River of No Return : A Jake Trent Novel (9781451698053)

by Bertsch, David Riley

  “Her voice mail message isn’t set up. It’s a new phone. I’m not totally sure it’s her, you know?”

  “Not totally sure?”

  “I think she got a new number.”

  Mike sighed. “Let me try the maybe new number.”

  J.P. reached into his sweatshirt pocket. He took out his phone and started pressing buttons.

  Then he stopped. “Oh shit!”

  “What is it?”

  “Got a text.”

  “That says?”

  “It says, ‘I’m okay, see you soon.’ ” J.P. put his hand on his forehead, trying to think.

  Mike flopped the notepad he had been writing on back onto the desk. He stood up and pushed his chair back in. “We’re done, J.P. I’ve got shit to do. It’s not our job to find your road-tripping girlfriend.”

  “But . . .”

  “Look, if something happens, call us. You can’t come in here like this.”

  “Where’s the chief?”

  “Business trip, buddy. Sorry.”

  “Shit!” J.P. slammed a closed fist on the detective’s desk.

  “All right, let’s go!” Mike took him by the arm and pulled him toward the door. J.P. could hear snickers from the peanut gallery as he left.

  J.P. staggered back to his truck. He looked at Chayote. “Something’s not right.” The heeler plopped into J.P.’s lap, muddying his pants. Then he settled down and licked J.P.’s face.

  “You need a drink, buddy?” Chayote cocked his head.

  * * *

  J.P. nailed the concrete divider as he slid into the brew pub’s small parking lot. Goddammit! A light sleet had started to fall, making the surface slick.

  “Inside, now.” The dog hesitated as if he knew better, but then followed J.P. inside. The pub was almost empty. Just a few locals having a beer.

  Everyone stopped and looked at J.P., big and burly with his soft eyes looking wistful, and the dog, prancing around him as if to ask Where we going next? Huh? Huh?

  “Whoa, whoa! He can’t come in here, bro!”

  J.P. beelined to the bartender who had just reprimanded him. The young man stepped back from the bar, intimidated.

  “Listen . . .” J.P. didn’t recognize the new employee, so he looked at his name tag. “Skyler from Connecticut. This is my anxiety dog. He comes with me everywhere, law says so. You want a lawyer up your ass? Get us two pale ales.”

  “Take it easy, man.”

  A particularly pickled local named John looked over. “You got that there anxiety, J.P.?” He giggled, showing his country teeth.

  “Fuck off. Tonight I do.”

  J.P. drank half of his beer in one swig and then set the other down for the dog, who drank eagerly too. He motioned for another from Skyler.

  A woman appeared a moment later from the kitchen, smiling at J.P.

  “Heard someone’s threatening to sue us?” Melissa, the front-of-house manager, spoke with only a tinge of seriousness. “You think Jake would take the case? He likes our beer, doesn’t he?”

  Shit. J.P. chugged the rest of his second beer and prepared to be kicked out. He burped loudly.

  “Impressive,” Melissa said. “Well, let me see the little fella at least.”

  She walked casually around the bar, saying hello to the regulars. When she approached Chayote, he was wagging his tail so fast that he could hardly keep his body still.

  “I think your anxiety dog needs an anxiety dog.”

  The new bartender was polishing glasses; their shiny glare matched the look he gave J.P., who thought in retort: Fuck you, Connecticut!

  “I’ll get out of here. Let my man finish his drink.” J.P. motioned at Chayote, who had a third left and a bad case of the hiccups.

  “Stay. Beer’s on me. What’s going on?” Melissa had a knack for knowing when a customer needed a shoulder to cry on. She walked back around the bar and rested her elbows on its surface, face low and close to his.

  “What’s bugging you?”

  He looked at his beer glass like a starving orphan, and Melissa took it. “Pale ale, right?”

  J.P. nodded. “You remember Esma? I had her in here for lunch couple times.”

  “How could I forget? Good-looking woman.”

  “Yeah, thanks. Well, we were having some issues, and . . .”

  “You two were a couple?” John spoke up again. “That exotic-looking one? I had a dream once where she and I were stuck in the snow in my truck, and . . .”

  “Better shut it, John.” Melissa stopped the confrontation before it started.

  “Jesus, man!” J.P. turned back to his drink. “So she went out of town, kinda upset you know, and I wasn’t sure when or if she was coming back. Then yesterday I get this text from her saying she’s coming back and wants to patch things up.”

  “That’s great.” Melissa was now pouring a beer for herself and a glass of water for John.

  “But she never shows up, and I tried to call her and it’s been just weird.”

  “How?”

  “Some guy answered and then hung up.”

  “Don’t let your imagination run like that. Probably a wrong number. You know what I think?”

  J.P. shrugged as he took a swig.

  “She probably wants you to come for her. Do something romantic, you know? Sweep her off her feet.”

  “I don’t even know where she is.”

  “You could find her if you wanted to. She’s playing hard to get.”

  “Wait. Maybe I can.”

  Can’t you trace a mobile phone? He knew one person who ought to know. The last and best of J.P.’s resources remained untapped: Jake Trent.

  10

  SALMON, IDAHO. OCTOBER 18.

  5 P.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME.

  Schwack! Schwack!

  The rednecks were shooting stumps again. “No cable, can’t even watch MMA, nothing,” they said. So they shot stumps.

  Why don’t you idiots wrestle each other? Esma thought. Maybe to the death?

  She had begun to grow accustomed to the noise, but she still jumped, imagining herself as one of the stumps.

  Schwack! Then complete darkness. Or so she assumed. She’d become curious about death in the last few hours. First afraid, then curious.

  That’s what people do when they kidnap you, right? Rape and kill you? Or try to use you to get something from somebody . . .

  She didn’t believe they were trying for a ransom. She didn’t know anybody who wanted her that badly, not to mention that she didn’t know anybody rich enough to make kidnapping her worthwhile.

  So they’d kill her, more than likely. Violent crime was outside her expertise, but growing up in Mexico in the era of the drug cartels had taught her enough to know she wanted it to be quick. She hoped they would just kick in that shoddy old door and shoot her in the head. No pain. No fear.

  * * *

  Outside, the men didn’t share the same frame of mind. They knew they couldn’t kill her. But rape, torture—as long as it didn’t put her life at risk—was okay, they figured. There were just two reasons that neither of the men had taken her already: First, they were both somewhat ashamed of their urge to do so; they weren’t barbarians, after all. Second, neither of them wanted word getting out that he had boinked a beaner.

  Randy, the more heavyset of the two, figured the only way to seal the secret was for both of them to do her, but he’d yet to propose this to his partner.

  Tim, or Tinny, as they called him because of an old speech impediment, was lanky, medium height. His awkwardly long arms were marked with the sure signs of drug use—meth when money was low and heroin when he was down in Salt Lake and had some extra cash.

  They only pretended to trust each other. They knew each other a bit, but this was the first time they had ever worked toge
ther. Their boss preferred to keep the relationship dubiously sterile—they didn’t even know his name, had been given only the rough contours of the woman’s fate.

  But they had no qualms about being kept in the dark. They had their “subject,” as the boss called her, and that, along with the tote bag stuffed with fifty-dollar bills, was good enough for them.

  They continued to take out their rage on the lodgepole stumps. The ground around them was littered with spent shells and cigarette butts: off-brand menthols for Randy and hand rolled for Tinny.

  The old hunting camp was pretty nice for two poor boys from Idaho. They guessed it belonged to some rich family from Boise. Who knew how their boss had found it?

  The cabin was up on a bluff overlooking the river in the Salmon-Challis wilderness. The River of No Return, it was called. Randy liked the way that sounded, considering they were career criminals who’d just kidnapped someone. Tinny was oblivious to the kismet.

  The structure was out in the open atop the hill, which would have been disconcerting if there were anyone around to see what they were doing. But there was no major road along this stretch of the river, only a few logging trails that provided access to the hunting camps in the hills. The occasional drift boat slipped down the inky current chasing steelhead, but that was two thousand feet down the steep bank. The fishermen were too focused on waiting for a twitch from their floats or the tips of their plugging rods to notice anything else around them.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Randy said, taking his hands from his ears, where they had been protecting him from the percussion of the AR-15. “I’m sick of smoked salmon and jerky.”

  Tinny responded too loudly, his chainsaw-brand ear muffs still on: “Not ’posed to leave, ’member? Boss says so.” He brought the rifle back up to his shoulder to fire again.

  Randy yanked the muffs off his partner’s head and pushed the barrel of the gun down. “Then you stay. I can’t take it. I don’t even like fish.” He started toward the shed.

  Dammit! Tinny ran to catch up with Randy, who was checking on Esma, making sure she couldn’t fly the coop.

  “I don’t know if you not liking fish is an emergency.” Tinny was referring to the boss’s exception to the “never leave camp” rule.

  “Shut up.” Randy made tracks to the truck and turned the radio on. Raucous country music filled the cabin. Tinny jumped in.

  When they got to the town of Salmon, they decided it would be prudent to stop throwing their empty beer cans and cigarette butts out the truck window. They didn’t need any trouble from the cops.

  Tinny pointed at an oversize bear statue on the east bank of the river, welcoming visitors crossing over from the west. “Look at them fish.”

  The bear was fishing for steelhead and salmon, represented in dull bronze at its feet. These fish kept the town alive through the fall and winter, bringing fishermen in from hundreds of miles around.

  Randy gave his sidekick a dubious look. “Gimme a beer. I ain’t gonna pay $3.50 down here before I get a buzz in the truck.”

  Tinny listened and obliged, as was becoming his way with Randy.

  “You think maybe we oughta catch us some of those?” he asked, handing the beer over the center console.

  “I ’ready told you I don’t like fish.”

  “Sorry.”

  Randy wrenched the old pickup into a spot with a handicapped sign right in front of Bertram’s Brewery. “We’ll try this place.” He appreciated the neon beer-mug sign.

  “Looks fancy.”

  “You never had a microbrew?”

  “Nope.” Tinny wondered whether this was some small-portions bullshit like expensive restaurants did with their meals.

  The two men hustled inside. The sun had set behind the high bluff along the river in the west, and it was cold. Earlier that afternoon the wind had started to blow consistently from the Pacific, where the spawning salmonids came from, bringing with it an early snowstorm. The drift boats outside the small pub sported canvas covers to keep the precipitation out.

  Their ragtag look turned some heads as the men walked through the dining room and back to the bar. Randy mean-mugged the other patrons in return, but Tinny, oblivious to their judgment, gave a goofy smile, revealing his tinged teeth.

  “What can I get you boys?” The female bartender’s warm smile betrayed no such judgment. She set down two cardboard coasters.

  “A microbrew,” Tinny answered eagerly, feeling all high-class.

  “No, idiot, it’s not like that. They got different kinds.” Randy gave the bartender an apologetic smile.

  “I’ll give you a minute.”

  They buried their heads in the fold-over pamphlet that described the brews.

  “Lookey, they got a nut-sac beer!”

  Randy looked where his comrade was pointing. There was a blend of the Hazelnut Ale and the Sacajawea Stout for six bucks. He didn’t laugh. “Something cheaper. You won’t be able to appreciate that anyway.”

  The bartender returned. Tinny stuttered ordering his pale ale—he found the waitress rather endearing—and then he giggled when Randy asked for the nut-sac.

  “Great. You’ll like it.” She smiled and turned to fill two mugs.

  “Fuck is that ’posed to mean?” he mumbled when she was out of earshot.

  Tinny just shrugged.

  A cold blast accompanied the squeaking of the back door and three armed men walked in wearing uniforms. It wasn’t a kit that Tinny recognized, dark green and brown color scheme. Wool. Expensive. Like from a Barbour catalogue. They walked right by the bottling bucket and fermenters. Sat only ten feet away.

  “Cops?” Tinny whispered.

  “Shut it.”

  One of the men adjusted his sidearm as he sat down, nodding hello at the criminals. Randy’s face turned red and that held the man’s look for a second longer than usual.

  “’Scuse me.” Randy got up like a rocket and went to the bathroom. Shit! He’d been to jail once and never wanted to go back. He splashed cold water on his face and tried to relax. It’s fine, we’ll just have a beer and get out of here.

  He pushed the hollow bathroom door open too hard and it banged against the pictures of other breweries on the wall. The men with guns stared, but their server finally distracted them with tonight’s specials.

  Randy sat back down and took a big swig of his beer. It was probably good, but he couldn’t taste it.

  After their first brew, Randy felt more comfortable. The high alcohol content of the microbrew finally gave him the buzz he was looking for. Tinny was watching SportsCenter and asking silly questions about sports rules.

  “Haven’t you never been exposed to nothing?”

  “What, like nut-sac?”

  Tinny was drunk too, and the men roared at the joke. The officers next to them stared, looking displeased.

  “Sorry, fellas,” Randy hollered with exaggerated sarcasm. The men nodded and went back to their food.

  “Say, what is it you boys do?” Randy was pointing at one of the men’s sidearm.

  “IFG,” a sturdy dark-haired man replied. He was trying to avoid a conversation.

  Tinny and Randy laughed. “What the hell is that? Like CIA?” Randy backhanded Tinny on the shoulder as he spoke: Get a load of these guys!

  “Idaho Fish and Game.” The dark-haired man turned his broad shoulders to Randy. He pointed to the state IFG crest. Below it, a name tag: Agent Carlisle.

  “Agent?” Randy asked. “Really?”

  Carlisle stood and fully revealed his mountainous frame. He was clean shaven. Short hair. “Are you men driving anywhere tonight?”

  “Hell no!” Randy finished his remaining half a beer. “Staying just down the street.”

  “Where at?”

  “Hell if I know. Some shithole.”

  “Riverside.” Tin
ny spoke up. “Called Riverside.” He remembered the sign’s artwork—a trout jumping over a rainbow—on the drive in.

  “Don’t get into any trouble on your way back,” Carlisle said. Then he sat back down, apparently satisfied.

  Randy kept on at him. “What do you do here?”

  Carlisle sighed loudly. The other men at his table were chuckling. Pitying him for having to suffer such a fool.

  “We’re tagging steelhead. We monitor their numbers. See where they migrate. How they behave.”

  A pause.

  Then Tinny spoke. “Oh?” He laughed and winked at Randy. “You hear that? Tagging steelhead . . .”

  Randy glared at him.

  The wardens were at attention now.

  Randy laughed exaggeratedly. “You drunk fuck,” he yelled loud enough for everyone in the bar to hear. Just two old pals yanking each other’s chains.

  He then turned to the wardens. “You gentlemen have a great evening,” Randy said. He nodded at Tinny, threw down cash for the beers, and left.

  Inside the shed next to the cabin, Esma had again tried to free herself. It was no use. It only bloodied her wrists and ankles. The restraints allowed her some movement, but the ten-foot shackles were a tease—all she could do was pace and walk in circles. Like a dog on a chain.

  Gravel crunched. An engine sighed its final grumble and then died. The uneven cadence of their steps told Esma they were drunk. Their voices were muffled by the cedar planks and insulation of the shed, but she got most of it. Girl. Shed. No one . . . find out. Ever.

  “¡Gilipollas!” she blurted out. They heard her. Went silent. Then snickered.

  Esma whispered it this time. “¡Gilipollas!” Not that these idiots would understand. Now she yelled as loud as she could, her anger burning hotter than the desert sand.

  “Assholes! Fools! Bastardos! I’ll kill you!” Esma started to weep.

  Her tone disarmed Tinny. “Maybe not tonight; she sounds like she might bite your dick off.”

  “Shut up and get the condoms; I don’t wanna get the clap.”

  This Esma heard clearly. She looked toward the heavens, obstructed by her wooden prison, and crossed herself. Her chains clanged to the rhythm of the gesture.