Black Water

by T. Jefferson Parker

  "Patrol. Days."

  "Can you tell me the name of your partner?"

  "Damon Reese."

  "Describe him to me, can you?"

  "Six feet, one-ninety. Brown and brown, big nose."

  Rayborn waited. Then nodded and wrote.

  "Archie, what happened the night that Gwen was killed?"

  It took him a moment to think of the words, order them, then gather his strength to form them. His memory of that night was filled with gaps. Chasms. With the same black nothingness that was now Gwen He thought he could fall right in. The older stuff, like playing baseball was clear.

  "I don't remember everything."

  She didn't look up from her notebook for a moment. When she did, her eyes fixed on his and Archie felt like he was being seen without his clothes on.

  He watched her make a note, then look at him, waiting. "Tell me what you do remember."

  "I remember that Gwen was there. It's hard to picture her that night. I can see her from years ago, but not from that night. She's like a . . . ghost. A good ghost. A party. Friends. A rock in the house. The walkway by the pool. A bright light. Then this."

  "Do you know how the rock got into your house?"

  "I remember a noise."

  "Someone threw it?"

  "I didn't see."

  "Did you throw it?"

  "I don't remember throwing it."

  Rayborn looked at her partner. Archie was sure that something was being communicated but didn't know what. It was hard to understand. His mind seemed to follow things, then there was a big soft gap, and the meanings fell into it. And he knew the meanings were there, but he couldn't reach them. Like trying to touch a ball that's just out of reach.

  "Did you shoot your wife?"

  Archie looked at the picture before he answered.

  "I don't think so."

  "Did you shoot yourself?"

  "I don't think so. No."

  Rayborn waited for those last two answers before looking down at her notebook and scribbling something.

  "Archie, were you having an affair?"

  "I don't remember having one."

  "Was Gwen?"

  "I have no memory of that. No."

  "Would you be willing to take a polygraph test, answer some questions like these?"

  "Yes.

  "She was nodding now, biting her bottom lip, which is what Gwen used to do when she was thinking through a problem. Isn't that strange he thought, that I can remember her biting her lip but not what her face looked like on her birthday? He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  "Do you remember having a gun with you that night?"

  He thought about this for a long time. "No."

  "Did you know she was killed with your gun, a Smith and Wesson nine millimeter registered in your name?"

  Archie felt a funny pull in his guts. Then an awful sinking. I thought for a moment he was going to slide back under the warm dark water to hover just below the surface, looking up at these people. But no—Gwen had told him she was up, not down. He tried to elevate above all this, above the room and the cops. Up to where she was Into the blue. Nothing doing.

  "No."

  "Your prints were on it. And on the cartridges inside. And on the empty casings found at the scene. Nobody else's prints were on them. Just yours."

  He said nothing.

  "In fact, we've only identified two sets of prints from your home and your entire property, so far. Yours and hers."

  "Someone wearing gloves?" he asked.

  "Maybe," said the detective. "But that leaves us with just about zero evidence of a third person ever being at your house. We've got a set of footprints that might belong to the gardener. We've got a black Cadillac that may or may not have anything to do with this case. And that's it. No physical evidence of another person being on your property that night. No witness. Just your gun with your prints on it."

  He said nothing. It hadn't occurred to him until just now that he would be a suspect. If it weren't for Gwen, it would be comical. He actually laugh. But, ridiculous as this was, it was about Gwen, too and Gwen was murdered, and nothing about the murder of Gwen would ever, ever be funny.

  Archie stared back at Rayborn and felt an almost blinding anger spreading through his body. Like something boiling out from his heart.

  He'd felt this before and he'd always believed he was capable of murder on anger like this. He'd learned to hide it. And along with the anger came an overwhelming wave of guilt.

  I couldn't protect her.

  He blinked. He smelled a draft of his own body odor swelling up around him. "I couldn't have killed her, Detective. I loved her. I don't kill people I love."

  She was watching him hard. Archie thought she knew he was furious, thought he saw a look of impressed understanding cross her features. Maybe she's got the temper, too, he thought.

  "Answer this," she said.

  He waited.

  "Our lab pulled enough barium and antimony off your hand to establish that you'd fired a gun very recently. That would be your gun hand. So, when did you shoot and what did you shoot at?"

  Archie had to think. First, to let that anger settle down a little. When the temper hit, it was like something heavy and smooth starting downhill. It just pulled you along.

  But even with his fury tamped down, it took him a while to turn around and wade backward into time, past what had happened that night. It was extremely hard for him to get beyond that point. It lay back there behind him like a dam on a river. It was huge and black and heavy and absolutely immovable. On the far side of it lay memory, Gwen and strong feelings. On the near side there were just spotty images with no emotion attached to them at all.

  "I went to the Sheriff's range recently. If I had my calendar I could tell you when."

  "That day?"

  "No."

  "The day before?"

  "No. Two weeks before. Maybe three or four. I'm not clear on some things."

  She looked straight at him again and those eyes rooted around inside him like they were hungry. "I guess you wouldn't be, Deputy."

  "No. I'm not."

  "Barium and antimony usually wash off in a day or two. Just with regular showers."

  "I can't explain it."

  "Maybe you fired the gun and don't remember doing it. That happens in brain injuries, Archie. Parts of your memory get taken away

  "That doesn't seem possible."

  "What doesn't?"

  "That I could remember loving her but not remember shooting her."

  He didn't say that he also remembered loving her but could not remember exactly what she looked like the last time he'd seen her. Except that it must be something like Sergeant Rayborn looked, because he'd twice wondered if Rayborn was Gwen. He looked at the picture and saw a slight resemblance.

  She looked back at Zamorra, then at Archie again. "That's not hard to understand. One memory is ruined. But another stays."

  Archie realized that, based on this theory, he could have done just about anything on Earth in his life but not remember it now. It was like having a cage lowered over you.

  "Did you shoot her, Archie?"

  Again, that hot rush of fury moving through him. A fury with its roots in the old Archie, the part of his life on the far side of the dam.

  "No. Am I under arrest?"

  "No," she said. Then she exhaled slowly, like she'd been waiting a long time to do it.

  Archie watched Zamorra move closer to his bed. Zamorra looked like a man who could hurt you, and people said he could. But right now, this furious, Archie knew he could rise from his bed and yank the man's head off before he could make a sound.

  "Do you know what suiseki is, Archie?" he asked.

  "No."

  "Tell me, did Gwen ever write music?"

  "Yes." He remembered some words from a song she'd written many years ago, right after they'd met. She'd been sixteen. She'd given him a tape of it, with her playing guitar. He still had that tape in ciga
r box in his closet.

  Don't speak, don't say a word

  We 're just dreaming

  Words get in the way

  He wondered how he could remember those words from ten years ago, but not her face from the last time he'd seen her. It was starting to drive him crazy.

  "When was it?" Archie asked.

  "When was what, Archie?"

  "When did she die?"

  "It was early Wednesday. The day before yesterday. Today's Friday."

  Archie tried to find somewhere to put this information. But he couldn't remember much of that day. Or the day before. And even less of the two days since, here in this bed—just a seamless stretch of sleep and dreams and voices underscored by raw, physical fear and deep dread. But he clearly remembered shutting out Cal State Fullerton in a pre-league game in April of 1993, scattering three hits in seven innings, and clubbing a home run to left center. Could still see that ball sailing over the 385 mark. He clearly remembered the white hairs that grew between the toes of his boyhood black lab, Clunker, when he got old. Could clearly see the face of his father while he reeled in a smallie on one of his hand-carved plugs: whiskers on his chin, a hard glint of pride in his eyes, mouth in a tight smile with a cigarette in one side and the smoke welling up under the brim of his hat.

  And he could clearly, effortlessly see the face of Gwen Kuerner, age sixteen, when he knocked on the door of her house for the first time and she and all three of her sisters answered it.

  He closed his eyes. "I'm very tired."

  "Thanks for talking with us," said Zamorra. "Is there anything we can get for you?"

  "Please bring me another picture of Gwen."

  Zamorra paused and looked at the picture on the bed tray before he answered. "Okay. Anything else?"

  "I just remembered what suiseki means. They are rocks you collect and look at. Viewing stones. I have a room full of them. I always liked rocks as a kid. But the viewing stones, I think I bought those kind of recently."

  "You didn't know that three minutes ago."

  "I just remembered it now."

  "Archie," said Zamorra, "when does your gardener come?"

  "Huh?"

  "Your gardener, the guy who rakes the leaves and pulls the weeds

  "I don't really know."

  "Do you know his name, or how to get in touch with him?"

  "I don't remember."

  "Can I ask you one more question?"

  He nodded but he felt himself gliding upward into a clear blue sky that was Gwen.

  "When you think about that night—Gwen and the party, the rock and the light in your eyes—do you remember being sad? Angry? Happy? Afraid? How did you feel, then, that night? What was in your heart?"

  "I was happy. We made love by the beach. Stars in her hair. I just remembered that, too."

  Merci sat at her desk at headquarters and played her messages. The Homicide pen was empty now, almost seven on a Friday evening. She liked it this way.

  George Wildcraft confirmed their Saturday breakfast interview. He had a clear sharp voice and for whatever reasons she pictured him with a suntan and good teeth. Natalie, Archie's mother, would be there also. But Zamorra wouldn't because it was Saturday and he refused to work Saturdays or Sundays. Kirsten.

  Gilliam had called but not said why. He rarely left information on a tape. She called him at home and apologized but he cut her off.

  "You know you can call me anytime, day or night, Merci."

  "Thanks, Jim."

  "Look, I didn't want to leave it on the machine, but we finished up the DNA on Gwen and Archie today. The semen inside her was his."

  "I could have told you that."

  A silence. TV news in the background.

  "And some of the blood on his robe was hers."

  "Shit."

  "Yes," he said softly.

  "There's an explanation, Jim. He loved her. He had no reason."

  "I hate to be the one to point this out, but—"

  "But we've convicted lots of creeps with less than half the evidence we've got on Wildcraft."

  "Less than a quarter," Gilliam said.

  Merci felt a little chill go up her back. She pictured a jury listening as Archie tried to reassemble his blasted memory: I have no memory of that. . . wait a minute, I just remembered... no, I didn't kill her. . . .

  So she wondered if a piece of lead might speak more convincingly on his behalf. "Can you tell me the caliber of the bullet in his head?"

  "I can't do it. The scans just aren't precise enough. We're talking fractions of millimeters in bullet size. Plus the fragmentation and distortion. I need the slug."

  "Why not use a—you know, Jim, a . . ."

  "A what, Merci? God knows I'm open to ideas."

  "I don't know, some gadget that measures bullets in brains."

  Another silence. "I wish I could."

  "It's possible."

  "What is?"

  "That someone else shot them both."

  Gilliam chuckled. "I'm trying to see it your way. In spite of the evidence, I am. But I'm not getting very far."

  "Shit was going down, Jim. Somebody chucked a rock through his living room window. We've got some monstrous footprints from under that tree. What if Gwen was alive when Archie went outside? What if Wildcraft went outside to find the rock thrower and got off a shot at Size Sixteen? That accounts for the residue right there."

  "Okay. But your witness heard one shot, not two."

  "Simultaneous."

  "I'm stretching hard here."

  "Okay, then Archie came out with his weapon when he heard the rock through the window, walked into a bullet from the giant under the tree. He's down and bleeding. The shooter takes his gun and uses it on Gwen. He comes back outside and fires a sky round through with Archie's hand in a shooting grip. That's what Jones heard."

  "Why didn't he hear the shot that put down Archie?"

  "A small caliber—twenty-two or thirty-two. A silencer. Maybe Jones sneezed right then, was flushing a toilet. I don't know yet. But it was an autoloader. That accounts for the mess of footprints. Because the shooter had to find the casing."

  "It wasn't just the gardener who left those prints, or one of us.”

  "Not just the damned gardener, and Crowder told me that nobody been in there. It was the shooter, looking for the brass."

  "And at some point this guy wipes Gwen Wildcraft's blood Archie's robe?"

  "Exactly."

  Gilliam sighed. "Maybe."

  "What's wrong with it?"

  "Not really wrong, Merci, but we've got a young, financially troubled, very jealous deputy who kills his wife and shoots himself, happens. We all know it happens. Or, we've got a giant throwing rocks, hiding under trees, switching out weapons, planting evidence and driving away without anyone seeing him. I'd go with Occam and his razor."

  "Fuck Occam, and his razor too."

  "And this Jones witness? I understand he was drinking hard stuff in the morning."

  "So? He heard what he heard. The two shots to Gwen, they happened inside the bathroom. The bathroom was on the far side of the house, away from Jones's garage. And where did you get that Wildcraft was extremely jealous?"

  "I was extrapolating."

  "Because Gwen was beautiful."

  "Correct."

  "And what's this financially troubled crap?"

  "It's a million-dollar home, Merci. Wildcraft was good for about fifty or sixty, and his wife was unemployed."

  "They invested in OrganiVen, the cancer-cure guys. Made two million in less than a year. They weren't troubled—they were flush."

  "It's easier to spend than to make. They could have been way over their heads."

  "Jim, something's wrong. Help me. I'm no damned good, trying to think like a defense attorney. But I can't go after an innocent deputy just because he looks guilty."

  Like I went after Mike.

  "You know, Merci, that entry wound in Wildcraft's head—right side, behind the temple and
above the ear—is where a lot of right-handed suicides place the gun."

  She felt her anger leap from her heart to her mouth, like a spark jumping a gap. "Stebbins gave you scan copies already?"

  "Slow down—you'll get yours tomorrow. You're free to look at mine if you can't wait that long."

  She swallowed down the anger, saying nothing.

  "Ryan Dawes isn't seeing it quite your way either," said Gilliam.

  "Yeah. And A Madden's hovering over me like a driving teacher."

  "Look, Merci, whether to arrest and charge Wildcraft with this is Vince and Clay Brenkus's call. Let them do their jobs, and we'll do ours."

  Again, she pictured Wildcraft in court: I have no memory of that ... I don't think so ... we made love by the beach that night. . . wait, I just remembered.

  Christ, she thought: and his fingerprints all over the gun that killed her, and her blood on his robe? The jury may as well bring an electric chair and an extension cord with them.

  She thought for a moment. "Okay, you think he did it. But what would you do if you were me? If you believed in your heart that he didn't?"

  Gilliam said nothing for a beat, then he cleared his throat. "I'd just ask him lots of questions and listen hard to his answers. If Wildcraft did it, it's going to come out. He can't talk his way out of it with a bullet in his head. I mean, he'll never be able to keep his story straight. The way I see it, he tried to kill himself. He wasn't planning on being around to help with his defense, so to speak. "She agreed with that, but said nothing.

  "And I'd look for a pair of size-sixteen Foot Rites somewhere on his property. The bottom of a trash can would be a likely place to start."

  "Do you really think he set it up to look like a third party?"

  "No. But it's possible, and if he did, he didn't have to work very hard at it—some footprints and a rock through his own window."

  "Then off himself? Why bother with all the extra work if he was going to do that?"

  "Because he didn't want to get caught. He's a cop. Even dead, he didn't want to get caught."

  "Death before dishonor."

  "That's part of it. Vanity, arrogance and pride come to mind, too.

  "I thought was cynical."span>

  "Give yourself about twenty years."

  She thought about that. Twenty years from now she'd be fifty-seven. Once, she believed she'd be running for sheriff of Orange County about then. Now, after her grand jury appearance, the drear seemed bitter and comic.