The River Killings

by Merry Jones

  I slept fourteen hours and woke up on a fresh-smelling down pillow under a floral comforter, starving. When I woke up, Molly was sitting beside me, staring at me. I reached for her and she lay down, cuddling, and for a blessed few moments we lay dreamily, snug in a four-poster bed, minds blank and drowsy, free of memories. But as I rolled over to face her, the aching stiffness of my body, the sharp pressure in my head kicked my memory awake. Oh dear. I had to get up. Had to call the hospital and check on Nick. Had to go see him.

  “Mom, I’ve been thinking.” Molly touched my face, her fingers gentle and breezy.

  Damn. Of course she had. Probably about the nineteen bodies. Or finding Agent Ellis, my injuries or Nick’s. The poor child must have been thinking quite a bit. “Tell me, Molls. What about?”

  She frowned intensely. “Everything.”

  “Everything.” I held her hand. “Like what’s been happening?” She nodded. “And about Nick.” “He’s going to be okay, Molls. Really.”

  She nodded, watching the blanket. “Mom. I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’m just going to come out and tell you.”

  “Okay.” I tried to sit up to listen better. A moan escaped my throat as I pulled my aching parts, forcing them to defy gravity, to bend and move. Molly watched, waiting, until I’d settled against the headboard.

  “So, tell me.”

  She took a deep breath. “It’s just . . . today’s the last day of school.”

  Oh, God—it was? I tried to remember what day it was, but I knew she was right. Molly was missing the last day of kindergarten. I looked for a clock—maybe she could still get there.

  “It’s okay, Mom. I didn’t want to go anyway. But the truth is, you need to do better.”

  I blinked, knowing I’d messed up. She was right. “Okay. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “You can’t just go out and get in trouble every night. You’re a grown-up. You have a child to take care of. It’s not fair to me to have to worry about you all the time.” Her chin wobbled. “I just want to go home with you and Nick and for things to be normal again. Like before.”

  Oh, God, so did I. I held her close, cradled her the way I had when she was a baby, promised that we’d all go home, that life would get back to normal soon. My bumps and bruises would heal. Nick would get better. We’d be a regular family. Plus, summer vacation was starting. We’d go to the pool, the shore. We’d put burgers on the grill and watch fireworks at the Art Museum. Gradually she relaxed, even began to smile through teary eyes. When she finally barreled out of the room to find Emily, I sat still, considering what I’d just said. Would life ever seem normal again? Would the slave traffickers ever leave us alone? Or did they consider Nick, Susan and me to be troublesome loose ends like Sonia, the priest and Agent Ellis? And maybe Coach Everett? Had he been killed by the slave trade, too? Why?

  I leaned back against Susan’s pillows, closing my eyes, trying to make sense of the cyclone that had sucked up my life when I heard a sudden stampede and felt an earthquake erupt on the mattress.

  Emily and Molly had arrived, and Molly’s mood had obviously escalated. “Mom.come on. Get up.”

  “I am up.” I would have gotten out of bed, but Molly was sitting on my legs.

  “How come you’re not in school, Emily?”

  “I’m back already. It was just go get your report card and come home.”

  Oh. I’d slept late.

  “Molly said you got stitches.” Emily eyed my forehead.

  “Can we see, Mom? Show us.”

  “I got stitches once,” Emily boasted.

  Molly’s eyes widened. “For real?”

  “I stepped on broken glass when I was little.” Emily held her foot up, displaying a faint pink scar on the ball of her foot.

  “See?”

  Molly examined Emily’s foot, and I nodded, tried a smile. “It’s impressive, Em. Where’s your mom?” “Outside with her flowerpots.” “She’s not working today?” “Nope. She doesn’t work Fridays.”

  She didn’t? I had no idea. I hadn’t even realized it was Friday. I seemed to be losing my hold on all aspects of normal life. Things like knowing what time it was, or what day. Even Molly seemed out of reach. I had no idea what time she’d gone to bed. Or when she’d eaten last. Or even when I had. I’d have to remember how to manage all that. How to make sure that Molly’s life became normal again. And secure.

  But first, I had to get out of bed.

  I showed the girls my stitches and answered their questions until they ran off to play outside. Then I moved slowly, painfully, out of bed. Borrowing a pair of too-loose shorts and a T-shirt from Susan and assuring her that I was all right, I grabbed a doughnut from her kitchen and made sure Molly was okay about staying there awhile longer.

  Then, brutally aware that nothing about the morning or my aching body felt the least bit secure or normal, I took a cab to the hospital to see Nick.

  SIXTY-ONE

  AS I ENTERED THE ROOM, NICK HALF-OPENED HIS EYES. HALF HIS

  mouth slid into a smile, as if nothing were wrong. As if this were a regular morning, and nothing unusual had happened. He motioned for me to come closer. He seemed urgent, needing to tell me something. He’d been near death, must have some poignant insight to share; I leaned forward, eager to hear.

  “Hi.” I waited, but he said nothing else. Just “hi.” And, having stated that, he lay there grinning dopily. Morphine, I thought. They must have given him drugs.

  I took his hand and bent down to kiss him; he lifted his non-IVed arm to pull me in. He was surprisingly strong, or maybe I was just off balance. But he held on to me, his lips pressed to mine, sucking on them, as if he were dying and I were life itself. When I pulled away long enough to catch a breath, he smiled again. Then his eyelids dropped. And he was asleep.

  When he woke up, he was a little more alert. He noticed the bandage on my head, the sores and bruises all over my limbs. His cop friends had told him that I’d saved his life, but not that I’d been hurt. It amazed him, not so much that I’d figured out he’d been rowing and come after him, but that I’d done so in a single. Sculling all by myself.

  His breath was short and his skin was an awful avocado shade. I didn’t want to exhaust him. I told myself not to push him too hard. But, on their own, questions flew from my mouth.

  “Who shot you?” I heard myself ask. “What were you doing on Peters Island? Why were you with Coach Everett? Who else was there?”

  And slowly, as well as he could, Nick explained. He hadn’t shot the coach; he hadn’t taken a gun with him. He’d been rowing to work off the heat of our argument. But as he approached the island, he heard the place going wild, birds squawking and shrieking. He’d seen a launch tied up on the rocks, so he rowed closer to see what was going on. Above the honks of angry geese, he’d heard someone shouting for help. So, grabbing his night-light, Nick had hopped into the water, laid his shell against the rocks, and climbed onto the island.

  He wasn’t sure what happened next, whether he’d heard the shot or called out, offering help. But he definitely heard a shot as he started up through the trees, flashing his light. He hadn’t seen Coach Everett or anyone else. He didn’t know who’d shot either of them. The next thing he knew, he was lying in the hospital, too tired to open his eyes, hearing some woman promise that she would never again argue with him, never question him about his work. He half-smiled, letting me know that he’d heard.

  Oh, man. He’d heard me? All of it? The part where I said we could get married? The part about having babies? Nick’s blue eyes drooped, veiled and drowsy, not revealing what they knew. He was, as ever, withholding facts, keeping secrets. Maybe he was being a gentleman, not holding me to promises I’d made under duress. Or maybe he’d reconsidered his offer.

  Nick didn’t say. Talking had wiped him out. He reached for the remote control, turned on the television and, staring briefly at the screen, fell asleep. The Three Stooges, dressed as surgeons, bonked each other in the eyes,
whopped each other on the head. How appropriate, I thought. I sat staring at them, digesting what I’d heard. Nick didn’t really know anything, not who’d shot him or the coach. Not what the coach had been doing on the island. Not who had been in the launch. Apparently, the clearest memory he had of the entire event was of my promise never to argue with him again.

  SIXTY-TWO

  ALL DAY PEOPLE—COPS, ROWERS, NICK’S NEW BUDDIES FROM the FBI— dropped in. Flowers, cards, baskets of fruit, boxes of candy, books and magazines cluttered the dresser, the nightstand, any spare surface in the room. And before long, Susan arrived, carrying fresh hoagies and coffee.

  “Eat.” She sat and watched me, making sure I obeyed. I chewed and swallowed tuna with provolone; she paced and hovered. She rearranged the water pitcher, washcloths, tissue box and paper cups on Nick’s bedside table. She stood beside him, staring, straightening his blanket, disturbing him as he slept.

  “Susan, stop. You’re making me crazy.” I couldn’t stand it.

  “Why? What am I doing?”

  “You’re fidgeting.”

  “I am not.” She fidgeted with the flowers and organized the books and candy on the dresser. “I’m just trying to help.”

  “You have helped. You’ve watched Molly for me. You took care of me last night and you brought me this hoagie.”

  “I brought you something else, too. For later.” She sat on the tan faux leather chair beside me and pulled a brown paper bag out of her purse. I took it and set it down beside my purse, figuring it was more food; Susan wanted to be sure I was eating.

  “Tim says I should stay out of it and leave things to the authorities. He says there’s nothing we can do. But you know me. I’m not good at passive.”

  No, she wasn’t. “But Tim’s right. There really isn’t anything we can do. And you said yourself we don’t want to mess with these people—”

  “No, but at least we should protect ourselves. Look, Zoe. Face it. Every single person we’ve met who’s been connected to the slave traffickers has been either shot or killed—”

  “Wait, hold on.” She was jumping to conclusions. I told her what Nick had said. That he’d been rowing and heard someone on Peters Island calling for help. “Nick’s shooting wasn’t because of slaves or traffickers. He got shot because he interrupted somebody killing Coach Everett.” I pictured Tony. Tony on the dock, nerves frayed, arguing with the coach. Tony in the foyer of the boathouse, hair wet, wearing only a towel.

  Susan frowned, fiddling with her rings. “But who would want to kill Coach Everett?”

  She had a point; Tony wasn’t the only one. “Are you serious? Who wouldn’t? Susan, even you make a decent suspect after the way you cursed him out. Probably anyone he’s ever coached would want to—” I stopped midsentence, picturing Coach Everett in his launch, always wearing a Humberton hat. Just like the one found floating with the dead women. Could that hat have belonged to the coach? Had the coach been involved with the slave smugglers, too? Is that why he’d been shot?

  Stop it, I told myself. The hat didn’t have to belong to the coach; there were hundreds of Humberton hats around and as many ways for one to end up in the river.

  “I don’t know, Zoe. There are too many coincidences. The fact remains that, of all the people we know who were directly connected to the slave case, we’re the only ones still walking. And I’ll be honest. That worries me.”

  “Susan. According to you, everyone’s involved with the slave smugglers. That just can’t be true.” But I wondered. Coach Everett had been acting pretty shady when he’d been fighting with Tony. For all I knew, that fight could have been about slave trafficking.

  Susan looked grave. “I have no idea who’s working with anybody, Zoe. All I know is we need to be careful. I think these people are methodically wiping out anyone who knows or even suspects anything about them—”

  “Stop it, Susan.” I didn’t want to hear it.

  “No. You need to hear this.”

  “Well, fine. I heard. You can stop now.”

  “No, because you still don’t get it.”

  “Yes, I do. We’ve run into some very nasty people and we need to be careful.”

  “But not just us, Zoe.” She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Who knows what happened last night? Who was that Gordo guy that Molly saw? What was he doing in the boathouse in the middle of the night?”

  “No. Stop it.” I wasn’t going to hear her tell me that Molly was in danger, too, even though I knew.

  “Showing up just coincidentally about the time that Nick was getting shot? Don’t you think that if he knows Molly saw him—”

  “Susan, stop!” My voice was too loud; Nick’s eyelids fluttered, and he thrashed around in his morphine haze. When he settled down, I continued quietly. “Molly’s fine. Even if she saw him, he didn’t see her. She’s safe. She’s with Tim and the girls.” I wasn’t willing to consider any other possibility. “If there even is a guy named Gordo, he was probably just some guy looking for Tony—”

  “Really. And how did he get into the boathouse?”

  I stopped. “What?”

  “The doors were locked. How did he get in?” I shrugged. “Maybe he’s a member and has a key.” “But Tony said he doesn’t know him. If he were a member, Tony would know him.”

  “So? What are you suggesting?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe Tony’s lying. Tony knows who this Gordo person is but he’s pretending not to.” “Why would he do that?”

  “Maybe he’s scared. Because maybe the Gordo is somebody Tony doesn’t want to see. Maybe the Gordo is the bad guy.”

  The bad guy? My eyes ached. My body hurt. Nick lay oblivious and asleep, only half alive. And Susan was trying to tell me that Molly was in danger, too. I couldn’t listen anymore.

  “I think it’s far-fetched, Susan.” At least I hoped it was.

  “Maybe. But, just in case, be careful. Especially with Nick laid up. Let Tim get you a gun—”

  “No. No gun. No weapons.”

  Brows furrowed, she stared at me. “Then at least use what I gave you. Keep it with you, in a pocket or your purse.”

  She sat back in her chair, waiting for me to look. I reached for the brown paper bag and looked inside, saw a small but serious can of pepper spray.

  “Be careful with it.” Susan showed me how to hold the thing. “You want to grip it right; otherwise, in the panic of the moment, you might shoot yourself in the face. Sort of defeating the purpose.”

  Wonderful. If I ever tried to use it, I’d probably end up blinding myself. Or Molly. I put the can of spray back in the bag, laid the bag beside a potted chrysanthemum.

  “It’s small, so you can carry it with you all the time.” Susan meant well, but I wanted nothing to do with her miniature chemical weapon. Molly might see it and think it was hairspray or cologne, might aim it at herself. It made me nervous. So, as soon as she left, I tossed it into the trash.

  SIXTY-THREE

  IT WAS GETTING DARK, BUT I INSISTED TO THE COPS AND THE hospital staff that I was fine walking home alone. It was only a few blocks and I desperately needed the air. But as I left the hospital I felt enervated, sorry I’d turned down offers for rides. I stood at the cabstand amazed that the heat hadn’t broken even with sunset, hoping my wait wouldn’t be long, going over Susan’s comments yet another time. Were we in danger? Were slave traffickers really eliminating everyone even remotely connected to the nineteen deaths? If so, did that include us?

  For the zillionth time, I told myself it couldn’t. We didn’t know anything. At least, we didn’t know that we knew anything. Which was just as good.

  Exhausted, I waited in front of the hospital for a cab. And I kept thinking about Tony. Every day, he’d looked more haunted, more stressed. What had he and the coach been arguing about that day? I tried to remember. What had I heard? Tony warning the coach that they could both get hammered. Hammered? How? By whom? For what? And the coach had wanted money. Why? Had he been selli
ng Tony something? Or blackmailing him? I replayed what I’d heard of their fight. “You want it?” the coach had said. “Pay for it.”

  I was stumped. What could “it” have been? Again I remembered the night Nick got shot, how Tony had come downstairs wet, smelling of soap, wearing only a towel. It had been after five in the morning, and he’d just showered. Why? Was it because he’d just come back from Peters Island, grimy and sweaty, maybe even bloody from shooting Nick and the coach?

  I shuddered, recalling Nick’s blood-soaked chest, the screaming and flapping of maddened geese. The rocks and branches ripping at my skin as I ran through the blackness back to the boat. Had Tony been the man in the launch? The man who’d smacked my head with an oar?

  I had to know, kept going back over snippets of the argument. But all I remembered was Tony’s panic and Coach Everett’s flat demands for money. “Pay for it,” he’d insisted. For what? What did the coach have that Tony needed? My head throbbed; my brain felt swollen and overloaded, unable to think.

  “Lady, you want a cab or not?” Sweat dripped over his bushy eyebrows as the driver leaned out the window.

  Climbing in, my skin stuck to the hot leather seat. I closed the door, cursing my luck; probably every other cab in the city had its air-conditioning on.

  “Where to?”

  I started to give Susan’s address, but stopped halfway. No, it wasn’t time yet to get Molly and go home. I was too wound up; I had to try to find out what had happened, even though I wasn’t sure how. Molly had been at Susan’s all day; she could stay a little longer. I leaned back on the hot worn-out seats, trying to get comfortable.

  “Boathouse Row,” I told the driver. “Humberton Barge.”

  SIXTY-FOUR