The Rivers Run Dry

by Sibella Giorello

  I found a box in the corner of the room that held the white labels for the CDs and emptied it, stacking the labels neatly on the floor. Then I placed the CDs in the box, lining them up by date. Holland watched, waxing his suit flap. Finally, he said, “Guess you got lucky.”

  I decided there was no point explaining my theory about luck to Mike Holland. Considering where he worked, he probably didn’t believe in it either.

  We walked back to Suggs’s office, but in a different direction, the hallway appearing to be some kind of circle running under the casino. We arrived back at the management offices where a cadre of stern men was now gathered around the receptionist’s desk. Gayle was talking, gesturing with her lovely hands.

  Mike Holland opened the glass door.

  I kept walking.

  In Suggs’s office, Jack had unplugged the computer and was wrapping the cord around the tower.

  “Jail’s too good for the guy,” he said. “The kiddie porn on here would turn Michael Jackson’s stomach. You got the film?”

  I lifted the box, and we walked down the hall. A tall scowling man stepped from the management offices.

  “If Ernie Suggs did something illegal on his own time then we have nothing to do with it,” he said. “You put that stuff down right now.”

  “The warrant’s signed by a federal judge,” Jack said, trying to get past him. “Get out of my way.”

  “What did you say to me?” The man stepped into Jack’s path, baring his teeth.

  It was one of those primal confrontations, where you can hear the fuse getting lit, hissing toward detonation. I wasn’t about to let Jack ruin this search.

  “Excuse me, sir,” I said. “We’re looking into a very serious crime, one that involves innocent lives. You wouldn’t want the public to think you were part of any heinous crime that Mr. Suggs might have committed, would you?” I stopped. “Pardon me, I forgot to ask your name.”

  “Paul Wannamaker.”

  I moved the box under my arm, taking out my card. “Mr. Wannamaker, I’m Raleigh Harmon, special agent. If you have any questions, that’s my cell phone number. I’m available anytime.”

  He stared at the card, the embossed gold-and-blue seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation glittering under the ceiling lights. Then he reached into his wallet. Paul Wannamaker was vice president of management and operations.

  I thanked him. And we left.

  Outside, the afternoon light stung my eyes, the way it did after a matinee. Four p.m. and the parking lot was starting to fill. We loaded the back of the Jeep, the hard top locked in place, setting the CDs and computer tower beside the evidence bag containing Suggs’s tennis shoes. I walked to the passenger door.

  “Where is she?” Jack asked.

  “Who?”

  “Felicia,” he said.

  I kept my face empty as we walked inside the casino. But a light flutter was dancing under my ribs, an elation that came whenever the elusive target suddenly became visible. Suggs was in custody, evidence was mounting, and we seemed several significant steps closer to figuring out what happened to Courtney VanAlstyne—but Jack wanted to see Felicia. Arguing with him would only waste more time. He was ready to bust management heads, a mood that enjoyed an argument.

  I turned down the now familiar row of slots, Jack following, and saw Felicia at a machine pulling the lever. Her low-rise blue jeans were giving out at the seams, her T-shirt exposed the pale padded belly.

  She took one look at Jack and said, “What does he want?”

  I took a deep breath, letting my gaze gravitate toward the ceiling where dark glass domes watched our every move.

  “Felicia, he came to see if you’re all right.”

  “Oh, I’m just great,” she sneered.

  Jack grabbed her elbow, pulling her hand off the wand. “Knock it off, Felicia.”

  She yanked her elbow back, then grabbed the wand with an ugly childish defiance.

  “I didn’t send you back in here, Felicia. You walked in. Don’t blame me.”

  “Blame you? For tearing my life into little pieces? Why would I blame you?”

  I sighed, glancing down the aisle. The old woman from last time was here again, rolling tokens into the machine. Then I realized this woman had the same dull expression in her dark eyes, but her black hair was longer and the silver rings were different. The best odds in the house were that these sad circumstances were replicated throughout this casino. Forget blankets contaminated with small pox. Forget the Trail of Tears. Native Americans were being systematically wiped out by a profit-making scheme set up by their own tribes.

  “Leave me alone,” Felicia was saying. “Go ruin somebody else’s life.”

  “Can’t you see I want to help you?” Jack was pleading now. “Can’t you see that?”

  Her eyes welled up, about to cry.

  I couldn’t watch anymore.

  “Jack, I’m going to the bar near the poker pit,” I said. “Meet me there. Felicia, take his advice.”

  Then I walked away, my elation gone, replaced by a heated frustration that burned through my heart as I walked through the poker pit, watching the jumpy men with their oily mannerisms at the green felt tables. In the bar, I found Stacee Warner coming on shift, tying the black pouch around her slim waist. She picked up her tray, chatting with the bartender until he nodded in my direction.

  She turned, blanching.

  “Don’t worry. Your manager’s not coming in tonight.”

  “What?”

  “Ernie’s gone for a while,” I said. “So why don’t you tell me about the game at Sea-Tac?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Kermit Simms said the same thing, right before he decided to spill the truth. So let’s try again. Do you ever work that game, as a favor to your manager? Or maybe a favor to Courtney? The tips must be incredible.”

  She spun away, her small mouth twisted to utter a parting shot just as Jack came up behind her. They collided, her tray slicing the air, her stilettos slipping on the floor.

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh!”

  Jack reached out, catching her before she hit the ground. He lifted her as easy as a rag doll, holding her arm until she balanced herself. He barely flinched. But I saw an expression cross Stacee Warner’s face, something I couldn’t place at the moment.

  “I have to work. I have to go. I have to—” She raced out of the bar.

  Jack watched her go.

  She stopped at the first table beyond the bar, where a startled man holding a round of cards looked up at her.

  Jack said, “Who’s she?”

  “Courtney VanAlstyne’s roommate.”

  “Really?”

  “I told you last night in the van. I said she worked here.”

  He looked back at me. “You did?”

  I nodded. Out on the floor, Stacee was having trouble writing down the drink orders at the table. She kept snapping her pen on the tray, scribbling in a flustered manner, shaking the pen for ink.

  Jack was still watching her when he said, “You suspect her of something?”

  “Suggs is her boss. I thought she might like to know he wouldn’t be in today.”

  He nodded absently, then glanced around the bar. His blue eyes filled with the habit of law enforcement, surveying every crowd for potential threats. But he appeared to come to the same conclusion I had: the barflies were a threat only to themselves.

  “You ready?” he said.

  We walked single file through the noise, the tense voices, the pulsating anticipation of loss and loneliness and greed. I climbed into the Jeep, and as we headed toward the Interstate, Jack checked his cell phone for voice mail. I stared out the window. I was getting used to driving in silence, even grateful for it.

  chapter eighteen

  Dinner that night was barley kugel drowned in miso sauce. “Nadine, this is simply delicious,” my aunt said. Pearls of barley surfed waves of whole wheat noodles, swimming in a sea the color and
texture of rust. I drank another glass of water.

  My mother smiled. “Raleigh, we’ve certainly missed you.”

  “I think you’re working too hard,” Aunt Charlotte said. “You’re not even returning Claire’s phone calls.”

  I forked some sea goo. It tasted like ground vitamins. Under the table, Madame rested on my bare feet.

  “Why don’t you give Claire a call,” my aunt said doggedly. “Her feelings are really hurt.”

  “Raleigh Ann,” my mother said, “are you being rude to your aunt’s friend?”

  Manners were paramount to Southerners, and I sometimes wondered if part of the reason was because after the War of Northern Aggression—as my grandmother called it—“rude” provided an excellent code word for “Yankee.” During Reconstruction, the word must have been particularly helpful as the fast-talking vanquishers ripped through the defeated Confederacy like dull scythes, brusque and bloated souls, carpetbaggers and selfrighteous utopians, all of whom prided themselves on never owning slaves, yet by their poor example made it clear they did not differ from the enemy they now vilified; human nature was human nature, and we all fall short.

  “Claire takes it personally when you don’t call her,” Aunt Charlotte persisted. “At least listen to what she’s saying about that fire.”

  “Fire?” My mother put down her fork.

  “Claire’s got this idea for Raleigh’s case—” Suddenly, my aunt stopped. “Not that I have any idea what Raleigh’s working on. I have no idea. None.”

  Human nature was human nature: my aunt forgot her promise.

  “Case?” My mother turned to me. “You’re working on a case?”

  “No.”

  She glanced at Aunt Charlotte. “You told me Claire’s a clairvoyant. Why would she see fire in Raleigh’s life?”

  Aunt Charlotte stared at her plate.

  “She means a legal case,” I said quickly. “Somebody’s suing a manufacturing plant because of some . . . arsenic; they used arsenic. We’re looking into it. Claire thinks there was a fire at the plant. That’s all.”

  My mother looked at me for a long moment. Then glanced at Aunt Charlotte. My aunt’s doughy face appeared frozen, her eyes wide open, unblinking. It was an expression of pure bovine deceit. I might be a bad liar, but Charlotte Harmon was worse. Much worse.

  “That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Aunt Charlotte said. “What Raleigh just said, that’s the truth.”

  My mother turned to me. “In any event, please do not insult your aunt’s friend. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “People reveal themselves by their smallest gesture, Raleigh, and returning phone calls is one such a gesture.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I haven’t done right by you,” she continued. “Here you are, working around the clock, and I didn’t have the foggiest what it is about. Why, that’s just plain selfish of me. From now on, Raleigh, you have my word. I’ll pay close attention to your work.”

  I glared at Aunt Charlotte. She offered another mooing expression.

  “In fact, why don’t I come see where you work?”

  “Really, that’s not necessary—”

  “Raleigh’s always out in the field,” Aunt Charlotte jumped in. “Even for lunch. It’s pretty dirty out there.”

  My mother looked horrified. “You’re eating with all the rocks?”

  Aunt Charlotte was on a roll. “Rocks are good company. You’d be surprised. And they have better manners than most people.”

  “Raleigh, you’re not eating near that arsenic, are you?”

  “Arsenic?” I said.

  “The arsenic that the company is being sued over.”

  “Oh, that. No, ma’am. I’m not.”

  “And you wash your hands after you’ve been there?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Your sister once had a close call, scared me out of my mind,” she said. “We were in our first apartment in Richmond, not a nice place either. She was two and came toddling down the hall holding a box of rat poison. Somebody had left it in the closet.”

  “So that’s what happened to Helen,” I said.

  “Pardon?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Raleigh, I’m serious. If any of that arsenic gets into your system, it could kill you. It can work into your ovaries and your children will have low IQs.”

  “As long as they’re polite,” I said.

  My mother paused. Significantly. “Have you talked to DeMott Fielding recently?”

  A family friend in Richmond, DeMott Fielding was the man my mother most wished to graft into the family tree. “Why would I be talking to DeMott?”

  “Why? Oh my lands!” she cried. “I have been negligent.”

  Aunt Charlotte said, “Fielding? Not those traitors out on the James River?”

  During the Civil War, the Fieldings had offered their plantation to Union troops. General McClellan lived in the family’s mansion, his army spearing canvas tents across the wheat fields that ran alongside the James River. Richmond burned in pridefilled loss, but the Fielding estate came through the war with barely a scratch. And the embers of resentment still smoldered.

  “Don’t you dare marry one of those FFVs,” Aunt Charlotte said, referring to the First Families of Virginia, the state’s blue bloods. “I married one and look what happened. I’ll be in recovery the rest of my life. I’m telling you, those people are inbred. Have you taken a good look at their earlobes?”

  “Charlotte, please,” my mother said.

  “Hey, I know a nice guy for Raleigh,” she said. “He comes into the store. Nadine, you met Gary.”

  “That round man with the little glasses?”

  She nodded. “I think he’s single.”

  I stood suddenly, Madame fell off my feet.

  “What’s wrong?” my mother said.

  “I have to get to the office.”

  “The office!” she cried. “But it’s past seven o’clock. Can’t it wait until morning?”

  “No.” I felt a rush of relief. Finally, an opportunity to speak the truth. “No, it can’t wait until morning.”

  A little after 8:00 p.m. I walked across the casino parking lot searching for a specific vehicle and license plate number. The bright orange neon sign reflected along the back windows of sedans and pickups, and I finally found the old gray Honda wagon parked along the building’s side, where the pavement turned to sand and gravel. Red signs designated reserved spaces for high-level employees, including P. Wannamaker whose car was gone. When I circled back, looking for hidden cameras, I found one affixed to the corner of the stucco building. It was pointed at the public lot in front. Apparently, employee parking didn’t have surveillance.

  I snapped on latex gloves, slipping a seven-inch flat bar up my left sleeve; then I went to work on Stacee Warner’s Honda. Her muffler was coated with rust, the same color as the miso sauce now giving me indigestion. The car was parked next to a Ford F-250 truck, the cab jacked up on fat tires. With the flat bar, I pried loose the Honda’s right rear hubcap. The wheel well contained a fair amount of soil—coarse, with half-inch pine needles—and I deposited the sample into an evidence bag. Replacing the hubcap, I ran my flashlight over the tire treads where the rubber was worn down to steel threads.

  Suddenly I heard a man’s voice.

  “Juss for that, you kin walk home.”

  I crouched, heading for the truck’s front wheel.

  “And you’ll what, fly?” said another voice. “You’re ham-mered, Hank. You shouldn’t even be driving.”

  “Juss find my car,” the man slurred.

  I could see their legs, the truck’s undercarriage high enough that they were visible from feet to waist. They stood just beyond the back bumper, and for several long minutes I listened to them debate the car’s location, who should drive, and whether a certain girl was really interested in joining them. Then, just as suddenly as they appeared, they turned and wandered t
oward the public lot. I stood up, shaking out my knees, and quickly jimmied the flat iron between the Honda’s window and door, popping the lock before a stab of conscience could stop me. And if I did feel one, all I had to do was remember the expression on Stacee Warner’s face when she saw Jack this afternoon, when he’d caught her and pretended not to know her. When he acted like I’d never told him, even though I’d mentioned it just last night in the surveillance van.

  There was a bundle of clothing on the front passenger seat and I scooped it up, dropping inside and closing the door to turn off the dome light. Her clothes smelled stale, a faded scent of sweat and stale perfume, and my feet kicked against something on the floorboard. A pair of hiking boots. I tossed the clothes on the driver’s seat and lifted each boot, taking soil samples from the soles.

  Then I picked up the clothes again because I’d felt something hard inside the pile of blouses and slacks. It turned out to be a yellow leather date book, several inches thick. Each day was laid out in half-hour increments, although her simple entries scrawled across full hours. One day read: “Nails, 2:00 p.m.”

  I flipped through the pages, discovering a tally of tips. Some nights Stacee Warner cleared $250, others $350. The page for the Sunday her roommate disappeared read: “Mount Si with JS, 11:00 a.m.”

  Other pages held names of places she apparently hiked: Paradise Lake, Rattlesnake Ridge, Tiger Mountain West. But none of them had initials. I laid the book across my lap and picked up the cell phone, resting in the cup holder. It was an older model without a camera and I decided not to risk listening to her voice mail, in case I couldn’t save them as new messages, and in case I got busted for not having a search warrant. I clicked open the phone book and found Courtney VanAlstyne’s cell phone. I punched the button to dial the number and got nothing but twenty rings, no voice mail. Mrs. VanAlstyne was in there, along with four people whose last name was Warner, probably family. And I found “Ernie S,” a number that connected me to Suggs’s voice mail at the casino. Ernie Suggs was away from his desk at the moment—no kid-ding—and then I found “JS,” also in the S entries.

  I hit dial.

  He picked up on the fourth ring. He didn’t say hello.