And it was practical. After nearly sixteen years in a city known for rain, she was still amazed that a true Seattleite wouldn’t be caught dead with an umbrella.
She grabbed a duffel bag from the bottom of the closet and was then joined on the steps by Beatrice, another morning ritual. Beatrice always stayed home until Martha left for work, then out she went to mouse the ravine and prey on local songbirds. Her electronic collar let her roam in and out of the Carriage House, while keeping out raccoons and neighboring cats. Choosing the front door instead of her custom-made cat door, Beatrice waited for Martha to open it. Martha performed her duties without comment. As she stepped outside, she caught the flash of a cat’s black rump disappearing into the bushes. Beatrice immediately took off in pursuit. “You be careful,” Martha yelled. “I don’t have time to run you to the vet right now.”
The cat paid her all the attention that cats are wont to pay.
Martha selected the Mini Cooper again today. The Lexus was fine for chauffeuring clients around town but it handled like a tank. The ’57 T-bird had been lovingly restored to its original mint condition by her oldest brother just before he went off to do ten years in the penitentiary for turning the family cabin in the woods of Michigan’s UP into a meth lab. The T-bird didn’t come out unless the sun was shining, which meant it was mostly in the garage.
Driving toward downtown Ballard, she heard her phone chime. The number wasn’t familiar.
“Martha Whitaker,” she said.
“It’s Metcalf. I wanted to make sure everything’s okay at home.”
“Yes, it is, Detective, thank you.” She waited for the real reason for his call.
“I had a patrol unit swing by a couple of times last night, and they reported nothing suspicious in the neighborhood.”
“I appreciate your concern. Or were you checking to see if I was planning to skip town?”
“Both,” he replied matter-of-factly. “Still, you need to be careful until we can figure out what’s going on. And don’t make any plans to leave town.”
“Thank you . . . I guess.”
“Okay. Call me if anything seems strange or unusual. And please, be careful.”
Before she could reply, the police detective had hung up. Well, at least there had been a hint that he was starting to believe her.
At nine o’clock, parking along Market Street was still available. Martha pulled the Mini Cooper in in front of the Nordic Heritage Gift Store and Delicatessen. It was the only place in town she could buy lutefisk. She shipped the Norwegian delicacy back to her father a few times each year.
But today she stopped instead next door, where a sign read Gustafson’s Lock and Key Shop. A doorbell jingled as she entered. It smelled musty, like old people and nursing homes. The cramped space had two walls lined with every key imaginable. Facing the back wall, an old man hunched over a workbench, his age-spotted hands busy on a grinder. He turned and eyed Martha through a pair of safety goggles. “How may I help you, miss?”
She held up the key from Hewitt’s pill bottle. “I was hoping you might be able to identify where this came from.”
He approached the front counter. It took him a couple of strides to straighten up completely, which brought him to her height with her boots on. Uneven white stubble covered most of his creased face.
Martha laid the key on the counter.
Instead of looking at the key, he stared into her eyes. “Heterochromia iridium,” he said, “now that’s a rare condition. Passed on through the maternal gene, I believe.”
“Yes, it is,” she said. “Most people don’t know that.”
“I’m not most people.” His smile showed small yellow teeth. Blue lips hinted at circulatory problems. “And a nose straight from royalty. The Hapsburgs, perhaps?”
“More like King Olaf from Norway, many times removed on my father’s side, probably through some illicit affair.”
“Ah, the vanity of youth,” he said, his blue eyes sparkling with life. “Kings don’t have illicit affairs. They are king. As I am king of keys.” He held up the key, a short silver barrel with indentations and protrusions on one end. He rotated it in the light a couple of times. “And this isn’t even a challenge. Life abounds with disappointments. It’s the key to a Brinkman’s safe, usually goes with an electronic code. They’re quite common, available at most any office supply store. Either the L70 or L80 model.”
He handed back the key. “Usually, people come in with a safe but no key, and I can help them. You come in with a key but no safe. With that, I can be of no assistance. There’re probably a million of them. I’m sorry.”
Martha pocketed the key. Her fingers worked its fluted edges. “You’ve been a great help,” she said. “Thank you.” There was no way she could keep this from Metcalf. She placed the key back on the counter. “Is this something you can make a copy of?”
“If it’s a key, I can make a copy of it. Now whether I should is quite another matter.”
She reached for the key. Gustafson stretched out a hand, palm up. “Give me half an hour.”
“Thank you so much. I’m going to visit Mr. Yamamoto. I can be back in an hour.”
“I’m closed for lunch from eleven to one,” he said. “And my nap. I have to conserve my energy. I’m teaching Scandia folkdance tonight at the Nordic Heritage Museum.”
Martha returned to her car just long enough to grab the duffel bag. At a nondescript door tucked between a credit union and a burger shop, she turned and bounded up a flight of stairs. Across an open tatami floor, a middle-aged Asian man sat behind a desk. He glanced up from a laptop and then rose, moving toward her with the slight waddle of a man thick in the chest and legs. The left ear was missing its upper half. As always, he was dressed for work, his white gi cinched tight around his waist with a black belt. The bars showed he was a ninth-level black belt. Bare feet extended below loose white pants. Several inches shorter than Martha, he greeted her with a low bow. “Miss Whitaker, it’s been too long.”
Martha returned the bow, dropping even lower, no easy task given their height difference. “Mr. Yamamoto, my apologies. I hope the sensei forgives me.”
“There is nothing to forgive.”
“Would you have time for a private lesson?”
“I would be honored. Please prepare yourself.”
In minutes Martha returned wearing her gi, tied securely with a black belt indicating her rank of the sixth level, rokudan. Her hair was held back in a French twist. Her morning yoga, while unsuccessful in quieting her mind, had properly stretched tendons and ligaments. She was as flexible as a whip. Yamamoto was nowhere in sight. She bowed before stepping on the tatami. In the center of the mat she sat down and quickly settled into the zazen position, her arms extended. She closed her eyes.
Yamamoto was the seventh master under whom she had studied. He was the most skilled, but also the most reluctant to teach her. After their second or third lesson, he had asked her to sit on the bench with him. On one tatami, a younger sensei led a class of small children in the basic footsteps. Two adult men had replaced Yamamoto and Martha on the second tatami, and they sparred with a grace that stopped just short of violence. First- or second-degree black belts, Martha guessed.
“Why do you fight, senpei?” Yamamoto said, never taking his eyes off the children.
“To learn from you, sensei.”
“With respect, Miss Whitaker, that does not answer my question. Why do you fight?”
In time, she answered, “So I will never be a victim again.”
“That is too easy. Your skill is already there. But you know that. You have had good masters. You have trained long and hard. You are lethal—an efficient fighting machine. But you know that also. I am wondering why I should become your teacher. So why do you fight?”
No answer came to Martha this time.
“Someone has hurt you badly, I know. It is common here to see anger—especially in women—but never have I seen it as intense as I see it in you. Do n
ot let this become your white whale. That’s a journey few people return from.”
The children hopped and stepped, the men kicked and blocked and twirled. And Martha’s mind seemed blank. Finally, she said, “Could you help me find my way back?”
“No, only you can do that.” But he laughed and jumped up, telling the children to stop. “Yame.” He turned. “Thank you, Miss Whitaker. Now I have a purpose. Maybe I can give you the skills to help your return journey. That will be a challenge for me, as well.”
“Kawate,” Yamamoto said, and Martha felt the heavy pole being laid across her wrists. The session began.
She twisted out of the zazen and spun away from the center of the floor, grasping for the pole as she moved. She came up empty-handed. Her leg shot out but caught only a ruffle of fabric. Yamamoto slapped the pole at her leg but she had jumped smoothly to the side. The counter became her move and she snapped a punch at his head. He palmed it aside. The second punch, the real purpose of the move, grazed his cheek as he arched backwards. An opportunity lost, she knew, and she wouldn’t get many of those fighting Yamamoto.
For fifteen minutes, they moved across the tatami, attacking and counterattacking, blocking and avoiding. Martha’s shoulder muscles began to ache in a long dull burn, and her legs wanted to collapse. She could hear Jonesy screaming at her to breathe and let the pain go. The body will take so much more than we think it will. The tide of her breath centered her and brought a crystalline clarity as she moved back toward the center of the mat.
Yamamoto tossed the pole aside and intensified the pace. They moved faster, legs bent lower, each circling for an advantage. Beads of perspiration dripped down her face and her breathing became ragged, no longer under control. Now her height became her disadvantage, and she squatted to maintain as low a center of gravity as possible. Yamamoto launched a series of battle punches, but she stepped through them with a double circling hand, prepared to move over both wrists and dump him to the mat. But he had slipped past her. He dropped to one knee and, before she could twist away, brought her to a backbreaking bow over his thigh.
Martha’s entire body relaxed, a signal that she accepted her defeat. He released her. They bowed to each other, her bow again lower, as was correct for a pupil to her master.
“You might benefit from the Basai Dai kata,” Yamamoto said.
She acknowledged this with a nod. Their sessions on the tatami were usually like this—short, intense—but always followed up with time for her to work alone. The ritualized motions of the kata simulated a series of fight moves against one or more opponents. It was akin to a meditative dance, if done properly.
And so she began. Her tall, lean frame moved across the tatami with a fluid grace, the ritualized steps bringing the understanding of her power as she punched tight air and swirled with a whistling kick. Sweat poured down her face as she moved from corner to corner like a ballerina bent on destruction, first high, then low, twirling her legs like a windmill, a hand motionless before the fatal stab.
And as she reached the end of the kata, she achieved the real reward, that quiet center where there was only herself. And the power she could choose not to use.
Breathing hard, she bowed herself off the tatami. Yamamoto was on the same bench against the wall, hands on his knees. On either side of him sat a student, probably teenagers, one a towhead boy, the other an Asian girl. He patted each on the knee and told them to go stretch in preparation for their lesson.
Martha approached. “Thank you, sensei.”
“It is always a pleasure to work with you,” Yamamoto said. “It challenges me. I like that. But you were distracted today, Martha. It leaves you vulnerable.”
“Is that so bad?” Martha said.
“In a fight, yes.” Yamamoto bowed in farewell. “In life, you will have to decide for yourself. But that is why we are here.”
EIGHT
This time the key shop smelled of burnt metal and dust and old people, but the old key-maker was nowhere in sight. Martha froze. Alive from her workout with Yamamoto, she would almost welcome encountering someone other than Gustafson walking through the door. No sound came from the shop. She had her phone out ready to punch in 911 when she saw the original key and the copy on the counter. The dust cover was on the grinder, and the safety glasses beside it—signs of an old man too trusting to lock his doors. She leaned over the counter, was relieved not to find Gustafson lying there in a pool of blood, and put her phone away. Under the keys was a note scribbled on the back of a receipt.
Having a bit of a lie down. No payment owed if you’ll join me and my wife at the Sons of Norway Ball in July. Remember, those born of the passion of the king may someday ascend the throne. Good luck with finding your safe. Harold Gustafson
Martha pocketed the keys and scribbled on the bottom of the note, “I’ll consider it. Thank you.” She slipped two twenties under the receipt and wondered how James MacAuliffe was feeling this morning. She hoped they had given him some good drugs.
Outside again, she checked each doorway, each window. No one seemed to care that she stood rooted there in the rain. Still, someone out there knew about the houseboat. And Hewitt’s visit with Trammell. They had to know about her. She ducked into the Norwegian delicatessen next door—out of habit, maybe just for comfort—and stood back from the door watching the street. No one appeared or stopped or changed direction. Finally, she turned into the deli. It was as empty as the key shop except for the clutter—an intersection of tradition and kitsch that Hewitt had always delighted in—Dale of Norway sweaters stacked beside Klogg mugs and plastic Viking and Valkyrie figurines. Hewitt would hobble around in a Viking helmet while she ordered the lye-soaked lutefisk for her father.
Hewitt . . . his absence made the store seem all the more empty. A sadness crept over her at the times that they would never again share. Fifty years separated them—and didn’t make a bit of difference. “I’m an old soul and so are you,” he had said once while they were trolling for salmon off Jeff Head. As his downrigger snapped to attention, he added, “We’ve both seen too much, you and I.”
And so they had.
Hewitt reminded her of the Norwegian grandfather she’d never met—a miner in the copper fields in the UP back when that grueling job paid a decent wage. Because of Gran’s stories, Olaf Thornson was as alive to Martha as if she had known him all her life. Back when her own father was the hellion of the third grade class, Olaf had dropped dead at the bottom of a mineshaft. Remarried to the staid and stern John Whitaker, Gran never stopped missing her first husband. “How my Olaf could kick up his heels and dance!” she’d say. “Laughed and danced and played the fiddle and drank and smoked and talked as if life would end tomorrow. Which for him I guess it did.”
And so, too, Hewitt—laughing and talking and dancing and smoking dope as if life would end tomorrow. Which for him, now, maybe it had.
Hewitt’s infectious spirit had been the perfect tonic for a young woman who took after her Grandpa Whit more than she cared to acknowledge. Alone and lonely in a new town, she had been drawn to Hewitt’s intellect and sense of play, a perfect counterpoint to her own sober take on the world. She had accepted Hewitt’s friendship, relieved—and surprised, at first—that it didn’t have sexual undertones. A willing fishing partner and able listener, he slowly elicited her life story—but only when the salmon weren’t biting and the waves were gentle on the Sound. He listened patiently to the bits and pieces until, eventually, the pattern emerged like a tapestry on a loom. He listened without condemning; he understood her demons. She shared things with him that no one knew but Gran. Hewitt had been confessor to her sins, absolving her, understanding her, reassuring her. “We’re peas in a pod,” he had once said. “Wounded warriors home from the front. Except you went back and finished your battle. I never did. I’m proud of you for that. I only wish I had your strength and determination.”
When pressed for his own battle, he looked away. “It was a long time ago, my dear. Let’s le
ave ancient history alone on a day like today.”
Sky as blue as a Dutchman’s pants arched overhead as they trolled the underwater rise between President Point and Point Jefferson. A soft breeze created a golden streak of shimmering water from the morning sun. One eight-pound coho already lay gutted and iced in the cooler.
“Sometimes it helps to talk about it,” Martha said. “I know.”
He kept his gaze fixed on distant Whidbey Island. “And reopen old wounds of a love destroyed?”
“Or heal old wounds.”
When he turned, his brow had tightened over his hawkish nose. His words rolled like the thunder from the pulpit of the righteous. “I have bled enough over those sordid tales in which Achilles lost his Patroclus, in which Romeo lost his Romeo. I shall not give them the satisfaction of shedding more blood. The avenging angels can burn their fucking wings in Hell before they will get that satisfaction from me.”
The vehemence of his pronouncement drove Martha back into the captain’s chair, her hands balled into fists, her legs braced. Who was this roaring madman in the boat with her?
Then she saw the tears rolling down the creases of his aged face. His shoulders slumped and his face relaxed and suddenly he was just a grieving old man.
She relaxed, reached out, and drew him close, a daughter comforting a father. “I’m so sorry, Hewitt,” she whispered.
“No,” he said, stepping back from her embrace. “I’m the one who’s sorry. You didn’t deserve my anger. I’m so sorry.” He wiped his checks with his jacket sleeve. From a jacket pocket, he pulled out a folded paper towel and blew his nose. A weak smile turned into a weak laugh, one still tinged with bitterness. “Seventy years later and I still turn into a blubbering moron. Come, come, my dear, please forgive an old man his moment of weakness. Someday I’ll share my tragic tale of youthful infatuation. But not today. The sun is out and the fish are biting. Did I ever share with you my secret recipe for preparing stuffed salmon?
Out of the Cold Dark Sea Page 8