Read Deadly Currents for Free Online

spouses and grown children who wanted to come along, since we don’t take minors down the Numbers.”
    “I picked up Nate Fowler’s daughter,” Mandy said. “I want to get her contact information from you and thank her for helping me with King. She kept her cool and didn’t get all hysterical on me. But why invite King and Fowler? What was so special about those two?”
    “They’re in a bidding war over some combined forest and pasture land down south that has prime agricultural water rights tied to it. They both want to develop the land into high-priced country estates. Lenny said he’d like to convince whoever winds up buying the land to donate some of those water rights for recreation use.” Uncle Bill took a few gulps of root beer.
    Another thing he should be giving up—those six or seven sugary sodas he drinks every day. The man’s sweet tooth was worse than the average black bear’s by far. “And why the councilmen?”
    “Most of the councilmen know darn well how important recreation on the Arkansas is to Salida. We’re not back in the eighteen hundreds when hard industries like the railroad and gold mining kept the town pump primed. Nowadays, the economy is driven by tourism. Without the river and the tourists dripping money that it attracts, there’d be damn few city taxes to pay the salaries of those councilmen.”
    “You’re preaching to the choir here, Uncle Bill.”
    “I know you know all this. But Frank Saunders isn’t on board, so to speak. That’s why Lenny invited him. And he asked two others who are river supporters to come, hoping they would help his case, lean on the developers and Saunders some.”
    “Okay, why the Numbers? Why not take these folks on a tamer run?”
    “Most of them have already run the tamer sections lots of times. Hell, I bet you could blindfold them all in Brown’s Canyon, and they could tell you what rapid’s coming up next. Plus, you know it’s the upper river runs like the Numbers that change the most when water levels drop.”
    “It was running high yesterday.” Over two thousand cubic feet per second . “If the CFS had been any higher, I probably wouldn’t have made it to shore before Number Five. How did Lenny plan to get his point across about low flows?”
    “He wanted to contrast high and low water runs through the Numbers and point out spots where low water made passage difficult. And he had photos taken during the 2002 drought to show them after the trip wound up. One of a fish kill was downright gross. Never got around to showing them, of course.” Morosely, Uncle Bill shook his head.
    Hoping to cheer him up some, Mandy said, “I stopped by the Chaffee County Sheriff’s office today to ask about the autopsy results on Tom King. The pathologist can’t say what the cause of death is yet, but it sounded to me like he’s leaning toward heart attack. That could be helpful for you.”
    “How so?”
    “If it’s not drowning or head injury or some other river-caused death, then your company can’t be blamed.”
    “But if the shock of the cold water caused the heart attack, we could be. Because if the man didn’t fall in the river, he might still be alive. Can the pathologist figure out whether the heart attack occurred before or after King hit the water?”
    Mandy nibbled her lip. “I don’t know. I’ll have to ask Detective Quintana.”
    The front door opened and Gonzo walked in, his wet river sandals slapping on the wood floor. “Hey, Mandy. Slumming today? Can’t get enough of this place?”
    “Or of you.” Mandy shot him a wide smile and a wink, though her heart wasn’t really into their usual repartee.
    Gonzo thrust his hip out, threw his head back and fluffed his tangled dreadlocks, as if posing for the cover of Vogue —or more likely, Mad Magazine . “Too sexy for you, I know.” For him, too, the wordplay seemed forced.
    “Hey, sexy beast,” Uncle Bill shouted. “What’d I tell you about coming in here with dripping wet