Larkspur Cove (30 page)
Mart chuckled.“You didn’t read the water safety course brochure I sent home, did you?”
“No, sir. Guess I should’ve, huh?”
“Guess so.”
“I think my mom read it.” Cassandra smiled hopefully, and in spite of the fact that I’d been determined not to, I found myself liking her. She seemed like a pretty nice kid, actually. Apparently, her mother expected her to work, which was more than could be said for most young people from this side of the lake.
Mart drummed his fingertips on his holster. “Your mom taking the class?”
“No, sir,” Cassandra admitted, but she and Mart were smiling at each other when she said it. The implication was clear. He’d made his point without having to strong-arm anyone. It occurred to me to wonder why he didn’t have a family of his own. He was good with kids – patient, firm, but with a sense of humor.
“The class’ll go better if you’ll read the brochure ahead of time, like you’re supposed to. You’ll know what to bring,” he suggested. “You too, there, Dustin.”
“I read it already.” Dustin’s declaration surprised me.
“Learn anything?” Mart addressed Dustin with the same good-natured yet authoritative tone he’d used on Cassandra. No doubt, his magic would fall flat this time.
“A little,” Dustin admitted, and I watched with complete surprise as the snotty teenaged mask fractured slightly. “My mom told me to.”
Mart’s lips slowly parted into a smile. “You’ve got a good mom.”
Right then, I could have thrown myself into Mart’s arms and kissed him. Dustin didn’t agree or disagree with Mart’s assertion, of course, and we drifted into an uncomfortable conversational lull, until finally Mart broke the stalemate. “So whose rig is that in the driveway? You trade the car in for a tricked-out four-by-four?”
Dustin perked up. “Four-by-four?” He craned toward the doorway.
Suddenly everyone was watching me with interest. “Borrowed it from my boss,” I replied, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “With all this rain, the roads are such a mess. I can’t get to my appointments out in Chinquapin Peaks.”
Mart quirked a brow. “You know how to drive that thing?”
“I took a lesson,” I answered confidently. Didn’t I look like a four-by-four driving kind of girl? Mart’s eyes caught mine, and I knew he’d picked up on an undercurrent of challenge in those words – as in,
Want me to prove it?
He touched his tongue to his lips, seeming to think about it. Fortunately, both Dustin and Cassandra were busy trying to catch a glimpse of my new ride.
“There’s a four-by-four up there?” Dustin’s voice cracked, and he swallowed and cleared his throat, then finished the sentence in his new man-voice. “Seriously?”
“There is,” I confirmed, stepping out of the way. “Go check it out, if you want.”
“Awesome!” Dustin’s voice squeaked again, and Mart responded with a sympathy wince. Dustin bolted toward the yard, his footsteps echoing through the boathouse and causing the deck to rock on the water. A half-dozen steps outside the door, he screeched to a halt, remembering that he had company. “C’mon, Cassie.”
Cassandra walked to the edge of the boathouse, stepped into the drizzle, then stopped. “Ummm . . . I better head back.” Flicking a glance toward Mart and me, she hovered on the boat ramp, watching Dustin as if she were waiting for something.“I’ll . . . ummm . . . see ya later, ’kay.” She darted another glance my way, then added, “I mean, at the class Monday.” I found myself watching her body language intently, wondering if she’d be sneaking back the minute I headed off to work. Maybe I should talk to Sydney and Ansley, try to discern whether they’d seen any visitors coming by the house.
“I’ll text you,” Dustin answered, torn between truck fancy and a cute girl. “You sure you don’t want to hang around and see the truck?”
Cassandra’s lips pouted, the bottom one jutting out a little. “I better not. I just got ungrounded, you know?”
“Okay, cool,” Dustin said, and after another awkward moment, Cassandra waved good-bye with her thumbs still hooked in her pockets, then hurried to her bicycle and disappeared on a footpath that led to a public boat ramp down shore. Back in the day, a prominent
No Trespassing
sign had warned patrons of the public access area that the footpath was on Larkspur Estates property and was only for private use. Even then, kids from the public access area had often ignored the sign and ventured down the path to see how the other half lived. My sister and I liked to hang out at the boathouse and watch for cute boys strolling by. Who would have thought that a girl would now be biking that same path to visit my son?
Dustin jogged up the hill without looking back, leaving Mart and me alone at the boathouse. The situation suddenly felt intimate – a daylight re-creation of the night of the kiss.
“Guess we never did take that boat ride.” Mart’s mind seemed to be moving along the same channels as mine. He squinted toward the choppy water, his eyes a contemplative shade of green, almost the color of the water in this misty light.
The mention of the boat ride brushed a tingle of anticipation over my skin. I couldn’t let him know that, of course. That kiss, that night, was so far away from anything I’d planned, it was still hard to believe I’d let it happen. “Well, there’s no accounting for the weather.”
He frowned at me, seeming disappointed that I hadn’t picked up on the unspoken invitation in his mention of a ride on the lake. “True enough. It’s supposed to break tonight. I’m planning to try to get your CPS investigator up to Len’s place via the water in the morning. It’ll be another day or two before that last low-water crossing by his house is passable by truck. You’re welcome to ride along tomorrow, if you want. I’m meeting the investigator and Reverend Hay over at the Waterbird, first thing.”
Yes
was on my lips before I’d even sifted through tomorrow’s schedule in my mind. I had an early staff meeting, and then the day was packed with appointments, many of which had already been rescheduled, due to bad weather last week. On top of that, there was the issue of Dustin and Cassandra. Maybe I needed to make a surprise visit home for lunch. . . .
“I can’t,” I admitted. “The schedule is jammed tomorrow. Will you let me know what happens – not just with Birdie, but also with my other little client, Daniel? His grandmother is bringing him to the water safety course. I’m hoping it will be good for him. And could you maybe . . . keep an eye on Dustin while he’s there . . . and Cassandra?” I winced, knowing I was asking too much, but I needed help, and there wasn’t anyone else to rely on. “I’m sorry, I just . . . I’m worried, and . . .”
Mart stepped closer, and I felt my gaze being drawn upward, into his. “It’s fine,” he said softly. “I don’t mind.”
For a moment, everything around me and everything inside me hushed – the sloshing of the waves against the dock, the soft
slap-slap
of wet leaves falling on the tin roof, the rhythmic croak of a frog somewhere down shore, the whirl of fear and worry in my head. There was nothing but the realization that I’d missed Mart while he was gone, and now he was finally back again.
Nature is always hinting at us.
– Robert Frost
(Left by an angler who didn’t catch
a thing, but it didn’t matter)
Mart McClendon
Monday morning the weather finally broke. I was at the Waterbird early, waiting for the CPS investigator to show up. I’d sent Hay on ahead to see if he could catch Len on his way down to the lake and let him know that we’d be coming. I figured the more warning Len had, the more likely the meeting would go well. I wished Andrea could be there. Both Len and Birdie knew her, and she wasn’t rushing to any judgment. My worry about bringing in an investigator was that the investigator might take one look and decide the easiest thing was to move that little girl to some kind of foster-care shelter.
At the Waterbird the docksiders were in rare form after days cooped up inside playing dominoes and drinking coffee, waiting for the storm to break. Pop Dorsey let me in on the fact that while they were hemmed in by the rain, Burt and Nester had sneaked into Sheila’s coffee canister, dumped out all the decaf, and replaced it with the real stuff. Now they were buzzed on unlimited caffeine. They looked happy as horses on spring grass, sorting out their bait and tackle, getting ready to take to the lake.
“You need any help going up there to Len’s place?” Burt asked, tying a little spinnerbait on the end of his line. “You got backup and all that, in case ol’ Len goes off the handle?”
I shook my head. “I don’t figure we’ll need it. I was up there a couple times last week before the rain came in. Len didn’t give me any trouble.”
Nester cocked his head back, lowering a bushy eyebrow. “You probably don’t know it, because you ain’t from here, but when Len’s mama went in the hospital for a stroke and ended up in the nursin’ home, Len come down and stole her right out of the bed and took her back to that cabin. One of the attendants tried to stop him, and Len pointed a twenty-gauge shotgun at her. That man ain’t normal.”
“Odd duck,” Pop Dorsey agreed, wheeling himself from behind the counter, since he didn’t have any real customers in the store right then.
“Len’s bait done swum the bucket a long time ago,” Nester added. “If he really does have a daughter, she must be some kind of mess to leave a little kid up there. You know, maybe she didn’t
want
to leave the little girl there. Maybe Len stole ’er. Maybe he threatened the mama or did somethin’ to her, or . . .”
I held up a hand to get Nester to quit. A car had just pulled up outside, and I figured it was the CPS investigator. “Listen, all I’m doing is providing transportation across the lake. It’s the investigator’s job to get to the bottom of things. But it won’t help any for you two to be filling his head with stories. So far I haven’t had any trouble with Len – not over this situation with the little girl, anyway. I want to see he gets a fair shake. That’s it.”
“Be careful,” Burt advised, and both Nester and Dorsey nodded, their faces real solemn. Then they started up a conversation about spinnerbaits.
The door opened, and a kid, maybe in his midtwenties, stepped in. He was carrying a scuffed-up leather briefcase, so I figured he was my contact. I stepped up and introduced myself. Randy Alsup had the kind of soft, wimpy handshake other men don’t respect, and he was geared up in loafers and dress pants. He looked like he’d stepped straight out of a college class somewhere and didn’t have a clue that we were about to slog through the mud to a cabin in the middle of nowhere. If Len did give us trouble, this guy wouldn’t be any help, but on the other hand, I had a feeling Randy was so out of his element, he could be talked into anything.
Maybe that was the way Andrea’s boss had planned it. I’d already talked to her on the phone this morning, and she’d told me that her boss, Tazinski,
had it covered
. She figured that sometime in the next few days, she could have Birdie’s referral in the bag – assuming Len made a decent showing in front of the investigator.
Nester and Burt slipped out of their seats, started gathering their gear, and waved their good-byes on the way to the back door. A couple of their buddies were already waiting down at the dock. I knew where they were all headed.They’d be in their boats, across the lake, and up the river channel before I could get there, then they’d hang around, dropping a line in the water and watching for me to come along with Randy in tow. One way or another, the dock–siders were going to make sure that if something interesting happened, they were close by to see it.
Pop watched them go, his face long and forlorn. Back in the day, he would’ve turned the store over to his wife and been right there with them. I decided if everything went all right with Len, I’d cut off my workday when the water safety course was finished this afternoon. I could come back to the Waterbird and figure out what it would take to rig up the ramps to get Pop down to the dock. With some railings and gates down there, maybe Sheila wouldn’t be so worried about Pop rolling off into the water.
If we worked at it, we might even be able to come up with a way to get Pop into a boat again – some kind of hoist and pulley. Right now, the man was a prisoner in his own store. The thing he liked the best was right outside his window, just a stone’s throw away, but out of reach. It wasn’t right for a good man like Dorsey to end up this way.
I pointed Randy toward the door and told him we’d better get going. He was agreeable enough, and we headed down the hill, talking about the weather. On the trip across the lake, he let me know that this investigation was just one of many. He’d only been in this job a few months, and he already had a list longer than his left arm. I had a feeling that the last thing he wanted to do was process more paperwork on Birdie than was absolutely necessary.
The farther we went across the lake, the more worried Randy looked. By the time we’d made it to the river channel, passed the bystanders in their boats, and started the trek through the woods, he’d asked me four times how much farther it would be. Guess he’d never gone to an appointment by boat and hike before. All the way up the hill, he kept checking the woods, still shadowy and quiet in the morning light. Some nocturnal critter scampered past in the brush, and I thought Randy was gonna jump out of his loafers. “What was that?”
“Probably just a bobcat or a coyote on the way to den up for the day.”