Last Chants

by Lia Matera

  She didn’t seem to care. “We were going to go downstairs,” she said, not quite nonchalantly. “Alice wants to see the drums.”

  Edward gave me a congratulatory wink.

  “Edward, you’ll want to see them, too.” My tone was as firm as I could make it.

  He shrugged.

  To avert the possibility of his declining, I added, “Especially after making your own drum tonight.”

  “You made a drum?” Galen didn’t seem surprised. “What kind of skin?”

  “Actually, chamois. First effort.” He shot me a glance.

  “Chamois? It must have sounded awful. Did you treat it? How did you stretch it thin enough?” Galen obviously knew his drum-making.

  “I was just horsing around. Just laced it on a hoop and beat on it.”

  “I’ve got some very interesting ones downstairs.” He seemed troubled. “But you know, I use it as a workroom, and I have things lying around there right now. Toni, why don’t you take Alice down another time?”

  “All right.” She sounded matter-of-fact, still fussing with the kettle. “We’ll join you in the living room in a few minutes.” Turning to me, her face as blank as a lizard’s, she said, “Come and check the selection, Alice.” She opened a cupboard.

  “You know,” I said, “I think I’ll have a Rolling Rock, after all.”

  Galen, still by the refrigerator, grabbed another bottle, handing it to me.

  I twisted the cap off, avoiding Edward’s eye. I took a sip. Rolling Rock hadn’t improved one bit.

  I preceded the men into the living room. I sipped bad beer while Edward and Galen chatted inconsequentially. Toni Nelson didn’t come back into the room.

  We left as soon as Edward finished his beer. But not before he’d exhausted his small talk.

  Backing the Jeep out of the driveway, he was already complaining. “You couldn’t hang out with Toni five more minutes? Get that last name? Act a little more sociable?” He sounded like a husband after a boring office party.

  “Don’t start!” I fell into office-party counterpoint. “She attacked me in the kitchen. Thanks a hell of a lot! I should have my head examined. Why did I let you take me to visit someone who bopped me in the nose the first time I met her?”

  “What do you mean attacked you tonight?” He focused on shifting gears. He was certainly not squirming with concern.

  “Pinned me to the wall and snarled angry questions at me.” In retrospect, and with a little beer in me, it made me mad. “She’s really out of control! If I see her again—”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “If I was Billy Seawuit’s woman.”

  “Whoa.” That got his attention. “Good work, Watson. How’d you get her onto that?”

  “I walked into the kitchen with her. Subtle, huh?”

  “She asked you about Seawuit, then she pinned you?” He picked up speed, zooming through a corridor of tall trees.

  “No. She pinned me and stood there looking all scary. Then she asked why I’d come—if I was a cop.” That got a big laugh out of him. “Then she wanted to know why we kept bringing up Billy Seawuit.”

  “‘We’ meaning you and me? You and Nelson?”

  “You and me.”

  “We didn’t bring up Seawuit, not tonight.” He glanced at me for confirmation.

  “I was having a little trouble contradicting her, since I was squished against the wall. She was asking if I was his ‘lady’ when you guys walked in.”

  “That’s no lady, that’s my fellow accessory after the fact.” It wasn’t much of a joke, but he was right. “The reason we came in, supposedly for beers, was because Galen got very nervous. He was looking for a reason to check up on her.”

  “And here I thought you were rushing to my aid.”

  “No way. I hated to interrupt—especially since it was her idea to go off by yourselves. She obviously had something to say to you.”

  “Do you think Galen Nelson wanted to stop her?”

  “I sure do. It was a challenge keeping him out of the kitchen long enough for something to happen.”

  “Luckily it didn’t happen to my nose this time.” My shoulders ached from hunching up in fear. My legs throbbed from too much hiking. And the beer was making me queasy.

  “When she asked if you were Seawuit’s lady, was it like, ‘you, too?’”

  “I don’t know. Unlike her computer, I’m not a mind reader,” I pointed out.

  “If you had to guess.”

  “I don’t have to guess.” But, having vented a bit of crankiness, I couldn’t resist adding, “She did sound jealous.”

  “Then, voilà. Information and the pleasure of watching you try to drink a Rolling Rock. What more could a man ask of a social engagement?”

  “What about now? What are you going to do?”

  “Drive us back.”

  “I meant, are you going back to Santa Cruz tonight?” I was feeling apprehensive. And Toni Nelson hadn’t exactly assuaged my fears.

  “I was thinking about it. Look up Nelson’s marriage certificate first thing tomorrow, get Toni’s maiden name, find her divorce decree; get Stu’s last name, address, all that. Maybe go talk to him.”

  We drove for a while. I tried not to admit how much safer (if more annoyed) I felt with Edward around.

  “But what the hell,” he said, finally. “Why break up a good party? I’ll drive down in the morning.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Lying on the floor listening to Edward snore and Arthur wheeze, I began to hope I’d been in hiding long enough. The policeman Arthur and I had eluded in San Francisco, his memory would have faded somewhat in three days. If I cut my hair shorter and bleached it back, I could claim I’d done it last week. Though no one would confuse me with Syrinx, it should distinguish me from the long-haired blonde hostage.

  And to explain my absence, I’d say I’d needed time to think through a midlife crisis. That I’d spent a few days . . . That, of course, was my problem. Where could I possibly say I’d been? Meditating alone on a remote beach? Not likely, not without my car. Off on a tryst? The only man who might possibly have agreed to lie for me was Edward, and he’d just told Surgelato he hadn’t seen me.

  Plus, what would Arthur say and do without me?

  He’d have to come forward regarding Seawuit’s murder soon. He’d have to discuss his whereabouts. And I just couldn’t imagine him covering up these days with me, not very well. He’d slip up without meaning to or knowing he had.

  The ideal—if one could achieve it without spending long nights on hard floors listening to Edward snore—would be to find out who killed Billy Seawuit. If that were established, no one would bother asking Arthur where he’d been. He wouldn’t have to talk to the police at all.

  And I would be free to offer whatever thin excuse I could devise for my truancy.

  But for tonight, at least, circumstance left me no alternative but to lie awake listening to Edward imitate a pulp grinder. Except one.

  I pulled my aching bones out of the sleeping bag and slipped into my shoes. I tiptoed over the two men, Arthur in his bag and Edward in a stack of blankets. Edward’s keys were on the table. I picked them up and quietly went outside.

  I was both relieved and irritated not to have wakened Edward. Some watchdog he’d turned out to be.

  I unlocked the Jeep and slid into the backseat. It was much softer than the cabin floor, though it didn’t smell any better and probably wasn’t much cleaner. I locked myself in and lay down, tossing the keys up front. Night noises—cracklings and rustlings and whistling wind—couldn’t keep me awake tonight. I conked out immediately.

  I awakened at dawn, certain something was wrong. Raising my head only enough to see, I peered through the moisture-streaked windshield. Someone was outside the cabin. He was too bundled up for me to identify from the back. He was looking into the windows, creeping from one to another.

  I watched, hardly breathing, though he certainly wouldn’t be able to hea
r me. When he walked to the back of the cabin, I slid out of the Jeep, leaving the door ajar to avoid a slamming sound.

  One nice thing about Edward’s place: A few steps in any direction provided cover. I hid behind a bushy clump of redwood shoots.

  The man came back around the cabin. He crossed to the Jeep. I thanked the Great Mother he hadn’t checked it first. He tried the front doors. When he went to the back and found it ajar, I held my breath. Would he put his hand on the seat and notice it was warm?

  To my relief, he merely reached in and unlocked the front passenger door. He took his time opening it, obviously trying to be quiet.

  I still couldn’t make out his features. From here, he looked bulky and short. He was white. He wore a cap and a padded jacket.

  He leaned into the Jeep. I assumed he was checking the contents of Edward’s glove compartment. He hunched over, and I had the impression he was jotting something down. Since I doubted he was leaving Edward a note, I guessed he was copying the car registration.

  I was startled. Could he be a cop? But cops were supposed to knock and announce themselves, ask to see these documents. They might not follow the rules when it didn’t suit them. But in this instance, it would certainly have been the easier path.

  Was he a private investigator? He seemed to be investigating, after all. He didn’t seem poised to break into the house, nor to steal anything from the Jeep. He seemed to be doing what was necessary to find out more about their owner.

  Suddenly he straightened, glancing at the cabin. He slipped something into his pocket.

  I could see movement inside now, not what I’d have expected—not a figure rising and stretching, crossing to the bathroom. I saw a dark shape maintaining a crouch, creeping toward a window. Edward had been wakened.

  The man crossed the gravel road, striding into the woods. He passed within ten feet of me. At last I saw his face. It was one of the two supposed backpackers from Watsonville, the ones we’d encountered in the woods yesterday.

  Within seconds, Edward was out the cabin door, in hot pursuit. He wasn’t being quiet. Apparently, he meant to collar the man, not follow him.

  He zipped past me, turning briefly and meeting my eye. Unlike the man, he’d spotted me in the brush.

  Since he was racketing along as noisily as a bear, I left my hiding spot and followed. I caught glimpses of both men running, the colors of their clothes popping in and out of view between trees. Edward was gaining fast.

  Until he heard a gunshot.

  At that point, Edward did a full-throttle reverse. If I’d been impressed with the speed of his pursuit, now I was amazed. Edward might have been an Olympic retreater.

  The other man held his course, crashing out of sight as Edward doubled back.

  A moment later, Edward almost collided with me.

  “Come on,” he panted. “Back. Back into the cabin.”

  He grabbed my arm, yanking it, pulling me along behind him.

  The sound of our pounding footsteps and door slamming roused Arthur. He sat up, a shaft of meager light catching him by surprise. He blinked, apparently disoriented to see us up and out of breath.

  “It was one of the men we saw yesterday,” I told Edward.

  “What were you doing outside?” he demanded.

  “Sleeping in the Jeep. You snore.”

  “No, I don’t.” But he looked sheepish, as if he’d heard tell. “Did he see you?”

  “No. I saw him walking around the cabin, looking in. I got out of the Jeep and hid. He copied your registration, I think. And he took something out of the glove compartment.”

  “Son of a bitch! My new toy.”

  I shook my head uncomprehendingly.

  “My spy camera,” he explained. “That’s what was in there.”

  “He must have seen you when he looked in here. If he recognizes you from yesterday, the camera’s going to make him think you took secret pictures of him.”

  Edward nodded. “Son of a bitch,” he repeated. “What is he about?”

  Arthur looked bewildered. “What? Who?”

  “Someone just broke into Edward’s Jeep,” I explained. “A man we saw in the woods yesterday. He claimed to be a backpacker.”

  “Might he have been looking for money?”

  “No.” I was positive about that. “I watched him. He copied down Edward’s name and address from the registration—or he wrote down something, anyway. It was clear yesterday he wasn’t a backpacker.”

  “You seem certain his motive was sinister,” Arthur noted. “Perhaps—”

  “He shot at me.” Edward liked having the last word.

  “Ah.” Arthur rose slowly, showing his age.

  Edward began pacing, running his hand through his hair. “Okay, okay. He’ll know I’m a PI because I put my business address on the reg. But he won’t know I saw anything but his back today. He won’t know I made him as the backpacker.”

  “You made him, Sherlock?”

  He ignored my correction. “But you’re right—he’ll think I took pictures of him yesterday. That could be a problem.”

  He paced, looking around the cabin, shaking his head.

  When he spoke again, he sounded more, not less, agitated. “How’s he going to react to that possibility? Who the hell is he? That’s the key.”

  I left him to consider it. I took dibs on the shower. Before I’d even shampooed, Edward pounded on the door, demanding that I hurry.

  A few minutes later, I dabbed myself with a funky towel and put on another “party dress.”

  By the time I stepped out, the cabin had been cleared of our belongings. Neither Edward nor Arthur was inside. The Jeep’s engine was running.

  I joined them out there.

  “He took the keys,” Edward informed me when I climbed into the back. “You must have left them on the seat.”

  “How’d you get it started? You hot-wired it?” Just like a TV private eye; I was impressed.

  “I keep a magnetized spare under the bumper.”

  As soon as I closed the door, Edward took off. “Either he took the keys because he doesn’t want us leaving here—which is a pretty damn good reason for us to go—or he’s heading down to my office.”

  “Is that where we’re going?”

  “Right now, we’re going to a phone. I’ve got a friend who’ll keep an eye on my office till I get a locksmith over there. Not that they’d find anything of interest to them, but I need to protect my client records.”

  “What about afterward? I don’t want anyone to see me and Arthur together.”

  “Afterward?” He caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “I’ll pop into a market and get some fixings. We’ll have a picnic breakfast.” He looked a little smug. “Then as soon as it opens, we’ll go by the drugstore and pick up the film we dropped off yesterday. Stupid bastard wants to go shooting at me . . . well, tough cojones. I’ve got his picture, and I’m turning it over to the cops.”

  “Which cops?”

  “The ones investigating Seawuit’s murder. I won’t mention you guys. I’ll just say I snapped his picture because he looked suspicious. That he broke into my Jeep today and took a shot at me.” He nodded. “That should get their attention.”

  “Do you know the cops investigating the murder?”

  “Nope.”

  I sat back, watching the morning brighten. It was going to be a sunny day. “We can’t stay at your cabin anymore, can we?”

  “No,” Edward admitted.

  “Any suggestions?”

  “Move into that shaved-headed kid’s lean-to?”

  “Ha ha.” I knew better than to press him; I knew I’d get nothing but jokes. And I’m not at my best before coffee.

  “You don’t know how long the Nelsons have been married, do you?”

  “I think she told me.” I wracked my brain. “Two years?”

  “Plus six months for the divorce, and let’s guess six months single.”

  “What are you doing, Edward?”

/>   “Say their business—”

  “Toni and Stu’s?”

  “Yeah. Say it broke up the year they did. If I can find an old phone book, it might be in the Yellow Pages. Save me a trip to the county building.”

  “You don’t know their business name.”

  “Process of elimination—there’s only a handful of software designers in BC. With any luck, Stu’s name will be in the ad.”

  “This is the person you believe fought with Billy?” Arthur asked.

  “It’s worth checking.”

  “Billy wasn’t a fighter,” Arthur assured him. “He was a healer, a shaman.”

  “He might have been backed into a corner.”

  “As he was in Bowl Rock?” Arthur stared out the passenger window. “But he didn’t die fighting, did he?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Coffee and rolls improved my mood. We ate beside a creek in a tiny clearing carpeted with oak and alder leaves. Fallen trees crisscrossed the water, creating small cascades and pools. Leaves collected in twirling eddies, breaking free when they reached critical mass. We watched a blue kingfisher dive into the creek.

  Edward finally told us the plan.

  “I asked the friend who’s guarding my office to call and reserve us a cabin at one of the—well, they call them resorts, but they aren’t much fancier than my place. The one I have in mind, the cabins are far enough apart you can’t really see the other people. I’m having him take it in his name so Surgelato can’t track us if he gets to missing you again . . . Alice.”

  “That’s very nice of you.” Arthur’s manners were more polished than mine. “Would it have beds?”

  Edward grinned. “Yup.”

  “And is it close to Bowl Rock?”

  “Not as close as my place. But you could still hike to it.” He looked at me expectantly.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “It’s a two-bunker,” he continued. “But that’s okay—I’ll need to go back tonight. I have to testify in a civil trial tomorrow morning; hopefully be done by noon or so.”