“Good question. On top of that my future employee hates my guts. And get this, I had a guy show up last night who proceeded to tell me how unqualified I am to be his daughter’s doctor. My concern is that things will only get worse because I start seeing patients tomorrow. There could be rioting in the streets.”
“Where’s this lack of confidence coming from? It isn’t like you. I’ve never known you to doubt yourself, not even during those first days you were left alone when you were just a boy.”
“But you swooped in and saved me from being swept up in the system. My heroine.”
“Once you start treating patients again you’ll be fine. You’ll see. It’ll all come rushing back. Stop fretting. You’ve spent two years worried whether you could still be a doctor. Now’s the time to settle that.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say. But I’m beginning to wonder if I might’ve picked the wrong town. I didn’t expect such resistance right off, especially with the staff.”
“Something else is going on with you. What is it?”
He ignored the fact that Nonnie could read him like an open book even over the phone. He’d never been able to put anything over on the woman. She always seemed one step ahead of him. “I’ll indulge you this one time,” he cracked. He told her about meeting Beckham. “So far the boy is my only ally. Well, he and Jack. Jack says I have nothing to worry about. But then I’m the one who’s already dropped a nonrefundable deposit on his practice. Naturally Jack would say anything to keep me on the hook. He doesn’t want anything to mess up his retirement plans.”
“Obviously this boy, this Beckham, has made quite the impression on you, otherwise you wouldn’t be bringing him up. No doubt your fatherly instincts are kicking in.”
“I didn’t realize I had any. Aside from that, he reminds me a little of me at that age, a little lost, a whole lot disillusioned about life and he’s only thirteen. That’s why I’m taking him fishing later.”
Winona cackled with good-humored laughter. “Oh my goodness. You fishing? When’s the last time you held a rod and reel? Must be twenty-five years.”
“I’m counting on it not having changed since I was twelve. Which reminds me I have to go buy a couple of fishing rods.”
Winona laughed again, bolstered by this new turn of events. “Quentin, if you manage to catch a fish today I demand to see proof. You better send me a picture and that fish better be bigger than a wiggle worm.”
Before heading out to find the gear he’d need, Quentin decided to go see Brent Cody. On a Sunday morning, even the newcomer knew to find the chief of police at home spending time with his family.
The Cody house was a California bungalow located across the street from the pier. After a short walk, he knocked on the front door and was surprised when a very pregnant and beautiful woman answered.
She gave him a onceover. “You must be Quentin Blackwood.”
“Guilty. And you must be the lovely Mrs. Cody.”
“River, call me River. I like a doctor who knows the importance of flattery. Come on in. I’m glad to finally meet you. Doc’s been building you up to me for weeks now. He figures you’ll be the one delivering our son. That’s why I’ve been sending out vibes to get you to stop by. And here you are.”
She went to a sliding glass door and yelled out into the backyard. “Brent, put that saw down and come meet Dr. Blackwood.”
Turning back to Quentin, River sent him a wide smile. “He and Luke—that’s our other son— are out there building a fire station slash fort out of wood they found out at an old barn. And when I say a fire station slash fort I mean an elaborate maze that’s almost like an addition to the house. They got carried away.”
Brent appeared with a boy of about five following him into the room like a marching soldier. The police chief stuck out his hand toward Quentin. “Good to see you again.” He turned to his wife. “I’ve actually met Quentin before today. He came into the station to ask if he could park his car overnight at the pier.”
“You never said a word to me,” River accused.
Brent gave her a smile. “Actually I did but that was the day you were upset over Doc retiring.”
Brent swung Luke up to his hip to where he was eye level with Quentin. “And this is my boy, Luke. Luke’s about ready for his baby brother to get here. Aren’t you, son?”
The boy bobbed his head up and down. “We named him Eli already. Eli Cody.”
“Good choice,” Quentin said, rubbing the top of the boy’s head. “What did you do to get a fire station slash fort? You must’ve been a real help to your mom.”
The boy started picking at a scab on his elbow. “I got a cousin, Nate, and me and Nate like to play firemen,” Luke explained. “Dad thought we should have a real treehouse like him and Uncle Ethan used to have so we made one of our own.”
Brent cocked his head at the doctor. “You look like you have something else on your mind. I bet you didn’t come here to talk about playhouses or forts, did you?”
“Not really. But maybe River can tell me how she’s feeling.”
“Fat and cranky and ready for this baby to get here. Two in less than a year is nuts. We didn’t plan on having Irish twins.” Understanding there was a need to leave Brent and Quentin alone to talk, River turned to Luke. “How about some apple juice to get you ready for more hammering once Daddy gets done talking?”
“Sure. And a sugar cookie.”
“Okay. Deal. How about we go check on Seth first though and let Daddy talk to our guest?”
Brent relinquished Luke, setting him down on the floor. He led Quentin down the hallway. “Let’s go into my study, which used to be a guest room before we knocked down a wall.”
“You have a nice setup here.”
“Now I do but before it was a small, cramped house with way too many people living under one roof. Had to add another bathroom, too. Luckily, Ryder, Troy, and Zach cut me a great deal on remodeling.” He took a seat behind a desk. “Now tell me what’s on your mind.”
Quentin followed suit and got comfortable in a leather chair before letting loose. He described his encounter with Scott Phillips.
Brent leaned back, locked his fingers behind his head. “Let me get this straight, last night you met him, had a conversation with him?”
“I don’t think ‘met’ is the proper term here. The man actually was trespassing on my property. And while I was out for the evening, seemed to have made himself at home inside my house.”
“Did he take anything?”
“No. Theft isn’t the reason I’m here to complain. The guy made me uncomfortable, said some very unflattering things. On top of that, he came in without an invitation and appeared to be waiting for me to get home. A man I don’t know starts yelling at me in my own house without provocation. It’s enough to cause anyone alarm.”
“I can see you’re upset.” But despite his words, Brent had a hard time keeping a straight face. He sat up, scratched the side of his jaw. “I’m not sure how to tell you this, Quentin. Maybe Jack should have brought it up to you before you made the move down here. You see, Scott is somewhat…special.”
“You mean like mentally challenged? I have to tell you he didn’t come across that way to me. Not at all. In fact, he was a bit of a smartass. And I might mention that I’m well aware this Scott said he was the one who recommended me for the job down here. But I don’t care. That doesn’t mean he can just come into my house whenever he pleases.”
“Well, the thing is, Scott died back in 2007 over in Iraq. His Humvee hit an IED and he was killed instantly. He didn’t make it back. We have a park named after him.”
Quentin frowned at the mix-up. “Then I’m talking about another Scott Phillips, the one who’s alive and well enough to stroll into my home whenever it suits him.”
“There is no ‘other’ Scott Phillips. If you don’t believe me, feel free to look it up in the town directory. Scott grew up here in Pelican Pointe. He used to live out at Promise Cove wi
th Jordan, the lady who runs the B&B. She’s married to Nick Harris now. But before that, Jordan was married to Scott. You stayed at Promise Cove on your first visit here, right? Everybody does. Surely you met Hutton. The girl is Scott’s daughter.”
“I’m not following you. If this Scott died, then the man last night must have given me a false name.”
Brent shook his head. “I wish it was that easy to explain away. But as you’ll come to realize, Scott’s very stubborn, very adamant about his mission. He’ll return again and again to bug you on so many levels. If he follows his usual protocol, he’ll come back and annoy you because he feels strongly that you need his guidance. He’ll likely bug you until you accept his terms.”
“Terms? You’re kidding? Look, you obviously don’t seem to understand. I want to file a complaint about the man who’s alive, the one who keeps hanging around the cannery. Not this dead guy you keep talking about.”
“I’m trying to be as delicate here as I can, Quentin. But you aren’t getting the gist of the situation. What you saw last night was a ghostly figure that looks like Scott Phillips did when he was alive and well—prior to his stint in Iraq. He happens to be very protective of his family and the town. It’s just the way it is.”
Quentin stood up. “Fine. It never occurred to me you’d refuse to take my complaint seriously.”
“That’s not it,” Brent began. “I’m trying to tell you it’s impossible for me to arrest a ghost or take a report about Scott making a nuisance out of himself because he no longer exists in corporeal form but only as a ghostly entity. He often appears to residents or newcomers who—for lack of a better reason—need some sort of help in certain areas of their lives. I should know since he did the same thing to me after I first moved here. For years now, he’s done this countless times to just about every person in town at one time or another. Most of us have come to appreciate his presence and live with it.”
“You expect me to believe this? It’s ridiculous.”
“No argument there. I know it’s difficult to wrap your mind around something like this.”
“It sounds like one of the tall tales my grandmother made up when I was a kid.”
“The truth is sometimes difficult to explain. Let’s back up a minute. Doc mentioned that you come from Native American stock. Is that true?”
Quentin nodded. “My grandmother is a descendant of the Plains Miwok. But if you’re headed down that path you’re way off base.”
“Really? Even though our ancestors believed in spiritwalkers, guardians, protectors of the realm and all that. They believed people who died ahead of their time, whether from battle or from sickness could come back—and often did—to help their loved ones through difficult times. You’ve heard this before, right?”
“Yes, but…”
“It’s the same principle,” Brent went on. “Ghost stories have been around forever and have always been a source of entertainment. I’m a descendant of the Chumash. We have our own tall tales about spiritwalkers that go well with sitting around a campfire. Every one of them mentions someone like Scott.”
Quentin bit his lip. “Is this a contrived effort to play a joke on the new guy? Are you recording my reaction to all this bunk? Let me guess, I’ll leave here, only to find the video posted on social media for all the world to see and the joke will be on me, right? If that’s the case, I don’t find this one bit funny.”
“It’s not a joke,” River confirmed from the doorway. “Scott is the town’s resident guardian. He thinks of the people living here as his tribe, the people in it as his family. He somehow manages to zero in on those of us in trouble. He did that for me, for Brent, for Ethan, for…well, the list is long. I wouldn’t even have Luke with me today if it wasn’t for Scott.”
“Oh, come on, you actually think I’ll believe this?” Quentin charged. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Brent continued. “Whatever you thought you knew before you came here, you’ll likely have to alter your way of thinking. It might not be today, maybe not even tomorrow. But eventually you’ll have to acknowledge Scott exists or he’ll just keep coming at you, driving you nuts.”
Skepticism mingled with annoyance showed on Quentin’s face. “When I was a boy I listened to my grandmother’s stories and decided she owned a very vivid imagination. She’d talk about her ancestors, relate tales about chiefs of importance who’d witnessed animals—wolves or coyotes mostly—turning into warriors on the battlefield to help win a fight when the odds were heavily against them. She’d spin a yarn about how certain members of the tribe possessed unexplainable strengths and traits in times of great distress. But what I saw last night had nothing to do with fictional accounts of tribal exploits. This Scott was a flesh and blood man.”
“Oh really?” River said. “That doesn’t explain how he went poof right in front of you, does it? Because flesh and blood men rarely do that.”
“I never mentioned he disappeared. And it’s beside the point. I was tired. I’d just had an argument with someone who was being obstinate and rude. Now that I think about it, I was bent out of shape about the prior conversation. I probably manufactured the whole thing.”
“I doubt that fully explains the smartass portion of the conversation or his needling you,” River remarked. “And Scott will always disappear at the height of an argument just to leave you hanging.”
Quentin dropped back down into his chair. “Let’s say I buy into this nonsense. How do I get rid of him?”
River and Brent exchanged glances, but it was Brent who answered. “That’s just it. You don’t.”
“So what do you intend to do?” River asked.
“Right now I plan to go fishing and try to forget I ever had this conversation.” Quentin leveled a finger at River. “I’ll be in the office all next week with Doc seeing patients. Be sure to call Sydney and set up an appointment. We’ll have a long talk about delivering little Eli, make sure we’re all on the same page when he gets ready to make his grand appearance.”
Quentin was looking forward to spending the morning fishing with Beckham. He’d get outside, get his mind off the upcoming week, and maybe keep from worrying he’d made a huge mistake. He wouldn’t think about the outlandish notion that Pelican Pointe was a hotbed for ghosts—or perhaps just one.
He couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept. Sure, his grandmother had taught him to respect the customs of his heritage, which included many stories about rebirth, reincarnation, and ghostly figures. In that vein, Quentin was too much like his father.
Jacob Blackwood had been a man who’d embraced modern medicine long before he’d graduated from the University of California at San Francisco. Maybe because Jacob had spent his early childhood worrying over diseases of all kinds that ravaged his town. Countless people needlessly died from lack of treatment. Maybe that was why Jacob preferred using penicillin as the go-to weapon against bacteria, over a string of chants or sprinkling herbs over a person dying from rheumatic fever or from sepsis. His father had never bought into the idea that evil spirits were at work to make a person ill. Jacob had taught his son that same common sense approach.
Anything Quentin learned about medicine as a child had come from his father. Jacob had been a practical man who didn’t deserve to die like he had.
Quentin realized a long time ago that his entire life had been grounded in one harsh reality after another. Fathers were sometimes murdered for no reason. Distraught mothers committed suicide without any thought to the children they were leaving behind. And if some clown decided to shoot a total stranger in a parking lot, there was no good luck amulet pulled from the shaman’s medicine pouch that could stop it from happening.
So no one—not even certain upstanding citizens—could convince Quentin that Scott Phillips had morphed into a ghostly entity and continued to hang around town long after his death. The whole thing was ludicrous.
Feeling better about things, he walked into the bait shop to c
heck out rods and reels. A man of fifty with long graying hair sat on a stool behind the counter.
“You’re the new doc?”
“That’s me. Quentin Blackwood.”
“Tandy Gilliam. What can I do you for today?”
“Need equipment to catch a couple of sturgeon or maybe rockfish. And maybe a few tips to jog my memory.”
“A refresher course? Happy to.”
“Great. It’s been awhile since I fished. I’ll need to bone up on casting a rod and reel again.”
The prospect of a sale got Tandy moving to his feet. “No problem. I’ll have you angling like a pro in no time.”
He didn’t expect to turn into Hemingway’s Santiago with one lesson. All he wanted to do was impress Beckham during one lazy Sunday afternoon.
Ninety minutes later he spotted the teen in question strolling down the pier. Was it his imagination or did the kid look thinner than the day before?
“Where’d you get all this gear?” Beckham wanted to know as he surveyed Quentin’s recent purchases laid out on the wharf.
“I stopped by the bait shop.”
Beckham picked up one of the poles and tested it out. “I didn’t realize Tandy Gilliam was such a good salesman. Seems like he saw you coming. Don’t we need a license?”
“Nope. Checked the rules and regulations. No license needed if we aren’t commercial and we fish off the pier. Let me show you how to bait that thing.”
“What are we hoping to catch?”
“Rockfish. We have a chance at hooking fifty-seven varieties.”
“So many? Did you use to fish with your dad like this?” Beckham asked as he watched Quentin tie off a one-inch lure and angle it into the water.
“Oh sure. Whenever possible we’d fish off the banks of Lake Tahoe. You can see Nevada on the other side, you know. Anyway, we’d stay out there for hours until someone paged him and he’d have to go see a patient or take care of an emergency. That’s how I learned to love medicine. He’d always take me along on his house calls.”
Sandcastles Under the Christmas Moon Page 8
