Minus Tide (8 page)

She walked down to place where she’d imagined the crash site to be and stayed on the side opposite of where the elk lay. With her flashlight she followed the sloping hill of undergrowth that led down to a row of trees standing on the edge of the cliff as if they were night divers waiting their turn. That’s when she saw the glimmer of a taillight in the thick salal, felt her chest sting while she held on to a small pine to catch her breath. After she got off the road she came upon a set of tire tracks, obvious scars of orange clay. She ran down with them until she reached the trees lined along the top of the cornice.

When she pulled away the undergrowth the trunk of the patrol car began to appear, a smooth polished hump of black. Sticky vines clung to her legs as she worked her way around to the front. If the trees hadn’t been here to stop it, the car would have easily gone into the sea. The right door was wedged open, its hinge twisted in the opposite direction by a violent force. But the inside of the car was empty. Ann noticed the coffee cup Mitch had bought from her earlier lying on the floor, the banana slugs moving across the windshield.

You’re too late
.

She sat down next to the car and cried, imagining what Tammy must have gone through, wondering if she was even still alive. She had no doubts that what she’d seen in Tammy’s house was real—the signs of a struggle, the blood on the sink. She was jolted by a disturbing idea. Could the attacker have been Mitch? The pieces fell together so readily—the bruises on his face, his bandaged hand. The story about falling on the jetty could have been made up for all she knew. But would Mitch hurt Tammy? The more she thought about it the more she tried to push the idea away. It was too easy. A question worth asking, but impossible to fathom. She’d known them both for too long. And why would he have suggested that she visit Tammy at the 101 if he’d had something to hide? Tammy wasn’t the kind of person to keep her mouth shut. If she’d had problems with Mitch the whole town would have known about it.

There wasn’t anything else to do but to head back to Traitor Bay and hope someone had shown. She climbed back up to the highway and turned around to see if she could still see the patrol car but even the blinking taillight was easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it. A fog was creeping up from the cliff and pooling in the hollow depressions left by landslides.

She didn’t pass the man again, wondered if he’d set up camp back in the woods or if he’d broken into one of the darkened cabins that remained vacant most of the winter. An escape from the rain and cold. Steaks in the freezer, electric heat and a comfortable bed. Dressers and closets with clothes that might fit. Cable tv. Yet for some reason he didn’t seem like the type to take risks unless they were absolutely essential. He traveled light and after dark and, she imagined, no matter how crazy his thoughts would make him he knew that he had to keep his head below the radar.

Chapter 15

The cats greeted Ann at the door, excited to see her back home. She immediately opened a can of cat food and gave them each a spoonful, listened to them purr. Careful not to wake her aunt, Ann crept up to her bedroom door and pulled it shut. The cats would want to return to their places on her aunt’s bed as soon as they were finished licking their bowls, so she knew she didn’t have much time.

She stripped off her wet clothes and climbed into the shower. The hot water soon quieted her shivering and the steam seemed to clear her head. As she worked the soapy washcloth over dried mud, the bruises and scratches hidden beneath began to sing with pain. She closed her eyes and let the water massage the back of her neck until she felt the cords of muscle begin to unwind and the headache they’d caused to gradually recede. Ann wondered if she should wake her aunt and let her know what was happening. She’d always been good at keeping her from having to worry, especially after her mother was gone and it was just the two of them. But the fact was it would take up too much valuable time—time that Tammy might not have. And what good would it do? She didn’t know what was happening other than the fact that people were disappearing. It was best to wait, she thought. Let Kate enjoy her rest for now. No sense in waking her up and putting her through this. If I’m not back by mid-morning I’ll call her. She’ll see the empty cat can in the kitchen sink and think that I’ve left early to check out the minus tide. She won’t know that I was only home long enough to shower and change.

The towel irritated the scratches more and caused some to bleed again. When she was finished drying, she took a moment to dab them with antibiotic ointment. She tied her hair back and brushed her teeth before tiptoeing naked back to her bedroom. The cats followed her inside and watched as she got dressed. They were no longer purring but looked concerned that she was preparing to leave. Winter, the oldest of the pride, jumped on the bed and forced Ann to look her in the eyes. Ann briefly hugged her and whispered that she’d be back. Her clock said it was 2:30 in the morning. The gutter outside her bedroom was overflowing, hissing like a slit windpipe.

She found her cell phone on her dresser and slipped it into the front pocket of her jeans, gathered up a pair of dry socks and boots and carried them with her through the house. Her aunt was still sleeping when she looked in on her and listened to her steady breathing. Must have finally taken a sleeping pill, Ann thought. The cats brushed past her legs in a rush to claim the best place on the bed. Aunt Kate did not stir, not even when Winter tapped her on the shoulder with her paw in an attempt to wake her and let her know what was going on. Ann motioned to the cat to be quiet, but she only stared back at her defiantly. You always have to be the boss, don’t you, she thought.
And I’ll probably get a dead mouse left in my bed for this, won’t I?

She sat in the car, trying to settle her mind and think. There was little evidence of the storm except for some thin strands of white cloud still snagged on the rocky peaks looming above town. Ann noticed fresh pools of rain glittering in the yard. They always caught her off guard, made her think there was something there that wasn’t, something living, especially after the sky mostly cleared and they filled with stars and face-shaped clouds. The pools also made sounds like slow draining bathtubs—the water gurgling as it sought passage through the hard outer layer of earth that could dull a new shovel in a day.

She wondered what she should do next. In the shower she’d thought about what Janet had said about the sheriff and the strange company he’d been seen with at the 101. What kind of business would he have with people like that? The sheriff wasn’t much for socializing except with the girls, and it was common knowledge that he usually fished alone unless his brother was down from Seattle for a visit. It was difficult to imagine him with those men unless they had some type of connection with the police. Could they have been investigating a case together?

She recalled an article she’d read in the paper about criminal activity on America’s waterways, how smuggling and piracy were on the rise and what to do if you saw anything suspicious. In the past year a river patrol boat had been torched and some fishermen had reported being shot at after dark. Tensions were running high in certain parts of the country, but as far as she knew none of these problems had yet come to Traitor Bay. She wondered if the arm she’d found on the beach had been an omen of trouble to come.

Her thoughts kept drifting back to the loading dock where the sheriff had been seen early in the morning by a passerby. If anything, it would be a new place for her to start looking. She checked her .38 again, laid it on the seat next to her under a towel she kept for wiping the windows when they fogged. When she drove away she hoped that her aunt was still sleeping.

Chapter 16

He sensed the cats hiding below the bed, opened mouthed and drawing in sips of stale air from the old woman’s bedroom. She had not awakened and he wasn’t surprised after reading the labels on the bottles of pills that stood on a shelf above the sink, a partial set of dentures resting in the bottom of a glass of water next to them. At first glance he’d thought there was something alive, and it had startled him until he’d realized the teeth and pink gum-flesh distorted by the glass had fooled him into imagining a carnivorous worm staring out at him.

He watched her from the side of the bed and listened deeply to her breathing. We all speak through our sleeping-breath, his mother had taught him at an early age. With enough practice it was the same as listening to someone talking to you while they were awake, and sometimes you’ll even see their dreams as if they’re reading from pages of a book. But don’t take this lightly, his mother had warned. You might be told something you aren’t prepared to hear. A person asleep cannot lie to you, they only report what they see from a place that neither exists nor not exists, where birth and death mean nothing. And although he never saw her again after the day he’d left, he’d listened to his mother’s sleep-breath in his dreams. He watched her lying alone in the same old plankboard house he’d grown up in, and every time he awoke he’d be soaked in tears.

The woman below him wasn’t dreaming—the pills she’d taken before going to bed had killed any chance of it. Instead he listened to her sleep-breath tell him about her heart, of the pain and the bouts of dizziness. She sang of her raggedness of spirit and it reminded him of an old war song being sung by marchers sinking into the distance. Her song told him of how close she’d come to letting whatever wanted to take her to hurry up and do it and get it over with. Is this why I am here now? he asked himself. He decided to come back to her later, after he explored the rest of the house.

He stood in Ann’s room and examined the framed pictures on her dresser. He recognized her face in the pictures he’d been shown once by Duane. Was this child the elk worshiper he’d met earlier? Look how much she’s changed, he thought. As striking now as her mother standing next to her in the older pictures. And yet he could sense a sadness behind her eyes in the most recent picture, an imprint that gave her beauty a sharper edge than that of her mother’s. He picked up the photo of her mother and held it close to his eye, felt memory stir sluggishly like a fish below a frozen pond.

Before he left the house he visited the old woman one last time. Her sleep-breath was troubled, as if she’d become aware of his presence in the room. She needs my help, he thought. He glanced around and found a firm pillow. He picked it up in both hands and moved closer.

Chapter 17

They’d been shoved inside with their wrists cuffed. One of the men cut up pieces of electrical cord and together they set to work tying ankles. Someone had been in the shack before they’d arrived, and when the men were finished they emptied a duffle bag and turned over a table with lit candles looking for clues. Tammy watched as the candles guttered in their tin cans and went out. Soon the only light remaining in the room was the glow of the iron stove. She couldn’t believe how dark the shack had become. It made her feel like how she imagined a ghost would feel, floating around like a tuft of cottonwood down through a starless night. But she also felt the little life in her belly, and its insistent movements eventually pulled her back.

In her mind she kept reliving what had happened to her while she’d been heating up soup on the stove, feeling tired from working her shift and still worrying why Mitch hadn’t slept for two days. She’d tried to fight them off—got punched in the mouth and bled on the linoleum before they’d dragged her out of the house kicking. She thought the gap in her mouth had finally stopped bleeding. A tooth had been jarred loose, held only by a strand of roots. The raw nerve pain had been excruciating up until she’d decided to pull it herself. When they’d cuffed her she’d managed to keep the tooth hidden and now she rubbed it between her fingers as if it were a talisman meant to somehow protect her from further harm. An old fishy smell coming from the rusted sink made her feel like gagging. She recalled being in the shack years ago, when James took her and Mitch and Ann for a day of sipping beer and crabbing on the bay.

She assumed the men had gone outside to see if they could find who’d been staying in the shack, and after walking around the area with their flashlights they came back and stood outside their van. Before they left she could hear them talking in what she imagined was Russian, and when they lit cigarettes she could see their woodcut faces through a gap in the wall. They reminded her of the two men she’d seen sitting with the sheriff at the 101. But she’d been too busy to get a close look at them, had mostly heard Janet back in the kitchen, cursing and letting off steam.