Dreams in the Key of Blue (3 page)

A plump, middle-aged woman whose name tag identified her as Angie stood behind the counter trimming steaks. When I gathered what I wanted and placed the items at the checkout, she turned, wiping her hands on an already bloody apron.

“What time do you close?” I asked, intending to make small talk as she tallied my purchases on an adding machine.

“Twenty minutes ago,” she said.

There was nothing subtle about the woman’s demeanor. She wanted no part of conversation, and she did not look at me. She completed the transaction, pushed my change across the counter, then grabbed a cleaver and turned to whack at a bloody slab of beef.

I was only days away from the safety, sanctity, and relative sanity of my retreat at Lake Albert, and already I was remembering why I didn’t like to venture among people in their natural environment, people who were not in leg irons or otherwise restrained behind electrically charged, steel-barred sliding doors. Humans in the wild were ill-humored and uncivil for no apparent reason.

Shit, they were too damn much like me.

AS I STEPPED OUT OF DOWNTOWN GROCERY, JAYCIE
Waylon greeted me. “I thought I was going to have to rescue you,” she said.

“From?”

“Angie. She doesn’t like people from the college.”

“How would she know I had anything to do with the college?”

“This time of year we’re the only strangers in town.”

Jaycie walked with me to the municipal parking lot. “I can usually get her to crack a smile,” she said. “I vowed that before I graduate I’ll get a real belly laugh out of her.”

“You may have set yourself up to be disappointed,” I said.

“I can be very determined.”

“Are you originally from this area?” I asked.

“Augusta. Well, I moved there to live with my aunt when I was eight. My Canterbury, New Hampshire.” parents were killed in an automobile accident. We had a little farm in

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“So am I. My parents had great plans for the farm. They saved their money and paid cash for it. I haven’t been
back. At first it was because people didn’t think I should. Now it’s just so long ago. You’re originally from Boston, right?”

“I was a permanent, if not proper, Bostonian, until about seven years ago.”

“Then you dropped out.”

“Then I dropped out,” I agreed.

“How come you don’t talk like Ted Kennedy?” she asked, doing her best imitation of a Boston accent.

“Both my parents were from Scotland. Until I was in my twenties, I had a wee bit of a brogue.”

She laughed. “I think you still do.”

We arrived at my Jeep.

“MI gave you the house on the hill, right?”

“My directions tell me to turn left on Atlantic Hill Road.”

“Make sure you check out the view of the ocean from the bluff.”

I DROVE UP THE DIRT ROAD TO MY TEMPORARY GIFT A
modest, light blue Cape Cod overlooking Ragged Harbor—from, as Stu Gilman had informed me, and Jaycie had confirmed, Martin International.

I unlocked the house, inspected the interior briefly, then sat in a rocker on the front porch and sipped a bottle of Shipyard Goat Island light ale. Whoever had equipped the place for me was familiar with my personal tastes. I had found a dozen bottles of the brewed treasure waiting for me in the refrigerator.

I hoisted my legs onto the porch rail, leaned back, and stared into the scrub growth across the road. A battered gray car passed, headed up the hill. The driver, with his ball cap turned backward on his head, waved. I returned
the gesture, wondering where he was going. Mine was the only house on the dead-end road.

At home on Lake Albert, traffic had limited itself to an occasional passing boat, or a four-legged guest on my fenced ten acres. When I quit the business and left Boston, I had retreated into isolation. Only now had I reluctantly reentered the crazy world that I watched grow around me.

“The kid probably likes scenery,” I muttered, remembering Jaycie’s promise of a panoramic view of the ocean and the outer islands.

I had been sitting on the porch for fifteen minutes when the light breeze that blew off the water threatened to become a bone-chilling squall. Dark clouds tumbled inland, and a hard rain pelted the maple trees and showered down a scattering of leaves in the shades of late autumn’s dead and dying colors. It was a frigid rain, and the offshore wind gained force.

“God, that came up fast,” I said as I slammed the door behind me.

I stacked pieces of beech and maple on the fireplace grate, over the newspaper and kindling that someone from the college maintenance department had thoughtfully left for me. I put a match to the paper and watched it flare, then settle into a crackling collage of colors and warmth.

The sound of the car returning down the hill distracted me. I turned and saw the old Volvo slow in front of the house, then accelerate and disappear from view.

“Guess the storm drove you away, too,” I said.

I popped the cap off another Shipyard, switched on the radio and found a station playing the New England jamming band Bruce, and sat on the edge of the raised hearth. I felt the fire’s heat on my back, sipped my cold brew, and listened to “Dennis the Wolfman,” accompanied
by the clatter of rain against the house. I could have remained like that for a long time, but a car pulled into the driveway, followed by a pounding on my door.

“Might as well live in Manhattan,” I muttered as I opened the door to four guests.

“We ran from the driveway,” Jaycie Waylon said. “We still got soaked.”

She handed me a shopping bag.

“That’s Sara Brenner,” she said, pointing at a smiling young woman whose black hair was as bedraggled as her wool shawl. “She sits behind her hair in class.”

Sara waved.

“Kai Lin is nearly dry,” Jaycie said, indicating her second friend, “because she remembers things, like bringing an umbrella when it’s raining. If you examine her closely, you’ll see that she’s also wearing waterproof shoes. Kai Lin had a schedule conflict so she couldn’t sign up for the seminar. And you know Amanda Squires. She’s our thinker and provocateur.”

“Drag some chairs near the fire,” I said. “I’ll find a few towels.”

“We’re the unofficial Harbor College welcoming committee,” Sara called.

Jaycie traipsed after me to the hall closet. “I hope you don’t mind us inviting ourselves over.”

I glanced at her, thinking how much she reminded me of my daughter Lane as a college student.

Jaycie held up her hands. “I know. If you minded, you’d say so.”

“Right,” I agreed. “Besides, after our conversation this afternoon I half expected a home intrusion.”

We returned to a semicircle of chairs near the fire. The students decorated the hearth with two pairs of saturated tennis shoes, one soggy shawl, and a damp windbreaker.

Sara pointed at the shopping bag. “Jaycie read somewhere that you liked microbrewed ale, so that’s what we got. The corn chips are just corn chips, but the salsa is amazing.”

“Why do I sense heartburn in my immediate future?” I asked.

Kai Lin reached into the bag. “Hot,” she said, holding up one jar, then lifting a second. “Mild.”

“I’m relieved.”

“There are some Tums in there, too,” Sara added. “Amanda bought them, but I’m sure she’ll share.”

“Thinkers are prone to acid indigestion,” Kai Lin said.

“This is for you,” Amanda said, handing me a narrow white box. “From the unofficial welcoming committee.”

“This is very kind,” I said, opening the box to reveal a carved ivory letter opener.

“Oh, it’s scrimshaw,” Jaycie said, peering over my shoulder. “Good choice. Can you explain the etching?”

I glanced at the shipwreck scene that decorated the bone blade.

“The story’s a downer,” Amanda said. “I’ll tell you some other time.”

I examined the delicately etched whalebone. Its fine lines depicted the drama of a whaling ship yawing in windblown seas, its harpooned catch, a sperm whale, harnessed precariously on the starboard. A giant sea serpent, jaws wide, fangs bared, loomed behind the tableau, ready to devour the ship, whale, and crew.

“This is magnificent work,” I said. “I will want to hear that story sometime.”

Kai Lin opened chips and salsa, Sara used her pocketknife’s bottle opener to snap the caps off four ales, and Jaycie rubbed her wet hair with a bath towel.

“Doesn’t the college frown on this sort of fraternizing among faculty and students?” I asked.

“Harbor College is a liberal institution,” Sara said with a smile.

“Which means,” Kai Lin added, “they don’t care what anybody does so long as they pay their tuition.”

“We wanted a different course offering,” Sara said. “We also wanted somebody from outside the college to teach it.”

“We nearly got wrecked driving up here,” Jaycie said. “Some idiot coming down the hill wanted the whole road.”

I thought of the young man with the backward ball cap in the small gray car.

“Townies don’t like Harbor girls,” Sara said.

“Let’s not get into that,” Kai Lin said. “Whose idea was the seminar?”

“‘Gender and Violence’ seems pretty radical even for Harbor,” Sara agreed, and added, “Dr. Frank’s beer has the smiley face.”

“The board member from MI who gives all that money to the college,” Amanda said. “What’s her name? She like owns the company or something.”

“Melanie Martin,” Jaycie said.

“Didn’t you have an internship there?” Kai Lin asked.

“Still do, but I’ve never met Ms. Martin.”

I added a log to the fire, then returned to the circle, where my ale grinned an orange grin at me. I grimaced.

“I know he likes the ale,” Jaycie said. “Must be he doesn’t like smiley faces.”

“You’ve got it,” I said. “They’re from the soporific seventies, symptomatic of the entire decade.”

I peeled off the minimalist design and stuck it on the hearth.

“What interests you besides murder?” Jaycie asked.

“Well, I’m a fishing fanatic,” I said, sipping ale. “I enjoy reading a good mystery.”

“I love mysteries,” Sara said. “Who do you think writes the best mysteries today?”

“No one,” I said with a laugh. “My favorites are the Nero Wolfe stories by Rex Stout.”

“Wolfe’s the one who weighs a seventh of a ton and wears yellow silk pajamas,” Sara said. “I read some of those.”

“That’s nearly three hundred pounds,” Kai Lin offered.

“Good math,” Jaycie said. “What else do you like, Dr. Frank?”

“Music.”

“Classical?” Sara asked.

“He was listening to Bruce when we came in,” Jaycie said.

For an hour the conversation bounced from their questions about my interests, to their interests, to life, politics, and the universe. Sara was firm in her belief that President Clinton did not suffer from a sexual compulsion. “He’s like any other guy,” she said.

Kai Lin found Newt Gingrich far more psychologically interesting than Bill Clinton. “He’s a totally different species,” she insisted. “He says he resigned for the good of the nation and the good of his party. Don’t get me started or you’ll have to wash out my mouth with soap.”

Jaycie lamented what technology was doing to the business world. “All the old sci-fi is coming true,” she said. “Watch the drones file into the office building and march to their cubicles. I’d rather work on an assembly line. At least then I could shout to my neighbor.”

Amanda Squires, the group’s thinker, had little to say. She sipped ale, dipped chips, and observed.

“What about the serial killer in Washington State, Dr. Frank?” Kai Lin asked. “He’s killed mostly in Spokane, but also across the state in Tacoma.”

“I doubt that Dr. Frank wants to talk business,” Jaycie said.

“You get to ask him in class. I don’t.”

I shrugged. “I’m not familiar with the case.”

“His victims are women… drug addicts, prostitutes, street people. The police haven’t said much about what he does to them, except that he shoots them execution-style. That’s unusual for a serial killer, isn’t it?”

I hesitated, and carefully chose my words. “A gun is not a common choice of weapon for a serial murderer, but I think that how this killer’s choices are statistically different is less important than what the manner of killing means to him.”

“A gun is noisy,” Kai Lin said. “It can be traced.”

“Which suggests something about the killings,” I said, “and raises a question about the killer. The women were most likely killed in isolated areas, and the shooter isn’t concerned about the gun being traced.”

“What does it mean to him?” Sara asked.

“We could state generalizations about weapon choice, but without knowing much more, we can’t be at all specific.”

“Police experts say the killer has some legitimate reason to be traveling from one end of the state to another.”

“They know more than we do,” I said, “but killing might be reason enough.”

“The article I read also said that killers who target prostitutes are street people. They don’t look out of place. They fit in with the scene, so nobody suspects them.”

“That’s one possibility,” I agreed.

“What’s another one?” Kai Lin asked.