Mudlark (4 page)

"Maybe the killer took her bag," Bonnie muttered as we trudged along the street, "but if he was a
mugger, he would have stolen her rings. Did you see the size of that emerald?"

I had. Cleo Hagen's left hand, bearing the sandy mark of Bonnie's shoe, had displayed, undisturbed, a
wide gold wedding band and a square-cut emerald in a more ornate setting. The emerald was so large I had
thought it was fake--until the sun broke through. "Maybe you startled him off."

Bonnie did not like that idea. We walked on.

"Tom Lindquist," she mused. "I actually bought a house next to Thomas Lindquist. That was the
funniest book I've read in the last five years."

I gaped at her. "You thought
Starvation Hill
was funny?"

She stopped in the roadway. "
Starvation Hill
? What's that? I mean the one that came out in May.
Small Victories
. It was about growing up in a northwestern town. Holy cow, Kayport. It must be. I wonder
why the man is still alive. Maybe somebody got confused in the fog and whacked his ex by mistake."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't imagine the book's popular around here. It's satire and wickedly funny, and the people are so
real you know he had to have somebody definite in mind. Even if he didn't, everybody must be trying to guess
who--"

"You have to be thinking of another writer." I explained about the Western Book Award and the
publishing house that had gone out of business. "
Starvation Hill
came out three years ago. There can't have
been more than five thousand copies. It was lyrical and tragic, a terrible story in some ways. About an old woman
whose father traded her to a band of Indians for food when she was ten years old."

"Historical?"

"Obviously," I said crossly. We were approaching our driveway. "It's a tour de force of narration--a
female-viewpoint story told to a great-grandson who doesn't understand what the woman means half the time. My
mother--she's a poet--said the control of Victorian language was dazzling."

"Huh." Bonnie sounded skeptical. "Maybe he's schizophrenic--Lindquist, I mean. Not that
Small
Victories
isn't dazzling, too, but it's definitely modern. Set in the sixties." She gave a chortle. "The ultimate
answer to
Leave It to Beaver
."

"I think we'd better exchange books."

"Okay." She stopped by the entrance to our driveway. "I'll duck across and take a quick shower. Half an
hour?"

"Sounds all right."

"What should I do with the carpet bag?"

I'd half-forgotten it. "Better bring it over. Tell Nelson about it. It's a pity you lost the note."

"I'll look again." The vivacity drained out of her. "My God, what a mess. I hope he didn't do it."

"Tom Lindquist? Me, too." I didn't add that most women who were victims of murder were killed by
their husbands. Or ex-husbands. I wondered how much Lindquist had made from his books, and how much Cleo
Hagen had offered him for the old McKay place, and whether any of that was relevant to the murder.

The ambulance bearing Cleo Cabot Hagen's body to the hospital in Kayport, where the autopsy was to
be performed, met us going the other way as we returned from Shoalwater. The driver was taking his time.

When Bonnie and I went off to Shoalwater, Freddy was in the shower. When we returned, he had
already left. A note on the refrigerator informed me that he and Darla had gone to the Oregon beaches. He'd be
home late.

Poor Freddy. I was fairly sure Darla would, at most, permit a little hand-holding as they leapt over tide
pools or scrambled up cliffs. As far as I could tell, she was not a sexual tease. She just didn't understand the depth of
Freddy's attachment. I hoped she wouldn't make him too miserable.

Bonnie and I chewed over the events of the morning along with our pastrami sandwiches. She had
found
Small Victories
for me, and I could hardly wait to get to it. Unfortunately, my copy of
Starvation
Hill
was stored with the rest of our books until such time as we set up decent bookshelves. The house's
former owners had not been readers. I reflected that I ought to dig the book out and ask Lindquist to autograph it
before he was arrested.

Dale Nelson showed up around one thirty. I fed him a sandwich and a cup of coffee, and he took our
statements with a minimum of fuss and redundancy. He had gone by three. Bonnie went home--to take a nap, she
said. I curled up on a lawn chair on the balcony outside the master bedroom so I could read and still keep an eye on
what was happening at the old McKay place. Not much, apparently. I could see the roof of the blue Toyota pickup if
I squinted. It didn't move.

Although the fog had finally burned off, the air was cooler than the day before, even in direct sunlight. I
put on a pair of sunglasses and turned to the back cover flap. The author bio was disappointingly vague. Thomas
Lindquist was a native of the northwest and had been educated at UCLA. He had published a number of short
stories, most of them in literary magazines, in addition to "award-winning"
Starvation Hill
. Apart from that,
I knew no more about him after I read the blurb than before. There was no photograph.

When Jay came home an hour later I was so deep in the story I didn't even hear the car pull in. He stuck
his head out the French door and said, "I hear you've found another body."

I jumped and dropped the novel. "Uh, yes. What do you mean, another body? I don't find bodies--"

"They find you. Right."

I stood up and gave him a kiss. "How did you hear about it?"

"Sheriff's office. They want me to oversee the evidence team."

"Are you going to?"

"I don't know. It sounds routine to me. The deputy can probably handle it."

I held out Bonnie's copy of
Small Victories
. "Remember
Starvation Hill
?"

"Sure. Good book."

"The victim was Lindquist's ex-wife."

He whistled. "Maybe not so routine."

I went down with Jay and told him everything while he unwound over a bottle of Portland Ale. I drank a
beer, too. One of the advantages of our move north was the number of first-rate microbreweries in the area. We
were sampling our way through the local products.

I avoided summarizing the plot of Lindquist's second novel. Jay deserved to discover the fun himself.
The book was strong, many-layered satire, and all too obviously set in Kayport and Shoalwater. I put it aside with
reluctance.

It was a luxury to have Jay to myself two dinners in a row. I hoped Freddy and Darla would take their
time. I threw together a prawn stir-fry. Afterward I read, and Jay put in a couple of hours on his textbook. We
watched the sunset together from our balcony and went inside to make another modest attempt at
generation.

Eventually we drifted back out to watch the fog roll in. I had no idea what time it was. Bonnie's lights
were off and the Cramers' were on. I didn't see Bonnie's little Ford Escort. She had been threatening to drive to
Astoria. I did make out a light in the second story window of the McKay place.

I stretched and yawned. "I think I'll go finish
Small
Victories
."

"Is it another historical novel?" Jay was leaning on the rail. He straightened.

"No, unless 1965 is historical."

"Feels more historical all the time."

"Well, it's not. I was eight that year. We spent the summer checking out Civil War battlefields for Dad.
Tod got into some poison ivy at Antietam." Tod was my brother.

"I remember it well," Jay said absently. He was peering north.

"Tod's poison ivy? If you're not going to listen--"

He stood straight, whirled, and plunged through the door to the bedroom. "That house is on fire. Call
911."

I dashed in after him. "What house, the McKay place?"

"Yes." He was pounding down the stairs. "Hurry!"

I stopped in the hall, retraced my steps, and dialed 911 on the bedroom extension. The phone had a
long cord. I was standing on the balcony squinting in the direction of Lindquist's house by the time I got through to
the dispatcher. I could see flames leaping along the dark rim of the roof. When I was sure the woman at the other
end understood me I hung up, threw the phone on the bed, and ran down the stairs three at a time. The front door
banged shut behind me. I gained the road and ran flat out.

I could not have been more than a minute behind Jay. When I reached the edge of the McKay property, I
could see Jay's head and Lindquist's against the glow of the fire. That was a relief. The house was old and had
wooden siding and shingles--silvery cedar. I had been worrying that Lindquist might be trapped upstairs.

When I reached the drive I saw that he had already turned a garden hose on the flames. He and Jay
were arguing. I couldn't hear what they said over the roar of the fire, which seemed to involve the northeast corner
only, the side porch, kitchen, and whatever lay above the kitchen.

Jay shook his head violently and jumped back as Lindquist reached for him one-handed. The inadequate
spray of water wobbled away from the flaring shingles, steadied, and returned. Jay took two swift strides in my
direction. When he saw me he stopped.

"The bastard almost took a swing at me." Jay had to shout to be heard.

"Why?" I was yelling too.

"Wanted me to hold the hose on the fire while he went into the house. I told him no dice. He'd die of
smoke inhalation. That fire is dirty."

"Can't we do anything?" As I watched, Lindquist yanked the hose savagely and tried for a different
angle.

"He's on a pump," Jay was shouting. "Not enough water pressure."

"What about the neighbor across the road?"

"Good idea."

A disadvantage of rural living was no city water. It stopped about three blocks up toward the crest. The
rest of the houses, including ours and Lindquist's, had their own wells and septic tanks.

Jay was across the road banging on the door of the neat single-width mobile home. I followed.

At that distance the fire was quieter. I could see Tom Lindquist's battle silhouetted against the glare of
the fire and the dimmer porch light, which was still on. The flames turned the fog orangey-yellow.

I heard doors slamming and voices shouting elsewhere. People were beginning to notice. After much
pounding, the light above the front door of the mobile home went on and the door opened.

The elderly woman who had stared at Bonnie and me earlier that day looked up at us. She was wearing
a sweat suit. The shirt front was covered with embossed pansies on a field of black. I could hear a television, rather
loud, through the open door.

"What's the matter? Oh." She spotted the fire.

"Do you have a garden hose, ma'am?" Jay, always polite in a crisis.

"I sure do." Once roused, the woman moved with vigor. She led us to a tap at the west end of the house.
A coiled green hose with a spray nozzle lay in the grass.

Jay hooked the hose up, I unwound it, and the woman turned the water on. By the time I got the spray
adjusted I had dragged the hose to the edge of the road. Jay took it from me. I straightened it while he jogged to the
east end of the drive. That was as far as the hose reached.

Jay aimed high and the thin arc of water landed with a puff of steam on the edge of the smoldering
roof.

Lindquist must have noticed. He glanced once Jay's direction, then moved his own stream of water
lower, to the roof of the porch.

I was standing in the road.

"Wow, lookit that, them shakes are burning!" An excited voice at my elbow. I looked down. A boy of
about ten was standing beside me.

"Yeah, wow, there she goes--"

I laced into the little beasts. There were half a dozen of assorted sizes and both sexes. I managed to
bully them back across the road to the yard of another mobile home, where several adults were standing, mouths
agape, watching the show. I was about to approach the gawkers to ask whether they had a garden hose when a fire
truck, siren wailing, lights flashing, jolted up the access road from the beach and crunched into the drive. Firemen
leapt out. The brats cheered. Jay and Lindquist kept their hoses going.

Almost at once things got orderly. The truck was a tanker with its own water supply. While the fire
captain directed a strong stream at the flames, shadowy figures in fire hats and heavy coats advanced on the house
in a determined way, axes and pikes at the ready.

It was a good thing the Fire Department showed up when it did. Only a few minutes after the tank truck
began to do its work, the light on Lindquist's porch dimmed and went out. The fire had reached the wiring. His
pump apparently went too, for he dropped the hose and ran over to Jay.

At that point a regular truck arrived and the crew began stretching a very long hose up the road to the
nearest fireplug, which was three blocks east.

A fire is a great crowd-pleaser. People were clumped in every yard by then, and quite small children,
whose parents should have been neutered before the fact, ran shrieking up and down the road. I have to admit I
was just gawking myself, now that my presence served no purpose.

Several cars had pulled off on the shoulder of the county road. The drivers stood on the sandy verge
and watched the fun, among them a blond woman clutching a notebook. For a moment I thought I recognized her,
but I couldn't see her clearly in the shadows.

When the second fire hose kicked in, Jay and Lindquist began dragging the helpful neighbor's green
hose back across the street. I ran to the mobile home and shut the water off at the tap. There was no point in
draining her well dry.

Jay and I began to try our hands, not very effectively, at crowd control. Lindquist went back to his
property. I could see him talking to the fire captain. A sheriff's car arrived with its lights flashing, and the children
suddenly became manageable.