River City

by Doc Macomber

  Colefield clipped the radio to his vest. “Pull in just after the yellow floating home. I remember there’s an empty slip we can use as cover. We can stay out of direct line of fire and work our way across the adjoining decks.”

  “OK boss!”

  The boat glided in with its engines at a quiet idle. Colefield jumped out, tied off the bowline and steadied the boat while Bart strapped on his Kevlar vest.

  Using the floating homes as cover the men stayed close to the walls. The gap between the decks was an easy jump if they timed it right. Ducking in behind a railing, Colefield peered ahead, keeping his eye on the sliding door opening onto the deck. Colefield pointed to his wristwatch and reached for his radio. “River Dog One to River Dog Two, it’s a go! Over!”

  “Roger, River Dog One. See you on the other side. Out!”

  Colefield clipped his radio to his vest. “Let’s go!”

  Just as the deputies started to roll out from behind the wall, Dave Scarbough stumbled through the sliding glass door onto the deck, clutching his belly. Blood oozed through his fingers. His pants were saturated. He fell to his knees and swayed close to the water’s edge. The last time Colefield had seen Jeb’s father, he was chained to the ground and drinking water from a trough in a pig pen. He would have placed even odds that things couldn’t have gotten any worse for the guy.

  Colefield couldn’t risk stepping out into the open to help the injured man until he was certain it was clear. As he was weighing his options, the wounded man tumbled forward onto the deck.

  “Jeb or Penny may be inside,” Colefield whispered, his heart racing. It was now or never. “Stay low.”

  The men rolled out from behind the wall, tumbling across the deck and sprang to their feet in a defensive position. With Glock in hand, Colefield made a move toward the living room.

  Costa stepped out through the open door with her gun drawn. “The dogs are chained up, but there’s nobody else inside.”

  Bart was working on Dave while Weaver called for an air ambulance. It didn’t look good. Colefield leaned close.

  “Penny…” Dave uttered.

  “Penny shot you?” Colefield asked.

  “I’m so...” Dave released a long breath and lost consciousness.

  “Why are we always five minutes too late on this case?” Colefield said and returned inside. “So what happened in here?”

  “Looks like Penny was hiding out here when Dave arrived. Her stuff is all over the place. The shot took place here in the living room after a struggle.” Costa indicated a turned over table. “We haven’t found a weapon.”

  “The dogs were tied up, so at least they haven’t contaminated the scene.”

  “Dave mentioned Penny by name before he lost consciousness. Do we think she shot Dave?” Colefield was thinking out loud.

  “If she did, why didn’t she take off in the 4 x 4?” Costa asked.

  “Maybe she didn’t need the car. Maybe she left by boat,” Colefield said.

  “If Jeb arrived by boat. Maybe he came to kill Penny and Dad got between them and took the hit.”

  “Or he came here to kill Dave and Penny witnessed it and either ran away on foot or he took her with him.”

  Christ, what a mess…

  “Until we get more from Dave, we don’t even know if Jeb or Penny were directly involved in this shooting,” Colefield said. “A guy like Dave is bound to have enemies.”

  He heard the Lieutenant’s words: “By the book, Colefield. By the book.”

  Colefield sighed. “Our best chance is to get a chopper out here and some extra patrolmen and seal up the island.”

  Chapter 26

  The search continued through the night. A chopper and a team of dogs were brought in, but the Sheriff’s office had no luck locating the missing teenagers. River Patrol from both counties circled the island several times but found no trace of the small outboard. Colefield and Bart then joined the hunt on foot but it proved equally futile. Costa was having no luck either; nor were the two FBI agents that were called in to help out. Both of the Scarbough houses were searched. No kids – but a worn photo of Jeb’s mom was found in his sailing gear. At Anita’s house they found the gun safe open, which to Colefield meant that Scarbough junior had probably collected a weapon before he went to the houseboat. Or, it was not a stretch to consider Jeb had been the one who had opened the safe.

  They searched the entire island. Dave never regained consciousness, but the doctors told Colefield that he died alcohol free, which might be scant comfort for Scarbough senior, who remained behind bars, still not talking, waiting on his lawyer for counsel.

  Colefield had been trying to finish Dave’s unfinished statement. Now he believed he wasn’t trying to say ‘I’m sorry”, but rather “I’m sober.”

  And Colefield still had his own explaining to do.

  Colefield walked out of the Lieutenant’s office with a splitting headache. “Dead bodies and missing children draw attention, Colefield!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I want your complete report before you leave here. Maybe we can still salvage something from this debacle.”

  The City rumbled like never before. The Mayor needed to place blame somewhere. Putting it all on the head of a supposedly heroic teenage boy – given the sketchy evidence and vague theories shared by the deputy and Costa, left little room for anything other than the Lieutenant to place Colefield on administrative leave until the case could be sorted out. The FBI also decided to bring in “fresh eyes”, unceremoniously reassigning Costa. It was unfair but it had to be done, which is why he hadn’t slept and had stayed at it all night working on his report until he was forced out the following morning.

  By the time he reached the loft at nine-thirty the next morning he was in a foul mood, which didn’t improve when Jack howled his discontent at his empty chow bowl and full cat box.

  Every part of his body ached. He needed a long, hot bath and a stiff shot of something, which he now had, courtesy of Montgomery’s rolling distillery parked in the garage. He found a flask in the glove box. Thank you, Bill.

  Colefield twisted the top off and took a sniff. Smelled like booze. He threw back a slug. Tasted like booze.

  He set the flask on the counter and stepped it up a notch for the rambunctious cat, feeding him canned tuna. Afterward, he hit the bed like a ton of bricks and fell into a deep sleep, filled with distorted images. First, it was a girl floating face down in the water followed by a headless corpse lying in the center of a pumpkin patch. The image that came next was a giant carp flicking a pierced tongue at him in jest as the big fish flopped about in the bed of his pickup truck. Just when he thought it was safe to close his eyes again, another nightmarish image would appear.

  It was evening by the time he struggled awake and crawled from bed. He wandered over to the large windows, looked out at the city, and tried to concentrate on something other than his distorted thoughts.

  The endless sparkle of lights did nothing to lift his sullen mood. He moved into the kitchen, turned on the faucet and stuck his parched lips down under the flow of cool water. He couldn’t stand his own sour smell any longer and went in and took a long shower. Afterward, as he sat naked on the bed and tried to picture what the kid and the girl were doing, his cell phone chirped, signaling a text. Had to be Bart. He opened it up. All it said was “CUL8R”. After mouthing different combinations, trying to decipher the message it came at him so hard he fell back against the wall. It wasn’t an infinity symbol, it was an 8. It was text talk for “See you later”.

  “Alligator,” Colefield said out loud, recalling Jeb’s story about the saying and how he lost the ritual with his mother after her death. So he had replaced it with another ritual ... killing scouts on the same day every year. Colefield grabbed his notebook, flipping through it furiously. The deaths occurred on August 10th. It didn’t jibe with the accident date, or her divorce. Or the date of her suicide. What could it mean? Reading through his interview notes with Jeb, he f
ound it. It was the anniversary of the day she was found and the family was notified, three days after the time of death, a date that would only be significant to Jeb.

  Colefield sat down. So he honored his mother each year by sacrificing a Scout in her honor. Until Timmy saw something he shouldn’t have, and became another body on the funeral pyre. If Jeb was tying up loose ends, finding Penny took on a new urgency.

  Had Jeb even taken her? Was she alive? Was the plan all along to kill his entire family and hide it behind a serial killer facade? But what could be the motive? His grandfather’s estate? Another reason to get rid of Penny? Hadn’t the old man said himself that Jeb was a miraculous blessing to him?

  He dialed Tam’s cellphone. And as usual, it went straight to voicemail. Again.

  * * *

  The days that followed, proved to be less eventful and more frustrating….

  Despite having the answer to the puzzle and not being able to continue on the case, Colefield had been looking forward to the time off. Maybe he and Tam could take a few days to give them time to sort out the past and see if the future held promise. But to his chagrin, she had left town immediately without any real explanation, other than a voicemail that she needed to take care of some personal business. She provided no details but she didn’t need to. Colefield knew where she was, but as time passed he wasn’t sure what personal details she was wrapping up – her husband or him.

  One afternoon he broke down and called Harvey to see if he was back in town and if they could hook up for a beer at Goose Hollow Tavern. Harvey had agreed. Yet all he could talk about was how much New York had changed since he’d been there last and how all his relatives still had the ability to piss him off. Then, he wanted to know if things had picked up where they had left off years ago with Tam. But Colefield didn’t provide details. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t know. Since her last message there had been no calls, no texts, no messages of any kind. So instead he directed the conversation back to the Scarbough case and the motive behind the killings.

  “I’m intrigued with your theory,” Harvey said. “If you find me the kid, I’d love to discuss it with him.”

  With no new leads or information on the teenagers’ whereabouts the case may have been a priority in Colefield’s eyes, but it was only one of about a dozen others assigned Harvey, who thought it was cursed by Colefield’s bad karma.

  Harvey’s newest case had to do with the murder of a young couple found shot in the head execution style in their apartment over in Southeast Portland, off Division Street. Harvey was going for the drug-deal-gone-bad angle. And so was his partner, Detective Redden, who, by the way, was not healing well from his injury and claimed he would never set foot on Sauvie Island again.

  The day of their little mishap seemed like an eternity ago.

  He missed his truck. And driving Montgomery’s beater was wearing thin. Especially since the engine had developed another oil leak. Not only did he leave puddles wherever he went but he now had to contend with smoke pouring out from under the hood at every stoplight.

  He must have had some guilt about letting Montgomery drive the rattletrap because one morning he had swung by a garage to get it checked out. After waiting nearly an hour for the technician to look at it, the mechanic just threw up his hands and said it wasn’t worth the money to fix. Before leaving, Colefield managed to get him to tighten a loose water hose clamp, which stopped the smoking issue to a degree. He then drove to the marina to check on the houseboats and collect mail. While he was there, he learned from one of the workers that the project was behind schedule. Another week at least before they were letting anyone move back onto the moorage. He thought about pushing the issue and sneaking back home, figuring he could shower at the office, but it was so noisy with the herculean dredge operating day and night, he decided to just ride it out in the loft. What were a few more days in the city going to hurt?

  He called Montgomery in Alaska and gave him the update. The old pirate took the news hard. He too was ready to come home. But the moorage walkways were unsafe and Colefield told him he was better off where he was until things were put back together. He reminded him that he didn’t need to fall and dislocate his hip again.

  “You’re nagging like a wife,” Montgomery said on the phone. “What’s wrong?”

  He explained that he’d been put on administrative leave and the time off was not turning out like he had expected.

  “Never does,” Montgomery said. With that, the phone went dead in his hand, Montgomery signing off with his usual abruptness.

  As he was putting the phone down, it rang again. He answered it, thinking Montgomery had forgotten to tell him something. “What do you want you old fart?”

  There was a long silence on the other end. Then a different man’s voice said: “Is this Deputy Colefield?”

  The voice sounded familiar but he couldn’t place it. “Yes, who’s this?”

  “Tom Farmer. I have your pickup truck repaired.”

  “Great! First good news I’ve had all week.”

  “The repair costs are higher than I quoted. Parts were hard to locate.”

  “Just give me the damage.”

  * * *

  By the time he reached the Sauvie Island Bridge, Montgomery’s car was on its last adventure. White smoke was blowing out from under the hood and funneling out the tailpipe. Colefield was too afraid to pull over and stop for fear the car would never start again. So he drove it toward the address that Tom Farmer had given him over the telephone. Along the winding road that bordered the channel and veered east toward the river, he spotted a flock of swans, and took this as a good omen, especially as he neared the Pumpkin Patch. He could still see the deep tracks in the shredded soil where his pickup truck had attempted to blaze a trail to the opposite side, and the long irrigation ditch that had abruptly ended the chase. There were fresh tracks he assumed had been made when the pickup truck had been towed from the field.

  By the time he pulled into the driveway of the farmhouse, the engine was groaning and smoking so fiercely, he could barely see out the windshield. The garage was at the back of the property with a dirt road leading to it. After he drove past some farming machinery, Colefield could see his pickup parked outside the shop and pulled in beside it. As he climbed out from behind the wheel, some hissing and a plume of white smoke began to pour out from under Montgomery’s beast. He could smell the familiar sweet scent of antifreeze. The fabled mythical fire-breathing dragon cloud forming above the car’s hood had to be a ruptured radiator hose.

  Colefield just left the keys in the ignition and went to track down the mechanic.

  Tom Farmer strolled out of the garage wiping his dirty hands onto a red rag. He walked over to Montgomery’s car and slowly lifted the hood. He stepped back as more steam poured out. The man fanned his hand back and forth over the front of the engine, examined the damage done, and then turned to Colefield.

  “Can you save it?” Colefield asked.

  “Can you leave it for a few days?”

  “It would be good to get it out of my sight for a while.” Colefield’s frown slowly turned into a smile as he took a good look at his old pickup truck. He lifted the hood and admired the new rubber radiator hoses, a new fan belt, and Tom Farmer had put in new sparkplugs and a new distributor cap. He leaned close to the sparkling clean undercarriage and where the steering rod had been replaced. He closed the hood and climbed into the cab. The key was in the ignition. He turned it and the engine fired to life immediately, no hesitation whatsoever. He revved the engine several times and listened to the throaty exhaust purr.

  Farmer came over to the door. “I went ahead and gave it a minor tune-up. Your distributor cap had a crack in it and your plugs were old. I replaced both your radiator hoses and your fan belt and put in some fresh oil and new anti-freeze. You should be good to go.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

  Colefield climbed out of the cab and paid the man in cash. />
  The man slid the bills into his wallet. “There’s been plenty of commotion on the island lately,” he said. “I’ve been seeing patrol cars cruise by. And they have an officer watching the Scarbough estate. They really think the grandson is connected to the deaths?”

  “They believe he may have killed his father and kidnapped his sister. He’s also a person of interest in the death of his step-mother and stepbrother.”

  “It’s like the family is cursed.” Farmer shook his head.

  “If there is a hex on the family that would mean the whole thing is out of our hands already, and I can’t go there.”

  “Well, God works in mysterious ways. He’ll dish out his own sense of justice.”

  Colefield nodded though he doubted God had had much to do with this case.

  Since he was out on the Island already, there would be no harm done in snooping around a bit before he headed back to Portland. He turned east out of Tom Farmer’s property and headed along the river, following the winding road. Sometimes you just have to follow your gut. If word got back to his lieutenant that he’d been spotted on the island, he had a fistful of reasons for being there that had nothing to do with the case. Picking up his pickup truck and visiting his old homestead being two.

  His first stop took him clear across the island to Anita’s house. It seemed as deserted as the first day he had seen it. He got out of his pickup truck, examined the fresh car tracks in the drive, and then walked the perimeter, keeping his hand near his Glock. Nothing. At the back door the crime scene tape had not been disturbed. Colefield went over to the windows but the blinds were pulled and the windows locked. The house was secure and undisturbed. Next he checked around the small dock before returning to his pickup truck. Colefield sat thinking on the side of the road for ten minutes before he finally drove off.

  His next trip was out to the Point, to Scarbough’s estate. At least one patrol car was parked in the drive with an officer watching the house as he drove on by. The policeman had probably seen his truck. What would come of it, Colefield didn’t give a rat’s ass. He needed to see if the law was doing its job. It appeared that they were.