Spring Tide (3 page)

“Yeah.
Not what you want to see come in…ever. That’s why I called you tonight. So you could make me laugh.”

“Oh! I’m the comic relief, am I?” Gail laughed her deep, carefree chortle, scaring up a pair of ducks. They lifted off from the water and circled above, looking for a less crowded place to roost.

“But I do have some good news,” Jackie said. “You remember that shepherd we rescued last month?”

“Sure.
The one that was nearly starved to death.
Stupid bastards.”
Gail was referring to the previous owners of the dog who had been evicted from their rental and had left their pets behind. The cats had fared better, being free to roam and find food, but the dog had been confined to the backyard with nothing to eat but grass. Fortunately, a neighbor had finally noticed that the vacant house was not entirely uninhabited and had brought the dog to Jackie. Her veterinary hospital wasn’t officially a rescue center, but it wasn’t unusual for people to “donate” ailing animals they found. Jackie didn’t ever turn them away and most of the time the story had a happy ending. She had a knack for finding the right home for the right pet. Once in a while, the
right home turned out to be
her own
. She thought briefly of her menagerie. At least this dog would not be joining them. She didn’t expect to have any trouble finding a new family for him.

“He’s recovered,” she said.
“Physically, at least.
And is coming around otherwise.
Much less timid now.”

“Poor thing.”

“We named him Mortimer. I think I can start looking for a home for him soon. You interested?”

Gail spun around to furrow her brow at Jackie. “Oh, no you don’t!”

“All he needs is some love and patience. He’ll be a great pet once he learns to trust again.”

“One dog is enough,” Gail said firmly. She and Pat had adopted a dog from Jackie a year ago, a boxer mix, Bosco, whom they were very happy with. And, equally important, he was as happy with them.

Jackie smiled to let Gail know she was teasing. “What about you?” she asked. “How was your day?”

“Pretty routine for me.”
Gail stopped paddling and let the paddle rest across her boat. It drifted sideways until they were facing one another, Gail’s craft floating backwards. “I wish some things weren’t so
routine
. I stopped out at Whiskey Slough this morning.
Some greenhorn.
He’d caught a large-mouth that had swallowed the hook. He’d practically
tore
the fish up trying to get it out. Damn fool was planning on throwing it back. As if he thought it would live.”

Jackie shook her head.

“I told him the fish was too injured to survive. It was legal size. He could keep it. He said he didn’t want to eat it.
Didn’t like fish.”

“What’d you do?”

“I put it out of its misery. It was practically dead already anyway from being out of the water while he shoved a pair of needlenose pliers down its throat. I suggested he use it for cut bait.”

“People think fish are incredibly resilient,” Jackie added.
“That they can handle a huge amount of misuse.”

Gail shoved her paddle in the water and pushed her kayak face forward again. “They’re actually not that tough.”

“But they’re not mammals. They don’t smile or look sad, so people don’t think they suffer.”

“Right.
That’s why we use the smiling cartoon fish with the kids, to show they can be happy or sad just like them, and hope they grow up to be sensitive anglers.”

“You’re doing your part, Gail. The kids get a kick out of those lectures. My nephew Adam was so excited that day you came to his class. He said you brought mudpuppies.”

“Yeah.
Kids like salamanders, especially mudpuppies because of their name. I’ll tell you what, though. When I set out to be a wildlife biologist, I had this idea I’d be protecting deer and other furry forest animals from poachers, forest fires and that sort of thing.” She shook her head. “Turns out it’s all about fish.”

“Especially around here,” Jackie noted.

They went around a bend and the creek narrowed again. None
of this territory was new to Jackie. She knew every curve, the names of all the waterways and their characters in every season. It was late spring now and the occasional patch of wildflowers poked up through the bordering grasses. The bank was lined with willow, scrub oak and thorny wild blackberry vines with their clusters of light green berries promising a summer bounty of sweet purple fruit.

“What’s that?” Gail asked, pointing to the east bank.

A large animal moved through the brush on shore. They lifted their paddles and watched, letting the boats drift. As they neared, Jackie saw it was a dog with a beautiful amber-colored coat and red collar, rutting through the grass.

“A golden retriever,” she said.

As they watched, the dog started digging at the ground with its forepaws. Unusual to see a dog here, Jackie thought. He must have come from one of the farmhouses.

At the sound of a short whistle, the dog looked up. Jackie followed the direction of his nose to see a woman thirty feet further on. She stood under an oak tree, wearing camouflage cargo pants and an open, long-sleeved shirt over a black form-fitting top. Her hair was dark brown, wavy and shoulder length. She was tall with a shapely body, but her face was in shadow and Jackie couldn’t make out any detail.

“Deuce!” called the woman, her voice echoing across the waterway.

The dog left the hole he was digging and bounded to her side as the kayaks drew nearer.

Gail turned around to raise her eyebrows at Jackie, then turned back to give the woman a wave.

The woman on shore reached up a hand to push her hair back. As she looked their way, a ray of light through the tree branches briefly illuminated her, revealing a pale, youthful face. Her eyebrows were arched and her eyes narrowed in an attempt to see them clearly through the glare of the sun. She waved back tentatively before turning and walking away from the water, the dog running ahead of her. She had disappeared beyond the horizon of the bank before they reached her location.

“Oh, mama!”
Gail exclaimed. “Who was
that
?”

“Don’t know. Never saw her before.”

“I thought you knew everybody around here?”

“Not anymore. The town’s growing. There’s that new development on the north side. Or she could just be visiting somebody.”

“Miss Tall, Dark and Delicious can visit me anytime,” Gail declared with enthusiasm.

Gail was a self-acknowledged flirt and sometimes got downright crude in her suggestive remarks, but she was devoted to her wife Pat, and it was all in fun for her. Especially since in a town the size of Stillwater Bay, lesbians were rare and Gail’s flirty behavior was almost always directed at straight women. Single lesbians were rarer yet. Single lesbians you hadn’t already dated were nonexistent. Or if they did exist, they were so far in the closet you’d need superpower gaydar to detect them.
If they were that far in the closet, no point to it anyway.
Slim pickin’s in these parts
, Jackie thought, not for the first time.

It was unusual to see someone on this particular stretch of the creek, so she was mildly curious. It was true, she knew almost everybody in town. Not hard to do with a population under a thousand. Stillwater Bay was a town of merchants supporting the farming, fishing,
boating
and tourist trade. Jackie’s family, her paternal grandparents, had moved into town in 1947 after her grandfather had gotten out of the army and bought a small, affordable house in the heart of the California Delta. It was that house they were now paddling toward with its weathered wooden dock. It was Jackie’s house now. Her grandparents had sold it to her and moved “downtown” two years ago, feeling suddenly that the five miles into town was too far to drive on a regular basis.

As they edged the kayaks up to shore and stepped out into shallow water, Jackie asked, “What time does Pat get home tonight?”

“Ten. She’s got her night class. I’ll be ecstatic when she gets enough seniority to have regular, daytime hours.”

Pat was a teacher at a vocational school. Because she hadn’t been there long, she’d been saddled with night and weekend classes, leaving Gail to fend for herself more often than she would like.

“You don’t sound like you care for my company,” Jackie pouted, grabbing the rope on the front of her kayak. She hauled it up on the bank, sliding it easily across the grass.

“I adore your company, Jacks!” Gail laughed. “What would I do without you? But I’d like to spend a whole weekend with my woman once in a while. Besides, one of these days you’re going to have your own significant other and no time for me.”

Jackie sighed,
then
smiled, knowing there was no need to comment. Gail was well acquainted with Jackie’s romantic prospects, or lack thereof.

Gail pulled the other kayak up on the bank as Rooster, Jackie’s one-eyed dachshund, came running toward them, tongue out, tail zipping back and forth like hummingbird wings. Gail scratched his head as he happily greeted her.

“So we’ve got hours to kill,” Jackie said.
“How about a movie?”

“Okay. What’re you in the mood for?”

Jackie picked up Rooster and gave his wriggling body a squeeze. “There’s a new lesbian romance that just came out.”

Gail laughed shortly. “Are you kidding? You think I’m going to waste a hot lesbo flick on you?”

Jackie conceded her stupidity with a sigh. “What then?”

“Crime drama.
Adventure.
Something with cars blowing up.”

With Gail following, Jackie carried Rooster through her backyard to the cozy two-bedroom house she shared with the little dog, three cats, a gerbil, four chickens and a freshwater aquarium full of an ever-changing array of aquatic life.

“Maybe we should play Scrabble,” Jackie suggested, pulling open the back door.

“No, thank you. You always win. I know I’m not your dream date, Jacks, but until she shows up you can put up with a mindless blood-and-guts movie now and then. You make some popcorn and I’ll see if I can find something both of us might like.”

Jackie put Rooster down on the back porch,
then
went to the kitchen while Gail headed to the family room. Gail would never be Jackie’s dream date, but she was a good friend and Jackie was grateful for her. She took the popcorn kernels out of the cupboard, flashing back to Miss Tall, Dark and Delicious on the shore of Duggan Creek. Now somebody
like
that, she thought wistfully, could definitely qualify as her dream date.

Needham turned a sharp corner, sliding out of his stride, nearly losing his balance. A shot rang out from Molina’s gun.
A clean miss.
Molina rounded the corner two seconds behind Needham, his department-issued boots hitting asphalt as sharp slaps that echoed down the street. Stef lagged behind. She was having trouble breathing, gasping to take in each breath. She didn’t know why. She was in great shape. They hadn’t run far. Something was wrong with her.
Heart attack?
she
wondered, as she labored to catch up.

She heard a siren somewhere in the distance.
Was that their backup?

As she turned the corner into an alley between concrete apartment buildings, she saw Needham running up ahead. Molina fired again, aiming low. The bullet grazed Needham’s leg. He went down with a cry of pain and Molina was on him fast, slamming him face down in the street, a knee in his back. Stef stood back with her gun trained on Needham as Molina cuffed him.

No longer running, Stef still couldn’t catch her breath. She felt like she was drowning.

Out of nowhere, somebody jumped her, knocking her sideways and grabbing for her gun. As she lost her balance, her body went into slow motion. She took her left hand off the gun to fight off the attacker, catching him under the chin and pushing his face back as hard as she could.

Why hadn’t she heard him coming?
The sirens in the distance?
The hum of an air conditioner in a nearby window?
Her own labored breathing? There was another sound too.
The familiar ring of a cell phone.