The Devil Went Down to Austin Read online

Page 35

 

  I had a clear view of Point Lone Star—the marina, Ruby McBrides tower on the hill.

  The point would be a steep but short hike from here, down the hill through underbrush and woods.

  "The Ruby, Too left from there," the lieutenant said. "We found it moored over yonder—Defeat Hollow. "

  He pointed toward a small wooded cove. "My men dived the area around the boat, then moved down here and started working a compass pattern upcurrent. "

  "Too rough for a jackstay?" Lopez asked.

  The lieutenant nodded.

  "Can they search in the rain?" Maia asked him.

  "Rain, yes. Not lightning. Weve got about fifteen more minutes before I have to pull them out. But a storm is good. It brings bodies to the surface. "

  The observation failed to comfort me.

  I thought about Ruby McBride in her bloodsmeared clothes, barefoot, the small automatic pistol slipping from her purse. "She could be somewhere else. Not even on the lake. "

  Lopez and the lieutenant exchanged glances.

  The lieutenant said, "You gentlemen excuse me? Miss Lee. "

  He walked back toward the east end of the dam, the wind flicking tiny brown waves off his coffee cup.

  Lopez said, "Cheer up, Navarre. Maybe youre right. "

  He spoke with all the optimism of a Russian economist.

  Down on the lake, the tiny blackhooded head of a diver came to the surface. Then another. I mightve mistaken them for turtles or snakes. Neither diver made any sign that theyd discovered anything, but my stomach tightened anyway. I walked across the road to the opposite railing.

  This was the Colorado River side. Here the hills were dotted with luxury homes, garlanded with power lines. A whitecolumned highway bridge spanned the river to the south.

  Maia leaned next to me on the railing. "Dont beat yourself up. "

  "I let her go," I said. "I couldve stopped her. "

  "That wasnt your job, Tres. It wasnt your decision to make—it was Rubys. "

  The problem was, I didnt agree with her. Some guilty, chauvinistic part of me believed that maybe, this one time, the damsel really had needed a knight. And perhaps shed run straight into the arms of the wrong one.

  Lopez joined us. "Ill need to get a list of Garretts friends. Also his hangouts. "

  "Youre treating him as a fugitive?"

  Lopez rubbed his chin. "Well, lets see. Hes out on bail for murder. His own lawyer cant locate him. "

  "You dont believe your own case anymore," Maia told him. "You know Garrett didnt kill anyone. "

  "What I know is that the machinery is in motion. Its not about me anymore, counsellor.

  I couldnt stop it if I wanted to. "

  The river was so clear I could see the bottom—a series of broken limestone sheets that looked like a submerged set of childs blocks. Against the base of the dam, a multicoloured beach ball bobbed and dipped, stopped from its meanderings by three million tons of concrete.

  "Rubys boat," I said. "I want to see it. "

  Lopez looked over. "You want to say why?"

  I didnt answer.

  He sighed. "Ill see what I can do. They should be through processing it by this afternoon. "

  "What are the odds theyll find her, Vic?"

  He planted his elbows on the cement wall. "The waterline is low. That works in the divers favour. I dont know . . . the area theyre searching, the current . . . "

  "You used to dive recovery?" Maia asked.

  "When I was a cadet. Sounded like a cool cop thing to do, right? Search and recovery.

  You think that before you run into your first body underwater. Most frightening thing Ive ever done—a hundred and thirty feet deep in some places, down in the old river basin—"

  "What?" I asked.

  "Nothing. "

  "Another landmark?"

  His expression hardened. "The reason I got out of recovery was a kid who drowned.

  Down that way—the public park, just before Point Lone Star. "

  "Kids must be the hardest," I said.

  "Thirteenyearold son went into the water after lunch—I mean, this is a small swimming area, marked with buoys and everything. He went in, and the family said it was like he was sucked underneath. Family was Asian. They kept trying to tell us about some Chinese superstition—a dragon got him, an evil spirit or something. "

  "Thats an old belief. " Maias eyes were on the beach ball, trapped and still pushing against the dam. "Every body of water has its own spirit. You always run the risk that the spirit will take a liking to you, make you pay a visit to the bottom. "

  "Yeah, well, this was a thirtyday visit, this kid had. We had a dozen volunteer divers.

  The family would come down every day to watch, until its like two weeks later and we had to tell them— theres nothing else we can do. "

  "But you found him?"

  "I found him, Navarre. And trust me—you dont want to know about it. I dont work recovery anymore. "

  Lightning did a triple play across the horizon. The cicadas woke up with the storm, humming in the woods like electricity.

  Maia didnt look well—as if Lopezs story had caused a tremor under her feet, somewhere down in the centre of the dam. "I should get going, Tres. Youll get Lopez that list?"

  I nodded. "Call me. "

  She brushed my sleeve with her fingertips, told Lopez goodbye. She walked down the dam road, leaning into the wind.

  "Might be a bad time for a reunion," Lopez said, watching Maia. "You and her. "

  "Vic Lopez, advice columnist. "

  "If they find Ruby McBride in the water, Navarre, after what went down between Ruby and Garrett, the way she screwed him on that business deal—then God help your brother. "

  "Maias right, isnt she? You dont believe in your own case anymore. "

  He laced his fingers. I noticed again the strange scars on his hands, like permanent blisters.

  He saw me looking, rubbed the back of his hand with one finger. "When I was a kid—playing at this friends house—I noticed this brown stain on his bathroom wall, like somebody had held a match close to the wallpaper. So I told his parents about it.

  They didnt pay any attention, told me not to worry. But I couldnt leave it alone. I went back and touched it, thinking maybe it would rub off, and my hand went straight through. It was winter. A nest of yellow jackets had eaten its way into the insulation of the house. The brown stain was them on the other side, thinning out the wall. I put my hand straight through the paper and into the centre of their nest. "

  He flexed his fingers, showing me the pattern of scars. "Later the doctors told me Id gotten over a hundred stings. I almost died. They told me the nest in the wall was the size of a washing machine.

  Theres the lesson, Navarre—if youre the kind who likes to touch the dark spots, maybe you should think twice. "

  The beach ball bounced against the dam in the wind. Lightning flashed almost overhead now.

  "Clara Doeblers death bothers you more than you let on," I told Lopez. "You dont want Jimmys death mishandled the way hers was. "

  "Keep your assumptions. "

  "Ive been there," I said. "Ive seen a person killed right in front of me. "

  Lopez kept his eyes on the storm. "No, Navarre. You have not been where I have been. Its a place you do not want to go. "

  Down at the boats, horns were sounding. More divers were starting to come out of the water.

  "Ill see you later," Lopez told me. "Go teach your class. "

  He met my eyes, and just for that moment I saw the anger behind his smile—the offense Id done him by digging too deep.

  And he was right. He was giving me fair warning. It was a dark spot I did not want to touch.

  CHAPTER 31

  I got to UT five minutes late for my class, soaked, but no one seemed to notice. My septuagenarian student, Father Time, was standing in front, regaling everyone with his last trip to Roswell.


  As soon as Id brushed the water out of my hair and sorted my lecture notes, Father Time yielded the floor with a yellowdentured grin.

  "Figured it wasnt any stranger than what youd tell us," he explained.

  Just what every professor needs—a warmup act.

  I did a quick roll check, realized with mixed emotions that not a single person had dropped. I hear stories from other instructors about fifty percent drop rates, classes of five or ten with an accordingly small number of papers to grade. No such luck for Navarre. Like buzzards, my students tend to stick around to the bitter end. A colleague once told me I wouldnt have that problem if I just stopped doing lesson plans, got boring, and did my part to uphold the reputation of American higher education.

  Of course, that colleague never had to use teaching as an escape from PI work. Hed never had to help himself forget, at least temporarily, that his brother was a murder suspect and a woman hed just met had disappeared.

  The thunderstorm drummed on the roof while we talked about the background of the Corpus Christi plays.

  I fielded the standard questions. No, we were not talking about Corpus Christi, Texas.

  The medieval English hadnt yet discovered

  the joys of Spring Break at Padre Island. No, the plays werent actually stage plays, but paradefloat shows, performed on travelling wagons as part of a street procession.

  Yes, they really were all Bible stories. Yes, we really would read them in Middle English. Yes, they might be fun anyway.

  "Corpus Christi was like Fiesta," I explained. "The Battle of Flowers, except religious. "

  Blank stares reminded me I was not in San Antonio anymore. A few students nodded like theyd hit Fiesta before. Most did not.

  "Mardi Gras?" I tried.

  Better. Still no consensus.

  I searched my memory for an Austin equivalent. "Aquafest? South by Southwest?"

  A tentative voice in back said, "The Gourd Festival?"

  "Exactly," I said. "Just like the Gourd Festival. "

  A collective "Ohh. " Satisfied nodding. We had bonded.

  Father Time grinned at the ceiling, as if he were getting signals of approval from his friends in Roswell.

  "Think of a Gourd Festival put on by the Catholic Church," I suggested. "A religious holiday, and all the entertainment based on something from the Bible. "

  "Dude," said a guy in the back. "That would suck. "

  "But if its all you had," I countered, "if that were the only festival you were allowed every year, youd make it count, wouldnt you?"

  With that we launched into the Gourd Festival rendition of the Wakefield Noah.

  It took most of the class period just to get the students used to the language, but we were rolling along pretty well by the time Noah and his wife started arguing about getting on the ark.

  "Why wont she get on?" a student asked.

  I let another student answer. "Typical woman. She doesnt trust her husband. "

  The first woman looked incredulous. "Shes going to drown? Shed rather sit there and nag him than get on the boat?"

  "Yeah," a younger girl in the back said. "Shes cool. "

  A few lines later, another question stopped us. "Whats Noah calling her there?