Spring Tide (34 page)

“You were robbed?” Jackie stopped just inside the door to avoid stepping in glass.

Her mother looked up at her and squinted. “Nope. We weren’t robbed.”

“They didn’t get a penny,” her father boasted from the back room.

“Thanks to that young woman,” Ida added. “No thanks to your fool of a father.”

“Young woman?” Jackie asked. She knelt down to help her mother pick up the rest of the glass. Sticky salmon eggs stuck to several of the larger pieces.

“That woman who bought old Compton’s houseboat.” Her mother stood. “The cop.”

“She isn’t a cop,” Rudy intervened.

“Don Hartley said—”

“He said she used to be a cop. He was here just a minute ago checking on us. He said that’s why she was such a good shot. Because she used to be a cop.”

“She shot somebody?” Jackie was alarmed and frustrated with her parents for not telling her instantly what she wanted to know, but it was clear they were talking about Stef.

“She shot Eddie Delgado,” Ida said, carrying her dustpan full of glass to the trash can.

“Oh, my God!”

“In the shoulder,” Rudy added, stepping into the room. “He’ll be okay. Hartley said they got the bullet out and there shouldn’t be any complications. He’ll heal up okay. It was a very precise type of shot, he said. She knew what she was doing, that girl.”

Jackie breathed a sigh of relief to hear that Stef hadn’t killed somebody. Somebody else.

“It’s a good thing somebody knew what she was doing,” Ida remarked. “Your father shot Joey Cahill.”

“What?” Jackie was alarmed. “Dad shot Joey Cahill?”

Ida waved dismissively. “Just nicked him. Your father couldn’t hit the side of a barn at ten feet. If it wasn’t for that policewoman, we’d all be dead. I’m sure of it.”

“Why didn’t you call me?” Jackie demanded.

“There was nothing for you to do. By the time everybody left, we just wanted to go to bed. We were exhausted. Just left the whole mess here and went home.”

“It was an exciting night,” Rudy added. “How’d you find out about it?”

“Everybody in town is talking about it. I got three calls on my way over here from people wanting to know what happened. Becca called me first thing. That’s where I first heard about it. And I’m like, what? Why didn’t we know about this? She’s coming over as soon as she can get somebody to fill in at work. She called your house earlier and got no answer.”

“That’s because we came over here early to clean up,” Ida explained. “I’ll mop up the rest.”

She walked to the back room to get a mop and Jackie noticed for the first time that she was wearing the tasteful new yellow and white top Jackie had bought her with a pair of stretch polyester hot pink shorts. Why would she do that? Jackie wondered. Rudy installed himself on his stool behind the counter. Jackie sent a text to her sister saying, “Nobody hurt. Everything under control. No hurry about coming over.”

“We were so lucky,” Ida said, returning with the mop, “that we had a police officer right here in the store when the heist went down.”

“She’s not a police officer,” Rudy grumbled. “I just told you that.”

“You should have seen her,” Ida continued, undaunted. “She was a regular Jackie Chan.”

“Jackie Chan?” her father complained. “What are you talking about? Did you see any kung fu fighting in here last night? I didn’t see any.”

Ida shrugged. “Well, then, Angie Dickinson.”

“Who’s Angie Dickinson?” Jackie asked.

“A policewoman,” Rudy said. “Back in the seventies. She had blonde hair and went undercover a lot as a hooker. I never liked her as much as I did Columbo. Remember him?”

“Oh, yeah,” Ida said, pushing the mop across the bright pink stain. “Columbo. He was good.”

“With that raincoat and his wonky eye.” Rudy shook his head and smiled, then hiked up one shoulder, partially closed one eye, raised one finger and muttered, “Pardon me, sir… Just one more thing, ma’am... Just one more tiny question if you don’t mind.”

“I see I’ll have to go down to the police station,” Jackie said. “Obviously, you two aren’t going to tell me what happened here last night.”

“What happened,” her father said, “is that two kids came in here and held us up.”

“Eddie Delgado and Joey Cahill,” Ida added. “It was late, around eight o’clock, way after closing time, but your father insisted on staying open until the festival was over on the chance he might sell one more overpriced T-shirt. The ones with the big red crawdads on them, those were the most popular, as we expected.”

“Then what happened?” Jackie demanded, anxious to get back on topic. “After the boys came in, what happened?”

“They asked for all the money,” her father explained. “Before I could even open the drawer, your ex-cop comes in and surprises them. Made them trigger happy.”

“That’s not what made them trigger happy,” Ida contradicted. “Everything was fine until your damned fool father pulls a gun on them. Then everybody went crazy. Eddie was about to shoot your father in the head when that girl…” She turned to Rudy. “What’s her name?”

“Her name’s Stef,” Jackie offered.

“Stef? No, I don’t think so.”

“Yes!” Rudy stated. “Her name’s Stef Byers. It says so right here on her fishing license application.” He looked to Jackie for confirmation and she nodded.

“She was phenomenal,” Ida said, “whatever her name was. Just like Jackie Chan.” Ida held the mop handle in both hands in front of her like a martial arts weapon. Rudy shook his head.

“Stef wasn’t hurt?” Jackie asked.

“Not a scratch. She rounded up both those boys and sat ’em right over here to wait for the paddy wagon.”

“It sounds like she really was phenomenal.”

“And cool as a cucumber the whole time.”

“Where is she now?”

“She took off last night,” Rudy said. “Said she was getting underway as soon as she left here. Miles away by now.”

“She didn’t say where, I guess. Where she was headed?”

Rudy shook his head.

Jackie felt frustrated with herself. If only she’d come out to the marina last night after finding Stef gone. She might have caught her. It would never have occurred to her that she might even be at the bait shop getting a fishing license. Instead, she had gone home and spent a miserable, tear-filled evening alone.

“You can give her a call,” suggested her father, his expression sympathetic.

Jackie realized she must not be doing a good job hiding her disappointment. “I’ll do that.”

Rudy approached her and put his arm around her shoulders. “She’ll have to come back.”

“She will?”

“She’s a witness. More than a witness even. She’ll have to come back for the trial.”

“Oh, sure, I guess she will.” That was something, Jackie thought, but a trial could take months to happen and might not ever happen, depending on the pleas. “But that would be in Sacramento, not here.”

He nodded and gave her an encouraging pat on the back. Jackie noticed her mother standing nearby with a look of suspicion on her face.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “Something’s going on. Why are you sulking and your father trying to cheer you up?”

Rudy grinned gleefully and scuttled back to his place behind the counter. “Maybe you don’t know everything that goes on in this town,” he crowed. “Maybe not even when it’s about your own daughter.”

“Suppose you tell me,” she suggested indignantly.

Jackie decided to leave them to their game, knowing her mother would get what she wanted in the end. She walked outside and called Stef’s number. After three rings, it went to voice mail. “You’ve reached Stef Byers. Leave a message.” Momentarily stunned by the sound of Stef’s voice, Jackie hesitated before shutting her phone. If she was going to leave a message, she needed to decide what to say. She might only get one chance, if that, if Stef would listen to her message at all. She slumped into the Bel-Air car seat and stared across the road to a row of colorful boats docked at the marina, going over possibilities in her mind. Nothing seemed right. Nothing she could think of was any different from what she’d already told Stef.

I love you. I want you. Please, please come back to me.

But none of that had changed her mind before.

Or she could try something like, “I know what happened to Joe Molina and I’m so, so sorry. I felt sick when I heard about it and just wanted to hold you and comfort you and take care of you like…uh, something other than a wounded puppy.” Obviously, that wouldn’t work, nor would anything Stef could interpret as pity. So what could she say that would make a difference?

When her phone rang, she snapped it open and answered, “Hello!” thinking Stef had seen her number and was calling her back. But it was Niko, saying, “Are you coming in? Your nine o’ clock is here. Mrs. Peterson and Max.”

“Oh, damn! Sorry. I’m over here at the bait shop. It got robbed last night.”

“I heard. Are your folks all right?”

“They’re fine. They seem elated, in fact. Can you ask Mrs. Peterson to wait? I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Sure.” Jackie was about to hang up when Niko said, “A leopard walks into a vet’s office and says, ‘Doc, I’m tired of this look. Can you change my spots?’ The vet says, ‘No.’”

Jackie let out a spontaneous squawk of delight. “That’s a good one.”

“Thanks. I know you haven’t been very happy lately, so I figure if I can still get a laugh out of you, things can’t be too bad.”

Jackie smiled to herself. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Stef parked her bike on the street in front of a small white house with wood siding and a patchy lawn. She’d memorized the address Womack had given her. Once he’d gotten her legal name from property records for the old Lincoln Avenue apartment house, tracking Luisa Avila down had been relatively simple.

The neighborhood seemed respectable but poor. Across the street a young man worked under a jacked-up car. A little girl rode a tricycle on the sidewalk two houses away. An elderly man next door paused on his way to his mailbox to peer at Stef and her motorcycle. She smiled his way and he shuffled off. It was weekday quiet up and down the street.

This had been Stef’s first destination after leaving Stillwater Bay, piloting
Mudbug
up the Sacramento River, through Suisun Bay, and on to the Carquinez Strait to the Bay Area town of Martinez. All large waterways, so plenty of room to get familiar with
Mudbug’s
quirks. She was starting to get the hang of steering that tub. When she was done here, she’d go back to the heart of the Delta and explore some of the smaller channels, lose herself in remote locations where no roads penetrated.

The windows and front door of the house were open, leaving only a screen door covering the doorway. Her helmet tucked under her arm, she walked up a short sidewalk to the porch and was about to ring the bell when a woman’s voice greeted her from the dim interior.

“Hi, hi,” she said enthusiastically. “Come in.”

Stef opened the screen door and stepped inside. The room was small and stuffy, furnished with old-fashioned chairs and tables. The walls were cluttered with knickknacks and photos. It was a much lived-in looking space. The woman who had called to her sat in a recliner across the room, facing the door where she could see anybody approach.

“Hi,” said Stef, stepping over to the recliner. “I’m Stef Byers.”  She shook the woman’s hand.

Luisa Avila was not as old as Stef had expected. Molina had described her as old when he was a kid of twelve, which was fifteen years ago. She looked to be in her mid-fifties, which would have made her just about forty at the time. She was large, as he and his brother remembered, close to three hundred pounds, wearing a loose kaftan-like dress. Her legs were up on the recliner’s footrest, her broad-ankled feet clad in fuzzy pink slippers. She had a wide nose, eyes obscured behind thick glasses and mostly dark gray, puffy hair.

“Sit down,” she said, motioning toward the chair next to her.

Stef sat. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“So what’s this all about? You said on the phone José Molina’s dead. He was so young. What did he die of?”