The River Burns

by Trevor Ferguson

  Then they told him.

  “We have a witness,” Quique Vega revealed.

  “What kind of a witness?” Ryan O’Farrell asked.

  “The kind of a witness who says your brother did the bridge burning,” Maltais filled in. “We told your brother, he didn’t tell you?”

  Ryan doubted him.

  “He says your brother had help, our witness, but can’t name the others.”

  “We also have kids who were under the bridge right before the fire,” Vega tacked on. “Chased away, it turns out, by someone they thought was you. Because he said he was you. So maybe it was you. They didn’t actually see the person, though. But we’ve noticed that you and your brother sound alike.”

  Ryan was thinking quickly even as he absorbed the blows. “If somebody who scared them off told them that he was me, then they’ll think it’s true. Doesn’t matter what the impostor sounded like, as long as he was male.”

  They were in his office, Ryan and Maltais seated, Quique Vega choosing to stand, occasionally pace. Maltais leaned so far forward for a moment that his elbows touched his knees. He knitted his fingers together. “In a court of law, I admit, a lawyer makes that argument and, with most juries, wins it.”

  “But in this room,” Vega put forward, indicating that he and his partner discussed these points, to the extent that their thinking freely flowed from one to the other, “we’re policemen, we don’t need to make that distinction.”

  “I’m just saying,” Ryan said.

  Quique Vega liked to pick up things. Photos in their frames. An old award won at a high school swim meet. Past mementos. Nothing dramatic, as though Ryan lived a rather tame life.

  “Sure. Sure. I know,” Maltais said, as though he felt a need to soothe him. “The sound of the voice is circumstantial at best, maybe unreliable. But we have a witness, you see. Someone who attests to your brother’s guilt.”

  Ryan nodded. “A witness. Okay. That’s significant for sure. But I have a confession. By the person who actually did burn the bridge. Or attests to it, as you say. The confession is being written up and signed as we speak.”

  “This is a credible confession?” Maltais asked him.

  “The guy’s own lawyer is present.”

  The two detectives shared a glance.

  “Who’s the witness?” Ryan asked point-blank. He was guessing that they wouldn’t tell him.

  “Who’s the confessor?” Maltais asked him back.

  “His name is Jake Withers. You’ve seen him. He was the dopehead who sailed that raft down the river, remember?”

  “And the first man to the bridge after the fire,” Vega recalled. Ryan noticed that he never put anything back in exactly the same spot. The mementos of his past were being rearranged. So he wasn’t a likely or possible friend, as he was doing it to irritate him.

  “Did you interview him?”

  Vega reported that they did.

  “And?”

  “He said he didn’t burn the bridge. He was adamant about that.”

  “That was then. Now he says he did it.”

  “Why?”

  “We have his fingerprints off glass from a Molotov cocktail from the truck fire. So he has an incendiary background. We found fire-making material in the trunk of his car, including guns and dynamite. Some of those charges will go away as long as he cops to the bridge burning. I gave him that in trade.”

  “Which charges go away?” Vega wondered.

  “Well,” Ryan said. He shrugged. “Every charge does.” He was glad now that he didn’t mention the drugs to them. Not yet.

  “So he has an incentive to be our bridge burner,” Maltais said, and after that the two men simply stared at each other awhile and the silence between them felt fertile and rife. “And as we know, you have an incentive to make it so.”

  “I brought you in,” Ryan reminded him.

  “Sometimes I wonder why.”

  Ryan didn’t want to push him on that, didn’t what to know what he might have deduced. “Who’s your witness?”

  “Willis Howard.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Ryan stormed.

  “What? He’s a credible witness. A respected member of this community. A businessman. What’s your problem?”

  “He’s a notorious prick!” Ryan fired back. “And—”

  He wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to say.

  “And what?” the one he liked, but less so lately, Quique, asked him.

  Ryan studied the man. Time to be convincing. “He’s hated my family since he emerged from the womb. Plus he hates, he despises, loggers. The whole industry. Ask anybody. He wants the industry shut down so that we can become a tourist outpost with no big business, the whole district impoverished while he rakes in the cash. Seriously, ask anybody. Of course he wants to hang the bridge fire on a logger! He hates loggers and he hates the forestry industry and he hates my family in particular.”

  “So you said. Why your family?”

  “Because we represent— My dad— Except for me, we’re loggers. Famous ones, even.”

  “Loggers can be famous now? Like rock stars? I never heard that.”

  “Around here, my dad, he’s like a legend. Mythic, even.”

  “Mythic,” Maltais repeated, his mockery subtle.

  “Find out something new,” Vega said, and shrugged.

  “Mr. Howard’s home is well situated with an excellent view of the bridge,” Maltais pointed out. “The former bridge.”

  “So why didn’t he come forward sooner if he had such an excellent view?”

  This time they hesitated, and Ryan knew then that they already asked that question without receiving a satisfactory reply.

  Quique Vega finally sat. Detective Maltais gently rubbed the knuckles of one hand in the palm of the other, thinking. Ryan clutched the forward portion of the arms on his chair, and the three men looked at one another in turn.

  “I guess,” Maltais broke the impasse, “we should interview your guy.”

  “Any objections if I talk to your witness?”

  The visiting officers mulled it over silently. Ryan wanted to chide them for being telepathic, but this was no time to make light. “I guess that’ll be fine,” the senior detective decided. “It’s your town. Your people. Just don’t, you know, threaten him, or bribe him. Nothing like that.”

  What was meant to be a joke didn’t sound like one.

  Vega smiled, an attempt to dispel the obvious erosion of trust.

  He detected barely perceptible eye communication between Maltais and Vega, giving him permission to add something. Ryan folded his hands, waited.

  “The thing is,” Quique Vega stated, “you’ve got a confession, but we have to ask ourselves, did your guy have time to do the crime?”

  Ryan didn’t want to answer, for the simple reason that he did not know why the question was being asked. “I don’t see why not. He could have taken his sweet time as far as I can tell.”

  “Not really,” Vega informed him. “We interviewed your officer.”

  “Henri,” Maltais recalled.

  “Henri,” Vega repeated. “Now, he was outside a late-night bar, waiting to see if any drunks came out and got behind a wheel. He followed your guy.”

  “Did he?”

  “Yes, he did. He says so. But he gave up on him. Your guy was driving straight as an arrow within the speed limit. So he broke off his tail. He says it was only a minute or two later that he heard a car horn blaring away and right after that he spotted the fire. So your guy didn’t have much time, did he?”

  He was reeling. God, he hated lying, and forced himself to keep his eyes on one cop or the other. “Well,” he mulled, “I’ll want to ask my guy about that. See what his timing was. See if he was in the car that Henri was following.”

  “Only
car there.”

  “I know. But he’s got legs. He could have walked.”

  “His car. If somebody else drove it there, who’s the accomplice?”

  “No, no, like you, I think he drove the car,” Ryan cut in. “I’m not saying he didn’t. Molotov cocktails. That’s his thing. He’d have them in the trunk, just like he did when I picked him up. Throw a few of those, takes seconds, and that old wood, a hundred years old, after a hot summer, those old slats and timbers go up like a tinderbox. In no time flat. The evidence, the glass and all that, sails down the river.”

  “Is that what he says?”

  “I want to go read his confession.”

  The officers again exchanged a silent communication, evaluating him.

  “Why don’t we all go read it?” Maltais put to him.

  Ryan fought hard not to squirm. He paused while his thoughts raced and the collective dust in the room settled. The others could tell that something was forming in his quick mind. “How about,” he proposed, “if I go read my guy’s confession, probe some more, see how his story stacks up? Do that first. He’s my witness right now on unrelated charges. I want to make sure he’s solid before I pass him over. I’m giving up other charges, after all, I can’t let him go unless the case is solid. You’ve given me some doubts, so let me go over it once again. In the meantime, you guys can revisit your witness. See where he’s at. See if he doesn’t want to revise his view of the world. Then we switch.”

  The three men mulled the idea for a few silent ticks.

  “Why?” Maltais asked finally.

  “Like I said, I need to make sure he’s signed that confession, that it makes sense and it’s a good one,” Ryan explained. “If it’s not valid, then I have to bring back the other charges on him. So I got to make sure he’s crossed his t’s, dotted those i’s. Push him about the timing, see if he can’t nail that down.”

  “Because you know, I wouldn’t want you filling in the blanks for him. Nothing like that,” Maltais said.

  They squared off in combative attitudes, but Ryan broke from the posture quickly. That was a dark gopher hole, nothing to be gained going down it. Instead, he opened his top desk drawer. “Let me show you something. You interviewed him, you probably think he’s a straightforward young man.”

  “We do. Maybe not too bright,” was Vega’s assessment. “But he did look like hell that day on the raft. Not too straightforward then. Going down through the rapids, though, anyone would look as though they just took a stroll through a car wash.” Maltais reached over and accepted the small envelope Ryan passed to him. He opened it, checked the photographs inside, showed them to Vega.

  “This the same guy?” Vega asked.

  “Same guy.”

  “Where’d you get these?”

  “Out of his wallet. That’s his truck-burning costume, apparently.”

  The snaps showed Jake Withers nearly nude and wearing grotesque war paint over his face and body. The images depicted a sordid or violent or at least a messed-up young man, the impact such that the SQ detectives appeared to relent. Impressions they’d formed about the suspect were thoroughly dashed.

  Still, they hesitated.

  Ryan acknowledged that he was missing something. For some reason, they were not inclined to believe him. If they were going to bend, they needed something to take away. Proof would be fine, nothing better, but in lieu of proof, they needed something.

  He sat back, gave himself over to his talk.

  “You know, off and on, you guys mention my brother. I know why. It’s a conflict of interest for me, no question. But you do understand what’s at stake here, don’t you? A bridge was burned. People want to pin that on the loggers, but they’re the ones whose livelihoods are impacted by that, in a negative way, at least in the short term. So maybe it wasn’t them. Right now, they have no bridge. The next thing that happens was logging trucks get firebombed. Some people think that that was retaliation, or maybe it’s just made to look that way. No matter what, do you really think that loggers are going to take this sitting on their asses? Really? We’ve got a war brewing here. Environmentalists on one side, and some of those people might be ecoterrorists and drug dealers, and loggers on the other side, and some of them may even want a piece of the drug action. Nobody’s squeaky clean here. If I don’t get this under control in one hell of a hurry, you’re going to be back here, only next time it won’t be for an arson. We’ll have dead bodies in the woods. People beat up and lying in the gutters. More than a few. A war, guys. Yes, in this dinky town. We’ve got a chance to stop it in its tracks. So unless you want to move here and be solving killings for the balance of your careers, let’s proceed wisely.”

  Both men observed him awhile, and never did check with each other.

  “Okay,” Maltais agreed quietly. “We’re not here to inflict our will, Ryan. We just want a resolution. Of course, we want a good resolution. The right one.”

  “That’s why I asked you in.”

  “Oh sure, that must be why.”

  Maltais and Ryan fell into a locked gaze, as if they were slipping back into their mutual distrust and recrimination, until Vega intervened, standing. He put his hand on a small decorative wood box in which Ryan kept coins, keys, and paper clips that were seldom required, and slid it over eight inches. The other two cops took their eyes off each other to watch him do that. Vega said, “We’re agreeable, Ryan. Once more around for good luck, before we take steps. But you know, you have to know, eventually it comes down to burden of proof.”

  “Of course.”

  Code. He knew he was lying about some things, but not about everything.

  Without further formality, the SQ detectives departed the office. Ryan waited. When he saw them outside through his window, strolling towards their car, he got on the telephone. He had essentially no time to get Jake Withers to change his testimony and line it up properly regarding the timing, and no time at all to get Willis Howard to recant his lies. He couldn’t do both on his own at the same instant, and needed help.

  24

  Perfect timing. Tara would have kicked the shoppers out of the store herself, except that the final dregs of a steady drove of tourists were departing just as she got off the phone. She waited a few seconds longer for them to leave without inflicting any roughhouse encouragement. Then Tara locked the store’s front door and flipped the window notice to read CLOSED/FERMÉ.

  She needed time. She had none, Ryan explained, because the SQ detectives would be suspicious if Willis Howard changed his mind after he talked to him. So she had to do it before they got there. They were secretly baiting him to do it the other way, but that way would fail and they’d get to pin his ears back then, maybe destroy him. So she had to do it for him.

  “Do what?” she asked.

  “Change Willis’s mind.”

  She was alone in the store now with Willis. As defiant, as surprised, or as dismayed as he may have wanted to sound, when he spoke he came across as subliminally petrified. “Why did you lock the door?”

  “Why did I—? Why did I lock the door? Willis, I’m going to strangle you, or slice an artery, or at the very least kick your balls in repeatedly—why do you think I locked the door?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t consider it fair that the whole neighbourhood be forced to listen to your endless screaming and caterwauling, do you? Because, you know, you are going to scream and caterwaul, Willis. Soon.”

  The way he shot his glance around the room, anyone might think that he was looking to flee. “What are you talking about? Are you kidding me? I don’t think you should talk to me in that tone of voice, Tara.”

  “I’ll talk to you any way I choose.”

  “No, you will not. What’s gotten into you?”

  Sequestered behind the rectangle of countertop that protected his cash area, with the big sign suspended
above his head that read WILLIS EPHRAIM HOWARD, ESQ., he perhaps spoke more bravely than if bereft of the fortification. She couldn’t get to him easily, and if she did fly over the counter to try to seize him by the nape of the neck he’d have an opportunity to flee through a gap out the other side, perhaps run into the streets and holler for help, and where, if she managed to grab him, he could at least publicly plead for mercy.

  “Willis Ephraim Howard,” she said, as if reading his name off the sign. She added, “Fucking esquire.”

  “What’s gotten into you?”

  “You’ve done it now, haven’t you? Screwed everything up. Including our business. We’re supposed to be business partners. Why didn’t you tell me you planned to sabotage everything we’ve been working for? Everything you’ve worked for throughout your entire screwed-up life.”

  She deployed this knack of catching him then keeping him off guard. He was trying to teach himself to counteract her ingenuity and properly defend himself, to stop her from always getting the superior hand. She was never this extreme in staking a claim over him before, but now, having some experience with her tactics under his belt, he believed that if he had any hope in this discussion—or furore, or battle, or whatever was about to transpire between them, murder—he needed to fight back. He pretended to know precisely what she was talking about, although that was difficult when he stood so avidly in the dark while she was so clearly entrenched upon her warpath.

  “You should talk,” Willis Howard challenged her. “Who’s got the more screwed-up life? Me or you? Do you want to take a vote? Open the door. Come on. Let’s have a public debate on the subject.”

  “You sycophantic, conniving, deceitful—you know what? I don’t have to go through the dictionary. There’s a word for you.”

  “I’m not sycophantic. I kowtow to nobody.”

  “You fucking liar.”

  “And I don’t lie. Stop swearing. I didn’t know you were on meds—are you off them now?”