A Grave Talent km-1

by Laurie R. King

  They could, and did, but though the rest allowed them to catch their breath, it also allowed Kate's bangs, bruises, and cuts to catch up with her and make her all too aware of how wet and muddy she was. She forced herself to her feet.

  "How much farther to the bridge?"

  Tommy looked in the direction of the roar and seemed to be counting.

  "Not far. If it's there. The water's going down, but whooee! it was higher this morning than I've ever seen it."

  Wild thoughts of Tarzan swings from the redwoods flashed through Kate's mind, and a knot began to form in her stomach.

  "Are you sure, Inspector—Casey, that you don't want to do something about your leg?"

  "Let's get across first." The leg hurt, and the muscle quivered when she first stood up, but it would hold. They set off down the slippery hill toward the noise.

  The bridge, such as it was, was there. Barely.

  Kate and Tommy stood between two sturdy trees, the water lapping at their toes. Before them lay fifteen feet of fast, dangerous, dirty water, and three logs, twenty feet long and ten to twelve inches thick, that bobbled and fretted in the wash of water spilling over them.

  Tommy squatted down onto his boots, a slow, calculating look on his face. Kate felt nearly paralyzed, the knot in her stomach reaching now from bowels to throat, and thought that really she'd better turn back fast, before the light was gone completely, because she couldn't think of a single thing in her training that mentioned how to avoid being swept away into the clutches of several million tons of water and rock. It was a long way from learning how to get a knife from a wacko junkie, and all in all she'd rather face a wacko junkie than this—two junkies, armed with guns even—and really the bridge could hardly be said to be "in," now could it? And Christ, she hadn't even brought a rope to do a Tarzan swing. There'd be no failure in turning back now, no cowardice; even a man would say that pile of floating sticks was no bridge, certainly not passable…

  She tore her eyes away from the creek and looked at Tommy, his face calm, deliberate, still calculating slowly.

  "Is it passable?" she asked. Her voice, she was pleased to note, was steady, though shouting helped.

  He pursed his lips and seemed to come to a decision. He straightened and shouted back at her.

  "I think so. There used to be four logs, but if those three haven't gone, they probably won't now."

  Probably.

  Probably was very little protection against that hungry-looking water. Probably was no help at all if the extra joggling of her weight caused a log to slip out from its wedged mooring and toss her gaily into the torrent that—

  She pushed the thought into a closed room, shut the door hard, and set her mind to the job.

  "Thanks, Tommy, I couldn't have found it without your help. I won't have any problems finding the Road—"

  "Oh, no, I'm not going to leave you now," he said, and before she could grab him, he was into the muddy water. The three logs settled obediently under his weight, bound together somehow, and although his feet disappeared under the water, he walked surely across and up onto the other side and turned in the loose tangle of branches to wait for her.

  Kate took a step into the water and stopped as a chilling little thought bubbled up into her mind. Tommy Chester is a suspect, said the little singsong voice. Tommy is not completely right between the ears, said the voice, and Tommy found the first body, and, yes, it made him sick but what if he himself did put it there, and what if he's waiting to give those logs a nudge when you're out on them? She looked across at the darkening hillside, less than twenty feet away. Was that a shadow across his face, or was he smirking at her?

  She took another step into the icy water, and another, until the toes of her shoes hit the rough end of one of the logs, and she looked up at Tommy, who stood, waiting, in the water at the other end. Half consciously she lowered the zipper of her jacket, and she stepped onto the logs.

  It actually was a bridge—uneven and very wet, but it was thirty inches wide, and the logs did hold together as a unit.

  Tommy didn't move, and she took another step, and another, and now she could feel the water tug at her feet, and she walked with bent knees, her arms outstretched. Tommy didn't move, and she took three more steps into the grasping torrent, and three more, and she was four feet from the far end when her shoes betrayed her and she went down.

  Her right arm caught around the top log, and she clung desperately as the full force of the water sucked her body into the middle of the stream and pulled. Her muscles fought to get one leg up, around the logs, to sit up, and she might have made it, might have won, but for the shifting of her body on the tenuous balance of the wood in the water. She felt the whole bridge shift violently and cried out, tried to scramble to the bank, so close, and a wave slapped her face as the bridge became a raft, and she flung her left hand hopelessly toward solid ground, and it connected with flesh, a hard, warm human hand that gripped her wrist like a vise and held her gasping and blind in the water as the logs scraped and slithered across her body, struck her hip a glancing blow and began their brief journey to the sea.

  She was buried in water, but the hand was still there, one solid reality in the tumbling, shocking, cold universe. She worked her other hand up to the bony wrist above her and clung. Something touched her side, and again, and then a third time, and she realized that she was among the tangle of branches that dragged into the water and that the rush of the stream was slightly less powerful here. She got her face to the surface, gulped a wet breath and coughed violently, but managed to catch a glimpse of the bare branches that surrounded her. The grip on her wrist held, though it must be costing him a lot to hang on, she knew, and she raised her head again to look for a branch big enough to take her weight. There were none this far out, but she forced her free hand to let go of his wrist, slowly, and plunged her arm up into the tangle, pulling herself deeper into the thicket, and then her legs found a submerged purchase and, half lying on her back, she shoved and pulled and scrabbled up and out of the current, which seemed to gibber its disappointment as she cleared the branches and collapsed on the bank beyond, coughing and retching.

  It was some time before she could speak. ,

  "You can let go of my wrist now, Tommy."

  "I can't."

  She turned her head and looked at him where he lay, arms fully outstretched between the anchoring tree and her hand, his feet in the water, a distressed look on his face. She started to giggle, then, in relief and the dregs of terror and the absurdity of their position.

  "Well, you'll have to, damn it, or my hand will fall off."

  He started laughing too, then, and the two drenched and filthy creatures lay guffawing helplessly on the edge of the mindless creek, until Kate finally crawled to her knees and pried his grip, finger by finger, from her wrist. She rubbed her hand to bring back the circulation and watched Tommy slowly flex the abused muscles of his arms and chest and try to move his hands.

  "You're going to be damn sore tomorrow, Tommy."

  He thought for a moment. "Not as sore as you'd be if I'd let you go."

  "No," she agreed, and started to laugh again until sensation came back to her fingers. She staggered to her feet, moved away from the water, and sat down on a log to begin the necessary process of removing several gallons of water from shoes and clothing. The weakness in her hands was terrible, and she concentrated on squeezing out the sodden jacket until she looked up to see Tommy seriously pouring about a quart of water from a boot, and she started laughing again, weakly, until she needed to go behind the bushes, but the thought of peeling off her wet, clinging trousers was too much for her, so she just lay back and laughed until the tears came, and then the telephone rang.

  It was the walkie-talkie, crackling and muffled by the water-sogged heap of cloth and its plastic covering. It squawked angrily for quite some time before Kate uncovered and unwrapped it.

  "Good evening, Al, at least I assume this is Al—who else would call
at such a totally inconvenient time? Remind me to tell you sometime what I think of your telephone calls, Al. What can I do for you? Over."

  His voice came blasting tinnily out from the machine.

  "Thank God you're all right, are you all right, and what about Chesler? Tyler saw what he said looked like the bridge wash by a minute ago. Over."

  "It was the bridge. We're both wet but thanks to Tommy unhurt, just bangs and a mild case of hysterics, but if I sit here and chat with you we'll both freeze to death, so I think I'll sign off if it's all the same to you." And she did so.

  All four feet squished as they walked, but despite the wind the effort of movement kept the cold from becoming seriously threatening, and the path back to the Road was both shorter and less strenuous than it had been on the other side. It was nearly full dark when they reached the deserted road.

  "Where are we now, Tommy?"

  "About a half a mile up from the washout."

  "Then it's about a mile to the Dodsons?"

  "Is that where we're going?"

  "No, you're going home. It shouldn't take you more than ten minutes and it's not that dark. I'm going on up."

  Tommy stood for a long minute, his face screwed up with the effort of thought. Then he shook his head and turned decisively uphill.

  "I suppose you can threaten me with your gun, or handcuff me to a tree, but short of that you won't get rid of me. Tyler told me to guide you, and that's what I'm going to do. Sorry, Casey, you're stuck with me." She saw his teeth flash white in the dark and heard him move off. She fell in beside him and undipped the flashlight from her belt.

  "All right, and thank you, Tommy. I'll take you, but on one condition: you have to promise me that if I tell you to do something, you'll do it, immediately, no questions. Even if you think I'm in danger. You've saved my life once tonight, but remember, I'm a cop, and it's what I'm paid to do. Promise me? No hesitations?"

  "Okay. We're going to the Dodsons', then?"

  "No, we're not. We're going to see Vaun Adams."

  Something in her voice stopped him dead. She kept walking.

  "Vaunie? But you don't… you can't think… Vaun? But, she's…"

  "I think it would be best if you went home, Tommy, I really do."

  "But you're not going to arrest her? She couldn't have killed those girls, she couldn't have."

  "Tommy, do you know anything you haven't told us about?"

  "No, but—"

  "She couldn't have done it because you like her, is that it?"

  "Yes, but—"

  "I like her too, Tommy, but there's a lot of things we've found that make us want to ask her some more questions, to see what she knows."

  Euphemisms for the truth, but Tommy was just simple enough to half believe them and trust in her official status. His agitation lessened, though he remained dissatisfied. At the foot of Vaun's hill he looked up to where a soft glow illuminated the windows of the big room.

  "I'll go up, but I won't go in."

  "You can go now, if you want. You've been a tremendous help, Tommy. I can't even begin to thank you."

  "No, I'll take you to the door." Tommy had accepted the responsibility and was no more about to abandon her than he would have left Tina Merrill, although just then he'd have been hard put to decide which task was the more unpleasant.

  13

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  Kate pulled at the bell rope and listened as the deep, gonglike sound reverberated through the still house and died away. She heard no vibrations of walking (or running) feet, no sound of response. She tried the door, and was surprised to find it locked. Apprehension stirred in her. She pushed past Tommy and moved around the front of the house to the big expanse of windows. She could see the back of the sofa, the wood stove with a low fire flickering in its glass front and a squat black pot on top, a single electric light shining above the sofa, a low glossy cabinet with its door slightly ajar and a nearly empty bottle on top. No glass.

  Moving faster now, Kate continued around, tried the side door, found it locked, and moved up around the house past the woodpile to the back, where the house dug itself into the hillside. Narrow windows, below knee level, were all that appeared of the lower story. A shaft of light from the swinging door that joined the kitchen and living room, propped open now, angled across the kitchen table, set with one plate, one bowl, silver. She went down on her knees, trying to see into the living room from this side.

  "What's wrong, Casey? Isn't she—"

  "Oh, God, oh God, I knew it," Kate moaned, and tugged impotently at the window frame. The damn woman would choose tonight to start locking her doors!

  "What's the matter?"

  "Damn it all, man, get out of my way," she swore and pushed him aside, ran back to the neat stack of firewood next to the side door, and snatched up a sturdy branch. At the window she ordered Tommy back out of the way, yanked off her jacket and held it up across her face, and slammed the piece of wood into the window. She ran the branch hard along all four edges, and shards of glass exploded onto the tile floor, the chairs, and the potted plants with a violent sound that shocked the night. Kate swept the splinters from the ledge with the stick, threw her jacket across the bottom of the frame, scooped the flashlight up from the ground and thrust it at Tommy, and rolled herself into the room.

  "You stay there," she ordered, and crunched rapidly across the glass into the living room.

  Vaun Adams lay neatly tucked up on the sofa that faced the fireplace, her face slack, one hand limp over the edge of the pillows. A small, stubby glass and a paperback novel lay on the floor beneath the hand. The tumbled black curls gleamed even in the dull lamplight, and her face was the pallor of death.

  But alive, still alive, though her heart was slow and erratic.

  "Tommy!" Kate yelled, "I need the nurse. Go find her, fast."

  "You mean Terry Allen? Yes, I think she's up here today, though she usually works—"

  "Go!" she screamed, and he took off, the flashlight skit tering its beam across the ground as he ran heavily past the windows. Kate found a bowl in the kitchen and got to work on Vaun. It took an agonizingly long time before Vaun roused enough to vomit, and she sank immediately back into her deadly lethargy. Kate left her lying on her side and retrieved the walkie-talkie. Her back twinged, for some reason, as well as her thigh. She ignored them.

  "Hawkin, Hawkin, c'mon Al, I need you."

  "Hawkin here, Casey, what's up?"

  "Vaun Adams has taken some kind of overdose. I emptied her out, but I need medical support right now. Tommy's gone to get the nurse, but this lady needs a hospital. Is there any chance of getting a medicopter in?"

  "The wind's died down a lot. If you can get a lighted clear area, they should do it. Any chance of that?"

  "I can't leave her now, but when Tommy gets back we'll do something. This may be him now, gotta go."

  If anything Vaun looked worse, her breathing slow and rasping. The bob and swirl of lights coming up the hill had caught Kate's eye, and she went to open the front door to Angie and Amy Dodson and a hairy man whom she took to be the absent Tony, returned from Sacramento. She spoke quickly.

  "Vaun's sick. She needs a doctor. There's a medical helicopter that'll be here in twenty minutes, but they need a big, flat, clear area with lights around it to land in. Can you do it?"

  Angie recovered first.

  "The pony's field, that's the best place. We'll make bonfires at the four corners. Would that do it?"

  "Ideal, but hurry."

  Angie pulled Amy away, and Tony followed, slower. Her rapid voice came to Kate's ears. "You take Matilda and ride as fast as you can to the Newborns and to Bobby's place. Get them up here, tell them to bring some kerosene…"

  Kate stirred up the fire and watched Vaun's chest rise slowly, struggling against whatever it was in her bloodstream. No sign of pills in the basin—they must have been dissolved in something. The whiskey? The woman's pale face turned slowly bluer, her breath more ragged.
Kate laid two fingers against Vaun's carotid artery and picked up the walkie-talkie with the other hand.

  "Al? Look, I'm not going to be able to respond for a while. I'm going to have to start CPR in a minute. She's losing it."

  "Seven minutes, Casey. Are the lights going?"

  "I just saw the first one start, Al. There she goes. Martinelli out."

  The walkie-talkie crashed to the floor. Kate pulled Vaun onto the carpet and started the rhythmic breathing and heartbeat. Fifteen heartbeats, two quick breaths; fifteen heartbeats, two quick breaths. In two minutes Terry Allen came running in with a small bag in her hand, out of breath, and dropped next to Kate to take over the chest compression. Kate turned gratefully to the easier breathing assist, and the two women worked in silence until they felt the distant, subaudible thud of the helicopter beneath the gentle crackle from the stove and their own sounds. It came closer, and when it was directly overhead they felt the pounding of it take over their rhythm, and still they worked, until finally the uniformed paramedics clattered in with what seemed like a crowd of escorts and onlookers. One of them kneeled next to Terry and took over, the other gently pulled Kate to one side and set to work with tanks and masks. Kate knelt there, dully overcome by their competence, aware of Terry stretching her arms and clenching her hands a few times. She walked over to Kate and put a hand on her shoulder.

  "Come and sit down until they can look at your cuts."

  Confused, Kate looked down at her thigh, which was still oozing red through her trousers, and her arm, which had stopped bleeding.