What the River Knows (20 page)

She got up to stretch and walked to her window. Floor to ceiling, third floor view, corner office, freedom to design the artwork to meet the customers’ desires. This was a dream job, and she knew it. For the thousandth time, she wondered why she had ever accepted Harvey’s offer of the job at the Dragon. She didn’t need the money or the tips. The owners and other designers here respected her work and herself as the person as she was now, not judging her for her past.

If only she had declined Harvey’s offer. Then she would never have met Devlyn, would still have her own cozy apartment to go home to in peace and privacy. But then again, she would not have run into Margaret again, to pick up that old friendship where it had been cut off so many years before.

She closed her eyes and started to tremble again. If she hadn’t met Devlyn and run into Margaret, Mags might still be alive.

Chapter 44

Scott’s head nearly bumped the screen as he dozed off momentarily. “That’s it.” He swiveled his chair around to face Bates’ desk. “I can’t look at another set of silverware on E-Bay.”

Bates grinned. “Shopping for stolen goods not your favorite pastime, boy?”

Scott shrugged. He hadn’t heard from Rica in the forty-two hours and thirty minutes since she left. He ached with missing her presence. “Never was.”

The smile dimmed from Bates’ face. “Something bothering you, Scott?”

Scott trusted Bates with his life and knew the older man would have plenty of advice to give. But before he gave advice, Bates would give sympathy. Scott couldn’t handle that at the moment. “No, just tired of sitting in the office.”

“You could check the pawn shops.”

“Did that yesterday.” Though he couldn’t remember a solitary thing he’d seen. All he had seen was Rica’s face, scenes of their lives together, scenes he had hoped to see in the future.

“Get me some coffee?” Bates held out his cup.

“I can do that.” Scott took it and wandered to reception. They brewed better coffee, and they made it more often than Bates did. None of the women there even looked up when they heard the carafe clank against Bates’ cup. In moments, Scott was back and set the steaming cup on his partner’s desk. “I think I’ll run over to Homedale and see if I can dig up any more leads on the Delia Enfield case.”

Bates studied him over the rim of the mug. “That one still eatin’ at ya?”

Scott shrugged. “I guess so. Maybe it’s that hometown connection.”

“Could be.” Bates sipped the coffee and made a face. “Theirs is too strong!” He sipped again. “Want some company?”

“Naw.” Scott grinned at him. “You look too comfortable browsing Craigslist for antique settees.” Two months ago, thieves had stolen every stick of furniture from several unoccupied farm homes.

Bates smiled. “Well, the thieves have to sell them somewhere, don’t they?”

Scott shook his head and headed to the garage to see if they had any unmarked cars available. If he turned the radio up loud enough, maybe he couldn’t hear himself think on the hour-long drive. He had tunes going before he even pulled out of the parking lot. Yet every song that came on his favorite station reminded him of Rica—somewhere they went, something they had done, some memory of her. He punched the presets, finally landing on a classical station. But that one was playing selections from
Romeo and Juliet
. He flipped some more buttons. There, a Christian station. On that one, the preacher thundered vehemently about the sins of divorce, of forgiving and taking back an errant spouse. Scott gritted his teeth. There had to be something to listen to that wouldn’t make him think of Rica. Finally, he settled on NPR. Water wells in Africa. Nothing there to remind him of his marriage. Yet, the calm, modulated voices grated on his ears instead of soothing as they were designed to do. With expletives muttered under his breath, he punched the “off” button.

Who did Rica think she was, anyway, demanding that he be the only one who needed to change. He bet the only change that would make her happy would be if he changed into Dr. Ambrose. By then, he was only fifteen miles from Homedale, about to cross the river.

He slowed as he approached the bridge. Something about the river called to him. Since Rica pulled out of the driveway, he had become fanatical about his morning runs along the river, as the running seemed to pound her memory out of his brain for the duration of the run. Here the river flowed more like he’d known it in childhood. He was only eight when he found a dusty old canoe in the garage rafters and dragged it to the river as it ran past the farm. On summer days when neither his mother nor father needed him for chores, he’d often made a couple of sandwiches, grabbed an apple and a can of soda, and pushed off from the willow tree at the bend behind the bean field. He’d float all afternoon, and his dad would meet him with the pickup about six to help him load the canoe and come home for supper. The river had taught him much on those floats—what types of pools the herons preferred over what appealed to the dowitchers; how vulnerable were the nests the terns made on the bare sand; how the subtle changes in the colors of the prairie grasses told the coming changes of the seasons; how like ghosts the bare white limbs of the cottonwoods appeared in winter, especially when the entire waterway was rimed with frost; how deceptively treacherous the deep pools could be.

Now, he pulled the car to a stop a hundred feet west of the bridge and edged it well onto the grassy shoulder, hoping the hot muffler wouldn’t set fire to the grass, still dangerously dry even though it had rained last week. Glancing up and down the highway, he saw no traffic from either direction, so he crossed the roadway and picked his way through the stubbly grass to the river bank. There, on the south side of the bridge, the current swirled around the bridge pillar, allowing the sediment to settle from the water there, forming a sand bar that would have made a good launch point. In fact, he could see the impression where a canoe or kayak had rested on the sand. He walked until he got close enough to the water to sink a half-inch into the sand, then he stopped.

The August rains had greened the grass, but not affected the river much. A dam in Colorado, built long before he was born, had tamed the river, so that it no longer roared as winter snowmelt swelled it. Now the reservoir caught the snowmelt, parceling it out throughout the year to keep flows steady and prevent flooding. Irrigation had sucked much of the water out of the aquifer that underlay the river since Scott was a boy, so that here in Kansas, steady meant barely flowing. At low flows, the sand dropped to the river bottom. To canoe the river near the bridge would mean frequent portages over water barely six inches deep. The river had changed since he was a boy, and life had changed as well.

Mosquitoes swarmed around him, and after he smashed the tenth one, he decided he’d had enough nostalgia. He returned to the car, now an oven after sitting in the bright sun for just a few minutes. The air conditioner had barely kicked in before he drove into Homedale.

Chapter 45

Since it was nearly noon, he headed for the café. His regular runs had trimmed his waist, so he ordered the three-piece chicken dinner. Besides, what was the point of taking care of yourself if no one was there to notice? He took a deep breath and tried to steady his attitude.

Today it was a different waitress than the one who had served him the last time. He didn’t even try to strike up a conversation with her. He had to get his mind in a better place first. He swirled his glass and studied the ice as it spun.

“Hey, Scott.”

Pulled from his thoughts, he looked up to see Al standing by his booth, with filled coffee cup in hand. “Hey, Al.” He hoped the man moved on to have lunch with someone else.

Al dropped to the bench on the opposite side of Scott. The waitress brought Scott’s lunch and a carafe of coffee to refill Al’s. “What’ll ya have, Al?” She didn’t even pull her pad from her pocket.

“Special, Becky.”

“You got it, Al.” Less than a minute later, she was back with a plate of meatloaf and a pitcher to refill Scott’s tea.

“I didn’t think you liked the meatloaf.” Scott dug into his chicken, but after the first bite, decided he really wasn’t hungry.

Al shrugged. “Never said I didn’t like it, just that it’s not like Sarah’s.” He took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. “Sometimes I just get hungry for meatloaf.”

Scott took another bite of his chicken; it did taste good. “Guess food can be a memory trigger.”

“Amen to that.” Al picked up his coffee cup. “It’s a proven fact that taste and smell trigger the deepest memories.”

“Deep, eh?” Scott started on his second piece of chicken. “I think I like fried chicken because, well, I just like it.” He paused. “Though no one can make it like my mama could—can.” He doubted his mom cooked much anymore, living with his oldest brother the way she did. And he didn’t go to see her like he should; Ohio was a long way from Kansas.

“See.” Al ate his meatloaf slowly, as if he were evaluating it, measuring it against Sarah’s. “Brought back a strong memory, didn’t it?”

“Looks like the food is doing the same thing for you.”

Al nodded. “Yes. This meatloaf is good—very good—but not the same as Sarah’s.” He closed his eyes. “Still, tasting it makes me remember how Sarah made hers, gathering all the ingredients and the pans together before she started, so she wouldn’t have to get anything else once she buried her hands in the meat.” His smile turned beatific, as if the memory transported him somewhere else. “She took her rings off first, and put them in her empty coffee cup, then dumped everything in, and went to work.” Al’s hands moved, as he acted out the scene in his memory. “She usually hummed while she mixed. Squeeze and turn, squeeze and turn, until it was completely mixed. And then she would divide it in half and form two perfect loaves in the nine by thirteen glass dish, shaping and smoothing till they were just the way she wanted them.” He opened his eyes. “She put a lot of love and a little bit of herself in every meatloaf she ever made.” He picked up his cup and cradled it before his face. “If I had every meatloaf she ever made, maybe I’d have just a fraction of her.” He focused on Scott again. “So that is why I sometimes order the meatloaf.”

“Wow,” Scott muttered. “All I remember is that mom’s chicken was good.”

“Your mother wasn’t the love of your life, at least after you learned to walk.”

The roll that had tasted so good to Scott suddenly seemed dry and about to choke him. He gulped his tea. “Right.” Al studied Scott’s face for a moment. Al had to sense a story there. “So, have you heard any gossip about the Enfield case?”

Al’s sharp gaze stayed on him even as he spoke. “As a matter of fact, I have. Just this morning, at coffee.”

So much for Al’s promise to call him with info. “And?”

“Well, people thought pretty well of Margaret’s—Delia’s family around here, except that they took in foster kids, and all the misfits seemed to end up at their house. Some people were conjecturing that someone from the past had a grudge.”

Scott sat there with his eyebrows raised. If he left a silence, Al might be compelled to fill it, and might provide helpful information instead of stuff he already knew.

“But all the foster girls either went back with their families, or moved on in the system, at least when they left here.” Exactly what Scott had found.

Al plowed on. “Anyway, one of the misfits was a gay boy named Kyle.”

Ah, yes, the now non-existent Kyle Dane.

“Seems some people in town were a bit ashamed of how they treated the boy.” A hint of a smile crinkled the corners of Al’s mouth. He evidently understood why Scott stayed silent; of course, he used the same tactic to interview sources. “So some of them have done some checking into what happened to him, too.” Al sipped his coffee. He could play the game, too.

“And what did they find?”

“Not much. He moved away end of his junior year. Rumor has it they moved to Vegas or there about.”

“Any idea why Vegas?”

Al smiled. “If I were a guessing man—and after all, guessing is just trying to make the connections between the facts—I would guess that the boy might be more accepted there. Or more anonymous.”

“Any info on them after that?’

Al shook his head and sipped coffee. “Nada.”

“Anyone mention what Kyle’s mom did when they lived here?”

“Mac said she was an accountant. Did taxes and bookkeeping for some businesses. Barely kept a roof over their heads.”

“So your anonymous source is Mac?”

Al grinned. “Who knows more than Mac about everything around here?” He finished his meal. “He sure figured out who you were real quick. That means the guy has an eye for faces and details as well as a good memory.” He dropped his napkin in the plate. “He’s what we refer to in the news business as a reliable source.”

“That’s what we call ’em in law enforcement, too.” Scott found the strength within himself to polish off the last piece of chicken. Once he started eating, he found it hard to stop. Just like with the beer the last couple of nights. One beer to cool down after his run sent him back to the fridge for another and then another. And last night, it had taken four to lull him to sleep.

Al cocked his head to the side, as Sandy refilled his coffee cup and Scott’s iced tea. Then she moved on to the next table. “Funny how we use the same techniques.”

“But different outcomes.” Scott never trusted the media, had had his words twisted more than once.

“Depends on the reporter. A good reporter is after the same thing as a good cop.” He sipped. “The truth.”

“And the bad ones are after—?” Scott paused.

“The ones with less integrity are out to find the facts to fit the story they already have written.” Al ran his finger around the rim of the cup. “The good ones follow the facts to the story that needs to be told.”

Scott took a gulp of his tea and studied Al around the glass. The old editor was watching him, wondering maybe which kind of cop he was. “I’ll bet you’ve followed a few trails in your day.”

“That I have, Scott.” Al smiled. “That I have.” He raised his cup. “I’ve always been curious about what motivates people, makes them do the things they do.”