and jogged through the rain up to the front steps.

His apartment was one of ten units inside a remodeled 1920’s townhome. Like so many old houses in the city, it had been endlessly expanded over the last century, and its bloat pressed up against the property lines making narrow alleys of the space between the buildings on either side.

It looks like you’re squatting in your own apartment.

Sophie’s words on one of her few visits to his Spartan one-bedroom home.

You live like a monk
.

And it was true. If he didn’t need it, he didn’t own it. There was a loveseat that had come with the place. A floor lamp in the corner. A rug—chic and clearly overqualified for the space—which had been a gift from Sophie in an effort to ease her offended maternal instinct. The only other piece of furniture was the oversized table situated between the kitchen and the dining area. He ate there, worked there, and on rain-soaked Seattle nights like this, he hung his dripping North Face coat on the back of one of its chairs on the way to the kitchen to fix a drink.

Despite his affinity for hoagies and cheap Chinese food, Grant could actually cook and often spent his evenings preparing a meal while he waited for the whiskey-glow to settle in. But he didn’t feel particularly culinary tonight. Visits with his father had that effect on him. Instead, he selected a frozen block of lasagna for the microwave, poured the last two fingers from the bottle of scotch he’d gone through in—Jesus, had it only been three days?—and sat down at the table in front of his laptop.

Dinner rotated in the irradiated light behind him.

Seven new e-mails.

All but one were spam.

The legit message was from Sophie.

Subject:
Our New Facebook Friends

Guess what? Talbert and Seymour share five “lady friends.” Two of them appear to be upstanding members of the community in overlapping social circles. The other three strike me as a bit more mysterious—racy profile pics, aggressive privacy settings which keep their pages suspiciously void of detailed personal info. It’s not much, but it’s a start. I think our next step is to gain direct access to the Talbert and Seymour Facebook accounts and see if we can find anything more concrete like direct messages to these women. Hope your afternoon was OK.

Sophie

Grant clicked on one of three links that followed Sophie’s e-mail and scanned the first profile. She was right. Not much to go on. There were no posts showing and most of the privacy settings had been enabled, limiting the given data to a name (undoubtedly fake), sex, city, and a lascivious profile pic no more scandalous than what a rowdy college girl might upload after a big weekend.

The next profile lacked the same personal details, and the sole method of contact would be a friend request. Grant felt the familiar exhaustion coming on that preempts a dead-end lead.

He took a larger sip of scotch and opened the last of Sophie’s links.

Adrenaline clobbered the beginnings of the evening’s buzz.

The profile pic was only a pair of eyes—big and dark and with accentuated lashes so long they seemed almost alien—but the sickening heart-lurch of recognition was unmistakable.

He clicked on the photo album, and with each image, felt the world reorienting itself around this new knowledge.

Grant reached for his jacket on the other side of the table and dug through the pockets until he found his phone. He made a mad swipe across the screen of his contact list. Names ascending in a blur.

He hadn’t used the number in almost a year.

Worried he might have deleted it.

Should have deleted it.

There it was.

He dialed.

It rang five times and defaulted to an automated voice mail message he’d heard many times before.

“Hey, Eric, it’s Grant. I need to speak with you asap. You can reach me at the number I’m calling from.”

He let the phone clatter to the table.

Outside, the rain intensified. It wasn’t just misting anymore.

Grant downed the last of the scotch and slid the glass away as the phone illuminated with a new text.

On shift until midnight.

His coat hadn’t even begun to dry.

Chapter 4

Grant pulled his black Crown Vic past two idling cabs and parked at the entrance to the Four Seasons.

A bellhop with bad acne scars said, “You leave your car there, it’ll be towed.”

Grant was already reaching for his wallet. He held it up as he passed the kid, let it fall open, his shield refracting glints of overhead light.

The bellhop called after him, “Sorry about that, sir. It’s cool.”

Grant shouldered through the revolving doors into the lobby—sleek, modern, and minimally decorated for Christmas with only a handful of evergreen wreaths hanging from the walls. There was stone and wood everywhere, a dynamite contemporary art collection, and a long fireplace near the entrance to the adjoining restaurant and lounge flooding the place with heat.

Grant spotted Eric at the concierge desk. From a distance, he didn’t cut the figure of a guy who could stumble you into any type of recreational substance or activity in the city. Looked more like a law student—twenty-four or twenty-five, clean-shaven, hair cropped and pushed forward like classic George Clooney. Tonight, he wore a black single-breasted coat over a Carolina-blue vest and matching tie. Grant waited while Eric patiently gave an older couple directions to the Space Needle, and as they shuffled off, the concierge glanced up from his brochure-laden desk. Rising, he came around to Grant, fishing a pack of Marlboro Reds out of an inner pocket of his coat.

• • •

They stood just inside the entrance overhang, protected from the weather, watching traffic crawl down Union Street.

It was cold.

Rain collected in pools along the sidewalk and streams of it sluiced down the curb toward Elliott Bay.

Eric fired a cigarette.

Grant took out his phone—already had her Facebook profile pic pulled up on the browser, her eyes dark and popping, filling the screen.

He showed it to Eric.

“Know her?”

Eric stared at Grant for a beat.

His looked at the phone.

Nodded.

“I want you to set something up for me for tonight,” Grant said.

“That’s not going to be possible. She isn’t like the others.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just so I’m clear …” Eric dragged hard on his cigarette. “I’m talking to you as a human being, not a cop, right? I mean, this is for
you
, like before.”

“That’s right.”

“Okay. Good. Look, Gloria isn’t your type, man.”

Grant smiled. “I didn’t realize you’d expanded your services into matchmaking. So now you’ve acquired some sort of insight into what I want to fuck?”

“She’s two thousand for an hour. You telling me you can swing that on your public servant’s salary?”

“I didn’t come here to see a financial advisor. How do I contact her?”

“Through me.”

“Where does she work?”

“Out of her house.”

“And where’s that?”

“Queen Anne. Look, you don’t understand. She’s referral-only.”

“So refer me.”

“She takes care of a handful of clients. A very elite club.”

“I’m trying not to get offended here, Eric.”

“Haven’t I always set you up with excellent companions? All top shelf? All Johnnie Walker? But let’s shoot straight. Call it like it is. You’re a red- sometimes black-label guy. This woman is Johnnie Walker Blue all the way. Her select group of repeat clients spend between eighty and a hundred thousand dollars a year for her company. She’s not a one-shot deal, okay? It’s like you’re leasing a Lexus. There’s a commitment implied.”

“I want to see her tonight.”

“Grant—”

“Listen to me very, very carefully. I’m going into the bar to have a drink. One drink. Before I’m finished, you’re going to come into the bar and tell me that you made it happen. You’re also going to buy my drink. If these things don’t happen, Eric, I will shut you down.”

Eric threw his cigarette into a gutter, exhaling as he shook his head. “When you first came to me, I didn’t want to work with a cop. And I told you that. There’s an imbalance of power going on right here, and it’s not fair.”

“Jesus, how old are you? There is no fair. There’s only how it is. And
this
is how it is.”

“I could—”

Grant stepped hard and fast into the concierge’s airspace, pushed him up against the cold brick, smelled the tar and nicotine coming off his breath, his face, his hands.

“You could what, Eric?”

“She’s not gonna go for this.”

“Then tell her a pretty story. Sell it. I have faith in you. And don’t use my real name—first or last.”

He slapped Eric on the shoulder and started back toward the hotel entrance.

• • •

Grant slid into an empty chair at the corner of the bar and stared out at the darkness of the bay. Wasn’t much to see at eight thirty on a rainy Thursday night—just the reflection of lights from the waterfront buildings.

The lounge was bustling—a small crowd mingled by the floor-to-ceiling windows, everyone clutching small, still-wrapped presents.

Was Christmas just two weeks away?

Last year, he’d dropped two hundred on a world-class single malt. Spent the day plowing through the bottle and watching the Godfather trilogy for the umpteenth time. He’d passed out during the first twenty minutes of
Part III
—no big loss there. Maybe he’d take this Christmas in the same direction. Might be something he could almost look forward to. The start of a tradition. Or maybe he’d put a request in to stay on-call. Get lucky, catch a juicy murder.

Didn’t really matter as long as there was a plan.

As long as he didn’t let the holiday creep up and catch him off guard. Advanced preparation was the only way somebody with nobody had a prayer of surviving Christmas.