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

by Scott William Carter

  Half an hour later, a little past two o'clock in the afternoon, they rolled into Crescent City.

  Unlike in Barnacle Bluffs, where the highway and the city crowded mostly along the coastline, the bulk of Crescent City was situated a few blocks off the ocean. They weaved through town, past the usual assortment of fast food restaurants, gas stations, and a couple of grocery stores, everything fairly drab and unremarkable. It lacked both the touristy charm and tackiness of most of the Oregon coastal cities, a gritty reality pervading the place, reminding him mostly of Newport but much smaller. Verdant forests and green hills bordered the eastern side of the city, giving the place a very isolated feel.

  Tatyana said, "When I looked up pictures on the Internet, I didn't see many pictures of the city itself—just the harbor, the beach, the redwoods. Now I see why."

  "It's not much to look at, is it?" Gage said.

  "It's very strange. They are surrounded by so much beauty. Ancient redwoods just minutes from here. And, look, there's the Battery Point Lighthouse. It really is remarkable. The city just seems so plain."

  It may have been plain, but Gage already felt a kinship to the place. He could have relocated here just as easily as Barnacle Bluffs. The combination of gritty realism and natural beauty would have fit him well.

  The lighthouse was aptly named, as the little white and red building was located on a tiny rocky islet connected to the shore by a narrow isthmus barely above the water that must have been submerged at high tide. A white picket fence, a bit of grass, and a few lonely wind-blown cypress trees created quite an iconic image, and Gage was willing to bet that pictures of the lighthouse had graced thousands of postcards over the years. The Crescent City Harbor was just beyond it, a big port that was only half full, then a narrow stretch of sandy beach that ended at the base of steeply sloped bluffs and thick forests.

  Since it was too early to check into the hotel, they decided to hit the docks first. They parked the van in front of the marina office, an industrial-looking building that also contained a bait and tackle shop, a seafood restaurant, and a boat mechanic. The sun glared high above, marked only by a few jagged white clouds that made Gage think of the stuffing-filled gashes a knife would leave in a blue pillow. Getting out of the van, they were greeted by a warm breeze blowing off the Pacific. He smelled grilling salmon in the air.

  Inside, standing behind a counter made from unfinished plywood and looking at a computer that was so grimy it could have been pulled out of the ocean, was a pirate. That was the first word that came to mind. How else to explain the eye patch, the braided black ponytail, and the burlap face partially hidden behind a grizzled beard? His outfit may not have quite fit the part—he wore a red and white plaid shirt rolled up at the sleeves—but otherwise he definitely could have passed as a pirate.

  The guy looked up with his one good eye. "Help ya?" he said.

  "I hope so," Gage said, though it was all he could do not to ask if the man was a pirate. It was just such an obvious question, someone wearing an eye patch working at a marina, but he doubted the guy would appreciate it. He probably got the pirate question all the time. "Name's Garrison Gage. I'm a private investigator and I'd like to ask you—"

  "You the guy called on the phone a day or two ago?"

  "Most likely," Gage said.

  "You asking about that woman, the one that made the paper."

  "You heard about that, huh?"

  "Everybody heard about it now." He turned his attention back to the monitor, clicking on a keyboard that was below the counter. "Sorry you came all the way down here. Like I told ya, ain't seen her. That boat neither."

  "Are you the only one who works here?"

  "Nah, Jerry usually works the weekends. Normally I don't work Sundays, but Jerry had a wedding to go to in Grant's Pass."

  "When is he due back?"

  "Like I said, the weekends. So next Saturday. You're wasting your time, though. I can tell you right now he hasn't seen nothing."

  "You talked about it?"

  "Yeah, on the phone."

  There was something about the man's demeanor that immediately didn't sit right with Gage, a certain anxiousness in the way he looked away. On the phone, it hadn't been evident in his tone of voice, which made Gage glad he'd decided to come down here. There was a lot that body language could tell him about a person. He had heard reluctance on the phone, but he'd assumed it was the same reluctance a busy person felt having to deal with an annoying interruption. This was definitely something else.

  Deciding on how best to approach this, Gage leaned his cane against the counter and placed his hands flat on the rough plywood. The man clicked away on his keyboard. Tatyana, hanging back a few steps, observed without saying a word. Outside, a motorboat buzzed out of the marina and a few seagulls cawed far off in the distance.

  "I have a picture this time," Gage said. "Maybe that will help."

  "I saw her picture in the paper," the man said.

  "You've checked your records for the boat?"

  "Yeah, man, I checked the records when you called. It wasn't here. Somebody tell you they was here or something?"

  "Why, do you know somebody who would say such a thing?"

  The man looked at him with his dumfounded grizzled face. "Huh?"

  "The way you said that, it makes me think you know somebody who might tell me."

  "Man, I don't get you."

  "Join the club. What's your name?"

  "What's that got to do with anything?"

  "You don't even want to give me your name?"

  "Look, man—"

  "If you don't give me your name, I'm going to call you Pirate Bob."

  "What?"

  "Maybe you wouldn't mind checking again, Pirate Bob? I have the license number."

  He regarded Gage the way he might have regarded a dead trout that someone had dropped on his floor. "What good will that do?"

  Gage took the license number written on a paper folded inside his leather jacket and placed it on the counter. "Maybe you made an error."

  "An error?"

  "You know, a mistake."

  "I know what an error is!"

  "Good. Then you know they happen all the time, Pirate Bob."

  "It's Troy! The name's Troy!"

  "Great, now we're getting somewhere. Pirate Troy, if you could just check one more time, I'd appreciate it."

  "Just Troy!"

  "Fine, Troy. Would you do that for me? Just this once?"

  "Why you got to be such an asshole about it?"

  "Call it a character flaw, Troy. When I encounter mental stupor, deliberate mendacity, or, worse, both, I usually can't help myself."

  Poor Troy, blinking that one eye of his, wasn't quite sure if he'd been insulted or not. Gage thought about clarifying that he had been insulted, but Troy must have decided that the fastest way to actually get rid of Gage was to go through the motions of double-checking the license number. That's exactly what he did, go through the motions, his apathy for the task and outright disdain for the person asking him to do it evident in the languid way he went about clicking a few keys, studying Gage's paper for a long time, peering at his screen for a moment, clicking a bit more, staring for an even longer time, repeating this cycle a few more times before finally sighing.

  "Nope," he said.

  "Huh," Gage said.

  "Now, if you'll excuse me, I got work to do."

  "I can see that. But what if I told you I have proof they were here?"

  There was something in Troy's eye, a split second of fear before it was covered once again by a shade of guardedness, that told Gage everything he needed to know.

  "What do you mean, proof?" Troy asked.

  "Oh, I didn't say I actually have any," Gage said. "I just wanted to know what you would do if you thought I had some."

  Troy shook his head. "I don't have time for this crap. You better leave."

  "Oh, I'll leave. But first I want to make sure you understand something. This woman, sh
e doesn't have her memory. She doesn't know who she is. They just arrested her for murder, but we can't prove her innocence if we can't figure out who she really is. If you know something—"

  "I don't," Troy said.

  "— and you're not telling us," Gage continued, "you may be helping put an innocent woman behind bars. Now, I don't know about you, but I'd have a hard time living with that. Can you live with that, Troy? Can you go to bed at night knowing that you might have put an innocent person behind bars?"

  Troy took his time answering, the silence long enough that Gage caught the sound of waves lapping against the pilings outside. For a moment, he thought that he might have gotten to him, that there was a chance he was going to fess up to whatever he knew, but then good old Troy lifted one of his weather-beaten fingers and pointed at the door.

  "If you're not out of here in ten seconds," he said, "I'm calling the cops."

  "That's how it's going to be, then?"

  "Ten ..."

  "An innocent person going to jail."

  "Nine ..."

  Gage would have been happy to play this game all the way down to zero, but Tatyana took his arm and guided him outside. She was so quick about it he almost forgot his cane. They took refuge from the glare of the sun around the corner, under a slight overhang next to a dumpster that smelled of fish. She brushed her hair behind her ears, trying to keep it from blowing in her eyes, but was only modestly successful.

  "Does it always go that well for you?" she asked.

  "Sometimes even worse."

  "I'm a little ... confused about your method."

  "I think calling what I do a method would be pretty generous," Gage said, "but getting people off-balance is not always a bad thing—especially somebody who's obviously hiding something."

  "And you thought he was hiding something?"

  "Most definitely. It could be something unrelated. Maybe he's into some other illegal activity, some drug smuggling maybe, and he just doesn't want the attention. But my gut tells me we just hit the jackpot."

  "But if he's seen Miranda before, why wouldn't he tell us? It doesn't make any sense."

  "That's the million dollar question. The hours listed on the marina office window show that he closes at six. Maybe we can follow Pirate Troy home. That might tell us a lot more about him than another conversation. In the meantime, let's talk to some folks on the docks. I bet I can piss off a few more people."

  He smiled. Tatyana, obviously less enthusiastic about this plan, did not smile back. Early yet in the afternoon, most of the fisherman were still out on the water, but there were still a scattering of people around the docks. They talked to a young man scrubbing the algae off the sides of a thirty-two-foot Catamaran sailboat who said he'd been hiring himself out around the marina for the past six months, but he didn't remember seeing the boat or recognize Miranda's picture. A bum searching the trash around the marina for cans, a man with brown hair and beard so thick he could have doubled for Sasquatch, said he was sure he'd seen Miranda, but when they pressed him for details, it became clear he was willing to say yes to whatever question they asked. An older couple drinking lemonade on the deck of their Sea Ray jet boat said they'd been out at sea for a week and didn't know anything about it.

  Nobody acted as suspicious as Pirate Troy, giving Gage no reason to doubt their answers. Around four o'clock, the fisherman started to return, but Gage didn't have any better luck. One of them, an old timer with liver-spotted skin that resembled a checkerboard, said he might have seen Marcus and his boat, but he couldn't be sure. There were just so many ships that passed through and unless there was something remarkable about a boat—a Catalina like Marcus's being one of the most common sailboats there is—it was hard to remember them.

  Closing in on six o'clock, they drove the van back to the highway and Gage filled his tank at the Texaco. Traffic had picked up, the weekenders who'd come out for the ocean or the redwoods heading home. A bank of clouds the color of duct tape streaked the horizon, and the air, already cool, had noticeably cooled even more. The plan was to park in front of the little aquarium, where their car could blend in with the others in the lot, and watch the road that led to the marina until they could follow Troy home.

  After pumping the gas, he went inside the mini market to pick up a couple bottles of water and some potato chips. On a whim, he showed the pimply young man behind the counter the photo of Miranda. The kid leaned in closer, squinting through his thick glasses. They were alone in the store, the freezers humming, the fluorescent lights buzzing, the traffic outside a dull murmur.

  "Huh," he said. "You know, she looks kind of like this lady that always came in real late. I don't know her name, but yeah, it looks like her. She'd grab milk or bread, stuff that always made me wonder why she wasn't going to the Safeway up the road. I mean, we charge way too much for that stuff here. The only time I ever buy stuff here is when—"

  "Hold on," Gage said. "You're saying you've seen her?"

  "Well ... Not totally sure, but yeah. I mostly work the four to midnight and she'd usually come in about an hour before we closed shop. I mean, not every day. A couple times a week. Usually she was wearing a baseball cap and she kind of kept her head down, you know. Like she was shy or something. I, uh, tried to talk to her a couple times, but she really didn't say much. Who is she?"

  "You haven't been reading the news?"

  "Nah, man, I don't really follow that stuff. I mostly just work here and play World of Warcraft. I just need a year to save some money before I start school at Humboldt State."

  "Did she drive a car?"

  "No. She always just walked in. From that way." He pointed south.

  "You sure? Not much that way."

  "Yeah," the kid said, "I always wondered about that, too. There's the Best Western, the Mill Creek Motel, Los Compadres ..."

  "Do you remember about the time she started coming in?"

  "Well, I've only been working here about six months, and she was coming in when I started. Haven't seen her in a couple weeks, though. Hey, wait a minute. Something didn't happen to her, did it? I mean, she's not like ... dead, right?"

  "She's fine. At least, if it's the same woman. She just has a little problem with her memory."

  "Wow. Like amnesia?"

  "Yes, like amnesia."

  "Cool! I mean, not cool. Not cool at all. I just never heard of someone really having amnesia. It happens on TV all the time, but—"

  "Can I ask your name?"

  "Um, I guess. I'm not in trouble, am I?"

  "No, I just might need to follow up with you later."

  The kid said his name was Alvin Krafte—like the company but with an "e" at the end. Gage wrote it on the receipt, as well as his cell phone number. He asked him if he knew anything about Troy or any of the other people who worked at the marina. Alvin didn't. Gage showed him a picture of Marcus. The kid didn't recognize him and couldn't say whether he'd been in or not. He had the kind of face—a bit on the doughy side, but a pleasant, beguiling face all the same—that probably wouldn't be able to deceive someone even if his life depended on it. Gage thanked the kid and said he might be in touch.

  After parking the van across the street, he told Tatyana what he'd learned. She peered out the window at the couple hotels and restaurants that were all that remained of the city before the highway ascended into the bluffs along the coast. On the west side, beyond the marina, a sandy beach stretched along the full length of the road, a handful of cars parked alongside of it, a few people frolicking in the water.

  Tatyana said, "You think she was staying in one of those hotels?"

  "I think there's a good chance," Gage said.

  "You want to go talk to them?"

  "Eventually. I don't want to lose the opportunity to follow Troy back to his pirate ship."

  "You think he lives on a ship?"

  "No, I'm just making a joke. Obviously it didn't work."

  "Oh. Now I feel dumb."

  "You shouldn't. It was
a lame joke. My specialty, really."

  She blinked at him a few times. He was trying to think of something else to say, something that would prove that he actually did have a decent sense of humor, when she leaned across the van and kissed him. It wasn't a long kiss, but there was the same electric charge as the last one, and when she pulled back she was smiling.

  "What was that for?" he asked.

  "Maybe I like lame jokes," she said.

  "Oh. Well, there's more where that came from, I guarantee it."

  "Good."

  They looked at each other. The way her lips slightly parted was irresistible. He started to learn forward.

  "I think we should get two rooms," she said.

  "What?"

  "Tonight. When we go to the hotel."

  "Oh."

  That killed the mood in a hurry. She blushed and looked away. On a scale of one to ten, the blush was right there at the top, a full-on pink wildfire spreading from her cheeks down to her neck. He would have found the blush quite endearing if he hadn't been so disappointed.

  "You are disappointed," she said quietly.

  "No, of course not," he said.

  "Liar."

  "Okay, I'm lying."

  She laughed and it helped break the tension. "I'm sorry. I have just been thinking about it."

  "Oh, I haven't been thinking about it at all."

  "I want to," she said. "It's the first time in a long time that ... well, I just ... I don't want to move too fast."

  "I understand."

  She looked at him. "Do you?"

  "Sure."

  "You're not too disappointed?"

  "Oh, I'm very disappointed. Crushing disappointment, actually. But I'll get over it."

  "Would it help if I kissed you again?"

  "It might."

  She kissed him again. Perhaps because she was trying to compensate for disappointing him, she really put a lot into it, crossing over into his seat, pressing her warm body into his. All those wonderful, luscious curves, all that soft, pliant flesh—even through her clothes, her physical presence was so overwhelming that it was all he could do to restrain himself.

  After she pulled away and climbed back into her seat, there were a few breathless seconds when neither of them seemed to know what to do. In fact, Gage knew exactly what to do, but Tatyana had already made it clear she wasn't interested in that yet. The key word being yet. There was a lot of room for negotiation in the word yet.