Down River

by John Hart

  Killer.

  Two feet long if it was an inch.

  So much for hope.

  The old man’s face split and he pushed words through the smile. “Couple of punk kids,” he said. “They took off that way.” He pointed across the empty street, to the old drive-in parking lot that was now a sea of weed-choked Tarmac. “Damned unfortunate,” he finished.

  One of the guys elbowed the other. I knew what they saw: a rich man’s car with New York plates, a city boy in shined shoes.

  They had no idea.

  I moved to the trunk, put my bag inside, pulled out the tire iron. It was two feet of solid metal with a lug wrench on one end. I started across the parking lot, the heavy rod low against my leg.

  “You shouldn’t have done it,” I said.

  “Fuck yourself, Chase.”

  They came off the porch, moving heavily, Zeb Faith in the middle. They fanned out, and their feet rasped on hard-baked earth. The man on Faith’s right was the taller of the two, and looked scared, so I focused on the man to the left, a mistake. The blow came from the right, and the guy was fast. It was like getting hit with a bat. The other followed almost as quickly. He saw me droop and stepped in with an uppercut that would have broken my jaw. But I swung the iron. It came up fast and hard, caught the man’s arm in midswing and broke it as cleanly as anything I’d ever seen. I heard bones go. He went down, screaming.

  The other man hit me again, caught me on the side of the head, and I swung at him, too. Metal connected on the meaty part of his shoulder. Zebulon Faith stepped in for a shot, but I beat him to it, delivered a short punch to the point of his chin and he dropped. Then the lights went out. I found myself on my knees, vision clouded, getting the shit kicked out of me.

  Faith was down. So was the man with the broken arm. But the other guy was having a time. I saw the boot arcing in again and I swung with all I had. The tire iron connected with his shin and he flopped onto the dirt. I didn’t know if it was broken, didn’t really care. He was out of it.

  I tried to stand up, but my legs were loose and weak. I put my hands on the ground, and felt Zebulon Faith standing over me. Breath sawed in his throat, but his voice was strong enough. “Fucking Chases,” he said, and went to work with his feet. They swung in, swung out. Swung in again, and came back bloody. I was down for real, couldn’t find the tire iron, and the old man was grunting like he was at the end of an all-night screw. I curled up, tucked my face down, and sucked in a lungful of road grit.

  That’s when I heard the sirens.

  CHAPTER 2

  The ambulance ride was a blur, twenty minutes of white gloves, painful swabs, and a fat paramedic with sweat hanging from his nose. Light flashed red and they lifted me out. The hospital solidified around me: sounds I knew and odors I’d smelled one time too many. The same ceiling they’d had for the past twenty years. A baby-faced resident grunted over old scars as he patched me up. “Not your first fight, is it?”

  He didn’t really want an answer, so I kept my mouth shut. The fighting started somewhere around age ten. My mother’s suicide had a lot to do with that. So did Danny Faith. But it had been a while since my last one. For five years I’d moved through my days without a single confrontation. No arguments. No hard words. Five years of numbness, now this: three-on-one my first day back. I should have gotten in the car and left, but the thought never occurred to me.

  Not once.

  When I walked out, three hours later, I had taped ribs, loose teeth, and eighteen stitches in my head. I hurt like nobody’s business. I was pissed.

  The doors slipped shut behind me, and I stood, bent to the left, favoring the ribs on that side. Light spilled out across my feet, and a few cars passed on the street. I watched them for a couple of seconds, then turned back to the lot.

  A car door opened thirty feet away, and a woman climbed out. She took three steps and stopped at the hood of the car. I recognized every part of her, even at that distance. She was five eight, graceful, with auburn hair and a smile that could light a dark room. A new pain welled up inside me, deeper, more textured. I thought I’d have time to find the right approach, the right words. But I was empty. I took a step and tried to hide the limp. She met me halfway, and her face was all hollow places and doubt. She studied me from top to bottom, and her frown left little question of what she saw.

  “Officer Alexander,” I said, forcing a smile that felt like a lie.

  Her eyes moved over my injuries. “Detective,” she corrected me. “Bumped up two years ago.”

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  She paused, looked for something in my face. She lingered on the stitches in my hairline, and for an instant, her face softened. “This is not how I thought we would meet again,” she said, eyes back on mine.

  “How then?”

  “At first, I saw a long run and a hard embrace. Kisses and apologies.” She shrugged. “After a few years with no word, I imagined something more confrontational. Screaming. Some swift kicks, maybe. Not seeing you like this. Not the two of us alone in the dark.” She gestured at my face. “I can’t even slap you.”

  Her smile failed, too. Neither of us could have seen it happening like this.

  “Why didn’t you come inside?”

  Her hands settled on her hips. “I didn’t know what to say. I thought the words would come to me.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing came.”

  I couldn’t respond at first. Love dies hard, if at all, and there was nothing to say that had not been said many times in the far past of that other life. When I did speak, the words came with difficulty. “I had to forget this place, Robin. I had to push it down.”

  “Don’t,” she said, and I recognized the anger. I’d lived with my own for long enough.

  “So what now?” I asked.

  “Now, I take you home.”

  “Not to my father’s house.”

  She leaned closer and a glimmer of the old warmth appeared in her eyes. A smile flirted on the lines of her mouth. “I wouldn’t do that to you,” she said.

  We moved around her car, and I spoke over the roof. “I’m not here to stay.”

  “No,” she said heavily. “Of course not.”

  “Robin . . .”

  “Get in the car, Adam.”

  I opened the door and sank into the car. It was a big sedan, a cop car. I looked at the radios and the laptop, the shotgun locked to the dash. I was wiped. Painkillers. Exhaustion. The seat seemed to swallow me up, and I watched the dark streets as Robin drove.

  “Not much of a homecoming,” she said.

  “Could have been worse.”

  She nodded, and I felt her eyes on me, brief glances when the road straightened out. “It’s good to see you, Adam. It’s hard but good.” She nodded again, as if still trying to convince herself. “I wasn’t sure that it would ever happen again.”

  “Me neither.”

  “That leaves the big question.”

  “Which is?” I knew the question, I just didn’t like it.

  “Why, Adam? The question is why. It’s been five years. Nobody’s heard a word from you.”

  “Do I need a reason for coming home?”

  “Nothing happens in a vacuum. You should know that better than most.”

  “That’s just cop talk. Sometimes there is no reason.”

  “I don’t believe that.” Resentment hung on her features. She waited, but I did not know what to say. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said.

  A silence fell between us as wind bent around the car. The tires hammered against a sudden spot of rough pavement.

  “Were you planning to call me?” she asked.

  “Robin—”

  “Never mind. Forget it.”

  More wordless time, an awkwardness that daunted both of us.

  “Why were you at that motel?”

  I thought about how much to tell her, and decided that I had to square things with my father first. If I couldn’t make it right w
ith him, I couldn’t make it right with her. “Do you have any idea where Danny Faith might be?” I asked.

  I was changing the subject and she knew it. She let it go. “You know about his girlfriend?” she asked. I nodded and she shrugged. “He wouldn’t be the first bottom-of-the-heap reprobate to hide from an arrest warrant. He’ll turn up. People like him usually do.”

  I looked at her face, the hard lines. “You never liked Danny.” It was an accusation.

  “He’s a loser,” she said. “A gambler and a hard drinker with a violent streak a mile wide. How could I like him? He dragged you down, fed your dark side. Bar fights. Brawls. He made you forget the good things you had.” She shook her head. “I thought you’d outgrow Danny. You were always too good for him.”

  “He’s had my back since the fourth grade, Robin. You don’t walk away from friends like that.”

  “Yet you did.” She left the rest unsaid, but I felt it.

  Just like you walked away from me.

  I looked out the window. There was nothing I could say that would take away the hurt. She knew I’d had no choice.

  “What the hell have you been doing, Adam? Five years. A lifetime. People said you were in New York, but other than that, nobody knows anything. Seriously, what the hell have you been doing?”

  “Does it matter?” I asked, because to me it did not.

  “Of course it matters.”

  She could never understand, and I didn’t want her pity. I kept the loneliness bottled up, kept the story simple. “I tended bar for a while, worked in some gyms, worked for the parks. Just odd jobs. Nothing lasted more than a month or two.”

  I saw her disbelief, heard the disappointment in her voice. “Why would you waste your time working jobs like that? You’re smart. You have money. You could have gone to school, become anything.”

  “It was never about money or getting ahead. I didn’t care about that.”

  “What, then?”

  I couldn’t look at her. The things I’d lost could never be replaced. I shouldn’t have to spell that out. Not to her. “Temporary jobs take no thought,” I said, and paused. “Do that kind of stuff long enough, and even the years can blur.”

  “Jesus, Adam.”

  “You don’t have the right to judge me, Robin. We both made choices. I had to live with yours. It’s not fair to condemn me for mine.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  We rode in silence. “What about Zebulon Faith?” I finally asked.

  “It’s a county matter.”

  “Yet, here you are. A city detective.”

  “The sheriff’s office took the call. But I have friends there. They called me when your name came up.”

  “They remember me that well?”

  “Nobody’s forgotten, Adam. Law enforcement least of all.”

  I bit down on angry words. It’s the way people were: quick to judge and long to remember.

  “Did they find Faith?” I asked.

  “He ran before the deputies arrived, but they found the other two. I’m surprised you didn’t see them at the hospital.”

  “Are they under arrest?”

  Robin looked sideways at me. “All the deputies found were three men lying in the parking lot. You’ll have to swear out a warrant if you want somebody arrested.”

  “Great. That’s great. And the damage done to my car?”

  “Same thing.”

  “Perfect.”

  I watched Robin as she drove. She’d aged, but still looked good. There was no ring on her finger, which saddened me. If she was alone in this world, part of it was my fault. “What the hell was that all about anyway? I knew I’d have a target on my back, but I didn’t expect to get jumped the first day back in town.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. That old bastard has always been mean-spirited, but it’s like he was looking for an excuse.”

  “He probably was.”

  “I haven’t seen him in years. His son and I are friends.”

  She laughed bitterly, and shook her head. “I tend to forget that there’s a world outside of Rowan County. No reason for you to know, I guess. But it’s been the deal around here for months. The power company. Your father. It’s torn the town in two.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The state is growing. The power company plans to build a new nuclear facility to compensate. They’re looking at numerous sites, but Rowan County is the first choice. They need the water, so it has to be on the river. It would take a thousand acres, and everybody else has agreed to sell. But they need a big chunk of Red Water Farm to make it work. Four or five hundred acres, I think. They’ve offered five times what it’s worth, but he won’t sell. Half the town loves him. Half the town hates him. If he holds out, the power company will pull the plug and move on to some other place.”

  She shrugged. “People are getting laid off. Plants are closing. It’s a billion-dollar facility. Your father is standing in the way.”

  “You sound like you want the plant to come.”

  “I work for the city. It’s hard to ignore the possible benefits.”

  “And Zebulon Faith?”

  “He owns thirty acres on the river. That’s seven figures if the deal goes through. He’s been vocal. Things have gotten ugly. People are angry, and it’s not just the jobs or the tax base. It’s big business. Concrete companies. Grading contractors. Builders. There’s a lot of money to be made and people are getting desperate. Your father is a rich man. Most people think he’s being selfish.”

  I pictured my father. “He won’t sell.”

  “The money will get bigger. The pressure, too. A lot of folks are leaning on him.”

  “You said that it’s gotten ugly. How ugly?”

  “Most of it is harmless. Editorials in the paper. Harsh words. But there have been some threats, some vandalism. Somebody shot up some cattle one night. Outbuildings were burned. You’re the first one to get hurt.”

  “Other than the cows.”

  “It’s just background noise, Adam. It’ll work out soon, one way or another.”

  “What kind of threats?” I asked.

  “Late-night phone calls. Some letters.”

  “You’ve seen them?”

  She nodded. “They’re pretty graphic.”

  “Could Zebulon Faith be behind any of it?”

  “He leveraged himself to buy additional acreage. I’m thinking that he needs that money pretty badly.” She cut her eyes my way. “I’ve often wondered if Danny might not be involved. The windfall would be enormous and he doesn’t exactly have a clean record.”

  “No way,” I said.

  “Seven figures. That’s a lot of money, even for people that have money.” I looked out the window. “Danny Faith,” she said, “does not have money.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said.

  She had to be.

  “You walked out on him, too, Adam. Five years. No word. Loyalty only goes so far when that kind of money is on the table.” She hesitated. “People change. As bad as Danny was for you, you were good for him. I don’t think he’s done that well since you left. It’s just him and his old man, and we both know how that is.”

  “Anything specific?” I didn’t want to believe her.

  “He hit his girlfriend, knocked her through a plate glass window. Is that how you remember him?”

  We were silent for a while. I tried to drown out the clamor she’d unleashed in my mind. Her talk of Danny upset me. The thought of my father receiving threats upset me even more. I should have been here. “If the town is torn in two, then who is on my father’s side?”

  “Environmentalists, mostly, and people who don’t want things to change. A lot of the old money in town. Farmers without land in contention. Preservationists.”

  I rubbed my hands over my face and blew out a long breath.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Robin said. “Life gets messy. It’s not your problem.”

  She was
wrong about that.

  It was.

  Robin Alexander still lived in the same condo, second floor in a turn-of-the-century building, one block off the square in downtown Salisbury. The front window faced a law office. The back window looked across a narrow alley to the barred windows of the local gun shop.

  She had to help me out of the car.

  Inside, she turned off the alarm, clicked on some lights, and led me to her bedroom. It was immaculate. Same bed. The clock on the table read ten after nine.

  “The place looks bigger,” I said.

  She stopped, a new angle in her shoulders. “It got that way when I threw out your stuff.”

  “You could have come with me, Robin. It’s not like I didn’t ask you.”

  “Let’s not start this again,” she said.

  I sat on the bed and pulled off my shoes. Bending hurt, but she didn’t help me. I looked at the photographs in her room, saw one of me on the bedside table. It filled a small silver frame; and in it, I was smiling. I reached for it, and Robin crossed the room in two strides. She picked it up without a word, turned it over, and placed it in a dresser drawer. When she turned, I thought she would leave, but she stopped in the door.

  “Go to bed,” she said, and something wavered in her voice. I looked at the keys she still held.

  “Are you going out?”

  “I’ll take care of your car. It shouldn’t spend the night out there.”

  “You worried about Faith?”

  She shrugged. “Anything’s possible. Go to bed.”

  There was more to say, but we didn’t know how to say it. So I stripped out of my clothes and crawled between her sheets; I thought of the life we’d had and of its ending. She could have come with me. I told myself that. I repeated it, until sleep finally took me.

  I went deep, yet at some point I woke. Robin stood above me. Her hair was loose, eyes bright, and she held herself as if she might fly apart at any second. “You’re dreaming,” she whispered, and I thought that maybe I was. I let the dark pull me under, where Robin called my name, and I chased eyes as bright and wet as dimes on a creek bed.