Wash Her Guilt Away (Quill Gordon Mystery Book 2)

by Michael Wallace

  Van Holland turned to his wife. “I guess this weather probably isn’t changing your mind about coming along with me today?”

  “Oh, Charles, I’m sorry. If it was warmer and not raining, you know I would. But go on by yourself and have a good time. I want you to be happy.”

  “All right, darling.” He stood up. “I love you.” He leaned over to kiss her, and as he did, she pulled his head to her face and gave him a long, passionate kiss. He shook his head when it was over, mumbled, “See you tonight,” and left.

  Gordon and Peter made a beeline for the buffet, trying to get away from the scene. When they returned to their table a few minutes later, Rachel and Stuart had left, and Wendy was standing to leave and talking to Sharon.

  “I’m really surprised about that,” Sharon said. “Those heaters are nearly new. I’m sure it can be fixed pretty easily. Don will take a look right after breakfast.”

  “Thank you so much,” Wendy said. She started to leave the dining room, then turned around to face Gordon, Peter, Alan and Drew.”

  “Ciao, guys,” she said, blowing them all a kiss. “See you tonight,” she paused briefly, “if not sooner.”

  Drew and Alan rose to go to the buffet, and when they were out of earshot, Peter leaned forward and said in a low voice, “Well, what’s your take on that marathon kiss?”

  “I don’t have one,” Gordon said. “I was trying not to look.”

  “Want to know what I think?” He checked to make sure the other men were still at the buffet. “Charles was flustered enough that I don’t think that was standard fare for him. My guess is that it was a preview of coming attractions for Drew if he decides to quit fishing early today.”

  Drew and Alan were heading back to their table. Peter sat up straight, looked out the window, and said, in a slightly louder than normal voice:

  “Yep, looks like it’s going to be another cold, wet one today.”

  2

  AFTER BREAKFAST, Gordon and Peter drove south from Harry’s to the state highway and turned east. The road was mostly straight, and despite the bad weather, they made good time. In 30 miles they passed through three towns, all considerably smaller and more hardscrabble than Eden Mills. Most consisted of a gas station and general store (sometimes combined), a motel with one or two cars in the parking lot, and an auto salvage yard. Pershing, the largest town, had an elementary school that looked as if it would strain to hold 200 students. The towns clung to the ribbon of lightly traveled road as if it were a lifeline, though clearly an insufficient one.

  Just past the third town, Gordon turned south on to County Road A17. For the first mile it skirted a large meadow filled with grazing cattle, then entered a long stretch of dense forest on both sides of the road. With the sun behind the clouds and no landmarks visible through the trees, it was hard to get a bearing. Peter broke the silence of the previous 15 minutes.

  “So, the place we’re going?”

  “Hubbard Meadows. Named for the creek that runs through it, which in turn was named after a pioneer settler, Gregory Hubbard. Came east from Connecticut to get rich in the Gold Rush and pretty quickly came to realize he could do a lot better by raising cattle to feed the miners. The meadow is part of a ranch that’s been in the family ever since.”

  “And how did we get invited?”

  “We didn’t. The Fisherman’s Friend negotiated a deal to lease angling rights to the meadows, beginning this season. We’re probably just about the first members of the public to fish here, well, since Hubbard acquired the land. Up to now, it’s only been family and some of the cowhands fishing it for more than a hundred years. There’s two and a half miles of spring creek full of wild brown, rainbow and brook trout.”

  “Now that it’s open to the public, how many people are going to be there?”

  “Not many. They only allow six rods per day, and on a weekday this early in the season, we may have it all to ourselves. Plenty of elbow room, even if we don’t. Here. Grab those papers stapled together on the back seat and help me navigate.”

  Peter reached back and got the papers, put together by the outfitters, and flipped through them until he came to a map. It was a black and white photocopy of a USGS survey, with the path to the meadows marked with yellow highlighter.

  “It looks like we make a left turn somewhere ahead, just before we get to a cemetery. I guess the cemetery’s before the town, so we don’t actually go into Pinewood.”

  “That’s what it looked like to me.”

  “No matter. The cemetery’s probably livelier than the town. Then it looks as if we take several different roads to the meadows. I don’t suppose they’re very good roads.”

  “Probably not.”

  They saw the cemetery a few minutes later, as the Cherokee came around a bend. Gordon slammed on the brakes and made a sharp left turn to get onto a dirt road, about a car and a half wide, that followed a chain-link fence marking the border of the burial ground. After a few hundred feet, they were past the cemetery, and the road began to rise, clinging to the side of a cliff on their right. It soon leveled off, leaving a drop of about a hundred feet on their left. Gordon slowed to 15 mph.

  “The directions say to watch out for logging trucks,” Peter said. “I guess that’s so you can say one last prayer when you see one, ‘cause there’s no room for a logging truck and anything else on this road. Anyway, about a mile ahead, it looks like we take the left fork.”

  The road stopped skirting the cliff and began following what looked like a wide ridge top, heavily forested, with no clear view to either side. A few moments later, they saw the fork in the road. Just as they got to it, a logging truck, hauling eight enormous tree trunks behind it, roared out of the left fork at about 35 mph. Gordon was barely able to swerve on to the right fork and avoid it. The driver honked his horn at them.

  Stopped in the middle of the road for a minute, they calmed down. Gordon shifted into reverse and backed slowly down to the fork and turned on to the left branch. They drove on alone, slowly, over a rough, muddy and rutted road, for another mile and a half, gradually descending. From time to time, they could see what looked like a meadow through the trees. At the bottom of the grade, they came to open meadow, with a road running off to the right, following the tree line.

  “Says we turn right here,” Peter said.

  The road paralleled the edge of the meadow for about half a mile before reaching a padlocked fence with a cattle guard. Peter squinted at the directions.

  “The key to the lock is supposed to be on the back side of the tree with the blue paint mark,” he said.

  “Right there,” Gordon pointed to a tall pine just up the embankment on their right. Peter hopped out of the car and started toward the tree, but just before reaching it slipped on the muddy earth, landed on his chest and slid back down to the Cherokee. He unleashed a thirty-second burst of imaginative obscenity.

  “I’m impressed,” Gordon said. “Now get the key and unlock the gate.” Treading more carefully, Peter did so, then replaced the key and snapped the lock shut after Gordon had driven through. A quarter mile ahead, they came to a turnout with a graveled-over parking area, empty save for a battered Chevy pickup of early 1980s vintage.

  As they pulled in, a man climbed out of the pickup. He was in his fifties, wearing jeans, boots, and a checked flannel shirt under a heavy jacket. When he removed the Stetson he was wearing, he looked like an older, grayer version of John F. Kennedy.

  “Bob Hubbard,” he said extending his hand. “You must be the Gordon party.”

  “That’s right. I’m Gordon, and this is my friend, Peter Delaney.”

  “Welcome to Hubbard Meadows,” he said. “You’re the first people to fish here since we signed the lease, so I wanted to be here to greet you.”

  Gordon surveyed the scene. The meadow was a half-mile wide and extended nearly two miles beyond the parking area, though it was fenced at some point in the distance. A stream about 20 feet wide ran through it in serpentine fash
ion, with a number of horseshoe bends. Downstream from them, a clump of cattails hugged the creek on the opposite bank, and a lone red winged blackbird flew over them, fighting the wind blowing against him. Aside from the wind and the slight tinkle of running water, there was no noise, and aside from the parking area, the two trucks, and the fence in the distance, there was no sign of human activity.

  “Thank you,” Gordon said. “That’s very kind. This is a beautiful place.”

  “We like it.”

  “Can you tell us anything about the fishing?”

  “Afraid not. Don’t fish much myself. Too busy working.” He looked out over the meadow and the stream. “A lot of ‘em in there for a creek this small. You should do all right.”

  “We really appreciate your opening this place up.”

  Hubbard shrugged. “Business decision. We’ll see how it goes. The meadow’s still pretty wet from the winter. Deep mud some places. Muskrat holes, too. Probably no need to worry about rattlesnakes yet. Too cold and wet. Well, good luck to you.” He shook their hands again and drove off in the truck.

  “Let me guess,” said Peter. “His nickname’s Gabby.”

  “Nice of him to come all the way out here just to greet us, though. And since we’re making history here today, Peter. Let’s make the most of it.”

  The rain started to fall again, and Peter pulled his jacket tighter. “History doesn’t keep you warm,” he said.

  3

  BOB HUBBARD TOLD NO LIES about the wetness of the meadow. Traversing it was like walking across a large, slippery sponge. Gordon and Peter were grateful for their hip waders, which enabled them to navigate areas of ankle to knee-deep water. And that was in the meadow, not the creek. At Gordon’s suggestion, they walked back in the direction from which they had driven in, looking to connect with the creek upstream, then work their way back down toward the parking area.

  After 20 minutes of slogging across sodden meadow, they came to a spot where the creek ran through a gap in a barbed-wire fence. Consulting the map provided by The Fisherman’s Friend, Gordon declared that they must be at the edge of the Hubbard property and should begin working downstream. The grassy bank of the stream was a foot or two above the water, and they walked along it for 300 feet before Gordon stopped.

  “Well, professor,” Peter said, “how do you suggest we proceed?”

  “For starters, I don’t see any need to wade right now. Fishing from the bank should be fine, but we want to keep a low profile. Squat or kneel when you cast so the fish don’t see you.”

  “And what fly?”

  Gordon paused and looked upstream and down before answering. “We passed several good weed beds, and there were no fish below them waiting for nymphs to float downstream. Cold as it is, it’s probably too early in the day. And we’re not getting any sort of an insect hatch on the surface. My guess is that the fish are hiding by the banks, waiting for something to start, insect-wise.”

  “So we just freeze while we wait along with them?”

  “Not at all. We try to start some action ourselves.” Peter shot him a quizzical look. “I suggest we start by casting an attractor fly to the edge of the bank and see if that doesn’t wake up a trout or two.”

  “What’s an attractor fly?”

  “A bigger dry fly that doesn’t really imitate any known insect but looks buggy and like a meal worth coming up for. If it was midsummer or later, I’d try a grasshopper, but for now let’s start with one of us working a Royal Wulff and one of us a Yellow Humpy. You have either of those in a size 12?”

  “Both.”

  “Pick the one you want, and I’ll try the other. We’ll see which of them, if either, works, then adjust as we go along.”

  “I’ll take the Royal Wulff,” Peter said. “Easier for these aging eyes to see.”

  “Then I’ll work a Yellow Humpy.”

  “Any particular protocol?”

  “Try to put it about a foot off the bank in the current on the other side. Get the fish to make a quick decision on something that’s coming by fast. Cast to a stretch of water three to five times, and if nobody’s interested, move downstream and try the next good stretch you see. One of us starts here and works down to that clump of sagebrush; the other goes back upstream and works down to here. After we do that, we compare notes”

  “Then we have a plan. I picked the fly, so you decide who starts here and who goes back upstream.”

  “I’ll go back up. There are a couple of good-looking spots we passed.”

  “Tight lines, Gordon.”

  Gordon walked upstream 200 feet, then moved back from the bank about 30 feet. He lay his rod down on a relatively dry stretch of meadow and began to tie on his fly. Only then did he realize how cold and unresponsive his exposed hands were. Ordinarily, he could tie on a fly in less than a minute, but it took three or four, and the brief rain shower that broke out halfway through the task made it no more pleasant. Ready, finally, he held the rod in his right hand, bent over so his torso was parallel to the ground, and approached the stream bank. When he got there, he dropped to his knees.

  A slight narrowing of the stream channel created a moderately fast current against the opposite bank. Stripping out some line, he cast about ten feet upstream, but the stiff breeze blew the fly back toward the middle of the creek. Adjusting quickly, he cast again, this time placing the fly at the edge of the current by the bank. It drifted cleanly for about 15 feet, but nothing happened. He tried again with the same result. On the third pass over the same water, a fish suddenly smacked the fly. It resisted valiantly, but Gordon finally got it to net. It was a 12-inch rainbow trout, and even on this dark gray day, its colors gleamed as he held it in his hand, the pink stripe down its side standing out against the silvery scales. He removed the hook from its lower lip, and lowered it gently into the water, where it swam back from whence it came, then put his hand in the frigid water to get the fish slime off, and stood to share the news with Peter.

  “Fish on!” Peter shouted, and his rod arced from playing it. Gordon smiled, forgetting the cold and gloom entirely.

  Throughout the morning, it rained intermittently, and a bitterly cold wind gusted from time to time. The dense cloud cover, blotting out the sun, remained much the same all day — if anything, growing darker as the day wore on. Gordon and Peter worked their way downstream. The fishing was sporadic, and the fish were smaller on average than those in Eden River, running 11 to 13 inches for the most part. They were all beautifully colored native trout, however; most were rainbows, several were brown trout; and Gordon even caught a 13-inch brook trout, large for that species in a creek this size. When they reached the parking area a bit after noon, each man had had about 15 fish rise to his fly, but Peter, lacking Gordon’s athletic reflexes, had hooked and landed fewer of his fish. All in all, it was a good morning, and they were both pleased and cold when they decided to break for lunch.

  4

  SITTING IN THE CHEROKEE, they ate box lunches of ham sandwiches, potato salad, coleslaw and an apple. Under the circumstances, the simple fare was a better meal than any five-star restaurant could have served, and they washed it down with hot coffee from a thermos Gordon had thought to fill at the lodge before leaving. When they had finished, they sat contentedly for a moment before Peter reached into the back seat and produced a half-pint bottle of Jack Daniels from underneath a sweater of his.

  “Could I interest you in a little something to take the chill off?”

  “No thanks,” Gordon said. “Too early, and I want to get back on stream.”

  He had no sooner spoken than a torrential downpour, the heaviest rain of the day so far, began to fall. A gusting wind blew it straight into the windshield, and the large drops landed heavily on the car roof, bouncing off it with loud metallic clangs.

  “Almost sounds like hail,” Peter said taking a swallow of the whiskey.

  “Almost.” Gordon looked at his friend. “What the hell, I’ll have a sip if you don’t mind. I don’t
have to drive for a few more hours.” Peter passed the bottle over and Gordon took a moderate swallow, enjoying the warmth and smoothness of the alcohol. The rain kept falling relentlessly, hammering the vehicle’s roof with a steady staccato and cascading down the windshield. The flat stretch of creek in front of them, to the extent they could see it, was whipped into a frenzy by the pounding of the heavy drops.

  “I guess the Van Hollands are leaving tomorrow,” Peter said. “I’m going to miss them — well, her at least. She’s managed to bring a frisson of tension into what otherwise would have been just a fishing trip with bad weather.”

  “Don’t give up on the weather yet, Peter. It’s seldom bad for more than a couple of days.”

  Peter took another swig of the whiskey. “My keen scientific mind has hypothesized that you don’t want to talk about our Wendy. Am I correct?”

  Gordon shrugged. “She’s a disruptor, and I don’t come to the mountains for disruption. So far, she hasn’t provoked anything too bad, but she likes to stir things up if you will. That can have unintended consequences.”

  “True words. Some day I’m going to write a book about the top ten gunshot wounds I’ve treated involving men who couldn’t resist the allure of some woman’s charms.”

  “Is it only the men who get shot?”

  “No. Sometimes it’s the lady. Sometimes both of them. Never turns out well in any event. Now me, I figure we have attorneys and divorce laws to take care of that sort of thing. It’s a pain, but not nearly as much of a pain as sitting in state prison for years.”

  “Better to choose wisely in the first place.”

  “Ah, the romantic weighs in. But then, you’ve never been married. When you’ve had my experience, you begin to realize that your judgment isn’t as good as you think it is when you’re in love or lust or whatever you want to call it. It’s amazing, absolutely amazing, what you don’t find out about a woman until after the ink is dry on the marriage certificate.”