Mudlark (6 page)

We had got to bed around two. I lay for a while beside my warm husband hoping I'd fall back asleep,
but it was far too late. I'm usually up by six-thirty. I rose, showered, and pulled on jeans and a thick plush top. I had
not yet reached the point of wanting to go for a run in a downpour.

Freddy had finished the printout. It lay in a neat stack on the kitchen table.

Human nature is very weak. I started a pot of coffee brewing and went back to the sheaf of papers. I
read a couple of paragraphs, enough to realize I was looking at a story that was already well under way, before
conscience smote me. I had never known a writer of fiction but I knew poets. They did not like to have people read
their manuscripts until they were ready for criticism. Never, in some cases.

I riffled absently through the sheets of paper until I became aware that I was no longer looking at pages
of manuscript but at personal correspondence. Cheeks burning, I let the papers flop into place and squared the
stack. It is one thing to peek at someone's manuscript, another to read a stranger's mail.

The coffee pot was burping away. I stepped back into the kitchen and began mixing pancake batter by
way of atonement. The letter I had focused on was addressed to the state historical society. At least I hadn't
intruded on anything very private. I shoved the batter aside and got out a bottle of maple syrup. I was setting it in a
pan of hot water when the front door opened on a gust. The draft rattled every door in the house.

The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Jay was asleep. I had heard Freddy snoring. I went into the
hall. Tom Lindquist was closing the front door. He wore a yellow rain slicker and carried a bundle under his left
arm. When he turned he saw me and stopped.

"Good morning."

"I went for a walk."

"So I see. Nice day for it."

He made a face. "Rotten. There's a guard on my house. The deputy let me get my wallet, though. And
some clothes."

"Couldn't sleep?"

"I slept like the dead until seven-thirty." He came toward me, and I could see that his hair and face were
soaked.

"So you took a little stroll in the rain. Good idea."

"I had a lot to think over."

I took the damp bundle from him. It reeked of smoke. "Phew! I'll put these in the washer for you."

"Thanks."

"You can hang your slicker on that coat tree by the hall closet. Coffee's made." I headed straight back to
the utility room and loaded the colored things--mostly well-worn jeans and sweat shirts--into the washer. When I
returned to the kitchen he was sitting at the table staring in a dazed way at the printout. I poured him a cup of
coffee. "I told you Freddy was good with computers."

He took the coffee and said nothing.

"Is it all right?"

"Yes. I saved it--"

"Drink your coffee, Tom. And make the cops give you your computer. If anybody can get it working
again, Freddy can."

His eyes were closed. "I'm beginning to believe it. I thought--" He didn't finish the sentence.

"I'm taking breakfast orders," I said brightly. "Pancakes or pancakes?"

After a moment he blinked and smiled at me. "I guess I'll have pancakes." He shoved a hand through his
wet hair. "I hope I didn't startle you. I was trying to be quiet but the door got away from me."

"It's windy." I poured another neat pancake. Bubbles formed on the surface. I poured another. I had
flipped that batch over when the doorbell rang. "Damn."

"I'll get it."

"Will you? Thanks."

He was already at the door to the hall. "It's probably the insurance investigator. I told the deputy where
I was staying."

I slid the pancakes from the griddle to a plate in my nice warming oven. I could hear a woman's voice
from the hall--agitated. It sounded like Bonnie. For a stiff moment I willed her to go away. Then the kitchen door
opened again, and Bonnie burst in.

"My house has been trashed."

"Oh, Bonnie. Have some coffee." I poured a cup.

She took it, but her hands were shaking. "I can't find Gibson anywhere."

"That's your cat?"

"Y-yes." Her mouth was trembling.

I poured myself a cup. "More, Tom?"

Lindquist got his cup, and I warmed it. He said, "Is anything missing other than the cat?"

Bonnie sat. "I don't know!" Her voice rose to a wail. "I stayed in Astoria last night and got up early.
When I reached the house half an hour ago, the front door was ajar. And Gibson's gone."

I indicated the telephone extension on the wall between the kitchen and nook. "Better report it to
Deputy Nelson. Tom had a fire last evening--"

"Oh, no. How awful! You didn't lose--"

"It's too early to tell." Tom sat back down by the plate of pancakes I had served him. "The power's still
out." He poured syrup and glanced up at me. "Do you want a dozen or so thawed crabs?"

"But surely an electrician--"

"It's a crime scene. I have the feeling I'm about to become the neighborhood food bank. Unless the crabs
are evidence." He drank coffee. "Come over to the house with me, Bonnie. You can report your break-in to the
deputy on guard duty. He's an auxiliary and looks just about bright enough to tie his shoes, but he can call it in for
you."

She nodded miserably and drank her coffee. He cut his pancakes into methodical squares and began
eating.

I poured more batter. "When did you leave for Astoria, Bonnie?"

"I dunno. Four-thirty? I was going to nap but I kept thinking about things, so I threw a suitcase in the
car and f-fed the cat and just left. I stayed at the Red Lion."

"Jay and I were out on the balcony most of the evening. We didn't see anyone at your place. I
know--Matt Cramer." Matt might have seen something. I told them about him waiting for me by the driveway. I checked
my watch. It was half past nine. Lottie would have eaten breakfast and be sitting at her station in front of the
window. I dialed Matt's number. When his answering machine clicked on, I left a message for him to call me
back.

At that point Jay stumbled down and had to be introduced to Bonnie. He still doesn't drink coffee, so I
brewed his herb tea while the others explained the break-in. Outside, the wind was slamming rain at the windows
straight off the ocean. When the storm passed there would be a scum of salt on the south-facing glass.

Jay was late for a committee meeting, a fact that didn't seem to depress him. He called in Bonnie's
incident and ate breakfast. I kept grilling pancakes while the others talked. At ten the doorbell rang again. Deputy
Nelson and the insurance adjustor stood on the rain-swept porch. That took a while to sort out, and I poured more
coffee. I also tossed Tom's jeans into the dryer and started the other batch of laundry, mostly underwear and
cotton sweat socks. Jay left for the college, Bonnie and Nelson went across the street, and Tom took the adjustor off
into the gale. Freddy was still asleep. Just a simple morning
chez
Dodge. Matt Cramer didn't call.

After a while I decided to do a little investigation of my own. I put on nylon rain gear and ventured out.
A blast of cool water hit me in the face. The wind was blowing from the south at what felt like forty miles an hour
and was probably twenty-five. I leaned into it and made my way to the door of the super-deluxe double-width
mobile home the Cramers lived in. Our house faced west, but theirs, on a wide curve of the road, looked due south,
down the beach. I could hear the doorbell ringing, but nobody answered. I peered into the front window. There was
no sign of Lottie and that worried me. Her routine hadn't varied since we moved in. Matt's Pontiac was missing
from the car port.

I stood for an irresolute moment in the Cramers' driveway. The county car was still sitting behind
Bonnie's little red Escort. She would need neighborly consolation but not yet. A gust slapped my face with a pint of
salty rainwater, so I turned my back on the wind and started to go home. Then I remembered Ruth Adams. I'd
promised to help her with the mucking out, whatever that might entail.

She was standing on Tom's porch waiting for me. "Took you long enough."

I apologized. Through the window I could see Tom talking with the adjustor. They were inspecting the
smoke-blackened kitchen.

Ruth opened the door. "Tom wants us to get rid of the stuff in the freezer."

"Throw it out?"

"Lordy, no. No point wasting good food. Can you drive a pickup?"

I followed her into the kitchen, which smelled even worse than the clean clothes I had laundered for
Tom. The men had moved through the arch into the living room. The whole north end of the kitchen was a charred
mess. I could see daylight through the eaves. "What's this about a pickup?"

"I can't drive no more. Eyesight's going. We got to haul all that food around. Tom said we might as well
use the truck."

"Oh." I'd never driven a pickup, but Jay had owned a Blazer when we first met. "Sure. Is there a lot of
stuff?" I had thought Tom was joking when he offered me the thawed crabs.

"Plenty." Ruth, whose workaday sweat suit was more utilitarian than the embossed pansies of the night
before, led me into a small square pantry. The tiny room was actually the north end of the porch, enclosed as an
afterthought, and it had suffered heavy damage. The door led from the kitchen. The room stank of smoke, the walls
were blackened, a corner of the roof was missing, and both small windows had been broken, either by heat or by
the actions of the fire crew.

The shelves were lined with discarded appliances and empty fruit jars, and an old-fashioned chest-style
freezer squatted beneath one small, high window. The surface of the freezer was black with smoke stain and soot.
Ruth dusted it with a rag.

She had also brought a neat stack of paper grocery bags. "I guess we can use these. Better double-sack."
She began thrusting one bag inside another.

I picked up two bags and followed suit, less skillfully. "Where do we take the food?"

"Well, let's see, there's the Gundersons and old Pat Ryan--" She reeled off half a dozen names I didn't
recognize.

"You have a freezer?"

"Uh, gosh, yes. I don't use it much. There are a few TV dinners and some extra ice in it. I can store
anything that hasn't melted yet."

She inserted another bag and snapped the double sack open, setting it on a low table beside the freezer.
"That's good. The stuff in the bottom's probably okay. Still, it got pretty hot in here. The lid was open a good twelve,
fourteen hours, Tom said. Fireman must've popped it. It's too late to save the vegetables."

"Can't they be refrozen?"

She made a face. "Ruins the taste." She unlatched the lid and lifted it, grunting. The chest was almost full
of plastic bags, all neatly labeled. Apart from one limp carton of Raspberry Swirl ice cream I saw no commercial
packaging. The garden was apparently bountiful. The idea of Tom blanching kettles full of veggies in his country
kitchen ought to have been comic but wasn't.

I poked at a sack of green beans. The top layer of food had indeed thawed. "How are we going to decide
who gets what?"

She flitted from the pantry and returned with a couple of dish towels. "Better swab off the melted
ice."

I took a towel and repeated my question.

Ruth shrugged. "You take what you want. I'll take what I want. You put the stuff that's still frozen in
your freezer. Then we can let folks take their pick of what's left. Look at them huckleberries. Darned if I don't think
I'll bake me a pie. I do like huckleberry pie." From the gleam in her eyes I gathered huckleberries were a rare treat
for her. I had once seen a punnet of huckleberries at an upscale food mart in San Francisco with a price that made
my eyes whirl in their sockets.

We mopped wet plastic, and stuffed the bags--of peas, beans, broccoli, baby carrots, blackberries--into
our double grocery sacks. The bags contained far too much for one person to eat at a sitting. When I said so, Ruth
explained the technique of freezing each piece separately on a cookie sheet and filling a large bag from which the
cook could pour a single portion.

"Twist the tie and pop the bag right back in the freezer," she said cheerfully. "Big sack of corn lasts me
all week. Maddy--that was Tom's grandma--used to freeze huckleberries and blackberries in a pie tin so they was
already the right shape for a pie. She'd just pull a slab of berries from the bag, slap it in the crust, pour on the sugar
and whatnot, and bake it. Maddy made real good pies." She bent over the freezer and prodded a bag of yellowish
blobs. "Razor clams. They're about half-thawed, darn it. You make clam fritters?"

"Uh, no. I once made chowder." Not a success story.

"With razor clams?" She sounded appalled.

"Just the regular canned kind."

"Well, that's all right. You can chop up your geoducks for chowder too--they ain't much good for
anything else--but a razor clam, now, that's prime eating. Dust it with a little flour and fry it in butter, or whip up a
batch of fritters."

"Maybe you'd better give the clams to somebody who's used to them. I'm from California,
remember?"

"It don't show." She smiled. "Okay, we'll give the clams away. It's almost time for the fall season
anyhow. You should try 'em fresh first time around. How about crabs?"

I was swabbing clam packets. "Are they cooked?"

"Lord, yes."

"Then I'll take half a dozen. I can feed Tom crab for dinner tonight." Six crabs. I could ask Bonnie to
dinner, too.

"Good idea. You'll have to back 'em, of course."

"Of course." I had no idea what she was talking about. The Dungeness crab I had eaten at restaurants
had come atop a bed of lettuce or swimming in some exotic sauce. It was shellfish to die for. If I had to back the
crabs I'd back them.

Ruth hauled the crabs out, one by one. They had been frozen in brine, one to a bag, and there must have
been a dozen. They were indeed thawing. In California shelled crab meat had sold for fifteen dollars a pound that
spring. Ruth was mining gold.