I ran the next morning.
I woke early. No one else was stirring, and the storm had left the air like crystal. I ran five glorious miles, almost to the Enclave, trotting the last half mile back along the tide line. It was great to be alone.
The storm had tossed debris, most of it natural, onto the firm sand. Fat gulls poked at bits of crab, kelp strands, broken razor-clam shells, sand dollars. Vessels were prohibited from dumping plastics at sea, but an assortment of nautical bags and bottles had also washed ashore. I reflected that I ought to bring a garbage sack down and start collecting, but there was a beach clean-up, sponsored by the Kayport Jaycees, scheduled for September, so I let the thought go.
A droning to the south resolved into the sound of helicopter blades. I watched the on-coming craft and wondered whether it was Coast Guard or commercial. It swung over the dunes south of Bonnie's house, hovered for a moment like a huge fly, then settled at the resort site. The one tiny airport on the peninsula was too small to handle business jets, so the resort's corporate supervisors flew in and out in helicopters. I wished they wouldn't. Owing to a youthful tour in Vietnam, Jay had bad associations with the noise. It made him edgy and had triggered a nightmare, though he said he was getting used to the racket after a summer of almost daily whop-whop-whop.
I slowed to a walk and followed the path across the dunes to the road. Bonnie's car sat in her drive, but Matt's Pontiac was missing. I deduced Matt had already gone to the hospital, and I spared a thought for Lottie.
Jay had left, too. He had a breakfast meeting with the training program's advisory committee. As I entered the house I could hear the downstairs shower, so Tom was awake. I made coffee and went upstairs for my own shower. Freddy was snoring. He had taken Darla home, returned, and gone right up to Tom's computer. He was still busy with it when Jay and I went to bed.
When I came back down from my shower, Tom was on the phone in the breakfast nook. I poured a cup of coffee and drank half of it while I glanced through the Shoalwater Gazette. It was a weekly paper. It had come the night before and had apparently gone to press before the murder and arson stories broke. That would give us a break from gawkers and invasive reporters--unless the wire services stimulated the dailies in Portland and Astoria to investigate.
The editorial dealt with an upcoming bond election. There was nothing new on the resort. I thought about turning on the radio. We had not subscribed to cable television, the only kind available, and I was grateful not to have to watch the TV news.
Tom was obviously talking to a repair person--a carpenter or painter or electrician. He uh-huhed several times, said a glum goodbye, and hung up.
"More coffee?"
"Thanks. I'm keeping a log of these phone calls."
I smiled and poured him a cup. "Don't be so scrupulous. They're local calls, aren't they?"
"I made two to Astoria. It seems there's a building boom."
"If so it's probably the only building boom in the continental United States."
"You may be right. I'm having one hell of a time locating an electrician." He sipped hot coffee. "You said something about tearing out carpet. Need some help?"
"It's kind of you to offer but unnecessary. I was looking forward to mutilating the stuff myself."
"Two can rip faster than one."
"That's true. But--"
He said, "If I'm going to have to stick around here waiting for a kind-hearted electrician to return my call, I might as well make myself useful."
Who was I to argue? The thought of all that nasty pink carpet was tempting. I offered breakfast first, but Tom said he wasn't hungry and did I have claw hammers or crow bars. I had both. We went into the living room and began ripping.
The chore went fast, especially when I discovered that the flooring beneath the rug was solid, if somewhat scarred, oak. The vandals who had installed the carpet had removed most of the molding from the baseboard, but Tom thought we could find something to replace it at the McKay Supply outlet in Kayport.
I was exuberant. I called the college and left Jay a message to rent a sander. Tom and I hauled the moldy roll of carpet to the garage. I showed him his salmon while we were out there. Bonnie ran across to ask if I needed anything from Kayport. I said no, and she took off in her little red car.
Tom and I went back into the house. We ate breakfast. We discussed the probability of all the flooring in the house being oak--he had played with the children of the owners when he was growing up--and the phone finally rang. It was for Tom, an electrician. I promised to field his other calls and saw him off, looking hopeful, to supervise the rewiring of his house.
The sight of all that bare wood fired me with ambition. By the time Jay came home with the sander around eleven, I had vacuumed up the debris and scrubbed the surface with Green Stuff. Jay was duly impressed. Also a little guilty, until I told him how fast our job of destruction had gone. He went upstairs to change into work clothes, and I surveyed my living room.
I should have been daunted. Tearing down the wallpaper had revealed a cracked plaster surface full of nicks and gouges that would have to be filled and covered with a coat of sealant. All the woodwork, including the window frames and the oak mantel above the brick fireplace, needed to be repainted. The brick was red and uninteresting. Covering it with plaster would create a southwestern effect, trendy that year, but not suitable to the architecture or climate. I thought I'd better just paint the bricks white.
If I also painted the walls white, I'd have lots of nice blank space on which to hang artwork--my great-grandmother's hand woven coverlet, for instance. Then I could find an area rug to evoke the indigo and beige of the coverlet and arrange our living room furniture in a comfortable grouping around the fireplace. I had enough antique odds and ends to fill the remaining space. It would be a congenial, interesting room, a place to entertain friends. I could hardly wait.
I inserted paper in the sander, plugged it in, and cut a wide arc on the surface of the floor. Just testing. As I swung the machine around for a second swath the doorbell rang. At first I thought it was the telephone, but I switched the sander off and the bell pealed again. Definitely the doorbell. I hoped Bonnie hadn't suffered another disaster and remembered she had left for town.
I went to the door, dragging the heavy sander. The long electric cord followed me. I hoped whoever it was, whether carpenter, reporter, or huckster, would gain the impression that I was a busy woman.
A thirtyish business executive--his buttoned-down costume left no other interpretation possible--gave me an unsmiling stare. "Mrs. Dodge?"
"Yes."
"I understand that Thomas Lindquist is staying with you. May I speak with him?"
I hesitated. I was about to tell him where Tom was, but something in the man's manner repelled me. I swung the sander around to my side, thumbing the switch, and adopted a tone my mother would have applauded. "Who shall I say is calling?"
"Donald Hagen."
I opened my mouth. Cleo Cabot Hagen's husband. An incredibly clean-cut Republican, if looks were any indication, and probably five years younger than his wife. That was interesting.
I heard Jay's footstep on the stairs. "He's not--"
The man didn't wait for me to complete my sentence. He leaned into the door, shoving it wide, and strode past me into the hall.
"Just a damned minute--"
"I want to talk to Tom Lindquist."
"Really, Mr. Hagen--"
"Lark--"
"You dirty half-breed!"
"He isn't--" I was about to explain that Tom wasn't home, but the man drew a handgun from the pocket of his jacket. Jay was halfway down the stairs.
"Hey!" I yelped.
Hagen's chiseled features registered no known emotion. "Think you can kill my wife, you bastard? I'll show you--" He raised the gun.
Instinct took over. I swung the sander up, two-handed, aiming for his gun hand. I connected with his right elbow. The gun fired as it flew out of his hand, the din bouncing off the walls.
Jay leapt down the stairs, and we both fell on Donald Hagen like a tower. We knocked him flat.
Jay twisted the intruder's arm behind his back. "Who the devil--"
"Hagen," I gasped. "Looking for Tom." My head was still ringing from the sound of the gunshot.
Jay gave a sharp jerk on the arm. "What do you want?"
The man groaned. "Fuck you, Lindquist."
Jay straddled Hagen, keeping the arm pinned. "You're off-base, buddy. I'm not Tom Lindquist, and you're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent--"
I couldn't believe Jay was Mirandizing Hagen there before my very eyes, but he finished the whole warning, word perfect, and I added, "Any comment?"
"Lindquist killed my wife."
"I doubt it." Jay gave another jerk.
Hagen moaned again.
Plaster was still sifting down. "He knocked a hole in the ceiling!"
I heard a thud upstairs. Freddy. I swallowed a giggle.
"Go call 911, Lark," Jay instructed, irritation sharpening his voice.
I abandoned the sander where it lay and ducked into the kitchen. The dispatcher didn't understand me until I calmed down enough to speak coherently. She assured me help was coming. I went back into the hall.
Jay still held Hagen's arm in a twist and was frisking him, one-handed. Jay does not like being shot at. I didn't envy Hagen. On the other hand, I didn't feel sorry for him either. I watched with interest as he squirmed and protested.
The gun had come to rest by the archway that led into the dining room. I despise guns. I nosed the weapon the rest of the way around the corner with the toe of my sneaker. The air reeked of cordite. "Shall I go find your handcuffs?"
Jay grunted. He kept a pair of handcuffs in his briefcase, God knows why, so the question wasn't entirely idiotic. He had a knee in Hagen's back, the arm in a lock, and was thumbing, left-handed through the man's wallet. "Donald C. Hagen, The Hagen Group, San Francisco. No shit."
Hagen was saying something about his lawyer.
"Wait till your fancy corporation hears from my lawyer," Jay snarled. "What do you use for brains, Hagen, tofu?"
The bell rang.
I sidled over to the door and peered out the little glass window alongside it, which I should have done when Hagen rang, though the sight of him wouldn't have stopped me from opening the door. I don't know what I expected to see. Corporate goons? A middle-aged man in a gray three-piecer and Lee Iacocca glasses stood on the porch, wringing his hands.
I opened the door. "Yes?"
"Is Mr... Oh, no." He stared past me, eyes bulging behind the spectacles. "Oh, dear, what have you done, sir?"
"Who are you?"
"Uh, I beg your pardon, madam, I'm Clinton Walls. I'm the Pacific Northwest vice-president of the Hagen Group. Mr. Hagen, he... Oh, dear."
"He just tried to kill my husband." I had gone from adrenal surge to wrath. "Is that how you people do business?"
"Oh, dear, I'm sorry, madam, believe me. He's distraught. I heard the gunshot. Did he hurt--" He was trying to see past me and took a step forward.
"If you knew he was armed, Mr. Walls, you're an accessory. Step back onto the porch, if you please."
Behind me I heard Freddy thudding down the stairs, questions rattling out in his light tenor.
I met Walls's worried eyes. "Out, Mr. Walls. We are going to stand on the porch together and wait for the police."
Walls made a choking noise, but he did step back. I joined him and pulled the door shut behind me.
"Is anything wrong?" Matt Cramer was edging across the lawn.
"Just a little misunderstanding, Matt. I've called the cops."
"Anything I can do?"
I clenched my teeth on another giggle. "No, thanks. We're fine."
"Lottie really appreciated the flowers." He was coming over to the porch.
Walls looked as if he might burst into tears.
"I thought I heard--"
I said, "It was a gunshot, Matt, but nobody was injured."
Matt was standing on the front walkway, looking up at us. "Oh my, oh my. Who--"
"The shootist claims to be Donald Hagen. He mistook Jay for Tom Lindquist."
Mr. Walls made distraught clucking noises. "Please, madam. I don't think-- I'm sure Mr. Hagen won't--"
I said to Matt, "I do hope Lottie's better."
"About the same, about the same. I came home to get her fresh nightclothes. Who's that?"
I introduced Walls to Matt, wondering how Eugene Ionescu would have dealt with our dialogue. A siren yelped in the distance.
"I really didn't think he meant to harm anyone," Walls assured Matt. The vice-president was beginning to regain his composure. And to think about self-preservation.
A sheriff's car rounded the corner and wheeled into our driveway behind an alien BMW that had to belong to Hagen. I wondered if he kept fresh BMWs at every construction site.
Dale Nelson jumped out and ran toward us, hand on the butt of his gun. This time he had backup. Another deputy, older and fatter, got out, too, stood on the far side of the cop car, and aimed his gun at us, two-handed, over the roof.
Lest they imagine Walls was the culprit, I said hastily, "Jay's inside with Hagen."
Nelson gained the porch. "Is he armed?"
"Hagen? Not anymore. He fired one shot."
Nelson jerked his head at the other deputy. The gun disappeared.
I opened the door. Jay was still sitting on his assailant, and Freddy was watching both men from the stairway, one hand on the newel, his eyes bright with excitement.
I ushered Nelson and the fat deputy in. Walls and Matt tried to follow, but I shut them out.
Nelson had Hagen handcuffed and sitting in the back of the sheriff's car within five minutes, in spite of Walls's anguished protests. Hagen was sputtering threats by that time and red in the face, whether from anger or embarrassment it was impossible to say. I wondered if he was on something, coke perhaps. The fat deputy stayed by the car to keep an eye on him, and Nelson returned with us to the house.
I showed Nelson the gun and let Jay do the explaining, which saved time. They said the weapon was a .38, but even I could see it was no Saturday night special. Hagen's initials were engraved on the butt.
Waiting for the evidence team to show up consumed a good hour. They had to drive over from the county seat, which was forty miles away on the east side of the bay. Well before they came, a local car appeared, and Nelson sent the prisoner off to be booked. Then Nelson took our statements.
Walls hung around in the BMW. He was making calls on a cellular phone, so it was probable that Hagen's attorney would meet his client at the courthouse. By the time the evidence team came, children from the mobile homes on the flat had spotted the excitement. They flocked around Walls's car and watched him telephone. Their parents gathered in knots down the road, or across it in the dunes. Bonnie drove up and stood on her porch watching, and Matt joined her. Finally, Tom Lindquist also appeared.
The deputy in charge outside wouldn't let Tom come in at first, or so Tom said when he did enter via the back door and the utility room. He was appalled when he heard what had happened and offered to move out immediately, but Jay was having none of that. Jay was angrier than I've seen him in a long time, though he was concealing it well. I suppose Nelson and the technical people saw a cool, critical professional. I saw a volcano. I waited for the eruption.
The telephone kept ringing--Tom's craftsmen returning his calls and one enterprising reporter. Tom spoke with the craftsmen and hung up on the reporter. Once Freddy figured out that the exciting part was over, he went back upstairs to work on the computer. I made crab sandwiches.
The cops finally left after marking up my floors and walls, covering various surfaces with fingerprint powder for no apparent reason, and measuring trajectories. They pried the slug, intact, from the ceiling, and of course they photographed everything. We were lucky the bullet hadn't fragmented or ricocheted, so I tried to be philosophical about the hole in the plaster.
When we had seen Nelson off, Jay turned on me. "What the hell do you mean, letting that freak in the front door?"
I held onto my temper. "Is that any way to talk to the woman who just saved your life? I didn't let him in, Jay. He shoved his way in."
"But--"
"You're upset. I understand. So am I, but don't take it out on me. Go for a run."
His mustache whiffled.
I touched his arm. The muscles were tight as cable. "A long run."
He drew an uneven breath and wrapped both arms around me. "He was down there with you. I thought--"
I hugged back. "Never mind. It's over."
Eventually Jay took my advice and went for a run. I drifted back to the kitchen where Freddy was consuming crab sandwiches and telling Tom about the state of the computer. Disassembled, from the sound of it. The phone rang again and Tom answered. "For you, Lark." He held out the receiver.
I said hello.
A female voice I didn't recognize said, "Hi, Lark. I hear you had a little excitement over there."
That was one way of putting it. I almost hung up.
The woman went on in a cheery, oblivious voice, "This is Jean Knight. Are we still on for Labor Day?"
Labor Day. Good God, I had forgotten that we were set to entertain the Knights. "Uh, yes, as far as I know. The weather--"
Jean laughed. "It's nice today, so it'll probably be miserable by Monday. If you're set on a barbecue--"
"Well, I thought I'd do salmon. I can roast it in the oven, if need be. I warn you the house looks like a hurricane struck it." I described the denuding of the living room.
"It'll look great when you're done. Is Lindquist actually staying with you?"
"Yes. I expect we'll have Tom and Bonnie Bell, our neighbor across the street, as well as you two and Freddy. Possibly Freddy's girlfriend."
"That sounds like a crowd. I was going to ask if I could bring Annie McKay, too, but--"
"The editor?"
"Yes. She and I work for the Nature Conservancy. When I mentioned I knew you, she said she'd like to meet you."
I had the feeling Annie McKay's interest in us was motivated by curiosity about the biggest news story on the peninsula. I hesitated, but I was fairly curious myself, so I said, "Sure. The more the merrier."
"If Annie's husband, Bob, is in town, I imagine he'll want to come too."
I wondered if we had enough chairs. "That's okay."
"Great. I'll bring the dessert. Anything else I can do?"
"Dessert will be extremely helpful."
"What time?"
"Around five, I thought. See you then."
We hung up simultaneously. "Whew," I said. "Is it okay with you if I activate the answering machine, Tom?"
"Sure. I have the workmen pretty well lined up."
I explained about the Labor Day fest. Tom said he had been planning to go out on a boat, but he supposed he'd have to cancel that anyway. He thanked me for the invitation and offered me a frozen salmon. I accepted. Freddy promised to invite Darla.
I looked at Tom. "You know Annie McKay, don't you?"
"Went to high school with her."
"Good. She's coming."
His face took on a strange expression. "Have you read Small Victories?"
"Oh, no. The Prom Queen?" The Prom Queen was the object of the teenaged protagonist's hopeless infatuation.
Tom nodded. "Maybe I should go fishing."
"Not on your life, sir." I felt the bubble of laughter I had been suppressing rise in my throat. "Not on your life." I was beginning to sound like Matt Cramer.