“I can see you’re concerned,” Lana said. “But I’m going to help. Don’t worry.”
“You’ll find a good lawyer?” For a moment, Beth hoped Lana might do something useful. Her own network of nurses and single moms wasn’t exactly a great source of legal contacts.
“I can make a call. But Jack isn’t going to need that.” Lana waved her hand loftily, as if a lawyer were an option for lesser people to consider. “All we need to do is explain it was impossible for Jack to have done it. Like she said. She wasn’t anywhere near there Saturday night. Jack, is there anyone who could have—”
“Ma. Stop.” Beth felt a sudden need to be outside in the fresh air, where she could think. She took a deep breath and faced her mother. “You can find a lawyer. But that’s it.”
Before Lana could respond, Beth turned away from her and stretched an arm out to Jack. “I’m going for a walk, to hunt for rocks. You want to join me?” Beth tried to soften her voice, but her frustration was still trickling out.
Apparently, Jack could hear it too. “Thanks. But I’m good.”
“We’re going to get help, Jack. We’ll figure this out.” Beth walked to the back door and stood there, trying to believe her own words. “I promise.”
*
Lana sat at the table with what was left of the wine, staring blankly out the window. The slough was dark, a thick blanket of clouds spread low over the water. She flashed again to the man she’d seen moving down the hillside in the dark, the harsh shadows of his face. Whoever it was, he wasn’t out there now.
This place was supposed to be calm. Boring. A slice of nothingness where Lana could rest and receive care. Instead, she was getting tangled up, slapped down, treated like she was a joke. Like she didn’t matter.
“Do you think I’m going to get arrested?” Jack’s voice floated over from the couch, low and sudden.
“What? No. No way.” Lana was surprised by the determination in her own voice. “We won’t let them.”
Jack stared back at her. She looked small, anxious.
“But somebody killed that man,” she said. “Do you think . . . do you think it’s dangerous for me to go out there now?”
“On the slough? That’s for you and your mom to figure out.” Lana took a swallow of cabernet. “Wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t want you to, you know?”
“Yeah. It’s scary. But it’s also life, right? Chances are it’s just a weird place for some person to die.”
Lana looked around the dingy room. She heard the egrets croaking on the water. Just a weird place for some person to die. Not if she could help it.
Chapter Ten
Beth woke up early Tuesday morning, her mind still buzzing. She slipped out the back door and over to the pile of treasures she’d collected. She started organizing them mechanically: pale green sea glass, yellowed sandstone, russet clay, lining them up in a sinuous curve along the side of the house. As she placed the rocks, she sorted through her thoughts. There was no way she’d trust Lana to talk their way out of this without a professional by their side. Beth had dealt with the courts only once, when she was eighteen and petitioning for full custody of Jack. That time, it had been a sure thing—Manny didn’t even show up. But it was still terrifying.
Lana was right about one thing: the evidence against Jack was slim. If the sheriffs did their job, they should find out quickly that Jack had nothing to do with this. By the time the rocks formed a large, messy spiral, Beth was resolved. They needed a lawyer who could hold the detectives’ feet to the fire. If her mother could find one, great. If not, she’d figure it out.
The front doors of the nursing home were blocked by an ambulance. It sat quiet, engine cold, doors shut, as if someone had scrubbed the emergency from the vehicle. Beth stepped around it and braced for the blast of recycled air that hit as the glass doors swished open. The entrance to Bayshore Oaks bore an unfortunate resemblance to a grocery store: the reverse rubber kiss of the doors separating, the sense that something might spoil if it stayed there too long.
Beth swiped her badge and went down the hall to the nursing station. She slowed to watch the EMTs wheeling a gurney toward her. She couldn’t tell what room they’d come from. Was it Sal Castillo in 8B? He was over a hundred and woke up every morning a little smaller, more winded. Or Sylvie Mendelson, who’d fractured her hip and gotten a nasty infection from the surgery? Beth approached Rosa, the night nurse, who was doing paperwork behind the desk.
“Who?” she asked, gesturing down the hall.
Rosa looked up, her brown eyes worn from a long night. “Mr. Rhoads,” she said. “He took a nap yesterday afternoon. Never woke up.”
The news hit Beth like a punch to the chest. She didn’t like to play favorites with patients, but if she did, Hal Rhoads would be at the top of her list. Mr. Rhoads had calm eyes and a soft voice. His sunbaked skin was crisscrossed with deep wrinkles, like grooves cut in leather. He’d arrived two months earlier, after his third stroke, which brought with it labored breath and the threat of congestive heart failure. He had a chronic cough about which he never complained. Mr. Rhoads treated Bayshore Oaks and its staff as a tribulation to be endured, like weevils or kidney stones. He was polite, always. But never a joiner, never a smiler, never giving one inch of himself to the place. He wore a stiff-brimmed hat every day, even when the fog hung low and the sun was miles away, blazing down on the ranch he’d had to leave, the one he’d hated to leave, where his cows and strawberry vines wandered aimlessly without him.
It was the ranch that had brought them together. That, and the slough.
One day, a week into his stay, Mr. Rhoads was marching laps down the hallway in his hat and flannel jacket, strong hands clenched to his walker, when he passed a conflagration.
Gigi Montero was at the nursing station, stretched to her full four-foot-ten height in gold lamé leggings, wagging her neon-pink press-on nails at Beth.
“Your daughter, she is a precious gem! You cannot let her dirty herself in that filthy ditch.”
Beth cast a placating smile. “Miss Gigi, Jack and I have been hiking around Elkhorn Slough all her life. And she’s been paddling out for years. She’s careful. We’re fine.”
The smaller woman stepped back, cutting off Mr. Rhoads’s path of travel. “Beth, you do not know what is in that water.”
Beth’s smile sharpened. “Well, there are the jellyfish, and I’ve heard some stories about sharks . . . but they haven’t taken any teenage girls yet.”
Miss Gigi clutched at the rhinestone heart on her sweater. “Ay, Beth. You are killing me.”
Mr. Rhoads decided his best way past was through. He spoke up. “She’s telling you Elkhorn Slough’s a fine place for a young person to be.”
The two women turned, Beth grateful, Miss Gigi annoyed. Mr. Rhoads looked calm. He was a man who could stay still for a long time.
“You are Mr. Rhoads,” Miss Gigi said, appraising him. “I met your son. Tall. Very clean. But I have not met you.” She held out one pink-taloned hand to him.
Mr. Rhoads looked at Beth. “Your daughter a sculler?”
“Paddleboard. And she leads kayak tours.”
Mr. Rhoads nodded in satisfaction.
Miss Gigi did not. She flung her Day-Glo hands in the air. “That girl should be working somewhere respectable. Like 7-Eleven. You say the word, I call my regional manager. Cesar will get her out of that stinky water and into a good store in Salinas.” She whirled down the hallway and disappeared into the TV room, the door banging closed behind her.
Beth and Mr. Rhoads looked at each other. Their mouths were set, but their eyes were smiling.
“What’s your daughter’s name?” he asked.
“Jack. Short for Jacqueline.”
He nodded. “Good name. How long has she been going out on the slough?”
“We’ve been walking it for fifteen years. She’s been paddling for three. We live right alongside it.”
“North bank?” he asked. “Only I don’t remember you.”