“Nothing,” he said. “Just something I had to check.”
He drove out River Road to the portage point. The rain had finally stopped, but the roads were still slick. The motel sign was lit, and he could see she had a good crowd. He parked along the road and walked into the forest, toward the river, avoiding the motel.
The moon floated behind thin cirrus that veiled the stars, but he could see well enough. The pines were thick enough here that not much brush grew under them. He walked on, pushing away the wet boughs, his throat dry and something pressing on his chest, until he came to the clearing at the top of the falls.
Just before the drop-off, the riverbank rocks narrowed the river down to twelve or so feet across. He got down next to the narrows, felt around in the wet dirt.
The metal anchor in the ground was still there. He remembered how, as a kid, he had watched some of the men net fishing one summer. They had stretched netting across the river at the narrows, tying it firmly to the metal anchors on either side.
Those nets were strong, to catch many fish in a very fast current.
For quite a long time, he stared out over the river. Moonlight fell heavily on it, but it rushed ahead, dark and unstoppable.
He turned slowly and walked over to the motel that backed onto the clearing.
Valerie answered the door. She stepped back when she saw him and sent the kids off into the other room. The kitchen table was piled high with magazines. Tim went over and looked at the covers.
“Next time, please call first if you need to see me,” she said. “I already told you-”
“The Bahamas,” Tim said. “I read those travel magazines, too. I see myself on a green mountainous island, sitting on the sand, looking out at turquoise water, with a pitcher of ice-cold daiquiris right next to me.”
“What do you want?” she said.
“I like that flowered dress. I bet Roy liked it, too. That's the dress you were wearing the day you found his body.”
“Is it?” she said.
“He called you four times in the two weeks before he died. Now, why would he do that?”
“Who?”
“Ballantine. Roy.”
“No, he didn't call me. Do you have some kind of phone record? Maybe he called Ed. They were both gamblers.”
“You're so beautiful. So harsh and so beautiful,” Tim said. “How could he resist?”
“Me and Roy? Don't be ridiculous.”
“He would jump over the bridge, and you would catch him at the narrows just before the falls and pull him out. He'd strip off the wet suit and you'd drive out to the airport with him and fly away from all the bad things.”
“No!”
“That's what Roy thought, anyway. Was he willing to take your kids? Then when Roy was gone, were you worried that Ed would stay on your case, figure it out eventually? You remember old Ed, don't you? You called him at the hotel and asked him to come to the house. The clerk told me.”
“No!” Valerie said, backing away. “You're crazy, Tim. Just because I won't have you after what happened- Calm down, let me make you a cup of coffee. Let's talk…” She reached up into the high cabinet and Tim caught a glimpse of the gun.
“Don't touch it,” he said. “You think I'd come here unarmed? We searched this place. I knew you'd have it somewhere handy. Close the cabinet. Come toward me with your hands up.”
“Tim-”
“No more bullshit.”
Her shoulders slumped. She seemed about to fall. He brought her over to the table and made her sit, sat down across from her. Cracked linoleum; greasy stove, one soft flowing flowered dress to wear… “Valerie,” he couldn't help saying, “I loved you.”
She raised her head, and he caught something ancient and inhuman behind her eyes. It was the thing that had made her drink, still alive inside there. He had to look away.
“You were supposed to catch him at the narrow spot, weren't you?” he said.
She shrugged and said, “It would have been a very small risk. I knew how to use the net. Yeah. Catch him, and then we'd leave with the money. That was his plan.”
“Did you try? You lost your grip, he went on by?”
“No.”
He had to breathe a minute, hard, before he could say, “You let him go by, over the falls?”
“I let him go.” Her mouth, that had kissed him so tenderly, saying those things-
“What did he do to you, that you would let him die like that?”
“It was what he would do to me someday. I thought it over. I just wanted to be alone.”
She was alone, she would always be alone. “Why didn't you strip off the wet suit? I might have bought the suicide.”
She backed away, saying in a hopeless, hostile voice, “I planned to. But when I saw him, the… injuries, I couldn't stand to touch him.”
“You had it made.”
“You know how it is, Tim. At the last minute, you sabotage yourself. You realize you're a loser, you don't have the strength to carry it off. Maybe if you'd been with me-but I wanted to be alone. That's all I wanted-”
“I'll have to take the money back,” Tim said, interrupting.
“I don't have it.” She had realized he wouldn't help her. Her mouth tightened, turned bitter.
“Of course you have it. He wouldn't risk floating down the river with it. No reason to. You were holding it. Go and get it.”
“I tell you, I don't have it.”
Tim said gently, “Write it off. It's dead money for you now. If you don't give it to me, I'll have to tear your house apart, dig up your land. If you tell me now, I'll say I found it somewhere else.”
She said without any shame or guilt, “All I did was not save him when he was floating down the river. It's not a crime, is it?”
“I don't know. But stealing the money would be a crime, and I can't let you do that. And then, look what you made me do to poor old Ed.”
“It's in the fireplace, above the flue. Get it yourself.”
He made her walk into the small living room with him. He could hear the TV through the kids' door. “Is this all?”
“All except the back bills I paid. Are you going to tell on me? If you do, I'll just go on over the falls like he did.”
“No. I'm not going to tell.”
She stood in the doorway, glaring as he drove away. “Good-bye, then, you cold bastard,” she yelled after him.
When he came to the bridge, where he needed to take a left to go into Timberlake, he took a right instead, and drove to the county airport, his right hand caressing the sooty bag. The Southwest Airlines plane bound for San Francisco was circling above, preparing to land. Through the open car windows, rustles and rushings and sighs drifted in on the wind.
He went into the dark airport bar and sat at a small candlelit table overlooking the runway. He placed the bag carefully on the table. “Drink?” the waitress said.
“A double Jack Daniel's, straight up.”
He picked it up, savored the fumes-
Liquor, money, blurry romance, some faraway place-all he had to do was drink it down, have another, buy a ticket, and drop a postcard in the mailbox resigning as deputy sheriff-
“It's such a beautiful night, isn't it?” the waitress said. “I guess you're not ready for another.”
Two hundred fifty thousand dollars. Two hundred fifty thousand dollars-
But it was dead money. He'd be alone like Valerie, resurrecting that presence in the back of his mind that made him drink-
He wasn't completely finished. He wasn't extinguished like Valerie; he could still love somebody. She had taught him that by making a fool out of him.
He was looking down at the table, staring at the little flame guttering in its holder. “Even the candlelight hurts tonight,” he said. His voice sounded husky and strange.
She leaned down, put her hands on the table as she looked at the candle. “Blow it out, then, honey,” she said. “Then the moonlight can come in from outside.” She had a strong definite tone of voice and hair sprayed to stand firm against anything.