Or too many brownies.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I had to talk to sand? I had to have my head examined.
Since I couldn’t sleep, I figured I’d get a head start on what looked to be a long day. I tiptoed around washing, getting dressed, and letting the two big dogs out into the fenced front yard.
Which set off the alarms, of course.
Harris flew out the door with a gun in his hand, unzipped jeans and no shirt. Susan followed, with a golf club and a short nightshirt. Since when did she play golf? Then I remembered the golf pro who hung out here last spring. I looked past Susan to see if some stud in a Lacoste shirt came out, too. Nope. He must have left her a souvenir.
“Sorry, sorry. I couldn’t sleep. I forgot about the alarms. Sorry. I told you we didn’t need all the bells and whistles.”
“Good thing they’re not tied to the police station.”
Oh, lord. I could just imagine Big Eddie or Baitfish Barry driving up, sirens blasting, to find me, pink fuzzy hair and pink rubber Crocs, with an old Hunter College sweatshirt over Hello Kitty flannel pajamas. Worse, the first responder could have been Uncle Henry Haversmith, the Chief of Police, one of Paumanok Harbor’s best truth-knowers.
“I’ll, uh, put on coffee?”
“Not for me,” Susan said. “I’m going back to bed. If you can manage to give me a couple of hours with no phone calls or alarms.”
“I said I was sorry. And the call was from my father with an important message, he thought.”
“A warning?” Susan brought the golf club up, like a baseball bat, ready for trouble.
“No, nothing like that. Go back to sleep.”
Back, again.
“What about you, Willow? You going back to sleep, to work, what?” Harris asked, trying to hide a yawn.
Now that I was up, I thought I’d swing by the deli for a buttered roll and coffee to go, then head for the beach. Or what was left of it. “But you don’t need to tag along.” I did not want anyone see me trying to call up sentient rock shavings. “I might stay awhile drawing, too.”
I call it Visualizing. Sometimes it bridged worlds of differences, forming a thread of communication. I didn’t know how much Harris knew or suspected, but I wasn’t ready to demonstrate my talent, or my craziness, in public. Besides, I half-intended to stop by Matt’s house to inspect—that is, to introduce myself to Marion if they hadn’t left yet on their Hamptons-hopping. She said she wanted to meet me, right? It was the only friendly thing to do, right? I wasn’t a sneaky jealous shrew, right? Wrong.
Harris said he’d be ready in fifteen minutes.
I said that was ridiculous. No one knew I was here in Paumanok Harbor, so how could they follow me to the beach? At seven in the morning? If Deni suspected I came here, she’d be watching the house. Susan was in more danger than I was.
“Not if she has the alarms set.” He gave me a disgusted look. “And the cameras will record every car that drives by in case anyone’s scouting the vicinity.”
“There’ll be a lot of traffic past the house later. It’s Sunday in pumpkin season. The farm stand does a big business when families come to pick their jack-o’-lanterns. Garland Farms grow cool-weather fall veggies, too. God, I could remember slicing Brussels sprouts off the thick stems for hours when I got volunteered to help. I never eat them, to this day.”
Harris looked back at the house where Susan, with her short nightshirt and long legs, was warm and cozy. I don’t know if he thought of the woman or just the warmth. The air outside had a definite autumn chill. He stayed put. “My job is to go where you go. I’ll drive, so you can leave the Outback for your cousin.”
“No, I’m bringing the dogs.” It was a sudden decision, but a good one. I’d look like a typical early morning dog-walker if anyone saw me, not a nut case talking to the beach. Even better, Susan couldn’t get to Rosehill and Carinne if I had the car. “They love the beach, but you wouldn’t want three wet, sandy animals in your car. My mother bought the Outback because there’s enough room for them, and they can’t ruin the upholstery.”
He still insisted on coming.
Joanne at the deli tsked her tongue at me. What did she mind more, the pink hair or the good-looking outsider dude with me? “He’s one of the guys Lou brought.”
“That’s all right, then, I suppose. Not great, mind you.” She handed me my coffee, light, and a blueberry muffin before I could order.
“I thought you wanted a buttered roll,” Harris said.
“She changed her mind halfway here,” Joanne told him, not exactly cold or rude, but not welcoming, either.
He looked at me. I shrugged. “She’s right, as always.”
She studied him, head cocked to one side. “Egg sandwich, over easy, Canadian bacon, black coffee.”
“How did you . . .? Oh, we’re in Paumanok Harbor.”
Yeah, we were, with everyone who was up early watching me with a different man, not the local veterinarian they approved. Heads shook, eyes narrowed, lips puckered.
Vincent the barber out sweeping leaves from his sidewalk turned his back on us when we walked toward Harris’ car. Not because Harris had his head shaved, either.
“They don’t like strangers much, do they?”
“Half the time they don’t like me, so don’t worry about it. They’ll be friendlier once Vincent informs them you have an aura. You know, talent.”
“The barber can tell?”
“Hey, like you said, this is Paumanok Harbor. Where, incidentally, no one thinks I should be out enjoying myself instead of working on their problems.”
“It’s a strange town, all right, depending on an arty female to save their bacon.”
“You don’t know the half of it. Unless Lou told you.”
“I know some. He said the rest was so bizarre I’d have to see for myself. All I know is Colin and Ken adore the place and were thrilled to be assigned back here.”
“They like Rosehill and Lily’s cooking. And they aren’t related to half the residents the way I am.” Some were only relatives by association and familiarity, like Uncle Henry at the police station, but they all thought the connection gave them the right to criticize, complain, and in general act like kin.
We headed toward the beach. He must have picked up on my bitterness about the tiny town. “You don’t like it here?”
I looked at the view ahead of us, the sand, the sea, the sky. The endless waves, the constant murmur of pebbles shifting beneath them, the empty space, the salt smell mixed with seaweed, the breeze in my hair, and no one in sight to comment on its color. “This part I love.”
So did the dogs. The two big old dogs ambled along, enjoying the scents and being off leash. Little Red chased everything from a migrating monarch to a bit of foam kicked up by the incoming tide. If the tide came in much more, it would be right up to the parking area. I could understand Grandma Eve’s concern. One bad storm and water could wash through the paved area, flooding the streets, then the houses, then her farm. The downtown area might be okay, but the flatter land near here could be drowned and the docks in the harbor could be underwater. Feet, no, yards, had gone missing from this one beach since I was here a few weeks ago. Paumanok Harbor had a long shoreline. If it was all like this, soon you couldn’t walk from one boat launching ramp to a public beach to a sheltered bay. They’d all be gone.
I kept walking, while I could. Harris kept looking back toward the empty parking lot, then up at the shuttered summer cottages, sweeping the vicinity like a good bodyguard until I asked him to keep an eye on the dogs while I sketched. I handed him a tennis ball. Dobbin, Mom’s ancient golden retriever, still liked to play fetch, if you didn’t throw it past his poor eyesight. And he shouldn’t let the German shepherd wander far because Buddy couldn’t hear a call to come home. Little Red stay
ed with me. I had liver treats in my pocket.
I spread out a blanket and my pad and pencils, as far from Harris as he’d let me go. I looked at the narrow strip of sand around me, squinted at it, slit-eyed. No matter how hard I stared, I couldn’t get anything to move or wave or call out a hello. Not that I expected the Andanstans to come for the liver treats or my company. Or to be dancing like angels on a head of a pin. If they were that obvious, someone would have spotted them by now.
So I drew. I sketched the usual willow tree. Then three tiny pointillism people. Come, talk to me. Please.
I heard nothing in my head, only two seagulls scrabbling over a dead crab in the tide line.
I added the fish-tailed parrot to the drawing, embraced by the branches. Friend. All friends?
I thought I heard car doors slam, so I hurried with my third attempt. This time I didn’t draw. I simply pulled out the necklace I always wore around my neck. Its pendant had been crafted from my mother’s wedding band, which had belonged to my father’s mother before that, and back through generations. No one knew where it came from, but Grant, DUE’s linguist, had been able to translate the inscription on the back with help from Colin, whose eyesight was about ten times better than a normal person’s. Grant declared the language was Unity, which meant it had meanings and emotions and history tied to it, not just the words themselves. I held it out toward the water and recited out loud what he thought it said: “One life, one heart.” I held it to the sun. “I and thou, one forever.” Then I turned the pendant down toward the sand. Friends.
I quickly tucked the ancient piece back under my shirt when two people approached, with a scowling Harris and the two dogs. The newcomers, a middle-aged woman and a man young enough to be her son, both wore khaki windbreakers with CDC embroidered on their chests. The assistant, maybe a college intern, held a padded tray filled with stoppered vials.
“Hi,” I started, standing up. “You must be—”
“Dogs do not belong on the beach. Especially now.” She kicked up a cloud of sand. I cringed, thinking of angry Andanstans. Right now, I’d rather face them than Ms. Garcia. Hard to say which were more alien.
“They taint the samples,” she ranted on. “And it’s disgusting.”
I held up two bags of dog poop. “I always clean up after them. And they are legal this time of year. I don’t bring them when people are sunbathing. It’s too hot for the dogs. And they are well trained.” Except for Little Red, who kicked up some sand, too, in a show of male aggression and dominance, which was absurd when he already had to balance on three legs and he weighed six pounds.
Ms. Garcia, whose reputation preceded her like body odor and bad breath combined, frowned. Someone should have told her that made her thick eyebrows grow together.
“They also urinate. Where do you think that goes, miss? It gets absorbed in the sand, washed into the water, polluting both environments. It is a hazard to sea life and to children playing on the beach. They put their fingers in their mouths, you know.”
They also put fingers up their noses, which I personally found disgusting, and no one passed legislation about that. I knew Ms. Garcia had no interest in my opinions, so I didn’t give them. I did stare at the piles of seagull droppings. “Shit happens.”
“That is natural and adds to the biosphere. Bringing dogs onto the beach does not.”
In Paumanok Harbor, it did. I pointed to the occasional scrap of paper, an empty rusted soda can, plastic bottle caps, and other debris washed up by the waves or left by careless visitors. I always carried an empty bag to cart the trash away. “Sure, the world would be a cleaner place if humans didn’t exist. But we do. So do our pets. Unless you people send us another plague.”
She pulled herself straight and puffed out her chest. “Our job is to prevent epidemics, not cause them.”
She sure caused an epidemic of hostility. I picked up my pad and the blanket, then Little Red, before he could be declared a hazard. Harris kept a hand on both of the big dogs’ collars.
Ms. Garcia took out a notebook computer. “I need to ask some questions.”
The assistant was filling vials from various areas on the beach: near the thin strip of beach grass, at the tide line, various spots between the water and the end of the sand. He meticulously labeled each one, placing an orange plastic flag at each place.
I could be as huffy as the next power-wielding petit tyrant. “I hope you do not intend to leave those flags here.”
Harris grinned. The young man looked stricken at the idea.
“Of course not. We’ll take photos, then gather them up.”
Except the tide had come in and snatched one back out already. I helpfully pointed that out. Ms. Garcia glared at the assistant to go fetch it. Then she asked for my name.
“I don’t see any reason for that.”
One-brow again, she consulted her pad. “Do you live here?”
“No. Manhattan is where I reside and vote and pay taxes. That’s where your salary comes from, I believe.”
She ignored the implication that she worked for me.
“You are a tourist, then.”
“No. I have family here.” To my chagrin.
“Were you here at the time of the hurricane, the one called Desi? Or that shipwreck? Surely you heard of that.”
Obviously, she believed all the dumb blonde jokes, and doubled her prejudice for pink. “Yes.”
“Yes, you heard, or yes, you were here?”
“Yes, I am not sure why it’s any of your business.” I disliked being spoken down to, as much as I disliked dog-haters.
She turned the hostility up a notch. “I am trying to help this town, that’s why, and investigate what may be a serious health issue for the entire region, if not the country. I am getting precious little cooperation, too.”
With her attitude, I was not surprised. Besides, Paumanok Harbor held its cards closer to its chest than a one-eyed gambler in an Old West saloon. I shifted Little Red in my arms, prepared to leave.
“Wait. Do you have any unexplained rashes?”
Unexplained? I believed I knew exactly where they came from. “No.”
She stepped closer, almost within Little Red’s range. I stepped back. She put on a pair of black-rimmed glasses. “What’s that on your upper lip?”
Damn, the rash was so faded I’d stopped putting on concealer. It didn’t itch anymore, either, not since I decided to come back to Paumanok Harbor. I suspected the connection was not entirely coincidental, knowing how these things worked. Which I was not about to discuss it with this snarky, decidedly outsider scientist. “Must be beard burn. Isn’t that right, sweetie?”
I batted my eyelashes at Harris. “You know, from before you shaved this morning.”
Ms. Garcia pursed her thin lips. Maybe she didn’t know about beard burn.
Harris turned as pink as my hair, but he played along. “Sorry ’bout that, Cupcake.”
She turned away in disgust and shut down her handheld, without thinking to interrogate Sweetie. “We have enough samples to work with. We already took the water and air.”
“Did you check for ticks? They carry all kinds of diseases. Rashes, too. But you must know that. They’re all over here, especially in those grasses you walked through.”
Ms. Garcia jerked her head yes. The student started brushing at his pants. They left.
I picked up the garbage and handed it to Harris. He ought to do something to make up for laughing at how I’d handled the interview.
“Not enough sleep last night, huh?”
I told him to go on ahead with the dogs.
As soon as his back was turned, I knelt down and sifted a handful of sand through my fingers, peering at it. It still looked like sand. No tiny warriors with shells for shields or pointy shark teeth for swords. No minuscule p
eople cursing at me for moving the sand or littering the beach. I squinted, I peered, I put my face an inch away from the sand.
Harris had come back, bodyguarding. “What the devil are you doing, Pinky?”
“I wish you’d stop calling me that.”
“You like Cupcake better?”
I ignored him and fished a baggie from my pocket. I silently apologized to the Andanstans, if they were around, and promised to bring the sand back. I filled the baggie and sealed it up. I’d borrow a microscope from the school or a loupe from the local jeweler.
Harris shook his head. “How about Fruitcake?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
I had a mission. Matt had a microscope.
Harris didn’t understand why I wanted to go home to drop the dogs off. “I thought we were going to check other beaches. Maybe go out in a boat to look at the shore from another angle.”
“There’s a chop to the waves.” Maybe a ripple, but my stomach did not do well in rougher water than a Jacuzzi. “The dogs don’t go on boats, if that’s what I decide to do.” I held up the bag of sand. “First I want to look at this stuff up close. I know there’s a microscope at the vet clinic. They check for worms all the time.” Yeck. “I’m sure they keep it sterile.”
Harris glanced at the bag. “You think you can find something the epidemics lady can’t? She’s got labs and scientists and the latest technology for testing something that sure looks like sand to me.”
“Yeah, they’re not talking to me.”
Harris pulled as far away on the passenger seat as he could get from me, in case I sprouted horns and tail. “Please do not tell me you hear voices like Carinne. Lou should have warned me.”
“Not exactly.”
“How not exactly?”
Before I had to answer, we arrived back at the house. We bypassed the alarms, made sure the dogs had water and Susan still slept. Harris checked his monitors for anything suspicious, then we were off again. He wanted to take his car now that we had no dogs, and I let him. I was too nervous to argue, and Susan could sleep all day until time to go back to the restaurant.
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