River City

by Doc Macomber

  Chapter 31

  The dredging project down at the houseboat community of the Portland Rowing Club was winding up. Once again, against his better judgment, Colefield was driving Montgomery’s old piece of shit with the trunk latch that wouldn’t lock and the engine that let out a burp of black smoke every time he turned off the motor.

  Standing in the center of an oil cloud, he opened the trunk, removed an armload of clothing and headed off toward the ramp.

  He was carrying the last of it when a woman’s voice called out from behind. He stopped dead in his tracks and adjusted his expression before he turned around.

  Agent Tamara Costa was back, dressed in tight-fitting blue jeans, red cowboy boots, and a crisp white shirt. Her black leather jacket that he remembered she’d worn on one of their dates was slung over her shoulder. She smiled as she came toward him.

  “I hear you’ve been busy,” she said, stepping on tiptoes to plant a kiss on his cheek, leaving behind a trace of lipstick.

  “Where you been, Tam?”

  “Sorry, I thought I told you I was out of town.”

  “I left several messages.” Colefield waited for her typical snappy comeback.

  “I would have called you but I didn’t know what to say.”

  “Well, here,” he said, and handed her half of the stack of shirts on hangers. “While you figure it out, you can help me. I can’t afford to lose another thing downriver today.”

  Costa laughed. “So it’s finally over?”

  “The evil thing known as the dredge has moved on. It’s safe to come home.”

  “I was talking about the case.”

  Colefield breathed in the fresh cool air. The sky was overcast and gloomy, but at least it wasn’t raining. They proceeded down the ramp together. The familiar heat of being near her flickered, but something had emotionally changed in him. He’d quit bargaining with fate about Tam. No more “what if I had done this or said that to make her stay”. Her unexplained absence and return only confirmed that there was nothing he could have done or said to hold onto the mercurial Admiral’s daughter.

  After they entered the houseboat and she put the shirts down on a sofa cluttered with boxes, she turned and stretched out a kink in her back. Colefield stared at her. She had lost a little weight, or had buffed up, or something. She was lean and fit and her skin had a golden glow.

  “So where’d you go? Hawaii?”

  “Mexico. Zihuatanejo and Ixtapa. We were gone a week.”

  “We?”

  “My husband and I.”

  “I see.” But he didn’t. Probably never would. That realization caused him to shake his head and smile.

  “Long way to go to sign divorce papers…” He wasn’t going to make it easy for her.

  “Yeah – that’s why I’m here. I’ve got some news.”

  “You won the lottery?” He already knew what she was going to say the minute she used the word “husband”.

  “In a way ... I’m not getting a divorce.”

  He moved to the fridge and pulled out two beers. He popped the tops and carried them back out into the living room and handed one to her. “Well, here’s to reunions.”

  “Remember when I told you I didn’t think we got a do-over in life, that I thought you couldn’t go back and correct mistakes?”

  “Yeah I remember. That was during the conversation where you told me you were glad for the divorce.”

  “Look. I’m as surprised as you are.”

  “I doubt that, but at the moment I’d drink to most anything.”

  He peered into her eyes. The old attraction was still there, but now it really felt “old”, an affair rooted in the past with no promise of a future. Armed with this new clarity, he felt unburdened from the unsettling memory of losing her, and in doing so losing himself.

  Right on schedule, Costa changed the conversation. “Congratulations on getting Jeb Scarbough for me.”

  “For you?” Colefield laughed. “Well OK, but we technically never ‘got’ him. We never recovered a body.”

  She set the half-finished beer down, reached out and touched his face. Her hands were cold. “I gotta run.”

  He walked her out the door and to the ramp leading to the parking lot. Several hundred yards away sat a black sedan with a man leaning against the driver’s door, smoking a cigarette.

  I think I’m owed a ‘do-over’ too. Before she could see it coming Colefield leaned in and kissed her goodbye. To his surprise, she didn’t pull back. He tasted her sweet lips for the last time and let her go.

  “Take it easy, Tam.”

  She ascended the steep ramp and climbed into the passenger side door of the sedan. For the pure orneriness of it – he waved goodbye to the hubby with his middle finger discretely extended.

  Chapter 32

  The day after her visit, the distress call came in over the two-way radio. Colefield was sitting at his desk at River Patrol headquarters on Marine Drive repairing a seal on his dry suit when he slid his chair over and lifted the microphone to speak.

  “This is Deputy Colefield of the Multnomah County River Patrol One. Over.”

  The voice was garbled and scared.

  “Your voice broke up. Repeat. Over.”

  The microphone went dead. Colefield figured the caller would try again.

  Having just left the restroom, and still fussing with his zipper, Bart ambled into the tiny office and paid no attention to the radio.

  The woman’s voice rattled aloud again. This time Colefield tried a different tactic.

  “Calm down,” Colefield said. “Just tell me where you are. Slow down. Yes. Yes…” Colefield jotted something down on paper. “Repeat again, please. Over.”

  He rechecked his scribbles. “Give us 30 minutes. Don’t leave the area. River Patrol One out.”

  Bart sat down and removed a Power Bar from his lower desk drawer. “What was that about?”

  “Someone spotted a body in the water.”

  “Where?”

  “Down River, near Sauvie Island, just north of Collin’s Beach.”

  Bart peeled the wrapper back on his protein bar and took a bite. Chewing, he asked: “Any idea who the floater is?”

  “The woman sounded pretty hysterical. She couldn’t ID it. Her husband’s operating the boat and circling the area to keep an eye on it. Details were sketchy at best. I’m going to take along my dive gear just in case.”

  “I’ll round up Weaver. Does the boat have fuel?”

  “I filled it yesterday. We should be good.”

  Ten minutes later, the men where down at the dock boarding the patrol boat. Deputy Weaver untied the lines and climbed aboard. Bart had control of the helm. Colefield was busy feeding the coordinates into the GPS as the boat glided out of the slip.

  “Who do we still have on the Watch List?” Colefield asked Bart, looking down at the fuel gauge.

  The Watch List was the missing persons still unaccounted for and posted on the wall of the office. The list had grown over the holidays. The list never went away.

  “There’s the thirty-eight year old Asian woman who jumped off the Hawthorne Bridge three weeks ago. And there’s the meth-head dude that freaked out when the cops pinned him down on the Fremont. He jumped last Friday. Then there’s the fisherman who fell out of his boat. But he was further north. Oh and there’s the man from Camas who ran aground and thought he could push his twenty-footer off the sand bar. We also have that drunken idiot who fell overboard during the Christmas ships parade.”

  “That was near Scappoose. He’s too far North to surface by Sauvie Island. He’d be pretty bloated by now. I suspect he’s near Cathlamet.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right there. But the current has been shifty lately. You notice that?”

  “I noticed.”

  Bart hit the throttle. “It could be the Scarbough kid,” he said, waiting to see Colefield’s reaction.

  But Colefield didn’t comment. He left the helm in Bart’s control and moved
out onto the deck as the boat splashed through the rough waters near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers. The wind seemed to slice off the top crests of the waves.

  Bart gripped the wheel, maintained a clean line through the headwaters and continued veering north after the bend, opting to favor the channel markers along the Washington side of the River.

  A thousand images ran through Colefield’s mind as he listened to the aluminum hull slap over the waves at better than 40 knots. The river mist spilling over the bow pelted his cold face. His hands grew colder by the minute as he held on to the railing to steady himself. Weaver stood on the opposite side of the wheelhouse just staring off toward land with a pair of loose binoculars slung around his neck, lost in thought.

  About four or five miles downriver, Colefield spotted a Carver 28 that fit the description of the pleasure craft the caller on the radio had identified. He turned around and gave Bart a thumbs-up and pointed out the vessel ahead. Bart eased back on the throttle and altered course. He made contact with the operator on the marine radio.

  As they drew near the Carver 28 the woman aboard popped out of the cabin and pointed frantically off their port bow. The white-haired man at the helm held the boat steady and awaited further instructions.

  The river boat backed off its engines and glided slowly forward. Colefield kept his eye on the water. A bloated body bobbed up out of the gray river. At the same time, the woman aboard the pleasure cruiser let out a scream that echoed through the still air. And she hopped around the deck like she was going to wet herself.

  Weaver moved to port and scanned the water with his binoculars. But it was Colefield who spotted the floater surface north of where they were looking.

  “Let’s circle around,” Colefield ordered. “I’ll toss in the hook!”

  The current had picked up again. It was drawing the body downriver. They’d need to hurry if they were going to snag this one. He grabbed the rigging – a special stainless steel T-shaped hook attached to a long coil of heavy rope, carried it to the stern and lobbed it into the water, looping the end of the rope around a cleat.

  Weaver lowered his binoculars, moved aft and released a line on the recovery stretcher attached to the transom, and waited, watching Colefield play out the rope.

  It was on the River Patrol’s third pass that they hooked the body. Colefield felt the familiar tug. The hook had been set. It wasn’t unlike reeling in a large salmon except this one wasn’t about to fight back. Hand over hand, he muscled the rope, drew the waterlogged body closer to the boat. When it was within view, Weaver lowered the metal litter down into the water and let it sink a few feet below the body, awaiting Colefield’s signal.

  Colefield gave one last pull and the body suddenly shot upwards, bobbed right out of the water. Colefield got a good look at it before it sank down again below the surface. Weaver had positioned the stretcher dead-on. The two of them slowly hauled in the body.

  Once the corpse was out of the water, swaying from side to side with the rolling motion of the boat, Bart opened the wheelhouse door.

  “It’s the kid,” Colefield said.

  Chapter 33

  The large modern house sat on Lake Oswego with a view of Main Street. Colefield parked Montgomery’s battered sedan in the circular drive, climbed out and walked toward the front door.

  The house was in a pricey neighborhood, a community comprised of wealthy respected families. Old money. The area was perfect for Penny because it was all about new environments and change, Colefield thought.

  When she opened the door, he barely recognized her. Her face was smooth and healed. Her hair was cut in a sophisticated Goth style popular with teens. She had on new jeans and a patterned top that went well with her clear dark eyes and rosy skin. The angry lost kid was gone, at least on the surface.

  “Penny? Is that you?” Colefield laughed as she spun around.

  “Deputy Colefield? You are about the last person I expected to see.”

  “I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d see how you’re doing.”

  A woman in her late thirties wearing chic yoga wear popped around the corner. “Penny? Who’s at the door?”

  “It’s a friend of mine, Sharon.”

  The woman opened the door wider and greeted the deputy.

  “We met at Penny’s hearing.”

  The woman stood behind Penny and put her hand protectively on the girl’s shoulder, keeping her attention clearly focused on the deputy.

  Her face darkened. “Is anything wrong?”

  “No, Ma’am. This is a social visit. I was in the area and thought I’d stop by and say hello.”

  “Then please come in. We were just setting the table for lunch. There’s plenty extra if you’re hungry.”

  Colefield glanced down at his watch. “Thank you, ma’am. But I’m afraid I don’t have enough time for that. I’ve got someone flying in from Alaska and I’m picking him up in an hour.”

  “Well I’ll leave you two alone to chat.” She smiled at Colefield. “Come by any time. You’re always welcome here.”

  “Thanks, ma’am.”

  Penny pushed a loose strand of hair from her face, stepped outside and closed the door behind her. It took her a few moments to organize her thoughts. She leaned back against the house, crossed her arms and dropped her façade. The smile she had been wearing before faded. Something about her attitude shifted back to the loser from Sauvie Island.

  “Everything OK?” he asked.

  “They’re really sweet. They dote over me like a new puppy, and it kind of feels weird. But it’s not their fault. I don’t remember much about my real mom, and Anita never showed me any attention so I don’t know how to respond.”

  “It’ll take time…”

  “You have a cigarette?”

  “I don’t smoke.”

  “I’m trying to quit. But at least I stopped smoking pot.”

  “School OK?”

  “It’s a little freaky hanging with rich kids. But guess what? Most are just as fucked up as me. I did meet a couple chicks that are into music and want me to play the drums in their band.”

  “You play the drums?” This kid was full of surprises.

  “Only the 5-gallon bucket kind. But my foster parents said they’d pay for a real set if I can hold my grades above a C.”

  “Sounds decent of them.” Colefield paused. “Did you want to know anything about Jeb? I’m the one who retrieved the body.”

  “Not really.” She turned her eyes down. “It’s kind of strange but I don’t miss any of them. Maybe, Timmy. But the others, they’re just ghosts to me. My foster folks say they are all in Heaven together now and getting along, but I don’t believe that and really I just don’t care. Is that weird?”

  “It’s too soon yet to digest it all. Give it some time.”

  “Anyway, I never got a chance to thank you. You saved my friggin’ life. In more ways than you know. It may feel a little awkward now but this move helped. And thanks for putting in a good word for me with the judge. He’s hooked me up with a great therapist you recommended. That was pretty awesome since we didn’t really hit it off in the beginning.”

  “I’ve thought a lot about that lately. It was my karma to meet you and save you,” Colefield said.

  “Karma?”

  “My destiny.” Colefield thought about holding her soot covered face in his hands. “You taught me something. You were a friend and true sister to Timmy and tried to protect him from Jeb. Later you used your skill and courage to stay alive.”

  “I doesn’t take skill to live in squalor with the Adams Family.” The tough girl was back.

  “I was referring to you chasing after life, and not running from it. It’s something I’ve been trying to mimic.”

  “I’ve been trying to mimic something you do too.”

  “What’s that?” Colefield flashed a pleased smile.

  “Drive the rattiest truck in town.” She peeked over his shoulder toward the drive.
“Hey, where’s your old ride?”

  “It’s getting some new upholstery.”

  “I’m glad you still have it. I liked that old piece of shit. I think of it as my rescue chariot.”

  “I’ll give you a ride next time I’m in the area.”

  “I guess my grandfather left me some money. Some lawyer called me a few days ago and told me how he had a heart attack in jail. He said when I turn eighteen I’ll inherit some money. It’s sitting in some trust fund now. Maybe I’ll actually go to college.”

  “You’re thinking in the right direction.”

  “That’s still a few years off.”

  “It’ll pass by before you know it.”

  In a few years, she may still have issues to resolve, he thought. But the fact that she looked healthy, seemed off dope, and had put on a pound or two of muscle, reinforced the notion that she was making the necessary adjustments to her new surroundings. And this gave him hope. The band idea might work out or not. But at least she had the gumption to try.

  “Hey!” she said. “Did you get back together with your Ex?”

  Colefield looked off toward the lake. “That didn’t work out, but I’ve been stalking a bartender that I think is starting to like the attention.”

  “Well, everything happens for a reason. Isn’t that what you told me?”

  “I did indeed.”

  “I’m counting on it.” She smiled and gave him a big hug. “Thanks, Colefield. Really. You’re a pretty cool dude for being a cop.”

  To his surprise he squeezed her tightly too. She released him first, waved goodbye and slipped back inside the house. He thought about how breakable she still was. Beneath her tough exterior, a fragile young spirit sought shelter. The line that divides is often an invisible one…

  How tough it must be to have gone through so much at her age. And yet he could relate. In his heart of hearts, he believed she was going to make it. They both were.

  Colefield stood there a moment taking in the clean scent of pine trees wafting through the air before he made his way back to Montgomery’s belching beast.