by J. S. James
His five AM call from a truck stop had woken her from a troubled sleep. She’d forgotten she’d given him her home number in case he ran across anything that could put her on the killer’s trail. From what he’d said, he just might have.
Delia hooked left at an access road and accelerated toward the Willamette. The Bowman Park entrance sign whizzed past. She caught sight of a boat, a very tiny boat, swinging in the current on a chain tether. Zack stood beside it, flagging her down and definitely nonskewered.
The tension drained from her. She stomped the brakes, and the lowrider shuddered to a stop on the concrete boat ramp. Below, river water boiled around his hip boots, and her gut churned. So much for immersion therapy.
He kept windmilling his arm, motioning her down there. Shit.
Stalling, she canvassed the open parking lot. No sign of the hippie van Zack had described, only Zack’s cherry-red pickup hooked to an empty boat trailer. As he clomped up the ramp, she remembered her handgun still held light-grain practice rounds. Hands shaking, she traded out the .44 cowboy loads for Buffalo Bore Magnums and reholstered the never-jam revolver.
A flashlight rapped against the window. She rolled down. Zack leaned in.
“We gotta get moving, Detective. That SOB’s goin’ after Tweety.”
“The former hunting guide?”
“You know about him? I’m worried he always hunts by himself.”
She shook off the persistent image of a canary chased by a black-and-white cartoon cat. “Back up, Zack. What about the Volkswagen van?”
“Up behind us. Sumbitch off-loaded his big sea kayak, then parked out of sight. You won’t believe what’s on the—”
“You’ve been to the van? Didn’t touch anything, right?”
Eye-blinking silence. He pulled back and stared down the ramp toward his pint-size watercraft. “Nah. That was right after Tweety’s boat ran past, headin’ downriver. The SOB from the van took off in his kayak, paddlin’ like a spaniel after a mallard.”
“Okay, first things first. Where’s the van?”
* * *
In the gloom of a dawn slow to give up the night, Delia recognized the vintage Volkswagen backed into the trees on the park’s outer edge. The same van with the faded psychedelic treatment she’d seen puttering past her at the opening day bug-out. Castner had described a kayaker who provoked the shotgun fireworks that broke up the hunting protest. Could it be so simple? An antihunter driven to kill?
She preceded Zack to the back of the van, noted the plate number, then knelt before a partially exposed bumper sticker. Exhaust residue obscured the lettering. She wiped it off with wadded grass. The first line was in tranquil lowercase green, the second in bleeding red capitals. It read:
Don’t hunt animals …
HUNT HUNTERS!
She stood, trying to wipe the wet off her knees. “Zack. Did you actually see this guy with a crossbow? Any sort of weapon?”
“Hell, I dunno. It was still dark. That SOB packed all sorts of shit into the front hole of his kayak.”
On a slow, deep breath, she gazed off across Linn County’s Bowman Park, past the cheery lights surrounding a covered picnic shelter, off into the darkness of the river beyond.
“Okay, let’s go hunt up this guy named after a canary.”
* * *
Delia faced backward in the bow, maintaining a crush grip on the seat braces while the little boat carved a trough through the river. Zack stood at the motor. Suddenly, he kneed the tiller. They banked hard to the left, charging past an upwelling in the river’s surface where a reptilelike snout poked up. Images of tree limbs dragging her underwater, squeezing the air out of her chest, flashed through her head. In a blink, the spiky end of the half-buried log disappeared. He leveled the boat and nodded back toward the swirl, grinning.
“Y’know, this river ain’t that different from an old crow,” he shouted. “Hoards stuff, then just has to show it off.”
She couldn’t believe he’d just averted near disaster and his hands had never left his pockets.
Not in a million could Delia have imagined wishing to be riding downriver in Jackie. Ever. But five minutes huddled in the bow of Zack’s wobbling little punt had her yearning for that big jet boat. Forget its driver, whatever and whoever else he was doing. To make things worse, she had only one glove and a wet butt from constant bow splashes, and the flotation vest Zack had loaned her was way too tight. No matter how she sat, the life jacket stretched over the pancake holster and beefy revolver digging into her armpit. She almost wished, too, that she hadn’t had to give up her lighter duty weapon.
Doubt burrowed into her brain. Was she on a fool’s errand? With no backup in the vicinity? At least she was packing. And legal, with a carry permit. Bow spray chilled the back of her neck, making her turtle into her jacket.
“Here.” Zack tossed a brownish-green plaid cap onto her lap. “Put on this Stormy Kromer.”
Delia gaped at the ridiculous string bow above the plaid bill, her eyes saying, Hell no. But when her bare hand sank inside the pull-down ear band and felt its warm flannel, her fingers said, What the hell.
She untied and unfurled the cap, then jammed it low over her ears. A fool might as well look like one.
33
“Cut the motor.” Still seated in the bow and facing the stern, Delia had to shout over the burr of Zack’s outboard.
“Huh?” Still standing with the tiller clamped between his knees, he canted his head.
She repeated, drew a finger across her throat with her ungloved hand, then pointed at the motor.
He bent down and gave the throttle a quick twist. Boat headway dropped so fast she hooked a boot toe under the center seat to keep from toppling over backward.
A chugging grumble replaced the burr.
“What?”
“Gunshots,” she said, motioning back over her shoulder. “You didn’t hear them? Deep booms. One on top the other.” Sounds she’d thought she’d heard before. Twisting sideways, she raised an earflap and listened.
“What kind?”
“Shotgun.” Hours at the practice range had given her a keen sense for the reports of different weapons. “Could be just a hunter.”
“How far?”
She realized Zack was too near the engine to hear much else. “Not far. A ways downriver.”
“Black Dog Slough’s closest.”
They listened together as the current swept them along. Past a concrete pipe spouting a waterfall. Over a sunken gravel bar marked by bent willow tops.
No shots followed.
She swung around and faced him, peeling off her soaked, useless glove and dropping it on the boat deck. “You see any firearms in that hippie van?”
“Nah.” Zack’s gaze took on a distant look. “Not that sumbitch. His deal is slinging arrows. Slitting throats.” He snuffled against his mitten. “Those shots. Deep booms, huh? You mighta heard Tweety’s side-by-side. I seen a ten-gauge double in his boat that time him and me said hello. Old, twin-trigger Ithaca. Barrel holes the size of Ping-Pong balls. Maybe he opened up on those high-flying pintails sailed past us a couple minutes ago. Or—”
He clapped a hand onto the tiller. “We better get down there and make sure.” He said the last wrenching the throttle. The boat lurched, causing Delia to grab for seat struts.
In no time, they’d hit maximum plowing speed. She swore Jackie’s no-wake troll could beat Zack’s metal skiff going full tilt. Time enough to reconsider whether they were heading into something they shouldn’t.
None of the shots-fired scenarios she’d trained for—house clearings, tactical drug raids, domestic disputes gone violent—had involved people discharging weapons who could either be legal hunters or active murderers. For sure, none had meant barging into a possible threat scene riding backward in a dinky boat. They still had time to turn around and call in for—
An abrupt drop in engine RPMs signaled they had arrived.
* * *
The mouth
of Black Dog Slough crawled past in Delia’s side vision, its oily surface the color of rotted leaves. A scant forty yards wide, the sluggish waterway reeked of creepiness.
“Think I caught a glimpse of that booger-green kayak farther downriver. Sumbitch coulda kept goin’.” Zack spoke in low tones, as if the knock of his outboard at slow troll hadn’t already given them away. “There’s Tweety’s setup.”
From the bow, she scrunched around, craning her head to follow Zack’s nod.
At first, she saw only decoys twisting on anchor cords in a large eddy. Twenty yards inside the decoys, a tangle of brush drooped over a low bank. Something partially hidden behind that brownish-green overgrowth caught her eye. Long and low to the water, a uniform weave of darker material rose and fell with the rebounding waves. A mat of evergreens and marsh weeds lay in folds atop a boat. The brush boat she’d seen before. A perfect camouflage when propped up.
Nothing moved inside the hunting blind.
“Don’t see him,” Zack said, “but the blind’s been lowered, like some ducks passed over his dekes and he shot at them.” His Jon boat drifted in past the decoys. The deck shuddered with each nervous shift of his feet. Almost like a pee-pee dance. “Yo, Tweety.” His sudden shout lifted Delia an inch off her seat. “You out and about?”
He shoved the tiller all the way over, using what was left of their headway to coast in sideways to the larger craft, its far side tethered to a half-submerged tree stump. As they glided past the bow, she habitually noted the decal numbers.
“He must be out after one he only winged. Grab holda that chicken wire toward the back.” Zack sounded agitated, like he was in a hurry to be somewhere else. Her sentiments exactly.
Bows nudged and parted before she realized he meant the stuff that held the collapsed mat of dead shrubbery in place. Spotting an opening beneath a frond of Scotch broom, she leaned far out, wove her fingers into the underlying mesh, and pulled Zack’s boat in parallel with Tweety’s.
The hulls had barely touched when the smaller boat bounced up and down, putting stress on Delia’s flimsy grip as well as her knotted stomach. Zack had leapt into Tweety’s boat and was yanking up his hip boots.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Goin’ to find Tweety. The shots you heard prob’ly were at ducks. See that cover crop on the hillside?” He pointed up beyond the tree line surrounding the slough, toward a knoll in a field of knee-high grass. “See that tramped-down furrow goin’ over the top?” Zack straddled the shore side of the larger boat and dangled a leg over, as if testing for bottom. “Best I can figure, a wounded bird sailed up that way and Tweety set off to find it. Might’ve just saved his butt, with that kayaker slinkin’ around.” He slipped over the far side.
Delia started to get up, then sat back. Her iffy hold on the blind material was all that kept Zack’s boat from drifting off.
“Bad idea, Zack. Remember why we’re here.”
He waved her off. “Just goin’ up past the top of that hill, see if I can make him out. Sit tight and keep a lookout for the kayaker. I’ll be back in two shakes.” With that, he was up the bank and forging through undergrowth.
At last glimpse, the back of Zack’s head had disappeared over the edge of the knoll. She’d been right the first time. He needed an excuse to pee in private.
Meanwhile, each minor tug of current on the two boats etched the chicken wire deeper into the tender underside of her bare fingers. She scrunched her body around, scanning the side of Tweety’s odd-looking boat for a better grip. She found none. At least none she’d trust.
Even more strange, a bottle floated past. It’s neck was rag-stuffed, and on fire.
* * *
Minutes passed—hand-cramping, finger-throbbing minutes. And no sign of Zack. Delia had to do something. Swap hands, maybe. She let go briefly to shake the sting out of her fingers. The boats stayed together, so she leaned forward and searched the underside of her bow seat. Found the single wet glove she’d discarded and wriggled her hand into it.
Feeling motion, she sat up in surprise.
A widening space of water separated the boats. She lunged for a handle of some sort. It turned out to be the butt end of a shotgun poking up from the underside of the duck blind. Her fingers slipped off the stock. The gun disappeared with a clatter into the recesses of Tweety’s boat.
“Crap.”
Lunging hadn’t helped the situation, either. Already Zack’s lighter boat was four feet from Tweety’s and drifting out toward the decoys.
She searched for a paddle and, finding none, settled her attention on the outboard motor. How hard could it be to start? First, she had to get there without tipping over.
Steeling herself, she took hold of the sides and levered her butt off the bow seat.
The second Delia’s knee met deck ribbing, air whooshed past her left side, knocking her cap off center. Splashes followed, sounding like rocks skipping water behind her. Something warm and wet streamed down her cheek, into the corner of her mouth. She tasted it. Metallic, like touching her tongue to a school flagpole. Blood. She slid her hand up past the stickiness, under the Stormy Kromer’s dangling flap. A slicing burn made her suck air.
On instinct, Delia hunkered down. She fumbled to get a hand into the life vest while her eyes scanned for the threat—somebody had loosed something at her. Something so sharp it had split her ear nearly in two.
The shooter was somewhere past the end of Zack’s boat. Out by that milling log with a darker hump.
Delia’s spine straightened in shock. The log moved toward her. And the black hump was a head wearing a face mask. She jabbed frantically for the S&W lodged under her arm. Her fingers tangled in side webbing and she jerked back in panic, trying to free them. Why had she put the stupid glove back on?
She wrested her hand free and tore the glove off with her teeth, her sight glued on the assailant closing in. Green-and-black stripes darkened the skin below and around his mask—special-ops face paint. Bastida? Did it matter? The asshole had shot her in the ear.
She snatched at the life preserver’s zipper. She had to shuck the thing to get at her weapon.
Out there, the head disappeared underwater. She fought a brain freeze of fear, got the life jacket unzipped, and yanked. It stayed on.
“Fuck.” She’d forgotten the cinch straps. She twisted around, fumbling for the plastic releases, thinking her stupid river phobia might do her in after all.
Four thick fingers curled over the boat rim, making the gorge rise in her throat. A second hand appeared closer to the bow, closer to her. That hand clasped a knife, shiny with newness, its spine notched with serrations. A masked, camo-striped face popped up, flashing a here’s Johnny grin.
Johnny said nothing. Just hummed a ditty, hanging on to the outside of the boat. Then he lunged, making a vertical blade-swipe that cut into her life preserver. She flopped back and double-kicked. Her right foot missed the swimmer’s head. Her left connected with his knife hand. The blade flashed as it spun through the air, clattered off a decoy, and plopped into the water.
Her attacker’s grin morphed into a grimace as he scrambled away, hand over hand along the outside of the boat. Out of kicking range, he flapped the injured hand as if shaking out the sting of pain. He slid the face mask onto the top of his head. Bottle-green eyes—rimmed in crusty redness—glared at her. Appraising. Almost familiar. Where?
Still in the water, he yanked down on the boat side, as if testing its stability, then boosted himself partway out. He was getting in. No. Staying out. Rocking.
She clawed frantically for her ensnared weapon. The boat listed toward him. A plastic vest fastener pinged off metal inside the boat. Where was the second clasp? She tore at the knife-slashed vest front.
He sank back into the water and the boat tilted hard in the opposite direction. She lost balance on the roll. A stab of pain shot into her backside. Her tailbone had found the point of Zack’s pyramid anchor. She shifted her butt sideway
s and fought off the nausea. The swimmer rose and sank a second time. Water slopped in and the boat almost went over as she gave a hard, upward yank on the life jacket. The vest flew off her head, her damaged ear smarting as if torn away. Delia’s right hand found the holster and closed around the pistol grip.
He let up again and the boat rolled back the other way. Momentum was with him. Another downward shove and she’d be in the water with the bastard. Molding her back into the boat deck, she freed the weapon and thumbed off the safety. Propping her forearms on her knees, she steadied the chunky revolver and snarled an oath.
“No. More. Fucking. River.”
He reared up for the final flip. The boat tilted violently. More water gushed in. Her Lew Horton Special jumped twice. The face mask flew off his head. Her brain yelled no-o, unable to believe her eyes. She saw no entry wound. She’d missed his head and hit the mask.
The terror inside her yelped shoot again, but the boat teetered on the edge of tipping upside down. Her arms flew out on their own, wedging her against the inside of the hull. They were going over, but the bastard would have to pry her off like a barnacle.
In that split second, it struck her that he’d eased up, that only bloodshot whites showed in his upturned eyes. His fingers slipped out of sight and the flat-bottomed hull slapped back the other way.
As her attacker’s head lolled back and his face sank from view, she noticed one nostril was narrow, the other rounded. About the size of a .44 Magnum.
34
“I’m not hearing answers I can take to the bank, Lukovsky. Where did you claim you were when Cha-vez was blasting away with her forty-four?”
Half listening to Grice’s latest ball-twister, Zack tamped down the slow burn in his gut and lowered his sight to the ruined jacket liner he’d let fall between their feet. Blood oozed from the checkered flannel, veining the cracks in the concrete at Bowman Marine Park. Staining the floor of the picnic shelter they stood under to avoid the freezing rain.
Maybe Detective Chavez had kept her promise. Maybe Charlie’s killer was carp food. Zack had already told Grice he’d been off looking for Tweety Bates, heard pistol shots, and found her bleeding worse than a stuck hog.
