For Want of a Memory

by Robert Lubrican

  Mitch looked him straight in the eye. "Not so good these days."

  Tim's face didn't change. "Too bad."

  "Yeah. Shit happens, you know?"

  Tim was silent for another handful of seconds. "Let me get my stuff together. I'll have to charge up a tank. You go get everything else ready and then come get me."

  "Deal," said Mitch.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Mitch and Tim stood on the lip of the drop off, looking down.

  "Shit," Tim cursed softly.

  "I know," said Mitch.

  Tim looked around at the big panel truck that was parked in front of Mitch's patrol car. It was called the "Roach Coach" by everybody in town. Sally Lazenby owned it and made her living driving around selling hot food out of it. She was sitting behind the wheel weaving to and fro, listening to music. Mitch had hired her to sit there and have the interior of the truck as hot as possible when Tim came out of the water. That she'd have hot food and drink was a given.

  Still, there was the trip down the hill and then back up to deal with.

  "How the fuck are we going to do this?" asked Tim darkly.

  "We'll go down together," said Mitch. He took the coil of rope off his shoulder and tied one end off to the bumper of the Roach Coach. "I'll get the ice broken up. You go in, find the car, fasten one end of the tow strap to the axle, if possible, or around one tire if you can't reach the axle, and then come back out. The other end of the tow strap will be tied off to a tree. I'll help you back up the hill. Then I call a wrecker and you go home."

  "How long is the tow strap?" asked Tim.

  "Thirty feet," said Mitch. "It's three inches wide and rated for thirty-six thousand pounds."

  "And how you going to make a hole in the ice?" asked Tim. He was already dressed in his wetsuit. His aqualung was on a harness, sitting on the ground beside him, and his mask and fins were hanging from one hand.

  "I'm going to break it up. You'll have to push it aside when you go in," said Mitch.

  "How the fuck are you going to do that?" asked Tim.

  "Watch and learn," said Mitch.

  * * *

  Both men were breathing heavily when they got to the bank of the river. They had followed the path of destruction down. The ice didn't look any different in front of them than it did all over the river.

  "What now?" asked Tim.

  "You just be ready to go in," said Mitch.

  He took off his back pack and set it on the ground. He opened the pack and pulled out three tubes that were a rusty red in color. There was a thick green colored cord protruding from the end of each one, about a foot long.

  "Sweet fuck, Mitch!" moaned Tim. "That's fucking dynamite!"

  "Do tell," said Mitch. He reached in a pocket and pulled out a silver Zippo lighter. He casually flicked it open, thumbed the wheel and started one fuse burning. He pulled his arm halfway back and flung the stick with a sidearm throw. It hit the ice and skittered across it, going a hundred feet downriver. "Might want to put your fingers in your ears," he said to Tim, whose eyes were wide open, along with his mouth.

  Tim hit the snow hard and put his arms over his head. Mitch stood, with his fingers in his ears, watching the smoke from the burning fuse rise slowly into the air. There was a bright light and then the concussion hit him, making his clothing flutter. A ball of dirty gray smoke hovered over the ice and then the slight breeze began dispersing it.

  Tim uncovered his head and peered at the river.

  "Shit!" he said. "It doesn't look like it did anything at all!"

  "Have faith," said Mitch, as he lit another fuse.

  It took five sticks, spaced out from a hundred feet downstream to a hundred feet upstream. He was careful to get the sticks far enough away from them that all they really felt was the concussion. By the third stick, the ice downstream had started to buckle. The fourth stick caused a twenty foot gap to appear from one side of the river to the other. The fifth stick started the loose ice in the water moving downstream. The ice in front of them stayed mostly in one large chunk, but began to move away from the bank.

  They had to wait about ten minutes for the larger chunks of ice to stop moving. While they did that, Mitch tied one end of a hundred foot rock climbing rope around Tim's waist and Tim tested his tank. He put on his gloves, tucked the silver hook on the end of the tow strap into his belt, and turned on his diving light. Then he waded into the water, lifting his fins in an exaggerated high stepping motion, as opposed to diving in. They had no idea what was in the water right there. He put his gloved hands tentatively against the chunk of ice in front of him and pushed. It moved slowly outwards.

  Mitch watched the rope in his hands play out. He estimated about twenty feet had gone through his hands when it quit moving. He waited for what seemed like an hour, and checked his watch three times to see seven minutes tick away. Tim's head suddenly broke the surface. He spit the mouthpiece out and, gasping, reached for Mitch's hand to get out. He had something in his hand when he struggled up onto the bank. It was a briefcase. He sat down, pulled off his flippers, and pulled on the mukluks he'd brought for this very purpose. Then he stood up and picked the briefcase up.

  "Saw this pinned under the edge of the car and worked it loose. Let's go," he said, his teeth chattering.

  "You found it?" Mitch was astonished.

  "It's right fucking there," said Tim, pointing. "Maybe ten feet out, lying on its roof. Your tow strap is wrapped three times around the front axle and then around one of the tires. If Jerry does what I tell him to, he'll turn it over onto its wheels as it comes out of the water. Piece of cake. I'm freezing. Can we talk about this in the Roach Coach?"

  * * *

  The car sat, dripping and mud-smeared on the edge of the road. It was a mess on the inside. Tim was in the Roach Coach, still eating and keeping warm, but Mitch had to do a walk around as soon as Jerry Tidwell had pulled the car up the incline. Jerry was getting the dolly wheels ready to put under the front wheels of the car, while Mitch stopped and looked at the damage to the right front fender. The headlight was broken and the fender dented in. It wasn't consistent with rollover type damage, but it would take closer examination to tell if it had hit a body. He saw white paint transfer on the pale blue of the Buick.

  His eyes drifted to the windshield and widened as he saw the hole there. It was obviously a bullet hole and the cratering suggested the bullet had come from inside the car. If a man sat in the driver's seat, it would be just to his right. If the driver had been turned around, looking behind him, the bullet that had made that hole could easily have grazed the left side of his head. Mitch slipped and fell in his haste to get to the back of the car. There was another neat punched out hole in the trunk. It looked huge.

  The rest of the damage was textbook rollover stuff, with the body pressed inward and warped from the weight of the car hitting parts of the body that weren't designed to bear that much weight. All in all, though, the damage was light. Mitch credited that to the fact that, on the way down, there really wasn't all that much weight on where the body had hit the ground. Only the roof was seriously dented in, where it had smashed into the ice.

  He looked at the briefcase sitting on the ground beside the Roach Coach and went over to pick it up. It weighed a ton, but opened easily. Water poured out of it, but the contents were surprisingly clean, as if the seal on the lid had strained out the mud as water seeped through.

  Right on top was a manuscript, soaked, but readable. It was maybe eighty pages, all stuck together. The cover page said: The Case of the Broken Kangaroo Pounder by Ron Stevens. Mitch's eyes widened. He'd read "Living With an Aardvark" and had laughed his ass off. It had been given to him as a birthday present from his sister and was one of the strangest books he'd ever read. He knew, from the "other books by" page that Stevens had written another book, and was interested in finding it, but had never gotten around to it. Farmingham was that man? He stared at the manuscript and then saw where something bulged under it. He pried
the thick pages upward and found a cell phone. Maybe it would work if somebody who knew what they were doing cleaned it up and dried it out. If nothing else, maybe the numbers stored in it were retrievable. Excited now, he turned to Jerry.

  "Take the car to the impound lot. Be careful of it. It's loaded with evidence."

  "We ain't got no impound lot in Pembroke," said Jerry, scratching the top of his winter cap.

  "Behind the station," said Mitch, impatiently. "There's a fence there with some bicycles in it."

  "We got an actual impound lot?" Jerry sounded impressed. "Cool!" He looked happy. "I been doing this for six years and never knew that."

  Mitch sighed. "Yeah, well maybe in another six years we'll need to impound another car. Just be careful of it, okay?"

  "Sure thing, Mitch," said Jerry, squinting at the car. "Hey! That there looks just like a bullet hole in the trunk, Mitch!"

  "It is, Jerry. That's part of what I'm talking about."

  "That's a forty-five," said Jerry, leaning closer. He stuck the tip of his finger in the hole.

  "Dammit, Jerry, don't screw around with that!" yelled Mitch. "I have to get back to town. Just tow it and be careful, okay?"

  "Sure Mitch," said Jerry, sounding hurt. He jerked his finger back from the car. "Damn. A real bullet hole. This is about that author feller, ain't it. Is this his car? Who was shooting at him?"

  "I don't know, Jerry," sighed Mitch. "And if you screw up the evidence, or tell anybody about this, I may never know. Mum's the word. Got it? This is an official investigation now. If you go blabbing around about this I may have to arrest you for obstructing justice."

  "Shit, Mitch, I ain't obstructing nothin'," said Jerry, backing up a step. "You don't have to get all worked up about it. I'll be real careful, okay?"

  "Okay, and remember, this is privileged information, about the bullet holes I mean. You keep it to yourself until I get this figured out. That's an order, Jerry."

  "Yes sir!" yelped the tow truck driver.

  * * *

  Mitch had brought Tim out here, so he stuck his head in the Roach Coach.

  "Tim, you did great," he said. "This is going to answer a lot of questions, I hope. It's an important thing you did. I'll try to get you some pay for it. I'm ready to go, unless you're riding back with Sally."

  Tim looked up. "I don't want money," he said. It was obvious there was something else he did want. Mitch went in and closed the door, before Sally started yelling that he was letting all the heat out.

  "What do you want?" asked Mitch.

  "I want to ask Carla out," said the man, looking straight at Mitch.

  Mitch was speechless.

  "Come on, Mitch," said Tim softly. "You know you two have been dancing around for years, and you know nothing's going to happen. I been serious about her since high school and it's killing me to see you stringing her along."

  "I haven't been stringing her along," objected Mitch.

  "Yes you have. You gonna marry her, Mitch?"

  "I can't," said Mitch automatically.

  "Well I can, Mitch. I love her, Mitch. I've always loved her. I just never got a chance with her, 'cause you went off to the academy."

  "You could have made a move while I was gone," said Mitch.

  "She wouldn't even talk to me," said Tim. "She was waiting for you."

  "I don't know, Tim," said Mitch doubtfully.

  "That's my price, Mitch," said Tim stubbornly. "You needed a favor and I did it. You owe me."

  "I don't owe you my girlfriend!" barked Mitch.

  "Just tell her she can go out with me," said Tim. "Just one date. Let me tell her how I feel about her. After that ... it's up to her."

  Mitch felt like his stomach was suddenly empty and craving food. Yet the smells in the Roach coach weren't attractive at all. The problem was that he and Carla weren't really getting along all that well right now. It had happened before and she'd walked out on him a couple of times. But she always came back. He didn't make promises ... but he let her believe what she wanted to believe about what he'd do. She was fun to be around. He liked her a lot and the sex was great. But his conscience bothered him sometimes, because he knew he'd never marry her. That just wasn't in his plans. Not for years more, at least.

  He frowned. Now he had this case ... a real case. Somebody had shot at a famous author ... well an author who'd sold a lot of books, anyway ... and if he could come up with the right information, he might be able to parlay that into a job offer from a bigger jurisdiction. Carla would never go with him ... not if he didn't marry her first. And that would tie him down. He looked at Tim. Tim hadn't dated anybody since high school. He ran his little store and minded his own business. He wasn't going anywhere. It was hard, but he said the words.

  "Okay. Ask her. If she says anything to me, I'll tell her I agreed."

  He expected Tim to look happy, but his face didn't change.

  "I appreciate it," said Tim. Then he stood up, pushed past Mitch and said, "I'm ready to go."

  * * *

  Finding Kris was easy. It was five in the evening by the time he got back to town and Mitch drove straight to Lulu's. The car Butch had loaned Kris was there. He got out of the patrol car and took the briefcase out of the back seat, where he'd left it so it wouldn't stain the front seat covers. It still felt like it weighed fifty pounds as he carried it to Lulu's front door and knocked.

  * * *

  "I can't believe it," said Kris, staring at the open briefcase. "Ron Stevens? It doesn't mean anything to me."

  "Well, you're him," said Mitch. "You have to be, with that in your car and what we know about you so far. It all matches up. I've even read one of your books." He frowned. "There's something else, too."

  "What?" Lulu and Kris asked at the same time.

  "There are bullet holes in the car."

  "What?" gasped Lulu.

  "Shit," said Kris softly. His eyes went glazed.

  Lulu looked at his expression, and her jaw closed, only to fall open again. Then it closed as she spoke. "You knew about this?"

  "Not exactly," said Kris, his eyes clearing. "I had this vague memory that might have been a man, pointing a gun at me and shooting, but I wasn't sure."

  "There's damage to the right front fender too," said Mitch.

  "Oh shit," moaned Kris.

  "What's going on here?" yelled Lulu. Mitch looked uncomfortable.

  "I have to look into this, Kris," he said. "Officially," he added.

  "I know," said Kris softly.

  "Will somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on here?" squealed Lulu.

  Ambrose's voice cried out from his bedroom. Lulu looked stricken and started toward her son's room. She turned.

  "Nobody leaves here until I know what the fuck is happening. Is that clear?"

  "I have to go," said Mitch, almost, but not quite wincing.

  "I'll tell you about it," said Kris. "Go take care of him. He's probably scared because you yelled."

  "Because I yelled." Lulu's voice sounded disgusted. "Don't you move an inch," she said, staring at Kris.

  "I won't," he said.

  Mitch got to the door and stopped. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key ring. "Oh, by the way," he said. "Here are the keys that were in the car. I had to keep the ignition key, but you can have the rest back."

  * * *

  Communication is the key to any relationship. When there is not enough, or it is of poor quality, each person in the relationship is left to make assumptions. Sometimes we make those assumptions on the basis of body language, and sometimes what is said, or even not said. Good communication doesn't just happen, usually. It has to be worked at and the people involved have to make themselves vulnerable to each other, to allow whatever is on the mind to be said. When that doesn't happen, and the communication is poor, the relationship suffers.

  * * *

  He was sitting, waiting, when she got back. He knew she was agitated because she paced.

  "You've
been keeping secrets from me," she said, stopping and looking at him. What she actually meant was that she thought he'd been confiding in her. She didn't think they had any secrets.

  "I didn't want you to worry," he said. He didn't tell her he was afraid they'd be torn apart by the knowledge that he had committed such an atrocious act.

  "So now you just drop all this in my lap." She sounded disgusted again, but it was really just frustration that he hadn't trusted her enough to share his troubles.