Kill Devil Falls Read online

  “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry,” Rita said hastily. “I don’t … I’m sorry.”

  Teddy glowered for a moment, then slid the baton back into his gun belt.

  “Your ride should be here any time,” he said. “Why don’t you do us both a favor and keep your mouth shut till then?”

  “Sure thing. After I get that cigarette.”

  “Don’t know when to quit, do you?”

  A low rumble vibrated through the wooden floor of the jailhouse. Teddy clomped to the window in heavy boots, peeked out.

  “Speak of the devil,” he said.

  Inside the cell, Rita sank onto a narrow cot placed against the wall. She let out a breath, muttered “Thank God.”

  Lee Larimer cursed as a branch snapped across his face for the twentieth time.

  “Motherfucking … cocksucking … ball-busting trees!”

  Lee wasn’t exactly a city boy, having been born and raised in Fresno, but he’d never been the outdoorsy type, into pitching a tent, fishing for supper, taking a shit in the bushes. He preferred the comforts of civilization. Paved roads, drive-through fast food, strip clubs, cable television.

  He zipped up his jacket, blew on his hands. He’d known it would be cold up here, but not this cold. His fingertips were numb.

  Fucking Rita. Two-faced little bitch. She’d ditched him in the middle of the night, while he was sleeping off a bender. Taken the money he’d risked his life for. Money he’d stolen not for himself, but for them. She’d robbed him, stabbed him in the back, and dumped him all in one fell swoop.

  And now, because of her, he was going to get frostbite. Or tick fever.

  Theirs had not been a stereotypical storybook romance. Less Princess Bride than Bonnie and Clyde. Yet, for Lee, it was something genuine. The closest thing to happiness he’d felt since his family broke up when he was a boy.

  They’d met in a halfway house on Fresno’s West Side. She was there to kick an Oxycontin addiction. He was a resident by invitation of the court, following multiple drug busts. They bonded on the rickety back porch, amid a backdrop of splintered wood and peeling paint, over cigarettes and tales of rough childhoods. Lee wouldn’t say it was love at first sight, exactly, but he and Rita shared a similar “fuck-you” worldview and a fondness for Bud Light, illicit narcotics, and Slayer’s musical oeuvre. Plus, she had great legs and a passable pair of tits.

  Following their release from the program, Rita and Lee had rented an apartment together on Saginaw Way. Within a week, Lee was back to slinging and using dope. Soon after, Rita resumed her Oxy habit. Lee used more than he sold, and eventually fell deep into a hole with his main supplier, a minor player in the local faction of the Fresno Bulldog street gang named Felix “El Psicopata” Rodriguez. When Felix threatened to drape Rita’s intestines over his personal shrine to Santa Muerte, Lee traded his last bags of heroin for a Smith and Wesson X-Frame revolver in the Fashion Fair Mall parking lot. Then he drove over to Felix’s house, forced “El Psicopata” into his bathtub, and shot him in the face. It was the first time Lee had killed someone, the first time, in fact, he’d even drawn a gun on another human being. He left with a couple thousand dollars in crumpled bills, a big bag of weed, an eight-ball of coke, an assortment of pills, and a sense of Godlike omnipotence.

  That night, Lee and Rita had packed up his ’86 Mustang and hit the road. There was no specific plan or destination, just an urgency to leave Fresno before Felix’s vatos fingered Lee for the murder and came looking for payback.

  Their first joint venture had involved an AM/PM market outside of Chowchilla a week later. Lee wore sunglasses and a hat and used the X-Frame to scare the crap out of a seventeen-year-old kid behind the cash register. Rita was the getaway driver. They didn’t net much money, but it was easy. It was a gas.

  Lee and Rita then zigzagged up and down California, as far south as LA, as far north as San Jose, hitting convenience stores, gas stations, twenty-four-hour markets. They cobbled together various disguises from magic shops and thrift stores. Lee proved adept at meticulously planning each job, first casing the target, noting specifics such as video cameras and exit routes. A stolen, hotwired car was used as transport, and later ditched. He and Rita wore gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints. She drove, and he did the heavy lifting.

  It took four or five months for law enforcement to connect the dots and realize they had a serial robbery team on their hands. The Attorney General held a press conference asking citizens to come forth with any information or leads that might help catch the thieves. A grainy video capture was issued, showing Lee in a hoodie and jeans, with a ball cap and sunglasses. And another of Rita, sitting behind the wheel of a stolen Chevy Impala, wearing a blond wig and big movie-star shades. The media dubbed them Robin and the Hood.

  When he saw their photos splashed across the TV news and in the papers, Lee knew it was only a matter of time before the cops got lucky. He decided to go for broke, amass as much cash as possible in a short time, and then—poof! Disappear. So they began hitting country credit unions and suburban bank branches. Between robberies, they laid low at various motels, never staying more than two nights in one place, always paying in cash. They kept the partying and drugs to a minimum. For the first time since about the age of fourteen, Lee was spending more time sober than drunk or high. He was a man with a plan—to build a nest egg, enough for him and Rita to start over somewhere abroad, out of reach of American authorities, maybe Belize or Costa Rica.

  But the inevitable eventually occurred. Somehow—maybe a minuscule piece of physical evidence, or someone recognized Lee and Rita from a surveillance video capture—the cops managed to ID them. Game over. Lee suggested they drive down to San Diego, where they would hire a fishing boat to take them into Mexico. It was easy enough to do. American boats took tourists fishing south of the border almost every day.

  The night before their planned departure, he and Rita had a little makeover party. Rita cut and dyed his hair. Lee trimmed Rita’s bangs, helped her add red highlights and a loose perm. He smoked a shitload of weed and drank eleven or twelve beers. He didn’t notice Rita was limiting herself to a couple of bong hits and a few drinks.

  When he woke up the next morning, Rita was gone. So was the Mustang. And apart from a few thousand dollars, so was the money.

  She’d left him a note, sitting under the short stack of bills:

  Lee, I’m sorry. We never would have made it to Mexico. I have to look out for myself, I hope you understand. Don’t try to find me.

  He was stupid enough to think she might have second thoughts. Get fifty miles down the road, burst into tears, make a U-turn. Realize maybe she loved him. Recognize she couldn’t do him like that. He waited. She didn’t come back.

  He sat on the sagging motel bed, smoking Marlboro after Marlboro, drinking the last of the Bud Light Lime. Where the fuck would she go? Mexico? She wouldn’t know how. Canada? She’d never get across the border. Maybe she’d jump a container ship in San Pedro? Or just head up to Portland or Yakima and lay low?

  What would he do, if he were Rita? Well … if he was a real bitch, he’d stash the money somewhere. A hole where no one would find it. Then he’d turn himself in, throw himself on the mercy of the court, claim that his partner was the mastermind. That he was coerced, or too scared to resist, or Jedi mind-fucked into going along with the crimes. He’d offer to turn state’s evidence. Be a rat in exchange for a reduced sentence.

  If that was Rita’s plan, a good lawyer could probably have her out of jail in three years max. While she was still young. With plenty of time to enjoy the money he’d risked his life to steal, for them.

  Meanwhile, he’d be doing a twenty-year stretch at least, and perhaps even life if they could pin El Psicopata’s murder on him. If that happened, he wouldn’t last three weeks into his sentence before some Fresno Bulldog affiliate motherfucker shanked him in the showers.

  Yes, it made sense, if you were Rita. It was a logical plan, one that gave her a chan
ce at a future outside of a six-by-eight-foot cage. All she had to do was find a good place to hide the cash. And royally fuck over the man who’d taken care of her, provided for her, sweated his ass off to build a future for her.

  As to where she might put the money, it had to be a location that was remote, so no one would just stumble on it by dumb luck. Secure from rot, bugs, animals, fire, floods, natural catastrophes. A place she knew would still be there, relatively unchanged, in three or so years.

  He recalled those months on the back porch of the halfway house. The sob stories. How her dad ran off when she was eight. And her mom got remarried to some hard-ass. The abuse. Running away, living on the streets. Now, what was the name of that town? Something weird, messed up. Kill Devil Falls. That was it. Up in the mountains. That’s where she would go.

  Lee put on his fatigues, the bronzer, and glasses, packed up his meager belongings, wiped down the hotel room, emptied the garbage in a dumpster out back. He took a public bus to a strip mall parking lot and stole a car, the brown Honda. He switched the Honda’s plates with an SUV’s. He spent ten dollars at a gas station to buy a map of the Sierra Nevadas, traced a route to Kill Devil Falls, and hopped on the highway.

  Running into the lady cop in the diner had been a shock. Yet since she didn’t seem to be there for him, he was all the more certain he was on the right track. But how did the cop know where Rita was? It didn’t make sense for Rita to have hidden the cash and then turned herself in at Kill Devil Falls. She’d have wanted to get as far away from the money as possible before surrendering to the authorities. Maybe she’d been collared. If so, he hoped to Christ she’d buried the money first.

  Here’s where it got sticky. What if she was handcuffed to some redneck country sheriff’s radiator, guarded by dogs and hillbillies with shotguns?

  Ultimately, it didn’t matter. Lee needed to get up there, determine the lay of the land, and either find the money or make Rita tell him where it was. Short of encountering a SWAT team, he wasn’t leaving empty-handed.

  As for the lady cop, he’d been lucky enough to find a tire-repair kit in the Honda’s glove box. He used the T-reamer and a cigarette filter to doctor her tire. She’d get a flat, or the tire would blow, sending her into a rock wall or over a cliff. Either way, he was going to reach Kill Devil Falls before she did.

  As a precaution, he’d ditched the brown Honda and stolen a white Hyundai Sonata parked a few blocks over from the cafe. He would have preferred something with more than just four cylinders, but he was in a hurry and the Hyundai was easy pickings.

  After passing the Charger on the mountain (the cop was lucky—or one hell of a driver), he knew she’d be back on the road soon. He stashed the Hyundai off the access road, camouflaged it with broken branches. He picked his way through the forest, tree limbs slapping his face, vines and roots tripping up his feet.

  And now, after a twenty minute slog, he reached the edge of town. He saw one road and a smattering of buildings. The closest one was constructed of thick logs and had bars on the window, like a jail in a John Wayne western.

  Lee watched from the shelter of the trees for five minutes. Nothing moved. It was a ghost town.

  He decided to start searching for Rita, beginning with the log building. But just as he was making his move, he heard the meaty thrum of a car engine. The Charger rolled up, the front door to the log building opened, and a pudgy deputy emerged.

  Lee hunkered down. Best to sit tight, see how things played out. And when opportunity reared its head, grab it by the throat and choke the shit out of it.

  3

  TEDDY PICKED UP THE coffee can, used a finger to hook the tobacco in his cheek, and spat a masticated wad into the makeshift spittoon. He grabbed his green uniform jacket off the back of the chair and slipped into it as he opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. Frigid air rushed into the room.

  Outside, the mud-splattered Dodge Charger pulled to a stop. Helen switched off the engine, climbed out of the driver’s seat. Her back was stiff and she was dying for a cup of thick black coffee.

  “Hi! Deputy Marshal Morrissey,” she called out. “Are you Sheriff Scroggins?”

  “Uh, no ma’am. He ain’t here at the moment. Had to run over to Sardine Valley. Probably won’t be back for an hour or so. I’m the Deputy Sheriff. Call me Teddy.”

  Helen mounted the porch steps, shook Teddy’s hand.

  “Good to meet you,” she said. “You have the fugitive inside?”

  “Locked up tighter’n a duck’s ass.” He blushed. “Excuse me.”

  “No worries.”

  “Right through there.”

  He waved Helen inside. She stepped across the threshold, took in the room. No coffee machine, unfortunately.

  “What is this place?”

  “Old Log Jail. Now a museum. Cells still work fine, though. She’s in the one on the left.”

  Teddy pointed. Helen walked to the cell, peered through the iron slats. All she could see was a shadowy figure sitting on a narrow cot.

  “Rita Crawford?”

  “Yeah.” Rita’s voice was low-pitched, scratchy, sullen.

  “I’m Deputy Marshal Morrissey, with the US Marshal’s Service. I’ll be taking you to Sacramento and remanding you to the Department of Corrections.”

  “Fine. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  That was a new one to Helen. Usually people were less enthusiastic about going to prison.

  Helen turned to Teddy. “I understand someone from the sheriff’s department is going to assist me in escorting Ms. Crawford back to Sacramento?”

  “Uh … ” He fidgeted. Helen sensed a snag coming her way.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “We had a ruckus in Donnersville. Annual biker rally got a little out of hand. So most of the deputies is busy cleaning up that mess.”

  “Okay, and? What’s the upshot?”

  “The sheriff, he said you should take Rita down to Donnersville and see which of the boys is free to ride with you.”

  “Great,” Helen said through clenched teeth. “My supervisor just told me to come all the way up here to collect Ms. Crawford. If you’d transported her to Donnersville, it would have saved me some time.”

  “Sheriff and I drove up together, Marshal, and he took the vehicle on an emergency call to Sardine Valley, so … ”

  “Okay, I get it. What about you?”

  “Me?” Teddy said.

  “Maybe you can help me transport her to Sac.”

  “Oh, well.” Teddy looked at his watch. “Actually, Marshal, my shift’s over. I’m off duty now.”

  Helen stared at him.

  “Don’t worry,” Teddy said. “One of the other deputies will help you out.”

  Helen took a deep breath. “While I have you here, can we at least get this paperwork squared away?” She set a manila envelope down on the desk, started pulling out forms.

  “Maybe we should wait for the sheriff?”

  “Why?”

  Teddy shrugged. “He does the official paperwork, is all.”

  “Deputy, I’d really like to streamline this process as much as possible.”

  Teddy got a pained look on his face. He cleared his throat, looked up at the ceiling, fiddled with the keys on his gun belt.

  “Just sign the fucking papers,” Rita said through the slats of the cell door.

  “Quiet!” he barked.

  Helen curbed the urge to smile. Rita Crawford was quite the loose cannon.

  “You got a pen?” Teddy said.

  First they went through Rita’s possessions: one leather jacket; one pack of cigarettes, Marlboro Reds; one disposable lighter; one small plastic flashlight; one Samsung prepaid cell phone; one gold ring; one gold crucifix; one pair sunglasses, generic; one Mickey Mouse watch; seven hundred and thirty-four dollars in cash; one set of car keys.

  “Where’s her car?” Helen asked.

  “She ain’t inclined to tell us. But there’s a lot of old hor
se trails around here. Easy enough to hide a car and walk into town.”

  “Speaking of that, I’m on the lookout for a brown Honda driven by a guy in camouflage fatigues. I don’t suppose one passed through here?”

  Teddy chuckled. “Passed through on the way to where, Marshal? Main Street dead-ends on the other side of town. Why you on the lookout for this guy?”

  Helen shook her head. “Never mind, it’s probably nothing. I’ll sign here and you sign there.”

  They painstakingly completed a few additional forms, Teddy adding his signature in a laborious cursive script. When they were done, Helen handed Teddy his copies, stuffed the other papers into the envelope. She put Helen’s possessions, apart from the jacket, in a plastic bag and sealed it.

  “That should do it,” she said.

  Teddy took the key from its hook on the wall, unlocked the cell door, pulled it open on creaking hinges.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  Rita appeared in the doorway. She was dressed in jeans with ripped knees and an old, stretched-out cable-knit sweater which hung from her frame like baggy skin on bones. Helen guessed she was maybe thirty-four, thirty-five. Given nicer clothes, a better haircut, and easier life, she might have been pretty. The raw material was there—big dark eyes, prominent cheekbones, a delicately shaped nose. But Rita’s hair was a mess of old roots and cheap dye, her skin was weathered and lined, and those dark eyes displayed a hungry, hunted look.

  Even so, she stood with her shoulders back, chin up, direct eye contact. No shrinking violet, even in these circumstances. Helen respected her grit.

  “Turn around and put your hands on the wall.”

  Rita waited just long enough to demonstrate silent defiance, then complied. Helen moved closer.

  “I’m going to search you now.”

  “I already did that,” Teddy said.

  “And he made sure to get his money’s worth,” Rita said.

  “You shut your mouth!” Teddy shook his head at Helen. “She’s just trying to get a rise out of me.”

  “Looks like she’s succeeding,” Helen said.