Page 14 of The River We Remember

Graff took a final drag off his cigarette and flicked the butt onto the gravel just as Asa Fielding’s pickup appeared down the road. The deputy parked behind Brody’s cruiser and walked to where the two men sat.

“Anything?” Brody asked.

“An old hobo camp in some trees near the trestle. Whoever they were, they’re gone now. No truck or any other sign that Quinn had been there. Hey, Connie,” he finally said in greeting.

“Asa,” Graff replied with an almost imperceptible nod.

“So what now?” Asa asked.

Brody explained his plan, and the three men separated. Half an hour later, Brody found Quinn’s truck.

The Alabaster, like every river, follows the line of least resistance. Seven miles south of Jewel stood a geologic uplift called the Fordham Ridge. Fourteen thousand years ago, during what is known as the New Ulm phase of that glacial period, a lobe of thick ice stretched down into Iowa all the way to the area occupied now by Des Moines. In its retreat, it left behind large deposits of drift, mostly sand and pea gravel through which the Alabaster early and easily cut a course. But the glacier also left behind a number of gently curving ridges and knobby hills composed of more solid rock, which the ice couldn’t bulldoze and around which the river found its meandering way. Fordham Ridge was a long, worming uprise that caused the river to almost reverse itself in a tight curl. In its shadow, on the finger of land circumscribed by the curling course of the river, lay Inkpaduta Bend, an area of open land owned by the county. It was a lovely spot, especially at sunset, when Fordham Ridge caught the last, amber-colored light of day and the terraced farmlands on the slopes looked as if they were covered in honey.

When Brody pulled up behind Quinn’s pickup, there was still plenty of good light to see by. The truck was parked at the end of a lane almost completely overgrown with wild oats and goldenrod and blazing star and a dozen other wildflowers. It sat twenty yards from the Alabaster, grille toward the water. Brody approached the vehicle slowly and peered through the window on the driver’s side of the cab. A pair of soiled calfskin work gloves lay on the seat and next to them an emptied pint bottle of Jim Beam rye whiskey. There was a gun rack affixed to the back of the cab. Like the liquor bottle, it was empty.

He went on toward the Alabaster, which in that particular section, was lined with birch trees. There was a wide break in the trees through which the surface of the Alabaster shimmered gold in the late afternoon light. From a distant field came the diesel chug of a tractor. But there were other sounds Brody heard: the rustle and sigh of the branches and leaves of the birches as wind blew through, and the calling of an oriole perched somewhere among all that shifting foliage. Brody stopped. Stopped because he knew without having to think it that what he was about to discover was something alien to the peace of that lovely place. It was an experience he’d already had that day, beside the pool whose beauty had been desecrated by the torn-open carcass of Jimmy Quinn. In life, Quinn was a man Brody had never much cared for. In death, he was a man Brody was beginning to hate.

He moved forward and found where Quinn had set up to fish, if fishing was, indeed, the reason the man had come to this out-of-the-way location. A rod lay on the riverbank and next to it an opened tackle box and a Coleman lantern. A pair of pants, a blue work shirt, and white undershirt, all large enough to have fit Quinn, lay in a careless pile near the rod and tackle box, and on top of these sat a pair of huge work boots and gray socks. In the middle of a large area of blood-soaked earth between the clothing and the fishing gear lay a shotgun.

Brody returned to his cruiser and radioed his deputies.

“QUINN’S SHOTGUN?” ASA Fielding asked. He stood well away from the blood-darkened earth.

“That’ll be easy enough to check,” Graff said.

“Came to fish, and then what?”

“Got no bites and maybe got frustrated and decided to end it all,” Graff said. “Jimmy was not known for his patience.”

Hector sat leashed to the door handle of Brody’s cruiser. Every so often, he made a pleading sound or gave a short bark. Brody paid no attention. He stood at the edge of the river. The winter snow that year had been deep, the spring wetter than usual, and even on the threshold of summer, the Alabaster still ran high and fast.

“There’s that pint bottle in the truck,” Asa said. “Quinn was probably drinking. So an accident maybe?”

Graff thumbed his Stetson high above his wrinkled brow. “I hunted pheasant and wild turkey with Jimmy back in the day. That man knew his way around a firearm, even drunk. What are you looking at, Brody?”

“Just gauging the river. We got a deep, fast channel along here, so when Quinn’s body entered the water, it would have been swept downstream pretty easy.”

“And how’d he get into the water?” Asa asked.

“We need photos of everything,” Graff said. “That old Brownie we got won’t do. Asa, you mind going back into town to get Sam Wicklow and his Leica out here?”

Brody said, “No.”

Graff gave him a puzzled glance.

Brody nodded toward the western sky, where the sun was a burning orange ball not far above the horizon. “It’ll be going on dark by the time Wicklow gets here.”

Graff eyed the sun and gave in. “Tomorrow morning then, first thing.”

“I’ll spend the night here,” Brody said.

Asa said, “Who’ll cover at the jailhouse?”

“Connie, you willing to sleep on a cot tonight?”

“Rather sleep out here.”

Brody shook his head. “I’ve got this.”