Down by the River (5 page)

“You had a busy morning,” Tom observed.

“I changed the kid’s tire and told him not to hang around. He tried to give June a couple of twenties for delivering the baby. He had a pocketful of drug money.”

Tom leaned back. He picked up a pen and tapped it a few times. Finally he asked, “Why do you suppose he’s hanging around here?”

“I have a lot of theories. His pupils were as big as ink blots this morning when the baby was coming. He was high. Sluggish and inattentive. I don’t think he’s looking for a fresh start. Though I’ve never seen him before, I’m pretty sure he came out of the mountains where he either worked for a grower or had a small operation of his own.”

“If it was an outdoor farm,” Tom said, “it might’ve shut down. Pot growers aren’t the only farmers who fall on hard times when the weather turns. We see some layoffs around here in winter. Social services gets real busy. Maybe he’s just one more hard-luck story.”

“When you see his eyes…when you talk to him…you’re going to know what I know. He’s not what he pretends to be. He’s not just another hard-luck story.”

“You expect me to arrest him for the look in his
eye? Or run him out of town because we don’t like the smell of his cash around here?”

“I expect you to keep a real close eye on him. Because he’s up to no good. I’m sure of it.”

Tom smiled lazily. “You aren’t all that retired, are you?”

Jim returned the smile. “Old habits die hard.”

“I can imagine,” said Tom, who had barely had a day off in twenty years.

“Plus, old Sam seems like a good guy and I’d hate to see him burned by the kid. It’s gotta be Sam helping him out.”

“Sam’s pretty savvy, but just to be safe, I’ll put a word of caution in his ear.” Tom stood and stretched. “You had lunch?”

“I’ll have to take a rain check,” Jim said. “I have errands to run. And I think I’ve had all the café exposure I can take for one day.”

The afternoon sped by for June, for she had more than the usual number of patients with decidedly minor complaints, mostly curious about her new status as expectant mother and, it was assumed, prospective wife.

She found herself frequently thinking, you gotta love a small town. The questions were not couched in any phony politeness. “Well, how
long
have you known him then?” And “When is this baby due, exactly?” She was an expert at evasion. She would answer “Long enough” and “Babies tend to come
when they’re good and ready.” But by far the most common question was “When is the wedding?”

And her answer? “When we have a date, you’ll be the first to know.” By the end of the day at least forty people were deemed to be first.

By the time the dinner hour approached, June had had a full day. She was clearly sinking. She knew that exhaustion was par for the pregnancy course, but she hadn’t been so plagued before. “I’m absolutely wilting,” she told Susan Stone.

“Yeah, I think that’s the worst part, the total and consuming fatigue. Worse even than the nausea.”

“I don’t know about that,” June said, a hand going to her stomach. “Did I tell you about my visit with Aunt Myrna today? She dragged my mother’s old wedding gown out of the attic and I threw up on her Oriental rug.” She made a face. “I think it was the smell of mothballs. And the tea Endeara made me, which tasted like dishwater.”

Susan erupted in laughter. “No! Really?”

“Would I make that up? I was mortified!”

Jessie, upon hearing the laughter, came down the hall from her secretary’s cubicle. “What’s so funny?”

“June threw up on her aunt’s rug,” Susan reported.

“No way!” Jessie said.

“Way,” confirmed June.

John came out of an examining room to join the discussion. “What did the daddy do?” he asked.

June had to think a minute. “I think he looked the other way,” she said.

“But he didn’t run for his life, did he?” Susan asked.

“No, he hung in there. It was truly horrible.” June sank wearily to a stool in the hallway. “You know, he’s almost forty and never expected this—”

“Hell, June,
you’re
almost forty and never expected this,” John reminded her.

“I’m almost thirty-eight. Don’t rush me. But you’re right about the expecting part….”

“You never expected to be expecting?” Jessie asked.

June lifted an eyebrow and peered at her young, pretty twenty-year-old office manager. “Let this be a lesson to you. Anyone can find themselves in the family way, without warning. So be careful.”

“Well, since you brought it up,” Jessie said haltingly, “that’s exactly what I’ve been wondering. How someone like you…”

“Excuse me” a voice called from the waiting room.

“Thank God,” June said, dragging herself up and heading toward the voice. Over her shoulder she said to Jessie, “I can’t talk about that yet.”

John whispered into Jessie’s ear. “I can talk about it. She wasn’t prepared. At all.” He leaned back, lifted his brows and looked down at the young woman. “Do we understand each other, Jessica?”

Her cheeks grew rosy. “Um, yes, John.”

Susan whacked him in the arm. “Don’t embarrass her, you lout.” To Jessie she said, “Jess, you and I will have lunch tomorrow and talk turkey. ‘Prepared’ is my middle name. You’re in good hands.”

June found that the owner of the voice was Harry Shipton. He had just slipped into the clinic and didn’t look very well. “Oh my, Harry. What’s the matter? You look awful.”

“Thanks,” he said sheepishly. “I’m not feeling too well, actually. Had a rather long afternoon. Do you have time for a last-minute customer?”

“Of course, Harry. Come on back. We’ll get a history and make up a chart for you and—”

“Maybe we could save all that for next time,” he said. “Could I just talk to you for a minute? In private?”

June frowned, confused. “Sure. Would you like to go into my office, or an examining room, just in case…?”

“Your office will do.”

Harry was quite tall and lanky, with the biggest feet, but he seemed to slump slightly as he followed June to her office. He acted as though he just didn’t feel well, that a bug had gotten the best of him. “Hi, Harry,” Jessie, Susan and John all said as he passed them in the hall. “Hi, all,” he said weakly.

Harry took the seat in front of June’s desk while June went around to her chair. Sadie perked up as the two entered and had to pay a little welcome to the pastor before she could lie down and nap some more. A few silent seconds passed.

“Well, Harry?” June prodded.

“June, bear with me. This is very embarrassing for me,” he added morosely.

“You’ve come to the right place, Harry. I know a lot about being embarrassed today.”

He gave her a tremulous smile. “I suppose you’ve been teased all day about your, you know, condition.”

“That’s the half of it. What’s wrong, Harry?”

“Can I invoke doctor-patient privilege even though I’m not really physically ill?” he asked.

“Sure. I’ll keep your confidence.”

“June, I’m a screwup.”

“Aw, Harry.”

“I am. I’m good with people, but I’ve never been good with a budget, and I’ve bungled my checkbook. I wasn’t paying attention and now I’m overdrawn and it’s over a week till payday.”

“Oh, dear,” she said. “Do you have a credit card?”

“Maxed,” he said helplessly. “Truth is, June, I came over here hoping that John, Susan and Jessie would already be gone. I came to ask you for a loan. If I can’t borrow two hundred dollars before tomorrow morning, I’ll have to pay a huge overdraft penalty. This is so embarrassing.”

She reached across her desk toward him, taking his hands in both of hers for a reassuring squeeze. “Why are we always so hard on ourselves, huh, Harry? Who among us hasn’t made a mistake or two, huh? Look at me. I did it in front of the whole town. Well, I didn’t
do it
in front of the whole town, but I might as well have.”

That made him chuckle. “By the way, your young man is very nice, June.”

“He’s not young and neither am I,” she said, pulling her hands back and opening her top desk drawer. She retrieved her checkbook and flipped it open. “We’ve both always been single and neither of us has had children and we were completely surprised by this blessed event. I imagine we look like fools.” She scribbled onto a check, tore it out and handed it to him. “Why don’t you sign up for one of those debt-consolidation loans, Harry. Get the credit cards wiped out so you don’t get stuck with all that high interest.”

He took the check, his expression brightening considerably. “That’s a very good idea, June. And thank you for this. I’ll pay you back as soon as I can. With interest.”

“I’m not worried, Harry. I know where to find you.”

He looked so tremendously relieved that June had to remind herself that to some people a two hundred dollar mistake in the checkbook was a disaster. Harry had probably worked himself into a real lather of worry over it. June’s life was simple and she didn’t have a lot of money, but she didn’t need a lot of money. Her patients paid her in goods and services as often as insurance claims and she was usually somehow ahead. Even so, she remembered a time or two when Elmer had covered her. And yes, it had been embarrassing. But then doctors had a much more marketable product than preachers. Not a more valuable product, just one more easily translated into money.

“You’ll never know how much it means to me, June, that you trust me for it.”

“Not at all,” she assured him.

Jim Post had almost no experience in the wooing of a woman; he had been married to his work. The only thing he knew how to do with absolute certainty was play a role for the sake of undercover police operations, so he decided he would adopt a persona of suitor and seduce June into a comfort zone from whence she would melt into his life and they would, together, have a baby.

Well, the baby would come no matter what. But it would be better for all of them if they forged a union into which they would bring this child, this baby girl. And in order for that to happen they would have to get beyond June’s overwhelming sickness at the mere thought of marriage.

He’d been busy. He’d been to Rockport to buy fresh salmon and vegetables, then to Standard Roberts’s fields of fresh flowers, then home to June’s little house, where he had rummaged around in search of table linens and good dishes. He had purchased sparkling cider for their toast, but also a single malt Scotch for himself. After all, he wasn’t pregnant.

Jim wasn’t a bad cook for a bachelor. He didn’t lean toward the gourmet or cook as a hobby or anything as precious as that, but he certainly knew how to put a decent meal together. June might have
had her fill of salmon long ago, living this close to good fishing all her life, but there was nothing quite as safe and delicious in his mind, not to mention a huge treat for someone who had been back East for the last several months. A little lemon and dill butter, some capers, garlic mashed potatoes, broccoli… He lit the candles on the dining room table, remembering a night not so long ago when he’d bought her a little black dress as a surprise and danced with her in this small room. Size six, as he recalled. He didn’t think it would be altogether wise to dig through the closet and find it right now.

He heard a vehicle; June said she would get a lift home from either John or Susan. He dimmed the lights in the dining room just as the door was opening.

“My” was all she could say. Sadie pushed past June and ran to Jim for a pet.

“I hope you like salmon.”

“It would be against the law for me to dislike salmon, given where I live. You’ve gone to an awful lot of trouble.”

He pulled her into the living room, removed her jacket and sat her down on the sofa in front of the blazing hearth. “You relax while I get you something to drink and put on the finishing touches.” He knelt on the floor and gently pulled off her boots, resting her feet, one at a time, on the coffee table.

“What if I get used to this treatment?” she asked him.

“That’s my intention. To spoil you into submission.”

Her hand went to her slightly swollen middle. “I already submitted, remember?”

He was about to say “Not all the way,” but held his tongue. “I’ll be right back,” he said instead.

She stifled a yawn as he went to the kitchen. “Feed Sadie while you’re in there, will you?” Then she yawned largely and let herself relax into the cushions of the sofa. The fire was so warm and welcoming. The smells, so savory and alluring. The day, so long and tiring. She yawned again, thinking home had never felt quite so delicious.

When Jim returned with a stemmed glass of sparkling cider, he found her sound asleep, her head slumped onto her shoulder.

T
he phone at the Toopeek household rang, sending Tom and Ursula both bolting upright. Four-thirty in the morning. Tom grabbed it first. “Toopeek,” he answered.

The gravelly unidentified male voice rasped, “Man with a gun out at Rocky’s.”

“Great. What’s he going to do with the—”

Click.

“Hello? Hello?”

Rocky’s was an isolated roadhouse frequented by the lowlife clientele of three counties because it sat on the edge of all three. Unfortunately, it sat a little bit more on the Grace Valley side of upper Mendocino County. Tom’s jurisdiction. Tom dialed the number from memory. It began to ring.

Ursula fell back against the pillows. “What is it?” she asked sleepily.

“Man with a gun at Rocky’s.” The phone just rang and rang.

“What else is new?” she asked. “Everyone out here has a gun or twelve.”

It rang and rang and rang.

Tom hung up and swung his long legs out of the bed. His bare toes curled against the insult of the cold wood floor. “Someone must be threatening or even shooting.”

“How do you figure?”

“No answer at Rocky’s. The man with the gun is either not letting them answer or someone tore the phone out of the wall. Again.”

He picked up the phone and dialed another number. This time there was an immediate answer. “Rios.”

“Ricky, I just got a call from—”

“I know. Rocky’s. It’s a couple of the MacAlvie boys. Cousins. They got laid off from the mill up at Mad River and they were either having a celebration or a commiseration that turned into one of their usual fights. I’m on my way.”

“Good. I’ll back you up.”

“Hey,” Ricky said, “I got it, Tom. Plus, I radioed Humboldt County and got Bill Sanderson. The MacAlvies are theirs. Humboldt can join the party. Go back to bed.”

“It’s okay. I’m up.”

“We’re all up,” Ursula muttered, sticking her legs out in search of slippers.

Ricky was on duty till 7:00 a.m. He had fielded the call through the police station and arranged his
own backup from the county sheriff’s department. But someone had made a point to call Tom’s house, which upped the seriousness of the trouble by a notch. Because of that, Tom decided he’d put in an appearance. Maybe it was a worse-than-usual fight. He could only hope they’d kill each other by the time he got there. The MacAlvies were no good.

Rocky Conner was a leathery woman in her forties who looked like she was in her sixties. Her life had taken its toll. She was the fourth generation to run that ramshackle watering hole and was named for her great-grandfather. She claimed her people had served up drinks to tired and thirsty men all the way back to the Gold Rush.

Rocky’s was off the beaten track and known only to locals. Though it wasn’t exactly a place to buy a drink by invitation only, it came close. Tourists were not welcome. Strangers were usually met with unfriendliness unless they arrived on Harleys and had plenty of money to buy rounds. Rocky ran the place alone, but she had her regulars looking out for her. She’d only been robbed once in all her years at the roadhouse and that poor fool had gotten shot in the back as he made his getaway. Every last patron in the bar gave evidence that he’d fired a weapon, but Tom never did find the gun that killed the man. “Thicker than thieves” had real meaning in the backwoods.

There’d only been that one robbery, one death, but Rocky’s place had been busted up by fights more times than anyone could count.

A situation at Rocky’s might be the only case in which law enforcement personnel from three counties were willing to cross town and county lines to help out, because the counties of Humboldt, Trinity and Mendocino met in the bar itself. It sat in the shadow of Legend Mountain, down the Windle River from Grace Valley several miles and well out of the way. At least there was always someone to back up Tom and his deputies. Just the same, Tom had told Rocky a hundred times that if a good wind came up and blew that damned old shack ten feet to the northeast, his life would be measurably improved. To which she would always say, “I’d miss the hell out of you if that happened.”

He didn’t run the siren, but he flashed the lights atop his Range Rover and made some serious tracks to Rocky’s. The flashing lights of three patrols greeted him; the place was all lit up. He saw a Humboldt County car, a state police vehicle and Ricky’s squad car. There were a few ratty-looking men hanging out by the front door and Rocky was leaning against the county squad car with a cup of something in her hands. The culprits had their palms against the building and their legs spread.

Tom drove his Range Rover up close and jumped out.

“Hey, Toopeek, what’s your hurry?” Stan Kubbicks asked.

“How’s it going, Stan?” he replied.

“We’re just mopping up here,” he said. “You coulda stayed in bed.”

“I like an early start,” Tom said, approaching the building.

Ricky was patting down one of the MacAlvies while Bill Sanderson handled the other. Ricky pulled a knife out of his suspect’s sock and tossed it onto a small pile of contraband that had been removed from the two of them. Tom saw three knives, one of them a switchblade, brass knuckles, a shank—the type made by prisoners in jail—and some unlabeled pills in a small vial. Both MacAlvies were dripping blood from their faces. Both law enforcement officers wore rubber gloves and took great care with their searches.

“Nice little armory,” Tom said.

“Yeah, and they left half their artillery in the bar,” Bill answered. “I already told Ricky, you’re going to have to take ’em, Tom. We got a full house tonight.”

“Must be a full moon,” Ricky said. “I was busy all night.”

Once the cuffs were on them, Tom shone the flashlight in both their faces. There were some cuts and swelling and bruises, but nothing that looked too serious. “These two ought to be all right with some ice and tape. We can let the lady doctor sleep. Put them in the back of your squad and I’ll follow you in,” he told Ricky.

“Figures. I spend half my life washing out the back of that car. Now they’re gonna bleed all over it.”

“Mine’s clean,” Tom said. And smiled as he added, “And I’m the chief.”

“Yeah, Chief, you’re the chief.” He yanked his suspect around. “Come on, asshole. Let’s get you to jail.”

Ricky’s man, Ben MacAlvie, moaned and complained, but the other one took one step and went down. Bill crouched down, rolled him over and looked for a carotid pulse. By the time the pulse began to beat under his fingertips, Vern MacAlvie was snoring. Bill looked up at Tom. “He’s passed out,” he said, incredulous.

Rocky sauntered over on her short, thick legs and poked him in the ribs once with her toe. He snorted a couple of short ones, but didn’t rouse. She looked up at Tom. “If he’d passed out an hour ago, either he’d be dead or the fight woulda petered out. Either way, there’d’a been less damage.” She emptied the contents of her cup on his face and he sputtered madly, establishing he was not in a coma. “Damned trashy MacAlvies,” Rocky grumbled.

That last caused Tom to lift a curious brow in her direction as she sauntered away. It was definitely the pot speaking of the kettle.

Then his eye caught a familiar face and he nearly gasped out loud. One of the four or five men who lingered outside the bar at dawn was his old high school chum, Chris Forrest. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He’d never known Chris to be a drinker, and for sure not the kind of drinker who’d be at a dive like
Rocky’s at four in the morning. And not only did he appear in his cups, he was a trifle scuffed up, as though he’d been caught in the fray. Then he realized
Chris
had called him, disguising his voice very poorly.

Tom helped Bill lift up Vern MacAlvie, and once he was on foot, left him to get the detainee in Ricky’s car. When he approached Chris, the other man looked down, his hands in his pockets. All he could think of to say was “Chris?”

Chris raised his eyes. “I’m looking for a ride,” he said.

Chris was the only son of Judge and Birdie Forrest and had been Tom and June’s best friend all through childhood, right up to high school graduation. He was the homecoming king to June’s homecoming queen. Then, as many Grace Valley kids were known to do, Chris went away to make his mark. He’d landed in San Diego where he and wife, Nancy, also of Grace Valley, had twin boys.

Just a few months ago Chris had returned to the valley with his boys, now age fourteen, in search of a place to raise the little delinquents. Their mother had had enough of their petty crimes and disrespect. All that had been resolved, but not in the way anyone would have planned. Brad and Brent had stolen their grandmother Birdie’s car and plunged it down a ravine. The boys were nearly killed; their injuries were going to take a long time to heal.

“I bought myself a fixer-upper,” Chris told Tom on the ride home. “The place is a wreck, but now it’s a wreck with two hospital beds in the living room. My boys are in traction and there’s no time to work on making the house livable. The physical therapist comes every day and tortures them till they scream in pain. Nancy left a good job, and not only does she miss her work and friends, money is so tight we have to watch every cent. She cries herself to sleep at night, and even then, it’s not for long…the boys wake up several times, needing pans and pills.” He sniffed back self-pity. “Sometimes it’s all just too much.”

“I can imagine.”

“I just needed to get out of the house.”

“I can understand,” Tom said. “But, Chris, why go to Rocky’s? You know that place is like a hockey game in progress.”

Chris gave a huff of laughter. “Yeah. But it was three in the morning. Nothing else was open.”

“Still…”

“I didn’t get much to drink, anyway. I’m just so damned tired it went straight to my head,” Chris said. Then he looked at his knuckles. “I got a piece of Vern MacAlvie, though.” He laughed.

“You’re lucky they didn’t get a piece of you.”

Chris was quiet for a minute, and Tom gradually became aware that the soft sounds next to him were from Chris crying. He looked out the window, hiding his face from Tom. “At first I thought Nancy coming
back here would help us work on our, you know, issues,” he finally said. “But I’ve got her living on a shoestring in that dump of a house and I don’t know how we’re going to get through it.”

Tom knew they must be exhausted from the sheer demands of critical-care patients, not to mention the financial burden. Birdie had told Ursula in the quilting circle that their insurance would only afford hospitalization for so long. That’s why the boys were now getting home care long before the house was ready to be a home. Even with Birdie and Judge stopping in to help, even with the therapists and visiting nurses, Chris and Nancy were beat. And Chris couldn’t work as much as he needed to if he helped with the boys.

“You might have to ask for help,” Tom said.

“Ask who?” Chris bitterly replied.

“Your friends. That’s who.”

“My friends? My boys got into so much trouble with my friends, you think anyone would want to help them now? They stole from Burt Crandall’s bakery and egged the whole town. They vandalized George’s café, tipped over trash cans, beat up your kid, for God’s sake. No one’s going to feel sorry for them now. And this,” he said, looking over at Tom, tears wet on his cheeks, “is mostly because I wasn’t there as a father.”

Tom gave him a light sock in the arm, but really he wanted to stop the car and shake him good. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Remember what you know about your people. Your town.”

Chris got the handkerchief out of his pocket and gave his nose a good blow. “I know they can be pushed too far sometimes, that’s what I know.”

Tom’s radio squawked. “Rios to Toopeek, where you at, Chief?”

“Right at Paradise and 162, Ricky.”

“We got truck versus deer at 162 and 86, you copy?”

“I can take that.”

“Thanks, Chief.”

Tom turned on the lights and siren; the morning was foggy, particularly dense in the low areas between hills. “Slight detour, Chris. I’m afraid it can’t be helped.”

“No problem. I’m the tagalong.”

“We can talk about this later, though.”

“Hey, it’s a tough patch, but we’ll work it out.” He wiped his face, sniffed back the remnants of tears.

In just moments they could see the headlights of a truck down the road through the early morning fog, which could be hell on both wildlife and drivers. Hal Wassich, a farmer, stood beside his truck with a shotgun. On the ground at the side of the road was the carcass of a large stag.

Tom and Chris both got out. “Hey, Hal,” Tom said.

“I had to put him down, Chief. Got him square on the hip, crippled him bad.” Hal shook his head and a stream of blood ran onto his shirt from a wound
he didn’t appear to know he had sustained. “Ever hear a stag that size scream? It’s godawful, that’s what.”

Instead of putting the flashlight to the animal’s carcass, Tom shone it square on Hal’s head. “Chris, get an ice pack and some bandages out of the truck, would you? Hal, what’d you smack your head on?”

He reached up and touched his gushing forehead. “Damn. I must a bounced my head off the steering wheel. That sucker hit me like a tank. He’s big as one, too, ain’t he?”

“You got a big one, that’s for sure,” Tom said, squinting at the injury. “Hal, you cracked your head wide open.”

The grisly farmer grinned, showing a couple of missing teeth on the bottom. “Lucky for me I got nothin’ in there to fall out, ain’t it?”

“Damn truth,” Tom agreed, smiling with him.

Chris had bandages, tape and ice from Tom’s first aid kit and took over the cleaning of Hal’s head while Tom checked out the truck and the carcass. The stag was crushed on one side. If he’d managed to limp or drag himself into the woods, he’d have died a slow and miserable death. As for the truck, the bumper was bent, the hood was concave and the windshield was shattered. There wouldn’t be any driving it away from this spot.

Chris had Hal sitting on the tailgate while he cleaned off his head wound. “You doing some kind of ride-along with the police?” Tom heard Hal ask Chris.

“Naw. Tom was giving me a lift home from the bar. I had a couple too many to drive.”