River Run

by J. S. James

  Now, miles upriver from their blackened wreck, Zack still couldn’t get the stench out of his nose. Charcoal, gasoline, and benzene. That’s what Charlie had said it smelled like. He should know, since he was the arson investigator for the Sheriff’s Department. Talk about unhuntable. They’d have to tow that stinking mess out of the farmer’s cornfield.

  But Charlie wouldn’t be around to help.

  Whack. Whack.

  Fifteen minutes later, Zack had enough material to put up a temporary blind on the gravel bar. At least they’d have clear shots.

  He dropped the cuttings behind a beached log, where he’d set down a thermos and a box of Charlie’s jelly-filled heart-cloggers. Flicked his two-way searchlight to lantern. The best he could do was put up a hedge of branches and sticks and drape it with long grass. Enough cover to disguise body outlines. Fool a low-flying widgeon or two that might decoy into range.

  He staked thick boughs as corner posts, piling up brush, picturing that deputy, Chavez, standing behind it in hunter’s camo. She’d still look good. Came off like his big sister, and that was okay, too. Maybe she’d get back to him about applying. Reserve deputy would be cool.

  For some reason the skin at the back of his neck went all crawly. He straightened up. Peered into the dark and listened. The feeling he was not alone stayed with him. Except for Charlie going off on his gallivant, there’d been no engine sounds on the river, no running lights for over an hour. He flicked the searchlight to spot and sprayed light around. Nothing but moving water and brushy banksides.

  Zack took up the Remington Wingmaster he’d propped against the log and cradled the gun in the crook of his left arm—mostly for the comfort it gave him. Still way too early to load up, but …

  His shoulders twitched. The dark had never bothered him before. It bothered him now.

  He pointed the spotlight toward his left, tracing downstream along the heavy overhang. At sixty yards the powerful beam lit up something snug against the bank and making ripples. He angled the beam up a notch and stiffened.

  A guy stood in the middle of a low-sided boat that was brown as beef gravy. He shot a glance in Zack’s direction, hustling on a parka over what looked like black underwear. Zack lowered the light, figuring he’d just interrupted a call of nature.

  He counted to twenty—zip-up time—wondering why the guy hadn’t flashed a light to let him and Charlie know the hunting spot was taken. On this river, shooters got cranky when somebody parked a boat within a duck’s call of their setup.

  Zack decided to bluff. Act like he had first claim. He put the light back on the guy and yelled, “Hey, Mister. Can’t you see our decoys? We been set up here since four AM.”

  A tiny flame sparked to life. Johnny-come-lately took his time lighting up a cigar or something. It crossed Zack’s mind that a really pissed-off hunter might resort to arson. He pushed the thought into the back of his head.

  The hunter crouched in his boat, came up with a pair of decoys, and waggled them in the air. Zack cursed under his breath. Shit. The guy’s gonna say he was here first. So he’s got dekes. Why the hell didn’t he set them out in the first place?

  Zack’s final hunt with Charlie had just turned into two hip boots full.

  The other hunter started his outboard and put the boat in motion. For a second, Zack thought the guy was taking off. No such luck. The gravy-colored boat made a sharp turn and swung up into Needle Island’s inside channel. Zack ran his light over the approaching watercraft. He’d seen that Louisiana-style Go-Devil before, but always from a distance. Heard talk about some hunting guide taking three hundred ducks a season out of a specialty boat like that.

  A minute later, the bow was fifteen feet out and even with Zack’s left knee. The hunter dropped anchor in the channel and cut the engine. Damned if he didn’t plan to stay awhile. In bright light, his cigar looked narrow, but not like the cheroots Zack used to smoke.

  The hunter filled out his brown khaki parka with a Hulk Hogan thickness that had Zack thinking he wouldn’t want to tangle with him in an alley. Instead of Hulk’s or Zack’s own blond horseshoe ’stache, the guy’s face was a bristle of ginger, poking out like frayed fishing line. Not more than forty, his eyes looked older. The coarse skin on his face and scar tissue across his nose said he’d been through rough times. Having never seen the man up close, Zack couldn’t help staring at his cold-weather snowcap, flaps up, tie strings trailing.

  Looking colorful must be part of a hunting guide’s job description.

  The visitor pointed using the cigar. “Hey, ace. Mind taking that spot outa my eyes?”

  Embarrassed, Zack thumbed the button over to lantern and set the light on the log. The sweet, woody scent teased at his nostrils. “You the guide used to hunt that island blind downriver from Salem? Still takin’ rich dudes out at four hundred a pop?”

  “Not anymore.”

  Smoke seeped out the corners of the guide’s mouth.

  “Giant pain in the ass, telling the same old jokes.” More smoke. “Making nice all the time with stuffed-shirt lawyers and Silicon Valley CEOs.” Puff.

  It seemed like words had to rattle around in the guy’s head before he could string them together. “Chasin’ wounded birds some yahoo jumped the gun on.” He studied the end of the narrow cigar. Live ashes sizzled when he tipped them into the water. “Nope. Tweety Bates hunts for himself. Hunting that counts.” A flick of his middle finger and the stub spiraled into the darkness, dying with a hiss.

  Zack scratched at the side of his jaw. “Yeah well, uh, Tweety?” His tongue tripped over the notion of a big strong hunting guide named after a cartoon character. “We’re already set up here. My brother’s gonna be back pretty soon, and—”

  “You know you’re losing dekes?”

  “Whaddaya mean?”

  Zack’s breath fogged the silence hanging in the air. He started to ask again and thought better. Some people weren’t meant to be hurried. He shifted his shotgun to his other arm and waited.

  The ex-guide scooped up a pair of brown-headed decoys by the necks, maybe the pintails he’d shaken at Zack from downriver. He tipped the decoys upward, showing their white bellies and ownership IDs—thanks to Magic Marker. “I’m guessing you are Zack L.” An easy toss and the decoys landed at Zack’s feet with hollow-sounding clunks.

  “Yeah, but how in the hell …?” Zack jerked a nod out toward his spread. “I got one-pound weights on all my decoy cords.”

  “Take a look at the string ends.”

  Zack leaned his Remington against the log, picked up an anchor cord. Sheared a foot below the belly of the decoy. Something had come along and clipped those lines.

  Zack stared out into the predawn murk, down to where the river seemed to swallow its banks and fall off the edge of the world. Where he and Charlie had abandoned a set of scorched pontoons and melted chicken wire. He snatched up his Q-Beam, switched back to spot, and fanned the light across his decoy set. Fog was starting to form, but he could see that the outermost decoys—all those magnum mallards and pintails he and Charlie had set out—were MIA.

  He pushed back his stocking hat and scratched his suddenly itchy scalp. Was this Tweety playing him? Hunters needed other hunters to keep ducks moving around. But they got pissy when somebody hunted close by. Nah. The guy seemed friendly enough, for a lone wolf. And he’d done Zack a favor, returning the pintails.

  He switched back to lantern. “Undercurrent might’ve rolled a sinker log downstream. Carried those decoy anchor lines with it.”

  “Not likely.” A yellow-and-black cigar tin appeared from the ex-guide’s parka. Cohibas. Zack licked his lips, wondering about this chain smoker’s Cuban connections. Fire flared from a brass-crested lighter, pitted with use. Tweety talked around draw-ins. “Not unless that log”—puff, puff—“had knife blades for limbs.”

  Right. Clean-cut ends ruled out that notion. Zack shook his head in exasperation. “This season’s turnin’ out to be fuckin’ weird.”

  �
��That isn’t the large of it. Fewer decent hunters, these days.” The ex-guide clicked the ancient Zippo shut and stuffed it into a coat pocket. “Seen it all before, ace. This river’s gettin’ infiltrated.”

  Zack barked a nervous laugh. “Who by, bunny-hugging protesters?”

  Tweety pulled the anchor up and gave him a sharp look that said he was dead serious. “Them protesters are tricky, too, boy.” He grunted out something else as he cranked on the outboard. “Them and …” The motor coughed to life.

  What’d he said? Them and duck turds? And now it was boy? Zack liked ace better.

  From far upriver, a high-pitched buzz signaled Charlie was on his way back.

  “You have a decent hunt,” Tweety called out, his boat drifting. When he’d made deeper water, he kicked the outboard in gear and shouted around the cigar clenched in his teeth. Zack caught the words that never made sense. “Keep yer eyes peeled.”

  For what, duck turds? Zack gave the corner of his mustache a thoughtful chewing as he watched the guide dodge decoys and angle downstream.

  Darkness and a building mist swallowed Tweety and his Go-Devil.

  Talk about odd ducks.

  10

  ONE WEEK INTO WATERFOWL SEASON

  Early-morning rain pelted the ground outside the half-basement office of Sheriff Gus Grice, turning the landscape beside the courthouse annex into a miniature land of ten thousand lakes. A squirrel huddled at eye level on the inset window ledge, riding out the downpour. Gus tapped the glass. The tree-rat perked up but stayed put. Gus couldn’t blame it for seeking shelter in a storm predicted to ruin the whole weekend. Even the Farmers’ Almanac forecast a wet winter for Oregon.

  Winter, hell. Try October.

  He sent out a silent prayer in the direction of those ten thousand lakes, hoping one of Minnesota’s breeding ponds for oversize mosquitoes would swamp Charlie Lukovsky. Or better, inject Nile fever into his defecting ass. Eight thirty, according to Gus’s desk clock. Schenkel should’ve been here a half hour ago.

  Gus had deliberately kept Chavez waiting outside his office. Both would get the same earful, a fitting kickoff for her temp assignment to Investigations.

  A knock rattled the glass-paned door, timed with its opening. Annie breezed in and dropped a rubber-banded wad of mail onto his in-box. “Mostly junk today, except that interesting one … from back east?”

  Gus’s silent gaze met hers, until she turned away.

  Annie never flounced, but her retreating walk was a pleasure. She had the door open again before Gus found words. “Oh, uh, thanks, Annie. Schenkel here yet?”

  She paused. “Here early and gone. Got a call on a floater and hitched up the patrol boat. Said to go ahead without him.” She slipped through the doorway, then ducked her head back in. “Chavez’s been waiting a long time. Can I tell her to come in?”

  “Not yet.” Barely hearing the door shut, Gus was in motion toward his desk. In particular, toward a gray envelope in the bundled mail. He plucked it up, tore off one end, and shook it over his desk blotter.

  “Hot damn.” Now he could really cover his tracks.

  He started to tear up the envelope when a piece of paper fluttered out. The note from Bannock included a series of digits and instructions so terse, a chill settled into the base of Gus’s skull: Never call Little Creek. Use this number. Nightly progress updates at 2200 hours.

  His attention settled on those block-lettered words. The coldness spread, wrapping around his neck as if he’d strapped on a dog collar. And a leash that stretched clear from Virginia.

  But then, three thousand miles left a pile of wiggle room. At that warming thought, Gus shook off the shivers.

  Glancing out the window, he scooped up the items, clapped on his rain-protected Stetson, and wedged his frame into a slicker. He had places to be.

  * * *

  At the rattle of Grice’s door, Delia lifted out of a wall chair and tugged down her coat front.

  Until a moment ago, she’d been pacing the waiting room space between the communications bay and the sheriff’s office door, squeezing the grip-strengthening ball in her pocket, eyeing the name painted on the frosted glass. Musing over what the L and the B between Augustus and Grice stood for. Lizard Breath ran neck and neck with Lead Butt.

  She smoothed the outside of her smoke-gray jacket. The extravagance of Italian leather had pushed her credit card balance to the limit, but what the hell. As a newly minted detective, she could afford it. Couldn’t she?

  The sheriff stormed out of his office, head down and buckling a yellow, calf-length rain slicker. He paid her no notice, moving instead toward Annie. “Back in an hour. Gotta make a ba—uh, quick stop and then get breakfast.”

  Before he’d cleared the com bay, his dispatcher was off her rolling ergo stool and tugging at his sleeve. “Forget somebody?”

  “Huh?” His brows bunched together as he glanced toward Delia. “Ah, for crissake.” He turned back, ripping open the fasteners on his raincoat as he approached.

  She met him midroom. “You wanted a word?” she asked in the calmest of voices, as if he’d kept her waiting five minutes instead of forty-five.

  “A word,” he answered, in a half snort. “After that opening-day river fandango?”

  She started toward his office, but his hand was out, motioning her to the pair of chairs on the waiting room wall. She settled onto the seat she’d just left. Instead of sitting, Grice set a foot on the seat next to her and leaned over, so close she had to sit back and tilt her head at an awkward angle. He spoke in a low rumble, somewhere between a Rottweiler and a whisper, while poking a thumb into his well-rounded shirtfront.

  “The word for what you give me right here, Cha-vez”—as usual, he mispronounced her name, the Cha sounding like the first syllable in chastise—“is worry.” He bent down into her space and shook his head. “No matter where you’re assigned—whether it’s behind a tavern in Independence or at a protest at the Buena Vista boat ramp—you end up churning my insides. Worse’n a gut fulla hot tamales.”

  She bristled, drawing in a quick breath. More like rum-soaked tamales. Lizard Breath had just won out over Lead Butt, by a mile.

  Seconds passed. She didn’t bite. He straightened and took a step back. She exhaled slowly, realizing it mattered little who’d been assigned to Buena Vista or that someone else had discharged a firearm at that hunting protest. She rammed her hands into her coat pockets, one of them curling around the ever-present rubber ball.

  Squeeze and hold.

  The line of his mouth was a taut cable. “And the word is that you provided piss-poor backup in a tense situation.”

  Release and rotate.

  She felt her cool melt away. Clearly, he wasn’t finished.

  “—left a fellow deputy in the lurch, and—”

  Cheeks flaming, she leaped to her feet, the swell of her chest inches from the bulge of his belly. “Now hold on. That marine park jam-up was on Castner. My day sheets spell out exactly what hap—”

  “Spare me your ass-covering incident log tweaks.” His finger jabbed the air an inch from her nose. “It was you who responded late to his backup call.” He dropped his foot, jerked his head away, and stared at the potted rubber tree in the corner, as if eye contact offended him. “I’d be waist deep in crap had one of those weekend greenies taken a load of bird shot in the hind end, all because you couldn’t work around a few carloads of hunting protesters.”

  Delia bit her tongue, checking the words she wanted to char his incompetent hide with. “Wait him out,” Harvey had advised, a few months into Grice’s reign of error as sheriff. When he’d gone from Jekyll in uniform and duty boots to Hyde in poly-suede and Tony Lama snakeskins. He dressed just like a Texas sheriff.

  She ground her molars. Wait him out? Bullshit. He might bounce her ass into a patrol car, but she had to defend herself. “You’re blowing off key facts. First, Castner was dispatched to Buena Vista as a crowd-control squad of one. Why? Because your patrol divis
ion’s stretched too thin.” The lid was off. She inhaled and went on. “Second, the closest backups were way the hell across the county. Third, nobody got hurt. And fourth, I responded as soon as possible, under the fucking circumstances.” The last, she said in a controlled but emphatic voice.

  That got a wince from him. She dug her fingers into her thighs, trying not to reveal how much she was shaking. “Now, am I in Investigations or not?”

  Annie’s communications panel buzzed loudly in the charged silence.

  Lizard Breath buried his hands in his coat pockets and stared at the floor, his jaw muscles bulging. His next words came on a slithery softness.

  “Just so we’re clear, Acting Detective Cha-vez”—he rocked on the balls of his feet—“I’m instructing Schenkel to limit you to class Cs, the white-collar end of his caseload.” Head lowered, he anticipated her next question with a sideways glance. “Because I want no excuse for you to draw your goddamn weapon.”

  His fact-stretching reignited her burn. She opened her mouth to let fly.

  “Sheriff.” Annie’s sharpness overrode her next volley. Delia turned and caught her look of alarm. Way out of character for Annie Mae Cox. “That was Salem Hospital. Harvey’s been in an accident. Somehow his truck and boat trailer backed over him down by Yamhill County.” Annie’s forehead creased with worry. “He’s still in surgery.”

  Delia swallowed, shock constricting her throat. “Aw Jesus, no.”

  At the same moment, the sheriff wheezed a guttural, “Well I’ll be damned.” Her gaze locked with his, and she felt a wrench of confusion. While his somber face and drawn-down mouth expressed concern, the glint in his eyes seemed way too cheery. Besides being set against her, did he have it in for Harvey? Or was it something to do with that gray envelope Annie had told her about?