Cape Perdido Page 12
“Good girl.”
“Don’t call me a girl, or I’ll break your cell phone and you won’t be able to reach all those machines that’re so eager to hear from you.”
Now she waited while the coffee shop waitress filled her cup with more of the vile-tasting brew, then said, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure. You already know the worst about me.”
“Where did you go on the night of the power outage? You said you were meeting with the hydrologist, but when I called him he told me the appointment wasn’t till the next morning.”
Fitch turned his bleary eyes from the window. “You were checking up on me, huh?”
“Well, you’d already lied about Eldon coming out.”
“Okay, the thing was, you were pressuring me, and I had to get away from you. I knew if I went to my room, you’d follow and keep hounding me. So I just drove for a while and then sat at an overlook and watched the waves.”
“In the rain?”
“Wasn’t so bad.”
She studied him, decided he was telling the truth. “So now—what’s our best-case scenario about Eldon?”
“We’re wrong about him having anything to do with the fire at the mill. He surfaces, and it turns out he was enticed into spending the night with a sexy lady in the next room.”
“And worst case?”
“We’re right about the fire, and for some reason he’s been kidnapped or killed. Or he staged his own disappearance.”
“I hadn’t thought he might’ve staged it. But whatever the case is, I don’t think we can go this alone.”
“Neither do I. But who can we confide in? Who can we trust?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
JOSEPH OPENSHAW
Joseph stepped out of Rose Garza’s small prefab home into the foggy morning. Rose, his maternal aunt, followed, shutting the door and hugging her sweater around her stocky body. He had brought the nearly comatose Harold Kosovich to her because she was a retired nurse. By the time he’d tried the emergency services number and, as he’d expected, found it busy, Rose had prepared one of her concoctions, and together they’d managed to save Harold: Rose dosing him with a vile mixture involving charcoal and the native roots whose study she had taken up upon retirement, which caused him to vomit up the liquor and pills; Joseph plying him with gallons of coffee and walking him up and down the hallway of the little house until it was safe to let him sleep. He himself had then slept for a few hours, Rose watching over him as she had countless times when he was a sick child.
Now he was tired and had a headache, and his back hurt from sleeping on the lumpy old sofa. The air, damp and cold, brought with it the faint smell of fire. He tipped his head back and looked up into the misted branches of the nearby redwood grove, trying to free himself of the nightmare aura of his restless dreams, but it clung to him and he shuddered. Rose put a hand on his arm.
“He’ll be all right now,” she said. “I’ll send one of the men up to that shack for his things, and he can stay with me till we arrange for someplace else.”
“You know why he was staying there, what happened to his trailer?”
“He sold it, a year or more ago, to a couple who moved up here from Westhaven. Needed the money for his damned liquor, I guess. After that, folks would see him around town, and everybody just assumed he’d gotten a room there. None of us suspected he was living in that shack. If we had, somebody would’ve done something about it before this.”
Joseph nodded. The people on the rez were like that; they didn’t have much, but what they did have, they shared.
Rose said, “You okay to drive? You don’t look so good.”
“I’m okay, just tired.”
“You should let me fix you breakfast.”
“Couldn’t eat. Thanks anyway.”
“You don’t take care of yourself, living in that goat shed, eating junk food. That what you do in Sacramento?”
“Live in a goat shed, or eat junk food?”
She frowned. “You know what I mean.”
“I take care of myself. Don’t worry, Rose.”
“I worry. Somebody has to, now that your mother’s gone to join your father, God forgive him.” His mother had died suddenly of a heart attack the previous summer; his father had been killed in a holdup attempt in the county seat, Santa Carla, when Joseph was thirteen.
He didn’t respond to the comment. In his opinion, it was not God but Bob Openshaw’s dead wife and four widely scattered children from whom his father’s soul should beg forgiveness—not that any was likely to be forthcoming. He’d been a drunk, an abuser, and his lifelong laziness and greed had eventually killed him and destroyed his family.
“Joseph?” Rose said. “Don’t be a stranger. Come up and let me fix you a meal before you go back to Sacramento. You’ll be going back soon, now that this thing with the water bags is over?”
“Over?”
“Well, I just thought . . .” She spread her hands. “Folks around here have made themselves pretty clear, haven’t they? It would be foolish for the water board to allow those people to go ahead with their project.”
“It’s not over, Rose. In fact, I think it’s just beginning.” Joseph hugged her and loped down the path between her neat borders of pansies before she could ask him what he meant. At the broken pavement he turned right, toward the boarded-up community center, where his van still sat next to Harold’s old Buick. He saw no one except a pair of scabrous-looking dogs that lounged on the front stoop of a trailer, tongues lolling. Kosovich’s car was unlocked; he opened the passenger door, leaned in, and pocketed the keys that were dangling from the ignition. An odor rose to his nostrils—old upholstery and dampness and something he’d caught a faint trace of at the shack the night before. . . .
Gasoline. And not fumes leaking from the tank.
He leaned in farther, sniffing at the seat. Gas had been spilled there, probably a considerable quantity of it.
You think this could have been arson?
Wouldn’t surprise me. The buildings are old and dry. A little accelerant poured in the right places . . .
Joseph looked over the seat back, into the rear. Nothing there except beer cans and an empty whiskey bottle and crumpled food wrappers. He backed out, went around to the trunk, and opened it. Dirty rags, a jack, and four five-gallon gasoline containers. He took each out and shook it.
Empty.
Harold, the arsonist?
Harold?
STEPH PACE
Steph looked through the door at the restaurant’s dining room, saw that all was under control, then crossed the kitchen and the short hallway to her office, where she sat down at the desk and massaged her temples. The morning had been hellish beyond belief, with customers wanting to talk about nothing but the fire at the mill, and media people, drawn by both the shooting of the water bag and the blaze, only too eager to interview them. Arletta had sermonized all through the lunch prep about it being Timothy McNear’s bad karma for his betrayal of the community. The cook, Steph thought, might be a New Age version of her devoutly Catholic mother.
Not that Joella Pace didn’t have good cause to wish divine retribution upon McNear. Her best friend, Alice Wells, had had a long-running affair with him and then killed herself when he refused to marry her after his wife’s death. Years later, Joella had been vehemently opposed to Steph’s going to work as nanny to McNear’s grandchildren, but had yielded when her daughter pointed out that the salary was three times what she could have made waitressing and that the schedule would permit her more time to study. And so Steph had gone to live in the big house on the hill and care for Max and Shelby. Max the Meek and Shelby the Sadist, as she’d privately called them. The tragic loss of a mother often brought out different undesirable character traits in siblings.
Should’ve listened to Mama, she thought now. If only . . .
If only she hadn’t gone to work for McNear, if only she hadn’t told Joseph and Curtis and Mack what went
on in that hilltop house, if only they hadn’t been angry and springtime-restless and bored, ready to try anything. Things would be so different now. Mack, with his brother Ike, would be running the ranch in the hills where the Kudge family had grown wine grapes and chestnuts for over a hundred years. Curtis would have established a successful law practice and would also do pro bono work for his people. She and Joseph would have married and moved to one of the far-off cities they’d talked about so often. When they came back to visit Cape Perdido, they would get together with the others and bask happily in the light of their collective accomplishments.
But it hadn’t worked out the way they’d planned. In the course of one evening they’d sabotaged their futures. Now Mack was long dead, Curtis trapped in a slipping-down life. And she and Joseph had played out the final act of their love story in a series of confrontations that left both betrayed and forever altered.
I can’t see you or touch you without wondering.
Wondering what, Joseph? Are you saying it was my fault?
No, of course not. None of us could’ve known what would happen.
But that’s it, isn’t it? None of us really knows what did happen. Except Mack, and he can’t tell.
I believe you when you say—
Do you? Because I’m not sure I believe you.
Secrets. Half-truths. Outright lies. They lived inside her like a virus, normally under control, but subject to violent flare-ups. The prospect of those flare-ups had ruled her life, dictated her every action and reaction. Now, no matter what the risk, it was time for a cure.
Steph picked up the phone receiver and dialed McNear’s well-remembered number.
TIMOTHY MCNEAR
Timothy was anxious and depressed when he returned home after his meeting with the fire marshal and the sheriff’s department and the insurance investigators at the mill. The fire’s origin had already been determined to be arson, and although they had been polite and respectful toward him, he knew he was their prime suspect. The light on his answering machine was flashing, and his spirits improved somewhat when he played Stephanie Pace’s message.
She had agreed to meet with him at four that afternoon, and her choice of a meeting place was a good one: the rhododendron preserve south of Signal Port. A busy tourist attraction during the spring blooming season, but relatively deserted this time of year—staffed by a caretaker, however, who collected a nominal fee when he opened the gate to visitors. To him, Timothy and Stephanie would merely be acquaintances who had arrived separately and met on the path, but his presence would reassure her as to her safety.
Clever girl, but she doesn’t know that I could never harm her. And maybe that’s all to the good.
Of course, he never would harm her. Not again, not intentionally.
Briefly he pictured her as a child: the smiley, curly-haired little girl riding around on her father’s shoulders at the mill’s annual picnic. As a teenager: awkward, leggy, nervously balancing plates at her first summer job down at Tai Haruru. As a young adult: an almond-eyed beauty, nodding shyly at him when he entered the kitchen, where she was trying to coax his grandsons into eating their Wheaties.
Ah, Jesus!
His decision to provide a nanny for the boys wasn’t an entirely selfish one: Stephanie’s father had died when his pickup skidded on the rain-slick pavement of the coast highway and went over the cliffs down at Deer Harbor; his life insurance was barely enough to pay off the mortgage on the family home, and Timothy had heard that Stephanie was working two waitressing jobs to help her mother make ends meet. So he’d offered her more than the going rate for child-care workers, to live in his servants’ quarters and care for the boys. She’d been good with them.
Throughout the hot summer and autumn, the wretched rainy winter, and part of the lovely spring, Stephanie had kept nine-year-old Max and twelve-year-old Shelby amused, distracting them from their grief over their mother. She’d concocted games for them, asked Timothy to let them use the potting shed in the garden for a playhouse. The boys had minded her, respectfully calling her Miss Stephanie, but they’d also regarded her as a friend.
Should have had children of her own. That would have been the normal course of events. But after the night of June 30, 1984, nothing was normal for any of us again.
And nothing will be normal again after this afternoon.
Timothy forced his mind away from the past and future. No more woolgathering. He had an essential stop to make before he began the drive south.
JESSIE DOMINGO
Jessie returned to the Shorebird alone at a little after noon, Fitch having volunteered to remain at the Tides Inn in case Eldon surfaced. She sensed that he didn’t really believe that was likely but wanted to be alone for a time while he struggled to come to terms with the day’s discoveries. She certainly couldn’t fault him for that; her own mind and body were on overload, and she needed to rest before she considered what to do next.
Phone messages had been slipped under her door: from Bernina, wanting to meet for lunch; from two of the Friends, saying they had questions for her; from reporters for the county TV station and the Santa Carla paper wanting to interview her; from Joseph, asking that she call him. She reserved the messages from the Friends and the media for later, discarded the slip with Bernina’s number on it. At the meeting with Whitesides yesterday afternoon, she’d been disturbed by Bernina’s acceptance of his underhanded tactics, and she didn’t want to see the woman until she’d had time to process her reaction. The message from Joseph she fingered nervously. She and Fitch still had not decided whom they could trust with the news of Eldon’s disappearance, but given the detective’s report on Joseph that they’d found saved on Eldon’s computer, he was far down on their list.
The report had detailed Joseph’s career as an environmentalist and activist since his student days at Berkeley: Phi Beta Kappa graduate with a tendency to get in trouble with the law at protests; internship with the state environmental protection agency; paid positions with various pro-environment organizations, most recently as director of the California Coalition for Environmental Preservation, a powerful group that encompassed a wide spectrum of organizations working to preserve the state’s natural resources. Joseph’s two books were used as supplemental texts at universities across the country and he had received numerous awards and citations.
No stain had touched Joseph’s reputation until the previous spring, when $150,000 went missing from the Coalition’s general fund. Although there was no evidence he had committed the crime, and few details had appeared in the press, the Coalition’s board of directors called into question his ability to lead effectively, and in May he had quietly resigned. Yet Eldon must have sensed something more, or else why had he told the investigator to continue?
Damn, this wasn’t right! Jessie had known Joseph by reputation since college, had read both his books. Neither the man behind those words nor the individual she’d come to know personally struck her as a thief, or even as an inept manager. Why not give him the chance to defend himself?
His message, left a little over an hour ago, asked her to call him at home. At the Friends’ meeting on the night Jessie arrived in Cape Perdido, Bernina had pointed out the former animal shed in her backyard that had been converted to a studio apartment, said that Joseph was living there. Jessie decided to take a brief nap, then pay him a visit.
The tiny structure where Joseph lived looked as if it had been built from scrap lumber; its roof was tar paper, its windows encased in cheap aluminum frames. Someone—probably Bernina—had attempted to beautify it by planting shrubs with bright red berries on either side of the door, but they failed to detract from the uneven joints and mismatched boards.
When Joseph answered her knock, Jessie was shocked at how bad he looked; overnight he seemed to have aged ten years. As he motioned her inside, he clawed at his silver-gray curls, ran a hand over the stubble on his chin. Then he looked around and began straightening the comforter on the single bed.
An understatement. Besides the bed, there was a bookcase, a table set up as an office, and a single typist’s chair. The room felt claustrophobic in the extreme.
Jessie said, “We could go get a cup of coffee or a drink.”
“If you don’t mind staying here, it would be better. We need to talk privately.”
“Fine with me.” She swiveled the chair away from the computer and sat, while he took a place on the edge of the bed.
“Eldon—” she began.
“The fire—” he said at the same time.
“Go ahead.”
“No, you first, please.”
She started over. “Eldon’s had an investigator gathering background on you. He knows about the embezzlement at the California Coalition.” When he didn’t immediately react, she added, “You don’t seem surprised.”
“I know someone’s been making inquiries.”
“The investigator’s report seems pretty straightforward, but Eldon asked him to keep digging. Why, d’you suppose?”
Joseph shrugged. “He’s just being Eldon.”
“Meaning?”
“How do I put this? Eldon likes to be in control, and he doesn’t share the spotlight with anyone. I think he came out here with the idea of coercing Timothy McNear into going back on his agreement with Aqueduct, then taking credit for engineering a settlement. Diplomacy always makes one look good with corporate backers like his.”
“But why does he want to get something on you?”
“Because I’m the loose cannon in his plans. He’s counting on the Friends, and in particular Bernina—who, as you must have noticed, is completely won over—to go along with whatever he wants to do. He’s got Fitch jumping at his every request. You, he’s not so sure of, but he figures he can handle you somehow. But me—he knows he can’t control me. We have a long history of conflict. So he’s trying to dig up some dirt that’ll give him leverage, just as he hopes to with Timothy McNear.”