With a nod, Reed took his first long drink. “Book ’em, Danno.”
“Detective Quartermaine. It still slays me.”
“Supreme IT Nerd Chaz Bergman. Doesn’t surprise me a bit.” Reed took another pull from the bottle, let the long day go. “I didn’t expect to see you again this summer. You were just here in July.”
“Yeah.” Chaz took a slower, smaller sip, nudged his glasses up on his nose.
He’d kept his husky build, but put on some muscle. He had a lot more hair now, enough that he tied it back in a stub of a tail. He’d added a weird little soul patch that didn’t disguise the geek.
Chaz looked out at the water, shrugged. “My mom really wanted me to fly in for that McMullen deal. I guess part of me wanted to. Not to talk about it so much, but to see some of the people who were in the store that night.”
“That kid,” Reed remembered. “He was, like, twelve, and now he’s working on being a doctor.”
“Yeah, and the pregnant woman. She’s got those twins.”
“You saved them, bro.” Reed tapped his bottle to Chaz’s.
“I guess. Speaking of, how’s Brady Foster?”
“He’s great. Batted three-forty on his high school team last year. They had another kid, you know, Lisa and Michael.”
“Yeah, that’s right. You told me.”
“A girl. She’s five. Camille. She’s crazy smart, looks like her mom. I tell you, Chaz, Lisa’s amazing. She lives with that night every day, but she doesn’t let it, you know, define her. It sure as hell doesn’t stop her. I guess I look at that family, and what that night cost them, and how they didn’t just survive it, they didn’t even just overcome it, they, well, they shine, you know? Like that damn moon up there.”
“I never asked you, but do you ever go back there? To the mall?”
“Yeah.” He’d drawn maps, marked points of attack, victims, movements, numbers. He had it all in his files. “It’s changed a lot.”
“I can’t go in there. I don’t even like driving by. I never told you, but I took the job in Seattle because it was the farthest away I could get and stay in the country. Well, the mainland—and I didn’t get offers from Alaska or Hawaii. It’s a great job, a good company,” Chaz added. “But it was the distance.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Reed said after a moment.
“I don’t think about it for weeks, months. But I come back here and it hits me all over again. Weird … because I was in a locked, crowded room for the worst of it, not in the thick like you. Jesus, we were just kids, Reed.”
Chaz took a longer drink. “Or I’ll hear about another mass shooting, and it all flashes back.”
“I hear that.”
“I go to Seattle, and you go to the front line.”
“You took a job, man. You built a career.”
“Yeah, about that. The reason I’m back? I’m taking a transfer to New York. Taking a little downtime first, heading down to check out some apartments the company’s got lined up.” Chaz shrugged. “They want me to head up the cybersecurity division there.”
“Head it? Holy shit, Chaz.” Reed gave him a congratulatory elbow in the ribs. “You’re a fucking honcho nerd.”
It made him smile, but Chaz shook his head, shoved his glasses back up on his nose. “I almost turned it down. New York’s a lot closer than Seattle, but I can’t let that damn night, that damn mall—what did you call it?—define my damn life. So I’m moving to New York in November.”
“Congratulations, man, all around.”
“How do you do it? I mean, the badge and the gun and putting it on the line every fucking day?”
“Detective work’s mostly detecting, and a boatload of paperwork, legwork. It’s not like TV. It’s not car chases and shoot-outs.”
“You’re going to tell me you’ve never been in either one.”
“Some car chases. More foot chases—and why do they run?—but some car chases. They’re crazy, I’ll give you that.”
“Shoot-outs?”
“It’s not like the O.K. Corral, Chaz.”
Chaz just looked at him, those quiet eyes behind the thick lenses.
“I’ve been involved a couple of times when we had shots fired.”
“Were you scared?”
“Bet your hairy white ass.”
“But you did it anyway, and you keep doing it. See, that’s the thing about you, Reed. You face up and do it anyway, and you always have. New York’s not facing down some asshole with a gun, but it’s sort of my ‘do it anyway.’”
Chaz paused, smiled. “With a promotion and a big, fat raise.”
“Lucky bastard. I bet you’ve got the rest of a six-pack in a cooler in that rental car.”
“Eagle Scout. We’re always prepared. But I’m driving, so one’s it.”
“So let’s take it back to my place, polish it off. Tomorrow—well, today now. Sunday, and I’m not on the roll. You can sleep on the couch.”
“I could do that. Why are you still living in that dump?”
“It’s not so bad, and there’s talk about some gentrification in the neighborhood. I could be sitting sweet before you know it. Anyway, I might not be there much longer. I’m looking at a house tomorrow afternoon. It feels like the one from the outside, and the video tour. Nice yard, new kitchen.”
“You don’t cook.”
“Doesn’t matter. Excellent master suite, and so on. I like the neighborhood. I can walk to pubs and restaurants. Mow my own grass. Best, if I can whittle the price down just a couple clicks, I can afford it without selling my blood or taking bribes.”
“You could sell your sperm,” Chaz suggested. “Remember that guy—Fruenski—who did that in college?”
“I think I’ll try my hand at negotiation first. Anyway,” he said as they rose, “you ought to come with me tomorrow, check the place out.”
“I gotta go see my grandparents. Already on the books. Then Monday, I’m heading to New York to check out my own digs.”
“Then let’s go make the best of what’s left of the six-pack.”
*
Reed slept till noon, then threw together some coffee and scrambled eggs, since he had company. He saw Chaz off with the promise of a wild New York weekend once his old friend settled in.
When he showered, in lukewarm water as apparently the building’s hot water heater was dying again, he thought how good it had been to spend time with Chaz. And talk about things he realized Chaz had avoided talking about.
He dressed studying his bedroom wall, the one he used as a makeshift case board. He had tacked up photos of every DownEast Mall survivor who’d died, with the death designation above each group: Accidental, Natural Causes, Homicide, Suicide.
He had maps with each of the deceased’s location when they died pinned with the name, date, time.
And he crossed-checked each along with their reported locations and any injuries incurred on the night of July 22, 2005.
Too many, he thought again. Just too many.
He couldn’t argue with Essie’s debate point on the variety of weapons and methods in the homicides, but he knew there was a pattern in there. One that just hadn’t come clear for him yet.
He had autopsy reports, witness statements, copies of interviews with next of kin. He’d compiled articles and recordings from a dozen years back right up to the McMullen special.
It had surprised him to see Hobart’s sister on there. Patricia Hobart, pale, hollow-eyed, looked older than twenty-six. Then, he guessed, having your brother murder a bunch of people, your mother blow up her house under the influence of drugs and alcohol—as the ME report stated—having your asshole father drink himself drunk and kill a woman and her kid, along with himself, rated premature aging.
She hadn’t cried, Reed recalled as he studied her picture on the wall. Plenty of nervous tics though. Hunched shoulders, fingers twisting together or pulling at her clothes.
Dumpy suit, he remembered, ugly shoes. Lived with her grandparents, stood as main caregiver for her grandmother, who’d used a walker since recovering after a broken hip, and her grandfather, who’d suffered two small strokes.