Rain Dogs, page 13
In the driver’s seat, Larry tipped the bottle and nodded along. “Sure, great. Thanks.”
“You probably have more than you need already.”
“Hey, you know. Another source never hurts anything.”
“I’m trying to think of the name. It’s . . . Jesus. Help me out.”
“Huh?”
“The aquifer. It’s the title of the book. I’m blanking.”
Larry tapped the wheel with his thumbs. He furrowed his brow. He finally broke out laughing again. “I’m loaded. I can’t think.”
“Culligan,” Tom said. “That’s it. History of the Culligan Aquifer.”
Larry didn’t correct him. He snapped his fingers. “There you go. Like the water guy. Christ, don’t tell my editor I didn’t know that. She’ll pull my expense account.”
Tom sang it from the old commercial. “Hey, Culligan Man . . .”
They snickered and hit the gin. Tom noticed Larry Salinger blocked the mouth of the bottle with his tongue every other turn or so. He noticed because he’d been doing the same thing. He wondered if Larry noticed, too.
The thunder rumbled over them.
Tom looked out the window and studied what his grandfather used to call a blowout—a spot where erosion had exploited a chink in the grass cover, carving out a bowl of bare sand. The dune sat just beyond the fence on his side like a ball of ice cream with a scoop taken out. Wildflowers grew in the shelter of the blowout.
Above them, purple clouds began to shift and boil.
Thunder rumbled and grew louder.
All at once, night flashed day. The dunes stood in negative relief for a moment; a splintering crack like a falling tree split the sky.
The rain came down.
It came in a sudden torrent, drops big as quarters. Inside the car, it sounded as though they were being showered with ball bearings. Lightning flashed with the thunder now, a cannon boom this time. Larry jumped in his seat.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he said. “Maybe we should get out of this.”
“Couldn’t see to drive anyway. Not much to do now but ride it out.”
Yellow plastic crinkled as Larry reached for the bottle. He gave a nervous chuckle and tipped the bottle back. Tom saw his Adam’s apple bob. Down the hatch.
No shame in that. Tom opened the hatch, too.
In Chicago, he’d once been on-site at a standoff outside a branch bank on North Kedzie. After an hour, the guy inside started shooting. Tom had heard a bullet shatter a parking meter five feet from the SWAT van he’d been crouching behind.
He’d been scared shitless that day, but nothing in his experience quite compared to being caught on the open range in a storm, even in a warm dry vehicle. This was primal fear, naked and quaking, black mountains moving above you and thunder in your bones.
You are here.
You are alone.
Boom.
“Jesus.”
“God bless America,” Tom said.
Larry chuckled, jumping again with the next whipcrack of thunder.
They sat and passed the bottle as the wind came like a train, driving the rain sideways into the SUV, rocking them gently. Salinger slouched behind the wheel. Through the downpour, Tom could no longer see the flowers in the blowout ten feet away; he imagined them beaten steadily flat.
It came like that for half an hour.
Eventually, after one last scream and a wheeze, the worst passed. The rain subsided to a steady labor. As the white noise inside the truck subsided with it, Tom heard a steady labor beside him.
He looked over and saw Larry hunched against the door, mouth open, bottle between his legs.
Salinger began to snore. Tom reached over and took the bottle. Larry’s hand fell limp. Tom nudged him hard. Deadweight.
Amateur.
He took a nip and pulled down the visor above his head. Tom looked at the pink registration slip. He opened the glove box. While Salinger slept, he looked at the things he found in there.
Later, after the rain, he did something he couldn’t remember doing since he’d been a teenager. Tom wasn’t completely sure he remembered doing it even then.
He called the great Jack Coleman and asked for help.
PART
3
THE RAIN DOGS
TWENTY-FOUR
Morgan Wheeler died early Monday morning in the burn ICU at St. Elizabeth’s.
Weakened by new infection, his lungs had saturated and finally foundered. Even with the ventilator at max operation, his blood oxygen levels continued to fall. Machines could pump it in, but Morgan’s drowning tissues couldn’t make use of it.
In the end, fluid finished what fire started. His kidneys went first, sometime Sunday afternoon. Emergency dialysis failed to interrupt what amounted to a systemic domino effect, and after weeks of slow progress in the burn center, bad momentum brought the works crashing down in a matter of hours.
Abby picked Scott up at the Landing. Scott’s older brother, Jason, rode out from Lincoln with Tom’s folks.
The Wheelers had a family plot going back to Morgan’s great-great-grandparents. They buried him there Wednesday morning under a blue cathedral sky.
“It’s a shame,” Larry Salinger said. “Kid was how old?”
Tom sipped his coffee. “Sixteen.”
“I guess he and Scott were pretty close.”
“I guess they were.”
The river flowed right along today, churning into foamy white breakers as it passed over the ford. The rains had cooled things for a day or two, but today the breeze was gone, the sun was back, and the morning air clung to everything like a steamy towel. Tom could smell dead fish on the bank.
“I’m surprised Duane didn’t go,” Salinger said. “I got the impression he knew the kid, too.”
They could see Foster down the hill, on the roof of the big shed. He was busy nailing down corners of tin the weekend winds had lifted. He’d returned from the put-in at Berry Bridge a half hour ago.
“I don’t think he had anything to wear.”
Larry chuckled. “You know, I think those two this morning kind of liked what he was wearing. The big one especially.”
“Yeah?”
“You didn’t think?”
“Didn’t notice, I guess.”
“I think the little one noticed.” Salinger chuckled again. “Meow. Long day in a canoe for those two.”
They’d arrived together late last night: two men, no reservation, decked top to bottom in stiff new L.L. Beanerie. On an anniversary vacation, they said, trying new things. They said Coleman’s Landing came highly recommended. They also laughed and told Tom not to be surprised if they called in for a rescue after paddling a mile.
Tom hadn’t asked what anniversary they were celebrating. He normally made no assumptions based on appearances, but he would have bet whatever was left in his 401(k) on these two. Combined, he guessed they were approximately as homosexual as Ryland Wheeler. He doubted it was a coincidence that this morning’s funeral on the Wheeler ranch happened to be a ten-minute drive southwest of Berry Bridge.
Tom wondered where the phony lovebirds had stashed their second vehicle. He wondered why they’d started from here in the first place.
“Scott seems like a decent kid.” Larry shook his head. “And his mother. She seems like a strong person to me.”
“She is.”
“Makes you wonder what got into him.”
Tom sipped his coffee, watched the river. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
When the phone in the shop started ringing, Tom left Salinger on the deck and went in to answer it. A minute later, he came back out and called Foster up from the shed.
It took Duane a few minutes to climb down off the roof and make his way up the slope. When he got there, his bandana was soaked, arms slick. A bead of sweat dripped off the end of his nose.
“I need you to run into town for me.”
Duane wiped his chin with the back of a wet hand. “Yeah? What for?”
“Make a deposit. Bank just called. I guess I messed up the books again.”
“Yeah? How high they bouncing this time?”
“High enough.” Tom handed him the check Paradiso had sent back in June. He’d been looking at it in the cupboard so long he’d forgotten it was there. “This ought to cover us.”
Foster looked at the amount and whistled. “What’s my fee?”
“You get lunch.”
“Dude, I always get lunch.”
“Extra bag of chips.”
“Guess I’m your man.”
After Duane retrieved the truck keys from the nail inside the shop and headed down the path, Salinger shook his head and said, “That guy kills me. What’s his story, anyway?”
“About what you’d expect.”
“He ever actually say anything, or does he just bullshit all the time?”
“Pretty much full of shit,” Tom said. “He fits right in around here.”
Larry chuckled at that. He drew in a breath and looked out at the river like he’d rather be no other place on earth.
But something subtle changed in the air between them. Tom felt it. When Salinger raised his mug and took a sip, Tom saw tension in his shoulders he hadn’t seen before.
Ten minutes after Duane left in the pickup, Tom heard engines approaching. At least two vehicles. He heard the leader kick down into a lower gear along the steepest part of the track.
In another minute, Roy Hilliard’s white-and-gold Expedition rounded the trees. His dad’s silver Buick followed ten yards behind.
Salinger watched. His eyes flickered to Tom, back to his coffee. He covered with another chuckle.
“Man. That was fast.”
“What was fast?”
“Remind me not to pass any bad checks around these parts.”
The heron was back this morning. Tom watched the big bird fish the ford. Down in the lot, he heard car doors slam. Men’s voices.
The voices fell away. Footsteps approached, scuffing along through the cedar chips. In another minute, heavy shoes hit the steps, climbed, stopped at the top.
“Morning up there.”
The heron spread its gray-blue wings and lumbered downriver. Tom looked up. “Morning, Sheriff.”
“Hot one.”
“How was the service?”
“Goddamn heartbreaker.”
Hilliard wore a bad tie and a plaid button-down shirt. Behind him, Ron Pavel leaned against the railing in a wrinkled brown suit. Jack Coleman must have left his jacket in the car. He waited at the bottom of the stairs in shirtsleeves and suspenders, loosening his tie.
“Well.” Hilliard patted his hard tire of a belly. “You boys ready?”
Tom nodded.
Salinger looked up at Hilliard. “We boys?”
“Got a little room back at the office where we can all sit,” Hilliard said. “Has a nice big table. We can pull up around that. Have a chat.”
Tom got up. He could feel Larry watching as he moved around Hilliard, past the chief deputy.
On his way down the stairs, he met his dad’s eye. Jack Coleman nodded, didn’t smile. Tom noticed how gray his father’s hair looked in the sun. He hadn’t noticed it before.
Behind him:
“Um, guys? Anybody want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Tell you what, bud. We can go or we can do this here. But it’s goddamn hot out and nobody’s in a particularly cheerful mood as it is.”
“I get that impression. Sheriff, is it?”
“You can play this until old Duane gets back if you want,” Hilliard told him. “We all don’t have anywhere to be.”
Tom heard a long minute of silence up on the deck. Eventually, he heard a sigh.
“Motherfuck,” Larry said.
TWENTY-FIVE
They sat around an oblong table in a small paneled conference room behind the dispatch center.
The room had low, water-stained ceiling tiles and file cabinets crowded all around. Every few seconds, an oscillating fan rustled the corners of a county land grid taped to the wall. The air-conditioning in the county courthouse had conked; below ground level, the sheriff’s department felt like a root cellar and smelled like wet iron.
The DEA agent formerly known as Larry Salinger slid a file folder across the table. His real name was Terry Farmer. He wasn’t from Boulder.
“Duane Foster worked on the shipping dock from 1998 until they canned him for missing shifts three years ago.”
“Midwest Partners Inc.,” Hilliard said. “Fine. Get to the goddamn point, bud.”
“Midwest Partners is a pharmaceutical repackager based in Lincoln,” Farmer said. “Five months ago, they posted short on a bulk shipment of OTC ephedrine tablets meant to be packaged and sold as diet pills.”
“Don’t remember seeing that in the papers.”
“It hasn’t been reported in the papers. Take my word for it, Sheriff, it’s been a priority keeping it that way.”
“Well, congratulations.”
Farmer pointed to the folder. “We reviewed Midwest’s employee records back to their first year of operation. We flagged anybody with a jacket. Red flags on drug charges.”
“Foster got a red flag,” one of the gay canoeists in the corner said.
His name was Rice. He was built like a fullback and stood a head taller than the other one, Larson. Farmer had called them in from the field.
“Thanks.” Hilliard looked at Agent Rice. “Don’t know if I’d have figured that one out on my own.”
Tom gave both agents credit: They hadn’t been lying when they’d claimed to be partners. He thought they made a cute couple, lurking there in the corner, each holding up one side of a dented vertical file. Both of them still wore the spiffy new shorts and hiking shoes they’d had on earlier this morning. Until seeing them in this light, Tom hadn’t noticed that Agent Larson must have had a cleft palate as a child. The sandy beard wasn’t part of his disguise; he wore it to cover the surgical scar that pinched his upper lip.
Farmer shot Rice and Larson a glance and took back the reins.
“Foster’s been strictly a misdemeanor possession kind of guy. We were checking him off the list at first.”
“Still waiting, bud.”
“Turned out his landlord was looking for him, too. Foster’s mail started piling up around the end of February. Same week the missing shipment should have been logged.”
Farmer found a wrinkled sheet of paper and slid that across. Tom caught a glimpse of letterhead he recognized: Tyler & Tyler.
Duane’s severance letter. He’d been telling the truth when he claimed he hadn’t gotten it.
“We’re still not a hundred percent on all the nuts and bolts,” Farmer said. “What we do know is that Midwest Partners doesn’t have the tightest operation record in the game.”
“Drug company with drug offenders on the payroll, I guess they don’t,” Hilliard said.
“And they haven’t changed their operations much since the federal regs changed.”
“Regs.”
“We’ve been tracking these shipments since ’93, Sheriff, as I’m sure you know, so when one doesn’t get where it’s going, we tend to notice. Even one this size.”
“What I want to goddamn know,” Hilliard said, voice suddenly booming, “is when the federal government started running undercover without alerting local goddamn agencies.”
For a moment, the whir and click of the fan in the corner was the only sound in the room. Tom glanced across the table toward his dad. Jack Coleman sat quietly, head down, arms folded. Listening.
Farmer said, “Sheriff, your situation here isn’t exactly standard.”
“My situation?”
“We needed to get a bead on Foster while our people sorted out whose jurisdiction was whose in the area. Under the circumstances, it was deemed prudent to the investigation to notify the minimum necessary local officials.”
“Horseshit,” Hilliard said. “Why don’t you go ahead and say what you mean to say?”
“I believe I’m saying what I mean to say. Our intention was to position our investigation. And notify necessary local officials at such time as that determination was made.”
“And I say horseshit. Necessary local officials. Only one reason to keep anybody here out of the loop.”
Across the table, Tom’s dad raised his head and watched Farmer closely.
“With all due respect, Sheriff,” Farmer said, “I wasn’t here three days before a lab went up fifteen miles from my guy. Turns out one of your guys is related to two of the kids involved.”
“Bang-up investigating. And?”
“And what was the closure on that?”
“The closure?” A vein raised along Hilliard’s jaw-line. “Well, let’s see. We put one of ’em in the goddamn ground today. That enough closure for you?”
“I’m only giving this to you from our perspective. Which, at the time, was a meth shack going sky-high. And no arrests.”
“If you’d been interested in communicating facts, you’d know we had support from the state on that.”
Farmer glanced at Tom’s dad.
“We’ve been working with appropriate divisions of the State Patrol from day one,” he said. “We found it coincidental that the former head of Investigative Services happened to be in the area on the day in question. Happened to be on-site. Happens to be a personal friend of yours.”
Hilliard looked at Tom’s dad. “Jack?”
Jack Coleman shook his head. “I knew as much as you did.”
“I’m not making accusations,” Farmer said. “I’m explaining decisions. Decisions that were made based on our evaluation of circumstances using the information available to us at that time.”
“You got a real solid vocabulary, Agent. We’re all impressed. Let’s pretend I’m as dumb as you think I am and get back to those accusations you’re not making.”
“All right, Sheriff. Let’s speak plainly.”
Outside the closed door, down the hall, they all heard Sandy the dispatcher raise her voice. She said, “Ryland, I mean it. Sheriff can’t see you right now.”
