Harry Salinger wipes his hands on a cloth. He is not a patient man, but, God knows, he has done his best with what he was given, and now it’s almost all done. He can see the finish line; it is within reach, and the extent of his accomplishment nearly takes his breath away. He could never have foreseen this seven years ago, sitting on a bar stool, the rejection letter from the Police Academy burning a hole in his pocket.
He had applied because it was all he had ever wanted to do and because it would have pleased his father, had he been alive. Sometimes the reasons blended into one dull ache. The letter had come that morning and, with it, the end of everything.
Seven years ago he sat at that bar and drank as people and time flowed around him. When someone grabbed his shoulder, he turned and saw that it was late and the bar had emptied except for the bartender and the man accosting him. The man’s voice was charcoal, and Harry couldn’t hear the words. He wasn’t sure who threw the first punch, but he let anger take over.
The fight was brief, and by the time the police arrived, the bartender was lying facedown on the wooden floor on a bed of shattered glass. The other man put up a struggle as they cuffed him. Salinger went quietly. He hadn’t even touched the bartender.
They had sat them down with their lawyers in a room that smelled of bleach, and for the first time Salinger had understood that he was in serious trouble. The evidence was inconclusive, the prosecutor said; either of them could have hit the bartender with the broken bottle.
He was wearing the scrubs he had been given; his public defender hadn’t had the time to pick up any clothes for him. The other man had shaved and wore the suit his attorney had brought him: it looked expensive, though not as expensive as the one the lawyer himself was wearing. He had introduced himself as Peter Hansen from Quinn, Locke. He looked like he was on his way to his first million dollars. Salinger’s public defender looked like he had graduated last week and called Salinger “Henry.” Harry knew he was in trouble, but how deep and how black the water was he couldn’t have fathomed.
Salinger folded the cloth and put it aside. Patience. He had fought hard the temptation to go to Poulsbo on Sunday afternoon and witness with his own eyes the result of his anonymous tip on the John Cameron hotline. He had known about the boat since October and had waited for the appropriate moment to drop it into the lap of the Seattle Police Department. He had checked first thing in the morning, mixing with the tourists along the Scandinavian shops: beyond the holiday lights and the bare trees, the boat was there.
Sitting in his basement, Harry Salinger waited longer than he thought he could bear, his monitors all showing local television stations. At some point the news would come on, and he would know that John Cameron had killed again in the process of being apprehended by a SWAT team. He had not had a moment’s doubt that Cameron would ultimately get away; he just wanted him to leave a trail of law enforcement bodies behind him in his escape, like so many more nails in his coffin.
The news came on, and the reporter stood by the cordoned-off area so that the police cruisers with flashing lights would be in frame. Salinger sat forward in his chair. Disappointment washed over him, and he covered his face with his hands. He didn’t want to weep over it, but who wouldn’t? The frustration was immeasurable.
He forces his breathing to slow down and closes his eyes; by touch he finds the remote and mutes the offending report. It is a setback, but he has to stay positive. He has already packed what he will need for the next few days, and a few days are all he wants. He places his hand on the small wooden box that has sat on his table for the last six months; the simple touch gives him all the comfort he needs.
The van is gassed up and ready, his major piece of work dismantled and wedged safely behind some boxes under a tartan blanket. He has timed himself: it will take him forty-two minutes to set it in place.
In his kitchen Harry Salinger fixes himself two sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs and mayonnaise on white bread. His plans are fluid, and he can go with the flow, if that’s what’s required. He wears headphones, and Detective Madison’s taped voice keeps him company; he even finds the strength to smile.