The storm had abated overnight, leaving puddles and flotsam strewn across the marina: kelp, driftwood, starfish slowly dying beneath a blanket of low-lying fog. Curdled clouds arched from horizon to mountaintop. The receding surf had deposited sand to the top of the cove ramp. No wind, but evidence of its wrath was everywhere: bait kiosk flayed of shingles, boat covers peeled back like torn fingernails.
We drove north on Beachcomber. Broken branches littered the road.
Our knock at the Bergstroms’ went unanswered. A persistent scraping noise drew us around to an unfenced yard that bled into open fields. Aside from the barn and sheep pen were stables, a chicken coop, and a rabbit hutch.
And, incongruously, a large, kidney-shaped swimming pool, tarped to keep out debris.
A piece of cinema Hollywood, chiseled into the landscape. Like Emil himself.
The scrape was coming from the coop. DJ Pelman crouched by a bloodstained tree stump, sharpening a hatchet with a file. His jeans had slipped to expose three inches of plumber’s crack. Beau Bergstrom, dressed in a canvas chore coat, watched him like an overbearing supervisor.
I whistled. “Morning.”
Beau looked up, returned the greeting, and started toward us, circumventing the pool. “Wasn’t expecting you for a while.”
“Up and at ’em,” Regina said.
“We can come back if you’re not ready,” I said.
“I was born ready,” Beau said.
DJ slunk over, hitching his waistband. The hatchet dangled in his fingers. “Wassup.”
“That thing looks dangerous,” Regina said.
He said, “It is if you’re a chicken.”
Beau said, “Shall we?”
I said, “Actually, I have to take a rain check.”
Regina gave a strained smile. Not the first time she’d been disappointed by her lame husband. “His knee’s acting up.”
“Oh no,” Beau said. “That’s too bad.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s the wet weather, brings it out.”
DJ snickered. “Like uh actual rain check. Get it?”
“Good one, Deej,” Beau said flatly. “Well. Sorry to lose you, Clay. Fret not, though. I’ll take good care of her.”
Regina said, “Speaking of which, can I use the little girls’ room?”
“Took the words right out my mouth. Patio’s unlocked.”
“Thanks. Back in a jiff.”
Beau sneaked a peek at her receding shape, then grinned and punched me lightly on the shoulder. “What’re you gonna do with your newfound freedom?”
“Relax. I might drive around and take some pictures. Sky’s beautiful today.”
“Always happens after a storm,” DJ said.
We continued to make small talk. Regina was gone for three minutes, five. Ten. I could see Beau’s attention beginning to drift, eyes darting to the house. Where’d she gotten to?
At last the door slid open and she appeared.
“Sorry,” she called, trotting over.
“I was getting worried you fell in,” Beau said.
I said, “All set?”
“All set,” she said, giving me a slight nod. Got it.
She cranked up the wattage on her smile and trained it on Beau. “What’s on the agenda?”
“Before we get going, I thought I’d show you some of what I’m working on,” he said.
“Sounds great.”
“What time should I be back?” I asked.
“Figure two, two thirty. My dad’ll be getting in around then. Hey, though,” Beau said, “I just thought of something. Once we get this all squared away, you guys should stay for dinner.”
Regina said, “We wouldn’t want to impose.”
“Aw, it’s no trouble. We gotta eat anyway. Might as well celebrate.”
DJ flipped the hatchet and caught it by the handle. “Just as easy to kill two.”
I said, “Sure, thanks.”
“Right on,” Beau said. He bowed to Regina. “After you, m’lady.”
She giggled and curtsied. “Why thank you, kind sir.”
We moved off in three directions: Beau and Regina toward the patio doors, DJ to the coop, and me toward the street. As I turned the corner of the house I heard an alarmed squawk, then a thunk, then silence.
I drove to the Clancys’, pulling over with a few hundred yards to go and grabbing my camera bag from the footwell. To reach the entry road, Shasta would have to pass this way.
I attached the telephoto lens to the EOS and stepped out to the railing.
I snapped pictures of the ocean, the same monochrome shot, over and over.
At nine thirty-four a.m., the Clancys’ garage door raised.
I zoomed in.
Shasta walked out a bike. She had her helmet on, but rather than a unisuit, she wore jeans and a flannel and was carrying a backpack.
She put in her brand-new AirPods, clicked in her cleats.
I swung the camera back to the water. I wanted to look busy when she rode up.
Oh, hey there. What a coincidence.
She turned left out of the driveway, heading south, into the fog.
Away from me.
“Fuck.”
I ran and jumped behind the wheel.
I’d tailed my fair share of vehicles, but never a bike. Out of the blocks I miscalculated, laying on the gas too hard. But she wasn’t pedaling at racing cadence; there was a restrained quality to her movements, not lazy but deliberate, as if she knew she had a long way to go.
At the marina she bore left and wound inland. The storm had felled numerous trees. Shasta sailed around them with ease.
I hung back, letting her shrink into the mist before lumbering onto the muddy shoulders, praying not to get stuck, praying I could catch sight of her before she made another three turns and I lost her.
Turkey-Tail Road.
Yarrow Lane.
We were approaching the southeastern quadrant, nearing Al Bock’s place.
Why would she have any reason to go see him?
She didn’t, glided past his block and kept going, her stroke quickening as she rounded onto Whitethorn Court.
I inched up.
It was a skimpy, steep cul-de-sac, one third paved, the rest reclaimed by nature. Rainwater formed mirrored disks in the uneven ground.
Shasta had dismounted and was pushing the bike along a grassy verge. Through the zoom I watched her stop and remove her cycling cleats, changing them out for a pair of hiking boots from her backpack. She put away her AirPods, took out a pink water bottle, and walked into the trees.
I got out of the Jeep and jogged up the verge.
She’d propped the bike against an alder, stuck the cleats on the handlebars.
Panning the camera over the dark, wet depths, I spotted her sixty yards ahead, high-stepping, her gait methodical and confident.
I waded forward, into the brush.
Slow going.
Dense vegetation and rolling mist provided cover for me but made Shasta tough to track. I had no water of my own, no map, no compass, no sense of progress or a destination.
Gradually the terrain lifted us out of the dripping coastal habitat and into the foothills.
She never hesitated, never looked back.
After an hour and a half of climbing she disappeared over a ridge.
I hurried up, sneakers sucking in the mud.
At the ridgeline, I understood where we were and where we were headed.
A valley gaped below. On the far side, green peaks capped a wall of exposed rock. The entry road was a scrawny yellow scar that pushed out into the void to form a violent hairpin.
Shasta was far downslope, switchbacking fast.
I checked my watch. Eleven forty a.m.
To have any chance of making the meeting with Emil, I ought to turn back now.
What Would Regina Do?
What the fuck do you think, Mr. Potato Head? Move it or lose it.