Black Water (16 page)

"Fuck Occam, and his razor too."

"And this Jones witness? I understand he was drinking hard stuff in the morning."

"So? He heard what he heard. The two shots to Gwen, they happened inside the bathroom. The bathroom was on the far side of the house, away from Jones's garage. And where did you get that Wildcraft was extremely jealous?"

"I was extrapolating."

"Because Gwen was beautiful."

"Correct."

"And what's this
financially troubled
crap?"

"It's a million-dollar home, Merci. Wildcraft was good for about fifty or sixty, and his wife was unemployed."

"They invested in OrganiVen, the cancer-cure guys. Made two million in less than a year. They weren't troubled—they were flush."

"It's easier to spend than to make. They could have been way over their heads."

"Jim, something's wrong. Help me. I'm no damned good, trying to think like a defense attorney. But I can't go after an innocent deputy just because he looks guilty."

Like I went after Mike.

"You know, Merci, that entry wound in Wildcraft's head—right side, behind the temple and above the ear—is where a lot of right-handed suicides place the gun."

She felt her anger leap from her heart to her mouth, like a spark jumping a gap. "Stebbins gave you scan copies already?"

"Slow down—you'll get yours tomorrow. You're free to look at mine if you can't wait that long."

She swallowed down the anger, saying nothing.

"Ryan Dawes isn't seeing it quite your way either," said Gilliam.

"Yeah. And A Madden's hovering over me like a driving teacher."

"Look, Merci, whether to arrest and charge Wildcraft with this is Vince and Clay Brenkus's call. Let them do their jobs, and we'll do ours."

Again, she pictured Wildcraft in court:
I have no memory of that ... I don't think so ... we made love by the beach that night. . . wait, I just remembered.

Christ, she thought: and his fingerprints all over the gun that killed her, and her blood on his robe? The jury may as well bring an electric chair and an extension cord with them.

She thought for a moment. "Okay, you think he did it. But what would you do if you were me? If you believed in your heart that he didn't?"

Gilliam said nothing for a beat, then he cleared his throat. "I'd just ask him lots of questions and listen hard to his answers. If Wildcraft did it, it's going to come out. He can't talk his way out of it with a bullet in his head. I mean, he'll never be able to keep his story straight. The way I see it, he tried to kill himself. He wasn't planning on being around to help with his defense, so to speak. "She agreed with that, but said nothing.

"And I'd look for a pair of size-sixteen Foot Rites somewhere on his property. The bottom of a trash can would be a likely place to start."

"Do you really think he set it up to look like a third party?"

"No. But it's possible, and if he did, he didn't have to work very hard at it—some footprints and a rock through his own window."

"Then off himself? Why bother with all the extra work if he was going to do that?"

"Because he didn't want to get caught. He's a cop. Even dead, he didn't want to get caught."

"Death before dishonor."

"That's part of it. Vanity, arrogance and pride come to mind, too.

"I thought
was cynical."span>

"Give yourself about twenty years."

She thought about that. Twenty years from now she'd be fifty-seven. Once, she believed she'd be running for sheriff of Orange County about then. Now, after her grand jury appearance, the drear seemed bitter and comic.

"The rumor is, he had a temper," said Gilliam.

"I've heard that, too."

"Used to, anyway. God knows what that bullet left him with."

She thanked Gilliam and punched off, feeling the exit of sweet hope as it pinwheeled down and away.

She got out her blue notebook and dialed William Jones's number. She got a rather ditzy sounding young woman who laughed and said she' check but usually Bill was, well, not exactly sober this late.

Actually, he sounded pretty good to Merci, and he remembered he immediately. She asked him if he knew what day the Wildcrafts' gardener usually came.

Mondays or Tuesdays, pretty sure, said Bill. Could always tell b the little truck and the loud leaf blower.

"What's he look like?" she asked. "Like a gardener. Mexican, regular size. He gets here around sever leaves about three. I'll call you next time he's here. Tell me how Archie's doing. The papers don't tell you very much and the nurses say the same thing every time I call."

"I just saw him. He's awake and lucid, but tired."

"He's going to make it. Archie's strong as a horse. I'd see him washing his car out here on Sunday mornings and he had muscles on him you wouldn't believe. Not the gym kind, the baseball kind. Long muscles for running and throwing. I know because I played some ball back in high school. That was quite a while ago."

"For me it was, too."

She gave him her office and pager numbers, then thanked him again and hung up.

_G
eorge Wildcraft was a tall, wiry man with an outdoorsman's face

and patient green eyes. Merci was right about the teeth and tan. She'd made him for a salesman by his phone attitude, but now saw that she had been wrong. Weathered hands with dark creases, scarred fingers. She put him at sixty and in one of the building trades—carpentry, maybe, or electric or plumbing.

Natalie looked ten years older. She was very petite, leathery, and pretty in a miniaturized kind of way. Her hand seemed no larger than a monkey's when Merci shook it. Her engagement diamond was enormous.

They sat at a round glass table in the atrium coffee shop of a hotel in Newport Beach. The August sunlight filtered down through a frosted skylight and reaching palm trees. Merci knew they were staying at a Best Western in Santa Ana but it didn't matter to her where they talked.

The waiter who took their drink orders looked like a guy from a magazine ad.

"What do you have?" asked Natalie. "What evidence?"

Merci sat back. "We have a lot of evidence, Mrs. Wildcraft."

"Natalie."

"Natalie. Too much to go into specifically. Not all of it seeming to point to the same thing. That's the way it is in lots of cases."

"Who did it?" she asked. For a small woman her voice was rough and low. From that and the lines on her face Merci figured her for a thirty-year smoker. Rayborn herself had smoked a pack a day for ten years but had quit four years back. She missed the cigarettes heartily and still dreamed about smoking. But she wanted to live longer for Tim and had always hated the smell of tobacco smoke on her fingers and clothes. And the wheeze high in her lungs when she lay down at night. She still thought that the smell of a freshly opened pack of cigarettes was one of the three best in the world, right behind a pouch of fresh good coffee and the top of Tim's head.

"We don't know."

"Is Archie a suspect?"

"No."

"That's a common thing for cops to do, though, kill themselves and their wife."

"Not common, Natalie. But law enforcement officers do end their lives more often than others."

"He didn't."

"I don't think he did, either. But there's some hard evidence that points at him."

"What evidence?"

"I can't tell you."

"Can't or won't?"

"Both."

Natalie latched her hard brown eyes onto Merci's. "No one knows him like George and I know him. From when he was young until right now, he's been honest and truthful and good.
Completely
honest. I can read him like a book. He never could fool me, not for a second. He told me he didn't do it, and I guarantee you he didn't."

The waiter brought the coffees but nobody wanted breakfast. He looked disappointed.

"What did you think of Gwen?" Merci asked.

Natalie sat back, looked at her husband, then at Merci again. "We thought she was a wonderful girl. George?"

George Wildcraft nodded. His green eyes were full of expression. "She was a fine girl. We loved her and so did Arch."

With this, George looked down at the glass tabletop, as did Natalie.

Like it had said something. Merci watched them, attuned to their private frequencies of grief. Neither spoke.

"Tell me about Archie," said Merci. "You said he was honest and truthful and good?"

Natalie finally looked up, a tear in the corner of one eye. She smiled. "Well, not
all
the time, Detective Rayborn. He was a handful when he was young. He was all boy. You know what I mean."

They lived in Willits, which was Mendocino County, California, Second generation
Northern
Californians, both of them. Merci noted the pride in the
northern
lineage. Northern meant you didn't waste as much Colorado River water, weren't narcissists, Hollywood weirdos, bodybuilders, faddists,
etc.
George did framing and drywall and firewood. Natalie worked a drill press at Remco, day shift. Archie was their only child.

He was a big, content baby and a big, content toddler. He was a terrific athlete, even then: George remembered him throwing wiffle golf balls around his room when he was six months old, "could really zing them." Walked at nine months,
ran
at ten.

Went off to kindergarten at five, was "unimpressed" by authority and only played with a few hand-chosen friends. He was a bit of a bully and fairly physical. Had a friend that was a lot like him and they were always cooking up something. Kevin was the other kid. They signed Archie up for T-ball at age four—a year early—but nobody cared or said anything because he was the best player on the team Orioles, that year. Looked a little like Will Clark, stroking the ball off that tee. They got him into Pinto League early, and he was the best player on that team, too.

Natalie said that for his first four grades of elementary school Archie had some problems. Nothing too serious, but he fought a lot. Didn't participate in anything but sports. Wasn't popular with other students or teachers. He and Kevin were still raising hell together. Always seemed a year or two ahead of the others physically, but academically he "struggled." Around the house he was polite because he knew his mother would "paddle his pointed little fanny" if he showed disrespect. George "took the belt" to Archie when it was necessary which was not too often, according to Natalie.

"How often was not too often?" Merci wanted to know.

"Maybe once a month back then," George said. "Just a few good swats and Archie would bawl and mind his manners for a while. No welts or bruises or anything like that. I loved my boy. I couldn't hurt him. But I wanted him to get some common sense through his head."

Then, when Archie was halfway through the fifth grade, something in him changed. Natalie and George both saw it. He started dressing sharp, wanting the latest fashions. Took extra time with his hair. Brushed his teeth twice in the morning, wanted underarm deodorant. Had a funny little hop in his step—hard to describe but it was like he was walking more on his toes or something. Even changed his route to school in a way that added a full ten minutes.

"Her name was Julia," said George. "A transfer student from Dayton, Ohio. Little dark-haired girl with a bright smile. Cute as you can get."

George smiled and Merci smiled with him. Natalie looked down and shook her head.

"It changed him," she said. "He wrote letters and poems to her. Called her all the time. He sent her pictures of himself, his dog Clunker. Had a giant fight with Kevin—stitches on both boys—but that was the last fight he ever got in. Archie's report card went from all fairs to all excellents because he wanted to impress Julia. And she'd call him and write him little love notes with red kiss stickers on the back. They held hands on the way to school and back. George and I, we talked to Julia's mom about it—she was a single mom—and we agreed it was okay, so long as Arch and Julia didn't start kissing or hiding together or. . . well, you know. We wanted to encourage a friendship, maybe even an early form of romance, but not physical affection. We kept an eye on them, you can believe that."

"Yes," said Merci. She wondered, very briefly, what she would do when Tim Jr. developed a crush like that. Handcuff him to my wrist, she thought, or maybe in his room. Probably be a Kirsten like Zamorra's, she thought: another qualmless blonde.

"Then," said Natalie, "she disappeared."

"Julia?"

"Yes. Somewhere between her apartment and where Archie would meet her on the way to school. People saw a white pickup truck that wasn't usually around. Some people said Julia got in, some said she didn't. Anyway, she was never found. Neither was the truck. She was ten."

The waiter checked in with more coffee, but still, nobody wanted breakfast. He concentrated as he refilled Merci's cup, then smiled without looking at her and backed away.

Merci made sure she had the girl's last name and the year and city and school right: this would be worth another look.

"Police questioned Archie for quite a while," said George. "We were present, of course. It was nothing accusatory."

All questions are accusatory, thought Rayborn.

"How did her disappearance affect your son?"

George sighed and looked at her. "First he got real quiet. And while he was going through that quiet stage, he brushed his teeth
three
times before school, he asked us for even
more
of the name-brand clothing he spent even
more
time on his hair. Wrote her more letters. Months later, Julia's mom gave them back to me. He didn't say much of anything to anybody. A whole dinner and he'd only speak if you asked him something direct. That lasted the rest of the school year, through summer and into the next. He'd go to the public library almost everyday on the way home from school and read the papers from around the country. Librarian told us that. He told me you never knew where she'd show up. That summer he played baseball harder and better than I'd ever seen him play. Really cracking that ball. Really throwing it hard—clocked at seventy-four miles an hour when he wasn't quite twelve. I could see the .. . what was it? I could see the
passion
in him, The frustration. The anger. By the end of the next school year—sixth grade—he seemed to be pretty much over it. He was talking again, making friends. Even some girlfriends. He was popular. Good grades, still. Nice-looking. A good boy."