Rock Bottom (Imogene Museum Mystery #1) (18 page)

CHAPTER 17

I sat bolt upright, heaving air in through my mouth. My head felt too heavy to hold up, and my body ached as though it had come out on the losing end of a
wrestling match.

I staggered into the bathroom and squinted at my bloodshot eyes in the mirror. A futile effort to blow my nose only exacerbated the headache. My sinuses felt clogged with cement. Lindsay
’s cold had caught up with me. Did we have Lysol at the museum? I wished I had thought to spray the entire gift shop.

My body plodded through getting-ready-for-the-day motions. It was still dark out, so hurrying wasn
’t necessary. Eventually, I would need to think about what was coming, but if pain could be procrastinated — that seemed the better course. When necessary, I’d settle into the grief, like Julian, and devote time to it. Would it ever end?

I stood under the hot shower for a long time. The start of Day Nine. Maybe there was no longer a need to count.

It was easy to figure out which heritage trail marker Sheriff Marge meant. The small gravel turnoff overflowed with emergency vehicles. They lined the edge of the highway before and after the marker. I parked past another pickup with a volunteer firefighter sticker in the window and walked back to the scene of action.

People swarmed all over the place. I recognized a few members of the dive team.

Pete’s tug was anchored close in. Several ropes trailed into the water from the cliff above the river and from the tug’s stern. I found Sheriff Marge talking with a fire captain.

“
The cliff’s too unstable here to winch the car up the side. Several members of the dive team are on their way out to Pete’s tug which they’ll use as their base. Pete has several winches and all the cable they’ll need.” Sheriff Marge shielded her eyes from the rising sun. “These guys hold down other jobs. We’ll try to get this done quickly so they can still work most of a normal day.”

I sneezed
— a debilitating explosion.

Sheriff Marge stepped back.
“You look terrible.” She squinted. “I can’t afford to have any of my crew get sick. Stay out of the way and keep your germs to yourself.”

Mindful of Sheriff Marge
’s no-family-present lecture, I retreated to the heritage marker and sat on a boulder directly behind, facing the river. Today, no one read the sign — no one cared about the animal life Meriwether Lewis noted in his journal in funny, misspelled English, like Adam naming creatures he’d never seen before. And I didn’t want to be sent home. I had to be present when Greg was found, no matter what condition he was in, or I was in.

Pete
’s red buffalo plaid jacket stood out against the tug’s white paint. He caught the line a dive team member tossed and eased their boat alongside, securing it to the railing. They hoisted gear and oxygen tanks onto the tug.

No fog today. Long golden light shafts stretched over sagebrush hills. The breeze picked up, buffeting my plugged ears. I wished I
’d worn a hat. I bypassed my nose and took in cold gasps of air through my mouth. Cupping my hands over my ears, I concentrated on the tug, abdominal muscles tight against involuntary shivering.

Sunlight glinted off the windows, and spray sloshed over the deck when the river
’s chop hit the stationary bow. The water was rough for a rescue operation, but everyone seemed to have an urgency today, even the emergency responders for whom this kind of thing was normal.

The dive team suited up. Two men jumped into the river off the stern, bobbed to the surface and spent a few minutes adjusting their equipment. Crew members on deck spooled out the now familiar yellow nylon rope.

The divers pushed off, one after the other. Their heads and oxygen tanks bobbed between waves as they kicked toward shore. They stopped to confer about ten yards out then submerged. I held my breath.

Deputies, firefighters, EMTs, dive team members
— everyone — lined up at the edge of the cliff and peered into the river. I shifted forward with them, but maintained quarantine. I couldn’t stop shivering.

The divers were under for fifteen, twenty minutes. No bubbles surfaced. Eddies turned on each other against the rocks at the base of the cliff. The silt-filled water frothed, almost cappuccino in color. How could they see anything?

I blinked to relieve my burning eyes. The wind whipped around me, molding my jacket to my body, so I turned slightly to present a narrower profile. Pete leaned against the tug’s railing, binoculars raised to his eyes. He wasn’t looking at the base of the cliff or the crowd of people lining the ridge. He lowered the binoculars.

Maybe he had been looking at me. With trembling hands, I pulled my jacket collar up and hunkered into it, feeling far too gross and worried to be having romantic thoughts about that man. He could do whatever he liked with his spare time. But I was grateful for his help. He didn
’t have to be doing this.

The crowd shifted, murmured. I caught their voices on the wind and looked quickly at the water. One diver was up. He gave a thumb down gesture to the crowd. They responded by easing away from the edge.

Heedless of germs, I pushed through the group toward Sheriff Marge.

Sheriff Marge shook her head when she saw me.
“No body. They’re going to pull the car out now.” She waved me back, out of the way.

No body. No body. Was the car even Greg
’s? Anger against Greg swelled in my chest for the first time. Where had he gone? Why hadn’t he said something? Maybe he was off cavorting as Mac had suggested. I returned to my boulder and hunched against the wind.

The divers towed hooks attached to cables from the tug to the car. They submerged but weren
’t gone as long this time. They cleared the area and signaled the tug.

Pete operated the winches, slowly pulling the cables tight. Nothing seemed to happen. The winch motors ground on, the sound whining unevenly across the water.

I strained to hear metal scraping over rocks as the car was pulled out of its resting spot, but the water dampened whatever sound there would have been and the wind howled over the top of the cliff. Weak sunlight filtered pale through horsetail cirrus clouds.

Two wheels and part of a back bumper came to the surface at the tug
’s stern. Pete turned off the winches and strapped the car to the tug with the help of the divers. The car was upside down, but the stubby rear end looked like a Prius.

Pete held his hand to his ear. He was calling someone. I sought out Sheriff Marge in the crowd. She was also talking on her phone.

I sprinted a few seconds until lack of oxygen forced me to double over in a coughing fit. I’d used up all the Kleenexes in my pockets. Sheriff Marge was beside me when I finally stopped hacking.

“
It’s Greg’s car. The license plate matches.”

“
You’re sure there’s no body?” I croaked.

“
Yeah. All the windows are closed, so he didn’t get out that way. We’ll pull the car on shore and check the trunk.”

I swallowed. I hadn
’t thought of that. Greg dead in the trunk. That would be no accident, except — “I don’t think his car really has a trunk. More of a hatchback cargo area.”

“
We’ll go over every inch of the car. Go home and go to bed. I’ll call you.”

I made it home without remembering the drive. My head floated in its own separate bubble, and I ached all over, especially in my ear canals. Tuppence met me, but Tommy was notably absent.

“Where’s your friend?” I rasped, but Tuppence just wagged.

Two hours later, my phone rang. Sheriff Marge said,
“Contents of Greg’s car: one duffel bag with assorted clothes and toiletries, part of a case of water bottles, the usual jack, tire iron and jumper cables, insurance papers and maps in the glove box, some loose change, an air freshener hang tag, an mp3 player. The parking brake was not set.”

“
Ordinary stuff,” I said. “Now what? Do you think it was an accident?”

“
We’re going to treat the heritage marker as Greg’s last known location and assume he was moving on foot from there. We’ll run another request for the public’s help on the news channels tonight. I’m sending deputies out to canvas the next several towns east to find out if anyone saw him going that direction. He may have been disoriented, especially if he saw or caused his car to go over the edge. We’ll check at the truck stops — maybe he was hitchhiking. We’ve already searched the heritage marker parking lot and didn’t find anything we could link to him.”

“
It’s not much, is it?”

“
No. But at least we have a starting location. Very few people truly disappear without a trace. We’ll find him.”

“
What can I do to help?”

“
Nothing. Eat chicken soup. Sleep.”

I didn
’t have a can of soup of any kind in the pantry. With no energy to make a grilled cheese sandwich and thinking I should save the last can of tuna for Tommy when or if he returned, I settled for some outdated codeine-laced cough syrup. The thick, sweet liquid coated my tongue, slid down my throat and warmed my belly. I curled up in a recliner and fell into a heavy sleep with my mouth open.

I snored myself awake. The LED clock on the microwave provided the only light in the trailer
— 3:52. A steady thrumming on the roof explained the early dusk. That kind of relentless rain fell from low, dark clouds draped over the hills. Quite a switch from this morning, but weather patterns sail through the gorge.

My throat was parched and sore. I got up for a glass of water and a second dose of cough syrup and its welcome oblivion.

But my brain was too busy to go back to sleep. Greg had left so few items or hints of personal interest behind. That was a clue in itself, wasn’t it? He hadn’t said anything to Betty. He hadn’t seemed distressed. He ate a normal breakfast. But he hadn’t left anything in his room. Did he intend to return?

I pictured Greg
’s bare bedroom. The only things out of place were mine — the books Greg had borrowed, sitting on the chair. I inhaled as a thought hit me, prompting a painful coughing fit.

That day in my office, when Greg had borrowed the books, he
’d cradled them in his arm. There was more thickness to that stack than in the pile of books I’d removed from the chair when I sat at his desk.

Backpack. Laptop. Phone. Those items had not been on Sheriff Marge
’s list of what was in Greg’s car. Things you took with you when you traveled. Things you used to stay in touch. Greg hadn’t meant to go missing. What had he been planning?

The missing book or books could be the answer.

“Come on, Tupp. You love Greg, don’t you? Come with me.” I needed the dog to bounce ideas off.

Tuppence wagged and pranced at the door.

Ignoring my rumbling stomach, I grabbed the flashlight and a wad of Kleenexes. The codeine made me dizzy, but if I hung on to something for a minute, the world righted itself until I moved too fast and sent it spinning again. Nice and easy.

I went down the steps one at a time and followed Tuppence
’s white tail-tip beacon to the truck.

My brain could only do one thing at a time, so there was no further analysis while I steered the truck onto Highway 14 toward the museum. Oncoming headlights made huge, glaring halos on the rain-spattered windshield. I swerved away, caught sight of the white line and brought the right wheels back inside the lane. Tuppence whined.

“I know, I know.” My head pounded as though a giant fist squeezed the base of my skull. If I didn’t need my head to think, I wouldn’t have minded being separated from the source of my misery.