Back in the car, he relayed this information to Cecca, who sat huddled against the passenger door. Then he asked her, “Want to get some coffee before we go on? Warm up a little?”
“No. Let's just get it over with.”
The rain was easing a little when they reached Lincoln City. This was the center of the north-coast resort area, an exceptionally long, narrow town—actually a collection of tiny hamlets strung together—that spread out for several miles along Highway 101. Dix stopped at another service station there to ask directions. Driftwood Library was only a few blocks away, as it turned out. And it was open, Dix saw with relief as he pulled up in front. In these hard times you never knew about library hours.
They had a microfilm file of issues of the News Guard dating back several years. A librarian showed them to the microfilm room, brought the tapes containing the issues for June and July of 1989, and left them alone.
Dix threaded June into the magnifier, cranked it rapidly through to the issue for Wednesday, June 25. The accident was bound to have been front-page news, but there was nothing in that issue about it. “It must have been that Wednesday night that it happened,” Cecca said. She was right. The following week's issue had the account.
Three-column headline and photo on the lower half of the front page. The photo was of a crane lifting a wrecked and fire-ravaged van up the side of the cliff at Pelican Point; two uniformed highway patrol officers stood in the foreground, and visible in the background was a splintered section of guardrail. The headline read:
FIERY CRASH CLAIMS 3 LIVES
The screen on the magnifier was scratched and the newsprint on the accompanying story was small and smeary. Dix worked the focus knob to sharpen the image.
A fiery highway accident last Wednesday evening claimed the lives of three members of a prominent Pelican Bay family. Cheryl Cotter, 36, and her two children, Angela, 5, and Donald, 6, of 289 Barksfield Road, died instantly when the van in which they were riding plunged 120 feet to the rocks at Pelican Point and burst into flames. The driver, Gordon Cotter, a tax accountant with offices in Lincoln City, was thrown clear. He suffered a broken leg and minor injuries and is listed in stable condition at North Lincoln Hospital.
According to highway patrol officer Edmund Deane, Cotter was driving southbound on Highway 101 shortly past nightfall, at an excessive speed and without headlights. He swerved to avoid a rear-end collision with a car that had just exited the parking lot at the Crabpot restaurant, and lost control on the rain-slick highway. The driver of the other car, Kathleen Mallory, of Los Alegres, California, stated that rain and darkness prevented her from seeing the oncoming van. Several witnesses corroborated her account. She was not cited.
There was more, continued on an inside page. Gordon Cotter was a native of McMinnville, had met and married his wife in Pelican Bay, and had lived there for nine years. He belonged to civic and social groups in Pelican Bay and Lincoln City; the head of the Lincoln City Lions Club was quoted as saying, “It's a terrible tragedy. Gordon was totally devoted to his family.” There were no photographs of any of the victims.
A thin excitement pulsed in Dix. They were on the right track; he was convinced of it now. Cecca's expression said that she felt the same way.
He cranked ahead to the next week's issue. One small follow-up story giving funeral information and stating that Gordon Cotter was soon to be released from the hospital. That was all.
Cecca said, “Why didn't they publish a photo of him?”
“Local policy, maybe.”
“Would the McMinnville paper have run one?”
“It's possible. We'll see if the library keeps a McMinnville file.”
But the library didn't.
He kept talking at her. Talking, talking. Amy didn't hear it all; she didn't want to listen. She sat slumped on the seat beside him, the seat belt tight around her—he'd made sure she put it on and kept it on—and told herself over and over to stay cool. He hadn't hurt her yet and he wasn't going to, not if she could help it.
“… Didn't want to do it this way, Amy, I really didn't. I wanted so much for us to get to know each other first, to be close. But you're not ready and there isn't enough time to wait. I thought there'd be, but there isn't. Your mother and Dix … I wish I knew where they went. You really don't know, do you? No. I don't think they suspect me yet, but they may be getting close. Now I'll have to hurry with them, too.…”
Him him him! All the time she'd been fooling herself; all the time it was him. Katy Mallory, Mr. Harrell, Bobby … he'd killed them. What if she'd actually let him have sex with her? She felt awful enough as it was, sick and shamed, but if she'd let him do it to her, she'd have hated herself for the rest of her life.
How could she have thought he loved her?
How could she have thought she loved him?
How could she have been so stupid!
“… Pick you up like that, with a gun in broad daylight. Somebody might have seen us together. I don't think anybody did, but what other choice did I have? I've got to finish it. That's the only thing that matters. Why couldn't you have made it easy for me? Making me use a gun … I don't like guns any more than your mom does. This one isn't mine, I'd never own a gun. It belonged to Louise Kanvitz. I didn't want to hurt her, but she forced me with her gun and her demands. Greedy bitch. Her fault, not mine. Hers and Katy's. Katy shouldn't have let it slip about us. I warned her to be careful. Didn't I warn her? They never listen, they never listen …”
Why?
Amy still didn't know that. He had hardly stopped talking since they'd left Hallam's ten or fifteen minutes earlier, but he hadn't said—she couldn't remember him saying—anything about why.
“Why?” The word just popped out of her.
At first she didn't think he'd heard. Then his head jerked toward her and he said, “Why what?”
“Why are you doing this? Why do you want to hurt Mom, me, everybody we know?”
“Not everybody, Amy. Just the ones who deserve it.”
“I never did anything to you. Neither did Mom.”
“Yes, she did. She hurt me worse than you could ever know. Her and Katy and Eileen.”
“What did they do?”
“They killed me,” he said. “They destroyed my life.”
“That doesn't make any sense …”
“Never mind now. I don't want to talk about that now. We'll have a nice long talk when we get there. There'll be a little time for us to get to know each other better.”
“Get where? Where're you taking me?”
“Don't you know, Amy? Haven't you guessed?”
She hadn't been paying attention to where they were. She peered through the windshield, saw that they'd left town, were traveling through rolling brown farmland. Familiar landmarks told her they were on outer Bodega Avenue. Heading west, toward the coast.
She knew then, even before he said it.
“Up to your dad's cottage. Up to the Dunes.”
Barksfield Road was on the northeast side of Pelican Bay, a snaky street that extended inland through pine woods. The houses that lined it were a mix of old and new architectural styles on large lots, well built and well maintained. Number 289 turned out to be a newish ranch-style home, ell-shaped, at least four bedrooms, with a detached garage. It was nearly one o'clock and raining heavily again when Dix pulled into the driveway. No cars were visible on the property and no lights showed in any of the facing windows.