The Deepest Water

by Kate Wilhelm

  "He didn't go back to Portland. He drove directly to Salem," she said under her breath. Two and a half hours. She knew how long that took; she had done it in an old car, in heavy traffic, and in no particular hurry.

  He had plenty of time, she thought bleakly, time enough to stow the canoe in the trunk, shave, change his clothes, freshen up.

  Caldwell knew that, she realized, but there must have been witnesses in Portland who would swear he had spent the night in the motel. The maid, the bellboy. No one knew when you checked out of a motel; you used a credit card, and the next morning you got up and left. He had kept a log of a trip to Portland and back, miles, gas, everything, and he had receipts for lunch, coffee, breakfast in Salem. Business trip, tax deductible, he had explained to the sheriff: he always kept a careful record.

  The inflatable canoe on the Internet wasn't enough proof to counter his records, possible witnesses. He might even claim he had thought about ordering a canoe for her, for Christmas.

  The waitress refilled her cup, and Abby shook her head, nothing to eat.

  Another memory surfaced, and she narrowed her eyes recalling it. He said he had gone to Jud's lawyer's office to ask about the cashier's checks, and she had accepted that without question. But it was a lie, he would have known the lawyer wouldn't tell him even if he knew. He must have gone to find out what the two different waiting periods meant, six months and thirty days. She could imagine the scene, Brice sincere and puzzled, asking on her behalf what they meant; they had been in shock, without any understanding of the legalities before. And he found out, she told herself, that she couldn't even borrow against the estate until after the thirty days had passed. Until then nothing was hers legally. That explained the loan coming up now, to be finalized exactly thirty days after Jud's death. It would have been impossible sooner.

  She thought about the four accounts he had deleted, and wished she had paid more attention to the numbers, the figures. How much did he have to put back before the auditors arrived? Evidently, at least a hundred thousand had to be in place next week sometime. His desperation was real. But what if there was more?

  Would he push her for more loans in the coming weeks? And if she balked, refused, there was no possibility that he could raise more money unless she died. And, she added slowly, she couldn't die too soon, not before Sunday.

  She had signed the loan application, reassured that since it was in her name, she would have time to think it through at the cabin, and that he couldn't touch it if she changed her mind. But if she died and the money was in her account, he would inherit it as well as Jud's estate. It would all be his. He could borrow in his own name, hire a good defense attorney, if it ever came to that.

  But it wouldn't come to that; Caldwell needed hard evidence and he didn't have any. He didn't have enough to show cause for a search warrant.

  Her stomach was churning, and abruptly she felt she was going to be sick, she would throw up here at the table. She jumped up and nearly ran to the women's room, and stood in a stall taking deep breaths with her eyes closed.

  She was spinning a theory, she told herself, exactly the way Brice had spun theories, each one more incredible than the last. He was a liar and a thief, but a killer? Hurt and betrayed, outraged, she had taken a theory past belief without a thing to go on except the fact that he had looked at inflatable canoes and had tried to conceal it. She should have stayed home, she thought then, looked further.

  She left the stall and stared at her reflection in the mirror over the sink: gray-faced, wild-eyed, almost unrecognizable. She shook her head. "He did it," she whispered.

  She remembered what Matthew had said when they were splitting up, and he had begged for another chance. "You win a little, lose a little, and it's a game, just fun. Then you lose a lot and you try again, to get it back, because you know your luck will change again. It always does. You feel lucky this time, really lucky. You have to keep trying to win it back because that's the only way you'll ever come out ahead. Luck. I know better now. I've learned my lesson." But he hadn't learned anything. He had taken the rent money and tried again.

  Brice was in too deep. Time had run out. His luck had run out, just as Matthew's luck had run out. Her father had said she didn't learn a thing the first time, and that was wrong, she thought, remembering the bitter fight they had had. She had learned never to try to come between an addict and his fix. The addiction would win every time. What she hadn't learned was how to recognize an addict in the first place; they came in many guises.

  She dashed cold water on her face and dried it, and when she looked at herself in the mirror again, a little color had returned to her cheeks, and a hard glint was in her eyes. "You married the same man twice, idiot. And this time there's no one to bail you out."

  She knew now that in heeding that voice of command in her head, she had done the right thing, the only thing possible: run. If Brice had seen her, if she had confronted him, he would have done something drastic to the computer, gotten rid of everything, finished covering his tracks. But as long as he didn't suspect anyone could find what he had hidden, it would be there next week, next month. And she desperately needed time alone, time to find a way to prove what she knew. Caldwell couldn't do it, and unless she did, Brice would get away with the murder of her father.

  21

  At ten-thirty on Friday morning Felicia pulled into the Halburtson driveway. Where it split, one part going down to the boat shed and carport, and the other around the front of the house, she followed the one to the front door. Willa was in the passenger seat, composed but very pale. Felicia patted her leg.

  "We won't stay long, a few minutes only," she said. There was an explosion of sound, a shot that echoed and reechoed around the lake and cliffs. Almost immediately there was another gunshot. "Good heavens! What on earth . . . ?"

  Coop's dogs bounded up through the woods at the side of the house barking, and the poodles in the backseat barked excitedly in response.

  "Stop that nonsense," Felicia said crossly, getting out of the car. All the dogs stopped barking, and now she saw that Spook was there; Abby had arrived already.

  Willa got out more cautiously than Felicia had done, and the three big dogs came to sniff her, accepted her, and escorted the two women to the door, which Florence was opening.

  No one said Florence was fat; they said that she was stout, or that she had put on some weight, or that she was heavyset, but in fact at forty to fifty pounds overweight, she was fat. She wore her gray hair in a braid coiled on her head and looked like an aged Brunhild. Holding a conversation with her was a trial, Felicia had decided long ago, because Florence seldom finished a sentence, and her thoughts seemed to jump from one subject to another in a manner that suggested she was paying little attention to what she was saying. It wasn't her age, or the onset of Alzheimer's, or anything else ominous taking a toll; she had always been like that.

  Florence embraced Felicia warmly, then tentatively embraced Willa, who appeared just as tentative about the gesture. Another pair of shots sounded, fainter now that they were inside the house.

  "Who's that shooting?"

  "Coop. Take off your things. I'm making muffins...."

  "What on earth is he shooting at out there?" Felicia demanded as another shot sounded. "If he hasn't hit it yet, he isn't going to."

  "Nothing. He isn't shooting anything. Huckleberry, the last of them. Cleaning out the freezer. Abby's with him, and they'll be cold.... Is there snow in the pass? We might hit it down around Klamath Falls. And coffee .. . You have our key, don't you?"

  Felicia and Willa took off their coats and put them down on the sofa, then followed Florence to the kitchen; she was rambling on, but Felicia decided to wait for Coop to come in and tell her what was happening.

  This was a good house, she reflected, built back around the turn of the century, when finishing details had been important and craftsmanship counted. Hickory wainscoting, oak and mahogany floors that had turned almost black with age but were a
s beautiful as they had been when the house was built, high ceilings and tall windows with wide window seats. The kitchen floor was inlaid linoleum in a speckled pattern, fifty years old or more, waxed to a high polish. Florence and Coop had raised three sons in this house, and when the boys had grown up, married, moved away, they had come home often with their children, and the house accommodated all of them. The rooms were big; there were four or five bedrooms on the second floor, and a partly finished attic; and all the rooms used to get filled with laughter and fun-loving children and their parents. Now the grandchildren had their own children, and the visits had become more and more rare. The big old house seemed preternaturally still and lonesome. Then Felicia heard what Florence had been rambling on about: Abby intended to buy the house.

  "... what she'll do with it. I know what Jud planned some day. An art colony."

  Willa was nodding sadly. "He would have done it eventually. I told him I'd teach courses, and Abby probably would, and maybe Felicia would do workshops on illustrating children's literature...." She looked at Felicia. "He thought maybe he'd talk to you someday about being the administrator, when it was closer to the time to start. He didn't want anything to do with paperwork, he said."

  Florence began talking about the meter man; the meters and the service boxes were side by side on the back wall of this house. "Coop had to show Abby the electric boxes and circuit breakers...." Felicia always thought that was the real reason Jud wanted the property, not only to keep the ramp but because it would have been a problem to move the electrical service if strangers bought the house. An art colony, she mused, that was more his style. It would have been for Willa and Abby, of course. She walked to the back door and gazed out. Florence took muffins from the oven; they smelled wonderful.

  "... no fuses anymore. Isn't that strange? He'd come in with a bucket of huckleberries, and sit there at the table and wait for me to make muffins...."

  Abby and Coop came into sight on the path from the back of the boat shed. She was carrying a shotgun. The dogs romped around them as they came up the path, apparently deep in conversation. She nodded at something he said. From the kitchen door Felicia couldn't see the ramp or the cabin, the boat shed was in the way, but out in the other direction she could see some of the lake, black water today. Some days from here it looked azure. It all depended on the sky, the cloud cover, whether the sun was bright.... She turned away from the door.

  When Abby and Coop came into the house, her face was fiery red from the cold, and Coop had a blush on his nose and cheeks, but hardly noticeable; his skin was so weathered and brown he seemed almost impervious to weather.

  Abby was surprised to find Felicia and Willa in the kitchen. She looked at the shotgun she was holding, and said with a shrug, "Coop insisted that no one can stay around here without a gun of some sort, and the police still have the rifle. He was showing me the difference between shooting a shotgun and a rifle. I may never be able to use my right arm again."

  "See," Coop said in his deliberate way, "you don't have to hit anything. I never did, and I never intended to; a shot in the air will do the trick. It will scare off whatever might be prowling around, and if the first shot doesn't do it, you want to shoot closer, at the dirt in front of the critter. That's going to do it." He was peeling off layers of outerwear as he spoke.

  Abby had taken off her gloves, but that was all. Now she went to Florence and hugged her. "Remember, write—let me know how your trip was, how you both are. And don't worry about me. Coop's good old gun and Spook, that's all I need." She hugged Coop, who looked slightly embarrassed but hugged her back. "If she forgets to write, it's your job. Thanks for the use of the gun and the lessons."

  She looked at Felicia and said, "We've had a long talk already, and I have to get started on things. I'll call you in the next day or two. Now I'm off."

  Florence pressed a paper bag of muffins into her hand and walked to the door with her, then stood there watching for a time. When she turned to the room again, her eyes were filled with tears. "Now, you two can stay for a bit, can't you? All those warm muffins ..."

  Willa nodded, and Felicia, who had been watching Abby, sat down abruptly at the table, and she thought with certainty: she knows. Abby knows.

  She had turned the heat down too low, Abby thought when she entered the cabin; it was freezing cold inside. Trying to ignore Spook, who was racing around looking for Jud, she adjusted the thermostat and, without taking off her jacket yet, checked the kerosene supply for the oil lamps, the way Jud always had done after an absence of a few days. Abby hadn't remembered to do this when she brought Christina here, but today she was methodical about checking out the cabin, making sure it was prepared for any emergency. Outside, she looked over the supply of firewood, neatly stacked and covered with a tarp. They usually burned wood for heat and didn't rely on the electricity; Jud had said the exercise of collecting firewood and cutting it up was an absolute necessity for him, and besides, wood heat was best. After she carried in wood, she unloaded the boat and took everything inside, stowed away the groceries, cleared an end table and put the mahogany box on it, and finally hauled the boat to a higher ledge; the lowest one had several inches of water on it now. She started a fire in the woodstove. Soon the cabin would be warm enough to turn off the electric baseboard heaters and she would take off her heavy jacket and boots. She made coffee and sat at the table, gazing at the lake, and now let herself think about Brice.

  Ever since she left the restaurant in Eugene, she had shied away from thinking about him, about what she should do, what she could do; instead, she had planned her next few days, apportioned time, so much to reconnect the old computer and reformat the hard drive to obliterate everything on it, so much for the paperwork upstairs, so much for deciding what to keep, what to give away, what to put in the box she had bought, what to do with all the material Christina couldn't use .. . Each day would be filled.

  Driving, she had almost stopped and turned back to Eugene; she should change her will, she had thought suddenly; then she had continued driving. She apportioned time enough to write a new will in longhand, and even planned how to keep it safe until a later date. She would mail it to herself in care of Felicia. It would be dated, of course, and the canceled stamp would be proof enough. She had learned how a lot of Jud's money would be used, the Xuan Bui Institute, but what had he planned for the rest of it? Coop Halburtson had given her the answer when she told him and Florence that she intended to buy their house when and if they decided to sell, exactly as her father had planned. And Coop had told her about the art colony, the first she had heard of it. The colony would be for Felicia and Willa, and her, of course, she added. Coop said that Jud thought the world needed educating about how to read, and how to see clearly, and an art colony would be a step in that direction. Right, she told herself. It would be.

  Realizing she had shied away from thinking about Brice yet again, she forced her mind back to him. There weren't any guidelines for her situation, she thought bitterly. Call Caldwell and say, My husband killed my father. And he would say, But we can't crack his alibi. Tell Brice to his face, You killed my father. They would yell at each other, and the following day it would be as if she had said nothing. Wait for him to try to kill her. He might put it off for a while, she thought, but eventually it had to be done.

  She put herself in his place, trying to think his thoughts. All that money, the trouble he was in—there wasn't any other solution. He couldn't wait out the six months, and she probably couldn't or wouldn't borrow enough to cover all his debts. Also, she must suspect him, or she wouldn't have walked out.

  She stopped her chain of thought and considered that. Of course, she would leave him; he was a liar and a cheat, a thief, an embezzler, and now she suspected that he had become involved in day trading. He scorned the idiots who got hooked on video poker, the lottery, slot machines; he was far too intelligent for those brainless games. He understood stocks and bonds; he could beat the system, and he was lucky. Would
all that have been enough to make her walk out? She didn't know. In him she had found what she had been looking for: peace, a good and satisfying sex partner, someone to share the hearth and home ... They might have worked something out, since after her disastrous first marriage, she had been desperate to make the second one work. But he had killed her father. She thought this icily, without any doubt, with as little feeling as if she were considering the probability of sunshine in summer, or rain in winter.

  Then, remembering that she was trying to think like Brice, she went on: if she suspected him, sooner or later she would tell the police, and once they became really suspicious, they would start a full-scale investigation at the office, one that would uncover irregularities. Self-preservation was instinctual, a duty that had to be undertaken, regardless of how repugnant it appeared. Poor Brice, forced to kill his wife. How he would suffer, because he really did love her. But if it had to be done, why wait?

  Not Friday night, too soon. Probably not Saturday night. He couldn't be certain when the Halburtsons would leave. Besides, everyone said Jud died on Friday night, but it had been on Saturday morning actually, another day to wait. Best to avoid even a remote possibility of the technical problem of when the thirty days ended. Sunday night then, after midnight. Their neighborhood was very quiet on Sunday nights; he could slip out and back in without being seen. Two hours both ways, a snap. Row over in his little collapsible canoe, do what had to be done, and get out. He would have an alibi, of course.