DreadfulWater Shows Up

by Thomas King

Cooley was standing beside Beaumont, making sure the man didn’t get any more bad ideas.

  “Thanks,” said Thumps.

  “I was only kidding about you not being a friend.”

  “I know.”

  “You know what?” said Cooley. “I like playing cowboys and Indians.”

  “Looks like you kicked a little cowboy butt.”

  “You got your camera?” said Cooley, a big smile on his face. “Maybe you can get a picture of me standing over the cowboy. My girlfriend would like that.”

  Now that, thought Thumps, was the best idea he had heard all week.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Thumps was sure that being shot was not high on Hockney’s list of things to do, but being shot during a grand opening of luxury condominiums turned out to be a blessing. Excluding Beth, of the two-hundred-odd guests who were lounging in the casino looking wealthy, seven turned out to be doctors. Before the ambulance had even left the city limits of Chinook, three were attending the sheriff, who was not badly wounded, and four were looking after Beaumont, who was still alive.

  Cooley, who had done most of the shooting, was standing off to one side, talking to guests and getting his picture taken.

  Claire, who had not been shot, wasn’t any happier than the sheriff. “Since I asked you to help, three people have been murdered, two people have been shot, and my son is in the hospital.”

  “Two people murdered,” corrected Thumps. “Takashi was already dead.”

  The computer complex itself was now crowded with the curious, straining to see what a crime scene looked like. The tour had evidently been cancelled or at least postponed because Sterling Noseworthy, who should have been herding the rich through the condos, was instead standing by the door, unsure whether to come in or stay out. The man was on the verge of quivering, but there was no way to tell whether it was from fear or excitement.

  “I have to go back into town,” said Thumps.

  “What about this?” said Claire, as if the mess was his fault.

  “And you have company.”

  Claire didn’t turn around. She searched Thumps’ face, trying to catch a reflection off his eyes. “Don’t leave me with Sterling.”

  “It’s okay. He appears to have lost his raison d’être,” said Thumps, pleased that he could still remember some of his university French.

  “Shouldn’t you be taking pictures?”

  Beth was kneeling next to Duke, checking his wound. The sheriff was looking better now. His colour was back, and he was beginning to sound like his grumpy old self. “DreadfulWater,” he said, trying to find a comfortable position against the wall, “you look remarkably spic and span.”

  “Remember.” Thumps said with a smile. “I didn’t get shot.”

  Beth shook her head. “I hope you boys are done having fun for the day.”

  Duke turned his head and gritted his teeth. “Beaumont going to live?”

  “Maybe,” said Beth. “If I leave you two alone, will you promise to be good?”

  Duke watched Beth as she moved into the crowd of doctors standing around Beaumont. “Now there is a woman who could kick both our butts.”

  “I need a favour.”

  The sheriff looked as though he wanted to laugh. “You get me shot and now you want a favour?”

  “I saved your life.”

  “Thought you said Cooley saved my life.”

  “We’re related.”

  “Get out of here,” said Duke. “Before I arrest you.”

  “For what?”

  “Practice.”

  The ride back to town was exhilarating, partly because Thumps had the windows rolled down and partly because he kept his foot on the accelerator. He did slow down as he slipped into Chinook and out the other side, but as soon as he hit the edge of the city and open road again, he leaned into the Volvo and pushed it well over the speed limit.

  And he didn’t slow down until he hit the turnoff for Shadow Ranch.

  * * *

  The parking lot in front of the golf club was nearly empty. The rich, Thumps thought uncharitably, probably preferred to play in the morning so that the evening activities of dining and drinking wouldn’t be interrupted or delayed. He parked his car in a reserved space next to the clubhouse. No one tows cars out of a golf course parking lot where the wealthy play. Not even twenty-year-old Volvos.

  The man behind the desk was older than Thumps, which was a pleasant change from all the vacant and scrubbed faces he had had to endure on his other visits to Shadow Ranch.

  “You must be DreadfulWater.”

  “Guilty.”

  “Ms. Traynor said you might show up.”

  “She tee off already?”

  “About twenty minutes ago.” The man turned and looked out the window. “She asked me to set up a cart for you, in case you showed up. You can probably catch her on number three.”

  Clouds were piling up against the mountains. The wind had shifted, and there was the smell of rain in the air. Thumps sat in the cart and considered the tables on the patio overlooking the eighteenth green. It had been a long day, and what he really wanted to do was find a comfortable spot, order a ham and brie sandwich with a Caesar salad, a large glass of lemonade, and a piece of cherry pie, and wait for Traynor to finish her round.

  That’s what a photographer would do.

  Traynor was waiting for him on the fourth tee.

  “Glad you could make it.”

  “The party was too exciting for me.”

  “Elliot didn’t come with you?”

  Beaumont wasn’t going anywhere for a very long time. If he lived at all. The doctors had not been unanimous about his survival. He had lost a great deal of blood. The bullet had shattered a rib and punctured a lung.

  “No,” said Thumps. “He had some loose ends to tie up.”

  “I understand the computer system is working well.”

  “You’re asking the wrong person.”

  “But I’m playing golf with the right person,” said Traynor. “Why don’t you take honours? I have to make a quick call.”

  Thumps fished a ball out of the bag and set it in the grass on a tee. The fairway in front of him was wide and rolling, with a fringe of trees on either side. The sun was behind him and low, and the shadows stretched down the fairway as if they were trying to reach the safety of the green in the distance.

  His ball found one of the two fairway bunkers on the right. Traynor had walked off the tee with the phone to her ear. He wondered whether she was trying to reach Beaumont. He planned to tell her what had happened, but not yet, not until he had had a chance to unwind and enjoy the game.

  “Sorry about that.” Traynor took her driver out, set the ball in position, and drove it straight down the fairway. “Let’s be sociable and take the one cart.”

  “Okay.”

  “They can pick the other one up later. So,” she said, looking down the fairway, “where did you go?”

  The shot out of the sand trap went right, and Thumps was left with a short chip out of heavy rough. Traynor’s second shot found the green.

  “I don’t suppose you want to put a little money on each hole.”

  “I can’t even afford to play here.”

  “It’s the computer age,” said Traynor. “How about we play for information?”

  “Sure.”

  “Person who wins the hole gets to ask a question.”

  “About anything?”

  “Why not?” said Traynor. “Neither of us could be that exciting.”

  Thumps’ third shot was a delicate piece of work that wound up six feet from the hole. Traynor almost dropped her putt and tapped in for a par.

  “If you miss this putt,” she said, “I get first blood.”

  Thumps lined the putt up, stroked it clean, and watched it slide into the hole and lip out.

  “Nice par,” he said as they drove to the fifth tee. “What do you want to kno
w?”

  “The Obsidian Murders. Did you ever catch the killer?”

  “No.”

  Traynor smiled. “‘No’ won’t do.”

  “We found some physical evidence, and there were all sorts of theories about the placement of the bodies, but nothing ever fit.”

  “And then the killings stopped?”

  “Yes. The killings stopped.”

  “And you left the police force shortly after that.”

  “I thought you only got one question,” said Thumps.

  “It is only one question,” said Traynor. “Was the little girl your child?”

  Thumps could feel his face turning to stone. This wasn’t a game he wanted to play.

  “If I’m being too personal,” said Traynor, “just tell me.”

  “You’re being too personal.”

  Traynor hooked her drive to the left edge of the fairway. Thumps hit a better drive and kept the ball on the short grass.

  “Her name was Callie. She wasn’t my daughter. I was friends with her mother.”

  “How long?”

  “Three years.”

  “That’s a long time.”

  Yes, Thumps thought to himself, three years was a lifetime.

  He won the hole, dropping a twenty-five-foot putt. When they got to the sixth tee, Traynor held up her arms in surrender.

  “Your turn to skin me alive.”

  “I don’t know enough about you to do that.”

  Traynor’s face softened. “I suspect you do. Did I thank you for saving my company?”

  “I didn’t save anything.”

  “Sure you did. I mean, it was messy, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.”

  “It was worse.” Thumps teed his ball up and turned to Traynor. “Where were you born?”

  “Sacramento, California. I’m thirty-eight. But I don’t look it.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Is that really the question you wanted to ask?”

  “Sacramento’s a nice place.”

  The next two holes were played even. When they got to the ninth green, they were both lying two.

  Traynor leaned on her putter and looked back toward the clubhouse. It was off in the distance, and all you could see was the roof and part of the parking lot. “Did you know that we are at the farthest point of the course? From here, if you walked quickly, it would take you fifteen minutes to get to the clubhouse.”

  “How about by golf cart?”

  “Five minutes. More if you stayed on the cart path.”

  “Long course.”

  “And the ninth green is the largest green.” Traynor marked her ball. “It’s sixty feet by forty feet.”

  “Looks like you’re away.”

  “Yes,” said Traynor, “it certainly does.”

  Virginia’s putt was a thirty-five footer, with a nasty right-to-left break. Thumps watched as she lined it up and stroked the ball into the centre of the hole.

  Thumps’ putt wasn’t even close.

  “My turn for another question.”

  “Fire away.”

  Traynor walked over to Thumps, touched his face, and kissed him. It wasn’t the way Claire kissed him. This one was sad and tasted like regret.

  “So,” she said. “When did you figure everything out?”

  “After Chan was killed.”

  “But you suspected earlier on.”

  “Too many things didn’t make sense.”

  “Like what?”

  “Friend of mine looked you up on the Internet.”

  “And?”

  “It was odd that a computer company which works almost exclusively for large banks and investment houses was setting up a casino computer system for a small tribe in the middle of nowhere. And doing it for less than the going rate.”

  “We have a social conscience.”

  “Genesis Data Systems has never been in the casino business.”

  “Banking’s a gamble.”

  Thumps shook his head. “You needed a test site. Somewhere to test a particular system without drawing any attention. The sequence transfers. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “Sounds like a ‘B’ movie.” Traynor was smiling and playing with her hair, as if she had just been paid a compliment. “And what do you suppose these . . . sequence transfers do?”

  “They transfer money. From one bank to another.”

  “Very good.”

  “But yours does something else, doesn’t it?”

  “Does it?” She was enjoying herself

  Thumps slid his putter back in the bag. “The only reason for banks to exist is money. My guess is that your program, your sequence transfers, is going to allow you to help yourself to that money.”

  “An intriguing guess.”

  “But bank security is good. This is a one-shot deal, isn’t it? And before you could risk triggering the system, you had to test it somewhere quiet and out of the way, in case it didn’t work exactly as it was designed.”

  Traynor took off her glove, leaned her putter against the cart, and opened a pouch on her bag. “Takashi’s death wasn’t particularly quiet.”

  “Maybe Takashi found out about the system. Maybe he was in on it and wanted a bigger share. You want to tell me?”

  “You don’t need my help.”

  “I’d bet on his wanting a larger share. Chan kills Takashi and then has to kill Floyd when Floyd gets too close.”

  In the distance, Thumps could hear the sound of sirens.

  Traynor half turned to look back at the clubhouse. “Is that the cavalry?”

  “Sheriff sort of owed me a favour.”

  “Elliot?”

  “He tried to kill the sheriff and me.”

  “Ah,” said Traynor. “And that’s why he’s not able to join us.”

  “He’s not dead. I expect he’ll fill in the rest of the blanks.”

  “Blanks?”

  “For instance, which banks are involved. How much you expected to make. Stuff like that.”

  “But you’re not interested in that.”

  “To some degree,” said Thumps. “But what I’m really curious about is who killed Chan. You or Beaumont?”

  “Sorry,” said Traynor. “You didn’t win the hole.”

  She was still smiling, but now she also had a gun. And it was pointed at Thumps’ chest.

  “I’d like that disk, please.”

  “Why?”

  “A souvenir, if you like.”

  Thumps looked back at the clubhouse.

  “They won’t get here in time,” said Traynor. “Right now, they’re trying to decide what to do. The club won’t let them bring their cars on the course. It will be at least fifteen minutes before they organize themselves in golf carts. Another five before they get here.”

  “Are you going to shoot me?” It was a stupid question. Thumps was quite sure that Traynor would shoot him if she felt like it.

  “It’s not part of my immediate plans.”

  He took the disk from his pocket and tossed it to her. “You going to make a run for it in a golf cart?”

  Traynor laughed and pulled her hair out of her eyes. “A golf-cart chase through the woods. Intriguing, but not very practical.”

  “Then it looks as though you’re going to get caught.”

  “That’s what I like about you, Thumps. Ever the pessimist.” She turned the cart off and took the key. “Ah, sounds like my ride is here.”

  Off in the distance, Thumps heard the faint hum of an engine. At first he thought that the club had let the police bring their cars onto the course. But as the sound came closer, he realized that it was coming from the wrong direction. It was coming from the forest.

  “It’s around a hundred million,” said Traynor. “And you’re already too late to stop it.”

  The helicopter came sliding over the tops of the trees like an airborne shark. The downdraft caught Thumps
and knocked him off balance. Virginia waited at the edge of the green, while the helicopter landed and a door was opened.

  “I still want to see some of your photographs,” she shouted as she climbed into the helicopter.

  “Stop by next time you’re in town,” shouted Thumps, but he was sure she couldn’t hear him over the thump, thump, thump of the rotor.

  Traynor had been right. The police cars were still parked at the clubhouse and there was no sign of the law, mounted on golf carts, galloping down the hill to the rescue.

  Thumps watched the helicopter rise into the evening air and head south. He watched it until it disappeared. Then he took out his putter and practised the putt he had missed until the police arrived.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Thumps spent the next three hours in the Shadow Ranch clubhouse explaining the plot to the police until they got it straight. A call had gone out within thirty minutes of Virginia’s escape, but Thumps doubted that anyone was going to find the helicopter in time to keep her from going where she wanted to go. More than likely, she had timed everything so that she would be out of the sky by the time the police were airborne.

  “We may want to talk to you some more,” one of the deputies told him.

  “Sure.”

  “So, don’t leave town.”

  Thumps would have liked to have finished the back nine, but it was almost dark now, and he wanted to get to the hospital before visiting hours were over.

  “You need me anymore?”

  “You’re sure she was headed south?”

  Thumps could have said she was headed west or north or east with the same chance of being right. Once Traynor was out of sight, she could have changed directions at will. Thumps guessed the phone call that she had made on the golf course was to bring the helicopter in. Had she realized she was in jeopardy as soon as he showed up? That must have been it. And then she had played six holes of golf while she waited for her ride to arrive.

  For the sake of law enforcement, Thumps told himself, it was probably a good thing that most of the criminals in the world were men.

  * * *

  Stick was sitting up watching television. Claire was reading a magazine. If it hadn’t been a hospital room, the whole scene would have looked domestic.

  “Hey, Thumps,” said Stick. “Mom says you shot some dude.”