Guy shook his head and motioned at the empty stool beside him. “Let me buy you a drink while you wait.”
“Why not?” She slipped onto the stool, caught the bartender’s eye. He poured a glass of wine and set it in front of her. “Town’s kind of crazy tonight,” she commented. “Big fight going down in the parking lot at the Oceanside when I drove by. Sheriff’s department’s called in the CHP to help out.”
“People are having a pretty extreme reaction to a stranger’s murder.”
“You wouldn’t think it was if you lived here.”
“No? Why not?”
She shrugged, making wet circles with her glass on the lacquered surface of the bar.
“What is it like to live here?”
“Terrible. You’ve got all these great towns on the coast — nice restaurants, shops, things to do, tourist bucks pouring in — and then there’s Signal Port. Even quiet places like Oilville and Deer Harbor have something going for them. At least folks there aren’t scared to death of their own neighbors.”
“And here they are? Why?”
She flashed him a scornful look. “Come on, Mr. Newberry. Hugh Dawson over at the Sea Stacks has been telling anybody who’ll listen about you being a reporter who’s writing a book on the Cascada Canyon murders. If you want to know anything, ask me. But I’m warning you — I was just a kid when they happened, so you probably know more about them than I do. If those files Hugh claims you’ve got are as thick as he says.”
So his cover was completely blown. Well, it had to happen sooner or later. And while it could cause problems, ultimately it would work to his advantage if he could develop contacts like Lily. Of course, he was going to be in big trouble with Rhoda Swift...
“Mr. Newberry,” Lily said, “if you knew something about a crime, something that might help the cops, would you go to them and tell them, even if it meant getting you and somebody you cared about in a lot of trouble?”
He studied her. She was looking down into her glass, a thick lock of hair that had escaped the ponytail screening her face. “That would depend on the crime. And the trouble.”
“Like I said, a lot of trouble.”
“I take it we’re talking about the murder of that woman.”
She nodded. “Normally I’d stay out of it, but she seemed like an okay person.”
“You talked with her?”
“Me and Alex. At Point Deception. She asked us to call a couple of numbers for her, but Alex wouldn’t let me. I feel really, really bad about that. And there’s something else—”
“Hey, babe, what’s this?”
Lily swiveled, her knees bumping Guy’s stool. “Honey!”
Alex wore a beige down jacket with smears of mud across its front, and there was a dirty smudge on his high cheekbone. His gaze grazed Guy’s face, suspicious, bordering on the hostile, and then shifted to Lily’s. “I asked you, what’s going on?”
“Mr. Newberry just bought me a drink, that’s all. What happened to you?” She motioned at his jacket.
“Skidded off the road. Truck got stuck in the ditch, I had to push it out.”
“Oh, poor baby!”
“So what were you and Mr. Newberry talking about?”
She flashed a warning look at Guy. “What it’s like to live here.”
“And you told him like paradise.”
“Yeah, right.”
Guy said, “May I buy you a drink, Mr. Ngo?” He pronounced the name as a Vietnamese would.
Alex’s eyes flickered in surprise, but all he said was, “Thanks, but Lily and I’ve got things to do.”
“But, honey, I thought we were having dinner—”
“Plans’ve changed. We’ll take a rain check, Mr. Newberry.” He pulled Lily off the stool and propelled her toward the door, a hand on either of her shoulders.
Guy watched them go, thinking that Lily was destined to make bad choices and be pushed around by the men in her life, even the ones who were concerned for her welfare. And Alex Ngo was the kind who could swiftly scent that quality in a woman and use it to his advantage.
Too bad Alex had shown up. Guy would have liked to know the “something else” that Lily had alluded to.
Rho pulled her cruiser next to Wayne’s at the foot of the Calvert’s Landing Pier. The deputy leaned against the car, one foot propped on its bumper, arms folded across his chest. The parking lot was jammed with vehicles, and on the second floor of the small shopping arcade the lights of Tai Haruru restaurant glowed warmly; on the bluff above, the floodlit facade of the Tides Inn seemed stark in comparison.
“Hey, Wayne,” she called as she got out of the cruiser. “The dispatcher passed along your message. What’s happening?”
“Let’s take a walk, huh?” He motioned toward the pier.
Rho nodded and fell into step beside him. “Everything seems under control here.”
“Now it is. I broke up a fight earlier — couple of guys who’d had too much navy grog. Had to beat the shit outta them. One came at me with a tire iron, the other wanted to help. They’re on their way to the lockup at County, along with a kid who just couldn’t keep from talking trash at me.”
Rho was silent. She doubted the tire iron story, and busting a kid for talking back was excessive force. When they reached the end of the pier, she asked, “So why’d you want me to meet you?”
“We got a problem.” The big deputy leaned with his back against the rail, facing her. Waves lapped against the pilings, and the scent of brine, creosote, and kelp was strong. Rho thrust her hands in the pockets of her uniform jacket and waited.
Wayne said, “It’s about that writer fellow you had dinner with last night. Guy Newberry.”
She listened with mounting unease as he related the story that was making the rounds of the shops and taverns. When he finished she said, “I had no idea why he was here. He told me he was a freelance writer and thinking of relocating, but he seemed more interested in talking about his new laptop than his work.”
“And now we know why. Did he ask you about the murders?”
“No. Mainly we traded life histories.” Although, come to think of it, Newberry hadn’t volunteered much of his own.
“You say anything about the murders?”
“God, no!”
“I don’t have to tell you how bad it could get if he opens up that can of worms.”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of fellow is he?”
She considered. “Well, up to now I’d’ve said a little full of himself but basically decent. But—”
“The folks at the hotel said he seemed very interested in you. So here’s what I’m thinking: Maybe if you talked to him, explained what a book on that crime would do to us, he’d give it up.”
“I doubt that. To him, it’s probably just business. If I said something, it might make him even more interested in writing it.”
“Yeah, maybe, but you never know.”
Rho moved to the railing and leaned against it, head down, taking measured breaths. This can’t be happening, she thought.
“Thing that worries me,” Wayne said, “is that he might try to link this new murder with the old ones.”
“How? I don’t see any connection.”
“Doesn’t have to be. He can manufacture one. Writers make up stuff all the time. When I heard about Newberry, I called a buddy of mine on the NYPD. Turns out he’s done books like this before, bestsellers. And he used to write for the Times, lots of magazines. With his contacts he could get national publicity on what’s happening here.”
“Like the Wynne woman’s family did back when.”
“Right.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
Wayne glanced at his watch, straightened. “I better get going. You heading down to Signal Port?”