Hard Rain

by Waverly Fitzgerald

  “What?” I was glad to see her so happy. This was the perfect distraction from the pain and worry of losing Taffy.

  “The chart for what’s happening in Sky’s life right now. It looks like she has just broken through some internal constrictions on her way of thinking.”

  Just then the phone rang. We looked at each other and then looked at the clock. It was fifteen minutes after midnight. “I wonder who that is?”

  I felt a sense of dread but no one knew I was at Ginger’s. Unless someone had followed me. Maybe Darnell.

  “It must be Taffy,” said Ginger, “wanting to say good-night.”

  “But it’s after midnight.”

  “She’s a night owl, like me” said Ginger, snatching up the phone.

  I saw her expression change. She frowned at first, but then she began rolling her eyes and by the end she was smirking. “It’s OK,” she said. “Let me talk to her.”

  There was protesting on the other end. I could hear two voices: a male voice and a female voice. Doug and Sheila must have been on two different extensions.

  “Fine, fine,” said Ginger. “I’ll be right over.”

  She hung up. She had a big grin on her face. “That was Doug and Sheila,” she said. “They can’t take it. It’s an hour past their bedtime and Taffy refuses to go to sleep. She got water all over the bathroom while giving their cat a bath—poor thing! Now she’s marching around the house singing songs.” Ginger beamed. “She claims that’s our bedtime routine.” She started chuckling. “And they bought that. They were marching around with her singing, but, of course, that just worked her up, so they tried to calm her down with ice cream. Well, since Taffy never eats sugar here—” she made a guilty face, looking at her bowl of ice cream, “—that just made her wilder. Apparently she was dancing around the living room when they called. She bumped into the table and broke a valuable piece of glass. A Chihuly. Something worth thousands of dollars apparently.”

  “So this is good news?” I asked, cautious. There had not been a lot of good news in my life recently.

  “Yes, they say they’re too old for this. They want me to come and get her immediately. I think this will be the end of the custody suit.”

  Chapter 33

  I slipped out of Ginger’s house early in the morning. The mother and child reunion had been ecstatic apparently. I didn’t get to see it as Taffy was fast asleep by the time Ginger got her back to the loft. Ginger laid the sleepy child down in her own bed and I got to sleep in Taffy’s bed along with some crumbs, which I brushed out, and several stuffed animals, who I swear kept pushing me out of the bed.

  I got a latte and a muffin at the coffee shop on the corner of Fremont and 34th, wondering what to do next. I wanted to go home. I wanted to pick up a change of clothes. I wanted to say hello to my ferrets.

  But I couldn’t go anywhere near my home. It seemed like a path of death and destruction was following me and I was afraid to impose my presence on anyone else. What I needed, I decided, was a gun. I needed to be able to defend myself. I needed to be able to threaten those who threatened harm to me and those I loved.

  I decided to go visit Matt and Boo. They would understand. They were enmeshed in their own confrontation with death. And besides, I wanted to know if they found Maloney.

  I drove to the motel where Matt said they were staying, a cheap one on Eastlake Boulevard, which runs along the edge of Capitol Hill, along Lake Union. The motel was quiet in the morning light. Two cars were parked out front: a Ford truck and a beat-up old Chevy. I knocked at the door to Room 160 and Boo opened it, dressed in one of his loud Hawaiian shirts. This one was pink and purple and blue. He wore it over canvas shorts and a pair of flip-flops on his feet. His uncombed gray hair was fluffed out around his ears. He looked a lot like the Dude from the Big Lebowski, which is what I told him.

  “Hey, I knew the Dude,” said Book, waving me into the small room which was already dense with marijuana smoke. “He was one of the defendants in the Seattle 7 trial.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Jeff Dowd. The character in the movie was based on him.”

  “So you knew all those folks,” I said.

  “It was a happening time,” said Boo in a mild voice that contained some regret.

  I looked around the room. There was a grease-stained pizza box on the dresser beside the TV and an empty bourbon bottle on the nightstand.

  “Where’s Matt?”

  “Out and about.”

  “Don’t mess with me, Boo. I’m not in the mood. I can’t even go home.”

  “Well, Matt’s out checking on that guy who was hassling you.”

  “Too bad. I wanted to ask him if he could get me a gun. And show me how to use it.”

  “You know I can hook you up, sweetheart,” he said. He pulled a duffel bag from the closet and spilled it out on the bed, a bunch of guns all mingled in with more Hawaiian shirts and shorts and t-shirts.

  “You brought these into my house?” I asked incredulously.

  “And aren’t you glad?” he asked. “I kept your ferrets safe.”

  He pulled them out, one by one, and explained what each of them did. I was overwhelmed. There were guns for killing at close range. Guns for killing fast. Guns that had accurate sights for distances. Finally, I said, “I just want something small I can carry in my purse.”

  “Ah, I have just the item for you, little lady,” said Boo, holding up a small black pistol. “It’s a Smith and Wesson revolver,” he said. “Just the thing for a lady.” He rummaged around some more, then frowned. “I don’t have any ammunition for this one, though. “Let’s go find some.”

  “But….”

  “Come on. It will be an adventure,” Boo said. “And anyway, you don’t have anything else to do.” It was true. I couldn’t go home. And until my dad called with his location, I couldn’t meet up with him.

  Boo looked in the phone book and found the nearest gun store: a place with the clever name of Top Guns. We took my Jeep and headed north, across the county line. We were silent for a while, then I said, “I found Ellie.”

  “That’s good,” he said.

  “I’m not so sure. I think I got someone killed because of it.”

  “What?”

  “I came back and my contact here, the lawyer I was working for, he was dead.”

  I started crying. “And maybe I got Ellie’s husband killed too.”

  “No. You know that’s not true. That’s the guy we were after. The Hendrix killer. We think we know where Maloney is living.

  “The guy I couldn’t find.”

  “You got us close enough. We found out he picks up his check once a month at a PO box in Sultan. He’s out there in the woods. We’re heading up there to find him as soon as Matt gets back.”

  “See I’m such a loser. I couldn’t even help Matt with his case.”

  At that, I burst into tears. It was all suddenly too much for me. Melody. Smitty. Joel. The path of death and destruction that lay in my wake.

  I was still crying when Boo pulled not the parking lot at the gun shop. He took me in his arms and held me and I could smell the marijuana smoke in the fiber of his shirt and feel his sweat damp through the cloth and yet there was something comforting in that embrace.

  “It’s OK, Rachel,” he said, patting me on the back, like a parent burping a child, “you’re going to be OK. Stop crying. You’re going to learn to shoot today. Then I can empower you as my deputy and you can strike back against the bad guys. Come on.”

  We bought some ammunition and then headed to a shooting range recommended by the owner of the gun store. It was a concrete box, very bare. We got headphones to muffle the sound. Boo showed me how to load the gun. The gun was heavy in my hand and my heart was heavy as well. Then we went into a booth and he showed me how to position my hand and shoot.

  The first shot went wild.

  Boo told me to just point and shoot. Don’t even bother to aim.

  The second shot tore a
hole in the target.

  “Right on,” Boo said. “Feel better?”

  I nodded. I thought about the person who killed Joel, aimed and fired.

  I thought about the person who killed Melody, aimed and fired.

  I thought about the person who killed Smitty, aimed and fired.

  All around me the shots rang out, crackled, zinged, howled, burst and splatted.

  “That’s it! You’ve got it!” Boo stood at my shoulder and cheered me on.

  In the car on the way back to the motel, Boo told me he was proud of me. “Enough to make me wish you were my daughter.” He paused. “You know, I was half in love with your mother.”

  “Really? I thought you were in love with Ellie.”

  “Ha! Everyone was in love with Ellie. Your mother was more my type. She seemed meek but one could sense a smoldering passion underneath.”

  “You’re talking about my mother,” I said with a frown. Although I had to admit he was right. My mother has quite a temper. I thought about her fights with my father, about the way they could go from screaming to smooching in a few seconds.

  “Yes, well I always worried about her,” Boo said. “It was hard for women in those days. Ellie set herself up as a rebel. That was convenient. She could anything she wanted and pass it off as freedom. Your mother was trying to be a good wife and a good mother, playing by the old rules, and yet all the rules were changing.”

  That was a fairly astute observation for someone who stayed stoned most of the time.

  “How’s she doing now?” he asked.

  “Well, she had a couple of nervous breakdowns in the 1980s,” I said. That’s what she called them anyway. “After my dad left. She’s been married a couple of times since then. I don’t think she’s been very happy with the way her life has gone. She would have been happier being a politician. Instead, she’s married to one.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “Robb Ross.”

  “Robb Ross?” Boo sounded incredulous. “We always thought that guy was an informant.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, he lived with me and Ellie when we lived together. Someone was leaking the defense strategy and we always figured it was him.”

  “So how did he become the sheriff?”

  “I guess he liked playing cops and robbers. He changed his name, trying to get some distance from his sketchy past. I heard that he applied for the Seattle Police Department but they turned him down based on the psych evaluation.”

  “That’s ironic,” I said.

  “You know, I’m proud of you,” Boo said. “I always kind of wished you were my daughter.”

  I looked at him puzzled.

  “Could have been,” he said, mildly. “Had a little interlude with Silvia at the second Sky River festival—”

  “No, Boo! Don’t go there! I don’t want to know.”

  Boo just winked. “Don’t worry. You look just like your daddy. Just saying, I always wondered what might have been.”

  Chapter 34

  I headed home to check on the ferrets. While I was there, my dad called telling me to meet him at the Westin in two hours. I wondered if he chose the Westin because he knew it had the best security of any hotel in Seattle. It’s where visiting dignitaries usually stay. Still they didn’t have metal detectors. So I was able to smuggle in my revolver. It was now my constant companion.

  I rode the elevator up to his room. The carpet was deep and the hallway quiet except for the hum of the air. I knocked at the door and an eye swam into view in the peephole, then the door opened and I fell into my dad’s embrace. I hadn’t realized until that moment how much I needed him.

  He put his arm around my shoulder and turned me so I could see that there was a woman sitting on a chair by the window. I stiffened. Startled by her presence. Was she his new girlfriend? I thought he was happy with Heather. This woman was younger than me, by a few years but that wouldn’t bother my dad. He likes his women young. But something about her awkward posture, the way she stood with her hands clasped, made me suspect this was not her role.

  “Rachel,” my dad said before I could ask him, “I have someone very important I want you to meet.”

  The woman rose and came forward a little. The window was open and so she was silhouetted against the light. I couldn’t see her very well. I could see that she had dark brown eyes and wavy auburn hair, cut closer to her head. She wore a pink suit edged with black trim that seemed way too formal for a hotel room. Maybe she was a secretary or an assistant. But then why introduce her as someone important?

  I turned to look at my dad and he was gazing at her with eyes full of wonder. I was back to the girlfriend thing except that his eyes did not have that sheen of infatuation I associated with his girlfriends; instead he looked like he did the night I played the lead role in my school play.

  “Judy,” he said to her, “this is Rachel, your sister.” And then when I gasped, he turned to me, “Rachel, this is my other daughter, Judy.”

  We stood and studied each other, just a few feet apart. I searched her face for my father’s features and found little, perhaps the thin face and thin lips. She must have been studying me for the same things. I know I look like my father: people often remark on our similarities. In my case, it’s the curly hair and the prominent nose that give away our relationship. She was about my height, perhaps a little shorter, and a lot more petite.

  “This is awkward,” I said. I glanced over at my dad. “What do you want me to do? Hug her?”

  She backed away and looked at my dad. “I told you this wasn’t a good idea.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it’s a shock.” He turned to me. “But can you imagine how I felt when Judy called me. All those years.”

  “How did you find him?” I asked. I was only being polite. I really wanted to kick her butt.

  “I got some help from a private detective,” she said. “And the adoption agency. I couldn’t contact my mother, so I was overjoyed when I found my father.”

  “So what do you know about your mother?” I asked.

  “Come on, Rachel,” my dad said. “This is a joyful occasion. Let’s all have a drink together,” he said. He rustled around in the bar while Judy went back to her chair. I plopped down on one of the beds. My purse hit the carpet with a thud.

  They must have had drinks already because my dad poured himself a Scotch. And he poured the rest of a can of Sprite into Judy’s empty glass.

  “What do you want, Rachel?” he asked.

  I asked him if there was any soda. He gave me a can of Pepsi.

  “Does mom know about her?” I asked, popping the lid and taking a swig.

  My dad gave me a chiding look.

  “Does she know she exists? Yes. Does she know we’re in contact? No.”

  “How do you think she’s going to feel about this?” I asked. I took another sip of my drink. The fizz tickled my nose.

  “I don’t think she has to know about it,” my dad said. “It can be our secret.”

  “Just like seeing you together at the zoo was our secret,” I said bitterly.

  “Did you bring the picture,” Judy asked.

  My dad nodded. He reached into his wallet and flipped it open. My high school graduation photograph was in the little slot for a picture. I always loved it that he had me there, not his girlfriend, not my sister, although it was a terrible picture of me. I was trying not to smile because I had braces. Now he reached behind it and pulled out a tattered old snapshot that had been folded to fit the space. He handed it over to Judy. She studied it for a while, then handed it back to him with a brilliant smile.

  “You look so happy,” she said.

  My dad touched it with his fingertip. “We were,” he said.

  Curious, I got up and looked over his shoulder. It was a photograph of him and Ellie and a red-haired little girl sitting in a stroller. I could tell by the backdrop that they were at the Woodland Park Zoo. Ellie wore her hair in two long braids. My fat
her was in jeans and a color block jacket. It must have been taken in the 1980s.

  “I was there, wasn’t I?” I asked.

  “Yes, you were.”

  “You told me she was a client.”

  My dad turned to Judy. “It was believable. I was a divorce attorney.”

  But now that I looked at the picture again, it was amazing I hadn’t noticed the resemblance. I could see my dad’s features in the smiling face of the child. I looked at Judy and tried to trace the resemblance. She had changed a lot as she grew up.

  “How did you hide this from Mom?” I asked.

  “She didn’t ask too many questions. After all, she was the one who nagged me into switching jobs so I could make more money. I think she figured it was worth the trade.”

  “But a baby,” I said.

  I turned to Judy. “What year were you born?”

  “1974,” she said.

  “So I was five,” I said. “And you never told me. I thought I knew everything about your life…” I remembered telling my mom about seeing my dad with the red-haired woman and her fury. She knew it was Ellie.

  “That was why I couldn’t tell you,” he said. “Your mom was furious when she found out I was still seeing Ellie. That’s why we got divorced.”

  “No,” I said. “You got divorced because you were cheating on her.”

  “No, actually, we got divorced because I tried to adopt Sky. After—” He paused.

  “After the bank robbery,” Judy said. “I know she left me behind.”

  “You’ve got to understand. She had to do that to save her own life,” my dad said.

  Judy just shrugged. My dad turned to me.

  “That’s when I told your mom that Sky was my child. I thought she would agree that we should adopt her. But she was furious.”

  “And that surprised you?” I asked, wondering how well he knew his wife.

  “Well, yes,” he said.

  “She had every right to be outraged,” I said. I was feeling outraged myself. I tried to imagine what life would have been like if my father’s bastard daughter had suddenly come to live with us. I was in junior high and my sister was a senior in high school.