Dead Float (2 page)

Chapter Two

Eagle Nest Road connected my driveway with the main road. Some early settler just off the Oregon Trail probably named it, and aptly so, since bald and golden eagles hunt the area, although you're more likely to see a red-tailed hawk or a kestrel. At the intersection with the main road, I hopped out to grab the paper before heading down to Dundee.

Pritchard's Animal Care Center was located on the south end of Dundee in a small, white clapboard building that had once been a Baptist church. The cross on the belfry had been replaced with a large weathervane sporting the silhouette of a hunting dog, and a couple of the pews now served as customer seating inside the building. When we pulled into the parking lot, Archie let out two high-pitched squeals of joy. I clipped on his leash, and he led me into the building, his entire backside wagging. It was unusual, to say the least, for a dog to be so enthusiastic about visiting the vet. This was particularly true for Arch, who'd nearly died there. He'd been roughed up by a cougar and was limp in my arms when I rushed him into the center. Hiram Pritchard saved Archie's life that night, an act that had endeared him to both the dog and his owner.

Hiram was busy, so I handed the leash to the receptionist. Archie peered up at me, ears forward.

“It's okay, big guy, you stay with Doc.”

He sat there a moment longer as if to say,
Are you sure?
Then he popped up and trotted with the receptionist down the hall like he owned the place.

My law office stands on the other end of Dundee, which consists of an eclectic collection of storefronts strung out along Route 99W. Upscale restaurants, a trendy inn, and numerous wine-tasting rooms offering “big, bold reds” were tucked in with taco and BBQ trucks, a tavern promising karaoke, and all manner of small shops. Not a national chain to be seen, and hardly an unfriendly person. At the north end of town, where the old barber shop had stood, was the only lawyer's office. A sign with letters carved in a slab of red cedar read “Calvin Claxton III, Attorney at Law.”

My dad was called Junior his entire life. Like his dad, he practiced law in the San Gabriel Valley in Southern California. When I finished Law School at Berkeley, it was pretty much expected that I'd join his one-man practice. But I wasn't much for predictability and surprised everyone in my family by opting for a job as an L.A. prosecutor. I wound up as a Deputy DA in major crimes, riding herd on a large group of lawyers. I was in my twenty-sixth year with the city when my wife died. After that, well, let's just say I crashed and burned. Living up in my refuge in Dundee represented a fresh start.

At my office that morning, I managed to push some papers around on my desk while resisting the temptation to call Well Spring to inquire about Claire. I didn't want to act the nervous parent, and besides, Claire had warned me she might have trouble connecting with me on a regular basis.

In addition to my practice in Dundee I did some pro bono work in Portland. My clients were mostly homeless kids and adults who had been brought to their knees by the Great Recession, bad choices, hard luck, or some combination of all three. I'd postponed my meetings in Portland for the next two weeks and had finally talked my landlord, Hernando Mendoza, into fixing the leaks in the roof of his building in my absence. Nando was a good friend and a private investigator I used on occasion, but tight with a buck.

In truth, I welcomed the break, because every trip to Portland was haunted by the woman who'd convinced me to volunteer there in the first place. A passionate advocate for homeless kids, Dr. Anna Eriksen had run the health clinic in Portland's Old Town. We had grown close and even traveled to her native Norway together. But six months ago she left Portland to start a much larger clinic in New York City, where she grew up. I guess I always knew she'd put her homeless kids ahead of me, and I really couldn't fault her for it. But that didn't lessen the sting.

The women in my life, it seems, have a have a way of slipping away from me.

I closed up shop and left for Madras around three. It took John Coltrane's “Favorite Things” and half of Thelonius Monk's “Brilliant Corners” to reach I-22, which parallels the North Santiam River into the western side of the Cascades. Cresting Santiam Pass, I caught a glimpse of Mount Washington off to my left, its white volcanic cone etched against a cobalt sky. On the descent, the lush fir and cedar yielded to ponderosa and scrub pine and then to the chaparral and mesquite of the high desert.

I arrived in Madras around six. It was hot enough to convince an oil executive of global warming. The clerk at the motel managed to check me in without dropping the ash column from her dangling cigarette as I maneuvered to avoid her second-hand smoke.

I turned the air conditioner in my room on full-blast, changed into my swim trunks, and made for the pool. I swam forty laps in the tepid water and returned to my room, which was now cold enough to hang meat. The bed looked tempting, so I stretched out to relax for a few minutes. The air conditioner had a cyclic drone that became a mantra as I spiraled into sleep.

A phone rang and I sat bolt upright, frantically searching for my cell. On the fourth ring I realized it was coming from the next room. Claire, I said to myself, I wish you would call.

It was now nearly 8:30, and my stomach was rumbling. I found a restaurant tucked away in a new storefront mall. The place was cool inside, and the burnt umber walls looked inviting in the soft light. I requested a table at the back of the spacious room and sat with my back against the wall, gangster-style. I was in the middle of perusing the menu when three men and a woman came in and took a table near the entrance. A few minutes later a couple arrived and joined them. I glanced up and quickly lowered my face back behind the menu.

It was Alexis Bruckner and her husband Hal. I'd met them last fall in eastern Washington. They'd fished for salmon on the Klickitat River that day, using Philip as a guide. I'd driven over from Dundee that afternoon to join Philip for dinner. We were to fish the next day. I remember the exact date, September 3, since it was Philip's birthday. Philip had described the little restaurant where we planned to dine in such glowing terms that, at the last minute, the Bruckners decided to join us.

A man of few words, Philip seemed relieved I was there to carry the conversation. I'm not that garrulous myself, but spurred by the food and wine, to say nothing of the promise of good fishing the next morning, my mood became expansive. And I didn't mind that Alexis, a gorgeous woman by any standard, let her ocean blues rest on me as I moved the dinner conversation along. I hadn't been with a woman since Anna had left, which was the way I wanted it. But those looks from Alexis made me begin to question that decision.

I snapped out of my daydream when the waiter arrived to take my order. By this time, the group was absorbed in animated conversation, and to my relief, it seemed like neither of the Bruckners had noticed me.

My thoughts streamed back to that night on the Klickitat. We were on our second bottle of wine, and Philip had just finished telling Hal and Alexis about trout fishing on the Deschutes. He wasn't above a little advertising. After all, guiding's a tough business. He said, “You know, Cal likes the salmon fly hatch so much that he's agreed to put his law practice on hold next year and join me as a guide.”

“It must be nice to have that kind of flexibility,” Bruckner said almost wistfully. “I'd sure like to fish the salmon fly hatch one of these days.”

Bruckner began to tell us about a fishing trip he and Alexis had taken to Alaska. They'd caught huge salmon and halibut the size of garage doors, and had even seen a couple of grizzlies in the wild. A trip of a lifetime.

As he finished, Alexis said, “Well, what I remember most about the trip was Hal's snoring. I remember lying there on the tundra freaking out. I figured the sound would attract grizzlies.”

We all laughed and looked at Bruckner.

“Sleep apnea,” he said. “It kicked in on that trip. Causes me to snore like a freight train,” he added with a sheepish grin.

“That and drinking,” Alexis added, her smile fading.

“Drinking?” Bruckner said with mock incredulity, as he held up his glass of pinot. “My dear, enjoying wine of this caliber does not qualify as mere drinking. This is
imbibing
, a much more refined way to get drunk.” He laughed and drained his glass.

We said our good nights not long after that awkward exchange. I went up to my room and crashed on the bed, fully clothed. Thirty minutes later the buzz from the wine threatened to morph into a headache, so I got up for some aspirin. I'd just taken my shirt off when I heard a soft knock on the door.

“Who's there?” I said in a low voice.

“It's Alexis, Cal.”

“Just a sec.” Hastily putting my shirt back on, I opened the door and stood there holding the knob. She was barefoot in a gauzy blouse and jeans. Strands of blond hair were splayed on the ramps of her breasts, rising and falling with her breath. “Oh, hi,” I said, “Uh, what's up?”

She looked at me and smiled in a way that said she found my awkwardness amusing. “Nothing, really. Hal's passed out cold and I'm bored as hell.”

I continued to stand there, holding the doorknob like an idiot.

“Well, aren't you going to ask me in?”

I said, “Sure,” and moved aside.

Alexis Bruckner and I had a brief affair. Not proud of it. It was over before Christmas.

I was jolted out of my reverie again when the waiter served my dinner. The restaurant had filled up, and Hal Bruckner still seemed oblivious to my presence. I doubted he would remember me in any case. But I caught Alexis stealing a couple of quick glances and figured my cover was blown. But she ignored my presence.

I couldn't leave without walking right past the group, so I ordered another glass of wine and slowed down on my meal to wait them out. Curiosity got the better of me, and I started sizing up the group. I wasn't too worried about being noticed. They seemed much too absorbed in conversation, or so I thought.

Alexis was dressed in white shorts, camp sandals, and a pastel tank top that did little to hide her ample cleavage. Her swept-back blond hair and deep tan accentuated the color of her eyes, a blue the ocean takes on far out to sea. The other woman stood out in contrast to her. She seemed a few years younger, small of stature but compact and athletic-looking. Her shock of raven hair and olive complexion enhanced an occasional smile below dark, almost brooding eyes. She wore a beige golf shirt tucked into faded jeans that bunched carelessly on her Nikes. She had this casual air of confidence about her I found intriguing.

Hal Bruckner was the oldest person at the table, the alpha male judging from the deference shown him by the three other men. There was a discernible pecking order among the men. The second-in-command was definitely the tall, dark-haired guy with the square jaw in the horned-rim glasses. He seemed to derive his position from a special relationship with Bruckner. The man with the retro crew cut, monolithic brow, and hefty body-mass index seemed a little too anxious to please. I guessed he had just recently been let into this inner circle and wanted desperately to remain there.

The third was tall and thin, sporting sandy hair, a bristly goatee, and John Lennon glasses with thick lenses. He carried his cell phone in a pouch on his belt. He was an integral member of the group, no doubt about it. The resident geek.

I managed to catch snatches of their conversation above the hum of the room. At one point I heard a fragment of a question the raven-haired woman asked Bruckner. I distinctly heard the words “guide service.” My ears pricked up.

Bruckner replied, and I heard the words, “Northwest Experience.”

The travel of my glass to my mouth stopped so abruptly that wine sloshed on the front of my shirt.
No!
I said to myself.
You've got to be kidding!

I shouldn't have been so surprised. After all, chances were pretty good Bruckner would use Philip to guide a trip on the Deschutes. But damn it, I wasn't ready to spend the next three days fishing with my ex-lover and her husband. Talk about awkward.

And more than awkward it turned out to be.

Chapter Three

By the time Hal Bruckner signed the credit card bill covering the dinner for the group, I was about ready to sneak out through the kitchen. When I finally got back to my room, I tried to read, but restless, I got up and walked down by the pool. The night was desert cool, and the Milky Way lay across the sky like diamond dust. My thoughts inevitably turned to my affair with Alexis.

Put simply, it was about sex and ego gratification. What affair isn't? I was still dealing with the abrupt departure of Anna when Alexis showed up—a beautiful woman who wanted me. Sure, I tried to tell myself, the relationship might go somewhere. But it wasn't long before I admitted what I already knew at the outset—this was sex without commitment and intimacy without attachment. It would run its course.

I recalled the one time she came to my place. She'd come unannounced, to surprise me, she explained. Archie took an instant dislike to her, and Alexis, no fan of big dogs, sat fuming in her late-model Jaguar with the doors closed. “Jesus Christ, Cal, is that dog legal?” she screamed through a partially rolled-down window as Arch stood barking at her.

I quieted Archie down and coaxed her out of the car, then led her up the steps and through the front door. Her blond hair formed a mass of bouncing ringlets framing an oval face with fine, sculpted cheekbones and wide-set, deep blue eyes. She turned to me, clasped her hands behind my neck and pulled us together, our bodies meshing like precision machinery.

“
Now
, Cal.
Right now
,” she said in my ear.

We made love all afternoon, and then she hurried off, the purring of her Jag barely audible as it pulled away. I vowed that would be the one and only time we met there. The Aerie was my refuge, after all. I was certain Archie would agree with that.

A woman's laugh snapped me back to the present. A young couple walked up to the edge of the pool. “Water warm?” the woman asked.

I'd been sitting with my feet dangling in the water. “Like a bath,” I answered as I got up and headed back to my room.

I crawled back into bed. But sleep still didn't come. Memories of that time with Alexis kept coming back to me, especially the day I ended it between us.

It was mid December. The sky, I remembered, was a mottled mass of black and gray that day. I could smell the rain and see it in the distance, a soft mist churning between the clouds and the valley floor like smoke. Archie and I had jogged to the cemetery above Gertrude Johnson's farm before turning around and starting home. The rain met us halfway, a gentle pattering at first, followed by a hard shower that came in over the ridge from the vineyards. We had just taken refuge under a big Doug fir when my cell went off.

“Dad? It's Claire. How are you?”

“I'm fine, sweetheart.” At the moment, Arch and I are holed up under a tree waiting for the rain to stop. We're on a jog.”

“Oh dear! Is this a good time to talk?”

“Sure. What's a little rain to an Oregonian?”

“I wanted to let you know my plans for Christmas.”

“Great.” I secretly hoped they would include a visit north. I knew Claire loved our time together as much as I did, but I also knew that her PhD work at Berkeley came first.

“I plan to come up to Dundee on the Tuesday before Christmas, and I have to leave the following Saturday. Does that work for you, Dad?”

“Perfect! Just let me know when to pick you up at PDX.”

“Okay. I'll email you my itinerary. Uh, there's one more thing.” The tone of her voice alerted me that something important was coming.

“Uh, I'm going to be taking some time off from school, Dad—”

“You are? What for?” I interrupted, instantly regretting it. Shut up and listen, I told myself. She's an adult.

“I'm going to the Sudan, the Darfur region, in May to teach people how to dig wells. I'm volunteering with a nonprofit called Well Spring. They're doing great work over there, Dad.”

Sudan
, I thought to myself, g
ood God!
But I didn't want to come off as unsupportive, so I said, “What about school? Can you afford the time off?”

“Not a problem. Professor Hornseth wants me to go for it. He says Well Spring's a great organization. I've got my course work out of the way, so it'll be no sweat to pick back up.”

I paused, trying to think of what to say. “Yeah, but, ah, is it safe over there? I mean, isn't there a lot of conflict in that region?” I read the papers. I knew damn well what the answer to that question was.

Claire exhaled loudly. “Well, there is some fighting, but we'll be working in safe areas. Clean water is everything to these people, Dad. I want to do this. If you google Well Spring, you'll see what I mean.”

I struggled to catch my balance. “Okay, I'll check them out,” but the tone came out decidedly unenthusiastic.

“Dad, it's a done deal. I want your understanding, not your permission. I've committed to go for six months.”

Her words stung like a slap in the face. It hurt to be left out of the loop, even if she was twenty-three years old. But I knew my daughter. There'd be no changing her mind, so I swallowed my next point of argument. “Can't blame me for worrying. It's in my job description. Look, sweetheart, I'm damn proud of you. And I know your mother would be, too.”

Brave words, but down in my gut I had an uneasy feeling, like things had just tilted away from me a little. Sure, I was proud. Sure, I wanted her to have the courage of her convictions. But digging wells in Darfur?

Later that afternoon, I sat in the living room watching another squall sweep in. I thought about Alexis. I thought about her rings and diamond-studded bracelets, her powder blue Jag with the soft leather seats, her spoiled, self-centered poutiness. As the feeble December light died, I picked up the phone and ended it between us.