Paul McEuen - Spiral

“Hey, Officer?”

Ostrand ignored the voice behind him, mesmerized. Blood was caked around the edges of the cuts. What did he do this with? A knife? A razor blade?

“Officer?”

“Get back.”

“Hey man, I got a picture.”

Ostrand turned to face the guy. He was skinny, maybe twenty-five, with a shaved head. A crowd had started to form behind him.

“A picture of what?”

“The woman. The babe that dropped him off.”

“Dropped him off? You saw it?”

The kid nodded. “He was in the trunk, man. She just popped the lid, he jumped out, and she took off. Right over there.” He pointed.

“What kind of car?”

“I don’t know. Red.” He held out his phone. “Check it out. It’s a good shot.”

Ostrand took the phone. It was a good shot. Broadside, catching her in profile. Mid-twenties, Asian, pretty face. A gray jacket, green cap on her head.

Ostrand held up the phone to the crowd, a bad feeling rising up his spine. “Anybody else see this woman?”

JAKE BROUGHT HIS SUBARU TO A STOP IN FRONT OF MAGGIE Connor’s place. He glanced down at the letter. It was a single sheet of blank yellow paper, no letterhead, no date, only six handwritten words. Liam Connor’s lawyer had delivered it to him twenty minutes before. After talking to Maggie, he’d gone to his office and found the lawyer there, a tall, silver-haired man Jake had never met.

He gave an envelope to Jake. No explanation, just an envelope. The letter inside was to the point: Jake, Please watch over them. —Liam .

The sun was playing hide-and-seek with the clouds, stippling the walkway with light and shadow as Jake approached the front door. He had never been to Rivendell before. Liam had introduced him to Maggie years ago, and he’d felt an immediate attraction. They’d seen each other at one function or another, and once or twice in the lab when she came to see Liam. She was very attractive, that was certain, in the casual, no-makeup-and-old-jeans Ithaca way. And wicked smart. She’d left her mark on the mycological literature, with a citation record that would be a ticket to a faculty job at most any institution in the country. Liam was forever going on about her encyclopedic knowledge of everything from hockey to Hockney. But she’d stepped off the academic fast track, more interested in making fungus art with her son than winning at the publish-or-perish rat race. Jake respected her for that. He definitely had a thing for her, and he thought she knew it. Yet Maggie was always reserved around him.

About a year ago, one hot day in July, Jake stopped in at Liam’s lab after a run, sweating like a river. July 23, he remembered. Maggie and her son Dylan were there, visiting Liam.

Jake also took an instant liking to the boy.

Dylan was a fanatic for the Crawlers, immediately hitting him with question after question. Why six legs and not eight? Answer: six was enough; you don’t put in more than you need. How much does each Crawler cost? The first one? Millions. But if put in full production, a Crawler should set you back no more than a mocha Frappuccino. They’d kept going like this for half an hour, talking shop, until Maggie dragged him away.

By that winter, Jake was spending time with Dylan almost weekly. He showed him the tools of the trade, the scanning electron microscopes and confocal imagers, the micromanipulators and optical tweezers that were a scientist’s hands and eyes in the nanoscale world. Dylan soaked it all up. He possessed an intimate grasp of things mechanical that Jake wished more of his students had. Jake also knew of Dylan’s troubles. Once, after Jake had left him alone in the lab, the boy had a mini-meltdown. Jake was sympathetic. From the war, he had his own bad dreams. They talked about fears, of getting past them and feeling safe. Jake wasn’t half bad at calming the kid down.

Jake also began to piece together a more complete picture of Maggie, from both their brief meetings and his conversations with Dylan and Liam. In addition to her job as the curator of the Cornell Plant Pathology Herbarium, she volunteered for something called Cayuga Dog Rescue. He’d thought seriously about asking her out, but he’d always held back. He told himself it was because she was the granddaughter of Liam Connor. He respected the old man too much to risk a mess. But down deep there was something else.

THE RIVENDELL KITCHEN WAS LARGE AND MESSY, WITH POTS and pans hanging from the ceiling haphazardly and two big old refrigerators flanking the stove. Most notable were the statuettes: funny little creatures, some with pointed ears. A big one carved in wood in the corner, almost four feet tall. Two smaller plastic ones on top of one of the refrigerators. The clock was a little blue man in white gloves, pointing out the time. Jake let his gaze wander over the room. The place was a stark contrast to his Spartan two-bedroom apartment.

She saw him glancing at the statuettes. “Rivendell,” she said. “Elf city.”

“Got it.” He pointed to the clock. “But technically, that one’s a Smurf.”

Maggie tried to smile.

Jake said, “I’m still in shock. Devastated is a better word. He was… he was the most amazing man I’ve ever known.”

“He cared about you a great deal.”

“He wouldn’t shut up about you.”

Dylan emerged from the dark hallway.

“Hey,” Jake said. “You okay, big guy?”

“I’m sad.”

“Me, too. You’d be crazy if you weren’t.”

Jake pulled Liam’s note from his pocket, handed it to Maggie. “I got this a half-hour ago.”

“Who gave you this?” she asked, after taking a look.

“Liam’s lawyer.”

“Melvin?”

“I don’t know. He just used his last name. Lorince.”

“He was here, too.” Maggie handed Jake her own note. He recognized the stationery and the handwriting, both the same as the note he’d received. Her note said: “Tell Dylan that it’s one last trip to the moors. Jake knows the territory. Ask him where the elephants perch.”

“Liam put it in with a bunch of legal papers,” Maggie said. “To be delivered on his death.”

“But why?” Jake asked.

“He’s leading us. The moors reference—”

“Pop-pop said it all the time,” Dylan interjected. “When we were about to go on a letterboxing expedition.”

“Letterboxing?”

“It’s a kind of treasure hunt,” Maggie said. “A combination of hiking and puzzle solving.”

Dylan scrunched up his face. “How ’bout a trip to the moors, laddie?” he mimicked, in a surprisingly good rendition of his great-grandfather’s intonation. “Letterboxing was invented in the moors of England.”

“So Liam was into letterboxing?” Jake asked.

“Pop-pop and I did it together,” Dylan said. “It was my idea—I read about it online. But Pop-pop loved it, too.”

“He and Dylan went all the time. I tagged along once or twice, but I thought it was better to let the boys have it to themselves.”

Jake said, “And I know where an elephant perches.”

“Anywhere it wants to,” Dylan answered.

Jake smiled. “Why shouldn’t you sit under an elephant’s perch?”

“Because of the elephant,” Dylan said.

Maggie looked to Jake. “What are you two talking about?”

“The elephant’s perch. It was something I told Liam. I know where the elephant’s perch is.”

“Where?”