Windward Whisperings (6 page)

Kitzie’s project was going to have to wait. She unfolded her clenched fists and looked for more
hidden wires. She peeked around every object in the room.
Looking away from his computer screen, Garrett seemed to be having problems concentrating
as well. “Find anything?”
“No, but I should tell you. A month ago, I worked late. I was in the parking lot when I saw a
man enter the Boatworks. I called the cops. He must have gone out a backdoor or hid inside
because the cops couldn’t find him. He watched us today at the wharf.”
“Describe him.”
“I can do better than that. His name is Leviticus Blake. He’s married to Miss Mae Han.”
“No kidding, our history teacher!”
“According to the Woodster, he owns a security company and often works with the cops.”
“Cops knew he was here, then. He probably doesn’t deal in too much debauchery. My guess is
Biltmore hired him to spy on Naiad while he’s gone.”
“Bugging his company strikes me as odd. Our economy is in a bit of a downturn, and sailboats
are luxury items. Still, wouldn’t stockholders think bugging the place is a waste?”
“If Biltmore suspects internal sabotage, they’d support him.”
“Why would he suspect that?”
“There are common threads.”
“Like what?”
“In manufacturing, it’s fake vendors. Entries are appropriate, but parts or supplies aren’t there.
I’m going to hire Leviticus myself.”
“You are?”
“I’ll talk with Biltmore first. Tell him I need someone to inventory parts against the company’s
stock status report.”
“What phone are you going to use?” Somehow, she thought it might be important.
“I’ll call him on his own damn phone.” He picked up the receiver on Biltmore’s desk and dialed
the cell of the ‘de Medici of Landings Beach,’ the nickname employees had for Biltmore.
She crossed her arms and told herself she wasn’t the sort of person who was too rattled to
eavesdrop.
He was telling Biltmore he wanted to compare company reports with inventory. “Possibly
someone outside the company could do that.” She heard him say, “Swell idea, to bring in a private
investigator. I’ll phone him.”
“Good heavens, you’re a smooth operator.” It felt dangerous, as if she’d wandered into a movie
set from the fifties, but she only wandered across the room and stood beside him.
He kept his eyes on the phone. “Not as smooth as Biltmore.” In the midst of his floundering, he
reached out and held her hand. Something crazy was going on all right. She was feeling all gooey and
gentle. Maybe during the next six months they’d both make promises they truly meant to keep.
Somehow that day, he filled hollows she barely knew she had.
She went out a lot, mostly to movies with the gang from work or to bars with bachelorettes. The
group had dwindled as more of the women stumbled upon mates. Sometimes a guy might send over
a drink. Maybe she’d talk with him and go out to dinner. It wasn’t like she didn’t date now and then.
A friend might line her up. After she proved to herself that she wasn’t frigid, those dates went
nowhere. Absentmindedly, she mussed her hair and flipped the ends at the nape of her neck.
There’s nothing wrong with my equipment, thank you very much.
Desire simmered inside her. It burned
steadily like a little red bulb used to keep food warm in diners.
She drifted back to her corner but listened as he dialed information and asked for the number of
the Blake Detective agency. She heard him hit a button to dial automatically.
They spoke. Leviticus had an immediate opening. He hung up. There was a slight tapping noise,
as if he were bouncing a pen on the granite inlay around the desk. “Kitzie. What time is dinner?”
“Seven. Remember, I’m in the cottage, not the mansion.”
“I’m heading out.” He walked into her alcove and left her with a kiss, more polite than
affectionate. “I’m working for Biltmore. I’m not going to sidetrack. He doesn’t know much about
me, probably doesn’t trust me. He wants to keep an eye on what’s going on.”
“I doubt he trusts anyone.” She noticed how Garrett’s brain became a machine as he shuffled
through his briefcase, flipping through pages with effortless rhythm. She wondered if there was a
right side or a wrong side to be on.
“I need to make my six-month stint worth it for him and the other stockholders.” He was on the
moneymaking side.
Personally, I think Biltmore stinks, but you will have to find that out for yourself.
For the next hour, she
was lost in pursuit of tiny cameras or microphones hidden around the office. She chewed a stick of
gum for all it was worth. After coming up dry, she decided to take a break at the gossip center.
She breezed out the corner office door. “Sedona, can I bring you a cup of tea?”
“Herbal would be great. I’m heading to the bathroom. Leave it on my desk, please. Thanks so
much.”
Soon Kitzie joined coworkers who surrounded Edgar. She dropped an Earl Grey bag into one
cup of hot water and an India Spice into another.
Her former boss, Edgar, talked of his promotion and his move to a big space overlooking the
shop floor. Maryrose wanted to paint it. She must have felt happy over his news.
After he left, chitchat among salesmen turned negative.
A junior salesman said, “We play the part of yachties if we want to go after the long green. We
make calls and rub elbows, but selling boats is a matter of luck, of timing.” The air around the
watering hole seemed to crackle.
Vinny slapped a hand on his shoulder. “If you look like you’re trying too hard, you’ll never make
the sale. Customers have to believe your product is unique in the marketplace.”
Kitzie held the Styrofoam cups. “
Unique in the marketplace
is plastered all over your sales
brochures.”
“Sure. Biltmore is the master of hype.” Vinny was still smiling. “He’s portside in the Caribbean.
Can’t you picture him, greeting older couples with his arms open wide? Shaking the men’s hands,
kissing the wives on the cheek? Arms around their shoulders, he would face them toward a scale
model of something or other saying, ‘Folks, this is
unique in the marketplace
.’”
Kitzie knew Vinny had adopted Biltmore’s style of doing business, which was to rub elbows
with yachties. Salesmen were paid salaries for time spent schmoozing. If an appropriate opportunity
presented itself, they were expected to pitch a boat. If Garrett wanted to change sales tactics or the
way they were paid, Vinny would resist. He wouldn’t want to scuff his shoes on a new, rocky path.
She didn’t think Vinnie knew anything about bugs in offices because he was known for his big
mouth.
As she headed back with the tea, noise from clattering keyboards from production department
cubicles filled the hallway. She moved past glass offices of the sales department where phones were
put into use, but none with cold calls.
Among the entire staff, she knew of no certifiable nut who stockpiled weapons. No man lived in
his mother’s backroom and took orders from the Home Planet. She placed the cup on Sedona’s
empty desk and returned to the corner office.
Sitting in the alcove, she shifted restlessly in her chair. The tea failed to sooth her. She thought
of her parents. Many times, she’d seen them out of sorts when their happy hours turned into all day
events. They might as well have drunk their martinis from sand pails. After Piermont Sails was sold,
they’d withdrawn from most of their friends. But, the morning before their accident, she’d heard
them speak the words, ‘unique in the marketplace.’ The truth snapped on like a light. They were
excited, not despondent. Maybe she was wrong about their suicide. Either way, she lacked hard
evidence.
After their deaths, she’d come up through an envelope of cool breeze, confused and numb. The
next day she was stopped for a traffic ticket, having driven through several red lights. The cop,
Sergeant Ditzman, knew her and wrote a warning. She grieved as sanely as anyone until the guilt set
in. She’d suffered, believing she hadn’t seen their depression.
Among the throngs who attended their funeral, Woody was there with the kindest of eyes. His
wife’s funeral was the day after, also held at Our Redeemer Church. For him, she’d attended. There
was no viewing of Woody’s wife either. Cancer had claimed her, and Woody’s wife didn’t look like
herself.
They’d wept together. They ran errands together because they needed extra eyes for traffic
signals. Soon both were capable of embracing life. After a year, Woody found a girlfriend, Millie
Pugh, an acquaintance of Kitzie’s mother.
To outrun her brutal emotions, Kitzie found volunteer work. Fueled by an obsession to fill a
void, she chose to help those with a physical challenge. While she directed her guilt toward this
virtue, her demon box closed. She always felt better after spending time with Coral.
With two hours to spare before Garrett’s arrival, she picked up her cell. “Hi, Coral, do you have
thirty minutes?”
“Sure. Can you hear me kicking off my sandals?”
“I’m on my way.” Kitzie knew Coral had several styles of prosthetics. One living-skin foot
adjusted for two-inch sandals, and another set on the toe clip of one pedal, nestled permanently into
a sock and sneaker.
Within a half hour, Kitzie caught sight of Coral pumping over a ridge. She stopped, took off her
helmet, and tossed her hair.
With Thor running behind, Kitzie came within talking distance. “You put red streaks in your
hair. Very pretty, let me see the back.”
Coral ruffed up the back with a hand.
“You look fabulous.
“Thanks.” She pulled her helmet back on and snapped the clasp under her chin.
They discussed what route to take. Last week, they had weaved through the middle of town, past
the civic center. The crowns of ornamental olive trees had died back. Today they decided on the tenmile loop. Landings Boulevard wound around the outskirts of their peninsular town.
They exchanged their usual banter as they peddled side by side. Today, it was about Coral’s
boyfriend, Brent, formerly just a study buddy. “He applied to San Francisco State,” Coral said. “I’m
going to miss him.”
“You learned you two are more than friends.” The Brent topic needed some hammering, she
knew. “You’ll visit. He’ll come home. What the hell, Coral, apply to SFSU.”
The subject was exhausted with a solution.
Kitzie and Coral stopped conversing when the noisy surf and sea breeze had made it laborious.
Lately, there’d been a new sound. Kitzie listened to her tires crunch over dry leaves and twigs.
Riverbeds draining to the backbay were dry, cracked mud. They peddled past the cemetery’s
triple-stone gate. On any given weekday, the place was deserted. A groundskeeper trimmed the
golden grass beside the low iron fences. Her gaze followed the way from parched ornamental trees
to her parents’ vault. Their white marble mausoleum tore at her eyes.
Hundreds of people are buried at this cemetery. The richer you are, the closer your gravesite is to the chapel,
another example of classical influence.
The carved doves and smiling angel looked entirely staged. Her
cynical thoughts must have been getting to her.
Coming into vision was the light industry section where many buildings were on their way to a
slow death. Among them, the Piermont plant had a pile of debris on the far side.
Built when the 1930s airport style was popular, the clean lines appealed to her. In need of repairs
and basic cleanup, the aqua “T” in PIERMONT sagged. She wondered why Biltmore kept the name
at all. The ground was grassless where sprinkler systems failed to hit them.
Whenever she passed it, a save-the-farm dream tickled her thoughts. For a couple of pumps on
the bike, she toyed with the idea.
Someday, I want to head that department.
Farther on, she noticed that sapless, towering pines hadn’t produced cones. On the news that
morning, they were calling the eighteen-mile-long wall of flames the Cedar Fire. It’d devastated the
mountain community of Cuyamaca. Now it bore down on the gold rush town of Julian.
The Cedar Fire was a fraction of the blazes scorching Southern California. Santa Ana winds
gusted to fifty miles per hour, swept up mountain canyons from the Mexican border to Simi Valley.
Fires followed the land’s topography.
While cycling along, the town’s isolation struck her. Landings Beach was nestled between the
Pacific and mountain so prone to mudslides that no roads led up it. There was one road out, the
Pacific Coast Highway.
They braked in front of Coral’s shoreline residence. Like other estates along the coast, her
parents’ home had an oceanside porch, picture windows for the sunset, and a prestigious boathouse
at the shore. Railroad tracks and electrical cables made for easy launching of their Avalon-40, the
largest sailboat Naiad manufactured.
Coral’s parents were nouveau-riche Naiad stockholders. New and old beach mansions sold in
the tens of millions in spite of the downturn in real estate prices.
The upper middle class lived within the loop. Some had three-car garages, ocean views, and
pools. The poor lived the cheap stucco apartments or the trailer park on the east side of town.
For a few seconds, Kitzie pondered the monetary appreciation of her cottage. That thought was
interrupted when she watched her young friend swing a leg off her bike. “Coral, are you going to
winter formal?”
“Brent asked me. Can’t you just see me galumphing around the dance floor?” Her smile was
brave, but tears welled.
“You need to wear stilettos.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes. In high heels, the ankle doesn’t have to bend.”
“Hey, you have something there. If the real one gets tired, I can put my weight the fake one.”
Coral beamed.
“That’s my girl. You’ll need to adjust your two-inch prosthetic. We’ll practice, okay? Soon you’ll
glide with the best of them.”
“I love you, Kitzie.”
“I love you, too.”
Smiling, Coral turned her forward wheel into her driveway, waved a goodbye, and coasted
downward.

Kitzie hung her lightweight bike on a rack and closed the garage door behind her. Thor
scampered about the yard. She let herself into the house, loving this moment when she first came
home, enjoying its clean and fresh scent.

The upstairs smelled of spicy potpourri. When she took a shower, the water pressure was scant
and the old toilet gurgled. The plumbing in her old house made her crazy.
She dressed for dinner in a short black skirt and matching tank. Reaching deep into her lingerie
drawer, she pulled out a gray satin garter belt and ripped off the tag. She ripped open a package of
silvery hose, bought at the same time on a whim. She drew them on and hooked them into place but
then laughed to herself. Hose didn’t actually go with her three-inch black sandals with cute leather
laces. Still, the hose-garter combo might be more alluring than going bare legged. She wanted
Garrett to know what he’d been missing.
She moved to her small closet and grabbed the sandals from her shoe compartment, plopped
onto her boudoir lounge chair, and slipped them on. She crisscrossed and snapped them at mid-calf.
To protect her clothing while she cooked, she opened a drawer and threw on an apron with
sunflower pockets.
With dinner preparation ahead, she postponed curling up in front of her stone fireplace to finish
a romance novel on her e-book reader. She preferred romance in the flesh, with or without the
happy ending.
Her rose garden gave her a daily supply of fresh flowers for the table. She rearranged a vase at
the sink, clipping off drooping blooms and brushing them into the waste can. The window behind
the sink gave her a full view of the sea. Waves surged up, turned to foam, and fell back. A ferryboat
left a trail of white on inky blue water, cutting across a swath of orange painted by the setting sun.
Images had a way of fading. For now, he was here. She wanted to press him into her memory.
She wasn’t feeling hungry as she chopped fresh crab and added celery, chives, light mayo, an egg,
and shrimp-boil spices. She shaped the concoction into neat patties and heated a frying pan with
olive oil. The immense gas stove hissed. With the crab cakes browned, she placed them in the
warming oven. She sprayed cleaner on the avocado refrigerator and wiped it down.
She jerked on a drawer to free it, then scooped silverware out of the tray. The cabinets were fake
walnut. She fussed with the table until silver candlesticks, china, crystal, and vase hid permanent
stains on a damask tablecloth. Back in front of the stove, she pulled out the crab cakes, and then
brought matches to the dining room table.
Would Garrett want beer, white wine, or lemonade? All were chilled. She’d lost her taste for
alcohol when her parents stopped drinking responsibly.
Again, she glanced out her kitchen window, warped and stuck a few inches open. It was January,
and the sky was rapidly darkening. Silhouettes of dehydrated cypress trees made a gnarled outline
against the expanse of endless ocean. In the glass, she saw her own reflection and closed her eyes
against it.
Her reflection was only the outside. She hoped to appear poised and alluring. Compared to
Garrett, she was no longer worldly. Still, she dressed to seduce. Without panties, there’ll be no need
to remove stockings.
She poured herself a glass of lemonade, dropped in festive mint springs and lime slices. She
pushed through the swinging door to the dining room. She lit the candles on the table and then,
concerned with a fire hazard, slid a large platter under them. Bringing the book of matches, the ereader on the fireplace mantel had her attention again. She’d downloaded it for its cover.
The hero reminded her of Garrett, and a little spark flew. She left it there, although she enjoyed
reading on the dim front porch since her e-reader contained its own lighting.
Outside, she held the base of a hanging nickel-toned lantern that hung from a chain from a
porch rafter. She opened the small glass door to it, struck a match and lit a three-inch pillar candle.
The eclectic, five-inch square lantern added a soft glow to her outdoor retreat. She let it go, and it
swung just a little. She didn’t steady it. Nothing interesting ever stood still. Its little light focused
attention on precious time soon to be spent with Garrett.
She saw her dog out in the yard. Thor was doing his usual scratch-and-sniff around an oak tree.
She was glad her dog was enjoying himself because she didn’t want dog hair on her black outfit. She
sat back awhile longer to examine her feelings.
There’d been a time with Garrett when she’d shared her deepest thoughts. Even if her problems
had nothing to do with him, she’d ended up screaming at him, blaming him for her ordinary teenage
dramas. That was backwater of the past. As an adult, she wasn’t going to be difficult. She weighed
the risk of appearing shallow against exposing depth. A six-month fling would either redeem or
destroy her. She didn’t know which.