It sounded true. They stood like that, body to body, skin to skin, swaying a little in the dark room. She moved her hands across his chest, spreading her fingers wide, sliding them through the hair and over his nipples. He felt a stirring below.
"Garrison?" Her voice was breathy and full of need.
"Yes?"
"Come back to bed with me. I want to show you something."
* * *
He didn't know how many times they'd made love during the night, but looking back later, this one would be the first he'd vividly remember. It was a desperate and hungry kind of lovemaking, a groping and a scratching and a clawing, as if there was something there that would be lost if it wasn't snatched quickly. By the time they made it to the bedroom, he was kissing the back of her neck, and then he was kissing her lips, probing the tender flesh, biting down on her chin. She kissed back hungrily, not one long passionate kiss, but a series of hard thrusts, mouth groping and tongue probing, like she was trying to mark every inch of his face. It was like they were two separate people making love in parallel tracks, each taking what they needed.
They drifted toward the bed, but then he was kissing downward, raking his lips over the soft pebbled flesh of her nipples, down lower, making her groan. His knee began to give out, but it didn't matter because she was on top of him, pushing him down.
Then, finally, there on the carpet next to the bed, with his shoulder pressed up against the wooden bed frame and the coiled springs beneath the mattress like landmines at the edge of his vision, they moved in concert. They rocked and ground together, her palms flat against his chest, her head thrown backwards and her back arched. They fell into a steady motion, two bodies moving as one, a quickening of the hearts, a rising of the blood. The sound of the rain fell away, and then all sounds fell away. There was just the moving. Moving with Carmen. Moving higher. Moving on and on and even in the hunger and the desperation, wishing it never ended.
* * *
The buzzer on the bedside table snapped Gage awake. He groped for it, stretched, and fiddled with the buttons until the damn noise stopped. He lay there, half-covered by the bedspread, letting his pounding heart slow.
Daylight splintered the draped windows, a dagger of light slicing across his pillow and hitting him in the eye. He groaned and rolled onto his back, pushing off the bedspread. He rubbed his eyes, glancing at the other side of the bed expecting to see Carmen. The bed was empty. The cat clock on the wall above the dresser read ten after eight.
He slipped out of bed, feeling exposed in his utter nakedness. He found his pants and slipped into them, then padded barefoot into the living room. The hall's hardwood floor, cool against his toes, creaked and groaned in protest. He smelled bacon and coffee. He heard her before he saw her, a pleasant humming from the kitchen.
He was feeling the slightest bit of regret about the previous night, but when he actually saw her, standing at the oven in a thin pink silk robe, golden hair cascading down her back, he felt a surge of happiness absent so long from his life he'd forgotten how it felt. Then, when she actually smiled at him, the way her whole face transformed, there was no room for even a sliver of regret. The previous night may not have gone according to any plan, but he wouldn't have changed a minute of it.
Something else was different: He realized that he also hadn't thought for a second about his bum knee.
"Hello, gorgeous," he said.
"Sleep well?" she said.
"Best in years," he said. And then it hit him, the guilt. He thought about Mattie alone in the dark on a cold gurney, only yesterday alive and smiling at him. Here he was staying the night with a woman he'd barely known a week. What did that say about him?
"Uh oh," Carmen said.
"What?"
"You've got that look on your face. The 'serious Mr. Gage' look. Maybe I need to take you back in the bedroom to make it go away." She smiled impishly.
"Tempting. But I think I need to make a phone call first."
"Aww. You're not going to call your real girlfriend, are you? Sorry, bad joke. I know you're going to check in on Zoe. The kitchen phone is right there. If you want something more private—"
"The kitchen phone will be just perfect, Carmen."
"Because my cell phone is in my purse in the bedroom—"
"Carmen."
"—and I'd be happy to get it for—"
He stopped her by touching his fingers to her lips. She blinked at him with big doe eyes, and he kissed her. She leaned into him, and it would have been easy to give in to it, but his anxiousness about Zoe was rising. He pulled away, both of them grinning like school kids, the bacon sizzling in the frying pan. He picked up the olive green phone on the wall. She smiled at him and leaned over to look at a piece of paper stuck to the refrigerator with a seashell magnet. She read him Zoe's cell number and he dialed it.
The phone rang three times and then Zoe answered, sounding groggy.
"Me here," she said.
"Hi," he said. "How are you doing?"
She snorted. "How do you think I'm doing?"
"Okay. Stupid question. Did you manage to get some sleep?"
"No. Did you? Where are you, anyway? With that reporter chick?"
He decided to dodge the question, at least for now. "I just wanted to see if you needed anything."
"What would I need? Hugs and kisses?"
"I don't know. I just thought—well, if you needed anything, you know."
"I don't."
"Okay. Well. Are you going to be there all day?"
"I don't know."
"You're not going to school?"
She didn't even answer that one. He didn't blame her.
"I'd like to talk to you at some point," he said.
"Okay. I'm probably going to go out later."
"What time?"
She sighed. "I don't know. Look, I gotta go. I'll see you, okay?"
"Zoe—"
But she was already gone. He held the phone out from his ear, grimacing at it. He looked up to say something to Carmen, but she was gone, and then he turned and saw her coming down the hall. She was holding a cell phone to her ear. He was going to make a crack about women and phones, something about needing two lines when she'd been the only one living in the house, but then saw how ashen her face had become.
"What is it?" he asked.
She thanked the person on the other end, then clicked it closed. She lowered it to her waist.
"What?" he said.
"You know that guy?" she said. "Dan the Can Man?"
"Yes." Gage vaguely remembered telling Carmen about him the previous night, during one of the times they were resting in each other's arms.
"I just got a call from my contact at the police station, the secretary there. She said he was killed last night—witnesses said a truck hit him when he was riding alongside the highway. They pronounced him dead on the scene."
"What?"
"He's gone, Garrison. She said it doesn't look like foul play, but you never know."
Gage cursed. No way it was an accident. If only he'd gone looking for him last night instead of getting lost in an emotional fog. And it was a mistake that had probably cost Dan his life. "He's really dead?"
"They got a couple bags of his stuff down at the station."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. She didn't say. Just junk."
Gage shook his head. The pieces on the chess board were moving. There were just too many pieces moving to know what was happening. He felt like he should know, that it was right there in front of him.
He looked at Carmen. "You want to go treasure hunting?"
Chapter 22
They were dressed and at the police station by a quarter after nine in the morning. Even a hot shower had failed to wash all the cobwebs from behind Gage's eyes. The cloudy sky looked like a bowl of oatmeal and the moisture in the air felt just as thick. Quinn was waiting for them in the conference room with a couple cups of coffee in paper cups, a stern look on his fa
ce, and two big black garbage bags in the middle of the wide walnut table. His thin blue tie was slightly crooked. One of the fluorescent lights above them buzzed.
"This better be good, pal," Quinn said.
"This his stuff?" Gage said.
"Just liked you asked. I'd bring his bike in here, too, but there's not much left of it but a few pieces of metal and rubber. Now you want to tell me why this old bum is suddenly so important?"
"You have anybody else go through this yet?" Gage asked.
"Why would I?"
"Just curious. Maybe Brisbane or Trenton got their mitts in here."
"My detectives have more important things to do than go through a bum's garbage. Speaking of which, I'm still curious how you knew about this stuff so fast."
Quinn shot Carmen a look, who shrugged and reached for one of the coffees. Gage set his cane on the table and opened one of the bags. The stench of mold and rot and other foulness wafted out. Carmen kept her distance, cupping her coffee close to her face.
The contents of the first bag were a medley of the kinds of things Gage might find if he'd been combing the beach the past five years instead of filling out crossword puzzles: sea shells, agates, Bic lighters, some flip flops, a couple of plastic flashlights, several different single gloves, and tons and tons of paper ephemera. There were wrinkled magazines, garage sale flyers, business cards, maps, and two water-stained John D. MacDonald paperbacks. There were dank sweaters and torn shirts and badly stretched socks. A faded black Kiss shirt. A coupon for Jaybee's. A deflated red and white beach ball. There was a yellow plastic dump truck, three Matchbox cars, and a collection of plastic beach toys—a little red shovel, two tiny buckets, and some cookie-cutter tools for making shapes in the sand.
"Find your wallet?" Quinn said.
Gage moved to the second bag. It was more of the same—a motley collection of everything that represented life in Barnacle Bluffs: little gold tokens from the casino, rusty keys, every size and shape of rubber band, empty envelopes, two aspirin bottles, a stick polished by its years in the ocean. He rifled through it, getting more frustrated, knowing there had to be something that could help him, some clue that could lead him in the right direction. He found a plastic spider ring. Two earrings, both cheap plastic. A half a dozen pencils, none of them sharp. A woman's make-up kit.
"It's just crap, Gage," Quinn said.
Gage kept looking. He dumped both bags on the table, which elicited shouts from both Quinn and Carmen. He didn't care. He spread all the things wide, searching in all that flotsam for the one piece of gold, that one diamond in the rough, hands combing through it, now sticky with grime. The stuff spilled onto the chairs and the floor. There was nothing. Nothing but trivial garbage turned into a man's life, his reason for being, his treasure. Finally, Gage stopped, hands pressed against the table, surveying the piles all around him.
"Well, that was entertaining," Quinn said. "I hope you're going to help me clean up this mess."
"It has to be here."
"I'm still not exactly sure what it is you think has to be here. Seems like a waste of time to me. But then, I guess you do have plenty of time."
Quinn bent over and picked up something off the ground, something that had floated down from the table to his feet. Gage looked at him, ready to snap some sarcastic comeback, and saw Quinn pick up the candy wrapper from the floor. When he rose with it, Gage saw exactly what kind of wrapper it was—a Jolly Rancher wrapper.
It was like someone put a key in the lock in his mind. Everything came to him in a flash.
He remembered Winston Hamlin on the deck at the Inn, reaching down to pick up a wrapper just like it.
He remembered the son, how Hamlin said he was addicted to the things. What was his name? Nathan. The build and height matched his second attacker. The kid could have been the one to spike his drink.
And what else? Nathan was a spoiled kid who'd lost his mother young. He always got what he wanted. Even the location of the Inn made sense. That was a big property. Was there something in the woods around the Inn, some little tool shed or garden house where he had taken Abigail Heddle? It was all just supposition built upon supposition, but it felt right. His father was so oblivious, so ridden with guilt about his failings, that it could have all been happening right under his nose.
Maybe the son was into art. The mother had been into art. Why not the son? Maybe that was where he had met Abby, at the Northwest Artist Colony. Maybe he was the guy who came into the Cabaret that night, the one that made Abby freak out when she saw him.
"What?" Quinn said.
"Hmm?"
"That look on your face. It's like you just thought of something."
Gage still couldn't rule out Quinn as a possibility. The whole thing may have been a wild goose chase, but even if it wasn't, he wasn't quite ready to bring Quinn in on it yet. "Oh, just thinking. There's some other stuff I have to take care of today. A friend of mine died yesterday."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Yeah," Gage said. "It definitely seems to be going around right now."
* * *
When they were safely ensconced in Carmen's Toyota, alone with the pine air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror and the dozens of jazz CD cases piled at his feet, Gage told Carmen his theory. On the lake across the road, the motorboats pulling the early-morning water skiers buzzed and whined over the water as smooth as glass. A couple of uniformed cops walked past, eyeing them curiously.
"It's plausible," Carmen said. "I know a little about Winston Hamlin. I guess he was quite a drunk after that car accident. Sent his son to live with an aunt for a couple years until he finally got cleaned up. And Nathan . . ." She shook her head. "That kid was a hell-raiser. Graffiti. Shoplifting. You name it. Any other kid would be in jail by now, but of course Winston Hamlin has powerful friends."
Gage looked at the police station. "One of them's in there."
"Yep. No secret that Quinn is buddy-buddy with some of the movers and shakers in town."
"Doesn't mean he's dirty. Maybe he just likes to keep his fingers on the pulse." If Gage was in Quinn's position, it was something he would have done. It was something he had done from time to time in his old life—position himself somewhere in the middle of the web so he could feel the vibrations when something stirred.
She shrugged. "Who knows. All I know is Quinn doesn't get out as much as he used to, now that his wife is sick a lot. So what are you going to do?"
Gage had told Carmen about his fight with Quinn, but not about the marijuana bit. He didn't know if she'd be able to resist the temptation of printing it in the paper, and after his transgressions, he felt he owed Quinn his silence on that point. Assuming Quinn wasn't involved in some fashion with Abby Heddle's death. "I'm going to find Nathan Hamlin," Gage said. "Then I'm going to follow him. If he really has other girls like Dan said, then he's got to be seeing them on a daily basis."
Carmen shuddered. "I really hope that's not true."
"Me, too. I think the kid lives with his father. You know where that is?"
"Oh yeah. It's right next to the Inn, a big castle-like place up on a bluff, with turrets and black iron gates. Can't miss it. What, you going to stake them out?"
"If it's possible to do it without being seen."
"I think you really should bring the police in on this."
"I will. I just need harder proof. After what I put Quinn through, I'm lucky he didn't lock me up. "
"You want me to come?"
He thought about it. "No, why don't you find out everything you can about both of them. I've also got something else to do first."
"What's that?"
"Talk to Zoe."
Even thinking about what he had to do, Gage felt a sinking sensation. The thought of staking out a possible murderer hadn't fazed him the slightest, but thinking how to get through to a teenage girl brought up all kinds of dread.
* * *
Carmen dropped him off at Mattie's house, where he'd
left the van. She kissed him on the cheek and made him promise not to do anything stupid; to come for the police if he found the real killer. He watched her drive away and wondered just where she'd come from, this person who'd changed his life in just a week. It amazed him to think that they'd both been living in town these past six months, two derelict ships sailing on parallel courses a few miles apart, never once crossing paths.
He got in his van and drove away, trying not to even look at Mattie's place. The sun was a softening in the gray fabric sky over a gray ocean, fog floating over the highway like a living thing. Carmen had given him the address of Zoe's friend. It was only a half mile north, into the hills, a ten-unit apartment complex surrounded by oaks and Douglas firs, most of its green paint faded or chipped away, the roof coated with pine needles.
The girl who answered the door looked nothing like Zoe. He expected nose rings, dark clothing, Goth attire. Instead Angie was a short round girl with blonde curls, thick glasses, and a prim purple sweater over a white shirt that was buttoned all the way to her chin. He couldn't imagine a girl like this hanging out behind the bleachers, smoking dope; she belonged behind a stack of books in the library. The smell of chicken and garlic drifted out to him. He heard the clink of silverware from the other room.
"Oh hi," she said. "You must be Mr. Gage. Zoe said you might stop by."
"You're not in school today either, huh?"
"Oh, I'm homeschooled."
"Ah. Do you know where she is?
"No. I'm sorry. She was helping me with my algebra, and then said she had to leave. She said to tell you that she wanted to be alone. She wouldn't say why."
"Did she go back to Mattie's place?"
"I don't know. You might try Bible study later at First Lutheran. Sometimes she comes to that with me, but I don't know if she'll show up today."
"Bible study?"
The Gray and Guilty Sea Page 22