The vegetable garden was a totally super idea - too bad the sun wasn’t up long enough to engender tomatoes, cukes, squash ... or much of anything except slugs. A chill drizzle pounds what’s left of my hopes for pretty produce. At least the rain barrel is filling up.
And now I believe I have the flu. The weather is perfect for that, keeping me inside listening to my precious heating oil pumping into the furnace. Perhaps this convenient fever will allow me to turn off the heat before the oil bill exceeds the mortgage payment.
But for heart stopping excitement, how ‘bout that stock market last week! Wah Hoo! (Especially if you own Washington Mutual - fortunately I sold mine last Fall @$34.00) I love the market - never get enough of its highs and lows. Nothing makes me feel more alive than watching my net worth plummet into the abyss, while all the time keeping faith that someday some ditzy stock I forgot I owned will rocket past Google into the stratosphere. Yes!! Ka-ching!
Now, since I’m off to nurse my flu with a second cup of tea I’ll post some more RV-GO Down to the Sea . . .
RV-GO DOWN TO THE SEA continued:
* * *
The next morning I poured myself a glass of orange juice and thought about girlfriends while my freezer waffle toasted. I thought about girlfriends and about how I had never actually had one. Not since high school, at any rate. My morning with Alice Burnbaum had been a revelation. Yesterday I had set out to pump the woman for snippets about the museum and Carl Heslop, yet found myself getting more out of the encounter than mere scraps of information. I actually enjoyed palling around with another woman - something that had been significantly missing from my life without me consciously being aware of it. The whole time I lived in Boise I had had no close friends - no girlfriends to go shopping with - no gal pals to share a cup of coffee or a little harmless gossip. The only women I associated with were other waitresses - but when we got off shift we scattered to the four winds.
Now that I think about it, they may have been leery of getting too close to me. My husband did not encourage people coming over to the house - he especially did not want me spending time with women friends. When we first married I thought it was that he wanted me all to himself - I was even flattered on some level to think he could be jealous of anyone who took time away from our time together. How I got sucked into believing that I'll never know. But soon it was easier to avoid conflict by not inviting anyone over to the house. I told myself that we both saw enough of people at the work place - at home we liked peace and quiet. Before I realized it I had become accustomed to isolation. I was living in a cage and didn't even know it. Ironic, I thought, that now the foul man lives in a actual cage with real iron bars. I wondered how he liked the turnabout. Or if he really even saw the justice of it. Probably not.
As I buttered my waffle and poured myself a second cup of coffee the memory of those few hours with Alice cheered me. Even her squall of tears - though disturbing - had been the closest to true human connection and warmth that I had experienced in a very long time. I found myself wanting to know more about her. She was obviously an educated woman who cared deeply about the town and its people. She was well worth knowing. I had no doubt at all that if I stayed in town long enough she would have me joining the historical society and be handing me a docent badge. I might even accept it. I already felt dangerously at home in Westport.
At my first opportunity, I would get back over the gift shop for a cup of espresso with Alice - but this time I would have no ulterior motive beyond the hope of kindling a friendship. I was definitely a little rusty in the realm of social interaction but suspected it was like riding a bike - however rusty you or the bike have become it all comes back with practice and lubrication.
As I washed up my breakfast dishes I gave some thought to how best enjoy my day off - Sunday of my “weekend” which was really Wednesday. Should I go into Aberdeen to spend my brand new pay check? I considered that. My wardrobe was shy a few key pieces, like for instance a warm and sturdy jacket capable of withstanding the coastal weather systems. The Pendleton coat I bought in Oregon was cute but not foul-weather gear. During the storm I had learned a lot about hypothermia. I needed gloves and a scarf also.
And while I was making my mental shopping list I added a camera, though I knew I would not be able to afford anything too elaborate. Had Carl still been alive he would have been the perfect person to consult. He would know just what I needed. It seemed to me if I was going to be traveling around in an RV I should be chronicling my travels somehow for posterity. How I wished I had had a camera to take photos of the surfers. There were so many interesting and beautiful things to take photos of in the area. I thought of all of Carl’s magnificent seascapes - or would they be called boat-scapes? Then I remembered that one of them may have cost him his life. No, I would not think of that today.
Maybe I could make scrapbooks, I thought - though I did not feel at all confident in my artistic abilities. Still, you had to start somewhere. What, I wondered, do people generally do with photos besides send them to relatives - of which I had none. Well, I could always make a collection and enjoy them myself - something to remind me of the places and people I encounter. That was a good enough goal for now, I thought. I toyed briefly with the idea of going digital but thought I would need a computer and printer to make the most of that. Something that was completely beyond my budget. However, to start out I knew enough to know I could have digital prints made up at the Westport Pharmacy. I had seen a sign on the window. So that might be a way to get started. I would get myself a small digital camera and have it tucked in my jacket pocket for the next time I was something memorable.
I cleaned up, got dressed, and unplugged RV-GO for the trek into Aberdeen. It really was a pain the the patoot not to have a little car to run around in. I now understood why so many RV owners had compact cars hitched to the tail ends of their rigs. Much easier to unhook a trailer hitch than all the utility hoses and cables on the RV. I have heard boats described as holes in the water you pour money into - RV-GO was a hole in a sand dune gaping wide to receive my hard earned tip money. There was nothing I could see of the RV lifestyle that indicated it was a cheap way to live full time.
The cloud bank the evening before had rolled ashore during the night. I thought the rain might hold off until I got my errands done but just in case I checked the windshield wipers and the reservoir for washer fluid. Satisfied that all systems were go I fired up RV-GO and pointed his stubby nose at the highway for Aberdeen.
The RV and I had a companionable drive past the Ocean Spray Cranberry plant and over the bridge at the oyster beds. I promises myself I would stop some day at the Brady’s Oysters and buy myself a few cans of their finest mollusks. Just not today. Today I had bigger game in mind.
I would have actually preferred the mollusks, since I am one of those aberrant females who hate shopping. I never, ever shop for recreation. There has to be a real need, a list, a clearly defined intent. Thus armed with purpose - and a strictly adhered to budget - I launch myself into the fray of comparison shopping, fitting rooms, and suffocating crowds. Usually I come out of the experience with approximately what I went in search of. I cannot say I come out of it whistling happy tunes. I hear that my fellow shop-a-phobics are flocking to the internet as a way of saving sanity and shoe leather. That sounds pretty attractive. If I had a computer and internet access I would be joining the exodus from shopping mall hell.
The South Shore Mall was nearly empty, this being a wednesday. I tried on dozens of jackets before finding one that fit all the body parts it had to fit. It was unfortunately olive green. That is not my best color but fortunately it was not olive camo. Though all I expected of it was that it keep me warm and dry, camo would have been pushing me to the wall.
J. C. Penney had a nice sale on cotton turtle neck shirts. I bought four in assorted colors. Also a six pack of woolly socks. Now the weather could do its damnedest. I was ready for the worst.
My next stop was the electronic store for a small camera. Where I completely lost my mind. This was where my list and iron clad sales resistance should have simplified the task. However I discovered that I had - hidden deep in the abyss of my subconscious mind - an evil twin with her own agenda. An hour later I trundled out of the store with not only a six mega pixel palm size digital camera but a color ink jet printer and a twelve inch Apple notebook computer. Oh and lest I forget, and a decimated Visa card and a terrifying case of sticker shock. I loaded my new toys into RV-GO and headed back to Westport before I could do any more damage to my finances.
Looking on the bright side I vowed that by taking this step I would never be isolated and out of touch again. I would get myself online. I would be out in the world both physically and electronically. I could e-mail people - once I knew people to e-mail. It felt as if I were making a jail break. The first step of my liberation had been RV-GO, the next was to get myself visible in cyberspace - to connect myself to the outside world.
I was trembling all over with excitement! Which made driving back to Westport slightly hair raising but I pulled into my home slot a new woman, a woman of the wide world.
I had picked up a power strip at the hardware store on my way out of Aberdeen. The kid who sold me the computer assured me that I would need one, especially since I was going to be using my technology in an RV without a fool proof electrical connection.
All the rest of the day and far past my beddy-bye time I worked on getting all the plugs plugged into the right USB ports (and actually figured out what the hell a USB port was) and connected up with power. At last the computer was communicating with its printer and the camera figured out how to convey images to the computer’s iPhoto and I was pretty much up and running. I picked the Apple because it had fewer quirks to deal with and no weird software to install. It came with everything I needed already loaded. I plugged it in, turned it on and off I went!
My new cell phone company also provided internet connection so I called their customer service in the vast city of Mumbai. A helpful man speaking precise English embellished with a charming Indian lilt instructed me each step of the way through the process of launching myself out onto the Super Highway.
During the adventure I learned something about myself I had never suspected: I am no technophobe. I dived right in pushing buttons until I stopped getting error messages and the right things began to happen. If I got it wrong nothing blew up. That was a major discovery that gave me confidence. This stuff was no more complicated than learning to use a food processor or figuring out which hose was the gray water line to your RV.
By midnight I had Goggled the word “smuggling” and had learned that the most lucrative and fastest growing branch of that ancient crime was the smuggling of illegal aliens into the United States. And currently the hottest smuggling route was from Asia (primarily China), not Mexico as I might have suspected. The route was often through Alaskan waters down the coast into the Pacific Northwest. People wanting transport paid agents called “snake heads” forty to eighty thousand dollars for passage on ships, usually freighters. Either the people would be brought over in box cars directly into major ports such as Seattle or Portland, or they transferred in open water onto fishing boats and smuggled into smaller less secure harbors - usually at night.
This information gave me food for thought. Given what both Alice and Mert had told me about the long history of smuggling in Grays Harbor, I had been toying with the idea that Carl might have run afoul of some smugglers but I had been thinking drugs not human beings.
I reluctantly logged off and put my little white Apple to sleep, then fell like a log onto my queen size bed. If I dreamed at all it was in the form of icons and error messages.
* * *
I should have gone home right after work. Westhaven was a mean dark street slimed with new rain. The computer was waiting on my dining room table back home at RV-GO - waiting for me to confer my magic touch to wake it up, waiting in its computer coma to explore and transform. Knowing it was there drew me like a chocolate cream pie. But I resisted the temptation, struggled into my olive drab garment and thrummed down the stairs to the sodden street.
A few steps later I knew where I was headed. Gulls squawked at me from their pilings as I picked my way down the steel grid ramp to Float 9. Today Angel Face rocked securely in its stall like a bored Holstein cow. I clamped a hand on the rail and climbed onto her deck. The light rain shifted direction, slapping me in the cheek and trickled down my neck.
“Mert!” I yelled at the boat. “Are you here?”
The only answer was an avian squawk from overhead as a gull checked out the commotion. I had not really held much hope of finding Captain Merton puttering about the boat in the rain. It was more like an aimless re-circling, a vain hope that if I could try again to argue that I was innocent of everything but compulsive curiosity. But of course it had come to nothing. I was calling out to the rain and the rain was the only one answering as it pattered against my olive green hood. I felt slightly silly, like a love sick school girl haunting the side walk in front of the house where the coolest boy in third period lived. Not to say I was in love or anything approaching it. It was not love-born frustration - it was just plain frustration that I could not make myself understood. It was not fair, not just. I knew I was beating my head against a stubbornly held misconception. If he would not talk to me - if I could not even find the man - I was in serious danger of becoming a mad stalker.
Still avoiding the bike ride home in the sloppy weather I decided to try Bayview Cabins and Gifts on the chance that Alice braved the puddles to open up the shop. And lots of puddles there were. Several places along the jetty were leaking like a burst water heater. A feral jetty cat glared at me from the shelter of a crevasse in the mountainous jetty. She knew I carried neither fish heads nor cans of civilized feline food. I was useless and an intrusion. I walked on, using my creaking bicycle like a sort of walker to keep me from toppling over into the soupy slurry of rain, salt water and muck.
The red “open” sign flickered in the window above a handmade lost dog notice. I swam toward it as if it were a life raft in a tilting sea. And in a way it was. Pushing ahead through a beaded curtain of rain I fell into the shop, dripping and spattering.
“Cora Jane! Good lord, my dear, what on earth are you doing out in this weather?” said Alice.
“I am asking myself the same question. Got any of that espresso to revive a drowned rat?”
“I don’t know . . . I am so terribly, terribly busy right now,” she chuckled.
“Yes, I see that,” I said. “What are you even thinking opening up today - not that I am not delighted you are - the only people out and around are strays like me. You aren’t likely to sell so much as a stick of gum.”
“True, but I can get a little inventory done,” she said, holding up a clip board. “A dismal activity for a dismal day.”
“Ugh. How about I give you a break and bend your ear for a few minutes?”
“You are an angel. I had been praying hard for an excuse to chuck this project, and here you are!” Alice tossed the clip board next to the cash register.
“Come on back and sit down - take off you coat,” she continued.
“You are the angel, Alice. Seriously.”
I peeled off my drippy jacket and made myself comfortable in a wobbly oak chair beside the shop’s electric space heater.
“So, you want to bend my ear, do you, C. J.?” said Alice, whooshing our espresso into life.
“I sure do. If you don’t mind,” I said. “I can’t stop thinking about poor Carl Heslop.”
“You are not alone in that department. I hate that it is all up in the air and inconclusive. How I wish someone would come forward with information or that of that the police would finally arrest someone. It is driving me nuts that we haven’t heard anything.”
“Are you thinking that the police have given up?”
“No, they never really give up, do they? But it will not be long before they pack everything away in a card board box, hoping that someday they can reopen the case with fresh evidence.”
“Yes, that is what happens too often. The trail goes cold, and people forget. Move onto other mysteries,” I said, thinking of all those half-forgotten boxes my ex-husband undoubtedly left in his wake over the period of twenty years or maybe more. How many of his crimes remained boxed in climate controlled rooms, labeled with names and dates - boxes that will never be properly laid at his door? There has to be more, I thought, slayings that will go unsolved, the dead never laid to rest.
Alice set a steaming cup of caffein goodness between my chilled fingers. I looked up into her face and saw there the shadow of loss and hopelessness. I came to a decision.
“I have to confess to something,” I said. “You may hate me for it and I would not blame you. I misled you when we first met, Alice. My only excuse is that I did not know you at that time and I did not know who I could trust.”
“This sounds very serious.”
“It is. And it is important to me that you understand that I meant no harm by it,” I said, trembling. If she threw me back out into the storm it was all I deserved.
“I cannot think there is any harm in you anywhere, C. J. So tell me what it is you have to tell me, and then we will see what we do with it.”
“Okay. I led you to believe I did not know who Carl Heslop was. That I had never met him and did not know he was dead. That was untrue, and I am so sorry for that deceit,” I said. “The afternoon Carl died I came by the museum hoping for a tour but found it closed. However, there was an old man there - Carl Heslop. He showed me the lens, Alice, turning it on so I could see how it worked. It was stunning and he was so kind - such a nice old man. It really impressed me and so did he.”
“Carl was there when you came by? In the afternoon?”
“Yes. I told this to Captain Merton also and he told me that afternoon was not Carl’s usual time to be at the museum. Then you yourself told me Carl was the night security man - and it has puzzled me ever since that he was there so early. I keep thinking that he must have been there to meet someone. And I know for sure it was not me,” I said, pushing on before I could chicken out. “I talked with him for few minutes and then went on home. That night the storm hit, putting everything else out of my mind. “
“And the next morning he was found dead in the Lens Building.”
“Yes.”
I told her the rest - about how I had not heard about the murder until the police showed up at Bev’s to talk to Cindy. About deciding to try my hand at investigation when it did not appear that the cops were getting anywhere. So I had gone off like an idiot to take a look around the museum. It sounded wrongheaded and doomed. What had I expected, that clues were going to pop up all over the place?
“I know how stupid it sounds,” I said.
“So what you are saying is you sought me out because I had a key to the museum and you wanted to check out where Carl worked - see if the crime scene revealed anything about the crime?”
“That sums it up, Alice. I am so sorry I did not level with you from the start. I was such a total fool.”
“Not very flattering that all you wanted was to see the museum,” she said. “I really wish you had been honest with me. Still, no harm was done.”
I could not believe she was letting me off the hook. It could not be that easy. I waited for the other shoe to drop.
“Have you managed to come up with anything, since we last talked?” she asked.
“As I said, I have been giving it a lot of thought. When I was upstairs in the museum what struck me was what a perfect observation post it was. From up there everything that went on in the marina was in plain sight. A person with a telescope - or a telephoto lens - would not miss a thing. After all that was the original intent of the widow’s walk.”
“And Carl liked to take his breaks in the widow’s walk.”
“Exactly. It was very interesting and significant, I thought, that Carl was a photographer and liked to take pictures of the boats in the marina. I asked myself what would constitute a motive for murdering a harmless old man. But what if he was not all that harmless? What if he posed a significant threat to someone - or more to the point, what if something he photographed posed a threat?”
Alice stood up. “Do you want another espresso, C. J.?”
“That would be nice,” I answered. “You know, I kept thinking about how someone had searched Mert’s boat and house. Then someone burned Carl’s cabin.”
“Surely that could have been an accident, C. J.,” said Alice, pouring me another cup of fragrant black coffee.
“No, I do not for a minute think that fire was started accidentally, Alice. I do not believe in coincidences, especially three in a row. No, someone burned the cabin thinking that it contained something he desperately wanted destroyed. No other break-ins have occurred since then, as far as we know, so I would say the killer thinks he has succeeded in destroying whatever it was. I do not think that is the case. I think the incriminating photo or photos still exist. I am thinking that either they were at Mert’s boat all the time but well hidden. Or Carl stashed them in the logical place - his photo collection at the museum.”
“But why would Carl’s murderer think Captain Merton had them?” said Alice. “And come to think of it how would he have known about the photos in the first place?”
“He would know if Carl himself told him.”
“Why in the world would he do that? He would be putting himself into terrible danger. If he had seen something illegal going on in the marina he would have gone to the police.”
“Are you sure? What if Carl decided that keeping the information quiet could benefit himself in some material way?”
“Good God, you cannot seriously be suggesting that Carl was involved in an extortion scheme? Never!” she said. “You would not even suggest that if you had known him.”
“Alice, none of us knows what someone else would do. Mert himself told me he found Carl to be a difficult man to know because he did not like to talk about himself. Can actually you say you knew him any better than Mert did?”
She seemed to be mulling that over as she sipped her coffee.
“I see what you mean,” she replied, then as if talking to herself said: “If he thought he had control of the situation he might have tried it. What could he have seen that could be so bad someone would pay to shut him up?”
“It occurred to me since it involved the boats in the marina it might be about smuggling.”
“Heavens, C. J., smuggling is old hat around here and rather small time. Carl would not have thought too much about the odd drug shipment. He might not have approved but it is hardly worth making a big fuss. There is just not that much money involved in an occasional kilo of marijuana. Not to mention the unpleasantness of perhaps attracting the attention of the drug enforcement people.
“I agree. I do not think Carl would have stuck his neck out for a simple drug shipment. But drugs are not the only thing that can be smuggled on a trawler.”
She thought about that for only a second.
“Perhaps we should leave this alone, C. J.. Let the police do their jobs, however it may play out.”
“Meaning that we may end up like Carl if we step on the wrong toes.”
“What does Mert say about your theory, if you do not mind me asking?”
“He and I had a bit of a misunderstanding. To be honest, the captain jumped to the conclusion that because I am new in town I must be involved somehow,” I said. “I was just over at the boat trying to find him but he was not there. He has not been to Bev’s for breakfast for days. I think he is avoiding me.”
“Oh, surely not. How could you be behind any of this? You have no motive . . . do you?”
“Of course not. That was what I told him, but he refuses to listen. I think I am just a convenient target for a lot of misplaced anger. ”
Alice picked up our empty cups and put them in the small bar sink next to the espresso machine.
“Well, my dear, I would say the only thing we can do at this point is to go through Carl’s photos and see if anything looks like it would be worth killing someone for.”
“I was hoping you were going to say that, Alice!” I said. “If it turns out there is nothing but a lot of pretty pictures in the store room we will know I am full of whale pucky.”
“In a way I hope you dead wrong. I want Carl’s death to be a horrible mistake - an accident after all, that he fell against the lens and that was how his throat was cut. That could have happened, couldn’t it?”
“Anything is possible,” I said, slipping into my damp coat. “When do you want to check the store room?”
“We may as well go now, if that is all right with you,” said Alice. “I will lock up and we can drive over in the truck.”
By eight p. m. Alice and I had pawed through two huge file cabinets of photographic prints. We simplified the process by deciding that whatever had gone down it had to have been under the cover of darkness so we eliminated all daylight photos. There were still a significant number of prints to view. Carl had dated the files so we checked the most recent shots first, then after finding no likely images we went through the last few years.
“Cora Jane, there is nothing here.” Alice sighed and leaned back against the wall. “At least we tried.”
“I has got to be somewhere. Where could he have stashed it?”
“Perhaps he didn’t print it. It might be on a negative somewhere.”
“Well, if it is we will never find it, Alice. How could we ever make anything out of a negative,” I said.
I pushed a lank strand of hair out of my eyes. This had been a fool’s errand.
“I don’t know where else to look,” I said. We had come to a dead end.
Alice slide the last file back into the cabinet and closed the drawer.
“We have not looked in the Lens Building or the widow’s walk,” she said. “Do you think we should ?”
“It couldn’t hurt,” I said. “Though, really Alice, I am about on my last legs. This has been a huge waste of time.”
“I am not too perky myself. Let’s say we give it one more try then quit for dinner.”
“That sounds fine to me. Where do you want to go first?”
“I say we go up to the widow’s walk and look around,” she said.
We climbed three flights of stairs up from the basement, then up the ladder to the widow’s walk. It was a tiny square glassed-in room surrounded by a narrow open air walk way. The room was completely empty. There was nowhere anything larger than a dust bunny could be concealed. We descended with heavy steps.
We would not be coming back into the main building after searching the Lens Building so Alice checked that all the lights were off and the alarm system was armed. Then she locked up.
“I suppose we should have a security system in the Lens Building too but the only thing in there is the lens and I think it is a stretch to think any one could ever steal a two ton glass sculpture.”
Alice unlocked the door and switched on the overhead lights. It seemed so eery to be in there. I avoided looking at the floor at the base of the lens, though I felt sure any blood had been cleaned up.
She walked toward the center of the room.
“I think the most logical place to look is the motor housing at the base of the lens,” she said. “There is a door in the side where Carl might have been able to hide something flat, like photos.”
I walked the perimeter of room, paying particular attention to any cracks between boards where something could have been secreted. But this had been a thoroughly processed crime scene. Anything there had been there to find would already been found.
“Find anything, Alice?” I called over my shoulder.
“Nothing. I think we had better call it a night.”
“I am so sorry to have dragged you out for this.”
“The way I remember it, I dragged you out here, Cora Jane. It was worth doing, though, don’t you think? At least we know where the photos are not.”
TO BE CONTINUED . . .
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