by Rex Miller
“Oh, shit!" Ferris screamed.
"Lookout!" Donnie screamed at Scott, and the three of them tried to strike out at the black thing suddenly looming in the pathway of the V-boat. The first to hit it was Ferris, who caught a good shot on the blade of the oar, catching it against the unyielding steel. The oar splintered as it smacked back into Scott's paddle, knocking it into the water, then smashing him down into the boat as the broken oar whacked him in the nose. Donnie got a halfway good stance but the oar slid over the slick metal as their prow collided with what was later discovered to be the left front fender of a Mercury Marquis. The boat took a hit, shooting Donnie Meuller out into the water, where he plunged over his head, beginning to panic as he could not move in the coat that now felt as if it weighed two hundred pounds, caught in a current too strong to swim against, and only a lucky probe with the broken oar saved him from drowning.
51
Bayou City
Two hours later Scott was having his nose taped, the men had changed clothes, and Sharon Kamen was in the back seat of one of Jimmie Randall's cop cars, on the way to the station.
“Has Chief Randall learned something, do you know—about my father?"
“They just told me to bring you to the office,” the uniformed driver, a female cop, said in a flat, noncommittal tone.
The building was a bustling beehive of activity, and she was immediately taken into the chief of police's presence. “Good morning, Sharon,” he said. “Let's go in here.” He escorted her to a room she hadn't been in before, a bare conference or interview-type room with a heavy steel table and chairs. He asked her to have a seat, and she could hear a conversation on the other side of the open doorway. It was a noisy office, with constantly ringing telephones and a steady murmur of voices and assorted sounds adding to the hubbub.
In a few seconds Randall reentered the room, followed by five other men and the woman officer who'd brought her to the administration building.
“Sharon, this is Special Agent Petergill."
“We've met, Jimmie,” the FBI man said.
“Hi."
“How you doin'?” Petergill said, his smile cordial but official looking. Sharon had an awful wave of premonition.
“Fine,” she said.
“We've found your father's car,” Petergill said. She listened to the explanation of how the vehicle was found. What the circumstances were. Where. Why she couldn't go out there.
“There's not much to see now, anyway, Sharon. Water's almost completely over the car. We put a man in to get the plates and double-check the VIN, but it got too rough to do much more.” He left some of the obvious unsaid. “We can't take chances with men diving now in that water. It's coming in too fast. But I doubt if much—uh—evidence could be found.” She nodded. “This is not going to be easy, Sharon, but we need to talk seriously about the possibilities. I'm sorry to put you through it, but—"
“I understand. I appreciate everything you're doing to find Dad,” she said quietly. There was an awful feeling of pressure in her upper chest, and it seemed suffocatingly warm in the room.
“It doesn't look real good for finding Mr. Kamen. I don't say we can put a lot of stock in the fact we found the car where it was. But the thing is, you see, it is unlikely your father would have been in that area driving before the water pushed in. I think it's possible that somebody wanted to create the impression your father drove into the backwater. Aside from the various ways we know that didn't happen, that road was still being traveled by vehicles three days ago. Obviously, if Mr. Kamen had been around here on an investigation that recently, there would have been some contact."
“But what if Dad had an accident or hit his head or something and got amnesia and he's out there wandering around?"
“Sharon,” the FBI man said, speaking so softly she had to strain to hear each word, “true amnesia's so rare it's hardly worth considering. I think because of the nature of what your father was trying to do, we have to at least face the possibility that something has happened. I know it's tough, but I'm afraid that's what it's beginning to look like. I would have been more optimistic not finding his car. But,” he shook his head again, “it doesn't look good."
“No, I understand. I can see that."
“Now I think it's incumbent on you to start taking precautions accordingly. I know you've worked very hard to find some trace of your father, and you've handled this in a professional—” Somebody had come in and whispered to the woman officer and she in turn said something to the FBI man.
Sharon caught “—Raymond Meara."
“We'll be a few minutes,” he said, and the uniformed men left. He turned back to Sharon. “Your friend Mr. Meara's out there. As I was saying, you both have been trying to help, but at this point the best thing is to let us handle it. We don't want to—” he chose his phrase, “create unnecessary problems."
“Are you in charge of the investigation?” she asked.
“Ah!” His face took on a pained expression. “In communities like this we don't generally get into jurisdictional hairsplitting. It's better to work together until we see what shakes loose. There's actually been no crime here, so the investigation is a missing-persons case officially, until such a time as it becomes a federal matter for the Bureau. But we naturally will give any help to Chief Randall, or the state and county people, that we can.” He smiled at her. She had the impression he was a decent, just man. All these guys were decent men. So was her dad—he was decent. “Don't give up on your father yet, though. This doesn't have to mean anything. But you need to understand the potential seriousness and, obviously, from here on you need to let us handle the question-asking. Okay?"
“Sure.” She thought about what she'd done so far. Her futile interviews and fruitless travels down the muddy side roads and flooding arterial highways of rural Clearwater, Mississippi, Scott, and New Madrid counties. Even if the police said they weren't pursuing an investigation, what more could she do? Follow the old New Madrid physician's advice and start making a list of the ministers over fifty? Is that what her dad had done?
The airless, stifling conference room was sapping her spirit. She started to leave, and as she stood, her father's memory was like a needle driven into her soul, painful and debilitating and as paralyzing as a small stroke. The tears came out once again, an involuntary spillage from her inner wellspring, overflowing, in imitation of the rivers. Tears streamed down her face and she blew her nose with a fury. Somehow she found her way out to where Raymond Meara waited.
“I—” She started to make a joke, to tell him she should have known he'd be around someplace, but she couldn't get it out, and instead went up to him, letting herself crumple against his strong body.
“Come on,” he said, taking her out to the truck. She got in and saw the interior of the pickup was spotlessly clean and she blew her nose again.
“Oh, boy,” she said. Meara started up and they drove back to the motel.
“I heard about it on the scanner. My phone is completely out.” Out in the field. “The back way's closed. I took the truck out last night and slept in the cab for maybe an hour or so. There's still not enough water to put a boat in, but maybe by this afternoon there will be."
“Where's your boat?"
“It's over at a guy's house on this side of the water. He'll take it down to the water's edge for me and pull the trailer on back so nobody steals it."
“Oh,” she said. They pulled up in front of her motel room. “Come on in,” she invited, wiping her eyes. But when they went in she left him sitting in a chair by the window and went into the bathroom, weeping uncontrollably. God, she hated this weakness in herself. Sharon felt shame and disgust as much as pain.
She freshened up and came back in the room to find Ray sound asleep in the chair. She pulled the spread off the bed and covered him with it, kicked her shoes off and got into bed clothed, pulling the woolen blanket around her and hoping that sleep would come and hold her.
52
&n
bsp; His scarred countenance was the first thing she saw when her eyes opened.
“'lo,” she said in a sleepy voice.
“Have a good nap?"
“I must have. You should have slept in the bed."
“I didn't do much more'n close my eyes and I was sound asleep. Sorry about that."
“I was glad you were with me.” Her voice was soft and muffled.
“You look like a little girl in your sleep."
“Do I?"
“Mm hm."
She sat on the edge of the bed and brushed her hair. He wanted to tell her not to touch it, to say that her hair was so beautiful and sexy the way it was. He wanted to say a lot of things but he sat there, wisely keeping his mouth shut.
“What did they say to you about Dad today?"
“Nothing. They think it looks bad because of the car turning up like that. I'm sure they went through all that with you."
“The FBI man thinks it was planted there,” she said.
“Yeah, well ... if that's true, it was a stupid goddamn thing for somebody to do."
“What do you mean?"
“Who would have ever known that something happened if they'd just hid the car? Put it in the river or whatever. Now it looks like, as the cop said, foul play. Somebody trying to cover their tracks. Real dumb."
“You think Dad's—” It stuck and the pressure welled up again, but she inhaled deeply and rubbed sleep from the corner of her eye. “You think he found the Nazi?"
“He might have gotten close, yeah. The guy's been lucky up to now. I mean, nobody knew anything. They didn't know Alma Purdy, they hadn't seen your father—"
“What did you just say?” Her eyes widened.
“I said they hadn't seen him or—"
“No. Before that."
“I said they didn't know anything. They didn't know Mrs. Purdy, they hadn't seen your father."
Sharon picked up the phone and started to ask the office to connect her to the police station and then decided against it and asked for the time, thanking the woman at the desk. “When the car was left where it was, Dad's Mercury, there was no way to get through to New Madrid, right?"
“Not on that road, no.” She was going through some maps. She couldn't find what she wanted and got keys out of her voluminous purse, opened the door, and unlocked the car. Meara waited in the chair, his legs stretched straight out in front of him. “Okay,” she said, sitting down beside him and opening the maps. “Show me where the car was."
“I can show you about where it was. Um—it'd have to have been right along in here. There's W and the levee road."
“And all this was water?"
“When the car was left there? Yeah."
“And the roads to Cape are closed now, right?"
“Yeah."
“How about here? Or Sikeston? The interstate? Could anybody come around that way with the car?"
“It's possible. I mean, you want to be sneaky, you could hook the car to a chain, drag it in with a flatbed, drop it, and maybe drive the truck out afterward."
“Okay,” she said, “but what about these FBI guys and the state patrol? How did they get in?"
“Boat, I suppose. State rods might have come in through Charleston. Regional HQ is at Satellite E, not all that far. They could have spent the night here or come in by boat."
“Point is, if somebody did something to Dad they've got to be around here. Bayou City."
“Mm. They might have come through before the water was that deep, come in two days ago and left it there. See, let's say two people were working together, one drives a truck and the other rides shotgun. They come in the back, move your dad's car from wherever it's been stashed. Leave it at the water's edge, go back out, cross the shallow water over the highway to Charleston. If you knew the roads, wanted to gamble, you could have made it."
“This guy's seventy years old or something. How would he know someone with a big truck?” She was grasping for anything.
“Whoa, Sharon. You're making a case for something that's got a big hole in it. The Nazi, first, who says he's alone? If he's managed to deep-six an old gal and ... evade an experienced manhunter without leaving tracks, odds are he's got somebody helping him. Maybe these Nazi skinhead punks, maybe one of them, I dunno. It's too ... whatyacallit?"
“Hm?"
“Too perdurous? What's the stupid word. Perdurable, that's it.” He smiled. “Too problematical. Is that a word?"
She laughed in spite of herself. “Last time I looked.” She smiled back at him.
“I guess you don't want to fool around, eh?” He wanted to kiss those green eyes of hers shut and work his way down.
“Maybe later.” She smiled affectionately at him. What a character. What was not to like?
“Okay. Take a raincheck. Hey, let's go get something to eat."
“I'm not hungry."
“I am. Keep me company. Cup of coffee won't hurt."
“Okay.” What else could she do? Start building an ark?
The restaurant was called the Crystal Cafe, a homey place filled with guys wearing caps. The two waitresses called everybody by their first names and ran around with trays full of blue-plate specials and home cooking.
Sharon looked at Meara. What am I doing? Is this the mutual gravitational pull of two binary stars, or just a shoulder in the crowd? An umbrella in the storm?
Tyson-Spinks. Clay-Liston. Doakes-Weaver. Buckley-Vidal. Would Kamen-Meara rank among the all-time classic quickies?
It was cozy and pleasant in the Crystal Cafe. Warm. She felt safe with Ray, and sat there, the object of stares that more or less bounced off her awareness, until a shadow loomed over them. He was bigger than Meara, and, if possible, even rougher looking.
What happened next was odd. He sat down, not saying excuse me, never so much as glancing at her, scooting a chair up to Ray's side and beginning a long, fairly animated conversation they conducted in whispers she couldn't hear. Mostly it was the guy doing the talking, whispering in Meara's ear while Sharon tried to look at her coffee and the walls, doing her damndest not to drum her fingernails.
“I'm sorry, man,” she heard him say.
“Don't sweat it,” Meara told him. The man left as abruptly as he'd intruded, never so much as nodding to her.
Meara paid for his chopped steak, mashed potatoes, and steamed green beans just like Mom used to make, and they got up to leave. As soon as they were outside she asked him, “Who was the mystery man?"
“You mean Doug? Oh, he's just a friend. Doug Seifer. He just wanted to let me know about something."
“Oh."
When they pulled into the small motel parking lot the woman in the office stepped outside and waved at Sharon to come over. She walked into the office and the innkeeper told her, “Young's Pharmacy called while you were out. They want you to come by. Said it was important."
“Young's Pharmacy?"
“Uh-huh. They said they got a package addressed to you in care of the motel. Young's gets our packages."
“Okay. Thanks."
“I think they said it's from your father."
53
Meara could sense the excitement in Sharon as they headed for Young's. It filled the truck like heat.
“Ray,” she said in a funny voice, and he looked over. She was looking at him with those green eyes deep like ice on a frozen pond. “Is that where Dr. Fletcher told us about?” They had just passed the sign in front of the Royal Clinic.
“Yeah."
“Can we drop back by there after we get the package?"
“I reckon so. Don't see why not, but what's the point?"
“What's to lose?"
“That's true, I suppose. They said they didn't want you going anywhere alone, though. So I'm comin’ in with you."
“Thanks.” She smiled at him, feeling glad he was with her. Young's was pharmacy, drugstore, novelty and gift shop, card shop, high school hangout, and all-purpose dime store. USPS packages were delivered in the normal w
ay in Bayou City, but some of the express carriers used the pharmacy as a pick-up and delivery point. There was a package waiting for her. The return address was marked with her father's address, but in Wendy's girlish, loopy hand. So much for the package from her dad.
“Bad news,” she said to Ray, getting back in the truck. “Just some stuff forwarded by a co-worker back home."
He stopped in front of the clinic and they went in.
“Hi-dee,” the woman called to Ray.
“Hello. I was wonderin’ if Doc would have time to see me and this friend of mine."
“Why, shore. I'll ask him."
“Ask if we could just have half a minute.” He explained briefly why they were there, and they were told to take a seat. They sat next to several other waiting patients.
“Ray, water got you yet?” one of the men said over a copy of a sportsman's magazine, and they were still in conversation when Sharon looked up to see a kindly man in bifocals.
“Raymond, my boy."
“Hey! Doc.” He stood. “I want you to meet a friend of mine, Sharon Kamen. Sharon this is Doc Royal. Sharon's dad is the one who dis—"
But the older man was moving, heading toward the door, where a vehicle was just pulling in front of the building, the passenger door open under the clinic's protective portico. “Please call me,” the doctor said to them, his hands spread in the stick-up victim's pose. “I can't stop to talk now. Marie and Walter Binksley were just in a fire,” he said, going out the door. Everyone in the waiting room moaned their sympathy. “Water got into the floor furnace and shorted—” The door slammed on his words and he was gone.
“We'll get him another time, Sharon. Damn! Walter's a fine old gentleman. Those damn floor furnaces.” He shook his head and thanked the woman at the desk.
“That's him,” Sharon said.
“That's him,” Ray said, misunderstanding. “Good ol’ Doc."