River Rules

by Stevie Fischer

  “Please give me good news. I’m begging you.”

  “Nancy, you’re almost there—so close.”

  CHAPTER 47

  “I’M ALL SHOOK UP.” JOHN TOMASSI SHOWED PETER his trembling hands as they stood in Peter’s kitchen after Tomassi dropped by unexpectedly.

  “Jesus, JT. Have a beer.” Peter pulled two cold bottles of India Pale Ale out of his refrigerator and offered one to Tomassi who took an enormous swig.

  Tomassi walked onto the deck and heaved himself into the Adirondack chair next to the glider. “Petey, I gotta tell you something. Sit down.”

  “What happened? Is Donna OK, the kids?”

  “Not about them. You know a jogger found a body in the reservoir this morning.”

  “Yeah, it’s all over town.”

  “It was Sherry Nicholas.”

  “What? No, that can’t be right. No.” Peter put down the pretzel he was about to pop in his mouth and practically choked on his own saliva.

  “It’s true.” Tomassi held his head in his hands. “Believe it.”

  “John, I just saw her a few days ago when Ian and I were hiking. She was all rattled and saying people were spying on her, but she said shit like that a lot. She took us over to her tent and shopping cart full of stuff that would break your heart. I kind of blew her off.”

  “Yeah, everyone blew her off sooner or later. Her brain was so goddamned fried, and she didn’t make sense half the time.”

  “I should have listened better, spent more time; maybe she really saw something. Shit, how could Sherry drown? I mean, she was a helluva swimmer. Like she was part dolphin or something.”

  “I know.” Tomassi emphasized both words and gave him a meaningful look. “Sherry wasn’t some random homeless woman, she’s one of us. Why the fuck she came back, I never understood. She couldn’t get out of here fast enough, and then she joins some kind of crazy cult out West. You know the chief had it in for her; Captain Fantastic, too. Bastard made me tell her if she camped out anywhere in town, she’d be busted. What am I explaining this for—like you’re not the trespassing expert?”

  “Come on, John. Lay off. You ever tell Donna about your hot and heavy month as Sherry’s boy toy back in junior year?” Peter grinned at the memory of a youthful Tomassi excitedly begging him to ask Jeff for condoms.

  “Long ago and far away. And no, so don’t you mention it.” Tomassi fell silent.

  “This is so messed up. Ian even gave her his precious metal water bottle because she was thirsty. Of course, she wanted booze, but whatever.” Peter blew his nose loudly into a paper towel.

  “My patrol guys knew the drill, never busted her—just moved her over to Herb Baker’s land. He didn’t give a shit if she stayed on the back end of his property. He even put a picnic table out there for her. A goddam tire swing, too, like she was a kid.”

  “Mentally, she was.”

  “Yeah.” Tomassi sighed.

  “Did she definitely drown? I mean, no foul play?”

  “Good question.” The cop in Tomassi took over. “Got an autopsy lined up at the Medical Examiner’s office. We knew it was her because of her tattoos, and she hadn’t been in the water too long. The jogger who found her called it in right away.”

  “Shit.”

  “Listen.” Tomassi lowered his meaty hand onto Peter’s forearm. “I got a bad feeling about this. Something doesn’t smell right.”

  “It stinks to high heaven. Eautopia’s gonna try to make this go away but stay on it. Their precious water deal matters more than a human being.”

  “Yup,” Tomassi said, getting up. He looked haggard, and Peter enfolded him into a less complicated version of the man-hug Paco and Marco had taught him. Tomassi bumped his chest hard. “Listen, you find her tent or anything up there you know belonged to her, call me right away—don’t touch anything. This has gotta be more than a quick, open-shut, tie-it-with-a-bow case of some old crazy homeless broad drowning.” His voice trailed off. After tapping on Peter’s door with his fist, Tomassi trudged back to his car, muttering and shaking his head.

  Peter called Ian, who insisted they had to rush back up to where they last saw Sherry. When they approached the formerly rocky and hole-ridden parking lot, they saw fresh paving, yellow caution tape and a newly installed chain link fence that closed off any entry. Peter backed up until he could park inconspicuously. When they got out, they spotted a rising mound of stuffed animals and cut flowers next to some balloons.

  “A shrine? Jesus, word travels fast,” Peter said. “How did people find out already?”

  Ian nudged him. “Is that a TV crew over there?” He pointed to a cameraman filming close to the water.

  “Let’s go talk to them and see what they know.”

  “Not a good idea, mate. Let’s go in the opposite direction. You’d make a lousy PI.”

  Peter and Ian walked quickly through the ravaged site. The yellow earth-moving equipment that Sherry tried to describe had destroyed a huge stretch of pine trees, leaving only piles of dried-up needles and tree roots torn asunder. The footings for a very large foundation were in place, too. Peter spat on the ground.

  Ian took off his sunglasses and closed his eyes, sniffing the air like a bloodhound. “I feel like her tent was just over that hill. It smells right.”

  “I don’t see anything. But I know she moved her stuff around all the time, so she wouldn’t get busted. No harm in looking.”

  Ian led the way. Suddenly, he bent down by a small ditch, picked up a stick and poked deliberately. “I see something red and orange here. Isn’t that one of her dream catchers?”

  Peter quickly came over to check it out. “Yeah, I think so. Leave it. I need to tell Tomassi.”

  “Wait. What’s over there?” Ian marched over to a big rock and whistled. “Now you really have to call him.”

  “What?”

  “Her tent, I think. And look, it’s been burned. Sherry,” Ian said softly, sitting down on the ground. “Tell me what happened.”

  CHAPTER 48

  EAUTOPIA AND THE CONSORTIUM SEALED THE DEAL with splendid opulence. The lavish private cocktail party, celebrated with flowing bottles of Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs, produced only in years when the vintage is exceptional, had its own confidential expense column privy to a select few.

  “Only the best for the best,” Brock toasted. “Hear, hear,” everyone responded. They lifted their fluted glasses and purred with contentment at the aromatic notes of ripe hay, chalky caves and briny seas.

  The guests included all the bigwigs from the Consortium and Eautopia. Since the site work would proceed quickly and without any fanfare until the official public announcement, a blackout on publicity kept a lid on the news.

  Marti handled the Consortium’s specialty champagne order for two cases at $3,500 each.

  “I love taking their money,” she said to Lori. “And I have to admit they have great taste, damn them.”

  “That’s some pretty swanky booze. What exactly are they celebrating?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they made another deal with Lucifer.”

  The gourmet appetizers, served in the executive penthouse suite on the fiftieth floor overlooking Hatfield and the river valley, featured beluga caviar, pate de foie gras, ripe wheels of brie, prosciutto di Parma wrapped around melon, and mini brioche lobster rolls garnished with chives.

  Josh helped himself to leftovers the next day, along with the other staffers who’d worked on the deal but hadn’t rated being invited. They’d also been required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. He slathered some Dijon mustard on crusty sourdough bread, lopped off a chunk of pate, cut a wedge of brie, grabbed a bottle of Eautopia water, and headed back to his office to work on the formal report. He almost sat on the white chocolate petit fours topped with a passionfruit ganache he’d stuffed into his pocket but remembered them at the last minute.

  Josh burped contentedly, a very satisfying foie gras essence, but he barely looked up for ho
urs as he made colorful pie charts and bar graphs that a third-grader might understand.

  Yet he couldn’t shake the mental image of a nuclear mushroom cloud, the kind he’d seen in history books and movies. The dense atmospheric poison obliterated the sheer natural beauty of the reservoir, tricking unsuspecting Mother Nature out of her glory. Frowning, he took his hand off the computer mouse and got up to stretch.

  “I don’t know about this. Forget two years,” he whispered to himself. “Not sure I can last two months.”

  Meanwhile, Nancy tried to communicate with her boss at Alcon to make sure he understood her situation, but she left message after message without hearing back. Once she got his assistant, who promised to give him the message. Getting through to HR, never easy in the best of times, proved even more frustrating.

  “Voicemail hell,” Nancy muttered. “I don’t get it.”

  Finally, she could see the goalposts. Maybe just three more weeks of IV nutrition through her pump, a process which Nancy, now practically a pro, still endured with difficulty. Nancy used the pump only at night for twelve full hours. She never slept soundly any way, but somehow, she catnapped through the dark hours, a trade-off for the freedom she got during the day.

  “Of course, freedom means inching from the couch to the table to the TV. For a treat, I even go into the kitchen. Not that I can eat anything. I don’t even remember what eating’s like.”

  Nancy insisted on Peter eating a chocolate chip cookie from Great Full Bread in front of her and observed him like a tourist at the Eiffel Tower.

  Healthy snacks were on Kenny and Marco’s minds as they poured over the spreadsheet Kenny had created to evaluate team performance.

  “Look, on Saturday and Sunday afternoons we don’t win. Every kid’s down at least one hit, and the fielding errors suck. It’s gotta be what they’re eating for breakfast and before the game.” Kenny gestured with a pencil covered with bite marks.

  “Hey man, don’t chew pencils. You stupid? Lead poisoning, dude.”

  “Bad habit.” Kenny didn’t bother to look at the indentations from his teeth as he tapped the picnic table rapidly with the stubby pencil. “Our plan to get them here two hours before game time, hydrate and ditch the junk food has gotta help.”

  “Yo, KJ, you got your own place, right?” Marco spoked as he counted out the snacks they’d bought for the team. Kenny got the Bridgeville PD to buy two cases of Gatorade; Great Full Bread ponied up for oranges and protein bars.

  “Yeah, kind of. I live with a bunch of guys. It’s like a freaking frat house sometimes. Not great, but the way my shifts change, I can’t see getting my own place.”

  “I’m still with my moms, but time to get my own crib.” Marco moved a grape Gatorade towards the side. “Ima save it for me. Let’s give this kid a yellow one.”

  “Sure. I never asked you this, but with Paco and his girlfriend expecting, it just popped into my head. You have any kids?”

  “Hell no. Makes me like the only one. Truth—I’m a mama’s boy. Ain’t no one like Mami.” Marco flashed a big grin before shading his eyes with his hand. He craned his neck left and right, looking for some early arriving players. “My sister already gave her three grandbabies, anyway.”

  “Yeah, that’s funny—my sister’s got two. Cute kids, but the little one whines all the time. Keeps my parents out of my hair, though.”

  “One day, you gonna wake up and find like baby triplets hanging all over you. Half a basketball team before you even know it. KJ all bald, fat and mega-whipped, that’ll be you.”

  Kenny laughed and shook his head. “No fucking way. I want a dog really bad, though. Hey, you still seeing Luz?”

  “Keep up, man. Old news. Why, you into her?”

  “Nope. Just asking.” Kenny stood up and whistled through his teeth at the kids congregating by the backstop. “Over here, guys.”

  CHAPTER 49

  THE MEDICAL EXAMINER’S SUMMARY AUTOPSY REPORT for Sherry changed everything. It labelled her death a homicide due to the fracture of the hyoid bone, larynx and thyroid cartilage.

  “That’s throttling, strangling. This is a homicide, all right,” Ian said to Andre and Peter after Vic tipped him off. “She had to be dead before being thrown in the reservoir. Or at least well on her way and then her lungs filled up with water. The report will show the time sequence.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Peter almost vomited. Tomassi’s bad feeling notwithstanding, he hadn’t thought it would be a murder.

  “Vic’s got his claws into everything, damn. How the hell did he get the confidential information?” Andre put his hand on Peter’s shoulder to comfort him. “And then he goes and leaks it to you of all people.”

  “Vic lives for moments like these. He probably wet himself.” Ian had actually begun to like Vic and loved being in on the dirt. “In the UK, this used to be called ‘the hangman’s fracture.’ Criminals were sentenced to hanging quite frequently, back in the day. People queued up to watch, big crowds—entertainment for the whole family. The technique was brutal before the mid-19th century.”

  “What are you, the History Channel?” Andre gave Ian a hard look to get him to shut up.

  Ian ignored him. “They just hung off the rope’s end ‘til their necks broke. But if the hangman didn’t jerk it hard enough or tie the knot tight enough, well—death through slow choking.”

  Peter gagged and spat into a paper towel.

  “Why the fuck are you still talking?” Andre demanded.

  “It was something we learned at the academy. Part of the History of Homicide sequence.”

  “What is a hyoid bone?” Peter finally spoke.

  “It’s in the neck, it’s like the letter ‘U’ and if it’s broken, you’ve got a guaranteed strangling.” Ian pointed to his own neck to show the location.

  “I’m gonna go home,” Peter said quietly.

  “You don’t look too good. Are you sure you’re OK to drive?” Andre consulted the schedule. “I’m booked until 5:00, and Ian’s back-to-back until 6. You want me to call Jeff to pick you up?”

  “No.” Peter, moving slowly, reached for his keys and trudged out the door.

  When Peter got in his truck, he started driving aimlessly. He didn’t want to talk to anybody. He didn’t want to see anybody. By the time he found himself up at the dam, he had been pulled over by the cops.

  The siren shrieked behind him, and he saw the flashing lights of the Bridgeville patrol motorcycle. Peter eased his truck onto the far-right side of the road and wondered what was up. He definitely hadn’t been speeding.

  The approaching cop flipped up the helmet’s visor.

  “Kenny?”

  “Tomassi wants to see you.” Kenny Johnson cut an imposing figure in his leathers, but his sparse light brown facial hair suggested a teenager.

  “He could’ve picked up the phone like a normal person. And that peach-fuzz on your lip is a pathetic excuse for a mustache.”

  “Hey, it’s a process.” Kenny leaned against Peter’s truck. “This is a whole new level of fucked up. Tomassi wants you to meet him at the ferry path at 6:00. Very hush-hush.”

  “What is he, Mata Hari? Fucked up doesn’t begin to describe this stuff with Sherry. You know, Tomassi never misses dinner, and Donna’s gonna be pissed.”

  “I’m sure the two Big Macs he demolished for lunch will keep him going. And Donna will just have to deal like always.” Kenny glanced around and saw some cars slowing down for a look. “Peter, I don’t know what the hell is going on, but you’re one of the good guys so don’t step in more shit.”

  “Got it. You can tell John I’ll be there.” A couple of young kids on bicycles stopped to check out the motorcycle and take in the scene. Peter took notice. “Can I go now, Officer? You should give these yo-yo’s a talking to about not wearing helmets.” The kids pedaled off in a hurry, yelling about police harassment.

  “Use your blinker next time, would you?” Kenny winked and patted the side of Peter’
s truck.

  By the time Peter stepped into his house, his voicemail was full and he had twenty-five new text messages. He didn’t bother with any of them.

  Peter sat for a long time. Brutus jumped up on the couch and stuck his snout in Peter’s face. He panted open-mouthed and cocked his head to the side.

  “C’mon, B. You’ve got salmon breath. Take a hike.” When Peter didn’t pet him, Brutus nosed himself under Peter’s slack arm and demanded satisfaction.

  Peter checked his watch. Four thirty. Not enough time to do anything except take a nap. Closing his eyes, Peter saw visions of Sherry’s fate. Shadowy figures snuck up on her as she sat cross-legged on the ground making more dreamcatchers. Sinister men in black cornered her at water’s edge. In each instance, Sherry’s neck was snapped by a pair of giant hands that squeezed her eyeballs out of her sockets.

  When his alarm sounded at 5:45, Peter surfaced with difficulty. He felt terrible—groggy and disoriented, dizzy and nauseated. Brutus practically put on his own leash and dragged him to the ferry landing. Aside from a couple of birdwatchers and people sitting in their cars, he didn’t see anyone. Then a pine cone hit him in the head.

  “Over here.” Tomassi stepped out from the trees onto a narrow stone path overrun by skunk cabbage.

  “Just text me, dipshit.”

  “Walk with me, halfwit.” Tomassi reached down to pat Brutus. “I wish I could have a stud like you.”

  “Man up and tell Donna no more yapping poodles. May they rest in peace.” Peter remembered Pierre and Francie the most. They were fast as race cars but went into a tizzy about everything.

  “Listen, between you, me and the mosquitos, there’s no fingerprints. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Tomassi stared at him without blinking, his unibrow holding a steady line.

  Peter thought for a moment and reached down to snare a discarded candy wrapper. “I’m thinking you mean there’s no smoking gun.”