Claire said, “Can you intervene, Dad, get him some protection?”
Before I could answer, Kenny’s hand shot up like a traffic cop’s. “No. No legal intervention. That’s worse than being a snitch. A guy tried that two years ago. Word leaked out in no time. I watched them carry him out under a bloody sheet.”
A few moments of silence followed as reality set in for Claire and me—Kenny Sanders was on his own in prison, and the only way to help was to get him out. We moved on to the questions we had for him, which encompassed going over his story again in some detail. Nothing of interest surfaced on the first pass. Claire asked if he had heard anything from the Coos Bay network about who Howard Coleman was working with in the drug trade. He hadn’t. When asked if he knew much about the business Walter Sanders and Sonny Jenson were involved in, he said, “Walter didn’t talk about business around the house.”
“Were they getting along?” I asked. “Any tension that you were aware of?”
He shrugged. “They weren’t best buddies or anything. It was always about the money with them, but I wasn’t paying much attention, to tell the truth.” He smiled with half his mouth. “You know, just your typical teen—sex, surfing, and rock ’n’ roll.”
I circled back to my principal interest—Marion the Librarian’s testimony. “I talked to Ellen Dempsey about her court testimony.” I leaned in and focused on his face. “She’s positive that was you she saw at the Jiffy Mart. I gotta tell you, Kenny, she was very convincing.”
The words seemed to brush him back. He tried a defiant look, but it came out defensive. “So?”
“Were you there or not, Kenny? Cut the bullshit. We can’t help you unless we know the truth.”
He exhaled a long sigh, closed his eyes, and when he reopened them, they had softened. It seemed a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “Okay, she was right. I stopped there to get a can of Crunk.” I must have looked puzzled, because he added, “An energy drink. I was on my way over to Sonny Jenson’s.”
Claire gasped. I said, “Why?”
He shook his head and swept his eyes from me to Claire and back again. “You’ll never believe me.”
“Try us.”
“I decided to stop by and apologize before the drug run. I’d been thinking it was the right thing to do. Sonny never should have acted like he did, but I shouldn’t have shoved him in the pool and scratched his car. That was juvenile, man. Grandma Rori was on my case to do it. She has a way of getting in my head.”
“What happened?”
He sighed again, and a tear broke loose and slid down his bruised cheek. “Sonny has a long driveway. I didn’t want to just drive up and make a big entrance, you know? So, I parked around the corner. I sat there for a while and finally decided to go through with it. I was out of the car when I heard a car coming out of his driveway.”
“Who was it, Kenny?”
Another tear broke loose. He scrubbed it off his cheek with a fist. “My mom.”
“Your mom,” I echoed, trying to keep my voice calm. “Did she see you?”
“No. She turned right on Stanton and headed off.”
“What did you do?”
“I got in my car and left.”
“Why?”
He looked at me like I’d just asked the dumbest possible question. “I wasn’t going to apologize to some asshole who’s porking my mom.”
“Why did you come to that conclusion?”
“Walter was out of town, and she told me she was going to her yoga class that night.”
“That was it?”
“No. I walked in on them once at a party at his place. They looked all guilty. I let that one slide. They’d both been drinking.”
“So, your mom was having an affair with Sonny Jenson?”
“Yeah, I think so. Don’t blame her much. Walter was such an uptight prick.”
“Did she kill Sonny?” Claire said.
He turned and glared at her. “No. Not a fucking chance. She was kind to a fault, generous, a vegan who wouldn’t eat anything with eyes. No, she couldn’t have done it.”
I leaned in again. “But you lied to protect her.”
“I did. I figured nothing good would come of me saying anything. I just put it out of my mind like it never happened, and then the roof fell in on me the next day.”
“Did you talk to her or your grandmother about it?”
“No. Not a word to either of them. And they never brought it up with me.”
“Did your grandmother know about the affair?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. She and Mom were pretty tight.”
I leaned back and studied him for a few moments. The room was quiet, and the still air smelled of disinfectant overlaid with body odor. “Why tell us this now?”
“Because I believed you when you said you need to know everything. I just needed a push, I guess. You’re my last hope.”
“What if we conclude your mother did it?” Claire said.
He looked at Claire and showed his first genuine smile. It brimmed with confidence I hadn’t seen before. “You won’t. Somebody else killed Sonny, not her and not me.”
“Is there anything else you haven’t told us, Kenny?” I asked.
He swung his gaze back to me. “No. Nothing. I swear.”
That’s where we left it, and as the guards reappeared, Kenny asked again about the surf conditions on the coast. Claire answered, mentioning how we’d run into some of his friends, including Stu Foster, at Bastendorff. As he was being led away, he turned back to us. “Tell them I miss them and to ride some waves for me.”
* * *
The rain picked up again, and the somber sky matched our mood on the return trip. A beat-up, dark-colored Ford Explorer was well behind us but caught my eye. It occurred to me I’d seen a similar looking car earlier that morning on the way to Salem. We kicked Kenny’s interview around, and at one point Claire said, “So, can a dead person be charged with murder?”
“No. A person must be capable of mounting a defense to be chargeable. A dead body can’t do that. But we can investigate whether or not Krysta Sanders killed Sonny Jenson.”
“And if we find something, what then?”
I puffed a breath. “I’m not completely sure. But having a dead perpetrator muddies the water, for sure.”
We drove on in silence for a while. The traffic was sparse except for the cab of a logging truck right behind me, looking for an opportunity to pass on the winding road that followed the course of the river. Was it just me, or were these trucks without their double load of timber always driven like Indy race cars? That seemed to be the case, and I would have pulled over to let this guy pass, except there were no pullouts along that narrow stretch of highway.
We came to a downward slope with a sharp bend that followed the river, a section of white water visible straight ahead in the thin light. The road was slick with rain, and I braked the Beemer as I approached the turn. I glanced in my rearview mirror. The logging truck, which had backed off my bumper, now came at us like a runaway freight train. I realized with horror that if I continued braking he was going to hit us. Between the river on one side and the steep embankment on the other, there was no place to go, so I hit the accelerator knowing full well I probably wouldn’t make the turn.
Too late. “Look out!” I yelled just before the massive cab hit us. The crunch of metal, Claire’s scream, and Archie’s yelp rose up in one agonizing sound as my old Beemer launched off the bumper of the truck like a sharply struck cue ball, skidded off the highway, and down the embankment into the rain-swollen river.
My head smacked into something that didn’t give, and total blackness ensued.
Chapter Fourteen
A voice cut through the black shroud enveloping me. “Dad, Dad, are you okay?” I opened my eyes and saw Claire’s face through a p
ink film. Her eyes were wide and her hair a wet, tangled mass. I tried to lift my head, but the effort caused my pink-filtered world to take a nauseating spin.
“Stay down, Dad. You’ve got a big gash on your head. I’m going up on the road to flag someone down. You’re still half in the water. Don’t move.”
I groaned. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’ll be right back. Stay where you are.”
I tried to sit up, but the nausea only intensified. “Where’s Archie? Where the hell’s my dog?” But Claire had set off up the bank, and I got no answer. I slipped back into darkness again.
Time ceased, but when I heard voices I fought my way back to consciousness. The effort felt like scaling Half Dome. “How you doin’, Buddy?” a strange, deep voice said. “I’m holding a cloth against your head wound to stop the bleeding. Try not to move.”
I opened my eyes. A big man with a friendly face knelt next to me. Claire stood behind him with a worried look. “Dad, Dave stopped to help. He called an ambulance.”
I forced myself up on my elbows, ignoring the nausea. “You okay, Claire?” I repeated.
“Yes, Dad. I’m okay.”
“Where the hell’s Archie?”
Her face crumbled. “He got swept downriver. I’ll find him, Dad. As soon as I know you’re taken care of. Don’t worry.”
I tried to stand, but the effort sent the world spinning again. “He can’t swim, Claire!”
“We don’t know that, Dad. I’ll find him.”
I turned my head enough to see the car and waited out a wave of nausea. Submerged nearly to the roofline, the Beemer had done a one-eighty and sat rocking in the swiftly moving water, the trunk pushed into the back seat. “You saw him go?”
“Not exactly. He was knocked into the front seat between us. Thank God the current helped me open the door, and when the water began to pour in, he just froze. I had to push him out to get at you.” Claire looked down and teared up. “That’s the last I saw of him.” She raised her eyes, her face filled with guilt and remorse. “You were unconscious, Dad. I had to get you out of there.”
Her words were like a hot knife in the heart. “Claire, I understand,” I managed to say. “How the hell did you get me out?”
She shook her head with a look of bewilderment. “It’s all a blur now. By the time I got your seatbelt off, the water was neck high. I crawled over you and grabbed your head to keep it above water. When I kicked away from the car, I almost lost you to the current, just like Archie.”
“No. Archie’s not lost.” I pointed downriver. “Go find him, Claire. Now.”
My daughter shook her head defiantly. “Not until I get you in an ambulance.”
* * *
By the time I reached the hospital in Reedsport, my mind was clearer, although I was racked with a throbbing headache and an abiding fear my dog was lost. A nice surgeon named Dr. Patel stitched me up—eighteen closely spaced sutures—and told me that I had to stay overnight for observation in view of the concussion I’d sustained. I was still on a gurney in the hall when a Douglas County deputy sheriff approached, took a detailed statement, and told me where my totaled BMW would be towed.
“No,” I told him, when he pressed me about the truck cab that hit us, “I didn’t get a license plate number. All I know is that it was humongous, just the cab, no trailer or load of timber. Dark blue or black, I think, massive bumper. Driven by a man, no passenger.”
“Can you describe him?”
“No. All I got was a quick glance when the cab first came up behind me. He was wearing shades, I think, and a cap.” I paused for a moment. “There was something weird about the cap—it had something sticking up from it.” I made a circle with my thumb and index finger and held it above my forehead. “Like this.”
“An action cam? He was making a video?”
I shrugged and shook my head. “Who knows? There was plenty of action, that’s for sure.”
“Do you remember anything special about the truck?”
I paused, closed my eyes for a couple of beats, then shook my head. “Sorry. All I can tell you is that it was huge, dark blue or black.”
“When did you first notice it behind you?”
“Maybe fifteen miles out of Reedsport. Came out of a dirt road, I think, and stayed right behind me. I didn’t think anything of it, and I sure as hell didn’t think it could blow me off the highway like that.”
The deputy shook his head. “Those trucks are designed to haul forty-five tons of logs. He swatted you like a fly.”
“I think it was deliberate. The driver held back until I braked before the curve, then he accelerated to make contact. I also suspect a Ford Explorer might’ve been involved, although I’m less sure of that. It may have followed us to Salem and back to tip off the truck.” I described what I’d noticed and went on to tell the deputy about the investigation Claire and I were conducting in Coos Bay.
“You think this was in retaliation for your investigation?”
“Could be.” The deputy asked a few more questions, took some notes and left, promising to stay in touch. He was polite and professional, but I had the distinct impression he thought my story might have been hatched in my recently bruised brain.
They trundled me to a room in the hospital, and after the nurses left I got up and started pacing. I felt trapped—no phone, no transportation, no word from Claire, and a headache that lingered. I’d refused the opioids they offered, preferring to keep my head clear, and the acetaminophen I did take barely touched the pain. Claire finally arrived two hours later, and when I saw the look on her face, my heart sank.
She hugged me gingerly, her eyes wet with tears. “We haven’t found him yet, Dad. I had to come to see how you are.” She examined my sutures and made a face. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” I snapped.
“Good. A deputy’s taking me back upriver so I can keep searching.” She handed me my cell phone. “I retrieved this out of the car. It’s dead. So’s mine. We’ll need new ones right away.”
“What about your computer?”
She made a face. “It’s gone, too, but I’m fully backed up on the cloud. There’s still plenty of light, Dad. I’ll find Archie.”
“We’ll find him,” I said. She started to object but thought better of it. She knew her dad.
She turned around while I slipped on my still-wet clothes. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
* * *
The deputy escorting Claire offered to help in the search, but he got a call, so he handed us a GPS tracking device, and said he’d find us downriver when he got free. “I’ll be back,” he promised as he dropped us off where Claire had stopped her previous search. “Good luck.”
The trail along the river alternated between wide and unobstructed to nonexistent. We worked our way downstream, calling out Archie’s name periodically. But we heard nothing in response except the slosh and clatter of the river, sounds which had lost every bit of their charm for me. It was close to nightfall, and we were miles from the crash scene when the deputy sheriff finally reappeared. We were both exhausted. I was still fighting nausea, my head pounded, and my legs felt like rubber.
After apologizing for not showing up earlier, the deputy said, “Don’t worry. Your dog probably got out somewhere and is lost. Aussies are good swimmers.”
Claire and I exchanged worried glances. I said, “One big problem is that his tag has my phone number on it, and my phone is dead.”
“Don’t worry, people around here love dogs. If someone finds him, they’ll probably call us if no one answers your phone.”
We reluctantly gave up the search for the night and got a couple of motel rooms in Reedsport after devouring a meal at the diner next door. The motel clerk was able to arrange for an Uber to pick us up the next morning at first light. Claire fussed about the dressing on my h
ead wound, which was stained with soaked-through blood. I told her we’d worry about that after we found Arch, but I failed to mention that my head still pounded like a bass drum. The sleep I managed that night was punctuated by a vivid dream. In the dream Claire crept into my room, and as I lay there, kissed me gently on the forehead. I saw her looking down at me surrounded by an aura of soft light I knew to be the spirit of her mother. When I awoke and opened my eyes, my cheeks were wet with tears.
I was pulling on my mud-stained jeans at five the next morning when it hit me. I rushed over to Claire’s room and pounded on the door. When she opened it, I said, “If Archie’s alive, I know exactly where he is!”
The Uber driver pulled over at the curve where the truck hit us. I told the driver to wait while I worked my way down the rocky bank to the water’s edge with Claire following. A shelf of intermittently exposed rock roiled the current in this section of the river. The opposite bank, maybe thirty yards away, was heavily wooded and lined with dense vegetation. I cupped a hand to my mouth. “Archie. Are you over there, Big Boy?” I called out. “Archie.”
Two sharp barks came in immediate response. Claire gasped and clutched my arm with both hands. “Hey, Archie, we’re here. Show yourself.” The bushes moved, and my dog appeared on the bank, barking, squealing, and wagging his entire backside.
He barked again, and then, before we could stop him, plunged into the river and started swimming.
“Oh, shit!” I yelled and started moving downstream, where the current was pushing him. But his head stayed up, his stroke was strong, and although he veered off at a forty-five-degree angle, he made steady progress, bobbing and weaving through the exposed rocks. I waded into the water and, when I finally grasped him by the collar, let out a sigh of relief.
Behind me, Claire said, “So, you can swim, after all.” This set us both into a fit of uncontrolled laughter.
The Uber driver wasn’t happy about taking a wet dog on board, but we promised him a generous tip. We were down the road when Claire said, “Okay, how did you know he’d be there, Dad?”
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