Live and Let Fly

by Clover Tate

  “There are, it’s just that they’re in the basement, and it flooded last year. I mean, we can check. The last couple of years, we put those online. But these . . .” Her tone of voice said, fat chance.

  I glanced at Stella, my heart already sinking. “We drove down from Rock Point. We should at least give them a look.”

  The woman sighed. “All right. Follow me.” She lifted the counter to let us through, then led the way past the reception area to a back room with a copy machine, a couple of sickly plants, and an elderly man at a computer. “Junior,” she said, “I’m taking these ladies to the archives.”

  He looked up, clearly surprised we were there. Maybe his hearing wasn’t very good. “Great. I’ll be finished with the story on Taft High by the time you come up.”

  The woman opened another door—one I’d have assumed went to a broom closet—and flipped on a light. Even before we entered, I smelled the mildew. The woman descended a wooden staircase and flipped another bank of switches, illuminating half a dozen rows of metal shelves holding banker’s boxes.

  “The boxes are labeled by date. Let’s see.” She walked up one row, running her index finger across the cardboard as she went. “If you’re lucky, this date will be on an upper shelf.”

  “What happened?” Stella asked. “I wouldn’t think it would flood this far inland.”

  “The gutters backed up during a rainstorm a couple of years ago. It’s just Junior and me here most days, and we don’t get around to things like gutter cleaning very often. Ah, here it is.” She pulled a box from a lower shelf—but not the lowest—and set it on a table by the stairs.

  We stood around her as she pried off the lid. “The date I gave you was for the obituary. If there was anything about her death, it probably would have been in the papers the week before,” I said.

  Folded newspapers made a tidy stack in the box, like shirts in an upscale haberdasher’s. The woman reached in to pull one from the box, but it stuck to its neighbors.

  “Uh-oh,” Stella said.

  “This doesn’t look good.” I watched, praying we’d find something still legible about Naomi’s death.

  Although the woman had hesitated to come downstairs, now she seemed determined to find the right papers, and carefully separated the newspapers. They tore with each of her careful movements.

  Stella sneezed. “Sorry. Mildew allergies.”

  “This one’s from exactly one week before the obituary.” She laid it on the table next to the box and flattened it open. The page in her left hand detached, and the rest of the pages had clearly melted together from the moisture, then dried solid that way. We weren’t getting anything from them.

  Stella sneezed again. “Sorry.”

  “I’m the one who’s sorry. I knew we should have scanned these earlier, but it takes time we don’t have. And now this,” the woman said. She put her hands on her hips and looked at the basement as if she’d never been down here.

  “There are no records of the old papers at all?” Stella asked. “Maybe at the library?”

  “No. We always meant to send them off—first my dad, it used to be his paper, then me—but we never did.”

  “It takes time to get things together,” I said. I tried to sound understanding, but I was bummed.

  “It was the money, really. And it wasn’t even ridiculously expensive. It’s just that . . .”

  She didn’t need to finish her sentence. A small-town newspaper was about as far as you could get from the National Bloodhound. While Nicky Byrd was burning his paper’s travel money digging up gossip about a reality TV star’s death, papers like the News Guard were scraping by. And that’s if they were lucky.

  This time, I was the one who sneezed. “Thank you for trying to help us. Maybe we should go upstairs.” I couldn’t keep the disappointment out of my voice.

  “Has the gentleman upstairs worked here awhile?” Stella asked. “Maybe he’d remember the death.”

  “Junior? Sure, he’s worked here since the mid–nineteen sixties, but unless it’s the score of a high school football game, I don’t think you’ll get much from him.” We’d reached the main floor again. “Junior?”

  “Eh?” Junior said, looking up from his computer monitor.

  “These ladies would like to ask you something.”

  “You all are football fans, are you?” He swung his chair toward us.

  “We have another question. About a death in Bedlow Bay about five years ago.”

  “Most of them kids go to Newport for high school. There was that tight end killed in a fireworks accident. Jonathan Bellows was his name. About the same time. Sad. His brother Jubal was a kicker, but didn’t have Jonathan’s talent.” He shook his head slowly. “Now, for kickers, you wanted one like Denny Richard. Had dead-on aim and ran like a wild coyote. His father, Frankie, was a kicker, too, but—”

  Stella interrupted. “This was a Bedlow Bay resident. Not a high school student.”

  “Naomi Salek,” I said.

  Junior watched us as we spoke. Probably a fair amount of his comprehension came from reading lips.

  “Naomi Salek,” he repeated. “Can’t say I remember the name.”

  The hope that had stirred now vanished. We might never find out what happened to Marcus’s wife, let alone Marcus himself.

  “Unless,” Junior said, “she was the one killed in that hit-and-run. Nasty business. They say she was pregnant, too. But this Naomi—”

  “Salek,” I finished.

  “Yes. Well, I don’t have much of a head for names. Sorry, girls.”

  • • •

  “That was a big nothing,” I said once we were back in the car. “Sorry I dragged you all the way down here.”

  “Maybe it was fruitful after all,” Stella said. “Junior seemed pretty sharp to me, if narrow in his interests. Maybe Marcus’s wife was killed in the hit-and-run, like he thought.”

  “Like he kind of thought,” I corrected. “If she were a high school football star, he would have remembered every detail.”

  “A hit-and-run is traumatic. It might explain why Marcus has been so closemouthed about it.”

  “There are lots of reasons he wouldn’t want to talk about that.” Especially if the car doing the hitting hadn’t been found. Especially if he might have been driving that car.

  As usual, Stella followed my train of thought. “You think he might have killed his own wife?”

  Now that the words were out there, I couldn’t commit to them. “It does seem far-fetched. I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  Stella rolled down the window to let out the heat. “Well, what do you want to do next?” The Corvette’s black leather interior was worthy of a James Bond movie, but the August warmth had turned my seat into a frying pan. “We could go on to Newport to see if we can find Naomi’s death certificate.”

  Junior’s story of the hit-and-run had got me thinking. “Why don’t we find somewhere for lunch? Then, if you’re game, we could drive to Bedlow Bay and ask around there. Maybe someone remembers Marcus and his wife. Then, if that fails, we can drive on to Newport.”

  Stella started the car. “I like that idea.”

  I had one more favor to ask. “While we’re here, how would you feel about—”

  “Visiting the kite shop, by chance?”

  I laughed. Once again, she’d read my mind. “If it’s not too much trouble. I don’t get to many kite shops these days, and it would be great to see what others are doing.”

  Stella smiled. “I was going to suggest it if you didn’t. Why don’t we stop by there now, and get lunch in Bedlow Bay?”

  The Pacific Winds kite shop was the largest shop on the Oregon coast. Not only did they have a huge selection of kites—many designed in-house and sent out to be built—they carried all sorts of beach equipment, from sun hats to towels. Gettin
g through the winter was no problem for this shop. If you didn’t want a kite, you could buy a windsock to hang in the garden or a “Merry Christmas” flag adorned with holly, or a “It’s Happy Hour Somewhere” flag with a martini glass stitched on it. It wasn’t the direction in which I wanted to take Strings Attached, but I admired their business savvy.

  “Lincoln City makes Rock Point feel tiny,” I said as Stella pulled the Corvette into a parking spot in front of Pacific Winds. The city’s string of motels and fast-food restaurants was busy with RVs and tourist-jammed SUVs.

  “I suppose this is what people like Marcus fear.”

  “Rock Point could go in the opposite direction, like Gearhart,” I said, naming a town to the north loaded with the high-end beach homes of Portland’s old timber families. “I mean, look at the Tidal Basin. It’s even been in Bon Appétit.”

  A teenaged boy jumped off his skateboard at the sight of Stella’s car. “Nice ride,” he yelled.

  “Thank you,” Stella said.

  The air-conditioning in Pacific Winds kept the store at a comfortable temperature I had to approximate at Strings Attached with fans and the clever cross-circulation I’d determined over weeks of experimentation. Thank goodness for the transoms in old houses.

  “Good afternoon—Hey, you’re Emmy Adler from Rock Point, aren’t you?” the woman behind the counter said. She came around front to shake my hand. “Cheryl. Greg and I own this shop. I stopped by your store just after you opened. I love your handmade kites. We were talking about them at our kite festival. Why weren’t you there?”

  “I’d just opened the shop and couldn’t leave it for the day.” I felt like a celebrity. Is this how Jasmine had passed her time? I tried to tamp down my smile so I wouldn’t look too much like an idiot. “Thank you so much.”

  “Of course, we couldn’t make it if we sold that kind of fare. Folks don’t want the artsy stuff here. How have you been getting by?”

  Now my smile drooped without effort. “Not bad. Enough people seem to like the ‘artsy’ stuff for me to pay the rent.” The rent at the store, that is. Avery cut me a good deal on living with her.

  “Well, congratulations. And I don’t mean to sound harsh. I’ve heard more than one real kite enthusiast in here talking about how much they loved your kites.”

  Much better. “I adore this.” I waved toward a huge soft kite suspended from the ceiling. It was shaped like a pirate’s galleon.

  “The kite festivals help pay the bills. Rock Point has one coming up, doesn’t it? Are you entering something?”

  “It’s this weekend, and yes, I’m putting together a new design. It’s just about finished,” I said, hoping Sunny had followed my instructions and kept her distance.

  “I heard there was a little excitement up there, too.”

  My thoughts flashed to the National Bloodhound. Surely, Cheryl wasn’t a subscriber. I was about to reply when Stella stepped in.

  “So upsetting. Jasmine Normand died. Was killed, actually. I’m sure you saw it on the news.”

  Cheryl leaned forward. “Did you see her? I mean before, naturally.”

  So she hadn’t read Nicky Byrd’s column. I relaxed. “Only once, at a café in town. She seemed friendly.” To Jack, at least, I added silently.

  Cheryl leaned back and relaxed her voice. “It was probably a crazy celebrity stalker. If I were famous, I’d have a bodyguard watching over me night and day.” When neither of us responded, she said, “Let me give you a tour of the store.”

  Half an hour later, I was overwhelmed by what a successful kite store could be. Strings Attached would never be the high-traffic business Pacific Winds was—not that I wanted it like that. Pacific Winds succeeded because it was a little bit of everything for everyone. I wanted more of a boutique shop, somewhere I could create my kites and connect with people who understood what I was doing. Was that a crazy dream? Would it ever be possible?

  Stella and I waved good-bye.

  “Wow,” Stella said. “How many kites do you think they have in stock?”

  “A couple hundred on the shelves alone.” One thing I’d learned from my parents was that success was about more than sales volume or a fancy degree or a mansion. Still, seeing Pacific Winds had shaken me.

  I waited for Stella to unlock the passenger-side door from the inside. As I looked over the Corvette’s roof, I did a double take. There, walking into the kite shop, was the Tan Man.

  • • •

  I waited until I was seated and strapped in before I said, “Did you see him?”

  “Who?” Stella asked.

  “That man. That man who looks like he should be advertising Panama hats. He was hanging around Rock Point a few days ago. Even came into Strings Attached.”

  Stella looked through the windshield to the store, but thanks to the store’s curtain of windsocks and sport kites, we couldn’t see anyone. “Are you talking about the guy with the tan the color of toasted filberts? I’ve seen him around town.”

  “That’s him.”

  “Maybe he’s on vacation. You know, driving down Highway 101 to California.”

  “All by himself? Dressed like he owns a plantation?”

  We sat a moment and stared at the shop’s window. Stella broke the silence. “Do you want to go back in and see what he’s up to?”

  I turned it over in my mind. “No. He’s simply . . . strange. Let’s go to Bedlow Bay.”

  As we drove a gorgeous nine miles down the coast, I understood why so many summer visitors to the area yearned to move here. The air was clear and warm, and the hills green and dotted with farms. And the ocean spoke for itself. Now, with afternoon sun slanting across it, the waves shattered into sparkles. What those coast-happy visitors didn’t know, or refused to acknowledge, was that most of the year was rainy. By February there weren’t enough sunlamps in the world to boost a newcomer’s mood. Luckily for me, as a Portland native, rain was mother’s milk. But that didn’t mean I didn’t appreciate a beautiful August afternoon.

  Bedlow Bay was named after a square bay that was nipped from the coast as if a cosmic train conductor had validated it with his gigantic ticket puncher. Houses, mostly small and charming enough to grace calendars, rimmed the bay. The town was smaller than Rock Point, and a few times more charming.

  Stella pulled the Corvette in front of a homey-looking fish restaurant. “How about a bowl of chowder?”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  She shut off the engine but didn’t get out of the car. “What’s our plan?”

  “Well,” I said. “We’ll eat lunch.”

  “And then?”

  “And then we’ll go to the post office.” I turned to her. “What do you think?”

  “Perfect. Let’s cross our fingers we’ll find another Jeanette.”

  Ridley’s Chowder was in an old roadhouse, with a bar on the right and a diner on the left. I glanced into the dark bar as we entered. A few people hunched over the bar watching TV, and another couple sat at a table over a basket of fries. The diner, on the other hand, was full of light and bustle.

  “Have a seat,” a waitress yelled from the cash register.

  We chose a booth by window. Outside, a grizzled man who appeared to be an ex-fisherman was working his gums with a toothpick while he examined Stella’s car.

  The waitress handed us plastic-sheathed menus. “Coffee?”

  I flipped over my cup, the international “yes, please” sign. Stella did the same. The waitress filled our cups and then went to cash out another customer.

  “I like this place,” I said. The worn linoleum, the counter with a pie under glass, the coffee cups and saucers stacked behind the counter ready for action—it was picture-perfect. I knew from hard-won experience, though, that the chowder might come in a can from some restaurant supply company’s central kitchen in the industrial park of a faraway
city.

  The waitress was back. She was about ten years older than I, and her hair had been dyed a gentle auburn. She’d taken the trouble to fill in her lips with cherry red. She looked as at home as if she’d sprung up whole in the diner, or the diner had been built around her.

  “Ready to order?”

  “Do you make the chowder here?” I asked.

  “Sure do. You’ll like it, I promise. One bowl of chowder coming up. And you?” She turned to Stella.

  “Chowder for me, too.”

  When the waitress left, Stella turned toward the ocean beyond the seawall. “Just look at that. I can’t get enough of it.”

  “It’s beautiful.” But my attention drifted back into the diner. Clearly, it had been here for years. Marcus Salek had likely eaten here—many times, maybe. He’d probably taken his wife here. I could almost imagine him settling at the counter and ordering a tuna melt. Another thought came. What if Marcus was in Bedlow Bay, right now? “Do you think the waitress would know Marcus?”

  Stella’s attention focused. “She just might, at that.”

  “Maybe we could visit his old house, see where he lived.”

  The waitress appeared, holding a coffeepot in one hand and with both bowls of chowder resting on plates on her other arm.

  “Wait,” I said. “Have you worked here long?”

  “Hold on a sec. Crackers coming up.” She left the dining room altogether.

  Stella had already dipped her spoon into the chowder. The broth was thick, but not the gluey stuff from a can. The potatoes still had bits of skin clinging to them, and the clams—lots of clams—were chopped in irregular bits, like a knife and not a machine would make.

  I dug into my chowder. Delicious.

  Just as I formed the thought, the waitress emerged from the bar and entered the dining room with a bowl.

  “Hush,” Stella whispered. “Let me handle this.”

  “Here you go.” The waitress placed the bowl between Stella and me. It was full of buttered oyster crackers. “Does the chowder meet your expectations?”

  “I love it,” I said. And I did. I greedily spooned oyster crackers into it.