Mudlark (25 page)

When Jay came in, he went up to the shower without even poking his head in the kitchen. That was
ominous, but he seemed calm when he came down. He was dressed for school.

"Another meeting?"

"Today is the day I present the program to the faculty."

"Oh, Jay, how awful. Are you okay?"

He shrugged. "I feel like the contents of a spittoon, but I have everything organized. I'll be back around
four."

"I'm going with Bonnie to the Enclave."

He frowned. "I wish you wouldn't. Dale hasn't pulled Kevin Johnson in yet, and I don't like the idea of
you driving around the area with Johnson still at liberty."

I thought he was being paranoid and said so, but I promised I'd keep my eyes peeled for the
pickup.

Jay was at the phone. "Let me call Dale."

I fixed him a cup of tea and listened without enlightenment to the brief conversation. When Jay hung
up, he looked more puzzled than anxious.

"Well?"

He took the tea with absent-minded thanks. "They still haven't found Johnson, and his wife is missing,
too."

"Melanie's missing?"

He nodded. "Dale said the kids are at her mother's. Kevin and Melanie dropped them off Labor Day and
headed for Astoria. Melanie said they were going to party." He sipped tea. "Kevin was flush. He gave the
grandmother fifty bucks. Then he and Melanie took off in the pickup. The woman is worried because her daughter's
eight months along and has been having false labor."

"If Kevin is driving around with a pregnant woman strapped in beside him, he's not likely to run Bonnie
and me off the road." I meditated. "He was alone when I saw him yesterday, and I'm not sure he was the driver
anyway."

Jay sighed. "If he was, he's probably long gone."

"But where's Melanie?"

"Who knows?"

The phone rang. I picked up the receiver and said hello.

It was Clara Klein and she sounded absurdly cheerful. I told her about Lottie and Matt. She was silent so
long I thought she'd left the phone. I said, "Clara?"

She blew her nose with a noise like a small explosion. "My God, that's terrible. I don't believe it." I heard
her gulp. "I can't-- Look, I need some time. Can you come over later and tell me what happened?"

"I don't know much more, Clara, and Bonnie and I are driving over to the Enclave to see the McKay
house."

"Well, drop by on your way home. Bring Bonnie too. I need human company. I need to talk."

I said we'd come and hung up. Jay was gathering himself together like a man leaving for work. I went
out with him and gave him a big morale-building hug by the Accord. When he drove off, I trotted across the road to
Bonnie's. She was up, though still in her robe, and she gave me a cup of coffee. Gibson watched from the
refrigerator.

She sat in her rocker and shoved her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. "I know it's an awful tragedy,
and I'm sorry for Matt Cramer, but I slept better last night than I have since I moved in."

"Bonnie!"

She shot me a defiant glance over her coffee cup. "Don't you see? Now I know who left the sea gulls and
tossed my place. He's in the hospital under observation, and I don't have to worry that he'll come back some night
while I'm here alone."

I was sitting on her loveseat. I curled my legs under me and held my mug with both hands, warming
them. Sometimes I am not as imaginative as I ought to be. I knew the harassment had shaken Bonnie, not to
mention finding Cleo Hagen's body, but I had been preoccupied with my own reactions. I hadn't thought what it
would be like to come back to that tiny house alone every night with a murderer on the loose.

She was talking about the Show of Homes, suggesting that we drive into Shoalwater first to see the two
houses that were open there before we went to the Enclave. I mentioned Clara's call. "You didn't give her a time,
did you?"

"No."

"Good. The houses in Shoalwater sound as if they're worth looking at. One's Victorian, one
ultra-modern. I like houses. Sometimes, when I lived in Santa Monica, I pretended I was in the market for a new place
just so I could go through a house that looked interesting."

I told her about my parents' restored cobblestone house in Childers, New York. We had a nice
architectural chat. Then she shoved me out the door with strict orders to dress up.

We chugged off to Shoalwater about a quarter of ten in Bonnie's Escort, I in a flowery knit dress and
Bonnie in white leggings and a hot-pink tunic that shouted California Girl. As she put the car in gear and nosed onto
the highway, I remembered to tell her about Kevin Johnson.

"I bet he took off for Portland. He could lose himself there." A car pulled in front of her from someone's
driveway, and she geared down.

Kevin had probably headed for Portland, but why had he come back first, all the way from Astoria, to
berate Ruth? I said, "I can see why you're breathing easier with Matt under observation. If Matt killed Cleo, though,
the motive for the fire and the sideswiping incidents is wide open. I'll feel happier with Kevin Johnson in custody.
He may not be the villain, but Ruth said he had money. We don't know who paid the arsonist."

Bonnie nodded and passed an ancient person driving fifteen miles an hour below the limit. I clutched at
my shoulder strap.

"Two separate sets of crimes," she muttered.

"Plus Donald Hagen."

We entered Shoalwater, and she slowed down to thirty. "D Street and Eighteenth. There it is." It was not
quite ten. She parked in the street about half a block from a Victorian fantasy in shades of cream and lilac. She
turned to me. "If Donald Hagen hired Johnson, there are only two sets of crimes, two sets of criminals." She looked
wistful. "I hate to let Bob McKay off the hook, alibi or no alibi."

We trotted through the two houses in short order. They were nice, but my mind kept turning to Lottie
and Matt. We headed north. I sat in silence the first mile or so. Bonnie negotiated a curve, geared down to
accommodate another cautious driver, gunned the engine, and passed as the road straightened. She gave me a
glance. "Brooding?"

I admitted my mind was on the Cramers.

She reached down and activated her tape player. The Grateful Dead blared out loud enough to melt her
stereo. The car juddered, and Bonnie's acceleration developed a palpable rhythm, but the music took me out of
myself. In one of the pauses, she said, "Great stuff, rock. Prevents rational thought."

The Enclave lay ten winding, wooded miles north of Shoalwater, on the bay side of the peninsula. The
northernmost reach of land hooked to the east, forming a small, shallow harbor. A couple of square miles of sand
and coast pines had been zoned off on the bay side. We boogied around a last, long curve, and there it was, the
famous wall. It was made of rather ugly native stone and topped with a course of toothed rocks that looked as if
they'd tear the odd cat burglar to bits. Bonnie slowed to a crawl as we approached the entrance.

At the open gate, a uniformed rent-a-cop took the names of drivers and the license numbers of alien
vehicles. Bonnie's Escort was more alien than most. The Show of Homes was bringing out everyone on the
peninsula who aspired to wealth and exclusion but hadn't yet got there. We were third in line, behind a Lincoln and
one of those new Japanese luxury models, so we had leisure to look around us.

The tape wound to its end and clicked off. Bonnie gave the cop her name and slid the Escort onto the
impeccable asphalt road, which was more like a long driveway than a street. The houses of the Enclave strewed the
enclosed area, each cluster of buildings surrounded by an expanse of cropped lawn and flowers. I spotted a croquet
game in progress. The houses were big, and most of them were Victorian. Several boasted tennis courts and glass
annexes that might have been greenhouses or the roofs of indoor swimming pools. Each establishment had a big
detached garage.

We followed the Lincoln toward the water until another uniformed flunkey waved us to a stretch of
roped-off lawn. Bonnie parked beside the Lincoln and yanked the brake on.

"This is it. Got your ticket?"

I nodded. We had been sold rather pricy passes at the first house in Shoalwater. The proceeds, we were
assured, would be divided between the Historic Trust and the Nature Conservancy. The passes were tax deductible.
I clutched the stub of mine as Bonnie led the way up the curving walk toward the front porch of the McKay
mansion. A huge monkey-puzzle tree dominated the yard. Beyond the house I could see the ferry landing and the
gray sheen of the bay. I was glad we were not the first viewers to arrive. If we had come straight out to the Enclave
we might have been.

The walk arced past beds of autumn flowers, carefully color coded to complement the gray-blue of the
turreted house. The fandango of scalloped shingles and ornamented moldings was muted by the lighter gray of the
trim. The McKays had chosen a deep carmine as the accent color. The result was less flamboyant than the
Carpenter Gothic vision in Shoalwater, and it fit into the pervading air of discreet wealth. Rich but by no means
vulgar.

A covered porch wrapped the front of the house. Though the enamel gleamed as if it had been freshly
hosed, it was quite dry. Gray wicker lawn furniture sat empty, waiting for the McKay clan to assemble. There was a
porch swing. Someone had set out ceramic containers of lobelia on either side of the stately front door, the blue so
intense it almost hurt the eyes.

A young woman in a long mauve skirt and a white shirtwaist, her hair upswept under a vast mauve and
white hat, glanced without interest at our ticket stubs and murmured permission to enter the foyer. It was very
handsome indeed. The woodwork and the long curved banister of the stairway gleamed a rich brown.

"Philippine mahogany," Bonnie muttered as she headed for the guest book. I signed in, too, and took in
the hall. No wonder Annie had found my entryway unimpressive. Tall, tall ceilings, wide mahogany molding, period
wallpaper, oval portraits of dead McKays, a gleaming refectory table with a floral set piece in cut glass. Shucks.

"Hello, there. I'm Robert McKay."

I thought the kid in tennis whites was speaking to Bonnie and me. I opened my mouth to respond, but
his glance passed over me to the driver of the Lincoln.

"Robert McKay the fourth, actually, if you know my dad and grandfather."

Sycophantic murmurs indicated that several of the visitors did know the other extant Roberts.

"Everybody calls me Rob."

I was willing to bet they called him Robbie.

"If you'll move into the small parlor, I'll come back to you in a few minutes. My mother is putting the
paper to bed today, so she deputized me to guide you around."

Several women and one depressed man had come in after us, and the Lincoln and the Nissan had beat
us to the guest book, so our little group filled the hall. We moved through the archway Rob indicated like sheep
before an intelligent collie.

Bonnie headed for the window. Behung with what looked like nineteenth century lace, it framed the
monkey-puzzle tree. "He looks like his mom."

I nodded and took up a station beside her. Another youth in tennis whites strolled across the lawn to
consult our guide. Reinforcements.

Rob McKay was a year or two younger than Freddy, blond, with Annie's definite features and slight
build. He was a couple of inches shorter than his father. So far he had not pinched Bonnie. When he returned with
two more customers and began his spiel, I decided he probably had his mother's brains, too.

He summarized the history of the house crisply. It had been built for the first Captain McKay in 1882 at
the height of the old robber's fortunes, and it passed into the hands of the first Robert after the famous shipwreck
of 1901. The elder branch of the family, he explained, had since died out.

Bonnie's elbow jabbed my ribs but she didn't say anything. We had agreed to keep in the
background.

Young Rob explained that the house was available to the whole family, though only his parents lived in
it year round. They had a suite on the second floor overlooking the bay. The girl at the door was Rob's cousin,
Ashley, Quentin's daughter, a senior at Mills, and her brother, a freshman at the University of Washington, was also
going to usher people through the house. Rob himself was a junior at Stanford and would be returning to school the
next week. I wondered if Rob knew Darla or Freddy.

Rob's Uncle Quentin and family lived on Bainbridge Island near Seattle, and his Aunt Paige lived in San
Francisco. Both lots apparently used the place as a summer house. He explained that the McKay Fourth of July
party had numbered nineteen, counting guests, and that ten had stayed through the month without crowding. Must
have been fun to clean up after.

Somebody asked about staff. There was a housekeeper with rooms near the kitchen and a
groundskeeper who lived over the garage. The rest of the help came from the village. I think Rob meant
Shoalwater. My brother Tod married a woman whose family had a similar place in Bar Harbor, so the
housekeeping marvels were less interesting to me than they might have been. My mind turned to Bob and Annie
McKay. They had to have been married for at least twenty years. Annie had probably been covering for Bob the
whole time.

I trailed through the impeccable rooms without really focusing. Had Bob wanted to bring Cleo to the big
house party? I visualized Annie facing Cleo on McKay territory and annihilating her rival with graciousness. Too
bad it never happened.

We saw a lot of well-preserved Victoriana. People made admiring noises whenever Rob paused in his
mostly accurate descriptions. Bonnie's wide eyes and pink glow suggested she found the furnishings
impressive.

I was rather impressed with young Rob. He kept up an easy, informed patter, made a couple of jokes at
his family's expense, and answered his guests' questions with good humor. He also herded us through the rooms
that were being shown--all of them on the ground floor--without making us feel rushed.