Half a mile south I came to the first house.
What a house it was.
Three stories of white clapboard and storm shutters, fronted by a veranda and topped by a satellite dish, enjoying an unobstructed ocean view and occupying its own territorial ocean: forest, fields, a sheep pen, a barn, light farm machinery.
I was ogling, foot on the brake, when something tickled my peripheral vision.
A figure wearing a unisuit, helmet, and sunglasses zipped past on a bicycle, hand raised in greeting.
I started to return the gesture but the person was already a dot in my rearview.
I drove on, coming to another mansion, even grander. Then a third, more like the first.
One mile later Beachcomber terminated at a sad, cracked plaza.
The marina, such as it was.
Something had run out. Money, faith, or both.
Four boats sat on trailers in a rippling asphalt lot overlooking the water. A concrete strip wrapped down to the cove and widened out to become the launch. The bait kiosk was shuttered.
The inn, a weather-beaten Victorian, bore the curious name of Counts Hotel.
I slotted in beside the only two vehicles parked out front: a black, mud-spattered Range Rover and a red Ford F-150. The truck had a wheel lift mounted in the bed. Stenciled on the door was Pelman Auto Service.
Grabbing my bag, I hurried up the steps through a stinging wind.
A bell jangled as I entered. The theme was nauticaclass="underline" navigational instruments, charts, fish trophies. A chandelier fashioned from rope and ship’s lanterns drooled weak light over the unoccupied dining room. Black-and-white photos tiled the splintery walls.
Two scruffy guys in their mid-thirties sat at the bar drinking beer. They stopped talking to peer at me. A third man, older and grizzled, gripped a tumbler of ice and gazed lovingly at the sticky mahogany.
Scruffy Guy One lifted his mug to me.
I nodded, and he resumed the conversation with his buddy. I picked up enough to get the gist. Virtues of the .338 Winchester Mag versus a .30–06 for elk.
Behind the bar, saloon doors led to the kitchen. A woman in her fifties bustled through, drying her hands on her apron. She had flushed cheeks and a gin blossom nose and was built like a Viking queen.
She took a stubby pencil from over her ear. “Name your poison.”
“I wanted to ask about a room.”
“How many nights?”
“Can I see it first?”
She replaced the pencil, raised the hinged bar top, and led me upstairs to a mildewy room lacking a TV. Ticking puffed from the bedspread. The nightstand listed. A bookcase held a motley collection of casual reads: coffee-table books, cookbooks, thrillers.
Shabby without the chic.
By far the best feature was a bay window, its panes smeared with salt, giving a view of the cove and roiling waters along the southern coast. A bistro table and two chairs conjured romantic visions of honeymooners in terry-cloth robes, holding hands and sipping coffee as the day dawned. All that was missing was the robes, the coffee, the couple, and the romance.
“Bathroom?” I asked.
“End of the hall,” she said.
“Wi-Fi?”
“You want that, go to Millburg.”
“What counts about the hotel?”
“It’s my name,” she said. “Jenelle Counts. It comes from German. Kuntz. Art.”
I picked up the landline. A dial tone, praise the Lord. “How much?”
“Six hundred a night. Comes with breakfast.”
I managed to keep my poker face. “Works for me.”
She smiled sourly. “Welcome to Swann’s Flat.”
Chapter 8
Downstairs, Jenelle Counts and I traded cash for a key.
I said, “Do you have a map I could look at?”
She pointed into the dining room, toward the gallery wall.
The photographs documented the evolution of the peninsula over the last hundred thirty years. Pure ranchland. A logging camp. The marina and cove during a more prosperous era, complete with an intact pier, ships bobbing as they waited to take on cargo.
A yellowing developer’s brochure, unfolded and staples removed, depicted the street plan.
The brochure’s styling placed it from the sixties. The street names were tiny and hard to read. I squinted at countless neighborhood blocks, as well as features that had never come to fruition: a golf course, an airstrip, playgrounds.
Behind me a voice said, “A stranger comes to town.”
Scruffy Guy One had sauntered over. Flannel shirt, Bass Pro Shops cap with a fringe of dirty-blond hair poking out. Nice-looking in a rough-hewn way.
He straightened a grainy photo of a horse: muscular and proud, mane whipped up by wind, so that it seemed to be flying.
“General Sherman. He was the mail horse for twenty-five years. They’d load him up and he’d run riderless to Millburg and back.”
He smiled. Strong white teeth. A small chip in his left lateral incisor gave him an aw-shucks quality — not Deliverance so much as Will Rogers.
I smiled back. “True story, huh.”
“I mean, who’s gonna argue?”
“Not the horse.”
He chuckled. “No, sir.”
I pointed to the photo of the marina. “What happened to the pier?”
“Washed away. We get some pretty hellacious storms come winter. Matter of fact, there’s more than a couple wrecks out there. They say if you listen late at night, you can hear the sailors crying out for help.”
He winked and extended a hand. “Beau Bergstrom.”
“Clay Gardner.”
“Pleased to meetcha, Mr. Gardner. What brings you to our neck of the woods?”
“Passing through.”
“Where from?”
“Bay Area.”
“Terrific. Where to?”
“Not sure. Just getting away from it all.”
“Well.” Beau grinned. “You’re away now.”
“No kidding. Nobody warned me about that road.”
Scruffy Guy Two piped up: “She’s a doozy.”
Roundish face, sloped shoulders, hairline in early retreat. He read as a little younger, a lot less poised, than his compatriot.
“I might be stuck here permanently,” I said.
Beau said, “I can think of worse places.” He waved at the brochure. “Looking for something in particular?”
“I was planning to explore a little.”
“I’d be happy to show you around, if you’re interested.”
“I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.”
“No inconvenience.”
Scruffy Guy Two said, “Beau’s the head of the welcome committee.”
Beau jerked a thumb. “And DJ’s the village idiot.”
DJ said, “Can’t have a village without one.”
“All kidding aside, I do some guiding,” Beau said.
“Oh yeah?” I asked. “Like what?”
“Hunting, fishing, bird-watching, hiking.”
“He’s writing a book,” DJ said.
“Nice,” I said. “Like a guidebook?”
“More local history,” Beau said. “And I don’t know I’d call it a book. Right now it’s just a big mess of notes. Don’t ask when it’ll be done.”
“When’ll it be done, Beau?” DJ hollered.
The solitary older man at the bar cleared his throat, the first sign that he was fully conscious.
Beau said, “And what is it you do, Mr. Gardner, down in the great Bay Area, that you need to get away from?”
“I’m in finance.”