CHAPTER 31

I couldn’t wait for the check from Chase. And I would have to cancel the meeting with the possible renter. What I needed to do was get in my car and fly. Go somewhere I wasn’t known, away from Fuller and Winslow and the connections to me. I loaded the duffle with my personal possessions in the back seat. I had the fifty thousand from my insurance policy, seven thousand from my two accounts. It would have to be enough. ln San Rafael I filled the tank with gas and set off up 101, turned off toward Vallejo and then took I-80 to Interstate 5. I drove north until I came to Chico, filled the car again with gas. By now it was dark. I took the road to Lassen, and by two in the morning I was past Chester, approaching Susanville. It was the corner of nowhere. Two big prisons dominated the town, and Wikipedia had told me that there were 11,000 inmates there, and half the population of Susanville worked in those prisons. I slept in the car until it was light, then sought out a better bed

I found a motel, a cheap one, and it was apparent when I got to the room why it was cheap. The woman who took my money shoved a registration form at me and when I said I didn’t remember my license number, she said, “Make one up.” Which I did. The room had a faded, stained carpet, threadbare sheets on the single bed and there were tiles missing from the shower. Opposite the room was a wire enclosure with several dogs in it. They were stocky dogs, and they gathered at the wire to stare at me. They looked like the kind of dogs that would grab a leg or an arm if given the chance. My room key was attached to a plastic number tag, reinforced with a piece of duct tape. What I needed to do was find new license plates for my car. Find the hulk of something abandoned or sitting on cement blocks in a vacant lot. I needed to scout out the town, find some place permanent to stay. By now Fuller would have his search warrant, he would have connected me to the Old Western Saloon and my chat with Davy. Perhaps Winslow had told him that I was the one who forced him into the sea. When he made the rounds of places with dynamite, as he surely would, that receptionist would be able to describe me. And her boss had my telephone number. But none of that mattered any more. Now I had to find a new identity, burrow into the sand, be like that sand worm that moved at the egret’s feet.

Did I feel remorse at the deaths of the driver and the wife? Now Winslow had a loss, just as I had a loss. The driver was incidental damage, and I was sorry he had been a victim. But the wife didn’t bother me. I hoped that Winslow loved her enough to grieve over her the way I had missed my daughter. Tit for tat, I thought.