What Jonah Knew Read online

  Dedication

  FOR HUGH AND CLAY,

  who teach me more about love every day

  Epigraph

  Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of the mystery we are trying to solve.

  —MAX PLANCK, NOBEL PRIZE–WINNING PHYSICIST, WHERE IS SCIENCE GOING?

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Before

  Part One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Part Two

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Part Three

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Part Four

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Part Five

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  After

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Praise

  Also by Barbara Graham

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Before

  SUMMER 2002

  At first it seems like a lucky break, him pulling up in his tricked-out truck with the big-ass tires and honking just as the sky lets loose. It’s pitch dark and raining so hard, for a minute I can’t tell who it is. “Hey,” I say when he rolls down the passenger window. “Were you at the show?” A lot of the time when I’m playing I can’t see who’s in the house, especially when it’s packed.

  He shakes his head. “I had some business up here and was heading out when I saw you. You going to stand there all night getting wet or you want a ride?”

  If I weren’t soaked through to the skin, I might ask him how he could tell it was me walking along this deserted stretch of road, the rain pummeling me like Noah’s Ark. “Okay,” I say. “If you don’t mind dropping me back at the motel, it’s only a couple of miles.”

  “No problem.”

  Getting into the cab, I wonder what type of business he was doing all the way up here so late at night, but then I see a pile of scorecards from the track. He must be raking it in because he’s wearing an expensive-looking leather jacket and he’s got this super deluxe ride.

  “Sorry to drip all over your seat,” I apologize, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I was so pissed off by what went down during the second set, I didn’t notice the storm about to break when I left the club. I just wanted to get the hell out of there. The one night a producer shows up from the record company we want to sign with, we have our shittiest gig ever.

  He reaches behind him, then hands me a towel and says, “I can drive you home, if you want.”

  “Thanks, but I’m riding back with the band in the morning.”

  “Up to you.”

  Just to be polite I pretend to wipe my neck with the towel that reeks of dried puke, then drop it on the floor. I wonder if he’s a big drinker as well as a gambler, but I don’t smell alcohol on his breath and he looks cleaned up from the last time I ran into him, maybe a year ago. More like a businessman now than some sweaty dude who works odd jobs.

  “The motel is up there, on the left,” I say. “The Timber Creek, only the K is missing.”

  As he pulls into the parking lot, I start thinking, maybe it isn’t such a terrible idea to get the hell out of Dodge tonight. Blow this rathole. Put the whole fucking catastrophe behind me. “If I went back with you, you’d have to wait while I pack up my stuff. And put on some dry clothes.” I can’t stop shivering.

  “No prob. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t mind the company.”

  “I just need to text the guys and let them know I’m leaving.” But when I take my phone out of my pocket, it’s dead. “Shit. No juice.”

  “Leave it with me, I’ve got a charger.”

  “Hey, thanks.” I hand him my phone and open the door. “I’ll be quick.”

  “Take your time.” Then he turns and grins at me, the blinking lights from the motel making his white teeth sparkle like piano keys. “I’ve got all night.”

  Now, I’m a person who usually keeps his guard up, shit detectors on high. I had to be that way when I was a kid and it stuck. But tonight I’m too cold and wet and pissed off about the gig to pick up any weirdness, so by the time I realize that running into him was no random coincidence, it’s too late.

  Part One

  2002–2003

  One

  HELEN BIRD WASN’T IN THE HABIT OF BREAKING THE LAW, BUT the heartless creep in the motel office left her no choice. She had to find her son. She had to see for herself if Henry had left something behind, some subtle trace of himself that no one else would notice but would point her maternal compass in the right direction. He’d never been out of touch before, not like this, not when he was expected home two days ago, and especially not now, when his girlfriend, Mira, was due to give birth in a matter of weeks. Luckily, the window in his motel room was open a crack and Helen was able to jimmy it just enough to squeeze through. If the creep who refused to give her the key happened to see her and called the cops, so be it. In a way, she wouldn’t mind. Maybe Saratoga Springs’ Finest would show more concern than the smug detective in Aurora Falls who tried to convince her that Henry’s disappearance was voluntary.

  Helen knew better.

  Didn’t she?

  As soon as she was inside, she closed the musty drapes, then turned on the mini flashlight that had been a party favor at her friend Abby’s fiftieth and waved it around the room. Nothing jumped out at her, but that wasn’t surprising. The woman who’d answered the motel phone earlier in the day told her that Henry had taken all his belongings. She’d also let it slip that number 11 wouldn’t be cleaned until tomorrow.

  The room was thick with late summer heat, but Helen didn’t dare turn on the air conditioner. She undid the buttons on her shirt still dusted with flour, then shined her flashlight in the closet, the nightstand, each of the bureau drawers, and the bathroom, including the shower stall with dark green fur growing around the edges and in the cracks.

  Nothing.

  She got down on her knees and peered under the desk, then ruffled the covers on the unmade bed. It wasn’t until she cast her light on the worn carpet that she noticed a lone gray sock sticking out from the foot of the bed. She picked it up and sniffed. There was no mistaking who the sock belonged to. Her beautiful boy had famously stinky feet.

  “Where are you, my love?” Clutching the sock, Helen sat down on the edge of the bed. “Where have you gone?” She tried to feel her way into her son’s mind. In the past she’d been able to do that. Together, they’d been through so much—running away when he was five and forging new identities so Kip could never find them—they’d become experts at reading one another’s thoughts. “It’s like we’re in our own witness protection program,” Henry once joked. But ever since Stuart Rock,
his best friend and Dog Radio’s lead guitarist, had phoned this morning looking for Henry, Helen’s usually sharp intuition felt jumbled by fear, like a TV signal that turns to snow.

  Stuart’s explanation simply didn’t add up. “We fell apart during the second set on Labor Day. It was a shit show, and Henry was pissed because there was a record guy there, so instead of waiting to ride back to the motel, he decided to walk.” Stuart hadn’t heard from Henry since and neither had Mira, who’d been visiting her mother at the assisted-living place in Albany. “He probably just hitched or took the bus back and is up at the cabin trying to forget the whole thing,” Stuart offered, clearly trying to put a positive spin on Henry’s unexplained absence.

  Helen did the math. Her son had been out of touch with the people closest to him for thirty-six hours, behavior that was completely out of character for a responsible young man—shit show or no shit show.

  “I’m on my way up to the cabin now, and if he’s not there, I’m going straight to the police,” Helen said, hanging up.

  SEEING HOW WORKED up she was, Nico, the duty sergeant, who was a regular at Helen’s bakery, the Queen of Hearts, took her in to meet with Will Handler right away. The detective, too, was a fan of the bakery, but Helen didn’t really know him except to say hello—and marvel at the quantity of pastries he could consume at one sitting. He reminded her of an out-of-shape boxer—with his big head, a nose with a prominent switchback, and a serious paunch. As a cop, Handler had a reputation for being blunt, but Helen didn’t mind blunt. She preferred her truth served neat, not gussied up in ifs and maybes.

  When she explained that Henry had been missing since Labor Day, he advised her not to jump to conclusions. “From what his buddy told you, your son was ticked off. Sounds to me like he needed to take a time-out to get his head together.” The detective pulled a stick of Nicorette gum from one of the many packs on his desk and popped it in his mouth. “My guess is, he went off by himself. Let’s give him a chance to cool off.”

  “Can’t you put out an alert, in case disappearing was not his idea?” Helen asked. “Isn’t that standard procedure?”

  “Sorry to say, but there’s no such thing as an Amber Alert for a missing adult unless they’re mentally ill or physically disabled. So, unfortunately, or fortunately, your kid doesn’t qualify.”

  “There must be something you can do. Mira, Henry’s girlfriend, is eight months pregnant. He would never be out of touch with her, not even for a couple of days.”

  “Mm . . .” Detective Handler cocked a bushy brow and nodded, as if he’d just been let in on a secret. “You’re sure your boy is one hundred percent on board with becoming a dad?”

  “Yes. A thousand percent.” Maybe what he was insinuating is true for other young men whose girlfriends get knocked up, but not Henry. From the moment Mira announced she was pregnant, he was elated. He even went out the next day and bought pricey cherry to make the baby a cradle, which he’d finished last week. Helen believed Henry saw fatherhood as the chance to repair the painful legacy of his own father.

  She glanced at the stack of file folders on the detective’s desk and hoped they didn’t represent unsolved cases. “You don’t know my son,” she said, feeling her jaw tighten.

  “No, I don’t, but my twenty-seven years on the job tells me he knew what he was doing. Most adults who go missing do so voluntarily. I can’t tell you how many wander off, then turn up after a few days or weeks.” The detective spit his gum into its wrapper, then tossed it in the trash. “You say Henry likes to go hiking up in the Adirondacks, right? Well, if I were a gambling man, I’d bet that’s where he is. Had a lousy show and decided to take a little mental R & R. I see it all the time. I’m telling you, ninety-eight percent of missing persons turn up sooner or later. Ninety-eight percent.”

  Helen was too afraid to ask how many of the ninety-eight percenters turned up alive.

  SHE PRESSED THE orphaned sock to her chest, recalling the family of sock puppets she’d made for Henry’s third birthday, when they were too broke to buy anything more than a few balloons from the five-and-dime. So, just as in the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, which Henry loved above all others, Helen created Baby puppet, Mama puppet, and Papa puppet. That was when Henry’s real papa was still in the picture. For a long while, the puppet family remained Henry’s most cherished treasure, the only playthings Helen had time to grab the night they fled Oregon. Even after he outgrew them, he kept them safely tucked away in his top bureau drawer. His favorite was Chester, the Baby puppet with the big button eyes and red felt grin. “For someday, when I have a kid,” he said.

  Headlights beamed through the gap in the shabby curtains, jarring Helen out of her reverie. Car doors slamming. Loud voices, male and female, getting closer. Probably the cops coming to arrest me for breaking and entering, she thought, feeling her pulse shoot up. Moments later, though, she felt mildly disappointed when she heard the TV go on in the room next door.

  She stretched out on the bed and sniffed the pillow. She could detect Henry there, too. Not smelly like the sock. Sweet, with a hint of his favorite shaving cream. Tea tree and mint. It was the first time since Stuart called that Helen let herself cry.

  SHE MUST HAVE drifted off because the rhythmic thwack thwack thwack of her neighbors’ headboard against the paper-thin wall jerked her awake. And the noise! High-pitched squeals that sounded like randy alley cats going at it. Well, good for them, she thought. Carpe diem, because you never know what unwelcome surprises the next diem may bring.

  She mopped up the sweat pooling between her breasts with the top sheet and tried to figure out what to do next. Obviously, her son had taken his things with him and gone somewhere. But where? Could his mysterious departure really be voluntary? Viewed from a certain angle, Detective Handler’s theory made sense. Given Henry’s landscaping job, double duty as Dog Radio’s fiddler and manager, his relationship with Mira, and a baby coming, he was under massive pressure for anyone, let alone a twenty-two-year-old. Only this was Henry, whose maturity and sense of responsibility, even as a young boy, had outpaced his years. Henry was not a person who took time-outs, any more than Helen was a person who lolled around waiting for something to happen. They were scrappers. Survivors. Helen didn’t believe her son would abandon her or Mira or the band, or Charlie, the ornery rescue mutt he called his “brother from another mother.”

  She glanced at the glowing red numbers on the digital clock. Ten fifty! Even if she left this minute, she wouldn’t make it home until after midnight, and she had to wake up by four to get the first bake in by four thirty. She forced herself into a sitting position, then liberated the Henry-scented pillowcase from the pillow to take with her and dropped the sock inside.

  Deciding she had better pee before taking off, she went into the windowless bathroom, shut the door, and turned on the light. Startled by the sudden brightness, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her usually rosy complexion was so pale, the bags under her bloodshot eyes so puffy, and her silver-streaked blonde hair in such a tangle, she looked more like mad Medusa than the woman her lover, Jock, called an earth goddess.

  She splashed cold water on her face, then patted it dry with a damp towel. Henry’s towel, she imagined, though when she pressed her nose to it and inhaled, she could detect no trace of him and dropped it on the floor. That’s when she spotted something in the wastebasket she hadn’t noticed before. A crumpled-up piece of paper. Sheet music. She fished it out of the trash. There, on the page, was the start of a letter in Henry’s slanted hand.

  Dear Kip, the first scratched-out line read.

  Then, Dear Dad, but that line was scratched out, too.

  A blast of adrenaline on top of paralyzing fatigue made the words bleed together. Trembling, Helen sat down on the closed toilet seat. As far as she knew, Henry had never reached out to Kip in the seventeen years since they’d run away from him and Oregon. On the rare occasions when he’d mentioned his father, her response had been fi
rm, unequivocal. We can never get in touch with him or let him know where we are or our lives could be in danger. Yet, obviously, her warnings had expired years ago. Henry was a grown man now, free to do as he pleased. Free to get in touch with his father if that’s what he needed to do.

  Having left her reading glasses in the car, Helen squinted to bring the words into focus.

  Dear whoever the hell you are, because honestly I don’t know what to call you. Kip feels weird. And though you’re my dad by blood, you’ve never really been a dad to me, so calling you that feels fake. But as long as I’m on the subject, I might as well tell you that your son is about to become a dad himself . . .

  Helen pressed the letter to her chest. Why should she be so shocked? It was human nature, wasn’t it? The raw animal urgency of bloodlines that must have made her son want to share his big news. But what exactly did he have in mind? Had he written the letter on impulse, then thought better of it and thrown it in the trash? Or was it a draft of a letter he planned to send? Had sent already? A speech he intended to deliver in person?

  And where did this ink-splotched sheet of paper leave Helen? Should she share it with Mira? Detective Handler? Book the next flight to Eugene to search for Henry herself?

  Questions. But no answers.

  Her mind emptied of everything she’d always taken on faith about her son. His loyalty and devotion. His honesty. Their unbreakable bond. She felt like the fool in that old fable, who searches for his keys under a streetlamp, not because he lost them there, but because it was the only place where there was light enough for him to see.

  Helen folded the crinkled paper in half and placed it in the pillowcase with the sock. After one last look around the room, she slipped out the door into the still night air.

  Two

  The Aurora Falls Gazette

  September 6, 2002

  Aurora Falls Man Sought After Mysterious Disappearance

  BY ALIX BENITEZ

  Henry Bird, 22, a musician and manager of the local bluegrass band Dog Radio, has been missing since Labor Day. Bird’s absence was discovered when he failed to meet up with his fellow band members on the morning of Tuesday, September 3, to return to Aurora Falls. The group had been performing over the weekend at the Silver Dollar, a club in Saratoga Springs.