"You get her feet," I urged. "Hurry!"
"Sit down, Detective Beaumont," Fraymore said. "Sit down and let her be."
I couldn't believe my ears. "You mean we're not even going to try?"
"This is what she wanted," he returned gravely. "Her choice. I say we wait."
"How long?"
"Long enough."
He propped both elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. What he was suggesting wasn't exactly aiding and abetting, but it wasn't preventing, either. Only Gordon Fraymore and I would ever know whether or not we had arrived at the campsite before it was all over.
"I don't want her to have to go to jail," he added raggedly. "I don't want her to have to stand before a judge and jury. We'll just say it's a failure to appear and let it go at that."
It was Fraymore's call, not mine. Cops are trained not to second-guess another guy's deal. Without a word, I lowered Marjorie's shoulders back to the bench and went around the table to sit next to Fraymore. He was crying openly by then. I couldn't fault him for his decision. When you're faced with impossible choices, one terrible alternative is probably as good as another.
"All right," I said. "We'll wait."
We sat there together for what seemed like forever. Every once in a while, Fraymore's shoulders would heave, and his whole body would shudder. I let him cry and didn't look over at him. A man deserves at least that much privacy.
Eventually, Fraymore stood up. He walked over to the fire and picked up one end of Sunshine's leash. "Come on, girl," he said softly. "Let's go for a walk."
With a weary but compliant sigh, the old dog sorted herself out and staggered clumsily to her feet. Fraymore walked slowly to the edge of the firelight, leading the limping dog. I knew what he was planning to do. My heart constricted, even though I couldn't fault him for that decision, either. I figured it was a kindness for both Marjorie and the dog-a fitting end for both of them to go together.
I waited in the dark another long while, expecting at any moment to hear the sharp report of Gordon Fraymore's heavy-duty. 38. Despite spreading warmth from the fire, I was chilled. My teeth rattled in my head. A breeze sprang up. Off to the west, I was aware of vague flickerings of lightning as a heavy storm rolled in from the Pacific.
Then, finally, when I was beginning to wonder if Fraymore had fallen off a cliff and broken his neck, I heard the crunch of footsteps coming back up the path. He was still leading the dog.
"I couldn't do it," he said brokenly. "Call me a wimp if you want to, but I just flat couldn't do it."
He left the trembling dog standing beside me-between me and the fire-then turned and stalked off alone into the darkness. When I reached down to pat Sunshine, the coat on the back of her neck was soaked with moisture, even though the coming rainstorm was still miles away.
And sometime in between, silently and without any notice, Marjorie Connors-the discarded, crazed woman who had once been Maggie Lewis-stopped breathing and slipped peacefully into oblivion.
CHAPTER 21
It must have been one-thirty or two when I got back to Oak Hill B amp; B. Under the circumstances, Fraymore couldn't very well take Sunshine home with him. I don't think his wife would have approved or understood, so I brought the dog home with me. It was raining like hell by then. I guess I could have left her on the front porch but somehow that didn't seem right.
Oak Hill's posted rules say NO DOGS ALLOWED, but Florence doesn't encourage babies, either, and we'd been dragging Amber around with us for days. In a case like this, I figured it was easier to beg forgiveness than it was to ask permission. So I smuggled Sunshine upstairs to our room, relieved that Florence's noisy Natasha was shut away in some other part of the house.
I planned on waking Alex and explaining everything, but I didn't have a chance. Alex wasn't there. Neither was Amber. Alex's clothes, luggage, shampoo, and toothbrush had also disappeared. A terse note on my pillow announced that she was going to stay with Dinky. She said she had already made alternate arrangements for a ride back to Seattle, so I shouldn't worry about how she was getting home.
Damn!
Which is how I spent yet another romantic night in Ashland, sleeping in a bed with a damp old dog. Sunshine had impossibly bad breath, and she commandeered more than her fair share of the queen-sized mattress. I don't know about Sunshine, but I slept like a baby.
In the morning, I waited until everyone was at breakfast in the dining room, then I slipped Sunshine downstairs and outside. After a walk on the grass, I put her-muddy feet and all-in the backseat of my rented Lincoln, where she had the good sense to lie down immediately and go back to sleep. Nobody was the wiser, no thanks to tattletale Natasha. She barked like crazy the whole time, but no one, including Florence, understood what all the fuss was about.
I tried calling Alex at Dinky's, but she refused to talk to me, so I went over to the Ashland Hills to consult with Ralph Ames. As usual, his wise counsel was greatly appreciated. He couldn't provide any assistance as far as the problem with Alex was concerned, but he did have a suggestion about Sunshine.
He directed me to Jeremy and Kelly's new apartment in Phoenix, Oregon. It was a cute little duplex, actually, with a small but totally separate fenced yard. Once I explained the situation to Jeremy, he readily agreed to keep Sunshine with them. Because of the torrential rainstorm, we had no choice but to hie ourselves off to the nearest hardware store to locate a suitably dry, igloo-shaped doghouse.
On Thursday Painting Churches was onstage in the Black Swan, which meant Jeremy had the afternoon off. The weather was bad enough that by noon people at the Festival were already talking about canceling the outdoor performance in the Elizabethan that night.
I had spent part of the morning in Kelly and Jeremy's apartment and had seen the meager selection of cast-off dishes and furniture he was trying to pull together in order to have a place to bring Kelly and the baby the following afternoon. Finally, about eleven in the morning, I called a halt.
"Look," I said, "let's climb into the Lincoln, drive up to Medford, and take care of some of this stuff, shall we?"
And we did. It was a massive shopping trip. The Lincoln may be your basic land barge, but it wasn't nearly big enough for what I had in mind.
The whole time we were racing through Sears in Rogue River Mall, Jeremy kept telling me I shouldn't be doing it-but by then we were both having too much fun. We quickly advanced beyond the crib, high-chair, and car-seat stage to what-the-hell-let's-do-it. That attitude moved us into really serious shopping-as in couch and chair, queen-sized bed, towels, bedding, dishes, silverware, and pots and pans. I threw in a washing machine and dryer for good measure. In my mind, diapers and automatic washing machines go together.
A visibly salivating store manager and a platoon of helpful but wondering salespeople trailed us from department to department. When I wrote out a check for the full amount and asked if it would be possible to have the entire truckload delivered that afternoon, the store manager called my bank, verified the funds, and then said those wonderful words, ones that are always music to the ears of every cash-paying customer. "No problem," he said. "What time do you want it there?"
Jeremy and I finally stopped at a hamburger joint late in the afternoon. He took a bite from a double cheeseburger with bacon and grilled onions and grinned from ear to ear.
"Kelly's going to be surprised, isn't she?"
"Because you're eating hamburger instead of eggplant?"
He blinked. "You won't tell her, will you?"
"No."
"I mean she'll be surprised about the furniture."
"I hope so."
He took another bite. He was long and skinny. His prominent Adam's apple bobbed up and down when he talked or swallowed.