A wasteland of strangers (21 page)

Harry Richmond

ONE GOOD THING about Storm Carey getting herself killed—it's been a boon to business. I didn't even mind losing most of a night's sleep, what with cops and reporters and rubberneckers showing up in a steady stream until well past two A.M. and that TV helicopter making an ungodly racket and the police search teams with their bright lights along the northwest shore and in the sloughs above the Carey place. Why, I felt like a celebrity there for a while. First time in my life, and I don't mind saying I liked it just fine.

Novak and Sheriff Thayer came out first, asked questions, and then hunted through what Faith left behind in cabin six. I could've told them before I let them in with my passkey that they wouldn't find a thing, but of course I didn't. Nobody's business but mine that I'd been in there hunting myself on Friday, after Novak left. Pathetic, what that mean, snotty bastard carried in his only suitcase. Puzzling and annoying, too. Couple of shirts, one pair of slacks, one pair of jeans, some underwear and socks. Nothing else except for a tangle of dirty laundry. No personal items. No valuables. Yet he'd had that big wad of money in his wallet. What'd he spend it on, if not clothes or men's jewelry or electronic gadgets or a decent car? That's what I'd like to know.

It's what I asked the reporters that followed Novak and Thayer out, too. Asked the question on camera, in an interview with a Santa Rosa TV newswoman. Also told all about how Storm Carey came out yesterday afternoon and visited Faith in cabin six, and what a hot number she was and what a cold one he'd been. I came off pretty good—and that's not just me blowing my horn, it's what the newswoman told me afterward. Interview's supposed to be on sometime today. I watched the early news, but it wasn't on then. Noon, maybe. Or seven o'clock. They'd better use it sometime; it's sure to mean even more business, people showing up to get a look at the cabin where Storm Carey's murderer stayed and then likely staying on themselves, at least for one night.

Two of the reporters took cabins last night, one from the San Francisco Chronicle. He said he'd use my name and mention Lakeside Resort in his story—more free publicity. I had two other cabins rented before that, by weekenders up from the Bay Area to gamble at the Brush Creek casino, and the last two went after all the excitement died down to a couple from Ukiah who didn't want to drive back so late and to another couple, young and sure not married, that I figured were out for an all-night sex binge. I told the boy the rate was seventy-five and he paid it without an argument. None of my business what people do inside one of my cabins, long as they don't trash the place or steal sheets or towels or the TV.

I didn't have much time to myself this morning, either. Folks checking out, a few more rubberneckers, arguing on the phone with Maria Lorenzo because she wouldn't come in early like I asked her to. Had to go to a christening, she said. Her and her religion. One of the worst things the white man ever did, you ask me, was to convert the heathens to Christianity. She finally showed up at eleven-thirty, half an hour later than she'd promised, with a lame excuse about the start of the christening being delayed. I told her she'd better have all the cabins done by two and then went in to eat my lunch a little early. There's nothing like making money for a change to give a man an appetite.

Fixing lunch made me realize I was low on items like milk and bread and cold meat. I could've sent Maria out to buy my groceries when she was finished with her cleaning—I'd done it before—but then I'd have to pay her a couple of bucks extra. And it was a nice day, sunny, and I felt like getting out in the car for a while. I waited until the noon news came on the Santa Rosa channel, to see if they'd show my interview. They didn't. Long story about the murder, interviews with three other locals but not mine. A little miffed, I went out and yelled at Maria to keep an eye on the office. Then I got the car out and drove south to Brush Creek.

The grocery store there is the only shop in the village still open on Sundays. One of the few stores still open for business, period. The place looks like a ghost town with all the empty and boarded-up buildings. If Miller's Grocery dies, what's left of Brush Creek will die along with it and then it'll be a ghost town.

On the way back, on the stretch of road that runs close to the lake just north of the village, I noticed a boat heading shoreward on this side. It was well beyond the Bluffs, several hundred yards offshore. Looked like Audrey Sixkiller's old Chris-Craft. In fact, I was sure it was. There's no other like it on this part of the lake, and even at a distance you can't mistake those boxy lines and dark, burnished hull. Besides, this time

of year she's about the only one you're likely to see out on the water. Crazy damn Indians'll do things a white man wouldn't if you paid him.

I drove on up and over the high ground, down past Nucooee Point, and it wasn't until I neared my resort that I had a wide view of the lake again. And there wasn't any sign of Audrey's boat anywhere. Not then and still not when I pulled into the Lakeside and took another look from there. Puzzled me. The shoreline above and below the Bluffs is too rocky and overgrown for even a fisherman's skiff to put in. There's only one spot you can dock along the two-mile wooded stretch where she'd been heading, and that had to be where she'd gone. The question was why.

Why in hell would Audrey Sixkiller want to put in at the ruins of Nucooee Point Lodge?

Zenna Wilson

HOWARD AND STEPHANIE came intothe kitchen just as I hung up the phone. They both had their jackets on. And Steffie was wearing that dreadful Hootie and the Blowfish sweatshirt she's so fond of. Howard should never have bought it for her. That singing group may not be as bad as most nowadays, the ones with their filthy language and suggestive lyrics, but it's still not the proper music for an impressionable nine-year-old to be listening to and admiring.

"Well," I said, "where are you two off to?"

She said, "The park."

"Not Municipal, I hope. It's still a madhouse downtown, and the police station's right across the street. You know what I mean, Howard."

"Highland Park," Steffie said before he could answer.

"Oh, well, that's all right. But why don't you change first, sweetie? Put on a sweater and skirt."

She wrinkled her mouth in that pouty way she has lately. Lord knows which of her schoolmates she learned that little trick from. "We're gonna play Frisbee. You can't play Frisbee in a sweater and skirt."

"At least put on a different top."

"I like this one. Dad, what's wrong with this one?"

"Nothing, baby." Taking her side, naturally, the way he always does. "You look fine. Go on out to the car. I'll be along in a minute or two."

"Okay. 'Bye, Mom."

She skipped off and banged the door behind her. I swear she does it on purpose sometimes because she knows it annoys me.

Howard said, "I don't suppose you want to come with us."

"No, you go ahead. I have some things to do here."

"More phone calls?"

"Howard, please don't start. Lunch will be ready at twelve-thirty, so be sure you and Steffie—"

"You're glad Storm Carey's dead, aren't you? I mean, really happy about it."

"... That's ridiculous. What on earth makes you say such a thing?"

"You sounded happy on the phone a minute ago."

"Don't be silly," I said. "A shocking murder not two miles from our home—that's hardly cause for rejoicing."

"I heard what you said to Helen Carter. 'The Jezebel got exactly what she deserved. We're all better off rid of the likes of her.' "

"Well? Aren't we better off?"

"No. She wasn't a whore, Zenna."

"Of course she was. How can you defend her?"

"I'm not defending her. I'm saying she wasn't a whore or an evil person just because she slept around. She had problems—"

"Problems!"

"Yes, problems. Losing her husband the way she did, for one. And she did plenty of good for this community."

"Fornicating with every man she could lay hands on, married as well as unmarried, flaunting her drunken ways in public ... I don't see any good in any of that, Howard. You can't mock the Lord and His teachings without suffering the consequences."

"So you are glad she's dead. A woman who never did anything to you, never harmed anyone except herself—brutally murdered—and you're downright ecstatic."

"I am not ecstatic!" He was making me very angry.

"Yes, you are. Ecstatic she'd dead, ecstatic it was that stranger who killed her because it vindicates your judgment of him, too."

"My judgment? He was a degenerate, for heaven's sake! Anyone with half a mind could tell that."

"Cause for rejoicing, after all. Not one but two of Satan's minions destroyed in one night."

"All right! Yes, I'm glad they're dead, both of them, glad they're suffering in the Pit where they belong! Why shouldn't I be? Any good Christian should shout hallelujah and fall on his knees with joy when the Almighty cleanses away evil, and a good Christian woman is what I am and I won't apologize for it to you or anyone else."

The way he was staring at me stirred a coldness into my anger. "My God," he said in a tone I'd never heard from him before. And then again, before he went out, "My God."

I don't understand that man sometimes. I swear I don't. Even after more than ten years together under the same roof, there are moments when he's a complete stranger to me.

Audrey Sixkiller

WHEN I FOUND the bathroom window broken, my first thought was that it must've been done by the stalker—that he might still be inside the house. Irrational, because I'd been home from the rancheria three or four minutes by then and nothing had happened, but that didn't prevent me from rushing to my purse and taking out the Ruger automatic. I'd put the gun in there this morning, after the phone call; it was illegal for me to carry it without a permit, but under the circumstances I didn't much care about technicalities and Dick hadn't either when I told him. With the Ruger in hand, I checked through the house room by room.

No one there but me.

But someone had been inside. I could feel it by then, the faint aura of intrusion, even though at first I didn't notice anything disturbed or missing. That came on closer inspection, on my second pass through.

A few items gone from the bathroom cabinet. Peroxide . . . gauze pads . . . adhesive tape. Anything missing from the bedroom? Yes. Empty space on the closet shelf where I'd kept my extra blankets. The living room? No. The kitchen? Yes. Orange juice and two apples from the fridge. My office? No. The back porch? No.

Medical supplies, blankets, food.

It didn't make sense. Or did it?

It could be the stalker, in an attempt to devil me—but I doubted he was that subtle. A man who tries to break into a woman's home in the dead of night wearing a ski mask, who makes the kind of phone threat he'd made to me, wouldn't break a window for any reason except to get in and at his victim. He wouldn't bother to steal a few inconsequential items, either.

Neither would a burglar; there were too many items of value, like my Apple PC, that hadn't been touched.

Neither would kids playing games. For the same reason, and because there was no sign of vandalism, nothing out of place.

It had to be someone who needed exactly what was stolen. Medical supplies, blankets, food. Someone hurt. And hungry. And cold and perhaps wet.

John Faith?

Not possible, I told myself. John Faith is dead, drowned in the lake. But of course it was possible. Dick believed the man was still alive, and his professional instincts were trustworthy. The prospect chilled me. John Faith in my house, a murderer in my home—

And then out of it again. Where would he go from here, with the things he'd taken?

The boat!

I threw my jacket on and ran out to the dock. The Chris-Craft was still there inside the shed, on the hoist and wearing its tarpaulin cover. But I went out on the dock anyway. The security door was unlatched, not that that meant anything because I wasn't always as careful as I should be about making sure it was closed tight. On an impulse I climbed down the ladder, went in along the float.

Even in the shadows I could see that the hoist frame was wet, and the long, fresh scrape on the port side of the hull above the waterline.

I stepped up on the frame, untied the tarp and folded it over, and climbed aboard. When I raised the engine housing, heat and the smell of warm oil radiated out at me. The deck had been washed down hastily, I thought, and not very carefully. On the rear of the pilot's seat was a stain of something crusty that looked like dried blood. Wool fibers, blanket fibers, were caught where the seat was bolted to the deck. I checked the storage locker. A spool of fishing line, a lead sinker, and my flashlight were gone.

Someone had had the boat out in my absence, and brought it back no more than an hour ago—someone who'd been careless docking it here or elsewhere. That much was clear. What wasn't clear was why the

boat was here now. If it'd been John Faith, there was no earthly reason for him to bring it back ...

I climbed out, and when I finished retying the tarp I had the answer. Not one person—two. John Faith and an accomplice who'd taken him to an unknown destination and then returned alone, hoping I wouldn't notice immediately that the boat had been used. That person was the one who'd broken into the house. Blood here but none inside.

It seemed fantastic, yet it was the only explanation that fit the facts. But who in Pomo would help a stranger like John Faith, a suspected murderer?

I was on my way back to the house when I remembered what I'd forgotten in all the chaotic events of last night and this morning. The appointment I'd made for nine o'clock, here, with Trisha Marx.

Lori Banner

I WAS PRETTY surprised when I opened the door and saw Trisha Marx standing on the porch. I knew her from the cafe; she'd been in dozens of times on my shift, usually with that good-looking Mexican boyfriend of hers and the rest of the semi-tough crowd she hangs out with. But she'd never been particularly friendly to me. And she'd sure never come to the house before, or even said two words to me anywhere outside the Northlake.