Bad Things (15 page)

derstand it now lies somewhere else. In the Pacifi c Northwest you’re

seldom far from someone willing and able to sell you a cup of decent

coffee, and I decided that would have to do instead of surf.

Five minutes’ walk away I found someone setting up a latte-

from-a-van business in a parking lot. I hung and chatted for a while

94 Michael Marshall

with the thickset guy who ran it, learning little except that my opin-

ion of humankind, though not universally upbeat, remains more pos-

itive than some. In the end the man’s views on local politics, gays,

and Native Americans just got too depressing and I set off back to

the motel.

On the way I pulled out my phone and listened to the message on

it once more, those two sentences, delivered with conviction. I don’t

like people leaving that kind of message, whoever the hell they are,

and I was no longer sure I’d be leaving town this morning. I called the

number back, and kept walking as I heard a phone ring somewhere.

Finally it picked up.

“Robertson residence?” The voice was female, deferential, not the

one I’d heard before.

“Sorry, wrong number,” I said.

I cut the connection. I wasn’t surprised. It was consistent with

Ellen recognizing the number when it came up on my screen. But

it also suggested that someone had gained access to her cell phone

without her knowing. How else would they have got my number from

its call records?

Whatever else might or might not be true about Ellen Robertson,

one thing was certain. Someone was fucking with her life. My prob-

lem? Not really.

But.

As I walked back into the motel parking lot I saw a woman heading

out on foot the other way. It took a moment for me to recognize her

as the motel owner.

“Morning,” she said, smiling broadly. “Sleep okay?”

“Fine,” I said, disconcerted.

Combined with hair that was now clean and fl owing loose over

her shoulders, and wearing a cotton dress instead of being stuffed

into old jeans and a T-shirt, it was hard to credit her as being the

B A D T H I N G S 95

same woman I’d seen the day before. Even her skin looked different,

no longer white and dry but tawny and warm-looking, the bridge of

her nose stippled with the freckles of the natural redhead.

“You sure I don’t know you?” she said, head cocked on one side.

“I mean, you’re staying in my motel, of course . . .”

We laughed merrily together.

“ . . . but I mean, from somewhere else?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Well, that’s me.” She smiled. “Always getting things mixed up.

So—did you decide whether you wanted to stay the second night?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Depends on a couple things. Do you need to

know right now?”

“Not at all,” she said cheerfully. “Got fi ve people leaving all at

once, so you’re good either way. By midday is fi ne, just so as I can get

Courtney to ser vice the room. Number nine, isn’t it?”

“That’s me. Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“I’ve got an interest in old houses. I heard the Robertson place is

quite something.”

“Well, heck, yes,” she said. “Hazel had the whole place done by

that guy, oh, I forget his name, but he was famous. From over east.

Wisconsin, maybe?”

“Hazel?”

“Gerry Robertson’s fi rst wife.”

“So you know them? The Robertsons?”

“Well, everyone does. Was Henry Robertson who fi rst platted

out Black Ridge back in the 1870s.”

“I was wondering about going up there, seeing if they’d let me

have a look around. You think that’s likely?”

She considered. “To be truthful, I doubt it. Gerry might have.

Hazel, for sure. She was real proud of it—spent years having the work

done, and a lot of money, too. Was only fi nished fi ve months before

she died, that’s the sad thing.”

96 Michael Marshall

“What happened to her?”

“Car crash. Up on Snoqualmie Pass, two weeks before Christmas

’98. Went off the road and down the escarpment. Didn’t fi nd the car

for nearly two days. They reckon she didn’t die straight off, either.”

For a moment then there was something in her eyes. Then she

smiled again. “But there’s no harm in trying. You know where to go?”

“Actually, that’s what I was going to ask you.”

She got straight to giving me directions, in detail, another con-

trast to the way she’d been the afternoon before. Evidently yesterday

had been a bad day. I was distracted in the closing stages of her in-

structions by the sight of an animal emerging from behind the motel

and ambling toward us.

“That’s one hell of a dog,” I said.

Marie turned to see, and laughed. “You got that right. Half wolf,

I was told, but I’m sure that can’t be. Genetically, I mean. Found him

as a puppy, though, and he’s always been as good as gold.”

The dog drew level and looked up at me. Standing next to his owner,

he looked even bigger. Big and gray and quiet, like a thundercloud.

“Hey,” I said.

I have never been a great fan of dogs. This one’s eyes were very

dark brown, almost black. He let them rest on me for a moment, then

looked away. I felt as though my measure had been taken.

Marie patted his back affectionately. “Woman living alone, you

need something, right?”

“You bet,” I said. “Well, thank you.”

“Need anything else, just let me know. And holler when you’ve

decided about the extra night.”

She patted the dog on the back once more, and they strode off

together toward the road.

Fifteen minutes later I drew up outside iron gates that stood a little

way off Route 903, halfway between Black Ridge and the turnoff to

B A D T H I N G S 97

our old house. It was not yet nine o’clock. The coffee and walk to

fetch it had helped a little, but I still felt only about three-quarters

awake. I got out and went to press the buzzer on the left side of the

gates. After a time a male voice answered.

“Who is it?”

“My name’s Ted Wilson,” I said. “I—”

“What do you want?”

I went through the same spiel I’d used on Marie back at the mo-

tel. There was a long pause, and then a whirring sound as the gates

started to open.

“Come up,” the voice said.

I left the car and walked up the drive. This led to a wide, grassy

area surrounding an ornamental pond, around which were positioned

two sturdy but attractive houses, painted white, in something like

Georgian Revival style—and another that was more of a glorifi ed

cottage. The pond was free of leaves from the trees overhanging it,

and the grass had been recently mown. Even the pebbles on the drive

looked as if they had been selected and arranged for consistency of

size and color.

I headed straight for the biggest of the houses, stepped up onto

the porch, and rang the doorbell. Almost immediately it was opened

by a thin woman in late middle age, wearing an apron.

I followed her into a wide hallway, at which point she smiled wanly

and disappeared through a side door. I stood waiting for something

like ten minutes, looking at the pictures on the walls.

When I fi nally heard footsteps coming down the staircase behind

me, I was standing in front of a cream wooden panel on which a short

section of a poem had been painted in a fl owing calligraphic script.

I turned to see a man of about my own age, maybe a couple of

years younger, and sixty pounds heavier. Wearing an expensive pair

of chinos, white button-down shirt, and a V-neck sweater in sage

green, he looked like he’d been given an interior decorator’s advice

on how to dress to best suit his surroundings.

98 Michael Marshall

He looked me up and down, and appeared not to feel the same

way about me.

“Cory Robertson,” he said, offering his hand, which was soft and

warm. “So you’re an architecture fan?”

“That’s right.”

“How did you come to hear about the house?”

“The woman who runs the motel I’m staying in,” I said. “I men-

tioned I was interested in old buildings, and she asked if I’d heard

about the Robertson house. Or houses, I guess. So I thought I’d come

up, see if there was any chance of getting a look around.”

“Is this a professional interest?”

“Oh no,” I said. “The feature in the
Digest
back in ’97 was pretty

thorough. My interest is purely personal.”

He gave me a brief tour. I saw a house that was large, well kept,

and to which someone had made a number of coherent and unshowy

additions. Five minutes in an Internet café on the way out of town

had given me enough background on the property to sound like I

understood what I was seeing, and to drop the name of the architect

in question.

The upstairs was arranged as two separate wings on either side

of a wide landing. Ellen had mentioned that Gerry’s children lived

here, using the plural. Presumably Cory had a sibling who lived in

the half he did not show me. Cory’s portion was neat and trim, the

only evidence of personality being a few framed group pictures of

him and similarly patrician buddies in thick jackets and orange hunt-

ing caps, standing with postcoital grins over dead examples of God’s

handiwork. One of the men looked a little familiar.

We went back out to the landing. The window there allowed a

partial view of the property at the sides, revealing a covered swim-

ming pool and tennis courts—and the start of the forest behind.

From here it was also evident that all of the blinds in the dwelling on

the other side of the ornamental pond were drawn.

B A D T H I N G S 99

“There was work done on the other house, too?”

“Yes,” Cory said. “More extensive, as a matter of fact—quite a

substantial addition in the back.”

“Wonderful. Could I have a look?”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” he said smoothly. “There’s a

tenant in that part of the property at the moment. She’s not home

right now, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable invading her privacy.”

“Of course,” I said. “So, you rent it out?”

“Something like that. But she’ll be leaving soon.”

“I’m surprised,” I said. “If I was lucky enough to live here, I think

it would take a great deal to make me leave.”

Cory merely smiled.

“You’ve been very kind,” I said as he led me back down the main

staircase.

“My pleasure. When one is fortunate in life, it behooves one to

share it around a little.”

“A generous attitude,” I said, though evidently it did not extend to

his father’s second wife.

When we reached the lower hallway my eye was caught once

again by the poem on the wall. Cory saw me looking, and read the

lines aloud.

“ ‘The ports ye shall not enter/The roads ye shall not tread/Go,

make them with your living/And mark them with your dead.’ ”

“ ‘The White Man’s Burden,’ ” I said.

“Very good. My grandfather was a fan.”

“Of Rudyard Kipling, or imperialism in general?”

“Kipling.” He smiled thinly. “But when his father arrived here

with a wife and four young children, you’d better believe the locals

needed a little civilizing.”

He stood out on the porch as I walked back down the drive. When

I glanced back, however, I saw his eyes were not on me, but the other

house.

100 Michael Marshall

I thought I saw the curtains in one of the upper windows move,

but the sky was full of scudding clouds and it could have been a refl ec-

tion of them instead.

I got back into my car unsure of what I had learned. Unsure, too, of

what I thought of Cory Robertson. Possessed as he was of the bland

presumption that comes from local note and wealth, but also its gen-

teel politeness, it was hard to imagine him making someone feel they

were in danger. Except, perhaps, when he had been speaking of his

tenant’s anticipated departure, or when intoning a poem which—

though well meant at the time, and born of a blithe paternalism that

was not quite the same as racism—could serve as a defense of the ter-

ritorial rights of the self-defi ned “civilized” over all others.

I wondered, too, whether Cory realized how one of the lines could

apply to his own mother, who had left this world alone, tangled in

wreckage in a gulley below one of the roads that men like his grand-

father and great-grandfather had forged through these mountains.

Mark them with your dead
.

Something told me that he did.

C H A P T E R 1 5

On the way back to the motel I tried calling Ellen Robertson, but got

no reply. At the motel I packed, which took less than two minutes.

If I drove hard down to Yakima, I might just be able to get to the

Pelican in time for the evening ser vice, but I’d be pushing it, and it

anyhow seemed wrong not to at least try to see Carol while I was

up here, in which case I’d get back to Marion Beach too late—and I

needed to warn the restaurant.

It made sense to call my ex-wife fi rst. The prospect made me

feel nervous and tired. It had been fi ve months since we’d last spo-

ken. A short and polite exchange of news, of which I had little and