Introduction

Editorial Review

No editorial review at this time.

Excerpt

1

A car, falling through darkness.

End over end, one shuddering thud following another. Fountains of glass showering outward and then—a vacuum of silence collapsing back in.

The vehicle came to rest on its back, at the bottom of an embankment below the bridge and propped up against a splintered stand of poplar trees. You could see the path it had taken through the snow, leaving a churned trail of mulch and wet leaves in its wake.

Into the scentless winter air: the seeping odour of radiator fluid, of gasoline.

They climbed down on grappling lines, leaning into their descent, the lights of the fire trucks and ambulances washing the scene in alternating reds and blues, throwing shadows first one way and then the next. Countless constellations in the snow. Glass, catching the light.

When the emergency team finally arrived at the bottom of the embankment, they were out of breath.

Within the folded metal of the vehicle: a buckled dashboard, bent steering wheel, more glass and—in the middle—something that had once been a man. White hair, wet against the skull, matted now in a thick red mud.

“Sir! Can you hear me?”

His lips were moving as the life poured out of him to wherever it is life goes.

“Sir!”

But no words came out, only bubbles.

2

Doors glide open, the sheets of glass parting like a magician’s gesture as the West African air swarms in, a heat so strong it pushes her back into the airport. She shields her eyes, stands a moment as the bodies shove past her.

On the other side of the pavement, a chain-link fence keeps the riff-raff at bay. Riff-raff and relatives. Taxi drivers and waiting uncles. Shouts and frantic wavings, hand-inked signs reading TAXI

4 YOU and LAGOS ISLAND DIRECT. She is looking for her name among these signs. Even with the jet lag and nausea weighing upon her, even with the flight-induced cramps in her calves and the heaving cattle queues she’s been corralled through, the customs officials who rummaged through her carry-on looking for stashed treasures only to throw her dishevelled belongings back at her in disappointment, and even with the sweltering air of the airport interior coming up against the blast-furnace heat outside, even with that, perhaps because of that, she feels oddly elated. Calmly excited.

Sweat is forming, the condensation that comes from colliding weather patterns. It trickles down her collarbone, turns limp hair damp and damp hair wet; it beads into droplets on her forehead. Somewhere: her name. She sees it being waved above the mob on the other side of the chain-link fence. But just as she is about to walk across, a voice behind her coos “Madam?” She turns, finds herself facing an armed officer in a starched green uniform, sunglasses

reflecting her face back at her in a wraparound, panoramic mirror. “Madam, please. You will come with me.”

It is almost a question, the way he says it. Almost, but not quite.

“Madam. You will come with me.”

She pulls her carry-on closer: the only luggage she has. “Why?” “Airport police, madam. The inspector, he wishes to speak with

you.”

3

The boy’s father was speaking softly in river dialect, as he always did when speaking truths. “A father, a mother, must ask themselves this. If it gives the child a better life, would they? Would they die for their child?”

The mangrove forests were breathing. Wet sighs and soft lapping sounds. The boy’s father, deep in tidal mud, was hauling in nets flopping with quicksilver as the boy stood on the shore, fishing spear ready.

“Remember,” said the father, switching to English for emphasis as smoothly as one might switch from net to spear, “Kill the fish quickly. It is kinder that way.”

4

“Laura? Are you there? It’s—it’s about your father. Please pick up.” The sound of a sob being swallowed.

Laura spit into the sink, scrambled to the phone. “Mom?”

After they’d finished speaking, Laura hurried down the hallway, pulling on her jacket as she jabbed at the elevator button.

Outside, the night air was crystallizing into snow. She crossed a street empty of traffic, ran-walked down the hill.

The bungalow of her childhood was a stucco-on-stucco arrangement thumbtacked to the side of a steep street. A police car was parked out front, with Warren’s brand-new Escalade hogging the driveway. It didn’t matter; Laura had nothing to park.

When they were little, her brother Warren was convinced that the small nuggets of glass embedded in the stucco of their home were actually rubies, and he offered her fifty percent of the proceeds if she would collect them for him. “But I thought rubies were red,” she said. “Don’t be so picky,” he replied. “They come in every colour, like Life Savers. It’s why they’re so valuable.” So Laura spent an afternoon knuckling green glass from the walls. Fingers beaded with blood, she followed Warren proudly to the corner store, where Mr. Li offered them two all-day suckers in exchange—on condition they didn’t mine their parents’ stucco for any more gemstones. Laura considered this a fair return on investment; Warren was less enthused. He muttered angrily all the way home as Laura swung the empty plastic pail and moved the sucker back and forth in her mouth. She found Warren’s sucker, still unwrapped, in his room several weeks later. He would try to sell it to her for a quarter the next time she got her allowance.

Inside her parents’ wood-panelled living room: a police officer. Holstered gun and pale eyes. Those crocheted throw-cushion covers that had been there since forever. The knitted afghan draped over the back of the chesterfield (both the cushion covers and the afghan her mother’s handiwork). And on the wood panelling behind: clunky oversized picture frames (her father’s handiwork, both the frames and the panelling). Mall-bought oil-painted scenes of Paris in the rain, of Matterhorn in sunlight. Might as well have

been paintings of Mars; her parents had never been to Paris or the

Alps. And now her father never would.

Laura’s mother barely noticed Laura enter; she was floating in place, scarcely tethered to the earth. Warren, standing to one side, fleshy face knotted with anger, had his arms wrapped tightly across his stomach. Warren, as bulgy as Laura was thin. Family photos always looked like an ad for an eating disorders clinic.

Warren’s wife Estelle, meanwhile, was attempting, mostly in vain, to corral their twin daughters into the dining room and away from grown-up talk. Squirmy girls, mirrored reflections of each other, full of giggles and sudden solemn pronouncements. “Dogs can’t dance but they can learn.” “Daddy’s silly!” “Suzie’s dog can dance, she told me.” Kindergarten tales and childhood non sequi- turs. Warren’s wife mouthed “hello” to Laura before disappearing into the other room.

Why would they bring their kids?

The officer with the pale eyes stood, extended his hand to Laura. Instead of a handshake, a business card. “Sergeant Brisebois,” he said. “I’m with the city’s Traffic Response Unit.”

His card read Sgt. Matthew Brisebois, TRU. She wanted to circle the typo, add an “e.” But no, not a typo. Something much worse.

“I deal with traffic fatalities. I’ll be overseeing this investiga- tion. I’m very sorry about your father.”

No, you’re not. Without traffic fatalities, you’d be out of a job.

“Thank you.”

“Can you fucking believe this?” It was Warren, turning to stare at his sister, eyes raw. “Dad drove off a cliff.”

“Warren,” said their mother. “Language, please.”

“Your father appears to have hit a patch of black ice,” the officer said. “It would have been impossible to see. Missed the bridge onto Ogden Road, westbound off 50th. It’s an industrial area, and

he was travelling at high speed. Very high.” As if he were fleeing something, Brisebois wanted to say, but didn’t. Instead, he asked, “Where would he have been going that time of night?”

“Work,” said their mother. “He was a watchman, at the rail yards.”

“He was a teacher,” said Warren.

“Retired,” said their mother. “We were both teachers. Henry taught shop, I taught Home Ec. Henry was feeling—was feeling housebound, had started working, part time, as a night watchman.”

“Would he have worn a uniform?” She nodded.

“I ask because he didn’t have one on. He was wearing”— Brisebois checked his notepad—“a sweater. Slacks. Loafers. The loafers came off in the crash. Would he have kept his uniform at work?”

“I suppose,” said their mother, voice distant. “I just don’t understand why he would be on Ogden Road in the first place. He always took Blackfoot Trail.”

Brisebois jotted this down. “And did your husband wear his seatbelt? Generally?”

“Oh yes. He was very careful about that sort of thing.” Laura’s mother was holding a wad of Kleenex as though clutching a rosary. “Mrs. Curtis, your husband phoned in a complaint a few weeks

ago, said someone was across the street watching your house.” “Oh, that? It turned out to be nothing. Henry was up late and

thought he saw somebody prowling under a street lamp. The police came, but—I’m sure you have a report.”

The officer nodded. “We do. I’m just trying to ascertain if—” Laura’s brother leaned in, bristling. “Why are you asking these

questions? This is bullshit.”

“I’m trying to piece together what happened, and why.”

“Why? I’ll tell you why. Because this fuckin’ city never clears its fuckin’ streets after it fuckin’ snows. That’s why. Always waiting for a fuckin’ chinook to do their work for them. Assholes. The snow gets packed in, we drive on ruts for months. Sure! Why pay for snow removal when you can wait for a la-di-da warm wind to come down from the fuckin’ mountains and melt it. Well, it doesn’t fuckin’ melt, does it?” His voice was cracking in anguish. “Do you know how much I pay in property tax? Do you?”

“Language, Warren!”

“Sir, I understand you’re upset. But I do need to—”

“A fuckin’ shitload, that’s how much. And what do I get for it? My father— The city, that’s who did this. I pay my taxes, they raise them every year like clockwork. For what? You want to arrest someone, arrest the fuckin’ mayor.”

When Laura finally spoke, her voice was so soft the officer almost missed it. “Did they say what kind of sweater?”

Brisebois looked at Laura. “Sorry?”

“The sweater he was wearing, did they say what kind? Was it green, a green cardigan?”

“Um …” He flipped through his pad. “No, I believe it was blue. With patterns.”

“What kind of patterns?”

“I’m not sure. It’ll be in the accident scene photos, and the Medical Examiner’s Office will have the actual sweater. Why do you ask?”

“I was just … wondering. It doesn’t really matter. Not now.” Outside, the first whisper of a warmer wind was stirring, trick-

ling down distant mountainsides, moving across the foothills. Above Ogden Road, the tire tracks in the packed snow would melt, first to slush and then to sludgy water. Traces of the accident would slowly vanish—except for one distinct streak of rubber, an

extended skid on the asphalt where a second set of tire treads led toward the guardrail beside the bridge. Those marks would last a long, long while.

I’m asking you—

Who is dey mugu now?

5

Members of the collision reconstruction team had already gone through by the time Officer Brisebois arrived. They’d laid down tent cards for the GPS survey to follow, and under the glare of floodlights, their breath formed winter haloes.

He checked in with them first. “Colin. Greg.”

The older constable, Colin, looked up, grinned. “Sergeant

Brisebois. Nice of you to show up.”

They never referred to him as Matthew. It was one of their few concessions to his higher rank.

Brisebois had been on call. “Pager was in my jacket. Jacket was in the coat check.”

“Coat check?”

“I was at a show. Had to change in the car, if that makes you feel better.”

He hoped that would be the end of it, but of course it wasn’t. “You can’t sneak out of a movie? Flash your badge, demand a

refund?”

“Not that kind of show.”

Greg, the younger constable, laughed. “Don’t tell me you were whooping it up at a peeler bar while we were out here in the cold.”

“No, not that kind of show either.”

Sergeant Matthew Brisebois had been at the city ballet’s annual

production of Swan Lake, his wife’s ticket on the empty seat beside him. He sighed. Might as well get it over with.

“I was at the ballet. The wife and I, we bought season passes. Well, she did. For the both of us. Anyway, I had the tickets, seemed a waste.”

“The ballet? What, like the Nutcracker ?” “No, not the Nutcracker.”

“The nutcracker?” said the younger constable. “I think I dated her.”

“Hell,” said Colin. “I think I was married to her at one point.” He looked at the cup of coffee curling steam in Brisebois’s hand. “See you had time to stop by for a cuppa Tim’s, though. We’re investigators, we notice things like that.”

“You brought some for us, too, I’m assuming?” asked Greg.

“I did. But I dropped it on the way down.” Brisebois took a deep and intentionally satisfying drink from the cup. “So,” he said. “What do we have?”

“Pontiac Olds. Came over the hill and then left the road— down there. Hit some ice from the looks of it. Driver missed the bridge, went over the edge of the embankment. Flipped, end over end, two, maybe three times.”

“Oldsmobile?” said Brisebois. “That’s a lot of metal. They don’t even make those anymore; it’s been, what, ten years at least. So … Male. Senior citizen. Somebody’s grandpa. Am I right?”

Colin nodded. “Died on scene. He’s still down there. I don’t know how they’re going to get him out.”

“Was he belted?” “Nope.”

“You run the plates yet?”

“We did. Nothing on the vehicle. Not even a speeding ticket.” “And the driver?” asked Brisebois. “You run him through

PIMS?” This was the police department’s updated central infor- mation system. Any previous contact with police, whether through an arrest or as a witness or in a report of any kind, from domestic disputes to noise disturbances, and the driver’s name and background would pop up.

“Nothing much. He called in a complaint a couple of weeks ago about someone hanging around outside his home in the middle of the night. Turned out it was a bush.”

A classic old-man complaint. You kids get off my lawn!

Snow was filtering down, phantom flakes melting on contact. Under the silent flash-and-throb of police lights, Brisebois and the senior constable walked over to where the car had careered off course, plummeting over the side. Tire tracks: leading off the asphalt, onto packed snow, and then—disappearing, into nothingness.

The fire department had parked a light truck on the bridge, and the spotlight was trained on the upside-down vehicle leaning drunkenly against a stand of poplar trees at the bottom of the embankment. Brisebois could see where the Olds had first hit, nose in, and then pivoted, rolling end over end. It wasn’t like in the movies, where cars soared upward with a certain cinematic flair, sent off hidden ramps with their motors often as not removed ahead of time. In the real world, cars were front-heavy, and when one left the road it dropped—like a stone. An Oldsmobile? That would have been like driving a tank off the side of a cliff.

The touchdown point was a wet black bruise in the snow, shards of debris fanning outward. “Let me ask you something,” Brisebois said. “From up here, where the vehicle first leaves the embank- ment, to where it hit, down there—from liftoff to touchdown, so to speak. That’s more than a car length, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yup.”

They both knew what that meant: all four wheels had left the ground. The car had been airborne.

Brisebois looked up at the road that curved toward them. “Would be hard to work up a decent speed from there. Any sign of braking?”

“Not here, where it went off the road. But there’s something farther back that you should take a look at. Something strange.”

They headed up, toward the flashing lights of a police cruiser that blocked off the road at the crest of the hill.

“We found these when we first walked the scene,” Colin said. There on the asphalt, and already flagged with a numbered tent

card—a second set of tire marks.

Brisebois crouched down, ran his flashlight along them. “That’s a hell of a skid.”

The other officer nodded. “We’ll pull the drag sled, find the surface friction, calculate the speed. But just from looking at it, I can tell you, whoever left these marks was travelling fast and braking hard.”

Brisebois looked down toward the bridge. “So … What do you figure? Same guy?”

“Maybe. But the tracks don’t line up.”

He was right. The tracks that ran off the embankment, missing the guardrail, were at a different angle than the tire marks higher up. “And if he did brake halfway down, that would’ve made it even harder to get up the speed he’d need to become airborne.”

Brisebois ran the beam of his flashlight along the skid mark. “Whoever it was, they came to a complete stop.”

Beyond the skid was a faint dusting of grit. This was part of the snowplow effect of a braking tire, pushing pebbles and dirt forward into its path. When a vehicle came to a hard stop, then rolled ahead, through its own debris … “We’ve got tread prints?”

“We do. Good ones, too. Greg already logged them, took pictures. They’re faint, but very clear. Here’s the weird part, though. Up ahead?” Colin angled his light low across the asphalt. “Do y’see?” The tread marks curved sharply to the left.

“The driver turned around.”

“Whoever it was would have had to crank the wheel hard to make that,” said Colin.

“So,” said Brisebois. “This second driver comes flying over the hill, sees the first vehicle go over the side, brakes hard to a full stop, then pulls a sharp U-turn. Was the second car chasing the first one? Or did it turn around when it saw the accident, to get help?”

“Maybe.”

“Who called it in?”

“The warehouse, over there.” Colin pointed across the hill, to a distant line of docking bays under pooled light and falling snow. “Truck drivers, unloading their long hauls late at night.”

“They saw it?”

“Heard it. We’ve got an officer over there taking statements. Don’t imagine it will be much help, though. It was dark and they’re far away.”

Brisebois looked again from the skid mark down to the other set of tracks. The first driver: falls asleep, or has been drinking, or maybe suffers cardiac arrest, leaves the road, missing the guardrail and plunging over the side. A second driver: sees this happen, hits the brakes, comes to a stop, turns his or her vehicle around … and leaves the scene. Why? Panicked? Maybe this second driver’d been drinking too. Or was driving without a licence, didn’t want to call the cops. Or was there something else going on here?

The flatbed had arrived. Brisebois could hear its backup warnings beeping. Once the fire department got the driver’s body

out, the flatbed would haul the wreck to a reconstruction facility where they’d check the brake lines for tampering, begin the process of crossing items off a list, narrowing the possibilities.

Brisebois finished the last of his coffee. “I’ll let you guys finish up. Measure the marks, calculate speed, all that fun stuff. I’ll notify next of kin. Do you have an address?”

The other officer, Greg, grinned. “I did, but I dropped it.” “Guess I’ll just look it up myself then,” said Brisebois with a

weary smile. And then, as he was about to leave: “Did you check for scrub marks? Down by the bridge, where the vehicle left the road, went over the side?”

“We did.” “And?”

“Just gets stranger and stranger.”

6

A fan stirred the humidity, raising a breath of goosebumps across her skin. Her hair, still damp from her brief foray outside, formed unintentional ringlets, wet against her skin.

He had her passport.

Inspector Ribadu—“Please, call me David,” he’d said, waving her to a seat across from his desk—was turning over the blank pages as though they told a story. And maybe they did.

Above his desk, on the wall behind, the national motto: Unity, Faith, Peace & Progress.

“All three in short supply,” he joked, when he noticed her looking at it.

“Four,” she said softly. She couldn’t help it; when you see a discrepancy, you flag it. Four, not three.

He turned, looked at the motto as though for the first time.

“Oh no, madam. Only three are in short supply. This is Nigeria. We have plenty of faith.”

He found the stamp he was looking for in her passport, and the stapled pages that were attached.

“A letter of invitation from the Nigerian consulate. Good, good. A mere formality, of course, as visitors are always most welcome. Often I say, why does someone need to be invited? In Nigeria, if a visitor comes to our door, even in the midst of night, we must welcome them in.”

He smiled. Muscles bunching in his cheeks.

She sat across from him, clutching her carry-on bag and a sheaf of medical papers.

“I have my return ticket, and all the necessary inoculations.” She slid the papers across. Her left arm still ached from the injections.

The inspector laughed, a low chuckle. “That’s for your country to worry about, when you return.” He rose, came around the desk toward her, and for a moment she thought they were done, but no. He was looking at her carry-on bag. “Sorry-o. May I?”

She swallowed. “Of course.”

He took everything out one item at a time, laying them on his desk. When he came to the Virgin in-flight magazine, she felt her throat constrict. It was her good fortune, however, that the inspector had already seen this issue. He gave it only a cursory glance. “Excellent article about the wine country in France, yes?” He placed the magazine on his desk alongside her rumpled folds of clothes and assorted toiletries.

He surveyed the selection in front of him. “Only this?”

“I’m just here for two nights. I fly out again on Sunday. It’s all there in the letter.” She had explained this to the clerk at the consulate, how she’d won a ticket to anywhere, had always dreamed of Africa. She’d filled in all the necessary forms, had paid the

necessary fees, had received the letter of invitation, as required, which Customs and Immigration had duly stamped.

Inspector Ribadu smiled at her. “Sightseeing, is it?” She nodded.

“The Yankari Highlands, I imagine? To see the water buffaloes and baboons? Perhaps luck will smile and you will catch sight of some lions, very rare. This is West Africa, madam. We don’t have the big-game safaris you might see elsewhere. But we do still have a few lions left, yes. And some hyenas. It’s funny, madam. Visitors so often worry about lions, but it’s the hyenas of this world one needs to watch for. They hunt in packs, hyenas. Lions hunt in prides. I like that,” he said. “Calling them prides. No one ever speaks about a ‘pride of hyenas.’ Have you noticed that?”

“I hadn’t, no.”

“Wikki Warm Springs. Those are in Yankari as well. Very beautiful. I imagine you will be visiting Wikki during your stay?”

“I’m hoping to, yes.”

“Ah, but that would be impossible. The Yankari Highlands are very remote. Much too far for the short time you have. Indeed, madam, I’m surprised you didn’t know this before you came. With the short time you have available to you, you’ll be lucky to get out of Lagos.”

Lucky to get out of Lagos. Was that a veiled threat? She slid her hand into her skirt pocket. She had a fold of naira bills within easy reach, enough for an emergency but probably not enough for a bribe. But farther down, tightly folded in a small pouch she’d sewn into the lining of her skirt pocket: an American $100 bill. The international currency. “Corruption at Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos has been brought under control. Do not, under any circumstances, offer bribes to airport officials.” Every travel advisory had stressed this, but is that what the inspector was fishing for? A

payoff? She extracted the folded bill, slipped it into the palm of her hand.

“Such a shame,” he said. “You have a visa valid for thirty days, but are only staying two nights. No husband?”

“No husband.”

“So … who supports you? You have a father, yes?” “I support me.”

“I see. In what line of work, madam?”

“I’m an editor—a copy editor. Grammar. Fact-checking. Indexes. That sort of thing.”

“I see. A journalist, then? Here to do another story on the

Heartbreak of Africa?”

“I’m not here on any kind of assignment. I’m here as a tourist.” “But you do work for magazines?” He picked up the in-flight publication. “Perhaps you are only pretending to be a tourist, to

avoid the paperwork required of journalists? The visas and such.” “No!” she said, a little too quickly. “No, not magazines.”

She saw him catch this, her sharp reaction, but he didn’t connect the flash of panic to the magazine he was holding in his hand. He put it to one side absentmindedly.

“Newspapers, then?”

“Books, mainly. Biographies. It’s—it’s nothing.”

“How can something be nothing? I suspect you are being too modest, madam. We all have our stories to tell, don’t we? We all have our secrets. Sometimes the smallest detail can be of the utmost importance, don’t you think?” He looked again at her belongings neatly arranged on his desk, the tampons and T-shirts, the tightly rolled socks. “No camera,” he said.

“Sorry?”

“No camera. A tourist with no camera. When I see such a thing, it … concerns me.”

“My cellphone,” she said. “It takes pictures.”

“You came all the way to Africa to take photographs with a phone?”

“I was—I was going to buy a camera when I got to the hotel.” He turned back to the landing form that had been stapled into

her passport. “Ah, yes. The Ambassador Hotel in Ikeja. It’s very near here. You can see it from the airport. Splendid accommoda- tions. I’m sure they will have shops which sell cameras and such, so that you may”—he searched for the right word—“immortalize your time here in Lagos.” His smile softened, and he began placing her belongings back into her bag, starting with the in-flight magazine, flat along the bottom.

He’d missed it.

No explosives, no narcotics, no stash of money. It was something more combustible than that. And he’d missed it.

She quietly pushed the folded $100 bill back into her pocket pouch, unnoticed, as he finished zipping up her carry-on.

“There you go, madam. Enjoy your stay.”

“Thank you. I will.” She gathered up her bag, stuffed her medical papers into the side of her bag, hurried to leave.

“Madam?” “Yes?”

“One last thing. Tell me, you hear of this problem we have in

Nigeria? With 419?”

7

This is what her father had told her as he was leaving. This is what

Laura’s dad had said the last time they ever met. “You, I love.” Why would he say that?

“You, I love.” She hadn’t heard that turn of phrase in years.

Sergeant Brisebois accepted another cup of tea from Mrs. Curtis, who said, “It must be very difficult for you, dealing with this sort of thing every day. I’m so sorry.”

Laura’s mom, apologizing to a police officer for her husband’s death.

—Is the wife a suspect?

—The wife is always a suspect.

The twins were trying to squirm their way out of the dining room. Warren had returned from the kitchen with a bag of Cheez Puffs, was fuming, as Warren was wont to do. And Laura? Laura was replaying it over and over in her mind: the last thing her father would ever say to her. “You, I love.”

Brisebois had asked whether Laura’s father was on medication, had been told no, not even Advil. He was now going over apparent incongruities in the route Laura’s father had followed earlier that night. “Mrs. Curtis—may I call you Helen?—in situations like this, we like to compile a record of the last twenty-four hours.” He had a map of the city open on the coffee table. “Your husband worked in the east rail yards, here, on Blackfoot Trail. Is that correct?”

Her mother nodded.

“But the accident occurred at Ogden Road. As near as I can tell, he was going the wrong way. Do you suppose he forgot something, had turned around, was heading home?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

Warren cut in. “Don’t you think she’s had enough for one night?”

“Of course,” said Sergeant Brisebois. He finished the last of his tea, stood up and was buttoning his jacket when he asked, almost in passing, “Helen, you don’t suppose there was any reason your husband might have felt his life was in danger, do you?”

Warren snorted. “Dad? Don’t be ridiculous.”

Their mother looked at the officer, tilted her head at the question. “Why would you ask such a thing?”

“No reason. It’s just— The speed he was travelling, it seemed excessive. The medical examiner will perform an autopsy; it’s standard in a case like this. They’ll check blood levels for alcohol, look for lesions in the heart or evidence of a brain seizure. Perhaps your husband simply fell asleep. You said he was having trouble in the nights before this happened. Insomnia?”

Their mother nodded. “I’d often hear him up in the middle of the night, microwaving milk to help him sleep.” She looked over at Henry’s chair, then drifted again into that in-between world.

“Maybe that’s all this is,” said Brisebois as he pulled on his cap. “A case of driver fatigue. It’s just that—there’s a phenomenon we call scrub marks. These occur inside a tire track. When a vehicle is going at high speed and is then turned, forcibly, against its own forward momentum—even if the brakes aren’t applied, there’s this internal tension that occurs. You can see it: the vehicle is going one way, but the tires are being pulled another. We found very distinct scrub marks in the treads where your husband’s car left the road. Now, if someone falls asleep, then suddenly wakes up and cranks the wheel, that will create scrub marks. But if that had been the case, your husband would have been trying to steer his vehicle back onto the road; the scrub marks would pull him toward the bridge. But your husband’s treads pull in the opposite direction. Away from the bridge, toward the embankment.”

Brisebois had released these details like depth charges and was watching their reactions carefully. The mother looked baffled. The son was eating Cheez Puffs from a bag and scowling. The daughter hadn’t flinched, barely seemed to be breathing.

“So Dad was disoriented,” said Warren irritably. He licked

his fingers, now stained with orange. “He steered the wrong way. What’s your point?”

“We found a second set of tire tracks. This second set is back, higher on the road, halfway up. Those tracks stop long before the bridge.”

Warren leaned in. “You think someone ran him off the road?” “It’s possible.”

“I should have known! There’s no way Dad would have been driving that fast! He was always a legal-speed-limit sort of guy. And the injuries he had, those were …” Warren’s voice trailed off.

Laura turned to her brother. “You saw Dad? You saw the—” “Someone had to. And it sure as shit wasn’t going to be Mom.”

He glared at his sister. “What the hell took you so long, anyway? I had to come all the way in from Springbank. You’re just up the hill; you can walk down, for Christ’s sake.”

She’d been working late and had switched her phone to voice- mail because her father had taken to calling her in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep. She’d had a deadline to meet and hadn’t been picking up, and he never left a message. Just a series of clicks. It was only while she was brushing her teeth and had pushed PLAY that she heard, not her father’s voice, but her mother’s. “Laura, pick up … please.”

Laura’s father: laid out under the sickly green of fluorescent light.

“You went?” she said. “You saw Dad?”

Warren didn’t answer, wouldn’t look at her, was keeping his eyes locked on the police officer instead, was refusing to blink, was denying sadness a foothold, was opting instead, and as always, for anger.

And in that moment, the years fell away—fell like feathers in a pillow fight and there he was, her older brother. Her big brother.

Warren Curtis, staring down the mean girls, forcing them to apolo- gize to his little sister. Warren, sneaking into a slasher flick with Laura in tow, squeezing her arm, whispering at crucial moments, “Look away, look away now !”

Laura tried to catch her brother’s eye. She wanted to mouth “thank you” to him the way his wife had whispered “hello” to her, but he wouldn’t look, couldn’t look. If he did, he would start to cry, she thought. And he can’t let that happen. He can’t. Because once it starts, it never ends.

“So that’s what this is?” Warren asked the officer. “Some asshole joy riders figuring it would be fun to chase an old man down a hill? You better find those fuckers before I do.”

“Language,” their mother admonished, drifting back into the conversation.

Warren ignored her. “For Christ’s sake, officer. I’ve watched C.S.I. Can’t you run the tires through some sort of database, find these assholes?”

“Tire treads aren’t like fingerprints,” said Brisebois. “They change, constantly. You’re dealing with rubber, which is a soft compound. A week later, even a day, and the tread marks will have been altered. A tire picks up a rock, loses a bit of rubber, forms a new crack, and the marks change. That said, yes, we can match marks that are consistent with a certain tire. But it’s not like there’s a central registry for tire treads. We can’t find a vehicle based solely on its tires.”

Laura turned to the picture window, saw the living room reflected back on itself. Her brother and her mother. The officer and herself. Her father, no longer there.

Language. Conceals as much as it reveals.

“You, I love.” Why would he say that? view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Instead of a standard linear plot structure, 419 skips back and forth in time and location, and follows a diverse cast of characters from very different cultural backgrounds. How does this structure create dramatic tension and propel the story forward? And how does it relate to Laura’s work as a copy editor, which involves trying to impose a chronological timeline on overlapping events?

2. Many of the main characters in the novel willingly take part in some form of illegal activity and feel somewhat justified in doing so. Do you believe that any of the characters have good reasons for their actions? Did any character cross a moral line that changed your sympathy for them?

3. Laura edits other people’s lives. What is the significance of this, symbolically as well as practivally, in the plot?

4. Which character's storyline did you find most interesting? What are your thoughts about that character's fate at the end of the book?

5. While Winston's 419 scam sets the whole story into motion, the author stops short of making him the villain in the story. What were your initial feelings toward the character, and did you develop sympathy for him when Ironsi-Egobia and Laura closed in on him? How does the scene where Laura visits Winston's parents affect your sympathy for him?

6. Discuss the ways in which the destructive nature of the oil industry and Western cultural influence in Africa affect the hearts and minds of characters such as Winston and Nnamdi. To what extend do you think Western culture should be blamed for certain tragic conditions in Africa?

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»	Author Will Ferguson's web site
»	Publisher's Book Info

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