West Wind (18 page)

"Partly cloudy with a chance of rain," the
forecast boldly predicted beneath the pictures. She imagined the
manager's choice to print daily forecasts in black ink had been
motivated by frugality.

Wearing only panties and a bra, she peeked
between the heavy, vinyl drapes to see ... almost nothing. A
blanket of fog lay over the parking lot. She could see only the
front bumper of her rental SUV, which may or may not have been the
only car in the parking lot. She shivered, then went back to her
suitcase and pulled out a sweater.

Twenty minutes later, after a hastily eaten
continental breakfast in the hotel lobby, she drove back to the
Swan Quarter ferry with time to spare. She sat in the SUV after
paying for a ticket and waited for the "Governor Hyde" to begin
loading. The Sound Class ferry was more than 160-feet long and
carried thirty-five vehicles. Hers was the twentieth in line, and
only five cars followed.

Soon it was her turn and she drove up the
creaking, steel ramp. An old man with a stubbly beard and wearing a
Greek fisherman's cap stood near the SUV's right front fender. He
coaxed her forward with a gloved hand. When her bumper was only a
few inches from the car in front, the man signaled halt, then gave
her a quick thumbs up. She shifted into park, turned the engine
off, and set the parking brake as instructed.

It was still a bit chilly for shorts but she
ignored the cold, damp wind, pulled her sweater on, and climbed out
of the truck. The dull yellow disc of the rising sun grew brighter
over the bow of the boat as it plowed eastward through a light
chop. She leaned over the rail, settled a pair of sunglasses on her
nose and watched as seagulls wheeled and circled around the ferry.
In the distance, as visibility improved, she spied a sailboat.
Slowly, the morning fog burned away and the ship chugged noisily
through the Pamlico Sound.

* * *

More than two hours later, the ferry landed
at Ocracoke. First car on the ship meant last one off, so Erin
disembarked after a few minutes. She drove the SUV to a lonely
corner of the parking lot. Once again she consulted the GPS
receiver, having entered Spence's address into the device the day
before. She zoomed in the tiny screen and studied the network of
roads until she located his house. The mechanical voice of the GPS
commanded: "Head south on Northpoint Road toward Pamlico Shores
Road.

Erin smiled. During the past two days, she
had become accustomed to the disembodied female voice and nicknamed
her "Becky."

She put the SUV into gear and drove out of
the ferry lot towards the small village of Ocracoke.

"Turn left at Pamlico Shores Road and drive
point-one miles before turning right at British Cemetery Road,"
Becky ordered.

"And we're on our way," Erin chimed.

She drove down the small paved road to the
stop sign and looked right. Beyond the brown beach house at the
curve was the glimmering sound. To the left she saw scrubby shrubs,
a few bent and twisted cypress and oak trees, and the roof tops of
island cottages. The roadway was narrow with no markings and no
other cars were in sight.

She drove on.

"In 500 feet turn left onto Back Road," Becky
piped.

Erin glanced to her right and noted a small,
rundown cottage. Folding chairs were stacked on the porch. A live
oak's limbs stretched over the structure, shading it well and
inhibiting any grass that may have taken root. A rusted blue truck
and a trailer hauling a white bass boat were parked in the
driveway. A hand-lettered sign offered nightcrawlers and cut
bait.

"Hmmm… Spence's neighbors aren't that
fashionable."

On the left she noticed a small cemetery
bordered in a gray, weather-beaten wood fence.

"Hence the name ‘Cemetery Road,'" Erin said
aloud, having started to converse with Becky the previous
afternoon. Becky had no reply.

She stopped the SUV in the middle of the road
and looked at the headstones. Most were small, thin eroded stones,
discolored with black and green mildew. The trees at the back of
the cemetery were stunted, windswept oaks.

She drove on, passing more houses. "The
neighborhood's improving," she told Becky.

She braked the SUV to a crawl and turned onto
Back Road. On her right, an octagon, cedar-sheathed house
contrasted with an elegant, older house covered in white-washed
siding and with a large wrap-around porch. Erin noted that most of
the houses on the island were situated on pilings, probably because
of rising seawater during tropical storms and hurricanes.

"Continue point four miles, then turn left at
State Road 1341," Becky monotoned.

Erin drove through more of the same: an
unmarked paved road bounded by rustic cottages mixed with newer
construction, shrubs, sawgrass, palmettos and stunted oak
trees.

"Drive point three miles, then turn left onto
unnamed road."

"No name, eh?" Erin squinted into the sun as
she searched for her turn.

"Satellite signal lost," Becky announced, and
the little cartoon car on the GPS screen became a question
mark.

"Thanks a lot, Becky." Erin slowed even more
after checking the rear-view mirror and seeing nobody on the road.
She had to be close. In the distance, she could see houses. Most
were three-story wooden and glass sentinels amid the saw grass.
They all faced Pamlico Sound.

"Ahhh, here's the money,"
Erin
noted.

She passed two unmarked, black-topped roads
and decided to keep looking. Ahead, on the left, she saw a
battered, unmarked mailbox. Just beyond it she saw the edge of a
narrow, unpaved road -- a trail really. She imagined the entrance
to Spence's property would be somewhat grand, like some of the
houses she passed earlier. It seemed unlikely that the rusting
mailbox, impaled by an unpainted wooden post and set in a
five-gallon bucket filled with concrete, would belong to a famous
artist. "
And playboy
," she thought.

"Probably not the road I want to take, right
Becky?" she asked the GPS receiver. No answer, of course. Becky's
screen only showed the question mark. "Afraid to commit, are
we?"

She smiled and accelerated past the mailbox,
then braked to an abrupt stop. Numbers or letters on the box were
more likely to be on the right side, so the postal carrier could
see them when delivering the mail. She could at least see if she
had passed the address.

Erin pressed the button to lower the window,
leaned out for a better look at the box. It bore only stick-on
letters that announced: "S_ence."

"You would think a guy like that could afford
a decent mailbox," she said. After checking the mirrors for
oncoming traffic, she put the SUV into reverse, backed up a few
yards, then shifted forward and turned onto the sand and gravel
trail.

Erin drove slowly and admired the change in
topography. There was much more open space now, although it was
still swampy.

"Arriving at destination on left," Becky
chimed, having regained her bearings.

Erin stopped in front of a massive gray house
that floated in the field of sea grass. Unpainted and also on
pilings, the wood-shingled house featured a gabled roof and long
engaged dormers. Hinged, wood-batten shutters were held open with a
stick, protecting the old-fashioned sash windows. The house was
encircled by a wrap-around porch and behind it she glimpsed a long
stretch of white beach and blue water.

She didn't see a driveway, so she stopped her
truck close to the edge of the road. She checked her watch. It was
just after noon and, according to Patricia, Spence expected her.
She hiked the fifty yards to the front door, wading through the sea
oats and saw grass that whipped and scratched her bare legs.

"Shoot," she hissed, licking a finger and
rubbing it on a long, bloody scratch. "I should have worn
pants."

After plucking sticker burrs from her shorts
and shaking sand from her sandals, Erin pressed the doorbell. She
waited a minute or two before pressing it again. After a few more
minutes, she tried knocking on the door. There was no answer.

She frowned. Spence knew she was arriving
today, so he wouldn't have left town, she reasoned. After peeking
in the windows and detecting no signs of life, she knocked harder,
calling, "Mr. Spence. Hello. Mr. Spence?"

She considered calling Patricia and asking
for the artist's telephone number, but decided she couldn't give up
that easily. Looking for another entrance, Erin walked around the
side porch but a locked screen door barred access. She retraced her
steps to the front, went down the steps and around the porch. Just
past the screen door the land sloped downward. With no stairs in
sight, she decided to climb through the railing while she could
still reach it. She tossed her purse first. Then, using the railing
as a ladder she scrambled up and slithered onto the porch.

She leaned against a gray piling and studied
her surroundings. A few feet away, swinging slowly in a white,
cord-twisted hammock was a man. He was wearing faded, ragged shorts
and sunglasses. A pair of flip flops and three empty beer bottles
on the deck beside him completed the vignette. The mailbox seemed
appropriate now.

She stood up slowly, brushed sand off her
shorts and walked towards the sleeping man. She hesitated waking
him. Instead, she spent a few heartbeats assessing him. He was tall
and tanned. His wavy, sun-streaked hair was a bit long and unkempt.
He had a broad forehead and a wide mouth. He kept in shape, she
noted. His arms were large and heavily muscled. He had a spare
tire, however, so if this was Spence he had forgone the crunches.
The hair on his arms and legs was thick. A thatch of copper hair
traced down his chest, snaking into the waistband of his faded
Bermuda shorts. His feet were long and his large toes splayed and
tanned.
He must not wear shoes often
, she thought.

"Do I know you?"

His slow, Southern drawl caught her by
surprise. She thought he had been sleeping. Playing opossum
instead. She took a step back.

"Mr. Spence? I'm Erin Andersen. I've been
sent by Patricia McDowell to help you with your book."

He slowly lifted his sunglasses. Steel blue
eyes squinted in the morning sun.

"Hey, move over here, would ya? Can't see who
I'm talkin' to."

Erin picked up her purse and moved to the far
side of the hammock, the afternoon sun shining on her face. Spence
took in her sandals, her legs, shorts, and shirt. He stared at her
chest a few seconds before moving up to her face. Then he grinned.
His teeth were bright white against his dark skin.

"Well, howdy. I forgot you were coming. You
want a beer?"

Erin hesitated, then decided she needed to
make friends fast.

"Sure. It's been a long, thirsty trip," she
lied.

Stephen Spence pointed to a bar against the
back of the house and said, "Me too. Why don't you grab us a
couple. What'd you say your name was?"

He hadn't moved out of the hammock. Just
pointed a finger and dropped his sunglasses back into place. Erin
placed her purse on the deck and walked to the bar. Behind it, she
discovered a small refrigerator. She had to bend over to open it.
Inside were Coronas -- at least two dozen and nothing else -- so
cold they formed ice crystals when she pulled out two bottles.

"Opener's on the counter there. Limes,
too."

She picked up the bottle opener. It was
ancient and rusty.
Glad I've had a tetanus shot recently
,
she thought. On the counter was a basket of limes. Recalling
college days with tequila shots and lemons, she rolled the lime,
softening its rind so the juice would flow. She pulled open a
couple of drawers until she found a sharp knife. She thought about
neatly tucking the sliced lime into the opening but decided she
should just shove them into the long necks. Lime pulp clung to the
inside of the bottle and the beer fizzed. She walked over to Spence
and handed him one. The other, she upended. She was amazed at how
good it tasted.

"Ahh, be still my heart," he said and drained
half the bottle.

Fascinated, Erin watched as he licked the
lime from his lips and smiled at her.

Well, I'm off on the right foot
, she
thought. She searched for a chair and, not finding one, headed back
to the bar, brushed off a few stray crumbs and hoisted herself up
onto the counter. Obviously, this was a one-person deck and guests
had to make do. If he wasn't going to provide a chair, she would
have to find her own seat.

"You know, sometimes that's my kitchen
table."

"I don't mind. These are old shorts," she
lied again. She lifted the bottle to her lips. Another shot of
courage, she thought.

She heard him chuckle, a low rumble. "You're
kind of feisty, aren't you?"

"Not really, Mr. Spence. I'm your assistant.
I'm here to do whatever it takes to help you write your book."

She waited. She had learned that sometimes,
in situations where the client didn't appreciate professional
intervention, reaction was better than proaction. She would bide
her time.

Unfortunately, Stephen Spence was the kind of
guy who didn't mind the time spent biding. The hammock rocked
gently as he occasionally put one of his big feet against the deck
and pushed.

Erin was nearing the bottom of the bottle
when she finally gave in. "Do you have any questions?"

"Nope."

He upended his beer, savoring the last of it.
He shook the bottle at her expressively and then set it on the deck
beneath him where it joined the other three empties.

Erin exhaled a bit forcefully, blowing
wayward tendrils off of her forehead. She lifted her bottle and
drank its contents in a series of chugs, then licked the lime pulp
off her lips. After setting her bottle to the side, she jumped off
the bar and once again bent over to open the fridge. Out of the
corner of her eye, she saw Spence lift his sunglasses.