The Sunset Witness (2 page)

Once I'd gone to work in the law firm, my father
seemed to think of me as an equal.  We enjoyed debating the law, and I knew I
provided the companionship he'd missed in my mother.  Through sheer
determination I stayed at the law firm for three years and then braced myself
to tell my father I was leaving.  My dream was to be a writer.  My biological
clock was ticking, and there were a few things I wanted to do before I started
a family.  He took my decision to leave the firm better than I expected. 
Perhaps he was too tired to argue or did not really understand.

My father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease at
78.  It was difficult to see this man who had argued before the state supreme
court now sitting clueless in front of television sitcoms.  The last time I saw
him alive, he deftly led me around the living room to a Strauss waltz. 
Although I was often embarrassed by the cases he took and the negative
notoriety he attracted as a result, I realized that he'd generously provided
for me even if his way of doing so only made sense to him.  I could question
his legal ethics, but I could not question his love for me.

Frank pushed his chair away from the table and
steadied himself with his cane.  As he walked past me, I could see that he didn't
really resemble my father after all.  I wanted to thank him for bringing back
my father for a little while.  Although Frank seemed helpless, his life still
made a difference to someone else.

I finished my lunch and walked toward the cashier. 
She was telling Frank not to worry about his bill.  He came in often enough
that she knew he would pay her the next time.  He thanked her but was obviously
worried and agitated because his wallet was missing.  I asked Frank if it would
be all right for me to pay the bill.  I offered to walk home with him and
suggested he would probably find his wallet there and could repay me without
having to go right back to the diner.  He preferred to go home and bring the
amount of the bill back with him.  He left the diner, and I gave the cashier my
bill and credit card.

"It was nice of you to try to help Frank,"
she said.  "He doesn't have a living soul that cares about him."

"He reminded me of my father.  I'd like to think
someone would've helped him if he were in Frank's place," I said.

I left the diner and was fishing in my purse for my
cell phone when I saw Frank fall.  I let the call go to message and reached
Frank as he was trying to get his legs under him.  I helped him to his feet,
brushed off his pants, and insisted that he let me hold onto his left arm while
he maneuvered the cane with his right hand.  It was a short distance from the
diner to Frank's home, which was the last house on Main Street.

Once we were inside, Frank walked into his bedroom
and found the wallet on his bed.  He'd changed into the beige cardigan before
leaving home and had absent mindedly dropped his blue cardigan, which needed a
button, on top of the wallet.  He sank into his chair in the living room,
almost breathless from the exertion and anxiety.  He took a ten dollar bill
from the wallet and agreed to let me return to the diner with it.  Before I
left, I found a glass in the dish rack next to the sink and filled it with
water for him.  I told him I'd be right back to make sure he was all right.

After I paid Frank's tab at the diner, I checked my
phone and discovered Sarah Duncan's message that she needed to work late and
had left a key to her beach house under the loose brick in the doorway.  Sarah
had contacted me recently, and I was anxious to close the rift in our
friendship.  She was my oldest friend.  Once I left school, and especially
after working at the law firm, I'd found it more difficult to let my guard down
and make new friends.  We both had an artistic streak, but hers was toward
painting, while I preferred to write.  Our similarities ended there.  Her hair
was thick, naturally curly, and blonde, while mine was thin, straight as a
stick, and dark.  I'd not really minded my hair, but I'd been envious of her
blue eyes.  When I watched awkwardly as she entertained our friends with her
hilarious adventures, I took pleasure in the fact that she was short and plump
instead of tall and willowy like me.  Before she left Villanova, she dabbled in
performance art, once pretending to be a bronze statue of Betsy Ross at
Independence Mall.

When I opened his front door, Frank was finishing a
conversation on the telephone with a friend whom he called Dennis.

"Are you feeling better, Frank?"  I asked.

He was opening his wallet, reached for a bill, and
handed me five dollars.  "This is for your trouble," he said.

"It was no trouble, Frank.  Please keep the
money.  I'm trying to get my angel wings, and I have a long way to go."  I
laughed.  "Is there anything else you need before I leave?"

"Not unless you let me pay you," he said.

"I only have one friend here, and she's
leaving.  I'd like to consider you my friend, but it won't work if you insist
on paying me."

I pretended not to notice the tears in his eyes and
went to the kitchen to refill his water.

"I should go now, but I'd like to visit again,"
I said.

"You're welcome any time.  The door is always
open."

"Do you think that's safe?"  I asked. 
After living in a big city, I was naturally suspicious.

"How long have you been in Sunset?" he
asked.

"Just a few hours.  I'm from Philadelphia."

"Well, you'll like it here, then," he said.

When I first arrived in Sunset, I found that I'd come
to a dead end on Main Street before I'd driven what would have been half a city
block in most places.  It is as if the town was shoved to the edge of the
mainland as far as possible before the hillside turns a corner with sheer drops
to the ocean.  The town is an eclectic mix of houses and apartments that perch
precariously on the terraced hills above the Pacific Ocean.  Many homes have an
A-frame design and most of those have generous windows with expansive ocean
views.  Although the homes are generally in good repair, at first glance they
appear to have been hastily thrown together.  There are no rows of neat neighborhoods. 
Homes seem to have been haphazardly stuck here and there and are tucked into
the hillside wherever space allows.  From Main Street, there appears to be no
street access or even a walled path like one might find in Europe.  The only
uniformity is in the homes' exterior gray color that is dreary on a sunny day
and oppressive in the fog and rain.  Perhaps the owners intended for their
homes to blend into the scenery instead of distracting from it.  Sarah had led
me to believe the only access to this wide spot at the bottom of a cliff was a
steep, winding road.

As I walked from Frank's home back toward the diner,
I noticed that his home as well as those few on Main Street and on the first
terrace above it were older than the homes on the hill and that a few owners,
like Frank, had painted the exteriors white, blue, or green.  They were so
close together that from a distance, it appeared they shared a common wall. 
Frank was the only one who had at least two vacant, treed lots next to his home
on the south side.  I could see no motels or hotels.  A sign advertised CABINS,
but I saw nothing to rent.  I wondered if the three structures that looked like
miniature motel rooms on the other side of the treed lot next to Frank could
have been the cabins.  The diner was next to the sign advertising cabins.  On
the same side of Main Street a small deli advertised espresso and shared a
shallow lot with parking for only two vehicles.  The retaining wall at the rear
of the lot was covered with morning glories.  The building on the corner next
to the road leading in and out of town was vacant.

On the ocean side of the street were an auto repair
business and the restaurant Sarah had told me about.  It seemed strange there
were so many places to eat with, apparently, only the cabins for visitors.  There
was a vacant lot next to the restaurant before a steep hill led to a parking
area for beach visitors.  I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever find Sarah's beach
house when I saw two small houses adjacent to the parking area, tucked behind
dense shrubbery, and perched above the beach.  I crossed the street to my car and
then parked it in a space to the side of Sarah's house.

The porch leading to the only door was nearly
obscured with foliage.  Once I found the loose brick and the key Sarah had hid
behind it, I opened the door and went inside.  I started the tea kettle and was
looking for a cup, when I realized I hadn't replaced the key.  As I was hiding
the key behind the loose brick, I noticed the public restrooms that had a view
to Sarah's beach house.  The restrooms were at the entrance to the beach
parking lot.  A scruffy-looking man in ragged jeans and a soiled t-shirt with
the image of Mick Jagger on it walked out of the restroom and waited outside
while lighting a joint.  A younger woman wearing a camisole that revealed the
straps of her sports bra and tight cutoff jeans that ended right above the
curve of her lower buttocks joined him.  He took a drag on the joint before
handing it to the woman.  They headed toward the beach.  I was surprised that Sarah's
romantic beach house left me feeling exposed and wary.  The tea kettle
shrieked, startling me so much that my body lurched, ready to flee, and I
gasped and felt my heart racing.

I locked the door behind me, poured the hot water
over my teabag, and let it steep while I fished for my phone at the bottom of
my purse.  Sarah had left another message.  She'd spoken in a loud whisper so I
could hear above the background noise without anyone hearing her.  She'd not be
driving to Sunset that night, after all.  I was disappointed but not surprised. 
I'd agreed to assume the lease on Sarah's beach house in Sunset after she found
a job as a graphic designer in Hoquarten and grew weary of the hour's commute
to and from it over the narrow, winding, two-lane highway.  She'd arranged for
me to take her job as a waitress.

Sarah and I were still pursuing our artistic passions
while our thirty-something friends were rearing small clones of themselves. 
The prospect of being a waitress in Sunset while I wrote my great American
novel by the sea had sufficient allure so that, for once in my life, I'd not
agonized over every detail before I jumped at the chance.  Obviously, I hadn't
anticipated living next to the Sunset Beach Access that must attract suspicious
characters like a wrecking yard attracts derelict vehicles.  I made an effort
to stay positive and filed the scruffy-looking man away as a character in a
future novel.

The first thing I did after listening to Sarah's
message was to remove the key from its hiding place under the loose brick. 
Before I did that, I scanned the parking lot to be sure no one would see me.  I
felt safer having the key inside with me.  I'd sleep better without wondering
if Sarah's hiding place had been compromised.

The door to Sarah's beach house opened into a small
kitchen.  I lowered the shade on the door glass that provided a view to the
lower row of parking spots angling into the dense shrubbery above the beach. 
The only other window in the kitchen was over a four-foot drop leaf table
across from the counter.  That window faced southeast toward the upper row of parking
spots.  I was surprised to see the roof of Frank's house after recognizing the
brick-colored two-story house next to it.  Depending upon where I stood, I
could see the entire hillside of homes above Main Street.  The countertop
across from this window ran the length of the wall common with the living room
and was interrupted only by a large, stainless steel sink and built-in range
and refrigerator in white.  The cupboards were white and had been painted
several times.  Each layer of paint on the undamaged surface added thickness
that accentuated the shallow, scraped areas that had received only one coat.

When I'd first entered the kitchen and filled the tea
kettle, I was startled to see a mural directly in front of me on the windowless
wall common with the next beach house.  It was so realistic that I'd tried not
to look at it.  The mural was framed by the same hemlock that was around the
real windows.  The window created by the mural started a foot from the front of
the refrigerator and ended a foot from the front of pine shelving that was next
to the drop leaf table.  The overall size was about three feet square.  The
view from this imaginary window was to the window of an imaginary apartment and
the near naked couple who was caught in a passionate and private moment.

The woman's face was obscured by long, dark hair that
cascaded over her shoulders.  She wore hip hugger cutoff jeans, much like the
ones I'd seen on the girl in the parking lot that day.  The woman was sitting
astride a man who was reclining on a bed with his head resting on a pillow
propped against the headboard.  His mid-length hair was sandy colored, and fell
around his face.  His shirt was open and his jeans were ragged at the cuff.  A
strap on the woman's halter top dangled over her bare arm.  Her full breasts
nearly tumbled from the halter as she leaned toward the man's open mouth.

The mural was tastefully done with enough sexual content
to arouse sensations so far in the past that I'd almost forgotten them.  I made
a mental note to find something with which to conceal the mural as soon as I
assumed the lease.  Then I took a picture of it with my phone, so I'd have a
better idea of its size when I shopped for something to place in front of it.

A narrow, arched opening led to the living room that
shared the kitchen wall on one side, and had windows on two others.  The wall
that was common with the next beach house was about ten feet long with a five-foot
closet behind louvered doors and two more built-in pine bookcases on either
side.  The opposite wall had a small window that was mostly obscured by the
same vegetation that crowded the porch.  A folding screen concealed the bed and
a dresser from the living room.  A small bathroom was offset on the west end of
this area with a shower/tub combo built in next to a linen cabinet, a pedestal
sink, and a toilet all in white.  A small window at eye level in the shower
delivered a breeze from the ocean.  The west wall of the living room had a
large picture window with an unobstructed view to the ocean and the arched
rocks that looked like remnants of some ancient, decaying civilization.