“I had fully planned to, but you insisted on being such an asshole”—she struggled until he had both her wrists in one hand, the other holding her away as she danced around trying to kick his shins—“that there was no way to get a word in because the great big, big-deal sheriff sent me on my way before I could open my mouth to tell him anything because he felt threatened at the thought that I might know something he didn’t. Which I did.”
“My size intimidate you that much, Charlie?”
“Mine intimidate you?” she asked his shirt front.
“Yeah,” he admitted after a long deflating sigh, “a lot.”
It was about then that the suave cowboy fruit seller decided to wade in and even the odds.
“You find stress an aphrodisiac or what?” Wes asked.
“You’re going to pay for hitting that man,” Charlie told him. “You, your future, your career. What are you, crazy?”
“Hell, I didn’t even know he existed, and there he was with his fist in my face. Charlie, he attacked an officer of the law.”
“So did I.” She dropped a Bing into his mouth. “He was only trying to protect a female in jeopardy.”
“Jeopardy, Jesus.” Wes raised up on one elbow to spit out a cherry pit in the paper bag beside them and pulled her back down on top of him. “I’m the one in jeopardy.”
While he proved that point at least, the paper log flared in the fireplace of cabin three at the Hide-a-bye Motel, the quilt bedspread covered the floor in front of it, the sun still glamorized the balcony, the grit line still moved the horizon closer toward Moot Point over the vast Pacific.
“That piece of red plastic I picked up by Clara’s driveway came from Georgette’s Schwinn, didn’t it?”
“Yeah, reflector,” he said. “Are we having fun yet?”
“What kind of houseplant did you say it was that poisoned Michael Cermack?” she asked.
“Wasn’t a houseplant after all, unofficial investigator. Oh God, don’t do that. Okay, do that.”
Chapter 31
Just below the wooden stairs leading to the beach from the Hide-a-bye Motel, Charlie Greene turned to grin up at cabin three. She had left Wes snoring on the quilt bedspread in front of the stone fireplace, had showered and dressed, and kissed his sleeping forehead. So much for the legendary hero who came awake instantly dangerous, rolling over gun in hand at the least disturbance. She could have run off with his pager, his gun, and the keys to the Bronco.
There wasn’t much in the way of smog here. Dusk, twilight, and night took forever to arrive in late June. But the dusty mess on the horizon had not paused for pleasure as had Charlie. It had shortened the horizon and view to within a few hundred feet of the bird rookeries on the end of the point and blocked out the sun.
Perversely, just when her anger at Wes Bennett had reached its zenith she’d had sex with him again. Was stress an aphrodisiac for her? Before this morning, Charlie hadn’t made love in a year. Maybe things had just built up so she was taking it out on him. Both her head and stomach felt better.
Perversely, now that she had her car back she’d decided to walk to the village. Walking casually down the beach she could check out the bright colored tents she’d seen from the overlook. She suspected they were for an end-of-seminar beach picnic thrown by the institute and that most of the people she wanted to see would be there. Her resolve to mind her own business seemed to have gone the way of the sunlight.
Wes hadn’t arrested Frank or Clara, upon discovery of the shirt, but he had warned them not to leave the village. Wes considered their story ridiculous and probably untrue. Charlie thought it was so ridiculous it probably was true.
She rounded the point without getting her feet wet and strolled along picking up shells and disturbing shore birds until she came to the yellow and blue tents below the village. They were really plastic tarpaulin roofs on aluminum poles, sheltering tables and charcoal cookers sitting on the sand. Charlie wondered what vegetarians cooked over charcoal.
Rose’s van was backed up to one of the tarps. The young man with the stiff mousse job unloaded containers of ketchup, pickles, and mustard. The girl helping him struggled with a giant coffee urn.
Doc Withers was engaged in trying to light coals in various cookers and then trying to dampen the flames to keep them from reaching the tarp roofs. The sea air thickened with the odor of fluid charcoal starter.
He wore a sweatshirt over Bermuda-length cutoffs, sagging knee socks, and massive hiking boots. His movements were even more awkward than his looks. He raised a box of wooden matches in the air to salute her, and then dropped them to grab a tent stake that flew loose on the end of its line as sea wind lifted a corner of the tarp.
Charlie dropped her shells and grabbed the line opposite when it decided to follow suit. The stakes had been set and then rocks rolled over them. This time Doc Withers tied the lines around the rocks. She helped him pick up wooden matches. “Looks like it’s going to rain.”
“It has to. Always rains for beach picnics. It’s the law in Oregon. Hey,” he turned to yell at the girl helping to unload the van, “keep those fruit bowls covered or they’ll have sand in them.” Just as he turned back to Charlie the playful wind picked up another tarp corner.
Charlie made herself so useful she ended up staying on to help. And by the time the searchers arrived, every one of the people in the village that Charlie knew was already there helping too. Everyone except Clara Peterson and Frank Glick. Even Jack Monroe was there, still looking troubled and subdued, minding the coffee urns and soft drink dispensers. Even the Mary and Norma sisters had been pressed into service heaping beans and coleslaw and potato salad on paper plates. Gladys Bergkvist cut slabs of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Paige Magill handed out paper cups of ice cream and collected dirty plates. Doc Withers dispensed wine again. Rose Kortinemi saw to it that everything was getting done and all the helpers were kept supplied from reserves in the van. Brother Dennis played host and moved among the searchers showering attention on all who requested it.
Even the babushka lady, Irene Olafson, dashed from charcoal grill to charcoal grill, as did Charlie, flipping things over before they burned, ladling them onto plates, and rushing them to the serving table before they grew cold.
“Don’t know how they eat this stuff, do you?” Irene asked Charlie once when they met dodging searchers while hurrying between grills, spatulas in hand.
It was odd, they were all very busy, but it seemed that whenever Charlie glanced over at any of these people—except for Irene—they seemed to be watching her. As if they knew she suspected a couple of them to be guilty of murder. Jack could just be thinking about his OOBE’s and her dreams and his book. Mary and Norma glared their disgust at her betrayal of their friend and refused to speak to Charlie. Brother Dennis should have been paying so much attention to his paying guests that he didn’t notice her. But he did.
So did Jack, Mary, Norma, Paige, Doc Withers, Gladys, and Rose. None of them seemed to be enjoying themselves much.
Charlie turned from one grill to go to another and literally ran into Deputy Linda Tortle. “You happen to know where our sheriff is by any chance? He’s not answering his car radio.”
“He was at the Hide-a-bye about an hour ago.” Rose caught Charlie’s eye and pointed out a corner cooker and Charlie was on her way.
“The Hide-a-bye?” Linda followed her. “Talking to one of Frank’s family?”
Charlie shrugged and pointed a tongs at the black box attached to Linda’s belt. “Can’t you get ahold of him on that?”
“Well, yeah, if he’s that close.” She turned away from the noise of the crowd and brought the box to her mouth. There was quite a bit of intermediate chatter before she reached her boss and turned back to give Charlie a questioning look. “Yes, sir, she’s right here.” There were staticy barking sounds like a seal crossing a downed live wire. “Cooking tofu dogs, sir.” More barking. “Tofu dogs and eggplant burgers.” More barking. “Yes, si
r. He says for you to—”
“I know, stay put. How can you understand a word he says on that thing?”
But Deputy Tortle was walking off down the beach still talking to the barking box.
The wind had died almost completely now and the tofu dogs and eggplant burgers didn’t smell especially good. But the rain Charlie thought she’d been smelling half the afternoon didn’t come. The dirty fog rolled up onto the beach instead and settled over the picnic. Jack, Brother Dennis, and Doc Withers lit replicas of old ship lanterns from the van and hung them on tent poles at the corners of the tarps or set them on tables. And the beach party went on.
As the call for charbroiled meat substitute dwindled, Charlie and Irene began dousing coals and scraping grills. Paige came up to Charlie and took the spatula from her hand.
“Get yourself some dinner while there’s food left. I’ll take care of this.” The big smile must have drowned in the shadowed dimples because it got lost before it reached the almond eyes.
After a bad night and an incredibly eventful day, Charlie was more tired than she was hungry. But she decided to show Jack Monroe her mind was not completely closed and tried a tofu dog on a bun with ketchup, mustard, and pickles. It tasted like ketchup, mustard, and pickles on a bun.
“I suppose you’re only going to eat half of that,” he said, and popped open a diet Coke for her. She stood right in front of his table and ate the whole thing. His sardonic smile at least reached his eyes. “Good girl.”
Irene had been relieved, too, and she passed Charlie with a plate of beans, potato salad, and carrot cake. “Not even any mayonnaise in the potato salad,” she said and curled her lip, “just mustard and dill.”
Charlie nursed the Coke and wandered through the crowd, shaking her head when Doc offered her wine. She’d had too many mood swings today to trust herself with alcohol in the midst of murderers.
Funny, they had all seemed so innocent and predictable, if odd, yesterday. Tonight they all seemed suspicious and dangerous. Even Jack, her client and Keegan’s father. Keegan Monroe was simply one of Charlie’s favorite human beings.
The fog didn’t help. Neither did the foghorn which she was uncomfortably aware of again. It reminded her of her first night in Moot Point and Georgette’s eyeglasses dangling from one bent bow and her bent Schwinn crossing headlights trailing fog.
How long did it take the sheriff to put his pants on and get over here? How long was she supposed to stay put? Why hadn’t she come in the Toyota?
The progression from dusk to twilight to night was harder to determine in fog than it was in smog. But the fog seemed very dark outside the limited glow of the lanterns now and it seemed to haze up the people and happenings and even colors under the tarps like old film gone blurry.
Maybe Charlie’s contacts needed a few drops of rewetting solution, but with this kind of moisture that didn’t seem likely. Maybe she was too tired to judge. Maybe she’d had too much sex with too much sheriff … maybe—she waved off yet another wine pass by the holistic veterinarian and then changed her mind suddenly, as it seemed she’d been doing all day, and waved him back.
There was one plastic glass of red on a tray filled with white. She reached for the red automatically but noticed the look in his eyes and hesitated. Then she took the one red and watched him. This man might sleep with ducks but he was no professional when it came to hiding relief.
“I’m very worried about Charlie the cat, Doc. I don’t think Frank’s caring for it.”
Maybe it was sticky contact lenses, night fog, and funny lantern light, or maybe it was Charlie the agent’s growing paranoia—but Chuck Withers, DVM, appeared to be stunned. “Gladys said you didn’t love animals.”
“Excuse me?”
“Gladys said, and even Paige, that you—”
“Doc, I know Georgette’s kitty goes home looking for her, but are you seeing to its survival? Because we both know old Frank cares only for old Frank.”
The tray tipped as his thoughts moved elsewhere and Charlie reached out to help balance it. “Charlie the cat is right now in my house warm, safe, and fed. Probably snuggling up with Mortimer. There are no strays in Moot Point. If I can’t find homes for them, they find one with me.”
“That’s marvelous,” Charlie gushed. “And how is Eddie doing after surgery for his dewclaw?”
“You worry about Eddie too?” Doc’s astonishment was growing.
“But not the same way I do about Charlie,” Charlie admitted. “What I don’t understand about Eddie is how Brother Dennis can keep him as a pet at the institute with so many strangers coming and going. Let’s face it, Eddie is a very protective German shepherd.” Eddie was one hell of a liability for someone running a place wooing the public, is what Eddie was.
“It’s like Dobermans and mountain lions and sharks,” Doc said, one index finger and a wrinkling nose pushing his glasses, with the bow wired on, back up where they belonged. “They have a bad press. Some animals, in the concept of people, are bad. Like you could have the most loving, the sweetest Doberman in the world racing toward you, and if you didn’t know the dog personally, if you had a gun in your hand, you’d shoot it, right? In self-defense. Not because it’s a dog, but because it’s a Doberman, therefore life-threatening. Eddie’s one of the sweetest, gentlest animals you’ll ever meet. He’s got bad press because he’s a German shepherd, that’s all. He’s also Brother Dennis’s closest friend.”
Charlie smiled a smile she knew to be as shallow as Paige Magill’s and moved on with her wine and her diet Coke, checking out the other known suspects at the foggy beach party. It was like the video of an old Humphrey Bogart film where everyone was smoking cigarettes and the cameras shot through a haze. Charlie was seeing them through fog instead, but knew without a doubt they were watching her too.
Every last one of them.
She took a sip of the wine, a sip so tiny she could do no more than taste it and could barely work it up into a convincing swallow.
It had a bitter, almost puckery taste that seemed to suck the moisture out of her tongue. Was it the “structure” of homegrown Oregon wine? Or was it the same flavor Michael Cermack had tasted just before he died?
Chapter 32
This time Charlie Greene had planned to stay put. She really wanted to. But this time the sheriff of Moot County didn’t show.
She’d helped pack things in the van and the tables, tarps, and grills in a pickup that arrived from somewhere down the beach, after Brother Dennis and Paige led the searchers back to the institute, a line of laughter and bobbing lanterns disappearing into the fog. She could hear the one long after the second had disappeared leaving Charlie with three choices. She could ride in the crowded van with Rose and Gladys or walk up to the village with Jack and Doc and the last lantern. Norma and Mary and Irene had already left with the next to the last. Or she could sit alone in the dark, in the fog, and wait for the sheriff to find her.
Charlie decided to walk with the men, wishing again she’d brought the Toyota. Maybe Linda or Wes would give her a lift back to the Hide-a-bye. Doc held the lantern as they ascended the steps and went ahead. Jack followed Charlie.
“Didn’t you like the wine?” the veterinarian asked her at the top of the stairs.
“I guess I wasn’t in the mood. And it had a sort of bitter taste.” How do you know I didn’t drink it? Did you watch me pour it into the diet Coke can? Or is it because I’m not dead yet?
“Taste?” Jack snorted. “What do you mean taste? White wine tastes like soda pop without the fizz—flat and blech.”
“But mine was red.”
“Brother Dennis only serves white wine at institute functions,” Jack told her. “Cheap jug white. I usually take my own.”
Before Charlie could ask him if he had tonight, Jack announced he was in fact going home to get a bottle right now and take it up to the institute and join the celebration. The last thing he wanted after last night was to sleep. The word “sleep” floated back behi
nd him on the fog and he was gone.
“How can he see to go anywhere?” Charlie asked. “I can’t see a thing.” Well, she could see a weepy streetlight not far away, but that was it.
“He knows the way.” Doc raised the lantern. “If he keeps walking straight he’ll walk right into the Earth Spirit. Some people can see better than others in this stuff.”
“Did you get my wine from Jack’s bottle?”
“He wasn’t drinking on the beach, but there was a jug of red in the van for anybody who asked for it. People generally don’t. Gladys and Rose drink red when they drink wine at all. But old Jack can get quite opinionated and superior for a man of awareness.”
“Did Jack tell you I liked red?”
“‘My agent is too sophisticated to drink that white vinegar of yours,’ is how he put it. So Paige went and got the red.”
Between the fog and the angle at which he held the lantern, Charlie could see his face, but his expression seemed to waver indistinctly as it might under water. “Was it Paige who told you I didn’t like animals, or Gladys?”
Fog sat like hoar frost on the tips of his raw-cut hair, streaked his glasses. “Why are you still suspicious of everyone? Haven’t you heard Frank murdered his wife? You don’t have to be so defensive anymore, so … California.”
“I don’t know he killed anyone, just that he and Clara put Georgette under my car to make it look like I did it. Just like someone put her on her picnic table to make it look like he did it. Frank’s from California too, isn’t he? Doc?”
Charlie had finally gone too far with one of these patient, gentle, nice, New Age murder suspects. She’d picked a hell of a time to do it. “Doc, don’t leave me—I can’t see.”
“Stay by the lamppost. I’ll be back.” His voice arrived after he was gone, his lantern light bobbing upwards on the slanting mountainside. Then it was gone too.
“I don’t believe this,” Charlie told the lamppost and moved closer to it. “Doc!”