The River Burns (36 page)

He gave the petition a second quick study. “You've named the bridge.”

“Unofficially, yeah.”

“You have actually named the bridge?”

“I don't have that authority, Ryan. It's only a suggestion.”

The Alice Beauchamp McCracken Memorial Bridge.

“With a name like that, who in this town wouldn't sign?”

“Don't know.”

“Beauchamp?” he asked.

“That was her name.”

“People will line up to sign this,” he speculated.

“You think?”

She might actually put together an impressive petition, more so than Mrs. McCracken herself, alive, could manage.

He was no further ahead.

“Is this some sort of a grief thing? I'm just asking. I mean, are you okay?”

She smiled fully then, as though to acknowledge the tenderness in what he was trying to express. “I'm fine! It's true, I'm very sad. And you're right, I'm doing this in Alice's memory. But you should trust me—I know what I'm doing.”

So he was being baited and she wasn't going to help. He got that part. “Okay,” Ryan said. “All right.”

“I know. You're busy.”

“I am.”

“Yeah. I am, too. Okay. So. Bye for now.”

He looked at her again, then down at the petition. He was hoping that this might be a test, of his own acumen, or of his ability to keep up with her and, after a fashion, impress her. He guessed that she was probably betting against him. Still. That petition. How could it be helpful? The girl he was dating was agitating for a new old bridge, a cause that would keep the burned bridge going as the talk of the town instead of letting it die a natural death and help keep his brother front and centre as the town's freshly minted pariah. As far as he could tell, she was working on the wrong side of the issue.

“You realize,” he added, “that this is a completely futile idea, right? A new old bridge. If there's one thing I agree with the loggers on, it's that.”

“Really? Come on. Think. You know it's not futile.”

In keeping with her custom, she finagled the last word. Ryan tilted his chin and raised his eyebrows, and was about to smack his lips together when he made an oval of them instead and blew out a slight kiss. He actually managed to surprise her with that, which pleased him. With a grin, he wandered off back to work, still perplexed but sensing that more remained to be revealed.
On every front,
he thought,
on every damn front
.

■   ■   ■

Struggling to find their way
around an unfamiliar town, the pair of SQ detectives were unable to speak with Samad Mehra until that evening. When Samad turned into his driveway after work they were waiting for him. Before he parked, the plainclothes officers were already climbing out of their car on the street. His wife, Jocelyn, watering her exterior flower boxes at the time, scurried down the steps to intercede on behalf of her man. She didn't want those city detectives getting their hooks into him.

Water sloshed from her bright green can.

“Sir,” Maltais, the older and heavier of the two, announced as he ambled up the paved driveway. He adjusted his pants and shirt to fit his body inside them properly. “SQ. We'd like to have a word with you, if you don't mind.”

Samad was not yet out of his truck. The door was open, his feet on the asphalt, but he leaned back to fetch his lunch pail. “Talk to my lawyer,” he said.

“Our own police we have!” Jocelyn continued to scurry towards them, water splashing. “We don't need to talk to you!”

“Actually, ma'am,” Vega said, and gave her a wide grin, “you do.”

“You are trespassing here! Get off our property!”

The two cops looked at her, then down at their feet to study where the property line might logically be drawn. They shrugged, and took four steps back onto the public street.

“Fine,” Joce Mehra confirmed. She was a round woman, fairly short, with well-trimmed hair. She wore glasses, the frames dark and thick, that suited her face well. While her accent was distinctively Indian, specifically from Delhi, suggesting that she was raised there, her clothes were conspicuously Western, suitable for any suburban housewife. She wore designer jeans with a sleeveless white top. “You are standing on my street now. I am standing on my property. Now you cannot drag me off my own property!”

She stopped running, and stood between the men and her husband on the driveway, defiant.

“Who's dragging?” Maltais inquired dryly. “Detective Vega, have you been dragging this woman around?”

“No, sir,” the somewhat younger cop attested. “I never drag people, sir.”

“I'm telling you,” Samad wanted to make clear, “to talk to my lawyer.”

“Call him up,” Maltais challenged.

Samad wasn't sure what to make of that suggestion. “Why should I?”

“You have no warrant. I am betting this,” decreed Joce.

Maltais took his time to gaze at the barrel of fuel on Samad's truck, long enough to get Samad to turn and look at it also. “We'll get one,” Maltais said.

“I will scream when you start the dragging,” Joce forewarned. “Neighbours will hear. They will come by. They will take a video.”

“My advice,” Vega said. “Dig up that lawyer.”

“Drag a woman by her hair!” she exclaimed. “You should be ashamed.”

Vega couldn't contain a chuckle as the two cops headed on their way.

“The video we put on the YouTube!” Joce let them know.

She believed that that was the threat that drove them off, for the officers did leave the vicinity. Both Joce and her husband stared at the road long after the officers' car vanished.

“Samad!” Joce hissed under her breath.

“What?”

“Fill up the tank with the gasoline. Do this quickly.” When he did not jump to her bidding, she snapped, “What are you waiting for? An eclipse of the sun? Go now! Do you want me to do it for you? Why? Why do you want the mother of your children in jail? Why, Samad?”

“Joce, take it easy. The fuel drum's full. We thought of that already.”

“Who is this
we
?” she fired back at him. “Who is this
we
thinking for you, Samad? Who put you up to this? Was it Denny? Don't tell me! I don't want to know. You cannot think intelligently for yourself, Samad. Was it Denny?”

“You just told me you don't want to know.”

“Who wants to know such terrible things? Was it Denny, Samad?”

“I need to look up lawyers in the phone book,” Samad said.

Abruptly, and, to Samad, inexplicably furious, Joce chose to stomp back into the house, twice waving one hand above her head to let her pique be known. Water wept from the spout of her watering can, leaving a trail that Samad dutifully traced on his way to the door.

■   ■   ■

As dusk approached, Ryan strolled
down to the riverside and leaned against a tree trunk. The angle of his view under the foliage took in a wide bend in the river and Skootch's floating encampment. He observed the man cook on a castaway charcoal grill, then settle in to enjoy the meal with a companion. Light laughter skimmed along the river's course. Ryan moved across to a boulder that jutted above the surface a mere step off the embankment and sat, curled his legs up under himself, and somewhat frog-like whiled away the time brooding. Darkness fell. Lamplight flickered on aboard the raft. While he wanted to believe that he was doing some serious thinking here, as that was his intention, Ryan concluded that no clear thought drifted his way on the evening air.

Eventually, when it appeared that Skootch's friend was busy with the dishes, he walked on down to the raft, pulling out a small flask from his hip pocket. “Share a nip, Skootch?” he called up, as the man ascended to his rooftop aerie.

“Officer, you think me a ravaged whore.”

“Take another look. I'm not in uniform.”

“A cop in jeans is one sexy look, Ry, don't you think? What's in that thing anyway?”

“Single malt. Permission to come aboard?”

“How can I resist? Ask Samantha for cups. Bring them up with you.”

He didn't need to ask as she heard the request and supplied him with matching mugs—Ryan supposed that nothing else on this boat could possibly match. Her broad grin emphasized a sumptuous and somewhat beguiling earth-mother persona. He climbed the ladder while dangling the mugs in his right hand, and up top settled onto an upturned crate and liberally poured the whisky. Skootch leaned back on his sketchy patio divan. Cooler air had yet to drive him to clothes.

“Thanks for this treat, Ry. How's it going with you in the world?”

“Life is interesting enough, Skootch. You know that.”

“Rare times, Ry. What more can a man ask for? Rare times.”

“Cheers.”

“Cheers, copper.”

Ryan let the note of mockery pass. Possibly, Skootch considered it friendly. They both exhaled through their mouths, indicating appreciation for the whisky and its bite.

“So,” Skootch wondered, “are you here to evict me? Because I don't believe you can, not legally.”

“You know the law, as always. Legally I cannot, so I'm not here to evict you. If that day comes you'll have ample warning. Council sessions, public debate, and on the day of your removal, TV cameras, I imagine. You'll see to it, I'm sure. You'll make us both famous.”

“You get to play the villain. The big bad cop.”

“And you the wild kook.”

“The sad-eyed victim, Ry. I'm rehearsing my part.”

They both seemed cheered by the prospect, and laughed in harmony over their roles. The responsibility naturally fell to Ryan to change course.

“So, Skootch, a man has to wonder, and I have to ask, what's brought you into town?” In the candlelight he licked his lips and, like a boxer warming up to his opponent, feinted with his chin. “Upstream, you had it made. More peace and quiet than most men can tolerate. The tranquillity you relish. Proximity to nature. Solitude. Big bad cops, not to mention the vile public, leave you alone.”

“I've opted for the bright lights, Ry. A change, for sure. But change comes upon us. I spotted an opportunity and seized it.”

“How so?” Ryan asked.

Skootch scratched the tip of his nose first. Then scolded him. “That part's obvious, Ry. A smart guy like you. The bridge is gone.
Pfft!
It's no more. Suddenly, I got no impediment to gliding my raft downstream.”

“You realize,” Ryan counselled him, “you can't go around saying that.”

“Why not?”

“Think about it.”

His eyes shifted around. “I'm thinking. I still don't follow you.”

“Motive. You gave me one. To burn the bridge. To get it out of your way.”

Skootch now stood keenly focussed on Ryan. He remained still and silent longer than Ryan considered necessary to create an effect. “Dear friend,” Skootch summed up at last, “not a soul on earth will make that deduction. Or, may I say, that accusation. We know who burned the bridge, don't we? Don't we? I have no proof who—
individually
.
Specifically
. But it was loggers. We both know that and we probably know which loggers. I for one do not go around burning beautiful relics which ought to be preserved through eternity and everybody, and I mean
everybody
, knows that. I am the protector of such creations, as I protect the forest, and the river, the very air we breathe. I am not the destroyer. I don't pollute. The loggers, you know this as well as I do, as a body they're the destroyers. They're the polluters.”

“Nice speech. Really, Skootch, you should be a politician.”

“Maybe. Or maybe that's what I secretly am. I'm just not into elected office so much. Something about the accepted dress code.”

Ryan altered his tone to press his query, wanting this foray to be intimate rather than accusatory. “Ever think, Skootch, that maybe you failed? You set yourself up as the protector of the bridge, you even came to me to talk about Denny, and now the bridge is gone. Where were you when you were needed?”

“Excuse me, but if I'm not mistaken, Officer, you're the one charged with upholding the law and maintaining order. Keeping the peace, shit like that. Where were you on the night in question? Wasn't that your job, not to mention, forgive me for saying this, but aren't you your brother's keeper? You were forewarned.”

“I failed in my duty. No question. But did we both fail, do you think?”

Skootch weighed Ryan's admission and his query. He hoisted his cup and sipped with evident pleasure. “Right you are, Ry. We both fucked up. I wasn't around when that bridge met its fate even though I knew, ahead of time, that it was doomed. I regret my absence. But I won't beat myself up too badly. Nobody can be everywhere at once and who can imagine, let alone prepare, for each and every contingency in life? Neither me nor you. I absolve you of your sins, Officer O'Farrell”—Skootch broke into oratorical gusto and performed the sign of the cross in midair—“as I absolve myself of mine.
Mea culpa. Mea big time fucked up.
Thanks for the whisky, by the way. It's yummy.”

Ryan sipped as well, and uncapped his flask to top them both up.

“A quasi–Irish Catholic boy like me, even one raised by a Presbyterian Scottish mom,” he said, “appreciates absolution. So thanks. But the thing is, Skootch, I'm not sure if you're in a position to absolve me of my sins. But I know for a fact that I'm not in any position to absolve you of yours, given that it's my job to keep the peace and, as you say, uphold the law.”

“The frigging law. I'll never understand what possessed you to take the job, Ry. Were you stoned at the time? On a binge? Brokenhearted, maybe. You've kept your footing on shifting sand, I know.”