Black Water (20 page)

"Call the doctor."

"What's your doctor's name, and where can you get him?"

"Stebbins, at, ah . . . the medical center."

"UC Irvine Medical Center."

"Correct."

"How do you get that number?"

"From the prescription bottles. Or nine-one-one if the blood is gushing out."

She sighed, but her eyes still held his tight. Archie clearly felt her power and the strength of her will. Slowly, her pupils relaxed and he felt her hands on his shoulders.

"You are going to talk to Paul and me, here, at eight tomorrow morning. We'll walk through it, together. Be rested and fresh. You're going to tell us everything you remember about that night. About your life up to that night. About Gwen and the two million and Felix Mendez and a girl named Julia. You're going to tell me everything you know. And you're not going to tell anyone else
squat.
Correct?"

"Yes, okay."

"Call me if you need something. Don't call Priscilla. Don't call your friends. Call me."

"Okay. I will."

"If anyone else calls you, don't talk to them. Not to reporters, salespeople, Jehovah's Witnesses,
anybody.
Understand?"

It rankled him to be talked to like a killer, then a child, so he cracked a joke. "How about Mom and Dad?"

She sighed, blinking slowly. "Yes. Of course."

He watched her take a card from her purse and write something on the back. "Office and pager on the front, cell on the back. Archie, I WANT you to call me if you remember something new about what happen to you and Gwen before we meet tomorrow morning. Even if it's small. Even if it doesn't seem important. Call me."

"Okay."

Zamorra had already turned away and was heading back up the walk.

He sat out by the pool and watched the sun go down. He brought the telephone with him and talked to Priscilla when she called. His father and mother called too, frantic with concern, but Archie told them he was fine for now, well protected, please come over for lunch tomorrow.

A few minutes later he got Trent Gentry's number from his personal phone book and punched it in.

"Shit,
man," said Trent, "I've been thinking about you every second. I'm so goddamned sorry about what happened. I just. . . I ju ... Can I call you back?"

Archie said okay, gave him the number.

A few minutes later Trent was on the line again. Archie heard traffic in the background.

"So, man," said Trent, "what can I do, Archie? I really feel bad about all this."

"Does it have to do with OrganiVen?"

"How could it?"

"I was just wondering. OrganiVen keeps coming into my mind. As something that was good for us, and bad for us at the same time."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know what I mean. I'm hazy on things."

"Stay hazy, man. Just stay hazy, be careful and take care of yourself."

Archie thought about this. "Okay," he said.

"I'm going to Hawaii tomorrow. Be back in a couple of weeks. I'll call you then."

"What about one of the OrganiVen guys, on the business side? I think I should talk to one of them. It's just a feeling."

"Well, fuck, Arch, they're back in Switzerland by now for all I know. I mean, I don't know those people. Or they're out on some yacht off of Greece. They weren't OrganiVen guys anyway—they were just investors."

"The car."

"What car?"

"The car they came to that meeting in. It looked normal but it wasn't. God, I wish I could remember."

"Man, you're talking nonsense to me now."

"Sorry."

"Aren't you supposed to be in the hospital?"

Archie had vague memories of Gwen meeting two men one night in a bar in Newport Beach. Long ago. A year? Maybe more? She had asked Archie to be there without the men knowing it. Because she was uneasy, uncertain how they would react. React to what? He searched his memory for an answer but it was like trying to get water from an empty bucket. Still, he remembered sitting across the room dressed like a beach bum and looking at the three of them occasionally from behind a pair of sunglasses. One man was blond and clean-shaven. The other was dark-haired, with a beard and mustache, one of the biggest people Archie had ever seen in his life. His head was enormous. Archie could remember being afraid for Gwen, just her being that close to him.

Gentry hung up.

Archie called Merci Rayborn's cell number and told her that he had just remembered Gwen being upset by a man with a monstrous head.

"Explain," she snapped.

He did—maybe something to do with OrganiVen, a meeting in a Newport bar, Gwen asking him to be there without them knowing.

"Monstrous?" she asked.

"Very. Dark hair, and a beard."

"Big enough to recline a Cadillac seat just to get in or out?"

"I don't know. Along those lines, I would say."

"What else?"

"The car they came in. Something about it was different. But I can't remember what."

"Make and model?"

"I can't remember."

"American or foreign?"

"Large, that's all I see."

"The way it looked? Sounded? A custom paint job or body work. A sign, a bumper sticker?"

"I'm sorry. Just that it was different than other cars." A silence.

"Archie, I'm going to come by and take you back to the hospital. Right now."

"I won't go."

"I'll call paramedics for you, if you'd be more comfortable that way."

"I won't go."

A long silence over a clear connection.

"Archie, are you all right?"

"I'm fine. The deputies are still out front."

"They'll be there all night."

"I'm not afraid."

"I wish you were."

Archie sat and stared at the lights twinkling in the hills before him. He had no appetite. When the night breeze came up it was cool and clean off the desert so he went into the house to put away the phone and get some blankets.

The phone rang just as he was putting it into the charger.

"Hello, Deputy Wildcraft?"

"Yes."

"This is Gary Brice, Orange County
Journal.
How are you feeling?"

"All right."

"How about we do an interview tonight? I can be there in less than half an hour."

"No. I'm tired."

"I can sure see why. How come you checked out of the hospitals?"

"I felt better."

"Were the police putting pressure on you?"

"They questioned me about what happened."

"What did you tell them? What
did
happen, Deputy Wildcraft?"

"I won't talk now. I need some privacy and time to think."

Archie punched off. The phone rang again immediately—then off and on until he fell asleep hours later—but he didn't answer it.

From the kitchen window he could see part of his driveway and the two black-and-whites still blocking it. Good, he thought: safe for now. He got a gun, too, a Remington composite-stock twelve-gauge automatic cut down at both ends, with the magazine plug removed to hold all five rounds. He checked to see it was loaded and safed.

He went back out and set the shotgun on the pool deck, then lay down on the chaise lounge, pulling the blankets over him. He saw a falling star, then another, then more. He remembered, as a boy, counting one hundred and nineteen of them one September night while lying in his backyard on a sleeping bag.

Archie listened to the palm fronds hiss in the breeze.

I'll remember, he thought. And tell Detective Rayborn everything and she'll arrest whoever did this and it will make no difference at all.

I'll remember you, he thought. Someday I will remember everything about you and never forget again.

And I'll remember you, Arch.

"Gwen."

A little after six the next morning, just after first light, Archie sat up.

He heard the branch snap, then soft, careful footsteps on the walkway. They came from down on the property, not from the house but from the direction of the steps and the wildflowers that led down to his fence and the road.

His blankets were damp. The clothes he had slept in were damp. So was the bandage around his head. Archie shivered quickly as he listened to the footsteps getting closer. He lifted the Remington, stood and moved toward the walkway with the stubby barrel held out and his finger on the safety beside the trigger guard. Archie saw him first. A young blond guy in jeans and sneakers, light jacket. He held a camcorder up to his face as he picked his way along the walk. He swung the camera to his left, then his right, then aimed straight ahead, at the house.

Then at Archie, who stepped from beside a hibiscus plant and extended his arms and put the barrel of his riot gun under the guy's chin.

The man froze, one foot just coming up to begin a step. "Fuck, he whispered. "Please don't shoot."

The camera lowered very slowly and Archie saw the boyish face--- the pale cheeks and young blue eyes, the weak mustache and rosy, astonished mouth.

Archie left the barrel where it was.

"I'm Gary Brice, Deputy. I'm a reporter with the Orange Count
Journal.
Please don't shoot me."

"Show me your ID."

"It's in my wallet. My wallet is in my pants pocket. I'll get it."

"Move very slowly."

"Can I put my other foot down?"

"No."

The man calling himself Brice produced ID and Archie glanced i it. It looked good. Brice still stood with one foot lifted almost off the ground, and this made him waver because his balance was bad.

Archie still hadn't moved the gun barrel.

"You're trespassing," he said.

"I wanted you to tell me what happened."

Archie's temper spiked. It was like a rocket being launched. He couldn't account for it, really, other than that he'd been shot and his wife murdered and he'd been poked, prodded, needled, scanned, questioned, doubted, threatened, treated like a child and now trespassed on by a reporter.

Still holding the gun under Brice's chin, Archie ordered him off his property. He could hear the ice-cold anger in his voice and he knew it for what it was. "I'm absolutely getting off your property, Deputy. I'm going to back up now, and just go away. Okay? So don't shoot, and I'll be gone and I won't come back unless you invite me."

Brice lowered his trembling foot, then backed up one step, then another. Archie kept the gun pointed at his chest.

"Deputy Wildcraft, what happened that night?"

"Get away before I lose my patience."

Brice kept moving back, trying to keep eye contact with Archie and not trip.

"Did you see who killed your wife?"

"Get out."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'll kill them myself."

As Archie spoke, Brice veered off the walkway and backed into an orange tree. He flinched, swung back his hands for balance, almost dropping the camera. He finally steadied himself and re-aimed at Archie.

Archie smiled.

"Did you shoot her and yourself, sir?"

"Go to hell, you little shit."

Brice was halfway through the wildflowers now, backpedaling faster. When he thought he was out of shotgun range he whipped around, tucked the camera under his arm like a football, sprinted down the hill and jumped over the fence in one big leap.

Archie watched him scramble into a little silver four-door and drive away

_T
he walk-through with Wildcraft was a bust. Rayborn took careful notes and Zamorra made sure the tape recorder was always within pick-up distance of their subject, but Archie offered almost no new information. He was vague. He was forgetful. He was emotional, then oddly flat, then emotional again. To Merci, it seemed like the deputy was trying to weigh anchor through molasses.

As they walked the house she noticed that Archie had done some light housework. He had cleaned up the bathroom, taken away the old towels and opened two windows. He had also stacked the birthday; presents more neatly in the living room, pushing them up against one wall. He had leaned a twelve-gauge riot gun in the corner of the entryway a few feet from the front door. He had placed his medicine bottles on the kitchen counter by the coffeemaker, spread out in a neat line of four.

The bed was unmade, though, and the bedroom had grown warm and stuffy. Rayborn caught the scent of something musky and sexual and it embarrassed her.

Archie was sweating visibly.

"Who took care of the finances, bills, money stuff?" Merci asked

"Gwen. Ever since we were married. In the music room, there's a desk and file cabinets. It's all there."

"Tell us about OrganiVen."

Wildcraft sat on the bed. He looked around the room like he was new there. Merci could see it in his posture, in the earnest, uplifted face, the inquisitive eyes. Like he was discovering new things every second. Maybe he is, she thought. Eyes like Tim's.

"It was a company that was new. We invested some money, but I'm not sure how much. It was called that because they made a cancer treatment from snake venom. We got to see slides and pictures of what it did to tumors and it was amazing. So, then the company got bought up by a bigger company and we made a lot of money by selling our shares."

He looked at her, raised his eyebrows unenthusiastically, then looked away.

"How did you find out about it?"

"I'm not sure. I believe we worked with Priscilla's husband, Charlie Brock. He works for a big stockbroker, but I can't think of the name."