by North, Will
Adam leaned on his cane and fixed Tyler in his gaze.
“Funny how the sky never fell until Harlan gave you control of Pacific Pioneer…”
“That’s my fault?”
“Well, you tell me. Whose is it, then? Harlan’s? Maybe Pete’s? Because you know what, nephew? I know you’ve made Pete the guarantor of the firm’s loans. I don’t know how you did it, but I’ll find out. Pete’s smarter than that. My guess is you forged her signature, but that’s easily checked and you can be damned sure I’ll have it checked. Now that the company’s failed, you’ve left her holding the bag.”
Tyler thought, Hey, this is like being in court! As if addressing a jury, he said, “Let us all remember that this is not my company; it’s hers.”
“Who’s ‘all?’ This is you and me, and don’t give me that bullshit! The general manager reports to you. The management decisions are yours to make, and what these documents show is that you’ve dodged those decisions for months. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Now Tyler suddenly felt himself in the witness box instead of arguing his client’s case before the judge. He didn’t like it.
He stepped out of the witness box and lunged for the documents, misjudging the distance. Old Adam pulled them away, stepped to one side, and swatted Tyler’s back with his cane. Tyler went down.
“Let me tell you something else,” Old Adam growled at the man struggling to his knees before him. “I’m not going to let you ruin my niece. I’m going to use every connection I have, every string I can pull, to exonerate her and make it clear that the burden of this failure rests upon your shoulders. What is more, nephew, I’m writing you out of my will. You got that? You’ve taken down the Petersen fortune; you won’t take down the Strong fortune as well. Out of honor to my brother and love of your father, I’ve been carrying you for years. Pure dead weight. That’s done. Over. Got that?!”
Old Adam turned toward his house.
Tyler decided he’d kill the old man before he got away. He found his feet, promptly tripped on the cedar driveway edging, regained his balance, and plodded after the hobbling old man. He had no plan; he dimly figured the cane would suffice as a weapon.
Then a hand gripped his shoulder and spun him around, and another slugged his face so hard he went down again, his head crashing into the slate-flagged path. The world swirled. A foot on the back of his neck kept him down.
“Judas? Isn’t that what you called me, you filthy bastard? When all the while you were the real, live cheating Judas! How could you do it to her, to us, you depraved bastard?!”
Tyler tried to rise but the foot pressed him down again. It was so heavy he thought his neck would break. Even in his strangely altered state, he recognized Rob’s voice.
“I can’t breathe!”
“Best news I’ve ever heard, Strong. You fucking raped my wife, you son of a bitch. I’d kill you right now, but you’re not worth the prison time.” Rob pressed harder.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“After midnight? On the bluff? In the Madrona grove?”
Another reality opened in Tyler’s fragmenting brain: the mixed scents of the salt air and Peggy’s perfume, the smooth-barked tree, the earth still releasing the heat of the day into the night air, the woman, the lush, eager woman, the thrusting, the fury.
“She likes it that way!” he croaked. It was all he could think to say.
Rob March lifted his foot for a moment and then kicked his friend’s skull with all the strength he could muster. But Tyler was already twisting away, so the blow was glancing. Rob staggered to regain his balance as Tyler scrabbled, crab-like, across the grass. Rob saw that Old Adam had turned and was advancing on them and tried to wave him away, but the old man kept coming.
“Police! Hold it right there,” a voice ordered. “All of you!”
thirty-one
CHRIS CHRISTIANSEN WAS STILL TROUBLING over his conversation with Tyler Strong when the King County Sheriff’s call center reached him just shy of noon and gave him Colin’s cell phone number. He knew the vet, of course. Everyone did. Chris had lost his wife Harriet to cancer a few years back, and his daughter had given him a leggy, blue-point Siamese rescue cat as a companion. He loved his daughter too much to tell her he hated cats, and by the time he’d mustered the courage to do so the damned feline, which was smarter than most dogs he’d known, had him hooked. Colin Ryan looked after the beast, which the officer had named, “Sarge.”
“Deputy Christiansen, here, doc. What’s up?”
“Chris, hello. Thank goodness it’s you. We have a situation here.”
“A situation?”
“It may be attempted murder.”
“Whoa, hang on there a moment, detective! Who’s ‘we?’”
“I’m at Edwinna Rutherford’s house, with Pete—I mean, Martha—Strong. It’s possible her husband tried to kill her last night by trying to stage a suicide.”
“Okay, stop right there, doc. I heard from Strong earlier, saying his wife had gone missing. You say you’ve got her right there?”
“Yeah, but she’s in rough shape, Chris.”
“Meaning?”
“Acute alcohol poisoning.”
“You’re telling me a drunk told you her husband tried to kill her? We get that all the time.”
“How many of them get their spouse deadly drunk and then leave them in the middle of the Vashon Highway to get run over, Chris?”
Christiansen paused, then said, “Be there in ten minutes.”
“Wait! Don’t come here. Go to the beach compound. I think that’s where he is.”
“Understood,” the deputy said as he cut off the call and headed for his squad car.
Under normal circumstances, when a complaint has been made, his first step would be to interview the complainant, which was to say Mrs. Strong. But in this case, what with Tyler’s earlier call—and what was that, anyway? Was it an honest inquiry or a red herring?—he was sure he could bypass procedure and speak directly to the husband.
Even without the siren and lights, which Christiansen had always thought unseemly on so small an island, he turned onto the lane along the beach within seven minutes of leaving the branch station. But he never made it to the front door. Off to the left, on the lawn between the Petersen main house and the Strong place up the beach, two men were shouting and fighting. A much older man was approaching them, brandishing a cane. Christiansen hollered for them to stop.
Everything that had been happening froze, as if someone had hit the “Pause” button on a video player. He’d seen this happen time and again. It had something to do with the uniform, he guessed—the brown and tan military-like shirt and trousers, the black boots, leather straps and pouches, including the one holding his service pistol—which, in his entire career, he’d used only once, to kill an injured deer. It was as if the trappings had the power to hold time captive.
But it was, he knew, a fleeting condition. He needed to move fast to gain control of the situation. He crossed the lawn quickly and stepped in front of Old Adam, who had his cane raised. He knew all three men. Tyler Strong sat on the grass holding his head; he looked dazed. Portly Rob March was bent over and breathing heavily, hands on knees.
“Morning, gentlemen,” Christiansen said, as if he were greeting them on the street. “Mr. Strong; Mr. March; Mr. Adam, sir. What seems to be the difficulty here?”
For a moment, no one said a thing.
“Bastard raped my wife,” March finally gasped.
“Bullshit,” Tyler replied, struggling to his feet and then staggering to keep his balance.
“What?” Old Adam was dumbstruck. Bankruptcy and now this?
Christiansen, part of whose brain had been trying to work out the link between this fight and Strong’s report of his missing wife, and failing, switched gears quickly. “Will the lady be filing a complaint, Mr. March?”
It was Tyler who answered.
“Can’t…consensual…having an affa
ir,” he said with a bizarre smirk that seemed almost triumphant.
“Oh, well; that’s all right then,” Christiansen said, doing little to disguise his disgust. Chris Christiansen was old-school, a regular at the Unitarian church and, before she died, a devoted husband to Harriet. He stared at Strong for a long moment, then took Rob March’s elbow and said, “Let’s us have a chat, shall we, Mr. March?”
Rob nodded.
“I wouldn’t be going anywhere if I were you, Mr. Strong,” he said over his shoulder.
After Rob caught his breath, he said, “It’s true, officer; we can’t press charges; they’d been having an affair, apparently. Imagine: one of my oldest friends…”
“You said ‘rape.’ Was she assaulted, sir?”
“You mean does she have bruises or something?” Rob again saw his naked wife, fresh from this morning’s shower. He shook his head. “No. He brutalized her last night, all right, viciously, but there are no external signs of violence. Look, officer, we are not going to press charges. I’m a lawyer, okay? She admits they’ve been lovers. There isn’t a judge in the county who’d convict the bastard of rape. And I am certain she would never consent to go through that process anyway. But keep me away from him, officer; I want to kill him.”
Christiansen nodded. “I hear you. But I didn’t. May I suggest that you return home?”
“Sure.”
Rob had just turned when Christiansen said, “By the way, have you seen Mrs. Strong this morning, sir?”
“Pete? No. Why?”
“Mr. Strong called 911 this morning to report her missing.”
Rob stopped. “I don’t understand…”
“I don’t either, Mr. March; I’ve been trying to think of a connection.”
***
SYLVIA PETERSEN TOOK Old Adam by the hand and led him away as the policeman, who she thought she recognized from town, began talking to Tyler. She had seen the altercation from her garden a few hundred yards away, seen Adam turn back, and had dashed out to keep him from becoming embroiled.
“Come on, dear man, I don’t think there’s anything you or I can do here that this officer can’t do better, whatever the problem is.”
Adam hobbled alongside her, almost grateful to be removed.
“What time is it?” he asked his companion.
She looked at her watch. “Just noon.”
“So much destruction in so few hours.”
“What do you mean?”
“First, Pete goes missing…”
“What?”
“But we’ve found her, at Edwinna’s. Then I discover Tyler’s bankrupted Pacific Pioneer.”
“How?”
“Sheer incompetence, as near as I can tell. Huge debts, plummeting income. Company should have been reorganized or shut down long ago; instead, my idiot nephew’s apparently been hoping it would all go away. Can’t even liquidate its assets; the ships are rust-buckets, probably worthless. And that’s not the worst of it: he’s taken Pete down, too; she’s personally liable for the company’s debts. I can probably save her home, but the creditors will come after everything else.”
They’d reached the flagstone patio in Sylvia’s waterfront garden. She stopped and looked over her shoulder. The sheriff’s deputy was leading Tyler toward the Old House. “Is that what the fight was about?”
“Hell, no. Rob says Tyler’s raped Peggy.”
“Jesus, Adam!”
“Maybe that’s why Pete disappeared. I don’t know.”
The old man looked at the woman beside him.
“Everything’s going crazy, Sylvia. Everything’s coming apart.”
Sylvia gathered the old man into her arms and held him there.
“Not us, Adam. We’re coming together.”
Adam looked at his old friend, his leathery face creased with bewilderment.
“And that’s one more thing about this weekend that makes no sense,” he said. “Why would someone as young as you be interested in an old codger like me?”
Sylvia chuckled. “Me, young? Lord, Adam, you must be senile, too…”
“Forgetful, not senile. Like they say: Forgetful is not remembering where you put your keys; senile is not remembering what keys are for.”
“All right, then, I confess: I’m in it for the money.”
This time the old man chuckled. “Too late. It’s all going to Pete and her kids eventually.”
“Thank goodness for that.” She squeezed his wiry hand. “Shall I tell you the real reason?”
“I’m dying to know.”
“Please don’t. Not just yet, anyway.”
“If you insist.”
The two of them settled into Adirondack chairs Sylvia had painted the color of seawater on a day just like today.
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately, Adam, about the missing.”
“The what?”
“The missing. Think about a family tree, okay?”
“Okay.”
“We use ‘tree’ as an image for families because, with each generation, its span increases. It starts with two people, at the roots, and then spreads: thick limbs, smaller branches, twigs, with new fruit each season. Right?”
“I’m with you so far.”
“Now look at our family trees, Adam; the Petersens, the Strongs, the Rutherfords, too. What do you see?”
Adam looked out over the water as if he could see the legions of the missing out there in the sparkling distance.
“They’re upside down,” he answered finally.
“Pardon?”
“The trees. They’re not spreading, they’re shrinking, as if back to the roots. This beach used to be crammed with all of us. Lots of branches in the past; now there’s just a couple of stems. Shit, Sylvia, we’re almost gone.”
“I hadn’t thought of it as ‘upside down,’ I was thinking of blight. But yes, that’s my point. We’re almost gone. So many of us are missing. And more to the point, you’re almost gone, Adam.”
“How very kind of you to remind me.”
“Oh, shut up. What I mean is that men like you—gentlemen, Adam—are almost gone. You might be the last of the breed. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you utter an unkind word, or say something unfair or mean-spirited in all my days in your presence…which, let’s face it, is a lot of days. And while you sometimes pretend to be a cranky old chauvinist, in fact you have always shown women the deepest respect.”
“Well, I’ve known a lot of stupid men in my time,” the old man said jerking his head back in the direction of the Old House. “It’s always been my belief that women are proof than man was just God’s first draft.”
“Stop kidding and pay attention to me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Adam Strong, I should be honored to spend my remaining days…and nights…with you, sir.”
“Isn’t that something I’m supposed to say?”
“Shall we return to the subject of stupid men?”
Old Adam smiled and stroked Sylvia’s sun-spotted hand. “Is it too early for a bourbon?”
Again, she looked at her wristwatch.
“Not in London,” she said.
thirty-two
“I THINK I HAVE A CONCUSSION.”
Chris Christiansen looked at Tyler without sympathy. “I was at some remove, Mr. Strong, being in the squad car and all, but I don’t think Mr. March fully connected with that kick.”
The two men were seated in chairs on the broad waterside porch of the Petersen Old House. The officer had just pulled a small notebook from a pocket of his tunic.
“If you feel dizzy, Mr. Strong, I’d go with the more obvious explanation: you’re falling down drunk. People believe vodka has no smell. But they’re wrong. Pull over enough DUIs, like I have, and you can sense it: something oily and aromatic in their sweat.”
Tyler shook his head, as if to jerk himself out of some other internal dimension he’d been occupying. Where the hell are Pete and Justine and Two?
“Remind
me, would you, officer, why we’re having this conversation?”
Christiansen thought for a moment that Strong was being sarcastic, but the man’s confusion seemed genuine. He was beginning to question Strong’s grip on reality. It wasn’t just alcohol.
“I stopped by to inquire after your wife.”
“Pete? Why?”
The deputy stared at the man in the chair before him.
“Do you recall, sir, contacting the 911 call center and, in turn, speaking with me this morning? To report your wife as missing?”
Like a fast-moving squall, a cloud of confusion passed over Tyler’s face and, just as quickly, moved on.
“Well, of course, I do, Christiansen!” Tyler lied.
There was something about being called by his surname that galled Chris Christiansen. It was like being treated as a serf by a member of the titled aristocracy. But his face was as neutral as a blank sheet of paper.
“Have you heard from her since, Mr. Strong?”
“Not yet.”
The officer watched as Tyler looked around, as if his family were simply loitering on the beach somewhere. Chris nodded toward the half packed Ford Explorer, its rear hatch still open. “Gone when it’s time to close up for the season?”
Tyler shrugged, but the cloud was back. “It’s a mystery,” he said, as if to himself.
There was a crunch of gravel in the lane leading up to the Petersen compound as a white van arrived.
After a moment of complete silence, Tyler’s mystery began to unravel.
Eileen boiled out of the van’s passenger’s door and raced around the grounds chasing chimera. Martha ‘Pete’ Petersen Strong climbed down after her as if every movement was painful. Colin Ryan stepped out of the driver’s side door and Justine and Young Adam slipped out the sliding side door behind their mother.
Pete stood for a moment gripping the door for balance and scanning the scene, as if the houses, the lawns, the beach, the water—all these features she’d known since childhood—were suddenly alien. Then she began walking toward her house. Justine caught up with her mother and took her arm. Adam walked beside his mother on the opposite side and held her hand. Colin stood beside the van. Patsy stepped out the side door and joined him. Then they, too, followed. The sun was high overhead, the sky sun-bleached, almost white.
