The Last Annual Slugfest

by Susan Dunlap

  In front, separated by a bare three-foot strip, were clutches of men, the merchant seamen I had seen heading in here. There must have been twenty-five of them. They were bemoaning the rain too.

  I made my way past them to the bathroom. Even through the coating of dust and water spots on the mirror, it was a shock to see how haggard I looked. My skin was leaden gray. My hair hung like seaweed. I ran a comb through it, but when I moved my head the clumps glued themselves back together again. I could have put on eye makeup, but it didn’t seem worth the effort.

  Instead, I walked back to the bar and ordered my brandy.

  The mirror behind the bar was almost as crusty as the one in the bathroom. Reflected in it, the fishermen in their heavy gray sweaters looked rather like a faded Renoir print.

  The bartender slid my brandy toward me. I took a long swallow, let my eyes close, and felt the warmth flow down to the bottom of my spine. I had the whimsical feeling that when I looked back in the mirror, Rindo Mercatti and his buddies would be painted in bright blues and greens.

  What I did see, when I glanced in the mirror, was a still gray-clad Rindo Mercatti staring at me. A few times in San Francisco I had made the mistake of assuming a sixty-year-old man’s intentions were paternal. But I doubted Rindo was considering picking me up—not on the last night he could spend with his buddies. He was just trying to remember where he had seen me. It had been at Rosa’s, over a year ago. Considering how I looked now, I wasn’t surprised he couldn’t place me.

  I handed the bartender a five, and took another sip, then finished the drink. Pocketing the change, I headed back to my truck.

  While the engine warmed, I sat back, still savoring the heat of the brandy and picturing Rindo Mercatti in a lavender fishing sweater. Maybe he had been considering picking me up. In the world of lavender and green he wouldn’t have hesitated. An older man …

  Could Bear be an older man? Could age be why he was “unsuitable for a Henderson woman”? Would that have been enough to ignite Edwina’s years of retribution? Bert Lucci was not just older, he was a bedraggled handyman. And Father Calloway—my breath caught. I could barely let myself consider him. I liked him. Everyone liked and trusted him. And priests aren’t supposed to seduce young girls. But if he had seduced her young niece, that would be plenty of reason for Edwina to pursue her revenge.

  Hours ago, I had intended to go to Rosa’s and insist she search the crannies of her mind for recollections of adolescent Leila. Even if she couldn’t recall anything more about Leila, she could remember if Bert or Father Calloway had behaved oddly that summer of Leila’s affair, or if Edwina had suddenly been on the outs with one of them.

  Rosa had refused to talk to me hours ago. Now, surrounded by her family and friends, people who would be calling me plenty worse than “bad luck” for the Fortimiglios, Rosa wasn’t likely to be more willing to accommodate me. Joey Gummo would take pleasure in throwing me out. But it was a chance I would have to take.

  CHAPTER 21

  I PARKED THE TRUCK in a copse just beyond the Warrior opposite Rosa’s driveway. Now, nearly two hours since I had jumped the fence at the fish ranch, my fear of the sheriff checking out all my likely haunts seemed slightly ridiculous. Still, I wasn’t willing to chance parking right in front of Rosa’s house, even if there had been a square foot that wasn’t already taken. There must have been forty vehicles left along the side of North Bank Road, parked every which way along the driveway or nosed toward the house. There was barely room to walk.

  The windows of the oblong house were steamed from the warm breath of Rosa’s friends inside. In spite of the rain, the kitchen door was propped open. I could smell the aroma of garlic and oregano as I neared the steps.

  If this gathering was like the ones I had been to at this house a year ago, by now the spaghetti Rosa had made when the first guests arrived would have run out, and rather than face the possibility of someone going without, Rosa would be making more. One night, when she had had an official party, perhaps for Chris’s birthday, she had made a third batch and we’d eaten it at two in the morning. In those days there had been bursts of laughter, comradely shouts and claps on the back, and music from a record player Rosa had bought when she was first married. But tonight, as I climbed the steps to the kitchen door, there was no music or laughter, just a steady, deep hum of serious talk.

  When I walked into the kitchen, the first person I saw, standing behind the counter, was Joey Gummo. As he looked at me, his eyebrows pulled together in angry disbelief. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  Joey, the desk man at the sheriff’s department, could he know about my breaking into the fish ranch? Surely, the sheriff hadn’t—

  “You’ve got a nerve after what you did to Chris,” he said.

  I almost smiled with relief. “I need to talk to Rosa.” I started toward the living room.

  He grabbed my arm. “She doesn’t need to see you.”

  “We’re not at the sheriff’s department, Joey. She can make her own decisions here.”

  He didn’t move. Behind him, in the living room, I could see the Greshams, who ran Gresham’s Hardware, and Sam Danielson, the soccer coach at the high school, and Heather Howard, who ran the travel agency near Guerneville. The room was packed. Rosa’s daughter Katie, the one who’d known Angelina in high school, stood talking to another daughter whose name I couldn’t remember. Behind them was a clutch of fishermen, some Chris’s age, many his father’s. But I couldn’t spot Rosa.

  Suddenly, in the warm safety of Rosa’s house, all the fear I had pushed away while I was climbing around the fish ranch caught up with me. I felt myself shaking, exhausted. I leaned against the door-jamb. “If you want to guard me, Joey,” I said, “that’s fine. Rosa won’t be away from the kitchen long.”

  Joey released my arm. I pulled out a chair and sank down onto it.

  “You don’t have any right barging in here,” Joey said. But his words sounded like the face-saving growl of a dog as it backs off. I didn’t bother to answer.

  In the living room, by the stairway that led to the more recently created rooms downstairs, stood Father Calloway and Faith Boord, one of Henderson’s resident eccentrics. She had inherited land from St. Agnes’s along the river. She could speak at length about the stock market and what her shares of Genentech or General Foods were doing. But her awareness apparently didn’t extend to her appearance. Her clothes were ill-assorted, nowhere near new, and none too decent smelling.

  The stairway was cut almost to the middle of the living room floor. It, and a few odd nooks created in one of the other remodellings, made the walls as irregular as books on a shelf. It was from those stairs that Rosa emerged. I was surprised; in the last few years the basement rooms had been closed off in winter. Rosa paused to exchange a few words with the priest and his be-caped companion, then, putting a hand on his arm, she propelled him into the kitchen.

  Inside the doorway, Rosa stopped dead. She stared.

  I pushed a clump of hair back out of my face.

  Father Calloway’s brow wrinkled with concern.

  Seeing that round, ruddy face, the kind expression, the white hair, the portly frame, it was virtually impossible to imagine him seducing a young parishioner. Father Calloway seemed born to deliver forgiveness. The closest he came to evil was betting on the 49ers—and that with Maxie Dawkins. But if he had had a mind to seduce Leila Katz, it would have been so easy. He could have seduced her and absolved her all in one session.

  “How are you, my dear?” he asked. “Rosa has just liberated me from a test of Christian patience. We’re taught not to speak ill, but Faith Boord moves one to override such injunctions. She must be the most tedious woman in the whole river area. She was just telling me, at great length, that she’s come into some money—some more money, she might have said. Sold some timber harvest rights. But apparently wealth hasn’t given her airs.” He grinned, casting a look at Faith Boord’s magenta cape and green rubber boots. When none of us
responded, his smile faded. To Rosa, he said, “What’s the matter here?”

  Rosa glanced at Joey, but didn’t speak.

  I wasn’t about to answer him. I tried to catch Rosa’s eye, but she looked over my shoulder at the steamy windowpane. I didn’t have time to wait for things to settle themselves, for her to reconsider her decision to avoid me. But I could hardly ask her about Leila’s lover in front of Father Calloway. I couldn’t even tell her about the treaty being a phony with Joey Gummo standing there. All I would need would be for him to decide I knew something important enough for the sheriff to hear. I said, “Rosa, I have to talk to you.”

  “No, Vejay.”

  “Rosa, Leila Katz is missing. She’s not at home. She wasn’t at her store this afternoon. She was expecting a reporter to come there to do a story about her. When the reporter arrived, Leila was gone. The store was dark, and the door was open.”

  “Oh, Vejay.” Rosa shook her head, but she still didn’t look at me.

  “Rosa doesn’t know where Leila is,” Joey proclaimed. “Rosa’s been right here after she left the department, after she saw Chris there,” he added pointedly.

  I waited for Rosa to say something, but she just stood. She looked like she’d been running on coffee and worry since last night.

  “Rosa,” I said, “Chris is already in jail. What more harm can I do?”

  She swallowed, then turned to look at Joey. Joey concentrated on the tomato sauce cooking on the stove.

  “Dammit, Rosa, look at me! I nearly drowned trying to help Chris. Leila may be dead. Edwina is dead. Don’t you care at all?”

  Joey started to speak, but Rosa held up her hand. She sighed, then slowly walked to the table and sat down next to me.

  It was too much to hope that Joey and Father Calloway would leave us alone. Joey stationed himself by the tomato sauce, stirring it silently with a wooden spoon and glaring at me. And Father Calloway continued to stand inside the living room door.

  I couldn’t ask about the treaty, or about Leila’s lover. That left the niece Edwina had gotten the treaty from. Leaning toward Rosa, I said, “Hooper told me that Edwina got the treaty from her niece in Washington. That would be the daughter of her other sister, the one who moved away, right?”

  “That sister had a son, not a daughter. I told you that.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well, let me think. I’m trying to remember how I know. They were here that summer when we drove East, the sister’s family. So I never saw the boy. But I’m sure it was a boy, or at least pretty sure. Why do you say it was a girl?”

  “Hooper told me that Edwina said so. Her name is Meg.”

  “Named for her aunt, no doubt; Leila’s mother, Margaret,” Father Calloway said. He had moved toward the table, so that the three of us were huddled near the window, and Joey, by the stove, was at the farthest point of the small kitchen, where he could listen and observe, but still remain detached.

  “I take it you didn’t see him or her the summer the family visited,” I said to Father Calloway.

  “I’m trying to recall. It would have been like Edwina to bring her family to Mass. She never missed. But from what I’ve heard, that sister was something of a black sheep, the type for whom coming to Mass would not be a habit.”

  I sighed.

  Two of Chris’s friends, tanned, dark-haired men in gray fisherman’s sweaters, wandered in from the living room. One stared at me.

  For a moment I was afraid he would yank me up and shove me out the door.

  He looked away, embarrassed. He didn’t know me, didn’t realize I was the Vejay Haskell who’d gotten Chris arrested. He’d just been taken aback by my bedraggled appearance.

  His friend put a hand on Rosa’s shoulder. “We’ve got to be going. But tell Chris we were here. And tell him not to worry about his boat. His friends will see she’s ready to go.” He forced a smile. “Maybe she’ll even be in better shape than if Chris was out there himself, huh, Pete?”

  Pete grinned.

  “You’re not leaving,” Rosa said, standing up to face them. “The sauce will be ready in just a few minutes.”

  “We’d like to stay. I had two helpings earlier, so I’m not going to starve. But if I could stay, I’d have more.” Pete smiled at Rosa. “I’ve got to take another look at the bilges. With this storm, you can’t tell what will happen overnight. We may have plenty to do tomorrow.”

  “Won’t hurt us to keep an eye on our slips at the dock, either,” the other said. “When you look at Bodega Harbor, you can’t believe there is a boat left anywhere else. Every salmon troller in California must be there. There are guys I haven’t seen in five years.”

  “And those tugboats banging around. They shouldn’t let boats that size in. One of those gets washed into you and you’re in trouble. But we’re keeping an eye out for Chris. Nothing will happen to the Rosa. You tell him.”

  “He’ll be grateful to you, Peter. You’re good friends to Chris,” she said, sitting back down.

  As they headed out the door, Father Calloway started to push himself up. “I should be going, too. My day starts early tomorrow.”

  “Oh no, Father. You can stay a little longer.”

  He started to protest, but Rosa hushed him. “Vejay may need your help. You hear about things no one else does.”

  He smiled uncomfortably, and sat back down. Next to Rosa, Father Calloway was the best source of information in the river area. He was always embarrassed when people mentioned that. Now, though, I wondered if his discomfort were solely caused by Rosa’s acknowledgment.

  Rosa looked toward me, expecting me to go on. I hesitated, watching Father Calloway rub his forefinger nervously on the edge of the table. With him right there, I had avoided mention of Leila’s lover, the person Edwina had consigned to a life of second best. Now, for the first time, I wondered why Father Calloway had remained a parish priest outside a little town all these years. He was a personable, intelligent man. He could have been a monsignor by now, maybe even a bishop. Keeping my eyes on his face, I said to Rosa, “I asked you earlier about that affair Leila Katz had when she was in high school. Today, she left something on the chair in her store, to tell me that she had gone with that lover, or had been forced to go. I have to find out who that lover is.”

  Father Calloway’s forehead wrinkled. Rosa sat with her eyes half closed.

  “That was the summer of our trip,” Rosa said. “If there was any fuss, it must have died down before we got back.”

  “Did anyone seem to be acting peculiar then? Not being where you’d expect them to be?” I looked from one to the other, but both shook their heads. There was a lull in the conversation in the living room. In the void, I could hear Joey stirring the tomato sauce. The spicy aroma reminded me that it had been a long time since my tofu sandwich.

  “What about Edwina?” I asked. “Was she on the outs with anyone after that summer?”

  For the first time, Rosa smiled. “Vejay, Edwina was piqued so much of the time that I couldn’t begin to recall who she was miffed with and when.”

  I looked toward Father Calloway, but he merely shook his head.

  “Isn’t there anything you can think of?” I asked. “Leila is the only person who knows her lover’s identity. If that person killed Edwina—”

  “But why would he?” Father Calloway asked.

  Rosa looked up.

  I hesitated. I certainly didn’t want to bring up the treaty in front of Joey Gummo, but there was no alternative now, except to tell Father Calloway that I couldn’t explain and then slink home. I said, “Edwina’s Pomo treaty was a fake. Someone got hold of a fake treaty and gave it to her.”

  “But how? Why? How do you know?” Their questions all came at once.

  I explained about the treaty coming via Edwina’s niece, and about Harry Bramwell’s assurance that it was a phony. “Someone put a lot of effort into humiliating Edwina. But once Edwina found out about the treaty, she was determined to denounce it a
nd, doubtless, the person who foisted it on her.”

  Father Calloway nodded. “I heard her talk about finding a treaty like that. She would have been in Sacramento with the experts by now. To have announced it on television, and then have it turn out to be false …” He looked truly distressed. Of course, he had had years of practice looking concerned.

  Rosa nodded. “You know Edwina didn’t have a sense of humor. It would have been awful for her.”

  I leaned in toward Rosa. “And what she said when she found out the treaty was a fake was ‘And Leil protecting her!’ Who could that her refer to?”

  Rosa shook her head.

  “Maybe the niece,” Father Calloway said.

  “But even if she has a niece, that niece wasn’t on stage at the Slugfest. The niece couldn’t have murdered her.”

  “You think she meant Angelina, don’t you, Vejay?” Rosa asked sadly.

  “I did. Now I don’t know. But I do think that her murder has to be connected with Leila’s disappearance, and that’s connected with her lover. And I need to know who that is. Think, Rosa, isn’t there anything you can recall that seems odd?”

  She half closed her eyes, but said nothing.

  “Think about the Slugfest judges,” I prodded.

  For a moment her eyes stayed half closed. When they opened, she looked down at the empty table in front of us, then jumped up. “I should have gotten you some wine. And Father, where is your glass? I’m sorry; I’m forgetting myself.”