Shooting at Loons (17 page)

“Never been too hung up about the difference between women’s work and men’s,” he said with an easy smile. “Not since I learned about oysters.”

“What about oysters?” I asked suspiciously.

“They flip-flop back and forth on their gender, depending on who’s on top. Grow the lady on top of the gentleman, and a few months later, he’ll be female, she’ll be male and they’ll still get baby oysters.”

“You’re making that up,” I told him.

“There’s a field guide to seashells in the living room,” he said. “If you don’t believe me, go check it out.”

I went and found the book and looked up oysters. After a paragraph or two detailing how oysters grow in the marshes and mud flats of intertidal zones where water movement is gentle, the entry finally got down to their sex life. Guess what?

“You sure you don’t want to stay on down over the weekend?” he asked.

“Positive. Not that it hasn’t been fun.”

He gave me a considering look.

“Forget it,” I told him. “We’re not oysters.”

I went to bed.

Alone.

Along about two
A.M.
, I woke up thirsty from the anchovies and tiptoed out to the kitchen for a drink of water.

And realized that thirst wasn’t what had waked me.

Kidd Chapin was a dark shape at the back window and I saw him motion for silence through the faint reflected light from up at the store. Outside, a light rain was still falling. The wet live oaks swayed in a strong southwest wind and made moving shadows everywhere. I could hear low waves breaking upon the sand; and every fifteen seconds, a faint gleam from the lighthouse swept through the window over on the east side.

I stood on tiptoe to peer over Kidd’s shoulder, past the bushes, to the road, and whispered in his ear, “What are we looking at?”

“I’m not sure. I went to the bathroom about ten minutes ago and happened to look out and see somebody coming up from the water.”

“Fishermen use the path all times of the night and day,” I told him, “depending on what’s running and how the wind’s blowing or—”

“I know about the wind and spring tides, Ms. Judge,” he reminded me.

“Sorry.”

“Besides, he didn’t walk straight on up the path and down the road like a waterman. He kept so far in the shadows I never did get a clear look. In fact if it weren’t that you never see any blacks on the island, I couldn’t know if he was black or white. He slipped through those bushes and on across the road and now I don’t see him anymore.”

“What’d he have on?”

“I don’t know. It was all dark. Probably a jacket with a hood on it.”

“Maybe you ought to call Marvin Willitt,” I said.

“What for?”

“You just said—”

“Yeah, and I tell Marvin Willitt where I am and half of Harkers Island’ll know it by daybreak. And what if it’s somebody only just out cheating on his wife, trying not to be seen by
her
husband?

“‘Only just out cheating on his wife?’” I couldn’t help the snide acid.

“Hey, I’m not condoning it, just recognizing the facts, ma’am.”

He stepped back from the window as I opened the refrigerator and squinted against the sudden bright light. “You want a glass of tomato juice?”

“Okay.”

We took our glasses back toward the unlit living room. A stiff April wind was pouring through the south windows straight off the water, thick with rain and salt and funky seaside odors. I shivered in my thin gown.

“Aw, don’t go back to bed yet,” said Kidd. “Is it too cold for you? I’ll put the windows down.”

“No, I like it, but I have to put on something warmer.”

“My sleeping bag zips open to a double comforter,” he offered and I saw white teeth flash in the near darkness.

“I’d hate for you to disfurnish yourself,” I said dryly and went into my room to slip on a fleecy sweatshirt and slippers and to lay hands on a comforter of my own.

As I pulled the shirt over my head, I noticed through the window a flicker of light over at Andy’s house. I quickly stuffed my gown inside a pair of warm-up pants, kicked off the slippers and pulled on sneakers, then hurried out to Kidd.

“It’s Andy Bynum’s house,” I said. “The man that was killed Sunday? Somebody’s sneaking around his house.”

“Hey, wait a minute!” he rasped as I slid open the door. “Where do you think you’re—”

“It’s okay,” I assure him, jingling my car keys. “I’ve got a gun in my trunk, remember?”

He grabbed my arm before I stepped off the porch into the rain and held me while he crammed his feet in his own shoes. “Now listen up, Ms. Judge—no guns. You stay here and I’ll go—”

I yanked my arm free with a low snarl. “I’ve got a better idea, Officer Chapin. You stay here and call Marvin Willitt and I’ll go.”

“Or,” he amended, “we can go together, only no gun, okay?”

I nodded and we set off through the bushes. Between the security light near Mark’s house and the lights up at the store, we didn’t need a flashlight to see where we were going, but we were keeping to the shadows as much as possible ourselves and there was a certain amount of stumbling so that we wound up running across the rain-slick road hand in hand, then melted into the bushes beneath the front windows of Andy Bynum’s house.

Unlike Sue and Carl’s little yellow clapboard vacation cottage, this was a year-round brick home, solid and comfortable, with blinds and drapes at all the windows. Yet the window of the front door was uncurtained and we could see the glow of a moving flashlight inside.

“Stay here,” said Kidd as he moved onto the porch. “Please?”

As I may have said before, I don’t mind letting men do my dirty work if it makes them feel good, but that doesn’t include using one as a body shield. On the other hand, this one seemed to have picked up a short piece of pipe on our way over and I certainly didn’t need to be in the middle if he started swinging it.

The front door was unlatched, but when Kidd pushed, it swung inward with a horrendous squeak and the light immediately vanished. As he stepped inside, I remembered that there was a side door I could be usefully watching, but for the moment, I blanked on which side. By the time I’d circled all the way around the house, the door was standing wide open and I saw a dark shape fleeing for the water. From the angle he was taking, I had a feeling he’d tied up at Mahlon’s landing, so I cut through the Lewis’s yard, trying not to skid on the wet grass, and sprinted down the narrow footpath the boys had worn through that overgrown vacant field, down to the shoreline. I bet I’d have made it in time to get a good look at the intruder, too, only just before I was to break through the bank, the toe of my sneaker caught in one of Mahlon’s discarded stop nets and I went sprawling into a yucca plant.

A stiff needled blade jabbed my cheek, another raked my forehead, and more impaled themselves in my head and hands. I disentangled myself as quickly as I could, but already I could hear the boat motor; and when I finally made it to the shore, all I saw were the running lights as it headed out to the channel and back toward Beaufort. Without moon or stars, I couldn’t even say if it had a cabin or an open cockpit, for it was just a gray blur against the dark water.

Discouraged, thoroughly wet and hurting like hell, I started to cross Mahlon’s rickety dock and stumbled against a bucket. It went banging against the piling and, as I set it upright, a light snapped on. Mahlon’s grizzled head appeared at the open window and he squinted out to see into the darkness.

“Who’s that out there?”

“It’s just me, Mahlon,” I called, edging away from the light. “I couldn’t sleep and was taking a walk and I kicked a bucket. Sorry. G’night.”

He was still muttering about dingbatters without enough sense to come in out of the rain as I walked hastily back to the cottage.

Kidd Chapin was there before me and as soon as I stepped inside, he drew the shades and turned on the lights. His wet hair clung flat to his head, but mine was hanging in strings.

“Sweet Jesus in the morning! Look at you. What happened?”

I touched my damp face and my torn hands came away with more blood. “I fell into a damn yucca.”

“Spanish bayonets,” he said, calling its colloquial name.

“They weren’t kidding. The way it hurts, I’m lucky I didn’t get one in the eye. I don’t suppose you got a look at him either?”

“No, by the time I got to the open side door, you were both gone and I didn’t have a clue which way. I was on my way to the water when the light came on over there and I could see you by yourself, so I decided to sneak on back in here while you were creating a diversion. Come on, shug, let’s get you cleaned up.”

I was drained into docility and obediently sat at the kitchen table while he washed the blood off my face and hands with a hot soapy washcloth, then dabbed at the cuts and punctures with peroxide.

“Hope you got a light calendar tomorrow,” he said. “You’re going to look like hell a couple of days, but I’d leave the Band-Aids off, let the air heal it.”

“Take two aspirin and call you tomorrow?” I said groggily.

“Wouldn’t hurt.”

“Which?”

“Both.”

I swallowed the aspirin he brought me, shucked off the wet sweatshirt and warm-up pants, and crawled into bed.

My head felt as if it’d barely touched the pillow when Kidd’s hand touched my bare shoulder. At first I thought it was still that hazy cusp between night and sunrise, but according to the clock it was nearly seven-thirty and I realized that the gray light was due to the gray day. The rain had stopped, though clouds still lingered. If more clouds didn’t blow in, it would probably be sunny by noon. I tried to sit up and every muscle in my body started screaming that this was really a bad idea and maybe we could all come back and try it again tomorrow.

“I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye,” said Kidd.

“No loons?”

“No. Ol’ Mahlon left at first light without a gun. Gone fishing, I’d guess.”

A hot cup of coffee steamed on the stand beside the bed. I eased up against the pillows and took a grateful sip.

“How’d you know I like it black?”

“No sugar bowl on the counter, no milk in the fridge. Made it easy. How you feeling?”

“Stiff, sore. How do I look?”

“Beautiful,” he said. “Except for the dueling scars. You’re a gutsy lady. Want to come hunting poachers with me some night?”

“Any time you’re in Dobbs,” I smiled.

“Bet you just would, too. Listen, though. You were too beat to talk, but whoever that was last night, he must have gone straight to the desk in what looked like the den ‘cause when I walked in, it was flat torn apart. Papers everywhere. I called Quig Smith and told him and he’s coming out this morning to see if he can get any fingerprints off the doors and desk. I didn’t touch anything inside and you never went in, so he’s going to tell Bynum’s family that he got an anonymous phone tip, okay?”

“Okay,” I yawned.

Very gently, he leaned over and kissed my uninjured cheek. “See you around, Ms. Judge,” and then he was gone.

A hot shower did wonders for my aching muscles, but it also brought out the bright red of my scratches. I hesitated between leaving them clean for quicker healing and covering them with makeup.

Vanity won, but I promised my face I’d take cream and face soap with me and wipe off all the makeup as soon as court was adjourned. That should be by noon or one o’clock and nothing was on the docket for next day.

And all the time I was dressing, Kidd’s words rang in my head. What sort of burglar tore apart a desk and scattered papers rather than grabbing up the nearest pawnable items? And did he want papers relating to the Alliance or papers relating to Pope Properties?

Suddenly I was reevaluating the figure I’d chased last night. Could it have been a woman? More specifically, Linville Pope? Barbara Jean’s accusations began to take on a tinge of reality.

Since it would be almost as quick to swing back past the island as to leave straight for Beaufort, I planned to wait till after court to pack and clean up. Unless Jay Hadley told (and why would she?), no one else knew I had half of Andy’s papers; but I’ve always thought it better to set the glass back on a sturdy table than cry over spilt milk, even though the cottage offered few places to hide a bundle of files. I briefly considered and rejected the linen closet with its neat stacks of sheets and towels, the oven, or between the mattresses.

In the end, I went for Poe’s solution. Neatly stacked for recycling beside the kitchen garbage basket were all the newspapers I’d read that week, both the
News and Observer
and the
Carteret County News-Times
. Quickly, I divided the files between several of the newspapers, replaced them in the stack, and convinced myself that no one would give the papers a second glance.

Outside, grinding gears announced the arrival of a large white truck in the field next to Mahlon’s. The door panel read COASTAL WASTE MANAGEMENT CORP, MOREHEAD CITY. Two muscular men stepped out, surveyed the scope of the job, then began tossing junk into the back of the truck. I saw Mickey Mantle go over and speak to them, then a few minutes later, he was tugging at those gamecock pens and moving them one at a time back nearer the house.

Looked like Linville Pope was serious about cleaning up her property. What was it she’d said yesterday? “I do not threaten. I merely state.”

No joke.

As I crossed the causeway to the mainland, I passed Quig Smith and he gave me a big wave.

At the courthouse, Chet did a double take when he saw my face. “My God, girl! You look like you ought to be standing in front of the bench instead of sitting on it.”

“Oh come on, it doesn’t look that bad, does it?” I examined my face again in the mirror. My hair half hid the scratch on my forehead and makeup almost covered the deeper one on my cheek.

He shook his head. “What happened?”

“I fell into a yucca plant.”

“Ouch!” He flinched in sympathy. “Just jumped up and bit you, huh?”

“What I get for playing Nancy Drew,” I said and told him about chasing the burglar who’d broken into Andy Bynum’s house. With some editing, of course. I didn’t need stories getting back to my family, and he didn’t need to know about the papers or Kidd Chapin either, which meant I had to fudge about what Quig Smith knew.