Cape Disappointment Read online

  ALSO BY EARL EMERSON

  Vertical Burn Into the Inferno

  Pyro

  The Smoke Room

  Firetrap

  Primal Threat

  THE THOMAS BLACK MYSTERIES

  The Rainy City

  Poverty Bay

  Nervous Laughter

  Fat Tuesday

  Deviant Behavior

  Yellow Dog Party

  The Portland Laugher

  The Vanishing Smile

  The Million-Dollar Tattoo

  Deception Pass

  Catfish Café

  It's so real the way people disappoint you.

  —Meg Ruley

  The power of accurate perception is commonly referred to as cynicism by those who have not got it.

  —George Bernard Shaw

  WHAT I REMEMBERED MOST was the janitor's plastic helmet bouncing between the open rafters like a Ping-Pong ball, that and chunks of metal whirring past my ears. I should have dodged the shrapnel, but all I did was stand and watch the flotsam fall out of the rafters and land all around me. Fortunately, the gym had emptied out minutes earlier, or the explosion would have killed several hundred people instead of a handful of unfortunates.

  Pieces of the podium and stage, scraps from the bleachers, and even parts of the bomb itself had flown outward in all directions. Some of it bounced off the walls, some struck bystanders like myself, and the rest dropped out of the rafters like forgotten props in a school play. Most of the janitor, who'd been virtually on top of the blast, landed thirty feet from me. We were told the explosion, although executed with a relatively unsophisticated device, had blown out all the high windows in the gym and spewed glass onto roofs a block away.

  I remember an amazing amount of dust in the air. Nearly all the inside lighting had been shattered by flying debris or obscured by clouds of dust. I remember the relative quiet immediately afterward, too. I was dazed. I couldn't have told you what planet I was on, much less the name of the school gymnasium. Or what I was doing besides bleeding. What they don't tell you about a bombing is that the event itself is probably the least memorable chapter in the book, that 99.9 percent of the story concerns the aftermath.

  I found myself standing against a wall, unable to move. With each inhalation, my abdomen throbbed. When I looked down, I found a long metal rod jutting out of my belly, nailing me to the wall, twelve inches of it protruding from my shirt like one of those fake arrows Steve Martin used to wear on his head.

  As the bomb went off, hundreds of metal chairs were thrown across the room, knocking people down like bowling pins and piling debris and bodies— some living, some not— at the end of the gym. Across the room a woman whose sweater and shoes were blown off was on her knees, blood dribbling down her face. I was close enough to the center of the blast that I must have had other injuries, lots of them, but the spike protruding from my belly was all I could think about.

  Whether or not I was going to die against the wall was anybody's guess.

  You read about bombings every day— in Baghdad, or Tel Aviv, or Pakistan, or some other place you've never been— and if you're intelligent and engaged and empathetic, you wonder what it might be like to be involved in one of those attacks, or to have a loved one involved, but the truth is that for most of us, our eyes glaze over before we flip the page or turn the channel, for bombings simply do not happen in the United States. At least, not anywhere nearby.

  Some people walked around in a daze, including several bloodied individuals in front of me, but I stood like a guard at the palace, knowing there was nothing else I could do.

  I didn't recall hearing any noise when the bomb went off. All I knew was that one second I was talking on my cellphone and the next I was nailed to the wall. Oddly, it didn't hurt as much as one might suppose, though that might be what all people in my circumstances told themselves, knowing they had no choice but to brave it.

  I'D BEEN WALKING across the gymnasium near the west bleachers trying to improve my reception at the moment the blast erupted. If it hadn't been for the call, I would have been even closer than the unfortunate janitor. The bleachers around the sides of the gym had been pulled out to help seat the crowd, which had turned out to be meager. In those days, that was all Maddox could draw, a hundred or so of the faithful and some of the law-and-order crowd— after all, he was an ex-police officer. I'd listened to the speech from the wings, and after it was over and the main body of the crowd filed out, had gone back inside for reasons it took some time to recall. Had I suspected a bomb? It certainly would have been part of my job assignment to watch for any suspicious activity. If so, why hadn't I discovered it before the speech, when it might have done some good? And, if I had suspected, what tipped me off? I couldn't remember.

  In the weeks after the explosion, as the ATF investigation progressed, people would learn that the bomb had been placed directly under the podium. They would speculate that had Maddox, the speaker for the evening, been on the podium when it went off, he would have been blown into parts so small the medical examiner never would have been able to reconstruct him. As it was, nobody was vaporized, although the janitor came close. Later, I saw his picture in Newsweek among the photos of the dead. He was young, twenty-three, and lived at home with his parents. He had a girlfriend and one child with her whom he'd been doing his best to support. His life had hardly begun. Even weeks later, it was hard to fathom the enormity of the tragedy for his relatives and those of the others who died.

  As the dust settled I began to feel more physical symptoms. My left eye was swollen, my vision blurry, and the fingers of my right hand were not functioning properly. My back hurt like hell. After a while, I realized I could barely hear anything— just a constant, low-level background ringing in my ears. I was too dazed to pick up on it just then, but there was the distinctive smell of recently detonated explosives, the iron tang of blood, and the smell of human entrails, as well as the overpowering odor of construction dust. Inexplicably, the worst part during those minutes after the blast was the lack of human voices. I could see people's mouths moving but could hear no words. Nearby a man on his back had been impaled by two wooden shards. There were maybe twelve or fifteen people within sight of my position, some prone, some on their hands and knees, one couple clinging to each other and weaving around like drunks in an alley.

  For some idiotic reason— the same reason you always do inane things that count for nothing during an emergency— I glanced around for my cellphone. It was on the floor next to a woman lying in a pile of twisted, metal chairs. I wanted to ask her to slide the phone over to me, but my vocal cords wouldn't respond. Even if she could slide it over, I wouldn't have been able to pick it up, nailed to the wall as I was. You'd think I would have had more important things to do than yak on my phone, but I suddenly became obsessed with finishing that last call, even though I couldn't remember who I'd been speaking to. As I stared at the woman next to my cellphone, it occurred to me that she hadn't moved an inch, that she wasn't breathing. “Ma'am,” I said. “Ma'am, are you okay?”

  My words sounded hollow and garbled, as if I were talking underwater. It took a long time to realize I was talking to a corpse. Thirty yards away, a group of onlookers appeared in the doorway, led by a firefighter in a white helmet speaking through a megaphone. It didn't seem possible that enough time had passed for the fire department to show up. Except for the ringing in my ears and my own muffled words, the fire chiefs megaphone voice was the first sound I heard after the bomb.

  “Will everyone who can get up and walk out, please do so.” After about a minute, when only one or two of the twenty or so victims had begun to move toward the door, he added, “We have received information that there's a second explosive device in
the gym. I repeat. We have word there's a second device that could go off at any minute. At this time we cannot allow our personnel to access this site. Anybody who is ambulatory should get out now. If you have the capability, try to help someone else out.”

  After his second statement, five men and one woman straggled to the doorway. Three or four others followed at a slower pace, some limping, a man hopping on one foot. A woman got up off the floor where she'd been caught in a tangle of chairs, took two steps and fell, then stood back up, spent a moment getting her bearings, and launched off in a lurching line not much straighter than a bumblebee's flight. I wished I could help her, but then, who would help me? For some time I'd been feeling something wet in my right shoe, and when I looked down I saw a puddle of blood squishing through the laces like something in a horror flick. My sock was warm with it. I was beginning to feel light-headed. Heaven only knew what would happen if I fainted on this steel rod. I might rip it out of the wall or I might just hang.

  After the walking wounded evacuated the gym, I could see four prone bodies, one of whom was calling for help. From the doorway, the fireman motioned for me to walk over to him. I wanted to explain why I couldn't, but I didn't have enough air in my lungs to yell. I kept trying to remember what organs were on my wounded side, so that I might discern what the rod, which was about a quarter of an inch in diameter, might have penetrated. The wound was bleeding profusely now, my shirt and the front thigh area of my jeans sopping with it. I could barely keep awake. It was weird that my survival was dependent on a whim of physics, that if the rod had been four inches higher and a little more to the center, I would be dead. It was strange and a bit horrifying to realize I'd missed a coffin by so little. Not that I was out of the woods. Nor anywhere close.

  One of the doorways led outside, and it was through this door that I saw Maddox and a redheaded woman, along with several others I recognized from the election campaign—though if you'd asked me to put a name to any of them I wouldn't have been able to. My brain was scrambled. I did notice Maddox looked very senatorial in his tidy blue suit and slicked-back silver hair. As I watched them, he and the others were ushered farther into the darkness by police officers and firemen. From time to time when the doorway emptied, I could see them out in the darkness.

  It was only when I saw the looks on the anonymous faces that appeared now and then in the doorway that it occurred to me how dire was my predicament. I was impaled and I was slowly bleeding out and there was another bomb about to go off. Anybody who came in would be risking his own life.

  Nobody was coming to rescue me.

  THERE IS A TIME as you're attempting to wake up when your brain slips cogs, and I am at such a place now, straining to regain consciousness, working to transfer myself out of dreamland and into some semblance of cogent thought. It is during this twilight of consciousness, while the cognitive motors grind, that I begin to believe I may be among the living.

  It is a frightening but lackadaisical time for me as I lapse in and out of consciousness, unable to distinguish between reality and the haunting morphine nightmares that have riddled my perspective. At times I sleep so heavily I think I will never awaken. I strain and fail to move a body part that is either sore or going to sleep. Every inch of my body feels as if it's encased in concrete. When I try to move my legs, nothing happens, nothing. My body craves any position other than the one I seem to have been in forever.

  Through half-open eyelids I glimpse people working in the room. Bandages are changed. My temperature is taken. A hand is laid across my brow. I feel numbness and then, at times, a dull pain. There are long periods when I know I am alone, other periods when nurses and doctors fuss and fiddle over me. I am jostled, poked, washed, and gossiped over, but nobody tries to awaken me. It is as if they know the undertaking is pointless.

  And then, inexorably, after what might be two days, or maybe two years, I succeed partially in regaining consciousness. As I come out of the haze into the light, I see a woman in the room. She doesn't realize I'm awake. She is tall and slender and has flaming red hair. Sunshine angles into the room from a high window off to my right. I can see the glare on the walls and ceiling and in the highlights of her hair. She has a graceful way of moving and there's a wonderful fragrance I have a memory of but can't identify.

  “Thomas?”

  “Kathy?”

  “No. It's Deborah. How are you?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “You're awake. You haven't been awake in a while.”

  “Where am I?”

  “Swedish Hospital. Do you remember any of what happened?”

  “I can barely hear you.”

  She moves closer, until her lips are next to my face. I can feel the heat off her body. “They said you would probably have some hearing loss. Hopefully, it will be temporary.”

  Her accent is vaguely southern, with just a hint of Louisiana, or is it Tennessee?

  “Thomas. Are you all right?”

  My voice is hoarse and the words seem to scar my throat. I know this woman and she knows me, but I cannot recall her place in my life.

  “Are you all right?” she repeats.

  “I can't feel anything.”

  “I so wish this hadn't happened.”

  “Me too.”

  “Can I get you anything? Should I call the nurse?”

  “I don't think so.”

  “Are they giving you enough pain medication?”

  “I guess.”

  She leans closer and kisses my cheek lightly. “Can you feel this?”

  “I don't know. Where is everybody?”

  “Who do you mean?”

  “Everybody.”

  “Thomas? Do you know what day it is?”

  I don't even know what year it is. I don't know this woman's name, although she may have given it to me moments earlier. I don't remember what hospital I'm in, although I know I'm in a hospital. The meager knowledge that I am conscious and speaking to someone seems like a small victory. It feels as if I have been in this bed for weeks. My bones ache as if I've been in a crypt.

  A pair of warm lips press against my cheek and work their way across my face to my lips. I'm probably not the world's best kisser just now, but she seems to be doing okay on her own. “You feel any of this?”

  “Not a bit.” Her lips feel wonderful. I cannot help thinking it would be useful to know who she is and why she is kissing me. I have a wife, and even though I can't think of my wife's name, I know this is not her.

  “Oh, but you're not married anymore.”

  “Did I say that out loud?”

  “You were married,” she replies, ignoring my query, then hesitating. “Your wife died.”

  “I am married.” I want to tell her my wife's name. It's on the tip of my tongue.

  “You're confused, darling. They said you would be.” Darling.

  Her green-eyed gaze is intense and close. I take a deep breath and think about what she's saying. I mull it over— my wife is dead?—and begin to lose focus, and after a while, when I open my eyes, I'm alone. I must have dozed off, I think, because the sunlight is gone and the hospital background noises seem muted. It's dark outside. I manage to turn my head and catch a glimpse of the window, where a windblown rain beats against the panes. The smell of perfume has been replaced with the tang of hospital bleach and disinfectant.

  Time passes in small dollops when you're drugged and on your back and dozing twenty-three hours a day. I can hear a television down the corridor entertaining somebody whose IQ has no doubt been drugged down by 50 percent. The audience on the television reacts like the rabble at a public stoning. Eventually I realize there's somebody in the room with me, moving about briskly, working. My covers are lifted to one side, and I turn my head to catch a glimpse of an African American woman with a large, pretty face and shiny skin.

  Her hair is straightened and worn in a chopped style with panache. She is somebody who thinks of herself as stylish, and she is. “Oh, you awake now, are
you?”

  “I guess so,” I mutter.

  “Every news guy in town is waiting to talk to you. Oh, don't worry. Nobody's coming in until doctor says it's all right. They want to know all about the hero. We get calls at the desk from all over the country.”

  “Hero?”

  “That's right, hon. In the bombing.”

  “Did anyone die?”

  “Four people. Harborview saved two by the skin of their teeth. You lucky to be alive your ownself. You have a serious concussion. Made the national news. I saw your boss on Jim Lehrer. Some real heroics that night. And you were right at the center of it.”

  Heroics? What was she talking about? Was I a hero? The only thing I remembered was the bomb's destruction around me. I'd been nailed to a wall, as I recalled.

  “Tell you what. Now that you're beginning to make sense, I'll send doctor in to take a look.”

  “Sure.”

  “You're healing up real fine everywhere else. Just that head injury they were worried about.”

  “Did I …” She'd already finished whatever she was doing under the blankets and was wheeling a cart out of the room. “I have any visitors?”

  “Oh, honey, you been having a whole bundle of visitors. I don't think anybody's out there just now, but they been in and out all week.”

  The room is overflowing with flowers. I smell lilies, roses, and oleander. “Was one of my visitors … a redhead?”

  “She been here a number of times.”

  “Was she just here?”

  “Oh, no, honey. She hasn't been here in a while.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “All the men around here seem to think so. Don't ask me why. If I was a man, I'd be chasing the sister with the great big ol' booty.” She slaps her behind and laughs uproariously.

  “What's her name?”

  “I haven't been introduced, but you know they wouldn't be letting her in unless you two were kin or something.”

  As the nurse exits, I think of another question and blurt out, “Where's my wife?” The nurse is already out of earshot and she doesn't reply. There are so many things that need clearing up. What I need is for somebody to sit beside me and tell me why I feel this need to be out of bed and walking the streets. I have a sense that there are things out there that only I can fix. I wish I knew what they were.