The woman called Becca half turned and directed her scowl at the speaker. “You said—”
“Never mind what I said. I’ll handle this.” A slender man with wavy dark hair and finely chiseled features stepped around the woman. In spite of his good looks his skin had an unhealthy pallor and there were pronounced purplish shadows under his eyes. “Go finish the laundry,” he added.
“It’s finished.”
“Then go do... whatever it is you do.”
Becca made a snorting sound and moved away.
The man said to Guy, “I’m Kevin Jacoby, one of the owners. Did I hear you mention a long-term stay?”
Guy nodded and introduced himself. “I had a room at the Sea Stacks, but the proprietor took a dislike to me.”
“Oh, that old fart. He dislikes everybody. I can fix you up with a room, Mr. Newberry. In fact, you can have your pick of all ten.”
Guy followed him into a high-ceilinged foyer with a massive oak reception desk, where Jacoby produced a guest register and proposed a surprisingly modest weekly rate. “I can’t in good conscience charge you any more,” he said. “It’s not feasible to provide you with breakfast since we have no other guests, and it won’t take Becca long to make up your room. By the way, don’t mind her. She’s in a bad mood this morning because I told her I’d have to let her go. She’ll be bringing you fresh towels by the armful once she realizes you’ve temporarily saved her job.”
The corner room that Jacoby showed him to was spacious, with a fireplace and a turret window overlooking the highway and the sea. The decor was what he’d come to expect from B&Bs, floral prints and dried flowers and bowls of potpourri and an overabundance of throw pillows. But he supposed he could put up with froufrou in exchange for privacy and the absence of old man Dawson. He made two trips to his car, left his things unpacked, and was on his way out when Jacoby stopped him.
“I couldn’t help but notice your laptop and file boxes,” he said. “Are you some kind of writer?”
“Yes, freelance.”
“Well, if it’s a quiet place to encourage your muse that you’re after, you’ve found it. The town’s half dead. Even my partner’s decamped. But that’s another story.”
Guy waited, but the story didn’t materialize. After more small talk, he said good-bye to Jacoby and left the inn.
Becca was leaning against his car, clad in a windbreaker and smoking a cigarette. As he came toward her she dropped the butt to the ground and toed it out. “I want to apologize for being rude before,” she said.
“No apology necessary. I understand you were upset about losing your job.”
“Yeah. Thanks for saving it. It’s not much, but it fits easy with the rest of my schedule.” She sighed. “This is sure one of those Mondays.”
“Something else wrong?”
“Besides my boyfriend being about to dump me and a million other things? Nah.”
She was so downcast that Guy tried to cheer her. “I can’t believe any sane man would dump a pretty woman like you.”
“Oh, it’s not dumping, not exactly. He’s just decided to go back to his old life in Seattle. Which leaves me here, in my old life that wasn’t so hot.”
“I’m sorry, Becca.”
“Thanks, Mr. Newberry.” She smiled wanly at him and walked toward an old Honda that was parked at the side of the building.
Guy had always been the kind of man to whom total strangers would confide their most intimate secrets. It was a gift that sometimes involved him in superficial and inane conversations, but went a long way in developing useful sources.
Guy Newberry had checked out of the Sea Stacks over an hour before.
“Did he say where he was going?” Rho asked Hugh Dawson.
“Mentioned the B and B, but it’s closed. Don’t think we’re gonna get rid of him anytime soon, though.”
“If not, why’d he leave here?”
“I threw him out.” Dawson nodded proudly, as if he’d performed a patriotic act.
“And why’d you do that?”
“Bastard’s gonna write about them murders, stir up a hornet’s nest. You ask me, it’s better to let sleeping dogs lay.”
Rho never would have thought that an allusion to the Cascada Canyon murders could make her smile, but Dawson’s mixed metaphor actually caused the corners of her mouth to quirk up.
He noticed and frowned. “What the hell’s so funny?”
“Maybe it’s time we wake up those dogs, Hugh. Stir up those hornets. Follow them and see where they lead us.”
“You gone crazy?”
“No, I think I’m about to go sane.”
She left the motel keeper with his mouth agape and went out to her truck. When she drove by the B&B she saw only Kevin Jacoby’s Ford Escort parked there. Newberry could have gone north to find a room at the Deer Harbor Inn or one of the more luxurious establishments at Calvert’s Landing, or south to one of the numerous motels at Westhaven. She called Central Dispatch and put out a BOLO on him. Then she headed for the defunct yacht harbor where her father lived aboard his old cabin cruiser, the Rhoda A.
“Suspected you’d be back.”
Gregory Cordova motioned at the rocker by his woodstove where Guy had sat the day before and brought him a mug of coffee without asking if he wanted any. As he sat opposite him, the old man added, “I hear from my mailman that things’ve been lively in town.”
“Lively’s a good word for it. What did he tell you?”
“Well, folks’ve been acting up. And Samantha Lindsay was killed in a car wreck last night.”
“Who’s she?”
“Beautiful blonde-haired woman. Married to a handsome fellow who looks like he plays a lot of golf. Second-home people.”
“I think I’ve seen her a couple of times in the hotel bar.”
“Let me guess: At least one of those times she was with somebody besides her husband.”
“Correct.”
Cordova shook his head. “Sad thing when a woman — or a man — strays like that. Makes you wonder what’s lacking there. Me, I always looked but I never touched. Used to tell Felicia — my wife — that the day I stopped looking she might as well plant me six feet under. Hell, the other day I even gave a good once-over to that woman got herself killed.”
“You saw her at the turnout?”
“Sure. Cutoff jeans riding up over a nice curve of ass. What the hell else was I supposed to do?”
“But you didn’t stop?”
“No. Me and a whole lot of other folks.” The old man shook his head regretfully. “The way of the human animal these days, I guess. But these young people, they seem so capable. And I was tired from my shopping and not thinking clear. But you know, while I was carting my groceries into the house, I had a feeling, was like a goose walking across my grave. Her grave, probably. It’s not my time yet. Now and then I wish it was. I’ve outlived my usefulness, would gladly trade places with that girl if I could. And now another woman, Virge Scurlock, has gone missing. Only hope it’s not more of the same.”
“Since when is she missing?”
“Disappeared from her bed sometime last night. They’re putting together a civilian search party, calling for volunteers, but...”
“Odd, these things happening immediately before the anniversary of the murders.”
“Yes, it is.”
Guy hesitated, looking down into the mug he held and swirling the coffee. “Mr. Cordova, before I left here yesterday you said that you know as much as anybody else about the murders. And then you added, ‘More, maybe.’”
The old man nodded.
“You also told me that it’s time to take the skeletons out of the closet and dust them off.”
“I seem to recall saying something of that nature.”
“Well, how do you feel about picking up that dust rag and going to work?”