Still Water (8 page)

“I want you to leave my traps alone you goddamned bastard, or so help me I won’t be responsible for my actions,” she told him, her voice quivering with anger.

His black eyes glowered. “Bryan always said somebody ought to fix you Ella.”

“I bet he did. Bryan’s pretty good when it comes to fixing women isn’t he?”

“Watch your damn mouth.”

“Or what?” Ella said. “What will you do Jake? Well come on then, you big sonofabitch.”

Jake hesitated and then suddenly he came at her and Ella reacted without thinking. She swung the length of wood in an arc towards his head and though Jake saw it coming and tried to step back out of the way the blow caught him a glancing chop to the side of his skull. The impact jarred through Ella’s wrist. Blood flowered brightly at Jake’s temple, then his stunned expression folded as he crumpled to the ground.

Dave Baxter had never kidded himself that he was any great catch. His hair was greying at the temples and his pants got tighter every year. He guessed he was in okay shape otherwise. Thickening maybe, but still solid. He looked as if he might have done some boxing in his youth. His nose was bent out of shape and a little squashed from having been broken a couple of times. But the only thing close to boxing he’d ever done was to bust up bar fights when things got rowdy in the Schooner.

He pulled over to the side of the street and climbed out of his cruiser. He’d spent the day as he had most of the week, combing the woods around the cove along with twenty other guys, looking for Bryan Roderick. Baxter didn’t think they were going to find him and he’d decided to call the search off. He paused in the shade of a cottonwood growing out of the sidewalk beside the market, and fished in his pocket for a stick of gum. He’d given up smoking three years ago, breaking a lifetime pack-a-day habit, but now he was addicted to Wrigley’s instead, and he went through a couple of packs a day. He’d also gained about twenty pounds, which he’d never been able to shift.

A Mercedes wagon was parked across the street. Baxter recognized it as belonging to Kate Little, and he looked around, wondering where she was. He knew she bought her groceries at the market, and figuring she might be inside he went on in.

“Hey Dave, “Julie Eggert said. “Usual?”

She reached for a ten-pack of Wrigley’s spearmint flavour. Baxter had known Julie ever since they were kids. She’d been the prettiest girl in school, but now she weighed about a hundred and eighty pounds and wheezed if she walked more than a hundred yards. She was married to a fisherman and they had six kids between them, which partly accounted for the fact that she looked about ten years older than she really was.

“Thanks,” Baxter said.

“You all set now?”

“I guess.” He handed her a bill and while she rang up the sale he looked down the aisles for Kate Little. “Maybe I’ll get something for supper while I’m here.”

“Sure.”

Baxter went past the freezer cabinets at the back of the market, and picked out a pack of hamburgers just so he wouldn’t look too obvious, then he wandered past each aisle, checking them all, but there was no sign of Kate. He went back to the checkout, and she was there, unloading her cart while Julie ran the packages past the scanner.

Julie glanced up at him. “You can take those over to Lisa, Dave, so you don’t have to wait.” She put his gum where he could reach it on top of her register.

“That’s okay.” Baxter picked up a magazine from the rack and flicked through it, occasionally glancing towards Kate. She took the last item from her cart, and started looking in her bag for her wallet. Her hair was jet black and reached about halfway down her back. Baxter wondered how her hair would feel. It looked so sleek and shiny, it reminded him somehow of fine misty rain on a summer’s evening. Her nails were painted a bright red that went with her lipstick, and the cuffs of the white linen shirt she wore were turned back once over her slim wrists. The shirt looked expensive, as did her pants and shoes. She wore a couple of big rings on her fingers that Baxter guessed were diamonds.

Julie rang up a total for Kate’s groceries and told her the amount. She took a credit card without smiling and while it processed she turned her back and started talking to Lisa who was on the next checkout about something one of her kids had done. If Kate noticed the subtle insult she didn’t show it. She just looked calmly out of the window to the street outside. Baxter frowned.

After Kate had left, Baxter replaced the magazine and paid for his gum and packet of burgers.

“You see that? “Julie said, looking at Kate as she left the store. Two bottles of vodka in her groceries.” Her mouth turned down disapprovingly.

A week ago Baxter had seen Dan Eggert, Julie’s husband, lying outside the Schooner moaning quietly beside a pool of his own vomit, and he’d had to drive him home, but he didn’t mention it.

“I guess we have to get used to plenty more like her if Howard Larson wins the election though,” she added resignedly. She looked at the posters on the window. One of Ella’s, and one of Howard’s.

“I guess you’ll be voting for Ella then.”

Julie frowned. “I don’t know. Dan was talking about maybe opening a little place to sell chowder and lobsters and such. He says all those summer people are going to go crazy for that kind of thing.” She looked thoughtful, as if she were picturing herself behind the counter of her own business. “Then there’s all the talk about Ella and Bryan Roderick going missing like that.” She brought herself up sharp, and flushed, remembering who she was talking to.

“You should know better than that,” Baxter said. He took his purchases and went outside. He tried to picture Dan Eggert running any kind of business. Dan worked on a dragger called the Rose Marie and when he wasn’t working he was often drunk. He shook his head. Some people just had no sense.

Kate was loading her car, and for a moment Baxter thought about going over to ask her if he could give her a hand, but by the time he’d tried to figure what he’d say-it was too late and she’d finished. He watched her drive away, a wistful look on his face. He’d never been confident around women. He was distracted from his reverie by the sound of the radio in his car. He leaned through the window and picked up the mike.

“What is it Martha?” he said.

“Chief? I just had a call from Tom Spencer. There’s been some trouble at the dock. I think you better get down there.” “What kind of trouble?” “It’s Ella Young. She and Jake Roderick had some kind of fight:

Baxter frowned, though he wasn’t surprised. He’d been afraid of something like this happening. “Okay. I’m on my way.”

Anne Laine had been one of two doctors in Sanctuary Harbor for nine years. Originally she’d come to the island for a vacation, wanting to really get away from it all, and St. George had been about as far away as she could get without leaving the country altogether. She’d liked it, and had decided to stay, and though sometimes she got a little tired of the long winters, all in all she’d never regretted her decision. She made less money here than she would somewhere else, but the island and its endless views of the gulf, and the quiet solitude of the woods, more than made up for it. Sometimes the people were a little clannish, but in all the time she’d lived there she had never locked the door to her house, and she’d never once felt afraid to walk a dark road alone at night, and that meant something these days. She finished wrapping Jake’s head in a bandage, and gave him a prescription, which he accepted without looking at.

“Get this filled and take a couple of these every four hours. You’re going to have a sore head for a few days but there’s no serious damage.” Her tone was matter of fact.

In the outer office Baxter was waiting while Howard Larson did his best to sound outraged about what Ella had done.

“And she expects people to vote for her,” he said, shaking his head.

Baxter hadn’t really been listening. He was relieved when Anne appeared and it gave him a chance to cut Howard off. He got up to meet her. “How’s the patient?”

“He’ll live. He took a fair hit, but there’s no sign of a fracture.”

“Yeah, well, he’s got a pretty thick skull,” Baxter said, and Anne raised her eyebrows and smiled.

Howard pulled a sour face. “Seems to me you’re not taking this thing very seriously, Chief. You should’ve seen him when I brought him in. Jesus, there was blood everywhere. It was just luck that Ella didn’t kill him.”

“I doubt she meant to do anything like that, Howard.”

Anne said they could go on through and Baxter went in to see Jake for himself while Howard followed behind, still talking.

“I don’t know. That woman’s got a hell of temper, you can’t deny that. Maybe this isn’t the first time something like this has happened,” he added with dark insinuation.

Baxter stopped, figuring where this was headed. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.”

“Come on, Chief. Everybody knows Ella threatened Bryan. And you haven’t found him out there in the woods yet, have you?”

Howard actually looked pleased, Baxter thought, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why. Anything that would make Ella look bad would be a bonus for Howard. The talk had started pretty quickly on the docks, people drinking and putting two and two together and coming up with ninety-eight. “He’ll probably turn up,” Baxter said, though his voice lacked conviction. The truth was he was starting to get worried about this whole thing.

“You ought to lock her up before she kills somebody else. Jesus, look at him.”

Jake sat in a chair, gingerly feeling his head.

Baxter wondered if Howard was deliberately stirring up trouble, and how much he had to do with this. “That kind of talk isn’t helping anyone, Howard.” He drew up a chair and sat down in front of Jake. “You want to tell me what happened?”

“That bitch, Ella, blind-sided me, that’s what. Could’ve damn well killed me.”

Baxter opened a gum wrapper. A faint blood stain had seeped through Jake’s bandage and he watched it with fascination. He couldn’t help wondering how Ella had managed to get the better of a man who was twice her size and about ten times as mean. He had to admit a grudging admiration for her, though he was also vaguely disturbed. He wondered what else she might be capable of if somebody really made her mad.

“How’d this start?” he asked.

“Why the hell don’t you ask her?”

“I’ll talk to her later, but right now I’m asking you.”

“You gonna talk to her about Bryan while you’re at it? It’s been four fucking days now.”

“We’ve been all over this,” Baxter said. Jake had been in his office twice a day since Wednesday. Baxter wondered if Howard had been putting a bee up his ass, and concluded that it was highly likely.

“She pointed a gun at him for Christ sakes,” Howard interjected. “Plenty of witnesses saw her.”

“Yeah, and they all saw him walk away afterwards. Come on Howard, you know better than that.” He turned back to Jake. “You starting some kind of feud with Ella isn’t going to help matters, Jake. I talked to Tom Spencer and he reckons the last couple of days somebody has been stripping Ella’s traps. You know anything about that?”

“You trying to say this is my fault?”

“No, I’m just trying to figure out how this started. My guess is Ella had a reason for what she did.”

“Seems to me you ought to be asking her that,” Howard said.

“Ella’s already been taken in. I’ll be getting to her, don’t you worry about that.”

Howard actually smiled. “She’s under arrest?”

“Don’t get too excited, Howard. Jake, you want to press charges of assault?”

“Of course he does,” Howard said without waiting for Jake to answer.

Baxter acted as if he hadn’t heard. “If you do,” he mused, ‘it’ll mean we’ll have to look into both sides of the story. And I guess we’ll have to get into detail about how Ella did that damage to your head. Might even make the Island Herald.” He allowed Jake to ponder the idea of everybody reading over their breakfast about how a woman got the better of him.

Jake scowled.

“I’ll take that as a no, then.” Baxter got up to leave. “I’ll see you later Howard.” He smiled to himself as he left.

Matt was in the coffee shop when he overheard a couple of guys talking about what had happened. When Ella’s name was mentioned, he thought there had to be some kind of mistake, but when he got back to his office he called the police department and discovered that Ella was there.

“Is she under arrest?” he asked.

“You’d have to speak to the chief about that,” Officer Williams told him. “He ought to be back any time.”

Matt hung up, and fixed a ‘back in ten minutes’ sign he’d made up himself on the office door. By the time he reached the police department Baxter had returned from the doctor’s office and when somebody went to fetch him he emerged wearing a faintly curious expression.

“Chief.” Matt offered his hand and the two men shook. They had met soon after Matt had moved to the island. He’d made a point of calling in to introduce himself, and the impression he’d formed of Chief Baxter was that he was fairly typical of a small town policeman, inasmuch as he knew just about everybody on the island, and everything that was going on. They’d had coffee and Baxter had told him that crime on St. George didn’t amount to anything more serious than the occasional piece of vandalism or pilfering, a lot of which went unreported anyway. Often it was the symptoms of long running feuds between rival fishermen, which were dealt with by those involved in their own way. Though Baxter had appeared to have a fairly relaxed attitude to policing, Matt had figured that he kept his finger on the pulse and knew when to step in to prevent trouble getting out of hand.

Now as they shook hands, Baxter appeared guarded. “Russ told me you called. You representing Ella, Mr. Jones?”

“Does she need representing?” Matt countered. “And by the way, it’s Matt.”

“Well, Ella isn’t under arrest if that’s what you mean. She didn’t mention she’d called you.”

“She didn’t call, I overheard some talk in the coffee shop and I thought I’d come over and see if there was anything I could do.”

Baxter eyed him with faint suspicion.