The Missing and the Dead: A Bragg Thriller (16 page)

I uncoiled the rope and looped it around one of the elms and knotted it snugly. I started back across the river, letting out line as I went, then abruptly stepped into a hole I hadn't encountered on my way across. I went partly down, thrashing to keep my balance. It surprised me badly and the coil of rope got away from me. I struggled back upright and watched as the line went over the falls like the uncoiling of a teamster's whip. I said a few words I used to admit to having uttered as a boy back in the days when I went into the confessional. I made my way back to the southern side of the river where I'd fastened the line and pulled it back up from below the falls. I was soaked through up nearly to my chest, but I was more angry than uncomfortable. When I had the rope recoiled I set out again, this time managing to avoid the treacherous pocket I'd slipped into before. I made the other side and fastened the rest of the line around another tree as best I could. I wasn't able to get it as taut as I would have liked, but felt it would do if I didn't encounter any more surprises. There was thick overhead foliage at that part of the river. It imparted a sense of damp gloom. I didn't like the place at all, and would be happy to be away from it.

I made my way back up to Tuffy. Nothing had come charging out of the woods at him while I was gone, so I reholstered the weapon, told him the game plan and carried him on down to the rope. He noticed my wet clothes but didn't say anything. He did say something when he saw the rope.

"What's that for?"

"That's to help me keep my feet when we go across there."

"Across there?"

"Yes. We can do it. I've already been across there, obviously, to tie the rope. But you've got to help me by keeping still and letting me concentrate. You ever watch football on television?"

"Sure."

"Well, you know how those guys run out and make those impossible catches knowing as soon as they touch the ball some
gorilla is going to smack them, but they still manage to catch the ball?"

"I've seen it."

"That's all a matter of concentration. You've got to let me concentrate the two of us across here and catch the ball."

His grip around my chest tightened. I shifted him higher on my back and wormed my hands around until I had a good hold on the line. It would take away from my balance some and I started to have second thoughts, but I made myself plunge on in before I froze up completely. I felt the boy was only good for one attempt at this.

It was much harder going with the extra weight. We sagged heavily on the rope. The swift current pushed us closer to the falls than it had when I crossed by myself. At least it was away from the pocket I'd stumbled into. Near the middle of the channel the water was rushing over Tuffy's ankles. I could feel him tense up. I took another step, sagged onto the rope, then another step. I paused and took a deep breath. Then another step. We didn't seem to be getting anywhere. I figured it would be sometime the next afternoon before we got out of the water. I chugged along, my legs moving in slow motion.

And then we were rising above it. The river bed climbed toward the shore. The water still tugged at my knees. I gripped the rope awkwardly and pulled like a doryman as I slogged toward the high ground. That's when the rope broke.

We pitched backward into deep water, Tuffy with a whoop and his arms flailing, me with a nose full of river water. We couldn't hang onto each other and went over the falls with a lot of yelling and cursing. I banged a leg sharply against a rock below the falls before being swept on downstream. Tuffy was ahead of me, thrashing with both arms. I tried to get to my feet but couldn't. The water wasn't deep enough here to be over my head but it moved with a strong flow. I hit my head on something and probably would have passed out if the freezing water
hadn't already put my nervous system into semi-shock. Thirty yards or so farther we came to a narrow sandbar in midstream. Tuffy managed to scuttle with his good leg close enough to it to brake himself. I followed and paused there just long enough to spit water and take a couple of breaths. From the bar to the far shore was a comparatively easy journey. Not too far and not too deep. I wish I'd seen that before I tried the rope trick up above. I didn't bother with the piggyback business, but just scooped the boy up and waded on across. We rested by the bank, squeezing out our clothes and gathering strength. I figured the kid had a dozen or so smart remarks to make, but he kindly kept them to himself.

"What happened back there?" was all he said.

"I honestly don't know. The rope gave out. It shouldn't have."

The boy shuddered. I shared the sentiment, got him up on my back again and started away from the river. A half hour later we broke into a cleared hillside that overlooked the highway. Tuffy grunted when he saw it. I was too close to ending it and too dead tired to respond. I just plunged on down with the boy swaying on my back. A couple of autos came around the lower curve and climbed away from us, but we weren't at an angle where they'd be apt to see us. When we reached the road I let the boy down gently and stood there, hands on my hips, blowing like an old horse. I felt exactly like an old horse.

"I hope somebody stops," said Tuffy.

"The first car will stop," I assured him.

It was another six or seven minutes before another auto came around the curve below us. I stepped out into the middle of the road and flagged it to a stop. Inside were an elderly couple who didn't like the bedraggled looks of us. I told them my story and asked for a lift. They were frightened and didn't want to help.

"How do I know it isn't just a trick to get my car?" asked the old gentleman through a narrow crack above the window. "And I see you got a gun on your hip there too."

Another auto pulled up and stopped behind us. I turned. It was a county sheriff's car. I stepped back.

"It's okay. The deputy will help."

The first car took off with a lurch and a great belch of exhaust.

"What's going on?" demanded the lanky man climbing out of the patrol car. He wasn't in uniform, but wore trail clothes and boots.

"Hear about the plane crash?" I asked.

"Yeah. Got called in. I'm on my way up to River Run Campground now to join the search."

So we'd dropped below the campground. No wonder I felt like something left behind on the battlefield. "I've got one of the survivors over here," I told him, indicating the boy.

"I'll be God damned," said the deputy. "Where did you come from?"

I sighed and looped a hand toward the mountain. "Way up there."

"I'm Deputy Morris," he told me, reaching inside to turn on the flasher atop his patrol car. "You're not from around here."

"No, but I was helping in the search. The boy has a broken ankle and a wrenched knee. He could use a lift to Barracks Cove."

"We'll get help faster taking him up to the campground. There are 'copters in the area that can pick him up and take him to the hospital in Willits. You mean to say you
carried
him down?"

"I sure did. And he grew some on the way." We went over and lugged Tuffy to the patrol car. "Maybe you could get on the radio. Get word to the search parties. The boy's dad is pinned in the wreckage and needs help. It's about five miles north of where everybody's looking. Maybe one of the helicopters can ferry a party over there."

After we settled Tuffy in the rear of the car, Morris got in and tried to radio, but we were in a pocket where his signal wouldn't carry. I got in on the passenger side and we drove on up the highway to where the deputy could relay a message.

"Don't worry, son," Morris told Tuffy. "They'll find your pa in no time, now."

I stretched back and closed my eyes.

"That must have been some hike, mister."

"It was. The name's Bragg."

We rode in silence for a moment. "If you don't mind my asking, Bragg, how come you're armed?"

"I'm a private cop from San Francisco. I was working on a case when I got drafted into the search party. Figured I could signal with it if I found anything. Only by the time I came on the boy I was too far from the other searchers."

Tuffy sat up in back. "You're a private eye?"

I groaned inwardly. "I guess some people still call it that."

"Huh," said the boy. "Maybe Dad should have hired you and saved us all a lot of trouble."

"How do you mean?"

"The reason my dad and me were flying down here was to look for Uncle Bob. He's a detective down in Southern California. We were going to spend the weekend trying to find him."

My eyes opened and I stared at the roof of the patrol car.

"Uncle Bob disappeared a couple weeks ago. The last we heard from him, he was in a place called Barracks Cove."

I sat up straight and turned in the seat. "Tell me about your Uncle Bob, Tuffy."

THIRTEEN

D
etective Robert Dempsey, according to Tuffy, had spent more than ten years in the Los Angeles Police Department, winning citations, earning promotions and growing an ulcer. He had left, finally, to take a job as chief of detectives in Rey Platte, a wealthy retirement town inland from Santa Barbara, where the pace was slower and the work was easier on a cop's stomach. Tuffy's dad had celebrated a birthday on the Friday before Jerry Lind dropped out of sight, and his brother the cop had phoned him greetings that evening from Barracks Cove. During the conversation, Bob Dempsey had said that he was in Northern California on a special investigation. They learned later that Dempsey had phoned his wife in Rey Platte that same evening. It was the last anybody had heard from him.

In subsequent queries to the Rey Platte police, Tuffy's father, Steven Dempsey, learned that whatever it was his brother had been doing in Barracks Cove, it apparently wasn't connected with current duties in Rey Platte. He was on leave, and had made arrangements to be gone for as long as a month. The department wasn't worried about him particularly, but his wife was. And by now his brother was worried too. Worried enough to fly down from Seattle to look for him.

I doubted that there would have been an army of out-of-town police marching through Barracks Cove on a given day, so I had to assume that Dempsey was the cop Allison had told me about. The one that Jerry Lind, for whatever cockeyed reason, had been on the trail of. I wondered how Jerry Lind would have known
where Dempsey was. I also had to wonder, with an unpleasant feeling, what might have happened to a pussycat like Jerry Lind if a veteran police detective like Dempsey had disappeared in the same area.

By the time we reached the campground I was not only sore and exhausted, but worried as hell. I made some telephone calls from the ranger station there. I learned that Mendocino airport, closer to Barracks Cove, was fogged in again. I also learned an intrastate airline made a daily stop at the field in Willits, but not on Sundays, so I phoned down to San Francisco and made arrangements to be picked up in Willits by an outfit calling itself Golden Gate Sky Charter that would fly you anywhere twenty-four hours a day so long as your credit was good. They were based at San Francisco International and I'd used them before. They knew my credit was good, so by the time I'd driven from the campground over to Willits, there was a charter plane waiting for me. They were a reliable outfit, but I grumped a lot over their prices. When we landed at Rey Platte I told the pilot to wait for me. He gave me a slow, rich smile. They charge a lot more than a waiting taxicab does.

After I explained my business the local police gave me the home telephone number of their chief. I called him and he agreed to meet me back at his office at eight o'clock that evening. It just gave me time to get a sandwich and beer at a downtown lunch counter. It occurred to me that for a man on an expense account I hadn't been eating all that well the past couple of days.

The Rey Platte police chief was named Charles Porter. In his office at a little past eight he gave the appearance of a man captured by his desk. He was slow moving, slow talking and overweight, losing his hair and increasing his chins. He sat in a squeaky chair and didn't rise when I was ushered in, but he did lean across the desk to offer his hand.

"So you're the one who found Bob Dempsey's nephew."

It surprised me. "That's right, Chief, but how did you know?"

"A while after you called, I had a phone call from Chief Morgan in Barracks Cove. He said you might be on your way down and asked me to help you any way I could. He said he hadn't been able to give you much assistance so far, but that you were the hero of the day up there. How's Bob's brother?"

"Still alive anyhow. The last I heard they'd put him on a helicopter and were flying him to a hospital."

"That's something. Now, what can I do for you?"

"I've been hired to find a young insurance investigator from San Francisco who disappeared a couple of weeks ago. I trailed him to Barracks Cove and spoke to a woman there who knew him and had seen him after he left San Francisco. She said he'd been trying to find an out-of-town police officer in the area. Then, this afternoon while I was up on the mountain, the woman was checking motels in the Barracks Cove area for me, trying to find where the missing insurance investigator, a man named Lind, might have stayed.