Down River (18 page)

I got out of the car.

The bus shifted as someone moved inside. A man stepped down onto the bare dirt. He was in his sixties, wearing cutoff jeans, untied boots, and no shirt. He was sunburned and lean, with gray hair on his chest, small, callused hands, and dirty nails. Long, gray hair, either damp or unwashed, framed a lined, brown face. He moved sideways, one arm bent, and his smile stretched wide.

“Hey, man. What’s happening?” He walked to me. The smell of burned marijuana hung on him.

“Adam Chase,” I said, holding out my hand.

“Ken Miller.”

We shook hands. Up close, the smell was stronger: earth, sweat, and pot. His eyes were red, his teeth large and yellow and perfectly straight. He looked from me to the car and I saw him take in the word gouged into the hood. He pointed. “Bummer, man.”

“I’m looking for Sarah Yates.” I gestured at the bus. “She at home?”

He laughed. “Oh, hey man.” The laughter grew in him. One hand rose, palm out, the other cupped his stomach. He bent at the waist, trying to speak through the laughter. “No, man. You got it all wrong. Sarah lives through there, in the big house.” He got control of himself and pointed toward the next tree line. “She just lets me crash here, you know. I take care of the garden. Help her out when she needs it. She pays me a little, lets me crash.”

I looked at the field of green. “That’s a lot of work to sleep in a bus.”

“No, this is cool. No phone, no hassles. Easy living. But I’m really here for the education.”

I looked a question at him.

“Sarah’s an herbalist,” he stated.

“A what?”

“A healer.” He waved an arm at the long rows of plants in the field. “Dandelion weed, chamomile, thyme, sage, catnip.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Holistics, man.”

I pointed to the other side of the clearing, where a gap broke the trees. “Through there?”

“The big house. Straight up.”

   The big house was about fifteen hundred square feet, a log home with a green tin roof streaked orange at the edges. The logs had weathered gray; the chinking looked like river bottom. I parked behind a van with a bumper sticker on the back that said, GODDESS BLESS.

Shadows filled the porch and my skin chilled as I crossed to the door. I knocked, doubting that she was home. The cabin had that empty feel, and there was no canoe at the dock. I looked over the river, trying to guess exactly where we were. I put the location somewhere north of the farm; couple miles maybe. I walked down to the dock.

There was a wheelchair there, and I stared for a long second. It looked very out of place. I sat down on the dock to wait. It took about twenty minutes. She rounded the northern bend in an easy slide, the bow sweeping in, the current taking the stern out until she caught it with a firm stroke.

I stood, and the sense of knowing her welled up. She was an attractive woman, with ageless skin and a direct gaze. She locked it upon me when she was ten feet out, and did not look away, even as the canoe sidled up against the side of the dock.

I took the rope from her hand and tied it off on a cleat. She lay the paddle down and studied me. “Hello, Adam,” she said.

“Do I know you?”

She flashed small teeth. “No, you don’t.” She waved a hand. “Now step back.” She put her hands on the side of the dock and heaved herself up, turning so that she sat on the edge. Her legs twisted away beneath her, thin, lifeless sticks in loose jeans worn, in places, to the color of sand. I saw wasted skin at the ankles.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“Of course not.” Anger snapped in her voice, so that she sounded very much like her mother. She pushed herself back and her legs slid lifelessly behind her. She grabbed the arms of the wheelchair and pulled herself into the seat. She reached down for one of her legs, then fastened those lamplight eyes on me. “No need to stare, young man.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and looked for something of interest on the other side of the river. I could sense her behind me, working to position her feet and legs.

“No harm in it, I guess. I don’t see people that often. Sometimes, I forget there’s something to stare at.”

“You handle a canoe better than most.”

“It’s my only real exercise. Now, that’s better.” I turned around. She was situated in her chair. “Let’s go up to the house.” Her hands gripped the wheel rims and she turned without waiting for an answer. She propelled the chair uphill with strong, abrupt strokes. At the cabin, she turned for the rear. “Ramp’s in the back,” she said. Inside, she maneuvered to the refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher. “Tea?”

“Sure.”

I watched as she handled the job with economical precision. Glasses in low cupboards. Ice from a separate freezer. I looked around the cabin. It had a large central room dominated by a fieldstone fireplace; the stones were brown and irregular, probably cleared from the soil beyond the trees. The space was spartan and clean. She handed me a glass. “I can’t abide sugar,” she said.

“That’s okay.”

She rolled for the front door, spoke over her shoulder. “Did you meet Ken on the way in?” she asked.

We went outside. I took a chair and sipped tea that was raw and bitter. “Interesting man.”

“Once upon a time, he made more money than you’d believe. Seven figures in a year, sometimes. Then something changed. He gave it all to his kids and asked me if he could live out here for a while. That was six years ago. The canoe was his idea.”

“Unusual place to live.”

“It was there when I bought the place. I lived in it myself until I got the cabin built.” She reached up and pulled a joint from her shirt pocket. She lit it with a cheap lighter, sucked in a deep breath, and let the smoke run out over her pale pink lips. She offered it to me and I declined. “Suit yourself,” she said, and I watched her take another toke, how she sucked in multiple, small breaths, tightened her jaw before exhaling.

She settled lower in the wheelchair, studied the bright world with a contented air. “So, you know Grace?” I asked.

“Fine girl. We talk from time to time.”

“Do you sell her pot?”

“Goodness, no. I’d never sell pot to that girl. Not in a million years.” She took another drag, and when she spoke, her words were compressed. “I give it to her.” There was laughter in her face. “Oh, don’t look so serious. She’s old enough to know her own mind.”

“She was attacked the other day, you know. Right after the last time you saw her.”

“Attacked?”

“Beaten badly. It happened a half mile south of the dock. I was hoping that you might have seen something. A man in a boat or on the trail. Anything like that.”

The laughter vanished, and bleakness settled in the place it had been. “Is she okay?”

“She will be. She’s in the hospital.”

“I went north,” she said. “I saw nothing unusual.”

“Does Ken Miller know who she is?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know him well?”

She waved a hand. “He’s harmless.”

She pulled one more time on the joint, and when the smoke left her lungs it carried much of her vitality with it. “Nice car,” she said, but the words had no meaning. The car just happened to be in her field of vision.

“How do you know me?” I asked. Her eyes cut my way, but she didn’t answer.

“Tell me how you found me,” she said instead.

“Your mother thought you were over this way.”

“Ah,” she said, and there was dark history in that single sound.

I turned my seat to face her. “How do you know me, Sarah?”

But she was stoned, her eyes burnished bright and empty. She was seeing something that I could not, and her words drifted. “There are things in this world of which I do not speak,” she said. “Promises, promises.”

“I don’t understand.”

She crushed the joint out and dropped it on the unswept boards. Her eyelids drooped, but life moved behind the pale green irises, something knowing and wild enough to make me wonder what she saw. She gestured with a bent finger and I leaned closer. She took my face in her hands and kissed me on the mouth. Her lips were soft, slightly parted, and tasted of the joint she’d smoked. It was not a chaste kiss, nor was it overly sexual. Her fingers fell away and she smiled with such mournfulness that I felt an overwhelming sense of loss. “You were such a lovely boy,” she said.

   She left me without another word, rolled the chair inside, and closed the door. I got in the car, passed through the trees and thought of Sarah’s mother, whose message I had failed to deliver. They were family gone to ash, the bond between them as bloodless as time can make a thing. Maybe that’s why I felt a kinship, why I thought of once precious bonds charred to light gray nothing.

I slowed as Ken Miller stepped out of the shade and waved me down. He leaned into the window. “Everything okay?” he asked. “She need anything?”

His face was open, but I knew how meaningless that could be. People show you what you want to see. “Do you know Grace Shepherd?” I asked.

“I know who she is.” He nodded through the trees. “Sarah talks about her.”

I watched him closely. “She was assaulted, almost killed. You know anything about that?”

His reaction was unscripted. “I’m truly sorry to hear that,” he said. “She sounds like a fine girl.” He seemed innocent and concerned.

“The police may want to talk to Sarah.” A quick jolt of worry flashed across his face. I watched his eyes roll left, to the long purple bus. That’s where his stash would be. “I thought you might like to know.”

“Thanks.”

I turned on my cell phone as I drove back into Salisbury. It rang almost immediately. It was Robin. “I’m not sure that I’m speaking to you right now,” I said.

“Don’t be stupid, Adam. You lied to us. The questions had to be asked. It’s better that I was there than not.”

“You said that going to Salisbury P.D. instead of the sheriff’s office was for my sake. Did you mean that?”

“Of course. Why else would I do it?” I recognized the truth in her voice and some small part of me loosened. “I’m walking a thin line, Adam. I recognize that. I’m trying to do what’s right.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Where are you?”

“In the car.”

“I need to see you. It’ll only take a minute.” I hesitated. “Please,” she said.

We met in the parking lot of a Baptist church. The steeple rose against the blue sky, a needle of white that dwarfed us. She got right to the point. “I understand that you’re angry. The interview could have gone better.”

“A lot better.”

Conviction crystallized her voice. “You chose to mislead us, Adam, so let’s not pretend that you’re on some moral high ground here. I’m still a cop. I still have responsibilities.”

“You should have never been a part of that.”

“Let me explain something to you. You left me. Get it? You… left… me. All I had left was the job. For five years, that’s all I’ve had. And I’ve worked my ass off. Do you know how many female officers have made detective in the past ten years? Three. Just three, and I’m the youngest in the history of the entire department. You’ve been back for a couple of days. You understand? I’m who I am because you left. It’s my life. I can’t turn it off and you should not expect me to. Not when you made me like this.”

She was angry and defensive. I thought about what she’d said. “You’re right,” I said, and meant it. “This is just bad all around.”

“It may get a little easier.”

“How so?”

“Grantham wants me off the case,” she said. “He’s angry.”

A large crow settled atop the steeple. It spread its wings once then dropped into black-eyed stillness. “Because you told me the truth about Grace?”

“He says I’m biased toward you and your family.”

“Life gets complicated.”

“Well, I’m about to make it more so. I asked around. Grace had a boyfriend.”

“Who?”

“Unknown. The girl I talked to knew almost nothing. He was a secret for some reason; but there were issues there. Something that made Grace unhappy.”

“Who told you this?”

“Charlotte Preston. She was in Grace’s class. She works at the drugstore now.”

“Did you ask Grace about it?”

“She denies it.”

“What about Danny’s ring? Or the note? Those don’t add up to a frustrated boyfriend.”

“I’m sure that Grantham is working on that.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“Because I’m angry, too. Because it’s you and because I’m confused.”

“Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“The body is Danny Faith. Dental records confirm it.”

“I knew it.”

“Did you know that he called your house?” She put a keen edge on her words, and her attention was complete. “It’s on his cell phone records. We just pulled them. Did you talk to him?”

She wanted me to say no. It was too damning, and there could be no easy explanation from where she stood. The timing was pretty bad. I hesitated, and Robin drilled in on it. I saw cop rise in her like a tide. “I spoke with him three weeks ago,” I said.

“Forensics thinks he died three weeks ago.”

“Yeah. Strange, I know.”

“What did you talk about, Adam? What the hell is going on?”

“He wanted a favor.”

“What favor?”

“He wanted me to come home. He wanted to talk about it in person. I told him I wouldn’t come. He got pissed.”

“Why did you come, then?”

“That’s personal,” I said, and meant it. I wanted my life back, and that included Robin. But she was not making it easy. She was a cop first, and while I understood that, it still cut.

“You need to talk to me, Adam.”

“Robin, I appreciate what you’ve said, but I’m not sure where we stand. Until I know for certain, I’ll proceed as I see fit.”

“Adam—”

“Grace was assaulted, Danny killed, and every cop in the county is looking at me and my family. How much of that comes from what happened five years ago, I don’t know; but I do know this. I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect the people I love. I still know this town, still know these people. If the cops aren’t going to look deeper than Red Water Farm, then I’ll have to do it myself.”