The End of The Road (6 page)

I drove Joe to the airport in the early evening dark so he could take the seven o’clock hop to Anchorage in order to catch his flight to Seattle. It would put him into Seattle late that evening, but he was used to that, as he did it a couple of times a year.

“Thanks, Mom—for
everything
,” he said in my ear as he gave me a huge hug. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”

“Give Sharon my love.”

“I most assuredly will.”

I returned his wave as he carried his bag and the cooler out the door and onto the plane that was waiting on the tarmac for the first leg of his return to the big city.

Driving back alone through the Homer streets seemed oddly quiet and the house, when I reached it, extraordinarily empty.

I always miss my children after a visit, so it was not unexpected, but this time the feeling was stronger than usual. So, after a second cup of coffee and some consideration, I set myself a task I had been putting off for weeks—the thorough reorganization of a storage closet by the door that I had lost control of completely.

An hour later I had located several things I had thought were gone for good—a wrench and a screwdriver that both belonged in my toolbox in the garage, a package of paper Christmas napkins from the year before, and a chew toy I had meant to give to Stretch and forgotten. I also found a few grocery items I had replaced, then lost to the closet—several cans of cream of mushroom soup, for instance, a caramel crumb cake mix I had thought to try, and a brand-new package of hairpins that I remembered stashing there on my way out the door sometime the preceding summer, meaning to move them upstairs later. Having bought more, I now probably had enough to last me the rest of my life.

Satisfied with the effort that had allowed me to work off the disquiet I had been feeling, I emptied out the cold remains in my coffee cup and made myself a cup of tea. Then I shoveled out the ashes in the fireplace, built a cheerful new fire, tuned the radio softly to a favorite classical station as background company, and settled in my overstuffed chair to begin one of the books Lew had brought me Saturday evening.

Stretch, who had been getting acquainted with the newly discovered toy, came and went to sleep at my feet—welcome company.

Aside from letting him out for a quick few minutes and making myself a sandwich later, I read the late evening away and went to bed yawning, intending to continue my cleaning spree by attacking an upstairs closet the next morning.

Some old habits remain the best and most reliable remedies for escaping the odd worrisome mood.

FIVE

SOMETIME IN THE DARK MIDDLE OF THAT NIGHT I woke to the sound of Stretch growling quietly deep in his throat, intent on something I couldn’t hear, though I listened closely.

Leaning over the edge of the bed, I laid a hand on his head.

“What is it, lovie? You hear something I should know about?”

He seldom growls without reason, so I got up and, without turning on the lights, carried him to the bottom of the stairs, where I put him down.

He went immediately to focus his attention on the door, though he had stopped growling.

I followed and put my ear close to listen, but heard nothing at all.

After turning on the light that illuminates the yard and much of the driveway between the house and the street, I looked out the window over the kitchen sink, but saw nothing. All was quiet and seemingly peaceful around the house as I turned on lights, checked the deck, and looked out other windows, Stretch following closely behind.

“Silly galah. I think you must have had a nightmare,” I told him. “Did that gray tomcat of the neighbors’ invade your dream territory?”

I turned off the lights and we both went back to bed.

Needless to say, I slept in a bit the next morning, and it was once again Stretch who woke me just after eight thirty, this time with a whine that said he needed to go out for his morning constitutional.

I put on my robe and slippers, then took him down and opened the door wide enough to let him slip out. Then I opened it wider, for, to my surprise, on the top step lay a small, neat package wrapped in a plastic bag from the grocery store and taped closed. So much for accusing Stretch of responding to nightmares!

As I picked it up I could feel that the package had the weight and shape of books and my mind turned immediately to Lew Joiner, with whom I regularly shared them. But why would Lew stop by in the middle of the night? I wondered as I let Stretch, who had finished his business in record time, back inside. I took the package to the kitchen and used my poultry shears to cut open the taped end of the bag and pulled out the contents. On a whim I had bought the shears and not once since had I ever used them on poultry, but instead found them handy for slicing open anything packaged in paper or plastic, which I often find impossible to tear.

It was indeed books, but not from Lew. On the counter before me, held together with a rubber band, lay the two Patrick O’Brian sea stories that John Walker had mentioned picking up at Andy’s Bookstore the previous Thursday—the day before I met him on the spit. Removing the rubber band, I found that between the books was a folded sheet of paper, which I opened to read the following:

I stood staring at the note for a long minute, then read it again.

He must have caught the Homer Stage Line bus that had left at eight thirty that morning, I decided. Why else would he have walked over from the Driftwood Inn during the night to quietly deliver the books to my front step, not realizing how sharp Stretch’s hearing was when it involved his home ground? I wondered why he would have walked all the way across town and back again in the cold when he could have left the books at the hotel in my name. But maybe he had taken a taxi.

I found myself a little disappointed that he was gone, thinking he would have fit well into our relaxed and casual small-town population. I wondered briefly where he was headed after he reached Anchorage at the end of the trip. But it really didn’t matter and it was highly unlikely that I would ever hear from or about him again.

I couldn’t have known just how wrong I was!

It was after ten o’clock by the time I had showered and dressed for the day, fed Stretch, and eaten my own breakfast. I was about to head upstairs to start on that closet when the phone rang.

“Good morning,” I answered it cheerfully, half expecting it to be Joe letting me know he had made it home.

There was a slight hesitation. Then a woman’s voice spoke in my ear.

“Mrs. McNabb?”

“Yes.”

“This is Julia at the Driftwood Inn. Did you know a John Walker who was staying here? He mentioned your name.”

“Yes,” I told her. “I met him on the spit when I took my dog out for a walk on the beach Friday afternoon. I gave him a ride back to town and, when he said he would be staying over the weekend, invited him for dinner on Saturday, with a group of friends and neighbors.”

“So you didn’t know him before that? Do you know where he was from?”

“He never mentioned it, seemed a little reticent, so I didn’t ask.”

There was a hesitation of several seconds before she spoke again.

“Can you hold on a minute, Mrs. McNabb?”

“Yes, of course, Julia.”

I waited, listening intently, but she evidently covered the receiver with her hand, for all I could hear was indistinct mumbling from the other end of the line. Then a man’s voice spoke in my ear.

“Mrs. McNabb?”

“Yes.”

“This is State Trooper Alan Nelson. I’d like to speak with you about Mr. Walker. Could you possibly come here to the Driftwood Inn?”

“What’s this about?” I asked, slightly perplexed.

“I’d rather fill you in when you get here,” he told me. “At the moment I can’t leave or I would come to you. Will you come?”

“Yes, of course,” I told him. “I’ll be there shortly.”

Hearing the receiver replaced on the other end of the line, I hung up, too, wondering what could possibly have inspired the call with its request for my presence. Julia’s voice had sounded a bit strained as I thought about it, so something must be amiss, especially with law enforcement involved. But how could it include John Walker?

Though we have local police, the Alaska state troopers for our part of the state are based in Anchor Point, so they must drive almost twenty miles when their presence is required in Homer. This was clearly one of those times, unless Trooper Nelson had been in our town for some other reason—a not-impossible situation. Still, it must be fairly important for him to be calling me in search of information.

“Well, so much for the closet,” I told Stretch, who had ensconced himself comfortably on the throw rug before the fireplace, in which I had earlier started a small fire to take the night’s chill from the house. “I wonder what could bring the law to find out what I know—and don’t know—about John Walker. He certainly didn’t seem like much of a lawbreaker, but I suppose you can’t always tell, can you? Still, I doubt it’s anything too serious.”

Considering, I readied myself for the drive into town, took Stretch to the car, and was on the road in less than ten minutes. On the passenger seat below Stretch’s basket I put the two books and the note John had left on my doorstep. Though I wasn’t sure just why, I had picked them up at the last minute. Something about the wording of that note had given me an uneasy feeling, especially the first line he had written:
Thank you so much for making my last few days so enjoyable—for sharing your house, your friends, and particularly yourself.