Dead in the Water

by Glenda Carroll

  When the swimmers started to roll out the door, dressed for work, carrying swim bags and soggy towels, I asked one man in a three-piece suit to point out Theresa.

  “Here she comes,” he said nodding toward a tall lanky woman, about 5’10”, clutching a knee length blue warm-up parka with one hand and pulling a swim bag on wheels with the other.

  “Hey, Theresa. I’m Trisha Carson from the Nor Cal Swim office. Your coach said you might be able to help me.”

  Theresa said a few words to the women she was walking with and came over. She had a quick smile and bright blue eyes. Her straight brown hair brushed her chin. She smelled of chlorine and jasmine shampoo.

  “Yeah, Coach mentioned that you might be here this morning. What’s up?”

  “Can I buy you a cup of coffee, maybe something to eat while we talk?”

  “Food? You have my undivided attention. During the last half hour of workout, my stomach was growling. All I could think about was food.”

  We sat in comfortable easy chairs next to a fireplace at the coffee shop. The warm rich aroma of coffee filled the air. Soft jazz could be heard underneath the low early morning conversations going on around us. I picked up my café mocha and the cup warmed my hands. It might be summer everywhere else in the Bay Area, but this morning it was still middle of winter in Pacifica.

  “So what is this all about?” Theresa asked.

  “Jackie Gibson.”

  “Unbelievable accident. Our team sent her flowers and we’re filling out a card for her. She came so close to dying.”

  “The office was thinking of featuring her in the newsletter. It was suggested that I talk to you.”

  “Perfect. Well, she’s been on the team for about six years. Good swimmer, good lanemate.” Theresa stopped.

  “I need a bit more information.”

  “She does the open water swim circuit. She doesn’t compete much in pool meets.”

  “Yeah?” I nodded, encouraging her to keep going.

  “Not for publication—but she’s not the best swimmer in the world. Well, her swimming isn’t that bad. But she doesn’t work at it very much. Spends her time talking a lot before she gets in the water. Cuts the workout short. Doesn’t show up that much to get better, if you know what I mean. You gotta put time in the water to improve.”

  “Wouldn’t think of publishing any of this. I saw her at the Cold Water Clash. She is very pretty.”

  “That’s part of her problem. She’s a major flirt and the guys fall all over her. Not the best atmosphere sometimes, but the coach keeps it under control during practice. Most of the time, our heads are in the water.”

  “Just curious…did Jackie have a particular boyfriend? Or were they all her boyfriends?”

  “She was a pro at handling men. Somehow, they all thought she was interested in each and everyone of them. The rest of the women on the team would watch in amazement. Sometimes we’d tease her about it in the locker room, but she never said much.”

  “Was there a current guy she was seeing?”

  “She spent a lot of time with Dick Waddell. You know, the swimmer from Texas who just died at the open water swim a few weeks ago?”

  I nodded.

  “She liked him. Really liked him or that’s how it looked. But you never know with her. She also talked about Mike Menton. But it was different somehow. I once overheard a cell phone conversation with Mike. She kept saying ‘no’ to whatever he was asking. He seemed pretty pushy. She eventually agreed to do whatever he wanted. That came as a surprise to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Normally, nobody could force Jackie into doing anything she didn’t want to do.”

  “Mike, Dick…the lady had her hands full. Was there anyone else?”

  “Always—there was always someone else. She mentioned that she was having dinner with someone after the Clash but was thinking of cancelling it.”

  “Do you know who that was?”

  “No. She didn’t say. But it sounded like another swimmer or someone involved with the open water scene. Hey, I have to go pick up my kids and get them to daycare. My husband is probably wondering where I am so he can go to work.”

  “Just one more question. Was Jackie taking any medications, drugs, vitamins, that kind of thing?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Why would you need information like that for your story?”

  “I don’t. Not really.”

  I thanked Theresa and watched her go out the door into the drippy fog. I pulled out my cards, reached for a clean one and wrote a bunch of question marks on it. Underneath that I wrote “Jackie’s newest.”

  17

  My boss had taken a few days off. When there was a free weekend, meaning no results from pool meets or open water swims to worry about, he told me that he would disappear for a day or two.

  However, this week we would be experimenting with something different. A midweek, early evening swim on the Russian River, near the picturesque town of Healdsburg. There were two distances half mile and one mile. Both swims started at the same time. This was a low key event and less than 70 swimmers were expected. Bill had left me a hastily scribbled note saying, “You’re in charge. Let me know how it goes…if we should add it to our schedule next year.”

  I wouldn’t say the added responsibility made me unhappy. I was glad he thought I could handle this. But I was apprehensive after the experience at the last two swims. Would this event go off without anyone getting hurt?

  The office was very quiet. Probably the lack of Masters swimming activity over the weekend was the reason for the silent phones. Outside, San Francisco Bay had all but disappeared—once again—due to the thick gloomy fog. Could have been the end of the earth, as I looked into a wall of smothering grayness that was planted over the water. The fog erased everything. The Golden Gate Bridge was missing. Angel Island was missing and so was the rest of the Marin shoreline. It was just me standing in an office at Fort Mason looking out the window and not much else in the world.

  Back at my desk, I picked up an envelope with my name on it. The return address was Nor Cal Swim Association.

  “My first check.” Not much of a first check, but money nonetheless. “Halfway back to normal,” thinking back to the other half—Saturday’s ball game date fiasco.

  I began to jot down what I would do with my newly found limited wealth. Had to pay Lena back the loan she fronted me to get from Colorado to California. Chip in for food and work out a payment plan with T’s father for the repairs to my car. There wouldn’t be much left.

  Next to the check was a small oblong white box with office business cards. They didn’t have my name on them. But it seemed like a positive step forward to making this a permanent job. I stuck a few of the crisp white cards with black lettering in my wallet and put the box in a desk drawer.

  I was starting to answer a few of the emails when there was a quiet knock on the office door.

  There was Justin.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Bill’s not here.” I stared at him and then shifted my gaze back to the computer screen. My heartbeat jerked from 75 to 165 in less than a second. I could feel a warm flush creep up my neck to my face. My fingers, poised to type something on the keyboard, were shaking. But still I kept my glance on the monitor.

  “I screwed up. I know it,” he said.

  I didn’t look up.

  “It was a misunderstanding,” he said.

  “Really.” He had my attention now. “A misunderstanding? You asked me to go with you to a ball game. We talked about where we would meet and what time. Tell me exactly what I misunderstood.”

  “Not you. The guy I was buying the tickets from. I was hosed. He sold them to someone else and didn’t tell me. Probably got more money.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I didn’t want to look stupid. I tried to pick up other tickets but it didn’t work out.”

  “That is one of the lamest excuses I have ever heard. Why didn’t you cal
l me and tell me? I called you. Twice from AT&T Park, once when I got home. You never called me back. I was left standing by the ferry dock checking my phone.”

  “No excuse there. Just wasn’t thinking,” he said.

  “Why are you here? To see Bill? He’s out for a day or two. Write him a note and I’ll put it on his desk. Better yet, turn around walk down the steps, and then call and leave a message for him.”

  “Trisha, you’re killing me. I’m here to see you. Look, I’m sorry.”

  “You invited me to a game you didn’t have tickets for. Nothing major there. But you didn’t tell me you didn’t have tickets and I never heard from you. I felt ridiculous standing there. I had to hang around until the game was over before I could get on the ferry and go home.”

  “I’m here to apologize.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “Let’s try again. I don’t want it to end like this.”

  “End? There is nothing to end. Nothing ever got started.”

  I stood up and walked toward the door with every intention of closing it in his face. I could hear a NPS security guard making his morning rounds, coming up the stairs. The heavy thud of his boots echoed through the stairwell.

  “Just leave. I have work to do,” I said lowering my voice.

  “Okay, but I want to make one more offer. Consider it, okay? Meet me after work. We could grab a quick dinner at El Oriente Salvaje. It’s in the heart of the Mission District. Do you like Salvadoran food?”

  “Go,” I said, my voice rising.

  “They make great papusas. The real thing. Came here from El Salvador in ’84 to get away from the war in their country…”

  “I don’t want a Central America history lesson. Just go.”

  “Everything okay here?” said the security guard as he walked closer to the office door. It was Jon Angel. He stopped and looked hard at Justin, then at me.

  “No problem, buddy,” said Justin, backing away from the door.

  “Consider it, please. I’ll be there at 5:30 p.m. I hope, really hope you’ll come,” he said as he headed for the stairwell.

  “Think I’ll walk him out,” said the guard, glancing after Justin.

  “Don’t waste your time. He’s not a threat. Just a guy that stood me up.”

  “Think I’ll take a walk anyway,” he said as he turned around and headed for the stairs.

  My mind was about as fogged over as the Bay. I shut the office door and sat back down at my desk. I bent over my knees, head hanging toward the floor and took some long deep breaths. In slow and out slow.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Hey, hey there, Trisha. “You still here?”

  The door opened slowly. It was Jon holding a to-go cup. I could smell the heavy rich chocolate from the white container and see soft whipped cream oozing through the slit on the lid.

  “Thought you might like this,” he said and handed me the drink.

  “That guy come back again—you let me know.”

  He looked around, taking in the swimming photos, ribbons, plaques hanging on the wall, much as I did when I first walked in the office.

  “Nice view, I bet, when the fog’s outta the way.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  He sat down in the straight-back chair by the door, tapping his hand on his knee. He was a big solid guy and his body overwhelmed the chair. It disappeared underneath him.

  There was a long awkward silence.

  “What are those?” he said pointing to the 3 x 5 cards sitting on the corner of my desk.

  “A puzzle I’m trying to figure out. Two open water swimmers have had accidents recently. One died and one is hospitalized. These are the people who are connected to both of them.”

  When I explained what had happened to Waddell and Jackie, he was all business again.

  “Considering the attack on your car, I’d say something is going on. Don’t mess with this. Go to the police.”

  “Well, you’re the police.”

  “We deal with crimes on National Park property. Not general crimes taking place in the Bay Area.”

  “What do you think?”

  “You didn’t hear me, did you? I think you should talk to the SF police and keep your door shut and locked.”

  Lena checked in about an hour later talking so fast she was hard to understand.

  “Traffic is terrible…I have been condemned to the tenth circle of hell that Dante never wrote about—driving through road construction… Do you have to evaluate the swim this Wednesday? The new one in the evening? Of course you do, that’s your job. Well, we may be taking another passenger…Terrel wants to come…Do you believe it?…Would I love to see him in the water!…Hah, what a sight that would be…I won’t be home for dinner…We’re doing a practice swim off McNears Beach in the Bay…wanna come?”

  There was a long pause as Lena caught her breath.

  “I’ll probably hang out here for a while. Maybe I’ll stop at McNears on the way home.”

  “Okay. Trisha, I hope you’re not still thinking about that lowlife from the ball game.”

  “No, not really,” and I hung up quickly.

  The day stayed surprisingly quiet. Maybe because nobody died or got hurt over the past weekend. Maybe this is how the office normally is.

  I walked over to Bill’s desk to drop off a team’s proposal for another new open water swim. It would be a 10K, a little over six miles, which to me was a long way to swim. But some swimmers were clamoring for one.

  On the corner of the desk was the Dick Waddell file. It looked much the same as the first time I saw it. There was a new phone number with the initials ME next to it. Bet that’s the medical examiner. He will have the autopsy information. I copied down the number, planning to put it with my Waddell case file. I couldn’t find any folder at all on Jackie Gibson.

  Guess you need to die to merit a folder of your own.

  Bill’s phone was blinking. The red on and off light told me that someone had used his back line to get into his voicemail. I dialed the number to retrieve the call.

  “Yo, Bill. Dude, it’s Chris. Lovin’ it here in the Northwest wing of our spectacular country. But I have to come back to the Bay area. More expensive than I thought it would be. Cash is running low. Went fast. I know you understand, dude. Handling money has never been my strong point. Is my job still there? Buddy, I won’t walk out this time. Word, brother.”

  The line went dead.

  Great. Laid back drifter Chris is ready to give up on his quest to find nirvana because he needed a paycheck. It only took him a month to go broke. Now, he wanted his old job that is now my job. I glanced over at the paycheck still sitting on my desk. I needed that money. A moral dilemma stood in front of me—to delete or not delete, that was the question.

  A ringing phone pushed the decision out of mind.

  “Nor Cal Swim Association,” I said.

  A familiar high pitched voice on the other end of the line asked, “Is this Trisha?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Daisy, Daisy Menton? I’m…uh…like.. Mike Menton’s daughter?”

  Every sentence she uttered in her squeaky voice ended with a question mark.

  “Yes, I remember you from the swims. What’s going on?”

  “I think I know who hurt that swimmer a few weeks ago.”

  “Richard Waddell?”

  “Yeah, the old guy. I don’t think he meant it. I think he was trying to help. But it didn’t work and the guy got sick in the water.”

  “Wait a minute. Slow down. Trying to help, how?”

  “Giving him stuff to take.”

  “You mean like drugs?”

  “Of course I mean drugs.”

  “Were the drugs supposed to help or hurt him?”

  “Help. No, hurt. It depends what you’re talking about.”

  This girl was not making sense.

  “Have you spoken to your father about this?”

  “No. He’d get mad at me.�
�

  “If it was a mistake, all he has to do is tell someone. Even if it was a drug and he offered it to Waddell, then he, Dick, has some responsibility in this.”

  “But that’s just it. I don’t think Waddell knew.”

  “Knew what exactly?”

  “Knew what he was taking.”

  “Wasn’t Richard Waddell one of your father’s big competitors?”

  “Sure was. Dad called him DickWad. Pretty funny, uh? I often heard him talk about him like that to his friends. Dad really thought he would win his age group this season. Then he’d get to go to the Open Water Nationals in Maryland. He’s going to go now, for sure.”

  “Look, if you think that your father has done something that might have hurt Richard, we need to tell someone. Even if he…”

  “My father? I’m not talking about my father.”

  “You’re not? Then who are you talking about?”

  “Nick. He’s the one, my boyfriend.”

  I stared at the phone in complete bewilderment.

  “Your boyfriend? The pale kid who looks like he never gets outside? What is he, 16, maybe? How could he possibly do anything to hurt Richard and why would he want to?”

  “You don’t get anything do you? He knew winning was a big deal for my dad. And if it’s a big deal for Dad, it’s a big deal for me. When DickWad showed up this season, well, it wasn’t like it was a sure thing anymore. I used to talk to Nick about it, I’d go, ‘Dad is so pissed. He lost today to the new guy.’ And he’d go, ‘yeah?’ and I’d go ‘yeah.’ He wanted to make me happy and he knew that I wanted to make my dad happy. So it just makes sense to me, about Nick, that is.”

  “Do you really think he would hurt someone?”

  “All the time, he goes, ‘I’ll do anything for you.’”

  “Do you have any idea where the drugs came from?”

  “So easy…school, off course. It doesn’t take much to get anything you want. Just ask the right people, that’s all. I thought you knew all about it. That’s why you were calling the house and wanting to talk to Dad at the Clash. I figured I’d better tell you.”