by Susan Dunlap
It was an embarrassment of riches for them, this unexpected story with its divergent ramifications. Some reporters emphasized the murders of “high school sweethearts” in prose worthy of gothic romance, others concentrated on Congressman Tisson’s insistence on opening the cesspool. Some focused on the issues of prostitution and power concentrated in the Russian River area that week. A befuddled Mrs. O’Leary of the anti-hookers’ group was interviewed three times. And none of the reporters could resist the illegal and immoral acts of the Bohemian Connection. It was a muckraker’s paradise.
“If only Michelle could have seen this,” more than a few people on my route said. “She would have been in seventh heaven.” Some voices trailed off awkwardly here. Others plowed on to give their own analyses of the events. With every homeowner anxious to discuss the situation with whomever appeared at his door, it took me two hours longer than usual to finish my route.
Wednesday, in reaction to the previous days’ overload, no one mentioned Michelle or her murder. Perhaps there was nothing more to say.
It wasn’t till that afternoon that I got back to the sheriff’s department to read over my statement. This time I was ushered into Sheriff Wescott’s cubicle. From behind his government blue desk, he motioned me to a blue chair. In back of him was his overloaded bookcase. A pile of paper-filled boxes I recalled from my visit here several months ago suggested that he was either a very busy or very inefficient man. His desk was nearly invisible under memos, reports, and notices. His expression, as he looked at me, had the same ambivalence as Jenny McElvey’s, if not the intensity.
To break the silence, I said, “I was surprised at how little people were hurt by the coverage of Michelle’s murder.”
Wescott leaned back in his chair. “The papers and television, you mean? They could have done a number on some of these folks. Look at Ward McElvey, for instance. You’d think the husband and the brother-in-law of two Bohemian Connections would be damned by the publicity. But every news report I’ve seen has pictured him as a decent, hardworking Joe, putting himself out to support his crazy in-laws. He’s come out of it looking like a prince.”
I nodded. “Even Jenny will get something of what she wants—someone to support her and time to paint.”
Wescott nodded, but he wasn’t smiling now. “And that nerd Sugarbaker, look at him. Is there any mention of him bar-hopping in the county car, on a weekend, yet? None. If you believe the papers, he’s a dedicated public servant investigating cesspools on his own time.”
In spite of Wescott’s glower, I couldn’t help laughing. The front page photo in Monday’s paper showed David Sugarbaker pointing to the cesspool while an obviously disgruntled Congressman Tisson looked on.
But Wescott didn’t share my amusement. He continued to glower.
“And you,” I said, “you didn’t come out of this too badly, either. You’ve been quoted all over the place. You got the killer the same day as the cesspool was opened. That’s not bad publicity for a sheriff, is it?” When he didn’t answer, I goaded, “Is it?”
He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “Well, okay, it could have been worse. But that doesn’t excuse the fact of your crossing our cordons, or putting me in a position where I had to drag an innocent citizen out of a bar. If word of that had gotten out I could have been—”
“But it didn’t. And you—”
“It doesn’t excuse your breaking into a house with a felon hiding in the living room.”
“Look, you’ve already given me a ticket.”
His mouth wavered, then he laughed. “I guess another warning to stay out of trouble isn’t going to do much good. But, you know, Vejay, one of these days you’re going to break the law and not get off with just a slap on the wrist.”
“I suppose now you’re going to tell me to stay out of bars—at least with you.”
There was the slightest pause before he said, “I’ll have to trust your judgment on that one.” He glanced down at a report on his desk and then back at me. “How’s your boss taking all this?”
“Mr. Bobbs? He doesn’t know I’m involved. But he actually did act on my Follow-up suggestion—the one asking for two-way radios in the PG and E trucks.”
“What did he decide?”
“He said he gave it his best attention and then routed it to Joan Theadorams, who’s in charge of the agenda for the budget committee.”
“And what did she do?”
“She put it in her Follow-up!”
Turn the page to continue reading from the Vejay Haskell Mysteries
CHAPTER 1
I SLAMMED ON THE brakes of the PG&E truck. Barely a foot ahead, a mud slide covered the road. I had been pondering Edwina Henderson, the last Henderson of the town of Henderson, and her perplexing connection with tonight’s Slugfest. I’d nearly driven into the mud slide.
“Damn!” Three more meters to read on this street, and one of them had to be blocked by mud! As I climbed down from the truck to check the mound, rain from the eucalyptus branches above splatted on my shoulders, and the fresh eucalyptus scent battled with the dank smell of mud. In March, at the end of the winter rains, mud slides were not uncommon in the Russian River area. It was not even surprising to find slides from last year still covering smaller roads. But this one was new; it crossed Kiev Road in a viscous drift and oozed down the hillside beyond. There was no way to drive over it or through it, and certainly no way to walk around it. Picking up my route book, I marked M-5—Road Blocked—where the read for the Yunellos’ account should have gone. This Missed Meter, because of its acceptable reason, would be added to the office’s count rather than to mine. But I would have to justify it to Mr. Bobbs when I got back—another nuisance.
The next account was a tiny red cottage whose owner had had visions of making a killing in real estate and had added a deck twice the size of the house to the rear; it looked as if the weight of the deck would catapult the little dwelling down the hillside and into the river. But despite the winter rains, it stood. And for me, the addition of the deck meant that the meter, which had once been easily accessible at the rear of the house, was now a full six feet under the edge. Tucking my route book under my chin, I crawled through the wet weeds to it.
The final account on Route H-4 (Henderson Office, Route 4) was the Victorian house of Edwina Henderson herself. It had been built here on Kiev Road near the top of the hill by her grandfather, the town founder, Edwin Henderson. Unlike the cottages that had sprung up around it, the pale blue-and-white stick-style Victorian had been lovingly maintained. It occupied one of the few flat parcels of land on the hillside.
I had read the meter here many times in the two years I’d lived in Henderson, but Edwina Henderson had never been home. There was no reason to assume she would be now, and even less to suspect that she would tell me, her meter reader, why she had pressured everyone from our local assemblyman to the Chamber of Commerce to hold this year’s Slugfest in Henderson. Still, I checked as I made my way around the side of the house to the rear porch. The meter was on the outside. Some meters were on enclosed porches and customers gave us keys to get in. This had been such a meter, but instead of entrusting her key to strangers, even bonded strangers, Edwina Henderson had had the meter moved. Jotting down the read, I closed the route book and headed back around the house.
A blue Volvo pulled into the driveway.
But Edwina Henderson wasn’t inside. The driver was a man I didn’t know. There were faces I couldn’t put names to, but few that I didn’t recognize at all after two years of reading town meters. But this man, who was probably close to forty, tall, with curly brown hair, a beard, and lapis blue eyes that shined through his rimless glasses, was certainly not one I would have overlooked. As he climbed out of the Volvo, I noted its parking sticker—SFSU—San Francisco State University. Was he a professor? In his brown herringbone jacket and black turtleneck, he looked the part.
Standing in the shelter of the house, I asked, “Have you come to see Edwin
a Henderson?”
“Right. She here?”
“I doubt it.”
He raised his bushy eyebrows. “I have a four-thirty appointment with her. I’m already late. Are you sure she’s not here?”
“Not positive. But it is Friday afternoon, and she does have a store to run. Maybe she planned on meeting you there.”
“But this is the address on her correspondence.”
I smiled. “She probably just forgot that, being from out of town, you wouldn’t realize she’d be at the shop. In all likelihood, she’s pacing around behind her special blends right now, irritated that you’re late.”
He shrugged. “Where is it?”
“On North Bank Road, the main street. It’s the tobacco shop.”
“Tobacco shop!” He laughed, and behind his glasses, his eyes relaxed. He had, I realized, quite a nice face. “You wouldn’t think the lady of this house would be selling cigars.”
“I suppose not. But Henderson Tobacconist’s Shop is as old as this house. It was founded by her grandfather after he gave up logging for the comforts of the indoor life.”
“He had the right idea. I had an awful time finding this place in the rain. I must have been up every winding dirt road on the hillside. Twice I had to back down. I almost went over the side the last time. If I had known about the shop being in the middle of town …” He turned toward the car, then stopped. “What do you do at night here?”
“Put on the headlights.”
He laughed. “I mean, where’s a good place to stay and what’s here in the way of night life?”
“Genelle’s Family Cabins, just west of town. And the bar.”
“And?”
“If you want to drive into Santa Rosa there are movies and things you can find in any city. But here in Henderson the entertainment is the bar.”
He sighed. “I was hoping for, well, something with a little more local color, something that would be sort of a memento of the area.”
“An event you wouldn’t find in the city? One you could tell your friends about?”
He nodded hesitantly.
“Well, if you want memorable, you should come to the Slugfest tonight.”
“Slugfest! I was looking for colorful, not barbaric.”
I laughed. “It’s not what you think.”
“It sounds like an event in a muddy field where the burliest drunks in town bash it out.”
“It’s not so violent, but it is probably just as disgusting. The Slugfest isn’t a boxing match, it’s an annual tribute to the California slug.”
“What?”
The slimy California slug—the shell-less snail that slithers toward the tasty green of just-sprouted flowers, that decimates lettuce and spinach plants, and lops off every bud in an entire garden in one night’s outing, leaving a trail oozing from the scene of one disaster to the next—moves most Californians to excess. Slugs range in size from those in the drier suburban areas that are no bigger than a finger, to the banana slug that makes its unwelcome home in damp spots like San Francisco and the Russian River area. Banana slugs grow up to twelve gelatinous inches long. Gardeners put out slug pellets, build moats of broken glass around their plants, and leave dishes of beer to lure the invaders to a sodden grave, but the slugs are undeterred. “At the Slugfest, there’s a prize for the biggest slug,” I said. “You have to be under twelve years old to enter one. It’s the first of three events. The second is the slug race.”
“A test of patience?”
“Very few photo finishes. The course is about two feet long, and the record is something like five minutes.”
“And? You said there were three things.”
I let a moment lapse. “The third event is the slug tasting.”
He didn’t speak; he just stared. I’d seen that expression before when people got their first inkling of the nature of that event. “It’s a take-off on county fairs where people bring their favorite foods. The essential ingredient in all of these recipes is slugs.”
When he still didn’t speak, I could feel myself getting into the spirit of the Slugfest. “Slug Chili is a perennial favorite. Slug Dogs were quite a hit one year. And for dessert, there’s Chocolate Sludge, and Banana Cream Pie—you know what kind of banana, of course.”
“And someone eats them?”
“The judges have to. That’s why they’re judges.”
“Where do they get these judges? The local asylums?”
I laughed. “The politicians find it hard to refuse. Every other year the Slugfest was run by The Paper, one of the area newspapers in Guerneville. The Paper ran stories on whom they’d asked and what their excuses were. The year Santa Rosa dumped its sewage into the Russian River the Santa Rosa city manager was a judge.”
“That’s real mea culpa.”
“He was a good sport. But this year the Slugfest will be here in Henderson. Edwina Henderson is organizing it.”
“This Edwina Henderson?” He glanced at the tidy Victorian house, then back to me. Admittedly, it didn’t look like the dwelling of a Slugfest devotee. “What kind of woman is she?”
Not knowing who this man was, I hesitated. Finally, I said, “She’s the last of the founding Hendersons. She calls herself an ‘historical environmentalist,’ someone who wants to keep the area as it was. Almost singlehandedly she got the county to pass an ordinance making it a crime to deface the Nine Warriors—nine giant redwoods along the river. That campaign was her great triumph. The trees are her great love; I think they symbolize the natural history of the area to her. She’s also the authority on the history of the town and the Pomo Indians, who lived here before the white man. And she’s fascinated with Asia—the land, the cultures. If there’s a slide-show on China or a lecture on Bushido, she’ll be there.”
What I didn’t say was that she was a wiry little woman whom I had rarely seen without both a cigarette and a cup of coffee. She was always rushing off to a town council meeting, lobbying to restore the Henderson railway depot, or circulating a petition to save this or preserve that. No one could get an injunction or court order faster than Edwina Henderson. She knew the ropes and the judges. Her dedication to historical Henderson, to preserving the Russian River, and to Pomo Indian history and rights was nearly boundless. If you had a battle, tireless Edwina Henderson was the woman you’d want in your corner. She’d give you her all, and the all of everyone she decided should be as committed as she was. But if you planned to relax back in that corner after the struggle, she’d drive you crazy in ten minutes. She was viewed, by the winter people in this resort area, with a fond but distant tolerance. Even members of the minority groups she supported and admired—Indians and Asians (groups with notably few members in our area)—found life on her pedestal trying.
I added, “She’s the last person you’d picture at the Slugfest. I’d be willing to bet she never went near any of the ones in Guerneville. But for some reason, she had to have this year’s Slugfest as a Henderson event, held in Henderson, with Henderson judges.”
“Who are those lucky souls?”
“Well, there’s Father Calloway of St. Agnes’s.”
“Showing mortification of the senses?”
I could tell I was dealing with a budding enthusiast here. “Then there’s Angelina Rudd, the manager of the fish ranch out at the ocean, and Curry Cunningham, who runs Crestwood Logging. He’s a member of the town council, the historical society, and an usher at St. Agnes’s.”
“Up-and-coming town leader?”
“The closest thing to a politician Edwina could get.”
“And who else?” he demanded. It didn’t seem to matter that he wouldn’t know any of these local people.
“There’s Edwina Henderson, herself, of course. And”—I couldn’t restrain my grin—“the manager of the town PG and E office, Mr. Bobbs.”
He glanced at my uniform. “Like having your boss eat his words, only better, huh?”
I nodded. At first glance, stoical Mr. Bobbs seemed the
antithesis of Edwina Henderson. In his tan suit, which was the color of the PG&E trucks, he rarely got up from his desk in the windowless cubicle that served as his office; he was as much a fixture there as the tan bookcase or tan chair. But his sedentary nature was not an indication of laziness. Far from it. He husbanded all his energy for his one passion: the management of the Henderson PG&E office. He was installed behind his desk before the first meter reader arrived at seven A.M. and still fixed in his chair when the last of us left. He could recall which meters had been tampered with in 1968 or what the read was for Fischer’s Ice Cream Shop in June 1973. And he knew the Missed Meter Count of every office in Sonoma County, and doggedly struggled to limit his own—or failing that, to shift the guilt from the overall office count to the individual readers, as he would do with me today, when I got back to the office. A clear show of devotion to the company was his acquiescence to representing it at the Slugfest. The wonderfully ludicrous prospect of Mr. Bobbs downing a spoonful of Cream of Slug Soup could never be fully explained to a stranger.
“But why does Edwina Henderson want to have the Slugfest here? Does she have a bizarre sense of humor?” her visitor asked.
“No. It’s odd. She doesn’t have any sense of humor at all. But she wrenched the Slugfest from Guerneville, where it’s always been. She has to have some reason. You can ask her when you see her, but I wouldn’t count on getting an answer. You’ll probably just have to come tonight to find out.”
I gave him directions to Steelhead Lodge, where the Fest would be—clear directions. I was getting to like this man. I wanted him to be there. He would have to wait more than three hours to sate his curiosity, but Steelhead Lodge was on my route. I had saved that read for last. I figured if anyone had an idea why the Slugfest was going to be there it would be Bert Lucci, the manager. I knew what Bert Lucci thought of Edwina Henderson. If there was scandal or subterfuge involved, Bert Lucci would be delighted to tell me.
