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Authors: David Daniel

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“Did I come up clean?” I said to officer Ferry as we walked outside together.

“Sorry?”

“On your computer.” Delcastro had obviously given him my P.I. license number to run.

“Yes, sir. It's a small town. The chief likes to keep track of things.”

I said I understood, and he seemed relieved. He was a good-looking youth, neatly attired in his uniform, which was maybe a tad busier with paraphernalia than it needed to be, but he wore it well, along with the faint scent of English Leather. I said if he was coming back this way, why didn't I ride along with him, and he said fine.

The cruiser was one of the Crown Vics, loaded with electronic gear and still wearing the new-car smell that's not supposed to be that healthy. The Lowell cruisers were just as carcinogenic, though with cigarette smoke and funk. Outside the town center the road wound past a couple of take-out seafood places, a package store, a small market, a florist and a movie house named the Strand. “I bet you kissed your share of young ladies in the balcony there,” I said.

Ferry blushed again.

“This is nice. It's quiet here, I imagine. Crime wise.”

“It is, but it's changing. Like everywhere.”

I envisioned a rash of magazine thefts from doctors' waiting rooms. He said, “Just last week someone rifled all the machines over at the Wash Tub coin-op laundry. And we've had reports of Ecstasy being used out at the Beachcomber.”

“What about kidnapping?”

Ferry's head swiveled around fast, his expression shocked. “No.”

“Just raising an ugly specter,” I said. I let the image fade away in silence, then said, “Chief Delcastro is a friendly fellow.”

“Yes, sir. He's a pro.”

I guess they'd quit teaching irony in high school. Possibly you didn't need it to get along in quaint towns, or maybe Delcastro was only that way with me.

“His family goes way back in town here. He's the only one who wasn't a fisherman. He's been on the job awhile. Me, this is my second summer. I'm still in college.”

“Criminal justice?”

“Yes, sir, but I've got plenty to learn.”

I liked the fact that he recognized it; it was the beginning of wisdom. Too many wannabes, jazzed up on TV cop shows, thought they knew it all, and when the pressure came down, they squawked and ran. There was no cutting to a beer commercial in a real crisis. Though maybe young Ferry would never have to find out. I said, “Do you know Ben Nickerson?”

“No, sir. Who is he?”

“A fellow who used to live here. I'm trying to locate him and his teenage daughter.” I gave him the abridged version of my quest. He listened, nodding. The Ford had the big Interceptor package, and I kept waiting for him to put the pedal down now that we'd reached an empty coast road, but he drove as cautiously as a library trustee. We passed a stretch of small weathered houses and then salt marsh. Delcastro hadn't been kidding about finding the beach. To the left, beyond a sagging wind fence, lay a small rocky cove. Out by the point stood homes bigger than what we'd seen. On the sandy shoulder
sat a handful of cars and vans. I could see several dark forms in the water, and for a moment I thought they were seals, then I realized they were people in wet suits sitting on surfboards.

“Soakers,” Ferry said.

“I haven't shot a curl in a long timeânot
ever
, for that matter. Translation?”

“There's a break off the point out there where the locals hang. If the wind and tide are right, it'll sometimes be three feet. Mostly though, it's mush, but surfers are optimistsâthe only people I know who pray for rough weather.”

Just then, one of the prayerful broke from the throng and started to paddle ahead of a coming wave. Ferry slowed the car to a stop. The surfer dug hard for a moment, then, in one fluid motion, he was up. He wasn't in a wet suit like the others: he was wearing a T-shirt and cutoff jeans, his hair flying like a damp rag as he gained speedâbut he was the only one riding. The direct distance to the shore wasn't longâmaybe forty yardsâand the wave wasn't that big, but the surfer broke to the left on a sharp angle and worked the wave, cutting back and forth in a zigzag motion. He finished in a froth of white water a few yards from the rocky shore. Ferry gave a low whistle. “It figures,” he said. “Red Dog.”

“A friend of yours?”

“No, sir, but he's the man. If a duck took off from a millpond, he could catch a curl off the ripples. Give him something decent, he shreds.” There was a note of grudging admiration in his voice as he put the Ford in gear.

We meandered for a bit, the sea cut off from view by grassy dunes, then the road looped, and there was a stretch of five homes along a secluded beach. They sat atop thick pilings that rose from the sand and held the houses aloft, presumably above the menace of storm surge. Ferry drew the cruiser into the parking area behind the second house down. I got out, broken clamshells crunching under my feet. A realtor's rental sign stood among the patch of beach roses that flanked the walkway to the door. A thin crust of sand had drifted across the path and was combed in windrows. I went up three wooden steps to the door and knocked. When I got no answer, I put my hands to one of the sidelight panels and peered in, but
curtains made it hard to see much. I walked around the side and gazed at the ocean. Above the strip of sandy beach, seagulls were giving full voice to their evident approval of life in Standish.

I went down the steps to the deck. As I was about to climb, I was startled to see a man standing on the beach twenty feet below, peering up at me. In the sunlight, his hair looked on fire. He started up the beach toward me.

“Hi, there,” he said, stepping into the deck shadow.

“Hi.” It wasn't Ben Nickerson. Out of the sun, the man's hair was a froth of white curls. He was on the short side, five-six or so, wiry, with a tanned, good-looking face and sunglasses. He wore deck shoes and summer slacks and a blue oxford shirt with a little embroidered emblem on the breast pocket that looked like a row of pine trees.

“I'm Ted Rand.” He motioned with his head. “The last house down is mine.”

I introduced myself, and we shook hands. “Welcome to God's little acre, Alex.” His smile was warm, and amiable wrinkles fanned around his sunglasses. “I'm just out for a constitutional. I didn't know today was the changing of the guard. Saturday's usually the day new folks come.”

“Actually, I'm looking for the people who've rented the place this week.”

“Ben Nickerson?”

“You know Ben?”

“Well, from years ago, when he wasn't much bigger than this.” He held a palm waist high. “He grew up here. He's been living out on the other coast. Traitor.” He chuckled. “Ben's done well, I gather.”

“He's a marine biologist,” I said, wanting to establish that I was legit by being in the know. “Has he been around?”

“I saw Ben just once, to say hi to. In town. I've hoped to get by for a chat and a beer, but it's a busy season. I'm not out here much. You a friend?”

“I know his former wife,” I said and let it go at that; I didn't see a point in broadcasting my business too widely yet. “Was he with anyone when you saw him?”

“I thought so, but I'm not sure.”

“Do you recall what day that was?”

Rand removed his sunglasses and let them dangle on a neck strap. His eyes were bright and blue, nested under thick eyebrows. “It must've been the day he arrived. Saturday, I think, yes. Are you staying in town?”

“No, I just stopped by to see if he was here.” I didn't know if Rand had spotted the police cruiser out front.

“Well, if you see Ben, you give him my best â¦ Alex, right? I may get by for that beer yet.” He tipped an imaginary hat. “And you enjoy your visit.” He put on his sunglasses and set off down the beach with a perky stride.

I went around to the street side where Officer Ferry was standing by his car, his face tipped toward the sun. People here seemed to use the sun like a battery, to recharge themselves. “Any luck?” he asked.

“Just trying to get the lay of things.”

I copied the real estate agency's name into my notebook and then wrote, “Please call me” on the back of one of my cards and pushed it under the front door. When we were in the car, I said, “I ran into a fellow on the beach. Ted Rand?”

“Ah, right. He owns one of the houses along here. Mr. Rand's a big wheel in Standish. Awfully nice fellow.”

Back in the center, Ferry dropped me at my car. “Good luck, sir,” he called. Perhaps it was my imagination, but as he rolled off, I thought he was memorizing me in his rearview mirrorâmaybe to run in his database.

I checked the local phone book on the chance that Nickerson had family in the area, but there were no listings. I tried directory assistance and learned the same thing. I walked over to the waterfront. By asking, I learned there were two local shops that ran fishing charters for day parties and a third place that rented boats. I checked all three, showing the more recent of the two photographs Paula Jensen had lent me. No one knew or had seen Ben and Michelle Nickerson. I picked up a copy of the local paper, a weekly with yesterday's date, and paged through it while I sat on a bench overlooking the harbor. I learned that there was a franks 'n' bean supper planned for the upcoming Saturday night, that the Masque Players
were performing
Spoon River Anthology
at the Unitarian church parish hall and that Annabelle Potter was recovering nicely, thank you, after an emergency appendectomy. The big story was that the Point Pines eighteen-hole golf course and luxury homes development was on schedule. My last stop was the real estate office.

A suntanned man in a madras plaid sports coat and an elaborate comb-over was talking on the phone. He glanced up as I entered. “You're kidding,” he said quietly, eyeing me without acknowledgment before going back into his dimension. “You are kidding.” It was his part in the conversation, every ten seconds or so. I looked around.

The walls displayed photos of local sale properties. The lowest home price I could see was close to half a million dollars, and not much house at that. On a table along one wall was a scale model of the development project that I'd just read about, Point Pines. It ran along an outlying neck of ocean-front land. For the houses directly on either the ocean or the golf greens, the price tags had plenty of zeroes. It didn't seem hard for a realtor with hustle to make the Zillion Dollar Club in this town.

“You're kidding,” the man in plaid said again. Finally he got to say, “That crumb. Well, let me know.” He unglued the phone from his ear and hung up. He shook his head a moment, then looked my way. “Help you?”

“I'm interested in a rental place out at Cliff Beach.”

“For next year?” He fingered his scalp gingerly, checking on his carefully lacquered do, and walked over.

“I want to talk about this year.”

He drew air through his teeth. “Whoo. You're kind of late. Everything's long booked. Occasionally there's a cancellation, but I wouldn't count on it. You could try the old Cape Way Motor Lodge just outside of town. They usually have vacancies, if you don't mind Spartan.”

The phone rang, and he excused himself to get it. When he came back, I said, “Actually, I'm interested in one of the houses that's already been rented. Ben Nickerson and his daughter are staying there.”

The names didn't shake loose any memories. I told him where
the house was, and he nodded. I showed him the photographs of Michelle Nickerson. He said he was sorry but he hadn't dealt with that rental. The telephone interrupted us again. Why is it they never answer the phone till you go there in person, and then they don't
stop
answering? He returned with his undivided attention. “Rentals, you were saying. Mitzi Dineen is the one to talk to. She's our rental superstar.”

“Is she in?”

He squinted toward a magnetic board beyond the desks, where little metal squares bore people's namesâMegan, Mitzi, Rosemary and Andyâand an hour-by-hour time line on one side. Using my detecting skills I judged this fellow to be Andy. Bingo. “Andy Royce,” he revealed. “Commercial solutions are my bailiwick. Mitzi's out with a client now, due back at three-thirty. Can I have her call you?”

“I'll try again.” I took a card and thanked him. I gestured toward the scale-model homes on the golf course. “That's quite an operation.”

“Right out on Shawmut Point. Phase-one homes are due for completion in a few weeks,” he said politely. Having sized me up already, he didn't waste his time trying to pitch a sale. “Have a splendid day.”

It was going on 6 P.M. when I got back to Apple Valley and shook the traffic tension from my limbs. I found Paula Jensen on her patio again, grilling a medley of summer vegetables this time. Her light brown hair was combed out now, hanging full to her shoulders. Her surface was backyard casual, but her movements were tense, and I sensed she was holding on, damming back her anxieties about her daughter. She was glad to see me. I filled her in on what I'd learned.

“It's true,” she admitted. “Chief Delcastro did say I could fill out a missing persons report, but he certainly didn't encourage it. He said not much time has gone by and that since there's no reason to think Michelle was abducted, it made sense to wait. I think he's convinced I'm overreacting. Maybe I am. She's under no requirement to check in with me every day. Still â¦”

“Delcastro said your ex had a scrape down there when he was growing up.”

She frowned. “Ben did?”

“That's what he said. Trespassing.”

“I never heard anything about that.”

What had Delcastro called Nickerson? Brain Boy? “Has your ex-husband been in any trouble lately? Or ever?”

“Trouble? No.” She sounded slightly defensive, as if she took it as an attack on her taste in menâor maybe it made her that much more edgy about her daughter's absence. “What kind of trouble?”

“Any kind. I'm just fishing.”

“No. He's a respectable businessman.”

“I thought he was a biologist?”

“That's the business. He supplies marine specimens to research labs. I helped him get it started, back when we were married. He's built it up over the years. He's got clients across the country.”

“When is your daughter due back officially?”

“So you're taking the police chief's view?”

“I'm casting my bread upon the waters. It's supposed to be why you hired me.”

She sighed. “Sorry. Shel is due back Saturday. I hoped she'd have called today. I did try her several times while you were gone. Though, to tell you the truth, I'm feeling a bit relieved. At least there isn't some obvious problem, or you'd have heard. Wouldn't you?”

“It is a pretty small town.”

“I'm still hoping this is just a dumb mix-up. I pray it is.”

We went into the kitchen, where she poured us some lemonade into tall glasses. A salmon steak was marinating in a dish on the center island. I wondered if her husband was still at the Sox game. I'd caught a couple of innings on my way back, until the roof dropped on the starter and they were burning through their bullpen almost as fast as the government was using up Social Security. I sat on a stool. “How did you and your ex meet?” I asked.

“I was a college sophomore at the time, undecided about a major, though I was considering nursing. In my family, you became a teacher, a nurse, or a nun. Nun was out.” She grinned and promptly blushed. “I was taking a bio course to fulfill a requirement. One day the instructor crammed the class into cars for a field trip. Groan. My idea of wildlife was âWhere's the party?' I rode in this old van with the lab assistant, but when we got there, a marsh someplace north of Boston, and he had waded into it, his excitement was so â¦ out there. He was like a kid sharing his birthday toys. I actually got
enthusiastic about bio. At semester's end I'd earned a decent grade and got a request from the lab assistant for a date.”

“Ben?”

“Yep. And I accepted.”

“Romantic.”

“Unmitigated disaster. He spilled popcorn, tried the whole movie to inch his hand around my shoulders. He never quite made it before a wicked attack of pins and needles felled him. When he finally dropped me at the dorm, I think we were both relieved. But I liked him. He was shy, and good-looking in this sort of intent, brooding way. So I took a chance, and next time I saw him I said, âTake me to the salt marsh.' He did. He'd brought an extra pair of hip boots and a net. He pointed out things I'd never even thought about. Like how, in an ecosystem, everything there has a purpose. And he knew all the Latin names.
Echinoderms, Mollusca
â¦ I still remember. The date was as wonderful as the movie date had been bad.”

“That line really worked, huh? âTake me to the marsh.' I'll have to try it. And brush up on my Latin. Would you say âcrustaceans' or
âcrustacea'
?”

Smiling, Paula Jensen slid onto a stool across from me. “I think the hip boots were a nice touch,” she said.

“Most guys try to make do with rubbers.”

We laughed, with the result of her relaxing a little. I did, too. She poured more lemonade for us. “Later Ben got a teaching fellowship at Scripps, so we got married and went to San Diego together. I was twenty-one. I taught third grade, and he did research and taught. Eventually, he started his business and got away from teaching. There were hassles with the business, but it got off the groundâthat's what he does nowâand then Michelle came along, and we were a family.”

It sounded nice in her telling. “What happened?” I asked.

She smiled, a trifle sadly. “I don't know. When things are going good, people sometimes do things to mess it all up for themselves. Does that make sense?”

“I'm widely known for it.”

She gave me a look, and I had an idea she wanted me to go on. I might have said that she could ask Lauren, who was living in Florida at last check. I didn't. “As the business grew successful,” she resumed, “the moneyâwhich is something neither of us had ever hadâbecame important to Ben. He liked fancy things. Clothes, a sailboat, nice vacation trips. But none of it seemed to make him very happy. I think he should've gone back to teaching. That's where he was most truly alive. I still think of that man wading in the salt marsh.” She stopped, and I saw her eyes were shiny. We drank lemonade in silence.

On the corner a stubby green-and-white school bus, with CAMP ESTES lettered on the side in red, drew to curb and began popping out small kids like a gaudy reptile giving birth. “Katie's home,” Paula said, peering out the window. “They went hiking today.” In a moment, one of the kids came dashing across the lawn toward the house, two long sandy-blonde pigtails flying from the back of a blue baseball cap. Paula hesitated and added, “I haven't told her anything about hiring you.”

“Hi, Mom.” Kate Jensen slung a daypack onto a counter stool and gave her mother a brief hug. She was a freckled string bean with the decided look of a kid who could outrun most of the boys in her classâand in a few years would have to. Her legs were tanned, her shorts and T-shirt grass-stained. She favored her mother in the bonny blue eyes and full-mouth department.

“Hi, Bug. How was camp?”

“Great. Dad home yet?”

“Not yet. He went to the Red Sox game.”

“Good.”

“This is Mr. Rasmussen.”

The girl gave me a fleeting Harriet the Spy glance, and I had the feeling she digested me, from my dusty brogues to the loose knot of the tie in my damp shirt collar. “When he does get home,” she said, “I hope he's got over being pissed.”

“What did I tell you about your language?”

“I know. But did he call you about the juice I spilled on the way to camp this morning? That little cup-holder thingy in his car is majorly messed up. I tried to put the juice box in it, but it tipped.
I thought he was gonna barf bricks. He said the thing was ergonomically designed and I'd neutralized it. I told him car engineers aren't eight-year-olds. Is there any more lemonade?”

When Kate Jensen had poured herself some and gone out to change clothes, her mother shot me a look of frustration and pride. “Ergonomically designed?” I said. “Don't ask me to spell it.”

Paula smiled. “She's a reader, devours books. She calls them word sandwiches.”

“That's a healthy diet.”

She took our empty glasses to the sink, businesslike now. I pulled out my notebook. “Is there anything else I should know about your ex?”

She considered this a moment. “Ben used to talk about coming back east and buying a place on the Cape. The business was doing okay â¦ but
we
weren't. Maybe the idea of returning here was one of those last-ditch efforts you make to try to fend off the inevitable. You know how people do. Anyhow, we never made it. We both wanted what's best for Michelle, so neither of us made a battle over custody in the divorce. We share it.”

“What brought him back this time?”

“A chance to introduce Shel to his past, I think â¦ his hometown. He wants her to know her roots. In some ways, he's never let go of the idea of coming back. He subscribes to the Standish weekly paper, has it mailed to him in California.”

Beyond the picture window I saw a dark blue Audi sedan wheel into the driveway. “Here's Ross,” Paula said, rising. I got up, too. “We talked on the phone again, and I did tell him I'd retained you.”

Good. I didn't like surprises. At the door, a tall man in a gray suit set aside his briefcase and bent and pecked his wife's cheek. Ross Jensen was athletic-looking and handsome. His tie, like mine, was loose, but his shirt collar wasn't wilted, nor his suit rumpledâmine would need Botox injections to get the wrinkles out. “How was the game?” his wife asked.

“They got shelled. I left after the stretch.” He glanced past her. “Whose car is that in the driveway?”

I was standing in the living room. I raised my hand and pled no contest.
“Ross, this is Mr. Rasmussen.”

“Oh, yeah.” He glanced my way. “It doesn't leak oil, does it? I just had the driveway seal-coated.”

Certainly no one was making a fuss over me. “Not to worry,” I said. “It
burns
every drop of oil it can get.”

He gave it what it deserved. “I'll be with you in a few minutes.”

The Jensens excused themselves and went into another part of the house. I wandered through the kitchen entrance to the garage. Katie was there, listening to a Discman through headphones and trying to tighten the kickstand of her bicycle. She wasn't having much luck with a pair of pliers. I got her attention, and she lowered the headphones around her neck. I showed her that a better approach was to turn the bike upside down, which we did. On the workbench, I found a can of WD-40 and a Crescent wrench. I sprayed the kickstand fastener and let her adjust the wrench. She applied it to the nut, and with a twist it came loose. “Cool,” she said.

“What are you listening to?”

“A CD.”

“Satan Bugg?”

She made a face. “They blow chunks.”

“Does your sister know you think that?”

She ventured a small grin. “I tell her, but she'll just have to outgrow them on her own. I'm listening to an audio book.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
.”

“Have you read all the
Chronicles
?”

She shrugged. “Three times.” She looked at me. “Are you supposed to find Shel?” At my surprised expression, she said, “Mom found you in the phone book. She left it open on the counter with your name circled.”

So much for keeping family secrets. “That's the general idea,” I admitted.

“And what'll you do? Bring her back here?”

“She lives here, no?”

“Shel should stay where she is.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“
Wherever,
I mean. She ought to stay there. Maybe she'll get a better deal than she gets here.”

Moving with care, I set the bike back on its wheels. With equal care, I said, “She doesn't get a good deal here?”

Katie regarded me as if the question was stupid. “No, it's just thatâ”

Ross Jensen appeared. He had changed into chinos and a green V-neck sweater with a local country club's name monogrammed in gold on the right chest. He gave me a look and scrubbed Jenny's head. “I'll play with you in a little while, Champ. Get yourself some lemonade.”

“I already had some. I want to have a stand and make a sign and sell lemonade. Can I?”

“No one will stop. People are on their way home now.”

“Tomorrow, then. If it's a really hot day?”

“You've got camp.”

“I could skip one time.”

“People are too busy for lemonade stands. Besides, how much would you sell it for?”

“I don't know. Ten cents a cup. No, twenty-five.”

“You'd lose your shirt. You need to think about it. Put together a business plan and we'll talk further. Maybe next weekend.”

She brightened. “I can do it?”