Black Water (28 page)

"I saw the CNB story this afternoon. Tim watched it, too."

"Great, Dad." She shot a glance at her father, but Clark dodged by looking into his skillet. He let Tim see and do things that she would not, and that was simply the way it was. She'd spent a year scolding her father for his permissiveness, then given up. So far as the TV was concerned, anything went.

"Awchie is not okay?"

"No, Archie is not okay. He's missing."

"He is missing?"

"Yes. For now he's missing."

"Is not missing?"

"You're exhausting, Tim," said Merci. "Cute, but exhausting."

"Gary Brice called here twice," said Clark.

"That asshole." Too late.

"Not an asshole?"

"I quit."

After dinner she bathed her son. She put short pajamas on him for the heat but he insisted on wearing his cowboy boots. He sat on her lap in the bedroom rocker while she read to him. The first three stories kept him intensely focused, but then his boot heels started sliding down her leg and his body grew heavier as he tired.

The last story was
Da Grouchy Moocher Boogie Man
, which Merci found too dark and coincidental for her taste. But Tim liked it, studying the colorful illustrations as the old man dies and the young girl holds his craggy head.

Tim yawned and clumped across the floor to bed. Merci pulled off his boots and put them on the floor where he could see them. She pulled a sheet and one light blanket over him and turned off the light. She went back to the rocker then, for the last few words she'd have with Tim that day. This was a favorite time for her, talking to her son with the room darkened but the light from the hallway coming in. She wished it could last for hours.

"Grouchy Moocher Boogie Man is dead?"

"Yes, he dies in the story."

"He is all gone?"

"All gone. But he's just a character in a story."

"He is not real?"

"Exactly."

"Daddy is all gone?"

Her heart sank again because she'd heard this line of questioning before. There seemed to be no satisfying it for Tim, and she had come to realize that this is how the dead remain active on Earth.

"Yes, Daddy is all gone."

"Is dead also?"

"Yes."

"Is not a character in a story?"

"Correct. He was real. Your daddy was real."

"Name is Tim?"

Was Tim or is Tim? She sighed quietly and felt a warm wetness in her eyes.

"Yes. His name is Tim."

"And he is all gone?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

A few minutes later she said good night, I love you, and pulled the sheet up to his neck. Tim was silent but not asleep.

A few minutes after nine the phone rang. It was Captain Greg Matson of Willits PD, returning her call.

"Awfully sorry it's so late," he said. "It took me a while to get the file, then we had a shooting in a bar downtown. We get a shooting about every other year, but today was the day."

"Get the guy?"

"He was still in the bar when we got there. Jealous boyfriend. The woman's okay though, took a twenty-two slug through her arm.

"It had always puzzled Rayborn that jealous boyfriends often shot their women first and their rivals second, or not at all. "Shooter had a record?"

"Couple of D and Ds. Decent guy, really. Wife died on Lake Mendocino a few years ago. Boating accident. He never got it together after that."

"Those are tough."

"Yeah, but Julia Santos was even tougher."

"Tell me."

Captain Matson said he'd been with the Willits PD Homicide Unit back then, which led him into missing persons when foul play was suspected. Foul play was definitely suspected in the disappearance of Julia Santos, age ten. She'd left for school one morning at seven-fifty and was never seen or heard from again. Neighbors had seen an unfamiliar pickup truck but nobody got plates or even agreed on make and model.

"The parents were clean," said Matson. "Single mom, Anna. Good lady. The father lived over in Fort Bragg but it wasn't him. He went to work that morning at seven-thirty, punched in, twenty people on the dock said he was there until ten o'clock, which was when I got there to question him.

"We interviewed every neighbor in Julia's apartment complex. We interviewed every property owner between that apartment and the school. We polygraphed a few. We got some bloodhounds out of San Rosa and they followed a scent trail from Julia's front door to a place on Highway 101, about where it goes over the river. I always figure he got her there on the bridge, where she had less room to run."

Merci thought for a moment. "What did you get with the polygraph? Anybody look good at all?"

"No. I figured him for an out-of-towner, probably took her far away. By the time two days went by and we didn't have a girl or body, I had this damned awful feeling we'd never close it."

"What about Archie Wildcraft?"

"First of all, how is he?"

"Wounded in the head, presently missing, possibly suicidal."

"We got that video of him up here on ABC."

"Grim."

"I guess . . . well, I guess you would have arrested him before then if you had the goods."

Merci heard the kindly accusation, but she didn't let it rattle her. "That's exactly right. I don't think he did it. But when his folks told me about Julia, it seemed worth asking you about him."

Matson was quiet for a moment. Merci heard ice clinking in a glass. "He was eleven at the time. Big strong kid, quite an athlete. You know, it's funny. If that crime happened today I'd look at the boy real hard. I'd bring a lot of pressure. But back then, well, it was only eighteen, twenty years ago, but it was a different world. I never seriously suspected him, to be honest. I interviewed him and he struck me as a young boy who had a big crush on a cute girl. He was stunned. He was very, very serious about her and about what happened. And he never gave up hope, either. I kept in touch with George and Natalie for a few months after that, they told me about him going to the library to read news about her. He wrote her letters for half a year or so after she disappeared. Anna Santos let me read some of them—just break your heart. Like Julia had gone away on purpose and the kid was trying to talk her into coming home. But you know, the letters stopped and Archie got older and history became history."

"Did you ever tail him?"

Matson hesitated before he answered. "Actually, I did. He liked to take a shortcut to school through the woods, and I did follow him a couple of times."

"Was the shortcut before or after you get to the bridge on the highway?"

"Before."

"And?"

"Just a kid walking through the woods. That's all I saw. You know something—I never put that in my reports because I was ashamed I did it. But I was desperate."

"Like you said, though, Captain, it was a different world."

"I like the old one."

"Me too," she said. She thought for a moment, now understanding that she was feeling like Matson had felt eighteen years ago—about the same man. "What do I need to know about Wildcraft? Captain can you tell me anything at all?"

Matson was quiet again. More ice. "I remember one thing very clearly about him. I'll never forget the look on his face after I'd finished talking to him the first time. He looked at me very calmly and told me if he couldn't be a professional baseball player when he grew up, he was going to be a detective. A missing-persons detective is how he put it. I believed him. That's how much conviction he had. My own son was thirteen at the time, and he didn't have that kind of conviction about anything. He still doesn't. I remember it was a little unsettling, the way that boy kept things inside. Meaning Archie. Very strong-willed boy. Intense. Sergeant, I'm sorry I can't help you more."

"I'm glad you can't."

"If Archie does something crazy like coming back here, I'll take good care of him and call you ASAP. Take care of George and Natalia They're good folks. Tell them I'm keeping an eye on the house. Every thing's fine. The dogs and everything."

"I will."

She was just about to go sit with Tim and watch him sleep when her phone rang again.

"This is Archie Wildcraft."

"Where are you?" She started down the hall for the living room.

"No, I'm not telling. I can't let you arrest me for Gwen. I'm positive I didn't kill her. And I've got some things to take care of, you know, things I can't do from jail or the hospital. I just wanted you to know I'm okay, taking my meds and all that."

"On TV you said you'd kill yourself, Archie."

"No, that was some kind of problem with the videotape. I said I'll kill
them
myself."

"Whoever shot Gwen."

"Yeah, Gwen."

"Is that what you're doing, Archie? Are you trying to track down the shooter yourself?"

There was a pause then and Merci listened to the traffic on Wildcraft's end of the line.

"Wouldn't you?" he asked.

"That's ridiculous."

"You didn't answer my question."

She thought about it but didn't take long. She knew what she would do.

"I might try."

"Especially if your own department was thinking you did it."

"I'm the lead investigator on Gwen's case, and I don't think you did it."

"Tell that to Al Madden. He called me at home. He questioned my mom and dad. It's him and Dawes. I may have a bullet in my head but I know when someone's out to cook me."

"Archie, we're not going to charge you. So meet me at UCI Medical. Or I'll drive you over. We'll get you checked in and let the doctors fix you up. You were bleeding on the CNB segment."

"It was minor."

"How do you know?"

"I'm actually kind of worried about it. I've been, well, when the pressure goes up I see colors that aren't logical. You know, like a red face or a blue hill. But I'm remembering things, and the feelings of things, so maybe the swelling's gone down. The doctor, Stebbins, he told me in the hospital that this could happen."

"Archie, damnit, will you tell me where you are and let me pick you up? Nobody's going to charge you with Gwen. Dawes just smells an easy winner because you can't remember that night. Madden's just doing his job. But I know you didn't do it and I know I can catch the people who did. You can trust me on that, Archie. I'm good at what I do. And listen to this, Archie—
there's a way to help you remember exactly what happened that night."

Silence, and she knew she had him.

"Hypnosis
, " she said.

"Who told you that?"

"Stebbins. It's risky, because it puts you through the trauma again. But it lets you remember everything, just how it went down."

"Really?"

"Really, Archie."

"I'd see her again. Gwen, in memory."

"Yeah."

"I think there's a chance I got a look at the shooter."

"Jesus, Arch—good of you to mention it."

"But I'm not sure. I'm starting to see this face behind the light, wonder if it's something I saw or something I'm making up."

"That's what the hypnosis can sort out."

"And when I see that face I keep thinking the word
reversible."

"Reversible what?" she asked him. Damage?

"Just reversible."

"That's not hugely evidentiary. Help me out, Arch. Help me help you get back to Gwen. Those doctors can make you better, get all those memories and feelings back for you."

Another silence, this one longer. "I'll think about it. But I still won't tell you where I am."

"Think, Archie—you want your job back when you're feeling better, how's it going to look if we had to bring you in like a creep?"

"Sergeant Rayborn, I loved my job, but I don't care if I ever get it back. I have to get the man, the shooter aiming that light down on me, the guy hiding in the trees. And I have to go get Gwen."

"Go get Gwen. What do you mean?"

"I told you I hear her voice. And I guarantee you it's not in my head. It's right here, in the room or wherever I am, and it comes from above me. Not high above me, not like high up in the air, but right there, like she's hovering, say.. . eight feet up. Eight to twelve fee above my head, and over my left shoulder. Every time she talks she's a little bit farther away. The first time she spoke I felt her breath on my neck. But the last time, which was about an hour ago, it sounded like she was, well, approximately twelve feet up, behind me and to my left."

"Archie, they shot you in the head. You need medical attention."

"I don't have time for it right now. When this is over, I'll let them poke and prod all they want. It doesn't hurt at all, you know. Just a lot of itching around the hole. That means it's healing."

"Come on, Arch. Tell me where you are. You're going to get yourself into worse trouble if you're not careful."

"I'm going to get my man, Sergeant. Deputy Two Wildcraft always gets his man."

Archie laughed quietly. She heard a Harley whapping past from Archie's end, then another. She thought of Cook's Corner, the biker hangout in the hills, but so many guys owned Harley-Davidson motorcycles now that Archie could just as well be calling from Irvine or Laguna Beach.

"You tried to be there for Julia, too, didn't you?"

"Julia? How do you know about Julia?"

"Your parents. Then Matson, from up in Willits."

"Oh, Julia," he whispered.

She heard the three light syllables of Julia's name, and the tonnage of loss behind it.

"Julia was what made me want to be a cop. That and my forkball going south."

"I had a nice talk with your mother and father. Lee and Earla Kuerner, too."

"They're all good people," he said quietly. "I'm lucky."