"I hope my wife doesn't try driving home tonight," Roger said. "She's been on a buying trip Down Below. She has a little candle and gift shop in the mall. How do you like this money clip? It came from Sharon's shop." He paid his half of the check with bills from a jumbo paper clip that looked like gold.
Qwilleran drove home at twenty miles an hour with the fog swirling in front of the windshield. The private drive up to the cabin was even more hazardous, with tree trunks suddenly appearing where they were not supposed to be. As he parked the car he thought he saw two figures moving away from the cabin, down the slope toward the beach.
"Hello!" he called. "Hello there!" But they disappeared into the fog.
Indoors he first checked the whereabouts of the Siamese. Koko was huddled on the moose head, and Yum Yum cautiously wriggled out from underneath the sofa. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed, but he detected the aroma of pipe tobacco. In the guestroom there was a slight impression in one of the bunks, where the cats took their naps, and one of his brown socks was on the floor. Yum Yum had a passion for his socks. Everything else seemed to be in order.
Then he found a note in the kitchen, scribbled on one of his own typing sheets: "Welcome to the dunes. I'm Roger's mother-in-law; See foil package in your fridge.
Thought you might like some roast turkey. Come and see us." That was all. No name. Qwilleran checked the refrigerator and found a generous supply of sliced turkey breast and chunks of dark meat. As he started chopping a portion of it for the cats' dinner, Yum Yum squealed in anticipation, and Koko pranced back and forth, warbling an aria of tenor yowls and ecstatic gutterals.
Qwilleran watched them eat, but his mind was elsewhere. He liked Roger. Under thirty, with coal-black hair, was a good age to be. But the young man had been remarkably glib on the subject of hawks, loons, raccoons, blue trucks, and police roadblocks. How many of his answers were in the interest of tourism? And if the official brochure encouraged tourists to visit the old cemetery, why did Roger try to discourage it? Did he know something about the pail? And if there was no crime in Moose County, why did Aunt Fanny make a point of carrying a gun?
5
Qwilleran was wakened by Yum Yum. She sat on his chest, her blue eyes boring into his forehead, conveying a subliminal message: breakfast. The lake view from the bunkroom windows had been replaced by total whiteness. The fog had settled on the shore like a suffocating blanket. There was no breeze, no sound.
Qwilleran tried to start a blaze in the fireplace to dispel the dampness, using Wednesday's paper and some book matches from the hotel, but nothing worked. His chief concern was the condition of his hands and wrists. The itching was unbearable, and blisters were forming as large as poker chips. Furthermore he was beginning to itch here, there, and everywhere.
He dressed without shaving, fed the cats without ceremony, and — even forgetting to wear his new cap — steered the car nervously through the milky atmosphere.
There was a drug store on Main Street, and he showed his blisters to the druggist.
"Got anything for this?" "Yikes!" said the druggist. "Worse case of poison ivy I've ever seen. You'd better go and get a shot." "Is there a doctor in town?" "There's a walk-in clinic in the Cannery Mall. You know the mall? Two miles beyond town-an old fish cannery made into stores and whatnot. In this fog you won't be able to see it, but you'll smell it." There was hardly a vehicle to be seen on Main Street. Qwilleran hugged the yellow line, watching the odometer, and at the two-mile mark there was no doubt he had reached the Cannery Mall. He angle-parked between two yellow lines and followed the aroma to a bank of plate glass doors opening into an arcade.
The medical clinic, smelling appropriately antiseptic, was deserted except for a plain young woman sitting at a desk. "Is there a doctor here?" he asked.
"I'm the doctor," she replied, glancing at his hands. "Where did you go to get that magnificent case of ivy poisoning?" "I guess I picked it up in the old cemetery." "Really? Aren't you a little old for that kind of thing?" She threw him a mischievous glance.
He was too uncomfortable to appreciate badinage. "I was looking at the old gravestones." "A likely story. Come into the torture chamber, and I'll give you a shot." She also gave him a tube of lotion and some advice: "Keep your hands out of hot water. Avoid warm showers. And stay away from old cemeteries." Leaving the clinic Qwilleran was in a sulky humor. He thought the doctor should have been less flip and more sympathetic. By the time he inched his car back to town through the fog, however, the medication was working, bringing not only relief but a heady euphoria, and he remembered that the doctor had attractive green eyes and the longest eyelashes he had ever seen.
At the hotel, where he stopped for coffee and eggs, four men at the next table were complaining about the weather. "The boats won't go out in this soup. Let's get a bottle of red-eye and play some cards." At the table behind him a familiar voice said: "We're not leaving here (gasp) till we go fishing." A shrill flat voice answered: "Why are you so stubborn? You don't even like to fish." "This is different, I told you. We go out (gasp) on thirty-six-foot trollers and catch maybe twenty-pound trout." "You said it was too expensive." "The prices at the main dock are highway robbery, but I found a boat (gasp) that'll take us for fifteen bucks." Qwilleran's thrifty nature sensed an opportunity, and the combination of the medication and the unnatural atmosphere gave him a feeling of reckless excitement. When the couple left the dining room he followed them. "Excuse me, sir, did I hear you say something about a troller that's less expensive?" "Sure did! Fifteen bucks for six hours, Split three ways (gasp) that's five bucks apiece. Not bad. Two young fellahs (gasp) own the boat. You interested?" "Is fishing any good in this weather?" "These young fellas say it doesn't make any difference, By the way," he wheezed, "my name's Whatley — from Cleveland — wholesale hardware." He then introduced his wife, whose manner was frosty, and he volunteered to drive, since he knew the way to the dock. "The boat ties up outside of town. That's why (gasp) it's cheaper, You have to shop around to get a good buy." The trip to the dock was another slow agonizing crawl through earthbound clouds, At one point the three giant electric letters of the FCC glowed weakly through the mist.
Farther on, the Cannery Mall announced itself strongly although the building was invisible. Then there were miles of nothing. Each mile seemed like five. Whatley drove on grimly. No one talked, Qwilleran strained his eyes, peering at the road ahead, expecting to meet a pair of yellow foglights head-on or the sudden taillights of a stalled logging truck.
"How will you know when you get there?" he asked.
"Can't miss it. There's a wreck of a boat (gasp) where we turn off." When the wreck eventually loomed up out of the mist, Whatley turned down a swampy lane bordering a canal filled with more wrecks.
"I'm sorry I came," Mrs. Whatley announced in her first statement of the day.