Spring Tide (31 page)

“It’s a good thing you’ll be busy this weekend,” Gail said. “Take your mind off it. Pat played your whole set for me last night. It’s a good show. You know you’ll feel good once you’re out there strumming on your old banjo.” Gail put the lobster head back on. “I’ll see you out there tomorrow. I’ll be the one in red.”

The guy with the boat trailer was coming Sunday afternoon to move
Mudbug
to the marina. Stef spent most of Sunday morning packing and making sure everything was stowed securely. She worked steadily, trying to keep her mind off Jackie. By noon, she had the situation under control, so she decided to drop by the crawdad festival for a while and see what all the fuss was about. In the back of her mind, she also thought she might get to see Jackie one more time and found she couldn’t resist the possibility.

The festival was crowded, hot and loud. The town was drastically transformed from its usual well-tempered self into a raucous celebration. She made her way down a jam-packed Main Street, weaving through the crowd, looking at an occasional trinket for sale at the craft booths, heading vaguely for the steamy white tent at the end of the street. She passed dozens of people with red and white paper boxes piled with bright orange crustaceans and lemon wedges.

When at last she reached the crawdad tent, she got her own box of mudbugs, boiled with bay seasoning, Cajun spices and lemon. There were half a dozen of them, piled on top of each other, a tangled mass of hard-shelled legs, pinchers and antennae. There was something oddly thrilling about eating something that could easily stand in for an alien monster in a
Godzilla
movie. Blown up to scale, of course.

After eating, Stef followed the strains of bluegrass music to the park where a small stage was surrounded by a crowd of people sitting on the grass.

The band belted out something that sounded like a Highland reel. They were all smiling and bouncing on their feet. The one old lady, who Stef assumed was Jackie’s grandmother, wore a cotton blouse and ankle-length, mauve-colored skirt. She was the fiddler and was going at it with enthusiasm. Pat wore a white boater over her dark hair and a simple outfit of jeans and short-sleeved shirt. Rebecca wore denim cutoffs and a low-cut blouse, tucked in. She looked like
Lil Abner’s
Daisy Mae, which was no doubt the look she was going for: hillbilly bombshell. Stef let her gaze rest on Jackie in a cute embroidered vest worn open over a white short-sleeved shirt. She picked her banjo at a rapid tempo, one foot tapping out the beat on the wooden floorboards. She looked overheated, but also lovely with the tint of pink on her cheeks.

When the song ended, the crowd clapped. Stef joined in, standing far enough back that she didn’t think she’d be noticed. Jackie spoke breathlessly into the microphone. “Now we’re going to do a Zydeco number for all you mudbug-lovin’ river rats. This is called, ‘The One That Got Away.’”

Jackie looked in Stef’s direction, giving her the momentary feeling she’d been recognized, but a split second later she was looking at her instrument and picking out a tune, oblivious to Stef’s presence. It was another happy song, despite the title. Some of the people standing nearby stomped the grass in tune with the music.

Stef saw Officer Hartley in uniform on the sidewalk at the edge of the park. Stillwater Bay’s one cop. What was that like, Stef wondered, to be the only cop. Or the only vet? Where she came from, there were dozens of everything. Sometimes hundreds. Everything was more personal here. It was a little scary. But obviously the intimacy had a positive side. For those who were a part of it. Like Jackie.

Hartley noticed Stef and nodded a greeting across the lawn to her. She returned the gesture.

She listened to the band for a few minutes, trying to decide
whether to make herself known to Jackie or not. They had already
said goodbye, and it wasn’t fair to put Jackie in that position here, to rain on her parade. Today she was happy. Better to let her enjoy herself. Still, it was hard not to walk up there and be the recipient of that beatific smile and all the goodwill that backed it up. Very hard. It was hard not to walk into Jackie’s arms and stay there forever.

She headed out of the park and back into the throng of festival-goers, turning to look one more time at Jackie, the last time, she knew. The song concluded and Granny took a deep bow for her fiddle solo. Jackie slipped an arm around her grandmother’s shoulders, then pointed with her index finger at her sister, a signal to have her deliver a breakdown of her own. Stef stood still, transfixed by Jackie’s joyful face, committing this scene to memory.
A happy woman surrounded by people she loves playing happy tunes.
She smiled to herself, then turned and made her way through the crowd and into a side street, heading back to where she’d parked.

She’ll have a good life without me
, Stef concluded. A wonderful, happy life. Stef had nothing to offer her. In some ways, she thought, she was worse than nothing. If she stayed, she’d end up sucking the life out of that sweet, happy woman with all her gloom and guilt. If she ever doubted that, all she had to do was remember what Erin had said to explain why she was leaving.

I know you’re hurting, Stef, and I feel for you. I really do. But you’ve shut me out completely, and I don’t know what to do for you. I don’t know how to help you. Whenever I try, you get angry, like I’m invading your territory. I don’t want to live in the world of your grief. It’s too dark and too sad. I feel like I’m drowning here trying to keep you afloat, and all you’re doing is fighting me. This is apparently something you need and want to go through alone, so I’m going to let you do that. I need to get on with my own life.

By one o’clock, Jackie called a break. The band was more than ready. She put down her banjo and stretched her arms over her head.

“I’m hungry,” she declared. “Maybe I’ll wander down the street and see if I can find something interesting.”

“Everybody be back here by two o’clock,” Pat instructed, sprawling in her chair. “If you see my honey out there, remind her to keep drinking water. I don’t want her to get dehydrated in that stupid costume.”

Jackie left the park in search of food, weaving her way through the crowd until she noticed a tall red plush head towering over everyone else. She made her way toward it, finding Crusty the Crawdad standing under the awning of the Sunflower Café with a large soda cup in one claw and an empty food carton in the other.

“Hi,” she said as Jackie approached.

“How are you doing?” Jackie peered through the face hole at Gail.

“Not bad. It’s very hot, so I’m spending my time in the shade whenever possible. How’s it going on your end?”

“Good. I’m on a lunch break.”

“You should try this crawdad jambalaya. It’s terrific.”

“You’re eating crawdads?”

“Sure. Isn’t everybody?”

“But you’re Crusty the Crawdad. That’s so cannibalistic.”

Gail laughed. “I didn’t even think of that.”

“I’m not looking for anything with crawdads in it. This huge cloud of dank fishiness has been hanging over the park all day. It’s getting to me. I may never eat a crawdad again as long as I live.”

Gail tossed her empty carton in a trash can. “How are you feeling today? Any happier?”

“You were right. It’s impossible to be sad playing that music. But as soon as I walked away from it, all I could think about was Stef and how I miss her and wish I could see her again.”

Gail looked sympathetic. “Then you’d better eat your lunch and get back to playing the music.”

A small boy came running up and flung himself at Crusty, wrapping his arms around her legs. She put a claw around his shoulders while his mother took a photo. Jackie waved and walked on, looking for something unrelated to fish.

She spied a red, blue and yellow trailer.
Corn dog!

When she had her food, a big hot golden brown corn dog slathered with plain yellow mustard, she sat on the grass in the shade of a tree to eat, watching the people walk by. There were so many strangers in town, she saw nobody she knew. About halfway through her meal, she did recognize a couple of boys: Eddie Delgado and Joey Cahill. They were wearing shorts, T-shirts and black Nike sneakers. She watched them for a few minutes, noting the tattoo on Eddie’s interior forearm. It was a word she couldn’t read from her position, but clearly a line of letters in a blocky font. The boys were in good spirits, joking, shoving one another playfully. They moved on as she pulled the last bite of her corn dog off its stick.

“Hi, there, Jackie.”

She looked up to see Don Hartley, looking overheated. Sweat clung to his forehead and the hair on his forearms sparkled with perspiration.

He knelt down to get closer to eye level. “I heard you playing a while ago. Nice job.”

“Thanks. We’re having a blast. How’s your day going? Any trouble?”

“Not really. A couple drunk and disorderly. To be expected.”

Jackie took a swallow of her soda, then said, “Any progress on the robberies?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but there are a couple of local boys who match the description Stef gave you.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. It may just be a coincidence. A lot of young men might fit that description.”

“Maybe. So who is it?” He took a small notebook from his pocket.

“Eddie Delgado and Joey Cahill.”

He wrote the names down. “Local boys, you said?”

“Cahill hasn’t lived here long, but Eddie grew up here. As far as I know, they’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be discreet. I can look them up tomorrow and ask a few questions. Thanks.” He put the notebook away. “Officer Byers has a good eye for detail. Good training.”

Jackie was startled. “You knew she was a police officer?”

“Yeah. She told me.”

Jackie remembered him taking Stef outside to talk privately that night at the Quickie-Mart. “She’s not a cop anymore.”

“I know. She resigned.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“No. She didn’t tell me much, other than her name and her department. In fact, she was so evasive, I got suspicious and checked her out.”

“Really?” Jackie set her drink down between her legs. “Is she in some kind of trouble? Did she do something wrong?”

He shook his head and picked absentmindedly at the grass beside his boot. “No. She didn’t do anything wrong.”

Jackie realized he knew something. “What’d you find out?”

He looked up to meet her eyes. “Maybe you should ask her about that.”

“I have! She wouldn’t talk to me about it.”

He regarded her with a somber expression. “I’m not surprised. Some things are just hard to talk about.”

“Something happened to her, didn’t it?” Jackie asked. “Can you tell me?”

“I shouldn’t say anything, but you could Google it and find dozens of articles, newspaper stories and all that.” He took an audible breath. “Seeing as how it’s public information, I may as well be the one to tell you.”

“You may as well because now I’m going to Google it for sure.”

“Yeah, I figured. Okay.” He rearranged himself to relieve the pressure on his right knee. “Back in March, she and another officer, Joe Molina, were chasing a suspect on foot. Molina cuffed him while Byers covered him. Some guy jumped her. Came out of nowhere. He tried to take her gun and they struggled. The gun went off, still in her possession. Molina was struck in the head by the bullet. It killed him instantly.”

Jackie gasped, feeling like a huge weight had landed on her chest. “Oh, my God! That’s horrible!”

Hartley nodded soberly. “Yes. Horrible. There was an
investigation. That’s routine in a case like this. She was exonerated.
No charges were filed. Then she resigned. Her resignation was processed the day after the investigation concluded.”

“Why’d she resign if she was exonerated?”

“I don’t know.”

Jackie shook her head, then took a deep breath, trying to let these new details sink in. “Thank you for telling me,” she said quietly.

“Like I said, it’s all out there.” Don shook his head. “Newspaper stories don’t begin to tell it, though. Losing one of your own is tough under any circumstances, but losing him like that…it’s got to be a nightmare. My heart goes out to her. It’s nice she came out to the festival today to have a little fun.”