Mudlark (9 page)

Ruth had a very soft heart. She must have baked two pies. I took the glass pie plate from Bonnie and set
it on the table in the nook. The plate was still warm and the pie smelled almost as good as my soup. Gourmet
dinners were easy.

I introduced Darla to Bonnie, and the two women shook hands. Tom said hello and went on backing
crab with professional deftness. I got Bonnie a glass of wine.

"The soup smells great."

"It will be magnificent. Do we need to crack those, Tom?" I got down a platter of the sort turkeys repose
on at Christmas.

"It's a friendly gesture."

"What with?"

"A nut cracker will do the job, or a hammer, or pliers."

"Or a monkey wrench?"

"You have the idea."

I found my nut cracker and handed it to him. "It's a good thing they didn't toss you in the pokey.
Horrors, the veggies!" I had forgot to add vegetables to my creation. Without them, vegetable soup would have
seemed a little odd. I pulled the sacks from the refrigerator. Since I took only a handful of stuff from each of four
bags there were a lot of vegetables left. Tom told me to put them in the freezer.

"But Ruth said that ruins the flavor."

He cracked the last heavy claw of the sixth crab and set it on the platter with its fellows. "Ruth's a
purist. They'll taste okay in soup."

I loaded Bonnie and Darla with plates, bowls, and silverware and sent them off to the dining room.
Then I told Tom about our food distribution system. He rummaged in the refrigerator for the ingredients of a dill
tartar sauce he said would go well with crab and listened without comment. I was still worried about the Johnson
woman.

"She'll get by." He mixed mayonnaise and plain yogurt, and chopped up a dill pickle.

"Ruth said that, but--"

"You can't change the universe, Lark. Mel doesn't know you, and she'd probably resent what she'd think
was nosiness. I'll drive over tomorrow and see if she needs to go into town."

"She said her mother was coming."

"That's good."

"How do you know all those people?"

"I worked with Kevin Johnson off and on. Mostly I bump into people on the beach or in Shoalwater. It's
a small place, and I've been back five years now." He smiled. "And I'm related to half the old-timers on the
peninsula."

I took out baguettes and butter. There was blackberry jam, too, so I spooned some of that into a bowl,
though jam was probably redundant. "That may be true, but only one of the people I talked to seemed to know
you're a published author."

He shrugged. "They're not great readers, and my first book sank without a trace."

"No, it didn't. I read it and so did Jay."

He had picked up the platter of crabs. He stared at me over the cracked carcasses. "
Starvation
Hill
?"

"That's the one. It's a splendid novel."

He flushed. "I spent a lot of time on the research."

Jay stuck his head in. "Oh, good, you're almost ready. The table's set. I put your scrapers and chisels and
so on in the living room, Lark."

"Shucks," I said crossly. "I was going to use them to make a centerpiece."

The meal was a triumph, though I forgot the grated parmesan. Darla was kind to Freddy and was
clearly moved by his efforts to rescue Tom's computer. Jay ate two bowls of soup. So did Tom, while Darla
explained that she was a member of the Nekana tribal council and that her father, uncles, and two brothers were
fishermen.

Bonnie listened respectfully and shelled her crab. Then she segued smoothly from a discussion of the
politics of salmon fishing to a comic account of her own family's preoccupation with fish. Before he retired to
Arizona, her father had been an avid deep-sea fisherman. Over her mother's protests, he had mounted a stuffed
tarpon on the living-room wall. "Not for nothing am I called Bonita," she concluded, straight-faced.

When the laughter subsided, Tom asked whether she had a brother named Marlon. We might have
degenerated into real silliness had the telephone not rung. I answered it in the kitchen. It was Matt Cramer. He said
Lottie was in the hospital. The doctors thought she had suffered another stroke.

I listened to Matt for quite a while. I think talking helped him. There was a possibility that Lottie would
have to go into a nursing home, and Matt was resisting the idea fiercely. He could take care of her, he said several
times. She would hate a nursing home. She wanted to sit in her own living room and watch the ocean. That was
true and so sad my eyes teared. I said something inadequate and reached for the Kleenex box.

Jay came in with the crab platter as I was wiping my eyes. "What's the matter?"

I covered the mouthpiece and explained.

"That's bad news. Give him my sympathies." Jay shook his head. "What do you want to do with the
leftover crab?"

"Refrigerator." I said into the receiver, "I beg your pardon, Matt. Jay distracted me. What did you
say?"

He replied, rather plaintively, that I had asked him to call.

For a moment I couldn't remember why. "Oh, the break-in." I explained what had happened and asked
if he'd noticed anything, but he was so preoccupied with Lottie's condition he couldn't remember. He said he'd
think about it and hung up.

By then my guests were clearing the table and shuttling dirty dishes into the kitchen. Ruth's pie, to
which I added the option of vanilla ice cream, made a big hit. Darla explained the secrecy that shrouded her
family's source of huckleberries. I hadn't realized they were a wild fruit. No wonder they cost a bundle.

Tom said, "Those are LaPorte huckleberries."

Darla flushed. "Yes, I meant Grandma's patch, not the Sweets'. Mom and my sister know where it is, but
I was away at college before Grandma would take Mom and Ella to it. Grandma says there are black bears out there,
but Ella didn't see any sign. Maybe I'll go picking with them next year."

Tom waved a fork. "If the bears let you."

Darla made a face at him. Freddy looked from her to Tom and back with something like wonder. It had
probably never occurred to him to tease Darla.

When the pie had vanished, Freddy raised the question of the computer. He wanted to start working on
it right away.

Tom raised his eyebrows. "Tonight?"

"Sure. Right now."

"Okay--after the dishes are done."

Freddy groaned.

I said magnanimously, "That's all right, Tom. Jay will do the dishes."

Bonnie said, "You wash, Jay. I'll dry." And they did.

Darla went with Tom and Freddy, and I shelled the uneaten crab, of which, owing to the popularity of
my soup, there was plenty. A whole crab is a lot of crab. I wondered if crab soufflé was hard to make.

The computer crew had taken the components of Tom's system upstairs to the extra bedroom when the
phone rang again. It was the insurance adjustor, and he wanted to talk to Tom.

I went up and led Tom to the telephone in the master bedroom so he could have a little privacy. Darla
and Freddy were deep in technical conversation over the bones of the computer. I left them to it and went back
downstairs.

Jay and Bonnie had finished the dishes, so I brewed more coffee and made Jay a pot of herb tea. We took
our mugs to the breakfast nook. The storm was easing. I could see a light at the Cramers'. Poor Matt had to be near
distraction.

Jay said he'd drop by the hospital the next morning with flowers. Lottie liked flowers. Jay had one more
committee meeting. Then he was free until after the holiday. I told him he could rip out the living room carpet.

"Thanks a lot." He smoothed his mustache. "I'd almost rather go talk to the sheriff."

Bonnie was watching us with the interest unmarried people sometimes show in spousal
exchanges.

I stirred my coffee. "Do you have to help with the investigation?"

"Only if I want the largest department in the area to feed students into my training program." His eyes
narrowed. "What's the matter, Lark?"

"Conflict of interest?"

"You mean prejudice. I doubt that my advice on the preservation of physical evidence can be twisted
one way or the other. If he's guilty, he's guilty. I don't think he set the fire."

Bonnie was fiddling with her glasses. "Tom didn't kill anyone."

Jay opened his mouth.

I jumped in. "If you say 'anybody can kill' one more time, James Dodge, I'm going to be seriously
bored."

Jay smiled. "Lark's dangerous when she's bored, Bonnie. I think it would take a lot to make Tom kill, but
I don't know who the other suspects are, so I'm not making judgments."

"I am. He didn't do it." Bonnie shoved her glasses on. "I guess we'll just have to find a fall guy. How
about Darla?"

"No motive," I said regretfully.

Footsteps sounded in the hall and the door opened. It was Tom. Bonnie blushed. I waved a hand at the
coffee maker. "Help yourself."

He poured a mug. "They found a witness."

Jay sat up straight. "Somebody saw the arsonists?"

"No. The woman in the mobile home north of me heard the vehicle driving away, though. Thought it
was teenagers. When she looked out her window the house was on fire. She saw me come out and grab the
hose."

Jay shoved a chair out for him and scooted his own closer to mine. "That's great. It's a shame that fire
truck came up the beach approach. It obscured the tread marks."

Tom was staring out the kitchen window into the dark, mug in hand. The rain had stopped but it was
still overcast and windy. After a moment he sighed and came into the nook. "I suppose that's why they blocked the
approach last night--to look for tread marks. The adjustor says the electrician can come in the morning."

"That's a relief. Ruth and I will help."

Tom took the chair and smiled at me. "I appreciate the offer, Lark, but I'm going to have to hire a crew
anyway--carpenters and painters and so on." He looked down at the mug. "The adjustor said he'd put me up at a
motel, too, so you can get back to normal tomorrow. I'm grateful for all your help."

"Which motel?"

"The one in Shoalwater."

"Then you can forget it until after Labor Day."

He looked at me, frowning a little.

"Even if they have a room available it'll be no place for a writer this weekend. Roomsful of kids
shrieking and running in and out all day. Teenagers with boom boxes vibrating the walls all night. I think you'd
better stay here."

"I can't just move in on you--"

Jay said, "It's not a problem, Tom. The house is huge."

After a long moment, Tom nodded. "If it won't inconvenience you."

I said, "Freddy will have hundreds of questions for you."

"If you're sure--" Tom cleared his throat. "Thanks."

Jay turned to Bonnie, smiling. "We can put you up, too. We haven't had a full report on your damage
yet."

Bonnie beamed at him. "I feel a lot better just knowing you guys are across the street, but I think I ought
to stay with Gibson. He wasn't used to the place, and now he's really twitchy. And one advantage of not having a
huge house is that it doesn't take long to clean. I already cleared a path to my bed."

"Will you feel safe?" I felt a little guilty that I hadn't I made the offer.

"Probably not, but I didn't feel safe in Santa Monica either. Feeling safe is a luxury."

"That's a hell of a note." Tom set his mug down. "Did they mess with your computer?"

Bonnie shook her head. "I haven't bought one yet. I decided to wait until I'd unpacked everything.
There's not much room in the cottage, and my old machine took up a lot of space."

"You could get a laptop," Tom suggested.

"That's an idea."

We talked computer for a while. It was a good thing Freddy was still upstairs. He had grandiose notions.
After ten minutes or so Darla drifted down. She said Freddy had promised to drive her home in half an hour.

Darla wanted to talk about the murder. Tom didn't. When she probed he evaded. There were
undercurrents in the conversation I could sense but not analyze. It was clear that Darla had disliked Cleo Hagen, or
perhaps she just disliked what the dead woman had represented. The resort, on the literal level; on another, an
alien style of living.

After a while Tom said, rather wearily, "Cleo or no Cleo, the resort will be built. They've broken
ground."

Darla looked mysterious. "Legal questions will be raised after Labor Day."

Tom snorted. "I suppose the tribal council's going to file an injunction."

Darla scowled at him. "Why not? It's Nekana land."

Tom looked at her over the rim of his coffee cup. "So's the McKay place. Are you going to sue me,
too?"

"Your title's clear." She raised her chin. "Chief Nisqua deeded your land to Captain McKay."

"Yeah--in exchange for what? Blankets?"

"It was a recorded transaction."

Tom leaned toward her. "Be real, Darla. Captain McKay was a scoundrel, and I have my doubts about
old Nisqua. After all, the land belonged to nobody or to the Great Spirit or whatever, and it was the people's
territory, not Nisqua's. How could he sell it? It wasn't his."

Darla cocked her head. "You sound as if you want that abomination down the beach to go in."

"I don't. I'll have to look at it every day when I sit down at the computer. But at least the builders are
going to extend the sewer line. The worst pollution along this approach comes from septic tanks like the one under
my garden."

"Pollution's only one issue."

Tom sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Once you grant the idea of land ownership at all, you're
asking for large-scale litigation. The corporate big boys can beat you at that every time. It's their law, Darla."

Darla said intensely, "I can make the law work for us."

"Not yet, brat."

Jay had been sipping his tea and listening without expression. "The law's an ass."

Darla looked bewildered, but Tom laughed. He raised his mug in salute. "The first thing we do, let's kill
all the lawyers."