Obsidian Read online

  Dedication

  For the Cretan across the street who drinks my espresso

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  About the Author

  Also by Thomas King

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  One

  Thumps DreadfulWater stood by the car and watched the Ironstone glisten under the night sky. In the distance, Chinook was an orange glow on the horizon. Years ago, he had stopped at the same turnout and looked out across the same panorama.

  That time, he had been escaping. Running away.

  This time, he was coming home.

  Whatever that meant.

  IT HAD BEEN over a month since the drive from Chinook out to Eureka on the Northern California coast. Three days on the road. A stop in Boise the first night. A second stop just outside Grants Pass. He had pulled into Crescent City just before noon on the third day and stopped for lunch at a funky café called Gordi Bros, a yellow building just off the main road that specialized in Mexican fast food.

  He had ordered a pork chile-verde burrito along with a bottle of MexiCoke, a variation of Coca-Cola made and bottled in Mexico that used cane sugar instead of fructose. The café was busy, but there was a small table in a dark corner. He ate his lunch in silence while a table of men in tan and green uniforms drank beer and swapped stories about the inmates at Pelican Bay.

  Thumps was familiar with the place from his days as a deputy sheriff, had always thought it ironic that the state had built a supermax prison along a tourist corridor, two miles off the coast, in the middle of a forest. He had seen an aerial view of the facility. No matter how you turned it, Pelican Bay was an ugly thing, a dull, grey scar, a hard-edged clear-cut that resembled the head of an axe.

  At one point there had been legislative talk about making prisons pay their own way, and some bright light in Sacramento had come up with the idea of a “Pelican Bay Supermax Tour,” where families on vacation could stop off and take a guided trek around the facility.

  All aboard the Crime and Punishment Trolley. See dangerous inmates in their cages. Killers, rapists, and thieves.

  Oh my.

  Mental illness, addiction, and poverty.

  The penal system’s version of a Jurassic Park ride.

  THUMPS HAD LINGERED in Gordi’s, the Maslow file on the table next to his plate.

  Nina Maslow.

  Reality television.

  Malice Aforethought.

  Nina Maslow and Sydney Pearl had come to Chinook to do an episode on the death of Trudy Samuels, a local woman from a wealthy family. Samuels’s death had originally been ruled a “misadventure.” Maslow, with ratings in mind, wanted to prove it had been murder.

  It hadn’t. Trudy’s death had been a tragic accident, but Maslow hadn’t been fazed by this setback. As it turned out, she had already started work on another, more exciting, episode.

  The Obsidian Murders.

  Thumps picked up the folder. He didn’t need to read Maslow’s notes. He knew the case by heart.

  Six years ago, ten bodies were found on a cluster of beaches along the Northern California coast, the work of a serial killer who appeared and disappeared without a trace.

  Two of the victims had been Anna Tripp and her daughter, Callie. At the time, Thumps had been a deputy sheriff with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department, had been away at a law enforcement forensics conference, had returned to find his lover and her child dead.

  Maslow had known of Thumps’s involvement in the case, of his relationship with Anna Tripp, and she had come to Chinook not only to look into the death of Trudy Samuels but to try to convince him to be a part of the show she was planning to do on the Obsidian Murders.

  FROM CRESCENT CITY, there was only one way south. Highway 101 was an old motorway, built in the days when roads followed slopes and contours, before highway construction simply flattened mountains and cut straight lines through the land. Instead of zipping along, the road took its sweet time, winding through stands of giant redwoods, running out along salt lagoons, and floating past long, narrow beaches that fronted the open ocean.

  Just south of Trinidad, Thumps had turned off the highway onto a frontage road that ended in a small parking lot banked against sand dunes and seagrass.

  Clam Beach.

  This was where it had started. On this unremarkable stretch of shore and sky, fixed between Little River and Patrick Creek.

  The Obsidian Murders. That’s what the press had called the killings, each victim found with a small piece of black obsidian in their mouth.

  Thumps got out of the car, intending to visit the spot in the dusty green and yellow grass where Anna Tripp and her daughter, Callie, had been found.

  At least that had been the plan.

  Instead, he stood in the lot, watching the fog come ashore, listening to the seagulls argue with the wind. And then he got back in his car and drove into Eureka.

  RON PEAT’S HOUSE was within walking distance of Old Town. It was a two-storey shiplap Victorian that Ron had bought cheap when these white elephants were being given away to anyone foolish enough to buy them, before interest in such architectural extravagances had come around again.

  Eureka was known for its ornate turn-of-the-century manses—the Clark House, the Pink Lady, the Carson Mansion—and while Ron’s house was the same age, the similarities stopped there. His was one of the poorer relations, a plain-Jane Victorian with none of the gingerbread flourishes that celebrated the conspicuous excesses of that era.

  Most people would have left well enough alone. Ron wasn’t one of them, and all of his free time outside the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office had been spent fabricating wood rosettes, dentils, spindles, and patterned appliqués that he painstakingly added to the porch and the gables and the window surrounds.

  Unfortunately, Ron’s woodworking skills had not been a match for his enthusiasm, and the house had slowly taken on some of the more disturbing aspects of Frankenstein’s monster, a creature made up of mismatched parts. Even a six-colour paint job had failed to hide the errors in shape and scale.

  Still, Thumps had admired Ron’s determination, had even helped him put up a pair of oversized and oddly ornamented wood brackets above the corner windows.

  THE WOMAN WHO answered the door was young, the baby in her arms only a few months old.

  “Hi,” Thumps said. “I’m looking for Ron Peat.”

  “Mr. Peat?”

  “Ron and I used to work together,” Thumps told her. “Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office.”

  “You’re a cop?”

  “Not anymore. But I used to be. Deputy sheriff. Serve and
protect.”

  The woman warmed a bit. “He was putting fish-scale siding on the upper gable.”

  Even before Thumps asked the question, he knew the answer.

  “They think the ladder twisted,” said the woman. “I’m really sorry.”

  Ron had done all the renovations himself. Every Saturday morning, you would find him camped out at Pierson’s hardware at the south end of town, sorting through tile and lighting fixtures, through kitchen sinks and toilets, walking the aisles, looking at saws and drills and sanders, in case there was a tool he didn’t have.

  “This house was his project.” Thumps couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Did you know, he did all the work himself.”

  The woman had shifted the baby to a hip. “My husband’s going to fix it.”

  Thumps was halfway to his car when the woman called out.

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “DreadfulWater. Thumps DreadfulWater.”

  “There’s a bunch of stuff in the basement that my husband keeps promising to take to the dump. I remember. Some of the boxes have your name on them.”

  FIRST LIGHT HAD found the horizon. Thumps checked his watch. It would take him the better part of an hour to drive across the belly of the valley and reach Chinook. By then Al’s would be open. He could slip into the café, sit down on his favourite stool, and pretend that he had never left. Or he could go home, crawl into bed, and hide out for a few days before he had to deal with Archie and the sheriff, with Al and Beth. And Claire. Especially Claire. People who would want to know what had happened, what had been resolved.

  Thumps wasn’t sure what he would say, wasn’t sure what he would be able to tell them, what he would want them to understand.

  In the end, the trip to the coast hadn’t gone as he had expected. It had answered some of the questions that he had carried with him all these years. Not that the answers were going to bring him any peace. Some clarity perhaps. That was all. A measure of clarity.

  But now there were new, more troubling questions.

  Where did he go from here? That was the question he had asked himself on the drive back. What did he do now?

  Of course, there was no rush, no reason he couldn’t just stand by the car and wait for the dawn to find the river and fill the land. Sometimes doing nothing was the appropriate response to uncertainty.

  Sometimes, doing nothing was the answer.

  Two

  Thumps parked the car across the street from the café. He had read somewhere that when you travel, time stands still. And that when you return, it starts up again. As though you never left. An interesting idea, but it didn’t seem to apply to Chinook. A month ago, the main street had been draped in “Chinook Summer Roundup” banners, the store windows painted with bucking broncos and stampeding cattle herds. Now the light standards were promoting a car show at the fairgrounds—“Cole’s Classic Cars and Auction.”

  And the Chamber of Commerce’s “Howdy” program was nowhere to be seen. Thumps guessed that the business community had discovered what most of the merchants had known from the start, that the city’s campaign of bunkhouse hospitality and western jargon wouldn’t be a big hit with tourists, that dressing up like Hollywood cowboys wasn’t going to jump-start the local economy.

  Al’s, however, looked exactly the same. The turtle shell that Preston Wagamese had superglued next to the front door, with the word “Food” painted on it, was still there. The Fjord Bakery was still on one side. Sam’s Laundromat was still on the other.

  Wutty Youngbeaver, Jimmy Monroe, and Russell Plunkett were hunkered down on their usual stools at the counter across from the grill, watching the steam rise off mounds of hash browns. Stas Black Weasel and Chintak Rawat were sitting next to each other, locked in an animated conversation. Sheriff Duke Hockney was sitting at the end of the counter. The seventh stool from the end, the stool that Thumps considered his, was fully occupied by Cooley Small Elk.

  Thumps stood in the doorway and wondered if this had been the best of ideas. He wasn’t really hungry. Maybe he should have gone home and put off the official return for another day.

  Wutty was the first to notice him.

  “Shit!”

  Both Jimmy and Russell turned at the same time.

  “Shit!”

  Wutty held up two fingers. “I was this frickin’ close.”

  “Well, well, well,” said Al. “Look who’s back.”

  “Yes, yes, hello,” said Stas. “You are here just on time. 1955 Mercedes 300 SLR or 1936 BMW 328?”

  “In time,” corrected Chintak. “I am thinking that the 1956 Jaguar XK140 is an excellent choice.”

  “You just get into town?” asked Wutty. “Maybe you’ve been back and didn’t tell anyone.”

  Cooley slid off the stool. “Here,” he said. “You look like you need this more than me.”

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” said Wutty. “You got home two days ago and you’ve been lying low.”

  The place looked like Al’s, and Thumps recognized everyone, understood every word. But he felt as though he had wandered into an asylum from another dimension.

  “So now you must choose most beautiful car,” said Stas.

  “Sit down,” said Al. “I’ll get you some breakfast.”

  Thumps could feel all eyes on him. “What’s going on?”

  “The pool,” said the sheriff. “Lot of money riding on you.”

  “Pool?”

  “On when you’d come back.”

  “There’s a pool on when I was going to come back?”

  “Twenty bucks a try,” said Duke. “I had Tuesday last week and next Saturday before noon. Put another twenty on WNR.”

  “WNR?”

  “Will Not Return.” Al set a cup down in front of Thumps. “Lot of people put money on that one.”

  Thumps was pretty sure that this wasn’t the homecoming he had expected. “People thought I wasn’t coming back?”

  “I did not make such a bet,” said Chintak. “I anticipated that your medical conditions would necessitate a return.”

  “And Russians should not bet,” said Stas. “Very unlucky. Long history of fracking wrong horse.”

  “Backing,” said Cooley, “but you’re married to a Blackfeet woman, and that’s good luck.”

  Stas brightened. “Yes, this is true. Okay. Is too late for bet?”

  Al had a notebook out and was flipping pages. “Looks like the winner is Moses Blood.”

  “Is there any money for being close?” said Wutty.

  Al shook her head. “Winner take all.”

  The sheriff patted Thumps on the shoulder. “However, you get a free breakfast.”

  “Me?”

  “That’s right,” said Al. “Figure if you did come back, the least I could do is throw in a breakfast.”

  “That’s because you got ten percent for holding the money,” shouted Wutty. “People who were close should get a free cup of coffee.”

  “Should have some sort of celebration,” said Jimmy Monroe. “You know, the Return of the Native.”

  “Al should pick up the breakfast tab for everyone who was in the café when Thumps arrived,” said Russell Plunkett. “That’s fair.”

  Thumps closed his eyes, put his head in his hands, and let the argument flow over him. It had been a long drive, and now that he was sitting somewhere other than behind a wheel, he could feel his body begin a slow collapse.

  “You okay?” Hockney actually sounded concerned. “Blood sugars low?”

  That was, Thumps realized, a good question. He hadn’t checked them this morning, and he hadn’t eaten, so they probably were low. The testing kit was in his bag. Thumps fished it out and set it on the counter just as Al came along with his breakfast.

  “You plan to bleed all over my counter?”

  “Just need to check my blood sugars.”

  Al looked at Hockney. “You just going to stand there? Aren’t there laws against bleeding in a restaurant?”
>
  “None that I can think of,” said the sheriff.

  “You scare any customers away,” said Al, “and we’re going to have words.”

  Thumps flinched as the lancet stabbed his finger. Maybe in a couple more years he would get used to the sting.

  “Just that little drop?” Al leaned in for a better look. “It’s not all that impressive.”

  “Did you really take ten percent of the pool?”

  “You’re getting a free breakfast,” said Al. “Leave it at that.”

  “I’ve got to get back to the office.” Hockney pushed off the stool. “Stop by after you get settled. Got something to talk to you about.”

  Thumps spooned the salsa onto the plate next to the eggs.

  Duke hitched his pants. “Macy says men would be healthier if we talked to one another.”

  “Is that what you do?”

  “Hell no,” said the sheriff. “I hold stuff inside and let it eat away at me.”

  BY THE TIME Thumps made his way to the hash browns, Stas had gone back to his garage and Chintak had left to open the pharmacy. Cooley had taken off earlier to tell Moses the good news. Wutty and Jimmy and Russell had argued some more with Al about a new concept they had come up with on the spot that they called “rightful compensation” before they gave up the ghost and piled into Wutty’s truck.

  Al appeared with the coffee pot. “You look like shit.”

  Thumps forced a smile.

  “Something happened,” said Al. “Didn’t it? On the coast. Something you didn’t expect.”

  Thumps sipped at the coffee. It was black and hot.

  “Course you don’t have to talk to me about it,” said Al. “You can always talk to the sheriff. Or you can talk to Archie.”

  “Don’t need to talk to anyone.”

  “But just because we’re glad to see you doesn’t mean we’re going to let you crawl into a hole and rot.”

  “I’m thinking about selling the house.”

  Al ran her towel across the counter. “Claire’s back. She and Angie Black Weasel were in the other day. They had a fine time in New Zealand. Hot springs, beaches. Said the Maori were real friendly. Angie took a bunch of pictures.”

  “Great.”

  “Claire asked about you. I guess you forgot to tell her you were going to the coast.”