Black Water Read online

  "Thanks."

  "I see what I see."

  "You'll be making more footprint casts tonight."

  "I'll be up a while. Gravel and sand are tough. I hope the breeze stays down."

  "What are your chances of matching them to the Wildcraft’s ones, if they came from the same shoes?"

  He thought about that a moment. "I'd need luck—some visible anomaly that would make that pair of shoes unique. Or almost unique.

  "You're lucky, Ike."

  "I try to be."

  Merci looked into the car. She noted that the front passenger seat was adjusted far back. Very far back, she thought.

  "Did you move the seat to get at the floor mats?"

  "Not yet."

  Right where Size Sixteen left it.

  Don Leitzel was doing the photography. He'd opened the drive door for the interior shots, which he took with the limitless patient of a professional cameraman.

  "Be sure to shoot the front passenger's seat," she said.

  "Already done, Sergeant."

  "And make a written note of the height adjustment before you change it, okay?"

  "I've got all the light, window, door and seat positions written down. Lights to lighter."

  "Where was it?"

  "Height-wise? All the way down. And the back was reclined to about forty degrees. If you need the seat all the way back and forty degrees of recline in a car this big, you're a very large person."

  About what you'd figure for Size Sixteen, she thought. "Did you guys find anything good in here?"

  "You mean like a driver's license or a checkbook? No."

  Merci ran her light over the dashboard and the puffy-looking leather seats. Pale gray interior. Some shiny wood. It looked almost familiar, though, and she realized it was like a fancy version of her Impala. The keys hung in the ignition.

  Her light beam caught the LCD face of an onboard navigation unit. That was one thing the Impala sure didn't have.

  "Can you program that navigator thing to bring up the last map it was asked for?"

  "Sure. And I definitely will."

  "How about right now?"

  "Might have to get in for that."

  "No. Get Ike to hold you." Ike held Leitzel and Merci braced Ike and Leitzel leaned in, switched on the key and had the navigator showing the last requested map in about thirty seconds. He never touched a thing but the buttons. Merci loved guys who could figure out basic stuff like this: gadgetry usually threw her, though she could fieldstrip and reassemble her nine—blindfolded—as fast as anyone she knew.

  "Some place down in La Jolla," said Leitzel. "It looks residential."

  "Go back one more."

  He leaned in again, did his thing, looked back over his shoulder at her. "Newport Beach," he said. "Up on the bluff there, above the bay."

  "Go back another," she said.

  A moment later she saw the Newport map vanish, replaced by a new one.

  "University of California, San Diego," he called back. "The School of Medicine."

  Merci thought about those three specific geographical points, came up with nothing whatsoever. "That gadget will give you address, won't it?"

  "Yeah, sure," said Leitzel. "That's how you cue up the map in first place."

  Leitzel gave Ike his hand and Ike gave Merci his other and Lei leaned in again. She heard the click of the controls, could see changing lights on the LCD screen.

  "Here's the UCSD address."

  He started to read it to her, but she stopped him and called Zamorra over. He looked at them with some amusement as Merci told him get the blue notebook and pen from her windbreaker pocket, take do some addresses and wipe the smirk off his face.

  Merci could find no useful tracks left by a pickup vehicle. Tracks, yes, but too many of them. And too faint, also, with the gravel content high and the summer too dry to let the shoulder pack down hard enough hold a pattern. Dust to dust. She had to figure that Ike's foot casts would also be too vague to help.

  Still, she had Leitzel photograph what looked like two distinct set of tire tracks.

  Then, with her flashlight quartering the darkness in front of her, she walked to the culvert that ran along the road between the dirt and the strawberry fields. The ditch was wide and steep and she could see a trickle of liquid down at the bottom. The moon was behind the hill now. The smell of the fruit hit her again. Funny how it comes and goes, she thought—not like the oranges.

  She took two long steps down the bank and stopped again, surrounded by the dank rounded smell of old water. Quiet here. Brush and weeds to her left and right, cattails down near the stream. She could hear the frogs and crickets now, with the noise of the blast generator trapped above her. Something rustled in the grass, then splashed.

  She took four more long sideways strides, which brought her the bed. The scar on her side felt tight and irritating. She thought being surprised from behind, remembered the awful realization that she was about to get shot and how long it took to go down.

  The culvert was lined with concrete. Her light picked up the dark shimmer of water and the black shine of mud. She slowly turned a circle with the flashlight beam leading the way. A soft drink can, smashed. A foam fast-food container, partial. One tire, automobile. One refrigerator, doorless. One garden hose, cracked and faded.

  On her way back up the side, Merci kept moving her flashlight beam left to right, then back again, hoping to find a little swatch of red in the darkness and the brush.

  Near the top of the embankment, she did. She climbed her way through the brush, then settled on her knees for a better look. It was a red shop rag. Half wadded, half loose. When she lifted it with a stick the wadded part stayed together, like it was held with glue. Or God knew what, thought Merci.

  She slipped a new paper lunch bag from one of her hip pockets— always carried three on a crime scene investigation—and popped it open with one hand. It took five tries. Then she teased the shop rag inside with the stick. Dropped in the stick for good measure.

  Too bad you can't get fingerprints off a rag used to wipe fingerprints, she thought. But there was plenty else Size Sixteen might not have thought of when he tossed the rag: skin particles, hair, fiber from clothing or furniture or carpet or cars, dandruff, sweat. And what's holding the wadded-up cloth together, Size Sixteen? Did you blow your fat murderous nose before you chucked the rag into the bushes? Maybe I can send you to death row on snot evidence.

  She stood on top of the embankment, a few yards back from the edge, looking again for footprints. None. Too much brush, too many weeds. And the generator noise again, rattling her nerves.

  Suddenly a shadow rose behind her, clear in the floodlights. Her heart jumped and she wheeled. Her hand found the nine but she caught herself.

  "Oh, Paul!"

  He stopped dead, hands up. "You okay?"

  "Perfect."

  He looked at her but she saw he understood. Understood that a memory can be heavy as an engine block and sharp as a razor. Through the thumping in her chest and the ringing in her ears she see could again what she'd loved first and best about Zamorra: all the thing didn't need to be told, all the things he just got.

  "The deputies interviewed George Massati," he said. "George was angry because he'd been sleeping. George claimed his car wasn't stolen, that it was in the garage. Guess what? It was. But the plates were different. So our friends were thorough enough to steal one car, then slap on plates stolen from another one, figuring it might take the owner a while to notice his plates had changed."

  "Cute," she said. Her heart was still racing and part of her felt like a hysterical dope. The other part of her felt like a ghost had just his fingers up her thigh. She took a good deep breath of air into lungs.

  "What's in the bag?" Zamorra asked.

  "A red shop rag. I think it was thrown into the culvert so wouldn't find it."

  He nodded, smiled slightly. "You're better than perfect. You're good."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

 
; Early the next morning Archie opened his eyes. In the half-light of the ICU he saw the silhouettes of the monitor and drip trolley, the crimson swoosh of someone leaving the room. He lifted his head, rising just slightly on his elbows, and backed up onto his pillow.

  Gwen is dead, he thought. The huge black nothing that was now Gwen opened up to him and he felt his heart falling down into the center of it. It was still beating as it fell, but it felt reluctant. He thought it might stop. He waited for it to stop. He saw that bright flash of light in his eyes, the one that had greeted him on his walkway under the trees.

  And he heard the voice again, the one that had been telling him what to do for these last forty-eight hours, now saying: Your heart is strong. I'm above you in the sky. You will find me if you look.

  Archie realized it was Gwen's voice, even though he still couldn't picture her face.

  Another red rush of movement outside the door, then it came straight at him: "Oh, Mr. Wyocraff! Mr. Wyocraff! It's so good! You be careful, you be careful with a IV." Warm hands on his shoulder then and a dull pain that registered as a flash of lime green. "You take it easy, Mr. Wyocraff. You our miracle. You take it easy."

  "Sure," he heard himself say. The voice was sandy and tan and seemed to come from far away.

  Four more people suddenly crowded into the room. He felt the energy they brought with them, as if their bodies contained fires. Hands on his shoulder again, and another throb of pain.

  Another nurse, then: "Archie, we're going to move you back down in the bed, then raise the head, okay? You just relax now. ..."

  They pulled him down by his ankles. A nurse steadied his head and it felt like she wore oven mitts, and he wondered if his head was wrapped. A motor ground and the bed rose slightly, bending him the waist. His head hurt only a little. But a burning match touched the tip of his penis and he very slowly tilted down his head for a look. Catheter, he thought, and tried to say the word but it wasn't worth the syllables.

  He strained his neck for a look down at his shoulder. Through the hospital smock he could see the plastic gadget with an intravenous line hooked into it. He ran his right hand across his cheek: hard stubb. He raised the hand slightly and felt the soft turban of gauze that came down to his ears. When he slipped the finger under it he realized they'd shaved his head.

  He remembered that Gwen was dead and he waited for his heart to stop.

  The four bodies parted. A man in a suit stopped beside the bed, looked at Archie and said, "I'm John Stebbins. How are you feeling?"

  Archie managed a nod.

  Dr. Stebbins stared into his eyes like he was looking for a treasure.

  "Vision blurred?"

  Archie shook his head very slightly, the turban resisting the pillowcase.

  "Color?"

  Archie nodded.

  "How many fingers am I holding up?"

  "Two," he said. It seemed like such a long word, stretching on for miles, like a beach.

  "You can obviously hear me. How's your head feel?"

  Archie nodded again. He watched the doctor's eyes move to the monitor, then back to him.

  "Look at the ceiling, please. I'm going to touch you with a pen. When I do, just raise a finger for me. Okay?

  "The nodding was wearing him out. He looked up. He felt something touch his toe. Ankle. Kneecap. Fingertip. Stomach. Thigh. Hip. Chest. Upper arm. Palm.

  "Move your right foot. Good. Left. Good. Raise your right knee— that's enough. Now the left. Fine. Raise your right hand. From the shoulder now—excellent. Can you smile?"

  Archie tried to smile but his lips were tight and his teeth felt huge and dry.

  "Fine," he said. "Welcome back."

  Archie just stared at him: a pale blue man with peaceful eyes and a tight mouth.

  "How much Decadron is he taking?"

  A nurse said something and Stebbins nodded. "And how much Tegretol?"

  Archie heard her answer but couldn't calculate what it meant.

  "Seizures?"

  "A sharp decline, Doctor. None for four hours."

  Dr. Stebbins turned to one of the nurses and ordered a spiral CT scan immediately, tell Bixton it was priority and call me as soon as they're ready.

  They parted and the doctor left in a comet of trailing red. All four stared at him like he was the most interesting thing they'd ever seen. A fifth person craned her neck from the doorway.

  "Soup," said Archie.

  He drank three cups of broth and fell deeply asleep. Then they were trying to wake him and he was able to come up through the clear warm water and join them.

  One nurse wheeled his bed from the room and the other pushed the drip trolley.

  "You be very famous when you get out," said the nurse, the one who had called him her miracle. "Reporter all want talk to you."

  Her face was enameled yellow. Orange hair, an indigo uniform that he knew was either white or blue. He saw these colors clearly even though he knew they were wrong.

  "Did they bury her?" he heard himself ask.

  "I don't know. You think of life, Mr. Wyocraff. You don't think of death."

  But that was almost all Archie thought about while they ran the CT on him. Death and Gwen. Gwen and death, now together. He tried pull them apart but they wouldn't come. And he still couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her face. He knew he loved her. He knew she was gone forever. He knew that she was the largest thing in his heart, his life, his history. Why couldn't he see her?

  Would she talk to him again?

  The scan was painless. The doctors hovered a few yards away a talked about things inside his brain that he couldn't see. He wondered if they could see what he was thinking. Then the one called Stebbi told him all sorts of information about what might be happening to his brain, about fragmentation and edema and infection and amnesia a pain, about the thalamus and the amygdala and the pyramidal tract, and colors and confusion and the emotional components of memory.

  Back in his room in the ICU he closed his eyes hard and tried burst out of his nightmare. He used to do this when he was a boy a having a bad dream—just scrunch his eyelids down hard and blast out of it and into the comfort of his bed. It was like space travel. But didn't work because this was not a dream.

  So he tried to transport himself back to that night. To get himself onto the walkway under the Chinese flame trees just one second before the bright light hit his eyes. To change what happened.

  God, what I could have done, he thought.

  But Archie couldn't take himself back. And he wondered what good it would do if he could. He knew he'd come up that walkway again, be caught in the light again, take a bullet in his head again.

  And what had happened to Gwen would happen to Gwen again

  He'd have no power to stop it, really. Because he didn't know why. He didn't know why any of this had happened. Until you understood why, what was the point of going back?

  Archie twisted quickly to the side and vomited the meager content of his stomach. Tears burned from his eyes and the catheter pulled a green arrow of pain through him. He smelled the foul aroma of his body. He heard a buzzer go off, and another.

  Then the crimson rush of motion again, and hands upon him, voices bubbling forth. More of this horseshit about being someone's miracle. He lay back and shut his eyes tight and tried to go under to the warm deep water where he was safe and invisible. But he couldn't get there. Just couldn't slip beneath himself.

  Then her voice again, ordering him not to descend, not to go down.

  Up, Archie. . . that's where I'll be. Free and open in the sky.

  So Archie lay on the bed while they handled him and imagined himself in a beautiful blue sky. So hard to go there, though, with the noise and activity all around him. And he realized this was his world now. It was the only place that would have him. Loud and painful and shot with colors that made no sense. Gwenless and loveless and stripped of everything that was valuable. Indifferent, needle-happy and catheter-mad. Urgent but pointless. This
is the world he was part of now.

  There was nothing he could do about that. It was like being born again.

  Then, in his nauseous despair, Archie heard Gwen's voice again.

  I love you, Arch. I'm still your girl.

  I want to be with you, he thought to her. I want to be with you so badly.

  Be with me. I'm up here waiting.

  If I can find out why, maybe I can go back and make it all come out right. If I understand it I can make it go our way.

  Find out why, Arch. Make it go our way.

  I will. I can.

  When Archie woke up again it was early afternoon and Sergeant Rayborn was sitting next to his bed. Again—though for only a split second—he thought she was Gwen, that this whole stupid thing was only a nightmare and everything was really very okay. But it was just the sergeant. She didn't look as angry as before, but she had the kind of face that could get that way fast. Standing back near the wall was her partner, Zamorra, the Golden Gloves guy who dressed like an undertaker. More history, coming back to his mind one image, one memory at a time.

  He let his eyes roam to the small framed picture on his bed tray— dark-haired beauty with smart eyes. That's her, he thought. Gwen.

  "How are you feeling?" the detective asked.

  Archie raised his eyebrows and let them fall. "Good," he whispered. He wasn't trying to whisper, it just came out that way.

  "Can we talk for a few minutes?"

  Archie nodded. He saw her little notebook and her pen. He remembered wanting to be a homicide investigator someday. She had tough eyes and a pale blue face. Zamorra's was pink.

  "May I have your full name?"

  "Archibald Franklin Wildcraft."

  "Address?"

  He gave it. It was strange, bringing up this bit of information, was inside him and true but not substantial.

  "What did you do in college, Archie?"

  "Played baseball. All my life." This was a much heavier memory.

  He looked again at the little picture on his stand.

  "What's your rank, Archie?"

  "Deputy Two."

  "What's your assignment?"