Black Water (21 page)

"Ritter-Dunne-Davis."

Archie smiled and his eyes sparkled. "Yeah. You should have seen that stuff, eating those tumors. It would kill the cancer, right while you watched. On a camera, I mean, a video."

"You and Gwen put almost everything you had into that company. Didn't you?"

"I think so. I don't remember particulars. Or maybe I never knew them, because Gwen did all the finances."

"I'd like to see those financial things," said Zamorra. "Take some with me to look over closely."

"You're welcome to them. I'm sorry I couldn't help more. I feel sleepy and thick. Kind of dumb. Maybe the swelling started up again."

"Let's get you back to the medical center, then," said Merci.

"I'm thinking about that. But I want some more time here. I look at her pictures and I see her things. And I smell her. And it feels like a light is about to go on. Like I'm about to bring something up out of black water."

"We can't post those deputies outside forever, Archie," said Zamorra.

"I know."

"You'd be helping us if you went back to UCI," he said. "Yourself too."

"I need to do a few things here. Make a few calls. Look at some pictures. Try to ... try to just remember."

Zamorra left the room with a hard look at Archie.

Wildcraft was still sitting on the bed. He touched the sheet as i for the first time, rubbing the fabric between his thumb and fingers. When he looked at Merci, his hand stopped moving.

"You going to charge me with it?"

"If you did it, I will."

"Then you don't believe me."

"We're still investigating."

"I can see why you suspect me. With all the evidence you told me about." He smiled. The light caught his eyes and filled them with something innocent and childlike and sad. "I feel guilty."

Rayborn's antenna snapped upright at one of her favorite words "Why, Archie? Tell me what you did to feel guilty."

At first he looked angry, then offended, then just defeated. "I let it happen. I didn't protect her."

"They call that survivor's guilt."

"Do they?"

She studied his guileless eyes, trying to see behind them, into his; mind. Nothing like this had ever happened to Rayborn, and it unnerved her. She'd never chatted with a suspect about whether or not she was going to arrest him, except to disarm. Or talked about the evidence except either to intimidate or mislead. Or stood in a suspect's bedroom and smelled his tangled sheets and wondered if this was the last place he'd had sex with his wife, or if it was in their car, pulled off of Coast Highway,
stars in her hair.
All of that was bad enough. But what made it worse was this was the only time she'd ever looked at a suspect and thought he was beautiful. Something to do with those dimples and the nice baseball muscles? Maybe. Something to do with him defending her in a bar fight? Okay. And something to do with the bullet in his head, too and all of the sad mystery it signified? Yes. But mostly the fact—the apparent fact—that this guy had loved his wife with passion. That was what made Wildcraft seem so genuinely, naturally, uncomplicatedly beautiful.

Christ
, she thought:
get a grip.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing. Why?"

"Your expression. I don't know."

"No, you don't." Then, anything to break the hold of this moment. "Why isn't your gardener here today?"

"He must not work here on Mondays."

"Describe him."

"Dark skin and dark hair. I think he's Mexican but I'm not sure."

"How tall?"

"Short and heavy. Maybe five-eight, two hundred. Why?"

"I was wondering who left size-sixteen shoe prints under your tree out there."

"I don't know."

Wildcraft turned to look at the pillows. He leaned over, picked something off one of them, then held it out to her. She could see the hair: four inches, dark, a gentle bend in it.

"That's Gwen's," said Wildcraft.

"Who else's would it be?"

"Well, either hers or mine. But mine was short before they shaved

it."

Wildcraft turned to the pillow again and placed the hair back where it had been.

"Were you happy with her, Archie?"

He studied her for just a moment. "Yes, I think so. If she's this large to me being gone, I think she must have been even larger being here."

"How big is she, gone?"

"Huge, Detective. Gigantic."

She believed him. But she still pressed him. Maybe he was just fooling himself.

"But you didn't want more, Archie? Run up some numbers, like some of you guys like to do?"

"I don't remember ever doing that."

"Gwen inclined that way?"

"You mean make it with other guys?"

"That's what I mean."

He shook his head. "Oh, I don't think so. No. Do you want to hear something very weird?"

"Sure."

"She talks to me. I hear her voice in my head, so clear I turn around and look to see where she's standing. Once I felt her breath on my neck."

Rayborn knew other people who heard from their departed. Personally, she'd only heard Hess's voice one time after he was gone and that was in a dream. He'd said:
It's okay.
At first she'd felt bad about her deafness, attributed it to some failure of emotion or imagination. But as the months passed she learned to forgive herself for what she didn't hear. Why should she be blamed for the silence of the dead? It was one of the things she'd talked about with Zamorra. He had never heard from Janine, either, except once, like her, in a dream.

"You're lucky," she said.

"But it's kind of torture," said Archie. "It. . . gets your hopes up.'

"I can see how it would."

"I wonder if there's a way to see her, too. If you can actually hear why can't you actually see? I don't think it's impossible."

Merci said nothing. What
could
you say to that? But for one extremely brief moment—the time it took to let out one breath and take another one in—Merci pretended that she could see Hess again if she wanted to. She felt spooked and giddy. But would she see him, if she could? Oh, yes. So much to talk about.

"Well, I'll let you know if I find a way to do that," Archie said reasonably.

"Do that, Archie."

Zamorra came into the room carrying a cardboard box in two hands. "I've got plenty to get us started. I found what looks like video from OrganiVen. Maybe we'll get to see the rattlesnake cancer cure in action."

Merci heard the sharpness in Zamorra's words. She knew that as Janine had faded, she and Paul had gone to a clinic in Tijuana. They had come back two days later, Zamorra quietly boiling with contempt for what they'd found down there. He'd made an unfunny joke about demolishing the place and killing the quacks with head-and-kidney punches.

"You'll like that," said Archie, unaware.

"I bet I will." Zamorra headed down the hall with his booty.

"Do you want me to give you a ride to the hospital?" Merci asked.

"No, thank you. I've got a few hours of things to do. I'm feeling better right now. My parents are taking me to lunch."

She looked at him and nodded.

"You're a good detective, Sergeant Rayborn," he said. "I think you're intelligent and thorough. You seem to like your job. You're attractive. You don't smile very often, but you're not in a smiley kind of business. The first couple of times I saw you, I thought you were Gwen. You have very similar eyes. Intelligent eyes. The difference is Gwen's eyes had something generous and inclusive, and yours don't. Yours have something judgmental and private. Something unwelcome to other people, or maybe just to me."

She thought about these statements but it was like being hit by different things in different places.

"I don't really care what you think of me or the way I look, or who I remind you of."

"No, you weren't supposed to. I was trying to be factual."

"See you later, Archie."

"Okay, sure. Something weird just happened, Sergeant."

She waited, feeling her anger rise.

"I just remembered what it was about that car. You know, the car the men drove to the meeting with Gwen?"

Again she said nothing.

Archie was nodding, frowning a little and looking past her. "It was a Lincoln Town Car, black. But it had livery plates. That's what made it different. It was registered as a limousine. When I looked at the plates I saw it."

"So they took a car to the meet," said Merci.

"But one of them drove it. That was another thing that seemed odd. The big guy drove it but he was part of the meeting, so he wasn't chauffeur, right? And the blond rode up front, not like a customer but like a friend or something."

To Rayborn, it seemed odd, too. And Wildcraft hadn't mentioned the blond before. "Describe the blond man."

"Average build, mid-forties. Hair a little longer than usual. More like a seventies look."

"When you first saw him, did you happen to think, businessman?

"That's exactly what I thought."

Just like Dobbs, thought Merci. "You wrote down the plate numbers, didn't you?"

"I believe so."

"What did you do with them after you wrote them down, Archie?

He was already shaking his head.

"You can't remember."

"I can't remember."

"Do you have a regular notebook?"

"Yeah, I
think
it was regular. Here, I'll give it to you. Just a second."

Archie came off the bed and went into his closet. Merci could hear coins hitting coins, the rattle of change in a container, then pages being flipped.

He came out a second later with an inexpensive three-by-five notepad with a spiral binding at the top and a green cover. "Good luck," he said. "I couldn't find anything that looked like plate numbers."

"No. And you can't tell me anything more about that meeting?"

Archie shook his head, frowning, biting his lip. "I wish I could. Just that it had to do with our OrganiVen stock, I mean, I associate the car and the stock but I don't know why. And Gwen wanted me there. I remember that very clearly. I'm really sorry."

"Me, too."

"Oh, wow! I just thought of something else. The light came down at me."

"What do you mean, Archie?"

"The light. That night. I'm six-three. Most people would have to shine it up at me. That guy, he aimed down. I just remembered."

Halfway back to headquarters, her cell phone rang. It was Sheriff Vince Abelera, speaking in his usual soft tones.

"I want to meet with you and Paul at five o'clock."

"Yes, sir. Can you give us a sneak preview?"

"Whether or not to arrest Wildcraft. Brenkus and Dawes will be there. They want to file, they say that it's a good case. Better than good. Everyone's got strong opinions about this crime. For obvious reasons, I need yours."

Her heart sank. "I look forward to it, sir."

"You and Zamorra have my complete trust and confidence on this."

She wondered about that last statement, wondered why Abelera would bother to make it if it was true. She clicked off and sighed, told her partner.

"I was wondering when they'd lower the boom," Zamorra said.

"Me, too."

She looked at him and tried to read the thoughts behind his trim face. "Paul, you've let me lead the charge on this one. Or the
non-
charge. But am I missing something here? Am I blind? Am I the only person not ready to charge that guy with murder?"

Zamorra was quiet for a long moment. Merci watched a man talking on a phone swoosh into the car-pool lane in front of them at about ninety, wished she could pull him over and cuff him.

"I think Wildcraft is running something on us."

"This is news to me, Paul."

"This morning clinched it. He doesn't remember anything more on the walk-through. But he remembers livery plates at a meeting that may or may not have taken place. He suddenly remembers the light came down on him, not up. He gives you that speech about what a good detective you are, and so beautiful too, you remind him of his wife who's been dead six days. I thought you might swat him silly for that one."

"I almost did. Nice eavesdropping, by the way."

"I started down the hall with the box and thought I'd listen in. Just the way he was sitting on that bed. It set off an alarm. Sorry."

"Hey—you're my partner, listen in any time you want."

"I didn't like what I heard. I don't like him and the little sister at Archie's place while Gwen was gone. What was going on then—I don' buy the mad-at-my-soon-to-be-ex outburst. I don't like the little sister showing up with Archie's clothes and helping him check out of the hospital. I'm going to poke around a little, have a closer look at her.

"With an eye for her getting the cute hubby once big sister is out of the way."

"That comes to mind."

"I could see it. All right. Okay. I'm with you."

"I think we should keep looking at him. Hard. And surveillance him while we do. Not a twenty-four/seven—but selective—see where he goes and who he talks to. I don't think he's going far with a bullet in his head. But he might go somewhere interesting."

"They're going to want an arrest, Paul."

"Then let's just tell them the truth. We're not ready and we're not moving until we are."

"Good. That's fine. It's clean and decisive and that's what we'll do. Thanks, Paul."

"I don't trust him and I'm beginning to think he did it. He botched the suicide and he's improvising now, trying to keep off of death row.