The Night Season (17 page)

Archie nodded. “He likes to watch.”

“Or she. Women are more likely to use poison.” She wheeled around to Mingo. “What happens to the victims? After the poison hits?”

But Mingo was looking at the body now, his eyes wide behind the fake glasses. Archie had seen it before. Once you looked, you couldn’t look away. The professor’s pallor went from Northwest pale to ash. “The toxin causes respiratory paralysis,” he mumbled.

This was why Archie didn’t like bringing amateurs to crime scenes. Pretty soon Mingo would be in the bushes vomiting, and then they’d have that smell to deal with on top of the decomp.

“No, I mean step by step,” Anne said. She took Mingo’s pointy chin in her leather-gloved hands and gently turned his head. “Look at me. Not him.” She smiled at him. He blinked. Took a breath. Adjusted his cap. His Adam’s apple rose and fell. “There, now,” she said. “You’re okay. Now tell me, this toxin, what does it feel like?”

He frowned and thought for a moment. “It happens fast,” he said. “A lot of people, they don’t even know they’ve been bit. It doesn’t hurt. They suddenly feel nauseated. Their vision blurs. They’d be blind within a few seconds. They lose motor skills, their senses of touch, smell, their ability to speak. They find themselves unable to swallow. Within ten minutes they experience total body paralysis. They might be aware of what’s going on around them. But they can’t move, their lungs stop working.” He looked around at the group. “Basically, they suffocate.”

The logjam groaned, straining against the force of the river, and Archie heard the crack of timber as it broke free.

That’s why Henry had dropped his phone. He’d pulled it out to call for help, but had lost motor function and dropped it. Then stumbled and collapsed. He was probably just feet away when Otter had found it, but had been unable to cry out.

“How is Henry still alive?” Susan said. “If he was bitten at least an hour before we found him.”

“He must not have gotten a full dose of venom,” Mingo said. “The venom is in the saliva. It’s not injected by the beak. The beak pierces the skin. But it’s not like a snakebite. If the detective was able to react quickly, disrupt the attack and apply pressure to the wound, he might have bought himself some time. Is he a big guy?”

Archie nodded.

“That would help, too.”

Henry had been on the ground, unable to move or speak, barely able to breathe, yet completely aware. Archie knew what that was; he had experienced it in Gretchen’s basement. It was one of the reasons he left the lights on when he went out.

“Do you know how the octopus is being transported?” Mingo asked.

“We found a Ziploc freezer bag near where Henry was found,” Archie said. “Smelled like salt water. We’re having it tested.”

“It was empty?” Mingo said.

They all looked at each other, the question so obvious no one bothered to say it.
Where was the octopus?
If the bag had been used to transport the octopus, and Henry
had
disrupted the attack, and the killer hadn’t stayed to watch, had instead fled, leaving behind the bag—

He’d left the octopus behind.

They all turned and looked across the river, in the direction of the Japanese American Plaza. The seawall was high enough that Archie couldn’t make out the people closest to the river, only their heads and arms as they stacked the last layer of sandbags. But he could see the tops of the emergency vehicles that still crowded the park, the white festival tents set up as volunteer stations, the hundreds of people that still milled around farther into the park. “How long can one of these things live outside the water?” he said.

“A half hour, tops,” Mingo said.

They’d searched every inch of that plaza.

“These octopuses can get around pretty well,” Mingo continued. “They can crawl from tide pool to tide pool, fit through a hole the size of a pea.”

“Heil,” Archie called. Heil looked over from where he was interviewing Jen Auster. “We need to search the plaza again. Make sure that octopus didn’t crawl into a pea-sized hole and die.” Archie’s gaze fell on the surging Willamette. “It can’t survive in there, right?” he asked.

“Not a chance,” Mingo said.

Susan was still staring across the river. “So the killer has more than one octopus? I mean, if he left the bag. Maybe he put the thing in a bucket or his pocket. Carried it away. He has to get it out of the bag, right? Or does he just open the bag up and get people to pull it out?”

“Maybe he uses tongs,” Archie said.

No one laughed.

“Does it know him?” Susan asked Mingo.

“Oh, come on,” Archie said.

“If you put a crab in a bottle,” Mingo said, “and drop it next to one of these things, they can figure out how to uncork it to get at the crab. They can learn. It’s possible this thing has learned that its owner isn’t a threat. But if that’s true, it would be spectacular. I’d want to write a paper on it. Can I write about this? For a professional journal?” He looked off into the middle distance. “
CONSULTING WITH THE POLICE TO CATCH THE OCTOPUS KILLER
.” Then he chuckled nervously and fumbled with his glasses. “You know what they say, publish or perish.”

Anne was focused on the body, not having any of it. “So let’s assume he’s got more than one.”

“We’re talking about exotic animals here,” Mingo said. “He’d need a species tank. Fifty gallons of salt water, at least. A filtration system, a protein skimmer. Constant temperature monitoring. Ideally you’d want to run the tank for three months before you even put an octopus in it. And you’d need a tank for each octopus. They don’t like roommates.”

“Any luck with aquarium supply stores or pet shops?” Archie asked Heil.

“Everything’s closed,” Heil said. “I’m trying to track down the owners. Ngyun’s looked online and contacted some of the sites that sell them. Nothing yet.”

Susan hugged her arms. “Why do people want to own these things?”

Mingo huffed, sounding a little offended. “They’re beautiful,” he said, as if it were obvious. “Most of the time they’re the color of sand, but when they’re agitated they produce blue rings the size of eraser heads all over their bodies. The rings circle black spots, and the blue is this amazing luminous neon color. These rings, they pulsate with color. Children love them.” He paused. “Those are the casualties you usually see—some kid on vacation in Australia sees a blue-ringed octopus in a tide pool and picks it up.” His mouth turned down with exaggerated disdain. “Tourists,” he explained. “The locals know better. Most cephalopod enthusiasts resist the urge to own one, though. They’re hard to take care of, don’t live long, and there’s always the chance that your grandkid is going to reach in the tank and go home in a box.” He gave Archie a jab with his elbow and winked. “You know what they say about mushrooms and women. The more beautiful they are, the more dangerous.”

Archie felt something hit his cheek and looked up at the concrete sky. The rain was getting worse. It quickened from a drizzle to a constant patter. The others turned their heads up to the sky, too.

“It was too good to last,” Heil said, turning up his hood.

Robbins and the EMTs hurried to load the body onto a gurney and get him in the ambulance.

Mingo adjusted his cap against the drizzle and Susan took shelter under the bridge a few steps away.

“You think they went to the Mission?” Archie asked Heil.

“I called last night. They all made it.”

“You’re kind of a softie,” Archie said.

“I know,” Heil said. His phone rang, and he stepped away to take the call.

At least they knew where to find the street kids, Archie thought. Maybe their friends had seen something. Maybe they hadn’t. But either way, the task force needed to know.

Robbins came jogging back down from the ambulance with something in his hand. He held it out to Archie. In an evidence bag.

“What’s that?” Archie said.

“You know what it is,” Robbins said. “It was in his pocket.”

Archie took the bag. Inside it, lying on its side, was a
Star Wars
Darth Vader action figure.

Heil returned. “That was the crime lab,” he said. “Fingerprints on the key you found under the boy’s hospital bed are a match to Patrick Lifton.”

Archie closed his eyes for a moment. When he did, the sound of the river blotted out everything.

“There’s a detective on the Aberdeen PD who worked closely with the family,” he said finally. “His name’s in the case file. Call him and let him tell them the news. But let’s keep it out of the media for now. Our guy’s kept him alive this long. We don’t want him panicking.” He held out the evidence bag Robbins had given him.

“What’s this?” Heil asked, taking it.

“Get it to the crime lab,” Archie said. “My guess is they’ll find Patrick Lifton’s prints on it, too.”

However the boy was wrapped up in all this, it was only getting more complicated.

“Hey,” Susan said from under the bridge. Something had attracted her attention in the river. “Look at that whitewater,” she said, pointing to a thick beige froth that snaked along the riverbank, lapping at the water’s edge.

Mingo was closest to her. “It’s pollution,” Archie heard him say. “A stew of sewage, chemical runoff, and bacteria. Terrible for marine life. I wouldn’t go in that river if my life depended on it.”

Archie coughed, trying not to think of the water that had ended up in his lungs the night before.

CHAPTER

33

Archie pulled as
close as he could to the task force offices to let Susan and Anne out. The rain was really coming down now. The sky looked lower and darker. He had the windshield wipers on their highest setting and their insistent back-and-forth swoop seemed frantic.

Heil had stayed behind to supervise the crime scene investigation around where the corpse had been found. Archie didn’t envy him. Nothing like tiptoeing around a flooding riverbank in the rain looking for tiny clues among the floating trash and muck.

Mingo had gone back to wherever he’d come from.

Susan slid across the backseat, opened the car door, and sprinted for the building with her notebook under her arm.

Anne didn’t move.

The windshield wipers went back and forth.

The engine wheezed.

“Are you going to get out of the car?” Archie asked.

Anne lowered her chin and turned to look at him. “How long have you had that cough?” she asked.

“Not long.”

“Since you went in the river?”

“I don’t know.”

“Talked to your doctor?” Anne asked.

“Not yet.”

Anne made a clucking sound. “Your immune system isn’t what it used to be,” she said.

“I’ve been filled in about that,” Archie said, staring straight ahead.

It turned out that you could live without a spleen just fine. But the fist-sized organs weren’t exactly useless. Spleens cleaned old red blood cells from the blood supply and produced and stored white blood cells. Those white blood cells produced antibodies when your body needed to fight an infection. If you happened to lose your spleen to a beautiful psychopath, the liver was expected to help take over some of this duty. Unless, of course, your liver happened to be damaged from a two-year-plus addiction to painkillers.

He could feel her still looking at him.

He needed to go, to get to the Mission, he needed her out of the car.

He broke, and turned back to her. “I’m a little busy, Anne.”

Anne picked up her purse and put it on her lap, and reached for the door handle. “You’re a stubborn martyr with a white knight complex,” she said, opening the door. “You know that, right?”

“I want a profile by two,” Archie said as she closed the door.

“You call your doctor if you get any worse,” he heard Anne call as he pulled away.

CHAPTER

34

There were two
Portland Mission buildings on Burnside, three blocks apart. The old mission, founded in 1949, was in a nineteenth-century brick structure with a neon sign in the shape of a lighthouse out front. The new building, the result of a fund-raising campaign, was steel and glass. Mary Riley’s office was in the old building, which was usually used as an emergency shelter for men, but had been opened to all comers during the flood watch.

It was where they had put up Nick and his friends. Mary Riley had them waiting in her office. “Don’t touch anything,” she told Archie before she left him, and he wasn’t sure why, since the office was a tornado of files and books and chipped mugs ringed with coffee sludge.

Nick and his friends—minus the kid who was by now rolling into the hospital morgue—sat on an old couch that looked like it belonged on a porch. Archie took a seat in Mary Riley’s desk chair. One of the plastic armrests was split jaggedly down the middle as though the chair had been heaved against the wall at some point.

Archie was the only one in the room who hadn’t showered and changed in the last twenty-four hours. He almost didn’t recognize the women without their soaked shrouds. He could see now that, in fact, they didn’t look anything alike. One had dark hair and bright, even features, the other had bleached-out hair and was clearly older and more street-weary.

Archie took down all their names this time, writing them in a notebook open on his thigh.

The younger woman was named Kristen Marshall. The older woman was named Liz McDaniel, but she went by Sister. The man with the bushy beard was named Devin Longman. Nick’s last name was Campbell.

He’d already gotten their full names from Mary Riley, who required full names from everyone who spent the night at the facility, but he’d wanted to start a conversation, and asking people their names was always an easy start. Everyone knew the answer. He went down the line, and they each said their names and spelled them for him.

“Got it,” Archie said. They were all kids, no one over twenty-five.

“What happened to you?” Nick asked. Even in his donated homeless shelter sweats and Colorado Rockies T-shirt, he held himself with easy confidence. The man in charge.

Archie ran a hand through his wet hair and coughed. “It’s raining.”

Did he look that bad?

“Thanks for helping us out with the dogs,” Nick said.

Archie had done this next part more times than he cared to remember. In the Beauty Killer days, when the body count challenged the imagination, Archie had always felt that he needed to be the one. The family deserved that—to get the news from the head of the task force himself. Besides, Archie wouldn’t wish causing that kind of pain on anyone else.

“We found a body today, in the river,” Archie said. He paused to let that sink in, but as he glanced from face to face he saw that they instantly knew; they always did. And as much as they knew, they hoped they were wrong. “I saw him with you last night. The kid with the braided goatee.”

The younger woman, Kristen, lifted her hands over her mouth. “D.K.,” she said though her fingers.

Archie wrote down
D.K.
in his notebook. Then asked, “Do you know his full name?”

“Dennis something,” Nick said. He turned to the others. “Keating? Keller?”

“Keller,” Kristen said behind her hands.

Archie wrote that down. “You know where he was from?” he asked.

“K-Falls,” Bushy Beard said. Klamath Falls was a high desert town near the Oregon-California border. Archie checked his notes. Devin Longman.

Kristen let her hands fall from her mouth onto her lap, in tight fists. “His mom lives there,” she said. “And a stepdad. They didn’t get along.” She squinted at Archie skeptically. “He’s dead?”

“I’m sorry,” Archie said.

“I left him,” Nick said. His gaze was fixed on the floor, but his eyes shone with fierce intensity. “Last night, I left him behind.”

“What happened?” Archie asked.

“There’s this spot under the train trestle along the Steel Bridge. It’s like a crawl space right under the tracks. You have to crawl over some of the timber trestles and get over one set of tracks—it’s between the two lines. It’s not big enough to get all the way into, but we used to store beer up there sometimes, when we had it. But it wasn’t worth the hassle. D.K. thought someone might be living under there.”

“Why?”

“He found this toy. A
Star Wars
figure. It was outside the opening. He tried to crawl in, but you can’t see into the space more than a few feet, and it’s so loud up there under the bridge that you can’t hear anything. This crawl space? It’s small. Like only big enough for a kid.”

Archie’s mind went to the toy they’d found in D.K.’s pocket. “Darth Vader,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“He thought it might belong to the kid you were looking for,” Devin said.

“He didn’t tell us until after you’d left,” Nick said.

Kristen chewed on a nail. “D.K. left K-Falls when he was twelve. His stepdad used to beat him up really bad. He thought maybe this kid had run away, too. He didn’t want to narc on him.”

“D.K. went to look for him,” Archie said.

“He was going to ask him to come with us,” Devin said. “He was worried the kid was up in there. That he’d drown or whatever.”

“We waited,” Nick said. “But the van from the Mission came, and the people for the dogs. D.K. didn’t always do what he said. He’d get distracted.”

“He’d get high,” Sister, the older woman, said, wiping her nose with her fist. It was the first thing she’d said since she’d spelled her name for Archie.

Nick was shaking his head, eyes fixed to that spot on the floor again. “We shouldn’t have left him.”

They could have waited all night. D.K. wasn’t coming back.

Archie put the tip of his pen to his notebook. “Where exactly is this crawl space?” he asked.

Nick described how to get to it, and Archie wrote it down.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Archie said when he left them. But he knew Nick would. Archie and Nick were alike that way.

Archie called the task force as soon as he was out of the building. The sooner someone got to the boy’s hiding place, the better.