The Deader the Better

by G. M. Ford

He handed me the bag. “On the house,” he said. I started to argue, but he cut me off.

  “It’s like training a dog,” he said. “This is your treat for not busting up the place today.” I thanked him and pushed my way out the door, heading for another scintillating night of ESPN at the Black Bear Motel.

  16

  BY NOON I’D WORKED UP A SERIOUS SWEAT AT THE cabin. In the grand scheme of things, it probably didn’t matter whether the place was shipshape or not, but it made me feel better, as if restoring a little order to the universe would in some way help my mind to sort out the strange passing of J.D. Springer.

  As the fog rose from the rivers and morning bled into afternoon, it occurred to me that, in spite of my having met him only a couple of times, J.D. Springer had attained a symbolic status in my life. As if the manner of his success and the insistence of his vision had somehow validated many of the odd choices I’d made throughout my own life and thus in some small way lessened that collection of roads-nottaken regrets that seem to visit me more regularly with each passing year.

  I’d hauled everything but the bed out into the yard. Shook everything out and left it there, hoping the damp air might dilute the odor of fire. Then I swept up the glass and the splinters and used the old-fashioned mop to wash the walls and the floors. Used up half a million staples covering the broken windows with plastic sheeting, inside and out, and then dragged all the furniture back inside. Got a ladder from the shop, climbed up on the roof and covered the burnedout rafter ends with plastic. It wasn’t much of a job, but unless we had some big wind, I figured it would keep the water from getting up under the roof.

  Jensen the electrician had done a good job. He’d shortened the mast coming down through the roof and tucked the new service panel back up under the eaves and out of the line of fire. And for a scant four hundred seventy-nine dollars, everything worked.

  Same could be said for the eight guest cabins, too. Everything worked. Heat, lights, toilets, refrigerators. I went from cabin to cabin, testing things and pulling the red tags off of everything. Each and every failed inspection notice was signed by one Emmett Polster, City Building Inspector. Apparently a very fussy man, this Mr. Polster. I figured I’d spend the night here instead of the Black Bear. Maybe run into town, buy myself a clean shirt, do a little grocery shopping and cook myself up something good. By two, I had the radio blasting from the house, and was on my way up to the shop to look for some fishing gear. George Thorogood playing sloppy slide and growling about being the big dog. The rivers were clear. I’d been watching fish roll all day and thought maybe I’d wet a line and then…bang. Rebecca’s Explorer came barreling down into the yard. From sixty yards, I knew that look from grammar school. Her “I know all the answers on the test and you don’t” look. She waited for me to walk down. Made a face at how dusty and dirty I was. Didn’t want a hug.

  “What’s up?” I said. “I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

  “Somebody shot J.D. in the face,” she said. “With a shotgun.”

  I rescued my tongue from the gravel. “Tell me about it,” I said. And she did.

  Hadn’t even required an exhumation order, because they hadn’t gotten around to burying the poor soul yet. Seems the cemetery that J.D.’s parents had chosen was having a water table problem. An unusual amount of fall rain in the Skagit Valley had made it impractical to inter anyone at this time. Seems newly buried caskets kept floating to the surface andbobbing about in an unseemly manner. They’d had J.D. in a cold storage warehouse full of apples.

  “Tommy timed the autopsy at fourteen seconds,” she said.

  “That’s how long it took the X-ray machine to warm up.”

  She was referring to Tommy Matsukawa, another pathologist with the King County ME.

  She pulled a glass vial from her pants pocket. Held it for me to see. Shotgun pellets. About half a dozen. Some round, some flattened. “He had thirty-two of these in his head. Tommy said it looked like he was using his head to store nuts for the winter.” Tommy, like many people in the dead body business, had an unusual sense of humor.

  “You do realize how odd this is, don’t you?” I asked.

  “How so?”

  “How many times are you likely to arrive with the message that a friend has been murdered and have it be good news?”

  “It is, isn’t it?”

  “At least the insurance company will have to pay Claudia.”

  She nodded. “What now?” she asked.

  I was sweaty and covered with dust. I’d planned on jumping in the river after I was through fishing. “Let me get cleaned up a little. Then we’ll go to town and see Sheriff Hand.”

  “I brought you some clothes,” she said.

  Nathan Hand paced the area behind his desk like a tiger in a cage. “I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “I’m embarrassed about this. For me, for my department, for all of us. Worst kind of sloppy police work. Makes us look like a bunch of hicks who can’t look after their own business.” He plunged his hands into his pockets. “And I don’t mean it as an excuse or anything, but you spend enough years handling nothing but drunks and domestic violence and you forget. You get to

  thinking that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s bound to be a duck.”

  Rebecca cut him some slack. “With the condition of the remains and the facilities available to you, you reached the obvious conclusion.”

  “I appreciate the help, Doctor, but none of that’s an excuse for sloppy.”

  He rested one cheek on the corner of his desk. “Hell, I had to have you two tell me that the car was on fire before it went down the hill.” He slowly shook his head.

  “What are you going to do now?” I asked.

  “I’ll do what I should have done to begin with. I’ll see if I can’t put together what his last day looked like and go from there.”

  “You like your chances?” Rebecca asked.

  His face loosened. “You know the answer to that as well as I do, Doctor. Case this cold, with this many suspects, the chance of successful apprehension and prosecution is miserable,” he said. “But I’ll tell you one thing: As God is my witness, that case will be open and will be actively investigated for as long as I’m in office.”

  “J.D. told me he’d received threatening phone calls. He said he recorded the number from his caller ID and gave it to you.”

  He made a disgusted face. “Pay phone at the Steelhead. Could have been any of them nimrods you met the other day.”

  “Sheriff,” Rebecca said. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m creeping around behind your back, so I think you should know that when I get home this evening, I’m going to call a friend of mine in the state police. I’m going to see if I can’t get them to commit a couple of people to an investigation. Nothing personal…but I believe they’re far better equipped to handle something of this nature.”

  “I don’t blame ya a bit,” he said. “The way we’ve handled it so far don’t exactly inspire confidence. You can be sure I’ll cooperate in any way I can.”

  We got to our feet. I handed him another business card.

  “I hope you’ll keep us posted on the status of the investigation.” Hand said he’d consider it his duty. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d keep a close eye on the property. I’m going to stop down at Beaver Building Supplies and buy a lock and chain for the gate,” I said. “Then I’m gonna run out and put it on. I’ll drop a key off on our way out to the place.”

  “I’ll have the boys make it a regular patrol stop on every shift,” he said.

  “You know what Claudia told me about the price of the property?”

  We were at the east edge of town, on our way to lock the place up. I’d spent thirty-two bucks on a serious lock and chain and had left one of the keys in the care of Deputy Spots. Rebecca was filling me in on her time with Claudia.

  “What?”

  “She said the old man asked J.D. what he could afford to pay for it in cash and when J.D. t
old him how he wouldn’t be able to come up with anything like its value, the old man said he didn’t care; he wanted cash, and he wanted it right then.”

  “Maybe he’s one of those old codgers who doesn’t trust banks,” I offered.

  I put on my signal, waited for an oncoming Budweiser truck to pass and turned right over the bridge. The tires snapped and popped on the rough wooden surface. I turned right, back toward the homestead. The first mile of West River Road was scenic. After that, the river looped out to the south and you were in that open high ground where J.D. had gone over the edge.

  On the left, a deep, nearly vertical notch cut into the side of the mountain; on the right, the rocky canyon of the Bo gachiel River. The road was about a lane and a half wide. Every so often, turnouts had been cut into the steep bank.

  “So…let me tell you about your paramour Mr. Tressman and the Case of the Recalcitrant Clerk,” I said. Ahead, the Bogachiel gleamed like a black ribbon.

  “Do tell,” she said.

  “So anyway, he keeps me cooling my butt for twenty minutes and then…” A log truck was parked in the road, facing our direction. “Oops,” she said. I slowed down and, when he made no move of any kind, stopped. The rig was filthy. The only places on the cab not covered by an inch of dried mud were the twin crescents the wipers had cleared. I wasn’t sure of the local protocol, but I knew I’d passed a turnout not too far back, and figured it was going to be a lot easier for me to back up than it would be for him. I rolled down the window, threw my arm out, and followed it with my head. My turn to say, “Oops.” Another log truck, this one behind us. I could see gray diesel smoke rising from the pipes and hear the rapping of his engine. “Oh goody,” sighed Rebecca. “Rush hour.”

  They must have been talking on the CB radio or whatever truckers talk on these days, because they started for us at precisely the same time. The truck to our rear nearly pulled a wheelie when the driver popped the clutch at full throttle. Rebecca was still looking forward; she screamed, “Leo!” I snapped my head around. The mudmobile was bouncing over the dips at us like a rhinoceros. As it charged our way, clumps of mud shook loose from the fenders and splattered in the road. The last image I had of Rebecca was of her throwing her arms up in front of her face and turning to look at me. Then we were hit from behind by what seemed like a freight train. The force blasted me forward. My lap belt kept most of me in the cockpit, but I’m several inches taller than the average American, so the force tried to pitch me up and out. My forehead collided with the top of the windshield and my world went red. Blind, I groped to the right, reaching toward Rebecca, when suddenly we were hit from the front, pile-driving the air from my lungs, snapping my head back into the headrest; I remember the feeling of being pelted by stones, and then I was floating forward again into the white, and the crumbling dashboard and something pushing sharp on my leg, and then the roar and the scraping and the dim sensation of moving forward, and the unmistakable teetertotter moment of equilibrium as the backseat started to rise and the car went into free fall straight down, landed on its nose, rested for a moment and then flopped over onto its top.

  The roaring stayed in my head long after the real sounds departed. I never heard the forest grow silent around us: that moment when the wheels stop turning and the fluids cease to flow, as the last piece of debris settles into place and the first bird sings.

  Next thing I knew, my hands were at my face. I pawed at the red mud until suddenly I could see the deflated air bag in my lap. I could make out that the roof had buckled in the center. Couldn’t see Rebecca. I tried to call her name, but nothing came out, so I swallowed several times, tried unsuccessfully to work up some spit and then tried again. “Hey,”

  I croaked. No response.

  And then, out of the blue, I started to sob. First one little hiccup, then a rhythmic succession of spasms shook my chest and lasted for several minutes. Turned out to be a good thing because, by the time I regained control of myself, I knew for sure that if either of us was getting out of here alive, I was going to have to get my shit together in a hurry. I wiped my nose on my shoulder. Concentrated on my breathing as I looked around. Even in my muddled state, there was little question that I was hanging upside down in my seatbelt, and that not much was going to happen until I wasn’t, so I groped around until I found the release, braced a hand on the headliner and pushed the button. I dropped about a foot. Though the windshield was buckled in the center, there looked to be enough room for me to crawl out.

  Problem was the steering wheel was pushed up under my chin, so there was no way I could move in that direction. I looked to the left. The window was bent into a trapezoid, but mercifully it was open. When I pulled my feet around so I could go out head first, I realized that my right shin hurt like hell and the foot was warm and wet. I ignored it, reached out and grabbed the window frame with both hands and began worming myself out, until my hands were in the leaves and I could pull my feet down to join them. When I tried to stand, my stomach hurled its contents up my throat. I dropped back to all fours, began to retch and stayed at it until my mouth was filled with the taste of bile and my lower lip was connected to the ground by a silver string of spittle.

  And as I knelt there staring at a pile of my own puke, I had one of those thoughts that separates man from the beasts. I thought, You should have killed me, motherfucker. You should have come down here with a gun and popped a cap on both of us, because, as of this moment, I am coming for you. Maybe not today, but you should make it a point to rest a bit more lightly, because I’m coming. The car had fallen nearly thirty feet straight down into the canyon and was now about two-thirds the size it had been earlier. In the darkness, I could make out pieces of chrome and plastic scattered here and there. Most of the shattered windshield lay twisted on the ground behind the car. I pulled my left leg up so the foot was on the ground and then got to my feet. From the knee down, the right leg of my jeans was thick with blood. Gritting my teeth, I eased the pants up and had a look. From ankle to knee, a strip of flesh four inches wide had been peeled from my leg. Despite the seeping blood, the shin bone was visible. I eased the pants back down. I could feel blood squishing between my toes as I struggled for balance. Gingerly, I made my way around the back of the car.

  Rebecca’s door had sprung open on impact and I could see her arm hanging out the door. The pain from my leg had my ears roaring again as I limped to her side. Her head was thrown back. She had a bruise the size and color of an eggplant across her forehead and blood coming from the corner of her mouth. I put my finger on her throat. Her pulse was strong and regular.

  I pushed the button and slid the seat back as far as it would go. When I popped her seatbelt, she fell out into my lap. That’s when I saw her other arm, and the bone sticking out, and the blood all over the place. Compound fracture. Shock. Stop the bleeding. Keep her warm. I laid her carefully on the hillside and went to the back of the car where I’d thrown my dirty clothes. The blue work shirt was draped over my old gym bag and covered with glass. I reached in through the twisted frame and pulled it out and then made my way back to her side.

  The break was six inches below her elbow, and there was no way I was going to try to poke the bone back inside or set it or anything like that. I tore the shirt into strips and did the best I could with a bandage. She groaned and thrashed when I tied the last strip tight around the others and then groaned again when I picked her up in my arms. I began to traverse the hill, walking like Boris Karloff in The Mummy. The cliff down into the river canyon got smaller as you got closer to the bridge, so I kept moving in that direction, laying Rebecca down when my arms could no longer bear her weight. The third time I picked her up and started on, something in my head broke loose and I began to bleed heavily from the nose. Time and distance got real fuzzy. If you’d asked me then, I would have spoken in terms of hours and miles. Later it turned out I’d carried her a little over six hundred feet and that from the time I left the key with Deputy Spots to the time help arrived h
ad been a mere fifty-five minutes.

  I left her in a dark recess between two boulders. The roadbed was no more than three feet above her head. She had abig snotty red stain on her chest from where my nose had been dripping on her and she’d begun to bleed through the makeshift bandage on her arm. Her lips moved slightly, as if she were trying to whisper, but no sound came out.

  “Rebecca,” I said. Her lips stopped. “I’ll be back. I’ve gotta go now, but I’ll be back.” I think maybe I told her a bunch of times, but I can’t be sure.

  I climbed up to the road and took off my bloody shirt. I tied it around the nearest bush and started for the bridge in a stiff, labored gait. From that point on, there’s a lot of it that I don’t remember. I don’t, for instance, remember crossing the bridge, but I must have because I got as far as the highway, where, for the first time since coming to Stevens Falls, I got lucky. Forty yards from where I staggered barechested out onto Route 1, two cars were pulled over on the shoulder of the eastbound lane. The car in front showed only parking lights, which was okay because the one behind had a rack of red and blue lights blazing into the night. The cop was handing the guy something through the window. I must have been a sight. At first he didn’t know who I was.

  “What in hell…,” he said as I came staggering toward him. It was Deputy Bobby Russell. He tossed the guy in the car his license and registration and began to jog my way.

  “Sir…,” he started to say. Then he figured it out.

  “Jesus…is that you, Mr. Waterman?”

  “Get an ambulance on the way,” I said.

  “Come on. Get in the car. I’ll take you to the hospital myself.”

  “For my friend,” I said with as much volume as I could muster. “Maybe a mile up West River.”

  He turned and sprinted for the radio in the patrol car.

  17

  REBECCA GRIMACED AT ME, GOT UP WITH THAT AIR OF dramatic slowness and crossed to turn the stereo off. The room was still. She stood with her back to me and took a final sip from her coffee cup, and as she turned slowly, she attempted to set the cup on the glass shelf beside the stereo, but she missed the shelf. In the first hasty action I had seen her make in weeks, she reached for the falling cup, which shattered on the oak planks, sending a starburst of coffee out in all directions. She took a deep breath and backed through the swinging door into the kitchen and then returned with a paper sack and roll of paper towels and dropped the scattered pieces of the cup into the bag and then began to wipe the floor clean of coffee, rubbing hard, going over and over the same area, continuing to scrub until long after the need was over. When she got to her feet and turned back my way, I knew we were through sparring.