Miss Pink Investigates 3

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘Look, I hope I haven’t started anything.’ Gayleen was anxious. ‘You sound rather sweet on him yourself.’

  Grace, knowing where she was now, was nodding, then, catching this last statement, shook her head abruptly.

  Gayleen went on, relieved, ‘Most of what you said was right except he’s a screen-writer just, but he does know directors and that.’

  ‘Let me tell you something,’ Grace said …

  ‘Where did you find her, Andy?’ Oliver Harper asked. ‘And where did she find that dress?’

  ‘Like some of it, would you, my man?’ Andy grinned loosely. ‘She’s not for sale – yet.’

  Oliver’s eyes narrowed. ‘For rent perhaps? Gone into the pimping business, have we, Andy? Watch it’ – as the other man moved – ‘I know how that nose got broken.’

  But Andy Keller wouldn’t hit a hard man here nor anywhere else. Oliver knew that, and Andy knew he knew. Now Andy appeared to relax. ‘I know what a gigolo is, dear,’ he said, ‘but what’s the term for the old lady who keeps a gigolo?’

  Oliver’s lips stretched. ‘A benefactor, dear.’

  * * *

  ‘Mind yer back,’ Leo growled as someone spilled her wine. They had finished the champagne and were now on the Yugoslav riesling. ‘Oh, it’s you, Andy,’ she muttered grudgingly, and froze as she saw his flushed face and the bottle of Scotch in one hand, uncapped.

  He swayed and grinned. ‘The top of the marnin’ to ye, sir! How’s the wife?’

  He lurched away. Beside her Fleur said softly, ‘And unfortunately he’s so drunk if you could think of something withering it would go right past him. Feel like wasting him? So do I.’

  Leo exhaled with a deep sigh. ‘He got to you too?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. He discovers one’s delicate areas – emotionally – and probes. He’s a sadist. Now he’s reached the stage where he’s just gross. I see Eve and Carl are on their way. The party’s breaking up. And a good thing too.’

  ‘Bloody shame,’ Leo said. ‘It’s ruined her birthday.’

  ‘Maybe it’ll bring things to a head. If Barbie Doll there will hang on to him long enough for Lois to sue for divorce, if she would divorce, maybe we could be rid of him for good. Now he’s cornered Boligard – and there goes Mabel to the rescue.’

  ‘Only a third-rate talent,’ Andy was saying, slurring his consonants. ‘Slapdash and precious at the same time; gay writers always are.’

  ‘That man had more masculinity in his little finger than— ’

  Andy roared with laughter.

  ‘What’s the joke?’ asked Mabel with ominous good humour.

  ‘He says Hemingway was homosexual!’ Boligard was livid.

  ‘Takes one to know one,’ Mabel said equably, her hand on her husband’s arm. Andy opened his mouth to retaliate but at that moment Lois turned away from the door where she had been speeding her guests and looked at him. He lifted the whisky bottle and drank. Lois blinked once but for the rest, her thoughts might have been a world away.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not in any circumstances. How can you suggest it? It’s outrageous.’

  ‘Rubbish. Here are four people and two bedrooms. It’s the most civilised arrangement— ’

  ‘Civilised?’

  ‘Either I stay here, or you and Grace bunk together and Gayleen an’ me’ll have Grace’s bed. You can’t turn your husband out, not to speak of a guest. Where are your manners? And I have a prior right: conjugal, it’s called.’

  ‘You can’t claim conjugal rights and propose to sleep with your mistress under the same roof.’

  ‘Which would you prefer?’

  ‘I don’t believe this.’

  ‘I asked you a question.’

  There was a knock on the bedroom door and Grace’s voice: ‘Can I come in, Mom?’

  ‘Yes, sweetie.’

  The door opened. Grace saw her mother at her dressing-table, her step-father sprawled on the quilt in his boots and still wearing his hat.

  ‘What do I do with Gayleen?’ Grace asked.

  Andy sat up. ‘Gayleen,’ he repeated thoughtfully. ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘She’s downstairs.’ Grace pushed the door wide, like a hint.

  He got off the bed. ‘We’ll go to the cabin. Plenty of bedding, is there? Mattress, blankets, pillows? We’ll be down for breakfast. Gayleen likes bacon and eggs and sausages. I’ll have waffles and maple syrup, and we’ll both drink mocha coffee. I’ll see you around eleven, twelve. Better make that brunch.’

  Chapter 3

  By nine o’clock next morning the telephone was busy as people called Lois to thank her for the party and put into operation the strategy they had agreed on last night – excitedly phoning each other a moment they got home. The aim was to find out how long Andy Keller and Gayleen were staying, because no one was going to return Lois’s hospitality until they were gone. So they were asking Lois what her plans were for today, might one join her for a hike or a trip to town?

  She said gently that she was tied up for the day and would call back when Grace returned to Portland. She was scheduled to leave today. Ah, people thought, then maybe the others will leave today too, but no one mentioned their names. Even Chester, ringing with his thanks for the evening, waited to see if she would introduce the subject but when she didn’t, he said, ‘I must spend some time in the yard today, so I’ll be around if you feel like company,’ meaning he was accessible should she need help.

  She thanked him and replaced the receiver. Grace had not come down yet and there was no sign of Andy and Gayleen. She went outside to look at her Chevrolet. The cabin was inaccessible for vehicles; people came and went to it by a trail that zigzagged up through the conifers to this tiny one-roomed structure that Lois’s father had built partly for amusement but mostly because at fourteen she was already writing. She maintained that the house was too noisy for concentration. Now the cabin was used as a guest room and visitors thought it quaint. Honeymoon couples loved it.

  The Chevrolet had scrapes down one side. It would have to be resprayed. She glanced inside. There was no luggage, only crushed styrofoam beakers, candy wrappers, the new road atlas, ragged and stained. The boot was unlocked and empty. She closed it and caught sight of a bumper sticker. It said:

  I ♥ SPOTTED OWLS. ROASTED.

  ‘Hi, Mom.’ Grace came along the deck, barefoot in slacks and T-shirt.

  ‘You’re dressed,’ Lois said inanely.

  ‘I would hardly come down undressed this morning.’ The tone was loaded. ‘What’s that?’ She came closer and gasped. ‘Jesus!’

  For a moment they stared at each other, then Lois turned deliberately to the view. ‘Going to be another hot day,’ she said brightly, although no blue showed above the fog. There was silence from behind her. She turned. ‘What are you doing? No, Grace!’

  The girl straightened from the bumper where she’d been scraping at the sticker. ‘What?’ She was flushed with rage.

  ‘Leave it.’ Lois was smiling but her eyes were like flint.

  ‘Oh.’ Again they exchanged long looks. ‘Of course,’ Grace murmured. ‘Clever Mom.’

  They went indoors to breakfast.

  ‘“I’m a rhinestone cowboy,”’ Jason sang happily, aligning his books, tut-tutting at a Science Fiction which someone had carelessly replaced among the Westerns. A shadow darkened his store and he glanced out of the window to see a large person studying the titles he’d arranged below the coloured poster of Monument Valley. She wore a blue shirt like a Big Mack, but even against the light he could see that was no workman’s shirt – and if those were Levis, not designer denim, she’d shopped around to find a pair that fitted her solid hips without emphasising them. Her hair hadn’t been cut by a village hairdresser either, and that gleam of gold on her wrist was too subdued to be anything else but the real thing. Jason was immature in some respects but he was perceptive in his own field and he knew this was a good customer. He saw money, he sensed appreciation: of beauty, and
of capital crime. She stepped down into the store.

  ‘That poster of Monument Valley certainly compels attention,’ she said, startling him out of his wits with an English accent. It was something she would be accustomed to because she went on easily, giving him time to recover, ‘I must take Skinwalkers; I haven’t read it, and I’d like some extra copies to send home. Do you have other Hillermans?’ She looked round the store with interest.

  Jason said quickly, ‘Not right now. I have a selection on order; ’fact, they’re due any time, possibly this afternoon. He’s so popular I sell out faster than Agatha Christie.’

  ‘Perhaps you should order more.’

  ‘Of course; I should at that.’

  She moved away to the shelves. ‘There must be a demand for Westerns too, Mr – ?’

  ‘Jason. Jason Sykes, ma’am. I’m a Western fan. I’ve got a lot of Louis l’Amours there.’ His voice rose hopefully but she was moving out of sight, disregarding the Westerns.

  Leo Brant appeared in the doorway. ‘God, what a party!’ she exclaimed, not seeing the customer who was hidden by shelving. ‘The man’s unbalanced, Jason, and as for that gruesome— ’ She stopped, puzzled by his frantic gestures. Catching sight of a third person she glared, trying to compose herself, and asked heavily, ‘So – did the McClures come?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘And my Audubon Guide you got on order: Pacific Coast. Don’t tell me there’s no sign of it yet!’

  ‘I reordered, Leo.’

  ‘I need it. I’m doing this piece for Continental. They pay the earth! I gotta deadline, Jason.’

  ‘I’ll call the distributor again.’

  ‘Hell! It’s not in the libraries, the Forest office don’t have it. You’d think, wouldn’t you’ – turning to the other customer who was approaching the counter, appealing to her – ‘wouldn’t you think the definitive work on the Pacific coast would be carried by every stockist on the Pacific coast?’

  ‘Indeed yes. It sounds interesting. You write about the coast?’

  ‘I’m not really the writer. We do it together: my friend and me. I do the research, she brings it all together. She taught English. I was Physical Education. In our old age we’re naturalists, that’s our thing.’ She thrust out a brown hand. ‘Leo Brant.’

  ‘I’m Melinda Pink.’

  ‘Nice to meet you. Staying in Sundown?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I’d like to take a cottage for a week or so. I stayed at the Surfbird motel last night. I walked along the shore this morning and was on my way to the realtor when I saw the poster for Skinwalkers. Who can pass up any bookstore, let alone one with Monument Valley in the window?’

  She paid for her purchases and amid Jason’s invitations to step by again, the Hillermans might be here this afternoon, and Leo’s demands that he call his distributor, they stepped out into the sunshine just as a brown Chevrolet swept into the miniature mall and pulled up outside the bar.

  ‘Damn cowboy,’ grunted Leo. ‘Thinks he owns the road. What’s that on his sticker? Cheek, it’s not even his car.’

  They peered at the Chevrolet as they passed behind it.

  ‘What the hell – ’ Leo hissed.

  ‘What does it mean?’ Miss Pink was frowning. ‘Is there some ulterior implication?’

  ‘It means just what it says.’ Leo was vicious.

  Andy Keller got out from under the wheel of the car. On the passenger side long brown legs appeared and Gayleen stood up on her spiky heels. They went into the bar.

  ‘The implication?’ Leo turned to Miss Pink. ‘The implication is that here is a man with a self-destruct button. The loggers use that sticker but no logger’d dare stop in Sundown with it on his bumper.’

  ‘The spotted owl is rare? You’ll have to forgive me’ – as Leo’s eyes widened in amazement – ‘I’m a stranger to Oregon. Logging destroys habitat, is that it?’

  ‘Spotted owls,’ Leo said heavily, ‘need three thousand acres of old-growth timber for territory. Old-growth provides valuable lumber. This forest cuts twenty million dollars’ worth of timber annually. I don’t know if anyone worked out what three thousand acres of old-growth is worth as against the value of a pair of owls. And once we defeat them in one area, they threaten to cut some place else. We just won a fight with ’em over to Lame Dog Creek; we – people were spiking trees: you know, driving in spikes at night so’s the saws would break when they came to drop the trees? And they put sugar in tanks – I don’t mean us’ – she glared at Miss Pink – ‘I mean the Sierra Club, Audubon’s Society, like that.’

  ‘I see. So this man’ – Miss Pink indicated the car – ‘is asking to have his tyres slashed?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Leo was thoughtful. ‘It’s his wife’s car and no one will damage Lois Keller’s property.’ She smiled and Miss Pink realised that the leathery features were amazingly attractive. Considering this face which she had thought heavy and masculine she scarcely registered the words: ‘But a husband’s hardly property, is he?’ Then Leo changed tack. ‘You’re looking for the realtor. Don’t call him that to his face. Boligard’s a bit sensitive about having to earn a living like ordinary folk. You’ll find him behind the Tattler.’ She pointed: ‘You go down the side of the restaurant past that bank of petunias and there’s a path will take you to a tacky old shack, if it hasn’t fallen into the ocean, which it’s going to do any time … ’

  The Wandering Tattler was a long low structure built of white clapboard with sash windows and a hanging sign, like those on English inns, depicting a plump wading bird with yellow legs. As she followed directions past the vivid petunias Miss Pink became aware of gulls’ calls and the susurration of the sea. The land behind the restaurant was unfenced and a narrow path took her through undergrowth to a decrepit shack with wooden steps at the side and a rusted flue emerging from a roof of tarred sheeting. The door was open and from the interior came the sound of typing.

  ‘Why,’ she exclaimed, peering in, ‘I didn’t realise … you’re Mr Sykes, from the motel.’

  Boligard coughed. ‘Yes, this is my – sanctum, I guess you’d call it. For privacy, you know; too much going on at the motel.’

  ‘Of course. I must have misunderstood Mrs Sykes. I’m really looking for accommodation – ’

  ‘Ah, well, yes. I do act as an agent for a local realtor, just as a favour.’ Then, in a burst of confidence: ‘Writers aren’t exactly well paid; outrageous when you think about it: a book costs less than a meal in a restaurant. Are you aware of that?’

  Miss Pink made appropriate noises of surprise and sympathy but she was absorbing the room, such as it was, even as he expounded on the greed of publishers, the arrogance of agents, the stupidity of readers: ‘None of them will look at a book unless it’s by an established author. It’s a bad time for writers with talent, people who don’t care to write blockbusters.’

  On the shabby planking were photographs of heeling sailboats, dead fish hoisted on hooks, riders whirling lariats from the backs of galloping horses. There was a much younger Boligard on one knee, rifle in hand, holding an antelope’s head by one horn.

  ‘You’ve had an adventurous life,’ she commented, implying that she thought he was the subject in all the photographs. He gave her a shy but practised grin, acknowledging the adulation. With his trimmed white beard and weathered skin, the pale eyes, even the swelling paunch, Miss Pink needed no one to tell her that Boligard was not his own man but a model of Papa Hemingway. Now she had listened for long enough – and she was the customer.

  ‘I’m looking for a small place for a week or so,’ she said pleasantly. ‘With all conveniences, of course; a bath and shower, adequately furnished … ’

  She took the second place he showed her (the first had a landslip in front of it and looked as if, with the next high tide, a few more yards would slide into the sea, taking the house with it). But then he took her up the hill to a light and airy little cottage on the loop road above the village. It was on such a steep s
lope that although all on one floor and approached by a flight of steps at the side, the façade, which faced slightly north of west, was on stilts. A wall of sliding glass opened from the living-room to a balcony or deck on which were chairs and an iron table. Below the house the ground dropped away and she looked over a rioting jungle of fuchsias and huge fruiting blackberries, past glimpses of roofs to the cove, the stacks and the open sea. She absorbed the view and then she turned to Boligard and started to haggle. He had been expecting this and they settled amiably to an activity at which each felt he was competent. She knew that the seventy-five dollars a week which they agreed on was half what she would have to pay for a comparable place in Britain, and what was comparable to this stretch of the Oregon coast? She glanced towards the forested slopes that, southwards, plunged to the shore. ‘I understand there are spotted owls in the woods,’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes, we have spotted owls, great horned owls, deer, bears – not to worry you, of course; you’ll see the deer, you won’t see bears.’ He had a single-track mind and was still trying to sell her the cottage although they’d agreed on a price.

  ‘You’re all naturalists in Sundown,’ she murmured, and in the face of his blank stare: ‘I met Miss Brant. Leo, is it?’

  ‘Oh, Leo’s an expert; so is Sadie, her friend – both writers.’ He frowned and winced. ‘In fact,’ he continued brightly, ‘we’re all interested in the ecology since we immigrated to Sundown. Can’t help being drawn back to the wilderness’ – his eyes shone – ‘finding our roots. The forest is a place of eternal magic, you’ll discover that for yourself.’

  ‘It attracts interesting people, this fusion of trees and ocean: wild, pristine— ’

  ‘It’s a terrible place to write.’

  ‘Terrible, Mr Sykes?’

  ‘There’s far too much happening. The social life is hectic. A big do last night – and now everyone’s waiting to return the hospitality. Etiquette can go too far. No life for a creative person. You have to shut yourself off – and you can’t. You’ll get drawn into it as a matter of course, but that’s all right: you’re not an author.’