“But is it changing for the better or for the worse?”
“In the long run, for the better, I think. How could it not? My pretty girl’s got two men interested in her.”
“Two? Who’s the other one?”
“Good God, Deputy, use your eyes. It’s written all over this Guy Newberry’s face, even if he doesn’t seem to know it yet.”
When they left Jack Antolini’s boat shortly after nine, Guy had to lean on Rhoda to keep from staggering. He and her father had gotten on like old pals, and even the huge deli sandwiches and potato salad that he’d brought back in defense against the fresh fifth of Irish hadn’t counteracted the prodigious amount of booze he’d consumed.
“Nize man, y’r father,” he said, and cursed himself for slurring his words.
“Thank you,” she replied. “You need some fresh sea air. We’ll take my truck and you can walk over for your car in the morning.”
“Nize woman. You don’ yell at me for drinking too much. Where’re we goin’?”
“There’s something you need to see if you’re to understand this county.”
Just what he needed at this juncture, a sightseeing tour. But anything was better than returning to his empty room, where Diana had ceased to speak to him. With some difficulty he climbed into the passenger’s seat and fastened his belt securely. Even though she hadn’t been drinking, this was a woman he could trust to drive like a maniac.
She took it at a reasonable speed on the access road and north on the highway to the town limits, then opened it up. Lights of the close-in houses flashed past, grew more sparse, and finally there were none at all. Rhoda kept her eyes on the road, her pleasure in driving evident. Guy hummed an aria from some opera — he couldn’t remember which — and relaxed.
A sign for Deer Harbor appeared, and Rhoda braked, slowing for a wide place that contained nothing more than a propane company, garage, coin-operated laundry, and market. A few teenagers hung out under the market’s lighted sign, smoking and passing around a bottle.
“Oughta arrest them,” he mumbled.
“Why?”
“They’re bad.”
“They’re exactly like I was at that age.”
“I rest my case.”
The truck slid neatly around a hairpin turn, its headlights illuminating a sign for Deer Harbor Campground. Guy closed his eyes and listened to the hum of the tires on the pavement as Rhoda sped up. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been pleasurably drunk. It had to’ve been before Diana—
Before. After.
He opened his eyes, trying to fight off the memories and sustain the good feeling. “Where are we?”
“Almost there.”
“You’re not a very informing woman. Not very.”
“What’s an ‘informing woman’?” She sounded amused.
“One who tells me where the hell she’s taking me.”
“Have patience.”
He watched the walls of what he assumed were large oceanfront estates slip past. “Money here,” he said.
“Lots of it. Most are second-home people.”
“And you locals don’ like them.”
“That depends. The ones we like want to be part of the community. They help our economy by shopping here and hiring local people for their yard work and repairs. The ones we don’t like import everything from food to labor.”
“If I had a second home here, I’d shop constantly and hire everybody in the whole damn county.”
“If you had a second home here, I’d have to drive by constantly to keep tabs on what you were up to.”
Odd note in her voice, even though the tone was light. What did it mean? He felt more sober now, and he looked analytically at her, but couldn’t interpret it.
Rhoda braked abruptly and waited for the glaring lights of an oncoming car to pass, then turned left into a driveway flanked by stone pillars. Old stone pillars, judging from the cracks and coat of moss her headlights revealed. She drove slowly toward the sea, gravel crunching under the tires. In a cleared area surrounded by those strange plumed plants he’d seen at Point Deception she stopped and killed the engine.
“We’re here,” she said. “Let’s take a walk.”
He got out of the truck, shivering in the chill air. “These plants, what are they?”
“Pampas grass. It’s worse than bamboo, takes over everything.” She began walking along a path made of railroad ties. “A few years ago the county funded a program to eradicate it, and for a while we thought it had worked, but now it’s back full force.”
“Pretty stuff. Why kill it?”
“Because it kills everything that gets in its way.”
Guy thought of Cascada Canyon. And a faraway place called East Timor.
They continued along the path for some fifty yards, the sound of the sea ever louder. At its end a promontory jutted out over the water, surrounded by a low stone wall. Two figures stood there, shimmering white in the light of the full moon. Statues. Women in old-fashioned dress looking out to sea.
“What’s this?”
“It’s called Women Who Wait. A monument to those who died at sea.”
“Who put it here?”
Rhoda walked between the statues, sliding an affectionate hand over each.
“This land belonged to Constance Giordani, the wife of a man who ran a fishing fleet out of Calvert’s Landing in the late eighteen hundreds. He and his partner, her sister’s husband, were drowned in a storm at sea. You see that light flashing on the point over there?”
He looked where she motioned and saw it reflected off a distant wall of fog.
Rhoda said, “That’s the Cape Lookout Lighthouse. Was built in eighteen eighty. In nineteen twelve the light-keeper died and a replacement couldn’t be found, so Constance and her sister volunteered for the job and became, so far as I know, the only female lightkeepers in California. They kept the light until nineteen thirty-nine, when the Coast Guard took it over. Back then it had a crystal-and-brass Fresnel lens, which must’ve been a hell of a lot of work to maintain. Quite a tough job for two women. Now, of course, the light’s unmanned and fully automated.”
“What happened to the sisters after the Coast Guard took over?”
“They lived in their house on this property — we’re standing on the old terrace — for the next thirty years. When Constance died, she willed the land and her remaining fortune to the county, with the stipulation that the house be torn down but the statues, which are modeled on her and her sister, remain in perpetuity.”
Guy circled the figures, studying each. He’d expected their faces to show loss and grief, but he saw only strength. “The guidebooks don’t mention this place.”
“No. That’s also in keeping with Constance Giordani’s wishes. She wanted it to mainly be a private refuge for county residents. Some of us come here when we need... whatever it is we need. I’ve come here often during the past thirteen years.”
Guy moved toward where she stood by the stone wall. Her face was very pale in the moonlight, her hair dark and sleek. “You brought me here. You must trust me not to write about it.”
“Yes. And I brought you here because you need to know that this coastline is about more than violence.”
Unconditional trust. How had he come to deserve this?
He was beside her now, and to cover his confusion he peered over the wall at the sea. Waves crashed at the base of the cliff, tearing at the land like monstrous jaws. Somewhere he’d read that the rate of cliff retreat — erosion caused by wave action — was a foot per year. How long before this promontory and those statues of the brave women were gone? Sorrow washed over him with every swell of the surf.
“Guy?” Rhoda touched his sleeve. He turned toward her, and she put a hand to his cheek, guided his face down to hers, and kissed him. A real kiss, unlike the school-boyish peck he’d given her the night before.