by J. S. James
Chilled, she zipped up her jacket and itemized the damage done to its full-grain, fine Italian leather sleeves when she’d retrieved the body from the Santiam. She winced at the mars and scratches her moistened fingers failed to erase. “Shit. Double shit.”
Disappointment settled around her like fog as she slumped back, arms sinking to her sides. Justice was one hell of a goddess to worship. Fickle. Fleeting. Demanding.
Those other notions that kept popping into her head were his fault—Jerzy “Yee-haw” Matusik’s. Him and his thundering riverboat. The military reject she’d been ready to resent the hell out of.
Who’d turned out to be capable and likable.
Too likable to trust, to think his sense of justice came anywhere close to hers—born of a thieving river and a thieving man who’d forced her little brother, Roberto, into his boat and guilt forever into her dreams. Stoked by the cruelty she saw and dealt with. Every. Single. Day.
She needed to keep telling herself Matusik was the sheriff’s guy. After he’d made a beeline for Grice’s office this evening, Annie had said, he’d skated out the door in a hurry. Was their Flapjack Corral understanding still intact? She doubted that. He hadn’t so much as popped his head in while she was stuck in interrogation with Grundy. Some fucking partner.
Fucking partner. Oh quit that, Chavez. You’re not Annie. Shut your eyes and relax, and forget about him. About it. Just for a minute. Maybe two. Maybe—
* * *
… caracha, la cucaracha.
“Uh-uh. Cinch it tighter, Jerzy.”
La cucaracha, la cucaracha.
“Wha …?”
Delia opened her eyes and found herself still sprawled on the couch. Fumbling behind her head, Uncle Tino’s gift phone clattered onto the hardwood floor. The instant she sat up, Clawed leaped off, leaving traction scratches on her thigh.
“Ouch. Shit.” She sat back and rubbed at the soon-to-be welts. Vivid images of entwined boat sex wearing nothing but life vests faded to wisps of vagueness under the harsh lamplight.
The phone sang again. She picked up and jabbed talk.
“Yeah?”
“Are you dressed? Ready to go?”
Delia blinked, a flush rising into her cheeks. “Who is this?” she snapped. As if she didn’t know. It was him, upbeat and casual, with a voice that promised a hammock on a tropical beach. “Am I dressed. Damned ballsy, Matusik.”
“I meant dressed for the stakeout.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“What do you mean? Grice said it was your idea.”
“Well, yeah. Except my rejected idea was to work up stakeout points using patrol resources from other counties. That would’ve left us free to respond on their call.”
“Huh. I spent most of the night locating and setting up the perfect spot. Grice didn’t relay my messages or status updates he wanted? Said he would.” If the pause that followed had been any more pregnant, a litter of rabbits would have popped out of the phone.
“Relay? Him? When he’s in the bag by eight in the evening?” Typical, Delia thought, rolling the cockroach receiver across her forehead. Co-opt her idea and delegate a guy to run with it. At least Jerzy had contacted her.
“So, should I …”
“Yeah, go ahead. Only I call the shots. Understood? I’m leaving Grice a phone reminder to that effect.”
“Honest, Delia, if I’d known about his closet drinking, I would’ve checked in with you, on everything, from where to set up to when we meet … especially what to wear. It’s going to be a cold, wet one with another rain front coming.” More quiet. “You do have a warmer coat than that snazzy leather job, right? Something knee length and waterproof? Boots’d be good. Outdoor boots, not those ankle-high zip-ups.”
She got to her feet. “What the hell time is it?”
“Oh-three-hundred on the dot.”
“Where are you?”
“Boat’s in the water at Independence. Already prepped a brush cutout we can back her into. Found an island that’ll put us in the middle of Willamette boat traffic.”
“Geez, don’t you sleep?”
“Way too pumped. Stretched out in the Hummer and stared at the dome light for a couple hours.” He sounded like a little boy hyped for his first fishing trip.
She shuffled toward the bathroom, hugging the phone between chin and shoulder, stripping off clothing in skips and hops. “I’m there in forty. You’d better have a good heater in that boat.”
She hung up under a shower of hot water and misgivings. A river stakeout with a storm coming. How many ways could that go bad?
22
“Batten the hatches, Detective. Here comes another one.”
Delia broke off surveilling her assigned river quadrant and pulled the hood low on her borrowed poncho just as driving sleet pelted down. Needle stings still got to her chin.
Her other loaner—a Vector two-piece wet suit she’d put on beneath the rain gear and flotation vest—had proved a lifesaver. She had to hand it to Jerzy. He came equipped for rotten weather.
All morning they’d stood in his brush-concealed jet boat. Parked on the upstream point of an island. The bow bucked and swayed under the constant battering of current. Every half hour or so, a gale blew in from the south, each time shrinking visibility to forty yards. Didn’t matter much. All they’d spotted was a lone duck hunter, his boat pushed by an ancient-looking outboard. Jerzy called it a mud motor and said it was the ex-guide he knew.
She stooped low and felt for the seat behind her legs. Time to give her back a rest and her eyes some relief from staring upriver.
Relief, hell, screamed a voice inside, following her downward glance. Inches of rain and dirty river water sloshed around her Muck boots, raced down the deck, then back. Gallons of the stuff. No matter the source, water inside a boat was just plain wrong.
Give the river an inch …
She straightened up. “Hey, Captain Matusik. We’re taking on water again.”
He swiveled, peeped at her from inside his own hooded raincoat, a deluge streaming off the bill cap beneath.
She jabbed an accusing finger at the deck. He followed her point but seemed unfazed by the influx.
Jackie’s bow gave a sharp lurch, prompting Delia to grab on to the windshield frame. Waves splashed into the forward compartment. Looking back toward the stern, she eyed the anemic stream that pulsed out the right side of the boat. “How about jacking up the flow on that bilge whachamacallit?”
“Pumping full out now. It’ll catch up soon as the rain moves on.”
“Cross your heart?” That last, she’d mumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing.” They dripped together in silence.
As predicted, the rain eased off—from cats and dogs to rats and mice. She could almost make out the tree line on the east bank. By then, her leather gloves were so wet she had to yank them off with her teeth.
His raincoat rotated toward her once more. “Been rethinking this surveillance stuff.” He’d been peppering her with questions about the sheriff all morning, not that she hadn’t provoked a share of them. “Something’s bogus about Grice holding back instead of calling out the cavalry.”
“That’s why I’ve made provisions.” The hint of alarm in his eyes didn’t escape her. “I realize Grice butters your bread and your livelihood’s at stake here, but if the sheriff’s plan goes wrong and Bastida runs, I’m not about to lose him. Annie’s on standby to request assistance from law enforcement patrols up and down the river.”
His gaze was fixed out ahead for a while. Then he shrugged. “Getting late. Bastida might not even show.”
“But if he does, and push comes to shove, I’m okay with you telling Grice I forced you into a pursuit. Whatever CYA you can think of.”
He said nothing.
With the letup in rain came a temperature drop. She started to shiver.
He turned to her. “Pretty cold, huh? Want to give it another thirty and
call it a day?” Was that push or shove? she wondered.
He toed the Coleman boat heater closer to her so that it sputtered beneath the grab bar she had draped her gloves over.
“Ever had a po’ boy?”
She darted a glance at his straight face. “I hope you’re talking about the sandwich.”
He grinned. “Well yeah, uh …”
“That’s French bread stuffed with seafood or meat, right? See, I’m vegan. Trying to be.”
He nodded. “Pixie makes ’em at the Corral. Has a garden version.”
“Sounds good right about now. Skipped breakfast. Bet I could eat a—”
“Hello.”
Jerzy’s whispered greeting took her by surprise. So did his persistent tug on her poncho, urging her down on her knees beside him. She followed his nod and peeked out on the river through a hole in Jackie’s brush camouflage. Her heart skipped a beat. The poor boy would have to wait.
A large watercraft crept through the remnants of the rainstorm as if parting a tattered gray shroud. It skated downriver a couple stone’s throws off to their right. No engine rumbles, no wave disturbance gave it away. If her partner hadn’t been on his toes, she wouldn’t have tumbled to its presence.
The closer it got, the clearer the stenciled side markings, a brown-skinned creature slithering down the length of the inflatable. The undulating body pattern featured a mottle of greenish-brown splotches. A soot-black tongue forked around the bow. From the top of its head, a marbled amber eye tracked her.
“Supposed to be a python?” Delia whispered.
“Anaconda. Interesting camouflage scheme.”
She gave the goose bumps on her skin a stiff rubbing. Armed criminals resisting arrest? A pack of pit bulls on a rampage? Bring ’em on. But snakes, including snake images, were second only to rivers on her list of things to avoid.
Within seconds the watercraft was parallel to their hiding spot. The only break in its low outline was a center console where a lone figure stood at the controls. A long coat flapped around his legs.
Delia tensed. It was the guy with the long coat, the tall one she’d spotted at the opening-day protest. He had the same forward-leaning, chin-jutting profile. Gave off the same intensity vibe, as if searching for something he’d lost.
There it was again. That sense of familiarity chilling her guts.
If Grice was right, this was Robert Bastida, military fugitive and probable multiple-murder suspect. The name meant nothing. Then why was she so rattled?
As if thought-tracking, Bastida’s head turned. He stared directly at their position. Delia froze, her breath halting mid-intake. She couldn’t make out a face under that wide hat but felt his eyes probe through the brushy jumble. Through her. For a split second, she was positive he knew they were there. Certain their feeble stakeout setup had been blown. She expected to see water erupt from behind the big inflatable’s dual outboards. She understood why Jerzy had left Beezer in the Hummer. The big Lab-whodunit combo would’ve barked his head off.
Nothing happened. Bastida’s attention shifted to the river and whatever he searched for. She hoped it wasn’t a fifth victim.
Quiet settled over them as the reptile-trimmed boat swam on. A moment more and the cloaking rain had swallowed the Zodiac.
Pinned in place by that lingering sense of being watched back, she found relief in simply breathing again. No sign of a mounted weapon. No super-secret death dispenser. Not even light arms. If Bastida stashed them at home, it was on her and Jerzy to find out where “home” was.
“Damned if our cover didn’t work.” Jerzy’s minor gloating broke through her snake-charmed stupor. Still on her knees, she tipped her head back, let the rain hit her full in the face, and counted to three. Jerzy had thrown on a life vest and was scurrying about, flinging brush off the boat sides, clearly pumped on adrenaline. She got to her feet, nearly tackling him when he made for the controls.
“Hold up. Let Bastida get downstream before you kick over that noisy Vette.”
His eyes flashed. He started to say something, then shut his mouth. Resetting his cap, he nodded. “Sorry, brain not engaged. By the time we get the front gate on my brush blind unhitched and the tie-downs loose, he’ll be out of hearing.”
“Then get at it.”
* * *
Minutes later and a mile downstream, Delia made out a dark smudge through Jerzy’s waterproof binoculars. She tightened the focus. The smudge grew into outboard motor bumps. It was Bastida, coasting toward a bend in the river.
She lowered the glasses. “We’re closing on him. Cut the engine.”
Jerzy complied. A rushing silence hissed in her ears. The stern swung slowly around. She hadn’t figured on Jackie presenting her broadside to the current. To anyone taking a notion to glance upstream.
Again she leveled the 10 × 50s. Water roiled downriver, where it had eaten the bank away. The Zodiac was gone.
“¡Dios! Bastida probably heard us. Saw us.” She lowered the glasses, then raised them.
“You could be right. Way our boat’s sideways to him. I could use the electric motor.”
“Good. Get it in the water. In case he never looked upstream. The guy’s hunting for something. I can feel it.”
Jackie wobbled. She glassed the far end of the river as they drifted closer. She made out stands of flooded trees and the tops of willow clumps at the turn. Several river arteries sliced through the congestion.
What can we expect down at that sharp bend?
Jerzy’s hushed voice came between labored grunts from the rear of the boat. “That jumble up ahead is Murphy Bar. The summer river hooks east, then loops north again.” Glancing to her left, she saw that he’d removed a coverlet stamped with the name Minn Kota. He strained to lower a motor into the water. “The winter river cuts side channels across that bar.”
The Minn Kota’s sleek propeller shaft clicked into place. Back in the captain’s chair, he reached under the dash and flipped a switch. Jackie straightened and surged forward in electric silence.
Delia motioned downriver. “So where’s Bastida likely to show?”
“No telling, but we can run as quiet as he can.”
“If that’s true, we need to get around this mess. Find a place below and hang back until he shows.”
“Aye, aye.” Jerzy twisted the dual throttle. Delia watched the dash dial until the arrowhead indicator pegged at ten.
* * *
They’d negotiated the large double bend within a matter of minutes and spotted no ready place of concealment. The current sluiced them along a thick band of trees that followed the river’s curve back toward the north.
A quarter mile ahead, the wooded bank gave way to open fields. No sign of the Zodiac.
“Well?” She cocked her head at Jerzy, who spread his hands wide.
She twisted around and scanned back the way they came. “My guess, Bastida turned around and scooted upriver.” She noticed Jerzy glancing around inside the boat.
“Time for a break while I figure out our next move,” she said. “What’ve you brought?” He switched off the Minn Kota, rummaged in a side panel, and swiveled toward her, a Twinkies fun box in one hand and a thermos in his other. “Coffee? Something to eat?”
Delia shook her head. “Knock yourself out.” All she needed was to aggravate the roil in her stomach over losing Bastida. Coffee was tempting, but after six hours in a boat with no facilities, she needed to stay bladder-smart.
Slumping against her seat back, she glared into the last of the trees that glided by. Without headway, Jackie slowly reversed ends in the current.
Bastida could’ve made them after he passed by upriver. Screwed their chances for either the sheriff’s or her alternative plan.
A shift in dark-light patterns played across her field of vision: something in the backdrop behind the woods they’d been drifting along. It was water, not bankside. There was another channel behind those narrowing trees.
And moving parallel to them
, a large shadow. She sat up.
The tree cover thinned and the shadow took on boat form. For a frozen moment, two watercraft floated in tandem. Past the end of the tree line. Into the merging channels.
The reptile-sided Zodiac faced downriver, its outboards a burble above a whisper. Jackie, on the other hand, drifted backward in silence, her V-8 tiger power usurped by a Minnie Mouse electric.
Afraid to turn away for even an instant, Delia felt for Jerzy’s rain slicker. A hard tug earned a Twinkie-stuffed “F-f-what?”
She gave his ankle a sharp sideways kick that got him turned around and looking in the same direction.
“Oh, shwit.” A Twinkie gobbet hit the water.
Whirring sounds traveled across the seventy feet separating the two boats. Metal covers lifted off the snake boat’s lower engine housings, loading the air with the bass thrum of dual motors at idle. A tick later, engine rumbles grew into roars and the large inflatable shot away. Within seconds, all they could make of their quarry was a pair of watery fins cutting downstream.
Delia slapped the suction cup of a portable beacon flasher on Jackie’s windshield, switched it on, and pinned Jerzy with a stare. “I’d say the sheriff’s plan is blown, wouldn’t you?”
Jumping up, he scrambled to the Minn Kota and yanked the motor out of the water.
Push had just met shove.
23
By the time Delia and her stakeout partner caught sight of the rigid-hull inflatable, now a white smear rocketing under the first of Salem’s three bridges, the rain was back in their faces. Despite a river chop, he’d rammed Jackie’s throttle ahead and kept on palming the knob as if willing her to stay with the sizzling-fast Zodiac.
Every so often, Delia frantically hit the speed-dial on her cell phone, cussing when she got nothing. She tipped it and water dribbled out.
Once more, she tapped at the phone.
“Annie. Thank God. We’re in pursuit of a Zodiac, no decal number. Request assistance from Salem to—Annie?” She banged the phone into the palm of her hand, then upended it. Water streamed out.
“¡Carajo!” She dropped the waterlogged phone onto the seat and gripped Jackie’s left window strut, riding boat bounces in a jockey crouch. “Annie knows what to do.” She tossed him a look he no doubt read as hope. not confidence. “She’ll get us backup.”
