So Cold the River

by Michael Koryta

  All signs, from the clouds to the dry grass to the pressure drop, indicated a storm. It was confirmation of what she’d suspected yesterday, but she felt a vague sense of disappointment as she studied the clouds. They were storm makers, sure, but somehow she’d expected more. Still, it was early. Spring supercells developed quickly and often unpredictably, and it was tough to say what might find its way here by day’s end.

  She recorded all of the measurements in her notebook. It was a ritual that usually gave her pleasure but today, for some reason, did not. She felt out of sorts, grumpy. It happened when something of note occurred, like Eric Shaw’s visit, and she had nobody to share it with. It was then that she felt the weight of the loneliness, then that the mocking of the empty house and the silent phone rose in pitch. She’d kept her mind all these years, her memory and logic, was proud of it. Mornings like this, though, she wondered if that was best. Maybe it was easier to be the doddering sort of old, maybe that dulled the sharp edges of the empty rooms that surrounded you.

  “Oh, stop it, Annabelle,” she said aloud. “Just stop it.”

  She would not sit around here feeling sorry for herself. You had to be grateful for every day, grateful for each moment the good Lord allowed you to have on this weird, wild earth. She knew that. She believed it.

  Sometimes, though, believing it was easier than at other times.

  She went back inside and fixed toast for breakfast and sat in her chair in the living room and tried to read the paper. It was tough to concentrate. Memories were leaping out at her this morning, nipping the heels of her mind. She wanted someone to talk to. The phone had been quiet all week but that was partially her own fault—she’d worked so hard to convince those at church and in town of her strong independence that they didn’t worry about her much. And that was good, of course, she didn’t want to give anyone cause to worry, but… but it wouldn’t hurt if someone checked in now and again. Just to say hello. Just to make a little conversation.

  Heavens, but Harold had loved to talk. There had been plenty of times when she’d said, Harold, go outside and give my ears a break, just because she couldn’t take the unrelenting chatter. And the children… oh, but those were his children, sure as anything, because both of them caught the gift of gab like it was a fever. This house had been filled with talk from sunrise to sundown.

  She set the paper down, stood up, and went to the phone, ignoring, as she usually did, the cordless unit that sat beside her, because it was good to move around, good to stay active. She called the hotel and asked to be put through to Eric Shaw. It had occurred to her last night that she’d never asked what family he was researching. Maybe she could help. Maybe if he told her the family name, she’d remember some things about them, maybe she could tell him some stories.

  It went to voice mail, though, and so she left a message. Anne McKinney calling, nothing urgent. Just wanted to check in.

  33

  ERIC WENT INTO THE dining room and ordered breakfast, realizing with relief that he was truly hungry again, sipping his coffee with a touch of impatience, eager to see the food brought out. That had to be a good sign.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about the effects of Anne’s water. It had eased his physical suffering just as the Bradford bottle had, but the vision it brought on was so different, so much gentler. Like watching a film, really. He’d had distance, separation of space and time. If what he’d seen were real…

  The possibilities there tempted him in a strange way. Maybe it was a hallucination the same as those experienced by drug users every day. If it wasn’t, though, if he was really seeing the past, then the water provided him something far different from pain. Provided him with power, really. A gift.

  “French toast with bacon,” a female voice behind him said, and then the waitress set a plate before him that intensified his hunger. “And you need more coffee. Hang on and I’ll get a refill. Sorry about that. I stopped to watch the TV people for a few minutes.”

  “Uh-huh,” Eric muttered, putting the first forkful of French toast into his mouth even before she was gone. It tasted fantastic.

  “They were filming right in the lobby,” she said. “I was hoping they’d come in here and I could make the news. You know, fifteen seconds of fame.”

  Eric swallowed, wiped his mouth with the napkin, and said, “Oh, right, I saw the TV vans. What’s the deal?”

  “Someone was murdered,” she said, dropping her voice to a grim whisper as she leaned over him to fill his coffee cup. “Blown up in his van, can you believe it?”

  “Really? So much for this being a peaceful place. If people find out the locals are blowing one another up, it might hurt business.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t a local. Was some man from Chicago. And he was a detective, too. So it’s even more interesting, you know? Because who knows what he was doing down here. I don’t remember his name, but they said that—”

  “Gavin,” Eric said, feeling his body temperature drop and his breathing slow, the food in front of him no longer so appealing. “His name was Gavin Murray.”

  It was a hell of a long hike, particularly going through the woods to avoid the road, but Josiah didn’t trust his cell phone, figured they could track it. He turned it off and took the battery out to be sure it wasn’t transmitting any signal, and then he set off through the woods and toward town. He hated to involve Danny Hastings in this mess, but there was work to be done now that he couldn’t do alone, and Danny was the only person he trusted to keep his mouth shut no matter what happened. Oh, Danny would stand a good chance of getting caught at it, but he’d never tell the cops a thing. They’d gotten into plenty of scrapes with the police over the years, and if there was one thing Danny knew how to do in those situations, it was keep his mouth shut.

  The hike into town took more than an hour, and then he had to chance being seen, come out into the open for at least a little while. There was a pay phone at the gas station, one of the last pay phones in town, and he called and told Danny where to meet him. The whole time he felt a prickle in the middle of his back, expecting a police car to come swerving around the corner at any minute, cops boiling out of it, guns drawn. Nothing happened, though. Nobody so much as blinked at him.

  As soon as he hung up, he went back into the woods and climbed out of sight. Sat on an overturned log and waited. Fifteen minutes later, Danny’s Oldsmobile appeared, driving slow, Danny craning his head and looking for him. Shit, way to avoid attention.

  Josiah hustled down the hill and came out of the woods and lifted a hand. He jerked open the passenger door when the car pulled up, and said, “Drive, damn it.”

  Danny took them up the hill, the transmission double-clutching and shivering.

  “What in the hell is going on, Josiah?”

  “I got powerful problems is what’s going on. You willing to help a friend out?”

  “Well, of course, but I’d like to know what I’m getting into.”

  “It ain’t good,” Josiah said, and then, softer, “and I’ll try to keep you out of it much as possible. I will.”

  It was that remark, the show of concern for someone other than himself, that seemed to tell Danny the gravity of the situation. He turned, frowning, and waited.

  “I got into a scrape last night,” Josiah said. “Man pulled a gun on me. I had a rock in my hand, and I used it on him. Hit him once more than I needed to.”

  “Oh, shit,” Danny said. “I ain’t helping you bury no body, Josiah. I ain’t doing it.”

  “Don’t need to bury a body.”

  “So you didn’t kill him?”

  Josiah was quiet.

  “You did kill him?” Danny almost missed a curve. “You murdered somebody?”

  “It was self-defense,” Josiah said. “But he’s dead, yeah. And you know what the police around here will do to somebody like me in a case like that. Self-defense ain’t going to mean shit. The prosecutor will pull out all my old charges and tell the jury I’m nothing but trash, dangerous t
rash, and I’ll be up in Terre Haute or Pendleton.”

  Danny’s fat tongue slid out, moistened his lips. “It wasn’t that guy in the van?”

  “How’d you know about that?”

  “Whole town knows about it, Josiah! Grandpa dragged my ass up to church today, was all anybody was talking about. Oh, hell, it was you?”

  “He pulled a gun on me, damn it! I told you that.”

  They’d reached the logging road, and Josiah instructed him to turn in. He explained everything except the odd dreams of the black train and the man in the bowler hat.

  “I don’t understand what everybody’s interested in Campbell for,” Danny said.

  “I don’t either. But somebody named Lucas Bradford sent this guy down from Chicago to watch me, and old Lucas has himself some dollars. I found a bill in that dead guy’s papers, Danny—he’d been paid fifteen thousand as a retainer. And there’s a note in there says he was authorized to spend up to a hundred to resolve the situation. That’s what it said—resolve the situation. A hundred thousand dollars.”

  Danny reached up and scratched the back of his neck. He was still in his church clothes, had on a starched white shirt that was showing sweat stains under the arms.

  “Something going on, that’s for sure,” he said. “But the way you’re handling it ain’t right. You’re just making things worse. You said he pulled a gun on you? Shit, call the police and tell them that. Get yourself a lawyer—”

  “Danny,” Josiah said, “I set the man on fire. You understand that? Think about that, and about the reputation I got in this town, and you tell me what’s going to happen.”

  Danny was frozen for a moment, but eventually he gave a small nod. Then, in a whisper, he said, “What in the hell did you set him on fire for?”

  “I don’t know,” Josiah said. “I don’t even know why I hit him the second time. Didn’t feel like myself. But I did it, and now I got to figure something out fast.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “This fella Lucas Bradford has money to spare. And I’m in need of it. But first I got to understand some things—who he is, and why he’s asking about me. I’m going to need your help to do that. I’m asking you, please, to help.”

  Danny sighed, reached out and wrapped his hands around the steering wheel, squeezed it tight.

  “Danny?”

  He nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Good. Thank you. First thing I want you to do is find that son of a bitch who came down to Edgar’s and told us that bullshit about making a movie. He’ll be staying at one of the hotels. You find him, and you follow him.”

  34

  ALYSSA BRADFORD DIDN’T answer her phone. Eric called without even leaving the table, speaking into the cell phone in a hushed but hostile voice as he left yet another message, and demanded that she call him back, and this time he would be talking to her husband, thanks. Someone was dead, damn it, and he needed to know what the hell was going on.

  The phone didn’t ring. He sat there for a while, waiting and thinking of Gavin Murray with his sunglasses and cigarettes and smug voice. Blown up in a van.

  The waitress came by and said, “Is there a problem with the food?” as she eyed his practically untouched plate.

  “No,” he said. “No problem. Just… thinking.”

  He ate the meal without tasting it, paid, and went back up to the room. He hadn’t gotten the door open before the phone began to ring. Alyssa, he thought, it damn well better be you.

  It wasn’t her. Rather, the manager of the hotel, wishing to inform him that the police were looking for him.

  “Tell them I’ll be down in five minutes,” he said, and then he hung up and called Claire.

  “Are you home?” he said when she answered.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I’d like you to leave.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I need you to bear with me for a minute, and I need you to believe that I’m not crazy. You still believe that?”

  “Eric, what’s going on?”

  “Somebody followed me down here from Chicago,” he said. “A man named Gavin Murray. Write that name down, or at least remember it, would you? Gavin Murray. This guy was a PI from Chicago, with a group called Corporate Crisis Solutions.”

  “All right.”

  He heard a sheet of paper tear loose, then a rattling sound as she looked for a pen.

  “He showed up at the hotel yesterday,” Eric said, “and he knew all about me. He mentioned you by name. He knew that we were separated and that the divorce hadn’t gone through yet.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah—pretty detailed, right? He’d done his research, but that’s the sort of thing those guys can do quickly and easily. So I wasn’t too concerned. Now I’m starting to be.”

  “You think I should be afraid of him?”

  “Oh, not of him. He’s dead.”

  “He’s what?”

  “Somebody killed him last night,” Eric said. “Murdered him, blew up his van. I don’t know the details yet. I’m on my way to meet with the police. What I do know is that the guy followed me down here, offered me seventy-five grand to stop asking about Campbell Bradford, and then he was killed. I don’t have any idea what that means, but I do need to tell you that he essentially threatened me last night. He said other sorts of leverage could be used if I ignored the money.”

  “Eric…”

  “I’m sure this is an undue precaution,” he said, “but all the same, I’d like you to stay away from the house for a while. Until we understand a little more about this, I think that would be a good plan. It would give me some peace of mind, at least.”

  “Eric,” she repeated, voice lower, “did you drink any more of that water?”

  “That’s irrelevant right now, because we’ve got—”

  “You did.”

  “So what if I did?”

  “I’m just wondering… are you sure this happened? Are you sure that man—”

  “Was real?” he said, and gave a wild laugh. “Is that what you’re asking me? Shit, Claire, that’s just what I need, to have you questioning my sanity. Yes, the man was real and yes, he is really dead now, okay? He is dead. Somebody killed him, and I’m going to talk to the police about it now, and if you don’t believe that, then get on the damn computer and look it up, look him up, do whatever the hell you need to do to convince yourself—”

  “All right,” she said, “okay, okay, calm down. I just had to ask, that’s all.”

  It was quiet for a few moments.

  “I’ll leave,” she said. “If that’s what you want, I’ll leave. Okay?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t get upset when I ask you this, but why did you drink the water again?”

  So he answered that as the room phone began to ring again—probably the police wanting to know what the hell was keeping him—and told her about the terrible night he’d had and the way Anne McKinney’s water had quelled it, and about the vision of Campbell Bradford and the boy with the violin.

  “The only thing I’m worried about right now,” she said, “is what that water is doing to you. Physically, and mentally. All the rest of this—it’s scary and it’s weird, but it can be dealt with. But that water… that’s more frightening, Eric. Your body is dependent on it now. Your brain, too. That’s not a safe situation.”

  “We don’t know if I’m dependent yet,” he said, but the headache was back and his mouth was dry.

  “You need medicine,” she said, but then there was a knock on the door and he knew the police had decided not to wait for him to come down.

  “I’ve got to go, Claire. I’ve got to talk to the cops. Will you please get out of the house for a while? At least until I know what’s going on.”

  She said that she would. She told him to be careful. She told him not to drink any more of the water.

  35

  THE COP WHO TOOK the lead in talking with him was with the Indiana State P
olice, a guy named Roger Brewer. He drove Eric down to the little police station in the middle of French Lick, didn’t speak much on the way, didn’t say hardly anything at all until they were seated and he had a tape recorder going. He was a grave man with a focused stare.

  “Isn’t a whole lot I can tell you at this time,” he said, “or at least that I can disclose to you, that’s the better word, but for right now it’ll suffice to say that Gavin Murray was killed last night. I was wondering what you could tell me about that.”

  “What I can tell you?” Eric echoed. The headache had dialed up a notch as soon as they were under the fluorescent lights. In addition to the tape recorder on the table between them, there was a video camera showing near the corner of the ceiling. “I can’t tell you anything about that.”

  “Then tell me about him,” Brewer said, “and about you. Curious as to what brought everybody down to Indiana.”

  Eric started to speak, then caught himself and hesitated for a moment while Brewer arched a questioning eyebrow.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Just thinking it might behoove me to ask whether you consider me a suspect.”

  “Behoove?” Brewer’s face seemed lost between angry and amused.

  “That’s right.” Maybe it was a mistake to ask—Eric’s previous dealings with the police had been few, and he had a natural instinct to just roll with Brewer’s authority—but the hissing wheels of the tape recorder had put his guard up. Eric understood better than most the potential for manipulation of film and tape.

  “Well, Mr. Shaw, as is generally the case when we have the discovery of a homicide victim, the suspect pool is initially deep and wide. Are you in it? Sure. So are plenty of others, though. Right now, you’re looking like one who can maybe provide some answers. Hate to think you’re unwilling to do that.”