Mother Nature

by Sarah Andrews

  And stopped. Traffic, compressed from all other roads into Sebastopol and its outlying communities, was at a crawl. A highway patrolman stood by the intersection passing out information: Storm winds had dropped branches on power lines. All power was out to the north, including the traffic lights. The delay would be at least half an hour to go four miles.

  I got out my county map and plotted another course through the orchard lands among the hills, dodged around Sebastopol to the west, and reemerged onto Highway 116 north of town. Two miles farther north, I came up to another barricade, this one stopping traffic that approached the Laguna eastbound on Occidental Road from Miwok Mills. Swerving around it, I headed down off the hills toward the distended flow.

  I couldn’t reach Ferris Road. It, too, was awash, but half a mile short of it I found Jaime Martinez’s battered yellow pickup parked, the waters lapping at its tires. It was empty, but the motor was still warm.

  Leaving the truck, I climbed overland through the woods above the roadway. It was dim and, with the dying of the light, getting darker. I continued on across slippery slopes until I could discern the barn and confirm what I expected: the tank had risen from its grave and was afloat now, a huge rusted drum of iron three-quarters visible, rolling sickly in the muddy water, held in place now only by its tether and a few small hills of soil left as spoil piles the night Jaime and Matthew had tried to pull it.

  I turned back for help.

  I found Jim Erikson huddled up by the coffee urn at the firehouse trying to get warm. He had a blanket around his shoulders and his long legs were braced, so that he leaned stiffly against the edge of the desk. His hair stood up in wet spikes and sodden loops, and his eyes were red around the rims. He looked so bad I almost didn’t ask. Almost.

  “Em,” he whispered, eyes wide at the unexpected sight of me.

  “Just tell me one thing: did you set me up?”

  His brows knit in offended confusion. “Did I what?”

  “Take me out for that beer so Matthew Karsh could get to my room ahead of me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Reeves. Did he tell you to take me out after the Spaghetti Feed?”

  Jim’s face clouded. “I may work for the man, but I’m not in the habit of taking personal orders from Val Reeves.”

  “Good. Then I need your help.”

  “Name it.”

  “There’s a thousand-gallon gasoline tank lying uncovered down by the Laguna. The tenant’s been throwing waste oil in it, and probably everything else anyone wants to get rid of. Solvents. Paint. It’s probably part-full, maybe a nice explosive mixture of air and volatiles. Well, now the water’s up high enough that the thing’s floated up out of the ground, and it’s about to head downriver.”

  Jim jumped up and threw off the blanket. “Why didn’t you say so! Hell, that’s all we need is a thousand-gallon bomb floating down toward the bridges.” He grabbed his turnouts on his way out the door. I had to run to keep up. “I’ll take the pumper with the boat on it.” Turning briefly back to me, he asked, “Where’d you say it was?”

  “I’ll show you. You’re taking me with you.”

  “The hell I am!”

  “Oh? Then you tell me where that tank is.”

  * * *

  THE METAL BOAT churned slowly through the brown floodwaters, swept along in their slow but powerful flow toward the ocean. Jim sat at the controls of the tiny outboard motor, squinting into the driving rain. I sat in the bow in borrowed turnouts and a Mae West life preserver, pitting every ounce of my rage against my fear of the brown, swirling waters. “Over there,” I shouted over the grind of the boat’s motor, pointing through the gray curtains of rain. “There! By the barn!”

  Jim turned the boat, putting the current to his advantage, pressing us toward the dark, rain-blurred shape that was the barn. We glided over cross-fences, slipping between the tops of iron posts that anchored barely submerged strands of barbed wire. Here and there, bits of grass and twigs and even logs caught on trees and bushes, streaming down-current toward the sea.

  Even through the gloom, I could see that the barn was awash. The entire farmyard was underwater, and the railings on the back porch of the farmhouse stood up like a savage grin. Not even a candle burned in the house. Jaime had taken his family to safety.

  I heard Jim’s voice over the sound of the motor. “Aw hell, Em, it’s under control. There’s a sling on it from the bucket of that backhoe. Even this water won’t carry that backhoe off.”

  “No, Jim, look!” I could see someone at the controls of the backhoe, a huge, dark shape in water to his knees. A second, smaller man stood with his back to us on a pile of gravel, hunching against the rain.

  The engine of the backhoe burst into life, and in no time, the bucket began to swing. The tank followed, docile as a cow, then snagged on a pile of gravel spoils. The bucket swung the other way, and tugged. The tank bucked once, then leapt the brim of the excavation and floated downstream. There it hung, slowly rolling, a giant can of toxic death bobbing on life’s stream.

  “Hey, stop that thing!” Jim shouted, but he was not yet close enough to be heard over the roar of the backhoe. “Em! Turn on that spotlight in the bow!” I hit the switch and aimed, lighting up the black-browed man like a Christmas tree.

  Jaime jerked, jumping around on the spoils pile, scowling, venom oiling his black, black eyes. “Get back from here!” he shouted, his voice rising in panic. “You not s’posed to be here!”

  “What are you doing, man?” Jim hollered.

  Jaime staggered off the spoils pile and into the water, then half swam and half ran through the slurry of water and muck, hurrying in through the gaping doorway of the barn. Another motor sounded and he reemerged, this time at the controls of a boat with an engine powerful enough to tow a skier. As he neared the backhoe, he screamed an invective stream of Spanish at Matthew, exhorting him to join him in the boat.

  Our boat was a hundred yards from the hole now and sliding by downstream with the current. I swung the spotlight this way and that, picking out a route through the fencing and half-submerged farm equipment. Jim hesitated, uncertain of running aground in a flooded yard strewn with such obstacles. A disk harrow bore its knives above the waters here, and a wagon rested there, half-emergent. “I’m riot sure about this, Em,” he called. “I think I should get on the radio here and report this and get the hell out. Those guys are leaving, and that back-hoe’s heavy enough to anchor that tank.”

  “No, look.” I swung the light. “The one on the backhoe isn’t going to leave.”

  Matthew gunned the engine and swung the bucket again. Jaime called to him one more time, then opened the throttle on the speedboat, speeding away.

  Matthew Karsh’s enormous hands moved wildly among the controls of the backhoe, his precious backhoe. Now jerking the bucket wildly, once, twice, three times, he tried to flick loose the sling that held the tank. Then, raising the bucket as high as it would go, he grasped the brakes that turned the wheels, jammed them opposite directions, and kicked the accelerator hard.

  The backhoe slipped, fell sideways, and slid into the waters of the Laguna de Santa Rosa. We saw Matthew heave up out of the waters like a broaching whale, sputter, gain his footing, and try to regain his seat, which now lay sideways. The motor was still running on the backhoe. He grabbed the controls and jerked. The bucket swung again, finally spilling the sling, and the tank began to drift. The engine died.

  We were fifty feet from the backhoe now. I looked back at Jim. He hesitated, trying to decide between the man and the drifting tank. He went for the man. “We’ll get as close as we can,” he shouted to Matthew. “Get ready to board us!” I gripped the spotlight with white knuckles, trying to convince myself that Matthew would come along quietly because Jim was aboard.

  At first Matthew stood frozen in the spotlight, watching our boat churn toward him with blank eyes. As boat and man met, Jim swung the boat and braced himself, grasping the center seat, th
en reached his free arm out to Matthew. As Jim’s fingers closed around his wrist, Matthew’s face twisted with fear and rage, and he flung his arms sideways, spinning the boat. As Jim struggled, Matthew pushed, throwing the unsuspecting fireman overboard.

  I clambered across the boat to pull Jim back in, but Matthew continued to thrash, frantically grasping him behind the neck and banging his head against the motor casing. I heard a neat crack. Jim’s eyes closed. Matthew shook him once and, satisfied that he was gone, released him to the waters.

  I watched in horror as Jim’s body floated away, face down, his long legs dragging on the gravels below, keeping his life vest from turning him onto his back.

  I looked back at Matthew. His mossy teeth gleamed as he lurched toward me, grasped the gunwale of the boat, and pulled it hand over hand. The boat bumped against the fireman. The motion rolled Jim over, but still he slid away from us, mouth agape, no bubbles issuing from his airway. Matthew was five feet from me and closing. I grabbed an emergency oar, swung it. It struck Matthew’s arm with a sodden thud and skidded away. With one filthy paw he ripped it from my hands.

  I leapt into the water and flailed, unable to touch bottom against the buoyancy of my life vest, sick that my shorter legs found no footing. I spread my arms and swam, hampered by the bulk of the life vest. Releasing the boat, Matthew Karsh followed me, striding through the dark waters like a heron in search of prey.

  Panic consumed me. I didn’t want to die. I struggled westward toward the barn, where the waters would be shallower. One foot found bottom, slipped, struck again.

  I felt a tug at the back of my vest, now a jerk, now hands closing around my neck, and he was pressing me under. My hands found the side of a gravel pile and I pushed upward, briefly freeing my mouth. I gasped, only to feel the tug again, and knew that he was dragging me through the waters with one hand, ripping at the straps of my vest with the other. They gave, one after another. He handled me surely, like a flopping doll, oblivious to my claws and kicks. I gasped, drank up sodden air, my nostrils stinging with inhaled water. He had my vest off now. I felt my belly dragging over the spoils pile as he pushed me into the pit, pushing me down, pushing me—

  With all my remaining strength I dove, swimming hard for the bottom of the hole, for that place where the tank once rested.

  Bottom. I clawed, digging at the gravel to pull my way along the bottom, praying that I could move just far enough away from him before broaching that I could slither loose and gain my footing.…

  Time slowed like jelly, flowing around me. A strange notion enfolded me, saying, You’ve been here before, you’ve done this before … you’ve—

  Gravel exploded around my hands in bursts. The skin on my fingers tore with the effort. Something hard lay in the gravel, something rounded and smooth, like a buried cobble. My fingers plowed through the gravel, grasping the smooth roundness, gaining just enough friction to pull my way forward. Then it was loose and in my fingers, a smooth thing with two holes. Still grasping it, I popped to the surface and gouged it into the gravel, pulling my way over to the far side of the pile. My feet found bottom and I ran, slogging, slowed like a nightmare in the dark waters.

  I gained the barn, footholds better now, wading knee-deep through the water, heading toward the hill—

  He struck me from behind, slipping, his blow not true.

  I spun and struck him with the thing in my hand for all I was worth.

  38

  When the Sheriff’s men found me, I was forty feet above the waters, clinging to a high branch of an old apple tree. Sonja Karsh’s skull was still in my hands. I had heard them calling from their boats, pulling Jim from the water. When their searchlights found Matthew, they had followed the muddy hollows of my tracks through the trees. I heard them calling me, had seen their flashlights dodging like fairies through the branches, but I was so cold it didn’t occur to me to answer.

  Detective Muller climbed up and gently took this burden from me, plucking it with a plastic bag lest he spoil any evidence. Then he helped me out of the tree, speaking softly, saying, “There, there now,” as if I were a naughty kitten that had escaped its mother. When we were on the ground, he pulled my rain jacket and sodden sweater off me and draped me with a blanket. Then he shone a flashlight on the skull. “It’s half-full of gravel,” he said, smiling. “I wondered why it was so heavy.”

  “The rest of her bones will be at the bottom of the excavation.”

  “Why, thank you. Now we have enough to get a warrant on this place, too.”

  “You mean you have one for the other farm?”

  “Mrs. Karsh’s home? My, my, you have such little faith in us. You think we were giving the Karsh family hands off? We searched it when Janet Pinchon’s body was found, and paid them another call the day after you were assaulted. But patience is everything. The farther people wander down the path of mischief, the bolder and more erratic they get, and eventually step right out into the open.” He turned the skull around delicately in his hands, regarding this remnant of lost promise with sadness and respect. “Now we have habeas corpus.”

  * * *

  DIERDRE KARSH’S EYES grew bright and alert at the sight of myself and Detective Muller at her door. “Why, Em, what brings you out on a night like this?” she asked brightly. “And who’s this with you?”

  I smiled. “I’m sure you’ve met Detective Muller.”

  “Oh, I didn’t recognize you, Detective. Come in. Can I get you some tea?”

  Muller extended the search warrant. “No need for that, Mrs. Karsh. We’re just here to cover a few points we missed during our last visit.”

  “Well, I can’t imagine what that might be, but you’re welcome, of course.…” She turned away, her spine stiff with repressed emotion.

  Muller turned to me, nodded toward the tank house. “Over there?”

  “Yes.”

  The Sheriff’s deputies fanned out across the yard, hands at the ready. One stood proprietarily by Mrs. Karsh. Detective Muller and I approached the door, which was dark with rain and lack of light, all power in the district still out with the storm. The door was locked. Turning back to Mrs. Karsh, Muller said, “You’ll unlock this, please.”

  Mrs. Karsh’s eyes held that light I’d seen the first evening we had stood in her dooryard. When she spoke, her voice had begun to change, taking on that seductive, disarming quality I had come to know so well. “Oh, that? I’m not sure I still have a key.”

  “Odd,” said the ever-cheerful Muller, playing his flashlight on the lock, “the handle turns smoothly, and when I rub off this smear of dirt, the brass is shiny where a key has so recently worked it again and again. Unlock it, please.”

  Raising her eyebrows to suggest she knew nothing about this, Dierdre Karsh marched across the yard to the door and withdrew a chain of keys from her apron pocket. She made a show of trying one key after another, then managed to look surprised when a very shiny one worked. Shaking her head in disbelief, like this was all very unexpected, she stepped aside.

  Detective Muller opened the door. A narrow wooden staircase led upward around two sides of the narrow space, spiraling toward a trap door. Muller’s flashlight danced through festoons of cobwebs and ages of dust everywhere but on the stairs. We climbed.

  The hatch swung heavily, but caught against a support, forming a railing to grasp as we climbed the last few steps. Preceding me, Muller swung his light and groaned.

  I was assaulted by the reek of urine and feces. I saw the missing photographs of Janet, this one stabbed to the wall with an ice pick and that one spoiled by something that looked sticky. I sat down on the top step and held my head in my hands.

  “That’s good, Em,” Muller said, his voice grown husky with feeling. “You don’t want to see any more. Jane,” he called to a uniformed officer in the yard, “read Mrs. Karsh her rights!”

  As I reached the bottom step, I heard Dierdre Karsh speaking to the officer, her voice oddly cheerful, like a booster at a pep rally t
rying to exhort a dreary bystander to join the occasion. “Why are you doing this? Don’t you see, I never go in there. My son’s a frail creature, he doesn’t know what he’s doing half the time. Must you put these manacles on my wrists? Really, why are you doing this? There’s no need.…”

  I took a good look into her eyes. She was alone with her fantasy.

  39

  Settling my weary bones at Frida and Kitty’s kitchen table two hours later was a pleasure that would be hard to exceed. Frida had the late edition of the PD open on the table for me to admire. Banner headlines read: “Pinchon Connection to Money-Laundering Ring Seen,” with the subheading “Laguna Development Blocked by Dead Man’s Will.” The eleven-o’clock news on television was even sweeter: Curt Murbles mobbed by reporters’ microphones, his sniveling face drawn up in defeat, spitting out his last press conference before the long walk into unemployment and oblivion.

  As my universe shifted ever so slightly toward the state of balance I crave, I savored the moment, even allowed myself a bit of smugness.

  Frida was stirring cocoa on the stove. “So what happened with Matthew?”

  “They’re holding him on two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, and assault,” I answered, cuddling down into the thick terry cloth bathrobe Kitty had given me to wear. The thing hung clear to the floor and covered my feet, which were wrinkled like raisins after the hot bath Kitty had prescribed. “Jim Erikson’s in the hospital with a concussion, water in his lungs, and exposure, but they say he’ll be okay. A Sheriff’s deputy nabbed Jaime as he was beaching Mr. Karsh’s powerboat and making for his truck. He’s being held as accessory to murder.”