Bitch Creek (18 page)

Inside, he found Kate at the counter in deep conversation with two men wearing business suits. She glanced up when the bell over the door dinged, lifted her chin at Calhoun, then resumed her conversation. “Okay,” she was saying, drawing on a piece of paper. “Tide's about half out around six, so you should find 'em at the estuary, here, along this channel, waiting for the bait to wash out of the creek. They come in along this dropoff, and you can wade out onto this sandbar . . .”

Calhoun wandered over to three guys—they looked like a father and two late-teen sons—who were studying the rack of rods. “Need any help?” he said.

One of the younger ones turned to him. “You work here?”

“Ayuh.”

“What do you think about stripping baskets?”

“Wade fishin' for stripers, you sure need one,” said Calhoun, shifting into full Downeast twang. “Keep your line from gettin' tangled in the weeds or sloshin' around in the surf, all twisted around your legs.”

The boy turned to the other two. “See?”

“You can make one for yourself,” said Calhoun. “Just get yourself a plastic dish tub and a bungee cord. Punch holes in two of the corners, hook your bungee cord into 'em, snug her around your waist, and you're in business.”

“Don't you sell them here?” asked the older man, the father.

“Oh, sure,” said Calhoun. “Store-bought ones work, too.”

For the next several hours, a steady stream of customers wandered into and out of the shop, and Calhoun barely had the chance to nod and smile at Kate as the two of them gave away advice and recommendations. Most of the customers had the courtesy to buy a few flies or spools of tippet material, and Calhoun did sell an Orvis eight-weight outfit—he even nail-knotted a leader and backing to the ends of the line and then spooled it onto the reel for the guy—but considering the volume of customers, Calhoun figured they hadn't made much money.

It was after six o'clock when he realized that he and Kate were alone. He went out back and fished two Cokes from the cooler. He took them to the front counter, where Kate was bent over the ledger in which they kept track of everything they sold. He put the can of Coke beside her elbow.

She glanced up. “Oh, thanks, Stoney.”

“Figured you could use it.”

“It's been a damn zoo,” she said, still peering at her entries in the ledger. “Last two days, I've been running around like a trout foul-hooked in the tail. Without you and Lyle around to help out . . .”

“I'm sorry, honey.”

She glanced up at him. “Don't call me that here.”

“Somethin' bothering you, Kate?”

She shook her head.

“What is it?” he persisted.

“Nothing, Stoney. Just leave me be.”

“Somethin's eating at you. You ought to let me in on it.”

She said nothing.

“Kate,” he said. He touched her shoulder. “What's going on? If it's about Lyle, I—”

“I just wish it was more businesslike around here.”

“Meaning what?”

She put down her pencil and looked up at him. “Look,” she said, “I'm trying not to go broke here. You don't have to worry about it. But I do. I've got to worry about it. If I don't, nobody does. We've got folks asking for guide trips, and I don't feel like I've got any guides except myself. And what'm I going to do, close up the shop so I can take people fishing?”

“You've got me.”

“I got you when you feel like it,” she said. “When you don't feel like running around with the sheriff playing detective. Dammit, Stoney. The last two days've been . . .” She waved her hand in the air. “Forget it,” she said. “Not your problem.”

“Lyle was killed,” he said. “Murdered.”

“Well, hell,” she said. “I know that. And I feel bad about it. You know I do. And I know how you feel about it, how much Lyle meant to you.”

“He was shot, Kate. Someone shot him while he was out in his float tube. I can't just—”

“You can't just let Sheriff Dickman handle it? That what you mean?”

He looked up at the ceiling for a minute. Then he said, “Kate, listen. It was you who said for me to go, help out the sheriff, do whatever I needed to do.”

“Since when have you been indispensable to the sheriff?”

“Since I found Lyle lying there in the mud with a bullet in his belly, I reckon.” He shook his head. “No. Since I decided I didn't want to take Fred Green fishing and gave him to Lyle. I can't just let it go, honey.”

She looked down at the ledger, shaking her head. “Right,” she said. “It's all your fault.”

He shrugged. “It feels like it is. I don't get why you don't understand that.”

“Look, Stoney,” she said. “I got to finish toting up these numbers. Then I'm going to lock up and go home. Doesn't look like anyone else'll be in tonight, so you can leave if you want.”

“I thought you wanted to hear about what we learned today.”

“Sure. Next time you drop in, if it's not too busy, you can tell me all about it. Meanwhile, Lyle's dead and nothing's going to change that.”

“I'll be in tomorrow to open up.”

“You do what you want to do, like always.”

He let out a long breath. “Well, goddammit, Kate, that's what I want to do. I'll be here at seven.”

“You be sure to let me know if you change your mind.”

“I'm not going to change my mind.”

Calhoun swept the floor and emptied the wastebaskets into the Dumpster out back. Then he straightened out the displays, moving items that customers had been looking at back to where they belonged, glancing through the boxes of flies to be sure that they were all in the right compartments.

By the time he finished, Kate had hung the
GONE FISHIN
' sign on the door and had moved to the back office, where she was talking on the phone. Calhoun stood in the doorway, and after a moment she glanced up, gave him a quick smile that her eyes did not participate in, then looked down at her desktop and resumed her conversation.

He shrugged, walked out, and got into his truck, and all the way home he tried to figure out what had happened. He didn't even pretend to understand women, never mind one as complicated as Kate Balaban. He knew their minds worked different, and that was about it. Men, he'd learned, tended to say what they were thinking and ask for what they wanted. Women expected you to know what they were thinking and wanting, and when you didn't, they thought you didn't love them.

On the other hand, if Kate wasn't so damn complicated, she wouldn't be so interesting. And if she wasn't so interesting, Calhoun figured he wouldn't love her so much.

She was all upset about Lyle. That was probably it.

Sometimes, he knew, Kate was thinking about Walter, feeling guilty. She told him that Walter had never mentioned anything about it, not once since the night when they'd talked to him. But she said that sometimes she could feel Walter's eyes on her, even when she was at Calhoun's house and Walter was back in Portland. Calhoun tried to talk to her about it, but she told him to forget it, it was her situation and she'd handle it herself.

He didn't know if he could do what Kate was doing, living with somebody who loved her—and who, he knew, she loved, too—and being with somebody else who she also loved. Calhoun didn't blame her for second-guessing herself, for growing distant sometimes, for taking it out on him.

Maybe she'd come tonight. She'd feel bad about being snippy with him. She'd appear, maybe wearing the peasant blouse with the scooped neck and the full skirt that swirled around her legs when she walked and all that jangly silver and turquoise jewelry that made her look like a gypsy. She'd give him a big hug, whisper that she was sorry she'd been bitchy . . . and everything would be all right.

He shook his head. It had taken him a long time to learn not to expect her, to understand that she came when she could and when she wanted to, and that she would never come to him unless she felt right about it. He supposed that most nights she didn't feel right about it, and that was why she didn't come more often.

Yesterday he'd asked her to come, and she had. But that was an exception. Yesterday he'd found Lyle's body.

Maybe that was it. Maybe she was upset that she'd broken her own rule, or that he'd asked when they'd agreed that he never would.

She would not come tonight. He was certain of that.

Dusk was falling as he turned into his driveway. Well, Ralph would be glad to see him. Ralph was always glad to see him. No matter what he did or where he'd been, Ralph was the same.

Dogs were a helluva lot more predictable than women.

When he topped the last hill to his place, he saw the dark green Audi sedan parked where he always left his truck.

The man in the suit had returned.

T
HAT WAS HOW
C
ALHOUN THOUGHT OF HIM
: The Man in the Suit. He appeared to be a few years older than Calhoun, and his sandy hair was turning gray. It looked washed-out, sort of colorless, like his eyes. Pretty much like the entire man. He was tall and skinny and stooped-over, with a long nose and a narrow face and a small mouth that barely moved when he talked. He'd never given Calhoun his name. He always wore a gray suit, and he showed up at unexpected times, more or less every couple of months.

Calhoun got out of his truck and saw the Man in the Suit sitting in a rocker up on the deck. He was smoking a cigarette, absolutely relaxed, as if he had all the time in the world to sit there waiting for Calhoun to come home.

Ralph was lying beside the man, and when he saw Calhoun he lifted his head and wagged his stubby little tail but did not bother getting up.

Calhoun went in the front door, took the Remington autoloader off its hooks, and carried it out through the kitchen, through the sliding glass doors, and onto the deck.

The Man in the Suit looked up and smiled. He opened his hand and showed Calhoun the three shotgun shells he was holding. “Come on, Stoney,” he said. “Have a seat. Catch me up.”

Calhoun had been putting up drywall in the living room on a rainy afternoon in July of his first summer in Maine. It had been four months since he'd left the hospital, and he'd almost stopped thinking about it. Lyle had left after lunch to go bass fishing, and Calhoun was thinking that if Lyle brought back a good report, maybe tomorrow he'd take a break from his house building and try it himself, when he'd heard a voice call, “Mr. Calhoun?”

The front door was open and a man was standing on the porch with rainwater dripping off the roof onto his trench coat. A green Audi sedan was parked out front beside Calhoun's truck. Under his open coat the man wore a gray suit and striped necktie. Calhoun didn't remember ever seeing him before.

“Come on in,” he said. “It's raining out there.” He figured the man was an insurance salesman. The folks who handed out religious pamphlets generally traveled in pairs.

The stranger stepped inside and stood there. “I was just passing by, thought I'd drop in and see how you were doing.”

He was not from Maine. He had one of those vague, homogenized accents. Someone who moved around a lot, who had a talent for blending in, a man who people would have trouble remembering.

“I don't believe I know you, sir,” Calhoun said.

The man had stepped into what would eventually be the kitchen, but which then had a bare plywood floor. “You never used to talk like that,” he said, shaking the water out of his hair.

“Like what?”

“That accent.”

Calhoun had shrugged. “It's how I talk. So what do you want?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, they asked me to look in on you, make sure everything was going okay.”

“They?”

He flapped his hands and smiled.

“From the hospital, you mean?”

“Right,” he said, and Calhoun knew by the way he said it that it wasn't exactly the truth.

“Tell them I'm fine,” said Calhoun. “Thank them very much for their concern. Tell them they don't need to check up on me. I don't want to be checked up on. In fact, tell them that in the future I intend to shoot trespassers. okay? Will you tell them that?”

He gave Calhoun a patient smile, the sort of smile a priest might give a sinner. “They care about you, Mr. Calhoun. That's all.”

“And they want to know what I'm remembering.”

“Well, yes. That. And just, in general, if—”

“Nothing. Tell them I remember nothing. I'm starting over. Okay?”

The Man in the Suit had stood there with his eyebrows arched, as if he'd expected Calhoun to elaborate. After a minute, he shrugged. “Okay, Mr. Calhoun.” He turned to leave, hesitated, then said, “They will keep checking on you, you know.”

“From now on,” Calhoun had said, “I'll be shooting trespassers. Be sure you tell 'em that.”

The next time the Man in the Suit appeared at the door, Calhoun had greeted him with the Remington on his shoulder.

“You're not going to shoot me, Stoney,” the man said, and when Calhoun looked down, he saw that the man was holding a little automatic pistol in his hand and was pointing it in the direction of Calhoun's balls.

“I just want you to go away and not come back.”

“Can't do that,” the man said. “I'd lose my job, and they'd just send somebody else.”

“Am I that important?” said Calhoun.

The Man in the Suit smiled. “Got a beer or something?”

“No,” said Calhoun. “You want a Coke?”

“Oh, right,” said the Man in the Suit. “No alcohol.”

Calhoun hung the Remington back on the wall, took a couple of Cokes from the refrigerator, and he and the man sat in the rockers on the deck.

“You've done a nice job here,” the man said, tucking his automatic into a holster under his left armpit.