Black Water Page 15

  "What about one of the OrganiVen guys, on the business side? I think I should talk to one of them. It's just a feeling."

  "Well, fuck, Arch, they're back in Switzerland by now for all I know. I mean, I don't know those people. Or they're out on some yacht off of Greece. They weren't OrganiVen guys anyway—they were just investors."

  "The car."

  "What car?"

  "The car they came to that meeting in. It looked normal but it wasn't. God, I wish I could remember."

  "Man, you're talking nonsense to me now."

  "Sorry."

  "Aren't you supposed to be in the hospital?"

  Archie had vague memories of Gwen meeting two men one night in a bar in Newport Beach. Long ago. A year? Maybe more? She had asked Archie to be there without the men knowing it. Because she was uneasy, uncertain how they would react. React to what? He searched his memory for an answer but it was like trying to get water from an empty bucket. Still, he remembered sitting across the room dressed like a beach bum and looking at the three of them occasionally from behind a pair of sunglasses. One man was blond and clean-shaven. The other was dark-haired, with a beard and mustache, one of the biggest people Archie had ever seen in his life. His head was enormous. Archie could remember being afraid for Gwen, just her being that close to him.

  Gentry hung up.

  Archie called Merci Rayborn's cell number and told her that he had just remembered Gwen being upset by a man with a monstrous head.

  "Explain," she snapped.

  He did—maybe something to do with OrganiVen, a meeting in a Newport bar, Gwen asking him to be there without them knowing.

  "Monstrous?" she asked.

  "Very. Dark hair, and a beard."

  "Big enough to recline a Cadillac seat just to get in or out?"

  "I don't know. Along those lines, I would say."

  "What else?"

  "The car they came in. Something about it was different. But I can't remember what."

  "Make and model?"

  "I can't remember."

  "American or foreign?"

  "Large, that's all I see."

  "The way it looked? Sounded? A custom paint job or body work. A sign, a bumper sticker?"

  "I'm sorry. Just that it was different than other cars." A silence.

  "Archie, I'm going to come by and take you back to the hospital. Right now."

  "I won't go."

  "I'll call paramedics for you, if you'd be more comfortable that way."

  "I won't go."

  A long silence over a clear connection.

  "Archie, are you all right?"

  "I'm fine. The deputies are still out front."

  "They'll be there all night."

  "I'm not afraid."

  "I wish you were."

  Archie sat and stared at the lights twinkling in the hills before him. He had no appetite. When the night breeze came up it was cool and clean off the desert so he went into the house to put away the phone and get some blankets.

  The phone rang just as he was putting it into the charger.

  "Hello, Deputy Wildcraft?"

  "Yes."

  "This is Gary Brice, Orange County Journal. How are you feeling?"

  "All right."

  "How about we do an interview tonight? I can be there in less than half an hour."

  "No. I'm tired."

  "I can sure see why. How come you checked out of the hospitals?"

  "I felt better."

  "Were the police putting pressure on you?"

  "They questioned me about what happened."

  "What did you tell them? What did happen, Deputy Wildcraft?"

  "I won't talk now. I need some privacy and time to think."

  Archie punched off. The phone rang again immediately—then off and on until he fell asleep hours later—but he didn't answer it.

  From the kitchen window he could see part of his driveway and the two black-and-whites still blocking it. Good, he thought: safe for now. He got a gun, too, a Remington composite-stock twelve-gauge automatic cut down at both ends, with the magazine plug removed to hold all five rounds. He checked to see it was loaded and safed.

  He went back out and set the shotgun on the pool deck, then lay down on the chaise lounge, pulling the blankets over him. He saw a falling star, then another, then more. He remembered, as a boy, counting one hundred and nineteen of them one September night while lying in his backyard on a sleeping bag.

  Archie listened to the palm fronds hiss in the breeze.

  I'll remember, he thought. And tell Detective Rayborn everything and she'll arrest whoever did this and it will make no difference at all.

  I'll remember you, he thought. Someday I will remember everything about you and never forget again.

  And I'll remember you, Arch.

  "Gwen."

  A little after six the next morning, just after first light, Archie sat up.

  He heard the branch snap, then soft, careful footsteps on the walkway. They came from down on the property, not from the house but from the direction of the steps and the wildflowers that led down to his fence and the road.

  His blankets were damp. The clothes he had slept in were damp. So was the bandage around his head. Archie shivered quickly as he listened to the footsteps getting closer. He lifted the Remington, stood and moved toward the walkway with the stubby barrel held out and his finger on the safety beside the trigger guard. Archie saw him first. A young blond guy in jeans and sneakers, light jacket. He held a camcorder up to his face as he picked his way along the walk. He swung the camera to his left, then his right, then aimed straight ahead, at the house.

  Then at Archie, who stepped from beside a hibiscus plant and extended his arms and put the barrel of his riot gun under the guy's chin.

  The man froze, one foot just coming up to begin a step. "Fuck, he whispered. "Please don't shoot."

  The camera lowered very slowly and Archie saw the boyish face--- the pale cheeks and young blue eyes, the weak mustache and rosy, astonished mouth.

  Archie left the barrel where it was.

  "I'm Gary Brice, Deputy. I'm a reporter with the Orange Count Journal. Please don't shoot me."

  "Show me your ID."

  "It's in my wallet. My wallet is in my pants pocket. I'll get it."

  "Move very slowly."

  "Can I put my other foot down?"

  "No."

  The man calling himself Brice produced ID and Archie glanced i it. It looked good. Brice still stood with one foot lifted almost off the ground, and this made him waver because his balance was bad.

  Archie still hadn't moved the gun barrel.

  "You're trespassing," he said.

  "I wanted you to tell me what happened."

  Archie's temper spiked. It was like a rocket being launched. He couldn't account for it, really, other than that he'd been shot and his wife murdered and he'd been poked, prodded, needled, scanned, questioned, doubted, threatened, treated like a child and now trespassed on by a reporter.

  Still holding the gun under Brice's chin, Archie ordered him off his property. He could hear the ice-cold anger in his voice and he knew it for what it was. "I'm absolutely getting off your property, Deputy. I'm going to back up now, and just go away. Okay? So don't shoot, and I'll be gone and I won't come back unless you invite me."

  Brice lowered his trembling foot, then backed up one step, then another. Archie kept the gun pointed at his chest.

  "Deputy Wildcraft, what happened that night?"

  "Get away before I lose my patience."

  Brice kept moving back, trying to keep eye contact with Archie and not trip.

  "Did you see who killed your wife?"

  "Get out."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I'll kill them myself."

  As Archie spoke, Brice veered off the walkway and backed into an orange tree. He flinched, swung back his hands for balance, almost dropping the camera. He finally steadied himself and re-aimed at Archie.r />
  Archie smiled.

  "Did you shoot her and yourself, sir?"

  "Go to hell, you little shit."

  Brice was halfway through the wildflowers now, backpedaling faster. When he thought he was out of shotgun range he whipped around, tucked the camera under his arm like a football, sprinted down the hill and jumped over the fence in one big leap.

  Archie watched him scramble into a little silver four-door and drive away

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The walk-through with Wildcraft was a bust. Rayborn took careful notes and Zamorra made sure the tape recorder was always within pick-up distance of their subject, but Archie offered almost no new information. He was vague. He was forgetful. He was emotional, then oddly flat, then emotional again. To Merci, it seemed like the deputy was trying to weigh anchor through molasses.

  As they walked the house she noticed that Archie had done some light housework. He had cleaned up the bathroom, taken away the old towels and opened two windows. He had also stacked the birthday; presents more neatly in the living room, pushing them up against one wall. He had leaned a twelve-gauge riot gun in the corner of the entryway a few feet from the front door. He had placed his medicine bottles on the kitchen counter by the coffeemaker, spread out in a neat line of four.

  The bed was unmade, though, and the bedroom had grown warm and stuffy. Rayborn caught the scent of something musky and sexual and it embarrassed her.

  Archie was sweating visibly.

  "Who took care of the finances, bills, money stuff?" Merci asked

  "Gwen. Ever since we were married. In the music room, there's a desk and file cabinets. It's all there."

  "Tell us about OrganiVen."

  Wildcraft sat on the bed. He looked around the room like he was new there. Merci could see it in his posture, in the earnest, uplifted face, the inquisitive eyes. Like he was discovering new things every second. Maybe he is, she thought. Eyes like Tim's.

  "It was a company that was new. We invested some money, but I'm not sure how much. It was called that because they made a cancer treatment from snake venom. We got to see slides and pictures of what it did to tumors and it was amazing. So, then the company got bought up by a bigger company and we made a lot of money by selling our shares."

  He looked at her, raised his eyebrows unenthusiastically, then looked away.

  "How did you find out about it?"

  "I'm not sure. I believe we worked with Priscilla's husband, Charlie Brock. He works for a big stockbroker, but I can't think of the name."

  "Ritter-Dunne-Davis."

  Archie smiled and his eyes sparkled. "Yeah. You should have seen that stuff, eating those tumors. It would kill the cancer, right while you watched. On a camera, I mean, a video."

  "You and Gwen put almost everything you had into that company. Didn't you?"

  "I think so. I don't remember particulars. Or maybe I never knew them, because Gwen did all the finances."

  "I'd like to see those financial things," said Zamorra. "Take some with me to look over closely."

  "You're welcome to them. I'm sorry I couldn't help more. I feel sleepy and thick. Kind of dumb. Maybe the swelling started up again."

  "Let's get you back to the medical center, then," said Merci.

  "I'm thinking about that. But I want some more time here. I look at her pictures and I see her things. And I smell her. And it feels like a light is about to go on. Like I'm about to bring something up out of black water."

  "We can't post those deputies outside forever, Archie," said Zamorra.

  "I know."

  "You'd be helping us if you went back to UCI," he said. "Yourself too."

  "I need to do a few things here. Make a few calls. Look at some pictures. Try to ... try to just remember."

  Zamorra left the room with a hard look at Archie.

  Wildcraft was still sitting on the bed. He touched the sheet as i for the first time, rubbing the fabric between his thumb and fingers. When he looked at Merci, his hand stopped moving.

  "You going to charge me with it?"

  "If you did it, I will."

  "Then you don't believe me."

  "We're still investigating."

  "I can see why you suspect me. With all the evidence you told me about." He smiled. The light caught his eyes and filled them with something innocent and childlike and sad. "I feel guilty."

  Rayborn's antenna snapped upright at one of her favorite words "Why, Archie? Tell me what you did to feel guilty."

  At first he looked angry, then offended, then just defeated. "I let it happen. I didn't protect her."

  "They call that survivor's guilt."

  "Do they?"

  She studied his guileless eyes, trying to see behind them, into his; mind. Nothing like this had ever happened to Rayborn, and it unnerved her. She'd never chatted with a suspect about whether or not she was going to arrest him, except to disarm. Or talked about the evidence except either to intimidate or mislead. Or stood in a suspect's bedroom and smelled his tangled sheets and wondered if this was the last place he'd had sex with his wife, or if it was in their car, pulled off of Coast Highway, stars in her hair. All of that was bad enough. But what made it worse was this was the only time she'd ever looked at a suspect and thought he was beautiful. Something to do with those dimples and the nice baseball muscles? Maybe. Something to do with him defending her in a bar fight? Okay. And something to do with the bullet in his head, too and all of the sad mystery it signified? Yes. But mostly the fact—the apparent fact—that this guy had loved his wife with passion. That was what made Wildcraft seem so genuinely, naturally, uncomplicatedly beautiful.

  Christ, she thought: get a grip.

  "What's wrong?" he asked.

  "Nothing. Why?"

  "Your expression. I don't know."

  "No, you don't." Then, anything to break the hold of this moment. "Why isn't your gardener here today?"

  "He must not work here on Mondays."

  "Describe him."

  "Dark skin and dark hair. I think he's Mexican but I'm not sure."

  "How tall?"

  "Short and heavy. Maybe five-eight, two hundred. Why?"

  "I was wondering who left size-sixteen shoe prints under your tree out there."

  "I don't know."

  Wildcraft turned to look at the pillows. He leaned over, picked something off one of them, then held it out to her. She could see the hair: four inches, dark, a gentle bend in it.

  "That's Gwen's," said Wildcraft.

  "Who else's would it be?"

  "Well, either hers or mine. But mine was short before they shaved

  it."

  Wildcraft turned to the pillow again and placed the hair back where it had been.

  "Were you happy with her, Archie?"

  He studied her for just a moment. "Yes, I think so. If she's this large to me being gone, I think she must have been even larger being here."

  "How big is she, gone?"

  "Huge, Detective. Gigantic."

  She believed him. But she still pressed him. Maybe he was just fooling himself.

  "But you didn't want more, Archie? Run up some numbers, like some of you guys like to do?"

  "I don't remember ever doing that."

  "Gwen inclined that way?"

  "You mean make it with other guys?"

  "That's what I mean."

  He shook his head. "Oh, I don't think so. No. Do you want to hear something very weird?"

  "Sure."

  "She talks to me. I hear her voice in my head, so clear I turn around and look to see where she's standing. Once I felt her breath on my neck."

  Rayborn knew other people who heard from their departed. Personally, she'd only heard Hess's voice one time after he was gone and that was in a dream. He'd said: It's okay. At first she'd felt bad about her deafness, attributed it to some failure of emotion or imagination. But as the months passed she learned to forgive herself for what she didn't hear. Why should she be blamed for the silence of the de
ad? It was one of the things she'd talked about with Zamorra. He had never heard from Janine, either, except once, like her, in a dream.

  "You're lucky," she said.

  "But it's kind of torture," said Archie. "It. . . gets your hopes up.'

  "I can see how it would."

  "I wonder if there's a way to see her, too. If you can actually hear why can't you actually see? I don't think it's impossible."

  Merci said nothing. What could you say to that? But for one extremely brief moment—the time it took to let out one breath and take another one in—Merci pretended that she could see Hess again if she wanted to. She felt spooked and giddy. But would she see him, if she could? Oh, yes. So much to talk about.

  "Well, I'll let you know if I find a way to do that," Archie said reasonably.

  "Do that, Archie."

  Zamorra came into the room carrying a cardboard box in two hands. "I've got plenty to get us started. I found what looks like video from OrganiVen. Maybe we'll get to see the rattlesnake cancer cure in action."

  Merci heard the sharpness in Zamorra's words. She knew that as Janine had faded, she and Paul had gone to a clinic in Tijuana. They had come back two days later, Zamorra quietly boiling with contempt for what they'd found down there. He'd made an unfunny joke about demolishing the place and killing the quacks with head-and-kidney punches.

  "You'll like that," said Archie, unaware.

  "I bet I will." Zamorra headed down the hall with his booty.

  "Do you want me to give you a ride to the hospital?" Merci asked.

  "No, thank you. I've got a few hours of things to do. I'm feeling better right now. My parents are taking me to lunch."

  She looked at him and nodded.

  "You're a good detective, Sergeant Rayborn," he said. "I think you're intelligent and thorough. You seem to like your job. You're attractive. You don't smile very often, but you're not in a smiley kind of business. The first couple of times I saw you, I thought you were Gwen. You have very similar eyes. Intelligent eyes. The difference is Gwen's eyes had something generous and inclusive, and yours don't. Yours have something judgmental and private. Something unwelcome to other people, or maybe just to me."

  She thought about these statements but it was like being hit by different things in different places.

  "I don't really care what you think of me or the way I look, or who I remind you of."