“Chuck, leave it alone!”
The boy swung toward him, startled. The sudden movement caused him to jerk the painter rope trailing from his hand to the skiff’s bowring; and that caused the skiff, already half off the sawhorses, to tilt and slide the rest of the way. Dixon lunged for it, but Chuck was in the way, he couldn’t reach it in time. He cringed, twisting to shield his son, as the skiff hit the decking with a booming metallic clatter—
That was all, just the clatter. And the after-sounds of the skiff bouncing off the deck boards, splashing upright into the narrow channel that bisected the enclosure.
“Jeez, Dad, you scared the crap out of me. What—?”
“Where’s your mother?”
“Mom? Why? Dad, you look—”
“Answer me, Chuck, where is she?”
“She said she was gonna go get the fishing stuff, yours and hers. We were gonna go out early to Rocky Point—”
The storage shed.
“Stay here, you hear me? Stay here!”
He ran out into the blazing sunlight. At first, after the gloom of the boathouse, the glare half blinded him, he faltered, swiping at his eyes. The cabin swam into focus, but from this angle he couldn’t see the shed. And there was no sign of Marian.
Running again, he shouted her name.
And she appeared, walking around the lower corner of the cabin.
He slowed, another faltering step. Surge of relief but in the next second, when he realized what she was carrying, it died under a new slice of panic. Two bamboo fishing rods in her left hand, his father’s battered old tackle box in her right. That tackle box... sinkers and flies and hooks—
Hooks.
He yelled at her, “Stop! Wait there! Don’t move!” and plunged ahead.
She froze in surprise, the tackle box hanging so heavy from her hand that she listed slightly to that side.
“Don’t let go of the box!”
It was as if he ran the last few steps in slow-motion, the mired, slogging slow-motion of a dream. The sensation was the opposite when he reached her, reached out to clutch at the box: everything then seemed to happen at an accelerated speed. He worked the box free of her grasp, warning himself not to wrench it, it was liable to explode if it were shaken or jarred or dropped. Marian didn’t struggle, but he heard her say in a thin, frightened voice, “What’s gotten into you? Have you gone crazy?” Then he was backing away, lowering the box gently to the ground. His hands tingled when he let go of it, as if its lethal contents had imparted a subtle radioactivity to his flesh.
He straightened, staring down at it. Ordinary-looking tackle box. But inside... God, inside...
He turned as Chuck, disobedient, came racing up. Dixon caught hold of his arm, of Marian’s arm, and herded both away from there, pulling and prodding until they were all the way up onto the parking platform. Only then did he release them. And when he did, the act seemed to release the tension in him as well, leaving him weak-kneed and sagging against the station wagon’s fender.
“Pat, for heaven’s sake, what—?”
“The tackle box.” He had to draw several deep breaths before he could go on. “It’s boobytrapped. There’s a bomb inside.”
Chuck said, “A bomb!” Marian blanched, staring at him goggle-eyed.
“And hooks,” he said. “Fish hooks, probably, I don’t know, but a lot of them. Attached to lines or wires or both.”
“What’re you talking about?”
Penal Code, he thought. Chapter 3.2, Section 12355, subdivision (c): “Boobytraps may include, but are not limited to, explosive devices attached to tripwires or other triggering mechanisms, sharpened stakes, and lines or wire with hooks attached.”
Stakes, not rods. Tripwire, sharpened stakes, and lines or wire with hooks attached.
We convicted Sago on that statute. He twisted it to suit his own perverted brand of justice, condemned us with the letter of the law.
Dixon pushed himself off the fender. “It’s a hell of a story,” he said to Marian. “Literally. I’ll explain on the way to the Ungers’.” And explain by phone to Dave Maccerone and Nils Ostergaard once they got there.
tick... tick... tick... tick... tick... tick... tick... tick... tick... tick... tick...
He finished making the bomb, destructive device, booby-trap, big-bang present for Kathryn a few minutes past eight.
Nice job, Mr. Sago.
Why, thank you very much, Mr. Sago.
He sat back, smiling, pleased. Even the lack of news on the radio about Dixon failed to dampen his spirits; still nothing to worry about there. If the chief prosecutor hadn’t opened his present today, he’d open it tomorrow. Verification of that, on top of a good night’s sleep, and he’d be ready to leave for Indiana. Once in good old Lawler Bluffs, all he had to do was arrange the rancid bones inside the package, connect the leads to the microswitch, and then find a spot to leave it for Kathryn and Lover Boy and their brat. Just where depended on her living arrangements these days. A fitting and proper spot, wherever. Maybe even one where he could linger nearby and watch it happen. Wouldn’t that be sweet!
His stomach growled. He’d been so intent on his work that he’d forgotten to eat again. He started to put his tools away, then changed his mind. Cleanup tonight could wait. Good work deserved a reward; it was time for his reward right now.
He stood, stretched, and padded into the kitchen. And, of course, the damn pilot light on the stove had gone out again. Annoyed, feeling martyred, he reached for the box of kitchen matches.
tick!
The vacation had been temporarily postponed. Even if he and Marian and Chuck had wanted to spend the night at Mountain Lake after bomb techs from Sacramento removed the tackle box, which they hadn’t, it wouldn’t have been a wise decision with Leonard Sago still at large. So they’d slept at a motel in Jackson and driven to San Francisco that morning. For the time being, they were better off in the urban jungle.
Dixon felt that way even after Dave Maccerone’s telephone call, not long after they got home.
“I’ve got some good news, counselor,” Maccerone said. “You can quit worrying about Leonard Sago. We found him.”
He sank into a chair. “Where?”
“Half Moon Bay. Just enough of him for a positive ID.”
“You mean he’s dead?”
“They don’t get any deader. He blew himself up.”
“Christ. How? Making another bomb?”
“No,” Maccerone said. “Well, he was making another one, but that wasn’t what finished him. Pretty ironic, actually.”
“Ironic?”
“He was living in this cheap rented place, not much more than a shack, on the beach. It had a faulty propane stove, one of those old ones that the landlord should’ve replaced a long time ago. Connection worked loose or corroded through, and gas leaked out. You know how volatile propane is when it builds up. Sago lit a match or caused some other kind of spark — boom. One of the investigators down there called the stove an explosion just waiting to happen. Fire marshal had a better term for it.”
“I’ll bet he did.”
“Yeah. He said it was a regular damn boobytrap.”
Confession
The night is dark up here on the cliffs above Bodega Head, moonless, the stars hidden behind scudding clouds. Three A.M. dark, Fitzgerald’s dark night of the soul. Bitter cold, too. The sea wind whipping across the deserted parking lot is fierce; it buffets the car, howls and whistles at the windows. In the blackness hundreds of feet below, I can hear the gale frothing the sea and hurling high waves in a constant pounding roar against the rocks.