From Herring to Eternity (12 page)

“Good,” I said. “She’s out of work right now and I think she’d be willing to start tomorrow.”

“Ms. Katz, this usually takes a little time,” he said. “There’s paperwork to process and we won’t even be on-site for another—”

“Tomorrow,” I said. “Or didn’t you notice—your Civil War campground is under assault from Wiccans and kamikaze wildlife.”

He thought for a moment, then took out his cell phone and started texting. “You have a very good point,” he agreed. “I’m letting my site director know.”

I sat back and looked at the window. “How the hell did they do that?” I muttered.

“Probably a dog whistle,” he said. “Something to interfere with the bat’s echolocation.”

“Or, it could be witchcraft,” I said, mostly to myself.

Sterne snickered. “Please. You didn’t do this because you subscribe to their belief in the supernatural.” He glanced at me as he poked at his phone. “Did you?”

I noticed my sandwich, took a bite, went back to staring at the carpet. I had never believed in ghosts—not even as a little girl, when my grandma told me she had once met a dybbuk, the wandering soul of the dead.

“It was in a hayloft in Rovinj, Croatia,”
she had said when she was baby-sitting.
“I was resting from milking the cows and I heard it stirring. It spoke in a terrible voice and I ran away. It was gone when I returned with my father.”

I was ten and I half believed her for about two years, until my great-uncle Oskar confided, at her funeral, as we were walking from the gravesite, that it was him and her best friend Milanka who were up in that hayloft.

“Your Grandma Vesna
wanted
ghosts and angels to be real because it meant there was a world after this one,”
he told me.
“So to her, they
were
real. But you must not confuse wishes with truth. Do not accept the ridiculous when there is a logical explanation.”

I told him, honestly, that the spirits of the dead were easier to imagine than him making out with a great-aunt Milanka.

He’d smiled a big smile and laughed when I’d said that. The other funeral-goers had looked at us with open horror, but it was our best moment together. On those rare occasions when my cranky uncle laughed, the wrinkles and the dentures and the tired, watery eyes seemed to vanish into an aura of renewed youth.

“You are right, Gwenka,”
he’d said, using his term of endearment.
“A ghost does make better sense.”

“Ms. Katz?”

I heard my name and looked at Sterne. “Yes?” I had forgotten—was there a pending question?

“What
do
you believe?” he asked.

“I believe that my carpet needs to be cleaned,” I told him.

“What does that have to do with the spirit world?”

“Nothing, unless the guy who used to do my mother’s Persian rugs is listening.” I had another bite of sandwich, then wrapped it back up. “Time for you to go,” I said.

Sterne seemed a little surprised. He stood with his portfolio tucked neatly under his arm. “So—no peace pipe?” he asked.

“I’m not kicking you out,” I said. “That’s something.”

“All right, then,” he said with a formal little bow, “if that’s how you want it. I’ll be in touch.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow,” he said as he turned to go.

“Dr. Sterne?” I said.

He turned warily. With good reason. “Yes?”

I walked over to him, watching the curiosity play out in his lips, which moved expectantly, like little caterpillars. They didn’t know whether to smile, talk, or purse.

“You want to know what I believe?” I asked. “That I have a conscience. I feel bad about misleading those women, I truly do. But you? I don’t believe you feel that you did anything wrong.”

The caterpillars straightened. “You’re right,” he agreed. “I don’t.”

Sterne left on the other side of a big bang from the screen door. I felt very alone then, not because he was gone, but because everyone was. This reminded me of how much I missed everyone I’d ever known well or cared about—and everyone who knew about me.

“Gramma,
are
you here?” I asked hopefully when Sterne had driven away. “Anybody? Uncle Oskar? Uncle Murray?”

Silence.

I put the rest of my sandwich in the refrigerator and noticed that the cats were back eating their dinner—the cowards. I looked around at the emptiness, I looked
in
at the emptiness, and I thought enviously of Thom, out with the staff. Why didn’t I join them?

Because you are not, and never have been, a social party girl,
I reminded myself. Not in high school, not in college, not on Wall Street.
You did your job, you went home to your husband, you had lunch with your mother or a few girlfriends, and that was life.

You came here to change that
, I pointed out to myself. Partly to get away from the past, but also to change.

Which did not mean fraternizing with the people I saw all day or men I didn’t really want to see at all. Which left just one thing to do. Three, actually. First, I went to check the window the bat had hit. Quite a
zetz
. Actually shattered the double pane. Next, I got a food-prep glove, slipped it on, went outside, and picked up the bat. He felt like a toy, fuzzy and warm—albeit one that had been dropped in ketchup. I put him in a Baggie and placed the thing in my handbag. When that was done, I slipped on a leather jacket—a freebie from one of my meat suppliers, not a holdover from my rebellious streak, which had lasted about a semester in college when I’d taken Salina Buben’s course in matriarchal socialism—then grabbed my keys and went out to do what I apparently did best.

Make trouble.

For myself.

Chapter 12

The silhouette of Robert Barron’s boat hulked in the dark. There were no onboard lights, which meant he was either sleeping or out.

Sleeping at nine p.m. on one of the few days he was in town? Not likely. Out with his Eskimo pal? Much more likely.

I decided to go aboard. The good thing about being a woman is I could always say I was there to see him and, not finding him there, I waited. He would probably be too surprised and maybe a little too tipsy to question that. If Yutu White was with him, I could sow jealous confusion and slip away.

I didn’t know if any of that was practical. But it kept my mind off the fact that I had signed over the rights to my den. That made me want to cry.

The pier sounded creakier at night. I took out my cell phone and pretended to talk on it, like I wasn’t afraid to be seen or heard. I waved into the dark, in case someone saw me, acting as if I belonged there. There were sounds from inside and outside the boat next to Robert’s, but no one paid me much attention. I climbed the plank-thing onto the deck, passed my nemesis the skinny, sagging chain, went to the main cabin, and tried the door. It was locked, of course. So were the windows.

Enter the culprit.

I took the bat-Baggie from my purse and emptied the tiny corpse onto the deck. It slid clingingly from the plastic and hit the floor with a soft little thud. Then, stepping just above him, I drove my right elbow hard into the window.

That did nothing but hurt my elbow. Chastened, the next time I hit the window I used my keys wrapped inside a kerchief. The window didn’t just crack, it shattered. It sounded like a breaking beer bottle, which was probably a good thing. The shards fell on the dead bat, which was perfect. He was buried in the fruits of his “crime,” even though he looked so tiny there, I wasn’t sure anyone would buy it. Unfortunately, I didn’t think I’d be able to find a dead seagull before I left. This would have to be the story.

I zipped my leather jacket so I wouldn’t cut myself on the fragments that still jutted from the window frame, then—looking around to make sure no one had heard, or cared much if they did—I crawled in like a Washington Square Park squirrel going along a branch: in spastic little fits. There was an armchair under the window, so at least I had the back of it on which to support myself, push-up style, as I maneuvered my hands onto the armrests and drew my legs in after me. It was inelegant and I grunted a lot, but I made it.

A light came on as I got my feet under me.

“You could have just knocked,” a voice said from across the room.

I stood there, stupidly looking at Yutu White. I say stupidly because I was not only busted, I was overdressed for the occasion. He was on the sofa, propped on an elbow, his other hand on the base of a lamp. He was shirtless and pantless, save for some brief briefs, under a thin top sheet. He was wincing from the brightness and shielded his eyes.

“I thought it was just Barron drinking on the pier,” he said. “But that is clearly not the case.”

“No,” I said.

“You want to flip off the Cruisair beside you?”

“The what?”

“The air conditioner—I don’t appear to need it anymore.”

I looked around, saw the grill in the wall. There was a knob beneath it. I put my bag on the floor and turned it. “Quiet little thing,” I said admiringly.

“Yes. I like the cold.”

“I guess you would have to,” I replied.

“Right. Because I’m an Eskimo.”

“I guess that was a little stereotyped,” I told him. “I’m, uh—I’m Gwen Katz. In case you forgot.”

“I had not,” the man replied, sitting up. The action seemed to discomfit him slightly.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. Just some lingering seasickness.”

“Are you taking anything for that?”

He grinned. “You mean like pills or—chicken soup, isn’t it?”

I smiled. It really was annoying when the shoe was on
my
foot.

“Barron is not here,” Yutu said. “I have to be awake very early so I turned in.”

“Right. You said you were leaving tomorrow. Sorry to disturb you.”

He blinked out sleep. “Now that you have, why are you here? I assume not to see Barron, or you would have telephoned.”

“No,” I admitted. “I’m looking for a trumpet case.”

I knew how utterly ridiculous that sounded. So did Yutu.

“Yours?” he inquired.

“No. It belonged to a dead man.”

That sounded even sillier. Yutu dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. “There was a proverb of which my father was most fond,” the man said. “
If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance.
” He looked at me. “You are surely dancing.”

“I am,” I agreed.

“Don’t be bashful,” he said. “I do it, too.”

“I don’t usually—well, maybe I do—but there’s a reason,” I went on. “A trumpet player was killed the other day—”

“A friend?”

“No, just—” I hesitated. Yutu was sitting on the sofa in just his briefs. He had smooth, heavily muscled legs. Probably from all that ice dancing. “Do you want to put on a robe or something?”

“Actually, the night air feels good,” he said. “Let’s get a little cross-ventilation going.” He reached behind him and cracked the window. “So this person you know was killed—”

“A man named Lippy, a street musician,” I said, focusing on the lamp but seeing his not-quite-six-pack, but close enough, abs. “He was sitting next to Barron in my deli where he was apparently poisoned. After he left and was about to play down the block he collapsed and died. As he lay there, his trumpet case was pinched.”

“And you suspect Robert?”

“I don’t suspect him,” I said. “I’m just curious. There’s reason to believe—a slight reason, I’ll grant you—that there was a map hidden inside.”

“You believe this because . . . ?”

“Lippy bought the trumpet at a hock shop in Hawaii.”

“A hock—?”

“Pawn shop,” I interrupted. “One that specializes in sailing memorabilia.”

“That’s pretty thin.”

“Like the ice,” I agreed. “But that’s not all. The next day, I met Lippy’s sister when she came up to Nashville. She was murdered too. Before she died she said her brother had been e-mailing her about a treasure, but he never told her what it was.”

Yutu nodded then lay back on the sofa. I half turned, saw the chart table, went over. I began sifting through the papers looking for something that could be folded and stuck in a case. Barron had straightened up since I’d been here; the Fiji map was gone.
Normal housekeeping or
. . . ?

“You’re not a police officer, are you?” Yutu asked.

“No. But I dated one. Briefly.”

“Then what is your interest in this matter? I ask because, as an impartial outsider, I might mistakenly suspect that you are after this hypothetical map for your own greedy purposes.”

“Hey, I used to work on Wall Street,” I said. “There are easier ways of making money than treasure hunting.”

He laughed.

“No,” I said. “I’m just—curious.”

“No one breaks into another man’s igloo because he is ‘just curious,’” he said. “Either he is cold or hungry or seeking company.”

I reflected on that. “I’m bored,” I said. “Empty and disappointed and restless enough to take stupid chances. Oh, and angry.”

“At whom?”

I said, “Myself. Why are
you
here? Did you know Barron before this?”

“No,” he said. He got back up on an elbow. Now he looked like a
Playgirl
centerfold. “I wanted to do something for my mother and father. He still takes his fishing boat out every morning but it’s hard work, and cold, and dangerous, and he should be retired.” Yutu laughed. “How I wish I were on that boat now, in rough seas, instead of here.”

“Am I that unwelcome?” I asked. Okay, I was fishing . . . I knew he didn’t mean me. But I needed to hear something positive.

“You?” he said. “No, you’re—”

Don’t say “a challenge” or “funny” or
— “—terrific.”

Okay
, I thought.
That would do.

“And attractive,” he added.

Even better.

“Stop, I’m blushing,” I said ham-fistedly. “I only look good compared to ‘Robber’ Barron.”

“Please, you’re not even from the same species,” he said.

“Are you not having fun with him?” I asked as I finished fingering through the thinned-out pile.