Eyes Wide Open

“You’ve still never told me how your brother is involved. Why him? ”

“I don’t know why him! ” My brain throbbed. “He won’t come clean with me. I think he’s too scared to admit he had a hand in his son’s death. But that’s what Evan’s death was about. And their cat. And that cigarette butt left on my doorstep. They’re warnings. Warnings that were meant for him! Don’t you see, Sherwood? Charlie’s next!”

“Listen, doc,” the detective said, clearing his throat, “I’ve done everything short of ruining what’s left of my career trying to tie the strands together for you. But they’re just not tying. Because that’s just what they are, strands. There ain’t no bow. Now you’re talking about lyrics to your brother’s song. From more than three decades ago? It’s been a long day, doc. Just what is it you want me to do?”

“I want you to put someone on Susan Pollack. I want you to station a car outside my brother’s apartment. Unless you’re ready to wake up and find him dead too.”

“I told you, I can’t just take personnel off the street. I’m a coroner’s detective. There hasn’t even been a direct threat made against anybody. There’s not even a case open against anyone.”

“Then make one!” I realized if I’d lost Sherwood for good, I was completely alone out here and I couldn’t just walk away. Not now. Too much had happened. With Zorn. Susan Pollack. Evan. Sherwood was all I had.

In my life, there had been only a handful of moments when I felt like everything was at stake. One of them was rushing my son, gasping, to the ER. Whatever the outcome, good or bad, I always felt I had this cushion to protect me. A beautiful wife who loved me. Kids who were healthy and made me proud. A position in life that gave me stature and money. Even when things got bad and we had to negotiate a new deal with the hospital or when my father died, I knew I’d make it through.

This was one of those moments.

“Don, please… it’s time to risk it,” I said to him. “To pay it back.”

“Risk what, doc?” he replied a little testily.

“Whatever it was they gave you that new liver for.”

He remained silent for a while. I knew this was my last chance, and without him, I might as well just go back home and leave my brother to his fate. He and Gabby meant nothing to anyone there. Other than to Sherwood and me. And it all meant nothing if he sent me packing.

“All right,” he finally said, exhaling, “I’ll find you a car.”

“How?” I asked. I wanted to hear. Charlie’s life was in the balance.

“It doesn’t matter how.” His voice had a resigned quality to it. “So tell me,” he said with a laugh, “you ever gonna go back to practicing medicine again, doc, or are you just gonna move out here so you can become a permanent pain in my ass?”

“I sure hope so,” I said, and exhaled. “About going back.”

“Well, let me know, ’cause I want to be first in line to drive you to that plane.”

Chapter Fifty-Three

A n hour later, darkness setting in, Sherwood drove his car down Grand Avenue, past the empty fast food storefronts and closed-up auto supply stores, toward Grover Beach.

The clock read eight forty-five. Only a few cars were on the road. The small beach town shut up like a cell block after dark. One or two of the Latino bars still had some life, field hands and out-of-work construction workers drunkenly staggering out.

In another lifetime, he might’ve stopped and checked them out as they headed for their cars.

He made a left on Fourth, and then Division, heading farther down the hill along the tracks. They used to find bodies dumped in the woods around there. He could still have told you every clearing in the brush where you could score weed or crack. The only time he’d ever fired his gun was on a bust down there back when his hair was still dark and he was still in a uniform.

You’ve got to risk it all, the doc had said.

Funny, he thought as he drove. He thought he had risked all he had twenty years before.

He thought of Kyle.

He drove his Torino up to the run-down apartment complex. He had been there twice before in the days after Evan had been killed. He stopped the car and put it in park in a dark spot out of the glare of the streetlamp, maybe thirty yards from the entrance. From there, he had a good view of the courtyard and the first-floor apartment. He saw a light glowing behind the drapes. He sank deeper into the car seat and made himself comfortable. He hadn’t done this sort of thing in more than a decade. In a way it felt good.

Dorrie would laugh, he thought. He turned off the ignition. No, she wouldn’t.

She would smile.

Erlich was wrong. He knew everything about risking it. About losing it all too.

It had been a family camping trip. On the Clackamas River, up in Oregon. He, Dorrie, and Merry, their twelve-year-old daughter.

And Kyle.

They went rafting. It was the week of the initial spring release. The rapids were mostly level threes and fours. They’d taken pictures. The whole family smiling. Having the time of their lives.