by Janet Dawson
The theft was the reason Rick and Harry had staged the motorcycle accident last June, when Rick supposedly died. Since then, Rick had been living here at the cabin, plotting his escape to Mexico. On a boat that was berthed at a marina. Brian knew from talking with Willow that her father owned Newman’s Marina and Roadhouse down in Lakeville.
Then Harry left and Rick stretched out on the other bed. Soon he was snoring loudly. Brian renewed his efforts to get free of the handcuffs. But the two tablets he’d swallowed took effect and he fell asleep.
On Saturday morning, Rick scrambled eggs on the camp stove and scraped half of them onto a plate for Brian. Rick ate the other half, spreading his liberally with salsa and using tortilla chips to push the food onto his fork. When the meal was over, Rick repeated the process with the tablets, insisting that Brian take four tablets. Again, Brian managed to take two and hide the others. He slept again, his head feeling worse.
Harry showed up again late Saturday afternoon. The two men loaded gear and equipment into the SUV. They cleared out the cabin, leaving little evidence that they’d been there. It was after dark when they unlocked the handcuffs holding Brian to the bedstead. Again, Rick insisted he take the Tylenol PM. This time Brian put the tablets in his mouth but he didn’t swallow them. They cuffed his hands behind his back. As they walked him out of the cabin toward the SUV, Brian spat out the tablets, hoping they wouldn’t see.
They put him in the backseat of the SUV, making him lie down. Harry drove, with Rick slumped down in the passenger seat. Brian managed to shift his position, so that he was propped up enough to see where they were going. Harry drove the SUV out of the clearing, on the narrow road that led to Green Valley Road. He turned right onto Highway 116, heading through Forestville. Then he cut over to River Road, just below the Russian River, and drove east toward Santa Rosa. Once on U.S. 101, he headed south, to Petaluma. Harry took the Lakeville exit. City lights gave way to countryside darkness on the Lakeville Highway.
Ahead, Brian saw more lights, the marina, he guessed. Harry slowed and turned off the highway. The SUV bumped down a gravel road, then made a three-point turn and backed up. Harry cut the engine. He and Rick got out of the SUV, walked to the rear, and opened the door. They didn’t speak as they unloaded gear and supplies. Brian turned his head, wincing because it still hurt. In the distance he could hear music, as though someone on one of the boats was having a party. Then he heard the roar of a motorcycle, loud, then diminishing as someone left the roadhouse.
This end of the marina was dark, although there were overhead lights near the dock, illuminating the boats. There were cottages here, some with interior lights on.
He heard Rick and Harry talking, but they were too far away for him to make out the words. They were still transporting supplies onto the boat. From what Brian could see, it looked like a good-sized cabin cruiser. They were going to take it to Mexico, that’s what Rick had said. They would leave him here at the marina. Surely someone would find him. Or he could head for one of those cottages and pound on the door. Soon this nightmare would be over.
Brian must have dozed off. He came awake suddenly, when he heard the sound of an engine nearby. Another car, he guessed, maybe someone headed for the roadhouse. He turned in the back seat of the SUV, twisting around to see the boat. He could make out two figures on the deck. He shifted position again, looking past the front of the SUV.
He saw a vehicle, though he couldn’t tell what make or model. It hadn’t been there before. Someone got out and walked toward the SUV. It was a young man with dark hair, wearing dark clothes. As he passed the SUV, the man glanced inside and saw Brian. Then he turned away and headed for the dock. Brian twisted around in the seat, looking back toward the boat. Now he saw three figures. The two on the boat’s deck he figured were Rick and Harry. The man who was on the dock was the new arrival.
He heard voices again, fragments of conversation as all three men talked.
“Scott? What the hell are you doin’ here?”
“I didn’t tell him. He must have—”
“What the fuck?”
Then they were all talking at once, arguing, their voices getting louder, more agitated. He couldn’t tell who was saying what, but he could make out some of the words.
“I don’t care—”
“You got it all wrong—”
“Look, we’ll cut you in—”
“What the hell? Are you crazy?”
The man who’d just arrived was visible in a pool of light. He raised his hand and light glinted off metal. My God, he’s got a gun, Brian thought.
The shot sounded incredibly loud. Brian was surprised people in the nearby cottages didn’t react. Then there was a louder bang. Flames leapt from the boat, shooting into the sky, illuminating the scene. The man with the gun ran past the SUV.
The explosion and fire got the attention that the gunshot hadn’t. A man came out of the nearest cottage and ran toward the dock. People were streaming this way from the other cottages, and the roadhouse.
Then another figure opened the driver’s-side door of the SUV and threw in the briefcase containing the money. Rick Newman climbed into the driver’s seat and keyed the ignition. He drove away from the dock.
“You were going to let me go,” Brian said as the SUV slewed onto the pavement. “Just let me go.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Rick shouted. “I gotta think, I gotta think.”
He sped north on Lakeville Highway. Sirens and flashing red lights up ahead signaled the coming of the fire department, heading for the marina. Rick didn’t say anything as he piloted the SUV onto U.S. 101, heading north again. As near as Brian could tell, Rick was driving aimlessly, as though he was unsure of where to go.
Brian fell asleep again. When he woke up, the SUV was still moving. The sun was moving up the eastern horizon. Where were they? Brian thought he recognized a few landmarks. This looked like River Road, outside of Guerneville.
Rick guided the SUV off the road, onto the shoulder. He turned and pointed the gun at Brian. “Get down. And don’t make a sound.”
Brian obeyed. He scrunched down on the seat, keeping his head as high as he dared, trying to see as much as possible in the faint light of dawn.
Rick drove back onto the road. The SUV entered the outskirts of a town, looking sleepy and deserted in the early morning hours.
I was right, Brian thought. We’re in Guerneville.
Rick took a right turn. They passed a building. COFFEE BAZAAR, read the sign. This is Armstrong Woods Road, Brian realized. Heading north, toward the park. Where is he going? He must know someone who lives up here.
Rick turned right again, but Brian couldn’t see a street sign. Then they were outside of Guerneville. Okay, Brian thought. We’re heading east, maybe northeast, on a twisty road with no lights and no oncoming traffic. Now Rick slowed the SUV. Brian scooted up as far as he dared, and looked outside. Now Rick took a left turn off the pavement and onto a dirt road. They jolted along, maybe a mile, or a mile and a half, Brian thought. Suddenly Rick stopped. Several armed men surrounded the SUV.
“Tell Tony it’s Rick.”
Forty
“The guy’s a fucking liability.” Brian recognized the voice coming from the kitchen—Tony, the guy in charge.
Brian had seen Tony when he and Rick had arrived earlier today, as the sun was coming up. The man was short, muscular, with a shaved head, a black goatee, and a scowl that appeared to be permanent. He had a gold ring in each earlobe, and he carried a gun tucked in the back waistband of his black pants.
Tony wasn’t happy about Rick being here. And he was angry about Brian’s presence.
At least Brian wasn’t handcuffed anymore. He was locked in a pantry in back of the kitchen. There was a cot with a thin mattress, covered with a plain sheet, a pillow, and a blanket.
At the foot of the cot was a bucket to be used as a toilet, and a couple of large bottles of water. A couple of hours ago, a man who didn’t speak had unlocked th
e closet, fetched the bucket, and brought it back empty. An hour or so later, a different man, also silent, brought him food and more water bottles. When the second man had opened the door, Brian saw that it was getting dark outside. Sunday evening. He’d left a note for Sheila saying he would be home Sunday. She’d be worried when he didn’t show up.
Tony and Rick were the only ones he’d heard speaking English. The other men, six or eight of them, he thought, spoke Spanish. When he and Rick had driven up to the buildings, he’d heard the men talking among themselves. In his years of teaching, he’d picked up enough Spanish to understand that they were talking about him, wondering what he was doing here.
They’d brought him into the house, past the tents where the Spanish-speaking men were living. There was trash strewn all over the place, and cans of what looked liked pesticides.
It was then that he realized what this place was. A pot plantation. He’d heard about these places, read that they were all over Northern California.
He was in an old house. When they’d brought him inside, he’d had time to glance around, assessing his surroundings. The front part of the house was a living room–dining room arrangement. A hallway led to the back and he’d glimpsed a bathroom at the end of the hall. The kitchen was a walk-through, and the pantry was near the back door.
He’d seen enough on the drive up here that he thought he knew where they were. He didn’t know the name of the road, but he guessed that they were northeast of Guerneville, which meant east of Armstrong Redwoods State Park.
I have to get out of here, he thought. I could disappear into the trees, hike into the park.
He moved to the door, leaning his head against it. He heard something sizzling on the stove, smelled meat cooking in a skillet. Tony and Rick were still in the kitchen.
Tony spoke, his words dispassionate. “We shoot him, and dump the body at the mine.”
“Can’t do that, man,” Rick said. “I don’t want a murder rap on top of everything else.”
“Hell, you’re already in crap up to your belly button,” Tony said. “First you rip off that briefcase full of cash. Then you get Harry killed and blow up the boat on top of it.”
“It’s like I told you, man. Scott killed Harry. Just walked up bold as brass and shot him. And I didn’t blow up the boat. I don’t know why the damn thing blew up. Propane leak, maybe. Harry was firing up a cigarette when Scott shot him. He fell back into the cabin. If there was propane leaking in there, that would do it.”
Brian heard scraping sounds as something was lifted from the skillet. “I don’t care how it happened,” Tony said. “The shit has hit the fan but good. You’re a liability and that guy you brought with you is a liability. I don’t need anything that’s going to bring the cops down on me. The sooner you’re both out of here, the better.”
The voices moved out of range as the two men left the kitchen. Brian leaned against the door. He had to get out of here before that guy Tony decided to kill him.
But he was tired, so very tired. His head hurt. And once again, Rick was forcing him to take pills. But it wasn’t Tylenol PM this time. Rick had gotten his hands on a more potent drug, Xanax, and the stuff was knocking Brian out and making him dizzy. Brian had slept most of the afternoon, waking only when someone unlocked his prison.
He was hungry, too. A short time later, Brian heard sounds coming from the kitchen, smells, too. Then Rick unlocked the door and handed Brian a plate piled with scrambled eggs and hamburger. Brian wolfed it down. Then they went through the drill with the pills again. He slept hard during the night, awakening when Rick delivered a breakfast of scrambled eggs and some toast.
As the days stretched out into two, three, he slept, dosed with the pills. Several times he managed to fake swallowing the pills, spitting them out and concealing them. He’d torn a hole in the mattress and stuffed the pills inside.
He pleaded for some apples, figuring he needed food he could take with him when he escaped. “I can’t just live on scrambled eggs,” he said.
“I can,” Rick said.
The next time Rick brought food there were two apples, a hunk of cheddar cheese, a handful of chocolate chip cookies. Brian ate one of the apples, a small bite of cheese, two of the cookies. He saved the rest, including one of the bottles of water, hiding his provisions in the mattress.
I don’t have much time, he thought. Tony and Rick had argued again, about what to do with Brian.
A few years ago, his sister, Jeri, had taught him how to pick a lock. She knew about such things. He thought it would be a lark to learn how. So she’d showed him how to do it, with a variety of implements. He’d done all right in the trials she had set for him. He never figured he’d have to use the knowledge to save his life.
He pulled the mattress from the cot and looked at the frame. It was plain metal, with flat linked springs. He set to work, loosening one of the coiled springs that held the flat springs to the frame. It took him hours, over a couple of days, but finally he worked one of the coils free.
He straightened one end, then maneuvered the spring into the lock, moving it gently, delicately, hoping he could escape before someone decided to kill him.
Forty-One
“I wasn’t sure how many days had passed,” Brian told me that evening in the hospital. “Time just seemed to blur. That damned Xanax was knocking me out, so I slept most of the time, unless I could manage to fake swallowing the pills. The day I left...that was yesterday, although it seems like a long time ago. I knew it was afternoon, because they’d brought me breakfast and lunch.”
“So when you were ready, you picked the lock.” I leaned back in the chair, feeling tired but wanting to hear the rest of my brother’s story.
He nodded. “I listened. The house was usually quiet after lunch. I’d at least figured that out. I don’t know why. Maybe they were all out doing whatever they did with their pot crop. Or maybe they were taking siestas. Hell, I didn’t know. But I was ready to go. I stuffed the food I’d saved and the water bottle in my pocket and I stuck the spring into the lock, moving it around the way you taught me. Once I got the door open, I found out the back door leading out of the house wasn’t locked. It wasn’t even closed all the way.”
“They got careless.”
Brian nodded. “Maybe they figured I wouldn’t try to get away. I listened and I didn’t hear anyone. So I eased out that back door and headed for the trees. Every step I took, I expected to hear a gun and feel a bullet in my back.”
“You were lucky to get away. I don’t know how much longer Rick could have kept Tony from killing you.”
Brian reached for the water and took a sip, then lay back against the pillow. “I had a good idea where I was. By coincidence, I’d been thinking about going hiking at Armstrong Redwoods, so I’d studied the map. I knew if I could get to Fife Creek I could follow it into the park.”
“I knew you wouldn’t go down Redwood Creek. That’s the first place they would look. So you went cross-country, looking for Fife Creek.”
“Yeah. I figured if I found the creek and hiked downstream, eventually I’d find a trail. I’m not sure how far I was from the park when I started, though. The terrain was rough. And it got cold up there once the sun went down. I spent the night in a little cave I found, then started hiking again in the morning.” He smiled. “I didn’t have very much to eat. I was rationing out the stuff I’d saved. And looking for mushrooms. It’s a good thing I had been studying edible mushrooms, because I found some. I hadn’t found the creek, though. I knew if I kept heading west, I would run into it. I was still looking for the creek when I saw you.”
He looked exhausted, as though telling the tale had taken more out of him. I leaned over and took his hand. “You’re found now. I’d better let you sleep. I’ll be back in the morning.”
——
I was there the next day when Griffin and Harris interviewed Brian. As Griffin hoped, Brian was able to identify Scott Cruz as the man who had fired the shot that k
illed Harry Vann. I didn’t know what happened to the aluminum briefcase full of money that Rick Newman stole, the money that had precipitated the whole sorry episode. The cash presumably belonged to Lowell Rhine’s client, but getting it back was Rhine’s problem, not mine.
The doctors let Brian go home late Saturday afternoon. He’d made a quick recovery once he was properly fed and hydrated, and the Xanax was out of his system. The concussion he’d sustained was minor. The doctors did recommend some counseling, and I told my brother he should consider it. He might have some leftover stress due to being held prisoner for a week.
Brian didn’t commit to the counseling, talking instead about how he was looking forward to starting his new job, getting on with his life as soon as possible. He seemed resilient, ready to leave the whole horrible incident behind and get on with his life, as though nothing had happened.
But it had happened. It might come back to haunt him later on. I concurred with the need for counseling for several reasons. As much as Brian wanted to get back to normal, I wasn’t sure Sheila had made her peace with the changes in their lives, the changes that had led to the problems they were experiencing.
It was up to the two of them to figure out how to patch the holes in their marriage.
Brian went home, and so did my parents, leaving Aunt Caro’s home on Sunday afternoon. Mom went back to Monterey, Dad went back to Castro Valley—and I went home to Oakland, but just for one night.
On Monday, I drove up to Bodega Bay, to spend a few days with Dan at his friends’ house overlooking the bay. Our trip to Lassen had been cut short, but we enjoyed those few days walking along the beach looking at the ocean.
Before I went to the coast, however, I went to Occidental.
It was midafternoon when I detoured off Highway 12 onto Bohemian Highway, and drove along the winding two-lane road that led through the redwoods to Occidental. When I reached the town, I parked in front of Hestia Gallery and went inside. Dad’s birthday was coming up and I’d decided to get him the watercolor of the hummingbird that I’d seen there earlier.