The blow or blows to the woman's head had done evil things to her left eye. The right stared upward. Dried blood crusted the wound and some had splattered on what looked like a silk patchwork jacket, but there was none I could see on the ground around her. She had fallen almost gracefully. I had a weird impression of elegance--matching silk trousers and beige leather sneakers, slim gold watch, rings, designer scarf. I didn't see a handbag, but the woman had obviously not been raped or robbed, just killed.
Though I was almost sure she was dead, I forced myself to kneel by her and hunt for a pulse. I didn't look at her face very closely. Her skin was cold and yielded to my touch. I detected no sign of a heartbeat. The thought of attempting CPR was nauseating, and I also began to worry about disturbing the scene of the crime. There obviously had been a crime, and the crime looked like murder. All the same, I had to check for signs of life. There were none I could detect.
I looked up at Bonnie. She stood by the pine, and she was staring off into the fog, anywhere but at the corpse. She was rubbing her arms in her bright red sweatshirt.
I levered myself up. "We'd better find a phone."
"She's dead?" Bonnie had also had doubts.
I swallowed. If I tried CPR... "I think so," I muttered. "Head injuries can be deceptive. Can you tell where we are?"
"We must be near that McKay place." She waved her hand landward. "What if the killer is still somewhere around?"
I was pretty sure the woman had been lying there for a while. Hours perhaps. The silk fabric was soaked and so was the smooth blond hair, but I was no expert on the condition of corpses, nor was I without imagination. We needed a phone.
"Let's go." I still couldn't see much, but I thought the McKay place lay back toward the access road and farther inland, over the crest of the dunes, so I took a couple of steps in that direction. Then I stopped. We needed a marker of some kind. "Give me your scarf."
Bonnie was wearing a pretty red-flowered scarf around her neck. She yanked it off and handed it over without question. The same thought had probably occurred to her.
I am six feet tall. I tied the scarf to the tip of the squat pine tree. "Let's go."
We trudged more or less northeast. A breeze had begun to swirl the mist, and I thought the fog was easing, but I could see no more than four or five yards in any direction. The dunes were without distinguishing feature, bland humps of dun-colored sand and gray-green grass. The walking was strenuous. I could hear Bonnie's labored breathing. She didn't say anything. Neither did I.
After what seemed like half an hour but was probably much less, I saw the wooden fence that rimmed the McKay property and I picked up my pace. I was not running exactly, the ground was too treacherous, but I pulled away from Bonnie.
A gate in the façade of pale, unpainted boards led to the dunes but I couldn't unlatch it. By that time both of us were yelling for help. When no one responded, I led the way around to the north side of the enclosed yard. I knew it opened on a short graveled drive with a big garden on the left and the house on the right. I ran up the drive with Bonnie at my heels and began to pound on the weathered front door.
At first I thought the house was empty, though the blue Toyota pickup with its metal camper sat in the drive. I was beginning to wonder if we'd have to break in when the door yanked open. A dark-haired man in jeans, an old gray sweatshirt, and bare feet scowled at us.
"What the hell?" The expression on my face must have registered. The frown eased and he said, less belligerently, "What's the matter?"
I gulped for air. "There's a dead woman over there in the dunes. I think she was murdered. Will you call 911?"
He stared, frowning, and then opened the door wide. "Come in."
He was already poking out the numbers on a gray desk phone when Bonnie and I entered the house. The phone lay on an end table beside a tired-looking Morris chair. The table held a lamp and a stack of paperbacks. An oval rag rug lay on the linoleum floor and a couch, circa 1950, sagged against one wall. There were a couple of floor lamps. Books, mostly library books with slips of paper sticking out of them, littered a dark sideboard of the sort that usually stores linen and silverware. The sideboard needed to be refinished. Above it hung a beautifully framed two-color print of Killerwhale. I thought it might be Kwakuitl work.
The man glanced at us as we came in, but the dispatcher must have answered, for he said, "This is Tom Lindquist at the old McKay place. Two women are here saying there's a body in the dunes." He looked at me. "How far?"
"About two hundred yards, uh, southwest. More south than west."
He spoke into the receiver. "Couple of hundred yards south of the approach. He'd better come on the beach. It's foggy up here. Okay. Thanks, Betty." Nothing like a small town. He listened. "Sure. Right away." He hung up and turned to us.
"I'll get some shoes on. Then I want you to show me the body. We're supposed to wait with it until the sheriff's car comes. Are you okay?"
Bonnie said, "I need a bathroom."
He gestured through an archway. "It's in there, off the kitchen. Have some coffee." Then he jogged to a stairway that led up from the small, cramped living room.
Bonnie and I looked at each other. "My need is greater," she said with dignity and bolted through the archway into what turned out to be a large country kitchen. It was the real thing, not some tarted-up House Beautiful fake, and much more cheerful than the dreary living room. It was cluttered but not disgusting. The bathroom door--it was indeed off the kitchen, right next to the refrigerator--slammed. I went to the aging electric range and found the coffee pot. My teeth were chattering.
The old McKay place was a fixer-upper that had not been fixed up. I rummaged in a cupboard with apple green doors. They had little square panes like an ad from a 1920s National Geographic. I found a mug and poured a cup as Bonnie emerged. The toilet was still flushing. I left my cup on the counter and used the facilities. Oddly enough, the bathroom was very clean. The fixtures, including a claw-footed tub, were of the same era as the kitchen cupboards.
Bonnie was drinking my coffee when I emerged. I was about to protest, but at that moment our host came through the arch. He was shod in sneakers and had one arm in a windbreaker.
"Come on." He struggled into the jacket, pulled the kitchen door open, and stepped out onto a side porch. "I was upstairs working when you knocked." He led us around the back of the house and across a small, neat yard to the back gate. "I assumed a bunch of kids were playing games. Sometimes they think the place is deserted."
"Must be a nuisance."
"Only for a few weeks in the summer." He stood aside to let us pass. "Lead the way."
The fog had not eased. I floundered in what I hoped was the right direction. None of us spoke. Bonnie spotted her scarf before I did, and we began to jog. It had occurred to me that the children from those mobile homes on the flat should not be allowed to stumble on the corpse. What was shocking and frightening to an adult would be downright traumatic for a little kid. I halted about five feet from the body and turned to the others. "There it is."
Lindquist was staring. He was a dark man, dark-haired and dark-eyed with a tan complexion. His face turned gray. "My God, it's my wife."
I gabbled some kind of shocked apology, and Bonnie was also making horrified noises.
Lindquist shut his eyes briefly. When he opened them he said in calmer tones, "My ex-wife. Sorry for the melodrama. I was…surprised." He drew a ragged breath. "I think I'm going to cover her face."
I opened my mouth to warn him that he shouldn't disturb the body, but he just took off his jacket, knelt by her, and covered the head with its staring eye. He touched the right hand gently, then stood up again.
"I'm sorry," I said.
He shook his head. "It's okay. I wonder what the hell Cleo was doing up here."
The police were going to wonder exactly the same thing. I cleared my throat. "It's hard to tell, but I think she's been dead for a while."
"Yeah," he said absently. "The birds have been at her."
I gulped. Perhaps the damage to the left eye had not been caused by the death blows. I was fiercely glad I had not attempted CPR. I am not necrophilic.
"I scared a crow off when I found her." Bonnie's voice broke.
His eyes narrowed. "Are you all right? You've had a shock too. I'm sorry, I don't know your name."
"Bonnie Bell." She pointed due south. "I live in that summer cottage."
"The Williams place? I heard they were selling it." He turned to me. "I think you're probably Mrs. Dodge."
"Lark," I said. "You must've lived here awhile."
"I grew up here." He looked around. "I suppose one of us ought to walk down toward the ocean. The dispatcher said the car was just south of Shoalwater. He'll drive up the beach. It's faster."
"At twenty-five miles an hour?" That was the speed limit on the beach.
He didn't smile. "I think he'll move it a little."
I sighed. "I'll go. What do I do, wave my arms?"
"Whatever." He met my eyes. "If you're afraid, I'll go, but someone has to stay with the...with Cleo."
"I don't mind." I did rather, but I was sure Bonnie would not want to walk alone across the featureless dunes to the beach.
Lindquist pointed me in the right direction, and I went fast.
I perched on a driftwood log a few feet back from the packed sand that was safe to drive on. The fog was patchy by then with odd swirling patterns that magnified and distorted the gulls probing the waterline. I watched a skitter of sanderlings, tiny sandpipers, hop at the edge of the surf. Each was mirrored on the wet surface. Far off, I thought I saw a man walking a dog, but I was not at all sure.
At last the sheriff's car, with its lights whirling, raced up from the south. I jumped up and waved wildly. The driver skewed the car round when he saw me and got out. He was wearing the brown county uniform. He was fair, and his face was as open and ingenuous as a ten-year-old's. He had round pink cheeks.
He introduced himself--Dale Nelson--and I told him I could lead him to the body.
"Up by the old McKay place, Betty said."
"That's right."
"Get in, then. I don't want to leave the car here. Tide's coming in. Besides, there's a lot of kids around here."
"Where's your partner?"
"What partner?" he said wryly. "We're shorthanded." His voice sounded less innocent than his face.
I got in, and we jounced over to the access road and up to Lindquist's graveled drive. Nelson parked behind the pickup, I got out, and he locked the car.
"You find the body?"
"My neighbor, Bonnie Bell, found it and, er, got my attention. I did check to make sure she...the woman was dead. We asked Mr. Lindquist to call in. All three of us went back to the body."
"Know who it is?"
I hesitated then said neutrally, "I'd never seen the woman before, but Mr. Lindquist said she was his former wife."
Nelson stopped dead. "You don't say? Cleo Hagen?" He whistled through his teeth. "I'll be damned. Cleo Cabot Hagen. I think I'd better call in, Ms., er."
"Mrs. Lark Dodge. I live down the road."
"Okay, back in a minute." He returned to the cop car, and I could hear the radio crackle. I waited. He must have had himself put through to the head of the CID at least, maybe even the sheriff.
I was thinking about the dead woman's name, trying to remember where I'd heard it. One difficulty of moving to a new community is that you have to deal with a lot of unfamiliar names in a hurry. I sorted through the names of people I knew of until I thought of Annie McKay, the editor of the Kayport Gazette. A small light flashed. Cleo Cabot Hagen had been the target of one of McKay's many editorials on the deterioration of the local ecosystem.
The dead woman was associated with the group building the resort complex half a mile south of Bonnie's cottage. The resort would include a lodge with spa, shops, restaurants, and the usual condominiums. There was a golf course in the works and, surrounding it, a number of single cottages. Although no buildings had yet been erected, bulldozers had kept busy all summer rearranging the sandy soil, and helicopters had flown in and out bearing engineers, architects, and company executives.
The dead woman's name recurred in news releases about the resort. I had gathered that Cleo Hagen was the local liaison and probably fairly important in the organization. Annie McKay had printed news stories about the elaborate project. The editorial in which she attacked Cleo Hagen had also bitterly condemned the county commissioners for permitting a development of that size in an ecologically sensitive area. The planned population density, McKay claimed, would disrupt wildlife habitats and threaten both the razor clam and Dungeness crab harvests along our stretch of beach.
I thought Annie McKay's editorial was strong and well-reasoned. My neighbor, Matt Cramer, cut it out and gave me a photocopy, though we had subscribed to the Gazette as soon as we moved to Shoalwater. I think Matt blanketed the area with copies. In the editorial, Cleo Hagen was characterized as the representative of rapacious California real estate interests. Apparently she had been associated with other large resorts.
California. That word again. I remembered Bonnie's bag of seagulls and the words of the note, which Bonnie had not found, "California Carpetbagger Go Home." Bonnie was not a great threat to the ecology of the Shoalwater Peninsula. I wondered if anyone had sent Cleo Hagen a similar warning. It was a troubling thought.
By the time Deputy Nelson had finished his conversation, the fog was definitely beginning to burn off. Also my running suit had dried out. I was conscious of needing a shower, and I was sweating again by the time Nelson and I reached Bonnie and Lindquist.
Nelson shook hands with the other man, and I introduced Bonnie. Nelson took her name, address, and phone number, and mine as well. Then he turned to Lindquist. "What do you know about this, Tom?"
"Not a damned thing."
"I heard you was married to her."
"We were divorced six years ago."
"And you haven't seen her since?"
Lindquist shoved a wing of blue-black hair from his forehead. "I saw her off and on in San Francisco before I came north."
"Let's see, that was when, four, five years ago?"
"Five."
Nelson waited.
After a pause Lindquist said, "I saw her at the bluegrass festival in April. And once, at a distance, at the Blue Oyster." The Blue Oyster was a pricy restaurant on the Shoalwater Bay side of the peninsula. "And she called on me at the house yesterday."
Nelson whistled. "Just dropped by for old times' sake?"
For some reason the question eased Lindquist's air of tense wariness. The muscles at the hinge of his jaw relaxed. "Don't be a horse's ass, Dale. She came to proposition me."
Nelson's eyebrows rose. Like his hair, they were blond.
Lindquist said amiably, "She made me an offer for the house. I told her I'd think about it."
"That was the proposition?"
"That was it. We had a cup of coffee. I congratulated her on her marriage. She congratulated me on the book. She drove off around six-thirty, said she was going to dinner at the Blue Oyster."
Book. Bonnie's eyes had widened. I remembered the stacks of library books on the old sideboard. She was right. The place was lousy with writers. At least Tom Lindquist wasn't a poet. Or maybe he was. Hastily I reviewed the poets I knew of who were roughly Lindquist's age--roughly my husband's age, I guessed. Lindquist was one of those men who could be anywhere from thirty to fifty-five. He was clean-shaven, had a lean, wiry build, and moved with no sign of stiffness, but something about his eyes suggested he was not thirty. I couldn't remember a poet named Lindquist.
Abruptly it came to me. Starvation Hill. A novel, a very good novel, in my opinion. It took the Western Book Award the year it came out, but the small regional house that had published it in hardcover went out of business shortly after the book was released. That had been three years before. It was only just coming out in a trade paperback.
A whooping in the distance distracted my attention. I looked north. Now that the fog had burned off I could see as far as the access road. A clutch of kids in bright sweatshirts were heading for the beach. They didn't seem to notice us. Nelson had been shrewd to move the cop car to the driveway.
"Are you going to do something about Cleo's body, Dale, or are you going to stand here all morning chewing the fat?" Lindquist's tone sharpened. He had seen the kids, too.
The deputy said, "Now, Tom, you know we're short-handed. I sent for the ambulance out of Kayport and they'll be here pretty quick. Ms. Bell, if you and Mrs. Dodge want to leave, I reckon I know where to find you. I'll need to take your statements sometime today, though."
Bonnie said, "I'm not going anywhere except the grocery store."
I had to run in to Shoalwater, too. I said, "If you want to ride to town with me, Bonnie, I'll fix us lunch afterward, and we can wait for Deputy Nelson at my house."
Bonnie agreed to the plan a little too fervently. I think she was afraid of being alone, and I didn't blame her. I had a strong reluctance to watch the removal of the body. It was a relief that we had permission to go, though a bit puzzling at that point in a murder investigation.
Deputy Nelson shook our hands and thanked us in a semi-courtly way for being good citizens. For all he knew, we could have bashed in Cleo Hagen's head.
We walked back to the beach approach and homeward on the paved county road. An elderly woman in the yard of the mobile home across the street from the McKay place stared at us as we passed by her. I gave her a big smile.
We walked homeward on the roadway because neither Bonnie nor I wanted to tackle the stretch of dunes to the south. In any case, Nelson had intimated that he was going to have the area searched. There was no weapon at the scene and Cleo Hagen's handbag was missing. None of us thought a woman of her obvious wealth and polish would have been strolling on the dunes without some kind of purse. She would have had a car, too. There was no abandoned vehicle on either side of the road.
"Maybe the killer took her bag," Bonnie muttered as we trudged along the street, "but if he was a mugger, he would have stolen her rings. Did you see the size of that emerald?"
I had. Cleo Hagen's left hand, bearing the sandy mark of Bonnie's shoe, had displayed, undisturbed, a wide gold wedding band and a square-cut emerald in a more ornate setting. The emerald was so large I had thought it was fake--until the sun broke through. "Maybe you startled him off."
Bonnie did not like that idea. We walked on.
"Tom Lindquist," she mused. "I actually bought a house next to Thomas Lindquist. That was the funniest book I've read in the last five years."
I gaped at her. "You thought Starvation Hill was funny?"
She stopped in the roadway. "Starvation Hill? What's that? I mean the one that came out in May. Small Victories. It was about growing up in a northwestern town. Holy cow, Kayport. It must be. I wonder why the man is still alive. Maybe somebody got confused in the fog and whacked his ex by mistake."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't imagine the book's popular around here. It's satire and wickedly funny, and the people are so real you know he had to have somebody definite in mind. Even if he didn't, everybody must be trying to guess who--"
"You have to be thinking of another writer." I explained about the Western Book Award and the publishing house that had gone out of business. "Starvation Hill came out three years ago. There can't have been more than five thousand copies. It was lyrical and tragic, a terrible story in some ways. About an old woman whose father traded her to a band of Indians for food when she was ten years old."
"Historical?"
"Obviously," I said crossly. We were approaching our driveway. "It's a tour de force of narration--a female-viewpoint story told to a great-grandson who doesn't understand what the woman means half the time. My mother--she's a poet--said the control of Victorian language was dazzling."
"Huh." Bonnie sounded skeptical. "Maybe he's schizophrenic--Lindquist, I mean. Not that Small Victories isn't dazzling, too, but it's definitely modern. Set in the sixties." She gave a chortle. "The ultimate answer to Leave It to Beaver."
"I think we'd better exchange books."
"Okay." She stopped by the entrance to our driveway. "I'll duck across and take a quick shower. Half an hour?"
"Sounds all right."
"What should I do with the carpet bag?"
I'd half-forgotten it. "Better bring it over. Tell Nelson about it. It's a pity you lost the note."
"I'll look again." The vivacity drained out of her. "My God, what a mess. I hope he didn't do it."
"Tom Lindquist? Me, too." I didn't add that most women who were victims of murder were killed by their husbands. Or ex-husbands. I wondered how much Lindquist had made from his books, and how much Cleo Hagen had offered him for the old McKay place, and whether any of that was relevant to the murder.