Down by the River (9 page)

Conrad was quiet for a minute, staring at that wad of bills in Sam’s hand. Then he said, “One more chance, old—Just tell me how you want it done and that’s just how I’ll do it. One more chance.”

Sam felt himself almost break into a sardonic smile. The young man wasn’t
asking
for another chance, he was
telling.
“Sorry, Conrad.”

“What? What? Just like that?”

“Just like that, after a few warnings. And I’m going to go ahead and let you keep what you skimmed the last week or two, hoping you use it to take care of that young family rather than do some selfish thing.” He shook his head sadly. “This isn’t your fault, son. I shouldn’t have stuck my nose in your business, trying out my brand of help on you. All those expectations and we weren’t, neither one of us, up to it.”

“Yeah, you got that right, old man,” he said, plunging his hands into his pockets and moving sulkily away. After taking about ten steps he stopped, crouched to pick up a rock and threw it point-blank at the station doors. A window shattered under the
assault. Sam didn’t flinch; Conrad brushed his hands together in satisfaction, then continued his walk down the street.

Boy, did I pick that one wrong, Sam thought.

The shorter days hadn’t changed Tom’s schedule much. In fact, he was rousted from bed earlier in the winter than in summer and spring. Plentiful work and long workdays tended to wear people out, help them feel they’d been successful regardless of how much they’d earned, and there was far less trouble in the valley.

This early morning Deputy Lee Stafford had answered a domestic disturbance at the Craven household. That got Tom’s attention. It was usually a good idea to get backup for domestic calls, given the volatile and unpredictable nature of them. But the Craven family had a long and tragic history with domestic problems. The late Gus Craven had been jailed numerous times for beating his wife and five children, and then one horrible night, when he’d been drunk and out of control, Leah gave him a whack on the back of the head with a shovel, ending his battering days forever. A jury of her peers had determined that it was the whack Gus had long been begging for.

But family violence is a hard thing to nip in the bud. It’s generational. Ironically, the one thing a child most abhors about a physically abusive parent is the very thing he or she might inherit—a tendency to hit.

Sadly, Tom was not too surprised to find that the physical altercation had been between sixteen-year-old Frank and his mother, Leah.

Tom and Frank had way too much history for a boy his age and a police chief, and way too personal to boot. Frank had, for a time, romanced Tom’s eldest daughter Tanya. And in some unreasoned fit of rage, Frank had struck her, just as Frank’s father had struck his mother.

But all that was before; Tom was concerned with now. By the time Lee and Tom arrived at the scene, Leah was rocking in the chair on her porch, an ice pack on her eye, and Frank was sitting on the porch steps, crying. There were lights on inside, but all was quiet. All but the creaking of the rocking chair and the subdued sniffing.

“Everyone inside doing all right?” Tom asked Leah.

“Yes, Tom. Frank and I—We had an argument is all. Kids never even got out of bed.”

“One of them called the police, Leah.” Briefly, surprise registered on her face. “Lee, go in and check on the kids. Make sure no one’s hurt or needing anything.”

Lee went into the house. He was a good man for this duty; he had a couple of his own little ones. Lee and Ricky were both about thirty years old, Ricky being the bachelor.

“Let me have a look, Leah,” Tom said. She slowly lowered the ice pack and revealed a bruised cheek
bone. He touched it softly; she winced just slightly. “It doesn’t look real bad, but I suggest you drop into the clinic later, have June or John take a look.”

“It’ll be okay,” she said. “I’ve had worse.”

“That’s fine talk,” Tom said. “Sounds like this family is right back where it was when Gus was alive.” Leah looked into her lap and Frank muttered something. “What’s that, Frank?”

“I said, it was an accident!”

“I’m sure it was. At least, you never intended it. Why don’t you go get yourself a jacket, Frank.”

“Naw, I’m okay. I’m not cold.”

“We’re going for a ride,” Tom told him.

Leah rose out of her chair. “Oh, Tom, no! Don’t take him in. It wasn’t as bad as it seems. He got in late, we argued, I pushed him too—”

“We’re just going for a ride, Leah,” Tom said, though he could take Frank to jail and charge him with battery if he wanted to. But Tom wanted to accomplish two things. First, he wanted to separate the combatants. No matter how contrite and sorry Frank might be at the moment, tempers could soar quickly when just the right comment was made and the whole dispute could arise anew. And second, he wanted a little time with the young man to talk about counseling, anger management and the like.

“It’s okay, Mama,” the boy said.

A couple of minutes later Frank returned to the porch with a jacket on and gave his mother a kiss on the top of the head. He then descended the steps and
went to the Range Rover, his hand on the back door. “Get in front, Frank,” Tom called. Perplexed for a moment, Frank finally let himself into the front.

Seeing that Leah and the other children were all right, Tom and Lee got ready to take their leave.

“I’m getting tired of coming out to this house,” Lee said. “I thought this sorry business was over, with Gus gone.”

“Shows what you know,” Tom said. “I’ll see you back in town.”

Once in the car, driving, Tom turned to Frank and asked, “You want to end up like your dad?”

“Dead, you mean?” he asked with sarcasm.

“We’re all going to end up dead, son. I mean with a temper you can’t control. I mean hurting people you care about and then feeling like a big loser because of it. That’s what I mean.”

Frank didn’t answer right away. “No one wants that,” he finally said.

“There are things we can do to try to head it off at the pass, you know.”

“We?”

“Son, I’m the one who got pulled out of bed before dawn to drive out to your house and see who’s beating up who. I’ve been doing that a long time now, first with your daddy and now, it seems, with you. I figure we’re in this together. At least partly.”

Frank slid down in the seat. “That’s a comfort,” he grumbled.

Tom let it go. “I didn’t know if I was going to have
to start handling domestic calls that involved you, but I’ll be honest with you, the statistics said I would. Now we’re faced with a couple of choices. I can start locking you up each time, or we can get you in a program. You should already have been in one….”

“I was.”

“Is that so? You quit or something?” Tom asked.

“No. I went the three months.”

“You
graduated?
”

Frank looked over at him.
“Yes,”
he returned with the same incredulous inflection in his voice as Tom. “Guess that shows you how good a program it was.”

Tom whistled. “Point taken. Well, we have to do something. We can’t just act like it didn’t happen, Frank.”

“Maybe you should lock me up awhile,” he offered.

Tom drove right past the police department and on down Valley Drive. “I know that isn’t going to do any good. I wish it would—that’d make life simple, wouldn’t it? Just grit your teeth, hang out in County for a while and be miraculously free of that compulsion to strike out every time things don’t go your way.”

“It wasn’t exactly like—”

“Okay, how about every time someone is just so damned annoying and provoking that there seems to be only one way to get them to back off? How about that? That how it was?”

“Yeah! That’s how it was!” he said.

Tom pulled the Range Rover up to the café, which
was still dark. He put it in Park and looked at Frank. “Okay, try this on for size, big shot. Not everyone gets that annoyed and provoked. It’s in the DNA, handed down from generation to generation. It’s like a medical condition. And there
is
treatment.”

“What are we doing here? I don’t work till after school.”

“I’ve got a key. We’ll put on the coffee for George, get ourselves some orange juice and come up with a plan for you.”

“Aww,” he whined.

“It’s me or Judge Forrest,” Tom said.

“No contest there,” Frank allowed.

“Good choice.”

Tom pulled out an impressive key ring with keys to most of the businesses and storage sheds in town, but when he got to the back door, it was ajar about three inches. His arm came out across Frank’s chest, stopping him in his tracks. He put a finger over his lips and steered the boy back to the Rover. He put Frank in, pulled the shotgun out.

He’d like to think George just forgot to lock the door, but George never had before. Although it was a town where theft was rare, there were two businesses on the main street that were careful with locks—the café and the clinic. In the café George had to worry about stores of expensive food and supplies, and the clinic kept supplies of a different nature on hand, plus some drugs. Not only were those doors kept locked, whoever was on night patrol
checked them. “Lie down on the front seat,” he whispered to Frank. “Lock yourself in.”

He raised the shotgun, cocked it, filled the chamber and prepared to clear the building. He pushed open the door, sidled in, flipped on the light. He moved stealthily through the café, checked closets, bathrooms, booths. There was no one in there. Whoever had been there had left a long time ago. And had left the cash drawer gaping and empty.

“Well, I’ll be a damned dog” came the voice of George from the doorway.

G
race Valley was by no means crime free. With the biggest drug farmers in California, possibly the United States, hiding in the vast mountain ranges east of the town, you could hardly say that.

That was different. That criminal activity had little to do with Grace Valley. And with the close watch Tom kept over the town, those outsiders kept to themselves and generally waged their battles with the feds.

Of course, there was crime in Grace Valley. Plenty. There were feuds and fights, way too many domestic disturbances, and being so closely situated to the infamous pot growers, Tom and his deputies had more than their share of controlled-substance abusers. There were drunk and disorderlies, runaways, theft of property and accidents. Like everywhere else there were people in trouble and people who made trouble.

But no one had ever pried open the door to George’s café and emptied his cash drawer. There was something so personal and invasive about that.

George only kept a couple hundred dollars in the drawer, just the right amount so that he’d never have to go to the bank for change. He made a bank run about once a week and took money home with him at night, that was kept in a safe in his bedroom closet. In all the years he’d been open, everyone knew his routine. He locked his cash drawer, locked his doors and took the excess money with him. The café, being on the main street along with the clinic and police department, was patrolled during the night if there was a deputy on duty, which was most of the time. It was kept well lit. But mostly, it was a friend of the town. To rob George, to rob the café, was like robbing the church, or your mom and dad.

“Never expected nothing like this,” George told his cronies as he poured coffee all around.

“Was there anyone else broken into around town?” Elmer asked.

“No sir, Doc. Tom checked the clinic, church, flower shop and bakery first thing. He had Lee dust the door and the cash drawer for prints to send out to some high falutin crime lab, but there were surely too many smeary prints to get the burglar’s. Sam? You checked the station, didn’t you?”

“There’s no money there, George. And if someone stole some of the tools, he’d be doing me a favor.
Don’t use ’em much, they’re as old as God and I still have insurance because I’ve always been too lazy to cancel.”

Elmer turned on his stool and regarded Sam slyly. “You’re the only man I’ve ever known who could make poverty and lack of industry sound like a virtue.”

“Lack of industry?” he argued. “I’m busy every second!”

“Poverty?” George seconded. “The man’s probably the richest in the county, save Myrna.”

“I ain’t that rich,” Sam said. “I put aside a dollar or two is all.”

There was a round of amused laughter.

“You keep a wallet so fat, I’m surprised you don’t have scoliosis from sitting lopsided.”

Sam, like a lot of men his age, liked to deal in cash and wasn’t too enamored with things like check writing and mutual funds. He kept a savings account and had recently allowed the Rockport banker to talk him into a certificate of deposit, but it took some doing. He owned the house he lived in, and the station, and wasn’t impressed by things like deductible mortgage interest. He was most comfortable with things that just added up.

And one thing that didn’t add up just right was the fact that George was robbed a little less than a week after Sam had told that useless Conrad Davis to take a hike.

Sam finished his coffee and took his leave just as
June was coming into the café. They said their good mornings at the door.

“Morning, everyone,” June said. “George, I heard you were robbed! How in the world did that happen?”

“Looks like it probably happened with a crowbar,” he informed her. “I know you’re off coffee right now, but you’re not off bear claws for breakfast, are you, June?”

“Certainly not! I think I could eat ten, but I’ll just take two.” She kissed her father’s cheek.

Rather than looking up at her face from the stool on which he sat, he looked at her middle. “You’re growing by the second,” he muttered.

“Yes,” she said, rubbing her tummy idly. “It’s about ten per cent baby and ninety percent bear claws, I think.”

“That baby’s gonna be born with sticky fingers,” George said.

“Fine by me,” said Elmer, then muttered, “long as June’s got something on her finger besides sugar glaze.”

Sam noticed that the old truck was not parked in front of the house Conrad and Erline shared. Though it was early, a homey curl of smoke rose above the house. She must be up and had stoked the fire to warm the little ones. Still, he knocked softly. It was a long wait before her quiet voice inquired, “Who is it?”

“It’s Sam Cussler, Erline. I know it’s early, but—”

The lock moved and the door opened. Clearly she’d been crying. Her eyes were red, and that look that reshapes a woman’s face from cheerful to mournful had transformed her. It was too early in the day to have already had an insurmountable problem. She’d been crying through the night.

She sniffed and tried to smile, but it was lopsided. “You know you’re welcome here anytime, Mr. Cussler.”

“Thank you, Erline. I was hoping to find young Conrad at home.”

“No, sir, he ain’t.”

Sam’s eyebrows lifted. “Could it be he’s found some honest work?”

Her chin dropped and she resumed crying, softly. Sam just let himself all the way inside and closed the door behind him. He could see where they’d made camp on the living room floor in front of the wood stove. The two children and baby still slept atop that single, thin mattress, covered by what looked to be their mother’s sweaters.

“Now, what is it has you crying, Erline?” he asked her.

“It’s Conrad. I haven’t seen him in days. He took the truck and left.”

“Why haven’t you told anyone?”

“I’ve already been so much trouble to everyone. Starting with Conrad, I suppose. If I hadn’t gotten pregnant…” She wiped her nose on her sleeve.
The redness of her nose wasn’t just from crying; she was cold.

“Erline, the café got robbed last night. The back door was pried open and the cash drawer was emptied. I have a notion it might’ve been Conrad.”

“If it was, he didn’t come by here. I laid awake all night, listening for that old truck, hoping he’d come back and help us.” She sniffed loudly. “Can’t be he’s left us for good, can it?”

“Erline, just how old are you?”

“I’m nineteen now.”

“And that oldest of yours?”

“Three. There’s been one a year. One died.”

“And Conrad? How old’s he?”

“He says twenty-four, but I don’t know.”

So, Conrad had had himself a youngster. A fourteen-year-old girl. And now look at what he’d left behind.

“He’s done this before. He’ll probably be back after he lets off some steam.”

“What’s your name, Erline?”

She looked confused. “You know my name….”

“You and Conrad…you’re not really man and wife. Where you from?”

She turned away from him then, went back to the children. She knelt and tucked the clothing around them tighter, then reached over to the stove to stir the embers around and make room for another piece of wood.

In many ways Sam was innocent. Unlike Tom and
June, he wasn’t continually forced to look at the seedier side of life. Yet, he could tell that if Erline wasn’t forthcoming with the answer to his questions, there was something painful and shameful enough to hide.

She turned and looked up at him. “Conrad took me away from a much worse condition. If you can believe that.”

He didn’t even question it. Nor did he comment. “How’s the food holding out?” he asked, and she looked away again. Certainly that, more than Conrad’s absence, was what had her crying. “You all out now?” he pressed, and she nodded weakly. “Any money, Erline?” he tried, but he knew the answer even before she shook her head. Conrad had left the station with some money, plus what he’d skimmed from money he’d collected from customers against Sam’s orders. You’d think the scoundrel could’ve left the mother of his children with enough money to feed them for a little while. “He use it mostly for drugs?” he asked her. And of course she nodded again, but she couldn’t look at him.

The room was quiet for a long spell except for the miserable, soft weeping.

“Look here, Erline,” Sam finally said. “If you can make up your mind to be finished with that losing piece of crap, I can get you some legitimate help. But no way am I going to help Conrad. If you plan to take him back, just tell me now, and I’ll fix you and the little ones up with some sort of bus ticket to some
where. But this is a decision you have to make. You’re overdue, I’m thinking.”

She stood up from the mattress. “I never wanted it to be like this. I just never had any choice. He was all there was. That or starve.”

“Well, looks like you’re about to starve now for want of him. Your choice. I can get you some county help. Some money and food and maybe a little more improvement on this beat-up old shack. It happens Corsica Rios, a caseworker for the county’s Child Protective Services, is a good friend around here. Her boy Ricky is a deputy.”

“What do I have to do?” she asked him.

“You’ll have to fill out some forms, I reckon,” he said. “I’ll go over to the café, put in a call to Corsica and bring you back a little milk and cereal for the children. Next I’m going to get some sturdy locks for what pass as doors on this sorry old house. But you have to promise, Erline, that you’re not going to give whatever help you get over to that drug abuser.”

She smiled slightly. Weakly. “That’s an easy promise to make, Mr. Cussler. Life with Conrad ain’t exactly easy.”

Later that same day, Ricky Rios pulled up to the little house in his squad car. He carried four generous bags of groceries to the front door and knocked by tapping his foot against the portal. Erline peeked out nervously. Behind her came the sound of crying children.

“Can I come in?” Ricky asked. “I have some food for you and the children.”

She opened the door uncertainly. “Why’s the police bringing me food?” she asked.

Ricky laughed. “The police aren’t bringing you food, young lady. Corsica’s son Ricky is bringing you exactly what she told me to bring by. You got some place handy to store this? I figured there was no refrigerator here.”

She just stood back and shrugged. “We live in this one room here, where there’s heat from the wood stove.”

“Good enough,” he said, stacking the bags alongside her meager baggage against one wall.

She went back to the rocker with the baby in her arms.

“My mother can’t get over here right away. This time of year there’re lots of people need her and not enough of her to go around. So she told me to drop this by and she’ll get here when she can. You need a few dollars to get you by?”

She just looked up at him in silent wonder. Ricky was about six-two, nicely muscled in his impeccable uniform, all the heavy police accouterments hanging from his belt. And handsome. So unbearably handsome. He grinned at her speechlessness and became even more beautiful.

“You need a couple of dollars to get you by?” he repeated.

“Um.” She shook herself. “Um, no. Mr. Cussler
took care of that. He gave me a little money. Which I fully intend to repay.”

“Don’t let it cost you any sleep. Old Sam is pretty well fixed.” Ricky crouched, one knee on the floor, as he checked out the little girls and their worn-out baby dolls. “You ladies had your lunch yet? I brought some peanut butter and bread. And some bananas. How about that?” The little ones withdrew shyly and Ricky stood up. “Well, my mom will get over here when she can. Meantime, if something comes up, you can leave a message at the police department. You know where that is?”

She nodded. Her mouth was still slightly agog. She wondered what it would be like to have a man like this in her life. A man so strong and tall and clean and smart. A man on the right side of the law. It would have to be wonderful. And she could tell, just from this brief period of time with him, that he was safe. He wouldn’t hurt. He would protect and not hurt.

There were women who had good men in their lives, she thought. She’d never been one of them and her mama hadn’t, either, but there were decent men out there. Decent men, loving wives, happy, well-fed children. If she had to list the things she dreamed of, longed for, it would be that impossible combination for herself and her children.

“I’ll check on you in a couple of days, make sure you’re okay. Don’t get up,” he said, turning toward the door. When he got to the door he said, “Oh. If
that Conrad shows up around here, would you let someone know? We’d like to talk to him.”

“Who?” she asked.

“Well, me, the Chief, the police. We’d like to know where he was when the café was robbed.”

“I don’t think he did it,” she said. “I mean, I don’t say that because I’d make any excuse for him, but I think I’d of heard that old truck if he was anywhere near here.”

“That right?” he asked her. “Bad muffler?”

“Almost everything on that old truck is bad. It makes a terrible ruckus.”

He smiled that glorious smile again. “Thanks, Erline. That’s good information. I’ll pass it on to the chief.”

Then he was gone. For the longest time she sat there in the rocker, holding her infant son against her chest and for the millionth time prayed that God would give her and the children a chance to escape from the dreary poverty and violence their lives had been.

June stood before her stove, stirring a pot of rich, thick chili. All seemed right with the world when she could get out of the clinic early enough to actually cook, lay a cozy fire, feel the baby move inside her and wait for the baby’s father to come home.

The headlights from Jim’s truck strafed the front of the house. Absently, she smoothed her hair and felt the roundness of her belly. “Daddy’s home,” she whispered.

The dog preceded him and June fell immediately to one knee to welcome Sadie, not at all surprised by how much she missed her when Jim took her with him. “Hey, my girl! How was your day? Were you very good? Did you entertain the twins?” Then she looked up at Jim, who had grime and sawdust all over his heavy sweatshirt. “You don’t think you’re going to take over my dog along with everything else, do you?”