A Grave Talent (13 page)

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Tyler's Creek runs year-round. Ten months out of the year it is a tidy, attractive, well-behaved little stream where salamanders creep and damselflies skip. On a lazy August afternoon, when the kids laugh and haul rocks for a dam and the deepest pools are barely waist-high to an adult, it is very difficult to visualize the process by which that snarl of tree roots ten feet up the bank came to be wedged there or to imagine the force that caused the convenient sunning spot of a flat granite boulder to come to rest half a mile downstream from the nearest granite outcropping. Moss turns sere and brown, tadpoles become frogs, water bugs dimple the surface on a hot August afternoon.

Kate stood well back from the gaping edge of Tyler's Creek and realized that living in San Francisco, with the occasional power outage and blocked storm drain, did not fully prepare one for this. The image that had come to mind with the phrase "the road is out" combined a deeper degree of rutting, a lot of mud, and a bit of a gap across which some boards could be put; certainly nothing like this.

Tyler's Creek was a ravening, greasy gray monstrosity, thirty feet of grasping, hungry, primal power. It thundered like Niagara, pulling bits of the hillside, roadway, and vegetation into itself with its strong greedy fingers and eying its human audience hungrily. Kate swallowed, mute, as a piece of the opposite bank the size of a small car suddenly broke away and slithered down into the muddy torrent. A good-sized tree came washing around the turn, its naked roots twelve feet across. The waters rammed the roots into the soil. They stuck for a long moment before the bank gave and tossed the tree back into the center of the flood, where it whirled around crosswise in a fast, ponderous spin before being caught on a cluster of boulders, snapping instantly with a crack that momentarily silenced the constant roar, and folded itself in a streamlined fashion for the flume to run it to sea. All in barely thirty seconds.

She turned to Hawkin and raised her voice.

"We'll never get across that, not for days."

He shook his head, thin-lipped, his eyes on the boiling, white-capped demon that was Tyler's Creek.

"Any chance of a chopper?" she asked.

"Not until these gusts die down."

"Which won't be until after dark, if then. Al, I want to go around, find a place to cross."

"No, Casey, we'll just have to wait until they can rig a sling across."

"Tomorrow? Look, we've got an hour and a half of light, maybe more, and I can cover a lot of ground in that time. The creek isn't that long, according to the map. Let me try it. Please?"

He looked at her, at the waters, at the small group of people who stood well back from the opposite bank. His eyes traveled back to her, to Mark Detweiler and Tyler where they stood talking, and on to Tommy Chesler, who sat on a rock and watched the waves go past like a kid at a space movie.

"Tyler?" He had to shout, but the man looked up and limped over to them.

"Inspector Martinelli is thinking of taking a walk upstream to visit a friend on the other side. Is that practical?"

Tyler looked astonished, then even more so.

"You mean--?"

"I mean we should have someone over there to keep an eye on things. Can she get over there before dark?"

"It'd be a near thing, but it wouldn't be the first time someone's gone around--this section's been washed out before. There's even a sort of a bridge about a mile up, if it hasn't gone. It's hard to find, though," he said doubtfully.

"Could someone go with her, as far as the bridge?"

"I know where it is, but I'm not the fastest thing on two feet. Mark might, or, no, what about Tommy? He knows these hills better than anybody."

"Tommy Chesler?"

"Yes. I'm sure he'd jump at the chance to help."

"Casey?"

"Fine with me. I'll need a flashlight and a walkie-talkie. And a plastic bag if they're not waterproof."

The flashlight was waterproof and clipped onto her belt. The radio was not, and went into a pocket of her jacket, inside a doubled-over garbage bag from one of the cars. She settled her gun under her arm, zipped up the front of the jacket, and turned to Tommy, who was looking self-important and a bit nervous at his assignment.

"Let's go, Tommy."

A light hand touched her shoulder, and Al murmured into her ear.

"You don't have to put her under arrest unless you think it's best. Just keep an eye on her. And, Casey? Watch yourself."

"Thanks, I'll try. I'll give you a buzz on the radio from her house."

It was nearly impossible to make any kind of speed, but they tried. Kate was faster than Tommy, but he knew where to put his feet, which leaves were most slippery, what branches most likely to drench a passerby. Kate went down three times in the first half mile, once gouging her thigh badly on the exposed end of a broken branch. Tommy led, Kate scrambling in his wake, along the ridge of the hills over Tyler's Creek. Once when Kate looked up, she caught sight of a house on the opposite ridge, a mile off, that looked like that of Vaun Adams. She peered through the wet trees, trying to see if there was any movement, and her foot hit a slick smear of leaf-covered clay that threw her ten feet down the hill to fetch up hard against a tree trunk. She lay on her back for a moment, eyes closed, chest heaving, until the stab of the flashlight into her spine forced her to sit up. Tommy stood looking down at her, a worried expression on his young face.

"You okay, Inspector Martinelli?"

"Oh great... and to think... some people... do this... for fun."

"You're bleeding, Inspector Martinelli."

"Not much... Call me... Casey."

She accepted his hand to be pulled back onto her feet, clapped him on the back, and gestured that he should lead on.

What are you trying to prove, Martinelli? she berated herself. Trying to prove they didn't make a mistake, choosing you for the wrong reasons; watch that slippery bit, that's better, you're learning. Wonder if the damn bridge is there, what'll we do if it isn't? I don't much care for the idea of coming back this way by flashlight, but if the other choice is sitting under a tree with Tommy Chesler until morning, well, I hope the bridge is there. How could she have done it? How
could
she have done it, my God, with talent like that--could she have thrown it away, of course she could if she's crazy, that's what it all comes down to, doesn't it? All artists are a bit crazy, but no, please God no, don't make me have to arrest That One for strangling little girls. Oh come on, Martinelli, isn't that what you're fighting your way across this goddamn hillside for the privilege of doing, hurrying to arrest her because of a ring and an alibi that isn't, and what--oh Christ, nearly lost it that time, pay attention, Martinelli, a broken leg won't do anyone any good. Damn it, my leg hurts, probably get a fine infection in it, please God hold the sun up for a while, I can't get across that vicious bastard of a creek-- "creek"? ha!--in the dark, how much farther, couldn't be too much, we've been going downhill for a long time, and it sounds loud now, there's Tommy, can we stop for two minutes, for one, just one...

They could, and did, but though the rest allowed them to catch their breath, it also allowed Kate's bangs, bruises, and cuts to catch up with her and make her all too aware of how wet and muddy she was. She forced herself to her feet.

"How much farther to the bridge?"

Tommy looked in the direction of the roar and seemed to be counting.

"Not far. If it's there. The water's going down, but whooee! it was higher this morning than I've ever seen it."

Wild thoughts of Tarzan swings from the redwoods flashed through Kate's mind, and a knot began to form in her stomach.

"Are you sure, Inspector--Casey, that you don't want to do something about your leg?"

"Let's get across first." The leg hurt, and the muscle quivered when she first stood up, but it would hold. They set off down the slippery hill toward the noise.

The bridge, such as it was, was there. Barely.

Kate and Tommy stood between two sturdy trees, the water lapping at their toes. Before them lay fifteen feet of fast, dangerous, dirty water, and three logs, twenty feet long and ten to twelve inches thick, that bobbled and fretted in the wash of water spilling over them.

Tommy squatted down onto his boots, a slow, calculating look on his face. Kate felt nearly paralyzed, the knot in her stomach reaching now from bowels to throat, and thought that really she'd better turn back fast, before the light was gone completely, because she couldn't think of a single thing in her training that mentioned how to avoid being swept away into the clutches of several million tons of water and rock. It was a long way from learning how to get a knife from a wacko junkie, and all in all she'd rather face a wacko junkie than this--two junkies, armed with guns even--and really the bridge could hardly be said to be "in," now could it? And Christ, she hadn't even brought a rope to do a Tarzan swing. There'd be no failure in turning back now, no cowardice; even a man would say that pile of floating sticks was no bridge, certainly not passable...

She tore her eyes away from the creek and looked at Tommy, his face calm, deliberate, still calculating slowly.

"Is it passable?" she asked. Her voice, she was pleased to note, was steady, though shouting helped.

He pursed his lips and seemed to come to a decision. He straightened and shouted back at her.

"I think so. There used to be four logs, but if those three haven't gone, they probably won't now."

Probably.

Probably was very little protection against that hungry-looking water. Probably was no help at all if the extra joggling of her weight caused a log to slip out from its wedged mooring and toss her gaily into the torrent that-—

She pushed the thought into a closed room, shut the door hard, and set her mind to the job.

"Thanks, Tommy, I couldn't have found it without your help. I won't have any problems finding the Road--"

"Oh, no, I'm not going to leave you now," he said, and before she could grab him, he was into the muddy water. The three logs settled obediently under his weight, bound together somehow, and although his feet disappeared under the water, he walked surely across and up onto the other side and turned in the loose tangle of branches to wait for her.

Kate took a step into the water and stopped as a chilling little thought bubbled up into her mind. Tommy Chester is a suspect, said the little singsong voice. Tommy is not completely right between the ears, said the voice, and Tommy found the first body, and, yes, it made him sick but what if he himself did put it there, and what if he's waiting to give those logs a nudge when you're out on them? She looked across at the darkening hillside, less than twenty feet away. Was that a shadow across his face, or was he smirking at her?

She took another step into the icy water, and another, until the toes of her shoes hit the rough end of one of the logs, and she looked up at Tommy, who stood, waiting, in the water at the other end. Half consciously she lowered the zipper of her jacket, and she stepped onto the logs.

It actually was a bridge--uneven and very wet, but it was thirty inches wide, and the logs did hold together as a unit.

Tommy didn't move, and she took another step, and another, and now she could feel the water tug at her feet, and she walked with bent knees, her arms outstretched. Tommy didn't move, and she took three more steps into the grasping torrent, and three more, and she was four feet from the far end when her shoes betrayed her and she went down.

Her right arm caught around the top log, and she clung desperately as the full force of the water sucked her body into the middle of the stream and pulled. Her muscles fought to get one leg up, around the logs, to sit up, and she might have made it, might have won, but for the shifting of her body on the tenuous balance of the wood in the water. She felt the whole bridge shift violently and cried out, tried to scramble to the bank, so close, and a wave slapped her face as the bridge became a raft, and she flung her left hand hopelessly toward solid ground, and it connected with flesh, a hard, warm human hand that gripped her wrist like a vise and held her gasping and blind in the water as the logs scraped and slithered across her body, struck her hip a glancing blow and began their brief journey to the sea.

She was buried in water, but the hand was still there, one solid reality in the tumbling, shocking, cold universe. She worked her other hand up to the bony wrist above her and clung. Something touched her side, and again, and then a third time, and she realized that she was among the tangle of branches that dragged into the water and that the rush of the stream was slightly less powerful here. She got her face to the surface, gulped a wet breath and coughed violently, but managed to catch a glimpse of the bare branches that surrounded her. The grip on her wrist held, though it must be costing him a lot to hang on, she knew, and she raised her head again to look for a branch big enough to take her weight. There were none this far out, but she forced her free hand to let go of his wrist, slowly, and plunged her arm up into the tangle, pulling herself deeper into the thicket, and then her legs found a submerged purchase and, half lying on her back, she shoved and pulled and scrabbled up and out of the current, which seemed to gibber its disappointment as she cleared the branches and collapsed on the bank beyond, coughing and retching.

It was some time before she could speak. ,

"You can let go of my wrist now, Tommy."

"I can't."

She turned her head and looked at him where he lay, arms fully outstretched between the anchoring tree and her hand, his feet in the water, a distressed look on his face. She started to giggle, then, in relief and the dregs of terror and the absurdity of their position.

"Well, you'll have to, damn it, or my hand will fall off."

He started laughing too, then, and the two drenched and filthy creatures lay guffawing helplessly on the edge of the mindless creek, until Kate finally crawled to her knees and pried his grip, finger by finger, from her wrist. She rubbed her hand to bring back the circulation and watched Tommy slowly flex the abused muscles of his arms and chest and try to move his hands.