Just Past Oysterville: Shoalwater Book One (15 page)

He was on his second bite and scanning his
third APB when Lisa, who had morning desk duty, poked her head
around his office door and rapped shave-and-a-haircut on the
glass.

“
Call on line two, boss,”
she murmured as he looked up, “it’s Jack Leland for
you.”

Sheriff Hallworth washed down his doughy
lump of cardboard with a bitter swig of coffee and nodded, “Got
it.”

Punching line two and the speakerphone
button at the same time, he leaned back his chair, his eyes never
leaving his paperwork.

“
Hey Jack,” he said. “What
the heck can I do you for?”

"Bry?” Jack’s voice sounded muffled and
drown in static.

Must be at a
payphone
, Hallworth thought, as Jack
continued, “Hey, how's it going?”

“
Oh, same old thing,” the
Sheriff replied, “truth, justice and the American way. How are
you?”

“
Doing good,” Jack
said.

“
Hey, we missed you at the
tournament last weekend, it was quite a show.”

“
Really, how'd you
do?”

“
Not bad,” Hallworth
replied, “we took second. Chief Stuckey bowled like a madman and
those turkeys at the fire department walked away with first but,
like I told them, some of us have real work to do and can’t
practice all the time!”

“
Nice!” Jack laughed, then
his voice sobered and the Sheriff reached for a pen out of
unconscious habit.

“
Hey, I need a favor Bry,
fella by the name of Mark Wexler, Phoenix. I’d like to know a
little more about him.”

“
Wexler, got it,” Hallworth
muttered, scribbling the name, “anything more?”

“
Yeah, I have his license
right here.”

Sheriff Hallworth sighed. “Do I want to know
why you have this man’s driver’s license, Jack?”

“
No, probably not," Jack
grimaced as he rattled off the number, “but I’ll tell you anyway. A
friend of mine had a little altercation with this guy. He wanted to
give her a ride and wouldn't take no for an answer--”

“
--And, I take it, you
convinced him otherwise?” Hallworth finished dryly.

“
Never mind that,” Jack
growled, “no one got hurt, no laws got broken. Well, okay, maybe I
mugged the guy a little, but that’s all!”

“
I didn’t hear that Jack,”
Hallworth laughed and shook his head. Jack Leland had been an
unofficial member of the Long Beach Sheriff’s Bowling Team for
nearly a decade, back when Paul Bradley had still been the big man.
Paul had spent the last four years living out his
Old Man and the Sea
fantasies, drifting the Gulf Stream and fighting marlin.
Before that, he had recognized that Jack Leland was a guy who
needed to be a part of something, anything, to keep him out of the
bottle. He was also a heck of a bowler.

Over the years, he had become something of a mascot for the
department, and always had a hot cup of joe ready if one of them
dropped by the bookstore.

“
Gimme a minute,” the
Sheriff said, “I’ve got an FBI buddy who’ll run the number through
the NCIC computer.”

“
NCIC?”

“
National Crime Information
Center.”

“
Great,” Jack replied, “I
can wait."

Bryan Hallworth finished the last of his
tasteless muffin as he waited for the results to print out on the
old Oki printer. Glancing at the two pages of small, single-spaced
type, he gave a low whistle, his brow gathering in concern.

“
Oh lord, Jackie,” he
muttered. “What have you gotten yourself into
this
time?”

*

Jack reached over the seat and gave Cassie a
reassuring pat on the shoulder. A minute passed, then two, before
Sheriff Hallworth came back on the line.

"Yeah, I'm here," Jack said. "Yeah? Yeah,
that sounds like the guy. Uh-huh. Oh great! Does it say what he
drives? Got it. Hey, I’ve got to go. No, we're okay. I'll fill you
in on Saturday, thanks Bry!" Jack hung up the phone and slid back
into his seat with a sigh.

"Well?" Cassie asked, chewing nervously on a
fingernail.

"Well," he replied, "I'm not going to lie to
you, this Wexler guy is bad news. Drug charges, menacing charges,
even a stint in prison for assault with a weapon. Also…" Jack
sighed again and took a long drink from his water glass.

"Also?" Cassie prompted, as though that
weren't enough.

"His motor vehicle file lists him driving a
1988 Toyota pickup. No color listed." Jack looked up at Cassie,
whose face was pale as milk.

"Don't sweat it." He said, "the Sheriff of
Long Beach is a bowling buddy of mine; he's going to fax a white
paper to the police up and down the coast. They'll keep an eye out
for Mark Wexler." Cassie nodded, smiling tremulously. Finally,
after draining her water glass, she started the conversation on
another track.

“
So,” Cassie asked, taking a
deep breath, “who in the world would pay six hundred dollars for a
couple of books?”

Jack laughed.

“
Well," he said, "that's
what
I'm
paying for them, I plan to get a bit more than that back on my
investment. You’d be surprised what folks will fork out for first
editions, or those one or two books that complete their
collections.”

“
What books are
these?”

"Two very rare editions
of
Ulysses
,"
Jack smiled, "both printed in 1935, for a private book club, and
autographed by the illustrator. The gentleman who asked me to help
him find them has offered $7,500 apiece. He's the great-grandson of
the man who did the artwork."

"Whoa,” Cassie exclaimed, "that's fifteen
grand! I think I'd sit there all-day too!"

“
You said it." Jack grinned,
"The rare book market is where the real money is. The woman who
owned the bookstore before me dabbled in it, but she didn't have
the energy or the time to do the research."

"Sounds like a lot of fun to me," Cassie
said.

"It is," Jack agreed, "I can
make as much selling a couple dozen hard-to-find volumes, as I do
in a year’s worth of the tourist trade at the shop. The first book
I tracked down was an out of print edition of
Moby Dick
for some friends of
mine in Nahcotta. Took me six months to find the printing I was
looking for," he grinned at the memory, "but it was a
hoot!"

"A bookstore can get a little boring as the
years roll on, and searching for rare books was something
interesting to do during the winter lull. After a few years, I
started getting letters from people asking if I could find them
such-and-such a book and telling me how much they were willing to
pay for it. Well, it didn’t take long to realize that I could do
pretty well for myself, spending a couple of hours a day doing
research and making phone calls. Now, with the internet, it’s even
easier.”

The waiter arrived with their menus and Jack
ordered another glass of ice water for himself and a diet cola for
Cassie, along with six oyster shooters. The waiter smiled knowingly
as Cassie’s face blanched.

“
I was afraid you were going
to remember that," she said.

“
Be brave!” Jack replied
with mock seriousness, “and keep an open mind.”

“
I’m more worried about
keeping my dinner down!”

Jack was still laughing at this when their appetizers arrived.
Cassie studied the tiny glass in front of her, and its crimson
contents, dubiously. Jack picked up one of shooters with a
flourish, raised it to his lips, and slurped the contents in a
single, noisy swallow.

“
Ah!” he sighed with
pleasure, “perfection!”

“
Really?” Cassie asked,
dubiously.

“
Hemmingway said that eating
a raw oyster was like French-kissing a mermaid.” Jack quoted, and
suddenly blushed furiously, remembering his company. ”Um…I
mean…”

Cassie laughed and reached for her glass
before she could have second thoughts or, being too late for that,
maybe third thoughts.

The contents were icy cold as they slipped
from the glass to her tongue and the sweet hot flavor of the sauce
made her nose tingle. As she bit into the slippery body of the
oyster, her mouth was filled with a sharp briny flavor, much more
powerful than she had tasted with the oyster kabobs in Pismo.

As she swallowed her first raw oyster, Jack
watching her intently, Cassie couldn’t decide if she liked it or
not. She didn’t dislike it, but the experience was so unlike
anything she had ever eaten that she couldn’t categorize it.

“
Well?” Jack asked
finally.

“
I…I’m not sure.” Cassie
responded, “I think I like it…”

Jack laughed. “If you think you like it," he
said, "then you do. There’s no middle ground here kid, you either
love 'em, or you heave them back up. In my experience it’s about
sixty-forty in favor of the oysters.”

“
Well then, I guess I must
love them!” Cassie laughed in return, reaching for a second
glass.

When the waiter returned with their drinks,
he was grinning. “Well?” he asked in the same tone as Jack had.

“
She loves them!” Jack
replied.

“
Excellent!” the waiter
smiled, giving Cassie a wink, “let me know when you’re ready to
order. The oysters, by the way, are fresh in from the bay this
morning.”

Jack ordered for both of them and, an hour
later, their hunger finally abated, they lounged at the table
awaiting their dessert. As Cassie studied the various watercolors
adorning the restaurant’s walls, Jack reached into his pocket and
took out a small, heart shaped box of chocolates, which he placed
on the table next to Cassie’s plate.

“
What’s this?” Cassie asked,
surprised.

“
Well, didn’t seem right to
me that a pretty girl went without a valentine,” Jack grinned,
“Just because she’s on the road with a crabby old geezer like
me.”

Cassie smiled and picked up the small box of
candy. “Thank you Jack, I wish I’d known. I’d have picked you up
something.”

“
Ah, I’m probably better-off
without it." He said, "The doctors keep telling me I’m teetering on
the brink of diabetes, so I try to keep the sweets few and far
between.”

Cassie was about to voice her concern over
this when Jack suddenly looked at his watch and slapped the table,
his face returning to a scowl.

“
Shoot,” he said, “I almost
forgot, I need to make a phone call!” Jack stood and dug into his
pocket for a handful of change. “I thought I saw a payphone out in
front of the motel.”

"Why don't you--" Cassie
began, meaning to ask why he didn't just use the phone on the wall
behind her, and then she realized, this was a
personal
call.

Looking at the heart-shaped package in her
hands, Cassie had a sudden insight and grinned at him,
teasingly.

“
Shame on you, Jack," she
cried, "forgetting to call your girlfriend on Valentine’s Day! You
better read her some love poetry or something, before she finds
another boy…”

The effect of her words on Jack were sudden
and distressing, his eyes widening and his face going white for a
breathless moment, then blushing red and finally, collapsing into a
dark, angry scowl. More than the normal downward cast, it was a
grimace of real anger. He stared at Cassie for a long moment, his
eyes hard and unfriendly.

“
I’ll be right back,” Jack
said brusquely and walked quickly to the door and out.

Cassie’s head was spinning as she sat alone
at the table.

Whatever she had said obviously touched a
raw nerve in Jack. Intuition filled in the blanks and she realized,
to her own horror that Jack had, indeed, almost forgotten to call
someone on Valentine’s Day. Someone whom he cared about very much,
but who would not, or could not, be his. She felt tears sting her
eyes as she slipped the box of candy into her pocket. He had tried
to do something sweet for her, and she had gone and ruined it,
hurting him with a single, thoughtless remark.

She would have to try to apologize when he returned, but how?
How could she have known the way he would react to her
teasing?

By the time the
Widmer
clock above
the bar had slipped from 7:00 to 7:30, Cassie had began to wonder
if Jack would return, or if he had gone on to the motel. Then the
door opened and he walked in. One glance at his haggard face and
Cassie knew that whatever had happened in the last half hour hadn’t
gone far in improving his mood. Jack slumped into the chair across
from her, looking tired. His shoulders sagged, and his eyes,
usually aglitter with bitter humor, were dull and hooded. Cassie
realized, to her shock and dismay, that for the first time since
she had met him, Jack Leland looked old.

A long, silent moment passed, and Cassie
fought the desperate urge to squirm in her seat.

“
Jack,” she faltered, "I’m
really sorry. I didn’t mean--”

Jack raised his hand to silence her, shaking
his head.

“
No,” he said, “you don’t
have anything to be sorry for, you just caught me by surprise, and
maybe you hit a little closer to home than I was ready to deal
with. I have a friend; we’ve been close for, oh… a long time now.
She’s a lot like me, no real family or anything, so we’ve taken to
spending time together, holidays and such, instead of being
alone.”