Black Water

CHAPTER TWELVE

Early the next morning Archie opened his eyes. In the half-light of the ICU he saw the silhouettes of the monitor and drip trolley, the crimson swoosh of someone leaving the room. He lifted his head, rising just slightly on his elbows, and backed up onto his pillow.

Gwen is dead, he thought. The huge black nothing that was now Gwen opened up to him and he felt his heart falling down into the center of it. It was still beating as it fell, but it felt reluctant. He thought it might stop. He waited for it to stop. He saw that bright flash of light in his eyes, the one that had greeted him on his walkway under the trees.

And he heard the voice again, the one that had been telling him what to do for these last forty-eight hours, now saying:

Your heart is strong. I'm above you in the sky. You will find me if you look.

Archie realized it was Gwen's voice, even though he still couldn't picture her face.

Another red rush of movement outside the door, then it came straight at him: "Oh, Mr. Wyocraff! Mr. Wyocraff! It's so good! You be careful, you be careful with a IV." Warm hands on his shoulder then and a dull pain that registered as a flash of lime green. "You take it easy, Mr. Wyocraff. You our miracle. You take it easy."

"Sure," he heard himself say. The voice was sandy and tan and seemed to come from far away.

Four more people suddenly crowded into the room. He felt the energy they brought with them, as if their bodies contained fires. Hands on his shoulder again, and another throb of pain.

Another nurse, then: "Archie, we're going to move you back down in the bed, then raise the head, okay? You just relax now…"

They pulled him down by his ankles. A nurse steadied his head and it felt like she wore oven mitts, and he wondered if his head was wrapped. A motor ground and the bed rose slightly, bending him the waist. His head hurt only a little. But a burning match touched the tip of his penis and he very slowly tilted down his head for a look. Catheter, he thought, and tried to say the word but it wasn't worth the syllables.

He strained his neck for a look down at his shoulder. Through the hospital smock he could see the plastic gadget with an intravenous line hooked into it. He ran his right hand across his cheek: hard stubb. He raised the hand slightly and felt the soft turban of gauze that came down to his ears. When he slipped the finger under it he realized they'd shaved his head.

He remembered that Gwen was dead and he waited for his heart to stop.

The four bodies parted. A man in a suit stopped beside the bed, looked at Archie and said, "I'm John Stebbins. How are you feeling?"

Archie managed a nod.

Dr. Stebbins stared into his eyes like he was looking for a treasure.

"Vision blurred?"

Archie shook his head very slightly, the turban resisting the pillowcase.

"Color?"

Archie nodded.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Two," he said. It seemed like such a long word, stretching on for miles, like a beach.

"You can obviously hear me. How's your head feel?"

Archie nodded again. He watched the doctor's eyes move to the monitor, then back to him.

"Look at the ceiling, please. I'm going to touch you with a pen. When I do, just raise a finger for me. Okay?

"The nodding was wearing him out. He looked up. He felt something touch his toe. Ankle. Kneecap. Fingertip. Stomach. Thigh. Hip. Chest. Upper arm. Palm.

"Move your right foot. Good. Left. Good. Raise your right kneethat's enough. Now the left. Fine. Raise your right hand. From the shoulder now-excellent. Can you smile?"

Archie tried to smile but his lips were tight and his teeth felt huge and dry.

"Fine," he said. "Welcome back."

Archie just stared at him: a pale blue man with peaceful eyes and a tight mouth.

"How much Decadron is he taking?"

A nurse said something and Stebbins nodded. "And how much Tegretol?"

Archie heard her answer but couldn't calculate what it meant.

"Seizures?"

"A sharp decline, Doctor. None for four hours."

Dr. Stebbins turned to one of the nurses and ordered a spiral CT scan immediately, tell Bixton it was priority and call me as soon as they're ready.

They parted and the doctor left in a comet of trailing red. All four stared at him like he was the most interesting thing they'd ever seen. A fifth person craned her neck from the doorway.

"Soup," said Archie.

He drank three cups of broth and fell deeply asleep. Then they were trying to wake him and he was able to come up through the clear warm water and join them.

One nurse wheeled his bed from the room and the other pushed the drip trolley.

"You be very famous when you get out," said the nurse, the one who had called him her miracle. "Reporter all want talk to you."

Her face was enameled yellow. Orange hair, an indigo uniform that he knew was either white or blue. He saw these colors clearly even though he knew they were wrong.

"Did they bury her?" he heard himself ask.

"I don't know. You think of life, Mr. Wyocraff. You don't think of death."

But that was almost all Archie thought about while they ran the CT on him. Death and Gwen. Gwen and death, now together. He tried pull them apart but they wouldn't come. And he still couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her face. He knew he loved her. He knew she was gone forever. He knew that she was the largest thing in his heart, his life, his history. Why couldn't he see her?

Would she talk to him again?

The scan was painless. The doctors hovered a few yards away a talked about things inside his brain that he couldn't see. He wondered if they could see what he was thinking. Then the one called Stebbi told him all sorts of information about what might be happening to his brain, about fragmentation and edema and infection and amnesia a pain, about the thalamus and the amygdala and the pyramidal tract, and colors and confusion and the emotional components of memory.

Back in his room in the ICU he closed his eyes hard and tried burst out of his nightmare. He used to do this when he was a boy a having a bad dream-just scrunch his eyelids down hard and blast out of it and into the comfort of his bed. It was like space travel. But didn't work because this was not a dream.

So he tried to transport himself back to that night. To get himself onto the walkway under the Chinese flame trees just one second before the bright light hit his eyes. To change what happened.

God, what I could have done, he thought.

But Archie couldn't take himself back. And he wondered what good it would do if he could. He knew he'd come up that walkway again, be caught in the light again, take a bullet in his head again.

And what had happened to Gwen would happen to Gwen again

He'd have no power to stop it, really. Because he didn't know why. He didn't know why any of this had happened. Until you understood why, what was the point of going back?

Archie twisted quickly to the side and vomited the meager content of his stomach. Tears burned from his eyes and the catheter pulled a green arrow of pain through him. He smelled the foul aroma of his body. He heard a buzzer go off, and another.

Then the crimson rush of motion again, and hands upon him, voices bubbling forth. More of this horseshit about being someone's miracle. He lay back and shut his eyes tight and tried to go under to the warm deep water where he was safe and invisible. But he couldn't get there. Just couldn't slip beneath himself.

Then her voice again, ordering him not to descend, not to go down.

Up, Archie… that's where I'll be. Free and open in the sky.

So Archie lay on the bed while they handled him and imagined himself in a beautiful blue sky. So hard to go there, though, with the noise and activity all around him. And he realized this was his world now. It was the only place that would have him. Loud and painful and shot with colors that made no sense. Gwenless and loveless and stripped of everything that was valuable. Indifferent, needle-happy and catheter-mad. Urgent but pointless. This is the world he was part of now.

There was nothing he could do about that. It was like being born again.

Then, in his nauseous despair, Archie heard Gwen's voice again.

I love you, Arch. I'm still your girl.

I want to be with you, he thought to her. I want to be with you so badly.

Be with me. I'm up here waiting.

If I can find out why, maybe I can go back and make it all come out right. If I understand it I can make it go our way.

Find out why, Arch. Make it go our way.

I will. I can.

When Archie woke up again it was early afternoon and Sergeant Rayborn was sitting next to his bed. Again-though for only a split second-he thought she was Gwen, that this whole stupid thing was only a nightmare and everything was really very okay. But it was just the sergeant. She didn't look as angry as before, but she had the kind of face that could get that way fast. Standing back near the wall was her partner, Zamorra, the Golden Gloves guy who dressed like an undertaker. More history, coming back to his mind one image, one memory at a time.

He let his eyes roam to the small framed picture on his bed traydark-haired beauty with smart eyes. That's her, he thought.

Gwen.

"How are you feeling?" the detective asked.

Archie raised his eyebrows and let them fall. "Good," he whispered. He wasn't trying to whisper, it just came out that way.

"Can we talk for a few minutes?"

Archie nodded. He saw her little notebook and her pen. He remembered wanting to be a homicide investigator someday. She had tough eyes and a pale blue face. Zamorra's was pink.

"May I have your full name?"

"Archibald Franklin Wildcraft."

"Address?"

He gave it. It was strange, bringing up this bit of information, was inside him and true but not substantial.

"What did you do in college, Archie?"

"Played baseball. All my life." This was a much heavier memory.

He looked again at the little picture on his stand.

"What's your rank, Archie?"

"Deputy Two."

"What's your assignment?"

"Patrol. Days."

"Can you tell me the name of your partner?"

"Damon Reese."

"Describe him to me, can you?"

"Six feet, one-ninety. Brown and brown, big nose."

Rayborn waited. Then nodded and wrote.

"Archie, what happened the night that Gwen was killed?"

It took him a moment to think of the words, order them, then gather his strength to form them. His memory of that night was filled with gaps. Chasms. With the same black nothingness that was now Gwen He thought he could fall right in. The older stuff, like playing baseball was clear.

"I don't remember everything."

She didn't look up from her notebook for a moment. When she did, her eyes fixed on his and Archie felt like he was being seen without his clothes on.

He watched her make a note, then look at him, waiting. "Tell me what you do remember."

"I remember that Gwen was there. It's hard to picture her that night. I can see her from years ago, but not from that night. She's like a… ghost. A good ghost. A party. Friends. A rock in the house. The walkway by the pool. A bright light. Then this."

"Do you know how the rock got into your house?"

"I remember a noise."

"Someone threw it?"

"I didn't see."

"Did you throw it?"

"I don't remember throwing it."

Rayborn looked at her partner. Archie was sure that something was being communicated but didn't know what. It was hard to understand. His mind seemed to follow things, then there was a big soft gap, and the meanings fell into it. And he knew the meanings were there, but he couldn't reach them. Like trying to touch a ball that's just out of reach.

"Did you shoot your wife?"

Archie looked at the picture before he answered.

"I don't think so."

"Did you shoot yourself?"

"I don't think so. No."

Rayborn waited for those last two answers before looking down at her notebook and scribbling something.

"Archie, were you having an affair?"

"I don't remember having one."

"Was Gwen?"

"I have no memory of that. No."

"Would you be willing to take a polygraph test, answer some questions like these?"

"Yes.

"She was nodding now, biting her bottom lip, which is what Gwen used to do when she was thinking through a problem. Isn't that strange he thought, that I can remember her biting her lip but not what her face looked like on her birthday? He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Do you remember having a gun with you that night?"

He thought about this for a long time. "No."

"Did you know she was killed with your gun, a Smith and Wesson nine millimeter registered in your name?"

Archie felt a funny pull in his guts. Then an awful sinking. I thought for a moment he was going to slide back under the warm dark water to hover just below the surface, looking up at these people. But no-Gwen had told him she was up, not down. He tried to elevate above all this, above the room and the cops. Up to where she was Into the blue. Nothing doing.

"No."

"Your prints were on it. And on the cartridges inside. And on the empty casings found at the scene. Nobody else's prints were on them. Just yours."

He said nothing.

"In fact, we've only identified two sets of prints from your home and your entire property, so far. Yours and hers."

"Someone wearing gloves?" he asked.

"Maybe," said the detective. "But that leaves us with just about zero evidence of a third person ever being at your house. We've got a set of footprints that might belong to the gardener. We've got a black Cadillac that may or may not have anything to do with this case. And that's it. No physical evidence of another person being on your property that night. No witness. Just your gun with your prints on it."

He said nothing. It hadn't occurred to him until just now that he would be a suspect. If it weren't for Gwen, it would be comical. He actually laugh. But, ridiculous as this was, it was about Gwen, too and Gwen was murdered, and nothing about the murder of Gwen would ever, ever be funny.

Archie stared back at Rayborn and felt an almost blinding anger spreading through his body. Like something boiling out from his heart.

He'd felt this before and he'd always believed he was capable of murder on anger like this. He'd learned to hide it. And along with the anger came an overwhelming wave of guilt.

I couldn't protect her.

He blinked. He smelled a draft of his own body odor swelling up around him. "I couldn't have killed her, Detective. I loved her. I don't kill people I love."

She was watching him hard. Archie thought she knew he was furious, thought he saw a look of impressed understanding cross her features. Maybe she's got the temper, too, he thought.

"Answer this," she said.

He waited.

"Our lab pulled enough barium and antimony off your hand to establish that you'd fired a gun very recently. That would be your gun hand. So, when did you shoot and what did you shoot at?"

Archie had to think. First, to let that anger settle down a little. When the temper hit, it was like something heavy and smooth starting downhill. It just pulled you along.

But even with his fury tamped down, it took him a while to turn around and wade backward into time, past what had happened that night. It was extremely hard for him to get beyond that point. It lay back there behind him like a dam on a river. It was huge and black and heavy and absolutely immovable. On the far side of it lay memory, Gwen and strong feelings. On the near side there were just spotty images with no emotion attached to them at all.

"I went to the Sheriff's range recently. If I had my calendar I could tell you when."

"That day?"

"No."

"The day before?"

"No. Two weeks before. Maybe three or four. I'm not clear on some things."

She looked straight at him again and those eyes rooted around inside him like they were hungry. "I guess you wouldn't be, Deputy."

"No. I'm not."

"Barium and antimony usually wash off in a day or two. Just with regular showers."

"I can't explain it."

"Maybe you fired the gun and don't remember doing it. That happens in brain injuries, Archie. Parts of your memory get taken away

"That doesn't seem possible."

"What doesn't?"

"That I could remember loving her but not remember shooting her."

He didn't say that he also remembered loving her but could not remember exactly what she looked like the last time he'd seen her. Except that it must be something like Sergeant Rayborn looked, because he'd twice wondered if Rayborn was Gwen. He looked at the picture and saw a slight resemblance.

She looked back at Zamorra, then at Archie again. "That's not hard to understand. One memory is ruined. But another stays."

Archie realized that, based on this theory, he could have done just about anything on Earth in his life but not remember it now. It was like having a cage lowered over you.

"Did you shoot her, Archie?"

Again, that hot rush of fury moving through him. A fury with its roots in the old Archie, the part of his life on the far side of the dam.

"No. Am I under arrest?"

"No," she said. Then she exhaled slowly, like she'd been waiting a long time to do it.

Archie watched Zamorra move closer to his bed. Zamorra looked like a man who could hurt you, and people said he could. But right now, this furious, Archie knew he could rise from his bed and yank the man's head off before he could make a sound.

"Do you know what suiseki is, Archie?" he asked.

"No."

"Tell me, did Gwen ever write music?"

"Yes." He remembered some words from a song she'd written many years ago, right after they'd met. She'd been sixteen. She'd given him a tape of it, with her playing guitar. He still had that tape in cigar box in his closet.

Don't speak, don't say a word

We 're just dreaming

Words get in the way

He wondered how he could remember those words from ten years ago, but not her face from the last time he'd seen her. It was starting to drive him crazy.

"When was it?" Archie asked.

"When was what, Archie?"

"When did she die?"

"It was early Wednesday. The day before yesterday. Today's Friday."

Archie tried to find somewhere to put this information. But he couldn't remember much of that day. Or the day before. And even less of the two days since, here in this bed-just a seamless stretch of sleep and dreams and voices underscored by raw, physical fear and deep dread. But he clearly remembered shutting out Cal State Fullerton in a pre-league game in April of 1993, scattering three hits in seven innings, and clubbing a home run to left center. Could still see that ball sailing over the 385 mark. He clearly remembered the white hairs that grew between the toes of his boyhood black lab, Clunker, when he got old. Could clearly see the face of his father while he reeled in a smallie on one of his hand-carved plugs: whiskers on his chin, a hard glint of pride in his eyes, mouth in a tight smile with a cigarette in one side and the smoke welling up under the brim of his hat.

And he could clearly, effortlessly see the face of Gwen Kuerner, age sixteen, when he knocked on the door of her house for the first time and she and all three of her sisters answered it.

He closed his eyes. "I'm very tired."

"Thanks for talking with us," said Zamorra. "Is there anything we can get for you?"

"Please bring me another picture of Gwen."

Zamorra paused and looked at the picture on the bed tray before he answered. "Okay. Anything else?"

"I just remembered what suiseki means. They are rocks you collect and look at. Viewing stones. I have a room full of them. I always liked rocks as a kid. But the viewing stones, I think I bought those kind of recently."

"You didn't know that three minutes ago."

"I just remembered it now."

"Archie," said Zamorra, "when does your gardener come?"

"Huh?"

"Your gardener, the guy who rakes the leaves and pulls the weeds

"I don't really know."

"Do you know his name, or how to get in touch with him?"

"I don't remember."

"Can I ask you one more question?"

He nodded but he felt himself gliding upward into a clear blue sky that was Gwen.

"When you think about that night-Gwen and the party, the rock and the light in your eyes-do you remember being sad? Angry? Happy? Afraid? How did you feel, then, that night? What was in your heart?"

"I was happy. We made love by the beach. Stars in her hair. I just remembered that, too."

Merci sat at her desk at headquarters and played her messages. The Homicide pen was empty now, almost seven on a Friday evening. She liked it this way.

George Wildcraft confirmed their Saturday breakfast interview. He had a clear sharp voice and for whatever reasons she pictured him with a suntan and good teeth. Natalie, Archie's mother, would be there also. But Zamorra wouldn't because it was Saturday and he refused to work Saturdays or Sundays. Kirsten.

Gilliam had called but not said why. He rarely left information on a tape. She called him at home and apologized but he cut her off.

"You know you can call me anytime, day or night, Merci."

"Thanks, Jim."

"Look, I didn't want to leave it on the machine, but we finished up the DNA on Gwen and Archie today. The semen inside her was his."

"I could have told you that."

A silence. TV news in the background.

"And some of the blood on his robe was hers."

"Shit."

"Yes," he said softly.

"There's an explanation, Jim. He loved her. He had no reason."

"I hate to be the one to point this out, but-"

"But we've convicted lots of creeps with less than half the evidence we've got on Wildcraft."

"Less than a quarter," Gilliam said.

Merci felt a little chill go up her back. She pictured a jury listening as Archie tried to reassemble his blasted memory: I have no memory of that… wait a minute, I just remembered… no, I didn't kill her…

So she wondered if a piece of lead might speak more convincingly on his behalf. "Can you tell me the caliber of the bullet in his head?"

"I can't do it. The scans just aren't precise enough. We're talking fractions of millimeters in bullet size. Plus the fragmentation and distortion. I need the slug."

"Why not use a-you know, Jim, a…"

"A what, Merci? God knows I'm open to ideas."

"I don't know, some gadget that measures bullets in brains."

Another silence. "I wish I could."

"It's possible."

"What is?"

"That someone else shot them both."

Gilliam chuckled. "I'm trying to see it your way. In spite of the evidence, I am. But I'm not getting very far."

"Shit was going down, Jim. Somebody chucked a rock through his living room window. We've got some monstrous footprints from under that tree. What if Gwen was alive when Archie went outside? What if Wildcraft went outside to find the rock thrower and got off a shot at Size Sixteen? That accounts for the residue right there."

"Okay. But your witness heard one shot, not two."

"Simultaneous."

"I'm stretching hard here."

"Okay, then Archie came out with his weapon when he heard the rock through the window, walked into a bullet from the giant under the tree. He's down and bleeding. The shooter takes his gun and uses it on Gwen. He comes back outside and fires a sky round through with Archie's hand in a shooting grip. That's what Jones heard."

"Why didn't he hear the shot that put down Archie?"

"A small caliber-twenty-two or thirty-two. A silencer. Maybe Jones sneezed right then, was flushing a toilet. I don't know yet. But it was an autoloader. That accounts for the mess of footprints. Because the shooter had to find the casing."

"It wasn't just the gardener who left those prints, or one of us.”

"Not just the damned gardener, and Crowder told me that nobody been in there. It was the shooter, looking for the brass."

"And at some point this guy wipes Gwen Wildcraft's blood Archie's robe?"

"Exactly."

Gilliam sighed. "Maybe."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Not really wrong, Merci, but we've got a young, financially troubled, very jealous deputy who kills his wife and shoots himself, happens. We all know it happens. Or, we've got a giant throwing rocks, hiding under trees, switching out weapons, planting evidence and driving away without anyone seeing him. I'd go with Occam and his razor."

"Fuck Occam, and his razor too."

"And this Jones witness? I understand he was drinking hard stuff in the morning."

"So? He heard what he heard. The two shots to Gwen, they happened inside the bathroom. The bathroom was on the far side of the house, away from Jones's garage. And where did you get that Wildcraft was extremely jealous?"

"I was extrapolating."

"Because Gwen was beautiful."

"Correct."

"And what's this financially troubled crap?"

"It's a million-dollar home, Merci. Wildcraft was good for about fifty or sixty, and his wife was unemployed."

"They invested in OrganiVen, the cancer-cure guys. Made two million in less than a year. They weren't troubled-they were flush."

"It's easier to spend than to make. They could have been way over their heads."

"Jim, something's wrong. Help me. I'm no damned good, trying to think like a defense attorney. But I can't go after an innocent deputy just because he looks guilty."

Like I went after Mike.

"You know, Merci, that entry wound in Wildcraft's head-right side, behind the temple and above the ear-is where a lot of right-handed suicides place the gun."

She felt her anger leap from her heart to her mouth, like a spark jumping a gap. "Stebbins gave you scan copies already?"

"Slow down-you'll get yours tomorrow. You're free to look at mine if you can't wait that long."

She swallowed down the anger, saying nothing.

"Ryan Dawes isn't seeing it quite your way either," said Gilliam.

"Yeah. And A Madden's hovering over me like a driving teacher."

"Look, Merci, whether to arrest and charge Wildcraft with this is Vince and Clay Brenkus's call. Let them do their jobs, and we'll do ours."

Again, she pictured Wildcraft in court:

I have no memory of that… I don't think so… we made love by the beach that night… wait, I just remembered.

Christ, she thought: and his fingerprints all over the gun that killed her, and her blood on his robe? The jury may as well bring an electric chair and an extension cord with them.

She thought for a moment. "Okay, you think he did it. But what would you do if you were me? If you believed in your heart that he didn't?"

Gilliam said nothing for a beat, then he cleared his throat. "I'd just ask him lots of questions and listen hard to his answers. If Wildcraft did it, it's going to come out. He can't talk his way out of it with a bullet in his head. I mean, he'll never be able to keep his story straight. The way I see it, he tried to kill himself. He wasn't planning on being around to help with his defense, so to speak. "She agreed with that, but said nothing.

"And I'd look for a pair of size-sixteen Foot Rites somewhere on his property. The bottom of a trash can would be a likely place to start."

"Do you really think he set it up to look like a third party?"

"No. But it's possible, and if he did, he didn't have to work very hard at it-some footprints and a rock through his own window."

"Then off himself? Why bother with all the extra work if he was going to do that?"

"Because he didn't want to get caught. He's a cop. Even dead, he didn't want to get caught."

"Death before dishonor."

"That's part of it. Vanity, arrogance and pride come to mind, too.

"I thought was cynical."span›

"Give yourself about twenty years."

She thought about that. Twenty years from now she'd be fifty-seven. Once, she believed she'd be running for sheriff of Orange County about then. Now, after her grand jury appearance, the drear seemed bitter and comic.

"The rumor is, he had a temper," said Gilliam.

"I've heard that, too."

"Used to, anyway. God knows what that bullet left him with."

She thanked Gilliam and punched off, feeling the exit of sweet hope as it pinwheeled down and away.

She got out her blue notebook and dialed William Jones's number. She got a rather ditzy sounding young woman who laughed and said she' check but usually Bill was, well, not exactly sober this late.

Actually, he sounded pretty good to Merci, and he remembered he immediately. She asked him if he knew what day the Wildcrafts' gardener usually came.

Mondays or Tuesdays, pretty sure, said Bill. Could always tell b the little truck and the loud leaf blower.

"What's he look like?" she asked. "Like a gardener. Mexican, regular size. He gets here around sever leaves about three. I'll call you next time he's here. Tell me how Archie's doing. The papers don't tell you very much and the nurses say the same thing every time I call."

"I just saw him. He's awake and lucid, but tired."

"He's going to make it. Archie's strong as a horse. I'd see him washing his car out here on Sunday mornings and he had muscles on him you wouldn't believe. Not the gym kind, the baseball kind. Long muscles for running and throwing. I know because I played some ball back in high school. That was quite a while ago."

"For me it was, too."

She gave him her office and pager numbers, then thanked him again and hung up.