what they’ve got going on, but you need to separate yourself from it. Don’t let it become your problem. For all we know, that’s what happened—” He cuts himself off before he goes any further.
But I heard it, and the words I’ve never dared to speak aloud are given life.
For all we know, that’s what happened to your father. For all we know, he crossed them. The Sheriff. Walken. A man named Traynor. Whoever their boss is. For all we know, he found out what they were doing and it became his problem, which then became their problem. Griggs has certainly made enough veiled threats, hasn’t he?
“I can handle Griggs,” I say, feeling less sure than I sound.
Abe shakes his head sadly. “That’s where you’re wrong. I don’t think anyone can. I stopped at Rosie’s on my way over to get a cup of coffee. She had some interesting news.”
Dread washes over me. “What?”
Abe looks like he’d rather say anything than what he says. “Apparently our twitchy friend from yesterday, one Arthur Davis from Hillsboro, hung himself last night in the sheriff’s jail barracks, waiting for a bond hearing that was supposed to happen this afternoon. A deputy found him strung up from the edge of one of the bunk beds, a sheet wrapped around his neck. He’s dead, Benji. Our lone gunman is dead.”
the strange men
Apparently, dead drug addicts don’t warrant much attention. There is a
small blurb online, a ten-second mention on the news: A man under arrest for suspicion of armed robbery at a convenience store in Roseland hanged himself sometime between midnight and 6:00 a.m., when his body was discovered at the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office barracks during the morning shift change. He apparently was a known drug user with a history of petty offenses. Any further information pending notification of next of kin.
Griggs releases a statement, saying, “While the sheriff’s department does its job to keep the streets safe, it is always difficult to understand why an individual would feel the need to take his own life. Our thoughts are with the family of Arthur Davis.”
Apparently it was cut and dry. No further investigation required.
These are some strange days, Cal said.
I can’t sit at home and stare at the walls. Not while I can sit in the store and stare
at the walls there. People ask where Cal is. I tell them he went back to California for a bit.
I pray. I do. I really do. I pray even though I’m not very good at it. I pray because that is how Cal said he came down the first time. I feel foolish at this, now that I have knowledge of what I’m trying to do. When I called him originally, it had been out of horror and fear and the need for someone to hear my pleas.
Now, it’s just for him.
Cal. Please come back. I’ve only known you thirteen days and you’ve been gone for the last four of them. It’s been under two weeks since you fell but it might as well have been forever that I’ve known you. I need you to come back. Please. Please just come back. See my thread. Hear me now. Please.
But there’s no reply. Like any time I’ve ever prayed before, there is nothing. I come to the conclusion that no one is listening, that no one ever did. Angels exist; that’s been proven by the one who fell from the sky. But there is nothing else. I believe in the impossible. I believe in the improbable. I do not believe that my prayers matter. Not for the first time, I realize just how small I really am, just how petty I sound.
That fear doesn’t stop me from closing up the store every few hours to rush back to Little House, only to find it as empty as when I’d left it. It doesn’t stop me from sitting on the roof every morning, watching the sunrise, searching the long driveway for that familiar figure in the dawn, ambling up to say he’s hungry, to ask if we can go for a ride in the truck because it’s so cherry.
But there’s nothing.
Every time I close my eyes I see blue and hear the rustle of feathers. I hear his
warning about the river and I jerk awake, flailing around for someone that isn’t there. My bedroom door is left open, and every time I wake, I look to the floor there, to see if he’s made his nest.