Wicked Eddies Read online

  “Nothing to tell. It’s just … he and I weren’t very close. I never saw much of him after I grew up, didn’t have any need to, so I won’t miss him that much.” Cynthia shrugged, but it seemed forced. “I’m more worried about my cousin, Faith. She’s been missing for almost three days now, and fifteen’s awful young to be on your own.”

  “The cops are looking for her. Detective Quintana even gave me a flier to pass around at the ranger station. If she’s anywhere in the county, I’m sure we’ll find her.”

  “Thanks. I put some fliers up in the bar, too.” She pointed to one near the front door. “I’m glad so many people are looking for her. I hope she’s just playing hooky with a friend, and they’re both having too much fun to realize how worried their families are.” Cynthia chewed on her lower lip.

  “About your uncle, though—”

  “I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”

  Before Mandy could reply, a waitress called Cynthia’s name and waved an order slip in the air. Cynthia pushed off from the bar and stood. “Gotta go. Kendra and the rest of the gang are already back in the pool room.”

  Mandy stared at her friend’s retreating back. What was the problem between Cynthia and her uncle?

  _____

  Taking her beer with her, Mandy walked past the band on their tiny stage, covering the ear facing their loud instruments, and into the Vic’s pool room. She spotted Gonzo in a Wave Sport kayaks T-shirt and baggy black jeans. Next to him sat Kendra in a shimmery jade green spaghetti-strap top that set off her black skin. On her left was Dougie with a faded Denver Broncos hat slung backward on his curly rag mop. All three rafting guides had worked for her uncle and now worked for the merged company run by Rob.

  They were clustered around a table under the large wall-mounted shark, an incongruous item in a mountain valley bar. Still, it was somehow appropriate because the upper Arkansas River rapids could be man eaters. A couple of Mandy’s fellow river rangers made up the rest of the gang. Since river rangers, like Mandy, were usually former rafting guides, the ties between the two groups ran deep.

  Kendra saw Mandy and gave a whistle and come-hither wave. She and Dougie had a pitcher of beer and a couple of glasses in front of them. Gonzo was slurping a soda. When he finished, he glanced at the pitcher and licked his lips. He looked glum while Mandy settled into a chair that was vacated by a ranger who got up with his teammate to shoot pool.

  After greeting the others, Mandy asked Gonzo, “What’s up?”

  “Newt told me Detective Quintana asked him to come into the station for an interview tomorrow. He’s nervous about it.”

  Mandy took a sip of her beer, hoping she wasn’t adding to the considerable temptation her alcoholic friend was being exposed to. “Does he have anything to be nervous about?”

  “You mean, did he kill Howie Abbott? No way! He’s just afraid the cops won’t believe him because of his past history.”

  “What past history?” Dougie asked, rocking his chair back on its hind legs.

  “Drugs.” Gonzo took another drink of his soda. “That’s how I met Newt, at an AA meeting. He’s abused both dope and booze, so he can attend.”

  “Bummer,” Mandy replied. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah, well, there’re more of us than you might think,” Gonzo said. “Newt’s had a tough time holding down a job over the past couple of years. He’s basically homeless—camps out in the summer, and when it gets cold, he goes couch surfing or sleeps at a homeless shelter.”

  “How’s he get enough money to live on?” Kendra asked.

  “He collects aluminum cans. Gets twenty cents a pound for them at Safeway.” Gonzo glanced at Mandy. “That’s what he was doing at Vallie Bridge. He’s really an okay dude once you get to know him. Problem is, he has priors, mostly for possession.”

  Mandy leaned forward. “Detective Quintana doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who will be influenced by someone’s history. He pretty much sticks to the facts of the case.”

  “I hope so.” Gonzo quickly downed the rest of his soda and stood. “I’ve gotta take a leak. I keep chain-drinking all these Dr. P’s because I can’t have what I really want.”

  At Mandy’s stricken look, he added, “Don’t look so worried. If the temptation gets to be too much, I’ll just leave.” He walked toward the restrooms.

  Dougie caught Mandy’s attention. “He’s my designated driver, so I have a vested interest in making sure he keeps his vow. He’s really doing pretty well for someone who’s been dry just a couple of months.”

  Kendra nodded. “We’re proud of him.”

  “Me, too” Mandy replied. “I know it’s his journey to take. I just wish I could schlep his bags for him or something.” Wanting to change the subject, she asked, “Either of you ever meet Newt?”

  Dougie shook his head.

  “I ran into him and Gonzo a couple of weeks ago in line at Mama D’s counter,” Kendra said, “and Gonzo introduced us. We shot the breeze for a bit, but I was getting take-out, so I booked.”

  “How’d he strike you?” Mandy asked.

  “Seemed okay to me.” Kendra shrugged. “Not as goofy as Gonzo. Grungy, probably from picking up cans that morning. Maybe a little jumpy. Kept telling Gonzo he had to get going.”

  One of the river rangers at the pool table shouted, “Hey, Kendra, Mandy, these guys are looking for a team to play eight-ball against. Want to take them on?” He pointed to the table next to him, where two sunburned, middle-aged men stood with cues at the ready.

  The ranger winked at Mandy. He’d seen Kendra and her play many times, and play well, so she was sure some kind of side bet had been made. The strangers were probably thinking they could beat two women.

  Kendra shouted, “Sure, why not? We’ll whoop their sorry asses.” She stood and signaled for Mandy to join her while she sashayed over to the table.

  After they shook hands and introduced themselves, Mandy learned the two men were fly fishermen from Denver. They were visiting Chaffee County to practice for and participate in the tournament. While she chalked her cue, she decided to find out what they knew about Howie Abbott, if anything.

  “Have you two ever competed in fly-fishing before?”

  “Sure, lots of times,” Fred, the tall one, replied.

  “Do you know any of the other competitors in this tournament?”

  “Most of the Colorado teams at least,” Bob, the one with a bit of a paunch, said. “Some of the international teams are new to us.” He removed the triangular rack from the balls and gestured for one of the women to shoot first.

  Kendra took her place at the foot of the table and lined up behind the cue ball. Her break shot hit the balls with a loud crack, and the solid blue two ball dropped in a pocket. When the balls came to rest, though, the positions of the striped balls seemed better to Mandy’s eye.

  “Stripes?” Kendra asked Mandy.

  Mandy nodded.

  “You’re giving us a head start?” Bob asked, surprise widening his eyes.

  Mandy flashed a smile at him. “Not for long.”

  “And this isn’t a call-shot game, is it?” Kendra asked the guys.

  Fred laughed. “No way. You gals will need all the lucky shots you can get.”

  Kendra winked over her shoulder at Mandy.

  While Kendra planned her next shot, Mandy asked the guys, “You two ever meet Howie Abbott?”

  With a snort, Bob said, “That cheater? Sure. No wonder someone killed him.”

  Kendra easily sunk the red striped eleven ball in a corner pocket.

  Mandy stepped back to let Kendra pass in front of her. “How did Howie cheat?”

  “Well, you know he was scouting beats ahead of time if he was at Vallie Bridge. The section from Salida to Rincon was marked off limits.”

  “Also,” Fred added, “Howie’s been seen doing the ‘San Juan Shuffle’ in the past.”

  “What’s that?”

  “When you’re standing in the stre
am and start kicking up the rocks to release the nymphs and excite the fish into a feeding frenzy.”

  Kendra’s next shot pocketed the fourteen ball.

  This ‘San Juan Shuffle’ was a new concept for Mandy. “That’s against the rules?”

  “Usually, and it’s certainly frowned on when it isn’t explicitly in the rules,” Fred replied. “No fly-fisherman worth his weight in trout is going to admit he needs the help.”

  “So if Howie was seen doing it, what happened?”

  The nine ball went whizzing by on its way into another corner pocket.

  “When the judge called him on it,” Fred said, with a worried glance at the corner pocket, “Howie came up with some lame story about getting his foot caught on a rock and losing his balance. So, the judge let him off with a warning to watch his footing in the future.”

  “Same way he came up with a story about having bait scent on him,” Bob added.

  Kendra put a hand on her hip. “You mean he stank? You’re not allowed to stink?”

  Bob laughed. “No, a judge found a tube of trout gel in Howie’s tackle box. A little smear of that on your fly makes it smell better to the trout. Howie’s story was that he took it away from a friend he was fishing with before the competition and forgot it was in his tackle box. Since the seal wasn’t broken, the judge had to believe him, but he confiscated the gel. If he hadn’t, I bet Howie would have used it.”

  With a clack, Kendra’s cue ball hit the ten ball. It bounced off the rail and into the opposite side pocket.

  “Good one.” Fred scanned the table. “Hey, you gonna leave any shots for the rest of us?”

  Grinning, Kendra moved around to the other side of the table. “Maybe.”

  Fred scowled at the two river rangers at the next pool table, who flashed wide, cocky grins back at him.

  Mandy wondered how big the bet was and hoped the fishermen, who both seemed nice, wouldn’t get fleeced too much. She turned to Bob. “Back to Howie. Has anyone seen him scouting beats before?”

  “No,” Bob said. “And doing it on a weekend, when more people are likely to be on the river, was a stupid move.”

  “Maybe Howie was getting overconfident,” Fred said, while intently watching Kendra, “since he’d gotten away with so much cheating in the past.”

  Bob nodded. “That guy was a slippery eel, all right.”

  Kendra’s next shot missed, and she gave a little bow to Fred. “Your turn.”

  Mandy politely waited for Fred to make his shot and sink a ball before she asked, “You know anyone who was particularly put out by Howie’s cheating?”

  Bent at the waist to line up his next shot, Fred looked over his shoulder at her. “Sure, he was a slime ball, but c’mon, who would take these competitions seriously enough to kill someone over one?”

  _____

  Later when Mandy pulled her Subaru up the gravel driveway to her cottage, Rob’s battered black Ford pickup truck was already there. He’d called her cell phone at the bar to ask if he could come to her house, and she’d left after finishing the pool game. She’d sunk two balls on her turn, and when Kendra’s turn came up, she’d sunk the remaining striped ball and the eight-ball, even calling the pocket to show off.

  Before Mandy left, she checked with the river rangers at the next table and found out the bet with the fishermen hadn’t been too outrageous. She told them she didn’t like being used to scam people and suggested firmly that the rangers buy the fishermen a round of drinks with their winnings. They sheepishly agreed.

  After Mandy walked through the metal gate of her small fenced-in yard and swung it shut, she paused to look up at the star-studded sky. She stood hunched in her fleece jacket and picked out the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, and a few more of the constellations her uncle had taught her to identify. The Milky Way was evident, even with the faint light pollution coming from the center of Salida.

  Along the edge of its wide swath, thin ghostly fingers of cirrus clouds stretched from the Sawatch Range to the west, obscuring a

  few stars. The glow of the half moon tinged the edges of dark clouds piled up along the range. The wind had picked up, so Mandy surmised the cold front would pass over the Arkansas Valley during the night. Probably wouldn’t dip below freezing yet, though, so her marigolds would last awhile longer. She took a deep breath of the pine-scented air, then walked in the front door.

  Rob had let himself in with his key and was sitting on the sofa that Mandy had saved from her parents’ house after they’d died in a car crash, leaving her at seventeen to be raised to adulthood by her Uncle Bill. While flipping through channels on the TV, Rob was vigorously scratching behind Lucky’s ears. The dog’s head lay on his lap with eyes closed and mouth open, obviously in nirvana.

  When Rob saw her come in, he turned off the TV. “I’d get up and give you a hug, but I hate to disturb Lucky here.”

  Lucky opened an eye and panted a greeting at her, then returned to enjoying his head rub.

  “Disloyal mutt,” Mandy said to the dog then leaned over to give Rob a kiss. She smelled beer on his breath. After spotting the Pacifico can on the old scratched coffee table, next to Rob’s stockinged feet, she picked it up and shook it. It was empty. “Need another?”

  “Sure, thanks. It was a long day. Had to patch one of the rafts.”

  Mandy pulled out another of the Pacifico beers Rob kept stored in her fridge and saw the carton of eggs, jar of salsa, and package of flour tortillas he’d brought for breakfast tomorrow. His keys were on the card table in her kitchen that served as her dining table, his work boots lay on the mat by the front door, and his jacket was slung over one of the folding chairs.

  A lot of his stuff had migrated over to her tiny house while they’d been dating, toothbrush and shaver in the bathroom, odd pieces of clothing, a battered guitar, some of his country rock CDs. Of course, she had a toothbrush, sleep shirt, and some other things at his place, too. If Mandy thought too hard about where this relationship was going, it got too scary, so she had resolved awhile ago to just take it one day at a time.

  She knew Rob wanted more, a lot more. And with his mama pressuring him to make their relationship legal, Mandy wasn’t sure how long he would be willing to wait for her to get comfortable with the idea of m, m, marriage. Imagining Rob’s mama pleading with him to settle down and produce some grandkids for her to dote on, Mandy shuddered. She’d worked hard to become independent because she had to. And the thought of being responsible for raising kids scared the bejeebees out of her.

  As if he could sense that she was thinking about him, Rob asked, “Did you get lost in la-la land out there?”

  “I’m getting some water for myself, too.” Mandy poured a glass and returned with the drinks. She sat next to Rob, on the other side of the sofa from where Lucky lolled.

  Rob grinned at her over his beer. “I could get used to this kind of service.”

  Mandy blew a raspberry. “Was the raft you had to patch one of Uncle Bill’s?”

  He nodded while he drank his beer. “We’ll probably have to replace a couple of his rafts once the season ends. You can only patch so many times.”

  “Damn, I hope you’re not sorry about merging the two companies. Uncle Bill’s tired old equipment wasn’t worth much.”

  Rob stroked her thigh. “No, but his customer list was worth a lot, and the vehicles, and I sure value my silent partner.” He pinched above her knee, making her jump, and his eyes twinkled.

  Mandy laughed. “You mean your not-so-silent partner.”

  He leaned over and kissed her. “And she tastes good, too. Fat Tire?”

  “Just a couple. Sorry you missed pool night.” Mandy shifted to face him. “I found out some stuff about Howie Abbott, though.” She filled him in on what the fly-fishermen had told her about the man’s cheating.

  Rob nodded. “I’ve heard rumors that Howie and his buddy Ira Porter were cheaters. Never really been caught. They were registered as a team in the tournament, and Ira’s scra
mbling to find another partner. I hear tell no one’s biting, though.”

  “Where’d you hear this?”

  “A couple of the registered teams came in to rent rafts from us for the float-fishing practice and competition days. And I’ll be guiding another team on the float practice day. This tournament is making some money for us.”

  Mandy shook her head. “I don’t understand why someone would cheat in a fishing tournament, for Pete’s sake.”

  “The purses can go pretty high,” Rob said. “Not as high as those in bass fishing tournaments down south, but ten thousand dollars for the winning team isn’t chump change. Even more important are the bragging rights.”

  When Mandy lifted an eyebrow, Rob smiled. “Being a woman, and a practical one at that, you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  “The size of the fish implies the size of the catcher’s willy, and the number caught is related to the fisherman’s prowess at catching the lady folks.”

  Mandy laughed. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!”

  “I am a little bit, but these fishermen are deadly serious.” Rob drank some beer. “You should’ve heard them talking at the counter today about past tournaments and who’d won what and who the tough competitors were.”

  “Don’t women fly fish, too?” Mandy had tried it a couple of times with her Uncle Bill when she was a teenager, but she had neither the time nor patience to master the technique. After she’d hooked her thumb a couple of times, she gave up.

  “Sure. There’s a women’s team in the tournament, too, but the sport’s dominated by the hombres. But enough talk about fishing.” Rob finished his beer, put it down, then gently pushed Lucky’s head off his lap and stood. He held out a hand for Mandy.

  As he lifted her to her feet, she could see from his languid gaze what he wanted, and she wanted it, too. But she was going to have a little fun first. “Be careful, or this fish might just wiggle off your hook.”

  When he drew her to him, she shimmied her hips in jest, but that only made Rob pull her in tighter against his chest, taking her breath away. “No catch-and-release tonight, my little trout. I’m going to heat you up and devour you.”