Expiration Date

  He dropped an object into the potting soil, then with a gnarled branch, clawed at the siding along the bedroom window.

  Clay stepped into the kitchen. His mother was fluttering about, excited about the newest cookware she’d purchased at her ladies’ gathering this evening. Gerald, set into action by her presence, was tying off a garbage bag and marching out to the garage. His sporadic grunts were all the response Della needed to continue her exuberant chatter.

  Clay moaned. High school revisited. Mom and the old man deep in denial, coping with their relational flaws by gorging on activity, by heading separate directions in the name of calendars and commitments and kids. Long reign codependency.

  See, Dr. Gerringer, I’m beginning to recognize the symptoms.

  As Clay tried to slip down the hall, his mother’s voice caught him halfway.

  “Oh, Clay, you’re home.”

  “Yep.”

  “Did you see the baking stone I …”

  Clay elbowed the door closed, dropped a rented Xbox game on the bed.

  Della came to check on him, as though she held a lifetime pass into his privacy.

  “Whaddya want?” he barked at the door.

  “Your day go well?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Stretched on the bed, toes hanging off the end, he felt infantile and foolish. “Not exactly the job I would’ve picked, but it pays. As usual, the old man has my life mapped out for me.”

  “It’s his way, you know that. He wants the world for you.”

  “I’d rather he just butted out.”

  “He’s trying to help. He sees the difficulties you’ve faced in the past year, and it upsets him that he can’t fix everything for you.”

  “I’ve never asked him to.”

  “Been quite some time since we all lived under the same roof, Clay. We all have adjustments to make. You’ll have to give me some leeway and Gerald, too.”

  Not Dad, but Gerald. Della had always recognized the rift between father and son. At certain moments Clay believed his mother alone had the ability to fathom his inner conflicts. She understood. She’d seen his toddler hands reaching out for the father who shunned contact; she’d heard the oft-repeated manifesto: “Gotta be a man’s man. You got that, Son?”

  “Now,” she said, “why don’t you come sit at the dining table. I’ll reheat the supper I made for you. I bet you’ve missed your mother’s cooking.”

  Della could stray so far off the path that Clay questioned her altogether. “Actually,” he snarled into his pillow, “I’ve missed Jenni’s cooking.”

  “You coming?” Della said through the closed door.

  “Coming.”

  “Dollface?”

  “Coming!”

  “By the way,” she said as he shoved into the hall, “you got a phone call earlier on. I thought I might mention it while out of earshot of your father.”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “It was Mylisha. Mylisha French.”

  “I said, don’t tell me! As if I don’t have enough to think about already.”

  Eve Coates bolted up this time. The torturous scratching was only feet away.

  Behind the wall, right there!

  She dropped to her knees at the bedside and waited until the scratching repeated. This time it was further down the house, and she thought she heard heavy footsteps. From the radio, a rich tenor voice continued serenading the night.

  She decided she couldn’t just sit here until some unknown attacker came for her. She had to put her panic aside and deal with this. That’s what Mitchell would tell her.

  Eve whispered, “Oh, Mitchell, where are you? Why tonight of all nights?”

  On hands and knees, she scurried to the closet and slid back the door. Her fingers felt along the metal runner in the carpet, the roll of wrapping paper, the shoes and boots and her only pair of high heels—which, she reflected, she hadn’t worn since brother-in-law Donny’s latest wedding in the lodge at Odell Lake.

  The polished stock of the shotgun renewed her confidence. A little, at least.

  She inched up the wall into a standing position, weapon at her side. She could do this. Her arm brushed against a picture frame on the wall. In the photo, Mitchell stood proudly beside that train engine downtown, the one he’d helped repaint.

  Now don’t do nothin’ silly, she told herself. Be ready!

  She cocked the gun the way her husband had shown her and moved into the hallway. She wondered if the intruder had entered the house. If it was an intruder at all. Maybe a big animal. Had she left a window open? What about the cat’s door? The last cougar to kill a person in Oregon had been only a couple of miles from here.

  Past the parlor and into the kitchen, she crept. With the shotgun’s barrel resting on the counter, she picked up the phone and dialed 911. A woman answered. Her steady voice encouraged Eve to collect her thoughts.

  “Need to report an intruder on our property,” Eve said. “A thief, I think.”

  “Are you at your home? On Dane Lane?”

  “Oh my goodness, I can hear ’em moving around outside.”

  “Ma’am, you’ll have to speak up.”

  “They’re outside. I’m afraid they … they might hear me.”

  “Can you see, is it a person? Could it be a dog or a cat? Maybe a raccoon?”

  “Reckon so,” she said. “Could be just about anything. Please, what do I do?”

  “Take it easy now, and tell me your name. To whom am I speaking?”

  “Eve. Eve Coates. My husband, he’s—”

  “Okay, Mrs. Coates, I want you to breathe deeply and stay calm. I’ll dispatch an officer to your home. You sit tight, and everything’ll be fine. He should be there within ten minutes.”

  Lights were moving inside the barn, throwing pale spears into the dirt and compost pile outside. Someone was out there. Maybe more than one of them. What did they want anyway? Unspeakable answers spun through her head.

  Ten minutes? That’s much too long. That’s forever!

  “By then it might be too late,” she said, feeling indignant and alone.

  “Ma’am, it’d be best if—”

  She pushed the phone back onto its hook. She couldn’t sit here like a trapped animal. She had to act. She hadn’t survived raising three boys without a little fire in these bones, no sir. If this intruder thought she’d be a defenseless little old lady waiting for trouble, he was wrong. Eve Coates was mad, and she’d let him know it.

  With the barrel pointed at the ground ahead of her, she unlatched the front door and took a knee-buckling step. Out here in the moonlight she felt so small. Couldn’t turn back now. Best to keep on. The July air was mild, the sky dark and clear.

  Sweaty-palmed, she marched across the yard, straightened her spine, and faced the cracked barn door. Lifted the shotgun, felt it tremble in her hands.

  What to do now? Go in? Wait? Or—

  A figure thrust open the door. With the light at his back, the creature appeared larger than life. In his hand he was aiming something her direction. Long and narrow, it looked like the barrel of a gun. His hand was on the trigger.

  She fired first.

  The gun leaped in her arms, bruising her shoulder, knocking her back a step. The intruder gave a hollow shout as the blast slugged him ten feet the other direction onto the straw-strewn floor. Torn open by pellets, the hand-pumped canister in his grip sprayed pressurized liquid in all directions.

  “Eve!” The voice ripped through the chaos.

  Mitchell? My Mitchell!

  The horror was indescribable. That was her husband’s voice coming from the masked victim on the straw. What had she done? The consequence of the moment squeezed tears from her eyes, huge hot drops that spilled down her nightgown like a broken strand of rosary beads.

  She forced aside the violence of the scene and let her love for him take over. She collapsed over her dying husband. Slipped the mask back off his forehead. Begged forgiveness from this man who meant everything to her.

/>   “I thought you were … I didn’t know you’d come back, Mitchell.”

  “The chemicals. Watch out for the—”

  “Why didn’t you come straight to bed? I was afraid. I heard noises and thought someone was out here and … and …” A wave of emotion swept over her.

  “I was gonna do some sprayin’. Without you here. It’s dangerous stuff.”

  “Oh, Mitchell. Forgive me.”

  “S’okay, darlin’.”

  “I didn’t hear the van.”

  “S’okay. Hush, it’s okay.” His voice was fading.

  “I’ll getcha some help. We’ll getcha fixed up.”

  “No.” He had hold of her arm. “Too late for that.”

  “I’m so sorry. I thought—”

  “Eve, I love you. Listen. We’ve had a … a good life, haven’t we?”

  “Of course we have. I love you too.”

  “A good life,” he repeated in a whisper. His hand tightened. His body sagged.

  She sobbed over him, racked with grief. She called out to nobody in particular. To God specifically. She snuggled beside her husband, gasping. Her tongue grew thick and coppery, her cheeks burned where tears had run dry, and her skin became increasingly itchy.

  This must be what guilt feels like, she thought. It’s what evil does to a person.

  The chemicals from the canister …

  She realized they were all over her clothes, filling her chest and snatching her breath away. She hardly cared; in fact, she knew she deserved it. Quick justice. For that, she was thankful.

  “Hail Mary, mother of …”

  Losing consciousness and control of her bodily functions, she caught an image of argyle socks stepping close to her head. Tan pants, too. She tried to look up, but her muscles would not respond. The chemicals were corroding her nasal passages, coursing into her lungs. Too late now.

  With concentric rings of red and black pulsing before her eyes, with a vise constricting her muscles, she hugged her husband’s neck and let herself drift away. If Mitchell was going, Eve wanted to go away with him.

  Mr. and Mrs. Coates. Forty-seven years and still together.

  7

  Wrestling with Angels

  By the end of his second week on the job, Clay was finding artistic enjoyment in the crafting of the grave markers. Although they stabbed at his secrets, they inflicted a good sort of suffering. Penitent pain. Beneath his fingers the markers grew from relatives’ chosen templates into expressions of love. Some communicated with pristine lettering, others with grandiose poems, nature scenes, even photographs.

  The dates, however, were cold hard facts. Written in stone.

  “You’re gettin’ the hang of it,” Digs told him that morning.

  “Not bad for my first few days.”

  “Seventeen years for me,” Digs stated. His fingernails, thick and grooved, tapped against a slab of marble. “Seen friends and family go through here.”

  “No kidding?” Clay looked up. “You’ve worked on your own relatives’ markers?”

  Digs brushed at a white tuft sprouting from his ear. “You do what you’re paid to do. S’okay, until you’re peelin’ the letters of your own mother’s name. By any measure, that’s a bad day on the job.”

  “Oh, man!”

  “But my mom died givin’ birth to me, so I wouldn’t know.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s a joke. Lighten up, Ryker.”

  “Not exactly something to joke about.” He was uncertain which part had been in jest, if not all of it, but he didn’t press for details.

  “Believe me. In a place like this, all day kickin’ out headstones, you gotta laugh to keep it from gettin’ to you. Give it a couple of weeks, and you’ll be jaded like the rest of us. Just don’t let Mr. Blomberg catch you makin’ jokes. He takes dyin’ very seriously.” Digs couldn’t suppress a series of giggles.

  “He takes everything too seriously. If I started joking, he’d probably kill me.”

  “Ha-ha! Attaboy, Ryker. You’re already catchin’ on. Couple of weeks, and you’ll be a regular ham, guaranteed.”

  Wendy, shapeless in her baggy work pants and matching blue shirt, lifted a grin for Clay’s attention. “And we’ll all be tickled to death,” she said, joining the dark humor. At that, she and Digs burst out laughing.

  Brent remained on task. He was the burly one who’d been operating the hand truck on Clay’s first day. Without a hint of amusement, Brent said, “You two are twisted, you know that? Twisted. You think I’d let them talk about you that way, Ryker, you think? Huh?” He dropped his tool on the workbench. “Over my dead body.”

  The trio of co-workers were rubbing tears of mirth from their eyes by the time Clay forced out a laugh. For no apparent reason, his mind shot back to the numbers he’d discovered on his mother’s arm. And the other sets—on Summer, on the older guy at the hardware store. They’d seemed so real.

  Were the sum totals of thirteen the sole connection? Was there any point?

  He resumed his work on a rose-colored headstone.

  Asgoth brushed a hand over his shirt. Despite the years, the musky sweetness of pot smoke still clung to the material. On the left sleeve, scratch marks and dots of dried blood hinted at savage events.

  He had endured so much. Time now to let his experiences produce results.

  A clawing sound brought him back to the physical confines of the apartment. He hurried into the living room, prepared for confrontation. To his chagrin, Mr. Monde and a squat female companion came through the front door, unannounced, uninvited.

  “Who’s this?” Asgoth demanded. “Why’re you here?”

  Though debonair as always, Monde couldn’t conceal the slight flaring of his nostrils. “Forgive the intrusion, A.G. This is Pristi, the Consortium’s seventh and newest addition. She comes to us from a larger network that stretches across the country.”

  “An impressive network, at that.” Pristi nodded her large head. “If only you knew the details, the subtleties, the intricacies it encompasses. Mind-boggling, actually. Imagine the wonderful cooperation required to maintain such a—”

  “Why’re you here?”

  “Your manners, A.G.” Monde placed an arm over his guest’s shoulders. “This woman’s visit is an honor, proof that the Consortium supports our objectives.”

  Asgoth suspected the motives were less noble, but he eased up. “Pristi, you caught me by surprise. Glad to have you. Would you like a seat?”

  She steepled her hands beneath her chin. “No need for formalities. I’m in a hurry, on the go, in a rush. We know you intend to culminate your plans during the upcoming Scandinavian Festival, but have you planned the acquisition of funds yet? One hundred thousand is not so much, but here it’ll present a challenge.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll get your money. I’ve got an idea.”

  “Engine 418?” Pristi ventured.

  Asgoth turned stone faced. How did she know of that?

  “Your secret’s safe with me.” Pristi winked. “As of yet, no one else in the Consortium knows. Being quite the history buff, I was intrigued by a recent article in which a Finnish historian mentioned a Bolshevik journal dating back to the First World War. A fellow revolutionary wrote of Lenin’s consternation over an item he’d left on a particular train engine. A Finnish locomotive. Engine 418.”

  “This is public information?”

  “Why so appalled? I’m sure you’ll devise a way to reach it before your rivals.”

  “Rivals? But who else could understand the significance of—”

  “Who else but those connected to Rasputin,” Monde said.

  “The Brotherhood of Tobolsk?”

  “None other,” Pristi corroborated. “Boris Soloviev was the first to lead them. Although raised within the Russian Orthodox Church, he was versed in hypnotism and the occult. He was married to Rasputin’s daughter, a match made in hell. He discovered things known to only a handful and let selfish ambition take over. This Brothe
rhood was established to protect the Tsars, but—”

  “They failed. They disbanded.”

  “Or so we believed.” Pristi closed her wide eyes. “A new faction has arisen, and they are committed, dedicated, religiously devoted to their task.”

  “Which is?”

  Her eyes popped open. “Is it so difficult to discern? I suggest you move quickly. They want the treasure, just as you do.”

  Dmitri Derevenko weighed the cell phone in his wide palm and, from the back of a taxi, watched the streets of Orlando slide by. This vast country, this American union of states, irritated him. For over two centuries she had held herself together. If a place of such debauchery could manage this, surely Russia could rise again.

  The Brotherhood of Tobolsk endeavored to make it so.

  With heat hanging between the palm trees and sidewalks, the morning was already stifling. Dmitri longed for Ekaterinburg’s cool summer breezes, for the days of leisure along the shores of Shartash Lake.

  Those days were over.

  He rested his left hand on his hip, where European-cut trousers hid his scar. All those who pledged loyalty to the Brotherhood bore it, a slim hot-knifed incision in the shape of an angel’s wing.

  The mark commemorated Jacob’s wrestling with the angel on the riverbank. Jacob had grappled with God and prevailed. The Brotherhood would do likewise.

  After paying the driver, Dmitri bore his laptop case between dilapidated apartment buildings, past a pool of green-tinged water, up warped wooden steps. His firm knock brought to the door a tan, stocky man with a shaved head, wearing a white tank top. Juan’s gold wristband flashed as he reached out in greeting.

  Dmitri bristled. In his country it was bad luck to shake hands over the threshold of a home; it was proper to meet in unity on one side of an issue, never in between.

  “How’s life treating you, mi hermano?” the man said. “Everything good?”

  “I’m breathing, da. But my soul is heavy.”

  Juan laughed. “Are you always so dramatic?” He led the way into a living room where bamboo blinds covered windows and an air conditioner rattled without zeal. “You act like you carry the world on your shoulders.”