Why weren’t they livid? Why hadn’t they gotten in Archie’s face and demanded how he’d had their lost child only to let him walk off alone into the night?

“Okay,” Chief Eaton said to the parents. “Let’s go.” He looked at Archie. “I’ll give you a few minutes to prepare yourself,” he said.

The door closed, and Archie and Anne were alone.

“I’m not okay,” he said before she could ask.

“I didn’t think you were,” she said.

They were waiting for him. It was time to parade the parents in front of the TV cameras. Archie’s eyes settled on Anne’s purse. “Press conference,” he said. “Do you have enough tools in there to make me look human?”

“Honey,” she said, “I’ve been waiting to brush your hair since we met.”

Chapter 38

CHAPTER

38

This is how you kill someone, he thought.

You let them experience it slowly. By natural means. You let them move through terror to understanding. He liked to step back and watch their eyes as they felt the poison’s first effects. They all panicked. Stumbled. Fell. Struggled. It was the human condition to fight. To rage against the dying of the light. Just as it was in our nature to let go. The body knew when to give up the ghost. The brain released endorphins. Pain vanished.

He watched their chests rise and fall, slower, slower.

Peaceful at the end.

Their eyes smiling.

And through it all, they were silent as mice.

It was a lot like drowning.

The Willamette had been killing people, one way or another, for a long time. Toxic pollution, heavy metals, PCBs, dioxin, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Industrial and urban waste; agricultural runoff. A six-mile stretch of the river through Portland was considered a Superfund site. The river violated temperature, bacteria, and mercury standards. You couldn’t eat most of the fish.

It was a lovely sight, to see her rise up. He had waited a long time for it.

He was patient. They had been standing there for almost an hour, his steel-and-nylon-mesh-gloved hand on the boy’s shoulder, both their backs up against the brick wall of the empty fire station.

The boy was entirely cloaked in rain gear—rain pants, hooded slicker, rain boots. All dark colors. The coat was too big and the cuffs hung over his hands. The hood fell over his forehead and obliterated his profile.

The man wore green waist-high rubber waders under a light jacket, and a black baseball cap.

They were dressed for the weather.

He had let two National Guard soldiers pass by. They had trotted down the esplanade. One carried a long pole, one looked to be on patrol. They couldn’t see him or the boy. People didn’t see things they weren’t looking for.