Point of Law (18 page)

TWENTY-FOUR

T
HE MARINA IS
a gridlike tangle of piers and boats that is set just off the lake’s shore. Unlike other marinas I’ve seen, this one is relatively clean. The water here is a translucent green and without any rainbow-colored slicks of oil. Very little trash floats in it. But the air is littered with the roar of revving engines. All around us people mill aboard the powerboats, fishing barges, Jet Skis, and enormous houseboats. Cutting through the engine noise are the sounds of laughter and the excited chatter from the tourists. Just up a hill from the water, we stand in line outside an adobe building to rent a boat. While we wait, I keep looking around, trying to spot Fast and Burgermeister among the shouting people.

To get to the marina, we had driven a few miles west of Page and crossed a hanging bridge above the Glen Canyon Dam. Kim had rolled down her window and leaned out, imitating Oso. I’d wondered if she would spit or curse at the dam that had created the lake and caused so much devastation to the surrounding environment. She didn’t. She just stared at the towering canyon walls beneath the dam. And I couldn’t help but imagine climbing them.

Before we left town, while Kim ran into a supermarket to purchase groceries for what I expected would be a long day’s search of the lake, I had called Sheriff Munik in Tomichi from my cell phone.

It took him a long time to answer the call. I’d assumed that as the brother of a prime murder suspect, I wasn’t too high on his list of important callers. After letting me spend ten minutes waiting on hold, he finally picked up the phone.

“What do you want today,
Special Agent
Burns?”

“Guess where I am right now, Sheriff.”

There was a sigh on the other end of the line. After a moment he said, “Arizona, I take it.”

“Yeah, I’m in Page, where Sunny Hansen’s family still lives. And I’m not the only one here. David Fast and his hired muscle are around, too, asking about Sunny.”

He didn’t respond. I could picture him rubbing the stubble on his chin between his thumb and forefinger.

“His secretary lied to you when she told you that your friend and benefactor was on his property up in White River.”

Still no response.

“According to Sunny’s father, Fast is flashing a Tomichi County badge and asking around for her.”

Finally the sheriff spoke just one word. “Shit.”

I was feeling paranoid—wondering how Fast had found out so quickly that Sunny’s family was in Page. Had the sheriff told him? Was I wrong to trust Munik? After all, I knew that not only was Fast his biggest campaign contributor, but I also remembered Kim telling me that the sheriff had been a longtime friend of Fast’s family. It was possible, though, even likely, that Fast had been the one who had kicked in Sunny’s door, and that in her apartment somewhere he had found out that she was from Page.

“How about dropping those charges against my brother, Sheriff? We now know who really did it.”

The sheriff laughed, but there wasn’t a lot of confidence in it. “I don’t know any such thing, son. We’re still waiting on the blood test from the stuff we scraped off his hands. Anyways, maybe Dave’s trying to do me a favor and find the prime witness to a murder case. Maybe he’s just trying to find out more about that mythical cave you told me about.”

“He doesn’t need to impersonate a peace officer to do that.” Why was the sheriff trying to bullshit me about this?

“Look, son, just about every businessman in this town has a badge. My campaign manager gives ’em out like popcorn at election time. Sheriff’s Volunteer Reserve, they’re called.”

After another few moments of silence, he asked, “You found that girl yet?”

“Not yet. But I’ve got a good lead.”

“You find her, you bring her to me. I’ll listen to what she has to say. I suspect you aren’t going to like it, though. She’s going to say it was your brother. In the meantime, stay the hell away from David Fast. One thing I can promise you, son, is that when I see him I’m going to rip him a new asshole for interfering like this without my permission.”

“I’m kind of hoping him you’ll arrest him for murder, Sheriff,” I said, letting the sarcasm come out strong in my voice.

“You bring me some evidence and I might just do that.”

Before Kim came out of the grocery store, I’d taken my .40 caliber H&K out of the glove box and slipped it into a hip pack.

The man at the rental dock is reluctant to let a dog on board one of his boats. Kim again comes up with the solution—a one-hundred-dollar nonrefundable deposit, in other words a bribe, to get him to look the other way. Oso is even more reluctant about the boat than the man had been. He plants all four paws solidly on the dock and struggles against me when I lean on his collar with all my weight. Kim finally bribes him, too. With the slices of turkey I had asked her to pick up for my lunch. Now I’ll be forced to share the cheese and bread Kim has gotten for herself.

The boat is small and almost square. It is entirely open-decked but for where a blue canopy covers the windscreen and steering wheel. An oil-stained engine is mounted at the rear, its propeller tilted out of the water.

The rental attendant is curious about why we don’t want to rent and take along a water ski or a towed surfboard. “Don’t you even got swimsuits?” he asks. Before Kim or I can answer, he thinks he figures it out for himself. He winks at me and says, “Oh yeah, good sightseeing in them canyons. Skinny-dipping too.”

Kim blushes, then glares at me with her good eye when she sees me wink back at the man.

I look around at the other people waiting to rent a boat or a Jet Ski. They are obviously tourists, with their swimsuits, plastic bags of beer, and suntan lotion. “You have any other people renting today who
don’t
look like the rest of this crowd?”

“Yep, two uptight guys in cowboy boots. Said they were going fishing, but they didn’t have no poles, no gear. Only a duffel bag with what looked like a rifle inside. Going target shooting, I guess. Friends of yours?”

“Sort of. Was one of them a big ugly guy with a shaved head and sideburns? The other neat, going gray?”

“Yessir. That was them all right. Acted like they were in a big hurry to get out on the water.” He chuckles and shakes his head. “Gonna catch themselves a lot of fish with that gun.”

He advises us to stay away from where the water is green or brown, as that’s the indication of shallow water. Dark blue water means deep water. “You rip the bottom out of the boat, you’re going to be in a damn sight of trouble. And you’ll have to pay for the damage, too.”

At my request he points out a Sea Ray so we know what one looks like. The one we see parked nearby is long and low, a good deal bigger than our little ski boat. Two huge motors are bolted to its stern. I don’t doubt that it is very, very fast. According to the attendant, it also has a decent-sized cabin below the front deck. He tells us you can live aboard one of those for days.

After a quick lesson in how to drive the ski boat, we’re under way.

I observe the no-wake restriction around the marina area and ease the boat slowly and carefully out into the lake while Kim studies the map we’d purchased. Once past the limiting signs, it feels good to push the throttle forward, to feel the boat leap up and plane on the lake’s surface, and to leave the heat and the stench of gasoline behind. The roar of the single engine drowns out the shouts and laughter of the other boaters. Oso stands on the foredeck or the bow or whatever it’s called and hunches low when we bounce across small waves. His lips lift from his long white teeth and begin to flap in the wind. I think he might be enjoying it, too.

The surrounding landscape is almost devoid of vegetation. The blue water twists between bordering cliffs of red sandstone. For just a few feet above the water, the cliffs are a chalky white up to what I guess is the high-water mark. It’s as if the lake’s water has leached all the color out of the rock it touches. Far ahead the land’s relief increases dramatically, where the low cliffs rise up in multiple steps until they tower hundreds of feet above the lake’s surface.

Next to me, Kim flattens the map on the dashboard beneath the windscreen. Despite the protective glass, the map flutters violently at the edges. A quick glimpse of the laminated chart’s center between her spread fingers shows we are headed toward an area where the lake reaches out in all directions like a spider’s legs. The multitude of canyons to the left, the area Freddy Kruge had called Last Chance Bay, is about thirty miles east of us.

All around us are sailboats, houseboats, powerboats, Jet Skis, and leaping water-skiers. We’re moving swiftly among them, sending out a two-foot wake. The Jet Skiers and water-skiers chase us, catching air on the V fanning out behind us, while the houseboaters occasionally shake their fists or middle fingers. I can’t wait to be away from them all. For a while a low-slung speedboat runs alongside us, as if we’re in a race. It’s nearly twice our length and its deck is crowded with young women in bikinis. They wave to us until the pilot, apparently the only man on board, shoves the throttle forward and nearly swamps us with an incredible burst of speed. I guess we lose.

“How do you want to do this?” Kim shouts in my ear. The crowd is thinning as we get farther away from the marina.

“Let’s start with the first canyons, the ones to the south, and work our way north.” I’m beginning to get concerned, just now truly aware of the gigantic scope of the lake. Still studying the map at my side, Kim confirms my trepidation.

“It’s going to take forever—each canyon has like a hundred side-canyons within it. Even the side-canyons have side-canyons.”

For more than an hour we bounce our way eastward. The scenery around us grows more spectacular with each passing mile. The cliffs rise higher, some of them hundreds of feet straight out of the water, and the stone is an even darker red. Almost crimson. There are island buttes, too, standing tall in the center of the channel. Sometimes our passage is only a few hundred yards across and other times it’s miles wide.

When we pass a long, sharp peninsula on our left, I know we’re getting close to the canyon turnoff. Kim points out an island butte a short distance ahead—Gregory Butte. It marks the turnoff for Last Chance Bay. I nudge the steering wheel left and we sweep to the north.

The bay is about a mile wide. It’s hard to visually tell where it ends because of the way it writhes northward, but according to the map the bay forks into two smaller canyons about forty miles up. I curse when I see all the tiny ravines peeling off on each side of the bay. The words are swallowed by the engine’s roar, and they were in Spanish anyway, but Kim understandingly nods beside me. By shouted agreement we start with the small canyons and sub-canyons to the right, saving the ones on the left for the return trip.

I slide the boat through the twisting canyons with a growing confidence in my handling of the machine. I keep my eyes on the water—trying to stay where it’s deep blue—as well as on the other boats and the cliffs while Kim searches for Sunny’s Sea Ray. The initial canyons are well populated with houseboats and Jet Skis. Drunken college students jump from their decks and some nearby low cliffs, barking at Oso as we zoom past. And Kim earns more than one wolf whistle despite her eye patch after she sheds her shirt. She stands next to me with her feet braced wide and wearing only an orange sports bra over her worn-out jeans. After one particularly drawn-out whistle, I think I hear her make a noise. I turn to glance at her and see she’s smiling.

Taking a chance, for just a moment I take my eyes off the cliffs, water, and boats to give her a longer look. I make my own low whistle. It pays off—she laughs out loud and slugs my arm with her bony knuckles. Progress, I think. Maybe.

After more than an hour of racing through the maze of water-filled canyons, I spot a small, deserted beach. I circle back around to it and answer Kim’s quizzical look with one word: “Lunch.” For a long time my stomach’s been growling and my bare feet ache from where the big motor’s vibrations have been rattling up my legs.

Unsure if it’s safe or acceptable to nose the boat up onto the sand, I let it drift to a stop about ten yards from the shore. Kim drops what we guess is supposed to be the anchor—a nylon rope tied around a bucket filled with concrete—into the water. She ties the free end around a metallic T screwed onto the boat’s deck.

Shimmying out of her jeans, she quickly dives overboard. For a moment I’m actually breathless at the sight of her tan, slim figure curving through the air and entering the water almost without a splash. Almost without a sound.

An instant later the sound of scrabbling claws gets my attention. I turn my head just in time to see Oso launching himself after her. He, however, is far from splashless. The beast hits the water with a loud smack and a high wave. “Cannonball!” I yell as Kim comes up for air just in time to meet Oso’s tsunami.

In seconds I’m following Oso’s example, having hastily stripped off my own clothes down to my boxer shorts, and I cannonball perilously close to Kim’s head. It’s a delight to see her laugh again. For a few minutes she and I paddle around one another in the cool water, occasionally splashing, as Oso circles like some ridiculous, hairy shark. He has a dead-serious expression on his face. His rubbery lips float wide on either side of his mouth as he steadily huffs and snorts at the water. We can’t stop laughing at him. It takes all my will to keep from pulling Kim’s slick body to mine.

For the next few minutes all my worries and frustration are forgotten. For the first time in more than twenty-four hours, the image of my brother slowly combusting in a jail cell is out of my head.

Too soon the frivolity ends. Kim walks up onto the beach with my eyes stuck to her backside. When she turns and sits in the sand, with her legs tight together and pulled up against her chest, I haul myself halfway into the boat and pull out the small Styrofoam ice chest into which she’d packed our lunches. Or what was left of mine, anyway, after Oso’s sliced-turkey bribe.

Oso paddles gravely beside me as I swim to the beach with our lunches held high.