Mariner's Compass

by Earlene Fowler

  “What about him?” she prompted.

  “Did he strike you as being . . . weird in any way? I mean, like, did he ever get, you know, strange with you?” I bit my lip, embarrassed about what I was asking.

  “You mean did he ever harass any of my waitresses or me?” She shook her head no. “He was a real nice man. Tipped good but not extravagantly. Was polite but not too forward. I’ll give him this—he never left his table in a mess, and we appreciated that. He’d talk about the weather or his wood carving or sometimes someplace he’d seen when he was a traveling salesman. He’d seen a lot of the country. We had a long talk about Coney Island one time and about New York hot dogs. I don’t think he was a sex pervert, if that’s what you’re asking, but honestly, do we ever know anyone? I mean, this thing he’s done, making you his heir, that took us all by surprise. We honestly thought . . .” She stopped, realizing she’d gone too far.

  “That he’d leave it to Tess,” I finished.

  She ducked her head and didn’t answer.

  “It’s okay. I’ve figured out that they had a special relationship. Believe me, this is as confusing to me as it is to all of you.”

  “It’s just that she really needs . . .” She stopped again, her face pink. “I shouldn’t be talking about this.”

  “She needs what?” I asked.

  Eve tightened her lips and shook her head. “Tess’s money problems are her business, but she’s a nice person, and I feel bad for her. Duane’s legal problems ate up what savings she had—”

  “Legal problems?”

  “Look, I’ve said enough already. I know Tess won’t hold it against you, but it wouldn’t be fair if you didn’t know she did get help from Jake.”

  “And now that’s cut off,” I said softly.

  “I think she should have kicked both those boys out a long time ago, but that’s just me. Enjoy your sandwich.”

  The sandwich was delicious, but halfway through I stopped eating, feeling slightly sick to my stomach either from the richness of the sauce or the complex, troubling situation I’d been drawn into.

  Outside the restaurant I untied Scout’s leash from the bench and just started walking, hoping the excercise would help me sort out what I’d learned about Mr. Chandler. He’d apparently abandoned his family in the middle fifties, showed up here in Morro Bay in the early eighties. What had he been doing the rest of that time? And, more importantly, why had he ended up here obsessed with me?

  A heavy mist filled the air with a chilly wetness, but that didn’t deter me, and I walked past the giant chessboard, a place I needed to come back and hang around when it was occupied and eavesdrop a little, past the Coast Guard buildings, and followed the road leading to Morro Rock. It took me about forty-five minutes to reach the parking lot at the rock’s base. Standing next to the huge black rock, peering into the gauzy fog surrounding it, I tried to quiet the noise in my head. Watching the screeching gulls and the elegant black cormorants fly low over the water, feeling the crash of the waves against the breakwater, tasting salt every time I licked my lips cleared my head only a little as it skittered from possibility to possibility about this mysterious man. In the falling dusk, the ocean looked almost metallic, like tarnished silver. I sat on the edge of a rock, running my hand over and over Scout’s damp head, wondering if Gabe and Sam were having fun—and wished I was with them, sitting in a cozy club somewhere, being warmed by a good blues guitar.

  Then I sneezed twice. “I’m going to get pneumonia if I don’t get something warm to drink,” I told Scout. “Let’s head back.” Though the walk had done me good, I still was no closer to understanding this situation.

  I stopped at Greta’s Koffee Haus on the Embarcadero. A canvas awning provided Scout with shelter, though the damp weather didn’t seem to be making him near as uncomfortable as me. Those Labrador genes, no doubt. The combined smells of marzipan, cinnamon, butter, and hot coffee teased my senses the minute I walked into the tiny, six-table bakery/coffeehouse and convinced me that dessert was the logical answer to my dilemma.

  I’d settled down with a slice of chocolate-chip coffee cake and a small café au lait when Rich walked in. He bought a cup of coffee and, with a questioning look, gestured at the empty chair across from me.

  “Be my guest,” I said, sipping at my coffee.

  The bell over the door jangled, and the photographer and his long-suffering wife walked in, minus their plethora of camera bags. They smiled and waved at me, then started perusing the glass bakery case.

  “I saw Scout sitting under the awning outside,” Rich said.

  I nodded. Though Rich was a nice guy and I certainly felt sympathy for him, I really wanted to just concentrate on my own problems. Which, apparently, was obvious.

  “Hey, it looks like I’m bothering you,” he said softly. “Sorry, I’ll . . .” He started to stand up.

  That made me feel like a heartless jerk. “No, please sit back down. I’m just a little distracted.” I stirred my coffee idly and asked, “What do you have planned for tomorrow?”

  He shrugged. “Since I’ve retired, I just take each day as it happens. Maybe I’ll go fishing. Maybe I’ll watch Oprah.”

  We sat in silence, listening to the photographer and his wife commence with the eternal marital debate of the wisdom of caffeine consumed this late in the day. Rich and I smiled in mutual recognition. The wife won, and they ordered decaf.

  When I finished my coffee cake and stood up, he followed suit. “Want some company on the walk back?” he asked.

  “Sure.” I said. Outside Scout stood up to greet me, his tail wagging furiously. On the way back, we casually complained about the difficulties of adjusting to a seaside town—how our towels never seemed to dry out, how the damp air made my hair as curly as corkscrews, how the ferns in our yards looked like something out of a Michael Crichton movie.

  When we reached my front gate, he asked, “Anything new on the investigation?”

  “A little,” I said, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to tell him some of what I’d discovered since Gabe’s background check had cleared him. “Keep this between you and me?”

  “Absolutely.”

  On my front porch, where I’d forgotten to leave a light on, I dug through my purse for my boot-shaped key ring. While digging, I told him about my conversation with Rowena Ludlam and her request for the picture of her brother in his coffin.

  “He sounds like a real coward to me,” Rich said stiffly. “What kind of man just walks away from his family?”

  I didn’t answer. Naturally I agreed with him, to a degree, but if I’d learned one thing in the last few years, it was don’t judge things until you’ve seen the whole picture. People and situations aren’t always what they seem. Maybe some families deserved to be walked away from.

  I inserted the key, then turned the knob to open the door.

  A strangled scream caught in my throat, and I jerked my hand back.

  With the instincts of a father, he grabbed my upper arm and pushed me behind him. “What is it?”

  I showed him my palm.

  It was covered with blood.

  7

  HE KICKED THE open door wider with his foot, reached inside, and flipped on the porch light. I held my hand away from me, a gamut of emotions and questions racing through my mind—whose blood is this, what are we going to find inside, how could I stay here now?

  “Let me look,” Rich said, grabbing my wrist. He touched the red dripping off my palm and brought his finger to his nose. “It’s paint.”

  “What!” I pulled my hand back and stared closer at it. It was only then that the sharp, metallic smell of fresh paint reached my nose.

  Rich inspected the doorknob, his face shadowed in the yellow porch light. “Someone’s playing a joke on you.”

  “Some joke.” I peered hesitantly into the dark house. What else was waiting for me inside?

  “Let me go in and look around,” Rich said.

  “That’s okay, I can do it.”
>
  “Kid, now’s not the time to be cocky. We’ll both do it,” he said, walking ahead of me.

  After a thorough search by both of us and Scout, we concluded that the prankster hadn’t been inside.

  “I have some turpentine in my garage,” Rich said. “I’ll clean off your doorknob for you.” He looked down at my stained hand. “And you.”

  “Thanks. Maybe we should report this to the police.”

  He kept his face blank. “Up to you.”

  My mind quickly calculated how long it would take for someone at the Morro Bay Police Department to contact Gabe, who would be out here quicker than I could get the door locked, nagging me again to give this thing up.

  “It’s probably just some kids or something,” I said.

  He didn’t comment.

  After he’d cleaned off the knob and my hand and after multiple assurances that I’d be fine, Rich went home. I sat on the sofa playing with Scout’s ears, wondering what this little incident meant. If the person was trying to unnerve me, it had worked. But who and why? To scare me out of the house so I’d lose it? But what good would that do since it would just go to the government?

  The person playing the prank probably didn’t know that.

  I double-checked all the doors and windows, then took the quickest shower on record. It took me over an hour to fall asleep, even with the light on and the comfort of Scout sleeping next to my bed.

  SINCE THE FUNERAL wasn’t until one o’clock, I decided I had plenty of time the next morning to visit my friend Tina, who owned The Fabric Patch downtown, and find out if she knew anything about Mr. Chandler. I was pulling on my boots when Gabe called.

  “Hey, good-lookin’,” I said. “How was the blues?”

  “Great. Sam and I had a good time. We didn’t fight once.”

  “Such big boys. I’m so proud of both of you.”

  He laughed. “Who’s being condescending now?”

  “It’ll still take me years to catch up with you.”

  “What did you do yesterday?”

  “Not much. Went and checked on the Mother’s Day exhibit. Then I visited Dove at the Historical Museum. Word of warning, they’re plotting something dastardly. Had dinner at Cafe Palais again then walked down to Morro Rock. Stopped off at Greta’s Koffee Haus and had dessert. Talked to my neighbor a little. Cleaned the red paint off my doorknob. Took a shower and went to bed.”

  “Back up there. What red paint?”

  “It’s nothing. Someone smeared some red paint on the front doorknob. Messy, but Rich had some turpentine and cleaned it up in no time.”

  He was quiet a moment.

  “It’s just a prank,” I said.

  He remained silent.

  “Gabe . . .”

  “I’m making a real effort to keep my promise not to get upset, but I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “And I appreciate your effort.”

  I could almost hear his struggle over the phone. Then he asked, “Tell me your schedule. Knowing what you’re doing will make me feel better.”

  “I have no problem with that. The funeral is today. One o’clock at the Paso Robles Cemetery. Before that, I’m going to my friend Tina’s quilt store downtown and see if she knows anything about Mr. Chandler. How about dinner?”

  “Sure, but why don’t you come into town? I have to attend a city council meeting at seven o’clock. They’re voting on the Historical Museum issue, and I want be there to soothe frazzled nerves. Angelo’s at five-thirty?”

  “See you then. Maybe I should come to the council meeting, too.”

  “That might not be a bad idea. It may take both of us to hold Dove back.”

  I ate breakfast at Bay City Donuts and didn’t hear any gossip about Jacob Chandler, though I was thoroughly entertained by a story about three widow ladies in a casserole competition for a new widower in town. I walked through the quilt store’s door at five minutes after ten.

  Entering Tina’s shop was like walking into a fabulous amusement park made especially for quilters. Just the smell and colors of the fabric inspired me as I threaded my way through the crowded aisles. She and her husband Tom had retired here after his career as an Air Force pilot. For twenty years she’d followed him, uncomplaining, all over the world, and now, she said, it was her turn. With their kids off in college, she was living her dream, which he cheerfully and wholeheartedly supported. Mostly, Tom told me once, his sharp pilot’s eyes teasing, because all her fabric purchases were now a tax write-off. When he wasn’t working on his Cessna Skyhawk, used for flying fishermen to remote lakes in the Sierra Nevadas, he was moving bolts of fabric, checking in inventory, or repairing something in the store.

  Tina’s shop reflected so much of her upbeat, bubbly personality that you couldn’t help but want to linger awhile, pour yourself a cup of almond-flavored coffee, and peruse the dozens of quilt and craft magazines in the small area in back she called the Community Corner. Next to the overstuffed chairs, a corkboard wall held pictures of finished and nearly finished quilts; baby and wedding announcements, and accompanying pictures of the quilts made for them; letters from quilters who’d visited her shop or had once lived here; requests of all kinds from those needing scraps of certain fabrics to finish a quilt to questions about quilting stores in other areas. It was a place where everyone in the San Celina County quilting world checked while on a “fabric run.”

  “Is Tina here?” I asked the white-haired lady behind the counter.

  “She’s in the quilting room.” She pointed to the back of the store.

  Tina’s dark head was bent over a lap-sized red, blue, and off-white muslin quilt.

  “Is that fabric a reproduction or the real thing?” I asked.

  Her head flew up, and her eyes, as dark as her curly hair, sparkled. “Benni! Gosh, it’s been ages since you’ve been here. How’re things at the folk art museum?”

  “Fine, though I’m taking a little break for personal reasons. That’s why I’m here.” I picked up the edge of the quilt and held it out so I could see it better. “Fifty-four-forty or Fight? That’s definitely a pattern meant for a revolution.”

  “Dove commissioned it three weeks ago, and I’ve been working furiously on it. The Historical Museum must be doing a display on the Oregon Territory. That’s what my quilt book said this has to do with—the fight over the Oregon Territory between the United States and Great Britain. She says she needs it by tonight.”

  I laughed and sat on a folding chair next to her. “I suspect it’s about territorial rights, but Oregon’s definitely not involved here.” I filled her in on the battle between the mayor and the ladies of the historical society.

  “So, I’m part of a radical movement,” she said, clipping a thread and laughing. “I like that. Wait’ll I tell Tom. So what brings you here? Though I suspect I know.”

  “You heard, then.” I wasn’t surprised. Not much happened in this town that didn’t eventually make it to Tina’s ears, though, being naturally kindhearted, she was always discreet as a cat if it was something bad.

  “I heard you inherited a house over on Pelican and that you don’t know the man who left it to you.” She threaded her needle, then looked up at me, her eyes curious. “That’s about it. Nothing too scandalous.”

  “That is why I’m here. What do you know about Jacob Chandler? I mean, if you know him at all.”

  She knotted her thread, then stuck the needle into the pincushion bracelet on her wrist. “I knew him, but not really that well.”

  “How?”

  “Actually, Tom knew him better. I think I told you the last time we talked that I finally got Tom to do something besides work on that airplane.”

  “Right, but I can’t remember what you said he was doing.”

  “Wood carving. He’s just started, but he really likes it. He knew Jake from the wood carving meetings. He’s here this morning rearranging some of the heavier stuff in the back room. Do you want to speak to him?”

  “Sur
e, if his boss will let him take a break.”

  Laughing, she stood up, laying the quilt on the large craft table next to her. “I hear she’s a cruel taskmaster, but I think she’ll let him stop working for five minutes or so.”

  I spread out the quilt on the craft table and ran my fingers over the fine stitching while Tina went for Tom. The pattern of triangles and squares that when finished made up an eight-pointed star pattern was beautiful and striking in the bright blue and red conversation print fabric, set against the off-white muslin.

  A nervous feeling started itching at my stomach lining. I had a strong suspicion this quilt wasn’t going to be raffled. “Dove,” I said under my breath, “what in the world do you have planned?”

  Tom came in, drying his hands with a paper towel. He was still as neat and trim as a twenty-one-year-old; I had no trouble picturing him playing an extra in the movie Top Gun. “Hey, Benni, when are you going to let that hardworking husband of yours take some time off and fly with me to Lake Tahoe?”

  “You two alone in Tahoe?” Tina said. “In your dreams, sweet pea.”

  “I’d be glad to get rid of him for a weekend,” I shot back. “Then me and Tina can go on a road trip and hit all the fabric stores in California.”

  He groaned dramatically, tossed his paper towel across the room, and made a basket. He bent his elbow and clenched a fist in victory, grinning at us with his Tom Cruise smile. “Not a chance. You two would spend more than if we played the five-dollar poker machines for three days without sleeping.”

  “And don’t you forget it,” Tina said.

  Tom asked, “What’s this about you and Jake Chandler?”

  “I want to pick your brain about him. Tell me everything you know.”

  He cracked his knuckles, his clean-shaven face thoughtful. “I didn’t know him real well. Had breakfast with him and some other guys a few times before a woodcarvers’ meeting. Some of us would commute together to the meetings up in San Simeon. He seemed like a nice enough guy. Told me he served in the Navy in Korea. Then I think he was a salesman or something. Mostly we talked about sports, the projects we were working on, politics.”