Mudlark (10 page)

Darla flushed a deep, unbecoming red.

Bonnie had gone to the kitchen to pour herself another cup of coffee. She said over her shoulder, "Don't
let them pull your leg, Darla. They're just quoting Shakespeare."

Darla's mouth quivered. "It's not a game."

"No?" Tom shoved his hair off his forehead. "Isn't the tribal council playing games, too?"

"What do you mean?"

"I hear they just passed a law defining a member of the tribe as anyone with one-quarter Nekana
blood."

Darla's fist clenched on the table. "There has to be a line."

"My grandmother was Nekana. She was always proud of that." Tom looked up at Bonnie
as she came back to the nook, then glanced at Jay and me, too. "My grandmother and Darla's, my
great-aunt Caroline, were sisters. They thought of tribal membership as a matter of kinship."

"I don't see your point." Darla's voice was cold.

Tom met her eyes. "Their grandfather was a Frenchman, Darla. Pierre LaPorte. The
marriage was registered with the diocese of Nisqually. Believe me, I've seen the records. I figure
that makes me something less than a quarter Nekana. What's more, unless you and your children
are into endogamous marriage, your little membership rule is going to exclude your own
grandchildren from the tribe."

Darla wasn't about to concede, but the sullen set of her jaw suggested he was hitting
close to home. "There has to be some kind of line."

"Why?"

"Why? Voting rights. Property--"

Tom leaned back in his chair. "Property?"

Darla's eyes dropped.

"You're buying into racism."

"Why didn't you speak up, then?" she flared. "We held a big hearing. Everybody was
invited to speak."

"I thought you'd want me to take a blood test."

I began to feel sorry for Darla.

Jay sipped tea. "Is there a lot of tribal resentment against the resort?"

Tom shrugged. "There's bad feeling, yes. There's bad feeling among a lot of local people.
My grandfather made a living, sort of, from an oyster bed in Shoalwater Bay. I lease out the rights to
that, and my tenants tell me they can't pay the rent, the oysters are dying off. The crab-boat
operators claim
they
can't keep going either. Not enough crab. The salmon runs are
dwindling. Logging's on its last legs. Farmland is being covered with mobile homes. All the
traditional ways of making a living around here are threatened by population growth."

I thought of Ruth's logger son who was out of work half the time.

Tom went on, "Even the retired people, whose mobile homes are part of the problem,
are raising a fuss. They don't want noise and heavy traffic. The resort symbolizes all that. People
like you and Annie McKay will have an easy time mounting a crusade against it, Darla. But stopping
construction of the resort won't solve the problem of growth. It's here to stay."

"Annie McKay," I murmured. "Surely she's not related to you too."

Tom's expression lightened. "
She's
not, but her husband's a cousin." He grinned. "On what my
grandfather always called the cadet branch of the family. Successful branch is another way of looking at it. Those
McKays own the paper. Annie's just the editor."

Darla said, with spirit, "The McKays own the paper, and two fish-processing plants in Kayport, and a
chain of building supply outlets that covers half the state."

Bonnie said, "If they sell building materials, isn't fighting a development a bit inconsistent?"

Darla shook her head. "McKay Construction Supply caters to do-it-yourselvers like Jay and Lark. The
McKays probably see a big professional resort as cutting into their potential market. The real reason, though, is the
Enclave."

I had encountered that term. "Is that the private development at the tip of the peninsula?"

Darla wrinkled her nose. "The one with the wall and the security guard."

"And the private ferry across the bay," Tom added. "Some of our rulers commute from the Enclave to
Olympia." Olympia was the state capital.

I rubbed my forehead. "I suppose the McKays own one of those gorgeous Victorians in the
Enclave."

Tom nodded. "Pure Carpenter Gothic."

Jay ruffled his mustache with one finger. "Are the Enclave people opposed to the resort?"

"Most of them," Tom said. "They don't want their playground cluttered with strangers."

"Annie McKay is a strong environmentalist. I think she's sincere." Darla sounded as if she were trying to
convince herself.

"Sure she is." Tom's mouth twitched at the corners. "She comes from a sincere family."

Family again.

I looked from Tom to Darla for an explanation.

Darla shrugged. "Annie was a Reilly. They run the only funeral parlor in Kayport."

Tom said, "I went to high school with Annie. That branch of the McKays are summer people, but she
was just a local. For all I know, Annie's a committed environmentalist now. Running the McKay paper gives her the
power to do something about issues that interest her."

I got up. "I'm getting a headache. More coffee?"

There were no takers.

Jay drank the last of his tea. "I can see why Dale Nelson rolled his eyes when I asked who had a grudge
against Cleo Hagen."

"And why he wanted me to be guilty of murder," Tom said.

"Trying to simplify things?" I asked.

"I told him Cleo wasn't a simple woman." Tom shoved his chair back and stood up. "I'll go check on
Freddy's progress."

That turned out to be unnecessary. Freddy had promised to take Darla home in half an hour, and he
was a man of his word. He thumped down the stairs before Tom reached the hall. Freddy and Darla left with a
minimum of formality. We all went to the door to see them off.

As the Trans Am churned out of the graveled drive, Tom said, "I don't know why it is, but whenever I'm
around that kid--Darla, I mean--we wind up bickering."

"Maybe you should stop calling her 'brat'," Bonnie murmured.

He digested that. "You're probably right. She was a cute little devil when she was five."

Bonnie said abruptly, "It was a great dinner, Lark, and even better company, but I think I'd better trot
on home to Gibson."

Jay said, "Shall I go across with you and double-check for thugs?"

Tom said, "I'll go. I need a walk."

I ran the next morning.

I woke early. No one else was stirring, and the storm had left the air like crystal. I ran five glorious
miles, almost to the Enclave, trotting the last half mile back along the tide line. It was great to be alone.

The storm had tossed debris, most of it natural, onto the firm sand. Fat gulls poked at bits of crab, kelp
strands, broken razor-clam shells, sand dollars. Vessels were prohibited from dumping plastics at sea, but an
assortment of nautical bags and bottles had also washed ashore. I reflected that I ought to bring a garbage sack
down and start collecting, but there was a beach clean-up, sponsored by the Kayport Jaycees, scheduled for
September, so I let the thought go.

A droning to the south resolved into the sound of helicopter blades. I watched the on-coming craft and
wondered whether it was Coast Guard or commercial. It swung over the dunes south of Bonnie's house, hovered
for a moment like a huge fly, then settled at the resort site. The one tiny airport on the peninsula was too small to
handle business jets, so the resort's corporate supervisors flew in and out in helicopters. I wished they wouldn't.
Owing to a youthful tour in Vietnam, Jay had bad associations with the noise. It made him edgy and had triggered a
nightmare, though he said he was getting used to the racket after a summer of almost daily whop-whop-whop.

I slowed to a walk and followed the path across the dunes to the road. Bonnie's car sat in her drive, but
Matt's Pontiac was missing. I deduced Matt had already gone to the hospital, and I spared a thought for Lottie.

Jay had left, too. He had a breakfast meeting with the training program's advisory committee. As I
entered the house I could hear the downstairs shower, so Tom was awake. I made coffee and went upstairs for my
own shower. Freddy was snoring. He had taken Darla home, returned, and gone right up to Tom's computer. He
was still busy with it when Jay and I went to bed.

When I came back down from my shower, Tom was on the phone in the breakfast nook. I poured a cup
of coffee and drank half of it while I glanced through the Shoalwater
Gazette
. It was a weekly paper. It had
come the night before and had apparently gone to press before the murder and arson stories broke. That would
give us a break from gawkers and invasive reporters--unless the wire services stimulated the dailies in Portland
and Astoria to investigate.

The editorial dealt with an upcoming bond election. There was nothing new on the resort. I thought
about turning on the radio. We had not subscribed to cable television, the only kind available, and I was grateful
not to have to watch the TV news.

Tom was obviously talking to a repair person--a carpenter or painter or electrician. He uh-huhed
several times, said a glum goodbye, and hung up.

"More coffee?"

"Thanks. I'm keeping a log of these phone calls."

I smiled and poured him a cup. "Don't be so scrupulous. They're local calls, aren't they?"

"I made two to Astoria. It seems there's a building boom."

"If so it's probably the only building boom in the continental United States."

"You may be right. I'm having one hell of a time locating an electrician." He sipped hot coffee. "You said
something about tearing out carpet. Need some help?"

"It's kind of you to offer but unnecessary. I was looking forward to mutilating the stuff myself."

"Two can rip faster than one."

"That's true. But--"

He said, "If I'm going to have to stick around here waiting for a kind-hearted electrician to return my
call, I might as well make myself useful."

Who was I to argue? The thought of all that nasty pink carpet was tempting. I offered breakfast first, but
Tom said he wasn't hungry and did I have claw hammers or crow bars. I had both. We went into the living room
and began ripping.

The chore went fast, especially when I discovered that the flooring beneath the rug was solid, if
somewhat scarred, oak. The vandals who had installed the carpet had removed most of the molding from the
baseboard, but Tom thought we could find something to replace it at the McKay Supply outlet in Kayport.

I was exuberant. I called the college and left Jay a message to rent a sander. Tom and I hauled the moldy
roll of carpet to the garage. I showed him his salmon while we were out there. Bonnie ran across to ask if I needed
anything from Kayport. I said no, and she took off in her little red car.

Tom and I went back into the house. We ate breakfast. We discussed the probability of all the flooring
in the house being oak--he had played with the children of the owners when he was growing up--and the phone
finally rang. It was for Tom, an electrician. I promised to field his other calls and saw him off, looking hopeful, to
supervise the rewiring of his house.

The sight of all that bare wood fired me with ambition. By the time Jay came home with the sander
around eleven, I had vacuumed up the debris and scrubbed the surface with Green Stuff. Jay was duly impressed.
Also a little guilty, until I told him how fast our job of destruction had gone. He went upstairs to change into work
clothes, and I surveyed my living room.

I should have been daunted. Tearing down the wallpaper had revealed a cracked plaster surface full of
nicks and gouges that would have to be filled and covered with a coat of sealant. All the woodwork, including the
window frames and the oak mantel above the brick fireplace, needed to be repainted. The brick was red and
uninteresting. Covering it with plaster would create a southwestern effect, trendy that year, but not suitable to the
architecture or climate. I thought I'd better just paint the bricks white.

If I also painted the walls white, I'd have lots of nice blank space on which to hang artwork--my
great-grandmother's hand woven coverlet, for instance. Then I could find an area rug to evoke the indigo and beige of the
coverlet and arrange our living room furniture in a comfortable grouping around the fireplace. I had enough
antique odds and ends to fill the remaining space. It would be a congenial, interesting room, a place to entertain
friends. I could hardly wait.

I inserted paper in the sander, plugged it in, and cut a wide arc on the surface of the floor. Just testing.
As I swung the machine around for a second swath the doorbell rang. At first I thought it was the telephone, but I
switched the sander off and the bell pealed again. Definitely the doorbell. I hoped Bonnie hadn't suffered another
disaster and remembered she had left for town.

I went to the door, dragging the heavy sander. The long electric cord followed me. I hoped whoever it
was, whether carpenter, reporter, or huckster, would gain the impression that I was a busy woman.

A thirtyish business executive--his buttoned-down costume left no other interpretation possible--gave
me an unsmiling stare. "Mrs. Dodge?"

"Yes."

"I understand that Thomas Lindquist is staying with you. May I speak with him?"

I hesitated. I was about to tell him where Tom was, but something in the man's manner repelled me. I
swung the sander around to my side, thumbing the switch, and adopted a tone my mother would have applauded.
"Who shall I say is calling?"

"Donald Hagen."

I opened my mouth. Cleo Cabot Hagen's husband. An incredibly clean-cut Republican, if looks were any
indication, and probably five years younger than his wife. That was interesting.

I heard Jay's footstep on the stairs. "He's not--"

The man didn't wait for me to complete my sentence. He leaned into the door, shoving it wide, and
strode past me into the hall.

"Just a damned minute--"