The Deader the Better (20 page)

On the left, a deep, nearly vertical notch cut into the side of
the mountain; on the right, the rocky canyon of the Bo gachiel River.
The road was about a lane and a half wide. Every so often, turnouts
had been cut into the steep bank.

“So…let me tell you about your paramour Mr. Tressman and the
Case of the Recalcitrant Clerk,” I said. Ahead, the Bogachiel
gleamed like a black ribbon.

“Do tell,” she said.

“So anyway, he keeps me cooling my butt for twenty minutes and
then…” A log truck was parked in the road, facing our direction.
“Oops,” she said. I slowed down and, when he made no move of any
kind, stopped. The rig was filthy. The only places on the cab not
covered by an inch of dried mud were the twin crescents the wipers
had cleared. I wasn’t sure of the local protocol, but I knew I’d
passed a turnout not too far back, and figured it was going to be a
lot easier for me to back up than it would be for him. I rolled down
the window, threw my arm out, and followed it with my head. My turn
to say, “Oops.” Another log truck, this one behind us. I could
see gray diesel smoke rising from the pipes and hear the rapping of
his engine. “Oh goody,” sighed Rebecca. “Rush hour.”

They must have been talking on the CB radio or whatever truckers
talk on these days, because they started for us at precisely the same
time. The truck to our rear nearly pulled a wheelie when the driver
popped the clutch at full throttle. Rebecca was still looking
forward; she screamed, “Leo!” I snapped my head around. The
mudmobile was bouncing over the dips at us like a rhinoceros. As it
charged our way, clumps of mud shook loose from the fenders and
splattered in the road. The last image I had of Rebecca was of her
throwing her arms up in front of her face and turning to look at me.
Then we were hit from behind by what seemed like a freight train. The
force blasted me forward. My lap belt kept most of me in the cockpit,
but I’m several inches taller than the average American, so the
force tried to pitch me up and out. My forehead collided with the top
of the windshield and my world went red. Blind, I groped to the
right, reaching toward Rebecca, when suddenly we were hit from the
front, pile-driving the air from my lungs, snapping my head back into
the headrest; I remember the feeling of being pelted by stones, and
then I was floating forward again into the white, and the crumbling
dashboard and something pushing sharp on my leg, and then the roar
and the scraping and the dim sensation of moving forward, and the
unmistakable teetertotter moment of equilibrium as the backseat
started to rise and the car went into free fall straight down, landed
on its nose, rested for a moment and then flopped over onto its top.

The roaring stayed in my head long after the real sounds departed.
I never heard the forest grow silent around us: that moment when the
wheels stop turning and the fluids cease to flow, as the last piece
of debris settles into place and the first bird sings.

Next thing I knew, my hands were at my face. I pawed at the red
mud until suddenly I could see the deflated air bag in my lap. I
could make out that the roof had buckled in the center. Couldn’t
see Rebecca. I tried to call her name, but nothing came out, so I
swallowed several times, tried unsuccessfully to work up some spit
and then tried again. “Hey,”

I croaked. No response.

And then, out of the blue, I started to sob. First one little
hiccup, then a rhythmic succession of spasms shook my chest and
lasted for several minutes. Turned out to be a good thing because, by
the time I regained control of myself, I knew for sure that if either
of us was getting out of here alive, I was going to have to get my
shit together in a hurry. I wiped my nose on my shoulder.
Concentrated on my breathing as I looked around. Even in my muddled
state, there was little question that I was hanging upside down in my
seatbelt, and that not much was going to happen until I wasn’t, so
I groped around until I found the release, braced a hand on the
headliner and pushed the button. I dropped about a foot. Though the
windshield was buckled in the center, there looked to be enough room
for me to crawl out.

Problem was the steering wheel was pushed up under my chin, so
there was no way I could move in that direction. I looked to the
left. The window was bent into a trapezoid, but mercifully it was
open. When I pulled my feet around so I could go out head first, I
realized that my right shin hurt like hell and the foot was warm and
wet. I ignored it, reached out and grabbed the window frame with both
hands and began worming myself out, until my hands were in the leaves
and I could pull my feet down to join them. When I tried to stand, my
stomach hurled its contents up my throat. I dropped back to all
fours, began to retch and stayed at it until my mouth was filled with
the taste of bile and my lower lip was connected to the ground by a
silver string of spittle.

And as I knelt there staring at a pile of my own puke, I had one
of those thoughts that separates man from the beasts. I thought, You
should have killed me, motherfucker. You should have come down here
with a gun and popped a cap on both of us, because, as of this
moment, I am coming for you. Maybe not today, but you should make it
a point to rest a bit more lightly, because I’m coming. The car had
fallen nearly thirty feet straight down into the canyon and was now
about two-thirds the size it had been earlier. In the darkness, I
could make out pieces of chrome and plastic scattered here and there.
Most of the shattered windshield lay twisted on the ground behind the
car. I pulled my left leg up so the foot was on the ground and then
got to my feet. From the knee down, the right leg of my jeans was
thick with blood. Gritting my teeth, I eased the pants up and had a
look. From ankle to knee, a strip of flesh four inches wide had been
peeled from my leg. Despite the seeping blood, the shin bone was
visible. I eased the pants back down. I could feel blood squishing
between my toes as I struggled for balance. Gingerly, I made my way
around the back of the car.

Rebecca’s door had sprung open on impact and I could see her arm
hanging out the door. The pain from my leg had my ears roaring again
as I limped to her side. Her head was thrown back. She had a bruise
the size and color of an eggplant across her forehead and blood
coming from the corner of her mouth. I put my finger on her throat.
Her pulse was strong and regular.

I pushed the button and slid the seat back as far as it would go.
When I popped her seatbelt, she fell out into my lap. That’s when I
saw her other arm, and the bone sticking out, and the blood all over
the place. Compound fracture. Shock. Stop the bleeding. Keep her
warm. I laid her carefully on the hillside and went to the back of
the car where I’d thrown my dirty clothes. The blue work shirt was
draped over my old gym bag and covered with glass. I reached in
through the twisted frame and pulled it out and then made my way back
to her side.

The break was six inches below her elbow, and there was no way I
was going to try to poke the bone back inside or set it or anything
like that. I tore the shirt into strips and did the best I could with
a bandage. She groaned and thrashed when I tied the last strip tight
around the others and then groaned again when I picked her up in my
arms. I began to traverse the hill, walking like Boris Karloff in
The
Mummy
. The cliff down into the river canyon got smaller as you
got closer to the bridge, so I kept moving in that direction, laying
Rebecca down when my arms could no longer bear her weight. The third
time I picked her up and started on, something in my head broke loose
and I began to bleed heavily from the nose. Time and distance got
real fuzzy. If you’d asked me then, I would have spoken in terms of
hours and miles. Later it turned out I’d carried her a little over
six hundred feet and that from the time I left the key with Deputy
Spots to the time help arrived had been a mere fifty-five minutes.

I left her in a dark recess between two boulders. The roadbed was
no more than three feet above her head. She had abig snotty red stain
on her chest from where my nose had been dripping on her and she’d
begun to bleed through the makeshift bandage on her arm. Her lips
moved slightly, as if she were trying to whisper, but no sound came
out.

“Rebecca,” I said. Her lips stopped. “I’ll be back. I’ve
gotta go now, but I’ll be back.” I think maybe I told her a bunch
of times, but I can’t be sure.

I climbed up to the road and took off my bloody shirt. I tied it
around the nearest bush and started for the bridge in a stiff,
labored gait. From that point on, there’s a lot of it that I don’t
remember. I don’t, for instance, remember crossing the bridge, but
I must have because I got as far as the highway, where, for the first
time since coming to Stevens Falls, I got lucky. Forty yards from
where I staggered barechested out onto Route 1, two cars were pulled
over on the shoulder of the eastbound lane. The car in front showed
only parking lights, which was okay because the one behind had a rack
of red and blue lights blazing into the night. The cop was handing
the guy something through the window. I must have been a sight. At
first he didn’t know who I was.

“What in hell…,” he said as I came staggering toward him. It
was Deputy Bobby Russell. He tossed the guy in the car his license
and registration and began to jog my way.

“Sir…,” he started to say. Then he figured it out.

“Jesus…is that you, Mr. Waterman?”

“Get an ambulance on the way,” I said.

“Come on. Get in the car. I’ll take you to the hospital
myself.”

“For my friend,” I said with as much volume as I could muster.
“Maybe a mile up West River.”

He turned and sprinted for the radio in the patrol car.

REBECCA GRIMACED AT ME, GOT UP WITH THAT AIR OF dramatic slowness
and crossed to turn the stereo off. The room was still. She stood
with her back to me and took a final sip from her coffee cup, and as
she turned slowly, she attempted to set the cup on the glass shelf
beside the stereo, but she missed the shelf. In the first hasty
action I had seen her make in weeks, she reached for the falling cup,
which shattered on the oak planks, sending a starburst of coffee out
in all directions. She took a deep breath and backed through the
swinging door into the kitchen and then returned with a paper sack
and roll of paper towels and dropped the scattered pieces of the cup
into the bag and then began to wipe the floor clean of coffee,
rubbing hard, going over and over the same area, continuing to scrub
until long after the need was over. When she got to her feet and
turned back my way, I knew we were through sparring.

“You can’t be serious,” she said.

“Why’s that?”

“You’re going back there?”

“I’ve got a client.”

“All you had to do was say no.”

“I didn’t want to say no.”

“Claudia I can understand. She’s about to come into a great
deal of money. She wants to know what happened to her husband. But
you? You’ve still got over two hundred stitches in your leg. The
front of your head looks like the Frankenstein monster…and you’re
thinking of going back there. For what? You heard what Billy said
about the case. There’s nothing to investigate.”

Billy was Captain William Heffernen of the Washington State
Police, a twenty-year veteran of the force and a close friend of
Rebecca’s. Whenever he needed better pathology work than the state
provided, he called Rebecca. Over the past ten years, she had become
the forensic witness of choice for the Washington State Police. At
her request, he’d sent a pair of investigators to Stevens Falls.
Two days and they were back. They reported that the likelihood that
J.D. Springer’s killer could be brought to justice was about nil.

“Why?” she demanded.

“It’s what I do.”

“It’s more than that. It’s more like who you are.”

“Thank you, Dr. Laura.”

“What you do is dabble at being a private detective until you
come into your trust fund. What you are is a perpetual adolescent.”

“What? This is suddenly news to you?” I said in mock surprise.
“I’ve never made any bones about not being either the most
ambitious or the most mature guy in the world. Excuse me, but I
always figured that was more or less a given.”

She waved her good arm around. “There are no givens,”

she yelled. To the best of my recollection that was the first time
she’d ever raised her voice to me, and she wasn’t through.
“Whatever givens there were went over that damn cliff with us.”
She put her hand to her throat, as if to contain her voice. When she
opened her mouth, her tone was tight, but under control. “I don’t
know whether you’ll understand this or not, Leo…maybe you’re so
used to that kind of thing that what happened to us doesn’t have an
effect on you, but…”

“But what?”

She thought it over. “But everything’s different now,” she
said finally. “This thing you do that’s so important to you…”

She took a deep breath. “I’m not sure it’s okay with me
anymore.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just what it says.” She searched for a phrase. “It’s not
a job…it’s like some sort of quest with you. Some game you play
at so you don’t have to get a real job.”

“Like yours.”

“Yes, dammit, like mine.” Yelling again.

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

She threw the wet towels into the bag and then rifled the roll in
on top. When you only have one usable arm, you consolidate. Moving
quickly now, she picked up the bag, strode to the door and
disappeared into the kitchen. The air in the room was heavy and
still. So what else was new? Things had been heavy ever since we got
back from Stevens Falls. Instead of staging a party for the boys,
we’d suffered through nine days of doctor appointments, hospitals,
and surgery. At first I attributed the air of tension to the severity
of our injuries. Rebecca’s arm had required three hours of surgery
and four steel pins and was now encased in plaster from shoulder to
wrist. Not only was she still in considerable pain from the arm, but
she’d been having migraine headaches from the blow she took to the
head.