Copper River (24 page)

“Perfectly, Calvin.”

Under the security guard’s stern scrutiny, Ren made a careful U-turn with the ATV and headed back the way they’d come. When they crossed Staples Creek and were on public land again, Cork tapped his shoulder and called over the sound of the engine, “That guy, his name tag said Calvin. His last name wouldn’t happen to be Stokely, would it?”

“It is,” Ren said.

“Calvin Stokely.” Cork was quiet a moment as if he was thinking. “Your mom told me about him, said he used to scare her when they were kids.”

“He still does.”

“He’s got himself a uniform, a big rifle, and an inflated sense of authority. Ren, I can’t think of much that’s scarier than that.”

Ren laughed.

“You did great back there,” Cork told him.

“Really?”

“You kept your cool. Didn’t volunteer anything you shouldn’t. Not easy when you’re facing a man with a rifle. Now, think you can get us back to the cabins before I bleed to death?”

“You bet I can.”

Ren smiled to himself with the pleasure that came from fair praise, and he guided them swiftly home.

M
uddy Waters was on Main Street in downtown Marquette. It was a long, narrow room with high-backed booths like church pews along one side and tables along the other and a counter far at the back. Light came from the front window and from lamps in the ceiling, and there was a dim, intimate feel to the place. It smelled of strong brew and cigarettes.

They found the kid whose name was George but whom Charlie referred to simply as G.

“G hangs at Muddy Waters,” she’d said. “He drinks coffee, smokes, writes. He says he’s going to write a book just like some other famous guy who bummed around and wrote a book.”

“Kerouac?” Jewell had said.

The girl shrugged her shoulders. “Dunno.”

G was all arms and legs, lanky, awkward looking, sprawled on one side of a booth toward the back. He wore his hair in dreadlocks that fell like ropes over his face as he bent to scribble in a cheap wire-bound notebook. An empty cardboard coffee cup sat at his elbow. Smoke curled up from a cigarette wedged between the fingers of his left hand. He wrote with his right, using a Bic ballpoint. Jewell pegged him at seventeen, maybe eighteen years old.

“G,” Charlie said.

The kid looked up. His eyes were sharp blue, his face the color of coffee full of cream. “Charlie. Whazzup?”

“Can we sit?”

“Who’re they?”

“Like, friends.”

He took a drag off the cigarette while he considered the two women. He waved his hand toward the high-backed bench on the other side of the table. Dina and Jewell sat there. He took a stuffed backpack off the bench where he sat and dropped it at his feet to make room for Charlie. He slid his notebook aside.

“I’m Dina,” Dina said. “This is Jewell.”

“Social workers?” G asked.

Dina shook her head. “Like Charlie said, just friends.”

G put his right arm across the bench back behind Charlie and turned his blue eyes on her. “Haven’t seen you in a while. Things between you and your old man must be okay.”

“He’s dead.”

G took the news without any visible reaction. “Sorry.” He considered his cigarette. “On the other hand, maybe not. You okay?”

“Yeah. But they think I did it.”

“No shit?” His cigarette hand moved toward his mouth. “Did you?”

Charlie slugged him in the side, not hard enough to hurt. He looked at the women. “Not social workers, huh? Cops?”

“No.”

“They’re trying to help me,” Charlie explained.

“So what are you doing here?” he asked her.

“G, Sara is dead.”

That hit him hard. The diffidence he’d affected cracked and as the pieces of that façade fell away the face of a hurt child emerged. “You’re lying.”

“No. Swear.”

“Fuck.” He threw his cigarette into the empty cup. “How?”

“Somebody killed her, G.”

“Ah shit, no. Jesus.” He looked away, toward the empty wall at the end of the booth, and balled his fist as if he were going to hit something, someone. After a moment, he dropped his hand into his lap. “They know who?”

“I don’t think so,” Charlie said.

“Like they’d even care.”

Dina spoke quietly. “I’m a private investigator, G, and I do care. I’d like your help.”

He brought his wet blue eyes to bear on her. There was still anger in them. “Yeah? How?”

“When was the last time you saw Sara?”

He stared at her, maybe trying to remember, maybe trying to decide something about Dina. Jewell couldn’t tell.

“Week and a half ago,” he finally replied. “Just before she disappeared from Providence House. I should’ve known right away something was wrong.”

He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of American Spirits. He tapped a cigarette free, jammed it into the corner of his mouth, and lit it with a plastic butane lighter. He blew smoke toward the ceiling.

“Sara, she was on her way, you know? She had a compass, direction. She was going somewhere with her life. Talking with her was always trippy because she was always up. Believe me, that was something, considering all the shit before she came to Providence House.”

“She told you?” Dina asked.

“We talked a lot.”

“You’re a writer,” Jewell said, indicating the notebook. “What do you write?”

“My life. And hers.” He tipped his head toward Charlie. “And Sara, and all the rest of us, the fucked and forgotten, the trash in the gutters of America’s streets.” He sucked on his cigarette and shot smoke out his nostrils.

Dina said, “Do you always notice when one of the kids is gone?”

He gave a quick shake of his head. “They come and go. Sometimes they talk, sometimes they keep it to themselves. And I’m not there every night.”

Jewell wondered where he stayed other nights. G had money for cigarettes, for coffee. The dreads took time and care. His clothing was clean and decent. She knew that prostitution was a possibility.

“You watch,” G said. “The cops’ll make a show of trying to get to the bottom of it, but they won’t come up with anything, and after a while everyone will forget about it. Who cares about a dead cat beside the road if it’s not someone’s pet, right?”

“Do you think she went back to prostitution?” Dina asked.

“No way. She was on a ladder and she was looking up.” He took a long drag. “Damn.”

“Talking to you, did she ever mention any names, anyone she might have been seeing?”

“Like a boyfriend? No. She was focused solid, I mean like a laser, on getting her life in order. She didn’t have time for a guy right now.”

“How about adults?”

He shook his head faintly. “Maybe at school, I suppose. Or her job. Plenty of adults there. There’s the staff at Providence House. But she never said anything, and we talked about everything, I mean deep.” He seemed to be wilting. “Look, I need some time with this. Alone, you know? You mind?”

“No, that’s okay. Thanks for your help, G.”

Jewell stepped from the booth and Dina scooted out after her.

“You go on,” Charlie said. “I’ll be right there.”

They left Muddy Waters and walked into the late morning light. Down the street to the east, Lake Superior filled the gap between high buildings. Above it floated the paler ephemeral blue of the autumn sky.

From her purse, Jewell dug out her pack of Newports. “Cigarette?”

“No, thanks,” Dina said. “I quit a long time ago.”

“Me, too.” Jewell lit up. “So where did that get us?”

“She probably wasn’t tricking,” Dina replied. “She wasn’t involved with anyone. She was putting her life together. So…” She looked up at the sun and squinted. “Either what happened to her was completely random or there’s a connection we’re still missing.”

Jewell looked back through her reflection on the front window of the coffee shop. As she did, Charlie leaned to G and they hugged as if they were survivors of a great tragedy. Charlie got up to leave.

“Street kids are tight,” Dina said. “They look out for each other. I wish everyone did.”

Charlie stepped out the door and Dina put her arm around the girl’s shoulders.

“When I was on the streets, I knew a guy like G. He called himself Rimbaud, after a poet.”

Charlie eyed her skeptically. “You were on the street?”

“In Chicago. When I was sixteen.”

“How long?”

“A few months. It felt like forever. But it was better than home.”

Charlie did something that surprised Jewell. She buried her face against Dina, and for a minute she wept.

Jewell reached out, stroked the girl’s hair, and whispered, “It’ll be okay, Charlie. It’ll all be okay.”

When she’d cried enough, Charlie pulled away and wiped her eyes with her coat sleeve. Then she walked with the women toward the car, looking less like a kid than a veteran of some long, horrible conflict.

B
y the time Ren brought the ATV to a stop in front of Cabin 3, Cork was exhausted. His leg hurt like hell, and the spot on his jeans where blood had oozed covered most of the inside of his thigh. He eased himself from the seat behind Ren and almost collapsed when he put weight on his leg.

“I need to lie down,” he told the boy. “Maybe sleep a little. If I’m not up when your mother and the others get back, come and get me, all right?”

“Sure,” Ren said. His eyes dropped to Cork’s thigh, and he winced at the big bloodstain. “Maybe I should look at your leg.”

“I’ll take care of it. Thanks for driving me up the river, Ren.”

Cork turned and hobbled up the steps to his cabin. Inside, he took off his boots and gingerly removed his jeans. The jostling of the ATV ride had worked the butterfly bandages loose. Blood smeared everything from his crotch to his knee, and it was still seeping from the opened wound. He washed in the bathroom sink, silently cursing for not asking Ren for more bandaging before he sent the boy away. He was drying himself when he heard a knock at his door.

“Yeah?” he called.

“It’s me,” Ren said from the other side. “I brought my mom’s medical bag. Just in case you needed something.”

“Come on in.” Cork struggled to his bunk.

Ren scooted a chair next to him, sat down, and bent to examine the wound. He didn’t seem upset by what he saw.

“You probably shouldn’t have gone,” he said.

“Can you fix me, Doc?” Cork asked.

Ren grinned up at him. “Got insurance?”

Cork watched the boy work, his hands moving surely through the ministration. It felt odd, being cared for by one so young, but in a way, he was glad. Through all these unusual circumstances, in the face of enormous challenge, Ren had kept his head. He’d risen to each occasion without confusion or complaint, shown great heart, and Cork couldn’t have been more proud of him than if the boy had been his own son.

When a clean gauze pad was in place over the wound, Cork said, “Thanks, Ren.”

The boy became intent on putting materials back into the bag. “I just thought, you know, you might need some help. How’s the pain?”

“I could use another Vicodin. They’re on the sink in the bathroom.”

Ren came back with the pill bottle and a yellow plastic tumbler full of water.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about the hero of your comic book,” Cork said, after he’d taken the pill. “White Eagle.”

The boy held the tumbler and eyed him uncertainly, waiting for him to go on.

“I don’t know much about art, but I’ve heard the best comes when you tap who you are and what you know. I think you’ve got everything inside you to create a great hero, Ren.”

The boy looked down and for a moment Cork thought maybe he’d trespassed, stepped over a line Ren held sacred.

Ren smiled shyly. “You really think so?”

“I do.”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” He put the tumbler and pill bottle back in the bathroom. “When Mom gets home, I’ll let you know she’s here.”

“And could you ask her for a pair of clean jeans and underwear?”

“Sure.”

“Appreciate it.” Cork let his head sink deep into his pillow.

Ren paused at the cabin door. “Was it important? You know, what we did, going up the river?”

Cork closed his eyes and tried not to concentrate on the pain. “What do you think we learned?”

Ren was quiet for a while. When Cork opened his eyes, he saw the boy poking a finger thoughtfully into his chin.

“I don’t know. She could have got into the river almost anywhere,” Ren said.

“When did you spot her?”

“Around sunset.”

“And the shelter’s not far from the summer cottages, right? So if she’d been dumped in the river somewhere in the vicinity of the summer cottages, it would have been broad daylight.”

“Yeah.”

“Would that have been smart?”

“I guess not. Someone might have seen them do it.”

“Bingo. Upriver, where is there easy access if you were carrying a body?”

“There isn’t. Not until you get to the trestle.”

“Which connects with an abandoned logging camp on one end and a main line twenty miles away on the other. What would it take to come up that line twenty miles?”

Ren crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders. “I don’t know. Something rugged. SUV or ATV maybe.”

“Can you think of a reason someone would make that kind of trip into this kind of wilderness only to dump a body into a river that had the potential to deliver it back to civilization?”

Ren shook his head. “That would be stupid.”

Cork tried to fight his fatigue, but he could feel himself getting drowsy. He wanted to stay with Ren, to guide the boy to the end of this thinking.

“If it’s true these people are trying to get rid of Charlie because she saw the body in the river, then it’s the river that’s important. Besides the summer cottages and the trestle, where upriver is there easy access?”

Cork had to close his eyes again, he was so tired. He waited. Finally the boy said, “The Copper River Club. You think she came from the Copper River Club.”

“You’re a smart kid, Ren. Now I need a nap.”

He didn’t even hear the boy leave, but his sleep was a restless one. At one point he thought he heard a vehicle pull up outside and he thought dreamily,
The women.
He sank immediately back into his slumber and into a dream in which a cougar was chewing on the inside of his thigh.

A knock at his door woke him, and he climbed to a hazy consciousness.

“Yeah?”

“It’s me. Ren.”

“Your mom home?”

“Can I come in?”

Later, Cork would think how the boy had sounded timid, even a little afraid, but at the moment he was too sleepy to notice.

“Come ahead.”

Cork closed his eyes tightly, this time to clear the sleep from them. He worked his neck and shoulders a little, which were sore from fighting to hold himself on the ATV. He let out a deep breath and pushed himself into a sitting position. Then he realized the boy wasn’t alone.