A Lighthouse for the Lonely Heart: An Oregon Coast Mystery (Garrison Gage Series Book 5)

by Scott William Carter

  "Yeah, it seems we had a few things in common. Did he say why he got a dog?"

  "No, not exactly, but I assume it was for the same reason most people want dogs. For companionship."

  "He didn't say he was planning on giving it to someone else?"

  "No. No, in fact, I got the sense he was planning on working with her quite a bit. He really warmed up talking about it. I even remember something about the name, something about luck."

  "Lady Luck?"

  "Right! That was it. He said he was naming her Lady Luck because she was turning his luck around. He said it really helped him, having someone who needed him so he didn't just sit around thinking about his own problems. Hmm. I forgot that until just now. I guess if I'd known he was feeling blue, I might have seen that as a warning sign."

  "Don't beat yourself up, Al. This came as a shock to everybody. Did he say anything else about his life? Anything at all?"

  "No. As I said, he really did keep to himself."

  "Okay. One more thing. Do you still have typewriters here people can use?"

  "What? Oh, yes, we just have one in the back, by the copier. Why?"

  "Do you know if Ed ever used it?"

  "Um … Now that you mention it, I do remember him asking about it, maybe a year … no, I'd say six months ago, whether it was self-service or not. I don't know if he used it, or how much, because it's in the back and none of us might know unless there's a problem. You know, ink ribbon needing replacing, that sort of thing. Why, is it important? We could ask the clerks who work at the front desk, but they might not—"

  "Could I see it?"

  "Well, of course."

  Al led him through the stacks, past a reading area surrounded by periodicals, to a small room next to the bathrooms and the emergency staircase. Through the window in the door, Gage saw a copier, a paper cutter, some staplers, and other supplies, as well as a metal desk with an electric typewriter on it. Could it be the same one?

  The only thing adorning the off-white walls was an analog clock, big black numbers on a white background. Even with the door open, the thick walls muted all the noise of the outside world, leaving only the steady droning of the air conditioning from the vent on the ceiling. While Al talked about how often the poor copier broke on them, Gage retrieved a discarded sheet from the recycling bin and loaded it into the typewriter.

  He typed a few sentences about the quick brown fox, surprised he still remembered it from his one typing class back in high school. When he typed the lowercase t's, and saw that the tops were chopped off, his heart began to race.

  "It's the same," Gage said.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Ed used this typewriter. I'm sure of it."

  "Oh. How do you know?"

  "Well … probably best I don't get into that yet. So there's no log for this typewriter? No way of knowing who used it or when?"

  "I'm afraid not."

  "Security cameras? Here or up front?"

  "Oh, heavens no. This is a library, a bastion of intellectual freedom. We would never invade on people's privacy in such a manner. There was talk of putting some in after 9/11, but I firmly rebuffed—"

  "Would you do me a favor and ask your staff if any of them remember Ed being in here and when that might have been?"

  Al said he'd be glad to do so, even though he doubted they would remember any better than him. Gage pulled out the paper, folded it, and slipped it into the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He had to accept the possibility that Ed really had committed suicide. The doctor's comment, the dog that was recently acquired … maybe none of it meant anything.

  Yet it was one thing for Ed to write his will six months ago, but why write the note to Nora and then sit on it? It could have been written earlier, but it felt as if it had been written more recently.

  I am writing you now becaus I dont havemuch time …

  Story time had ended and the lobby was full of parents and children streaming out the door. Gage and Al asked the clerk on duty if she remembered Ed using the typewriter—she remembered who he was, after a brief description—but she said she couldn't say for sure. Gage thanked her, left Alex's phone number for Al, and turned to go.

  "Oh," Al said, "I just remembered. That particular typewriter has only been there a month. I don't know if that's important or not."

  Gage stopped. He felt one of those random shooting pains in his knee and had to lean hard on his cane.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Yes. The other one's not working right. This is a spare. I swapped them a month ago. We used to have two in the room, but we put the other one in the back when we got the copier fifteen, twenty years ago. It's exactly like this one, though."

  "Do you still have it?"

  "Yes. I'm planning on getting it repaired, but I was putting it off until—"

  "Can I see it?"

  "Um, well, I suppose. It's in the back, I think."

  "I'd really appreciate it."

  His pulse quickening, Gage followed Al into the stacks, this time to a door marked STAFF ONLY. Al unlocked the door and led Gage past his own office, which was cluttered with so many books that his desk was invisible, through an open area loaded with worktables, a couple of humming computers, and one gray-haired old lady affixing a Mylar jacket cover to a book. Al asked her where the other typewriter was, and she said it was in the broom closet. The closet was in a nook around the corner, and there, past a mop bucket and on a metal shelf next to cleaning supplies, was the typewriter.

  "What's wrong with it?" Gage asked.

  "I don't know exactly. The letters keep repeating. You hit A or B, and you get a dozen of them. So it's—"

  "Can I try it?"

  "Well, I guess."

  "It'd be very helpful."

  "All right. I guess we can carry—"

  "No, there's an outlet right here. It'll just take a second."

  Gage plugged the typewriter into the outlet next to the door, the cord just reaching. The machine whirred to life. He took out the folded sheet of paper from his inside pocket, smoothed it out, and placed it in the slot. He put his hands on the keys, then paused, thinking about what this might mean. The will had been dated six months ago, and it, too, had chopped-off t's. If this was the typewriter that had been used, it should have the same issue. If it didn't have that problem, then the will had been written more recently and backdated. Why would Ed backdate his own will? That didn't make any sense.

  Gage only needed to type one letter, but the machine's particular malfunction gave him a whole slew of them.

  ttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

  Perfect little t's, all the way across.

  Chapter 15

  Gage brooded in his van. He was good at brooding, a champion brooder, if there was such a thing, and usually his brooding could help him see through just about any situation, no matter how messy, but this bit with the typewriter really had his mind spinning. Why would Ed backdate his own will? Without a notary and the proper witnesses, it was already a pretty shaky legal document, and anything that put the will in a suspicious light would only make matters worse. The logical conclusion was that someone else had written the will and wanted to make it seem like it had been around a while.

  But who? And why?

  Outside, the gray sky had deepened into a shade of charcoal. Most of the cars lurching along the highway had turned on their headlights, glowing a soft, gauzy yellow. The wind tossed a Jaybee's bag across the parking lot, and he felt the coolness sneaking its way through the many cracks in his van. He felt cold. His knee ached. Did he need all this nonsense? He could be at home in his armchair, perusing a National Geographic and nursing a glass of bourbon.

  Alone. Just like Ed Boone had been.

  Gage shook his head, trying to ward off the lethargy threatening to overtake him, a constant danger even in his early days as a private investigator. He never let it win, but it was always there, and he knew full well that the indomitable persistence he was known for was in many ways the
end result of his constant need to prove to himself that his frequent stupors of passiveness couldn't beat him. Focus, Gage. If someone else wrote the will, what was the motivation? The money, if there was any, had been left to the library, and no matter how much Gage tried to see Albert Bernard, librarian extraordinaire, as a possible murder suspect, his mind just wouldn't go there.

  Stranger things had happened, though. Maybe he'd have to dig into Al's life a little more.

  But his gut told him there was still something he was missing. He was at the point where he needed to tell Nora about all of this, that she needed to know that her father, or possible father, may have been murdered.

  Soon. Tonight, in fact. But there was still some day left, and people who'd known Ed and might have information that could make sense of the situation.

  Keeping his hand on his fedora to prevent it from blowing off in a sudden gust, Gage ventured back into the lobby of the building. It was one of the few places in town that still had a public phone. He'd hoped for a phone book, or what was left of a phone book these days, but no luck on that score. He dropped in a quarter and called Books and Oddities. It rang ten times before Alex picked up.

  After quickly catching up Alex on what he'd discovered, Gage asked if he could look up Ronnie Meyer, the waitress who'd worked for Ed, and locate an address.

  "Let me get this straight," Alex said. "You're one flight of stairs from library computers that can give you free access to the Internet but you called me instead?"

  "I don't know how to use all that fancy Google stuff."

  "Bullshit. I've seen you do it hundreds of times. You're not nearly the curmudgeon you make yourself out to be."

  "My knee's acting up."

  "What's wrong with the elevator?"

  "It's broken."

  "Liar. Hold on two minutes. Somebody needs help in the children's section, then I'll do that fancy Google stuff for you, since you're too lazy to do it yourself."

  It was more than two minutes. It was more like ten, and Gage was fairly certain, judging by the impatience in Alex's voice, that the wait had been deliberate. Alex had found an obituary in the Bugle. Ronnie had died two years ago. Gage asked him to look up the son, Howard or Howie Meyer, telling him he might be a local accountant or lawyer. This time Alex made him wait so long that Gage had to put in another quarter.

  "Insurance, actually," Alex said when he returned. "Assuming it's the same guy. Howard F. Meyer, Northstar Insurance. I suppose you want the address?"

  "If it wouldn't be too much trouble, my good man."

  "And what if it was too much trouble?"

  "Well, I'd want it anyway."

  "Uh huh. I expect donuts on my counter tomorrow."

  Gage jotted down the address. The street wasn't far away, on the north end of town near the casino. The clock hanging on the wall in the lobby showed that it was twenty to five o'clock. Maybe he could catch Howard F. Meyer before he left for the day.

  Traffic on Highway 101 had picked up a little, what amounted to rush hour in Barnacle Bluffs, and it took him a few extra minutes to reach the two-story office complex with the brown shake siding. The Golden Eagle Casino, a massive rectangular building with a big amphitheater dome on the end, was across the street. Beyond the casino and the huge swath of parking lot that surrounded it, the ocean extended dark and turbulent to the west under an equally dark and turbulent sky. A storm was definitely approaching. He wasn't lying when he'd told Alex his knee was hurting; it was always worse before a storm.

  He found Northstar Insurance in the back of the building, past a central courtyard and up an outdoor flight of wooden steps. Next to it was the Sand and Stars Yoga Center, and through the partially closed blinds in the front window he saw a dozen women stretched out on mats. A young couple with a baby, both dressed in black with tattoos up and down their arms, emerged from the insurance office just as Gage reached the door.

  He held it open for them. Another man, dressed in a wrinkled white shirt and thin red tie, followed them to the doorway.

  "Come see me again when you'd like to start a life insurance policy on little Benjy," he said. "It's a good deal at his age."

  They murmured their thanks. The man, tall and pale, with a thick black mustache and a thick, unruly head of equally black hair above a wide forehead, had the kind of face that reminded Gage of Edgar Allan Poe, though heavier and with something of a double chin. But he had the same moody, dour face, everything sagging, the dark eyebrows, the mustache, the cheeks. Probably forty, maybe a few years older. He may have been smiling when he watched the young couple go, and smiling when he turned to regard Gage, but some faces were built for smiles, and his wasn't. He was well practiced, though, so the smile didn't seem entirely unnatural.

  "You look familiar," the man said. His eyes, as piercing and dark as his hair, appeared wary.

  "I do?"

  "Yes, give me a second. I'm usually good with faces. Were you a guest speaker at the Lions Club?"

  "Not likely. My name's Garrison Gage. I was wondering if I could have a few minutes of your time. That's if you're Howard Meyer?"

  "Ah! The detective. I've seen your picture in the paper. Yes, sure, but call me Howie. Everyone does."

  He motioned for Gage to accompany him. Stepping inside, Gage caught a whiff of Howie's cologne, some peculiar combination of citrus and leather. The office was a tiny affair, a reception area with an unoccupied maple desk, a couple of black plastic chairs, and an end table displaying a dozen fanned-out magazines. Beyond, an open door led to an office. The silver nameplate by the door read HOWARD F. MEYER. Northstar Insurance posters adorned the walls, each picturing different happy families doing the things that happy families supposedly did—having a barbecue, washing their dog in the front lawn, loading a cargo rack above a minivan. Nowhere did Gage see a grumpy guy with a gimpy leg drinking bourbon in his recliner. Not a big target market, apparently.

  There was a cardboard box on the chair behind the reception desk, loaded with a potted cactus, some picture frames, and other odds and ends. Howie saw Gage looking at it.

  "I had to let Kim go last week, sadly," he said. "Things have been tighter this year than last. She was pretty upset. I thought she'd be back to get her things, but she hasn't."

  "I'm sorry to hear that," Gage said.

  Howie shrugged. He was pear-shaped, with an ample gut, and he didn't have much in the way of shoulders, so his shrug came off like a turtle retracting his head into a shell. "Happens," he said. "I've survived leaner times, though the divorce really wiped me out. But what am I saying? Too much, like usual. Maybe if I kept my mouth shut I'd sell more policies, huh? Who wants an insurance agent who seems like he's on the verge of bankruptcy? Always my problem, saying too much. I like to talk. What can I help you with? That is, if there's still any hope I can get your business."

  If the man had the face of Edgar Allan Poe, he certainly didn't act like him. It was an odd mix, that naturally frowning countenance with his gregarious demeanor. "Well, I'm not here for insurance, sorry to say," Gage said. "I wasn't to begin with, though, so you didn't lose anything."

  "Car? Home? Life? Nothing you might need?"

  "I'm actually here to talk to you about Ed Boone. Do you remember him?"

  The man's brow furrowed. He waved for Gage to follow him into the tiny office. When Gage sat in the plastic office chairs across from a mahogany desk far too big for the room, the back of his chair was against the wall and his knees brushed the end of the desk. Howie squeezed around the side of the desk into the high-backed leather chair, also barely fitting into the space. Papers, brochures, and folders covered the desk. The two computer monitors behind him were open to different Northstar Insurance pages, each filled with charts and rows of tiny numbers. Awards and certificates filled the walls.

  "Ed Boone," Howie murmured to himself. "Ed, Ed … Oh yeah! Uncle Ed!"

  "Uncle Ed?"

  "That's what my mom had me call him. He owned Ed's Diner. Or what was Ed's Din
er, back in the day, when Mom worked there. Funny how even now I never really thought of him as Ed Boone. If you'd said Uncle Ed, I would have known who you were talking about right away. Why are you asking about him?"

  Gage used the usual cover story, about writing Barnacle Bluffs Blues: The Secret Stories of a Small Coastal Town, and how Ed's diner was going to figure prominently. He said a few people at the diner remembered Ronnie and Ed being good friends. When Gage finished by telling Howie about Ed's suicide at Heceta Head, Howie stared at Gage with bewilderment.

  "That was him?" he said. "Oh man, I'm sorry to hear that. I mean, I haven't had any contact with him in ages. Well, I saw him at Mom's funeral a couple years ago, but that was all kind of a blur. I don't think we even spoke. Suicide. Man."

  "Can you tell me anything about him? You know, from when you were a kid?"

  Howie rubbed his forehead. "Well, that was a long time ago. Let's see. Well, she always liked working for Uncle Ed, that was for sure. I think she was pretty sweet on him. Would have wanted more than friendship, know what I mean? She'd kill me if she knew I was talking this way, but I guess it doesn't matter now, both of them gone. But she definitely had a crush on him."

  "So they didn't, you know …"

  "No, no. I think he saw her more as a little sister. He was real nice to Mom. He'd dropped her off when her car was broken, which it usually was, and he'd stay for dinner. Come over to fix our toilet when the landlord wouldn't do anything. Move furniture. Anything we needed. Even helped me with math." Howie laughed. "A lot more than my own father ever did. He'd show up when he was on leave and spend most of his time drinking and yelling at Mom. Until he shacked up with that Filipino woman in Fresno. Then we didn't see him at all."

  "Sorry to hear that," Gage said.

  Howie shrugged his nonexistent shoulders. "I gotta tell you, back then I wished Ed was my real father. And I liked hanging out at the diner. It's interesting, thinking about it now." He nodded, smiling to himself, then his eyes turned sad. "But suicide? I wish I'd reached out to him, I guess. Kind of wrapped up in my own problems, you know? Why'd he kill himself?"