The Last Annual Slugfest (25 page)

I was tempted to turn north, to cut back through Henderson to the motel, but even in my rush, caution—or fear—won out. Henderson was where the sheriff was looking for me. If I intended to get to Genelle’s Family Cabins unnoticed, I would have to come from the other direction. I drove on, through Bodega, and Bodega Bay, past the fish ranch, quelling a spasm of panic as I spotted its lights, and turned east on River Road. It was close to four
A.M.
when I pulled up in front of Harry Bramwell’s cabin.

I glanced in the mirror, with the idea that perhaps I could do something to make myself look better. But the hours of clutching the steering wheel and squinting into the dark for slow-moving taillights or speeding sheriff’s cars hadn’t improved my appearance. My skin was jaundiced gray. There were dark circles under my eyes, and the eyes themselves were bloodshot. I looked like something any decent person would throw out.

I climbed down out of my truck, ran through the rain to the cabin, and knocked.

On the second knock, the door opened. Harry Bramwell stood in the doorway in a blue Japanese robe. His curly brown hair stood out from his head. His eyes were still half-closed. “It’s four o’clock in the morning!” He shut the door.

I pounded. “I know what time it is. I haven’t been to bed.”

There was no response. But there had been no sound of footsteps moving away from the door.

“It’s important. I wouldn’t be up at this hour if it weren’t. I wouldn’t wake you up. Just tell me one thing and I’ll leave you alone.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

He pulled open the door, looked me over, and shook his head. “Okay, what is it?”

“You told me Edwina said, ‘And Lyle protecting her!’ ”

“Right.”

“Could you have misheard her?”

“I don’t think—”

“Was it noisy in the shop? Was she muttering?”

He closed his eyes. They stayed closed so long I wondered if he had gone back to sleep standing up. Finally, he said, “She was very upset. I think I told you she had probably forgotten I was there. She was really talking to herself.”

“Could she have said, ‘And Leil protecting Bert!’?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

He started to close the door, then stopped, looked at me again, and sighed. “You’d better come in. You can tell me what you’ve been doing all night. You can even give me that explanation you promised me.”

I followed him in, took off my slicker, and slumped into one of the chairs. The room was still warm, but the heat didn’t penetrate my skin this time. I felt as icy as I had clambering out of the water on the fish ranch rocks.

Harry Bramwell lowered himself into the other chair. The blue of his robe set off the blue of his eyes. His curly brown hair was still rumpled from sleep, and his just-wakened face had an appealing softness. Here in the warm room, sitting in the padded chair, the tension that had kept me going faded. I stared blankly at Harry Bramwell. Despite his robe and the hour, he didn’t look very different than he had standing in Edwina Henderson’s driveway Friday afternoon. Then I had been rushing around, irritated about my Missed Meter and the prospect of justifying it to Mr. Bobbs. Part of my annoyance had been at the prospect of Mr. Bobbs being unreasonable. Part had been because the categorizing of Missed Meters was unreasonable in itself. What was an acceptable Missed Meter this year—an M-l, vicious dog—might not be next year. It was all decided when the union negotiated our contract. Maybe next year even a blocked road wouldn’t be reason enough.

“So?” Harry Bramwell demanded. “Have you dragged me out of bed just to sit here and stare?”

“I was thinking about seeing you yesterday, and my Missed Meter. Facts can appear entirely different depending on who is doing the interpreting.” I realized now that I had accepted Harry Bramwell’s interpretation—the interpretation of the one person who knew none of the suspects—and let that mislead me.

He inhaled slowly, irritably. “I’m not even going to ask what a missed meter is. I’d just like to think it has something to do with the murder you were going to tell me about.”

I sat up straight. “It does! Of course! It does. ‘And Lyle protecting her!’ That’s what you thought you heard, what seemed logical to you, your interpretation. But that’s not what Edwina said.”

“Then what did she say?” he demanded. “Who is this Lyle and who was he protecting?”

“Not he. By Lyle, Edwina meant L-e-i-l, for Leila, her niece. Edwina referred to family members by their first syllables. And the ‘her’ wasn’t a her at all.”

“This Leila, was she the niece who sent Edwina the treaty?”

“No, no. Edwina said that niece was named Meg. Edwina had two sisters, and each had one child, Leila and one other. Rosa told me the other was a boy, but Edwina said Meg. Both Rosa and Edwina were right. Leila’s cousin was a male, and Edwina got the treaty from her niece Meg.”

“Do you mean Meg was another of Leila’s names, like she was called Leila Margaret?”

“No, no. Meg is a different person. She made the treaty.”

“Did she kill Edwina then?”

“No. She’s not even here. It was Leila’s lover who killed Edwina.”

Harry Bramwell sighed.

“I know it’s confusing. It’s hard to follow when you don’t know any of these people. Try to bear with me.”

He sighed again. “That seems to be the nature of our encounters. But you go ahead.”

“Look, Edwina had made Leila’s lover pay for that affair for years. Now revenge was possible. And the beauty of it was that Edwina’s dogged commitment to the history of the area was what made it possible. So Leila’s lover gets Meg to tell Edwina about the treaty. This is six months ago. Meg plays Edwina along. First she says she can get the treaty, then she says Edwina will have to wait, then wait longer. It’s like baiting a dog. But the six months was important for other reasons. One was that forging a treaty takes time.”

He nodded. “A job like this one certainly would. The research alone, and dealing with the paper …”

“And Edwina had to be given enough time to make arrangements for the announcement. And to prepare to take the treaty to Sacramento for all the necessary assessment. A proper announcement was important. You see, Leila’s lover was counting on Edwina creating a stir with the treaty.”

“So, he, or she, assumed that Edwina would accept the document as legit?”

“Oh yes. Edwina trusted Meg. That was the beauty of the scheme. Edwina liked and trusted Meg because of what she was. And when Edwina announced the treaty, there would be a great hubbub. Then she’d leave immediately for Sacramento, just like she always said.”

“But surely Meg realized that when the treaty got to an expert it would be exposed.”

“No doubt, but that would take a few days at the least. Even if Edwina had left Saturday morning, she wouldn’t have seen the experts till the afternoon. And then, if they decided the treaty was a fake as quickly as you did, they would still want to double-check it, wouldn’t they?”

He nodded.

“And after making a fool of herself before the television cameras, and the historical experts, Edwina wouldn’t kill herself to hurry home. It’s safe to assume she wouldn’t be home till Sunday night at the very earliest. She might have been gone much longer. But for the scheme to work, the weekend was all that was needed.”

“Go on,” he said.

“The key here is what would happen with Edwina totally preoccupied over the weekend. And the answer is that the causes to which she normally devoted herself, Native Americans and the environment, would have been left on their own. One thing people have told me repeatedly is that there is no one who could get an injunction or a court order as fast as Edwina.” I shifted in the chair. “Have you noticed that there are a lot of strange men in town? There’s a group at Steelhead Lodge tonight. They’re here tonight because they will start work in the morning—this morning, Sunday. Sunday is one day that even the average concerned citizen would have trouble finding a judge for an injunction. But Edwina wouldn’t. She knew the judges, and she had dealt with them before. But with Edwina otherwise occupied …”

“Okay, so Edwina’s absence is essential to protect whatever scheme is going on. I won’t even bother to ask you what. And by the time the treaty would have been exposed, this operation would have been over. Edwina would have been humiliated and discredited, right?”

“Right. The perfect revenge. Of course, she’d know who was responsible: Leila’s lover. But since Meg was the one who created the treaty and she’s gone, that wouldn’t matter.”

He was almost leaning off his chair now. “Okay. I follow this as much as I could hope to, except for the major point, which is why was Edwina killed. There’s nothing in what you’ve said that would lead to her being poisoned.”

“No. It wasn’t in the plan. The murder was a sudden necessity. The reason she was killed is, I’m afraid, you.”

His blue eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”

“No. It’s hardly your fault. But when Leila’s lover heard that Harry Truman Bramwell was here, that Edwina had called you here … Well, anyone who heard Edwina’s historical society lectures would recognize your name. Leila’s lover did, and knew that when you saw the treaty you would declare it a phony. Edwina would know who was behind it, and being the type of person she was, would not only proclaim the fraud but would expose the perpetrator. Discovering this fraud would only reinforce what she had thought all along: that Leila’s lover was unworthy for a Henderson, or, more to the point, unworthy, period.”

He started to speak, but I held up a hand.

“Not only that, but Edwina wouldn’t be preoccupied this weekend, and the whole arrangement, with payment for all those men, and boats, and equipment, would be thwarted. So, to save it all, Edwina had to be killed. Fortunately, there was time to drive to the fish ranch, get the liquid nicotine that they keep there for the roses, put it in the nose drop bottle that the watchman put on the shelf in the shed, and drive back to the Slugfest. And at the Slugfest—you’d have realized this if you’d come—it was easy to hold that tiny bottle in the palm of a hand and squeeze its contents on the one pizza that would be left for Edwina. The Grand Promenade around the food table provided the perfect opportunity for a cool-headed murderer.”

“Okay, okay. But you said Edwina’s niece Leila was in danger. You were looking for her. Because of her lover, right?”

I nodded. “She’s the only one who realizes all the connections. She’s been on bad terms with Edwina for years. She resented what Edwina had done to her lover. She was always protective. She never mentioned a name or even a sex. But she wouldn’t keep quiet about a murder. So, after Edwina was killed, Leila’s death became essential.”

“So she’s dead?”

“I hope not yet. There’s been a lot going on, what with all the arrangements to make. I just hope another murder was too much to schedule in. I hope that having been Leila’s lover, and having shared the bitterness toward Edwina all these years, created enough of a bond to postpone the necessity of killing her as long as possible.”

“Well, where do you think she is?”

“The fish ranch. I thought I had looked everywhere when I was out there. It seemed odd that those four-foot-square incubators had been piled outside. But I hadn’t realized then that one could conceal a body, alive and tied up, or already dead.” Through the window behind Harry, the sky was still dark. But the first hints of dawn would become visible soon. “I’ve got to go.”

“Again?”

“The whole operation will begin as soon as it’s light. When the first truck pulls into the fish ranch, Leila will be dead. I have to get there before that.” I stood up and grabbed my slicker.

“I’ll come with you,” he said.

“No. Someone needs to get to Sheriff Wescott. There may still be a deputy parked across from my house. You can have him call ahead. But you’ll have to drive to Guerneville. You’ll have to see the sheriff in person and explain all this.”

“Why don’t you do that, and let me go to the fish ranch?”

“Because it will be guarded, and I’m a meter reader, and I know how to get in there.”

T
HE SKY WAS BECOMING
lighter and the rain had let up. That made it better for all those workers, and worse for me. The rain, at least, would have provided me with some cover.

I drove along River Road behind the slow-moving trucks, waiting for the road to be straight long enough to let me pass. As I neared St. Agnes’s Church, a van pulled over to the side and men started climbing out. I pressed harder on the gas, taking the curves too fast. When I got to Jenner, it was almost dawn.

I left my pickup on the hill where I had had it last night. Putting my slicker on the seat, I grabbed a coil of rope from the truck bed and raced down the hill. I would have felt more comfortable if I hadn’t left the gun in the glove compartment, but I couldn’t do what I had to carrying both the gun and the rope. And the rope was essential. Besides, I told myself, a gun you don’t know how to handle can get you in a lot of trouble.

At the main road I could see the closed gate of the fish ranch and the light still on in the gatehouse. I wouldn’t get in the way I had last night. But I didn’t expect to. I kept on, along River Road, passing by the bridge into the fish ranch. The rope hung heavy on my shoulder. The wind that had seared my skin last night was dead still now. The air had that marshy smell of dawn.

The river tumbled brown, hitting high against its banks. In summer it would be nearly dry here, but now the water tossed branches into each other as it raced toward the ocean.

I ran beside the road another twenty yards to the utility pole. The lowest rung on the pole was ten feet up. It took me three tries to catch the rope over that rung. PG&E has a pole-climbing school, a course where they teach how to manage the hundred-foot poles. I had never taken it. (The idea of spending three consecutive days atop a hundred-foot pole, shifting fifty- to hundred-pound weights, was not something that appealed to me. I’d heard about the guys who lost their footing, slipped all the way to the ground, and landed with a hundred feet of splinters in their noses.) Now I regretted my ignorance. I would just have to shinny up the pole like I had as a kid.