River Run

by J. S. James

  She found Harvey’s desk key and piled the box of shredded paper onto hers.

  Darrell was the only one who’d see her leave, but Delia’s face was burning as she set down the two boxes, crammed her case files into Castner’s mail slot, and leafed mechanically through whatever had accumulated in her own pigeonhole. The one she’d split with Jerzy over the past week.

  She started to put back a message marked for him and noticed it was from someone named Chelsea Foushée. She glanced around, unfolded it, and read.

  Saving a booth at the Two-Step tonight. It’s line dance night.

  Delia’s arms dropped to her sides as she stared into the blank mail receptacle. Jesus, her day just kept getting better.

  Reading again, the note became a white blur in her hand. She told herself to refold Chelsea’s invitation. Put it back in the slot and give Jerzy the benefit.

  Or not.

  But on the verge of balling up the message and hearing it land with a satisfying ponk on the trash can’s bottom, she hesitated. Instead, Delia doubled over the slightly perfumed paper, slid it back into the shared cubby, picked up her boxes, and banged out the door.

  * * *

  Driving with a headful of pissed-off hornets, Delia approached a fork in the road. Reminded of what some old baseball sage advised, she took it. Or almost.

  Veering right at the last second, she aimed her brother’s Camaro west, out of the Willamette Valley and up into the hills. Didn’t matter which way, just away.

  To hell with Grice. To hell with Castner. To hell with the whole PCSD. I’ll just go off somewhere and work in a grocery store and indulge my fantasy. Write.

  Write about … what? Blockbuster cases I’ve failed to solve? Bizarre killers I wish I’d caught? Yeah. That’s me, a budding Josephine Wambaugh, a burgeoning Ramona Chandler.

  The tank was nearly full, and Lord knew she had time on her hands. The lower down she felt, the more lead flowed into her foot.

  Road therapy. Roll down the windows and numb the brain. Jam that gas pedal and slam those gears. Iron out the curves and roller-coaster the up-and-downs. Leave a crappy day and all those crappy thoughts behind like so much roadkill.

  29

  Dusk had settled into the skeletal treetops of the Coast Range by the time Delia decided she’d had enough road therapy. Besides, a rip-snorting headache lurked in the wings. Easing off to a sedate seventy-five, she rolled up the windows and swung back toward the Valley, and whatever came next. Now and then, a whiff of good old high-octane exhaust fragrance wafted up through the floorboards. Wetting her fingers, she stuck an imaginary sticky to the dash: Check header gaskets.

  She’d used up most of a tank of gas that afternoon, boiling down the mush in her brain to a workable threesome: nutjob, botched job, fickle heartthrob.

  First, the guy at the bottom of everything. No doubt Bastida was a nutjob. A certifiable Jekyll and Hyde. A boat-wrecking maniac turned last-minute lifesaver. Still, the gut notion stayed with her. Something else lurked beneath all his craziness—a rational individual she’d somehow flipped the switch on during their river face-off. Bastida was a clever, highly troubled fugitive.

  Killer or rescuer? How to find out which? And if it wasn’t him, who else? Of the one-fifty or so interviewed, she’d pegged a dozen guys running the river that could fill the bill.

  She flexed her hands on the wheel. Grice had pulled a fast one, turning her case over to Castner. Lotsa luck catching up with Jekyll, or Hyde.

  Switching on the headlights, she turned north onto Kings Valley Highway and goosed the Camaro up to cruising speed. For some reason, the engine sounded louder in the growing darkness.

  As for the botched stakeout? Okay, she owned that—the blown river surveillance. But afterward, she’d followed SOP for pursuing a felon in motor vehicular flight. She’d pointed out in her write-up that there was no standard procedure when the motor vehicle was a boat and tearing ass downriver. By playing the insubordination card, Grice had neatly shoved Delia’s justification under a rug.

  Which led to the bone she’d chewed on for weeks: it had mattered about as much as a perfumed air biscuit whether she screwed up or not.

  But it did matter. Castner’s ineptness and Grice’s hamstringing of a murder investigation—for whatever reason—meant a killer would keep on killing. It meant her promise to Zack after Charlie’s death was empty as a Sunday beer keg behind the Blue Garden Lounge. And it meant the vow she’d kept inside her heart, to her stolen brother and her long-dead parents, would go unfulfilled. That corny Delia Do-Right one, in Harvey’s funky hospital words. It pained her the most. Then, too, she’d have nothing of merit to write about based on a whole month and a half as a hotshot sheriff’s detective.

  But was she done? No she wasn’t. What would Harvey say? KOKO, of course. After all, Delia Do-Right had a reputation to live up to. An obsessed one, but a reputation all the same. She had to keep on keepin’ on.

  But how?

  Off in the distance, a skin of clouds hazed the moon above Dallas, Oregon, casting an unhealthy glow into the evening sky. The sheriff’s agenda had moved way past his inbred distaste for “her kind.” He’d been desperate to get Delia out of his way. She was onto him—still not onto what. She glanced in the rearview mirror at the box of Grice’s cast-off paper shreds. Maybe … Nah! But maybe …

  A sign flashed by. She downshifted, making the left onto the Falls City road again. The Camaro’s headlights swept the ditches. Sheets of frost diamonds banded both sides of the route back into the Coast Range foothills. Halfway up that road, a lonely country intersection hosted the Two-Step and a slim hope that bad shit didn’t always come in threes.

  Heartthrob? Really, Chavez? That achy-breaky crap? A dot of bluish neon showed ahead, and her grip on the wheel tightened.

  A hard swallow. Her fault, letting Jerzy Matusik slip past her defenses. It wasn’t only his easygoing nature or his good looks. Wasn’t because his shoulder had taken the cable aimed at her throat, or because she’d kept the river out of his lungs. Not the sharing of near-death, either. Not even the passion, the hot tub sex. That came later. Simpler things had pulled him inside her heart. He was self-assured, not cocky. Tenacious, like her, yet willing to compromise without patronizing her. More than anything, he listened. His interest in her seemed genuine and exclusive.

  Until this morning.

  The neon sign at the road crossing hadn’t been lit on Delia’s earlier prowls past the Two-Step. No Hummer had been parked outside, either.

  This time, a pair of electric-blue boots moved back and forth, literally kicking ass on the dark. Beneath those pointed toes and stirrup heels, blinking curlicues spelled out Suds n’ BBQ. Could the place get any more Texas-tacky?

  Jerzy seemed completely out of sync with the joint. He’d never worn so much as boot-cut jeans or Tony Lamas. Or hummed a country tune. He’d quit drinking, so far as she knew. So why the Two-Step? Why this Chelsea woman?

  One last roll past that roadhouse; then she’d head for … home? To sit at the kitchen table downing shots and piecing together useless shreds of paper? Telling herself Jerzy might show up at any time? Call with some logical explanation?

  The Two-Step’s gravel parking lot was lit in a jaundiced haze and had filled up. Trucks mostly, and—

  “Shit.”

  The yellow Hummer stuck out like a rubber duck in a rain puddle. Her glance snapped back onto the road ahead, veins pulsing in her temples. She pulled a Hollywood slowdown at the intersection, then rolled through, eyes devouring the center stripes into the distance.

  So he’d taken the woman up on an invite. So what? So your chest feels like you inhaled a bag of traction sand. Get over it and drive.

  Delia drove. West toward Falls City. She’d gas up there and keep going. Up though the ghost town of Valsetz and down the Siletz River road. Graveled and bumpy but passable. Hell, might as well go clear over to the damned coast. She’d stay the night. Down a handful of aspirin, raid the motel mi
ni-fridge, and get drunk listening to the surf.

  Fate scratched that notion the second she hit the town center and caught sight of the Falls City Octane Stop. No lights, plywood over plate glass, pumps stripped of hoses and nozzles. She sighed. One more small-town gas franchise undercut by big-box discounters.

  Spinning the wheel, she banged a U-ey and headed back, wondering how long the gas needle had been pegged on E. If only she didn’t have to set eyes back on that damned roadhouse. If only …

  Again, the blue kicking boots heaved into view. She came up on the intersection thinking she’d like to kick something. Storm into that place and unload on Jerzy Heartthrob Matusik. Thank him for royally capping off her worst fucking day ever. Then let Chelsea Foo-foo know what an asshole she was hooking up with.

  Fuck it. Drive on, Chavez. Drive on. Several heartbeats and she’d pull even with the place. A held breath would get her past it.

  She slowed, this time making a full stop at the crossroads. Kitty-corner, off her left fender, only noise spilled from inside the roadhouse’s fake log siding. Then the man she’d saved from drowning, shared her hot tub, her secrets, and her body with, chose that moment to stagger out the front door. His knees were bent under the tepee lean of a short-skirted blonde—busty, of course—her arm draped across his shoulders.

  Delia eased out the clutch and rolled across the intersection, dazed by the parking lot spectacle—the cackle of Blondie’s laughter, the pair’s weaving dance, tottering between parked cars, oblivious to anyone. She shifted into first on autopilot, gawking at the woman who pawed at his shirt collar, like she couldn’t wait to get inside his clothes.

  As if bogged down in sticky road tar, Delia low-geared it past the place, watching Jerzy drop his latest conquest onto the Hummer’s passenger seat. Blinking herself out of a trance, she tore her sight away and punched the accelerator.

  Not soon enough. Not before she’d seen Blondie snake out a bare leg, hook it around the back of Jerzy’s thighs, and draw him in on top of her.

  30

  The road down to Kings Valley Highway blurred to a liquid shine, bordered by icy-white shoulders. Delia’s temples were pounding. The night closed in as if she were driving through a tunnel. Something had collapsed inside—a lung, her heart, that pocket of hope where Jerzy Matusik wasn’t just another horn dog.

  Her stranglehold on the wheel wasn’t enough. She could feel her frustration grow, turn into something else.

  Yelling at the top of her lungs, she gave the Camaro’s padded suede dash three quick palm-punches. “You stupid, stupid woman.” For good measure, she delivered a couple more jabs. “That’s what heartthrobs do.”

  The ache in her forehead racetracked around her skull, picking up steam. She felt woozy. Needed to pull off. Settle down.

  The pavement ran straight and narrow, its sides gashed with deep ditches. No turnouts, only wavering bands of roadside frost outstripping the headlights.

  Okay, don’t stop. Don’t think. Just breathe and go. Outrun the agony.

  She cornered south at Kings Valley Highway and tromped the accelerator. Bouncing between hung-over low and boozy high, she seemed detached from herself.

  Why not pour it on? Head for the big ninety—the L-shaped widow-maker at Peedee Creek bridge.

  Floating across lanes and out into the next straightaway, she mashed on the go pedal. The supercharger yowled, a perfect imitation of Clawed riding the back of a hapless dog out of her yard. She cackled at the image, her laughter sounding hollow.

  The speedometer needle bounced past one-forty. The Super Sport streaked down the road, turning highway stripes into flashing yellow dots.

  Pumped, yet feeling not one crappy bit better, she twisted at the wheel grip. How could her world go to hell in a single day? Did God have it in for her?

  God answered with snow. Big smeary flakes smacked the windshield. Even the weather was beyond real. She flicked on the wipers, lowered her speed to slightly under screaming banshee, and blew into the next curve. Coming out, the Camaro fishtailed but stayed on pavement.

  Barrier reflectors gleamed in the distance. The big one was up next. The Super Sport straddled the center line, its tach nudging seven K.

  Just imagining, but how shit-faced-easy would it be to fly off into nothing? A slick road in the dark. The snow. Her life in the toilet. Never a better time.

  The Camaro lit up a road sign showing an arrow that hooked over a bridge hump. She gauged her chances of power-carving through that ninety. Piece of cake.

  A deafening bang snapped Delia’s head back against the seat rest. Jolted her into a cold-sober panic as the left front wheel caught the pavement edge and sent the car’s rear end into a tire-mauling skitter.

  Holy shit. No piece of cake.

  The high-compression engine coughed, then sputtered. Kicked on again, then died. The Camaro shuddered, decelerating in jerks and spasms as steam shot out the hood seams.

  Still too fast. The car was a silent missile, hurtling at the L-curve with no way to power down or through it. She rode the drift across lanes, then lost control. The convertible traded ends. She hung on, stomping at the hardened brake pedal, gaping at the view going away.

  Shoulder gravel spattered the wheel wells with the force of nail guns shot into oil drums. A sickening screech magnified the din. The car shuddered to a backsliding stop, ramming her head against the backrest then nose-first into the horn button. A light show flickered behind her eyes while Enrique’s pride and joy brayed.

  Lucky was the first thing that popped into her head. Fucking lucky the ragtop hadn’t rolled over.

  She lifted her head to sudden silence. And a different kind of pain. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she blinked out at the snow glazing the hood. She dabbed beneath her nose with the back of her hand and came away with a dark coating of liquid stickiness.

  Mierda, what a night. From whacked-out high to wet-your-pants reality in one easy lesson. Calming herself, Delia snickered out loud. She could write a damn telenovela. Hell, write and star in it. Spurned rose Delia Adela Chavez returns from the dead to exact double-barreled revenge on el gigolo, and el jefe. The blood kept coming.

  The glove box door had popped open, spilling everything onto the front seat. She snatched up a napkin and tore it in half. Twirled two ends into cones, stuffed each up a nostril, and sat there staring out at the irony. A Jersey barrier had stopped her, scalping the side of her brother’s classic muscle car.

  “Oh, man. Enrique’s gonna scalp me when he gets out.”

  A chortle burbled from her mouth. The blood-stoppers hanging from her nose blew upward like curtain gauze. She let out a full-throated laugh, picturing her tamale-shaped brother in an orange jumpsuit, chasing her around his car, scorching her ears with choice lockdown profanities until he bent over, gasping. She laughed, too, for fear of going where the opposite might take her. She laughed until a stitch in her ribs overtook her smarting nose and aching temples and the general sense of life doing her wrong. Nothing like physical pain to clear the cobwebs. She sat up, realizing the torment came from inside. That all the self-pity in the world couldn’t get her what she needed: soap-opera justice.

  She yanked out the napkins and felt for leakage. The bloodletting seemed over.

  Face it, Chavez. Behind Matusik’s nice-guy front lurked a player. Whatever she’d thought they had going had been a distraction. But from what? Was he a player in the sheriff’s funny business? Was everybody deceiving her? Even Annie, who’d let Grice blindside her?

  She felt the bridge of her nose for bone waggle. Nothing moved. Pulling the keys, she got out and popped the hood. A last gasp of steam boiled out as she played a light from her key fob over the havoc. Super-charger belt, MIA. Radiator hose, knocked loose by the exiting belt. Exhaust header pipe, separated from the flange at the weld. Lucky again. No wonder the headache. Her racing machismo. Her imagination gone wild.

  Soap-opera revenge required a soap-opera car in working order. She slammed the h
ood and peered into the night, off toward a yard light at the wide spot in the road that was Peedee.

  KOKO, Chavez. KOKO. There was nothing for it but to hike, find a phone, and call her last resort.

  * * *

  Big Juan wasn’t happy about handing Delia the keys to Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat.

  Not after he’d seen the damage she’d inflicted on Enrique’s Camaro. But she needed wheels to get back on track. Uncover what drove the sheriff to side-rail a major homicide investigation. Lizard Breath had shoved her outside the box, so she’d work there. KOKO.

  Easing out the clutch, she slow-rolled the ’51 Mercury coupe away from Big Juan’s Low-Down Rides and Tow Service. From the car’s rearview mirror, she could see him watching her, combing his fingers through the gray hair he still kept greased back into a D.A.

  Big Juan was old-old school, right down to the pegged denims and Camels rolled into a sleeve of his bleached-white T. He wore the same outfit, summer or winter. A Mexican polar bear, she thought as she grannied the car down the street, careful not to hit a pothole or knee any under-dash control switches that might send his prize possession into hydraulic fits of suspension bouncing.

  For reasons she knew better than to probe, Big Juan owed her brother big time. Probably from when they’d co-owned the custom car–slash–sometimes chop shop in New Mexico. Enrique made a car super-quick. Big Juan made it super-cool. Her suspicion? Enrique wasn’t just doing his own time. Or else Big Juan would not have relocated to Oregon, much less towed the Camaro and agreed to fix it on his own dime.

  Turning the corner and coasting out of sight, she grated the unfamiliar column shift into second and picked up speed. Three days, maybe four, she’d have to put up with the loaner Big Juan rolled out only for fiesta parades and dance car competitions.

  She could stomach the car’s rainbow flame job licking back from the hood. The cholo window fringe, too. But that bobbing hula dancer on the dash had to go. Unfastening its suction cup, she chucked the topless wahine into the glove compartment.