The Last Annual Slugfest (10 page)

I
MADE MY WAY
through the traffic on North Bank Road. The café door opened, and out of it walked a tall, curly-haired man with a beard. He wore jeans and an Aran sweater. Seeing me, he grinned. “You’re the meter reader, aren’t you?”

It was a moment before I recognized him as Edwina’s guest from yesterday. I smiled. “Yes. I’m surprised you’re still here.”

“Did I give you the impression I was passing through?”

“Well, no. I just figured if you were staying, you’d come to the Slugfest.”

The smile faded. “Oh, that. I’d planned to. When you were telling me about it, I fully intended to go. But then I … couldn’t.”

I pulled my wool cap down farther over my ears. This would have to be the day I had no hot water and hadn’t washed my hair. It was like my mother had told me: “Never go out of the house without makeup. You never know who you’ll meet.” The idea of being seen in public with stringy hair was beneath consideration.

“Listen, I just had breakfast, or I’d ask you,” he said. “It was gigantic, so I can’t even ask you to lunch. But what about an early dinner? My name’s Harry Bramwell, so you know who you didn’t have breakfast with.”

I almost said I didn’t know where things would take me today, but caught myself. I could hardly refuse a man who accepted me in this condition, particularly one to whom I had given so much thought last night. “I’m Vejay Haskell. How about five o’clock?”

“Good. I’ll be at your house then, if it’s not too far back in the hills. I don’t have a very good record finding places in this town. I even had trouble spotting the Tobacconist’s right in the middle of town.”

“Just stay on North Bank Road for three blocks. It’s a yellow house, perched on the hillside. Fifty-two steps. You can’t miss it. My name’s on the mailbox.”

“I’ll see you then,” he said, extending a hand. He gave my hand a squeeze, then turned and walked toward his Volvo.

I watched as he jumped down from the high curb and climbed into the car. As he pulled out and headed toward the ocean, I smiled, delighted at his unexpected reappearance. With Edwina’s murder, I had almost forgotten him. Now I recalled the San Francisco State University sticker on his window. Was Harry Bramwell a professor, or was he just going back to school for a second degree, or a late first one? I recalled reading that the average age of students at San Francisco State was twenty-seven. Yesterday, in his jacket, he had had a professorial look, but today, the Aran sweater suggested a traveler. Perhaps a photographer, or a journalist, or … But I could find that out at dinner. Till then, my time was committed to Rosa and Edwina’s murder.

I turned my gaze back across the street to the Women’s Space Bookstore.

I had hoped when we talked that Leila would explain away my misgivings. But with Edwina dead, she stood to inherit money and commercial space. (I couldn’t believe that someone as family oriented as Edwina would leave her ancestral fortune to a trust run by strangers, regardless of what she had told Leila.) So, with Edwina’s murder, Leila could both inherit and get revenge for her father, her childhood, and her lover. What more could anyone ask for motive? For discoveries that would help my friends, I was batting substantially less than zero.

It was with relief that I noticed Curry Cunningham coming out of Gresham’s Hardware.
He
wasn’t a friend. I knew him mostly from reading the meter at Crestwood Logging. Unlike Angelina Rudd, who had set up the fish ranch so that getting past the gate was a major operation, Curry Cunningham made a point of meeting everyone who came to the site. He knew what day his meter would be read (anyone could call the office to find out, but few did), and he made sure that there were no logs stacked in front of it, or trucks parked in my way. His house site was on my H-1 route. Once he had stopped me and offered a tour of the unbroken ground. He was so eager that I hated to refuse, and half an hour later, I had seen blueprints that were unintelligible to me and had watched him pace out what would be a huge living room, a dining room, a country kitchen, and a studio for his wife. He had pointed up proudly to the air, where the second floor would be. I had seen the architect’s sketches, heard about the copper piping and the redwood shingles. And I suspected, as he pulled me here and there, that this tour, given for the joy of describing his dream, could as easily have been given to the postman or the garbage man.

Curry stood on the sidewalk in front of Gresham’s display of wading boots. His thick eyebrows were raised in question, his prominent jaw jutted even farther forward than usual as he tapped his teeth together. He looked like a leprechaun who had misplaced his pot of gold.

“Hey, there,” he called as I stepped toward him, “when are you going to put the lights back on at my house?” By that, he meant the house he was renting in the ever-expanding interval till his own house was built. As far as I knew, there had been no progress on that since my tour of the grounds.

“When you pay your bill,” I replied. I had been dying to say that to someone since the last outage, but it was hardly the kind of witticism that would have gone over on my route. It didn’t seem to be a big hit with Curry Cunningham either. I added, “The lights are off at my house, too. I’m just glad the problem is so localized. It’s really bad when the power fails here too, on North Bank Road. Then you can’t even get a cup of coffee.”

“I don’t know if I dare stop here for coffee today.” He glanced around conspiratorially. “I’m surprised you haven’t been attacked by everyone in town who wants a firsthand report, but then, you weren’t a judge.”

“Oh, you mean about the Slugfest.”

He nodded. “I just came down here to see if Gresham’s had dimmer switches. I figured as long as the power was off I might as well make use of the time—”

“Don’t do that. It could go on any time.”

He laughed, a little leprechaun laugh. “I’m not that careless.” Grabbing my arm, he made a show of pulling me into the café.

I stared at him in mock affront.

“That was Alphonse DiLeo from the Knights of Columbus bearing down on me out there. If he’d bagged me he’d have made the fifth this morning. I’m just going to have to keep off the streets.” He sat down at a small table, nodding at the opposite chair for me.

“Let me be the fifth, then. How do you think Edwina was murdered?”

“Everybody in town knows she was poisoned. They all know that only those of us up by the stage had access to the food. I’ll tell you …” He grappled for my name.

“Vejay.”

“Vejay, it creates an awkward situation when you deal with the public.”

“How so?” I asked, anxious to get his particular slant.

Curry Cunningham was eager to explain. “These are the people I ultimately have to justify my operation to. You were in public relations, you know how important that is.”

“Uh-huh.” I was amazed that he, who hadn’t a clue to my name, had recalled that one obscure fact from my past. I must have mentioned it while pacing his still-imagined dining room or kitchen.

Marty approached with the menus. As he looked down at me, he broke into a grin. “Our eggs with sauerkraut and chorizo are especially fine this morning, ma’am.”

“We’ll just have coffee,” Curry said. “That okay with you, Vejay?”

Another cup of coffee was not what I needed, but I couldn’t be bothered disagreeing. I nodded, thinking how Curry Cunningham balanced on the edge of annoying presumption, just pulling himself back in time. When Marty had retreated, I said, “So you figure Crestwood Logging is going to have an image problem because of you?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that.” He looked offended. “But the thing is, I’ve devoted a lot of myself to Crestwood Logging. And I love this area. I came here on vacation and decided then that I wanted to live here. I even had
The Paper
sent to me at home. I love the river and the state park and the ocean. And I remembered the forests. I’ve seen poorly managed logging, Vejay; I know what it can do to forests like these. I decided then that they needed to be handled by someone who cared about them—by me.” He took a swallow of coffee, grimaced, then added cream. “One of the reasons I opted to work for Crestwood was because, with them, I could get back here. And I’ll tell you—I hope I don’t sound like I’m bragging—but I run their most ecologically sound logging operation, and not without the promise of profit. Why, right now, even with the small stand of trees I can harvest, I’ve got three dozen carriers and a flotilla of tugboats ready to carry the logs to a Japanese vessel waiting at sea. Japan is a big market for lumber. My wife is Japanese, you know.”

I nodded.

“Well, Japan’s a big market, but the import duties are a killer. So, for most companies the profits are marginal. What you need to do with the Japanese is make the right gesture. They’re the people who cut off all but one chrysanthemum, so that the perfect flower can be appreciated. One beautiful thing is worth a hundred—no, a thousand—ordinary ones. Most Westerners don’t understand that. Certainly Western businessmen don’t. It’s a way of thinking they can never really grasp. But with the right gesture, and with my connections in Japan, even this small cut will turn a good profit.”

I had seen the site of his operation. I said, “Aren’t thirty-six carriers rather a lot for so small a tree harvest?”

He smiled. “It sounds like it. But you see, Vejay, the Japanese ship is on a tight schedule. It can only stay here one day, so that means that I can’t count on more than a few runs per truck, a few trips for each of the tugboats. Speed is the key. And in a way, the river area benefits. Most logging operations are an eyesore and a nuisance. They wreck the hillside. The trucks plod along the roads, blocking traffic for days. But with this, it will all be over in one day. And you know my site is far enough off the main road that you have to be going there to see it.”

“I’ve heard you run a careful operation,” I said. He had already told me twice himself. Curry Cunningham, despite his protests, was not one to hide his light under a bushel. “I’m sure you have to file Environmental Impact Reports—”

“Reports!” He sighed. “Actually, for us, they’re called Timber Harvesting Reports. But we do tests, surveys, file page after page of report. You wouldn’t believe the paperwork. I’ve had to hire an extra woman just to keep up with it. But I’m not complaining. I’m all for protecting the countryside. Where can you drive along a river and see anything as magnificent as the Nine Warriors?”

I nodded. The Nine Warriors—Edwina Henderson’s beloved redwoods that she had convinced the county to protect—were said to be over a thousand years old. They were eleven feet in diameter and reached nearly two hundred and fifty feet into the sky. Some older or larger redwoods could be found in Armstrong Woods State Park, or farther north in Humboldt County, but as a group, the Nine Warriors were in a class by themselves. These trees were so alike, it was said, that one day in the tenth century all nine cones had dropped to the ground; from these, the Nine Warriors had grown. Now they stood between River Road (and North Bank Road in Henderson) and the river itself. Some were within a few yards of each other, others miles apart. They were so cherished that River Road had been built to curve around them.

“This is where I live, where my son will grow up,” Curry continued. “I plan to be around for a long time. That’s why I joined the historical society, and the Knights of Columbus, and the city council. You know, you don’t get paid for that. And it’s a lot of work, particularly for someone who’s not interested in politics.”

“They say the main qualification for a council member is a willingness to serve.”

He laughed. “Just about. You wouldn’t believe the petty stuff that comes before the council. I doubt I’ve ever gotten home from one of those meetings before midnight. Still, I’m not complaining. I’m just saying that I don’t want my image blackened because I was in the wrong place.” He lifted his cup and took a drink, this time looking satisfied with the mixture. “You want a doughnut or something?”

“No, thanks.”

“You don’t mind if I do?” When I shook my head, he caught Marty as he passed by and ordered a bear claw.

The café was half empty. Outside, the morning fog was still thick. People whose lights had stayed on would be home in front of their fires, drinking their own coffee and grumbling. Those who had no power might still be asleep, or have driven to Santa Rosa, where they could be sure of finding light and heat. Or perhaps the power had come back on by now.

From Curry’s assessment of his own operation, worthy of any press release, I grabbed onto the one point that could be of use to me. “You were in the river area when you were younger?”

He smiled. “I was in high school.”

“Did you know Leila Katz?”

Marty arrived with the bear claw. Giving it his full attention, Curry bit in hungrily. When he had swallowed, he said, “I met a lot of kids that summer. I dated a beautiful girl named Estella. I thought she was the most exotic thing I’d ever seen. After her, everyone else faded into a blur. I may have met Leila.” He shrugged.

“What happened that summer, beside your great romance? Were there any big events, or maybe scandals? This area is full of those, and they’re so fascinating when you’re a kid.” I took a swallow of my coffee, glad Leila Katz couldn’t hear me.

“I don’t remember anything but Estella and our picnics and the canoe trips, and the walks in the state park, and all that ‘great romance’ stuff. The earthquake could have come and I wouldn’t have noticed. Besides, I was really an outsider. The kids here had gone to school together from first grade. They were friendly to me, and we all did things together, but I knew I wasn’t really one of them. If there was any scandal, they wouldn’t have told me about it. Only Estella would have told me.” He took another big bite of his bear claw. “In any case, there was no scandal like this one now.”

I hesitated. Did that hedging afterthought mean that he
had
heard of a scandal, Leila’s scandal, that summer? But even if he had, he obviously wasn’t going to admit it. Changing the subject, I said, “You’re a member of the historical society. You must have known Edwina Henderson through that.”