Page 47 of Wrong Mail

I watch the two men be careful with each other across the table. David asks Henry about the security business. Henry answers easily, unhurried, and every answer is the one you'd expect. Monitoring contracts, installs, callouts. It occurs to me that his whole trade depends on people being frightened.

"One thing I did notice today," Henry says. "You'll want that back wall of the addition closed up before winter. It's still open boards and weather wrap out there. From a security standpoint, it's the weakest part of the house."

David tells him the contractor stopped returning his calls, and the plywood has held off the rain well enough since.

"It isn't urgent," Henry says. "Just something I'd move up the list."

David nods once. "I'll chase the contractor. Or find another.”

Then he sets his glass down.

"So," David says, "how did you end up getting interested in the Oregon murders?"

"My sister," Henry says, casually taking a sip of his wine.

He'd told me this, on his step, the first day I met him. I watch him tell David, and it's almost word for word the same. I find myself listening not to the story but to the telling of it, the evenness, the way it comes out already worn smooth.

"They never caught whoever was responsible?" David asks.

"No," Henry says. "It's believed it's the work of one man. They call him the Cascade Killer."

"How could they be sure?"

"Of?"

"That it's one man."

Henry's hand tightens around his glass. "He assaulted the females."

"I imagine with advancements in DNA, finding him might become possible," I say.

"If he left behind his DNA," Henry says. "It's a costly endeavor. It requires a police department willing to follow that trail. And from what I can see, no one has pursued it. The murders stopped two years ago."

"I'm sorry," David says. "That's a terrible thing to carry."

"It's why I got into security.” Henry turns his glass. "You can't fix the one that happened. So you spend your life making sure it can't happen to the people near you. I know it’s not rational. My therapist would tell you it's grief with a tool belt on." He smiles. "But it put four cameras on your home today, so."

"And we're grateful," David says, before rising from the table and collecting the empty bottle. "More wine?"

"I'm good, thanks," Henry says.

As David gets another bottle, Henry calls out.

"So, David, Mallory said you worked at the hospital?"

"Yeah, I'm an attending surgeon. Though that might change with the Division Chief promotion," David says.

"Ah," Henry says, cocking his head.

David returns.

"It's still to be decided." He takes a seat.

"So that's what brought you out here from..."

"Oregon," David says.

"Oregon. Right." Henry sets his glass down. "Attending surgeon. I imagine that takes you out at all hours."