The River Killings

by Merry Jones

  “Shit. Heather had to have been in the house. I never saw it until now. I swear—I don’t really know what happened. It’s like I told you and like I told the investigators. Annie and I fought over the gun. She shot me. I passed out, so I don’t know how she died. But if Heather was there, she’d have seen Annie shoot me and— oh, shit. Maybe Annie didn’t shoot herself after all.”

  Blue eyes the color of ice met mine, waiting while the information filtered through my brain and formed a coherent thought. Slowly, I began to understand why Annie’s fatal wound had been at an odd angle on the wrong side of her body. And how Heather had known her sister’s death hadn’t been suicide.

  NINETY

  THE DAY OF THE REGATTA ARRIVED BEFORE SUSAN OR I WERE ready. Susan had spent the morning arguing with electricians; she arrived at the boathouse in full fighting mode. Rowers crossed the dock, carrying oars and boats and bow numbers for their races, wishing each other good luck. A few who recognized me asked how I was, but the slave cartel, Harry and Tony and the circumstances of their deaths weren’t the topics of the day. people were there to race, and their attention was on the water conditions, the weather, the level of competition in their events. Despite the recent death of the head coach, the water-ice man, and the house manager, rowers maintained their priorities; it was race day. Energy was focused.

  “You scared?” Susan asked as she pulled a pair of oars off the rack. “You look green.”

  As usual lately, I felt green. Not just nervous. Sick to my stomach. “Scared? Me?”

  “It’s not fear,” Susan explained. “It’s adrenaline. Your body is prepping for a challenge, so you feel an adrenaline rush. It feels like butterflies in the stomach, but it’s really strength. You’re gearing up.”

  She went on as we carried our oars onto the dock. She was, after all, the bow. “Just remember to relax your shoulders and square at the catch and we’ll be fine.”

  I watched a quad of men shove off the dock, their heads wrapped in bandannas, their oars moving in perfect synchrony.

  “We’re not ready for this, Susan. I still have a bump on my head and bruises all over.”

  “Just remember to swing your body and push with your quadriceps.”

  My quadriceps?

  “Zoe. Relax. It’s our first regatta; all we want to do is finish upright.” “Great.”

  “Nick and Molly will be cheering us on with Tim and the girls. They are all excited to watch the race.” That only made me more nervous.

  “Zoe. We’ll be on the water for maybe an hour. The race will take less than five minutes. No big deal. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  I blinked at her, but she saw no irony in her comment. Together we went to the boat bay and lifted the Andelai off its rack, then walked it down to the water. While Susan gave me a nonstop last-minute course on how to row, we locked our oars in, adjusted our shoes, stepped into the boat, sat and shoved off the dock.

  We were on the way to our first race. The whole way up to the starting line, Susan chattered. We were good enough to do well, she said. We’d worked hard. We’d practiced. We knew what to do. I told myself I shouldn’t be nervous.compared to being shot at or hit on the head and chained into an unventilated overheated van, racing a shell down the river was nothing. I was a mature woman. A mother. A professional and almost a wife. In the scope of life, an event as insignificant as a thousand-meter sculling race shouldn’t affect me, shouldn’t make me blink. It wasn’t an event; it was too minor to be an event. It was a nonevent.

  At the top of the river we turned and approached the starting line. Susan had stopped yammering; she sat at attention, uncharacteristically quiet.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Look,” she said. “The other boats.”

  I turned and looked around the river. An official’s launch and several other doubles—five, in all—floated above Strawberry Mansion Bridge, waiting to be called to line up at the start. Women wearing matching unisuits sat in their doubles, looking large and intimidating. Muscular. Beastlike.

  I looked off to the shore, focusing on a row of happy turtles lined up on a log, telling myself that the race was only a few minutes of our lives, shorter than a commercial break, shorter even than many a bowel movement, less important than either. When the official in the launch yelled for our race to move to the start, I made myself take deep breaths and willed myself not to faint. We can do this, I told myself.

  At the starting line, the officials yelled for one boat to move up three feet, another to move back half a stroke, trying to even us out. I sat with my oars squared in the water, ready to take off.

  The official called, “Attention.”

  I sat ready, and when he yelled, “Go,” I pushed my legs down, pulled my oars up, feeling the rush on either side of us as boats shot out of peripheral vision. I took a second desperate stroke, a third. Our shell shuddered but went nowhere. Susan sat frozen, her oars not moving.

  An official yelled at us from a launch, and I kept stroking, forgetting about technique, frantically pushing my legs and pulling on my oars, tugging us away from the starting line, barely managing to shout, “Row, dammit!”

  Susan finally sprang to life. I heard her grunt as her oars slapped the water behind me, and soon afterward, realizing that I was going to faint, I remembered to breathe.

  After that, I was out of my body, watching from the clouds as our boat plowed ahead. Somehow, cold water was splashing even in the clouds, and voices were yelling, “Go, Mom!” Susan and I each assumed that we were the moms being cheered for, so we rowed even harder, beyond exhaustion, beyond pain. At some point, my lungs began to throb, and my mouth to taste coppery like blood. At some point I prayed to God that, if only he’d let me survive this race, I’d never ever get into or even close to a boat again. At some point I thought of death, how merciful it would be never enduring another agonizing stroke or searing breath. “Pick it up!” Susan yelled.

  “Go, Humberton,” someone called from the shore. I kept my eyes ahead and rowed, hoping my heart would finally explode so I could stop.

  “Power twenty,” Susan coughed.

  Somehow, the thousand meters had extended into an endless loop, but, muscles screaming, I pulled my oars, accepting that I was in hell and that it was always going to be this way. There would be no end, no relief.

  At some point in the maze of experience we think of as time, the race ended. From eons away came the toot of the finish as we crossed the line, and Susan and I were both alive, still in the boat, still above water. I remember leaning over the side and donating my lunch to the fish as Susan began shrieking, jubilant and surprised. And then, recovering, wiping sweat out of my eyes, I looked to the shore to see Nick and Molly near the grandstand with Tim and Susan’s girls, waving and cheering. Dimly, I heard another toot as another boat crossed the line.

  Not only had we survived the race; we hadn’t come in last.

  NINETY ONE

  SUDDENLY, IT WAS SUMMER. MOLLY LIKED DAY CAMP, ESPECIALLY swimming. She’d stopped worrying that the Gordo was chasing her, no longer seemed concerned that a woman was following her. Nick was almost ready to start work again, and so was I. My two-week so-called vacation had extended to four-plus, and it was time to go back.

  Life was moving on. Susan’s deck was finished, but her bathrooms were still not complete. She was packing up Lisa and Julie for six weeks of camp in Maine while defending a man accused of suffocating his invalid mother, so she hadn’t had time to row since the regatta. That was fine with me. I wasn’t feeling well, and I doubted I’d be rowing for a while.

  We went on, trying to continue life as before, but of course that was futile. I could never again look at a windowless van or truck without wondering what—or who—was inside. And I couldn’t make coffee without seeing Heather slurping from a mug. Still, we had to recover. We made changes, adapting. Instead of brewing coffee, I walked each morning to the Pink Rose to get takeout with fresh scones. Instead of battling
bad memories, I avoided them, starting new routines, focusing on the future. I made arrangements to have Molly’s belated graduation party at the zoo, began to plan our wedding, thought about taking a year’s leave from work.

  In truth, the horror wasn’t over. The world remained dangerous, and people were not always who they seemed. The smugglers we’d run into were gone, but others were out there somewhere,

  still trafficking human cargo. Foreign governments, even our own FBI, didn’t seem able to stop them. From time to time I thought of Shu Li, wondered where she was, even if she was still alive.

  On the last day in June, after breakfast, as I was fixing Molly’s lunch, I felt queasy from the smell of her peanut butter sandwich and wondered if I were going to heave. Taking a deep breath, I looked out the kitchen window and saw the bus for day camp at our curb. It was early, waiting out front.

  I ran to the door to wave to the driver and yell that she was on the way. Molly came running, stuffing her bathing suit into her camp bag, dragging a towel. Nick tossed an orange and a drink into her lunch, passed the bag to me, and I thrust it at Molly as she flew out the door and down the steps. I blew her a kiss from the doorway as the bus grumbled off, noticing only vaguely the woman in the blue car idling behind it.

  No, I didn’t think much about her that day. I might have, but after Molly left I sat down to read the newspaper, and my attention was diverted by the report of a murder in northeast Philadelphia. I almost overlooked it, turning the page. But some detail nagged at me, made me look again. His picture was there. A bald man with a ponytail, heavily tattooed, wearing earrings. I stared at it, recalling Molly’s description of the Gordo. Bald on top. With a ponytail. And jewelry. And tattoos. No, I thought. Couldn’t be. But there he was; tattoos ran all the way up the dead man’s neck. And my eyes caught on his name. Gordon. Gordon Terrell.

  I scanned the story, hoping to find out that he’d died in a lover’s quarrel. Or that he dealt drugs and owed some kingpin millions of dollars. Instead, I read that his throat had been slit and that his face had been cut three times, in curved parallel lines. I closed my eyes and saw the small Asian woman unlocking my chains, saving me. Shu Li, I thought. She was still alive, still avenging the dead, still chasing down cartel members.

  Shu Li, the twentieth slave, had found the Gordo.

  NINETY-TWO

  ALMOST EVERY EVENING DETECTIVES STILL DROPPED IN TO SEE Nick and keep him in the loop during his recovery. The night after Terrell’s murder was no exception. Three of them were visiting in the living room when I came downstairs after tucking Molly in. I meant to get them some pretzels, but I didn’t make it to the kitchen. I stopped in the hall, eavesdropping, when I realized what they were talking about.

  “So Terrell was a slave trafficker?”

  “Had to be. Why else would the perp go after him?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t the same perp. With all the press, it could be a copy cat.”

  “No way. I saw those cuts. It was the same perp, no question. The slices on his face weren’t just similar. They were a hundred percent identical. Same curves as the guys in the van. Same as Ellis and the others. Nobody would know how to do that except the perp. It’s a signature, unique.”

  “Well, that’s it for us then,” Nick said. “If you’re right and Terrell was in the cartel, the FBI’ll grab the case just like the others.”

  “Which means it’ll go nowhere just like the others.”

  “Maybe not. This one was different.” The detective named Al lowered his voice. “Between us, right?” He paused. “This time, there was a witness.”

  A witness? I held my breath, straining to hear.

  “No shit.”

  “Terrell’s girlfriend was hiding in the bathroom. She says she saw the whole thing.”

  “So who did it?”

  “An Asian woman. So small, in fact, she thought it was a kid at first.”

  Oh, God. No question. The killer was Shu Li. I pictured her tiny form unlocking my handcuffs in the van, freeing me. And the lifeless eyes of Harry and Tony, the carvings on their faces. Shu Li was executing cartel members one at a time.

  The men were still talking. “I’ll be damned,” somebody said.

  “It’s got to be the missing slave, what’s her name—”

  “Shu Li was the name on her passport.” Al was way ahead of them. “So we put the passport photo in a book, and guess what. The girlfriend ID’d her. Shu Li’s our doer.”

  I bit my lip. Now not just the slave cartel, but the cops and the FBI would be hunting for Shu Li.

  One of the detectives sighed. “Well, try to convict. Eyewitness identification is shabby.”

  “Kiss my ass, Pete. She picked her out of three dozen faces.” Al was miffed.

  “Still. It’s shabby.”

  “Yeah? Well, it’s a hell of a lot more than we’ve had so far.”

  “Not necessarily,” Pete insisted. “What about the vigilantes? It could be one of them; there might be a hundred of them who are small, female and Asian—”

  “That’s just a theory,” Nick interrupted. “The FBI didn’t say anything definite.”

  “Whatever,” Al growled. “Whether it’s just Shu Li alone or an entire vigilante group of escaped slaves, somebody’s having a lot better luck catching the traffickers than law enforcement—Local or federal.”

  “Of course they are,” Nick reasoned. “They’re not held to the same standards. They don’t need to follow procedure. Forget about warrants or evidence or law—”

  “So that’s the future of law enforcement? Police are so bound up in legalities and bureaucratic paperwork that effective justice is left to vigilantes? That’s what we’re coming to. Soon cops’ll be ineffective and obsolete.”

  “In that case, Al, you’re ahead of the game—you’re already ineffective and obsolete.”

  More jabs almost drowned out Al’s “Fuck you.”

  There was a silence then. I imagined heads shaking, sighs. Then one of them must have stood up.

  “Anyone want another brew? Nick? Anyone else?”

  He was looking back at the others, so he didn’t see me standing in the hall until he’d almost stumbled into me. “Jeepers!”

  Jeepers? “Oops, sorry.” I fumbled for an explanation. “I—I was just coming in to see what you guys want. More beer? Something to eat?”

  “Thanks. A couple more beers would be great.” He was fair-skinned, reddening. Feeling oafish.

  I hurried to the kitchen, trying to piece together what I’d just heard. Was there a vigilante group fighting back against the slave cartel? Did that mean Shu Li wasn’t acting alone? I hoped so. I didn’t like to think of her all by herself. But what was I thinking? Shu Li was a killer. She’d murdered repeatedly, methodically Would her crimes be less serious if she was part of a whole group of murderers? I got the beers and put them on a tray with a bunch of crackers and a lump of cheddar, so engrossed in my thoughts that I almost didn’t hear the soft, persistent knocking at the door. And when I did, I assumed it was more cops, so I opened the door with beers in my hands, ready to hand them out. But the person knocking wasn’t a policeman. It was Shu Li.

  NINETY-THREE

  SHE WAS DRESSED IN BLACK, SO ALL I SAW IN THE DARK WAS HER face. She scampered inside before I could react, and looking out into the street, clutched my arm.

  “Yo hep,” she whispered. “Shu Li know. Yo hep.”

  I rushed her into the kitchen. Oh, Lord. How had she found out where I lived? The newspapers, I thought. They’d shown my residence, mentioned where I lived. Or the phone book. But Shu Li didn’t read English, did she? Had someone helped her? What did she want? Why was she here? The police and the FBI were looking for her. And at the moment a large portion of the police force was sitting in my living room.

  “Peepow.” She pointed to the street. “Come fo Shu Li.”

  “What people?”

  “Yo hide Shu Li.”

  “Wait, no. You can’t stay here,” I w
hispered. “The police are here.” I pointed to the living room. “They know who you are. They’re looking for you—”

  “Shu Li wait heeh.” She was adamant. “Peepow come heeh soohn.”

  What people? Who? The cartel? Were they coming after her? At my house? I spoke slowly, softly. “Who is coming? The cartel?” She blinked at me. “The slave traffickers?”

  She shook her head. No. “Ma peepow. Yo hep Shu Li.”

  “Shu Li,” I began again. “You killed a man. Gordon Terrell.” I mimed a big man with a ponytail. “Somebody—a woman—saw you. The police know who did it. They want to arrest you.”

  “No. Poreese no fine Shu Li. I wait heeh. Okay. Ma peepow come fo Shu Li. Soohn.”

  Her people? Who were they? Was she talking about vigilantes?

  “Who’s coming for you? How do they know where you are?”

  She shook her head and looked up, as if trying to form words I could understand. “Some peepow… hep Shu Li. Like seestahs. Wook togeddah.”

  vigilantes.

  “Yo, Zoe—What’s with the brews?”

  Oh, God. The beers. Any second, Al or Pete or that other one would come into the kitchen and find Shu Li.

  “On the way,” I yelled. “Just a second.” Then, grabbing the tray, telling Shu Li to wait there, I went into the living room and served Nick’s guests, trying to smile as if I had not a single care. As if no one, certainly not a fugitive multiple murderer, were hiding in my kitchen.

  NINETY-FOUR

  MOMENTS LATER, I RUSHED BACK TO FIND SHU LI CHOMPING ON a banana, raiding the refrigerator.

  “You’re hungry.” I reached for a package of turkey breast I’d bought for Molly’s lunch. “I’ll fix you a sandwich—”

  But Shu Li had found a blackberry yogurt. She poured it down her throat and grabbed an orange, began peeling it.

  “Okay,” she assured me. “Yo no woolly. Shu Li okay.” She found a slice of wheat bread, wadded it up and stuffed it into her mouth.