Dark River Road

by Virginia Brown

  He took a shower, put on sweatpants and got a beer from the fridge, then punched on the TV. It was a nice size stereo unit with VCR and DVD player, set into a built-in wall cabinet. All the comforts of home. Whoever had designed the carriage house obviously meant to make it appealing to guests, not future tenants.

  It made him wonder if the carriage house had really been one of the properties offered for rental. But if he went in that direction, it opened up an entirely new set of questions that he didn’t want to explore.

  To take his mind off everything, he watched a Jackie Chan movie. That usually did the trick. Mindless stunts, chases, fights and action provided enough distraction for a while, so that when the phone rang, he almost didn’t answer it. Reminders of life beyond Chinatown weren’t wanted.

  When it kept ringing, he remembered he hadn’t turned on the answering machine and got up to answer finally. Few people had this number, just Doc, Mikey, and Dempsey. He liked it that way. No intrusions into his privacy.

  Cathy Chandler said, “Hey, Chantry. You busy?”

  He wanted to ask how she’d gotten his number but that’d be rude, so he just said, “Kinda. What’s up?”

  “I need to talk to you. Can I come over?”

  At least she asked this time. He glanced at the clock. Nearly ten. And he was in no mood to deal with blatant seduction attempts. “I’ve got an early day tomorrow at the clinic. How about another time?”

  “It’s really important.” She paused, then said with a little catch in her voice, “I don’t know who else to talk to, who I can trust not to say anything. You . . . you never tell what you know. I wouldn’t stay long. I swear. I just want to . . . to ask your opinion. Please, Chantry?”

  Great. A midnight confidante session with a weeping female. Just what he needed. Despite that inner voice telling him to run like hell, he heard himself say, “Okay. Sure. For a little while.”

  When he hung up, he told himself he was really stupid. This wouldn’t help anything.

  Cathy arrived within fifteen minutes. She wore no make-up and her hair was tangled down her back, and she sported a huge bruise on the left side of her face. He let her in and didn’t say anything until she huddled on the couch with her arms wrapped around her body, shivering.

  “Okay, so I’m guessing Brad hit you. Am I close?” he asked after a minute, and she shot him a startled look.

  “Yes. How’d you know—I have a bruise?” She put a hand up to her face.

  He’d always figured Brad Durbin for the kind of bully who’d hit women. He shrugged. “I’m just a good guesser. So is this why you’re divorcing him?”

  “Part of the reason. Marrying him was a dumb thing to do. I’d like to plead insanity or at least being drunk, but I thought it was a good idea at the time. God. I’m such an idiot.”

  This was a Cathy he’d never seen. Vulnerable. She wore loose sweat pants and a shapeless jersey instead of her usual tight-fitting or skimpy outfits. Her hair was a mess and she didn’t seem to even care. He got her a beer and sat in the chair opposite, not knowing what to say or why he had ended up being a refuge.

  As if answering his unvoiced question, she looked up and said, “I can’t admit to any of my friends that I was dumb enough to let him near me again. They’ll say I told you so or just give me more advice I know I should take but never do. That’s why I came to you. Sorry to be such a wet willie.”

  “It’s all right. I’m all out of advice anyway.”

  She smiled. After a couple of sips of beer, she said, “You know, Chantry, I’ve always thought Cinda was an idiot for not going after you. I mean, I know her parents did something to keep y’all apart, but she should have looked you up later.”

  He didn’t say anything, not wanting to go in that direction, and just shrugged.

  “Yeah,” she said, “I can see you don’t want to talk about it. Don’t blame you, I guess. It was a bad time. I never told you, but I was really sorry about your mom. She was the best teacher at Cane Creek, really cared about all the kids in her class. If not for her, I’d have failed Math. She helped me out by giving me extra work for extra credit, stuff like that.”

  This conversational direction wasn’t much better. He couldn’t think about Mama without sadness a lot of the time. Without questions. Without wondering why she hadn’t had the courage to leave Rainey and Cane Creek. Without a trace of anger that she hadn’t told him the truth . . .

  “Yeah,” he said aloud, “she was really good that way. So what are you going to do about Brad? You can’t keep letting him hit you.”

  “I know. Chelsea—she’s my little girl—gets so upset. That’s why when he wanted to come over and talk tonight I took her to my mother’s. So she wouldn’t be there if he got violent again. He does that a lot.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t let him come over anymore.”

  “It’d seem like the common sense thing to do, wouldn’t it? I’ve never been that big on common sense, apparently. I do the most off-the-wall things sometimes. It amazes even me.”

  “So stop.”

  “Easy for you to say.” She eyed him. “You’ve always been in control. Unemotional. A rock of stability when all around you is falling into chaos. How do you do it? How do you get that way? I wish I could be like that, not feel things, not care that everything in my life is coming apart and I’m losing what I once thought I wanted most. Just how do you get to that place, Chantry?”

  He stared at her. Is that what it looked like? When inside he was torn apart and uncertain and feeling empty and cold and lost? When he didn’t dare let himself think too long about what he had lost or never had because he might just explode with frustration and anger and bitter sorrow?

  “First,” he said after a minute, “you have to lose everything. Then nothing matters. I don’t think you want that.”

  “No, I guess I don’t. Damn. I feel like such an idiot, coming over here like this when you probably wish I’d just shut up and go away.” She lifted her beer in a mocking salute. “I admire your patience, Chantry Callahan. You’re one in a million.”

  “Right. But so are you.” To his horror, she started to cry. He stared at her helplessly, like he always did in the face of female tears. There’d been his share of them, usually shed by some girl he was leaving behind for whatever reason, and it always left him uncomfortable and feeling alien because he never shared the same emotion.

  “Hey,” he said after a moment and got up and went over to her on the couch, patted her awkwardly on the shoulder, grimaced when she turned to press her face against his bare chest and got him soggy, her arms going around his neck as she sobbed. He sat there, and because he didn’t know what else to do, put his arms around her and patted her clumsily on the back.

  That was what Brad Durbin saw when he burst into the carriage house.

  CHAPTER 32

  Chantry stood up immediately, eyed Brad warily as he halted in the doorway and stared at them furiously. “You bitch,” Brad snarled, “you fucking whore. I knew this is what you’re up to. Come runnin’ to him as soon as I leave. Once a slut, always a slut.”

  “That’s enough,” Chantry said. He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t move, just stood where he was even as Cathy surged to her feet and flung her hair from her eyes to glare at her husband.

  “You’re an idiot, Brad. I told you there isn’t anything going on between us. We’re just old friends.”

  “How dumb do you think I am? You’ve always had the hots for him, even back in school. You think I don’t know that? You think I believe your stupid shit? Hell, you’d screw anything back then and you sure ain’t changed that much.”

  Brad hadn’t changed much either, except for thinning hair and a beer gut that hung over his belt. Muscles gone to fat. He was still big, beefy, a former tight end in college football. Slow but strong. Now head of security for Quinton’s casino, The Silver Dollar. A Wild West theme, complete with guards dressed like Old West deputies.

  “You’re trespassing, Du
rbin,” Chantry said evenly. “And I don’t much like your mouth.”

  “I’m trespassing? I’m trespassing? Did she tell you we’re married?” He took a step inside, hands knotted into fists at his sides. “I don’t much like you puttin’ your hands on my wife.”

  He had no intention of explaining. Durbin would believe what he wanted anyway. He just wanted to get him outside before he started anything rough. He put up a warning hand.

  “Take one more step and I’ll call the cops.”

  Brad laughed, a harsh sound. “Do that. By the time they get here you’ll be fuckin’ dead.”

  On the TV, Jackie Chan slid down a banner to a casino floor. In the living room, Brad Durbin took two more steps inside. Chantry didn’t wait to see what he’d do next. He hit him. It snapped his head back, sent him stumbling awkwardly, arms pin-wheeling before he fell against the still open door. Chantry shoved him outside, using the heels of his hands, quick hard jabs that sent Durbin sprawling on his ass on paving stones and gravel. Groaning, he rolled over onto his belly, but when he came up on his knees, he had a pistol in his hand. He pointed it straight at Chantry.

  “Now what’cha gonna do, motherfucker?”

  Cathy screamed. Chantry went real still. He clicked into survival mode. All his senses went on full alert. He gauged distance between them, balanced odds of elevation against reach, and just as Brad pulled the trigger, kicked the arm holding the gun. An explosion shattered the quiet night, the bullet ricocheted off one of the hanging copper pots in the kitchen, and Cathy screamed again. This time, it was in pain instead of terror.

  Chantry turned around to look just as she slumped to the floor. Jesus. He bent over her, ran his hands over her face, arms, chest, saw a bright red blossom bloom on her left shoulder and spread into something dark and ugly on the terra cotta tiles. Her eyes were closed, breathing slow.

  “Call 911,” he snapped at Brad over his shoulder, jerking down the neck of her sweatshirt to press the heel of his hand against the wound and staunch the spurt of blood. “Dammit, call.”

  Brad was still on his knees, staring wildly. He looked frozen. Horrified.

  Swearing, Chantry grabbed the phone and called it in. He ignored the operator’s demand he stay on the line and hung up to concentrate on applying pressure to Cathy’s wound.

  “I . . . I didn’t mean to . . . I wasn’t goin’ to shoot, only scare you,” Brad stuttered hoarsely and Chantry didn’t even turn to look at him again.

  “You’re a stupid asshole, Durbin. You’ll be lucky if you didn’t kill her.”

  Brad made some kind of incoherent sound. In the distance, sirens wailed. By the time the EMT’s got there, Brad was gone. He’d just disappeared, leaving Chantry to deal with it. Leaving Chantry to take the blame.

  The police promptly arrested him on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, even before Cathy was on her way to the hospital.

  “Gordon’ll just love this,” Walker said, cuffing Chantry’s wrists behind him and shoving him roughly toward a waiting squad car. “He’s been waitin’ on you to do somethin’ else stupid.”

  Still bare-chested, with blood on his hands and arms, wearing only his sweatpants and no shoes, Chantry kept his mouth shut. Resistance would only make it worse. Experience had taught him a few things. Anything he had to say, he’d say to a lawyer.

  Just before Walker put him into the rear of the squad car, Chantry looked up and saw Herky standing in the blue glow of flashing lights, staring with obvious distress. His face knotted into protest and he started forward, but Chantry shook his head to warn him away. Nothing he did or said would help right now and it’d be better if he kept out of it. Herky stopped, but looked like he wanted to say something.

  “He didn’t do it,” Herky blurted to one of the other cops, but was pushed back behind the length of yellow tape being strung toward the door.

  That was all Chantry heard before Walker slammed the cruiser door closed. He put his head back against the seat and thought about all the other times he’d ended up in the back of a police car. Except for once in Memphis, every time had been here in Cane Creek. It had never ended well. There were always consequences, even to just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He hoped Cathy didn’t end up paying too great a consequence for marrying Brad.

  Quinton County Justice Center was new. A big brick building had swallowed up the older facility. It was two stories now, with the holding pen in the basement, the best that county taxpayers could provide.

  After he was processed—that hadn’t changed much—he was taken to a small gray room with a two-way mirror and cuffed to a chair. That was familiar, too. He was cold. Not that his comfort level would be a concern, he was sure. He almost wished they’d issue him a jumpsuit, but once he got to call a lawyer, he hoped to get out of there pretty quick.

  They let him wait. He expected Captain Gordon to come in, and wasn’t disappointed. It took an hour, but he finally showed up. Except for putting on a little weight, he still looked like the nightmare of Chantry’s childhood, buzz-cut hair, freckled face, grim satisfaction glittering in his pale eyes. A version of Rainey. Not all cops were bullies, but Gordon seemed to take pleasure in having the upper hand.

  Kicking Chantry’s chair as he passed, he sat down across from him and leaned back, let a couple of minutes pass in silence before he finally shook his head. “You got big trouble this time, son. Assault with a deadly weapon. She’s in surgery. If she dies . . . you just better hope she don’t.”

  “I already hope that, and not because of any bogus charges.”

  “Bogus?” Gordon shook his head. “Got your gun, blood all over you, you the only one there. So what happened? A little argument get out of hand? She say she’s going back to her husband, maybe?”

  “I want a lawyer.”

  Chantry didn’t expect him to give in easy and he didn’t. He hammered at him for a while, got rough a few times, kicking his chair, grabbing his hair and slamming his head against the table, pushing him to the floor. Then he pulled the chair up, with Chantry’s hands still cuffed to the back of it, managing to knee him in the belly in the process.

  When he righted him in his chair, Chantry slid to one side, struggling to catch his breath. It got hard to see, and he blinked a few times to clear his vision. Gordon stared at him, obviously disgusted.

  “You got shit for brains, Callahan? What’s the matter with you? Make it easy on yourself. Just go ahead and tell me what happened, how you shot her.”

  Peering up at him, squinting a little because the light hurt his eyes, Chantry managed to get out, “I want . . . a lawyer. Now.”

  To his relief, a light tap on the window signaled that Gordon had run out of time. He gave the chair a vicious kick and stormed out of the room. Silence fell, welcome and heavy. Chantry sagged in the chair, shifting a little to ease the pressure on his arms and wrists. His stomach hurt and he thought maybe he had blood on his face. Something wet and warm kept trickling into his eyes. If a camera had been kept rolling—and he was sure it hadn’t or it’d end up erased—he’d have a hell of a case for violating his rights. As it was, he just wanted this to hurry and be over with. He wanted to check on Cathy, see how she was doing and if she’d make it. While the bullet looked like it hadn’t hit anything vital, it’d left an awful hole and she’d lost a lot of blood. It’d all depend on how good the doctors were at the Quinton County hospital as to how she’d survive. Maybe they’d airlifted her to the Med’s Trauma Center in Memphis.

  In a few minutes, the door opened again, and Chantry was surprised to see Bud Casey, the same lawyer he’d had as a kid, step into the room.

  “Who called you?” he asked, his words coming out all rusty and hoarse. “I didn’t even get my phone call yet.”

  “Doc Malone. Said he heard you might need me. Have you made any statements?”

  Chantry tried to smile but it hurt, so he just said, “No.”

  “Excellent. You’re being held on suspicion of assault with a
deadly weapon. That doesn’t explain your face, but I imagine there’s another explanation for that anyway. I’ll do what I can. They can hold you for up to twenty-four hours before charging you. Looks like you’ll have to stay at least the night. Sorry.”

  That sucked. He looked down, shivered a little. At least he’d get a jumpsuit or denims, whatever the county used these days. Bud cleared his throat.

  “Want to tell me what happened? Same ground rules as before on how much to say. In case you don’t remember them—”

  “I remember.” He glanced toward the window, and Bud assured him no one was listening. So Chantry told him exactly what had happened. “It’s not my pistol,” he finished. “They need to run a check on it, check it for prints, too.”

  “They didn’t find any weapon at the scene.”

  Chantry frowned. “Brad must have taken it with him, then. Damn. That doesn’t help. They can run my pistol.”

  “I’m sure they will if they haven’t already. You’ve got a permit, right? Good. Not that it won’t be suggested you have an unregistered gun as well. Okay. First thing tomorrow, I’ll file a motion to dismiss. Just try to last until morning.”

  “That might not be so easy.”

  Casey looked sympathetic. There wasn’t anything he could do and they both knew it. It was going to be a long night.

  First he was strip-searched and given denims, then he was put in a cell. No belt, no shoes, just some kind of thick socks on his feet. A stainless steel toilet was attached to the wall. Snores came from one of the metal shelves that served as a bed. Not exactly the Hilton, but he’d slept in worse. Memory flashes came to him sometimes, sand and heat, blinding dust storms, the rattling thunder of exploding mortars. A sense of urgency. It was something he’d just as soon forget, but it’d taught him a lot.