The Gray and Guilty Sea

by Scott William Carter

  She nodded. "Yeah. She's been coming for a while. Mr. Gage? I'm worried about her. She didn't seem like herself at all."

  "Did she tell you what happened yesterday?"

  Angie looked perplexed. "Something happened?"

  When Gage told her about Mattie dying, Angie covered her mouth with her hands, and then she started babbling that she didn't know, that she had no idea, that she wouldn't have let Zoe leave if she had the slightest inkling that something awful like that had happened. Of course, being someone himself who generally liked to deal with his grief in solitude, Gage knew that leaving was the whole point.

  He gave her Carmen's cell number and told her to call if Zoe showed up again. Then he returned to Mattie's place, but he didn't find anything there but a lot of lonely cats in a quiet house that made his chest tighten just walking through it. Dust floated in the stale air. He checked to make sure the cats had food and water, but it was obvious that Zoe had already taken care of that; there were four bowls of cat food and three bowls of water in the kitchen.

  Gage felt like a bastard. Not once had the cats occurred to him the previous day. If he couldn't even remember to feed a bunch of cats, how could he look after a kid?

  He crossed the highway to see if she was down at the beach, but she wasn't. Winded, sweaty, and his knee aching, he returned to his own house to shower and change clothes. He thought about driving around town to look for her, but where would he go? That's when it occurred to him how little he knew Mattie's granddaughter. He never would have guessed in a million years that she had even glanced at a Bible, or helped a girl like Angie with her algebra.

  He didn't know her at all.

  Chapter 23

  Gage had been on hundreds of stakeouts in his life. When he was starting out with his uncle, that was practically all he'd done that first year. Waiting for the husband to meet up with the girlfriend. Waiting for the woman in the neck brace to show up for her tennis lessons. Waiting for the guy that was dipping into the company safe to show up at two in the morning. That was probably why he hated stakeouts so much now. They all had one thing in common. There was a lot of time spent doing absolutely nothing.

  With a light drizzle streaking his kitchen window, and a cup of coffee steaming on the table next to him, he pulled out a map of Barnacle Bluffs and located exactly where Carmen had said the Hamlin estate was. He decided his best bet was to park at the public beach access a few blocks away, then set out into the woods that surrounded their estate and spilled into the Inn at Sapphire Head property. It was like the tip of the forest from the other side of the highway, the one near where Percy Quinn lived, formed a triangle whose top point was the Inn and the Hamlin estate.

  There was so much on his mind that it was hard to concentrate. There was Zoe, missing. There was Mattie's impending cremation, and of course all the things that followed. The house and all those belongings. The cats. There was Carmen, lovely Carmen, and the emotional soup that just thinking about her stirred up inside him. He wanted to put Abby Heddle aside for a little while just to catch his breath, to get some of the pieces of his own life in order, but he didn't have that option. This whole line of thinking, of Nathan Hamlin being the killer, may have been totally wrong. A dead end.

  But what if it wasn't?

  What if he had other girls right now?

  It was that thought that allowed him to push all of his other troubles out of his mind, to burrow into this one thing. He thought about that night two weeks ago when he found Abby Heddle on the beach, and it made him angry. It was a good anger, the kind he could use.

  The drizzle turned into a downpour, but even that didn't deter him. In fact, he thought it was a good thing for a stakeout, that it might make it harder for Nathan to see him or hear him in the crackle of the rain and the dreary gray that thickened the air.

  He put on a pair of boots and his heavy leather jacket. He slipped his miniature binoculars into his side pocket. He loaded up his Beretta and tucked it inside his jacket, the weight of it like a rock against his heart. He had a feeling it might come in handy. He hoped it wouldn't, but there were lots of times when that feeling had turned out correct.

  The rain fell in torrents, a blustery wind shoving the van first one way then the other. It came down so fiercely that traffic slowed, the passing cars a blur of headlights, streaks of metal and black rubber. The windshield wipers screamed back and forth across the windshield and did little good; he might as well have been driving with them off. When he reached the public beach access, his was the only vehicle in the ten-space parking lot. Clouds of mist rolled over the embankment and swept over the asphalt.

  He couldn't see the ocean. It was all one gray smear. The pines towered over the lot, and marked the beginnings of the forest that contained both the Inn and the Hamlin estate, bowed under the cascade of gusts that rose off the ocean. Climbing out of the car, he had to push hard against the door, and when he did his cane slipped out and skittered across the parking lot.

  He lumbered after it, gimpy on one leg, feeling like a fool for chasing this stupid little stick that meant so much to him. He hated that damn stick.

  Finally, he got hold of it. Already he was winded, pant legs soaked from the onslaught, sweaty under the brim of his fedora. Looking up the sandy embankment that led into the Douglas firs and the live oaks, holding his hat on his head to keep it from sailing away, he wondered just why, exactly, he was here. He'd come to Oregon to get away from all of this. He hadn't wanted to find that damn girl on the beach. He wanted to be back home, in his easy chair with his leg up on the ottoman, a crossword in his lap, no troubles. He looked up at that embankment, turning his face into the rain and wind, then gritted his teeth and started up.

  The trouble with having no troubles, he'd learned, was that if you didn't have them, you didn't have anything.

  No troubles, no life.

  It took excruciating effort to get into the trees, his boots finding no purchase in the damp sand, his cane a useless extremity he was forced to carry. He used the ivy at the top to pull himself under the lower leafy branches of the pines so that he was at least partially out of the storm. A bit more effort and then he was in the woods, where the dark canopy shielded him from most of the rain and the wind.

  Water ran down his face in rivulets. His fedora was a soaked sponge, letting the rain straight through. His hands felt cold and numb. The bed of twigs and leaves felt as soft as a plush mattress. After studying the map, he had a good sense of where both the Inn and the Hamlin estate were, but once in the half-light of the trees, fully surrounded by forest, it was disorienting. Only the ocean and its ever present rumble, off to his right, helped keep him moving in the right direction.

  The place smelled alive, with rich, wet earth, fresh pine, and thick ferns. It was only a few minutes before he came to a break in the trees, and then he saw it there through the gaps in the branches, a long winding road that lead up to a castle overlooking the ocean, the road bordered on both sides by this private little forest.

  A castle was the only way to describe it, a sprawling stone building as big as some of the hotels, with three turrets, a five-bay garage, and a gated circular drive that was bigger than some of the cul-de-sacs not far from where Gage lived. There was no reason to go up that road except to the castle, so he was glad he'd parked where he had. His only hope was at least partially preserving the element of surprise.

  He found a place to hide behind a stump overwhelmed with ivy, where the hedge of ferns and the overhang of the fir trees would make it difficult to see him from the castle. He knelt in the damp earth, wincing at the sharp stab in his knee. The mud seeped through his clothes, cold against his flesh. It didn't matter. He was so wet now, even under all his layers, that getting a little wetter wouldn't make a difference.

  The little binoculars steamed up as soon as he took them out of his coat, so he used his finger to wipe the lenses. All of the windows of the castle were dark. He swept the binoculars across them several times,
hoping to see some activity, but there was nothing.

  Maybe this was all a waste of time. Maybe the kid was just at the movies, the dad was at work, and Gage was watching an empty house for no reason at all. Getting wet. Getting cold. Feeling more miserable by the second. This was the real life of the private investigator, lots of hunches that led nowhere, lots of misery that you brought onto yourself. And for what? To help someone you didn't even know. In this case, it was even worse. He was trying to help someone who was dead. Even now, he wasn't really doing this for Becky Larson. He was doing this for Abigail Heddle.

  Or maybe not.

  Maybe he was just doing this for himself, to see what it felt like to be somewhat human again.

  Time passed. How much time he didn't know and he didn't care. He could have looked at his watch, but what difference would it make? He would wait there until something happened or until dusk, when he'd have to start back for his car or risk being forced to walk along the road. At some point, as strange as it was out in the woods in the middle of a fierce storm, the wind pushing against him, big raindrops spitting against the brim of his hat and the arms of his jacket, he started to feel tired. Exhausted. He listened to the wind moaning through the trees, the rhythm of the falling rain, one curtain of water dropping after another. Telling himself he was going to just rest for a moment, he closed his eyes. He closed his eyes and let himself drift away.

  "He has other girls."

  His eyes snapped open, his heart pounding. It was Janet's voice, a whisper mixed in with the wind and the rain. He'd been sure of it. Even stranger, what he'd thought was only a few seconds must have been much longer, because the daylight had waned. It was not quite dusk, but the shadows around him were deeper, the sky grayer. The twin street lamps standing sentry at the gate had flicked on, yellow bubbles glowing in the mist.

  The house was still dark. The rain still fell.

  He looked about him, peering into the trees. Was someone there? It was all darkness and shadows, slants of limbs and broken shapes. The mind saw what the mind wanted to see. A bulging stump could have been a hunching person. A leafless branch was an outstretched hand. Everything looked like a person and nothing looked like a person. But somebody was whispering. Somebody was whispering his name, over and over, a sound just barely above the kiss of the wind.

  "Janet?" he said.

  There was no reply. After a while, he didn't hear his name any more. He shivered. He was struck with a morbid thought, one that hadn't occurred to him in years but used to come to him all the time. He thought about Janet, down in her casket, under all that wood and dirt and grass. He thought about her pounding on the roof of the coffin, wanting to get out. She was still alive down there. She needed him.

  Back then, he'd often found himself halfway to the graveyard, a shovel in his truck, before he realized what he was doing.

  It was approaching the time when he'd have to head back through the forest. He felt depressed at the way things had panned out. Somehow, magically, he thought this was it, that this was the moment when the case would crack open and all the answers would be revealed. Murderer confesses. Innocents are spared. Garrison Gage saves the day. He should have known it wouldn't be that easy, that more misery awaited him.

  Then he heard the groan of an engine coming up the road.

  He heard the swish of tires on the pavement. He climbed to his feet and eased himself back into the deeper shadows just as he saw the flash of headlights on the trees. A black Honda SUV rolled past, stopped at the gates until they opened, then drove into one of the garages.

  Gage trained his binoculars on the garage. He got a glimpse of Nathan Hamlin's jeans and boot, stepping out of the Honda, before the door came down.

  Bingo.

  The adrenaline had Gage fully awake now, his pulse racing, all his senses engaged. He watched the windows, waiting for the lights. First one downstairs light came on, then another. Then those went off and for a long time the whole castle was dark again. Had the kid already gone to bed at four-thirty in the afternoon? He'd no sooner thought this than a light came on in one of the turrets, illuminating the narrow rectangular windows that surrounded the turret, one after another, a foot apart.

  As soon as Gage pointed his binoculars at the windows, he saw Nathan's face, looking right at him.

  It was so unexpected that he actually jerked back in surprise. He dropped the binoculars, and then of course he saw the face in the window as only a pink smudge inside the glass, and realized how unlikely it would be for Nathan to see Gage out here, tucked into the forest, with the light failing. Impossible. He raised the binoculars and looked again, but by then the kid had disappeared.

  Scanning the other windows, Gage saw him, sitting in the middle of the room. He sat in profile, looking at something, and Gage couldn't figure out what he was doing until a hand came up, armed with a paintbrush. Of course. His hunch had been proven right.

  Still, was he just sitting here watching some kid paint?

  Where was that going to lead him?

  The turret went dark, not a light on anywhere in the house. Maybe the kid was going out, another movie, another night on the town. The seconds ticked by and nothing happened. Off to bed then? Gage wondered. Then he saw something, a flicker of movement on the side of the house, down beneath the turret where the kid had been painting a few minutes earlier. It was a black shape moving from the turret into the cover of the trees.

  He only saw it for a second, but it was unmistakably a human shape. If he hadn't been watching attentively, he would have missed it.

  He picked up his binoculars and pointed it there, just catching the kid walking south before he vanished into the shadows. Dressed in dark sweatpants, a hooded black pull-over, and black boots, he was practically invisible.

  Now the hard part—following. Gage surged to his feet, but he did so too fast and his knee buckled, sending him back down, landing hard on his palms. He rose again, hands coated with cold mud, and started around the perimeter, toward the castle and the turret. It was too risky to go across the road, too easy to be seen by someone watching from the forest.

  Ferns whipped at his pant legs. With the light fading, he had a hard time seeing the roots buried in the leaves, and they grabbed at his boots. He had to move fast. From where they'd started this race, the kid had a good five-minute lead on him. Hurry now, hurry. Get that old body moving, Gage. In the darkest shadows, he used his cane like a blind man's walking stick, trying to ward off low-lying adversaries.

  When he reached the castle, there was a supporting stone wall that held back the hill. The wall wrapped around the ocean side, and Gage followed it, sliding his free hand along the rough surface, boots slipping in the sand. Exposed as he was, the rain and the wind whipped at his face. The ocean, muted behind that wall, now roared in his ears. He squinted into the haze and saw the ocean swells a dozen yards away under a low sky. The embankment dropped a few feet to his right, down to the boulders and the driftwood where the night surf sometimes reached.

  It took an eternity to round the castle to the other side, where the forest started up again. Precious minutes lost. He really had to hustle now. Under the cover of the trees, the light seeped away again; it seemed darker than before. His heart thundered in his chest, his pulse loud in his ears. Under his jacket, his shirt felt like wet tissue stuck to his body.

  He had to be careful not to be too loud, though it was almost impossible as he stumbled and flailed his way over vines and fallen tree limbs. He was grateful for the storm. If not for that, the kid surely would have heard him.

  Using the tree trunks as cover, he moved from one to the other as fast he could. After a few minutes, he finally saw the kid ahead, a dark, loping shape barely distinguishable from the tree trunks. He wasn't moving too fast, thankfully, though Gage still had to push himself. His knee felt like a glass vase which had shattered and been stuck back together with gum; the pain seared up his leg and into his spine.

  Darkness was closing around
him like a fist, squeezing the last bits of daylight out of the forest. Where was this kid going? It wouldn't be long before they reached the golf courses that bordered the Inn at Sapphire Head.

  That's when the kid veered to the left. At first Gage didn't notice, and he continued forward, momentarily losing sight of his target. Then he saw the dark shape float to the left, a column moving among columns. Gage's trajectory had moved him temporarily closer, more in the kid's line of sight, so Gage ducked behind the thickest tree trunk near him.

  He waited a beat, then peered around the trunk. The kid's shape was still moving.

  Off in pursuit again, he followed in the kid's wake. They were getting farther from the ocean, the moaning wind drowning out the ocean waves. He passed under an opening in the trees and the rain crackled on the ferns and beat against his fedora. They walked for several minutes, two shadows in a world of shadows, going deeper into the forest.

  Then a light flashed up ahead, a starburst that quickly went dark. Gage fell to a crouch.

  A flashlight. It had to be. He started edging forward, using his cane as little as possible, relying on brute strength to keep his knee from letting go on him. He lurched from one trunk to another.

  A jangle of keys made him seize up again, waiting. He heard a door creak open, slam shut. Moving again, Gage saw what was emerging from the gloom—a concrete structure, a garden house or a power shed of some kind, fully tucked under the protective embrace of the forest.

  Gage hesitated, deciding what to do. He could go back and get help, bring the police in on this, but he'd have egg on his face if he was wrong. No, he needed a little more proof that his hunch was right. If he got closer, maybe he could see or hear something that would give him that little extra bit of evidence.

  He crept forward. The structure took on more definition. He saw a green metal roof, mossy stone walls, a rusty iron door. He heard the crackle of the rain on the roof. The structure was bigger than he'd thought at first, a cottage in the woods with a half a dozen barred windows. He heard something else, too—the murmur of a voice. Or was it voices? He moved closer.