Black Water (45 page)

"Okay. Let Frank know, too."

She wondered why her old affection for Zamorra hadn't drawn him closer but her recent affection for Wildcraft apparently had. Or was it simple sympathy? Either way, it wasn't the kind of question that really riveted you after watching a fellow deputy fall five thousand feet because he had a bullet in his brain and missed his wife. Or talked to a guy just blinded by road flares.

Mike came quietly into the homicide pen, like a man unwelcome. He shook Zamorra's hand and then offered it to Merci. She shook it while she looked into Mike's clear blue eyes and saw the gears of his heart grinding away behind them.

"I was hoping to drop by this evening with Danny," he said. "Bring some meal worms for the alligator lizard."

"Okay," she said.

"We've got plenty of food," said Zamorra. "Bring some wine if you'd like, stay for dinner."

Mike released her hand and nodded at Zamorra like the boy he was, competent in the male world but largely ignorant of the female. He looked at her with an inquisitive expression.

"Fine with me," she said. "Lynda's welcome, if you want."

"No."

When they had gone, Merci picked up her mail, crammed it into her purse and walked out.

Home at six-ten on a warm August evening, Merci slinging her purse onto the little breakfast table while Tim clunked across the floor meet her: red shorts, black cowboy boots, skinned knees showing between them, a plastic gladiator's vest and an Angels baseball cap.

Her heart lightened when she saw him. Purity. Innocence. The Man. No amount of violence could smother the love; it was always; there, like a sweet bolt of lightning crackling through the dark.

Clark hugged her, regarding Zamorra and his groceries for an extra second before nodding. "The Weber's on the patio."

Tim stared frankly at dark Zamorra.

"Good to see you again, Tim. Nice vest."

The boy nodded. Paul gravely shook his hand then headed for the barbecue.

Merci swung her son up onto her shoulder and mouthed the word
Wildcraft
to her father, a big silent question mark at the end.

"No, I figured that was for you." He turned to watch Mike's pick come up the drive. "Oh, I see you invited Mike too."

"More or less."

"You okay, honey?"

"I'm okay, Dad."

"I'll run these guys off if you just want to be with us tonight."

"I'm okay."

He looked at her with his bottomless calm. His glasses caught the light and magnified his eyes into faux astonishment. She leaned in her father and hugged him with her available arm. He smiled, then ambled to the front door.

"And how about you, little man?" she asked. "How are you today'

"Good," said Tim. "I'm fine. Is Awchie in the heckilopter?"

"He's done with the helicopter."

"And the flowers?"

"And the flowers."

"Because he loves his wife."

"Yes, he . .. does."

"Danny's here!"

He struggled off her shoulder and she set him to the floor with a thud of boot heels. He ran to Danny and Mike as they came through the door. Danny dropped the tub of meal worms and the top popped off, leaving a pile of meal and worms on the floor.

"I'll get that," said Mike. "Here."

The boys bolted off for the backyard, Clark behind them. Mike set down a heavy plastic grocery bag and knelt, using the lid to sweep the worms back into the container. "Thanks for the invite," he said.

"You're welcome."

"Three or four of these a day," he said.

She hesitated, uncertain.

"For the lizard," he said.

"Ah. Got it."

"Keep the container in the freezer but warm the worms in your hand before feeding. If the worms are too cold, the lizard could get indigestion."

"Okay."

"And fresh water at least once a week."

"We can do that, sure."

Mike stood and held up the plastic bag. "I brought a box of wine so there'd be plenty for all of us."

"I'll get that, Mike," said Zamorra, coming through, coat gone, tie loosened. "Cocktails?"

"Definitely," said Merci.

"Make mine light," said Mike.

All three of them turned when Damon Reese, a big bouquet of flowers in his hand, stepped onto the porch and up to the screen door. He wore a Hawaiian shirt brighter than the sun.

"Damn, I'm sorry to interrupt, Merci," he said. "I just wanted to drop these off."

Mike looked somewhat confusedly at her.

Zamorra opened the screen door and handed Reese the boxed Chablis. "Put this in the kitchen sink and shoot a hole in it with your service weapon."

"And I'll take those," said Mike, ears reddening, reaching for the flowers.

He looked at Merci as his attempt at competitive gallantry backfired and he was left standing with a bouquet of flowers in one hand the container of meal worms in the other.

Reese clapped him on the shoulder on his way by.

Merci smiled. A sit-com. But what a feeling. She felt like she hadn't been amused in a couple of centuries.

She sat in the shade of the backyard patio, increasingly plastered the Adirondack chair by Zamorra's martini. It made her usual scotch and water seem feeble, and the lemon gave it a bright flavor. She changed her slacks and boots for shorts, an ancient blue dress stolen from her father and a pair of clogs that a salesman said flattered her legs. She divided her attention three ways: part to Tim and Danny and Mike playing in the grove beyond the fence; part to Zamorra and Reese differing on the best placement of coals for indirect cooking the Weber; part to the awful memory of Archie Wildcraft and hapless blue wings.

Clark creaked into the chair beside her. "These drinks are strong."

"Very."

"I heard he'd built some wings or something."

She looked at him. Her father's pipeline for department information never failed to surprise her. She imagined geezers cawing into their telephones all day.

"Not or something, Dad. They were
wings."

"Wow. Did they work?"

"At first, then it seemed like he fell through them. By the time I got to the edge where I could see, he was really going fast, straight down. He hit so hard."

Clark frowned and shook his head. He sipped his drink and looked out to the boys.

"Did he really think he could fly? Or was it a straight suicide?

"He thought he could fly up and find her, I guess. He actually called me on the cell, said he was on his way to get her."

"I thought that for a while with your mother. Not the flying part, but you know, going to the other side to see them."

"Human optimism," she said.

"Who knows? Maybe it works. None of us will ever know until it's too late to report back."

"Maybe that's good."

"Mysteries are good. So is this drink." He took another sip and chuckled. "It's kind of funny that three guys showed up here all at once, hoping for your attention."

"They think they're taking care of me."

"Let 'em."

Merci thought again about Wildcraft spreading his wings around her. She thought about Hess and his cancer. She saw Archie's body falling through the sky and Hess's hair falling through her fingers and she realized she'd loved them out of some blurry notion that love could heal.

"Arrogant," she said.

"What is?"

"Just thinking out loud."

She watched Tim trudging through the orange grove and knew that there was something else in what she'd felt, though, something more than cures and miracles. It was big and straightforward and simple. But what—desire? Passion? What was the word? What was it that your heart yearned to take big bites of, ingest and surround and own? What was the word for that powerful hunger?

Archie knew, she thought. Whether he had the word for it or not. Because if you think you can fly to it then you know. If it takes you that far then you know. If you act then you know. If you feel it then you know, and for a second there on that mountain, I felt it.

For a crazy lilting moment she felt light and blessed, and understood that Archie had worked a miracle on her and not the other way around.

"Get you another drink, Dad?"

"How about a plain soda with some lemon? One of these things is enough for me."

In the kitchen she leaned against the cool counter and poured the soda over ice. She remembered how the tip of her finger fit in Wildcraft's dimple. The words
loss
and
waste
came to her again as lightness fell.

I felt everything.

"Hey. I'm sorry I didn't call."

She turned to find Damon Reese behind her, grinning with a touch of wickedness. He came right up to her and brushed the hair from her forehead again, just like he'd done that day in his front yard, smelled cologne instead of fish and gasoline.

"You okay, Merci?"

"I'm okay."

"Rough, what you went through."

"Yeah."

"I've thought about you a lot," he said. "Every day."

"That's nice," she said. She thumbed the opening of the soda bottle, gave it a quick two shakes and shot Reese in the face with it.

"Yeah, no kidding," he said. "I deserved that. Okay."

"You had me for a second."

"Things are complicated."

"No, they're simple, Damon. Do me a favor. Take this drink to Dad."

Reese took the drink, glancing down at his soda-blasted Aloha shirt. "Let's start over."

"Let's drop it and go outside."

"I absolutely want to see you again. Bring the soda bottle if you want."

He smiled and took a step toward her.

"Damon, you're a real punk."

Something in Reese took this as a compliment. He gave her conspiratorial grin and walked away with the drink.

It was then that she noticed that Mike had put Reese's bouquet in a vase on the breakfast table by her purse. The flowers were arranged upside down, blossoms drowning at the bottom, and the stiff green stems with their white supermarket tie jutting from the top.

Boys, she thought: my favorite ages are two to forty.

She sat down and looked through the window at Zamorra while he pondered the coals. She had not yet seen him place a call to Kirsten. Reese sat in the shade, examining his soaked shirt. Clark was where she had left him, fresh drink in hand. Mike and the boys were coming through the gate, back into the yard. A pink house on a white beach in Mexico, she thought: Tim and Hess and me.

She picked the office mail out of her purse and fanned through it quickly until her eye caught an interesting return name and address: Sean Moss, La Jolla.

Dr. Sean, she thought: surf dude, biochemical researcher, entrepreneur, friend and smitten admirer of Gwen Wildcraft, coward. She noted the post date—the same day they'd seen him at his mansion overlooking the ocean.

She opened it and read the handwritten note.

Sergeant Rayborn—I should have handed you this when you were here. It doesn't really contain anything I didn't tell you, but it's personal and physical and I felt at the time that it shouldn't go into a murder file. In fact I should have handed it to someone back when it might have done some good. I had no idea that all of our hard work could lead to this. I'm leaving for a surf camp on Tavarua tomorrow, and won't be gettable for three months. The BD present she refers to was a disc she'd made of her songs—SM

The attached letter was postmarked on August 20, Gwen Wildcraft's birthday:

Dear Sean,

I'm truly happy to know you've found someone to love, and earned the fifty million it will take to keep her happy. Just kidding. All's fine here. Archie's working hard, ready to move off patrol this year sometime, we hope. The home is just beautiful, many improvements since you saw it. Sick, and I love it. I was completely horrified to find Al and Sonny waiting by my car yesterday in the grocery store parking lot when I came out. Told me to keep my mouth shut about serum problems I might have known about. Those random weirdos actually threatened to report MB to the PTC for not divulging the sidewinder problem unless . . . get this . . . unless I came back to work for their latest company, some silicon molecule engineering start-up in Irvine. Apeman said they needed a "money-maker cover girl." Made it sound like he was recruiting a whore, sure looked at me that way. They said they'd pay me twelve an hour to do what I did for you. I told them to quit leaning on my new Dodge and get out of my life immediately or I'd report THEM to the FTC, the FBI, the INS, and the Centers for Disease Control. They didn't laugh at that. They never took one word I said at OrganiVen seriously. Hey, I'm 26 today! Here's my BD present to you. It's my day, so I can do what I feel like, right? Talk soon, Gwen

Rayborn sighed and read it again. There it was, a bluff called with three bullets. A threat that cost three lives, two eyes and countless sorrows. Gwen had fallen once, but she wouldn't fall twice. Her mistake was not going to the Bureau or the Sheriff's. Would that have mattered? Maybe not. It had taken Al and Sonny less than twenty-four hours to execute her.