Down River (19 page)

“That would be a mistake.”

“I’ve been railroaded once. I’m not going to let it happen again. Not to me or anyone else in my family.”

My cell phone rang, so I held up a finger. It was Jamie, and he was stressed-out.

“It’s the cops,” he said.

“What about them?”

“They’re searching Dolf’s house!” I looked at Robin as Jamie yelled in my ear. “It’s a freakin’ raid, man!”

   I closed the phone slowly, watching Robin’s face. “Grantham is searching Dolf’s house.” Distaste filled my voice. I could see five steps down the road. “Did you know about that?”

“I knew,” she said calmly.

“Is that the reason that you called me? So that Grantham could do this without me around?”

“I thought it would be best if you were not there when he conducted the search. So, yes.”

“Why?”

“Nothing could be gained if you and Grantham have another difficult encounter.”

“So you lied to me to protect me from myself? Not to help Grantham?”

She shrugged, unapologetic. “Sometimes you can kill two birds with one stone.”

I stepped closer, so that she seemed very small. “Sometimes, maybe. But you can’t have it both ways forever. One of these days, you are going to need to make a choice about what’s more important to you. Me or the job.”

“You may be right, Adam, but it’s like I said. You left me. This has been my life for five long years. I know it. I trust it. A choice may be out there somewhere, but I’m not ready to make that choice today.”

Her face refused to soften. I blew out a breath. “Damn it, Robin.” I took a step and turned. I wanted to punch something. “What are they looking for?”

“Danny was killed with a .38. The only pistol registered to anyone at Red Water Farm is owned by Dolf Shepherd, a .38. Grantham is looking for that.”

“Then I have a problem.”

“What’s that?”

I hesitated. “My fingerprints are all over that pistol.”

Robin studied me for a long time. To her credit, she did not ask me why. “Your fingerprints are on record. It won’t take very long.”

I opened the door to my car.

“Where are you going?”

“Dolf’s.”

Robin moved for her car. “I’ll follow you.”

“What about Grantham?”

“I don’t work for Grantham,” she said.

   Four police cars blocked the driveway, so I pulled off into a field and walked. Robin fell in behind me and as we crossed over the steel bars of the cattle guard, dry mud crunched beneath my shoes. I did not see Grantham, and guessed that he was in the house. A uniformed deputy guarded the porch and another slouched by the cars. The front door stood open, wedged with a rocking chair turned flat against the house. Dolf, Jamie, and my father stood together next to Dolf’s truck. The old men looked furious; Jamie chewed on a fingernail and nodded at me. I looked for Parks Templeton and found him in his long, expensive car. He had a cell phone to his ear, one leg hanging out of the open car door. He did a double take when he saw us, and hung up the phone. We reached my father at the same time.

Parks aimed a finger at Robin. “Tell me that you have not been speaking to her.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“No, you do not.”

“Let’s talk in a minute,” I said to Robin. She turned away and mounted the steps to the porch. I turned back to Parks. “Can you do anything about this?” I gestured at the house.

“We’ve been through that,” my father said. “The warrant is legal.”

“How long have they been here?”

“Twenty minutes.”

I spoke to Parks. “Tell me about the warrant.”

“There’s no need—”

“Tell him,” my father said.

Parks drew himself up. “It’s limited in scope. That’s good. It gives the police the authority to seize any handguns and handgun ammunition on the premises.”

“That’s it?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“That should have taken two minutes. They’re looking for a .38. It’s right there in the gun cabinet.”

The lawyer put a finger across his lips, tapped once. “How do you know they’re looking for a .38?”

“Because that’s what killed Danny. I learned that from her.” I gestured at the house, held the lawyer’s eyes until he was forced to nod. It was good information. “They should have had it by now,” I said. “They should be gone.”

For a moment no one spoke. I wish that it had stayed like that.

“I hid it,” Dolf finally said.

“What?” Jamie slipped off the hood of the truck. Sudden anger boiled off him. “You hid it? No reason to hide a gun unless you’ve got something to hide.”

The disquiet slid off Dolf’s face, replaced by a look of weary resignation. Jamie stepped closer. “I’m always answering to you,” Jamie said. “Got you looking over my shoulder. Now, why don’t you answer to me? Only one reason to hide a gun, Dolf. That’s plain enough. Why don’t you just tell us?”

“What are you saying?” my father asked.

Dolf peered out at Jamie from beneath heavy lids, and there was such regret in his eyes. “Danny was decent enough, and I know you loved him, boy—”

“No, you don’t,” Jamie said. “Don’t you ‘boy’ me. Just explain it. Only one reason to hide a gun, and that’s because you knew they’d come looking for it.”

“You’re drunk,” Dolf said. “And that’s ignorant talk.”

Parks interrupted, and his voice was strong enough to give Jamie pause. “Illuminate us,” he said to Dolf.

Dolf looked to my father. He nodded, and Dolf spit on the ground, hitched his thumbs into his belt. He stared at Parks, then at Jamie. “That’s not the only reason to hide a gun, Jamie, you big, dumb lummox. A man might hide a gun to keep somebody else from using it. To keep a smart man from doing a stupid thing.”

Dolf’s eyes cut to me, and I knew that he was thinking about how I took the gun from his cabinet and how I almost killed Zebulon Faith. He’d hidden it for my sake.

“He’s right,” I said, relieved. “That’s a good reason.”

“How about you explain that,” Parks said to me.

My father spoke before I could. “He doesn’t have to explain anything. We did that five years ago. He won’t have to do it again. Not here. Not ever.”

I felt my father’s eyes on me, the force of what he said. What it meant. It was the first time he’d stood up for me since Janice said that she saw me dripping with blood. Parks went rigid as the color rose in his face. “You are limiting my value to you, Jacob.”

“At three hundred dollars an hour, I make the rules. Adam will tell you what he thinks you need to know. I will not have him questioned again.”

Parks tried to return my father’s stare, but lost his nerve after a few seconds. He threw up a hand and stalked off. “Fine,” he said. I watched him all the way back to his car. Suddenly my father was embarrassed, as if by the act of protecting me. He patted Dolf on the shoulder, fastened an eye on Jamie.

“You drunk?” he asked.

Jamie was still mad; you could see it. “No,” he said. “I’m hungover.”

“Well, keep it together, boy.”

Jamie climbed into his truck, slumped in the seat, and lit a cigarette. That left the older men and me. My father led us a few steps away. He looked apologetic. “He’s not usually like this,” he said, then looked at Dolf. “You okay?”

“It’ll take more than that boy’s got to ruin my day,” Dolf said.

“Where’d you hide the gun?” I asked.

“In a coffee can in the kitchen.”

“They’ll find it,” I said.

“Yep.”

I studied Dolf’s face. “Is there any chance that it can be linked to Danny’s death?”

“I can’t imagine how.”

“Do you have any handguns?” I asked my father.

He shook his head and his gaze went to some distant place. My mother had killed herself with one of his handguns. It was a stupid question, insensitive, but when he spoke, his face was a rock. “What a mess,” he said.

He was right, and I wondered how it all fit. Danny’s death, now clearly considered a homicide; the attack on Grace; Zebulon Faith; the power plant; the rest of it. I looked at Dolf’s house, full of strangers. Change was coming, and no way would it be the good kind.

“I have to go,” I said.

My father looked old.

I nodded at the house. “Parks is right about one thing. They’re looking to pin Danny’s death on somebody, and for whatever reason, Grantham seems to be looking at us. That means that he’ll be looking at me in particular.” No one contradicted me. “I need to talk to somebody.”

“Talk to who?”

“Something just occurred to me. It may be nothing, but I need to check it out.”

“Can you tell us what it is?” Dolf asked.

I thought about it. Until Danny’s body was found in that hole, everybody thought he was in Florida. His father. Jamie. There had to be a reason for that, and I thought I might find it at the Faithful Motel. It was a place to start, at any rate. “Later,” I said. “If it pans out.” I took two steps and stopped, turned back to my father. His face was heavy and filled with sadness. I spoke from the heart. “I appreciate what you said to Parks.”

He nodded. “You are my son.”

I looked at Dolf. “Tell him why you hid the gun, would you? There’s no reason for that to be a secret between us.”

“All right.”

   I got in the car, wondering how my father would feel when Dolf told him just how close I’d come to killing Zebulon Faith. Given the way that we all felt about Grace, I thought he’d probably understand. It was the least of our problems.

I turned off the farm and onto smooth, black pavement. The road was cooked; it shimmered under the sun. I went back to the Faithful Motel and found Manny behind the counter. “It’s Manny, right?”

“Emmanuel.”

“Is your boss here?” I asked.

“No.”

I nodded. “When I was here before you told me about Danny. You said that he’d gotten into a fight with his girlfriend and then gone to Florida when she took out a warrant.”

“
Sí
.”

“Can you tell me the girl’s name?”

“No. But she has a cut here now.” He drew a finger across his right cheek.

“What does she look like?”

“White. Kind of fat. Trashy.” He shrugged. “Danny would sleep with anybody.”

“What were they fighting about?”

“He was breaking up with her.”

I had a sudden flash of intuition. “It was you that called the police,” I said. “That first day I came.”

A smile cracked the seamed, brown face. “
Sí
.”

“You may have saved my life.”

He shrugged. “I need the job. I hate the boss. This is life.”

“Did the police search this place?” I was thinking of drugs.

“They search. They find nothing. They look for Mr. Faith. They find nothing.”

I waited for more, but he was finished. “You told me that Danny is in Florida. How do you know that?”

“He sent a postcard.” No hesitation, no sign of dishonesty.

“Do you still have it?”

“I think so.” He turned for the back room, came back, and handed me a postcard. I took it by the edges; it was a picture of blue water and white sand. It had the name of a resort in the upper-right corner, and a slogan in pink letters across the bottom: SOMETIMES IT’S JUST RIGHT. “It was on the bulletin board,” Emmanuel told me.

I looked at the back. In printed letters it read, “Having a blast. Danny.”

“When did you get this?” I asked.

Emmanuel scratched at his cheek. “He had the fight with the girl and then he left. Maybe four days after that. Two weeks ago. Two and a half weeks. Something like that.”

“Did he pack anything?”

“I did not see him after he hit the girl.”

I asked a few more questions, but they led nowhere. I debated whether or not to tell him that Danny Faith was dead, but decided against it. It would hit the papers soon enough.

“Listen, Emmanuel. If the police find Mr. Faith, he may be going away for a while.” I paused, to make sure he was following me. “You might want to start looking for another job.”

“But Danny—”

“Danny won’t be running the motel. It will probably close.”

He looked very troubled. “This is true, what you say?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, stared at the counter for so long I wasn’t sure that he was planning to look up. “The police search everywhere,” he finally said. “But there is a storage unit. It’s by the interstate, the one with the blue doors. There was a maid, Maria. She’s gone now. He made her sign the papers. It is in her name. Number thirty-six.”

I digested this. “Do you know what’s in that storage unit?” I asked.

The old man looked ashamed. “Drugs.”

“How much drugs?”

“Much, I think.”

“Were you and Maria together?”

“
Sí.
Sometimes.”

“Why did she leave?” I asked.

Emmanuel’s face twisted in disgust. “Mr. Faith. Once she signed the documents for him, he threatened her.”

“Threatened to call INS?”

“If she told anybody about the storage unit, he would make a call. She was illegal. She got scared. She’s in Georgia now.”

I held up the postcard.

“I’d like to keep this.”

Emmanuel shrugged.

   I called Robin from the parking lot. I still had doubts about her loyalties, but she had information that I wanted, and I thought I might have something to trade. “Are you still at Dolf’s house?”

“Grantham drove me out of there pretty damn quick. He was pissed.”

“Do you know the self-storage facility by the interstate; it’s on the feeder road south of exit seventy-six.”

“I know it.”

“Meet me there.”

“Thirty minutes.”

I drove back into town and stopped at the copy shop two blocks off the square. I copied the postcard, front and back, then asked the clerk for a bag. She brought me a paper one, and I asked if she had anything plastic. She found a Ziploc in a desk drawer. I folded the copy into my back pocket and put the card in the bag, zipped it up. The bright sand looked very white through the plastic and the logo caught my eye.

I drove to the storage facility and parked on the dirt verge of the feeder road. I got out and sat on the hood. Cars flew by on the interstate above me; the big trucks rumbled and screamed. I looked over the storage facility, long rows of squat buildings that flashed in the sun. They nestled in a depression beside the interstate. Metal doors painted blue broke the long facades. Grass grew tall along chain-link fencing. Barbed wire leaned out from the top.