Black Water

by T. Jefferson Parker

  "The rumor is, he had a temper," said Gilliam.

  "I've heard that, too."

  "Used to, anyway. God knows what that bullet left him with."

  She thanked Gilliam and punched off, feeling the exit of sweet hope as it pinwheeled down and away.

  She got out her blue notebook and dialed William Jones's number. She got a rather ditzy sounding young woman who laughed and said she' check but usually Bill was, well, not exactly sober this late.

  Actually, he sounded pretty good to Merci, and he remembered he immediately. She asked him if he knew what day the Wildcrafts' gardener usually came.

  Mondays or Tuesdays, pretty sure, said Bill. Could always tell b the little truck and the loud leaf blower.

  "What's he look like?" she asked. "Like a gardener. Mexican, regular size. He gets here around sever leaves about three. I'll call you next time he's here. Tell me how Archie's doing. The papers don't tell you very much and the nurses say the same thing every time I call."

  "I just saw him. He's awake and lucid, but tired."

  "He's going to make it. Archie's strong as a horse. I'd see him washing his car out here on Sunday mornings and he had muscles on him you wouldn't believe. Not the gym kind, the baseball kind. Long muscles for running and throwing. I know because I played some ball back in high school. That was quite a while ago."

  "For me it was, too."

  She gave him her office and pager numbers, then thanked him again and hung up.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  G eorge Wildcraft was a tall, wiry man with an outdoorsman's face

  and patient green eyes. Merci was right about the teeth and tan. She'd made him for a salesman by his phone attitude, but now saw that she had been wrong. Weathered hands with dark creases, scarred fingers. She put him at sixty and in one of the building trades—carpentry, maybe, or electric or plumbing.

  Natalie looked ten years older. She was very petite, leathery, and pretty in a miniaturized kind of way. Her hand seemed no larger than a monkey's when Merci shook it. Her engagement diamond was enormous.

  They sat at a round glass table in the atrium coffee shop of a hotel in Newport Beach. The August sunlight filtered down through a frosted skylight and reaching palm trees. Merci knew they were staying at a Best Western in Santa Ana but it didn't matter to her where they talked.

  The waiter who took their drink orders looked like a guy from a magazine ad.

  "What do you have?" asked Natalie. "What evidence?"

  Merci sat back. "We have a lot of evidence, Mrs. Wildcraft."

  "Natalie."

  "Natalie. Too much to go into specifically. Not all of it seeming to point to the same thing. That's the way it is in lots of cases."

  "Who did it?" she asked. For a small woman her voice was rough and low. From that and the lines on her face Merci figured her for a thirty-year smoker. Rayborn herself had smoked a pack a day for ten years but had quit four years back. She missed the cigarettes heartily and still dreamed about smoking. But she wanted to live longer for Tim and had always hated the smell of tobacco smoke on her fingers and clothes. And the wheeze high in her lungs when she lay down at night. She still thought that the smell of a freshly opened pack of cigarettes was one of the three best in the world, right behind a pouch of fresh good coffee and the top of Tim's head.

  "We don't know."

  "Is Archie a suspect?"

  "No."

  "That's a common thing for cops to do, though, kill themselves and their wife."

  "Not common, Natalie. But law enforcement officers do end their lives more often than others."

  "He didn't."

  "I don't think he did, either. But there's some hard evidence that points at him."

  "What evidence?"

  "I can't tell you."

  "Can't or won't?"

  "Both."

  Natalie latched her hard brown eyes onto Merci's. "No one knows him like George and I know him. From when he was young until right now, he's been honest and truthful and good. Completely honest. I can read him like a book. He never could fool me, not for a second. He told me he didn't do it, and I guarantee you he didn't."

  The waiter brought the coffees but nobody wanted breakfast. He looked disappointed.

  "What did you think of Gwen?" Merci asked.

  Natalie sat back, looked at her husband, then at Merci again. "We thought she was a wonderful girl. George?"

  George Wildcraft nodded. His green eyes were full of expression. "She was a fine girl. We loved her and so did Arch."

  With this, George looked down at the glass tabletop, as did Natalie.

  Like it had said something. Merci watched them, attuned to their private frequencies of grief. Neither spoke.

  "Tell me about Archie," said Merci. "You said he was honest and truthful and good?"

  Natalie finally looked up, a tear in the corner of one eye. She smiled. "Well, not all the time, Detective Rayborn. He was a handful when he was young. He was all boy. You know what I mean."

  They lived in Willits, which was Mendocino County, California, Second generation Northern Californians, both of them. Merci noted the pride in the northern lineage. Northern meant you didn't waste as much Colorado River water, weren't narcissists, Hollywood weirdos, bodybuilders, faddists, etc. George did framing and drywall and firewood. Natalie worked a drill press at Remco, day shift. Archie was their only child.

  He was a big, content baby and a big, content toddler. He was a terrific athlete, even then: George remembered him throwing wiffle golf balls around his room when he was six months old, "could really zing them." Walked at nine months, ran at ten.

  Went off to kindergarten at five, was "unimpressed" by authority and only played with a few hand-chosen friends. He was a bit of a bully and fairly physical. Had a friend that was a lot like him and they were always cooking up something. Kevin was the other kid. They signed Archie up for T-ball at age four—a year early—but nobody cared or said anything because he was the best player on the team Orioles, that year. Looked a little like Will Clark, stroking the ball off that tee. They got him into Pinto League early, and he was the best player on that team, too.

  Natalie said that for his first four grades of elementary school Archie had some problems. Nothing too serious, but he fought a lot. Didn't participate in anything but sports. Wasn't popular with other students or teachers. He and Kevin were still raising hell together. Always seemed a year or two ahead of the others physically, but academically he "struggled." Around the house he was polite because he knew his mother would "paddle his pointed little fanny" if he showed disrespect. George "took the belt" to Archie when it was necessary which was not too often, according to Natalie.

  "How often was not too often?" Merci wanted to know.

  "Maybe once a month back then," George said. "Just a few good swats and Archie would bawl and mind his manners for a while. No welts or bruises or anything like that. I loved my boy. I couldn't hurt him. But I wanted him to get some common sense through his head."

  Then, when Archie was halfway through the fifth grade, something in him changed. Natalie and George both saw it. He started dressing sharp, wanting the latest fashions. Took extra time with his hair. Brushed his teeth twice in the morning, wanted underarm deodorant. Had a funny little hop in his step—hard to describe but it was like he was walking more on his toes or something. Even changed his route to school in a way that added a full ten minutes.

  "Her name was Julia," said George. "A transfer student from Dayton, Ohio. Little dark-haired girl with a bright smile. Cute as you can get."

  George smiled and Merci smiled with him. Natalie looked down and shook her head.

  "It changed him," she said. "He wrote letters and poems to her. Called her all the time. He sent her pictures of himself, his dog Clunker. Had a giant fight with Kevin—stitches on both boys—but that was the last fight he ever got in. Archie's report card went from all fairs to all excellents because he wanted to impress Julia. And she'd call him and
write him little love notes with red kiss stickers on the back. They held hands on the way to school and back. George and I, we talked to Julia's mom about it—she was a single mom—and we agreed it was okay, so long as Arch and Julia didn't start kissing or hiding together or. . . well, you know. We wanted to encourage a friendship, maybe even an early form of romance, but not physical affection. We kept an eye on them, you can believe that."

  "Yes," said Merci. She wondered, very briefly, what she would do when Tim Jr. developed a crush like that. Handcuff him to my wrist, she thought, or maybe in his room. Probably be a Kirsten like Zamorra's, she thought: another qualmless blonde.

  "Then," said Natalie, "she disappeared."

  "Julia?"

  "Yes. Somewhere between her apartment and where Archie would meet her on the way to school. People saw a white pickup truck that wasn't usually around. Some people said Julia got in, some said she didn't. Anyway, she was never found. Neither was the truck. She was ten."

  The waiter checked in with more coffee, but still, nobody wanted breakfast. He concentrated as he refilled Merci's cup, then smiled without looking at her and backed away.

  Merci made sure she had the girl's last name and the year and city and school right: this would be worth another look.

  "Police questioned Archie for quite a while," said George. "We were present, of course. It was nothing accusatory."

  All questions are accusatory, thought Rayborn.

  "How did her disappearance affect your son?"

  George sighed and looked at her. "First he got real quiet. And while he was going through that quiet stage, he brushed his teeth three times before school, he asked us for even more of the name-brand clothing he spent even more time on his hair. Wrote her more letters. Months later, Julia's mom gave them back to me. He didn't say much of anything to anybody. A whole dinner and he'd only speak if you asked him something direct. That lasted the rest of the school year, through summer and into the next. He'd go to the public library almost everyday on the way home from school and read the papers from around the country. Librarian told us that. He told me you never knew where she'd show up. That summer he played baseball harder and better than I'd ever seen him play. Really cracking that ball. Really throwing it hard—clocked at seventy-four miles an hour when he wasn't quite twelve. I could see the .. . what was it? I could see the passion in him, The frustration. The anger. By the end of the next school year—sixth grade—he seemed to be pretty much over it. He was talking again, making friends. Even some girlfriends. He was popular. Good grades, still. Nice-looking. A good boy."

  "But after that he always had a blank spot inside him," said Natalie, "Like something had gone away and wouldn't come back. Which was exactly what had happened."

  Merci knew about blank spots from Hess. She often thought of a person's soul as something lunar—the craters were good things lost, the mounds were good things not lost, and the plains in between were things that didn't matter that much. "How did he react when the police questioned him?"

  George chuckled. "He told us that night that if he couldn't be a major-league pitcher when he grew up, he was going to be a missing-persons detective. And he wasn't joking. Archie wasn't a joker that way. Always was real serious about what he was going to do. Well, that's exactly what happened, isn't it? He dropped out of ball and became a deputy."

  Merci made a note of this, circled it, watched her pen form the long oval on the paper, once, twice. Be a missing-persons detective. Because his first love disappeared off the face of the Earth. Because he loved her enough to change himself for her.

  "Tell me about Gwen."

  Archie knew immediately, said Natalie. Told them a couple weeks after he met her that he was going to marry her. Was a little embarrassed that she was sixteen and he was twenty, playing college ball for UCR. But that was all. He had the long view. He knew four years wouldn't be anything when they were older.

  George and Natalie weren't too happy about the age thing, Natalie said, but when they met her they couldn't help but like her. When two people love each other like that you pretty much have to get out of the way. Gwen looked like Julia.

  "We had to trust Archie," she said. "We did trust him. It's not much of my business but I'd bet she was still a virgin the day they got married."

  "What about Archie?"

  Natalie shook her head and looked at her. "Lots of girlfriends in high school and early college."

  "Before Gwen," said George.

  George looked into near space as if his son's lack of honeymoon virginity was a problem that needed solving. Natalie looked at Merci blankly.

  "You going to charge him?"

  "Nobody's been charged."

  "I said are you going to?"

  "I don't know."

  Natalie's hard eyes locked onto Rayborn's again. "Well, the one more thing we should talk about. Just so you know. Long time ago Archie took out life insurance policies on Gwen and himself. Seemed smart, with the profession that Archie had chosen. I think policy was worth about a quarter million. They told us about it, cause if something happened to both of them, the money would split between Gwen's parents and us. George and I don't need money, so that's not what I'm getting at. It's just something else should know."

  Merci thought about a quarter million dollars, what it would and wouldn't do. "I wonder if they increased those death benefits when they hit it rich with OrganiVen."

  Natalie looked over Merci's face from bottom to top. "Far as I know, they spent their money on nice things. Archie bought us a new car. A Mercedes C430. Red. We'd loaned them two thousand dollars to buy the start-up stock, before the big drug company bought them out."

  "Archie and Gwen bought us a computer, too," said George.

  It sounded to Merci like they believed the more things their son had bought for them the more innocent he was. And it must have sounded that way to them, too, she thought, because of the awkward silence that followed.

  "He wanted to fly," said George. He looked at Merci with a wry smile. "Not professionally, just, well. . ."

  "He jumped off the garage roof when he was seven," said Natalie. "Had broomsticks with cloth on them for wings. Broke an ankle, climbed up and jumped again, broke the other. Just hairline fractures they didn't have to be set."

  "Lucky," said George.

  "Stubborn," said his wife.

  "Loved rocks, too," said George. "Brought them home in his pockets, then later, in backpacks. Read up on them. Bought some fancy Japanese ones when they got rich."

  "The suiseki."

  "Yes."

  "Imagine that," said Natalie. "Buying rocks."

  Another pause then as the Wildcrafts' memories of their son collided with the reason for them being there.

  "Well, thank you," said Rayborn, wondering at the passions of A. F. Wildcraft. "You've both been very helpful."

  "Gwen's funeral is Wednesday, Detective," George said. "The Catholic cemetery in Laguna Hills. Two o'clock. On behalf of Archie and Gwen's family, we're inviting you."

  "I'll be there. And let me get this, please."

  She paid and they stood.

  "What are your chances of catching the guy who did this?" George asked.

  She thought about that while she put down another dollar on the tip tray. "Better than anyone else's."

  "Yeah, he was worried," said Damon Reese, Archie's patrol partner. At thirty-six, he was six years older than Archie. He had a thick, handsome face, a strong nose and the scars of adolescent acne still sharp on his cheeks and neck. When he looked at you, you got all of his attention.

  "Archie's a worrier. He worries about his appearance. He worries about gaining weight, losing muscle tone. He worries about the things he owns—his house and cars and all of that. What color paint. What kind of trees to plant. What kind of carpet to get. He worries about his investment in that company that's supposed to cure cancer. He worried about Gwen being happy. About Gwen's music. About Gwen's family. And that's for starters."

&n
bsp; "Quite a lineup."

  "Merci, Archie's a fix-it guy, an improvement guy. He thinks he can fix anything, and I'll give him credit—he does everything guts-out, does his homework and he never gives up. Me, I'm just the opposite. I know I can't improve hardly anything. I don't care what color my house is painted, and I can't change people. I don't have a wife to worry about anymore. So I take things easier. I'll bet my blood pressure is half of Archie's, and I probably sleep a lot better than he does. I'll never live up there in the hills, but that's fine. I like it where I am. We make a good patrol team because we're different."

  Merci listened and watched Reese turn the hose on the hull of his Boston Whaler. The boat was on its trailer in his driveway. Damon had gone fishing out of Dana Point this morning and he was back by ten for their talk, just like he said he'd be.

  The water drummed against the aluminum and dripped off in glittering streams. It was too loud to talk over, so Merci just watched Deputy Reese hose the ocean off his boat and the life vests and the bait tank and the tackle. When he was done she watched him back it into the garage and helped him lift the trailer off the ball on his pickup.

  Reese carried two big plastic bags of bass fillets into the house unworried about the pink drips. Merci carried his Lowrance sonar.

  "Just set it on the counter there, Merci. Thanks."

  "What about Felix Mendez?"

  Reese stopped in the middle of the kitchen floor and looked at Merci with his considerable attention. "He would have killed me if wasn't for Archie. There's one thing I'm glad Archie was able to fix

  He smiled, shook his head at the memory, got a clear baking dish out of a cabinet and set the bagged fish in it.

  "Mendez wasn't a punk. He was a made guy, a ranking Erne lieutenant. He was loaded to the gills that night, or none of it would have gone down. Fighting with his wife, jacked up on coke, drunk. When his wife tried to go off on Archie and he pushed her against the wall and cuffed her, Mendez went for his iron. He had a one-shot, twenty five-cal derringer in his bathrobe pocket—so small it didn't even weigh the pocket down. At least not enough for either of us to notice. So Mendez had it out quick, took us totally by surprise. Swung on me because I was closer. But Archie was fast. Blew a hole in Felix's hand about the size of a pea going in and a quarter going out. Bones sticking out all over, what a mess. Made the shot from ten, twelve feet away. Saved my life. Fantastic."