Just Past Oysterville: Shoalwater Book One

by Perry P. Perkins

  Then they passed over the bridge and out of sight of the river.

  "The charm of fishing,” Jack quoted, “is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope."

  Cassie nodded; she liked that one, being in pursuit of something elusive, but hopefully attainable, herself.

  A short time later, they pulled off the highway into Gold Beach. Jack drove slowly through town as Cassie read the street directions that he had written on a napkin. Finally, they pulled up to a quaint, shingled building sporting a hanging marquee that read Spring Leaves Bookstore.

  "This is the place," Jack said, pulling into a parking space along the curb, "let's see if anyone’s home!"

  No one was.

  A sign hung in the window telling them the proprietor would be back in an hour. Unfortunately, it didn't tell them what time the sign had been hung in the first place. Jack stood there, looking helplessly up and down the empty street, before sighing and climbing back into the van.

  "I'll tell you what," he said, pulling away from the curb, "how about if I drop you off at the library while I track this guy down and get my books?"

  "The library?"

  "If you're planning to write a book, you had better get familiar with the local libraries. Those are the folks who know what there is to know about these towns and their histories. An hour in the local library can save you weeks’ worth of research on your own."

  "Oh," Cassie replied, "I guess I hadn't thought of that."

  She was beginning to wonder if maybe she really would end up writing a book. Between the stories that Jack had told her, and the information she was likely to gather on the rest of their drive, she might as well. They followed the signs to the Curry Public Library, where Jack swung a quick, and probably illegal, u-turn in the middle of the street to drop her off at the curb.

  "I'll be back in an hour," Jack promised, "whether I find him or not.” Cassie waved him off and followed the winding gravel path to the door.

  *

  As she walked through the double glass doors and into the foyer, Cassie found herself facing a low oak counter. A sign hung above the polished desk, with arrows pointing in various directions. To the left was the nonfiction section, the reference and research areas, and a doorway leading to a small room labeled Videos. To the right of the entryway she could see the fiction and children’s sections, with another doorway marked Research. This caught Cassie's eye and she wandered over, through the hushed aisles between the shelves, to see what the room contained.

  Against the far wall of this much smaller room sat a narrow folding table with two computers. A large humming machine, which Cassie didn't recognize, sat in another corner, and filing cabinets covered the rest of the available wall space. Just as she began to wonder if this might be an office of some kind, the librarian, a young man wearing black slacks and a white dress shirt, walked in to the room and asked if she had any questions.

  He was tall and broad shouldered with closely cropped brown hair. Cassie cast an appreciative eye over him, then noticed the shiny gold ring on his left hand.

  Oh well, she thought with a sigh, I can’t afford to get distractedanyway.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I hope so,” Cassie smiled, “I’m doing some research on my family…” Her voice trailed off, unsure how to finish.

  "Have you worked with the SSDI software before?" he asked.

  "No," she replied, shaking her head, "What is it?"

  "The Social Security Death Index." He replied, "We use it to look up the death certificates of deceased relatives, mostly for genealogy research.” A thought stuck Cassie, and she turned quickly to peer at the glowing computer screen.

  "Can you show me how it works?"

  "Sure thing," he smiled, "have a seat. I'm Jay, nice to meet you.” Cassie introduced herself, then sat and, at Jay's prompting, clicked the button of the mouse resting next to the keyboard. The blank screen disappeared and a window came up offering links to several web pages. Cassie clicked on the one that read SSDIand waited as the page loaded. The screen that appeared read Social Security Death Index Interactive Searchand had boxes labeled for first, last and middle name, as well as social security number. The tag line below the page heading caught her eye.

  "Sixty-seven million records?" she exclaimed in awe.

  "And some change," Jay laughed, "but don't get too hopeful, there are a lot more than sixty-seven million dead people, and more are joining the list everyday!"

  "What a pleasant thought," she grimaced.

  Cassie pulled the marriage certificate from her pocket and had a sudden moment of indecisiveness. What if she put in her father's information and found out that he'd been dead for ten years? What would she do then?As she brought her trembling fingers to the keyboard, Cassie told herself that it was better to know now, than to find out after who knew how many weeks of searching. Quickly, she entered the first and last name, as well as the social security number that was written on the page. She paused, agonizing for a moment, before clicking on the submit button and almost gasped with relief when the page came up that read Nothing Found in bold text.

  "That happens a lot," Jay replied, "you might try taking out the middle name, or the social security number. Sometimes those get entered into the system wrong and mess up the whole process."

  "Another thing you could try," he said, reaching over her for the mouse, "is putting the name in a general search engine, along with something else that might be connected to the person. Like a hobby, job, or school they attended, anything that they might have been associated with. There's a ton of information on the web, you just have to figure out how to find it."

  Jay finished with the mouse as a small bell rung softly from the other room. He stood. "Duty calls!" he said. "Don't give up; I'll come back with some paper and a pen."

  With that, Cassie was alone at the computer. The search engine page came up and Cassie entered her father's name. This resulted in several hundred finds, most of them sites that had both Bill and Beckman on the same page but unconnected.

  Cassie added Oysterville to the search, but the results were just as vague. On a whim, she erased her former entry and typed in William Beckman, Long Beach Washington. This time when the screen flashed that it had completed its search, the first result showed four of the five words in a single sentence.

  “William Beckman of Long Beach.”

  Cassie held her breath as the browser searched and slowly brought up the page. It was a secondary screen for the Long Beach volunteer fire department.

  She quickly scanned the article and found it was about a beach clean-up day following a local storm the year before. There, listed among the volunteers being thanked, was a Bill Beckman, age 51 from Long Beach.

  Cassie stared at the screen for a long time, breathing in the faint dusty aroma of new carpet and old books, her heart beating loud in the tomb-like silence of the library.

  The name mighthave been just an amazing coincidence, but the chances of there being two William Beckmans, of the same age, both from Long Beach, was a fluke that Cassie wasn’t willing to accept. Her father was alive and still in Washington, or had been a little more than a year before. Resting on a low bookshelf was a hulking printer, with dusty cables running to both computers. Cassie took a chance and clicked the print button on the screen.

  The old dot-matrix machine groaned to life and slowly filled two sheets of paper with text, as well as a grainy black and white reproduction of the antique fire engine shown on the webpage. These she folded up with the marriage certificate and stuffed back into her pocket.

  Cassie sat there several minutes longer, staring at the computer, hypnotized by the dark text, the cluster of black dots on the bright screen that spelled out her father’s name.

  Suddenly she was furious, clenching her fists to overcome the raging desire to fling the screen off the table, to smash the printer, to scream until the windows around her shattered
.

  He was alive!

  Living here the whole time, and in eighteen years of his miserable, pathetic life he hadn’t ever bothered to find them, to see her, talk to her, and learn who she was! Suddenly the tiny spark that had been her wish for a relationship was snuffed; she slammed the lid down on her fantasies and nailed it closed with her fury.

  She would find him all right, and when she did, she would tell him exactly what she thought of him and what her mother had thought of him and then shewould leave him! She would walk away and never look back and he could live the rest of his worthless life alone with the knowledge of what he had given up.

  Somewhere, in a far back corner of her mind, Pastor Guy’s voice whispered something about grace and mercy, but Cassie tuned it out, slamming the door savagely on her too-persistent conscience.

  The anger that seethed within her drowned any compassion she might have entertained and she walked stiffly out of the library to wait for Jack, not even hearing when Jay said good-bye.

  The sound of squealing tires brought her head up, and Cassie stiffened in surprise as the tail end of a black pick-up disappeared around the far corner of the building.

  *

  She didn’t have to wait long. When Jack pulled up to the curb, his expression spoke plainly that his mood wasn't much better than hers.

  “So,” he said, as he pulled back onto the road, “who put the burr under your saddle?”

  Cassie came close to telling him the whole story right there, but for some inexplicable reason she could not. Even as her mouth formed the truth, she heard herself lie and say the librarian had been rude. Jack grunted, saying that he had more great news.

  “The pinheadowner of the bookstore gave me the wrong date of delivery,” he glowered, “not only that, he insists that he toldme the books wouldn’t be in until tomorrow. Here’s the topping on the cake though,” Jack said with a growl, “he says he’s lost the invoice, so he can’t be sure the books I need will be in the delivery!”

  Outside the truck, a half-dozen seagulls battled over the tattered remains of some child's discarded hamburger, shrieking and screeching, feinting at one another with their yellow, hooked beaks.

  “What are you going to do?” Cassie asked.

  “Not much choice,” Jack said, with a frustrated sigh, “I have to be here when that delivery arrives. If I’m not, he can scoop the books I need and say that they weren’t in with the rest. He must have found a buyer for them…”

  So saying, Jack muttered an oath that, had she not been in the clutches of such black thoughts herself, would have caused Cassie to blush. Instead, she only nodded, thinking that with that one word, Jack had pretty much summed up the whole world.

  “Now we have to stay and wait,” Jack went on, “I booked us a couple of rooms at a cheapie motel up the highway. It’s on me, since it’s my deal that’s keeping us here.” Jack sighed. "That order is for about six hundred dollars worth of books, except for the two I really need. Those two are worth quite a bit more than that. I told pinheadbefore I left that if I wasn’t there when the boxes were opened, I wasn’t paying." Jack's frown deepened.

  "He squawked a bit, but he doesn't really care. If I don’t pay him for the rest of the books, he’ll still more than break even just selling the two."

  Cassie thought about this for a moment, “How will you know when the books arrive?”

  “That’s the simple part,” he replied, “I’m going to hang around his shop, like the shadow of death, until the delivery arrives. I called UPS, and they estimated delivery between noon and four tomorrow, but I'm going to be there when his doors open and I’m not leaving until my books show up!”

  “You’re going to just sit there all day?” she asked.

  “Well,” Jack smiled sardonically, “It isa bookstore, I’m sure I’ll find something to do with my time. Hey, are you getting hungry?”

  “Starved!” Cassie nodded, her stomach rumbling in agreement.

  “Let’s find someplace that serves seafood around here,” Jack laughed.

  “Yeah,that should be a challenge!” Cassie snorted, “I suppose we’re looking for oysters.”

  Jack looked shocked. “What else is there?” he asked.

  Chapter Nine

  They parked the van in front of a sprawling, single level eatery called The Sand Dollar Inn. Once seated near the door of the bustling little café, they sipped from their water glasses, waiting for menus to arrive.

  "Oh my gosh!" Cassie exclaimed, "I almost forgot!"

  "What's that?" Jack replied.

  Cassie told him about the seeing the black truck with the tinted windows, pulling out of the library, and the same black truck in the parking lot of the Pismo Bowl.

  "In fact," she went on, "wasn't there a black pickup at that rest area we camped at the first night?"

  "I think there was," Jack said. He was scowling by now, his fingers drumming the table in nervous concern.

  "Do you think," Cassie asked, "that it's the guy from the truck stop?"

  "Mr. Wexler from Phoenix?" Jack asked, "Could be, I suppose. It would be a long way to come for a little payback. Besides, if he wanted to jump us, he's had plenty of chances."

  Cassie shuddered at the memory of the malodorous, tattooed truck driver. "What if he’s following us to find out where we live?"

  "Or waiting to see where I drop you off…" Jack muttered absently, and then cursed himself under his breath as Cassie's face drained of color and her hands began to shake.

  "Oh, Cassie," he said, half rising from his seat, "I'm sorry, that was a stupid thing to say!" Jack's face grew as red as Cassie's was white, and he chewed his lip in frustration at his offhand comment.

  "Don't worry," he assured her, "we'll get to the bottom of this before I drop you off anywhere."

  "It's…it's okay," Cassie whispered, her heart pounding madly against her ribs. Suddenly the room seemed to be filled with the acrid stink of stale smoke.

  Looking around, Jack noticed the pay phone in the entryway, just behind Cassie's seat.

  "Hang on a second," he said, "I'm going to make a quick phone call. I'll be right behind you.” Jack hurried around to the back of the booth and Cassie heard the sound of change dropping.

  *

  Sheriff Bryan Hallworth had just sat down at his desk, balancing a cup of black coffee and a bran muffin in one hand and a thick sheaf of Teletype pages in the other. For all the jokes about cops and doughnuts, Long Beach’s head of law enforcement liked to keep himself in top condition. Hallworth prided himself on wearing the same size jeans that he had the day he graduated from college. He’d heard too many stories about potbellied cops ending up face down on the sidewalk after vapor-locking in the middle of a chase.

  No thank you.

  Not much of that kind of thing in a small town like Long Beach.

  Still, Sheriff Hallworth might not be able to stop a bullet, if one should have his name on it, but he’d be darned if he were going to give some perp the pleasure of watching him buy the farm just because he couldn’t keep his pipes clean.

  So, bran muffins and black coffee, as well as five mornings a week at the gym, kept him in what his wife referred to as fighting form.

  Still, Hallworth didn’t try to fool himself, the bran muffins tasted like cardboard, fiber or no fiber.

  He was on his second bite and scanning his third APB when Lisa, who had morning desk duty, poked her head around his office door and rapped shave-and-a-haircut on the glass.

  “Call on line two, boss,” she murmured as he looked up, “it’s Jack Leland for you.”

  Sheriff Hallworth washed down his doughy lump of cardboard with a bitter swig of coffee and nodded, “Got it.”

  Punching line two and the speakerphone button at the same time, he leaned back his chair, his eyes never leaving his paperwork.

  “Hey Jack,” he said. “What the heck can I do you for?”

  "Bry?” Jack’s voice sounded muffled and drown in static.


  Must be at a payphone, Hallworth thought, as Jack continued, “Hey, how's it going?”

  “Oh, same old thing,” the Sheriff replied, “truth, justice and the American way. How are you?”

  “Doing good,” Jack said.

  “Hey, we missed you at the tournament last weekend, it was quite a show.”

  “Really, how'd you do?”

  “Not bad,” Hallworth replied, “we took second. Chief Stuckey bowled like a madman and those turkeys at the fire department walked away with first but, like I told them, some of us have real work to do and can’t practice all the time!”

  “Nice!” Jack laughed, then his voice sobered and the Sheriff reached for a pen out of unconscious habit.

  “Hey, I need a favor Bry, fella by the name of Mark Wexler, Phoenix. I’d like to know a little more about him.”

  “Wexler, got it,” Hallworth muttered, scribbling the name, “anything more?”

  “Yeah, I have his license right here.”

  Sheriff Hallworth sighed. “Do I want to know why you have this man’s driver’s license, Jack?”

  “No, probably not," Jack grimaced as he rattled off the number, “but I’ll tell you anyway. A friend of mine had a little altercation with this guy. He wanted to give her a ride and wouldn't take no for an answer--”

  “--And, I take it, you convinced him otherwise?” Hallworth finished dryly.

  “Never mind that,” Jack growled, “no one got hurt, no laws got broken. Well, okay, maybe I mugged the guy a little, but that’s all!”