Chapter 5

Deputy Bobby chivvied me along the beach. He didn’t push. He didn’t prod. I got the impression that he was battling a powerful urge to take me by the arm and haul me along like we were headed to the principal’s office, but he somehow managed to keep his hands to himself. He didn’t need to do any of that; all he had to do was point, and I scooted right along.

But when we approached the lifeguard tower, Deputy Bobby made a sharp noise and cocked his head, and I realized he meant I was supposed to turn. Tower was a misleading description—it was more like a small hut or cabin built on a metal frame. A shelter, I guess. The shelter was a wooden structure that had probably, one day in the distant past, been a beautiful shade of light blue. The paint was the color of a dead pigeon now, with a molted look where large strips had peeled away. It had big windows behind wooden shutters, deep eaves, and what appeared to be an observation deck on top. A ramp led up to the tower, with an old metal bucket chained to the post at the bottom. Deputy Bobby made that noise again, and I followed the ramp.

“What’s happening?” I asked when I reached the shelter.

Deputy Bobby stepped past me. He did something to the door, and the hinges screeched as it swung open. Inside, the shelter was dark, and a faint, musty odor like wet wood and mildew wafted out.

“I want to know—”

“Go inside,” Deputy Bobby said, “or you’re going to get arrested.”

I wasn’t sure he’d arrest me, not really. But I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t either.

Inside, that odor was stronger. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant. The shelter had a simple layout: a storage area with hooks and lockers, where lifeguards must have stored gear and supplies; an ancient desk, with a discolored spot to suggest where once, I suspected, a two-way radio had been bolted; in the corner, a dusty cooler with the name GUS spelled out in duct tape on one side; and a ladder that led up to the observation deck. A bare light bulb hung overhead, but it was off, and with the shutters closed against the day’s bone-white light, the inside of the shelter was dark.

Deputy Bobby stepped in behind me and shut the door. Then it was really dark. And really quiet. Deputy Bobby’s breathing wasn’t exactly agitated. But it wasn’t relaxed, either. My own breathing probably sounded like Road Runner after giving Coyote a run for his money. Deputy Bobby’s silhouette moved slightly—shifting his weight, I thought. Sand rasped and crunched underfoot.

“I have every right to be up there,” I said. It was important to start strong—and to avoid the slightly more complicated question of if I actually did have every right, or if I might have, just a wee bit, been doing some light trespassing. “And you should be happy—”

“I should be happy?”

The thing about Deputy Bobby is that he rarely raised his voice. His tone didn’t even change that much. If you didn’t know him very well, you could have heard that question and thought it was the same way somebody would have asked if he should take out the trash, or if he should stop and pick up groceries on the way home. If you did know him, though—

“Okay, I understand you’re upset, but—”

“Be quiet.”

“—I actually think the sheriff is making a big mistake—”

Deputy Bobby held up his hand. “Stop.”

“—and if you’ll let me explain—”

“Dash.” His voice was a low crack. “Stop talking.”

The sting came a moment later: a flush rising in my face, an airiness in my head. I thought of the night before. How I’d stood there, letting Gerry paw at me. Well, being paralyzed by my own anxiety once a week seemed like more than enough, so I started for the door.

“Hold on—” Deputy Bobby began.

I shook my head.

He still hadn’t moved, but that didn’t matter. He wouldn’t stop me; I knew him well enough for that.

And then my foot came down on something hard and round. A marble—that was my one, instantaneous thought before my foot flew out from under me, and I fell.

Deputy Bobby caught me, of course. It probably wasn’t easy, since I’m a few inches taller than him, and Indira has cookbook after cookbook of just cakes. But Deputy Bobby was also very strong. I was aware of that strength as my brain caught up with my body: the powerful lines of his arms wrapped around me; the hint of saltwater and sweat and a clean, masculine fragrance that was probably his deodorant; the warmth of him. I hadn’t realized, until right then, how cold I was.

“Let me—” I began.

“Please be quiet,” he whispered.

And then the sounds filtered through the chaos inside my head: voices—indistinct, but, I thought, male; the tread of footsteps through sand; the crackle of a radio.

I could feel Deputy Bobby’s question. My face was still pressed into his shoulder, but I nodded.

The voices came closer, although the words remained indistinct. Deputy Bobby tensed. His whole body seemed like it was worked in iron, and I was suddenly, dangerously aware of him, like the flicker of a flame inside me, a fire that was still trying to catch. I thought maybe it would be a good idea (for everybody) if I put a little distance between us, but when I tried to move, Deputy Bobby let out a vexed breath and tightened his grip.

Oh. My. God.

After what must have been an eternity, the voices moved back the way they had come. Deputy Bobby didn’t relax until the rolling thunder of the waves had completely swallowed them. Then he whispered, “I’m going to let you down now.”

I nodded into his shoulder again, and he eased me to the floor. Aside from being a bit sandy, the floorboards were smooth from decades of use. I was having a hard time looking Deputy Bobby in the face, so I focused on his knees and said, “Thanks. I didn’t—I didn’t understand why you were telling me to be quiet.” And then I felt like I had to add, “Obviously.”

And in a tone that could have meant anything, he said, “Obviously.”

He sat crisscross opposite me. The gloom of the shelter made it hard to pick out the expression on his face. Then a smile gleamed, and he held up something that glinted in the weak light. He pressed it into my hand, his fingers sparking against mine and then gone again. Whatever it was, it was cool and round and felt like glass.

“A marble?” I said, which was still the only thing I could come up with, even though I could tell this was too big to be one.

“Japanese fishing float.” His tone still could have meant anything. “They used them to keep the tops of their nets afloat.”

“Oh.” And because that had to be the lamest mouth-sound any mouth had ever mouthed, I managed to top myself by saying, “Um.”

For some reason, that made Deputy Bobby laugh, and his real grin—the big, goofy one—flashed out.

“Well, I’m still processing!”

That made him laugh harder. He had a nice laugh; it wasn’t something I heard often. I decided the best, most mature, most adult response to that sound, which I could never get enough of, was to be slightly offended.

“Thanks, I guess,” I said. “Were those guys from the surf camp?”

“Those were deputies.”

“Because Jen called them and said I was trespassing.”

“You were trespassing.”

“Whose side are you on here? Hey, wait! Does that mean you weren’t going to arrest me?”

“What?”

“When we got here.” I gestured to the door. “You said, ‘Get inside, or I’ll arrest your skinny white butt right now.’”

“I never said that. And of course I wouldn’t arrest you.” He considered that. “Have you paid all your parking tickets?”

“Rude!”

“What were you doing on that cliff?”

“Inspecting. Investigating. Detecting.”

“Like Will Gower?” he asked drily.

Definitely like Will Gower, I thought, although I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of an answer. Will Gower didn’t take guff from anybody. He was a cynical private investigator with a bad case of white knight syndrome. He was an honest cop who nevertheless played by his own rules. In one disastrous attempt, he’d been a whalebone corsetier with a thirst for revenge (and whale bones). (A corsetier, by the way, is a person who makes corsets, which, let me tell you, typing Person who makes corsets profession into Google was one of the more surreal experiences of my life.)

“Do you know what I found up there?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter what you found up there,” Deputy Bobby said, “because you’re not a law enforcement officer, and you’re certainly not part of this investigation, and I’m sure, because you’re a smart young man—”

“You’re three years older than me, not thirty-three.”

“—you would never do something so foolish as to be snooping.”

“First, I object to the term snooping—”

“Dash.”

“Nothing! There was nothing up there. No footprints. No scuffs. Nothing. There’s soft soil. There’s bare stone. There’s a stretch of gravel. It should have been easy to see where Gerry had been—an impression in the dirt, or a print he tracked onto the stone, or even just displaced gravel to show where he’d stepped. But there’s nothing!”

Deputy Bobby didn’t say anything.

“Someone covered it up!”

Deputy Bobby still didn’t say anything.

“That proves it’s a murder, see? Gerry couldn’t have covered his own tracks because he fell. So, it had to be the killer, and they were so scared about leaving evidence behind that they overcorrected and wiped out any sign at all.”

“Maybe the ground wasn’t soft enough to take an impression. Maybe it wasn’t muddy enough to leave a track on the stone. Maybe the gravel was spread too thin.”

“Maybe. But I checked, and I left prints.”

Nothing changed in Deputy Bobby’s face. And that didn’t make any sense because even though Deputy Bobby was on leave—was, basically, already out of the sheriff’s office—Deputy Bobby had strong opinions about right and wrong. In fact, he—

My jaw dropped. “What the heck?”

(Not exactly—use your imagination.)

Deputy Bobby arched his eyebrows, but a hint of uncertainty underlay his usual even keel.

“You think he was murdered too!” Glee made my voice rise. “You think I’m right!”

“I think we should let law enforcement—”

“You do! You think he was murdered! That’s why you’re out here sneaking around like—like Rambo!”

“Like Rambo?”

“Oh no, don’t you dare get me off track. I want answers.”

“Where was this attitude when Keme skipped school last week?”

“Deputy Bobby!”

He winced, and his smile was like a cracked mirror when he said, “Just Bobby, remember?”

I wanted to say something about that. I did. But instead, I said, “You do, don’t you?”

He shrugged. But then he said, “I thought I saw someone.” And then he gave me that broken smile again. “Besides you.”

So, that answered one question: I had been following Deputy Bobby the night before. “But why didn’t you stop when you found Gerry?”

“Because I know better than to walk along the base of a cliff where a rock could fall on my head. I cut up toward the bluffs; I was going back to the camp when I saw somebody up on the ridge.” I opened my mouth, and he shook his head. “Just their silhouette—the clouds were breaking up, and they stood out against the sky. Otherwise, I never would have seen them.”

“Did you tell the sheriff?”

Deputy Bobby had a very communicative look sometimes.

“Okay, but why didn’t she believe you?”

“She did believe me. She’s smart, and she’s good at her job. But she’s also in a situation where there’s no evidence to suggest a murder.”

“But—”

He held up a hand. “I know. And I’m not saying you’re wrong. But outside of a Sherlock Holmes novel, the whole ‘lack of evidence is evidence’ thing isn’t as compelling as you think.”

I gave him an appraising glance. “Say something else about Sherlock Holmes.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, but his voice was serious when he said, “Why are you doing this?”

Well, I thought, because it kind of seemed like the sheriff suspected you. But I said, “Because someone killed Gerry, and they’re going to get away with it, and that’s not right.”

It was impossible to read the look on Deputy Bobby’s face.

“So,” I said, “I’m going to get my gat and throw iron and pump the killer full of lead.”

“What?”

“I have an overdeveloped sense of justice from reading too much Chandler.”

“Do you know, sometimes I have zero idea what you’re saying?”

“I know. Your face is extra cute when you’re trying to figure it out.”

I heard what I said, ladies and gentlemen. And that was when I died. Angels wept as they carried me out of my body.

Somehow, my still shambling corpse managed to stammer, “Anyway, I think I know who did it. Or who might have done it, anyway. There’s that guy, Nate, the one who’s on the city council.”

“The glorified used-car salesman?”

“You had to break up their fight at the beach, remember?”

“Murder’s different from taking a swing at somebody.”

“And there’s that protester, the one who thinks everybody is building on sacred land.”

“To be fair, she’s not wrong about Gerry. The Confederated Tribes don’t have any objection to events on the beach, but that new development is on an important ceremonial site.”

“See what I mean? Maybe she and Nate were in on it together.”

“Nate wasn’t mad about a ceremonial site,” Deputy Bobby said.

“What was he mad about?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll bet you a box of donuts that it had something to do with money.”

“Like, you buy me a box of donuts if I’m right? And I buy you a box of donuts if you’re right? But either way, we both get donuts because we’re friends and we share?”

“If I win, you don’t get to eat any donuts for a week.”

“Oh God, no, that’s a big pass.”

“For one week, Dash?”

“Are you a monster? They’re donuts!”

Some of the iron in his shoulders relaxed. He leaned against the desk. He wasn’t wearing that awful, cracked-in-half smile; instead, he looked the way he did sometimes, when I said or did something particularly…Dashian. Like he didn’t have any idea what to do, frankly. Like he’d found something new in the world. Like he might smile.

“I want you to leave this alone,” he said in his earnest, Deputy Bobby way. “I understand that you want to see justice done. That’s one of the things I—” He stopped. Swallowed. “That’s admirable. But this is dangerous. I’ll explain what you found to the sheriff.”

“And she’ll weigh it and consider it and decide I’m full of beans.”

“Is that an expression?”

“And the killer will have more time to cover their tracks.”

“Dash, a proper murder investigation takes manpower, resources—we don’t have any of that.”

The we sent a little thrill through me.

In true Deputy Bobby fashion, though, he managed to grind all the fun out of it when he continued, “I promise I’m not going to let this get swept under the rug, but I want you to promise me you’ll leave it alone.”

“No.”

“Dash—”

“You’re not a deputy anymore. Or you’re on leave. Or whatever.”

“I’m telling you that this is too dangerous, and I’m asking you—”

“And you’re moving.”

He sounded like he was struggling to control his voice. “I am asking you,” he said again, “to promise me—”

“In a couple of weeks, you won’t even be thinking about this case anymore. Gerry didn’t mean anything to you, and you’ll be busy with your new home and your new friends and your new life. You’ll forget all about—” Me almost slipped out of my mouth. “—Hastings Rock.”

“If I tell you I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it.” His volume surged. “And it doesn’t matter that I’m not a deputy anymore. And it doesn’t matter that I’m moving, or that I didn’t know Gerry, or that I’m going to be busy with other things. I’m saying this because I care about you! Because I want you to be safe! And for God’s sake, Dash, I’m not going to forget you!”

The light dimmed inside the shelter like an eclipse. The wind rattled the shutters. Deputy Bobby stared at me, breathing hard.

I stared back. A prickle started in my eyes, but I refused to look away.

For another moment, we both stayed like that. Then Deputy Bobby sagged back. He slapped the side of the desk, and the clap filled the shelter’s cramped space. I flinched and looked away.

The break of the waves filled the silence.

“I’m going to go,” I said.

Deputy Bobby clasped his hands and rested his head on them. When I started to move, he didn’t look up, but he did say, “Don’t.” It wasn’t an order, not really. It was low. And it sounded like begging.

So, I didn’t.

After several long heartbeats, Deputy Bobby took a ragged breath. “Can we talk about something?” He seemed to struggle, and then he added, “I just need a few minutes.” The sound he made was a try at a laugh, but a bad one. “Anything, Dash. Please.”

I didn’t mean anything by it; it had been on my mind, that’s all, and it was the first thing that popped out of my mouth. “Are you all packed?”

“God, please. Anything but that.” He shifted slightly, as though trying to get more comfortable, but his head still didn’t come up. “What about your story? The anthology. Tell me about that.”

“How do you know about that?”

“West.”

“Uh, it’s going great.”

Deputy Bobby laughed—croaked, really—but his head came up. His eyes were red, but dry. His knuckles had left livid spots where they’d pressed into his forehead.

“It’s a disaster,” I said. “I mean, my parents assume I can just polish up something I’ve been working on and send it over. I honestly think they believe that I—I don’t know. That I write all the time, but I choose not to send it out, or I’m lazy, or something.”

“You do write all the time.”

“I sit at my computer. I type a few words. A lot more disappear. I call it the Case of the Vanishing Manuscript.”

“Why don’t you just type more words and not delete any?”

“God, wouldn’t that be nice?”

“I’m serious: why don’t you? It’s just a story, Dash. You type one word. Then the next one.” Something changed in his face. What I might, if Will Gower had seen it, have described as a hint of good-natured devilry. “‘Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.’”

I wondered if my eyebrows could fly off my face. “Sherlock Holmes and Lewis Carroll in one conversation?”

He gave me that embarrassed half-smile and a one-shouldered shrug, but the question did seem sincere. From anybody else, I probably would have taken offense at the question. Scratch that: I would have gone into an icy rage, completely shut down, and retreated to Hemlock House to soothe myself with an abundance of snickerdoodles. But since it was Deputy Bobby, the question wasn’t just sincere. It was earnest. And, unexpectedly, I found myself wanting to answer it.

“It’s hard to put into words.” A grin slanted across my mouth. “I guess that’s my whole problem; everything is hard to put into words, which isn’t ideal for a writer. I guess—it’s like, I have this story in my head, and it’s so good. I know it’s good. And I’m not just saying that. I’ve read a lot. And what I’ve sent out, I’ve gotten good feedback on. I’m not going to be the next Bill Shakespeare, but I know I’ve got good stories to tell. And then I sit down to write, and it’s like—it’s like there’s this blender in my gut, all these bright, shiny blades, and they start spinning as fast as they can. Everything I do seems wrong. And every time I do something wrong, I realize everything else is wrong too. And there’s this part of me that thinks if I can fix just this one word and get it perfect, then I’ll be able to get the next one. But instead, I putz around and make it worse, and then everything else is worse, and there’s all that sharp metal whirling around inside me, all this light and glitter like teeth trying to eat me up, and—” I made a gesture with one hand. “Poof. The Case of the Vanishing Manuscript.”

Deputy Bobby stared at me. He had eyes the color of burnished bronze, and his pupils were huge in the low light. He’d clasped his hands again, and his knuckles blanched under the pressure.

“It’s hard to describe,” I said. “My therapists—notice the plural—have suggested a lot of reasons. I mean, I’m a perfectionist, obviously. And there’s a lot of pressure to perform because my parents are who they are. And I can’t remember the term from the DSM, but I’m a diagnosable whack-a-doodle.”

He still hadn’t said anything. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. I had a strange moment where I thought I remembered this—the way he’d seemed stunned, struck to silence by something. It had been with Hugo, I thought. Or when I’d been telling him about Hugo. And then the moment was gone, and I couldn’t call it back.

“Anyway,” I said into the stiffening silence, “please refer back to this conversation whenever you need a refresher on why I’m painfully single.”

Deputy Bobby jolted, and his face changed as though he were suddenly seeing me again. He worked his jaw. And then, in a tone I couldn’t decipher, he said, “Do you know what my dad said when I told him I was moving back to Portland with West?”

It was such a strange question, with such a yawning emptiness behind it, that I couldn’t answer; the best I could do was shake my head.

“He asked how I was going to find an apartment.” Deputy Bobby gave a jagged laugh. “And my mom said, ‘Good, now you can be a doctor.’”

“Jeez.”

He let his head fall back to thunk against the desk.

“I thought—” I stopped. “I mean, I just assumed you were going to be a police officer—”

“That would make sense,” Deputy Bobby said, and the words had an unfamiliar edge, “wouldn’t it?”

I thought about West, though. His anger. His fear that lay behind that anger. And, through the door that Deputy Bobby had cracked for me, if only for an instant, I saw a line of people behind West going a long way back in Deputy Bobby’s life.

“I didn’t mean to bring that up,” Deputy Bobby said. “My point was—I guess, parents are hard. I get that.” Then he gave me a sideways smile. “Even if they’re not famous.”

“The famous part is actually amazing. I go to fabulous parties with the Kardashians, and everything I own is made out of diamonds—”

“Even your underwear?”

“—and I’m offended you never once asked for my autograph.”

I got the goofy grin. Just for a moment. “I’m sorry I raised my voice.”

“I’m sorry I, uh, tapped into a strong passive-aggressive ley line.”

“You didn’t have any friends when you were a kid, did you?”

“Deputy Bobby!” But I was grinning.

“It’s like one thing after another that makes zero sense when it comes out of your mouth.”

I was still trying to tamp down my grin—and working on my comeback, obviously—when Deputy Bobby stood. He held out a hand, and I let him help me to my feet. He had a nice hand, by the way. Strong. Defined. Solid. And it was funny, I thought, how you could know right away whether your hand would fit just right with someone else’s. (Tragic backstory reveal: my hand did not fit just right with Shawn Laffleur’s during the 6:35 p.m. screening of 2003’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl . He had popcorn fingers, and he gripped me way too hard. But we still made out anyway.)

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” Deputy Bobby asked.

“Definitely not. I’m going to call all my friends and make them fly out here to prove I was popular.”

Deputy Bobby straightened my jacket for me. And then he gave me a look.

“It’s not right,” I said. “It wouldn’t be right.”

He nodded. “So, as soon as you’re out of my sight, let me guess—you’re going to break into Gerry’s beach house?”

“I actually didn’t know he had a beach house. Also, this feels like entrapment.”

“Maybe I should just arrest you right now,” he murmured.

“West would certainly have opinions if he found out you had plans to handcuff me.”

Deputy Bobby didn’t say anything to that. But, for an instant, his eyes came up to mine, and his smile wasn’t goofy at all. It was slow and small and sure, and I was suddenly painfully aware of his fingers still holding my lapels, of how close we were standing, of the cramped shelter, of the faint hint of that clean, masculine scent. If you’ve ever had a firework go off inside you—in a very, very, very good way—you know what I’m talking about.

“I’ve decided to enter a monastery,” I said.

For one last heartbeat, I got that other smile, the one I’d never seen before. The one with promises. And then Deputy Bobby released my jacket, stepped back, and said, “That would be a waste.”

I could still feel him, though. The echo of him.

He turned for the door and said, “Let’s go.”

“Oh,” I managed to say. “You’re going with me now?”

“If you’re going to be a smart aleck about this,” he said as he stepped outside, “I’ll lend Fox and Keme my handcuffs.”