Black Water

by T. Jefferson Parker

  "I don't see that he could kill a woman like that. His wife. What a beauty. What a voice, and she wrote songs. Look at those rocks he collected, the suiseki. He had, what do you call it. . . appreciation."

  "You can have all that, Merci, and still be desperate. That's what they all have in common—they don't see a choice. It's the last thing they can think of to do that's positive."

  "Blowing your brains out is negative."

  "I don't mean morally. It's positive in the sense that you do it. You act. You take back control of your life by ending it."

  She thought this over, trying to split atoms like Zamorra. "Ass backwards," she said.

  "Don't judge what you don't understand." Zamorra glanced at her and she saw the quick flash of anger in his eyes.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Merci stood in the Wildcraft bathroom for the first time. She held the crime scene photographs, looking down, then up. It no longer smelled of blood and guncotton, but, faintly, of soap and potpourri. The room was smaller than she'd thought, but plenty big for two. White walls, a shiny tile floor, a high ceiling with a skylight. Thick white towels lavender accents. And now, without the glare of light off the shower door, one nick in the glass that might have been made by an ejected casing .

  She'd gotten there an hour early because she liked some time alone. Hess had told her how he saw his way into some tough cases by imagining a picture relating to what had happened. He'd let the picture grow and change, even if it wasn't making sense. He'd led them to a killer called the Purse Snatcher that way—the first thing he'd pictured was a woman in a cocoon. In the end, there were no cocoons involved in the case at all, but that picture kept growing and changing until Hess understood what the Purse Snatcher was doing and how he was doing it. She'd been in awe of him for that. So she'd practiced until she was tired, then practiced more. It was alien to her way of thinking because she'd never—even as a child—had any interest in make-believe. At first she couldn't do it, then she could. She realized that to understand some things you have to let them come alive in your mind first. This idea was the second most important thing he'd left her. Merci needed to be alone for it, with only the ghosts for company.

  Now, alone in the house, it was easy for Rayborn to see Gwen in her purple robe. Alive. Vibrant. Frightened. Small face, smart eye but eyes that are afraid.

  What is she doing?

  Does she come in here to take her face off, use the pot? Or does she immediately back to the far wall?

  She has the phone with her because she's afraid, but how afraid? She locks the door because she's afraid, but how afraid?

  Fear of the next moment? Or cautious, just-in-case fear? Did she have the phone in her hand when he came through the door, or did she reach for it?

  Either way, it ends up in the sink, which is the "his" sink because the cabinet beside it houses shave gel, an athletic-themed antiperspirant, aftershave and a box of condoms. They're all economy size generic brands, except for the prophylactics, which are ribbed for her pleasure.

  And either way, Merci thinks, Gwen is not afraid enough to get the little white-handled twenty-two from Archie's sink cabinet. Maybe she's afraid of it. Maybe she doesn't know how to use it. Maybe she doesn't know it's there.

  Or maybe she just wasn't fast enough.

  It all could have happened in seconds: Gwen runs in and locks the door, looks down to dial the phone, the door splinters off its hinge something clubs her chest then a pistol is jammed against her high, intelligent forehead so hard the front sight takes a divot from her ballooning skin, one-two, bang-bang, you're dead.

  Shot by her husband—a dimpled hunk she had had consensual sex with a few hours earlier, the man she'd fallen in love with in high school, helped through the Sheriff's Academy, posed with for portrait every year, with whom she shared a bed and a home in the hills?

  She couldn't see it. Couldn't see Archie in this room with Gwen. He wasn't a player, not at this point.

  But why not? She thought she knew why not, but that would wait for later. Right now, this first time through, she was going to try to see it like Gilliam and Buckley and probably everybody assumed it happened.

  So she stepped back into the bedroom. August sunlight flew through the blinds, landing on the carpet in widening bevels. Smell of sheets, raised by the afternoon warmth. Bed unmade, blanket thrown back, pillows close enough together to make her wonder if Gwen had been sleeping on her side, face up against her husband. Or maybe the other way around.

  Do what you have to

  But don't say good-bye

  Don't even joke about saying good-bye.

  Okay, she thought. Archie did her and Archie's going on his death march now, out to the walkway. She tried to picture him but she still couldn't. It would have helped to have seen him in the flesh at some point, but Merci couldn't remember ever seeing the man. Which was hard to believe, with a face like his. Just the dimples were enough to make you remember.

  She checked her notes to get the lights correct: one bathroom light on; one kitchen light on; one TV room light on; all other houselights off. The driveway light was on when Bill Jones made his call at five-o-eight in the morning but off when Crowder and Dobbs arrived at five-fourteen.

  She walked down the hall, feeling the deep padding and springy carpet under her duty boots, nothing like the creaking hardwood floors of her rented house in the orange grove. She could hear the cats walking down the hall at home. So quiet here, she thought.

  But Archie, she tells herself, has just murdered his wife and he comes down the hallway, leaving the lights off. She sees no reason for Archie to stop in the living room. His ears would be ringing and his nostrils would be sharp with burned powder and his eyes could see nothing but the red life of his bride spraying into the bathroom air. He would have some of her on his right hand, probably, maybe some on his face and robe. Archie doesn't see the stack of presents. Archie doesn't see the rock in the middle in the living room, thrown earlier that day in the terrible argument. Archie, she thinks, doesn't see anything but the black vastness that waits for him outside.

  Why outside? He's already made a bit of a mess in the bathroom. Why not kill himself in the rock room, with his mute, graceful suiseki around him? Why not do it in the immaculately polished silver Porscl Boxster convertible that sat covered in his garage? Why not sit on one of the living room couches, get comfortable?

  But no, Archie walks outside.

  Merci opened the front door, stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind her. There is no sun at five in the morning, she thinks. She tries to picture the world dark, with the help of just a flashlight beam, just like Archie saw it. But this is difficult. In fact, she's thankful for the summer light because the walkway is steeper and narrower and more sharply curved than she remembers. If you weren't familiar with it, you could walk right off.

  But Archie, she thinks, fresh from slaughtering his wife, and passing up a half dozen sensible and meaningful places to slaughter himself, takes a flashlight outside with him so he won't veer off the walkway and . . . what? Stub his toe? Get his bare feet dirty? Bang his head on the branch of a Chinese flame tree?

  Apparently so. Because, as Gilliam demonstrated with the GSR and Buckley with his tool marks, Archie stops on the walk, understands that this is the place of places, turns around to face the direction he come and fires, hitting himself in the head.

  Sure. Maybe.

  Merci stood over the spot where Wildcraft had been found, the bloodstains darkened almost to rust on the concrete. Ants swarm over it, thick in the cracks.

  Sure. Maybe.

  Bullshit.

  She walked briskly back to the front door, swung it open and continued on to the master bath. She stood there again where Archie would have stood. Looked at the lavender hand towels, the blood on the floor, the fingerprint dust everywhere in sight. Take it fast, now, Merci thought. Take it like a man who's just killed his wife and now plans to kill himself.

  Down the hallway th
en, not turning on the lights because he's walked this hallway thousands of times. He's got the gun and the flashlight. Gun in the right hand, light in the left. At the door he slides the flashlight under his right arm to free a hand. Steps outside, closes the door behind him.

  No lights on still, and he doesn't bother with the flashlight because he knows where he's going.

  But where is he going?

  Merci stopped just short of the place where Archie bled. She looked at the walkway behind her and at the walkway ahead of her. She looked at the near wall of the house, saw the big bulge of the chimney and the windows on either side. Saw the wall of trees to her right. She looked down at one of the photographs.

  A possibility: this was as far away from her as Gwen would allow him. Any farther down the walk, he'd be circling back in her direction. Pulled back in her direction. Even dead, she's more powerful than he is, that's part of why he had to do this. But here, right here, Archie is at the apex of his orbit. The end of his leash. And he can't be seen from inside. Gwen, the insufferable witch, the monster who finally got what she asked for so many years, won't be able to see him right here because he's behind the chimney. She has no idea what he's up to. He's free now.

  Merci sees that, having come down the walkway this far, Archie's back is to his wife. This seems natural, that he would turn his back on her one final time.

  He's shivering by now, she thinks, his fury and resolve and mad logic are delaminating and he's beginning to feel true horror at what he's done. And what he still has to do.

  He turns around, facing the way he came. Why? As if he could go back, undo things? Make a fresh beginning? Go confess to Gwen that he really doesn't hate her? Say a simple hello? Or good-bye?

  He takes a deep breath. He swings quickly and confidently, and fires. Never hears it. Sees nothing. Feels nothing. Maybe an owl watches the brass flicker into the violets, the brief puff of smoke as the gun clatters on the walk at the same time the heavy human bulk of Archie Wildcraft slumps like a fountain turned off for the night.

  Thus, just what we found, Merci thinks: one brass nine-millimeter casing to the right side of the walkway, where the ejector on the Smith would logically throw it.

  Okay. I can believe this. I can believe this. But I still can't see it.

  What about Size Sixteen, waiting under the Chinese flame tree? What about all the footprints on the other side of the walk? Who made them and what were they looking for?

  She felt her heart beating fast and the sweat cooling on her scalp. Her fingers were slick on the photographs so she wiped them on her chinos. She smelled herself and her perfume and the sweet stink of some flower or vine and the rich damp smell of earth with things growing in it.

  She continued down the walkway, trying to clear her thoughts. She stopped by the swimming pool for a moment and watched the clear blue water. She looked at the two chaise lounges, touching lengthwise and the little round tables on either side. So they can touch, she thought. Drowsy in the sun. Sweet smell of flowers. Reach. Touch. Quiet words. Eyes still shut, sun orange and warm on the lids. Let go inside. Oh, yes.

  Near the far end of the pool were two eucalyptus trees. Stretched between them was a hammock big enough for two. Merci looked across to the patio, where Zamorra had sat at the end of that long first day here. There was the little cafe table and, of course, two long-legged cafe chairs.

  It's everywhere I look, she thought: two young people in love. That must be what it's like, you arrange the world around yourselves. Us. Us. Us and them.

  She started out in the bedroom again. But this time, Archie wasn't going to be the shooter. And the first thing she thought was: Gwen wasn't shot first. The rock hadn't been lying on the carpet since afternoon. It had come through the window just after five in the morning, and Archie got out of bed when he heard it. He made sure his wife was in the bathroom with the cell phone. He wouldn't let her call 911 yet because he's a cop, a young cop with a handgun and a flashlight ready for something like this. If there's a dragon in his castle, Archie's going to slay it himself. Chop off its head and parade around the grounds with it.

  Merci rechecked her lights list, imagining Archie as a home defender instead of a murderer. But the lights wouldn't tell her much about what Wildcraft had done because, if she was right, someone had been in the house after him.

  Down the hallway again, flashlight in his left hand and gun in his right. He's alert, heart beating hard. Quiet on the carpet in his bare feet.

  She could picture Archie now, even though she could not remember ever seeing him. The portraits, she thought. The big boyish face and the dimples and the strong neck. But more than that, too. He was easy to picture because he'd done this. He had been here. He was true.

  Or so her imagination said. Which won't cut ice in court, she thought.

  In the living room she stared again at the carpet where the rock had been. Archie would have stared too, would have seen the rock and the shattered wooden blind.

  Outside now, Merci walks along behind him. She remembers the moon phase map from today's paper and knows it was gone by two that morning. So it's easy to picture the flashlight and its beam moving from the crooked little walkway to the bushes to the trees, then back again.

  She heads down the walkway to the place where Archie has fallen. She wonders if Wildcraft heard something here, something that made him turn around. Or if he just kept walking out and around to where the rock had come through the window. He'd want to see the point of entry. Human curiosity. A cop's training. Absolutely, that would have been his destination. She tries to picture him but can't get details now. Can't tell how far he would have walked. Can't tell if he'd stopped and turned just before he was given the surprise of his life, or if he was walking back from the broken window. Might never know, she thinks, unless Arch wakes up and has enough of a brain left to remember.

  But this was where he bought it. Almost bought it. Facing up the walk, in the direction of the front porch, the front door, the entrant to his home. In the direction of his wife, who has just turned twenty-six, whom he has recently made love with and left alone and frightened in the bathroom at five in the morning with a cell phone that probably doesn't work well in these hills, and a gun that she's not likely to use.

  All this is charging through Rayborn's mind as she looks down again at the ant-covered blood, then to where the size-sixteen shoe prints lie, still visible, back under the down-hanging branches of the flame tree.

  I will identify you, she thinks.

  I will know who you are and will deliver you to experience the full course of criminal justice: special circumstances, lying in wait, capital crime, guilty as charged, your honor, a lethal hot shot and you're gone.

  You got one of us, but the Orange County Sheriff's Department isn't done with you, you bucket of piss.

  She stands under the tree where Size Sixteen has stood. Places her feet where his have been.

  What a view. Not just hidden behind branches heavy with leave but hidden between them. Easy to slide through, when you were ready. Archie came past here, she thinks. Size Sixteen would have trouble seeing him on his way by. But coming back Archie was an easy mark. Maybe Archie was less alert by then. Maybe his eyes were used to the dark and he'd turned off his flashlight. Maybe he was shining it somewhere else. All it took from Size Sixteen was, what, two long stride

  Quickly, she slid from the green to the edge of the walkway. Easier and faster than she thought it would be. Little resistance, little noise.

  Yes, two giant-sized strides brought her to the edge of the cement walk. For what—a three-foot shot at a human head? Give him another year and Tim Jr. would be able to do that. He could probably do now. God, I love him.

  She took the two steps again with her nine millimeter out in from of her, just one hand to aim it because the other held the photographs. And because Size Sixteen had probably done it that way. Leave one hand free to part foliage, she thought. Did he have a flashlight too? In the dark, on another
man's property, on another armed man's property? Oh, yes. He did.

  But the trouble with all of this was the casing. If it had gone down this way, and if the shooter had used an automatic of some kind, his ejected shell wouldn't have landed where Zamorra found it.

  No. It would have landed where all the overlapped, partial footprints were.

  And the bullet that was still inside Archie Wildcraft's head—was it from his nine or something else? That was the key. Still no word from Sheriff Abelera. Still no word from the hospital.

  She heard a car pull up and park on the street. Zamorra, she thought. She walked toward the driveway and saw Ryan Dawes slamming the door of his convertible.

  Merci watched him come down the sidewalk toward the drive: gray suit, black shirt open at the collar, sunglasses and a black briefcase. Tall, lean, strong in the leg and butt. He ran a hand back through his honey-colored hair.

  She backed into the foliage again. Found the size-sixteen prints, placed one duty boot in each and stood still as Dawes walked past her. On his return trip, Merci stepped out and aimed her finger at his head.

  "Gotcha, Jaws!"

  Dawes jumped backward and dropped his briefcase to the walk.

  "Shit! You scared me, Ray . . . scared the shit out of me. "

  "What are you doing here?"

  "My job."

  "You're just a lawyer."

  He said nothing but he was breathing quickly and there was sweat on his forehead.

  "You'll be fine, Mr. Dawes. Look—when you get the pee scared out of you, breathe deep. Deep."

  "Yeah, yeah."

  "Got it?"

  "I get it."

  "What are you looking for?"

  He said nothing while she tried to look past his glasses and take a read on him. But the silver-blue lenses threw her own face back at her

  "This is a crime scene and we're still processing it. So stay on the beaten path and don't touch anything. Not one thing."