He went into the cramped kitchen. The pilot light on the stove had gone out; he relit it, opened a can of Dinty Moore beef stew and emptied it into a saucepan, put the pan on to heat. Miserable place, this. “Charming one-bedroom seaside cottage, completely furnished,” the ad in the paper had read. Drafty Half Moon Bay shack with bargain-basement furnishings, no central heating, a propane stove that didn’t work right, and a toilet that wouldn’t stop running no matter what you did to the handle or the float arm or the flush valve. Four hundred dollars rent, in advance, even though he would be here less than two weeks. Criminal. Even so, it was better than the studio apartment near the beach in San Francisco — and palatial compared to his prison cell. Away from that hellhole two months now, and still the nightmares kept coming — the worst one again last night, the one where he was still trapped in the cell, crouching in a corner, the giant rats in guards’ and cons’ uniforms slavering all around him.
Cottage did have plenty of privacy, at least. Nearest neighbor was three hundred yards up the beach. And most important, it was even closer to the Pacific than the city apartment; the sound of the surf was with him every minute he spent here. He’d needed so badly to be close to the ocean when they let him out. Still did. Freedom. All that bright blue freedom after five years of torment.
The stew was ready. He poured it into a bowl, opened a packet of saltine crackers, and sat down to appease his hunger.
He thought about Kathryn while he ate. Did she feel warm and secure tonight, snuggled up to that bastard Culligan? Did she think he wouldn’t find out she’d married Lover Boy and moved to his old hometown in Indiana and had the brat she’d always wanted? Or was she afraid, huddled sleepless in the dark, knowing he’d come for her sooner or later? He hoped she was afraid. Aware that he was out on parole, knowing he’d come, and terrified.
All her fault, the bitch. Ruined everything, the good life they’d had together — blew it all up as surely as if she’d set off a destructive device of her own. “Intent to wrongfully injure.” She was the one who was guilty of that, not him. She was the one who should have suffered.
J’accuse, Mrs. Sago.
Guilty as charged, Mrs. Sago.
The sentence is death, Mrs. Sago.
The fourth boobytrap, the one he would begin making tomorrow afternoon, the biggest and best and sweetest of them all, was for Kathryn — and Lover Boy and the brat, too — back there in Lawler Bluffs, Indiana.
tick... tick...
Mountain Lake lay nestled in a deep hollow among pine-and fir-crowded Sierra foothills, glittering like a strip of polished silver under the late-morning sun. It made Patrick Dixon smile as it always did when he first glimpsed it from the crest of Deer Hill. And, as always, memories flooded his mind. The day his father had let him take the outboard’s tiller for the first time. The day he’d swum the length of the lake and back on a dare from one of the other summer kids and nearly drowned from exhaustion. The night he’d lost his virginity with Alice Fenner in the woods along the east shore. Sixteen, then... no, still fifteen, three weeks shy of his sixteenth birthday. Lord, what a young stud he’d been that night. Four times, one right after the other — bam, bam, bam, bam. Twenty-five years ago already. Didn’t seem half that long. Now, though, the tired old stallion was lucky if he could go the distance once a week.
“... looks like their car down there.”
“What?” He glanced over at Marian beside him. “Sorry, I was woolgathering.”
“I said I think the Andersons are here. Car down there looks like theirs.”
“Good.” He liked the Andersons. Half of the ten cottages that ringed the lake were now owned by newcomers who’d bought within the past five years, and of all of them, the Andersons were the friendliest and most compatible.
“I’ll go over after we’re settled and invite them for dinner and bridge one night.”
“Dinner, anyway.” He didn’t like bridge.
In the backseat, Chuck had been leaning out the window for a better view. He drew his head back in and said, “Bet there’s some big babies in those reeds at Rocky Point this year. Bass, not crummy channel cats.”
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
“When? Tonight?”
“Or first thing in the morning.”
“Bass bite better at dusk, Dad, you know that.”
Twelve years old and a fishing junkie. It was all Chuck talked about. Didn’t seem to be a passing fad, either; his room had been cluttered with angling books and paraphernalia for two years now. Hemingway in training; he was already making plans to go down to Florida when he turned eighteen, to troll for sailfish and marlin.
Dixon thought again, as he often did, how lucky he and Marian were. Their son could have turned out like so many other kids these days, even ones from good homes — that other kind of junkie he saw nearly every day at the Hall of Justice and City Hall, the ones the DA’s office sometimes had to prosecute as adults...
Uh-uh, he told himself, none of that. You’re on vacation. Fourteen days of sorely needed R&R, thanks to Nils Ostergaard’s insistence that he take his first two-week block a month early. No work, no phone at the cabin to yank him back into the urban jungle he occupied for forty-some weeks a year. Felons and felonies — and tragedies like the bomb killing of poor Doug Cotter yesterday morning — were part of his life in San Francisco. Up here, they were verboten.
At the bottom of the hill, he turned onto the narrow blacktop that skirted the lake’s rim. The road dipped up and down, cutting sharp around trees and outcrops: Most of the cottages were set below it, down near the water’s edge. Theirs was the third to the north of the intersection, half hidden among moss-hung lodgepole pine and Douglas fir. He smiled again when he saw the wooden arrow marker with the name “Dixon” burned into the wood. His father had nailed that sign to the tree nearly forty years ago, the day he’d finished building the cabin, and it had remained there ever since — a symbol of security and stability. If he had his way, it would continue to be nailed there at least throughout Chuck’s lifetime. Father to son, father to son.
He swung the station wagon onto the two-car parking platform opposite the marker. The cabin and its lakeside deck were mostly visible from the platform: old redwood boards, shingles, and shakes and dark green shutters. Built to last with simple materials. Below the deck, the ground sloped to the boathouse and stubby dock. Trees and other vegetation grew densely on both sides, almost to the waterline, to provide additional privacy.
Chuck bounced out of the car and began to unload his fishing gear from among the clutter in back. Tucked away in the storage shed behind the cabin were poles and reels and tackle that had belonged to Dixon’s father, more than enough equipment for all three of them. But Chuck preferred his own new Daiwa rod and reel. He’d even learned to tie flies and had brought a case of his creations along to try out on the bass population. He was tired of yanking in bullheads and catfish, he said; he’d designed his flies to attract only bass. Mr. Optimism.