Mudlark (31 page)

He must have inhaled half a bucketful. He collapsed, choking, and Tom shoved him flat. Tom and Bonnie
sat on him.

"Give me your belt, Lark."

"What?"

Tom had both of Kevin's arms pinned behind him. "Your belt," he panted as Kevin gave a choking
heave.

I undid the ornamental buckle and handed Tom my belt. When he had lashed Kevin's arms together at
the wrist, he rolled Kevin over and yanked his jeans, still unzipped, down around his knees. Then he tied Kevin's
bootlaces together. Kevin's face squinched red, like a baby getting set to cry. His plaid shirt was soaked. He
coughed.

"Okay, that'll do." Tom staggered to his feet and pulled Bonnie up. She had lost her glasses, and one
cheekbone showed red, as if she had been struck a glancing blow. She was panting, too. Tom held her by both
shoulders, staring into her face. "Are you all right?"

"N-no."

Tom kissed her on the mouth.

Kevin choked and coughed. In the tent the baby wailed. I was holding onto my jeans.

I said, "What do we do now?"

Tom drew a long, shuddering breath and released Bonnie's shoulders. "We wait for your husband. I left
him a note. Where's the rifle?"

I showed him, and he picked it up and slid the bolt home. At the sight of the rifle, Kevin lay very still.
Bonnie was hunting for her glasses.

I said, "Where was Jay, still at the college?"

Tom kept his eyes and the gun on Kevin. "I don't know, Lark. I left a message for him with the secretary.
And a note on the kitchen table."

"Clara must have called you from the dock."

"Yes, she said you and Bonnie had vanished. She thought you must have wandered into the woods and
got lost, so she rowed for help. I put two and two together. Kevin was still on the loose. I knew he was more likely
to run to ground in a wilderness area like Coho Island than in Astoria or Portland. He hates cities."

"Did you call Dale Nelson?"

He hesitated, eyes and rifle fixed on Kevin. "I was afraid to. Kevin was likely to shoot everything in sight
if he felt cornered. He knows me. I thought maybe I could talk some sense into him. He's a jerk and a blow-hard, but
he's not a killer. It didn't occur to me that he'd bring Mel to the island. I thought he'd just taken the two of you as
hostages."

Bonnie said, "We were hostages, all right, and I hate to contradict you, Tom, but he
is
a killer.
That slime-mold came close to killing his wife and child. He put that woman through torture." She gave Kevin a kick
in the ribs with the toe of her sneaker. "Can you hear me, Kevin?"

He snarled, coughing. When he quieted, Bonnie said, "I want you to know something, Kevin. I am going
to do everything I can to see that you never ever come near your son. I don't know how I'm going to do that yet, but
I'm going to."

After a still moment, in which the only sound was the baby's thin wail, Tom said, "Better check on your
patients, Bonnie."

She blinked at him and nodded. She had found her glasses, but the frames were bent and they hung
crooked. She held them in place with her forefinger and ducked into the tent. We could hear her voice calming
Melanie. The baby's wails subsided.

I am not very good at waiting. Also I was suffering the aftermath of terror. I needed to pee. I took the
water buckets and headed for the spring. On the way I went potty in the woods like a bear.

When I got back Tom was talking to Kevin, and Kevin was sniveling. "You're looking at five, maybe ten
years in the slammer, Kev."

Kevin moaned.

I poured a skillet full of water on general principles and set it heating. I couldn't remember what Bonnie
had asked me to do. I shivered too, more from reaction than from cold.

"Arson," Tom was saying. "Attempted murder, reckless endangerment. You're headed straight for Walla
Walla, Kev."

The state penitentiary was in Walla Walla. Kevin's voice rose an octave. "I'll get AIDS!"

"Probably. What you need to do is strike a bargain with the prosecutor."

Kevin groaned a little hiccupping groan. I shouldn't have felt sorry for him, but I did.

"Plea bargain," Tom murmured. "That's the idea. You're lucky Dale Nelson is in charge of the
investigation. You went to high school with him, didn't you?"

"Yeah. Him and me played basketball. Big deal." Kevin sniffled. He was probably cold. My water had
soaked his shirt.

"You had a partner," Tom was saying in the same musing tones, as if he were working out a plot line. "If
it was Wally Baldock, he'll spill everything the minute they pick him up."

"How'd you know? Fuck!"

"Good old Wally," Tom mused. "I should have thought of him when Lark described the baseball cap.
Dale probably did. Wally will sing like a canary. And he'll lay everything on you, won't he, Kev?"

Kevin's mouth trembled. "Wally won't squeal. Him and me is partners. He was the one found the job. He
roped me in on account of the pickup."

"That so? I don't see old Wally as the brains of the outfit somehow. He's dumber than a quahog."

"We was just following orders," Kevin said sullenly, as if the inability to think independent thoughts
were a virtue.

"Whose orders?" I interposed.

Tom shot me a sidelong look that was hard to interpret.

I stared back. "I want to know."

He shrugged and turned to his prisoner. "Who's your boss, Kevin?"

Kevin's lips tightened. He didn't reply.

Tom sighed. "Did you kill Cleo?"

"That real estate broad? Naw, but she was no loss."

"She was my wife." Tom described a small circle with the barrel of the rifle. "You can tell me one thing.
Did Cleo pay you to burn me out?"

I gaped. I hadn't thought of that possibility.

"Her? No, it wasn't--" He stopped.

"Who, Kevin? Who?" Tom sounded like a spotted owl. When Kevin didn't respond, he said, "Why are
you protecting a murderer? That's aiding and abetting. Another couple of years in stir."

"You ain't the law."

"I'm not. Dale is. He probably doesn't like you any better than I do, but he's a sentimental guy, and he
remembers those high school basketball games. You ought to hire yourself a lawyer with all that blood money
you've been bragging about and cut a deal."

"Isn't the money evidence?" I thought Darla was going to find the legal situation interesting.

Tom wiggled the barrel of the rifle. "Good question. Man, you really need a lawyer. You should go see
old Haakenson--he's always making deals for his clients."

Kevin groaned.

"That's good advice." I recognized the baritone voice.

I let out a whoop. "Jay!"

He hove into sight, .38 in his right hand, radio in his left. He was wearing his college professor disguise
and a pair of mungy rain boots. He said something into the radio, listened as it crackled back, and shoved it in his
coat pocket. Then he gave me a smile. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, darling, but I'm glad to see you." I trotted over and gave him a hug, gun and all. "How did you
find us so fast?"

He squeezed my shoulders with his unarmed hand. "Tom left a map. I also called Clara. In fact, I made
her come with us."

"Us?"

"I called out the troops." He glanced at Tom. "I see you have everything under control. I owe you,
buddy."

Tom opened his mouth.

I said, "You owe Bonnie."

"I don't see Bonnie--is she okay?"

"She's in the tent with Melanie Johnson." I disengaged and took a step in that direction, pointing.
"Bonnie just delivered Melanie's baby without benefit of anesthetic under highly unsanitary conditions. You'd
better call for the Life Flight helicopter."

"She what... Holy shit." Jay holstered the gun and pulled out the radio again. After that things started
moving fast.

The helicopter hovered over our cockle bed while the Fire Department paramedics moved Melanie and
son out to it on a stretcher. As the chopper lifted off, Bonnie burst into tears. She buried her head in Clara's purple
bosom and wailed. I felt like crying myself, more in relief than sorrow.

The Law, in temporary alliance with the Shoalwater Fire Department rescue team, had roared up in a
speedboat. The volunteer firemen had wanted to try out their new powered surfboard too, dandy for rescuing
floundering swimmers, but the fat deputy said not. I wondered where Dale was.

To my surprise, Jay had spent some time after he summoned the paramedics making Kevin more
comfortable. Under Tom's surveillance--and ready rifle--Jay helped Kevin into a dry shirt and cuffed him with his
hands in front of his body. The jeans were hoisted, the bootlaces unknotted. I retrieved my belt. When they arrived,
Jay also saw to it that the paramedics checked Kevin's more obvious bruises.

I suppose all that solicitude was just good procedure, but it had interesting consequences. When Jay
handed the prisoner over, Kevin begged Jay to come along and promised to talk to him. Naturally, Jay went.

Bonnie and Tom provided the Fire Department paramedics with a chance to show their stuff. The two
of them had collected half a dozen bruises and cuts apiece in the course of subduing Kevin. The bruises were duly
treated, and one of the medics even mended Bonnie's glasses. My own more modest role in the melée had
left me injury-free. While the medics worked on my friends, and the evidence team, the fat deputy in the lead,
headed inland to look over Kevin's camp, I rescued our clam buckets.

Clara joined me. "I see you got your limit."

I handed her Bonnie's shovel and bucket. "Yes, and it was glorious fun until Kevin showed up with his
stupid rifle. Thanks for calling Tom."

She looked away. Red blotched her cheeks and forehead. "I came far enough to see your waders and
buckets, and I waited fifteen minutes or so, thinking you'd gone into the woods after berries or something. Then I
started worrying about my boat. The tide was coming in. I'd set my painting gear in the boat, and I didn't want to
lose it."

"Of course not."

She looked down and sloshed the water around, stirring up the clams. "The truth is I got impatient and
just left."

"Clara!"

She met my eyes. "Halfway across the bay I started thinking. That's a long way to row."

"You're telling me."

She gave a shamefaced grin. "When I called Tom I still wasn't convinced that anything was wrong. I
knew he had a boat for the oysters, so I told him where to look for you. Then I went home. Jay rousted me out and
made me come along."

"It turned out all right. Where did Tom leave his boat?"

"I moored it at the oyster beds and hiked on around the island." Tom had joined us in mid-question. A
modest Band-Aid decorated his brow where his head had connected with Kevin's belt buckle. "I didn't want to
spook Kevin in case he was watching the beach. I think he bought my story about checking out the oyster beds.
Damned good thing, too. He was suspicious as hell. I was watching his hands, and he came within an ace of
squeezing that trigger."

Clara said, "You're really okay?"

Tom smiled. "I feel great. By God, Clara, I hung onto my temper all the way. Even when I was fighting
Kevin."

She set the bucket down and gave him a big hug. "Then I'm glad I called you and not the police. I've
been suffering all kinds of guilt--"

"Clara thought we were picking huckleberries," I explained. "Is Bonnie going to be all right, Tom?"

We turned. As we watched, one of medics set Bonnie's glasses on her nose. Then he shook her hand.
Bonnie looked around, spotted us, and headed our way. The medics had given her face and hands a scrub, so she
looked almost normal as she came up to us. She was going to have a bruise on that cheek, though.

She inspected her bucket like a hen checking her eggs. "Oh, good, you saved the clams."

"You saved our bacon," Tom said. "And Melanie's. You're some kind of woman, Bonnie."

Bonnie blushed. "The thing was, the shot came as soon as Lark stuck her head out of the tent." She
turned to me. "And you fell down. I thought Kevin had shot you. I'd made up my mind not to sit there passively if he
was going to kill us, so I charged him."

"He didn't have a chance," Tom said to Clara. "A tornado tore into him." He also turned to me. "I was
relieved that you didn't try to shoot him, Lark. You could have hit Bonnie or me."

"Or the baby, or the Coleman stove."

Tom stayed serious. "The bucket of water was pure inspiration."

I explained that I didn't like guns, and that I had also been afraid I'd hit the wrong target. We were all
feeling very good about each other, Clara, too, I think, now that she had decided she'd done the right thing. Tom
and I filled her in on the rest of the action, including our burial of the afterbirth. Finally I turned to Bonnie and said
what I had wanted to say for hours. "If you hadn't had that Lamaze course we would have been dead meat."

Bonnie blushed and hung her head.

"I didn't have the faintest idea of what to do," I persisted. "You were wonderful."

Bonnie dug the toe of her sneaker into the sand. "Gosh, Lark, couldn't you tell? I was faking it."

"You what!" I gaped at her.

Tom and Clara drew closer.

Bonnie shoved her glasses up. "I've never taken a Lamaze class."

"Then what was all that puff puff puff business?"

"I saw a couple of films on TV, and the married women in the office used to talk about their childbirth
experiences all the time. I tuned them out, but some of it stuck."

"Are you telling me you don't know any more than I do about birthing babies?"

She flushed. "I do now."

Clara covered her mouth with her hand. Tom gave a snort that might have been laughter.

I was not amused.

Neither was Bonnie. She frowned as if she had a bad headache. "I just thought, women have been
having babies since the dawn of time, and Melanie had already had two. She was scared because of the
circumstances, but she probably knew what to do. With luck, all she would need was a little confidence."