“It sounds serious.”
“Oh, it is. They’ve only been married five years. God knows how many kids they’ll end up with.”
“What about you?” Don ran his finger down my cheek and along my jawbone. “Do you want kids?”
“I never think about them. Good Lord-I don’t even know if I want to get married.”
“And I’ll bet your mother worries about that.”
“Oh, yes. That, and the fact that I’m always getting mixed up in murders. My poor parents! All they ever wanted were good Catholic kids-and look what they got.”
“How do they handle it?”
“Well, my mother’s an expert at coping. She holds the family together through the worst trials and traumas.”
“And your dad?”
“When we were younger, he wasn’t around all the time. He was a chief petty officer in the navy and managed to pull a fair amount of sea duty. Now he’s retired and works as a cabinetmaker. When things get to be too much for him, he just goes off to his workshop in the garage and plays his guitar.”
“What? Another musician?” Don’s finger stopped moving along my chin and he stared down at me.
I grinned. I loved to tell people about my eccentric family. “Only amateur.”
“What does he play? Rock?”
“No. Irish folk ballads.”
“I thought McCone was a Scottish name.”
“Scotch-Irish.”
“But you look Indian.”
“Shoshone. One-eighth.”
“Ye gods.” He brushed a tendril of hair away from my face and wound a thick lock of it through his fingers. “Did you know your family was, uh…not usual when you were growing up?”
“Oh, no. For years, I thought we were just like everybody else. It wasn’t until high school that I became aware of certain…oddities.”
“What enlightened you?”
“It’s a long story.”
“We have all night.”
“Yes, we do, don’t we?”
Don and I exchanged solemn looks for a moment. Then I said, “Well, I really figured it out because of our Corvair. You know, one of those little compact cars with the engine in the rear?”
Don nodded.
“One day, in tenth grade, I was telling a girlfriend about it. You see, there was so much junk in our garage-my father’s guitar included-that we couldn’t drive the car in all the way. During the winter, its rear end stuck out and the engine got cold and wouldn’t start.”
“All right. So far I can picture it.”
“Every night,” I went on, “when it was time to go to bed, my dad would take this torchlight out to the car. He’d plug it in and turn it on, and then he’d open the rear hood and stick the light in there to keep the engine warm. And then he’d take a couple of old quilts and tuck the back of the car in for the night.”
Don opened his mouth, but I held up my hand. “I know what you’re going to say. Just what my friend in high school did. There I was, telling her this story about how clever my dad was to keep the car’s engine warm in spite of everything, and she said…” I started to laugh. “She said, as logical as could be, ‘Why doesn’t he just back the car into the garage?’”
Don started to laugh too, and then I laughed harder, and he laughed harder still. He buried his face against my neck and put his arms around me and we laughed and laughed. Finally we lay there, holding each other, panting and bursting into occasional giggles. After a few minutes, Don raised his face, looked down into mine, and kissed me.
What with the wine and the weariness, I almost felt I was floating. I kissed him back, aware of nothing but his lips and the soft fabric of his robe. And then I felt the rough-but-gentle touch of his hands on my body. And responded, my own hands on him.
Soon my clothes and his robe lay heaped on the floor next to us, and we merged together in slow but powerful motion on the blue rug. And the aftermath of its climax brought shared peace and a shield from the haunting shadow of violent death.
Sometime during the night we moved to the bed in the alcove and slept, close in each other’s arms. And, toward morning, I awoke with a start from dreams of Corvairs wrapped in blood-spattered quilts. Awoke thinking of one thing that might have made John Cala go out to the old pier.
A car. The presence of a car he’d thought he recognized.
Chapter 16
The morning sunlight shining on the water at Salmon Bay had that pale quality I associated with autumn, and there was a slight chill in the air. I parked my car by the side of the main road and contemplated Rose’s Crab Shack.
An hour earlier, after calling Barbara Smith’s sister and still getting no answer, I’d allowed Don to feed me a disgraceful amount of scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns, and toast. But I supposed a cup of coffee wouldn’t hurt me, and here at the Crab Shack it might open the door to a conversation about the night that Jane Anthony died. I got out of the car, crossed the road, and went into the hole-in-the-wall restaurant.
There were several people in there-the same white-haired old man behind the counter, two men in fishing clothes, and a woman with a little girl of about ten. I started to sit down at the counter, but the old man rose and said, “What are you doing here?”
The room grew very still.
“I thought I’d have a cup of coffee,” I said.
“Not in here, you won’t.”
“Why not?”
The old man came around the counter and stopped within two feet of me. He was my height and frail, but with his hands on his hips and his white-stubbled chin jutting out, he was forbidding enough to keep me from sitting down. He merely stood there, glaring at me with watery blue eyes.
“Why not?” I repeated.
“We don’t want your kind in here.”
“My kind?”
“Troublemakers. That’s what you’ve brought us-trouble.”
“How did I do that?” I was aware of everyone else in the room watching us.
The old man reached for a folded newspaper lying on the counter and shook it at me. “It’s all in here. First Miz Anthony’s girl, and now John Cala.”
“I only found them, you know. I didn’t kill them.”
“That’s what you say.”
“Look, I’m trying to help the police find out who did it. I came in here to ask you if you’d seen any cars going out to the old pier the night Jane died.”
He took a step closer. “I was in here behind the counter the whole time. You ought to know that.”
I backed up, looking around. “Well, what about everybody else? Did any of you see a car that night?”
They were all silent. The little girl put her hand to her mouth.
The old man kept coming and I kept backing up. He held the newspaper rolled in his hand, as if he were about to discipline a puppy.
“Come on,” I said, “somebody must have seen something.”
“That’s what the cops said. And I told them the same thing. Nobody saw nothing.” We had reached the entrance now, and the old man held the screen door open.
“Don’t you care if the killer’s caught?” I asked.
He motioned impatiently, shooing me outside. “All we want is to be left alone, lady. That’s all anybody here wants.” He slammed the door and hooked it shut.
I stood there peering through the screen at him and frowning. “What are you afraid of?”
The old eyes shifted. “Nobody here’s afraid of nothing.”
“Are you afraid one of you might have done it? Is that it-you think somebody who lives here in the village is the killer?”
He stared to turn.
“Look at it this way,” I said. “Do you really want to live with a killer on the loose among you?”
In a flash, he had the screen door open and was outside, coming at me. “Get out of here!” He waved the paper in the air, then took aim at my behind. I ran just like a puppy would.
At my car I stopped and looked back. The old man stood in front of the Crab Shack, glaring at me. The other customers had come outside and were watching in silent amazement. The scene suddenly seemed funny to me, and I chuckled ruefully as I got into my car and continued down the road. Once out of sight of the restaurant, I parked again and began canvassing on foot.