Crooked River: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

time could be helpful.”
    “Helpful for what?” Bear stared hard at Deputy Santos, and then at Detective Talbert. “Why are you here? Has something happened?”
    Detective Talbert cleared his throat and smoothed his tie flat against his chest, his hand lingering at the end.
    Deputy Santos said, “A woman’s body washed up in Smith Rock Park sometime last night. Early this morning, maybe.”
    Something pinched inside my chest. Ollie rocked away from me and then back, bumping lightly against my leg.
    “Tony Grant was out for a sunrise climb and saw her in the water, tangled up in some tree limbs,” Deputy Santos continued. “We thought she might have come from somewhere upriver, so we’re asking everyone who lives nearby if they saw anything. Just trying to get some answers for this girl’s family.”
    Bear kept staring at Detective Talbert. He didn’t blink or flinch or give any kind of sign that he knew what they were talking about.
    Finally, he said, “We don’t know anything about it.”
    He picked up his banjo, sat down on the stump, and started to play.
    Deputy Santos and Detective Talbert exchanged a glance I didn’t understand. Then Deputy Santos turned her attention to me and Ollie. “What about you girls?”
    “You don’t have to answer her,” Bear said over the sound of his plucking. “Like I said already, we don’t know anything about it. We didn’t see anything, hear anything. Go on and leave us alone.”
    I said, “It’s all right.”
    “You don’t have to say a goddamn word.” Bear bent his head down over his banjo and let his fingers fly.
    Ollie squeezed my hand, and I squeezed hers right back.
    Deputy Santos asked, “So yesterday? Anything strange happen? Or the day before?”
    How much time do you have? I wanted to ask. And where should I start? With Mom’s funeral? Or a week earlier, on the Fourth of July, the day she died? Or should I skip all that stuff and get straight to the part where Ollie and I just wanted to go swimming and pretend our lives were ordinary again, but when we got down to the river we found another dead woman instead? Everything about this summer was ending up strange, one thing no more than another.
    I glanced at Bear. He still had his head down, his fingers moving quick over the fret board. I swallowed all the words that had started to bubble up. If he wasn’t talking, then neither was I.
    I looked Deputy Santos straight in the eyes and shrugged. “We haven’t seen anything.”
    It would have been hard enough to explain why we hadn’t told somebody right away, why we let the dead woman drift downriver without going for help. And harder still to try and convince them that Bear had nothing to do with it. I knew what they said about him behind his back. How he couldn’t be trusted, a man living out here all on his own, abandoning his wife and kids the way he had, a selfish man, a bad man. I knew what they said and considering everything else—how he’d left me and Ollie alone all night, returning with scratches on his face and a bloodstained jacket, how he was acting now, all guarded and hot-tempered—I knew they’d find him guilty before they even held a trial. Before I ever had a chance to hear his side of the story. I needed to hear his side.
    “What about you, Olivia?” Deputy Santos asked. “Did you see anything?”
    Ollie glanced up at me and then shook her head.
    Deputy Santos closed her notebook and tucked it inside her pocket again. She handed me a business card. “If you think of something, anything, call me. Okay? If I don’t answer, leave a message.”
    I held the card flat against my stomach and nodded.
    She hesitated another second, watching me, then she sighed and motioned to Detective Talbert that they were done here, it was time to go.
    The detective ran his hand over his scalp and said, “Appreciate your time.”
    Bear didn’t look up from his banjo, didn’t even stop playing.
    Deputy Santos and Detective Talbert disappeared