Can’t Never Tell

by Unknown

  “Ye-es.” The unusual name triggered my memory. “She finished high school with Lydia. She was a cheerleader.”

  Rog’s wide mouth softened in a gentle smile. “She was.” He looked pleased that I knew.

  “Rog and Rinda moved here, when? Two years ago? Rog is one of the university’s top grant winners. Some obscure science field I don’t understand but should probably invest in.”

  Rog ducked his head. His work must be extraordinary because I couldn’t see him pulling in corporate or government grants on what I could see of his personal sales skills.

  “It’s nice to meet you. Is Rinda here?”

  “Somewhere.” He looked around absently.

  “Great.” As we continued to circulate among the groups, I studied my host. He wasn’t quite what I’d expected when he introduced himself as an economist. He didn’t look like he fit with the other professors. Instead of ragged cargo shorts and sandals, or jeans and hiking boots, or a cape, his picnic ensemble featured a silk Hawaiian shirt he hadn’t gotten off the discount rack. The front pictured a buff surfer dude and a bathing beauty on Waikiki, with a massive pink building in the background.

  “The Royal Hawaiian Hotel,” he said, catching my stare and pointing to his chest. “That’s supposed to be the Duke himself. The surfer movie star, not John Wayne, the movie star.” He grinned, taking nothing seriously.

  Two canvas chairs stood waiting for us, tucked on either side of a flat boulder that made the perfect side table for his beer.

  “So you’re a trial lawyer,” he said.

  “Used to be. Not much call for that in Dacus.”

  “Lydia said you’d moved back recently. You like being back home?”

  “Yeah, I do.” I couldn’t have said that six months ago and meant it. It wasn’t what I’d planned for my life, but every time I thought about what I’d planned, I could hear God chuckling in the background.

  “How about you?” I asked. “Where did you grow up?”

  “Norfolk, mostly.”

  “You like it here? It’s a long way from the coast.”

  “I must like it. Been here fifteen years.”

  “You teach with Frank and the others?”

  “Used to, long time ago. I left the big state school world. Too rigid for me. I’m over at Ramble College, have been for ten years.”

  I nodded. Ramble was a small liberal arts college in the neighboring county, but it had never been much on my radar screen.

  “These guys still keep me in the fold,” he said. “Hope they warned you. Once you party with this crowd, they adopt you for life.”

  I smiled. I didn’t point out I already had family in the group.

  “So you teach economics?”

  “Mostly. Ramble doesn’t, of course, have a formal business program. That would carry too much the taint of mammon to suit its liberal arts calling. But they do allow us to introduce the little dears to the realities of the world, disguised as economic theory, and they allow me to do my consulting and investment work on the side, so it’s been a good home base.”

  “Investment work?”

  “Yeah. Sure I can’t get you something to drink?” He gestured with his almost full beer bottle, dripping with condensation in the muggy air.

  “Not just yet. Thanks. My office mate in Dacus is an investment adviser or wealth manager or some such. Melvin Bertram?”

  The essential Southern exercise—casting about for degrees of separation, looking for the thread that will unravel how we are related.

  “Bertram. I’ve heard of him. Wasn’t he messed up in some murder investigation a few months ago?”

  He must have seen a warning signal in my expression.

  “Sorry. Was that rude? I sometimes just say what comes first to mind. He’s your partner?”

  “No, no. We just share office space.” I never explain about also sharing the apartment spaces upstairs. That always got too complicated. And I wasn’t about to talk about Melvin’s wife’s death. That was old news long settled. “What kind of investment work do you do?”

  All I knew about investment advisers was my mental picture of Melvin staring at his computer screen in his dimly lit office and taking trips—fly-fishing in Canada, deep-sea fishing off Fort Lauderdale, canopy runs in Costa Rica—to see his far-flung and obviously well-to-do clients.

  Spence gave a mild chuckle and settled back in his chair, his ankle resting on his knee. “Never meant for it to turn into work, exactly.” His shoes were woven leather and linen, not the scruffy sneakers several of the other men were wearing.

  “I started out just investing for myself. Developed a system that worked, other people wanted me to help them make the most of their nest eggs. Took me a while to see life beyond the classroom, but now I have the best of both worlds.”

  “That’s nice.” I studied him. He was probably six or eight years older than I. Would I someday reach that settled, happy place, certain of what I wanted to be when I grew up? This lanky man with the beaming moon face seemed to have reached it, and was happy to be there.

  “Oh, Lord. Don’t tell me Spence is over here lecturing you on the time value of money and the wonders of high-yield debentures.” The billowy woman floating in swirls of gauze—what was her name?—joined us, a sweating can of Diet Pepsi in her hand.

  “Did you see that beautiful little flower over there? I have no idea what it is. Where’s a botanist when you need one? I should’ve brought my camera.”

  “Have a seat, Eden.” Spence wrestled his way out of the embrace of the canvas chair and took a seat on the boulder. “I’ll get my camera for you. I left it in the car. But first, explain to us the social dynamic we see about us, as observed by your trained sociologist’s eye.”

  “Better yet,” Eden said, “why don’t you give us a hot stock tip? Much more useful.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. For instance, explain what’s with Rinda Reimann and her attachment to that cell phone.”

  He nodded toward a woman in form-fitting, stark white pants as she strolled away from the group, both hands cradling her phone to her ear. She hadn’t changed much in the fifteen years since I’d last seen her.

  “I’d have to be a psychologist—or a marriage counselor—to explain that one, my dear. I’m only good at exploring why we eat ground pig parts rather than fried ants to celebrate our political holidays, or why we insist on maintaining the marriage construct when it leaves one looking as miserable as Rog Reimann does right now.”

  Over Eden’s shoulder, I saw Rog approaching, though he didn’t seem to have heard her comments.

  “Or,” Eden continued, “why, in the name of chivalry, you would offer me this ass-grabbing chair from which I’ll never be able to extricate myself while you run for the open freedom of your rock.”

  Spence gave her a mock salute with his beer bottle.

  “Spence, old man.” Rog joined us, his posture apologetic. “Could I have a word with you?”

  “Rog. Sure. Can I get you something to drink?”

  Rog blinked, as if just realizing he stood in the center of our gathering. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said. Spence stood to join him. Even if Rog stood up straight, he’d still only come to Spence’s shoulder. The way Spence’s summer-weight silk slacks draped along his long legs made Rog’s round-legged, rumpled khakis look even more forlorn. I wondered what Rog taught and where Rinda, the slender cheerleader, had met him.

  Rog had to be a professor. The only groups I knew who ignored clothes when measuring a person’s worth were members of the academy and street people. Rog fit in too well with the others here to be a street person. It didn’t take a sociologist to be intrigued by the wardrobe choices, ranging from Rog’s street-worn chic to Eden’s and Spence’s costumes. My jeans, white oxford shirt, and sneakers put me firmly outside the norm in this crowd.

  Emma came running up and grabbed the armrest on my chair, hailing me with the pet name only she uses. “Aunt Bree, Mama says we can walk up the tra
il if you’ll go with us.”

  “Sure.” I nodded to Eden as I extricated myself from my chair. “Can we bring you another Diet Pepsi?”

  I was glad of an excuse to avoid more small talk right now, but I could still be polite.

  “No, thanks. I’m going to rest in the shade and pretend it’s not sweltering.”

  Emma and Jack ran ahead and around a quick crook in the narrow path with an exuberance that seemed too far past in my memory. On this far side of the creek, the undergrowth crowded the path closely, blocking any hint of a breeze.

  I reached the bend in time to see Jack scramble up and run along the top of a storm-felled tree. The thickness of the trunk more than equaled Jack’s height.

  He paused at the end where the toppled trunk had been sawed in half to free it from its half-buried knot of roots. He held the edges of his cape, ready to launch himself off the edge and down a twenty-foot drop.

  Before I could get warning words out of my mouth, Emma gave a sharp command. “Stop that, Jack! You’ll kill yourself!”

  From his perch above her, his fists still gripping the edges of his cape, he studied the end of the log jutting into space and looked down at her. “Wouldn’t be worth that,” he said.

  Before I could deal with my amazement that a boy had backed down willingly from a brainless stunt, the sound of panicked yells rose behind us.

  Jack spun, startled. I stepped up to give him a hand down from the log before he tumbled off without intending to. Gathered in a close knot, the three of us headed back down the path. The screams were compelling and chilling at the same time.

  Within a few steps, we came into range and could make out the words. “She fell! Help! She fell! Oh, my God, please, God! She fell!”

  I kept Emma and Jack behind me, which offered only symbolic shelter. The screams jolted me with their terror.

  Lydia swooped in without warning on Emma and Jack like a protective mother bear, ushering them back up the path and away from the scene.

  Rog Reimann stood in the center of a wide, loose circle of faces frozen in shock. He stumbled as if blind, his voice raw with pain and fear. No one moved.

  I covered the ground between us in three strides and took him by the shoulders. He wasn’t a large man.

  “Rog.” I leaned close and tried to get him to focus on my face. “Rog.”

  I gave him a soft shake and kept my tone steady. “Where is she?”

  It didn’t matter who “she” was. “Tell me where.”

  He started blubbering. Snot and saliva wet his face. “The falls. She went over the falls. Rinda . . .”

  His knees buckled and he sank at my feet.

  Friday Morning

  I left Rog to the others’ ministrations and wasted no time hitting the wide trail to the creek and the falls.

  Frank split off from the crowd and joined me. A fifty-yard jog took us to the deceptively smooth water and the stepping-stone ford. The insistent, muted roar of the falls rose from twenty yards downstream and the jumble of rocks where the river disappeared from view.

  “Rinda!” Frank called. His baritone carried well. I joined him, yelling, “Rinda!” We paused after each call to listen.

  I scouted the edges of the water, deciding whether the best path was to the near or far side of the creek.

  Spencer Munn startled us by appearing out of the trees on the opposite bank.

  He called over the rush of the water. “I heard yelling. What happened?” His outstretched hands conveyed the question.

  “Rinda Reimann.” Frank cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled. “Have you seen her?” He pointed to the top of the falls. “Rog said she went over.”

  Spence shook his head. His face blanched, noticeably pale under his tan, his eyes darting as if trying to put together an unfathomable puzzle.

  “When did you cross the creek?”

  “A few minutes ago,” he called. “I was headed back to the car for my camera. I heard someone yelling.” He shrugged as if he could offer nothing more.

  Talking wasn’t finding Rinda. I crossed the creek on the exposed stones and landed a few feet downstream from where Spence stood. The undergrowth crowding the bank offered no footpath. Animals had no reason to wear a trail along this part of the creek; it led nowhere but over the steep mountainside, and the creek provided easier drinking spots at and above the trail crossing, where the creek banks were rock-edged and open.

  The water was flowing higher than normal, though judging from the grass combed smooth and brushed with silt, it was lower than it had been just after the recent rain. Had she been wading in the creek? That was the only way she could have fallen.

  I pushed through the thick undergrowth to where the steep hillside began to fall away. I grabbed a sapling and tugged gently to test whether its roots had a good hold.

  On the other side of the creek, Frank interrupted his calls for Rinda to yell at me, “Be careful!”

  I listened intently, hoping to hear Rinda’s voice calling from some safe spot.

  Others came down the path from the picnic site, but they all hung back from the creek edge, as if fearful the gentle water would reach out and grab them one by one. When I glanced back, I didn’t see Lydia in the group. Best to keep Emma and Jack away from this. I didn’t see Rog, either. Judging from his near-hysteria, I doubted he would’ve been much help, though I wished he’d told us more about where he’d last seen her.

  I wanted to find a spot where I could look over the edge. I feared she was stuck on a ledge or holding on to a shrub or vine somewhere below. I didn’t want to look and not see her, though, because that could mean she’d found no safe purchase.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Spence stood alone about twenty yards from me, on my side of the creek. He looked completely out of his element in his brightly colored shirt. Frank and the others were scattered near the crossing stones on the opposite side of the creek.

  “Spence,” I called, rousing him from his troubled reverie. I held an imaginary phone to my ear. “Call 911. Get the Rescue Squad up here.”

  Better get them on the road. It took thirty minutes to drive up here, plus the time needed to roll out their climbing gear and walk to the falls—or make their way down the mountainside. Best call for help before I spotted her. If I could spot her.

  Spence nodded and reached in his pocket, moving on autopilot now that he had a familiar task to perform.

  I picked my way around a thick patch of brambles growing right where I thought I would have the best view over the drop-off. I was glad I’d worn jeans, and I tried not to think about the snakes the warm rocks and thick blackberry hedges would attract. I’d be picking ticks out of my hair for days.

  Frank, on the opposite bank, called again, “Be careful.” I was glad he hadn’t decided to be all macho about who took on the stupid task of trying to peer over the edge. Frank was athletic, a long-distance runner, but he hadn’t spent as much time climbing these hills as I had.

  Frank couldn’t go any farther on his side, but I could edge down a few feet more on my side without turning myself into another Rescue Squad project.

  “Keep calling,” I said. “If she’s on a ledge, maybe we can locate her.”

  “Ohmigawd! Don’t let her fall!” Some woman from the picnic gathering shrieked. She startled me and I almost slipped.

  For some reason, I flashed to the hot-air balloon at the fair. Why did that height, tethered to a sturdy rope, bother me and this didn’t? Maybe because here I had my feet on the ground—unless they slipped out from under me or my sapling lost its hold. Height was relative and fear—or lack of fear—could be irrational.

  “Hush,” Frank said, coming to my rescue. “She knows what she’s doing.”

  I tuned out the rest of their chatter, focusing on the spray of cold water that now coated me and the thick green undergrowth and stray brambles in which I found a foothold.

  I held my position, straining over as far as I dared and praying the sapling had deep ro
ots. I wrapped a vine around the palm of my other hand, in case it didn’t.

  Inch by inch, squinting to see through the mist, I studied the solid green and the mottled dark boulders for any sign of movement alien to the amazing volume of water flowing from the gentle creek and the misty waving plants caught in the perpetual breeze from the cascade.

  What had she been wearing? I remembered the white pants. What else? Orange top and orange shoes. Orange. Was there a spot of orange among the greens and blues and frothy white?

  I took one more baby step down and leaned as far as I dared, the tree bending its last. My foot slipped and I stopped.

  Did I see a bit of orange? Was it a shoe?

  Could be. I couldn’t tell. It lay below, slightly to the side of the heaviest cascade, where the water foamed white. From this perspective, though, I could see no sign of a ledge tucked back behind the water, no place where she might be clinging to a branch. No sign of movement.

  I pulled myself back up along the bent length of the sapling. My right foot slipped on the wet ground and I caught my breath. I had turned my back to the drop-off, but the thunder of the water pounded the vision of the sheer drop into my mind.

  Inching slowly, I climbed to where I stood on level ground. I bent over, my hands on my knees, gasping for breath. Adrenaline had burned up all the energy reserves in my body and left me shaking.

  Spencer Munn still held the phone to his ear, probably listening to the comforting reassurances and gentle questioning of the 911 dispatcher. I idly wondered who was on duty today.

  Frank took me by the arm. I hadn’t noticed him cross the creek.

  “You okay?” He talked close to my ear, genuinely concerned. I was touched. Frank and I don’t know each other well. That he’d married my only sister provided our only real bond. Until I’d moved back to Dacus in November, we’d never had reason to spend time together except at noisy family gatherings. Most of our individual interactions had been when Frank registered disapproval at some of the things I’d introduced to his daughter—beating a best-time run down the mountain in the Mustang, watching an impromptu tobacco-spitting contest at the mountain grocery, target practice with my .38 Police Special, all the words to the moonshine song.