“Where do you suppose he went?”
She shook her head.
“To see Annette Byers?”
“He saw her yesterday. He said we didn’t have to worry, she was leaving right away.”
“Start at the beginning, Mrs. Johnson. Make it easier on both of us.”
She drew a breath before she said, “That woman called here last week. Out of the blue... Grant swore it was the first time he’d heard from her since she gave up custody of Kevin. He wasn’t lying. He was as surprised as I was — I could see it in his eyes.”
“What day was that?”
“Saturday. Early Saturday morning.”
“Where was she calling from?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“Purpose of the call?”
“She wanted a place to stay for a week or two. She said she was having problems with an abusive boyfriend, had no one else to turn to.”
“She wanted to stay here, in your house?”
“Lord, no. She wouldn’t dare have asked that. Grant has a fishing shack on the river that belonged to his father.”
“Sacramento River?”
“Yes. Up beyond Knight’s Landing. She knew about it from when they were... seeing each other, hoped he’d still have it.” Melanie Johnson’s mouth flexed and tightened, as if she were tasting bile. “He used to take her there. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was where Kevin was conceived.”
“What was your husband’s reaction to her request?”
“He didn’t want anything to do with her, after all this time. But she begged him... she was crying; he said she really sounded terrified. Grant has a soft heart... too soft sometimes. He gave in. I guess I can’t blame him. He said she could stay at the shack as long as she kept away from us, from Kevin. He told her where he hides the key so he wouldn’t have to see her.”
“Just her staying at the shack, no one else?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Did either of you hear from her again?”
“No. But then we read in the papers that the police were looking for her, that she was mixed up in that murder case. And yesterday a San Francisco newspaper reporter called Grant and asked about her. It scared us. If the police found her at the shack, we were afraid Grant would be arrested, too... aiding a fugitive or something.”
“So what did you decide to do?”
“Grant said the best thing was to tell her she couldn’t stay any longer, make her leave if he had to. There’s no phone at the shack, so he drove up yesterday afternoon after work.”
“And?”
“She didn’t give him any trouble, he said. Agreed to leave right away. But he was gone a long time, and he seemed upset when he came home.”
“Did you ask him about that?”
“Yes. He said it was painful seeing her again, and he stopped for a couple of beers afterward.” She paused and then said, “Only now you tell me he’s not at work today. If he went back up there... why would he do that?”
The question was for herself, not me. I said nothing.
“I don’t understand it. He’s not a liar, really he’s not. We’ve never had any secrets from each other. He’d never start up with that bitch again, I know he wouldn’t... But now that I think about it, his breath didn’t smell of beer last night...”
I was not going there with her. I said, “There’s probably a simple explanation, Mrs. Johnson,” and then I asked, “Where exactly is the fishing shack?”
She told me; it sounded easy enough to find. Then she said, “You have to tell me something now. How much trouble is my husband in? Can he be arrested for aiding a fugitive?”
“Not if everything you’ve told me is the truth.” And if he hadn’t been helping her in some other way, last night and/or today.
“It’s the truth, believe me.” She sighed heavily. “He’ll be mad at me for talking to you like this.”
“You did the right thing, Mrs. Johnson.”
She lifted Michael’s thin body, hugged him so tight against her breast he began to squirm. “Yes,” she said a little grimly, “I know I did.”
I crossed the Sacramento River on Highway 113 out of Woodland. The Sacramento is a big river, 375 miles of loops and bends and white-water rapids from its headwaters near Mount Shasta to San Francisco Bay; an important river in terms of agribusiness, transportation, the endangered Chinook salmon; a controversial river for the ongoing, often bitter struggles over water use, pollution control, and its fragile ecosystem; a badly used river by logging, mining, manufacturing, developmental, and political interests. But you might not guess any of that if you saw it for the first time from the bridge at Knight’s Landing. From there the Sacramento looks small, tame, insignificant — a none too appetizing muddy brown, glinting under the rays of the midday sun.
Along the rivercourse south of Knight’s Landing is where Sacramento’s gentry live in expensive ranch-style homes and pink-and-white estate villas, their pleasure boats kept in ritzy marinas; north of the village is not much of anything except open grassland and wetland, a fifty-mile stretch up to Colusa that unrestricted logging has all but denuded of the riparian forests that once grew along there. Grant Johnson’s fishing shack was in that stretch, a few miles upriver.
Highway 113 continues northeast to Yuba City, but at a wide spot called Robbins, Melanie Johnson had told me, a back road branches off to parallel the river. I found it and followed it a couple of miles to where a rutted track angled over to the river hamlet of Kirkville. Look for a dirt lane just outside Kirkville, she’d told me. I looked, spotted it, turned, and jounced along its narrow, snaky length for a tenth of a mile until I could see the river again.
That was far enough in the car. I left it sitting in the middle of the lane, not because the track was little used, but to block any potential escape. Before I got out, I checked the loads in the .38 and put the weapon in my pocket.
I walked ahead slowly, keening the way an animal does. Blackbirds chattered in a line of bushes that partially blocked my view of the river; there was no other sound that I could hear. A gusty little wind brought the water smell to me, a good, fresh smell in spite of its muddiness.
The bushes helped screen my approach. When I reached them, I had a clear look at the river, a few hundred yards wide at this point, and part of the near shoreline. Stunted willows, wild grape, and three tumbledown, board-and-batten shacks squatting at the water’s edge at fifty-yard intervals. Two of the shacks had stubby, rotting piers jutting from their backsides; the one I wanted was the second of the the two, the farthest upriver. From where I stood, I could see only its outer half. I eased ahead a pace at a time until the bushes thinned and the rest of it came into sight.
The front of the shack had two steps leading up to the door. A man was sitting on the top one, hunched forward, elbows on knees and chin on the backs of his hands. Brown-haired, brown-bearded, and unfamiliar — Grant Johnson, no doubt, because the pickup truck parked nearby had the words RiteClean Plumbing and Heating on the driver’s door.
But what tightened the muscles in my neck and shoulders, my fingers around the 38’s grip, was neither Johnson nor his truck. It was the other car parked there, drawn up close on the shack’s far side.
Annette Byers’ MG.
19
I got to within thirty yards of the shack before the wind lulled and Johnson heard or sensed my presence. His head jerked up; then he was on his feet in one awkward lunge. He was linebacker big, going soft around the middle but with the kind of size and muscle that would make him rough goods in a fight. If he’d made any sort of move in my direction, I would have had to show him the gun. But he was not the aggressive type. He stood swaying slightly, slump-shouldered, gawping at me out of widened eyes, his face twisted with anguish and confusion.