by Kathi Daley
“She’s told me she wants the baby to have the best opportunities in life, and she knows she isn’t going be able to provide them herself.”
“That may be true, but it’s still sad,” Siobhan said. “I don’t want to turn this into a debate on the pros and cons of adoption, though. I take it you don’t have any real leads or you wouldn’t be here.”
“You’re mostly correct. Here’s what we know.” I started off by briefly sharing the things Willow had followed up on when she first arrived on the island. I discussed her failed trip to Seward, as well as her conviction that Trace might still be in the area, and segued to our trip to the bar on San Juan Island. Then I asked Aiden and Danny if either of them had run into anyone named either Trace or Tim over the summer.
“I do know of a guy named Tim who worked here over the summer,” Danny said. “He seemed to hop around. I know he was on a fishing boat for a while, and I seem to remember him hooking up with a whale-watch tour after that. Do you have a photo?”
I passed the drawing to him. “Tara drew this from Willow’s description.”
Danny looked at the paper. “This isn’t him. The guy I’m thinking of had a fuller face and thicker eyebrows. Do you know if the man Willow’s looking for spoke with an accent?”
“She didn’t mention one.”
“Tim definitely has an accent. Southern, I think. It isn’t very heavy, but it comes through when he’s had a few too many.”
“Have you seen this Tim recently?”
Danny shook his head. “Not since the season wrapped up and I leased out my boat.”
“Do you remember where he worked?”
“Like I said, he hopped around. He did a few weeks with Cap Collins and then headed north. I think I heard he got on with a crabbing boat out of Homer, Alaska, but I don’t know that for certain. At some point I heard he was subbing for A Whale of a Tour out of Harthaven. I’m not sure that amounted to much, though.”
It was beginning to sound as if Tim and Trace weren’t the same person after all. Given the link to Trout, I hoped that was true.
“Cody and I spoke to a man named Blackburn, who told us that Tim hooked up with a cargo hauler named Trout. According to Blackburn, Tim tried to smuggle his own cargo on the side. Blackburn heard Trout found out and might have killed him.”
“Yep, that fits,” Danny said. “Trout wouldn’t take kindly to someone trying to cheat him out of what he considered to be his.” Danny looked at Finn, who was frowning. “Of course, if Tim cheated Trout and Trout killed him in retaliation, you’ll never find the body or any proof. Trout’s a tough one. He’s been around for a lot of years and knows how to get someone gone. Folks around the islands know that if you sign on with Trout you best play it on the up and up.”
“Okay, wait,” Siobhan said, dry-erase marker in hand. “Are we saying the father of Willow’s baby is dead?”
“If the man we’re looking for and the one who cheated Trout are the same person, yeah, it’s a possibility,” I answered and then paused. “How do we prove any of this? How do we figure out if Trace and Tim are the same person? And if they are, how do we prove Tim cheated Trout and ended up dead because of it? All we have is one person who heard a rumor from his men.”
“I can find out if someone named Tim worked for Trout,” Danny offered. “I can even find out if he cheated Trout out of money that should have been his.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Mom said.
“Don’t worry. I know the rules. I’ll ask around, but I won’t push.”
“We need a photo of Trace,” Aiden joined in.
“We don’t even know his last name, but we do have a lead on that. Willow said Trace told her that his grandfather used to live on the island. He was a carpenter who was famous for the unique furniture he designed.”
“Buck Barrington,” Maggie said.
“You knew him?”
“Sure. Everyone knew Buck. He had a real talent. See that table in the entry?” Maggie pointed toward the front door. “Buck made it for me over twenty years ago.”
“So, if Buck Barrington was Trace’s grandfather on his father’s side, we might have a last name. If Trace really is the first name of the man who sired Willow’s baby, we should be able to dig up a photograph of him.”
“The name Buck Barrington sounds familiar, but I can’t quite place it,” Finn said.
“He died quite a while ago,” Maggie offered. “He was shot during a robbery.”
“I do remember something about that. It was before my time, but there’ll be a file. I’ll take a look. And I’ll run the name Trace Barrington through the sheriff’s database to see what I can find.”
“Buck’s wife still lives on the island,” Maggie volunteered. “Actually, the woman I’m thinking of was his second wife. His first wife passed on years ago. Still, if we’re lucky she’ll have Buck’s old photo albums. Maybe we can find a photo of Trace, if he’s really Buck’s grandson. I’ll call her tomorrow to see if she’s willing to meet with you.”
“Thanks, Maggie. That would be great.”
Maybe we’d find a way to track down the father of Willow’s baby after all.
******
“What a day,” I said later that evening as we relaxed by the fire with a glass of wine.
“It does feel like life has taken on a complicated twist,” Cody agreed. “Hopefully, Mrs. Barrington will know where Trace is or can send us in his direction even if she doesn’t.”
“Yeah, hopefully.” I yawned. “I never did ask if you were able to come up with any additional information that might help us get Burt back into his house.”
“I spoke to each of the town council members. The opinion is pretty much split. On one side of the debate you have council members who want to find a way to provide affordable housing on the island. On the other are those who want to see the integrity of the rural feel of the island protected. It’s an ongoing debate. We saw the same thing played out a few years ago with the condo project that ended up being scraped.”
“It’s a complex issue,” I agreed.
“My sense is that unless a new plan, a new perspective, or new information comes forth, the issue will remain stalemated. Because it takes a three-quarter vote to approve a variance or change a previously set ordinance, the reality is that having more than one no vote shuts everything down.”
I frowned. “While I want to help Burt, I’m not sure allowing some big housing tract to be developed is the right way to go, even if we could convince enough council members to go along with the idea.”
Cody let out a slow breath. “It’s a complicated subject. And I agree, it would be a shame if Madrona Island turned into just another urban area. Having said that, there really is a need for affordable housing here. Once the ferry began to dock here, making the trip easy for visitors from Seattle, the change from single-family residences to vacation homes and rentals has been dramatic. Most of the people who grew up here and want to live here year-round can’t afford to buy a home and are moving to areas where home ownership is affordable.”
I took a sip of my wine. Cody had a point, but the folks who didn’t want to see the small-town feel of our island become more of a big city like Honolulu had a point as well. “What are you thinking?”
Cody set down his glass, turned, and looked at me. “If you look at the land Forrester owns in isolation, and the number of units he wants to build, it just doesn’t work. Under the current land coverage rules, once streets, sidewalks, and other infrastructure is accounted for, you have allowable coverage left to build forty-eight homes, each with a footprint of about a thousand square feet. He told me that unless he can build seventy-two units he won’t be able to offer the discount he intends. If he can’t make a certain amount of profit he’ll most likely be forced to move on to another project.”
“Seventy-two homes? He really does plan to pack them in, doesn’t he?”
Cody nodded. “The yards will be small and the houses will be built using w
hat’s known as a zero-clearance property line. What that means is that one wall of each house will serve as the property line for its neighbor. It’s just one step up from condos.”
“Sounds awful.”
“To you and me maybe, but I’m betting to a lot of young families who figured they’d never be able to buy a home on the island, even one in a tightly built community would be a welcome opportunity.”
I wasn’t a fan of tract homes in general, but I supposed Cody had a point. Housing really was an issue on the island. “Are you going to try to get the council members who oppose the project on board? I don’t think it’ll be that easy to do. Once you make a variance for one project you set a precedent, and I don’t think anyone wants to see a trend like zero property line housing to get a foothold here.”
“I completely agree,” Cody said. “Which is why I came up with a compromise of sorts.”
“A compromise?”
Cody sat back, seeming to gather his thoughts before he began. “The current ordinance allows only sixty percent of any parcel of land to be developed. That sixty percent must include all hard cover, including homes, streets, sidewalks, even patios. Because the ordinance originated from a desire to protect the rural feel of the island, the rules were very tightly written. What isn’t spelled out, however, is the equality by which the coverage is distributed.”
“Huh?”
“Let’s say you have a parcel that measures a hundred square feet. Any lot would be larger than that, of course, but a hundred square feet is easy to use for the purposes of demonstration.”
“Yeah, okay. Go on.”
“The current ordinance allows for coverage of sixty percent or sixty square feet. Theoretically, you can have one building with a footprint of sixty square feet, or you can have three smaller buildings with a footprint of twenty square feet each or some other distribution. I suppose you could even have sixty really small buildings with a footprint of one square foot. The only rule is that the total land coverage can’t be more than sixty percent of the total area of the plot to land.”
“Okay, that makes sense.”
“I’ve been thinking about the situation and it seems to me that the way to meet both Forrester’s needs and the land coverage limits without a variance would be to throw additional land in to the mix.”
“Come again?”
“For simplicity’s sake, based on our previous hundred-square-foot plot of land, if you want to cover seventy-two feet instead of sixty you just need to make the original plot larger.”
“So, you’re saying Forrester should buy additional land?”
“No. That would ruin his profit margin, so it won’t work. But what if we could get the person who owns the land adjacent to the land Forrester plans to build on to donate the land for a park? Then all we have to do is convince the council to consider the land Forrester wants to develop and the undeveloped land reserved for a park as a single unit in terms of land coverage.”
Okay. It would be one large tract of land with all the structures on just half of it. “Who owns the land that would have to be donated?”
“Olivia Stanwell.”
Olivia Stanwell was a descendent of one of the founding fathers and owned quite a bit of land on the island. She was opinionated and somewhat self-serving and, in my opinion, unlikely to donate any of her land to help an out-of-area developer, and I told Cody as much. Still, the idea addressed a multitude of issues. If Olivia could be convinced to donate the land Forrester could build his zero clearance homes, which would attract young couples just starting out. If the council looked at both the land owned by Forrester and the land donated by Olivia as a single unit he wouldn’t need a variance to build his development, thus eliminating the problem of setting a precedent. Plus, the island would end up with a nice park.
“So, what’s your plan?” I asked.
“I’m meeting with Olivia tomorrow and I’ll see where our conversation takes us.”
“Have you broached the subject at all with her yet?”
He shook his head. “I just said I was doing an article for the newspaper and had some questions for her, and she agreed to see me. I figure once I get her in the room I can figure out a way to ask her about donating the land. I know it’ll be a hard sell, but it’s the only idea I have.”
“It’s a good one. I hope she’ll consider it. While cookie-cutter homes don’t thrill me, you make a good point about the housing crisis in the area. I think it can help everyone in the long run.”
“I hope so.” Cody put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close. “Do you still want to watch that movie?”
“I think I’d rather head upstairs. It’s late and I’m exhausted.”
“Too exhausted?”
I smiled. “Well, maybe not that exhausted.”
Chapter 7
Saturday, December 16
By the time I arrived at Coffee Cat Books the next morning Tara and Willow were already working behind the counter of the coffee bar and Cassie and Alex were busy decorating the area set aside for Santa’s chair. I glanced at the clock, which confirmed I wasn’t late, so everyone else must have been early. It was a busy time of year, so I guess I understood why the others felt the need to get an early start, but when you wake up wrapped in the arms of the man you love and plan to marry, getting up early is the last thing you want to do.
“Oh good, you’re here,” Tara greeted me. “Did you bring the cats?”
“I have four in the car. I’ll bring them in and get them settled.”
“Do you have any kittens today? Betty Harrington was in with her daughter, Bethany, and they want to adopt a kitten. Orange-striped, if you have one, if not gray and white will do. I texted to let you know they’d popped in, but you were probably already on the road by then.”
I pulled out my phone and glanced at the unread text. “Yeah, I didn’t see it. I didn’t bring kittens today, but I do have them. Did they seem intent on looking at them today?”
Tara nodded. “Bethany has been waiting for her tenth birthday. Her mom made her a deal that she could get a kitten when she turned ten if she kept her grades up, which she has.”
“And today is her birthday?”
Tara nodded once again.
“Okay, I’ll call them. It might be easier to have them meet me at the cat sanctuary. I’ve known Betty for years, so the normal screening won’t be necessary. If they can meet me I’ll get the cats I brought settled, run back to the sanctuary to help them with a kitten, and be back in plenty of time to meet the first ferry.”
“That sounds good. Did the lead you were working on for Willow work out?”
“Maybe. I’ll fill everyone in after I get back.”
Normally, I would have asked a prospective cat parent to meet me at the cat sanctuary after work, but it seemed Bethany had been wanting a kitten for a long time and I was sure it would make her birthday all that much special not to have to wait any longer. My mom was at Maggie’s today, keeping an eye on Aiden, but she didn’t have a lot of patience with the cats, and I wanted to make sure Bethany was matched with the perfect kitten.
When I got to the sanctuary Betty and Bethany were already there. Bethany took her time, holding all the kittens, and eventually settled on a black and white tuxedo who purred so loudly when she picked him up that it startled us all. I helped Betty fill out the necessary paperwork, then headed back to my car only to find Harley sitting on the hood.
“How did you get out here?”
“Meow.”
I picked up the furry cat. “I need to get back to work. Can whatever it is you want to show me wait?”
“Meow.”
“I didn’t think so.” I set the cat on the ground. “Okay, what is it you want me to see?”
Harley sat patiently next to the passenger side door. It seemed obvious he wanted to go with me. Cody had taken Max with him to the newspaper, so I had to figure my Ebenezer lookalike wasn’t happy about being left at home alone.
“Okay,” I said as I opened the door and waited for the cat to jump in. “You can come with me, but you need to hang out in the office or behind the coffee bar where you won’t attract too much attention.”
Harley looked totally content as he settled into the passenger seat, as I started the engine, pulled away from the driveway, and headed back to town.
“You brought Harley.” Willow grinned the minute he walked through the front door.
“He rather insisted. I don’t want him in the cat lounge, where I’ll have to continually explain why he, unlike the other cats, isn’t available for adoption. I’m going to see if he’ll hang out in the office.”
“I think he might have other ideas.” Alex laughed as Harley jumped into the Santa chair and sat regally looking around the room.
“Maybe if we bring in one of the cat beds he’ll be content in a corner of the shop where he’ll be less likely to get trampled,” Cassie suggested.
“Good idea. Or maybe we can have him sit next to Santa. He can be Santa Cat, Mr. Claus’s new mascot.”
Willow came around from the far side of the bar and picked up the cat. “My back is beginning to hurt, so Tara suggested I lay down on the sofa in the office until the ferry gets here. I’ll bring him with me while you all decide the rest.”
“She looks so tired,” Alex said as he watched Willow walk down the hall with the cat.
“She’s had a rough time, but I think things will improve now that she’s staying with Tara,” I answered.
“Did the lead about Trace’s grandfather pan out?” Tara asked.
“Maybe. Maggie knows the widow of the man we believe to have been Trace’s grandfather. I have an appointment to see her at one. I figured that’s a slowish time of day, so hopefully you won’t miss me too much if I have to be gone for an hour. If her husband was the man Trace told Willow about, maybe there’s something that will help us narrow in on where he was when he came to the island. If nothing else, I’m hoping we can find a photo. I’ll feel better if I know for certain Trace and Tim weren’t the same person as we first thought.”