Down by the River (14 page)

Something happened to Frank. He began drifting in and out of reality. At first he saw Conrad, skinny in his baggy pants and thick-soled shoes, with his young wife up against the opposite wall while the little children huddled in a corner away from them.
Then suddenly Frank saw his father beating his mother. The two little girls became five little tow-headed boys, shivering in fear, cowering from Gus Craven. But reality shifted again and Frank saw himself beating a woman while the babies cried and clung to one another. He stood frozen. He looked through that open picture window as if it were a movie screen that showed him the past, the present and the future all at once, the images shifting.

While he stood, not knowing quite what he saw, Sam and Clinton crawled through the window and grabbed Conrad, pulling him off his wife. Conrad yelled at them to mind their own business, that she was his wife. Frank had heard that very thing so many times growing up while Tom Toopeek or the deputies dragged old Gus out of the house.

Erline, her face bleeding, ran to her children to comfort them. That, too, was the same. Was there no other script for these beaters and their families? He heard the familiar sound of a siren and realities blended again as he feared they would take away his daddy, then feared they wouldn’t, then
knew
in his heart they were coming for him!

He felt a gentle but callused hand on his face and saw it was Jurea wiping tears from his cheeks. “There now, son. It’s going to be all right now. You can see she ain’t hurt real bad, the babies are okay, and now the police is—”

Frank, in a state of panic, turned away from her and ran.

Ricky pulled up in front of the house and got out of his car. He glanced at the fast-departing Frank Craven, ready to give chase, when Sam yelled from the porch, “Ricky! In here!”

Within the little house he found Clinton, a large boy and plenty able despite being an amputee with a prosthetic leg, sitting on top of the wriggling Conrad while Sam crouched over Erline, trying to assess the damage. Harry was rocking the baby. It took Ricky only a second to replace Clinton with a pair of handcuffs. “What’s up with Frank Craven?” Ricky asked.

“Don’t know,” Clinton said. “Was Frank who brought help. Mama and me, we heard that old truck pull up, then heard Erline scream for help.”

“That boy had tears all down his face,” Jurea said. “I think what he saw scared him to death.”

Ricky jerked Conrad to his feet. What Frank saw, he’s seen too much of, he thought.

“I think we ought to take this young woman to the hospital,” Sam said.

“I’ll be all right. He didn’t hurt me that bad.” She looked up at Ricky. Her lip was three times its original size on one side and her nose was bleeding. “It probably looks a lot worse than it is.”

Ricky frowned blackly. An abusive marriage had sent his mother, Corsica, first seeking shelter for her and her only son, Ricky, then eventually getting her degree in social work so she could help women in the same straights. There was a reason Ricky was his
mother’s best deputy and assistant. “Give me one minute to put this guy in the car and we’ll take care of Erline.”

Grabbing the handcuffs on the chain that held them together, he lifted upward, putting the strain on Conrad’s shoulders, and steered him toward the now-opened door. Except Ricky was a little bit off and Conrad’s head nearly hit the door frame. Ricky had to pull him hard right to keep him from hitting it.

“Hey! You son of a bitch!” Conrad shouted. “You did that on purpose!”

“If you’d stop squirming around, this would be easier,” Ricky said. “Here, let’s try that again.”

This time he did hit the door frame and Conrad let out a wail.

“Jesus,” Ricky said. “I’m all thumbs.” He pushed him through the door. “I’m awful sorry, Conrad,” he said, steering him out the door successfully. But then poor Conrad, completely of his own accord, didn’t see the step and tripped, landing right on his face. He rolled over and glared up at Ricky.

Ricky shrugged. “Hey, accidents happen, pal.” Without much concern for gentleness, Ricky got him to his feet again.

Just as Ricky was putting Conrad in the back of his police car, George came down the street, half jogging, half walking. George had a pretty good gut on him and, it was fair to say, was not in nearly the shape seventy-year-old Sam was in.

“Did Frank go back to the café?” Ricky asked him, shoving Conrad in and slamming the door.

“No. I locked up. He’s not here?”

“He took off like a scalded dog. Where you think he went?”

“Got me.” George shrugged. “I’ll look around for him. Maybe call Leah, make sure he’s okay. Why you reckon he ran off?” George asked.

“He might’ve been upset with what he saw—young woman with little children getting beat up. He’s got a history with that.”

“The poor kid,” George said. “You gonna arrest this scum?”

“Oh, yeah. Consider him arrested.”

“You like him for the burglary of the café?” George asked as they were going back into the house.

Ricky stopped short.
“Like him?”
he asked. “George, you been watching
NYPD Blue
again?”

His face went a little red. “Bet he did it, though.”

“Very likely,” Ricky said, but he couldn’t help chuckling.

Erline didn’t appear to be badly hurt, but you could never tell when there was more to an injury than there appeared to be. Ricky agreed that she should go to the emergency room and be looked over, so Sam was designated to drive her while Jurea watched the children.

“He wanted money,” Erline said as she was leaving. “He just wouldn’t believe I didn’t have any.”

“But you let him in,” Ricky said.

“I didn’t think he’d hurt me,” she said.

“He has before, hasn’t he?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“What about today was different, then?” he asked her.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I was stupider than usual,” she said.

Frank ran, and while he ran there was a movie reel of beatings going on in his head—those he had endured, those he had dished out. The tears streamed down his cheeks as the face of the victim and aggressor changed. He saw himself as the small boy who shrank away from his brutal father. He saw himself at the bus stop, pummeling a kid for saying something that pissed him off. He saw his mother trying futilely to ward off Gus Craven’s fists. He saw himself as he slapped his girlfriend across the face.

There was a demon inside of him and it had come from his father.

He ran past the café, down the street, past the police department and turned off Valley Drive. He was running for his life and he was so scared.

A dim light shone deep within the little yellow house where Jerry Powell lived, where he kept his counseling office. There was nothing welcoming about that light. In fact, it looked as if no one was home. A walk led to the side door where he kept his office and saw his clients for counseling, but
Frank threw himself against the front door and began hammering. It was a long time before lights started to come on in the house. Finally Jerry opened the door.

“Frank?” he asked.

“God,” Frank cried. “I just saw the worst things! You gotta get me out of this!”

Calmly, slowly, Jerry led Frank around the front of the house to the office doors. He tried to keep his personal life and his professional life separate. He didn’t mind that clients often came to the door of his residence, but each time he would take them to the office. It was there that he worked. It was one of the ways he managed to keep what he heard at work from giving him nightmares.

They sat down in chairs opposite each other while Frank described hearing the screaming, getting help to free the young woman from her abusive spouse. Then he described the changing shapes and identities as he saw, or imagined he saw, his father and himself. And himself becoming his father.

“Am I losing my mind?” he asked Jerry.

“No, Frank. Finding it.”

Jerry and Frank spent a long time talking about his reaction being the turning point he’d been needing. Once Frank saw the total picture of the cycle of abuse and understood it on an emotional level, there was true hope he could overcome it. Frank had been damaged by abuse, and part of the long-term effect was his inbred helplessness to rage.

“And that means I can’t control it,” he said in a defeated tone.

“No, Frank. It means that, until you understand what makes you vulnerable, you can’t control it. But now, knowing what you know, understanding what kind of life you
don’t
want anymore, now you have as good a chance as anyone.”

Tom joined Ricky at the police department to interrogate Conrad, who was now in custody.

“What brings you back to the valley, Conrad?” Tom asked him.

“My wife,” he said.

“She’s not your wife,” Ricky said.

“Common law,” Conrad said. “Them’s my kids. At least I think they are.” And he grinned meanly.

“So? You come back just to knock her around?”

“Jesus…”

“Well? I don’t think I get it—”

“Money! The old man gave her money!”

Tom and Ricky looked at each other, then back at Conrad. “Did she give you money before, Conrad?”

“Before what?”

“The last time you came to town?”

“What time? I just came today. All these years I took care of her, gave her whatever money I had, you’d think she could give me a couple a—”

“No, Conrad, the last time you came to town.”

“
What
time?” he asked, agitated. “I told you, I just came today! What are you
talking
about?”

“We think you were here before. A couple of weeks ago, maybe.”

Conrad’s expression changed and a slow smile spread on his mouth. Even though he’d spent years trying to kill off his brain cells, he hadn’t succeeded in becoming totally stupid yet. He realized what they were getting at. Something had happened in town, some crime, and they were going to lay it on him. He started to laugh. He laughed till he had to hold his sides.

“Sure am curious about what’s so damn funny,” Tom said.

“You are! You think you’re going to hang something on me and you are just shit outta luck! I been in jail! I been in jail for almost three weeks! At the county!”

H
arry could see from the parsonage when George arrived at the café. He didn’t have a stitch of food in the house, naturally, and he was starving. Being unable to sleep all night made him all that much more aware of his lack of food and his gnawing hunger. He gave George just enough time to get the coffee on.

“Good morning,” Harry called into the café. “Am I too early?”

“No! Come on in! I was just making myself some breakfast. Can I throw on a couple of eggs for you?”

“That would be wonderful, George.” He leapt up on a stool at the counter. “I could eat a horse. I didn’t sleep a wink all night, worrying about Erline.”

“I called Sam last night—she’s back at home.”

“Thank God! But what worries me is that young man, coming back, hurting her again.”

George brought Harry a cup of coffee. “I think he’s going away for a while. Don’t you, Harry?”

Harry shrugged and looked into his coffee. George took a thoughtful sip, then turned back to his bacon and eggs, giving each a flip onto a plate. The toast came up right on schedule, and in what seemed mere seconds, he put a plate in front of the preacher.

“Besides, Harry, I’d bet anything he took what was in my till.”

“You think?” Harry asked, looking up.

“Who else?”

“Indeed,” Harry said. He buttered his toast. “Maybe it was someone real needy, George.”

George just shrugged and got his own breakfast. “It wasn’t losing the money that upset me, Harry. It wasn’t enough to get upset about. I’d’ve given just about anyone who asked for it two hundred bucks. Maybe not that Conrad fella, I admit. But then again, if he’d of asked real nice and promised to get some food laid in for the wife and little ones, I’d of probably given it to him. If he’d asked real nice.” He messed up his eggs with his fork and dipped his toast into the yolks, taking a big, sloppy bite. “It’s just that I’d give almost anyone a loan, a meal, a job. You know? I open the café early, stay late and try to take good care of people. So why they got to go and wreck the damn door? Now it’s more than the money, it’s the hardware and time and all sorts of things.”

The bell on the door tinkled as Leah came in, shaking her slicker outside the door to remove the moisture from it. “Morning, Pastor. Morning, George.”

“Leah, how’s old Frank doing this morning? He going to be all right?”

“He’s fine, George. It shook him up a little, seeing that mean young fella beating on his wife.” She stashed her coat and got a cup of coffee. “The truth is, it reminded him of his daddy, and it threw the fear of God in him. Frank has a hard time controlling his temper. It terrifies him to think he can’t help but turn out as mean as his daddy was, God rest his soul and forgive me.”

Harry smiled a sweet smile and touched Leah’s hand. “Leah, when you asked, it was so. And I’ll give a little extra time in my prayers for Frank, since you worry about him.”

“I have to say, Harry, that most reverends wouldn’t be so easy around a woman once tried for murder.”

“We’re none of us perfect,” Harry said.

While he ate his breakfast, a meal he wouldn’t offer to pay for and that George wouldn’t bill him for, he felt he was at the end of his rope. He didn’t know how long he could go on letting the people of this town down like he did. He was dishonest with them and they had no idea. He knew he didn’t deserve their respect, but they gave it unflinchingly. Here was a good woman, who had killed only in defense of her own life and her children’s, standing before him with shame, when it was he who should be shamed before her.

“You’re awful quiet this morning, Harry,” George
observed. “You still worrying yourself about that family member in trouble?”

Harry stirred his coffee. “I guess I am, George.”

“Are you sure there isn’t some way I can help out?”

“I’m afraid not.” He tried not to say any more, but he was helpless. “It just gets so expensive, running down to San Francisco so often….”

“And you, on a fixed income,” George said, reaching into his pocket. He peeled off two twenties. “Things’ll turn around for you, Harry. You’ll see,” he said, slapping the money on the counter.

Despite his best effort to resist, he took it.

Tom Toopeek was the next patron to arrive and the sun still wasn’t up on the day. “Morning,” he said. “George, I don’t think you’re going to take this as good news. It wasn’t Conrad Davis who robbed the café.”

“No?”

Tom shook his head. “Turns out he was in jail in Humboldt County on a possession charge. He couldn’t make bail so he served just under a month. They got crowded and let him out early because he’d behaved himself. He was locked up when you got robbed.”

George just scratched his head. “Then for the life of me, I can’t imagine who’d of done it.”

“Don’t you have a whole mountaintop full of drug farmers just east of town?” Harry asked.

“True,” Tom said. “But it’s doubtful any of them would break in and steal money.”

“Why’s that?” Harry asked.

“They don’t exactly need money,” Tom said. “They’re busy making money illegally, and drawing even more attention to themselves is not what they’re looking to do. And there’re others back there, too. Mountain people, dropouts, the like. But if they were to break into the café, it would more likely be for food.” Tom looked around, as if taking inventory, but no one else was there. “Only regulars know George keeps a couple hundred dollars in the cash drawer at night.”

“I hate to think about that,” George said. “If it’s a regular, then it’s a friend.”

“Dear God,” Harry said.

Nancy Forrest looked out the kitchen window and saw Jim’s truck outside the detached garage. And Chris’s car was still parked out front. He wasn’t going to the office again today. She began to wonder if he even had an office anymore.

As much as everyone in Grace Valley seemed to know everyone’s business, there was one thing that no one seemed to know. Chris just didn’t work very hard. When he did work, he didn’t make much money. He always had an excuse, either he was just getting started or the economy wasn’t good or he’d just moved. The reality was that he didn’t have many skills, and he did have a few handicaps.

In the years they had lived in San Diego, Nancy had been the primary breadwinner. She’d worked her way up from a secretary to an administrative as
sistant, working for the senior vice president of a brokerage firm. Her salary and benefits were enviable. Chris, on the other hand, was an independent insurance agent in a little neighborhood office. He had a few good clients and the occasional new one would stumble in off the street. His schedule was spare, leaving time for things like tennis and golf, and general goofing off. Nancy had never caught him in actual affairs, but she’d caught him in a few flirtations. And he had an endless knack for puttering.

When they had separated some months ago and Chris came back to Grace Valley, he found an independent insurance agent in Rockport who offered him a little space in his office. He very generously gave it to him cheap for the first six months while Chris settled in and built his clientele. But, as usual, the clientele didn’t build, the rent went up, Nancy left her job to return to Grace Valley to care for the boys after their accident, and now they were just about out of savings. Still, Chris was out in the garage instead of trying to find work. He was building some kind of table for an old school chum, Greg Silva, while he simultaneously helped Jim fashion a cradle as a surprise for June. If it weren’t for that cradle, she would dump all these woes on June, like girlfriends do.

Having this sense of community again gave Nancy a feeling of optimism, a hope that they might actually belong here once more. But they couldn’t
do it without income, and Chris didn’t seem in any hurry to find a job with benefits. Nancy had wisely taken a leave from her job in San Diego, which kept their benefits intact and gave her something she could go back to, because there wasn’t work here for an office administrator.

She hated to think about it, but she’d probably have to go back to San Diego with the boys as soon as they could travel.

This wasn’t entirely Chris’s fault. He wasn’t lazy. He had dyslexia and paperwork was hard for him. And there weren’t many things he was trained to do; his education had been spotty at best. He would get easily frustrated, and rather than have a temper over it, he would just drift on to something else and lose interest.

As she looked around the house she was reminded that one of the few things Chris didn’t lose interest in was building. Well, that and gardening and sports. He might not be any great shakes as a breadwinner, but he was good around the house. And though he hadn’t been real attentive to discipline, while the boys had been laid up with their injuries, Chris had been a good companion to watch football with.

It was just too bad they had to eat.

She poured two cups of steaming coffee, told the boys she was stepping out back for a minute and went to the garage. She knocked on the door with her foot. “It’s me,” she said.

The air was cloudy with sawdust when she entered. Chris was standing over an eight-foot-long pine table that was sanded down to a satiny finish. Jim hovered over a maple cradle that rocked slightly on its base as he buffed the top.

She handed each a cup of coffee. “Thanks, honey,” Chris said hopefully, as if to say “You’re not mad anymore?”

“That’s really beautiful, Jim,” she said. “Are you sure it’s your first piece?”

“I never did anything like this until I helped Chris with the house. I think I’ve caught the bug.”

To Chris she said, “You’re not going to the office today?”

“Not today. I’m just going to see if I can get the first coat of stain on this table. Don’t worry, honey. Greg’s going to give me three-fifty in labor.”

She smiled a wan smile. He’d spent the better part of a week getting to this point. It didn’t take a math whiz to know that, even if he could find constant work in the field of furniture building or house refurbishing, at that rate of pay they’d starve to death.

“I’ll try not to spend it all in one place,” she said, trying to keep the sarcasm from her voice.

“Nancy, I’m going to be done with this pretty soon, but can I leave it here? To hide it from June until the right moment?”

“Of course, Jim,” she said, running a hand over the smooth side. She remembered that she and Chris had been their happiest when they were waiting for
the babies to come. They’d been married awhile, had already suffered a miscarriage, and had had some serious ups and downs. But when the twins were about to be born they were filled with hope and optimism and love.

It had been a long time since she’d felt that way.

The rain came down in steady sheets all day. On the coast of northern California there were reports of mud slides and a couple of houses were lost, but in Grace Valley it was just one big soggy valley.

Rainstorms in that part of the world were like sheer-descent waterfalls. The mountains and tall trees kept the winds to a minimum and there was very little cloud-to-ground lightning. An identical weather system on the East Coast or in Texas would blow and billow and crash and boom, making itself felt in a major way. Around Grace Valley the water just kept running out of the sky in a constant flow, quietly soaking the ground and filling up the rivers, ponds and ravines. But just because it was relatively quiet and still, it was no less dangerous. When the groundswell reached critical mass, there could be landslides and floods. Roads could wash out, bridges could collapse and low areas could fill up and trap unsuspecting motorists.

The inclement weather kept the patients in the clinic to a minimum, and during a lull in the action, June and Susan dashed across the street for a coffee break. They found the usual suspects—Elmer, Sam
and, of course, Leah and George. Elmer was talking about driving out to Hudson House to check on Myrna and Morton. Hudson House was on high ground, but the grounds were still a disgraceful mess of mud left by the sheriff’s department. “I want to make sure neither of them is thinking of driving and that no one is bailing out there.”

“You sure you aren’t going there to make sure Morton isn’t missing again?” George asked.

“Last I heard, they were getting along just fine,” Elmer said.

“Call and ask her if she needs anything before you drive all the way over there,” June advised him. “When I last talked to her, she said she’d told the Barstows to stay home and stay dry. I don’t think anyone is shopping from Myrna’s household.”

“Good idea,” he said.

George was the only one who noticed the car that drove slowly down the street in front of the café, but his staring caused the others to turn. It was a nice car, a fairly new BMW. Inside a woman hunched over the wheel and peered left, then right, then crept along down the road. Leah went to the front window to see where the car went. She turned and reported to the group, “She parked at the church and got out. Anybody know that car?”

“I never saw it before,” Sam said. He’d be the most likely to know a car from the valley.

“She’s gone into the church. Maybe someone from the Presbyterian office? Up here on church business?”

Silence prevailed while everyone waited.

“She’s still in there,” Leah said, leaving the window. “She must have some business with Harry.”

Conversation slowly went back to the weather, to Myrna and Morton’s shaky reunion. George whipped up some hot chocolate for June and Susan. Before long the door to the café opened and the woman from the BMW came in, shaking off her umbrella outside the door. She went to the counter to order a cup of coffee, but she didn’t sit.

“If you’d like to find a table or booth, I’ll be glad to bring it to you,” Leah said.

“Thank you,” she said. She found a booth near the front of the café where she could look out the window toward the church. When Leah brought the coffee, the stranger had shrugged out of her coat and fluffed the thick white cowl of her cashmere sweater, which set off the sheen of her coal-black hair.

Leah put down the coffee and added a slice of apple pie. “George says it’s so cold, no one’s come in to eat his pie. Have a piece so it won’t go stale.”