A Shroud of Tattered Sails: An Oregon Coast Mystery (Garrison Gage Series Book 4)

by Scott William Carter

  "Oh," he said. "Hello."

  "I hope I'm not bothering you."

  "Oh, no. No, that's okay. I've just—it's been a long day."

  "Everything all right?"

  He sighed. "Not really. Miranda's going to have to sit in jail until Wednesday. And I don't have any idea how to go about helping her right now."

  "I know," Tatyana said. "She told me. I'm very sorry about that."

  "She told you?"

  "Yes. She called me a little while ago. She—she also asked me to call you. That is how I have your number. I hope that's okay."

  Holding the little piece of plastic to his ear, gazing out at the last remnants of dusky purple light over the much darker swath of the ocean, Gage digested this news. Miranda would not have been allowed many phone calls, and she'd used one to call Tatyana. If Miranda had been concerned about him, why not call herself? Or was she trying to play matchmaker again? All along, based on her flirting, he'd sensed that Miranda had been interested in him herself, which made her clumsy attempts to bring him and Tatyana together all the more strange.

  "Are you still there?" Tatyana asked.

  "Oh, yes. Sorry, just thinking."

  "Okay."

  There was another pause.

  "Well," she said, "if everything is really all right, I suppose I should—"

  "Would you like to go to dinner?"

  "Dinner?"

  "Yes, you know that thing people do when they're hungry in the evening. Sometimes they even do it with others."

  She chuckled so softly he barely caught it, but it was there. Thank God. So she wasn't completely impervious to his charms. Somehow, just hearing that laugh, it made him want to try that much harder to win her over.

  She said, "You really like making jokes, don't you?"

  "When they make people laugh, yes. When they don't, I think I die a little inside."

  "We don't want that. But I warn you, I really am not much for laughing."

  "I've kind of gathered that," he said. "I've also gathered that you have a very good sense of humor, even if you don't laugh all that much."

  "Hmm."

  "Dinner, then? My treat."

  There was a pause. He felt his pulse in the fingers clutching the phone, a steady tapping. He didn't realize until he'd asked her to dinner how much he wanted her to say yes.

  "Yes," she said.

  "Yes?"

  "Yes, I will go to dinner. But I pay for my meal."

  He offered up a melodramatic sigh. "If you insist. But it really does hurt my chivalrous heart not being able to pick up the tab."

  "Somehow," she said, "I think your heart will survive the experience."

  "Ah! See, there's that humorous side of you. Can I at least pick you up?"

  "Will it hurt your heart if I say no?"

  "Very much. I don't know how much more hurt it can take."

  "Then I will not test it this time. "

  She gave him her address—she lived in one of the condos that overlooked Big Dipper Lake—and he told her that he'd be there at eight o'clock. He shaved, showered, and took his time about it, but still he was dressed and ready to go at half past seven. He left anyway, thinking there might be traffic. There wasn't. He didn't want to seem too eager, showing up twenty minutes early, so he looped around the lake to the boat dock on the north side. The lake was dark and silent, the lights off the houses shining brightly on a clear night. A sliver of a moon hung high overhead, clothed in wispy clouds like an old woman wearing a lace shawl. He parked and rolled down his window, hoping to take in the fresh air but catching a disturbing whiff of something rotten. His sharp investigative powers determined the source to be an overflowing trash can by the playground not far away.

  So much for a peaceful interlude. He waited a few more minutes, then drove slowly back to the condos on the south side. The complex, three modern-looking buildings nestled in the trees, all mirrored glass, polished steel, and gray stone, had been built three years ago but he'd heard the condos were priced on the high side and only half had sold. Judging by how few of them were lit and how many parking spaces were empty, he wondered if half was being generous.

  Still ten minutes early, he decided to wait in the van. His plan was foiled when Tatyana emerged from the glass lobby in a trim red leather jacket, tight designer jeans, and matching red sandals and handbag. Again, it was as if she'd chosen the outfit out of a catalog, but Gage didn't mind. He'd noted her figure before, but those jeans gave him an appreciation on a much more primal level.

  He'd no sooner recognized his attraction than he felt a stirring of guilt. Here he was going out with a beautiful woman while another beautiful woman—one he considered his responsibility—sat alone in a jail cell. What was he thinking?

  Then the beautiful woman with the luxurious blonde hair climbed into his passenger seat and he remembered exactly what he'd been thinking. He'd been thinking about what Tatyana might look like naked. Was that so wrong? There was no doubt that Miranda was attractive, and he might have been attracted to her as well, but he would never pursue someone who couldn't even remember who they were. It struck him as sleazy, on par with a man who'd slip a date-rape drug into a women's drink.

  Besides, he wanted to talk with Tatyana about Miranda, get her professional opinion. That's what he told himself anyway, and he almost believed it.

  Tatyana flashed him a fleeting smile, eyes wide and pupils dark, before she turned forward. There was something different about her, something not so composed and contained, and he realized she was nervous. It encouraged him.

  "How did you know I was here?" Gage asked.

  "I heard your van," she said.

  "Ah. It has a very distinctive sound, doesn't it?"

  "It does," she said.

  "Kind of like a dying moose."

  She looked at him. "Why didn't you come up? Were you afraid of being too early?"

  "Hmm. You're a perceptive one."

  "You should not worry about that sort of thing with me. I don't worry about things like that. What do you call them? Social norms."

  "Well, that's good," Gage said, "because I generally have a hard time with social norms. Social anything, really."

  She looked forward again. Her hair, her make-up—everything was just perfect, but there was also a pale and strained quality to her. He got the sense she might throw up. Or that she might rip open that purse, the way she gripped it so tightly.

  "Are you okay?" he asked.

  She turned toward him abruptly, as if he'd startled her. "What?"

  "We don't have to do this tonight, you know. I can take a rain—"

  "No, no, I'm fine," she insisted.

  "Okay."

  "Please. I want to." Vant to. There it was again, the accent coming on a little stronger. Perhaps because she'd put a little too much emphasis on that last sentence, she glanced at him. "I'm sorry if I ... if I don't seem like myself. I have not done something like this in a very long time. That's all."

  "Hey, you can't be any more nervous than me."

  That seemed to relax her. She dropped her shoulders and at least some of the tightness in her face melted away. He wanted to ask her what she meant by a long time, and why, but he knew those questions were premature. Instead he asked her if the Inn at Sapphire Head would be all right for dinner. She said she'd never eaten there but that she'd heard good things about it.

  Ten minutes later, they parked in the expansive lot next to the golf course and walked through the tunnel under the highway, the wind swirling. The way she walked next to him, there was something very closed and contained about her, but also radiating an electric buzz. They weren't comfortable with one another yet, the walls of their castles still heavily guarded, but there was an expectation that things would change, that they both wanted things to change. In the elevator, on the way up to the top floor, she stood close enough that he breathed in the scent of whatever shampoo she'd used, like the smell of wildflowers after a spring rain. He wanted to lay his chin o
n her head, nuzzle her against him.

  After they were seated, at a cozy two-person table overlooking the dark ocean, they both looked at each other and started to speak at once.

  "How long have you—" he began.

  "Why do you—" she said.

  They both smiled and that broke the tension, at least enough that some of the awkwardness disappeared.

  "You first," he said.

  "No, no, you should—"

  "Come on now. We could be at this all night otherwise."

  "All right. I was just going to ask why you like being a private investigator. I heard how you became one the other night, but not why you like it."

  "Oh, many things. Mostly because I heard it was a good way to meet women."

  "Hmm. Did that work for you?"

  "No, I was misinformed."

  "I see. Well, it is the same reason I became a doctor. I heard it was a good way to meet women."

  Gage, reaching for his water glass, froze. "Women?"

  "Yes," she said. "I'm sorry. I thought ... I thought you knew."

  "You're ... um ..."

  "Gay," she said, nodding.

  She let him dangle in the wind, her eyes wide and bright, while he revisited everything that had happened between them the past few days. Had he completely misread the signs? He was trying to summon some kind of response, one that wouldn't reveal any of the deep disappointment he felt, when she finally smiled.

  "You're joking," he said.

  "What if I said I liked girls and boys?"

  "Um ..."

  "Joking again."

  "Oh."

  "Are you always this easy to fool?"

  "Only by beautiful women."

  "Ah, there you go," she said, laughing, "a very good response, I think."

  "And you, ma'am, are a liar."

  "What?"

  "You said you didn't laugh much, and I've heard you laugh several times now. It's a very good laugh, too."

  She smiled. "Maybe I just laugh at you."

  "I'll try to take that as a compliment."

  "You should."

  She took a sip from her water, looking at him over the top of the glass. Her wit was so dry, she was hard to read. He loved it. He loved many things about her. How odd it was, to have lived in the same town, to have passed each other in the grocery store so many times, and all along this wonderful possibility existed between them.

  "It's very strange, isn't it?" she said, putting down her glass. He thought maybe she'd read his mind until he saw the troubled expression she wore. "Here we are, having dinner for the first time, when the person who brought us together is sitting in prison."

  "Ah, the elephant in the room," he said. "Does it bother you? That we're here together?"

  "A little," she said.

  "Me too."

  "Maybe we shouldn't be doing this."

  "Maybe," he said, nodding.

  "Or ... we could simply acknowledge the fact that ... that the timing is unusual, as are the circumstances of our meeting, and then both decide that despite the, um, awkwardness of it, there is nothing wrong with two people having dinner."

  "Boy, you are a smart lady," Gage said.

  "Yes, I am. Now I have another question, and I want you to answer it without jokes. How did you end up taking care of Zoe?"

  As much as Gage preferred to avoid talking about his past, even his fairly recent past, she'd asked the question so earnestly that he felt compelled to give her an earnest answer. He told her about Mattie, his housekeeper who'd died of cancer a couple years back, and how she'd made him promise to take care of her troubled granddaughter. He told her how the last thing he'd seen himself doing was being a father, but Zoe's own parents were meth addicts and petty thieves who spent their lives either on the streets or in prisons, so he didn't feel he had a choice. His late wife would be shocked if she knew he'd actually signed custody documents. She probably would have predicted he'd become a cop first.

  Tatyana slipped in a few innocuous questions about how he'd met Janet, without it seeming forced at all, and before long he'd told her more about himself than he'd probably told anyone other than Alex and Zoe. There was something so welcoming about Tatyana, as if there was no doubt that she would never in a million years think to use your own past pain and mistakes against you, that everything was heard and understood with a deep kind of sympathy that few people possessed. Even her teasing was never mean. Sharp-edged? Yes. Mean, no.

  They shared a bottle of a Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. They ordered meals, her a charbroiled salmon and him a rib-eye steak. He talked until the meals came, and he talked well into the eating of them, until he finally decided it was time for her to do some talking of her own.

  "Fair's fair," he said, "now I get to ask a few questions."

  "All right."

  "When did you come to the United States?"

  "Ah," she said, reaching for her wine glass, "that is a complicated question."

  "Come on now. Was it before or after you became a doctor?"

  Her eyes, already shiny from a bit too much wine, gleamed over the top of her water glass. "Before," she said.

  "How much before?"

  "I was nineteen."

  "Wow, that's young. Did you come with your family or—"

  "Alone."

  He waited for her to say more. She swirled what was left of her wine, looking down into the red liquid as if trying to divine some meaning there. The tables were full now, the chatter around them loud and full of energy, making the silence at their own table that much more profound. Finally, she put down her glass and sighed.

  "All right," she said, "I will tell you something. But you must promise not to laugh."

  "You were once in the circus?"

  "No. It's ... you have to understand. I really wanted out of Ukraine. I grew up mostly after the breakup of the Soviet Union. It was very poor. Very desperate. Then there was always the conflict. You know of Crimea?"

  "Oh yes. Who doesn't?"

  "Of course, many people know of it now, after Russia invaded and claimed it for their own. But it was always a very troubled place. In 1991, when the CCCP—ah, what you call the USSR, when it fell, there were those who loved Ukraine and wanted nothing to do with mother Russia. There were also those who thought Ukraine should have stayed with Russia and never went its own way. Even as a little girl, I saw how this would tear us apart and decided I wanted to leave. I also wanted to do something with my life, something more than just marry some poor Ukrainian boy and bear children. But my family was very poor. My father—he made furniture. Do you know how many people buy furniture when they can't even buy bread? Not many."

  Gage thought it interesting how her accent had revealed itself even more fully as she'd talked about her past, the R's rolling a bit stronger, the W sounds turning more into V's. Wanted became vanted. Was became vas. "How did you get out then?"

  "You won't laugh?"

  "If I do, I'll hide it well."

  "Please. No jokes. This is difficult."

  "All right."

  "You must also try not to think poorly of me. Please remember how much I wanted to leave."

  "Tatyana, come on."

  She took another drink of wine, dabbed at her lips with a napkin, and settled both her hands on the tablecloth in front of her as if bracing herself.

  "I let myself be ordered," she said.

  "What?"

  "You know, ordered. From a catalog. "

  It finally dawned on Gage what she meant. "You were a mail-order bride?"

  "Shh. Not so loud."

  "Sorry. It's just—you're a doctor. Obviously really sharp. For someone so smart, I would have thought there would have been another—"

  "Smart is one thing," she said. "Having opportunities is another. I thought, if I could get to the United States, I could find a way to do something with my life. I admit, I was very naive. I read magazines about American life and watched American movies and thought if a poor girl from Ukraine cou
ld find a way to do something great, it would be in America. At first, I thought I might meet an American working in Ukraine. There were some young men teaching English in Simferopol, but the ones I met seemed so earnest and pure, I could not bring myself to pursue them if I did not think I could love them. And I did not feel it with any of them."

  "I imagine you had a lot of suitors," he said.

  "Some. Mostly Ukrainian boys." Something changed in her eyes, a darkening, but she blinked a few times and continued. "I needed to get out before I became just another poor Ukrainian woman who spent her days changing diapers and trying to make soup out of whatever was left in the cupboard. And I thought, if I was going to use a man to escape, why not a man who was the sort of person who would order a woman from a catalog? He would think he would be choosing me, but I would be choosing him. I would choose someone kind, who would support me in my goals, but I would make sure I could never love him."

  "Ouch," Gage said.

  "You said you would try not to think less of me."

  "I don't. We all make tough choices in life. I just don't know why you felt you needed to be so hard on yourself."

  She touched the CK necklace briefly, then seemed to realize she'd done so and put her hand back on the table. "You must understand, I did not think I deserved love. I think this is why I want to help Miranda so much. I understand her situation very well."

  "Oh. You ended up with someone abusive?"

  "I ended up with someone very manipulative and controlling."

  "And you chose him knowing this?"

  She swallowed. "You misunderstand. The man I met through this service, the man I married, he was not controlling at all. He was sweet and kind and generous. He was a chemist for Halton-Hauer, the big drug manufacturer. He was very awkward, especially with women, and not at all good looking, but there was no meanness. I sensed this right away when we started letters. When we were together, I was proved right."

  "Then I dont—"

  "I'm talking about myself," Tatyana said.

  "You?"

  "When I say I ended up with someone abusive, I mean me."

  Gage shook his head. "I admit I'm a bit confused."

  "There are many kinds of abuse," she said, her voice growing hoarse. "Not all abuse is physical. Some is much worse. I let this man believe I was falling in love with him. I ... seduced him to come get me in Ukraine, to marry me and take me back to Atlanta. I took his last name, Brunner, because I knew having an American-sounding name would be better for me. I made a good home, of course. I took care of his needs. But I controlled him, too. I got him to pay for my schooling at the University of Georgia. Then medical school at Emory University. I told him I wanted to be a smarter wife for him, since he was a chemist. I had power over him and I used it. That is all abuse is, really. Knowing you have power over someone and using it."