BY THE BEAUTIFUL SEA

End of August, 2008

What a gorgeous Autumn! Misty mornings and exciting storms! What did you say? It’s not Autumn? It’s still Summer?? But, but . . . it can’t be - we’ve had all of a week of summery weather!

Wouldn’t you know that I decide to take a vacation week by the sea and spend most of it looking like a drowned rat. I’ll be lucky if I don’t come down with pneumonia - still, it is always a joy to be in a place so dearly loved as Westport. And I am happy to report that the village continues undiscovered by hoards of tourists. Though technically this is peak season most of the downtown shops were closed (Apologies to all those to whom I promised tacky souvenirs). Could have been weather-related -the Pineapple Express dumping half an ocean on the coast. Take a look at the main street Tuesday morning. You could float a boat in the crosswalk.

Granny Hazel’s Candies across from the marina was open yesterday, allowing me to pick up a chunk of excellent maple nut fudge (Sorry, I won’t be bringing any of it home to share - it didn’t last). The guy who owns the shop offered to sell me his house out on Surf Street - everyone I ran into this week offered to sell me real-estate. All of Grays Harbor County appears to be on the market - a fantastic opportunity to pick up waterfront if you have the dough. The lousy economy is of course the rub. The candy man told me the proposed golf course at Half Moon Bay is dead in the water due to the developer going bankrupt - no one will be teeing off any time soon. On the up side, herds of deer are loving the cleared fairways.


If you want to go fishing there are endless possibilities right now - the charter boats are sitting idle. I noticed that most of the charter boat companies have lowered their prices but tacked on fuel surcharges. Nothing is going to salvage this fishing season - part of the problem being an early rumor that salmon fishing season had been canceled for the year. Not true but it might as well have been considering the drop in income. If you are in the market for a boat, come on out to Westport - lots of “Boat For Sale” signs.

I’d move here in a heartbeat except for one thing: this is a lovely place to live if you don’t have to work for a living - if you need a pay check you won’t find it in Westport.

I hadn’t planned on posting any more of RV-GO Down to the Sea but since I’m “on location” I’ll go ahead and give you some of Chapter 5:
Chapter 5
A half hour later we were back in RV-GO driving south out of Grayland.
“You will like this place,” he said. “It started out in the ‘20s as a roadhouse. All the way through Prohibition and the Great Depression this place was a rocking venue - dancing, gambling, highly illegal alcoholic beverages in the secrecy of the vast Northwest wilderness.”
“Way out here?” I said. “Where would they get customers?”
“Don’t you know, people will travel farther than Marco Polo to indulge their vices. They came from Seattle, Olympia, Portland. Some drove their big black cars but most came by boat and were shuttled to the roadhouse.”
“Gangsters?”
“Absolutely. Big time mob bosses. Back then smuggling was a major industry in Westport and Grayland - everything from guns to booze. Every fisherman in Grays Harbor had his own sideline business in those hard times. Mostly bringing goodies in from Canada under the salmon catch. During the 60s and 70s it was marijuana from British Columbia.”
“Sounds like it was a whole lot more exciting around here then than it it is now.”
“You would be surprised how little things have changed,” said Mert. “I think it is safe to say we have had our share of excitement lately.”
He fell silent then and I mentally kicked myself for putting my foot in it. There are times when less excitement is a welcome change, especially when an old friend is murdered and you have just had your head bashed in. Yes, less excitement would be very welcome indeed.
“It is a restaurant now, you say?” I said, changing the subject back to the roadhouse.
“A four star if ever there was one. Maybe five star. Best kept secret on the coast,” he said. “As a matter of fact, Bev started out there working after school. Cooked there until she and her husband saved enough to open their own place in Westport. I have a hunch it broke her heart when she had to retire and give over the reins to Cindy. She would rather be working.”
“I can understand that,” I said. “But Cindy is a genius. I’ve known a barrel load of chefs but she’s the best I ever ran across. A natural. Bev must be proud of her.”
“I’m sure she is. Bev taught her how to cook after all, though she always thought her kid would go on to college and make something of herself. She doesn’t think running a restaurant qualifies as success.”
“There are lots of definitions of success.”
“That there are,” he said. “And you, Cora Jane Dooley, are you satisfied with what you have done with your life? It occurs to me I don’t know if you’re married, retired, a grandmother, a brain surgeon or an agent for the C. I. A. You don’t talk about yourself, which I find fascinating in a woman.”
“I’m just as self-involved as the next person but I’d rather not bore people with recitals of my wondrous accomplishments.”
“See, there you go again sidestepping the issue.”
“If you think about it, Captain Merton, I know next to nothing about you as well,” I said. “This is all I have on you: you are a partner in a fishing charter company. You live in Grayland - I am assuming you live alone because when we were searching the house I didn’t notice signs of anyone living with you. That is it. Oh, and you can’t cook.”
“Okay, fair enough,” he said. “For the record here is the scoop: married once when I was a stupid kid, divorced with a grown daughter who lives in San Francisco with her worthless boyfriend - no grand kids, thank God for small favors.”
“So now I expect it is my turn,” I said. “Married once, divorced fairly recently, no kids, fancy free and off to see the world in my recreational vehicle. Oh, and the C. I. A. turned me down flat.”
“Their loss,” he said. “Slow up and take the next right.”
At the end of a long curving drive squatted a massive log building that looked like Yellowstone Lodge. There didn’t appear to be a space left in the parking lot - not that I could have parked RV-GO in one of those scrunched up compact slips. And this definitely did not look like the kind of place that had a drive-through window.
“Pull up to the front,” said Mert. “We’ll ask the valet where to put this craft of yours.”
Valet? Had we tele-ported to the Bellevue Hilton? I did as directed. Mert rolled down his window and talked to the kid in the navy blue blazer.
He turned to me. “Okay, Dooley, drive to the end of the lot and park along the curb where it says Bus Parking.”
“Bus! He thinks we are a bus?”
“Actually he likes the Minnie Winnie - ‘pretty cool’ were his exact words. He wanted to park it for us but I did not think you would let him.”
“You were right,” I said, putting it in drive. RV-GO was starting to kind of grow on me - I did not like the thought of any one else driving “him”.

We started with a small washtub filled with mussels and butter clams awash with garlic butter and fresh herbs that the establishment insisted be served with a glass of their house white. The bottle had a plain white label, “House White” carefully printed in black block letters. No wine list - Pine Dunes Lodge called the shots where it came to what wine went with what dish.
Next came the seared tuna steak paired with local vegetables and a mysterious and blissfully yummy sauce. This time paired with “House Dry Red”. Whoever owned the place was a complete despot but since they were spot-on with the pairing I sat back and let someone else drive for once.
Great food, excellent wine, candle light, a crackling fire in the walk-in fireplace, and from somewhere in the next room a piano playing softly - an F. Scott Fitzgerald sort of evening, unforgettable and very decadent. I felt the tight muscles in my neck loosen and my forehead wrinkles unclench.
Neither one of us were dressed for this sort of restaurant - had the lodge been in New York, Los Angeles, or even Seattle - but here on the edge of the continent, nestled in a stand of wind swept pine what counted was not what you wore but how appreciative you were of the fine things in life. As long as you can pay attention and can pay the bill you are appropriately equipped for an evening at Pine Dunes.
Dessert was cranberry cake topped with thick curls of dark chocolate, becalmed in a pool of creme-fresh. Mert and I shared one order, neither of us having room left for any more than a taste but what we had was well worth the drive half way down the coast.
We also shared a companionable banter throughout dinner, never once mentioning the weighty matter of murder and mayhem. Had we wandered into such unpleasant topics I am positive the management would have chucked us out without a second’s hesitation.
Mert was smiling into my eyes, though I could tell the pain and exhaustion was starting to catch up with him.
“This has been a wonderful night,” I said. “Thank you so much for dragging me out here.”
“You didn’t put up much of a fight,” he said. “Do you think we ought to leave or should we ask for sleeping bags and whatever wine they feel goes with that?”
“We probably should call it a night.”
“You okay to drive that bus of yours?”
“Sure. There is only one road and I have an excellent copilot.”
He gallantly helped me on with my jacket, paid the bill, and we set off.
The night was calm but moonless as RV-GO cruised back to Grayland. I think Mert dozed off almost as soon as I turned the ignition.
“Mert, wake up, we are in Grayland. I need some help finding the turn off to your place.”
“Oomph,” he mumbled. “We are here already? Okay, just up ahead and to the left by that big yellow mail box.”
I slowed up and made my turn. Now that we were here I was reluctant to drop him at his house and drive back to Westport alone. It had been such a perfect evening. I felt like a teenager on prom night.
Would we kiss goodnight, I wondered, then dismissed the thought as juvenile and kind of pointless. Weren’t we both too old for an embarrassed groping session under the porch light?
I pulled the RV into the drive.
“I don’t believe this!” Mert shouted.
The front door was open wide, light streaming out across the sandy front yard. He patted his coat pocket.
“Damn, I left my cell phone at the boat. Dooley, have you got that phone you bought in Aberdeen?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Dial 911. This time we definitely need the cops. We are not going in there without the law.”
Silently we waited for the sirens. Mert had his eyes fixed on his front door. I could only imagine what was going through his head. Ten interminable minutes after I place my call two cruiser pulled up behind us, red and blue lights flashing.
“You stay here,” said Mert as he got out to join the cops on the sidewalk. I was relieved to stay in the vehicle. Anything the police needed to know Mert could tell them.
As the men came out of the house I checked the time on my cell phone - they had been in the house a little over an hour. I watched for Mert. He trailed after the cops, his head down. First one cruiser than the other left the drive. Mert came around to my driver’s side window. He motioned for me to roll it down.
“Nobody in there. Whoever it was left by the back door and out over the dunes,” he said.
“Did they take anything?” I asked.
“Not that I could tell. They made a mess but I guess they didn’t find what they wanted.”
“You don’t think they were thieves then.”
“I don’t know what to think, Cora Jane,” he said, with a cool deliberation. “But I want to tell you something and I want you to listen carefully. I want you to know I had a great time tonight . . . “
“So did I, Mert,”
“Don’t interrupt. I had a great time and now I’m sending you on home and I don’t want you coming around me ever again.”
I thought I must have misunderstood. He couldn’t be telling me to get lost.
“I don’t understand what you are saying.”
“I think you do. Let me tell you how I see it, Ms. Dooley,” he said, leaning toward me. “You show up in town and my friend Carl is killed right after he meets up with you. You ask Marj about me, turn up at the marina - the next day I get hit over the head and someone tosses my boat. Then just as I’m getting out of the hospital who turns up ready to give me a lift home? You. We search my house and find everything in order - but while I’m out wining and dining you someone tears my house apart. I want to know how many coincidences am I supposed to buy, lady?”
“You can’t seriously think I had anything to do with this!”
“I can and I do.”
“But that’s crazy!” I said. “For one thing, I couldn’t possibly have hit you over the head and dragged you to the hatch. I’m not strong enough. And how can you think I searched your house tonight when I was with you the whole time?”
“That’s the thing, I have no illusions that you’re working alone. You’ve got some goon working with you. You didn’t know where I lived so you gave me a ride home, then when I was out of earshot - probably when you went to the john - you called you pal on you handy new cell phone and told him where I lived and that I’d be out of the house for a few hours.”
“I swear you’re wrong, Mert!”
“Yeah, right. Pardon me if I don’t feel very trusting right now,” he snarled. “After tonight you and your pal should know I don’t have whatever it is you’ve been looking for but a word to the wise for you and the gorilla - after tonight I’m armed, so stay the hell away from my house, my boat, and stay the hell away from me. Got it? Now get the fu . . . - get out of my sight.”
He hit the side of the RV with the flat of his hand, turned and marched back into the house, slamming the door behind him.
I started the engine but I was shaking so hard I had trouble putting it in reverse. I was thunder struck, my throat was closing up and I was afraid I was going to start crying. How could I argue that I was innocent when I could so easily see the events from his point of view? It was so logical. I would have reached the same conclusion had I been in his position. It did look bad and I had no way to refute his theory. I knew he was wrong but how would I ever prove it to him?
* * *
The next morning Mert didn’t come in for breakfast. I hadn’t expected him to show up. He had clearly chosen starvation over letting me serve him his sausage and eggs. Either that or he was over at the Spindrift making do with doughnuts and coffee. Or he was going to have to learn to cook. I had to stop agonizing about that man and his problems. I wasn’t about to quit my job and leave town to suit him, so he was in for a long wait if that was what he expected me to do.
Though what I really wanted to do was curl up in a ball and die. I wondered if Captain Merton was already spreading his story all over town. Were the townspeople preparing tar and feathers as I went about my morning chores? Was a mob brandishing pitchforks and torches marching down the street toward Bev’s as I stacked the dishes in the dishwasher?
We were closing up when Cindy came out of the kitchen, her apron slung over her shoulder. I’d volunteered to work two shifts rather than go home. Or maybe I was hoping Mert would show up for dinner, which he hadn’t.
“Hey, C. J., what’s going on with you and Mert?” she said entering the dining room.
“Nothing is going on. Why?”
“He called Aunt Marj. She said he told her we needed to keep a weather eye on you.”
“Really? What did he say exactly?” My stomach dropped.
“Only that you weren’t what you seemed. Any clue what he meant?”
“Well, we had a difference of opinion the other night. He got the wrong idea about me but I have no way to change his mind about that.”
“Mysterious. You guys went out on a date?”
“No, not a date exactly. I gave him a ride home from the hospital and things didn’t go well,” I said. “I don’t really want to go into the details, Cindy, because it’s really embarrassing. Mert has it in his head I did something that I did not do. That is the long and short of it.”
“Too bad. I thought you two would be kind of a cute couple,” she said. “Sounds like Mert blew it big time. He can get pretty strong minded some times. It makes him a good charter captain but difficult in the boy-girl department. Don’t let him get to you.”
“That is easy to say but I feel so helpless since I can’t prove he’s wrong about me,” I said. “Now it looks like he is avoiding me so you are down one regular customer, which compounds my frustration with a dollop of guilt.”
“As I say, don’t let the man get to you. He’ll come around eventually.”
“I’m not going to hold my breath,” I said. “Say, Cindy, if this unpleasantness causes any trouble for you or your mom, feel free to kick me to the sidewalk. I mean it. I don’t want to cause problems with your business.”
“Don’t be a jerk,” she said. “Whatever is going on between you and Captain Merton is your own business, as long as you don’t start dropping the dishes and slopping coffee all over the customers.”
TO BE CONTINUED * * *