POST-LABOR DAY POST/RV-GO CHAPTER 5 CONTINUED

HAIKU:
Sunflower-gold light
pours through the sagging bean vines -
rich vegetable broth.


I am glad this isn’t a political blog because, well, ohmygod!!! What a truly strange few weeks on the national scene. You couldn’t put this stuff in a novel and be credible - aging war veteran ex-POW running for President picks ex-beauty queen hockey mom from the northern wilderness as running mate. Nah, no one would buy that premise except as an episode of “Northern Exposure”. Causes me to wonder if the Senator suffered an undisclosed brain injury while in captivity. I’m sure he is a wonderful guy but how on earth can he seriously consider that Sara Palin would make a super-duper President - and considering that the esteemed Senator is no spring chicken ... oh wait, this isn’t a political blog. Sorry for the lapse.

But seriously, it appears McCain is making a symbolic gesture knowing that, what the hell, he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance - plus when he loses he can always blame it on his loony choice for running mate. Nice little twofer. I noticed today that the supermarket tabloids haven’t wasted any time - the Republican veep candidate for less than a week and sassy Sara’s already pushed Angelina and Brad to page two. This ought to be a really fun race. Oops, I’m doing it again. Let’s return to Jane Austen Land.


You will remember, back in the first week of June I vowed to read all of Jane Austen’s novels before Fall. Well, I did it! Finished “Lady Susan” on Labor Day. And hard labor it certainly was but I must say it has been a revealing odyssey. For one thing I have learned that the 20th/21st centuries have nothing on the 19th when it comes greed, pettiness, obsessive self-interest, bigotry, gluttony, and at least five other deadly sins - the sinners back then, however, dressed better than they do now. I mean, what is more flattering to the figure than an empire waist gown? Silks and satins and pretty pink ribbons - what’s not to love? Sure beats denim crop pants and torn t-shirts.

It was a pleasant place to visit for a few months but think of the laundry bills if you had to live like that! And what was with those horrible, silly hats? Is there any place in the world (besides jolly ol’ England and the Kentucky Derby) where women still stick fake flowers and pheasant feathers on their heads? Millinery is a justifiably dead art. And while I’m thinking of it, what’s with that nasty glob of snarly hair on Sara Palin’s noggin? Heck, there I go again - my apologies!

PLANT CARE TIP: I haven’t included a plant tip for a while but with Summer winding down it’s time to direct some attention to your poor neglected indoor plants. If you have had them outside for the Summer you should be bringing them in before the nights get chilly. When you do, make sure you check them carefully for insects that might have been vacationing on them. You don’t want to be bringing the bugs inside where there are no cooperative predators. Wash your plants carefully with mild soap and plenty of water. Also check the saucers and bottoms of the pots where slugs, snails and insect pests may be hiding.


RV-GO DOWN TO THE SEA: For those of you who just tuned in, I have been serializing the novel I wrote last Fall during National Novel Writing Month. It is a mystery novel so if you haven’t read it from Chapter 1 you had better go back to the beginning before you read this episode. So, now let’s return to the adventures of Cora Jane Dooley in the tiny fishing village of Westport, Washington:

RV-GO DOWN TO THE SEA - Chapter 5 continued -
Tuesday morning, my day off, saw me biking out along the jetty in a heavy mist. My Irish ancestors called this kind of day a “soft day” but it was not soft on my joints as I bumped over the crushed clam shells and beach gravel that made up the path along the spit toward Bayview Cabins and Gifts. Set at the very end of the crescent that made up the jetty protecting the harbor, Bayview Cabins and Gifts was exactly opposite downtown Westport. I knew there was something out there somewhere in the fog but all I could actually see was the rubble under my front tire.
Bayview Cabins and Gifts was a collection of late twentieth century manufactured cabins lined up like shoe boxes along the ridge of the spit. The gift shop building sat like a hen amid her chicks. I came out here looking for Alice Burnbaum who owned the place. According to Cindy, Mrs. Burnbaum was also curator of the Maritime Museum and president of the local historical society. She had a set of keys to the crime scene which I desperately needed to borrow if I was going to get a good look at where the killing took place.
Every day since Carl was killed I studied the Grays Harbor Gazette for updates on the murder investigation. There had not been much to read. It looked to me that the police were running out of ideas, though I could not exactly drop in at the police station and ask for a personal briefing. If the old man’s murder was to be solved - and my name cleared where Mert was concerned - it was up to me. My instinct was to high tail it out of town and never come back, but how could I leave with Mert thinking I had something to do with that poor old fellow’s death? Well, I couldn’t. I would have to stick around and do whatever I could to run down the real culprit. A logical place to start was the crime scene.
Alice Burnbaum was standing behind a long counter cluttered with revolving wire racks displaying postcards and embroidered souvenir baseball caps. She was a rangy, whippet thin woman with crisp white hair and a leathery face that caused her to resemble a salt cured strip of jerky. She looked up as I entered, her mouth creaking into a tight startled smile.
“May I help you?” she asked, without sounding particularly helpful.
“I will just look around for a minute, if that is okay,” I said, not ready to start asking favors from the woman right off the bat.
It was an intriguing shop. There were glass shelves displaying all sorts of made in China bric-a-brac printed with “Westport, Wa” and racks filled with tee shirts, sweat shirts, and jackets decorated with silk screen depiction's of light houses, whales, sailing ships, and fish. The shop also sold a wide selection of fishing tackle, crab rings, hunting knives, clam guns and buckets.
On the back wall under a wide window blind with mist were three small tables and some wooden chairs where customers could sit and enjoy a cup of espresso but there were no customers. No one in the shop except me and the shop keeper. I picked up a small wooden jewel box encrusted with delicate white shells, turned it over. Made in Taiwan. It was pretty even though the shells had never seen this side of the Pacific. I thought I had better buy something so took the box to the counter where Mrs. Burnbaum waited patiently for me to make it worthwhile for her to stay open.
“Will that be all?” she asked, disappointment in her voice.
“Yes. You have a very nice shop,” I said, looking around.
“Thank you. Would you like the box gift wrapped? I can do that for you, if you wish.”
“No thanks,” I said, searching my imagination for a way into my question and coming up with dry. Nothing to do but to plunge in.
“Are you Mrs. Burnbaum, the historical society president?” I asked lamely, knowing very well that no one other than the owner would be manning the shop in off-season, in pea-soup fog.
“Yes, I am,” she offered, handing me the paper sack encasing my shell box.
“Well, Mrs. Burnbaum, I just arrived in Westport a few weeks ago and I was disappointed to learn that the Maritime Museum was closed for the winter. I hate to ask, but is there any way I could see the exhibits? I am really very interested in the history of this area but I plan to leave before Spring.”
I was winging it again and doing a piss poor job of it but it was all I could come up with. I hoped she had not been keeping her ear to the rumor mill and picked up something of Mert’s reservations about me.
“Oh, what a shame!” she said. “I am sure we can fix you up with an off-season look-see. Why don’t we talk about that over a cup of espresso?” She motioned me to the back of the shop and I sat down at one of the fog-side tables while she busied herself with the espresso machine.
After a cyclone of whooshing and hissing she joined me, setting before me a tin tray with two demitasse cups and a plate of sugar cookies.
I introduced myself and she told me to call her Alice. We had a companionable chat, sipping thick black coffee in the cluttered shop surrounded by marine fog. To my surprise Alice proved to be a charming, friendly woman, grateful for an audience for her pet topic - local history.
I mentioned Pine Dunes Lodge and was treated to an epic tale of gangsters and smugglers made to order for a Hollywood block buster. Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties was her favorite period, she said, with its illicit pleasures and skimpy silk dresses. Her eyes twinkled merrily. Alice, it appeared, had a wild side she found little opportunity to express in this sleepy coastal village.
“People out here on the edge have always been on the wild and enterprising side,” she said, as if reading my mind.
“It seems like such a quiet place though.”
“Still waters run deep, as they say. You would be surprised what goes on around here.”
“You know, Alice, just the other day I was talking to a fisherman who hinted that a lot went on that would surprise me,” I thought of the sadness in Mert’s brown eyes. “I wondered what he could have been talking about? This is not exactly the big city where drive-by shootings are a way of life.”
“Oh, we have our moments,” she said, winking. “Most of our crimes are the sneaky, under the radar types of crimes, if you get my meaning.”
“Such as?” I asked, though I thought I got her drift.
“The fishing industry has been in a terrible decline for decades,” Now I was not sure I was following her. “What with short fishing seasons, dwindling salmon runs, offshore pollution and high fuel prices - if the men down at the marina had to depend on fishing they would all slowly starve to death.”
“So, what are you saying?”
“Our economy out here is based on fishing, boat building, lumber, cranberry and oyster farming - not to mention tourism. None of those industries are all that robust on a consistent basis . . . “
“You are saying that people have to have a ‘sideline’, to quote the fisherman I was talking to the other night. Smuggling.”
“It is the worst kept secret in town,” said Alice. “Everyone knows, but nobody mentions it because without it Westport would be even more of a ghost town than it is already.”
“Drugs?” I asked, having in mind the legendary “B. C. bud”, a super-strength marijuana grown in British Columbia.
“Oh yes, drugs are a very big part of the trade. Always has been. It was like the Wild West out here in the 60s, the larger trawlers ranging up and down the coast from here to Alaska and even into Soviet waters, then down into Oregon and California.”
“And now?”
“As I say, drugs are big,” she said. “Though they are not the only cash crop. Lots of things change hands, or at least that’s what I hear. A person hears rumors, you know, but if there is money in transporting something - anything - there is bound to be someone ready to make a tax-free dollar. But you did not hear it from me, if you get my meaning.”
She left it open for me to speculate - automatic weapons, explosives, stolen geoducks to Japanese clam traffickers?
“But Cora Jane, you said you wanted to visit our museum,” said Alice. “How about if I close shop and we go over for a while? This is not exactly rush hour. I can give you a leisurely tour. We have a wonderful gift shop there too if you’re interested in books about the area.”
“Great! I do not want to put you to any trouble, Alice, but I really would appreciate looking around. It is such a beautiful building, what I have seen of it.”
“Yes, isn’t it. I suppose you know it used to be the Coast Guard station?”
“That is what I heard. Back in the 40s wasn’t it?”
“That is right, though there was a Coast Guard presence in the neighborhood as far back as 1858,” she said. “Used to be a thriving whaling trade out here too, did you know that?”
“Whaling? No, I had not heard that. I thought that was just on the east coast, like up in Maine.”
“Oh, we had whaling here too. A big whale meat cannery just out of town at Bay City, not to mention the whale oil they processed there and shipped all over the world” she said. “We have a large exhibit at the museum I can show you, if you’re interested.”
I was not particularly interested in seeing photos of dead whales though I kept that piece of information to myself. I put my bike in the bed of her truck and she drove to the museum where she parked around back in the spot designated “Curator Parking Only”. I was getting the royal treatment all right.
Alice unlocked the back door and pushed ahead of me. The beep beep beep of an alarm explained the seeming bad manners. On the wall beside the door was alarm box. Alice punched in the numbers, the thing emitted a chirp as if someone had stepped on its tail, then went silent.
“Don’t you just hate these awful things?” she said. “I know I do, but the board of directors insisted we install one. I argued that we weren’t exactly displaying the British crown jewels in Westport. They out voted me though.”
“I know what you mean. I had a security system on my house back in . . . back home. I never set it because I tended to set it off.“
“I know just what you mean! I must have set this monstrosity off a dozen times - could not remember the code to save my life. I started putting the code on a Sticky note beside the alarm, which they frowned on as being poor security practice. Finally our resident techie set it to 1940 which is the year of my birth as well as the year the building was dedicated. Haven't set it off since.”
I wondered if she realized she had just let the cat out of the bag. I also wondered how many other people in town knew the code.
“This room to the left used to be the station galley - or kitchen. Now it is the staff and volunteer office. If you do not mind, I will just pop down the hall to the Director’s Office for a second to see if there are any phone messages.”
“No, that’s just fine,” I replied. “Go ahead, Alice. Did you say there was a gift shop?”
“Straight ahead through that door. Used to be the mess deck.”
My heels made a hollow cadence as I walked to the end of the hall and into the gift shop. There were book racks crowded with paperbacks and hardcover books on topics ranging from lighthouses, Native American culture, fishing boats, natural history to shell art and bird watching. They had it all covered. The books shared space with souvenir tee shirts and picture postcards.
Did people still mail postcards to each other from far locations? “Wish you were here”. Who would I send a postcard to if I wanted someone to know where I was and what I was doing? It occurred to me there was nobody I wanted to share that with, no family to wonder where I had gotten off to, no one who would come looking for me if I fell off the edge of the earth. If I died here who would show up for the funeral? I know that should make me sad. Someday perhaps it will, I thought.
I thumbed through a book on female lighthouse keepers. Gave a whole new meaning to light housekeeping. Apparently there were just as many women who “manned” the lights as men. The boys would be out on the boats doing manly things like fishing and whaling while their spouses kept the lights on - literally. Had I lived during the days of lighthouse keepers that would have been just the job for me. These days lighthouses were automated devices with all the romance of a can opener. What a loss! I could almost see myself searching the horizon for sails as the sun sinks into a turbulent sea.
“Did you find something you wanted, C. J.?” said Alice joining me in the gift shop. “I can’t make change because we do not stock the till in off season but if you want to buy something I will take a check.”
“This is a lovely book but it is beyond my budget this month, I am afraid. But it is so very interesting. I had no idea women manned lighthouses. Somehow I always thought that lighthouse keepers were antisocial old men.”
“Yes, it makes you think doesn’t it,” she said. “I can imagine the women’s children running up and down the spiral staircases while their mothers polished reflectors and lenses. Come to think of it, who would do that job better than a woman - meticulous, tireless, dedicated. Quite inspiring, don’t you think?”
“I do. In fact I was just thinking how much I would have loved that job. Well, except for the part about children running around. That would have been quite a challenge. Too much work and way too much responsibility! I have all I can do to take care of myself.”
“They were tough and resourceful women back then,” she said. “Follow me, C. J., and I will show you around. We can start with the C.O.’s Quarters which is where we have our ships and shipwrecks display.”
I thought it was a bit ironic that the commanding officer’s bedroom now housed the shipwreck display. I wondered how his ghost felt about that. Alice led me past the welcome station in the main entry to a room opening on the right. The cases were filled ship models and maps showing all the shipwrecks off the Westport, Grays Harbor, Long Beach coast. There were hundreds! I was astonished.
“This is amazing, Alice, it looks as if it was a rare day a ship got into the harbor unscathed,” I said, stepping up to a photograph of wreckage strewn the length of a beach.
“It was always dangerous. Still is, especially going over the bar at the mouth of Grays Harbor. Rip tides and obstructions, you know. We lose a boat every once in a while even with the high tech navigation they use these days.”
“This is quite a photograph.” The caption said it showed the wreck of the H. Charles Porter, a freighter out of Seattle that ran aground in 1959.
“It was taken by a Coast Guard photographer,” said Alice. “The Coast Guard documents every wreck. Their records are a valuable source of information about the maritime history of this region. One of our own docents was a retired Coast Guard photographer. This photo was one of his. He was always so proud of his work - an artist if there every was one. Just last year the museum presented a one man show of his work.” Her lines in her face softened as she spoke of him.
I could guess who the docent was. Now the camera equipment at the cabin made perfect sense. I had blown any opportunity I might have had to ask Mert about his friend Carl Heslop, but here was someone else who had obviously known and cared for the old man. Maybe I could still fill in a few of the blanks. In fact, there was a chance Alice knew what Carl had been doing at the Lens Building that afternoon. If I played my cards right she might even tell me.
“Come on upstairs with me,” she said. “You have to see our cranberry room.”
I followed like a puppy up the creaky stairs to the second floor. The building seemed so much older than its fifty-odd years - parched and swaying in the sea wind - salt cured like a cod. It felt as if time stopped at the front door. The stairs were very slightly concave, worn by countless rough boots pounding up and down from quarters to mess deck and back.
“You are going to like this room,” said Alice as we reach the landing. “We have an early cranberry picker.”
I hoped she was talking about a machine and not some ancient mummified field hand.
“You probably know this already, C. J. - you had to have passed the Ocean Spray plant on your way into town - the salt marshes down by Grayland produce huge crops of cranberries each year. There were native wild berries growing here before white men settled in 1856 but now the cranberry farmers grow a larger hybrid. More juice. But unlike east coast growers we harvest most of our bogs using the dry method.”
I had no idea what she meant.
“Back east they flood the bogs in the fall, then loosen the berries until they float free to the surface of the water. Then they just scoop them out and bag them. All but one of our farmers use dry method however,” she continued. “Unlike the wet harvest or flood method, our cranberries are picked with machines something like big lawn mowers that comb the berries off the vines. It is really amazing to watch.”
I am sure it was. I will from here on drink my morning cranberry juice with renewed appreciation.
“What are these things?” I stopped before a display of wooden shoes that looked like medieval patens.
“Cranberry shoes,” she said. “Oh, the little label has fallen off! I will have to get that fixed. Berry pickers in the early days of the industry would wear these shoes while they picked to keep themselves elevated off the berry plants so they would not crush the crop.”
“They must have had small feet.” The cranberry shoes looked like they were made for a platoon of Munchkin warriors
“The pickers were usually women and children in the days before machines took over stripping the bogs. See this photo over here? It was taken in the mid-thirties - the women lined up on their assigned rows, smiling for the camera. You can’t tell me they were all that happy to be hand picking berries in a stinky bog. The camera man must have been a real good looking fellow.”
“The kids worked too?”
“Oh yes. That was before all those silly anti-child labor laws. You’re probably too young to remember but before the sixties children were expected to contribute to family income. They all had summer jobs in the fields or helping on the fishing boats. Now days our kids are spoiled and lazy, if you ask me. No wonder there’s an epidemic of childhood obesity. Doesn’t hurt a youngster to learn to earn, I say.”
“You have a good point,” I said. “I remember that my friends and I used to pick strawberries and green beans during summer vacations to help pay for school clothes. We thought it was kind of fun even though we were filthy and exhausted by the end of the day - which was when it got too dark to see the plants. Dawn to dusk in the fields but nobody complained that we were being abused.”
“I am willing to bet you complained plenty at the time,” she laughed “Though it was no doubt the best thing for you in the long run, don’t you think?”
I was actually enjoying myself but this was not getting me any closer to finding out what Carl had been doing at the museum.
“Alice, you said there was a whaling exhibit?”
“Yes, in the next room. We have a complete set of tools the men used to cut up the whales,” she said. “Oh, and you might have seen our Whale House next to this building. It houses a complete whale skeleton. It’s an awe-inspiring sight.”
The curator launched herself into a detailed and rather graphic description of whale disassembly. I tuned out and looked around me. The room looked out over the harbor. From the vantage point of the window I could see the marina from the sweeping jetty wall to where the Lens Building obscured the view in front of the Museum.
“Alice, what’s on the third floor?”
“It’s not open to the public. We store many of our revolving exhibits up there. There is also a meeting room for the Historical Society.”
“Do volunteers have access to that floor?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Just wondered,” I said. “There must be a great view from up there.”
“There sure is! I could show it to you if you like,” she said. “After all, I can’t get into trouble - I’m the boss.”
She unlocked a narrow door in the hallway and we climbed a steep set of stairs to a long, low room cluttered with carefully labeled crates.
“Come on over here to the gable window,” said Alice.
Yes, it was a panorama all right - though not quite the angle I remembered from the photo above Carl’s sofa. There must be a way to the roof.
“This is magnificent!” I enthused. “I can see all the way from your shop on the jetty to the Coast Guard Station at the edge of town. Amazing. Did your docent photographer ever take pictures from here? It would make a perfect place to take photos of the boats coming into the harbor.”
“He may have. He loved to spend time up here, I know that. Used to come up here at night, he said, to watch the harbor lights play on the water,” she said. “I swear, the old fellow was a bit of a romantic.”
“You say ‘was’ - he has passed on I gather?”
“Yes, just recently. You probably heard of a very tragic death here a few weeks back. That was our Carl. It was a horrible shock for us all here at the museum.”
“I'm terribly sorry for your loss, Alice.” It was a lame thing to say but I had nothing else to offer her.
I prayed that she never found out I had met Carl Heslop shortly before he died. If she did she would have every right to think I was a deceitful cow. And I would hate that because I genuinely liked what I had seen of Alice Burnbaum so far. Had I not been concentrating so hard on finding the old man’s killer I would have enjoyed making friends with her - I just didn't have the luxury of a lot of bonding time right then.
“We're going to miss him so much,” she said, then burst into ragged sobs.
I was seriously out of my comfort zone at that moment. What sprang immediately to my mind were the wives, mothers, and sisters of my husband’s victims weeping at his sentencing hearing. I had sat in the back of the court room while, one after another, the bereaved family members stood and poured out their anguish and venom on the monster who had taken their loved one. I heard that heartbreak once more as Alice wept. I put my arm around her and gave her a hug, having no illusions that a hug from a total stranger would make much of a difference.
“I wish there was something I could do,” I said, more to myself than to her.
“He was such a sweet man,” she managed through her tears. “I can’t imagine who would have wanted to . . .” And she was overcome once more.
I patted her back and waited for her to get control of herself. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve.
“It was the shock more than anything. No warning,” she said, when she could finally speak. “They found him right here at the museum the day after the big storm. When the police told me he had . . . passed, I right off thought to myself it must have been the storm - some wood flying through the air, or maybe a tree falling and hitting him. Then they told me how it had been. I still cannot believe it, that someone killed him.”
“That's horrible,” I said. “Do they have any idea who was responsible?”
“No, none at all from what I hear. There is an investigation going on, of course, but I get the impression there is not too much to go on.”
“You say he was here at the museum that day?”
“Yes, in the Lens Building,” she said. “You have to see it, of course. They have taken the yellow tape down so I can show you when we go down stairs. It the famous Fresnel lens from the Destruction Island Lighthouse. Maybe you've heard of it.”
Remembering all those shipwreck maps I saw in the other room I could imagine how Destruction Island got its name.
“Alice, what was the man doing here that day if the museum was closed?”
“I don't have the foggiest notion,” she said. “He was our night watchman and was here most nights but he didn't start work until after his supper.”
“Year ‘round? Even in the off season?”
“Yes. Another security measure the board insisted upon even though I told them it was silly to pay someone to walk around in the empty building, especially after they put in the alarm system. Yet again I was out voted. Though it could be that Carl - that was his name, Carl Heslop - could be Carl volunteered to keep an eye on the place for free. He liked hanging around the old building. Used to tell people how he served here at this station before they built the new one down by Float 21.”
“He must have been a wonderful man. I can understand how tragic such a loss would be to the whole community.”
“Oh yes, tragic. He was well liked,” she said. “I keep thinking it had to have been a stranger, C. J. . No one who knew him could have done such an awful thing to Carl. It was all so peculiar, especially what with his cabin burning down, not more than a few days after his death. Terribly strange.”
“His cabin burned down!” I almost screamed. “Do you mean someone burned down his house? I didn't see anything in the paper. I can’t believe it! Do you think it could be connected to his murder?”
There went any chance I might have had of returning to the cabin to do a little breaking and entering. I had toyed with the idea that perhaps Carl had photographs or negatives that could provide someone with a motive for murder. Now I would never know.
“Oh, I'm sure it was no more than a coincidence. Probably electrical problems of some sort. After all, why would someone would want to burn his house on purpose?”
“Alice, you know Captain Merton or the Angel Face, right?”
“Yes, of course. He was a good friend of Carl’s,” she said.
“Something very disturbing happened to him recently,” I said. “It was shortly after Mr. Heslop’s death. I am wondering if there is a connection. Someone cold cocked Mert and searched his boat. Then a few days later they searched his house.”
“How would that be connected, C. J.?”
“I only think that because they were friends. And now you say someone burned Mr. Heslop’s cabin.”
“But why would someone be doing these things?”
Why indeed.
“What an awful loss - all those beautiful photographs,” I said, though I wasn’t thinking of their aesthetic qualities.
“Oh, Carl’s photographs weren't lost,” said Alice. “He didn't store his photographs or negatives or digital whatnots at the cabin. No storage room out there. It was just a little bitty shed of a thing. He stored his work in our archives here at the museum. We have climate control for all our fragile documents and records.”
I thought of that panorama above his sofa, now ashes as was the sofa itself. I had a sudden inspiration.
“Alice, is there any way to get up to the widow’s walk from here in the museum?”
“Certainly. There is a ladder. Carl liked to take his Thermos of coffee up there.”
So that must have been where he has taken the panorama shot. From that high up there would be a clear view of the entire marina. A chill went through me.
“Alice, who besides yourself knows Carl’s photos are stored in this building?”
“Why do you ask? Is there something wrong?”
“I'm not sure,” I said. “It just seems, as you say, strange that his cabin burned right after he was killed. Too strange. Maybe I have been watching too many crime shows on the television but I am wondering if someone thinks Carl took a picture of something he should not have.”
“Oh my lord,” she whispered. “If that is true, the museum . . . “
“Might be the next place this person looks,” I finished the thought. “I think we should see if we can figure out how to change that alarm code, what do you think?”
“It couldn't hurt,” she said. “But really, C. J., don’t you think that is a little far fetched? What could be so important to someone that they would kill a nice old fellow like Carl?”
I had no answer for her. In fact I wasn't sure I wasn't totally off my trolley. There could have been any number of explanations for what had happened. And she could be right about the fire having nothing to do with Carl’s murder. Still, I just could not buy such a convenient coincidence. There must be a connection with that event and the break-ins at Mert’s boat and house. Someone was searching for something - that was the inescapable conclusion. And if they had not found what it was they were searching for they would most certainly keep looking until they found it. I thought, given Carl’s hobby, it had to be a photograph.
“Alice, where is this storage facility where Carl kept his photos?” I hadn't noticed any doors labeled storage or archive.
“It's in the basement.”
“I thought buildings in town didn't have basements.”
One morning I had overheard a few locals discussing in unflattering terms the stupidity of a certain real-estate developer who thought he was going to build condos with underground parking out by the tsunami warning tower. They could not stop laughing at the idea that someone would sink a basement garage into a sand dune when the water table at high tide was only couple of feet down.
“They built things right back in the 30s and 40s - lots of unemployed men were glad to have any jobs at all, so they made the ones they had last as long as possible. The Coast Guard wanted a sturdy building and that was what they got - even if it did take nearly five years to get it built. This building has a basement built more like a bomb shelter or a munitions bunker than the usual basement. And as a matter of fact I do believe they did store weapons down there at one time. The walls are constructed of two foot thick concrete. Not a drop of water has ever seeped into that basement even when the town floods - which it does on a regular basis. Such as during the storm last week.”
Once Alice got going she was a one woman historical lecture tour. It was easy to see how she got the job of curator at the museum. But I had to keep her focused.
“Could I see it, do you think?”
“I don't see why not.” She was such a dear trusting soul. How did she know I was not the evil doer come to wreck havoc? Had it been Mert I asked, he would have booted me out the door, locked it behind me, and barred all the windows.
A twinge of unease crept over me. Something was not adding up. Well, a lot of things really but one thing in particular did not seem to make sense to me. I was assuming what happened was that Carl had tried his hand at blackmail or extortion. Sure, he was a sweet old coot but that did not mean he was not up for supplementing his modest government pension.
But why had the killer automatically assumed Mert had the incriminating material? I would have thought the logical place to start was Carl’s cabin on the dunes, but his first stop had been Mert’s boat. Could Carl have hinted to his killer that Mert held a copy of whatever it was just in case something nasty went down - a kind of insurance policy so he would stay healthy? If so, he had overestimated the guy’s restraint.
My guess was that Carl tried a bluff that fizzled. Or he actually did stash the goods with Mert. But either Mert was the best liar on the continent or he really did not know what Carl had been up to. The killer had not found what he was searching for on the boat or he would not have needed to go through the house. And it was not in the house or he would not have gone to the cabin.
But why burn the cabin? Why not search it as he had Mert’s house? Of course! The alarm system! The killer could not get into the cabin without setting it off so he must have lit a fire in the woodpile next to it and let the brisk onshore wind take care of whatever the cabin contained - camera, computer, photos and all.
Another thought surfaced. Maybe the item the killer searched for had actually been on the boat all the time but he did not find it because he did not know what he was looking for. This was way too nebulous and complicated. I had nothing really to go on, when it came down to it.

TO BE CONTINUED ***

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 * * *

ESCAPE TO THE SEA

Third Week, August 2008

This weekend while Michael Phelps was breaking swimming records in China we residents of Geekatopia were breaking heat records (Which serves us right for complaining so loudly about our frigid Spring). I woke well before dawn, flinging every window open, turning the fans to high - praying that the previous day’s stale heat would find its way out before the sun once more turned my house into a pizza oven. This is the Pacific Northwest - generally speaking only Bill Gates and his pals have household air conditioning. I have learned that if I can bring the house’s temperature down to seventy, then close things up tight, draping damp sheets or towels over every window I have a better than even chance of survival. Of course it’s like spending the day in a dripping cave but . . .

Hiding from the heat in my sheet shrouded cave I have had the chance to continue revisions on RV-GO Down to the Sea. Still have plenty of work to do before I can send it to you - it’s plenty rough even for a rough draft.
But it has been pleasant, during this heat wave, to mentally transport myself out to the misty coast. So pleasant that since I have a bit of vacation time coming to me I have decided to escape wilting Geekatopia for the prospect of cool, drizzling walks on the beaches of Westport! I’m getting out of here to cool off and (just coincidentally) flesh out my research into fishing trawlers and charming charter boat captains.


It will be interesting to see how Westport is weathering these blustery economic times. When I visited last Fall, condos were going up and heavy equipment was tearing out the wind-blown dune pines to make way for a golf course. Since then I have heard that hard times have pulled the plug on many of those ambitious projects - so sad if the pines died needlessly. And what happens to the denuded dunes? Probably nothing good when the winter storms hit the coast. I’ll look into it and send you a full report. In the meantime: more photos from Westport.

RV-GO DOWN TO THE SEA, Chapter 4

Thunder storm last night! My favorite weather, truth be told. And this morning there is a tang in the air, recalling rough seas and sea-foamed beaches. And with thought let me give you another chapter of my Westport mystery:

RV-GO DOWN TO THE SEA
Chapter 4
As silent as Mert had been on the topic of the murder he was the only one who was making like a clam at Bev’s that breakfast shift, other than the two cops that came in for a midmorning coffee break. As I took orders, delivered food, topped off coffee and gathered my tips I managed to collect quite a crazy patchwork quilt of information.
The crime scene tape still surrounded the Lens Building but the Grays Harbor police who had been processing the site were gone taking away whatever evidence they found. Though half the town had been interviewed no one had as yet been taken into custody. Carl Heslop’s throat had been slit with a fragment of lens prism - as close as they could tell, since the “murder weapon” was not at the scene and there were several broken prisms. Two shipyard workers shared that last gruesome nugget over their bacon and eggs. Quite amazing the capacity humans have for disconnecting their brains and good sense from their appetites.
What it amounted to was that time was flitting by and the authorities were no closer to learning why the old guy died and who did the deed. The clock was ticking. Matters were nudging close to that magic 48 hour mark beyond which things get hazy and evidence dries up. Once a trail goes stone cold it’s a crap shoot whether the crime will be solved or not. Especially if it is a one-off and not one of a series.
And from what I heard of this particular killing it appeared to be an impulsive act, not a premeditated homicide. Somebody got pissed off at old Carl, flipped out and slashed with the first thing handy, in this case a large sharp piece of glass which by now was no doubt at the bottom of the bay. Plus even if the guy had left a trail of bloody footprints right to his front door he might be home free since any trail would have washed away in the storm. Even dogs can’t track through a hurricane. (Photo Note: Breakfast at Westwind - Maritime Museum in background.)
When I got off work I picked up the Westport paper, rolled it into a tube, stuffed it in my purse and pedaled home. As I unlocked the door my phone was doing a rumba in the bottom of my pocket. I got it just before it went to voice mail. It was Cindy.
“Hey, C.J., your friend Mert called asking for you. I told him you had already left.”
“What did he say he wanted?”
“He said he forgot to get your number this morning. I was going to give it to him, then thought I had better ask you if that was okay.”
Hmm. Interesting.
“I suppose that would be fine,” I said. “Or if you have his number I can give him a call.” He had put the ball in my court after all.
“Sure, I have it. Got a pen?”
“Shoot.” I took it down and told her I would see her at work in the morning.
I shed my jacket, threw my purse on the counter and slipped out of my shoes. I would make myself a cup of tea and check out the newspaper - check if the media had anything to add to what I had overheard on the breakfast shift. Mert could wait. No sense looking too eager.
The murder held center stage right along with reports of the storm damage and clean up operation. No mention of “persons of interest”. Nothing about next of kin. Maybe at his age he had outlived his family. A note that speculation of burglary/vandalism had been dismissed - door was unlocked and Carl was found under the lens. Not robbery. There was surely not a possibility the man was killed for that little jar of donations he kept on the counter and I doubted he was rolling in dough.
Since he had the keys in his pocket, either Carl was already in the building or he let his attacker in. Of course, I thought, there had to be other people - the other docents - who had keys to the lens building. Was he meeting someone there? Why there and not at his residence or some more public place. Conclusion: they didn’t want to be seen together. I wondered if the police had gone through wherever it was he lived for clues to whatever he was up to. I wished I had faith they were that smart but I’d seen some pretty slipshod detective work in my time. A feeble old man killed under who knows what kind of weird circumstances might not interest them sufficiently to pull out all the stops. Sad that thorough police work often went hand in hand with pretty blond victims.
There goes my paranoia running on steroids again. In reality the tragedy was no doubt the result of a simple squabble gone horribly wrong. One of those things someone will confess on his death bed someday. I was way too prone these days to see violence in terms of crimes, imagining all sorts of convoluted plots and counter plots. The net result of the hundreds of true crime books I read nonstop from the time my ex-husband was arrested to the day the jury delivered its verdict. I must have gone through everything the Boise Library System had on serial killers, police procedure, crime scene investigation, criminal prosecution and deviant psychology. The librarians started looking at me from the corner of the their eyes expecting me to go berserk at any moment. When I realized I was creeping everyone out I discovered the internet and redoubled my research. I gobbled up everything there was on the topic. I had to know what had happened to my life. It was like learning I had some rare fatal disease - I needed to know what this foul thing was that devoured my husband, ended our marriage, slaughtered those women, and was destroying my life.
By the time they locked my ex away I had the equivalent of a masters degree in criminal justice. I could have taught a class on serial killers. And now I was seeing murderous intent under every bush when probably the only cause of Carl’s pathetic death was a good old’ boy with an anger management problem. I’d come all the way to the coast to leave the malignant past behind but obviously I hadn’t traveled nearly far enough.
I flipped the page to check out the police blotter column, curious what kind of major mayhem had been going on the day Carl died - thinking the old coot might have run afoul of some ruckus around town that had nothing to do with him. By big city standard the entries were comical, with a preponderance of animal references.
6:12 a.m. - 600 Block S. Hoquiam. Complaint of dogs barking when let out at 4 a.m. in the mornings. (C.J.: “a. m.” and “mornings”? Nice to enjoy a bit of redundancy in the wee hours.) Advised to discuss problem with neighbor.
8: 30 a.m. - North Well Field. Subject walking his dog concerned about a person in Well Field carrying a knife. It was a mushroom picker.
10:15 a.m. - 400 Block E. Elizabeth. Report of very bad rotting smell. Officer followed his nose to Firecracker Point where he discovered loaded fish guts trucks. Officer contacted a Catch-a-Lot Seafood Company employee and asked why smell was stronger than usual. He was informed that since the fertilizer processing plant in Hoquiam was shut down for a few weeks, the truckloads of guts were sitting longer than usual. Officer requested that employee contact a supervisor and request something be done to eliminate the overwhelming smell. (C.J.: Such as a case or two of Glade Plug-ins??)
12:45 p.m. - 100 Block S. Broadway. Report that coyote killed cat and fled with it.
1:05 p.m. - Citizen request for a ride because she locked her keys in her car at Post Office. Gone on officer’s arrival.
1:35 p.m. - Float 3. Suspicious activity reported around the boats. Extra patrols provided. (C.J.: Wasn’t that the float I got thrown off of? Was I the “suspicious activity”? That thug didn’t seem to be the kind to rat out little old ladies to the cops, but who knows?)
3:50 p.m. - 400 Block E. Pacific. Complaint of two black labs running loose. Dogs knocked over child while he was riding his bike.
4:20 p.m. - 200 Block S. Montesano. Black Chevy full size 4X4 truck seen dragging a deceased dog by a chain tied to bumper. Officer searched area with negative results. (C.J.: Related to the above report?)
6:20 p.m. - 200 Block W. Pacific. Domestic Difficulty: Non-Criminal. Couple splitting up fighting over the return of each other’s belongings. Appropriate exchanged made and male left.
7:33 p.m. - 300 Block S. Forrest. Barking dog complaint and stolen bike reported. Officer took description of bike that matched one that had been reported abandoned at the corner of Sherman and S. Forrest for a lengthy time. Bike no longer there. (C.J.: Was it the one the neighbor sold me?)
10:40 p.m. - Viking Bowl - 300 Block S. Montesano. Theft of cigarette butt receptacle reported. Possible suspect and location of item named. Officer checked location with negative results.
Nothing particularly reached out and grabbed me from the village police reports - unless it turned out that Carl was done in by a dog, coyote, kitty cat, or succumbed to rotting fish vapors. The “suspicious activity” on Float 3 sounded promising. My foul mouth pal from Surfergirl throwing his weight around again? He did not seem to be Mr. Popular with the Westport community.
I had let Mert wait long enough, I thought, dialing the number Cindy had given me.
“Who is this, please?” answered a female voice.
“I am sorry, I must have the wrong number,” I said and hung up. I dialed again. The same woman’s voice answered.
“Whose number were you calling?” she asked. Who was she, I wondered. Wife? Girlfriend? If so why had he asked me to call?
“Is Captain Merton there. I am returning his call.”
“Are you relative or friend of Captain Merton?”
A queazy shiver slithered up my spine. I wasn’t sure if I could be considered a friend after only talking to him a few times but if I played dumb I was not likely to find out what was going on.
“I am a friend of his,” I answered. “Cora Jane Dooley. What has happened to Mert?”
“This is Officer Sharon Quigley of the Westport Police Department, Ms. Dooley. Captain Merton has been injured and is on the way to the hospital in Aberdeen,” said the voice.
“Oh my God! What happened?”
“We are not sure yet. We are investigating at this time,” she said.
“I understand. Can tell me how badly he is hurt?”
“No, I am sorry. Confidentiality issues.”
“All right, sure,” I said. “Officer, did you say he was going to the hospital? What hospital?”
“Aberdeen General. Actually it is the only hospital in Aberdeen.”
“Thanks.”
I didn't know what else to say. What am supposed to do now? Do I call the hospital? Would they even give me any more information on Mert’s condition than the cop? Probably not.
Then I remembered that Marg Garvin, Cindy’s aunt, was Mert’s business partner - she might be able to find out how he was doing.
No, I thought, I'll go down to the boat and see for myself what was going on down there. Why upset Marg and Cindy? Once I knew more I would call them. Wait, I don’t know that Mert was at his boat, do I? He might have been anywhere. Maybe this had been a traffic accident - the cop did not actually say where whatever it was happened. She just answered the phone when I called. It could have been a cell phone. This was one of those times I truly hate cell phones! You can never tell where anybody is anymore.
I mentally shook myself until my figurative teeth rattled. Was I completely nuts?. Whatever had happened to Captain Merton had absolutely nothing to do with me. I was in very real danger of becoming stereotypical meddlesome snoopy old biddy. The next step would to get myself a pair of binoculars and a camcorder. Somebody stop me before I become my own worst nightmare!
I heated a can of tomato soup, made a cup of tea and sat my rear down for an early supper and some soul searching. What was it about this tiny coastal town and its people that had so totally sucked me in hook line and sinker in such a short time? At this rate I would be considering myself a native in outside of a month. Already I was living here, working here, pitching in on community disaster relief - insinuating myself into people’s personal lives. When I left Boise all I could think of was escaping involvement. A week later I’m hip deep and sinking deeper. Now I either pull all of RV-GO’s various plugs and hoses and hit the road - or I settle in to learn what this place has to teach me about myself.
I dashed some Tabasco into the tomato soup for a little kick. What the hell. Nothing does the trick like comfort food when the night stretches like an obsidian river out before you.
* * *
The term ship-shape sprang to mind as I stood on my pedals before Carl Heslop’s cabin. The yard was a clean dune furred with short salt grass. No flower beds or shrubbery this close to the beach. No clutter of any kind. The cabin’s white woodwork looked freshly painted.
After work I had biked out Forest Street to South Beach, the Westport telephone book was more like a pamphlet, Heslop’s address being easier to find than gulls on salmon guts. It only took a few minutes of bumping my way around puddles and fallen branches to find his street - a gravel side street behind the lighthouse. The street narrowed to a sandy path threading between scrub pine and dune grass. I could hear the guttural thrum of surf as I spotted the cabin.
It was a weathered cedar-sided box, its stout porch draped in graceful green fish nets. No vehicle stood in the drive, a reminder that the owner would not be coming home, his car or truck - probably a truck - stranded in Westport or in some impound lot.
A bare bulb porch light was burning. I wondered who had turned it on. Carl, before he left for the museum the afternoon he died? Or the police checking out the house? Someone had driven into the drive since the storm. I made out clear tire tracks in the packed sand of the drive. Truck tires by the look of the tread. More than one set of tires. I added my bike tracks to the collection as I approached the cabin.
After leaning the bike against the porch rail I climbed the three steps to the porch, my footsteps echoing too loudly on the dry redwood decking. I had the guilty feeling of being too exposed as I approached the door. There was no reason I could think of why anyone would be watching me but I still felt eyes on my back as I knocked on the door. I hadn’t expected an answer and was not disappointed. Still, if any one had been observing the cabin they wouldn’t take me for a burglar. Burglars don’t knock.
I tried the door. It was locked, which was not necessarily what I had expected since Westport residents boasted they did not need such big city security measures. Had Carl come down with a case of the nerves or had the cops obliged when they left? I tried to see in through the windows that flanked the door but the blinds were firmly shut, frustrating my attempts of see the interior of the cabin.
But I was not about to bike all the way out here only to leave empty. I scooted around to the back of the building where I found a small bare deck flanked by a carefully stacked wood pile. The deck was accessed through a sliding glass door but it was also locked and sported a dowel in the track to further thwart a break-in. The deck did not have so much as a chair on it. Didn’t the poor guy even own a barbecue, I wondered. What kind of retired guy did not grill a burger once in a while? It almost looked as if the cabin had been shut up for the winter, as many in the area were this time of year. Was Carl planning to leave town?
Good news - no drapes or blinds on the slider. I peered in through the glass. As I suspected, it was basically a one-room cabin, with a partition to separate the sleeping and bathroom area from the combination living room and kitchen. In the living room was an old fashioned pot bellied stove on a tile platform. Carl’s kitchen was a minimalist galley style affair along the right wall. White appliances and simple birch cabinets. No dishes in the sink or in the wooden dish drainer. I inwardly cringed at the contrast between his counter-tops and my own casual housekeeping. My closely held belief that bachelors were slobs took a major hit. Here was a man who liked to have everything in its place, no doubt a habit ingrained from his many years in the Coast Guard.
Not much personality in evidence here, no homey, individual touches to help me get a handle on who exactly he was. Had been. In hindsight I wished I had taken the time to talk to him longer at the lens building. But at the time I had seen him as simply an old man at a museum. Had he not been murdered I would never have given him another thought. Violent death has a way of lending a certain glamor to the dead they didn’t have in life.
I noticed a winking red light reflected off the shiny surface of the refrigerator and suspected that it indicated an armed alarm box on the wall beside the sliding door. I was not sufficiently techno-savvy to be sure. Pretty high tech for a rustic cabin, I thought.
I turned my attention to the living room. Brown sofa. Blue Lay-z-Boy chair facing a television on the back wall. Lamp, table, coffee table. Framed photos of boats and ships on every wall. Over the sofa hung a panoramic aerial view of the Westport Marina. No photos of people, as far as I could see though maybe he had family photos in his bedroom out of my line of sight. Mert was right, Carl almost lived for boats.
The only cluttered piece of furniture in the whole room was a long oak table adjacent to the kitchen. It had probably started life as a dining room table but now it was piled high with camera equipment, a large format printer and a computer. Carl was an octogenarian computer geek? Wonders never ceased. However I now understood why he so carefully secured this small house.
There was nothing more for me to see unless I wanted to risk breaking and entering, which seemed unwise considering it might be alarmed. Conventional wisdom held that to uncover the truth of a crime you must look to the victim. I always thought that put undue responsibility on an innocent person - still, the idea was that there was always some connection between crime and criminal if only one of proximity and opportunity. What connected Carl with the person who killed him I still did not know.
If I were to learn anything more about the old man I would have to ask Mert when he got out of the hospital. Cindy told me at breakfast that it could be any day, now that his eyes were tracking again. He was one lucky guy to have come away with only a concussion and not a skull fracture - or a broken neck. I still did not understand how he came to fall into the fish hold. And according to Cindy he could not remember that part, only waking up in the hospital. Good thing the deck hand from Molly IV had heard him groaning. Fishermen are always in danger on the open ocean, but moored in a quiet marina? That was pretty peculiar.
The previous few days I had bogged myself down with busy work - cleaning and oiling the bike, getting the RV serviced, having my hair cut - just to keep my mind off of Captain Merton. The longer he was in the hospital the more attractive the man became. It was quite an unsettling feeling. I had to admit I could hardly wait to see him again - and it had little to do with my need to talk about Carl Heslop. Our banter over the coffee “date” had been the most enjoyable interaction I had had with a man in decades, sad to say. I thought my ex husband had provided sufficient vaccination against me wanting to be on the same planet with a man ever, ever again. I’d have to watch myself, that was for darned sure.
Well, I had gotten as much from my visit to the cabin as I was going to get so I stepped back off the deck and took a look around. The breeze was freshening from direction of the sea indicating a tidal change though the dunes blocked any view of the beach. A foot path led out from the deck toward the dunes. Carl must have enjoyed walking the beach, I thought.
What a magical place even without the ocean view - wind-pruned pines leaned companionably toward the cabin like giant bonsai. Beneath their boughs bronze pine needles cradled newly sprouted bright red speckled mushrooms. A wisp of white cloud drifted through a sea-blue sky. I longed for one of Carl’s cameras to capture how lovely it was here, everything washed clean and pure after the storm. A camera would be nice to have, I thought, yet who would I share the prints with? Plus sometimes people get so caught up capturing images they do not actually see where they are.
What was that? Something large in the stand of pines to the side of the cabin - rustling like someone pushing between the branches toward me. Damn, Cora Jane, how could you be so stupid as to come out here alone, I asked myself. A twig snapped and blades of fear arrowed between my ribs. My God, how would I get back to my bike? I hadn’t heard a car - whoever it was must have been there all the whole time, watching me snoop around. I stood stock still, my ears straining for the slightest sound, ready to dash as fast I could manage for the road. Praying my knees wouldn’t buckle under me, hoping against hope my legs would obey me.
Crash! A rush of air. Heavy shadows falling toward my head - I duck, flatting myself against the ground - pine scent and fungus filling my senses, my heart pounding.
I gasp . . . as the dusky doe vaults over my head like an acrobat, vanishing into the dunes, her glistening black hooves flashing a farewell toward the sky. I lever myself to a squat, breath stalling at my teeth.
There I hunkered minutes on end staring down the trail in the direction the deer had fled, thinking that I really needed to switch to decaf. When had I ever been this jumpy and fearful? If I wasn’t careful I stood a fair chance of being the next one airlifted to Aberdeen. I unfolded my stiff body into a wobbly stand and brushed myself off. Then and there I decided to get myself a cell phone - as much as I hated the miserable things - so that I could call for help the next time something jumped at me, something that wasn’t a skittish deer.
* * *
If you want a cell phone you have to go to the big city, which meant driving RV-Go thirty miles into Aberdeen to the South Shore Mall. And as long as I was already in Aberdeen I thought I might as well see how Mert was doing over at the hospital.
I sat next to a planter filled with dirty and dying plants. A woman wearing green scrubs said she’d check to see if it was okay for me to visit Mr. Merton, as she called him. She then promptly disappeared down a green hall. The only thing in the hospital not green seemed to be the plants. I went green contemplating what germs might be evolving in that horticultural dead zone. That kept me occupied briefly, then I caught up on what Brad Pitt was up to in the People Magazine. Not a lot as it turned out. I was looking for something on Johnny Dep. I always felt that Brad Pitt looks a little too much like a chipmunk to be truly sexy - but that is just me.
“Get me the hell out of this place, Dooley.”
I looked up from my magazine. It was not Captain Jack Sparrow, it was Captain Merton, his head swathed in bandages. He was wearing a piratical scowl however.
“Should you be out of bed?” I said.
“I stood up and I did not fall over,” he said. “That was good enough for me. You have a vehicle, Dooley, or did you bus in?”
“I drove.”
“Great. Mind if I catch a ride with you?”
“Not at all, but did the doctors say you can go home?”
“Pretty much. I signed myself out and nobody complained. This place is driving me stir-crazy,” he said. “Anyway I’ve been hoping I could talk to you. You didn't return my call.”
“Actually I did but a woman answered - a very serious sounding Westport police officer.”
“Ah well, I hope you weren't too jealous.”
“Not under the circumstances,” I said. “I was more puzzled as to why you decided to nose dive into your fish hold.”
“I'll tell you the story on the way back to Westport,” he said. “Do you think we could stop by Denny’s first for something to eat? They fed me tapioca pudding and steam table chicken in here. It was worse than airline food. I need a bacon burger, quick.”
“That sounds serious,” I said “Hope you don't mind riding in my RV.”
“I don’t have a lot of choice in the matter,” he said. “If I were feeling better the prospect of riding off with a woman in what amounts to a bedroom on wheels . . . well, let us just say it would be an appealing prospect. As it is, I am just glad you showed up, no matter what you are driving.”
I suddenly remembered I had not made the bed this morning and my pajamas were in a heap on the floor.
“Better just keep your mind on the burger, Captain,” I said.
“No problem. Can I ask you something though?”
“Sure.”
“What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Aberdeen was the closest place I could buy myself a cell phone.”
He looked at my quizzically.
“I mean what are you doing here at the hospital?”
“Visiting you, of course.” Maybe I should have brought him a hand full of pretty flowers to clarify my intent.
“Oh . . .well, that is okay then.”

“That was certainly not much of a story.” I said, as we pulled up before the marina. “You promised me a good story about how you ended up in the fish hold, and all you could come up with is you must have hit your head on something and fallen?”
“It got me a ride, didn’t it?”
I originally volunteered to drive him all the way home but Mert wanted to stop by to check Angel Face - make sure she was “put to bed”, as he termed it. He couldn’t seem to get his mind off of beds, which could be a sign he was healing. Then he added that his truck was still parked by Float 9. For a man if there is one thing that out ranks a bed in terms of importance it is his truck.
“Nice rig,” he said, as I parked RV-GO next to his silver Dodge pickup.
“Yours or mine,” I laughed. After all, an ancient Minnie Winnie was hardly something to write home about.
“Yours,” he said, taking a long look over his shoulder at my living quarters. “A real classic, like a fine old wooden cruiser. Must be kind of like living aboard a boat for you. How long have you had her?”
Her? I had not thought of RV-GO as being any particular sex. If I had to pick, I would have said it had more male characteristics than female - hard to wake up and tending to pull to the right.
“I bought it a while back.” No need to go into details.
“Very nice,” he said, his eyes lingering on my lacy floral pajamas there on the floor - or so it seemed to me.
“Well, I'd better be off,” I said. “You sure you are okay to drive?”
“Yeah. No problem. Thanks for the ride, Dooley.” He opened the passenger side door, climbed out, swayed back and forth before slumping against the side of the RV.
“Oh my god!” I yelled. “Wait right there.” I got out, ran around to his side and put my arm around his shoulder.
“Whoa, that was weird,” he said. “Kind of dizzy all of a sudden.”
“Here, lean on me. We will lay you down in the RV.”
“No, help me down to the boat. I can rest awhile there in my bunk.”
“If you're sure,” I said, helping him up.
I looked toward the long ramp leading to Float 9 and wondered if I had the strength to hold him if he started tumbling into the bay. We staggered like two drunks down the ramp to the float. I kept a firm grip on Mert’s arm as we wove a path to Angel Face.
“Damn, I don’t know what’s wrong with my eyes,” he said. “Everything is wiggling around.”
“I’d say off hand you’ve got yourself a concussion,” I said. “You shouldn’t have left the hospital, Mert. It wasn’t the smartest thing to do.”
We climbed onto the deck.
“I want to see what beaned me.”
He led me to the stern where the fish hold was. Mert looked around at the various winches, pulleys and what not that surrounded the hatch.
“Dooley, you see any blood on anything?” he said. “Whatever hit me would have blood on it because I got a sizable crease on the back of my skull.”
I looked all around at anything that wasn’t stationary. No blood that I could see.
“Are you sure you didn’t get cut when you landed in the hold?”
“Not sure, no. But then what sent me into the hold in the first place? I didn't just trip over a line, Dooley. I have been a seaman all my life.”
I walked back toward the main hatch that led down a short ladder to the living quarters and engine room. There I spotted a smeared splotch of brown blood right at the top of the ladder. I mutter a very unladylike curse under my breath.
“Mert, it's over here. Blood.”
“What . . . “
“I would say off hand that someone clobbered you as you came up the ladder, then dragged you to the fish hold.”
“That is crazy. Why would anybody do that? I don't have an enemy in the world as far as I know.”
“Well, come over here and see what you think”
He joined me at the hatch, his face grim.
“Let’s go below,” he said.
I followed him down.
“Do you think the police saw the blood?” I asked.
“I doubt it. They responded to the 911 along with the fire department but it must have looked like an accident to them. They didn't show up at the hospital.”
We sat at the table in the boat’s tiny galley and for a while neither of us said a thing.
“I had better check to see if anything has been stolen,” he said at length. “Can I make you a cup of coffee?”
“Show me where the coffee things are and I will make it while you look around,” I said.
Mert went down a short hall and through a door into what I assumed was crew quarters. A boat the size of Angel Face probably didn’t boast much more than a few bunks and a head. I had the coffee dripping by the time he got back.
“You know, Mert, you didn't have to go to all this trouble to get me to have coffee with you,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.
“Whoever it was, tore the place apart back there,” he said.
“Was anything stolen?”
“Nothing, as far as I can tell,” he said. “I never keep money on the boat. A druggie might get a couple of bucks for the fishing gear or navigation instruments - but it seems to be all there.”
“No idea what they might have been after?”
“None.”
“Do you realize that whatever it was they thought you had, they were willing to risk killing you for it.”
He rubbed his hand over his face.
“Dooley, what the hell is going on around here? First Carl, then this.”
“Are you going to report it to the police, Mert?”
“I don't see that I have any choice. Not that I think they are likely to find out who did it or why. They mean well but they are not exactly C. S. I. Miami.”
“After we finish our coffee, I had better drive you on home,” I said. “Don’t give me that look - you are not getting behind the wheel of that truck on my watch. Plus you might need back-up. If they ransacked the boat, who is to say they did not continue the party at your house?”
“Not a pleasant thought,” he said.
“No, that it is not.”

Mert directed me south on the 105 spur toward Grayland, then right onto Cranberry Bog Road. His house was a two story salt box overlooking the razor clam beds. I pulled RV-GO up to the garage door. There were no obvious signs of a break in, but I was no expert.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“Well, we could sit out here and let the neighbors think we’re necking - or we could go inside and find out if I have had visitors.”
“I vote for going in,” I said, getting out of the RV and coming around to his side. I was not about to let him fall flat on his face this time.
“Dooley, about this idea you had for serving as my back-up - what exactly had you planned to do if we ran into trouble?”
“I'm not sure at the moment. I guess I'll wing it. You don’t happen to have a gun hidden under a rock out here do you?”
“Sorry, no.”
“Then I guess we'll just have to hope for the best.”

Together we made a thorough search of the house. Mert assured me he noticed nothing out of place or missing. I was vastly relieved. This whole cloak and dagger thing was wearing me out. Mert too was showing the strain now that he knew that he had been deliberately attacked. Once we had completed a full circuit of the house he dropped into a leather arm chair, leaned back and closed his eyes. The man shouldn’t be alone, I thought to myself, but what business was it of mine that he had left the hospital before he should. He is a grownup, I told myself. I should be on my way home.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Head is splitting,” he said. “They wanted to send me off with some pain pills but I turned them down. Now I am rethinking that.”
“I have some aspirin in my purse,” I offered.
A warm glow suffused the living room. Through the wide windows I noticed the horizon was coloring up for a spectacular sunset, the sea a tangerine soup all the way to Japan.
“Thanks, maybe that'll help.”
“I'll get you a glass of water.” I headed for the kitchen. “While I am out here I could whip us up some supper. That burger must have worn off by now.”
“I am a little hungry,” he said. “But if you think you'll find anything edible in my kitchen, think again lady. Why do you think I’m at Bev’s every day? I’m a lousy cook. You won’t find so much as a moldy bread crumb out there.”
“We could get a pizza delivered . . . “
“Forget it. I have a better idea,” he said. “Let me sit here for a minute or two until my head stops spinning around, then I’ll take us out to dinner. That is if you promise not to think of it as a date. I would not want to scare you off, you know.”
“Go back to Westport? I don’t know . . . “
“No, there is a place just down the road near Tokeland.”
“Okay, sure. But only if it’s not a date.”
“It is not a date,” he said. “And I will try to have a really miserable time.”
I found a glass in the cupboard, filled it with tap water, then sneaked a peek into his refrigerator. He was telling the truth. There was not a thing in it but a collection of condiment bottles of obviously antique vintage.