Mariner's Compass (6 page)

“If it’s paid off.”

“I’m sure it is, or Amanda would have told me.” I started throwing jeans, underwear, and T-shirts into my bag. Remembering the funeral I was going to have to plan and attend, -I added a plain cotton navy dress and a pair of pumps. Then I tossed in a couple of flannel shirts, since it was always ten to fifteen degrees colder in Morro Bay than San Celina. “Come with me to the house and look through it. Like I said, it’s in a perfectly nice neighborhood. Good locks on the doors. I even met one of my neighbors. He’s a fireman.”

Gabe leaned against the doorjamb, his arms crossed. “Oh, wonderful. I feel so much better about your safety now.”

I laughed at his superior expression and grabbed my flannel-lined Levi’s jacket. “C’mon, I thought there was some kind of brotherhood between cops and firemen.”

“I have the utmost respect for firemen. They manage to get full-time pay and benefits for a part-time job. You have to admire anyone who can pull off a scam like that. Not to mention they’re usually darn good contractors. But then, they have all that spare time to work on it.”

I laughed and zipped up my bag. “I’m going to tell Barry you said that.” Barry Dolenz was San Celina’s fire chief and an occasional racquetball partner of Gabe’s.

“I’ve told him that a million times. He doesn’t argue because he knows I’m right.”

Before I could answer we heard an Arkansas drawl call out, “Knock, knock” from the front screen door.

“In the bedroom,” I called back.

Scout stood up when Emory entered the room, but no threatening sound came from his throat.

My cousin stopped short when he saw the dog. “How do you do?” he said politely, crouching and holding out his hand. Scout walked over and sniffed it cautiously, then allowed his head to be stroked.

“Why didn’t he growl at him?” Gabe asked.

“Maybe it has to do with how fast you were moving toward me,” I said.

“Off to claim your inheritance?” my cousin asked me, glancing down at my bulging bag, then smiling at Gabe. “Guess you’ll be singing the empty bed blues for a few weeks, Chief. Join the club.”

I gave Emory a warning look that only made him grin wider.

Gabe, arms still crossed, grunted irritably.

“He wants me to let the government have it all,” I said.

“Cousin Gabe, I declare, is what she says true?”

Gabe faced my cousin, his hands outstretched. “There’s something not right about this whole thing, Emory.” He jerked a thumb at me. “Would you talk some sense into her?”

Gabe knew that if he won Emory over, that would be a big boost to his side. Emory and I had been close since childhood, our friendship deepening when he stayed with my family the summer his mother died. I was twelve, on the verge of adolescence and hating it with all my stubborn tomboy heart. He was eleven, a skinny, bespectacled egghead terrified of all animals except fictional ones. I taught him to ride, gather cattle, look for kittens in the barn, wrestle with dogs, and fend off the bullies who liked to steal his glasses. He read me
The Red Pony
and
Huckleberry Finn
, explaining what they really meant, taught me all twelve verses of a salty sea chantey he learned at Sugartree Baptist church camp the summer before, didn’t laugh at my blossoming figure, and showed me how to be quiet and listen to my own thoughts. Hiking in the woods all summer, we’d talked of our mothers—mine had died when I was six—what we remembered about them, how much we missed them. Things we didn’t tell the grown-ups. He knew me like no other person in the world, and Gabe respected that.

“Gabe,” Emory said, “you might not believe this, but I’m here to tell you that my sweet little cousin takes everything you say and feel into deep and loving consideration, but she also has a contrary streak the width of the treacherous Mississippi River itself. So if I were you, I’d not waste my breath and just pray the Good Lord protects her.” He checked his watch, then straightened the cuffs of his cream-colored dress shirt. “It’s coming on five o’clock, and I have a date with the woman of my dreams. Wish me luck. And don’t forget, I get first dibs on this story about your mysterious inheritance. I’ll drop by to see you in the next couple of days. What’s the address?”

“It’s 993 Pelican. Good luck with Elvia,” I said, not promising anything.

Gabe shook his head. “Emory, I don’t know why you waste your time on such a headstrong and stubborn woman.”

Amusement flashed in Emory’s green eyes. “Mighty fine vitreous house you’re residing in there, Chief Ortiz. Want to borrow my Windex?”

“Get out of here,” Gabe said good-naturedly, “before I arrest you for being a smart-ass.”

After Emory left, Gabe tried every argument he knew to get me to reconsider. I patiently gave a counterpoint to each of them.

“Geeze, Gabe, you really don’t want this house and money to go to the government, do you? Maybe we could buy a house. I could buy a truck!”

“I make more than enough money to buy us a house and you a truck.”

“I don’t want your money.”

“Our
money.”

“Easy for you to say—your name is on the paycheck. At any rate, I think getting a house for a mere two weeks’ stay is darn good wages. I’ll only be twelve miles away, and as you can see, under pretty good protective custody.” I gestured at Scout, who watched our argument, his head on his paws, his brow wrinkled with worry.

Gabe finally threw up his hands in defeat. “I’m not going to talk you out of this, am I?”

“No, but I’ll miss you like crazy.” I went over and circled his waist with my arms, burrowing my face in his solid chest. The scent of him through his polo shirt, a musky-gingery scent that never failed to both arouse and comfort me, made me rethink my decision for a moment. A lonely bed in a strange house for two long weeks wasn’t something to look forward to.

Weakening, he nuzzled the top of my head. “Let me make a few phone calls. Then we’ll take a look at this place.”

The sun was setting by the time we arrived in separate cars at my new house. Morro Rock had turned an orange-gray, and there was only a slight haze in the air, scented briny from the ocean. Three vehicles were parked in front of the house—one was a truck painted with the logo
John’s 24-hour Locksmith
.

“These locks are perfectly all right,” I exclaimed, climbing out of the truck. My frugal rancher’s heart hated to see money wasted.

“Let me have your keys,” Gabe said. His stubborn bottom lip told me the energy it would take to argue him out of it would be wasted.

He spoke to the man sitting in the locksmith truck for a few minutes, then handed him the keys. By the time he walked over to the other two cars, a man had climbed out of each vehicle. Both men held a dog on a short leash—one a yellow Lab, the other some kind of hound.

Next to me, Scout stood up, his body tense and ready, his quivering tail sticking straight out, ready to defend his home turf.

“Scout, sit,” I said, touching his head. Reluctantly he obeyed, but his German shepherd ear stood up straight and stiff as a sail in full wind. His front legs trembled with the desire to challenge these intruders. “Stay,” I told him, ignoring his pleading expression. “And don’t give me that look. One snarling alpha dog is about all I can take right now.” I walked over to where Gabe was talking with the men.

“Everything,” he was saying. “Even the yard. Especially the garage.”

“What’s going on?” I demanded.

One of the men, a thin, straw-haired guy in ostrich cowboy boots, raised his sandy eyebrows and looked embarrassed. The other, an older man in a tweed jacket and New York Mets baseball cap, just laughed.

Gabe nodded at them, and they walked away, both avoiding my question. “Since you’re insisting on staying here, I’m just doing the best I can to protect you. I’m having the place searched by bomb and drug dogs.”

My mouth opened in astonishment. “You truly take the word paranoid to unparalleled heights.”

My words didn’t ruffle him. “After they’re gone, I’m going through the house myself. Then you can stay, though
for the record
, I’m still very, very unhappy about it.”

I didn’t answer, still annoyed at what seemed to me an overreaction.

He brought his large hand up to my cheek. “You know you can’t change who I am. I’m suspicious by nature, and I’d do anything to keep you from being hurt. Doesn’t that count for something?” He dropped his hand down to my neck and massaged it lightly.

“I suppose,” I said, melting slightly under his touch. I did know how hard this was for him, this loss of control, and I was really trying to make an effort to understand the fears he carried inside him concerning the people he cared about, frozen solid there because of the things he’d seen in Vietnam, during his time as a street cop, and working undercover narcotics in East L.A. But I couldn’t allow him to make my life into the safe, easy prison he wanted it to be.

When the locks were changed and the house and garage given a clean bill of health by the bomb and drug dogs, we fed Scout and walked down the steps in the ice plant to the Embarcadero. We ate dinner at a fish restaurant and then strolled along the water’s edge. The streets were fairly empty even though it was a Saturday night because an unusually strong cold wind had come up. We silently watched the masts of the sailboats sway, the rigging clanging against each other, each of us lost in separate thoughts and fears.

It was past ten when he finished searching the house to his satisfaction. Gabe found insulin, needles and a compact blood-testing kit in the nightstand, confirming what Rich had told me about Mr. Chandler’s diabetes. During his search, which included, in spite of my teasing, looking behind every light switch and plug plate for bugs, he also found both savings and checking account books. The savings account balance was a little over nineteen thousand dollars. The checking account held eleven hundred and twenty-seven dollars and fifteen cents. I stuck them in my purse with the intention of asking Amanda if I had access to this money yet.

Mr. Chandler’s wallet was in his nightstand. Now I had a face to go with his name. Jacob Chandler smiled slightly in his driver’s license picture, which revealed the basic information: he was sixty-four years old, five feet seven inches, one hundred forty pounds, and wore corrective lenses. His hair was gray, eyes brown, and he was clean shaven. There was only one other picture in his wallet. It was a photograph of me standing in front of Blind Harry’s, the front window decorated for Mardi Gras. My hair was just past my shoulders, which meant it had probably been taken this last February.

“Creep,” Gabe said, one fist slowly clenching. “He was stalking you.”

A ribbon of fear ran through me at the word “stalk.” I almost told Gabe about the carving of my childhood horse, then stopped. He was nervous enough. I pushed the fear back down. The man was dead; there was no way he could hurt me now.

“I’m staying,” I said, touching his jaw gently.

His eyes turned a familiar smoky blue. “Put the dog in the kitchen and come into the living room,” he said, his voice raw and husky.

When I commanded “stay,” Scout obeyed, looking up at me with sad eyes as if being parted from me was a cruelty beyond bearing. “Scooby-doo, you
are
a heartbreaker,” I said, stroking his smooth head.

In the living room, Gabe had built a fire in the natural stone fireplace. We sat on the sofa and started kissing, eventually making love on the smooth cotton sofa. It seemed to be an unspoken agreement that we wouldn’t use the bedroom of this mysterious man. There was a skittish intensity to our lovemaking, as if we were teenagers making clandestine love with sleeping parents in the other room. Our feverish passion surprised us both.

I touched my fingertips to the teeth marks on his shoulder. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want to leave,” he murmured softly under his breath and trailed a calloused fingertip down between my breasts, its roughness lightly scratching my skin.

“I wish you didn’t have to.”

At the front door he tugged off his black leather jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders. “When I was a teenager and I liked a girl I always left my jacket at her house. That way I knew no matter what happened, we had to see each other one more time.”

“Unless she mailed the jacket back to you,” I said, laughing, hugging the buttery-soft jacket close to me. “Or sent it by a friend. Or—”

“Leave it to you to ruin a romantic moment. Be careful. And once more, for the record, remember I hate this.”

“Duly noted and date-stamped,” I said, taking his face in my hands and kissing him again.

“I’ll come by early tomorrow,” he said. ”Want to have breakfast?”

“Absolutely.”

“Buenas noches, mi corazón.
Dream sweet. Don’t forget me.”

“As if I could, Friday.”

I shut the door quietly behind him and I was alone.

Behind me canine nails click-clicked across the kitchen floor, and then Scout leaned against my left leg, heaving one of his big sighs.

Well, not totally alone.

4

BACK IN THE living room the fire had burned down to glowing embers. I was too agitated to attempt sleep, and though it was superstitious and childish, I wanted to find out just
exactly
where Mr. Chandler had died before I slept in the bed. Gabe had searched the house his way, looking for things that could possibly hurt me, but now it was my turn. Somewhere in all these books and papers must be some information about his identity. The coffee table trunk looked promising.

Just as they do most people, trunks have always fascinated me. They seemed like something from a bygone era—people my age didn’t own trunks as much as our parents and grandparents had. Gabe had quickly glanced through it, but now I could spend as much time as I wanted inspecting the contents.

The smoky-vanilla smell that I was already starting to associate with this mysterious man floated up from inside the trunk. The removable top tray contained a faded maroon autograph book, a bone-handle pocketknife engraved with the initials G. M., a flat translucent white stone that I assumed was some kind of sharpening stone, and a stained and tattered old book—
Treasure Island
. Inside the flyleaf was an inscription in an obviously feminine handwriting—“To G. Because you’ve always loved the hunt more than the treasure. Love, G.” I flipped through the book looking for other inscriptions, but that was it. What did it have to do with this Jacob Chandler? Was it a clue because it was inside the chest and not on the crowded bookshelves, or just a book he’d picked up in a used bookstore because he liked it or it held some personal meaning?