The Wanderer (9 page)

“Are you saying all of them are in it?”

“Nah, just a few. But sometimes the right few. At least I know which ones they are.”

Cooper nodded at Landon’s face. “And the bruise?”

Landon ducked briefly. “I walked into a door.”

Cooper was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Right.”

The drinks came and Cooper was thinking, damn kid has no idea what kind of athletic skill that takes—trying to score with a good defense and with your own team working against you. Where the hell was the coach?

Cliff put down the drinks and pulled up a chair. “Your burgers are coming, so while we wait, why don’t you tell me about the game?”

Cooper watched as Landon gave Cliff a play-by-play. His own nieces and nephews were not yet teenagers, though they were certainly getting there too quickly. Besides his friends’ kids, whom he knew very casually, this might be his first experience with a young man of sixteen. And it was most definitely his first experience with a kid like Landon.

Landon played it straight, excusing the fumbles, lack of defense and missed passes and dismissing his own plays, which were nothing short of heroic. He was fast as lightning and could jump over fallen opponents. He said things like, “That was a lucky break,” and “I bet that doesn’t happen twice.” He never suggested members of his own team worked against him or even that what he’d managed had taken talent.

Their food arrived and Cliff stuck around. They lingered over burgers and football talk for more than an hour and Cooper was glad to see Landon getting the attention he deserved, praise he didn’t get much of from his team.

When they were in the parking lot, Landon said, “You had tips?”

Cooper just laughed. “Not on playing football, that’s for sure. You’ve got that down. It’s getting late...”

“Late? How old are you?” Landon asked with a hint of humor.

“Right now I feel real old. You’ll probably have that dog out for a walk this weekend. And I’ll probably be around that old shack on the beach.”

* * *

Gina and Mac had been good friends since the time their daughters had hooked up as best friends when they were twelve. The first time he showed up at Gina’s house to check out her surroundings before letting Eve spend the night with her new best friend, Gina had fallen for him. She never let on, of course. They had a couple of teenage girls to watch over. But they always ended up sitting together at town events, school functions, that sort of thing. There was the occasional beer on her front porch or even at Cliff’s, but the best was morning coffee at the diner when it wasn’t busy. She could set her watch by him. At around ten o’clock, barring pressing police work, he’d come into the diner. Six days a week. Fishermen were out at dawn or before; the lunch crowd didn’t show until eleven-thirty. Between breakfast and lunch was when they’d catch up on gossip, scheduling and kids’ activities. Mac and Gina, Aunt Lou and Carrie backed each other up when it came to carpooling and chaperoning. Between all of them, plus teachers and coaches, they ran herd on these girls and Mac’s other two younger kids. They were not going to let Eve and Ashley fall victim to the kind of mistakes their mothers had made.

Their rapport was good. Gina could feel the sexual tension building in the light touch of hands, the smile or laugh, the conversation about things in their lives that had nothing to do with their daughters.

After about a year of relying on each other, trading news and confidences, there had been a kiss; a breathless embrace. They pushed apart desperately but reluctantly. And yet there was a second time, lasting a bit longer, that felt even more passionate to Gina. She had been in the ecstasy of expectation. She had felt for some time that they were more than buddies.

But at their morning coffee after that second embrace and kiss, Mac had confronted it. He seemed remorseful. “We can’t let this happen,” he had told her. “We have daughters who are best friends, a lot of responsibilities, people depending on us. Carrie and Lou...and I have a whole town, not to mention two more children...”

She remembered clearly—and with embarrassment—that her mouth had hung open. After a year of sharing details of their lives, some of which she considered deeply personal, and after two hot and meaningful kisses, he was running for his life?

“Relationships are fragile,” he said. “We’ve both been through it. We can’t experiment with this...this getting closer. If it didn’t work, look how many people would be affected. Mostly, there’s you and I. We’ve already had our guts ripped out, right?”

She was stunned silent for a moment. She was so offended. Hurt. “Right,” she finally said. “Dr. Phil.”

“Gina, you’re special. Damn, I just want to do the right thing.”

He didn’t seem to realize he’d just drawn blood with his gentlemanly comment. She sensed that her instinctive response—
Then throw me down and have your amazing way with me
—might scare him even more.

So, apparently the one thing they did not have in common was readiness. After becoming an unmarried teenage mother, Gina hadn’t actually dated again until Ashley was in school. In the ten years since then there hadn’t been very many dates and only one guy had been semiserious. Emphasis on the
semi.

“Your friendship is important to me,” he told her. “I need it.”

“Sure. Your friendship is important to me, too,” she had said. “But I didn’t kiss you. I kissed you
back.
And I wanted to. So understand something, Mac. If you ever do anything like that again, you better mean it. And you better not turn and run.”

After a long silence, he said, “Understood.”

She pulled back then, gathered in her emotions and desires like poker chips she’d just won, so he wouldn’t know. Because she didn’t want him if he didn’t want her. She hadn’t needed Dr. Phil to tell her relationships were risks. That was the point, wasn’t it? She wasn’t fifteen anymore. She no longer risked her heart without weighing all the facts. She knew him well enough and knew enough about him to realize he’d be worth it.

But she wouldn’t have him unless he also thought that of her.

So for years they’d continued as friends, had midmorning coffee together, sat together at games and watched their daughters cheer, worked as a team at too many pancake breakfasts and school carnivals to count, and remained best friends and confidants without any pesky kissing. Or fondling. Or
anything.

But she still felt that lilt in her chest when he walked in the door. She tried to tamp it down, but her blue eyes glowed. He sat down at the counter, diner empty, and she filled his cup with a smile. “I don’t think this town is going to get over last night’s game anytime soon,” he said.

“I know I won’t. I’m hoarse. I could hardly sleep. I’m still vibrating under the skin. Thanks for bringing over a beer last night—that was nice of you.”

“Eve didn’t get in until twelve forty-five.”

“After the biggest game of the year? Of
five
years? What an impossible child. I think you should ground her for life. Or just execute her.”

Mac smiled that lazy one-sided smile. “I didn’t say a word.”

“But you were waiting up,” she said with a lift of her light brown eyebrows over twinkling eyes.

“Well, that’s a given.”

She knew that he’d want to be sure Eve came home in shape—not traumatized, compromised, inebriated, using, holding, et cetera. The cop in him gave him the experience to make very good judgments, but it was the father in him who cared about the child. A couple of times he’d asked Gina for advice, because teenage girls don’t have to be in crisis to come home a mess. A failed date, a falling-out with a girlfriend, a disappointment—any number of dramas could look like trouble. Sometimes it took a woman, a mother, to be able to separate the real trouble from its look-alike. She found herself honored that he’d talk to her about those things even though he had Aunt Lou at home.

When Gina was a pregnant teenager and, later, as the single mother of a little one, she’d have traded so much for any father figure for her baby. Now, with Ashley a teenager, she was proud of the parent she’d become. But she’d still give the moon for her daughter to have a father like Mac.

“Ashley was in by midnight, but that’s because she brought her boyfriend with her. I tried to stay awake and listen to what was going on in the living room, but I didn’t last long.”

“That’s getting really serious, isn’t it?” Mac asked. “Ashley and Downy?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You talk to her about that?” he asked.

“I talked to both of them,” she said. “I can’t control their emotions but I can damn sure give them the facts and have a discussion about the consequences.”

“I hope we don’t end up doing some damage in the other direction,” he said, lifting his cup. “We could end up with two lonely old maids on our hands. I want our girls to have full lives, I just don’t want them too full, too soon.”

Gina poured herself a cup of coffee. “You mean end up as two lonely old maids like us?”

“I’d pay any amount of money for a few hours of loneliness,” he said.

“We’ll get a break soon,” she said. “A day or two between football, hockey and basketball.”

“We should go see a movie,” he said. “We haven’t done that in a while.”

This was not an overture—they’d gone to a few movies over the past few years. Despite the fact that neither of them ever saw other people, nothing romantic happened between them.

“Maybe,” she said. “Not a bloody one.”

“What’s the point, then,” he joked. “We have to see something we can’t experience in real life. Maybe a sci-fi, then. Or horror movie. Not some chick thing all about true love....”

“Trust me, Mac. I don’t experience that in real life.”

Silence hung out there and she thought,
Don’t you dare do this again! Unless you mean it!

“Fine,” he said. “Once we get through football, you can pick the movie.”

Seven

C
ooper found himself disappointed that he hadn’t seen Landon all weekend. He did see the dog and the girl with the red slicker; she apparently walked that dog rain or shine. That would be Sarah, Landon’s sister. She didn’t come near the bait shop or dock, but the dog did. At the base of the steps that led to the beach, Ham ran right up to Cooper and dropped the ball at his feet. He gave it a mighty throw in the direction of the girl and that was the end of it. From that point on, the dog and girl headed back toward the town.

He still hadn’t had a good look at her face, her hood pulled up and all. He had to wonder how this whole thing came to be. Here they were, Sarah and Landon, so far on the fringes of the community, both always alone. He’d catch up with Landon eventually. After what he’d seen, what he knew, Cooper wouldn’t be missing a ball game from now on.

* * *

On Monday, the sun came out. The day was unseasonably warm on the beach and Cooper was sitting on the deck with his phone and laptop, trying to learn more about his friend. Ben, and perhaps his father before him, had an odd way of running their business. If they discovered a need, they tried to fill it. If someone needed a place to wash their clothes,
voila!
A Laundromat appeared, even if it served only a few people. A few breakdowns on the freeway? Buy a ninety-thousand-dollar tow truck.

Ben wasn’t the only one with a patchwork business. Cooper had seen the same thing in many of the small towns he’d passed through lately. Tires/Lube/Laundromat/Chinese Food/Dry Cleaning. It was a survival instinct.

He looked up as Mac came around the corner, his boots hitting the wood deck hard.

“You’re still here,” Mac said by way of greeting.

“Still here,” Cooper answered. “You ready for me to move on?”

Mac shrugged. “No matter to me. This is your place. What you have going there?” Mac asked, indicating two closed laptops on the table beside Cooper. “Dueling computers?”

“I found Ben’s laptop. It’s got a bunch of websites and message boards bookmarked on it, plus a lot of emails he saved, dating back about five years. I don’t really expect to find anything, but I’ll read through ’em.”

“For?” Mac asked.

“I don’t know. It’s not like Ben kept a journal, but there might be something important in there. Maybe I’ll figure out what he expected from me. Maybe he wrote an email to someone about trouble he had around here or something.”

“You don’t have to limit yourself to saved emails, you know,” Mac said. “You can look through old and deleted emails and websites.”

“I’ll get to that eventually,” Cooper said.

“You’ll let me know if you find anything, right?” Mac said.

“Absolutely. Rawley and I went through his things. Found Ben’s old truck and a Razor, his off-road all-terrain vehicle, in that shed. I gave Rawley the truck. He didn’t say thank you, just took the keys. But the truck’s still sitting there. I guess he doesn’t have a way to move it without asking someone to help and God forbid he ask me. That Rawley—he didn’t say ten words while we worked, but he’s an interesting guy. Clothes he couldn’t use that he wanted to give to the Vets, he washed them before he bagged them up to give away. I think he’s the only reason that place didn’t fall down years ago. Now the shack is empty, kind of clean, but full of mold we can’t see. Uninhabitable.”

“You comfortable in that thing?” Mac asked, indicating the toy hauler.

Cooper laughed. “I’ll tell you what’s a pain—dry camping. I can’t go a whole week before I have to muster that camper up the hill and down the freeway to an RV park where I can dump and fill the tank with water. I’m cooking and cleaning dishes with bottled water, and I only shower with water from the tank, although I’m sure it’s safe. But at least the electricity is turned on so I can run an extension to the shack.”

Mac laughed. “Is that all you got for your time? Electricity?”

“I’m sure as hell not trusting the plumbing. But I have a plan. I have a bunch of contractors coming out this week to give me estimates on repairs and reconstruction. I think maybe I’ll get the shack in shape and sell it. I’ll just sell the structure and the parcel it’s on, though. I’m going to hang on to the beach and the point until I have a better idea of what to do.”

Mac was clearly surprised. “But you’re not going to open for business?”

“Nah, that’s just not me. Look at me, man. I’m a nomad. Thirty-seven years old and all I have to show for it is a toy hauler and some toys. I’ve never stayed long in one place. I wouldn’t be here at all except for Ben. I can’t stay here. Still...I don’t have any objection to getting rich but I just can’t sell off a beach and a promontory he obviously wanted to keep.”

“But you’re going to fix it?”

“Just to sell it,” Cooper clarified. “Then I’m gone. I’ll put someone in charge of the beach and the bird sanctuary. How about you? Pay you twenty-five bucks a month.”

Mac laughed. “Wow, that’s a hard offer to pass up. This project is going to set you back some, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it’s going to seriously cut into my nest egg, but I’m going to sell Ben’s tow truck. I finally saw it. He kept it at the Shell station in town and I think they’ve been using it since he died. The look on the guy’s face when I said I owned it and wanted to sell it was nothing short of grievous. Poor guy. He thought it was found property.”

“I didn’t know you were looking for it, Cooper. I could’ve told you exactly where it was. Sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it—that was one of Rawley’s ten words.”

“That tow truck, that was up his alley—he liked to work on cars and trucks. He always kept Gina’s old Jeep running for her. He wouldn’t take money but I swear to God, when she told him something was wrong with it, his whole face lit up.”

“I guess he wasn’t as interested in working on this place. You know how old it is?” Cooper asked. “Some parts of it, more than fifty years. The deck is relatively new, but I don’t see how it can survive a renovation.”

“You’re a strange guy, Cooper.”

“Is that right?” he asked, laughing.

“What are you going to do with yourself while this place gets worked on?”

“I guess I’ll help here and there. I’m not a builder, but I’m a competent helper. And I’ll take in another football game or two—haven’t done that in years.”

“What are you going to eat?” Mac asked.

“I’ve been feeding myself for a long time, Mac. No Auntie Lou in my kitchen. The food around here isn’t bad at all. And I bought myself a little grill.”

“You’re kind of high-class homeless.”

“I beg your pardon. I have a master bedroom and a kitchen. And HDTV on satellite. And a great view. Speaking of views...I see just about everything that goes on down on the beach. I’ve been wondering, if I saw something that disturbed me but that I didn’t really want to get involved in, are you a guy I could mention it to?”

Mac got a slightly troubled look on his face, then he pulled up a chair and sat down. He rubbed a big hand down his face. His expression was serious when he said, “I’m not exactly your priest, Cooper. If you saw something I should know about, then yeah, I might want to look into it.”

“Like...?”

“You see anything illegal? Underage drinking? Drugs?”

Cooper couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Nah, haven’t seen that, but I’m sure there’s plenty of that going on. The kids, they’re not stupid—they don’t haul up a keg in the back of one of those Rhinos, but I’d bet my right arm there’s beer down there, tucked in a sleeve or small cooler. Might be pot, might be something else going on. But what if I saw someone getting...I don’t know...intimidated.”

“Assault?” Mac asked.

Cooper gave a shrug. “I don’t think I could call it that. Not quite. Teenage boys, they’re gonna fight sometimes, right? If I saw some intimidating, shoving, that sort of thing, that’s not something you can do anything about, right?”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that, Cooper,” Mac said, leaning toward him a little with that icy blue gaze looking right through him.

Cooper almost laughed. “So that’s how you do it. Get the bad guys to talk. You look at ’em like you already know what they’re going to say. So just on a hypothetical—what could you do? About a little bullying?”

“Sometimes all I have to do is talk to a few people. I am the law, after all.”

“You are the law,” Cooper agreed. “Tell you what, I’ll pay attention. Right now the kid who’s having a little trouble, he’s real self-conscious about being a snitch. I’ve been there—
you’ve
probably been there. I’ll keep an eye on that, since I’m here. I’ll let you know if there’s anything to tell. Deputy.” Then he grinned.

Mac leaned back. “You do that. I’d like you to remember, Eve spends some time with her friends on that beach. I don’t want her getting shoved around....”

“Nah, I haven’t seen anything like that.”

“You wouldn’t keep anything like that to yourself, would you?” Mac asked. “Because girls are just as bad as boys, trust me.”

“I’ll take your word for that. Don’t worry, if I saw Eve having issues down there, I’d let you know right away.”

Mac relaxed a little bit. “I hate bullies,” he said.

* * *

Cooper was back to his old self—making decisions fast, full speed ahead. It took a total of five contractors in even fewer days to get a bid he could live with, both in time and money. It was a huge job, but it was going to be done as fast as possible during a wet and cold time of year. They’d gut the bait shop, disposing of most of the interior. They could save the freezer, cooler, microwave and refrigerated cases where Ben had kept deli items. Rawley wanted to give the washers and dryers to some religious group he knew about—they lived kind of isolated along a river south of Coquille and didn’t have much. Cooper told him to take the pots, pans and dishes, too. He stored the unopened liquor in the shed alongside the quad and truck. As soon as Rawley got that truck out of there, Cooper would put his own toys in there. All the racks of cheap souvenirs were tossed. He wasn’t keeping the bait tanks—there was plenty of bait at the marina.

The bait tanks had been kept in the unfinished basement. The floor in the cellar was dirt and the walls cinder block. There was a door to the outside located under the deck, so fishermen could get their bait without walking through the bar. The room was large and deep and, remarkably, there was no mold or rot in the struts and beams, though they could use reinforcing.

Ben had fallen down the staircase that led to the cellar. Cooper kept looking at those stairs, wondering. How could this thing have happened to his friend? Ben was so freaking big...how could he have died from a fall? He should have left a big hole in the dirt floor instead. But wondering got him nowhere, and there was work to do.

Before all the junk had been carted off or the first nail driven in, Cooper started getting visitors from 101 on sunny days, mostly on the weekend. Bikers, cyclists, the occasional motorist—folks who’d been stopping off at Ben’s for years and wondered when the place would be open again. They ranged from the young, fit athletes who pedaled across the countryside to those graybeards on Harleys that Mac had been talking about. It became evident Ben hadn’t relied solely on beach traffic.

Coop ended up spending a lot of time at the diner, showing Gina some of the plans. What he wanted to do was retain the things Ben and the town seemed to value most: the beach, the untouched promontory, the deli/bar, space for gathering.

“I don’t know why you’re going to all this trouble,” she said. “You can sell the place as-is and just that small parcel it sits on, plus the dock and road, and let the next owner worry about renovation.”

“I could,” he said. “But I want to sell a bar. A café. The same bar and deli that was there before, just in better shape, because I think the town relies on it, needs it. It’s the only thing on the beach. And Ben wanted the beach open, for whatever reason. If I tear it down and sell that piece of land, who knows what you’ll end up with in that spot. Could be a car wash or drive-in theater.”

“But why do you care, Cooper?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “Because my friend seemed to want it that way? Because people use Ben’s place all the time, even when it’s cold? Let’s face it, if I let the whole thing go, it’ll change everything about this place.”

“Some people would consider that a good thing,” she said. “Not me, though. The fact is, even though we aren’t a rich town, we have a very low unemployment rate. A lot of people work away from Thunder Point, some as far as North Bend, but they work. This place doesn’t have tearooms and souvenir shops, and the closest malls are in Bandon and Coquille. And we’re out here on the ocean by ourselves. I like it that way.

“But there are lots of people who think we could do with more revenue for things like schools, libraries, parks, that sort of thing. And of course there’s the real estate—it would be worth so much more. There are people around here who are more than ready to make their killing, and they need a resort to do it.”

“Why?”

“There’s no incentive to build fancy houses or condos in a dumpy little town.”

“What about the north promontory?” he asked. “The point opposite Ben’s refuge on the other side of the bay. There must be land still available out there.”