John Hart - Down River

“You drunk?” he asked.

Jamie was still mad; you could see it. “No,” he said. “I’m hungover.”

“Well, keep it together, boy.”

Jamie climbed into his truck, slumped in the seat, and lit a cigarette. That left the older men and me. My father led us a few steps away. He looked apologetic. “He’s not usually like this,” he said, then looked at Dolf. “You okay?”

“It’ll take more than that boy’s got to ruin my day,” Dolf said.

“Where’d you hide the gun?” I asked.

“In a coffee can in the kitchen.”

“They’ll find it,” I said.

“Yep.”

I studied Dolf’s face. “Is there any chance that it can be linked to Danny’s death?”

“I can’t imagine how.”

“Do you have any handguns?” I asked my father.

He shook his head and his gaze went to some distant place. My mother had killed herself with one of his handguns. It was a stupid question, insensitive, but when he spoke, his face was a rock. “What a mess,” he said.

He was right, and I wondered how it all fit. Danny’s death, now clearly considered a homicide; the attack on Grace; Zebulon Faith; the power plant; the rest of it. I looked at Dolf’s house, full of strangers. Change was coming, and no way would it be the good kind.

“I have to go,” I said.

My father looked old.

I nodded at the house. “Parks is right about one thing. They’re looking to pin Danny’s death on somebody, and for whatever reason, Grantham seems to be looking at us. That means that he’ll be looking at me in particular.” No one contradicted me. “I need to talk to somebody.”

“Talk to who?”

“Something just occurred to me. It may be nothing, but I need to check it out.”

“Can you tell us what it is?” Dolf asked.

I thought about it. Until Danny’s body was found in that hole, everybody thought he was in Florida. His father. Jamie. There had to be a reason for that, and I thought I might find it at the Faithful Motel. It was a place to start, at any rate. “Later,” I said. “If it pans out.” I took two steps and stopped, turned back to my father. His face was heavy and filled with sadness. I spoke from the heart. “I appreciate what you said to Parks.”

He nodded. “You are my son.”

I looked at Dolf. “Tell him why you hid the gun, would you? There’s no reason for that to be a secret between us.”

“All right.”

I got in the car, wondering how my father would feel when Dolf told him just how close I’d come to killing Zebulon Faith. Given the way that we all felt about Grace, I thought he’d probably understand. It was the least of our problems.

I turned off the farm and onto smooth, black pavement. The road was cooked; it shimmered under the sun. I went back to the Faithful Motel and found Manny behind the counter. “It’s Manny, right?”

“Emmanuel.”

“Is your boss here?” I asked.

“No.”

I nodded. “When I was here before you told me about Danny. You said that he’d gotten into a fight with his girlfriend and then gone to Florida when she took out a warrant.”

“Sí.”

“Can you tell me the girl’s name?”

“No. But she has a cut here now.” He drew a finger across his right cheek.

“What does she look like?”

“White. Kind of fat. Trashy.” He shrugged. “Danny would sleep with anybody.”

“What were they fighting about?”

“He was breaking up with her.”

I had a sudden flash of intuition. “It was you that called the police,” I said. “That first day I came.”

A smile cracked the seamed, brown face. “Sí.”

“You may have saved my life.”

He shrugged. “I need the job. I hate the boss. This is life.”

“Did the police search this place?” I was thinking of drugs.

“They search. They find nothing. They look for Mr. Faith. They find nothing.”

I waited for more, but he was finished. “You told me that Danny is in Florida. How do you know that?”

“He sent a postcard.” No hesitation, no sign of dishonesty.

“Do you still have it?”

“I think so.” He turned for the back room, came back, and handed me a postcard. I took it by the edges; it was a picture of blue water and white sand. It had the name of a resort in the upper-right corner, and a slogan in pink letters across the bottom: SOMETIMES IT’S JUST RIGHT. “It was on the bulletin board,” Emmanuel told me.

I looked at the back. In printed letters it read, “Having a blast. Danny.”

“When did you get this?” I asked.

Emmanuel scratched at his cheek. “He had the fight with the girl and then he left. Maybe four days after that. Two weeks ago. Two and a half weeks. Something like that.”

“Did he pack anything?”

“I did not see him after he hit the girl.”

I asked a few more questions, but they led nowhere. I debated whether or not to tell him that Danny Faith was dead, but decided against it. It would hit the papers soon enough.

“Listen, Emmanuel. If the police find Mr. Faith, he may be going away for a while.” I paused, to make sure he was following me. “You might want to start looking for another job.”

“But Danny-”

“Danny won’t be running the motel. It will probably close.”

He looked very troubled. “This is true, what you say?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, stared at the counter for so long I wasn’t sure that he was planning to look up. “The police search everywhere,” he finally said. “But there is a storage unit. It’s by the interstate, the one with the blue doors. There was a maid, Maria. She’s gone now. He made her sign the papers. It is in her name. Number thirty-six.”

I digested this. “Do you know what’s in that storage unit?” I asked.

The old man looked ashamed. “Drugs.”

“How much drugs?”

“Much, I think.”

“Were you and Maria together?”

“Sí. Sometimes.”

“Why did she leave?” I asked.

Emmanuel’s face twisted in disgust. “Mr. Faith. Once she signed the documents for him, he threatened her.”

“Threatened to call INS?”

“If she told anybody about the storage unit, he would make a call. She was illegal. She got scared. She’s in Georgia now.”

I held up the postcard.

“I’d like to keep this.”

Emmanuel shrugged.

I called Robin from the parking lot. I still had doubts about her loyalties, but she had information that I wanted, and I thought I might have something to trade. “Are you still at Dolf’s house?”

“Grantham drove me out of there pretty damn quick. He was pissed.”

“Do you know the self-storage facility by the interstate; it’s on the feeder road south of exit seventy-six.”

“I know it.”

“Meet me there.”

“Thirty minutes.”

I drove back into town and stopped at the copy shop two blocks off the square. I copied the postcard, front and back, then asked the clerk for a bag. She brought me a paper one, and I asked if she had anything plastic. She found a Ziploc in a desk drawer. I folded the copy into my back pocket and put the card in the bag, zipped it up. The bright sand looked very white through the plastic and the logo caught my eye.

SOMETIMES IT’S JUST RIGHT.

I drove to the storage facility and parked on the dirt verge of the feeder road. I got out and sat on the hood. Cars flew by on the interstate above me; the big trucks rumbled and screamed. I looked over the storage facility, long rows of squat buildings that flashed in the sun. They nestled in a depression beside the interstate. Metal doors painted blue broke the long facades. Grass grew tall along chain-link fencing. Barbed wire leaned out from the top.

I waited for Robin and watched the day make its long slide into late afternoon. It took her an hour. When she climbed out of the car, the wind took her hair, wrapped it across her face so that she had to flick it away with a finger. The gesture struck me hard and with unexpected force. It reminded me of a windy day we’d spent on the riverbank seven years ago. She was kneeling on a blanket, we’d just made love, and a sudden wind had licked up off the water to bend her hair across her eyes. I’d pushed the hair back, and pulled her down. Her mouth was soft, the smile easy.