County Line (40 page)

Whatever I can
.

When Ruby Jane appears, she looks out the passenger side window, her shoulder curved away from me. She smells of apples in the darkness, stronger than clove cigarettes. I drive and drive and drive.

At Mount Vernon, ten miles from the landing, I fill the tank again. The chilly, marine air perks me up. It’s four-thirty, time enough for a cup of coffee before I continue through Anacortes to the ferry. There’s a line already, mostly early season tourists. At the ticket booth, I offer my debit card and hope it runs. I’ve lost track of how much money I’ve spent.

The card works, forty-four bucks. I take my ticket and find my lane, one of more than a dozen, some assigned to the inter-island ferry, some to the Friday Harbor express, some to Victoria B.C. The terminal building is at the far end of the holding area, next to the docks. There’s a snack bar inside. The Gremlin wheezes and coughs when I shut off the engine. I hope it will start again. I climb out, stretch. A mist hangs over the water, the sky is clear overhead, a cold, deep blue splashed with faint stars. The moon has set. A radio plays in a nearby car, a voice arguing with itself in the still morning. Someone coughs. Others shuffle toward the terminal.

At the edge of the lot, the ground drops away quickly to the water, the bank overgrown with grass and twisted scrub. There’s no real beach. Gentle waves lap the rocky flat. A figure walks across the rocks, a man hunched inside a dark jacket. He pokes his toe in the water, shakes it off. I pause.

He looks back toward me and stops, then turns and comes my way. I wait while he climbs the bank, his breath huffing and white. He almost stumbles at the top of the bank, swings his arms for balance. I catch his hand, pull him up to the pavement.

“Long way from Walnut Creek.”

Pete’s expression is blank. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. “I had a chat with Eldridge and Deffeyes.”

“What did they tell you?”

“Same thing Detective Mulvaney told you, I assume. Denlinger is Bella’s maiden name.”

“They told you where she is?”

“She wasn’t hard to find.”

“What’s your plan?”

Mist scrapes along the rocks at water’s edge, not quite fog. He rolls his eyes and starts toward the terminal. “Get some coffee and then go find out if Ruby Jane has been to see her mother. You coming?”

- 47 -

Bibemus-aux-Orcas

The San Juans are a cluster of islands north of the Puget Sound in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, all but a cork between the Washington state mainland and Vancouver Island. Hilly and forested, they’re a popular destination for sea kayakers, campers, bikers, and whale watchers. Two years earlier, I visited Friday Harbor with Ruby Jane and Pete. Happier days for all of us, during the bright holiday before their relationship disintegrated under the weight of Peter’s doubt and Ruby Jane’s certainty. We never made it to Orcas Island, despite talk of climbing Mount Constitution. Victoria, across the strait, was a greater lure.

Pete hadn’t been in a talkative mood in the terminal, so I left him to brood until departure. Once we’re underway, I find him on the upper deck, outside at the bow. We look out across the water. The route will take us through narrow channels between the tightly clustered San Juans. It’s easy to imagine a time when the islands formed a single landmass. Erosion and changing sea levels have conspired to separate them. The fresh, salty air clears my head. Gulls pace the vessel. Some land on the guard rail, alert for a dropped pastry or scrap of fried egg sandwich. Far ahead, a pelican dives, then lurches above the peaks of the waves, its pouch heavy. Around us, others gather in anticipation. Tourists, mostly. Families on a long weekend getaway. Men and women in biking gear, calves like carved stone. One guy raises a camera with a lens longer than my arm, points it at the shores ahead, but never takes a picture. Beside me, Pete is still. I wonder what he’s thinking, if he’s angry he found me, or surprised. Perhaps he hoped to find her before I would. Perhaps this was to be his chance to rekindle a love he let die.

He’s the first to speak.

“I suppose we can drive up together.”

“I printed a Google map.”

He actually smiles. “I’m shocked.”

“I didn’t expect to run into you.”

“No.” The smile fades. “I don’t imagine you did.”

The ferry stops at Lopez Island, then Shaw. Shortly after, I hear the announcement for those debarking at Orcas to return to their vehicles. Pete and I agree to meet in the hotel parking area across from the ferry landing—I’ll ride with him to Isabella Farm. It’s early, not yet seven-thirty. Neither of us has the patience to wait for a decent hour. Inside the Gremlin, I smell apples and cloves. The ignition screeches, and moments later, I’m following others over the pier and onto the island. I quickly pull in to a narrow lot and leave the car under a “Hotel Parking Only” sign. Pete is waiting for me. He drove up from Walnut Creek in his miniature Japanese pickup, designed to get good mileage yet capable of hauling a load so long as it consists of a heap of feathers. I wish I had my rental with Miss Tom-Tom. The cab smells of compost.

Orcas is shaped like a pair of saddle bags. The ferry docks at the southern end of the western pouch. There’s a small village at the dock: terminal building, a few shops and restaurants, plus the Orcas Hotel on a grassy rise overlooking the harbor. Killebrew Lake Road runs past the hotel, then turns north and becomes Orcas Road, the main route between the landing and Eastsound Village at the island’s northern hinge.

We won’t be going that far. According to Google’s cartographers, Isabella Farm is inland between Mount Woolard and Dolphin Bay on East Sound, the body of water which all but splits the island south to north. We follow Orcas Road for several miles through a forest of oak, lodgepole pine, and fir trees, and past small farms and pastures. At intervals, tall aspens gleam against the darker trees of the forest. Soon we turn, and leave the tourist traffic behind. The road climbs and winds for a mile or two, and then we turn again down a narrower road which curves back south. A vista opens before us, a view of East Sound, sapphire blue and white-capped beneath a clear sky. Across the sound, the green slopes of Mount Constitution rise.

“I can understand why someone might want to live here.”

Pete grunts. We make another turn and lose the view as we drop through meadows glinting gold, white, and pink with wildflowers. At the bottom of a long slope, the trees return as the road bends sharply west. A fenced field appears, and a sign. The painted blue letters are weathered to almost the color of the silvered wood.
Isabella Farm
. Pete stops the car.

The field rises toward the house, dotted with patches of phlox, yellow lupine, and blue gilia. Swallows dart over the grass, snatching insects out of the air. A long-necked, shaggy creature grazes up near the top of the field. Pete gestures.

“Alpaca?”

“According to the web site.”

A lodgepole fence borders the field and extends past a low barn to the left of the house. Fir trees and a broad oak shade the house, none taller than the rocky escarpment which rises beyond the barn.

“It’s like Bibemus.”

“What’s that?”

“The painting.”

After a moment, I see the recognition in his eyes. He compresses his lips, as if he’s angry I made the connection first. The resemblance to Cézanne’s painting is fleeting. The Isabella Farm bluff is darker and draped with bushy ferns. Still, the grounds appear scooped out of the hillside.

“It must have been a quarry at one time.”

The two-story, lap-sided farmhouse has a broad front porch, weathered grey, the roof is more moss than cedar shake. The front porch dips, reminiscent of my own. The flowerbeds are weedy and overgrown, but someone has mowed the patch of grass between the field and the driveway, which crosses in front of the porch.

Pete turns to me. “I don’t see her car.”

“The driveway goes around to the back.”

“She won’t be happy I came.” He says it like the notion only that moment occurred to him.

“She may not be happy either of us came.”

“Maybe we should have called the police.”

“And tell them what?”

“They could check things out, at least.”

“So can we.”

“Cops have guns.”

“Pete, relax.”

Preble County Line Road must weigh on him. I feel a strange sympathy, or a pity. But there’s no changing the fact Pete made his choice long ago. If Ruby Jane has moved on, to me—or to no one, as seems most likely—it’s not because she didn’t give him every chance in the world.

He parks at the foot of the front steps and kills the engine. The sudden quiet fills with the sound of wind in the firs and the bleat of the alpaca. Birds call from the trees on either side of the house.

The front door opens. A woman steps out onto the porch. Pete draws a quick breath, but relaxes just as quickly. She is too young, too pale, too tentative—one of those translucent redheads with paper-thin skin stretched tight over blue veins. Her face is dotted with freckles. She’s wearing jeans and garden clogs, a yellow button-down shirt open to the waist over a white t-shirt, sleeves rolled up to mid-forearm. Pete and I get out of the car.

“May I help you?”

Pete lets me take point. “We’re looking for Bella Denlinger. Did we come to the right place?”

She grabs her right elbow and looks off into the distance. “You’re looking for Bella?”

“That’s right.”

“You’ve come to the right place, I suppose.”

“Is something wrong?”

“You could say that.” She rolls her head and hunches as though uncomfortable in her own skin.

I move to the foot of the steps. “We’ve come a long way. Perhaps you could tell us what’s going on.”

She thinks for a moment. Her eyes flick back and forth, as if she’s watching the swallows in the field. “Oh, you know, Bella—” She gestures vaguely toward the house. “She’s just not well, is all.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Had a stroke.” She finally looks at me. Her eyes widen and I realize she’s seen my neck. I tilt my head to de-emphasize the angry red flesh. Nothing I could do about the bruises which make me look like I came out on the wrong end of a roadhouse brawl. “You didn’t know about it?”

Pete is frowning, still waiting beside the car. The woman draws a breath, blows it out. “I’m sorry. You caught me by surprise. Bella doesn’t get visitors.”

“Ever?”

“Not many. Last one was some old guy who used to work for her. That was a while ago, I think.”

“Who are you?”

Another weak smile. “I’m the nurse.”

“My name is Mister Kadash. This is Mister McKrall.”

“I’m Taya.”

“May we come up and ask you some questions?”

I don’t give her the chance to answer. There are a couple of white wicker chairs on the porch. I gesture for Pete to follow and climb the steps. She backs up to the open door. “Okay. Sure.”

“Maybe we could have a glass of water?”

“Oh.” She reaches some kind of decision. “Sure. Or we have iced tea, if you like.”

“Iced tea would be nice.”

Pete crosses to the far chair and sits. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” She nods. “I need to check on Bella. She’s asleep. I’ll be right out.”

I take up a post at the porch railing. Pete watches the open front door. “That girl doesn’t seem like a nurse.”

“No. She doesn’t.”

“So now what?”

“I ask questions.”

Taya returns later with two glasses of tea. She hands one to me, and Pete the other, then sits in the empty chair, knees together and hands folded in her lap.

“How long you been a nurse, Taya?”

Her pale cheeks turn the color of butter. “Did I say that? I’m not a
nurse
nurse.” I wait. “I have my CNA. Technically I’m an aid.”

“How did you come to be here?”

“Well, it’s a placement, you know. Through the state.”

“And you’re here full time?”