Down River

  But I could tell him nothing; so I said the only thing that still mattered to me. Knowing my father and what would come, I said it.

  “I want to see her.”

  He lunged for me. He caught me by the shirt and slammed me against the hard hospital wall. Every detail of his face was plain, but mostly I saw the stranger in him, the pure and crushing hatred as the last of his faith in me fell away. “If you did this,” he said, “I will fucking kill you.”

  I didn’t fight back. I let him hold me against the wall until the hatred shrank into something less total. Like pain and loss. Like something in him just died.

  “You should not have to ask me,” I said, removing his hands from my shirt. “And I should not have to answer.”

  He turned away. “You are not my son,” he said.

  He showed me his back, and Dolf could not meet my eyes; but I refused to be made small. Not now. Not again. So I fought the overwhelming urge to explain. I stood my ground and, when my father turned, I held his eyes until he looked away. I sat on one side of the waiting area and my father sat on the other. At one point, Dolf made as if to cross the room to speak with me.

  “Sit down, Dolf,” my father said.

  Dolf sat.

  Eventually, my father climbed to his feet. “I’m going for a walk,” he said. “I need some unspoiled air.” When the sound of his feet faded away, Dolf came to sit beside me. He was just over sixty, a hardworking man with massive hands and iron hair. Dolf had been around for as long as I could remember. My entire life. He’d started on the farm as a young man, and when my father inherited the place, he’d kept Dolf on as the number two man. They were like brothers, inseparable. It had always been my belief, in fact, that without Dolf, neither my father nor I would have survived my mother’s suicide. He’d held us together, and I could still remember the weight of his hand on my narrow shoulder in the hard days after the world vanished in a flash of smoke and thunder.

  I studied his uneven face, the small blue eyes and the eyebrows dusted with white. He patted my knee and leaned his head against the wall. In profile, he looked like he’d been carved from a hunk of dried beef.

  “Your father is a passionate man, Adam. He acts in the moment, but usually calms down and sees things differently. Gray Wilson was murdered and Janice saw what she saw. Now you’re back and someone’s done this to Grace. He’s worked up. He’ll get over it.”

  “Do you really think words can make this right?”

  “I don’t think you did anything wrong, Adam. And if your father was thinking straight, he’d see it that way, too. You need to understand that when Grace came to me, I had no idea what to do. My wife left when my own daughter was young. I knew nothing about nothing. Your father helped me. He feels responsible.” He spread his palms. “He’s a proud man, and prideful men don’t show their hurt. They lash out. They do things they eventually regret.”

  “That changes nothing.”

  Dolf shook his head again. “We all have regrets. You do. I do. But the older we get, the more there are to carry around. That much weight can break a man. That’s all I’m saying. Give your old man a chance. He never believed you killed that boy, but he couldn’t just ignore the things his own wife said.”

  “He threw me out.”

  “And he’s wanted to make it right. I can’t count the times he wanted to call you, or write you. He even asked me once if I’d drive to New York with him. He said there were things to say, and not all things should be trusted to paper.”

  “Wanting is not the same as doing.”

  “That’s true.”

  I thought of the blank page I’d found on my father’s desk. “What stopped him?”

  “Pride. And your stepmother.”

  “Janice.” The name came with difficulty.

  “She’s a decent woman, Adam. A loving mother. Good for your father. In spite of everything, I still believe that, just as she believes what she saw that night. I can promise that these five years have not been easy on her, either. It’s not like she had a choice. We all act on what we believe.”

  “You want me to forgive him?” I asked.

  “I want you to give him a chance.”

  “His loyalty should be to me.”

  Dolf sighed. “You’re not his only family, Adam.”

  “I was his first.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. Your mother was beautiful and he adored her. But things changed when she died. You changed most of all.”

  “I had my reasons.”

  A sudden brightness moved into Dolf’s eyes. The manner of her death hit us all hard. “He loved your mother, Adam. Marrying again was not something he did lightly. Gray Wilson’s death put him in a difficult place. He had to choose between believing you and believing his wife. Do you think that could be easy or anything but dangerous? Try to see it like that.”

  “There’s no conflict today. What about now?”

  “Now is . . . complicated. There’s the timing. The things Grace said.”

  “What about you, then? Is today complicated for you?”

  Dolf turned in his seat. He faced me with blunt features and a level gaze. “I believe what Grace told me, but I know you, too. So, while I don’t know what, exactly, to believe, I do think that this will all be sorted out in time.” He looked away. “Sinners usually pay for their sins.”

  I studied his raw face, the chapped lips and the drooping eyes that ill-concealed the grief. “You honestly believe that?” I asked.

  He looked up at the humming lights, so that a bright, gray sheen seemed to cover his eyes. His voice drifted, and was pale as smoke.

  “I do,” he said. “I absolutely do.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Ten minutes later, the cops materialized in the door. Robin appeared subdued, while the other cop made small, eager movements. Tall and round-shouldered, he was somewhere north of fifty, in faded jeans and a red jacket. Brown hair spread thinly over a narrow forehead and sharp nose. A badge hung on his belt and small, round glasses flashed over washed-out eyes.

  “Can we talk outside?” Robin asked.

  Dolf sat up straighter, but said nothing. I got up and followed them out. Jamie was nowhere to be seen. The other cop held out a hand. “I’m Detective Grantham,” he said. We shook hands. “I work for the sheriff, so don’t let the clothes fool you.”

  His smile broadened, but I knew better than to trust it. No smile could be real tonight. “Adam Chase,” I said.

  His face went flat. “I know who you are, Mr. Chase—I’ve read the file—and I will make every effort to keep that knowledge from coloring my objectivity.”

  I kept my calm, but it took some effort. No one knew a thing about me in New York. I’d grown used to it. “Are you capable of that?” I asked.

  “I never knew the boy that was killed. I know he was liked, that he was football hero and all that; that he had a lot of family around here. I know that they made a lot of noise about rich men’s justice. But that was all before my time. You’re just like anybody else to me, Mr. Chase. No preconceptions.”

  He gestured at Robin. “Now, Detective Alexander has told me about your relationship to the victim. None of us likes to see cases like this, but it’s important to move as quickly as possible when something like this does occur. I know that it’s late and that you’re probably upset, but I’m hoping that you can help me out.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  “That’s good. That’s just fine. Now, I understand that you saw the victim today?”

  “Her name is Grace.”

  He smiled again, and this one had an edge on it. “Of course,” he said. “What did you and Grace talk about? How was her state of mind?”

  “I don’t know how to answer that,” I said. “I don’t know her anymore. It’s been a long time. She never responded to my letters.”

  Robin spoke. “You wrote to her?”

  I could feel the sudden hurt in her voice.

  You wrote to her, but not to
me.

  I turned to Robin. “I wrote to her because she was too young to understand my reasons for leaving. I needed her to understand why I was no longer there for her.”

  “Just tell me about today,” Grantham said. “Tell me the rest of it.”

  I pictured Grace: the heat of her skin beneath my palm, the fierce resentment, the undertones of something more. I knew what this cop was looking for. He had his story from Grace and wanted corroboration; to hell with objectivity. Part of me wanted to give it to him. Why? Because screw it.

  “I rubbed lotion on her back. She kissed me. She said that she hates me.” I looked Grantham in the eye. “She ran away.”

  “Did you chase her?” Grantham asked.

  “It wasn’t that kind of running away.”

  “It doesn’t sound like the kind of reunion most would expect, either.”

  My voice came low and hard. “Thinking that I raped Grace Shepherd is like saying I raped my own daughter.”

  Grantham did not blink. “Yet, daughters are raped with great consistency by their fathers, Mr. Chase.”

  I knew that he was right. “It’s not like it sounds,” I said. “She was angry at me.”

  “Why?” Grantham asked.

  “Because I left her. She was making a point.”

  “What else?”

  “She said that she had lots of boyfriends. She wanted me to know that. She wanted me to hurt, too, I think.”

  “Are you saying that she’s promiscuous?” Grantham asked.

  “I’m not saying anything like that. How would I know something like that?”

  “She told you.”

  “She also kissed me. She was hurt. She was lashing out. I was her family and I left her when she was fifteen years old.”

  “She’s not your daughter, Mr. Chase.”

  “That’s irrelevant.”

  Grantham looked at Robin, then back at me. He clasped his hands in front of his waist. “Very well. Go on.”

  “She was wearing a white bikini and sunglasses. Nothing else. She was wet, just out of the river. When she ran away, she ran south along the bank. There’s a trail that’s been there forever. It leads to Dolf’s house, about a mile down.”

  “Did you assault Ms. Shepherd?”

  “I did not.”

  Grantham pursed his lips. “Okay, Mr. Chase. That’ll do for now. We’ll speak again later.”

  “Am I a suspect?” I asked.

  “I rarely speculate on such things this early in an investigation. However, Detective Alexander has stated, quite emphatically, that she does not believe you capable.” He paused, looked at Alexander, and I saw flakes of dried skin on his glasses. “Of course, I have to consider the fact that you and Detective Alexander apparently have some kind of relationship. That complicates matters. We’ll have a better idea about all of this once we can speak to the victim”—he caught himself—“to Grace.”

  “When will that be?” I asked.

  “Just waiting for the doctor to clear it.” Grantham’s cell phone chirped and he looked at the caller ID. “I need to get this.” He answered the phone and walked away. Robin moved next to me, yet I found it hard to look at her. It was like she had two faces: the one I saw above me in the half-light of her bedroom and the one I’d seen most recently, the cop.

  “I shouldn’t have tested you,” she said.

  “No.”

  “I apologize.”

  She stood in front of me, and her face was the softest I’d seen since my return. “It’s complicated, Adam. For five years, all I’ve had is the job. I take it seriously. I’m good at it but it’s not all good. Not all the time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You get isolated. You see shadows.” She shrugged, dug deeper for the explanation. “Even the good guys will lie to a cop. Eventually, you get used to it. Then you start to expect it.” She was struggling. “I know it’s not right. I don’t like it either, but it’s who I am. It’s what I became when you left.”

  “You never doubted me, Robin, not even during the worst of it.”

  She reached for my hand. I let her take it.

  “She was so innocent,” I said. I spoke of Grace.

  “She’ll get over this, Adam. People get over worse.”

  But I was already shaking my head. “I’m not talking about what happened today. I’m talking about when I left. When she was a child. It was like a light came off of her. That’s what Dolf used to say.”

  “How so?”

  “He said that most people walk in light and dark. That’s the way the world usually works. But some people carry the light with them. Grace was like that.”

  “She’s not the child you remember, Adam. She hasn’t been for a long time.”

  There was something in Robin’s voice. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “About six months ago, a state trooper caught her doing one-twenty down the interstate at two in the morning on a stolen motorcycle. She wasn’t even wearing a helmet.”

  “Was she drunk?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Was she prosecuted?”

  “Not for stealing the bike.”

  “Why not?”

  “It was Danny Faith’s bike. I guess he didn’t know that she’s the one who took it. He reported it stolen but wouldn’t press charges. They locked her up, but the D.A. dropped the case. Dolf hired a lawyer to handle the speeding charge. She lost her license.”

  I could picture the bike, a big Kawasaki that Danny had had forever. Grace would be very small on it, but I could see her, too: the speed, the torrent of noise, and her hair straight out behind her. Like she’d looked the first time she’d ridden my father’s horse.

  Fearless.

  “You don’t know her,” I said.

  “A hundred and twenty miles an hour, Adam. Two in the morning. No helmet. It took the patrolman five miles to catch up with her.”

  I thought of Grace now, damaged in one of those antiseptic rooms behind me. I rubbed at my eyes. “What am I supposed to feel, Robin? You’ve seen this before.”

  “Anger. Emptiness. I don’t know.”

  “How can you not know?”

  She shrugged. “It’s never been someone I love.”

  “And Grace?”

  Her eyes were impregnable. “I’ve not known Grace for some time, Adam.”

  I was silent, thinking of Grace’s words on the dock.

  Who else cared about me?

  “Are you okay?” Robin asked.

  I was not, not even close. “If I could find the guy that did this, I’d kill him.” I showed her my eyes. “I would kill that motherfucker dead.”

  Robin looked around; no one was close. “Don’t say that, Adam. Not here. Not ever.”

  Grantham finished his phone call and met us at the hospital door. We walked in together. Dolf and my father were speaking to the attending physician. Grantham interrupted them.

  “Can we see her yet?”

  The doctor was a young, earnest-looking man with black-framed glasses and a thin nose. He seemed small and prematurely bent; he held a clipboard against his chest as if it could armor him from the injuries that surrounded him. His voice was surprisingly firm.

  “Physically, she’s sound enough. But I don’t know that she’ll be responsive. She has not really said anything since she came in, except for once in the first hour. She asked for somebody named Adam.”

  People turned as one: my father, Dolf, Robin, and Detective Grantham. Eventually, the doctor looked at me as well. “Are you Adam?” he asked. I nodded, and my father’s mouth opened in the silence. The doctor looked uncertain. “Maybe if you spoke to her. . . .”

  “We need to speak to her first,” Grantham said.

  “Very well,” the doctor said. “I will need to be in the room as well.”

  “No problem.”

  The doctor led us down a narrow hall with empty gurneys along the wall. We rounded a corner and he stopped next to a pale wooden door with a sma
ll window in it. I caught a glimpse of Grace under a thin blanket.

  “The rest of you wait out here,” he said, then held the door for the detectives.

  Cool air moved against my face and then they were inside. Dolf and my father watched through the window while I paced small circles and thought of the last thing Grace had said to me. Five minutes later the door opened. The doctor looked at me.

  “She’s asking for you,” he said.

  I started for the door, but Grantham stopped me with a hand against my chest. “She wouldn’t speak to us. We’ve agreed to let you in because the doc here thinks it will help her snap out of it.” I met his gaze and held it. “Don’t do anything to make me regret this.”

  I leaned against his hand until he was forced to move it. I stepped past him, into the room, still feeling his fingers there, and how he’d pushed hard at the last second. The door swung on silent hinges; the two old men crowded against the glass. Then she was before me, and I felt my resentment wither and die. None of that mattered.

  Hospital light sucked the color out of her. Her chest rose and fell, with long pauses where I felt that none should be. Strands of blond hung across her cheek, and there was dried blood in the shell of her ear. I looked at Robin, whose face was closed.

  I walked around the bed. Stitches pierced her lips. She had massive bruising, her eyes so swollen that they were barely open, just a glimmer of blue that looked too pale. Tape secured a tube to the back of her hand, which felt brittle when I took it. I tried to find some hint of her in those eyes, and when I said her name the slice of blue expanded minutely, and I knew that she was there. She stared at me for a long time.

  “Adam?” she asked, and I heard all of the things I knew she felt, the subtle nuance of pain and loss.

  “I’m here.”

  She rolled her head away, not wanting me to see the tears that slipped, thick and silent, down her face. I straightened so that she could see me when she opened her eyes. It took her a while. Grantham shifted his feet. No one else moved.

  She did not look at me again until the tears had ceased, but when our eyes met, I knew they would come again. The battle was there, in her face, and I watched helplessly as she lost it. She held up her arms and I leaned into them as the dam burst again; and she grasped me as she began to sob. Her body was hot and shaking; I put my arms around her as best as I could. I told her not to worry. I told her that everything would be okay. Then she leaned her mouth against my ear one more time and whispered something so quietly I could barely hear her.