Old Chaos (9781564747136) (35 page)

Goddamn cowboy. Prentiss had to be in the pursuit car. His driver had hit the siren. Maybe he couldn’t hear.

Rob could, unfortunately.

Prentiss was shouting something at his driver. After a few seconds of loud confusion, he came back on, breathless. “Dammit, she turned right at the light without stopping, and she’s speeding up. She’s on the bridge!”

Jake and the other state car rounded the last curve and screamed onto the straightaway that led to the stoplight at the bridge turnoff. The town of Bingen lay about a mile further on. Rob could see the pursuing patrol car and what had to be the BMW. A car was still coming from the Oregon side. He thought it was slowing.

“Stop!” Rob yelled and braced himself as Jake stood on the brakes. Tires screamed and the rear end fishtailed. At least the air-bags didn’t deploy.

To the right lay the Heritage Park, a county park-and-ride lot, and just before it, the intertribal fishing area with its RV lot lit by a pinkish glow. Half a dozen fishermen stood gawking up at the drama on the bridge.

“Down there,” Rob said, pointing to the RV lot. He thought the Yakama boat, or even the county boat, might pull up by the boat launch.

Jake bounced the patrol car across the train tracks and crawled down to the lot. Rob jumped out, stood by the open window, where he could hear the radio, and kept his eyes on the bridge.

The oncoming car had stopped. From the height of its headlights Rob thought it was probably a big pickup. He hoped so. Unlike the Bridge of the Gods, this span was low, and the guardrails were not much of a barrier between a small car and all that cold water. The wind gusted, and whitecaps glittered in the erratic light.

Prentiss roared at his driver. Rob could see that both Prentiss’s car and the BMW were swerving on the slick steel grate. The patrol car moved into the left lane, then fell back just short of ramming the pickup head-on. The BMW and the patrol car must have grazed the truck. Both sped on in a flurry of sparks. The pickup’s headlights rocked with the impact. Then its lights steadied and it began to move toward the Washington shore. The driver accelerated rapidly. Who could blame him?

“Hey, this is tribal land, guys.” A voice beside him, curious rather than hostile, and a bulky presence.

Rob nodded, eyes on the bridge. “Have they launched the Yaka-ma boat yet?”

“Friend downriver said they did. County boat’s tied up at the pier.”

“Where?”

The fisherman pointed. “Over there.”

Rob dropped the microphone and ran for the longer pier, which stuck out into the river. Jake shouted something after him, but Rob was too late. The boat was well out into the river by the time he reached the mooring. He stared after it, panting a little, then ran back to the car. Prentiss’s voice was still coming over the radio, calmer as they neared the other side and the toll booth where, it was to be hoped, Oregon patrol cars waited.

“We have her boxed,” Prentiss was saying. “Slowing. Right. Keep…oh, Christ, she’s turning!” Another flurry of disconnected noise. Then Prentiss gave a howl. “She got by us. She’s going back. Get ready to take her! I won’t pursue.”

That was a good decision. Savagely, Rob wished Prentiss had made it sooner. He strapped himself in. “Let’s go to—” He broke off, staring in horror. He could see the BMW’s lights, moving rapidly toward the high drawbridge section, which gleamed like a child’s Erector Set toy over the ship channel.

He and Jake watched in silence. The radio crackled. At the last moment, just before the car reached the rhomboid drawbridge, it sailed up and out over the western guardrail, the downriver side. The front end hit with a heavy splash, and the BMW floated briefly. The headlights dimmed. Then the car sank out of sight beneath the water.

Almost at once he could see the wakes of two boats heading for a point downstream from where the car had disappeared. He shook his head, disbelieving. Voices squawked on the radio, and Jake let out something like a sob. The fishermen in the RV lot ran to the river bank.

As the minutes stretched, Maddie grew more and more angry with Rob for cutting her off. Or rather, since she knew he was involved with the case, angry with him for not getting back to her. She had seen the patrol cars as they whizzed through Two Falls, so she knew something was up. Jack was watching the sports news. After a while he clicked the remote, and the screen blanked.

He stood up in stages. His knees hurt these days. “Come on.”

Maddie got her jacket and cell phone.

They drove east without talking, and Maddie’s mind drifted. Had the cops intended to arrest the commissioner? Why? Both a state and a county patrol car had passed through Two Falls, so Prentiss was involved. Perhaps Cate had induced Inger to remove the hazard warning, but why? Wasn’t it more likely that
Fred
had used Inger?

She shook her head. Such speculation was foolish. It was better to think about things that made sense. Like the casino.

“There goes the Yakama boat,” Jack said.

Maddie couldn’t tell one boat from another at this distance and wondered that Jack could. “Why would they be out?”

Jack didn’t know so he didn’t say anything, one of his many good traits. The boat was really moving. They followed it upriver at pretty much the same rate of speed.

Maddie didn’t have to point Jack to the tribal fishing area. He jounced down across the tracks as the county patrol car turned to leave the lot. It stopped. So did Jack. He and Maddie got out when Rob did.

“What happened?” she asked without the usual ceremony of greeting.

He stared at her.

Behind her, abruptly, a train hooted its approach. The track followed the river all the way down to Vancouver. Freights, and one passenger train a day, passed through the Gorge towns at the rate of one every few hours, so the sound was familiar. Tonight it made her jump nearly out of her skin. It neared and hooted louder, then passed them. The music dopplered down.

“Oh man, Jack, that car just
dived
into the river!” Jack’s cousin Dave from Wishram. Dave was shouting as the train rattled past.

Jack rumbled a reply.

Maddie kept her eyes on Rob. He looked like a man who had seen a ghost.

“Chief Thomas,” he said into the sudden silence, “thank you for your cooperation.”

“You lost her.” She didn’t mean to sound accusing.

He nodded.

“State car chased her,” Dave said. “All the way across. Then she turned around and come back.
Dived
off the bridge. Didn’t slow at all.”

“Guys in wetsuits got one body out,” somebody else said. “Man, they were quick. Didn’t take fifteen minutes.”

“In the dark?” Maddie squinted out at the silent river but couldn’t see much. The lights from a cluster of boats bobbed on the water. The Yakama boat joined them, going slow now.

“Must’ve had a grapple on her. It’s shallower there.”

A jumble of voices wanted to tell Maddie all about it. She kept her eyes on Rob.

Beside her, Jack shifted from foot to foot. She could always read his mood. At last he said, “Somebody says they found one body.”

Rob shut his eyes, opened them. “Yeah, the commissioner’s. They’re looking for her husband.”

Jack considered that, taking his time. “I seen the car when it went through Two Falls. There was just the driver.”

Rob’s eyebrows snapped together. He stared as if he wanted to see into Jack’s head. “Are you saying she didn’t have a passenger?”

“Just her in the car.”

“You’re sure.”

Jack brooded, eyes veiled. “Yeah, unless somebody was lying down in back or something. Nobody in the passenger seat. I looked hard. She was speeding.”

He had sharp vision. Maddie hadn’t seen the driver, just the car.

Rob nodded and touched his arm. “Thanks.” He went back to the county car and got in. They could hear him working the radio, talking to that state cop Prentiss.

Maddie turned to Dave. “Tell me about it.” And Dave did.

Jack moved the pickup down beside Dave’s. Somebody brought a folding lawn chair for Maddie, and maybe half a dozen fishermen gathered around while Dave told the story. They kept pitching in, so it was a little confusing.

Maddie thought the state cops had screwed up. They shouldn’t have chased the woman. If they hadn’t, the Oregon police could have taken her in without fuss, without tragedy. Maddie disapproved of high-speed chases. There was too much room for collateral damage. She wanted to extend her sympathy to the driver of the oncoming pickup. He was a victim who would never be called a victim, but she would not have had his nightmares for anything.

As Dave drew the tale to a close, Maddie saw Rob get out of the county car. He looked grim but less stunned than when she’d first spoken to him.

He walked slowly over to the cluster of fishermen around Maddie and waited until Dave had finished. “Jack, I need to talk to you.”

She watched her husband walk off to speak with Rob privately. They talked a long time. Maddie’s court dispersed. They were drinking beer now and repeating themselves, telling each other what they had all seen. She didn’t know what to think, for once, and sat brooding in her lawn chair.

At last Rob got into the county car. It drove off. Jack came over to her.

“What’s happening?”

“Rob thinks she shoved the old guy out of the car somewhere along County Road 2. Search party at sunup.” After a moment, he added, “He wants me.”

Maddie didn’t doubt that. She wondered whether Lars had been alive when he was abandoned. “Let’s go home.”

They did. She didn’t think the fishermen would be in any condition to join in the search the next morning.

Meg fixed chili, her infinitely postponeable meal, because she thought Rob would not make it home before midnight. However, he showed up around nine, looking sick, and gave her a terse account of Catherine Bjork’s death while she dished up his chili and sliced his bread. She was shocked and said so.

He didn’t reply.

“Prentiss killed that woman.”

He stared at her over a spoonful of chili, his eyes very dark gray. “She killed herself.”

“If he hadn’t chased her—”

“Let it go, Meg.” From the weary disgust in his voice she knew he agreed with her, so she said nothing. She supposed state patrol officers must have a primitive attachment to high-speed chases, given the nature of their experience with speeders. She did not know Lt. Prentiss. She could only hope he felt remorse. It was obvious that Rob did, along with guilt and anger and other less well-defined emotions.

She thought about Catherine Bjork, or tried to. It was hard to imagine all that brittle energy snuffed out, but if she had murdered Inger and Fred Drinkwater, as Rob seemed to believe…

A sharp rap at the kitchen door interrupted her reflections. It was Charlie.

He let himself in, looking a little sheepish.

“Late for a social call, isn’t it?” Rob sounded sour. She was tempted to smack him.

Charlie sat down opposite his cousin.

“Come to gloat?” That was just plain vicious. She stared at Rob. He didn’t meet her eyes.

Charlie frowned. “Gloat about what?”

Meg said, “There are developments, Charlie. Catherine Bjork is dead.” She explained, and Charlie expressed shock. While she talked Rob ate mechanically. Load spoon, stuff in mouth, swallow.

As she wound down, he shoved his bowl back. “Thanks, Meg. I’m going upstairs to phone Beth. She wants a report. It’ll take a while. Good night, Charlie.”

Meg said, “Sit back down and shut up, Robert. You feel rotten. Don’t take it out on your cousin. Or on me,” she added as he opened his mouth to respond.

Charlie, looking uncomfortable but determined, drew a sheaf of papers from his jacket. “I just came from the hospital. They finally let me see Larry Swets.”

Rob shifted in his chair. “You helped Meg. I ought to thank you for that.”

Charlie shrugged. “No thanks necessary. By the time I got to Larry this morning, he’d already… well, he wasn’t in his right mind. He gave me these, told me to give them to you.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“Rob—”

“It’s okay, Meg.” Charlie’s chair creaked. “That’s a legitimate question. I read them. The thing is, they’re personal. Larry’s judgment was impaired. I wanted to make sure he hadn’t changed his mind.”