Deadly Currents

by Beth Groundwater

  A petite Hispanic woman matching Quintana in age came up to him and pulled on his arm. “Vic, I have someone you need to meet.”

  Detective Quintana waved goodbye, leaving Mandy to fend for herself with the Fowlers. She looked around for Rob, but couldn’t spot him. She really needed a drink. Then she realized Nate Fowler had said something to her, but she had to ask him to repeat it.

  “I was asking if you were related to Bill Tanner,” he said.

  “Yes,” Mandy replied. “He is, was, my uncle.”

  “The whole community’s going to really miss him. Were you two close?”

  “He became my legal guardian after my parents died. Taught me everything I know about running rivers, and about running my life. So, yes, I’ll miss him like hell.” Mandy couldn’t say any more, and popped a carrot in her mouth. She realized that was a mistake when she actually had to chew it.

  Nate’s wife gently touched Mandy’s arm. “You have our deepest sympathies, dear.”

  “Did you inherit Bill’s business?” Nate asked.

  Mandy nodded. “That’s one reason I’m here, so soon after … well, I thought I should be here to represent his business. There are a lot of people he had dealings with whom I’ve never met. Mister Fowler, maybe you can help me.”

  “Please. Call me Nate.”

  “My boss, Steve Hadley, told me that you serve on the Water Issues Board with him. I probably need to meet the others.”

  “I’d be happy to introduce you to the ones who are here.” He turned to his wife and daughter. “Can we leave you two?”

  “I’m sure we’ll find some way to amuse ourselves,” his wife replied.

  “I’m glad one of us can help you, Mandy, in some small way,” Hannah added. “I owe you so much for pulling me out of the river.”

  Nate took Mandy’s arm and led her to a group of older men, who turned out to be fishing and hunting outfitters and guides. Two served on the board, and almost all of them had known her uncle. After accepting their condolences, Mandy let Nate steer her to a group of realtors and developers. He introduced her to them all, including one woman who served on the Water Issues Board with Nate.

  That woman, a stern-faced fast-talker in an austere navy blue suit, asked, “Have you wrapped up that deal on the old Wilson estate yet, Nate?”

  He scowled. “No.”

  “I thought with yours being the only bid left, it’d be smooth sailing.” While peering at him, she stirred the olive in her martini then sucked it off the toothpick.

  “Some of the councilmen preferred King’s bid because it would bring in more tax money. I almost think they’re waiting for someone else to step in with a similar plan.” Nate took a sip of his Scotch and grimaced. “But that’s not going to happen. In the three months since King and I bid on that property, no one else has shown any interest.”

  “What about someone picking up King’s ball and running with it?”

  “I’ve already talked to Paula King. She’s not going forward with his plan, nor is anyone else she knows. This foot-dragging by the council is starting to piss me off. King’s death seems to have actually slowed down the process.”

  Mandy decided to speak up. “Lenny Preble told me about this land deal. It includes old water rights, correct?”

  Nate nodded.

  “Lenny said he supported your bid over Tom King’s,” she continued, “because you plan to donate some of those rights for recreational use, while King was going to use them to develop a golf course.”

  “Right,” he said. “Lenny’s goal for that disastrous rafting trip was to either swing a couple of councilmen to my bid or to convince Tom he should reserve some rights for recreation if he won. I favored the first outcome, of course.”

  “Wasn’t it uncomfortable for you two to be on the same trip, being rivals and all?”

  The realtor woman gave a sarcastic snort, then folded her arms and looked at Nate, as if saying I want to hear this.

  “Tom and I ran in the same circles, saw each other all the time. Going rafting together wasn’t any different. Hell, Hannah was in the same raft with him and his family.”

  “Why wasn’t she in your raft?”

  Nate’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What’s with all the questions? You don’t think I’m the one who poisoned Tom, do you?”

  If he did poison King, why would he have risked having his daughter in the same raft, where she could have accidentally picked up his bottle to drink from? “No, nothing like that. I was just curious, since I pulled them both out of the river.”

  Quintana had talked about how the drinks had been passed around. Mandy tried to figure out a way to find out if Nate had handed one to Tom King without divulging that’s where the poison was found. “How do you think he was poisoned?”

  “None of the rest of us who ate Lenny’s donuts was poisoned, so I think someone slipped it to Tom before the trip even started. The man didn’t have what you call a stable family life. The cops should be looking there.”

  The realtor gave another snort while Nate downed the rest of his drink. He glared at her.

  “Did you eat or drink any of Lenny’s snacks?” Mandy asked.

  “Yeah, and so did Hannah. Just about everyone took a donut out of the box when it was passed around.”

  Frustrated that she couldn’t get him off the donuts and onto the sport drinks, Mandy asked, “What about the drinks?”

  Nate waved his hand in disgust. “What about them? Who cares? As I said, the cops should be looking into Tom’s personal affairs, not questioning innocent business rivals. And that’s all it was, friendly business competition between Tom and me. I need a refill.” He strode off to the bar.

  The woman realtor polished off her martini and licked the last trace of gin off her painted lips. “Don’t believe a word of what he says, honey. He and Tom were out for each other’s blood.”

  Mandy stared as the woman winked at her and turned to follow Nate to the bar.

  Rob approached, holding two bottles of beer. “There you are. I’ve been looking all over the room for you.”

  Mandy grabbed one of the beers and chugged down half of it. “And I’ve been looking for you. I was dying of thirst.”

  With a frown, Rob said, “You knew where I was, at the bar, but you wandered off.”

  “I’m sorry. I needed to talk to Detective Quintana and Hannah Fowler. And her father offered to introduce me to some members of the Water Issues Board. Remember, I’m representing Uncle Bill’s business here.”

  Rob wiped beer off his lips. “Speaking of business, we need to talk.”

  David came up beside Rob and tossed his arm over Rob’s shoulders. His flushed face showed he had been hitting the bar a few times. “Good to see you two together. I assume you’ve told Mandy about—”

  “Not yet.” Rob’s voice held a warning tone. “I haven’t had a chance.”

  Mandy looked from one to the other with growing suspicion. “Told me about what?”

  Rob tugged at his collar. “Um, maybe—”

  “About the buyer I mentioned,” David said. “Isn’t it great you two will be working together?”

  Mandy glared at Rob. “You’re the buyer?”

  Rob put up his palms. “Now, don’t get upset, Mandy. I wanted to break this to you gently, explain what I had in mind.”

  “It’s obvious what you had in mind,” Mandy said, anger boiling up. She clenched her hands, and both men took a step back. “You want to finish what you started and steal the rest of Uncle Bill’s customers. Might as well, huh, given that his business is going to die along with him.”

  “Mandy, no—”

  “And you.” Mandy turned on her brother. “You went along with his scheme, just so you could rid yourself of the whole messy problem and get back to C
olorado Springs.”

  David joined the chorus. “Mandy, no—”

  “You’ve had enough.” Mandy snatched the beer out of David’s hand and shoved both her bottle and his at Rob. “We’re going home in your car, and I’m driving.” She pulled on her brother’s arm and started walking away from Rob.

  David shot a look of sympathy at Rob, which made Mandy’s blood boil even more. What right did they have to sell off Uncle Bill’s legacy, to decide her future?

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Rob said. “I brought you here. I’ll take you home.”

  “No way,” Mandy shot over her shoulder. “I don’t want to have anything to do with you right now.”

  The man who is swimming against the stream

  knows the strength of it.

  —Woodrow Wilson, 28th President Of USA (1856–1924)

  The next morning, Mandy stood on the narrow pebbled bank of the Arkansas River right below the Class V Pine Creek rapid in the Granite Gorge. Her heart felt as stony as the huge, dark boulders surrounding her, and her emotions boiled as violently as the furious water in the river. She couldn’t decide who she was mad at more, her brother, whom she left snoring on the sofa, or her boyfriend, dangerously close to becoming her former boyfriend. The two had connived behind her back to sell off her uncle’s business, with no thought to how she would feel about letting go of her uncle’s legacy.

  Typical bull-headed males. Why do they always have to be in charge, to assert their control over you, to run roughshod over your feelings?

  She picked up a stone and hurled it as far upstream as she could. It plopped into the whitewater, to disappear and never be seen again, possibly to be rolled all the way down to the Pueblo Reservoir. Too bad she couldn’t do the same with her problems.

  A shoe scraped behind her, clattering pebbles down a trail that snaked into the steep gorge from the bank a few feet above Mandy’s head.

  She turned, her scowl still deep on her face.

  A pimply teenage boy, wearing a FIBArk volunteer T-shirt, halted and started backing up. “Uh, never mind.” He returned to the bank and the buzzing crowd of spectators and officials lining it.

  Smart boy. He instinctively knew when a woman was cursing his whole sex and decided to steer clear.

  Heaving a sigh, Mandy looked up at the sky. Another clear blue sunny day in Colorado. Not a good match for her mood, but good for the first day of FIBArk events, including the Pine Creek Boater X race, which was due to start soon.

  Mandy had volunteered to be a shore rescuer below the meanest hole on the meanest section of what some folks called the meanest whitewater river in the American West. Five competitors would race in their kayaks in each heat of the race. They would jostle with each other for the right line through the maze of massive boulders and waves while fighting the river to stay upright and alive.

  The crux of the half-mile-long Pine Creek rapid was the gigantic hole in front of her that stopped many competitors cold. If they were lucky, the river eventually spit their boats out. If they were unlucky, that was where the rescuers like Mandy came in.

  Over the course of the day, quite a few of the boaters would take an unexpected swim.

  Mandy swung the rescue throw bag in her hand, feeling the heft of it, loosening the anger-induced tension in her arm. When thrown at a kayaker who had been sucked out of his watercraft, the rope attached would play out. Mandy would loop the other end across her back, plant her feet, and serve as an anchor to the swinging line after the kayaker grabbed hold.

  Her portable radio crackled. “All rescuers be alert at their stations. The first heat has started down.”

  Mandy looked thirty yards downriver, where another throw-rope rescuer stood waiting. She gave him a thumbs-up. He returned the signal and flashed the same to two volunteers in a rescue raft anchored to shore in a small eddy even further below him.

  A cheer went up from the spectators. Soon, the bright primary colors of river-running kayaks appeared upriver. These boats were larger than the sprightly playboats Mandy had watched in the Salida river park. The purpose of these boats was to keep paddlers safely on top of the frothy surface of aerated whitewater and to turn fast in technical rivers instead of facilitating vertical show-off moves like cartwheels and loops. Their bigger cockpits allowed an easier “wet exit” if the kayak flipped and the occupant couldn’t flip it back over, forcing them to pop the seal of the spray skirt covering the cockpit and flush out of the boat.

  One kayak bounced into the hole and immediately flipped upside down. Mandy tensed in anticipation.

  The paddler swept his paddle and swung his hips to right the boat, but the churning water immediately bashed it over again. After two more attempts and some furious power strokes, the kayaker popped his boat out of the hole and rocketed down the river. His elated “whoo hoo” echoed off the gorge walls.

  Good recovery. Mandy scanned the rest of the river below the hole and counted five kayaks. All the boats in this group had made it successfully through the rapid.

  Her radio crackled again. “Second heat heading down.”

  When the second group came into view, two kayaks rode the liquid roller coaster side by side, their occupants battling it out for the best position. One paddler’s shiny blue helmet and PFD matched the color of his pristine boat perfectly. The other’s orange helmet clashed with his sun-faded green PFD and yellow boat. Both the boat and helmet were liberally patched with duct tape.

  The blue kayak nudged forward, and the back of the boat tapped the front of the yellow one, pushing it away. The color-coordinated kayaker rode a perfect line down the standing waves along the edge of the hole. The mismatched kayaker plowed straight into the hole and immediately flipped.

  He struggled to an upright position one, two, three times, each time rolling over again. On the fourth try, his paddle flushed out of the hole. Spectators above Mandy gasped.

  Without the paddle, she knew that flipping the kayak with just his hands would be near impossible. Expert kayakers did practice hand rolls in their kayaks, but that was in calm water. This guy probably was going for a swim.

  She ignored the cries of the crowd and concentrated on the rocking bottom of the kayak, searching for the orange helmet to bob up out of the water. She counted ten, twenty, thirty seconds.

  Where is he? Can’t he get his spray skirt undone?

  Finally, he popped out beside his boat, spitting water and flailing his arms. He managed to kick the kayak, which propelled him to the edge of the hole and flushed him out.

  “Rope!” Mandy tossed the throw bag underhand and hit him smack in the middle of the helmet. A perfect throw!

  The kayaker grabbed the rope, hooked it over his shoulder and rolled onto his back. Mandy loved it when the person being rescued knew how to do his part.

  Quickly, she looped her end of the rope across her back. Grabbing tight on either side, she plopped down on her butt and braced one foot against a large rock. When the rope’s length played out, the weight of the swimmer smacked the twisted cord against her spine. She leaned back in a body-belay position and dug the heels of her river sandals into the pebbles beneath her.

  Her feet shifted as the taut rope pulled her toward the water. The rock bracing her foot loosened and tumbled away. Shit!

  She scrabbled deeper with her heels, trying to stop her slide toward the roiling water. But the man’s weight and the force of the water pushing him downstream were too much for her without good foot leverage. No matter how hard she strained against the rope, she could not stop her slow slide. She was dressed for a swim, in her shortie wetsuit and PFD, but that didn’t mean she wanted to surf the rapids. She was about to holler “help” when she spied the rescuer downriver running toward her.

  He grabbed the line and started hauling it in hand-over-hand as it swung the kayaker to shore.

 
Grateful for the release of the pressure off her back, Mandy stood and ran the rope a few yards downstream to a tall boulder. She wrapped the line around the boulder to anchor it then wound the slack around the boulder as the other rescuer pulled in the line.

  Finally, the kayaker flopped on the shore like a beached trout, gasping for breath. Mandy and the other rescuer dropped the line and ran over to pull him the rest of the way out of the water. By the time the kayaker was safe, Mandy was gasping as much as he was. She leaned over with her hands on her knees to suck in air.

  He sat up and pulled off his helmet. “Where’s my boat?”

  A bolt of recognition shot through Mandy. Jeff King, Tom’s son.

  “Still in the hole.” The other rescuer waved his hand upstream, where the battered yellow kayak churned over and over.

  Another kayak flushed into the hole. While its occupant worked to stay upright and exit the hole, his boat bumped Jeff’s kayak out. It floated downstream, upside-down, spinning and bobbing in the waves and bouncing off half-submerged boulders.

  Jeff slapped his knee. “Damn!”

  Mandy’s radio crackled. “Next heat’s coming down.”

  “I’ll take your place with my throw rope,” her rescue partner said, “until you catch your breath.”

  Mandy nodded and took a few more deep breaths. She had brought three throw bags, but she decided to restuff the wet rope into its throw bag and reuse it. Because of the extra weight, a wet rope could actually be thrown better than a dry one. And, she didn’t want to leave the rope on the bank where someone could trip on it.

  When she started picking up the rope, Jeff scrambled to his feet, letting water sluice from his PFD and swim trunks. “Let me help you get that. It’s the least I can do after you pulled me out.”

  “You almost pulled me in,” Mandy joked.

  Jeff peered at her. “You’re Mandy Tanner, aren’t you?”

  “Yep. And you’re Jeff King. I feel real bad about your dad.”