John Hart - Down River

She settled lower in the wheelchair, studied the bright world with a contented air. “So, you know Grace?” I asked.

“Fine girl. We talk from time to time.”

“Do you sell her pot?”

“Goodness, no. I’d never sell pot to that girl. Not in a million years.” She took another drag, and when she spoke, her words were compressed. “I give it to her.” There was laughter in her face. “Oh, don’t look so serious. She’s old enough to know her own mind.”

“She was attacked the other day, you know. Right after the last time you saw her.”

“Attacked?”

“Beaten badly. It happened a half mile south of the dock. I was hoping that you might have seen something. A man in a boat or on the trail. Anything like that.”

The laughter vanished, and bleakness settled in the place it had been. “Is she okay?”

“She will be. She’s in the hospital.”

“I went north,” she said. “I saw nothing unusual.”

“Does Ken Miller know who she is?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know him well?”

She waved a hand. “He’s harmless.”

She pulled one more time on the joint, and when the smoke left her lungs it carried much of her vitality with it. “Nice car,” she said, but the words had no meaning. The car just happened to be in her field of vision.

“How do you know me?” I asked. Her eyes cut my way, but she didn’t answer.

“Tell me how you found me,” she said instead.

“Your mother thought you were over this way.”

“Ah,” she said, and there was dark history in that single sound.

I turned my seat to face her. “How do you know me, Sarah?”

But she was stoned, her eyes burnished bright and empty. She was seeing something that I could not, and her words drifted. “There are things in this world of which I do not speak,” she said. “Promises, promises.”

“I don’t understand.”

She crushed the joint out and dropped it on the unswept boards. Her eyelids drooped, but life moved behind the pale green irises, something knowing and wild enough to make me wonder what she saw. She gestured with a bent finger and I leaned closer. She took my face in her hands and kissed me on the mouth. Her lips were soft, slightly parted, and tasted of the joint she’d smoked. It was not a chaste kiss, nor was it overly sexual. Her fingers fell away and she smiled with such mournfulness that I felt an overwhelming sense of loss. “You were such a lovely boy,” she said.

She left me without another word, rolled the chair inside, and closed the door. I got in the car, passed through the trees and thought of Sarah’s mother, whose message I had failed to deliver. They were family gone to ash, the bond between them as bloodless as time can make a thing. Maybe that’s why I felt a kinship, why I thought of once precious bonds charred to light gray nothing.

I slowed as Ken Miller stepped out of the shade and waved me down. He leaned into the window. “Everything okay?” he asked. “She need anything?”

His face was open, but I knew how meaningless that could be. People show you what you want to see. “Do you know Grace Shepherd?” I asked.

“I know who she is.” He nodded through the trees. “Sarah talks about her.”

I watched him closely. “She was assaulted, almost killed. You know anything about that?”

His reaction was unscripted. “I’m truly sorry to hear that,” he said. “She sounds like a fine girl.” He seemed innocent and concerned.

“The police may want to talk to Sarah.” A quick jolt of worry flashed across his face. I watched his eyes roll left, to the long purple bus. That’s where his stash would be. “I thought you might like to know.”

“Thanks.”

I turned on my cell phone as I drove back into Salisbury. It rang almost immediately. It was Robin. “I’m not sure that I’m speaking to you right now,” I said.

“Don’t be stupid, Adam. You lied to us. The questions had to be asked. It’s better that I was there than not.”

“You said that going to Salisbury P.D. instead of the sheriff’s office was for my sake. Did you mean that?”

“Of course. Why else would I do it?” I recognized the truth in her voice and some small part of me loosened. “I’m walking a thin line, Adam. I recognize that. I’m trying to do what’s right.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Where are you?”

“In the car.”

“I need to see you. It’ll only take a minute.” I hesitated. “Please,” she said.

We met in the parking lot of a Baptist church. The steeple rose against the blue sky, a needle of white that dwarfed us. She got right to the point. “I understand that you’re angry. The interview could have gone better.”

“A lot better.”

Conviction crystallized her voice. “You chose to mislead us, Adam, so let’s not pretend that you’re on some moral high ground here. I’m still a cop. I still have responsibilities.”

“You should have never been a part of that.”

“Let me explain something to you. You left me. Get it? You… left… me. All I had left was the job. For five years, that’s all I’ve had. And I’ve worked my ass off. Do you know how many female officers have made detective in the past ten years? Three. Just three, and I’m the youngest in the history of the entire department. You’ve been back for a couple of days. You understand? I’m who I am because you left. It’s my life. I can’t turn it off and you should not expect me to. Not when you made me like this.”

She was angry and defensive. I thought about what she’d said. “You’re right,” I said, and meant it. “This is just bad all around.”

“It may get a little easier.”

“How so?”

“Grantham wants me off the case,” she said. “He’s angry.”

A large crow settled atop the steeple. It spread its wings once then dropped into black-eyed stillness. “Because you told me the truth about Grace?”

“He says I’m biased toward you and your family.”

“Life gets complicated.”

“Well, I’m about to make it more so. I asked around. Grace had a boyfriend.”

“Who?”

“Unknown. The girl I talked to knew almost nothing. He was a secret for some reason; but there were issues there. Something that made Grace unhappy.”

“Who told you this?”

“Charlotte Preston. She was in Grace’s class. She works at the drugstore now.”

“Did you ask Grace about it?”

“She denies it.”

“What about Danny’s ring? Or the note? Those don’t add up to a frustrated boyfriend.”

“I’m sure that Grantham is working on that.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“Because I’m angry, too. Because it’s you and because I’m confused.”

“Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“The body is Danny Faith. Dental records confirm it.”

“I knew it.”

“Did you know that he called your house?” She put a keen edge on her words, and her attention was complete. “It’s on his cell phone records. We just pulled them. Did you talk to him?”

She wanted me to say no. It was too damning, and there could be no easy explanation from where she stood. The timing was pretty bad. I hesitated, and Robin drilled in on it. I saw cop rise in her like a tide. “I spoke with him three weeks ago,” I said.

“Forensics thinks he died three weeks ago.”

“Yeah. Strange, I know.”

“What did you talk about, Adam? What the hell is going on?”

“He wanted a favor.”

“What favor?”

“He wanted me to come home. He wanted to talk about it in person. I told him I wouldn’t come. He got pissed.”

“Why did you come, then?”