Wake the Dawn (16 page)

He sure knew his boat. He kept going against the current, close to shore, for what Ben would have thought was way too far a distance upstream. Then he headed out toward the middle. The motor howled, trying unsuccessfully to make way upstream. The best it could do was slow their downstream slide. As the inflatable strained to go forward and instead drifted back, Ben and Abe dipped their oars, twisting them, plunging them, sculling, keeping the front end headed upstream, edging the boat closer to the other shore. Ben was sweating profusely and his shoulders ached. If they missed the van they’d have to do this all over again, and he—

“Got it!” Abe yelled triumphantly. He was leaning over the side, gripping the van’s roof. “The driver’s-side window’s wide open. Slipperier’n snot! Gimme your anchor, Billy!”

He hooked the anchor into the steering wheel, and the inflatable and van were firmly attached to each other. “Now what?” He looked at Ben.

“Sit and breathe awhile. That was some heavy lifting.”

Two highway patrol cars were parked on the bank now, and Ben could hear the tow truck coming. Billy cut his motor and handed Abe a big sponge. Warren began wiping mud off the driver’s side of the windshield.

Ben grabbed onto the van’s door frame, fighting to keep the Zodiac steady. “See anything?”

Abe shook his head. “Not yet. Billy? Got a flashlight? Too dark to see in there. Once we get it closer to shore and get a door open, we can drain out some water.”

“Hey! Can one of you hook the winch on?” Larrimer called.

“Not without getting real wet and muddy,” Billy grumbled. “Be nice if they’d call for a diver. Prob’ly didn’t.”

Ben felt an urgency that matched his fascination. What was going on here? He yelled, “Gimme the winch!”

Larrimer paid out twenty feet of cable, arched back, and tossed with all his might. The winch hook thunked on the van roof and Warren grabbed it. He passed it to Ben.

Ben wrapped the other end of Billy’s anchor line firmly around his wrist, a casual and probably useless safety gesture, and slid into the muddy, clammy water. The current pulled on him, but he worked his way forward. Why was he doing this?
Wait for a diver, stupid.
He couldn’t wait. He managed to hook into the front bumper. The truck winch groaned, made all the weird, grinding noises winches make, but it drew the van a third out.

Ben waved
stop!
He repositioned the hook around the axle and sloshed up onto the bank. Larrimer reached out a hand and pulled him to standing. Together they watched the mud-coated van rise by jerks out of the river, an inert, slimy, unthinking monster.

“We’ve not had any missing persons reported.” Ben watched the monster come to a soggy halt, dragging Billy and his boat along with it. “You?”

Leroy shook his head. “None here. You border patrol guys would be seeing more unidentified persons than the rest of us.”

“True, we do, but they usually don’t come floating down the river to us.”

“Gift-wrapped in mud.” Leroy scowled. “I got a bad feeling about this.”

“Sure hope there ain’t anybody in there.” Billy stared rapt at the van.

The ugly-sweet smell of putrefaction dashed Billy’s hopes, his and everyone else’s. Abe the former football player managed to wrench a back door open. He leaped aside as water cascaded out, then Larrimer looked inside.

Pale and shaken, he stepped in beside Ben. “Three bloated bodies. Nothing worse than dead bodies soaked in water for days. Nothing. I’ll call in forensics.” But the other patrolman was already on the radio to his headquarters.

Ben walked over and used Billy’s sponge to clear off the license plate. “Want to run it or shall I?”

“I can do it.”

There was nothing in the whole wide world that Ben wanted to do less, but he crossed to the open door to look more closely, and in the process learned that he could be soaked to his armpits in muddy water and his flashlight still worked. Larrimer peeked over his shoulder.

He turned away before he lost his stomach.

Larrimer mused, “Two Asian women in the backseat still have their seat belts on. Looks like the third tried to climb over the seat back into the backseat. Why would she do that? No driver.” He scowled at Ben. “Speculations?”

Ben’s head was as upset as his stomach. But the picture became clear. “Remember the pictures of that Sendai tsunami, and the cars floating?”

“Can’t forget it.” Larrimer took on an
aha!
look. “They floated slanting, nose down; the motor weighed the nose down. This van was carried away in the flood. It floated for a short time but slanting down in front. She was climbing into the backseat because water was filling up the front. So she must have been the driver.”

“I doubt it. If she rolled down the window, she’d escape that way. I vote for a snakehead and his load.”

Leroy wagged his head slowly. “The driver rolls down the window and gets out before it sinks, leaving the women behind. No, Ben! Can anyone be that callous?”

But Ben was overcome with a dozen emotions at once. The timing was about right. The van floated down from the direction where he found Dawn. And yes, a man who would force a woman to abandon her tiny baby would be that callous.

Was one of those bloated, rotting women Dawn’s mother?

Chapter Seventeen

B
en watched Esther lay aside her pen. She was signing printouts, stacks of them.

She asked, “So, why call a town meeting right now?”

“Because everyone is passing the buck. The city fathers turned the hospital needs over to the county and the county said gee, sorry, they already have a regional hospital so it is not their problem.” Ever since he heard the news, Ben felt like shaking a few people. He, they, everyone understood that the storm had cost the town far more than was budgeted for the year for cleanup. More than for three years. If it weren’t for the National Guard shouldering much of the work, and border patrol taking some of it, they’d be so far in debt they’d never crawl out. The county and state both promised to assist with the cleanup, and FEMA would come in eventually.

But when? Ben thought of the help Minot had received for all their flooding. Slow response and basically inadequate. Repairs would take who knew how long, and winter was already breathing down their necks. There was an urgency here that most places wouldn’t have.

Esther heaved another sigh, her third since they’d started talking. “Bill Aptos certainly lit a short fuse when he made his threat at Chief’s funeral.”

Ben nodded. “True.”

“Is this meeting sanctioned, or is it closed?”

“I talked to Lars over at the bank and he assured me that it’s sanctioned and open. It’s a meeting to get ready for the town meeting. You want to go with me?”

“Yeah, about like I want a hole drilled into my head.”

Ben knew that feeling. “Sorry, can’t help you there, but you understand our medical needs far more than I do. Besides, this is a planning session. Mr. Aptos suggested we do it this way so there can be no one screaming about being railroaded.”

“Someone will scream no matter what, you know that.” She stacked the papers, rapped them on edge to line them up, and laid them in her wire inbox. “Do you realize how many planning meetings I’ve been to in the last few years?” A sigh again. “Yes, I’ll go.”

“Good, let’s go get hamburgers and eat on our way.”

“We could walk.”

“No idea how long this meeting will take.”

“Who’s going to be chairing this planning meeting for the future planning meeting?”

“I guess Lars will. He’s the mayor, after all.”

Esther shucked off her lab coat and tossed it in the hamper, then pulled her purse from the drawer she kept it locked in. “Let’s go. Your truck or my car?”

“Let’s drop your car off at your house so it’s not left in the parking lot. Someone might think you were here alone.”

She wagged her head. “That druggie jerk sure set us all on edge.”

“And yet, people still leave their doors unlocked.” He stepped aside to let her to go ahead of him and held the door for her. He glanced around the lighted parking lot as Esther locked up. The debris had been cleared off, and if it weren’t for the broken-off tree stumps you wouldn’t have known all they’d been through. “Have you heard anything yet on the DNA samples?”

“No. Three weeks minimum.”

He opened the driver’s door on her mini and waited for her to get in. “Meet you in front of your house.” Here they’d been talking like easy friends when all he wanted to know was what she was going to do about social services and Dawn.

So ask her.
Why was it so hard to obey that suggestion? He had no answers. He climbed into his own rig.
Just spit it out.

“So, the drive-in or the café?” he asked a couple of minutes later as she buckled the seat belt on his truck’s passenger side and he eased back onto Main Street.

“Café, or do we have time for a sit-down?”

Ben checked the clock on the dash. “Half an hour. We can tell them to put a rush on it. However, at the drive-in, no one will stop by to comment or ask questions.”

“Oh, never thought of that. The drive-in.”

“Good.” After they had their order, Ben drove to city hall and parked toward the back of the lot so they could eat in peace.

Ask her. No, I don’t want to destroy this meal. Or mess with my mind for the meeting.
With that decided, Ben took a drink of his chocolate milk shake. No one made shakes as good as drive-ins did, and especially this particular one.

He wallowed a fry around in ketchup and popped it in his mouth. “You thought about getting an artist’s rendering of the finished hospital made?”

She frowned. “How can we do that before the plans are drawn up?”

“I’m thinking if there was something concrete to show people, they would begin to believe it really might happen. People buy what they see, not what they hear about. That’s why physical evidence weighs so heavily in court. Wouldn’t even have to be the actual one, but something they could see. I was thinking of having the drafting class and art department at the high school do this for us.”

“What a great idea.” She laid her hamburger down and reached for her drink. “We could come up with a rough draft. I’ve got pictures I’ve been collecting.”

“I’ll call and set up a meeting with the teacher.” He watched as a couple of cars parked near the brick building. Mr. Aptos had a briefcase with him, probably all the paperwork Esther had already given him. Her years of collecting. He glanced over to see Esther with her eyes closed, head against the seat back. “Tired?”

“Yeah, you gotta admit life around here hasn’t been exactly normal. Did you read today’s paper?”

“Not yet.” The
Pineville News
came out on a weekly basis, except for the storm week as it was being referred to. Printing a paper was impossible with no power, so they were trying to make up for missing the news now with a special storm edition. He’d glanced at it, but somehow the day had disappeared with half of what he’d planned still undone.

He made sure all the wrappings were in the bag and grabbed his jacket. “You ready?”

“What are my choices?”

“You don’t have to go to the meeting.”

“That would surely be a stupid move on my part.” She grabbed her coat and reached for the door handle.

“Wait, I’ll get that.” He was surprised she waited as he opened the door for her. “I have a feeling we might have some surprises tonight.”

“I really don’t need any shocks, so I’ll pray for good surprises.”

He ushered her inside. They could hear the rumble of conversation as they neared the meeting room. Someone laughed; that was a good sign. About fifteen people sat around the tables set up in a U configuration. Coffee aroma rose from the shiny pot on the table by the wall as they entered, with the ubiquitous plate of cookies and bars. There would never be a meeting in Pineville without the requisite sustenance.

While greetings flew back and forth, Ben poured himself a cup of coffee and snagged his favorite bar with coconut, nuts, and chocolate chips. He nodded to Gertie Larson, who always made these just for him, and mouthed his thanks.

“You two sit up here.” Lars, longtime mayor of Pineville, pointed to two chairs.

“Looks like that’s the hot seat,” Ben answered. “Good evening, Lars.”

“Not tonight. No hot seats at this meeting. Besides, you two have gone way beyond your duty the last weeks. You’re heroes in my book.”

Esther took one chair and looked up with a grin. “Shouldn’t that be hero and heroine?”

As the chuckle flitted around the tables, Ben nodded with a smile. “Just doing our jobs.” He glanced around the table at those gathered and settled into a folding chair.

“Know of anyone else who was figuring on coming? Then let’s get started.” Hizzonor Mayor Benson, Lars to everyone in town, looked around, then continued. “You all know we are here to get the general town meeting planned for next week. Since we are on such a tight time frame, first off I think we need to talk about publicity. How will we notify the people around here, especially since the paper just came out today, Monday?”

“I’ll print up posters and get them up around town.”

“Word of mouth travels faster here than the Internet. If we all make ten phone calls, and ask others to do the same…”

“You’ll head that up?”

A nod from a faded redhead brought out answering nods.

“I’ll post it on Twitter and Facebook.”

“Rushing it like this might be a bad idea.”

“Need to strike while the iron is hot. People forget too dang fast. Besides, we’ve a ninety-day deadline, remember?”

Ben sat quietly, listening to all the comments. They were all right, no matter which side of the question they were on.

“Let’s get back to order.” Lars paused until quiet resumed. “Bill here has requested time to share some thoughts he has collected.”

The frail-appearing, white-haired gentleman stood and removed papers from his briefcase. “I have here some notes for all of you…”

“Ever the teacher,” someone commented, causing a ripple of chuckles.

Everyone sure seemed in a good mood, Ben thought as he watched the papers being passed around the table. One contained a pie chart and the other a list and several paragraphs. Leave it to Mr. Aptos to come prepared like this.

Aptos looked to Esther. “The goals page is based on what you and I talked about that time when we first started dreaming about a modern medical facility. I don’t think anyone realized we would be cut off like that. Were it not for Esther and her crew, more people would have died, and if we had a decent facility here, fewer might have.

“I know for a fact that attorneys have been calling Roy Abrams and telling him he has a right to sue the town because his wife died of internal bleeding. They are calling it an unnecessary death, and I tend to believe them. ’Course, they’re just ambulance chasers, but the lawyer Roy and Denise used for their wills says the same thing. Denise dying like that was a shock to everyone. I been talking to Roy. He has opted instead to use this as an opportunity to help the town get a hospital. I know that the odds of such a storm as that happening again aren’t real high, but…”

Someone piped up, “And the chief collapsing like that. Perhaps better facilities would have prevented that, too.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Ben caught the shake of Esther’s head. He knew what a struggle she’d been having with that exact question: Had she done enough? Would she refute the comment?

When she didn’t, he motioned to Lars. “Could I add something here?”

“Don’t,” Esther whispered.

He ignored her and stood up. “Just so everyone knows the facts. Chief Harden had a severe coronary occlusion, but it’s an aortic aneurysm that killed him. No one could have saved him, even if he were in an operating room when it burst.”

Someone interrupted. “Can’t you get a pacemaker?”

“An aneurysm,” Ben explained, “is a weak spot in the wall of a blood vessel; in Chief’s case, the main vessel leaving the heart. The weak spot bulges out and may, at some unpredictable moment, literally explode. Rip open. In a major vessel like the aorta, your blood pressure drops catastrophically and you die immediately. I’m telling you this because we need to keep the facts straight, or those who think we’re crazy will latch onto a mistake and take the focus off the real problem and solution. We see that going on with politics all the time. Let’s not make that mistake.” He sat down, leery of even looking at Esther.

“Thank you, Ben. Your comment about making sure our facts are straight is so true.” Lars turned to the rest of those at the meeting. “We all need to be very careful of this so that our efforts aren’t blown apart. We all know the opposition would like to do just that.”

Bill Aptos nodded. “I stand corrected. Thank you, Ben.” His eyes twinkled. “Guess we taught you well.” He shifted his attention back to the papers he handed out. “As you can see, this plan needs to involve everyone. I figure some of us oldsters can call on our friends and challenge them to take part in this. I plan to contact Burt Humphrey and see about grant money; his company does a lot for our area. Anyone here excellent on writing grants in general? I have a list here of grant opportunities I have researched, but grant writing is a real art if you want to seriously be considered.” He stopped and looked around the table. “Or do you know someone who is good at this?”

“But grants take forever,” someone said.

“True, but we’ll need lots of money over the next probably two years to get this up and operating.” He smiled at Esther. “No pun intended.”

“But it was a good one.” Was Kathy Myers, assistant manager of Lars’s bank, just buttering him? She wasn’t smiling. But then Kathy was something of a strange bird.

Ben watched and listened to the proceedings, grateful for the lack of animosity that had erupted at the funeral. The next meeting promised to be a battlefield.

By the end of the evening, a time line and list of volunteer assignments were ready. The coffeepot was empty and the refreshments consisted of half a dozen crumbs on the edges of the plates. Nine o’clock had come and gone. Lars closed the meeting, and everyone rose to leave.

“Thanks for coming, Ben, Esther.” He shook their hands. “Life sure changes at times, doesn’t it?”

“Thanks for all the information you gave me.” Mr. Aptos snapped the latches on a briefcase that was probably the one he’d used to carry papers back and forth from school. “Big job ahead. Hopefully by next meeting I can guilt-trip some guys into contributing more than they think they should. ’Bout time some of us who’ve lived here so many years, and the town’s been good to us, put our money where our mouths are.” He stopped and rolled his eyes. “My wife would have said I massacred the English language with that sentence. Oh well, you know what I mean.”