by J. S. James
“You get me out here for another SME consultation, Detective?”
“In a way. Zack. What’s that in your hand?” As if she didn’t know. Hadn’t put the bug in the new acting sheriff’s ear.
“Deputy sheriff application forms. Harvey Schenkel sent them to me. Think I should do this?”
“The sixteen-week academy’s pretty rigorous. Think you can tough it?”
“You help?”
“Much as I can.”
“Good. We can start with these. One’s a recommendation I need from you.” He set down the papers, looking around. “Something you wanted me to see?”
She motioned out toward the orchard and offered him the Bushnell’s. “Take these and locate the crew in the yellow rain gear.” He settled into the eyecups. “Focus on that bump they’re crouched around.”
“Yeah, got it.”
“Now, zoom in.”
Zack went still for a while. Then, “That’s him? Tweety Bates?”
“Hole in head, bolt quiver, neoprene wet suit and all.”
Zack was shaking. “Gotcha, you sumbitch.” The glasses came down. He rocked his forehead against the doorsill. She laid her hand briefly on his shoulder, feeling his upper body expand and contract in a motion she took for a letting-go shudder.
There was nothing left to be said.
After a full minute he raised the binoculars, his hands surprisingly steady. Before he lowered them again, she caught his murmured idiom.
“Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.”
“What was that?”
“Charlie’s last laugh.”
* * *
FRIDAY HARBOR
TWO MONTHS AFTER THE CLOSE OF OREGON’S WATERFOWL SEASON
Delia heard the Chris Craft’s salon door slide open.
“Are you decent?” It was Jerzy, back from a foray into town. After renting a boat slip for Desdemona, the forty-two-foot classic on loan from Jerzy’s dad, they’d spent two sun-filled days exploring San Juan Island on mopeds.
Sun-filled was the operative word after weeks of clouds and rain and rivers swamping the countryside. Ruining crime scenes. She was sick of it all. So ready to give life outside work a fling, she’d jumped at the prospect of two weeks on a yacht in the San Juans, with Jerzy at the helm—and in the galley. She still hated rivers, any large body of water, really, but had come to an uneasy truce—so long as the boat was big and the water stayed beneath her feet.
”Halfway,” she answered, stepping out of the forward head. Delia was dressed—sort of. His shorts, her T-shirt, but her hair was still wet.
Sliding in behind the boat salon’s nook table, he set down a rubber-banded bundle and a bag of Chinese takeout. “I brought lunch and the mail Annie forwarded. Plus, I found a Laundromat.”
“Lucky us.” A Laundromat was a must. Jerzy’s loaner boxers and sweats were clean and comfy, but they made her look like the before shot in an aerobics infomercial.
All in all, she considered herself lucky. For starters, her fair-haired, hash-slinging yacht mate was a great guy. And she had her job back. Also, under Annie’s deft campaign management, Harvey had won the emergency runoff for sheriff. Once Delia got back in town, she’d serve as acting sheriff while Annie and Harvey vacationed in Hawaii.
She dragged a wastebasket close by and sat across from Jerzy. News from home was good, too. But for some reason, she wasn’t hungry. He pushed the mail across, picked up a set of chopsticks, and dug into the subgum.
Beezer flopped down at her side, tail thumping against her ankle as she disbanded the bundle and started in. Setting aside utility bills and the latest issue of The Police Marksman, she tossed the junk mail. A couple of pieces separated when they hit the lip of the basket and fluttered to the floor. She bent over and retrieved them. One piece made her frown.
It was the backside of a postcard. A gaudy banner, scrolled across the top of the message space, read Hurricane Hole Marina: Paradise Island, Nassau. Below that, someone had penned six words in block letters.
IN A BETTER PLACE. COME VISIT.
Her fingers started to tremble. She flipped the card over and drank in the image, and waited for her heart to finish a lap around the inside of her chest.
The photo side pictured a fishing charter yacht hauling ass away from the camera and cutting a white wake across a turquoise bay. No question the boat was headed for blue water, big fish, and fun times.
She couldn’t make out the identity of the muscular and deeply tanned man at the helm, because he faced forward, but the two women in captain’s hats on the aft deck were stunning eye-catchers. Both were uniformed in ripped jean shorts and T-shirts that said Mate, First. One waved from the rear of the boat while the other pointed down at the two words emblazoned across the stern.
The boat was named Bebé Tío.
Author’s Note
I did not pause in taking liberties when faced with divergent information on the places, times, and organizations depicted in this story. Many of the locations along the Willamette River, as well as in and around Dallas, Salem, and Independence, Oregon, are real. Some, I made up. I adjusted physical constructs inside the historic Polk County Courthouse to complement the story. Word has it the Blue Garden Restaurant, which has undergone a few incarnations, has been revived and renovated, yet has preserved its art deco style. It’s worth a visit. Drug running is still rampant in Central and South America, as depicted here. I’ve also taken the reports of Navy SEALs testing of bizarre experimental weaponry one step further. However, portable smart weapons with phenomenal accuracy and firepower are beginning to make their way into conventional use. Most important, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office is one of the finer law enforcement organizations in the state of Oregon. I’ll have to own any mistakes made in these fabrications.
Author Biography
J. S. James lives near Portland, Oregon with his family, including their “Velcro” Vizsla and furry red exercise machine, Maggie. He completed a popular fiction writing program in Washington, but grew up fishing and hunting in Oregon. River Run won first place in the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association’s mystery/thriller contest, and was runner-up and “highly commended” in the Crime Writer’s Association’s Debut Dagger contest. This is J. S. James’s first novel. Currently, he’s hard at work on more novels in the genre.
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Joseph J. Stowitschek
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-64385-231-7
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-64385-232-4
Cover design by Lori Palmer and Andy Ruggirello
Printed in the United States.
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First Edition: November 2019
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