River City Read online

  Unfortunately, none of the automobiles looked like anything a federal agent would drive – the lot was filled with Volvos, Mercedes, and Priuses. He got out of his pickup and entered the store.

  It was different than he remembered as a boy. Cyclists of all ages and ethnicities were milling about a beverage counter and snack area. None of the faces resembled that of an FBI agent. Nor did he see anyone resembling her by the magazine section, or in back by the beverage cooler. The cooler clicked on and let out a loud hum just as he passed. He stopped at the bait freezer. A stout deliveryman wandered through a back door carrying frozen packages of bait and headed toward him. Colefield glanced down inside the big compartment at frozen herring and several different cures of salmon eggs. He stepped aside so the man could get by and returned up front, thinking he might have missed her in the crowd. Two shapely women in black bicycle shorts filled Styrofoam coffee cups at the beverage counter. He moved in behind them and waited his turn to fill two cups, one black and one loaded with cream and sugar. He couldn’t remember how Tam took hers.

  Colefield sipped the bitter coffee and lined up at the counter where an Asian woman rang up his purchase.

  “I’m looking for someone. Has a woman been in asking questions?”

  “Many woman, yes…”

  “This one might have flashed a badge.”

  “She leave.”

  “How much for the coffee?”

  “Two dolla.”

  Colefield paid with cash. Afterward he handed her his business card. “If she comes back, give her this. OK?”

  The Asian nodded twice. “Yes, yes, OK.”

  The woman set the card on the register where she could easily see it. Colefield went back outside and struck up a casual conversation with a middle-aged guy in spandex, standing next to a seven-thousand dollar bicycle. Turned out the man was part of a local riding club that met at the store twice a month to tour the island. Today was an official race that was about to get underway.

  The guy didn’t stop there. Colefield was going to mention he had once lived on the island but the bicyclist wanted to tell him all about the island’s wildlife before he got the chance.

  “I’ve seen everything from bald eagles to black-tail deer. One time I almost ran over a raccoon or a possum, I couldn’t tell for certain. It was near dusk. That same day a peregrine swooped down and snatched a mouse from the Pumpkin Patch.”

  “That so?”

  “You ever been on the island before?”

  “Not in a while.”

  “Well, this is why I moved here from California.”

  After the man left, Colefield pulled out his cell phone and dialed Tam’s number again. He figured on driving to where the road ended to see whether or not she had gone ahead without him. Still no answer. He dropped his phone back into his pocket.

  Before he had driven a quarter mile past the fork which veered to the other side of the island, flashing lights lit up his rearview mirror. His first thought was another speed trap he’d somehow missed. But it turned out to be an unmarked gray sedan, its flashing blue and red lights tucked secretively behind the grille.

  He pulled over to the shoulder and stopped. The sedan pulled up behind him and a plain clothed policeman got out and headed his direction. The tall broad shouldered black man wore a standard two-tone gray suit with a detective’s shield displayed on his left pocket. Out of habit Detective Daryl Redden unbuttoned his jacket as he approached. A wind gust snapped the jacket open, exposing a concealed weapon in a shoulder holster.

  “Hey, Red!” The detective stuck out his hand. “I thought that was your old rust bucket.”

  “What are you doing on the island?” Colefield asked.

  “You heard about the shooting here, right?”

  “Sure. I was the first on scene.”

  “Hell – that’s right. Harvey mentioned it in his brief.”

  “Where is Harv?”

  “Harvey had a death in the family – an uncle, I think. He took a red-eye flight at midnight last night to New York to make funeral arrangements. I’m pulling some overtime. We got a possible hit on the kid’s identity. I’m heading there now to see if it’s legit. Reportedly, his mother lives on the island.”

  He wondered how they nailed the kid’s ID.

  “Who came forward?” Colefield asked.

  “No one. ME found a hunting license tucked down inside the kid’s sock. We tracked down the address on the card to the kid’s grandparents. According to a neighbor they’re in Reno. But they told us the mother lives on the island too and they left the kid with her on Wednesday. He fits the description. Want to break the news with me?”

  Colefield looked at his watch. “Have you spoken with FBI Agent Costa this morning?”

  “Sassy?”

  Colefield hadn’t heard that name in years. “Yeah. You know her?”

  “Sure. We went to the Academy together.”

  “I was supposed to meet her about a half-hour ago. We were going to go back out to the crime scene.”

  “Well, I’d appreciate the backup on this. Hell, Sassy can come along too. Call her and tell her we are making the notification.”

  Colefield thought it over. “Why the hell not...”

  “Appreciate it! This is the part of the job that never gets any easier. You never know how the family is going to react. It’s back the other direction on Reeder Road, near the trailer park. You can park your truck or follow me, your choice.”

  “I’ll follow you. I gotta split by noon.”

  Colefield had forgotten how picturesque the eastern side of the island was. The miles of open fields, the well cared-for farmhouses, the rural road winding its way through dogwoods and oaks all brought back pleasant memories. He’d spent plenty of time riding his dirt bike around these parts. It had been a great place to spend his youth. He regretted that he had caused his family to leave.

  He eased off the accelerator as the unmarked sedan turned onto a dirt road flanked by tall trees and leading to a rundown farmhouse. He turned in and followed the sedan to the road’s end and parked.

  The residence had seen better days. It sat on the bank of the Columbia River. Nestled down in a grove of trees and well back from the main road, it had a creepy, almost haunted quality. The neighboring properties were a good distance away.

  Siding was falling off. The roof sagged under a heavy moss canopy. The yard was overgrown. A patio swing on the front porch sat still. Rusted bicycles lay in the yard. No automobiles sat in the drive. The place looked abandoned.

  The detective climbed out and Colefield met up with him as they approached the entry and rapped on a torn screen door. After no response, they tried knocking harder. Still nothing.

  “Let’s check around back,” the detective said.

  The back of the house had several fruit trees not yet in bloom scattered among an old swing set and broken appliances. A tilting outbuilding had probably held a well or septic pump in its day. By contrast, the house had a well maintained private slip. A fiberglass boat with an outboard sloshed back and forth in the current, clanging against the dock.

  “Nice view,” the detective said, looking at the river. “Wonder who owns the boat?”

  “Doesn’t seem to belong to this place, does it?” Colefield agreed.

  Obviously, children once lived here. The swing set indicated that. The men headed toward the back door when, to their surprise, it creaked open.

  A scrawny woman of indeterminate age wearing torn jeans and a tattered flannel shirt stepped out from the shadows and flipped a cigarette butt into the yard.

  It was as if the men were invisible to her. In a stupor, she looked right through them, staring off at the muddy river. Her eyes were lifeless orbs. Her limp hair was thin as fishing line. On her cheek a fresh bruise bloomed. How the woman hadn’t known they were on her property was beyond him. They had knocked loud enough to alarm the neighbors a quarter-mile away.

  “Ma’am!” the detective shouted. “Woul
d you be Anita?”

  The woman, vague and rummy, eventually focused on them. “Get lost!”

  “Ma’am we’re with the police department. I’m Detective Redden. This is Deputy Colefield. May we come in for a moment?”

  “If you’re lookin’ for my no good son-of-a-bitch husband, I don’t know where he ran off to. Bert’s Tavern probably…”

  The men approached the door. “Ma’am?” Colefield got a closer look at her face. He also noted bruising on her wrists. “Who assaulted you?”

  The woman ignored the question, turned around and went back inside, leaving the door wide open. The officers looked at each other and followed.

  The house was a dark cavern. Blinds were tightly drawn and the place reeked. It took Colefield a moment to realize they were standing in the kitchen.

  A double sink held dirty dishes piled high on one side and blood encrusted carcasses of what looked like partially plucked ducks on the other. Red ants swarmed the walls and counters. He batted a few flies away. Feathers were strewn about the counter and floor.

  The woman picked up a pack of cigarettes off the table, pulled a lighter from her shirt pocket, and lit one. The trail of smoke did nothing to kill her rank body odor and putrid breath.

  Her hand trembled as she raised the cigarette to her lips. Colefield guessed she had been drinking for days.

  “My know-it-all step-son call you?” The detective glanced at Colefield while she fumbled with the refrigerator door, and pulled out a beer, flinching as she pressed it against her swollen cheek.

  “No one called us, Ma’am.”

  The woman sagged against the wall. “The bastard…”

  “Do you want us to contact someone for you?” Colefield asked. “Social services? Or the paramedics?”

  The woman wagged her head. She guzzled her beer and followed that with two deep drags from her cigarette. “Always … always … always after he comes back from the farm,” she muttered. “The bastard…”

  Colefield and the detective shared a perplexed look.

  “You mentioned a step-son, Ma’am. Is he here?”

  Colefield caught sight of a cereal box on the counter, an open jar of peanut butter, a half-eaten loaf of white bread. He reconsidered what was lying in the sink, smelling up the place.

  “Ma’am, does your husband keep any guns in the house?”

  “They’re his fuckin’ mess. I told him I‘m done cookin’ his stupid birds.”

  “Is that what the fight was about?”

  “The bastard has our bedroom smelling like a gun shop.”

  “He keeps his guns in your bedroom?” the detective asked.

  “Inside a locked cabinet. I should know. I tried to shoot him once. It was my dumb ass luck it was locked.”

  “Who else is in the house?”

  “His brat daughter is probably somewhere painting her fuckin’ toenails. I don’t know where the hell his son is.”

  “What are their names?”

  “Penny and Jeb.”

  “Do you have a son named Timmy, Ma’am?”

  Her lips quivered. “I did.”

  “You did what?”

  A dark cloud floated over her expression. “Had a son named Timmy, but he’s gone now.”

  Detective Redden rubbed his chin, thinking. “So you know what happened to him?”

  “It wasn’t my idea…” she said.

  Detective Redden reached for his weapon and signaled for Colefield to check out the rest of the house while he stayed with the woman.

  Colefield entered a room off the kitchen – sort of a dining room slash living room. And like the kitchen, it hadn’t been cleaned in months. There were moth eaten taxidermied trophies on the wall. Mismatched furniture and rotten food littered the landscape. The recliner was torn up. A filthy throw rug lay rumpled by the front door. Rat turds were everywhere.

  Watching where he put his feet Colefield moved down the hall, poking his head into a bathroom, which was worse than any skid row toilet he’d experienced. A boy’s bedroom came next. Blankets folded, bed made, clothes put away, and like the boat docked outside, in distinct contrast to the rest of the house. The bedroom at the end was probably the master. The door was ajar. A gun safe sat in the corner. He picked his way passed the stripped bed with the stained mattress, avoiding the filthy clothing and beer cans strewn about the floor.

  He tried the handle. Locked.

  The last bedroom to check was opposite the master. He listened at the closed door and then put his hand on his gun.

  He nosed the barrel through the door crack and eased it open.

  Chapter 7

  Seeing movement, the girl shoved the naked boy off her and screamed. The boy tumbled off the waterbed to the floor. He scurried toward a pile of clothing in the middle of the room, found a pair of dirty jeans and got all twisted around trying to pull them on.

  Jeb? Colefield wondered.

  No. This was obviously a girl’s bedroom. Pink walls decorated with Hollywood posters and stuffed animals. She looked to be about fourteen, the boy, her age or older. She bolted upright, pulling a dirty sheet up over her bare breasts. She looked nothing like her stepmother in the other room. She had dark skin. Maybe traces of Aleutian or Indian bloodlines.

  The thin sheeting couldn’t hide the fact that she was skinny for a kid her age. Her lips looked deformed and swollen, but some of that was probably just smeared plum colored lipstick. The boy had hickies on his neck and purplish lipstick on his chest and stomach. A piercing festered in the corner of her mouth.

  “You Penny?”

  “Yeah. Get the fuck out!”

  The deputy conjured one of those looks suggesting the strange factor had just doubled-down. He turned his attention to Redden who had showed up at the door to see what the commotion was all about. The boyfriend, still trying to jerk his jeans up, looked scared shitless. The detective holstered his gun.

  “I’ll go ask the stepmom if she wants us to detain the boy.”

  Colefield looked at the girl. “Put some clothes on. We’re police officers. We have a few questions to ask you.”

  The girl threw back the covers and marched naked right in front of him. That’s when Colefield got a whiff of something sweet smelling like coconut. On the floor by the bed was a tube of sex lube. This wasn’t her first time.

  The boy, his pants hanging low on his ass gangster style, grabbed his shoes and T-shirt and attempted to slip by Colefield who was having none of it and blocked the exit.

  The kid tried a fake right. He easily reached out and grabbed the boy’s arm, spun him round and flattened him against the wall. “Easy does it tough guy. You heard the detective. We need to check with the mother.”

  The girl flung a pillow across the room at the deputy. “Let him go, asshole!”

  “C’mon, man,” the boy pleaded. “You’re hurting me.”

  Colefield flipped the kid back around.

  “Chill, dude! We were just screwin’…”

  The boyfriend puffed out his chest. Suddenly, he was no longer intimidated by the deputy. Before he could do anything about the attitude adjustment, Detective Redden reappeared. “He can go. Tell the girl to meet us in the kitchen.” Colefield looked back at the boy. “I see lube, but no condom.”

  “I pulled out.”

  “You did this time, dumb ass.” Colefield cuffed the kid up the back of the head. Nothing like the sight of a gun aimed in your direction to ruin a perfectly good hard on.

  The boyfriend sprinted barefoot down the hall and out the front door

  At that age, Colefield thought he might have made out with a girl. But sex?

  He checked the girl’s window for a possible escape route before leaving the room and closing the door.

  “Get dressed!”

  A large heavy object thudded back.

  Eventually, the door opened and the teenager wandered out. She looked different clothed. She had on a pair of torn jeans, an oversized sweatshirt with “Harvard” pasted acr
oss the front, and a pair of flip-flops. On her head sat a knit skull cap like those worn by rap stars, thugs and NFL players. She reminded Colefield of one of those kids on a reality TV show. A shiny tongue piercing bobbed about as she spoke.

  She flipped Colefield the bird. “Where’s Bobby?”

  “He hit the road.”

  “Where’s my alcoholic stepmom?”

  He pointed toward the kitchen.

  Detective Redden stood by the wall keeping an eye on the stepmother sprawled across the table when they entered the kitchen. The teen refused to sit down in the empty chair beside her, slouching against the wall.

  “Where’s your brother Jeb?” Redden asked.

  “You’re the cops, you tell me.”

  “Cut the crap.” Colefield warned. “We need to find him.”

  “Whatever, dude,” Penny feigned boredom. “He’s probably with Timmy.”

  “I don’t think so.” Detective Redden roused the slumping drunk.

  “Anita, did you shoot Timmy?”

  The woman’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about? I didn’t shoot anyone.”

  “Your son, Timmy. You said it wasn’t your idea? Who pulled the trigger?”

  The teen reacted to the news. “Timmy’s been shot?”

  “You’ll have your turn in a minute,” Detective Redden said to her. “Anita – consider what you say carefully. What do you know about your son’s death?”

  “He’s dead?”

  “Yes ma’am,” Colefield said. The men looked at each other. It was clear that they had misconstrued her earlier statements.

  “So you’re saying you didn’t know about your son’s death?”

  “No! How could I?”

  Colefield looked over at the trembling teen. She had sunk to the floor.

  Detective Redden told them the basic details, leaving out the most disturbing aspects that could wait until later.