That was it: the girl with the broken-down car he’d spotted by the roadside some fifteen miles south of town.
It had been around four forty-five when he saw her leaning against her black Mercedes. He eased up on the accelerator of his rental car and assessed the situation as he cruised past — a game he had often played on long driving trips, and one that kept his journalistic skills honed to their customary fine edge.
The subject: Young, probably in her early twenties; pretty in a hard, streetwise way. Argumentative set of jaw, defiant tilt of head, posture sullen yet potentially seductive. In short, trouble.
The setting: A turnout on the ocean side of the highway; asphalt pitted and broken, littered with cans, bottles, and other debris. Tumbledown split-rail fence barely blocking access to a long sloping plain dotted with burned-out trees and strange plants whose fluffy beige fronds swayed in the offshore wind. Sun-browned grass crisscrossed by deer tracks and footpaths. Old Chevy truck with a salt-caked windshield and pitted paint pulled close to the fence.
The problem: The Mercedes had broken down suddenly, so the girl barely had time to nurse it beyond the stripe dividing the turnout from the highway. She’d probably been there a while, and nobody’d stopped to help her. Nobody would stop, given her appearance, and certainly not Guy Newberry. He didn’t need that kind of trouble. Besides, he had a reservation at the Sea Stacks Motel in Signal Port and was anxious to get registered, settled, and explore this new and potentially fertile territory.
As his view of the girl disappeared from the car’s mirror Guy congratulated himself on his still-keen powers of observation. Even a three-year hiatus from the writing business hadn’t appreciably impaired them. Perhaps the scene he’d just witnessed would play a small part in his upcoming saga of a town in trouble. A metaphor for—
You know, Guy, you really can be an asshole.
Diana’s voice, spoken with humor. Her gentle reminder that he was about to fall victim to his own high opinion of himself.
“Okay,” he said, “I’m an asshole. I suppose I should’ve stopped to help that girl, but she looks like she’s got a major attitude problem.”
And a major car problem.
“Stop nagging me. It’s a sign of poor mental health for a man to drive along the highway holding a defensive conversation with a dead woman.”
Well, what about that live woman back there?
He sighed, pulled onto the shoulder, and made a U-turn. It was hell, he thought, when the most lasting thing a man’s wife had bequeathed him was a conscience.
Now, as the morning sun began to dapple the sea, Diana’s voice nudged him again.
Apparently not that much of a conscience.
“I went back, didn’t I? Wasn’t my fault she was nowhere near the car.”
You could’ve called out, looked for her.
“I could’ve, but I didn’t. Good Samaritanism only goes so far.”
Yes, you can be an asshole.
Rhoda Swift put on a pair of sweats, went out on the porch, and whistled for Cody. In good weather she made it a point to walk her property on the ridge above Signal Port — for exercise, but also to bask in the pride of ownership. She’d lived in the brown-shingled cottage on ten acres for two years and still couldn’t believe it was hers. The house needed a new roof and cosmetic work, and the cost of a replacement septic tank loomed large in the near future, but there was a big chinaberry tree in the front yard, an apple orchard, woods, a stream, and what local real estate people — laughably, to Rho’s way of thinking — called a filtered ocean view. On a clear day like this one, she could probably see the Pacific if she stood on tiptoe on the porch railing.
Cody came loping from a stand of pyracantha bushes, twigs caught in his ears, and fell in at Rho’s side. The four-year-old blond Lab loved these walks and made numerous detours to check out sounds in the underbrush, interesting smells, and burrows that he hoped moles might be enticed from. Rho headed for the woods where the old boarded-up outhouse stood, crossed the stream, and wandered through the gnarled apple trees, where the air was pungent with last summer’s windfalls. But what was usually a keen pleasure in her surroundings was spoiled by the intrusive image of the young woman at Point Deception. Guilt was what she was feeling, guilt over not helping her.
And guilt, her father — once also a deputy with the department — had often told her, was humanity’s most wasteful emotion. “You’re feeling guilty about something,” he’d say, “take action. If you can’t right one wrong, address another.” She didn’t always agree with Jack Antolini, but in this case he was a hundred percent correct.
“Come on,” she said to Cody, “we’re going to town.”
The shabby red pickup truck almost didn’t stop for Guy Newberry. He stepped back to the safety of the motel driveway, and the vehicle came to a screeching halt inches from where he would have been had he proceeded.
“Asshole,” he muttered, and was about to give the driver a one-fingered salute when he saw she was very pretty: close-cropped black hair; small, fine-boned face; big momentarily horrified hazel eyes. A yellow Labrador retriever sat on the passenger’s side, wearing its seat belt.
“Sorry!” the woman called.
He went over to the window, which was half rolled down, and patted the Lab’s protruding snout. “That’s okay. I wasn’t paying attention either.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m sure.”
She gave him a faint smile and a wave of the hand before she shifted gears and drove on. Guy watched the truck until it turned into the parking lot of a small strip mall, noting the bumper sticker that said SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT. Then he angled across the highway to the Signal Port Hotel.
The two-story weathered frame building with a sagging front porch and balcony was easily the largest and most prosperous-looking in the half-mile-long business district. It no longer offered lodging, but its kitchen had been serving up hearty meals since 1877. That much he’d learned the previous evening when he’d stopped in for a few beers, fish-and-chips, and some local color.
He crossed the lobby to the dining room, a high-ceilinged space with a small gas-log fireplace and chrome-and-Formica tables and chairs reminiscent of the 1950s. No other customers were there, nor were there signs any had been. He sat at the table by one of the front windows, and after several minutes a surly-looking blonde waitress appeared, looking annoyed at his presence, and took his order. Across the lobby the bar was open, an optimistic sign advertising Saturday brunch, Bloody Marys and mimosas included, but from where he sat he saw no takers.
The scene in there had been pretty much the same the night before. When he’d expressed surprise to the bartender that business should be so slow on a Friday, the man said it was status quo after Labor Day. Signal Port had four bars, fewer than four hundred and fifty residents, and on weekends what tourists came through blew their money at Tai Haruru on Calvert’s Landing Pier up north or down at Restless Waters in Westhaven. He, the barkeep, preferred it that way.
Guy then took a corner table and nursed his beer. A stocky gray-haired man whom the bartender had greeted as Will was going over some plans with an urban type in a cashmere sweater. The urbanite’s blonde, bored wife played the pinball machine and cast glances at the male patrons. Her eyes rested on Guy for a moment, then dismissed him. Possibly he looked too much her own kind to interest her. A mixed-race couple — the man Asian, the woman Caucasian — were quarreling in low voices, she doing most of the talking. Something about how their luck would run out someday and then he’d damned well wish he’d spread around more good karma. He kept telling her to let it rest, there was no reason he should’ve done a stranger any favors. A man with an earring — gay, from his mannerisms — was knocking back martinis at the bar. After his third he asked the bartender what the hell was wrong with this town. The barkeep said, “Can’t help you there, Kevin,” and went back to drying glasses.