Dead Man Falls (17 page)

I sucked in my breath at that one. "You can’t fire Max, Jerry. It wasn’t his fault. He’s a good deputy and--"

"I know that, Jolene. And if I fired every deputy you or your mother coerced into doing something they shouldn’t I wouldn’t have anybody working for me."

I smiled a little inside. Maybe he wasn’t too mad.

"We’ll still be telling Rick. Tonight. And I doubt he’s going to be very happy about any of it."

Yeah, Surfer Dude might even scowl at me for real. "Fine, Jerry, you do whatever you think is best, but it is not a major development in the case that Rhonda-the-Lying-Slut Davenport has a son that’s just as mean and ugly as she is."

"You’re right, Jolene. Not a big deal at all, unless he also happens to be our killer."

Okay, that would make a difference. Admittedly, Harley Senior looked capable of murder, but he darn well didn’t need a gun. Those meaty hands could snap my neck like a pretzel stick. But why would he? For Rhonda? You bet.

It didn’t take a big leap to see that I should die because I supposedly had ruined his mother’s life and thus his. Jerry should die too because he hadn't married Rhonda--god forbid--to somehow save her from herself. But what about Calvin? Rhonda was in the photography club with him. Maybe they were friends then. Did that matter? I’d definitely bring up the idea to Jerry at some point, but since he’d pulled to a stop and was no longer chewing me out, I figured this wasn’t that point.

I’d thought the new falls looked darned nice yesterday during the day, but at night the thing was nothing short of dazzling. Artistically placed spotlights flickered and shimmered behind the cascading water, giving the falls an enchanted garden sort of look. Soft perimeter lighting in the parking lot gave off enough glow to illuminate the path, but not enough to be intrusive. Impressive. Really.

And no one else was here to see it.

We were alone for about thirty seconds when a small pickup with flashing yellow lights pulled into the lot and headed toward us. Jerry rolled down the window and killed the engine as a young guy strode up to us, his green security guard uniform crisp and clean.

"Evening, Sheriff," he said, tipping his hat. "Ma’am."

In the dim light it was hard to get a good look at his face, especially beneath his guard cap, but he appeared to be young, maybe mid-twenties, dark hair, of average height and above-average shoulders, maybe even a body builder. He also had a cute voice, kind of like Jerry’s but not as deep and a little more scratchy. He also sounded really young.

"How’s it going tonight?" Jerry asked. "Had many lookers?"

"Not since it started getting dark." Boy-guard turned his left wrist up, pushed a button and checked the time. "It’s been pretty quiet for a couple of hours now."

"How often do you make the rounds out here?" Jerry asked. "Do you have a standard route you patrol?"

The young man gave Jerry a detailed itinerary of his sweeps, as he called them. He apparently hit the main lot that we were in about every fifteen to twenty minutes as it took that long to drive up the frontage road, circle the upper park at the top of the falls and then drive back down again. No, he hadn’t seen anything suspicious tonight, and he hadn’t been on duty the night before or the night before that.

"We’re going to look around here for a few minutes," Jerry said. "Shouldn’t be too long."

"Sure, Sheriff. I’m going on break here in a minute anyway. My mother went to grab some burgers. Soon as she gets back, I’m taking a few minutes off, but I’ll still be around if you need anything."

Jerry nodded and waved as the kid jogged back to his little white truck with the blinking yellow lights.

I sort of gawked. "His mother? His mother went to get him a burger to bring him on the job? How weird is that?"

Jerry shrugged. "Maybe not weird at all. Maybe his mother’s worried about him patrolling an area where we just had a murder."

"Oh." I pondered that one for a few seconds, thinking of my own son. I wouldn’t want Matt supposedly guarding a place where a murder had just occurred. And, while I wouldn’t be blatant about it, I’d probably be lurking somewhere, watching, making sure he was okay. It’s a mother thing, I guess. Made me thankful Matt was into computer techno stuff. "You’re right. I’d probably do the same thing. Or even worse."

A gust of wind blew a fine mist across the windshield of the Expedition. The falls
was
beautiful from a distance, but I wanted to see the whole thing up close, wanted to hear the rush and roar of the water, wanted to feel the spray on my face. "Ready to take a walk with me?"

"Remind me again why we’re here?"

I was so enamored with the spot-lighted falls that it took a little backtracking to find the answer to that one. "I want to walk along the fence line like I said before. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure where Red was, where I was, where you were. Maybe something will ring a bell."

"Go right ahead. I’ll wait here."

Now, that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but fine. Mr. Grumpy could just stay in the car and get himself in a better mood. With no further begging on my part, I popped open the car door, hopped out, and took off toward the falls.

Behind me I heard what sounded suspiciously like the driver’s side car door being slammed. I glanced back and saw that Mr. Sheriff had leaned himself back against the hood and crossed his arms over his chest--standard arrogant sheriff pose. Fine, let him be that way. I was going to do my darnedest to come up with something useful and important by choreographing the falls thing. Then we’d see who got to be smug and cocky.

I marched forward through the damp grass and found where I’d been standing at the rail with Mother. It was fairly easy thanks to Harley Junior’s ice cream cone still lying on the other side of the rail and catching the light.

After mentally staging all the players as best I could and pacing back and forth between the general areas, I decided that pretty much anybody at the ceremony would have had a fair view of the falls, but not necessarily of the river. Those along the rail or within the first twenty feet could have seen the body floating downstream, at least to the first bend. Red White could have probably seen the whole river from the bed of his truck if he’d been both awake and standing up, which he had not. All in all it amounted to nothing. Announcing that the killer could have been anywhere would not gain me any suck-up points with the grouchy sheriff so I needed something more concrete--or at least clever.

The main bridge over to the falls was now open so I strolled across the slightly arched concrete bridge, running my fingers along the iron railing as I went, listening to the roar of the water. On the far side, I stopped and stared up at the artfully lit unnatural falls. Water gushed down from the rocks, sending a fishy-smelling mist across my face--not exactly as I’d fantasized in the car, but I was glad to know there might actually be gilled creatures living in the red murky river.

The concrete area directly in front of the falls was maybe thirty feet across. Water flowed down over the entire face of the rocks, but split on either side of the viewing site to drop down into the river. Now that I saw the layout up close, it actually seemed at least possible that someone could have jumped the fence and climbed up the falls in order to stash a body in a cubby hole. But it would have taken time and a lot of strength. Harley could have done it. Red White probably couldn’t have.

I looked up again, remembering where I’d first seen the body. Sure enough, the ledge where the body had been extended out a couple feet further than the top lip of the falls. All the killer had to do was back a vehicle up to the edge--no water was flowing--and roll the body off onto the cupped-out area below. If the corpse didn’t hit right where he wanted, he could have easily climbed down and stuffed it out of sight. Had to be it.

I was kind of proud of myself and figured I should relay my deductions to the official law person on the scene. I turned and headed back across the river.

Midway across the bridge, another gust of wind whipped my hair into my face and sent a shower of water across my back. I stopped and pulled the strands out of the way, then turned and looked back at the falls. Water bounced off the rocks with gushing force, but not as much force as the fire hoses had supplied yesterday. And that meant what?

Well, it meant the pumps were working today, Sunday, when they weren’t working yesterday. Somebody got busy and got the national landmark up and running, even if it was a day late. Interesting, but probably not relevant. My great revelation about the overhang and body stashing wasn’t sounding so great anymore either. I stared down at the water, hoping inspiration would strike.

Lights from the falls glittered off the surface of the dark river below. As a kid, I loved to throw sticks off one side of a bridge just to see if they’d come out the other. Seemed like an adequate activity to delay going back to the car and admitting to Jerry that coming here had been pointless. Besides, giving Jerry a little more time to cool down about the Harley thing didn’t seem like a bad idea.

I scanned the murky shoreline below me for some dried limbs, a decent-sized leaf or even a Styrofoam cup. The area was amazingly clean--or it was just amazingly dark--and I didn’t see any prospective floating material. There were some small willow-like bushes growing beneath the bridge. I could rob a few limbs from those if I became that ambitious about it, which I wasn’t likely to do as it was mighty dark down there and I was losing interest rapidly. In fact, now that I thought about it, tossing sticks in the river was childish and completely beneath me--and it was dark down there. Convincing myself to forget that game had taken maybe two and half seconds, but it was about two seconds too long because as my eyes adjusted to the blackness below, I saw it.

At the edge of the river, between the bushes, lying mostly in the shadow of the bridge, was a thing. Yes, a thing. A big thing.

Now, no one doubts the power of my imagination, least of all me. I am often amused by the shapes and faces lurking in the clouds overhead--and am very flexible about the interpretation thereof. However, try as I might, I could not make the shape under the bridge resemble anything but one--the head and upper torso of a body. Dead one. Corpse. Like Calvin.

I pushed back and stood there, gripping the rail, my heart thumping like a scared rabbit’s. It was entirely likely that there was nothing of consequence down there, and if so, telling Jerry I’d seen a body wasn’t going to do me any good in the credibility department. I made a surreptitious glance at Jerry and found him still leaning back on the hood and watching my every move.

My track record for doing the right thing in the eyes of Mr. Sheriff was already in the toilet, so even if it made me look stupid, I figured I’d better tell him to come take a look. I walked off the bridge, stood beside the rail and waved at him. "Hey, Jerry, come over here a minute," I hollered, trying to sound very calm.

Apparently, I succeeded admirably because he shook his head and tapped a finger to his wristwatch. "It’s late, Jolene. We need to get going."

Now, that pissed me off. His tone was a little on the patronizing and condescending side and I didn’t much like it. What did he think, that I wanted him to come over so we could hold hands and go for a stroll in the moonlight? Okay, maybe that thought had crossed my mind when we’d first gotten here, but not now, definitely not now.

Truthfully, I was as ready to get out of here as he was, but I needed to confirm there was nothing under the bridge first. If I didn’t, my imagination would run rampant the rest of the night. After I cleared the slate with my imaginings, I could turn my attention to correcting a few of Mr. Sheriff’s assumptions, primarily that all I think about is some romantic notion about him. Geez.

I wedged my foot between the rails and swung myself over the iron fence. I stomped through the wet grass to the edge of the sharply sloping bank and peered down into the darkness. I couldn’t see a thing, much less, in fact, than I could from the bridge. From here, the bank seemed to drop off into nothingness. The roar of water from the falls and lapping of waves against the bank confirmed the river was directly below me, but I couldn’t see it. Fine. I’m not stupid. Whatever was there could stay right there and my imagination could just get over it.

As I stepped back to turn and leave, my slick-soled sandals slid on the damp sod and my feet went out from under me. "Oh, shit!" I landed with a thud on my hip and kept sliding, down the bank, into the shadows and directly toward the river.

I scrambled and grabbed, trying to jam my fingers into the dirt and dig my heels into the steep hillside. With some enthusiastic flailing and grappling, I finally stopped myself only a few feet from the water--or so it sounded. Panting as if I’d run a hundred miles and tingling with a rush of adrenaline, I tried to catch my breath. Oh, my, but this was not good. Very not good. And if I didn’t want to wind up taking a swim, the slick-bottomed sandals had to go. Pronto. I kept one hand clutched in the grass and slipped them off, implanting my toes into the hillside like claws.

I was considering how best to let go, flip onto my belly, and scramble up the steep hill, when a bright light flickered on from somewhere behind me. Blinded, I froze in place, blinking, gripping the grass with both hands. "I'm fine, Jerry," I said, feeling anything but.

Jerry moved the light a little to the side and my eyes automatically followed, all the way down to the river.

Something with glowing beady eyes leaped toward me, croaking. I jumped, belatedly realizing it was just a frog. After a few more milliseconds, another realization hit. That frog had just hopped off a very dead body--hopped off the face. The face of a very dead Rhonda Davenport.

Chapter 12

I suspect that I screamed--loudly. I don’t actually remember doing so, but it seems highly likely. What I do remember is trying to crabwalk backward up that steep bank, trying to get myself as far away from Rhonda and the bullet hole in her forehead as I possibly could.