“Hello?”
He goes still. It must be one of his clients, maybe drawn downstairs by the disturbance. Again—from the hallway, closer now—“Hello?” This time he registers the voice as a woman’s. Plenty of women stay regularly at the shelter—Meg, Hettie, Jan, among others—but none tonight.
That’s when he remembers the front door. When he overrode the locks and allowed Lump inside, he never reset security. His eyes jog between the dead hound, bleeding out a black puddle, and the door that leads to the hallway.
“Just a minute,” he says, trying to keep his voice calm. “Just stay where you are, please. I’ll be right there.”
Whoever she is, she doesn’t listen. She steps into the kitchen just as he swings the Maglite. The yellow beam cuts the dark and strikes her face, and she holds up a hand and squints her eyes. “Are you here for a bed? I normally don’t check anyone in after nine.” He keeps the light steadily trained on her as he approaches, trying to blind her, blocking her view of the hound with his body.
She retreats into the hallway—trying to evade the light or keep some distance between them—and only then does he drop the shine from her face. She blinks, hard, as though she has sand in her eyes. “I’m not looking for a bed.”
“Clothes? Food? A shower? What?” His voice comes out more severely than he intended.
“Information,” she says.
It’s only then that he really sees her. Auburn hair pulled back in a braid. Mossy-green eyes. Nose dusted with freckles. A North Face shell and Keen hiking shoes. A giant canvas purse that bulges at her side. She looks like she should be leading nature walks at Multnomah Falls, not pushing her way into a shelter late at night. “No one came when I knocked.”
“But you decided you were welcome anyway?”
She shrugs. No apology.
“It’s fine. You startled me—that’s all.” He starts toward the lounge and hopes she’ll follow.
She does. Her voice trails close behind him. “I’m pretty sure that’s a health code violation.”
He turns on her and she nearly runs into him. How much did she see? And what kind of excuse can there possibly be for a hairless hound—the size of a pony—stabbed to death on a kitchen floor?
She trades her purse from one shoulder to the other. “Your arm. It looks like it got carved up for a snack.” Her eyes stare directly into his. She leans in and he can’t help but feel shoved around by her intensity. “What happened?”
“Oh, this.” He raises his arm, and it hangs in the air between them. “It’s nothing.” The blood has spotted through the makeshift tourniquet. It throbs in time with his pulse.
“But what happened?”
He starts once more for the lounge. It’s easier to lie with his back to her. “There are no pets allowed here, but sometimes someone will try to sneak one in. A dog took a bite out of me. I’m glad no one else got hurt.”
“Where’s the dog?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You said you got bit by a dog—and that wound is fresh—so where’s the dog?”
His eyes jog back toward the kitchen, and he motions to one of the chairs before plopping onto the couch. The springs shriek beneath his weight. He balances the Maglite on an end table as if it were a lamp. “I’m sorry—who are you? What are you doing here?”
She doesn’t take a seat but stands over him. She clutches the purse as though worried he might snatch it. “We’ve met before,” she says. “I interviewed you two years ago. An article about how the recession surged the homeless population.”
It takes him a moment. The darkness of the room—the pain in his arm—the questions whirling through his head. She’s a reporter. A reporter at The Oregonian. She stopped by unannounced and got annoyed when he wouldn’t pose for a photo. When she asked him, “Why not? Everybody likes to get their picture in the paper,” he had to lie to her then, too. The truth is, he couldn’t risk being recognized, no matter how many years had passed.
“Right,” he says. “You. That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“The way you barge in here and assault me with all these questions.”
She doesn’t flinch. If anything a smile bends the corners of her mouth.
She’s silent. She’s trying to get him to say something. Another reporter trick. Hit your subject with a thousand questions or shut up and make them uncomfortable enough to answer. “Are you here for another story?” he says. “What do you want from me?”
She says she’s looking for someone. A homeless man. The street preacher most everyone refers to as Lump. She thinks he might know something about a story she’s chasing. She wants to ask him a few questions. “I tried following him earlier. I was in my car; he was on foot. Lost him down an alley.” She drove around another fifteen minutes before spotting something in her rearview—a black figure darting away from the shelter. “Was it him? Was he here? What did you talk about?”
Juniper wishes he could turn his back to her again. Her eyes feel like they’re inside him. “Haven’t seen him,” he says.
“Did he tell you about the murder?”
Now he leans forward. “You think Lump killed someone?”
“No. I don’t think Lump killed anyone. But I think he might have some information. And he was certainly in a rush to share it with you.”
“You’re wrong. He wasn’t here.” Juniper checks his arm again—the pain now jolting, electrical. “Afraid I can’t help you.”
She nods longer than she needs to. “I see,” she says.
“You see what?”
“I see.” She reaches down and picks up a black feather from the floor. She strokes the length of it. “When I say the following, does it trigger anything for you? The Rue building, Jeremy Tusk, Carrie Wunderlich. Anything? Even the slightest connection or recollection?”
She’ll know he’s lying, but he might as well keep it up. “No. Nothing.”
Her unblinking stare continues. Accompanied by another one of those deliberate silences meant to make him uncomfortable. It’s working. But he holds her eyes and doesn’t say anything more.
She snatches the Maglite off the table and runs. For the kitchen. Her shoes clopping the linoleum. The beam rising and falling with every arm swing. He’s too slow to catch her, though he tries. When he catches up to her in the kitchen, she has the light trained on the hound. Or what used to be the hound, now a black pile of ash.
Chapter 6
ASK SOMEONE IN PORTLAND where the Hadal District is, they’ll look at you funny, say they don’t know. Every city has a place like this. A place unmapped. A place the GPS goes dark. A place people don’t go, except by accident, and then they’ll drive fast to escape it.