Chapter 6

Deputy Bobby insisted we wait until dark before breaking into Gerry Webb’s beach house, but he also didn’t trust me not to go without him, which meant we had to kill time together. We got lunch at the Otter Slide. And then we stopped by the library to pick up some books (for me). And then Deputy Bobby needed one of those special TV boxes to pack up his TV. As we ran errands, I tried to do some light cyberstalking of Gerry, but I didn’t get far. Deputy Bobby kept saying interesting things. And I kept saying funny things. (At least, I thought they were funny; Deputy Bobby just got that little furrow between his eyebrows and stared at me earnestly, waiting for clarification.) And it was all so…good.

Faster than I expected, dark settled over Hastings Rock. Gerry Webb’s beach house was just on the north side of the bay—not far from the beach where the surfing competition had been held. It was hard to believe that had only been the day before; it felt like years. The house was set back on the lot, with privacy hedges on either side to screen out the neighbors, and the lawn and flower beds had a tidy look that suggested professional landscaping at the end of the season. The design of the house itself seemed to be based on a farmhouse aesthetic, built long and low with a gable roof. But some diagnosable whack-a-doodle had added their own twist on things—a sharp peak to the roofline above the entryway, for example, or the garages (yes, two), which had been built skinny and tall, the way a little kid might draw them. The general effect, I decided, was as if a six-year-old had tried to build a barn out of Legos.

The street—worn-down asphalt crumbling at the shoulders—didn’t look like it got much traffic, but Deputy Bobby made me drive to the end of the block. I parked, and Deputy Bobby said, “Hang here for a minute while I check it out.”

“Nice try.”

He gave me his professional-grade deputy stare, but maybe being on leave made it less effective. I unbuckled my seat belt and slid out of the Jeep.

As I made my way down the street, Deputy Bobby’s steps crunched the broken asphalt behind me. When he caught up, he had a little furrow between his eyebrows. “It might not be safe.”

“It’s cute, Deputy Bobby.” There was that word again. “And I appreciate it. But I know what’s going to happen. You’re going to search the whole house while I sit in the Jeep playing Wizard Princess on my phone—”

“What is Wizard Princess?”

“How are you a person? What do you do all day—lift heavy things, catch bad guys, and surf? Don’t you ever just scroll Instagram until your eyes fall out of your face and play games that make lots of awesome sounds and you have to tap the screen really fast?”

He seemed to give this serious—and in my opinion, undue—consideration. Finally he said, “I like Scrabble.”

“Scrabble is literally the worst game ever! Do you know what it’s like to have writer’s block and play Scrabble?”

“I know this is my first time breaking and entering, but honestly, I thought it would involve significantly less yelling.”

I refused to acknowledge that statement.

When we got to the house, Deputy Bobby made a straight line to the front porch. I trailed after him. The breeze off the ocean stirred the hedges, and the rustle of leaves swallowed the sound of our steps. I glanced left and right, but I couldn’t make out anything on the other side of the boxwood. I hoped it worked the other way as well—we were exposed to the street, but I was more worried about a nosy neighbor spotting us and wondering why we were, uh, ingressing.

Deputy Bobby stood on the porch, considering the door. Off in the distance, wind chimes rang softly. The windows of the house were dark, and in the day’s half-tone light, it was impossible to see inside beyond a few feet—I glimpsed an uncomfortable-looking bench, the edge of a glass coffee table, and a lamp that looked like someone had made it by using tin snips on a can of tuna.

“We should try the garage,” I said. “I watched a YouTube video about how to use a plastic water bottle and—wait, do you have a pair of tin snips?”

Deputy Bobby said, “Hmm,” the way I sometimes did to Millie.

“Are we going to pick the lock?”

Deputy Bobby said, “Maybe,” in a way that I’d definitely said to Millie before.

“I could try to pick it,” I said, “but we’d have to go back to Hemlock House for my picks. Also, I’m not very good. Also, I know you’re going to think I’m making this up to get rid of you, but I have to admit I’d feel a certain amount of, er, performance anxiety if you were just standing there watching me, and—what are you doing?”

Without answering, Deputy Bobby crossed the porch to a decorative ceramic bird that perched on a three-legged table. He lifted the bird, turned it over to expose a hole in the base, and gave the bird a few experimental shakes. Something metallic rattled inside, and a moment later, a key tumbled out. Deputy Bobby caught it, set the ceramic bird back in its place, and gave me a look.

“You knew that was there,” I said.

He might have been smiling.

“That’s impossible,” I said. “That couldn’t have just been a guess.”

With a tiny shrug, he turned to the door.

The key went in smoothly, of course, and a moment later, we stepped into the house.

Inside, the décor appeared to be farmhouse meets industrial chic meets zebra. Lots of earth tones. Lots of monochromatic “warmth.” Matte black finishes on exposed metal. A zigzagging geometric pattern on one wall. On another, just to keep things interesting, a Tommy Bahama-inspired tropical wallpaper. The whole thing suggested that an interior designer had been given free rein and a blank check. It also suggested, quite possibly, that the interior designer had been working with his or her eyes closed.

We stood in an entry hall with a door on our left and a flight of stairs on our right. Ahead of us, the entry hall flowed into a great room, at the far end of which a wall of windows looked out on the ocean. The great room was combined, in true open-concept fashion, with a big, beautiful kitchen.

Deputy Bobby called out, “Hello?”

I jumped out of my skin.

No one answered, and Deputy Bobby might— might —have been smiling again. “Just checking.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“What?”

“Can you just not be so—so Deputy Bobby for, like, five seconds?”

He was definitely smiling. I just couldn’t quite see it.

Before I had to murder him—and then get dragged into the tiresome process of disposing of the body, cleaning up the crime scene, and then continuing an already frustrating investigation—I moved over to the stairs and went up to the first landing. From there, I could see that the stairs continued into a large, open loft with—

“What kind of idiot puts a grand piano in a loft?” I asked.

“One with plenty of money,” Deputy Bobby said.

When I got back to the entry hall, the door across from me was open, and Deputy Bobby stood inside what appeared to be Gerry’s office, where the theme was urban cowboy: a big, masculine desk; nifty pens in a mug that said WORLD’S BEST DADDY (which I hoped to God was a joke); lots of aerial photography on the walls that, after a moment, I took to be some of Gerry’s development projects. A cowhide rug covered the floor. A steer skull hung above the desk. He even had a taxidermy vulture (a little on the nose, maybe) that would have fit in perfectly at Hemlock House. Large windows looked out on the lawn and the street—which, I was relieved to note, appeared to be as sleepy as it had seemed.

Deputy Bobby already had on a pair of disposable gloves, and he began opening desk drawers.

“How do you have gloves?” I asked. “Are you always prepared for potential burgling?”

“Yes.”

I stared at him. It’s an interesting sensation, when you can literally feel your blood pressure rising.

“No,” I said. “You’re not.”

He made a noise that was neither agreement nor disagreement or, really, anything except acknowledgment. And he kept searching.

I wondered what the policy was on screaming during a B a jumble of charging cables; a box of tissues that I hoped were for allergies; even a leather tray that held jewelry. It wasn’t anything expensive, and honestly, it all looked like it was from the Trying Too Hard to Look Young school of fashion—leather bracelets, a silver chain, even an honest-to-God puka shell necklace.

It took me about zero-point-five seconds to find something interesting: on the unmade bed, half-covered by a pillow, was a laptop.

I picked it up and opened it, expecting a password prompt, but instead, I found myself staring at the computer’s desktop. Maybe it hadn’t shut all the way. Maybe he’d turned off the auto-lock feature. Maybe Gerry had disabled the password in general. Whatever the reason, it felt like a real don’t-look-a-gift-horse-in-the-mouth situation, and I took the laptop to sit at the kitchen island.

I started with Gerry’s emails, but there wasn’t anything interesting there—it all appeared to be about work. I paused to examine some of the emails about the Hastings Rock development, but they were all about permits and contractors and designs and plans. If there was something nefarious in there, it was buried deep enough that I didn’t recognize it.

Since his email had been a dead end, I tried his browser next. The thing about people who don’t bother locking their computers? They also, apparently, don’t bother erasing their search histories. Surprise, surprise, a lot of Gerry’s searches had been about work. It looked like he’d been researching Hastings Rock’s municipal codes—although surely he had someone he paid to do things like that.

Other items in the search history were clearly more personal—in keeping with the tray of Yes-I-Have-Gray-Chest-Hairs-But-I’m-Still-Cool jewelry. For example, he’d apparently been interested in branching out and trying some new hair dyes. (Perhaps something, this time, that didn’t look like someone might have used it to paint a mule’s tail.) Facial creams. Retinols. Retinoids. Somatotropin (that was a new one for me, and I had to look it up). So many—so, so many—pages about Botox.

And then, in the midst of the list of Ways to Stay Young, there was a single search for Oregon truancy laws. Below that were two more entries—Oregon statutes on luring a minor and solicitation of a minor.

I grabbed the laptop and headed to the office.

Deputy Bobby was still working on the desk, and he glanced up as I stepped inside.

“So, Gerry liked young guys, right?” I said.

“You’re not that young.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

Deputy Bobby stopped his search. “Uh.”

“I must have misheard you.”

“You did. You misheard me. I was saying—”

“No, just stop before you make it worse.” I showed him the search results. “Look at what he’s been reading about. I mean, I know Jen said he likes young guys, but I didn’t think she meant, you know, this.”

With a frown, Deputy Bobby shook his head.

“Does this change things?” I asked. “Do we need to try to figure out who he’s been seeing? Maybe this is revenge.”

“Maybe,” Deputy Bobby said. He left the desk and started removing photos from the wall, checking behind them before he replaced them again. With his back to me, he said, “You know Damian has an arrest record.”

“What?”

“Damian.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “For what? Did he go to jail?”

“His record doesn’t show a conviction.”

“So, you think he did this?” I did remember—vaguely, because at the time, my focus had been elsewhere—catching a glimpse of Damian’s face when Gerry had been trying to grope me. Angry; in fact, he looked like he’d been furious.

Before I could share that memory, though, Deputy Bobby said, “No. I just thought you should know.”

I opened my mouth to ask why he thought I needed to know that, at some point in his life, Damian had been arrested. And then it landed.

“Are you trying to tell me to stay away from him?”

I meant for it to sound light, joking. It didn’t.

Deputy Bobby’s shoulders tightened as he moved to the next photo.

“How did you even find that out?” I asked. My tone was still off, but I couldn’t seem to get it back on track. “You’re on leave.”

“I just thought—”

“How?”

His hands fell to his sides. He stood very still. “Salk.”

“You talked to another deputy about my—my romantic life?” I tried to stop there, but more words burst out of me. “I didn’t even go out with him. He flirted with me. He seems sweet.”

“Yeah, he seems sweet, and he’s got an arrest record. That’s important information, considering—”

He stopped himself, but not fast enough.

“Considering what?” I asked.

“Considering—”

I cut him off. “Considering I have terrible judgment when it comes to men? Considering I’m a complete idiot about relationships? Considering I don’t know how to take care of myself?”

“I just want you to be safe.” He still wasn’t looking at me. I wanted to see his face; his voice sounded like someone trying desperately to stay calm. “And I was only checking—I didn’t say any of those things.”

“But you thought them, didn’t you? I don’t need you to be my chaperone, Bobby. Or my big brother. Or whatever you think this is.”

“I think I’m your friend.”

“Yeah, you’re my friend, but God, Bobby, that is so invasive. How do you not see that?”

Whatever control he’d had must have slipped; the raw edge of his anger surfaced the way it had in the lifeguard tower. He moved to the next photo, his movements jerky and uncoordinated as he reached to take it down. “It was for sexual assault.” He yanked the photo from the wall. “In case it matters.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but then I saw what had been hidden behind the photo: a wall safe.

Deputy Bobby stared at it too. Then, slowly, he set down the photo. He inspected the lock and said, “It takes a key, not a combination.”

I wanted to—well, to my surprise, I wanted to fight some more. But somehow, I managed to make my voice sound semi-sane as I said, “Maybe it’s on Gerry’s keyring. The sheriff could get it from the medical examiner, I guess, but first we’d have to convince her that, you know, Gerry was murdered.”

Deputy Bobby nodded. He still hadn’t looked at me.

“We could try to pick it,” I said. “Do some research on this model and see if it’s pickable, anyway. Or drill it out—I bet we could rent whatever we need. Heck, we could probably cut the door off with a torch.”

After another moment of studying the safe door, Deputy Bobby moved over to the desk. He opened the central drawer and drew out a handful of loose keys. The first one he tried opened the safe, of course.

I couldn’t help it: I said, “You have got to be kidding me.”

Deputy Bobby glanced at me, and there was something so…hurt in his face that I had a hard time recapturing my anger.

I dredged up a small smile. “It was bad enough with the bird.”

After a moment, Deputy Bobby smiled back. A tiny one. Microscopic, even. Maybe not even a smile, not really, but—but a question that was like a smile. My smile got a little bigger in answer, and his shoulders relaxed. And then he had to be perfectly, quintessentially Deputy Bobby, and he shrugged.

Even though that moment seemed to have defused the tension between us, neither of us spoke as Deputy Bobby withdrew a stack of files from the safe. He set them on the desk where we could both see them, and then we began to examine each one. Most of the documents were financial papers—things that you’d expect to find. Gerry’s will (I took pictures of that), brokerage reports, account statements, even a few deeds.

Near the bottom of the stack, though, were folders. Lots of folders. And on each folder, there was a name. I took photos of everything, as quickly as I could,

Then I stopped. Because the name on the next folder was mine.

“Dash—” Deputy Bobby tried.

I flipped open the folder. Inside were photos. Photos of Hemlock House. Photos of me—taken through the open windows, when I’d been inside Hemlock House, unaware that anyone might be photographing me. Photos of Keme, too. Keme, with his long dark hair tucked behind his ears, in nothing but swim trunks. Keme and I on the sofa, sitting close together because we were playing Xbox. Keme and I—for a moment, I didn’t understand the photo. We were on the floor, tangled together. My arms were wrapped around Keme’s bare back.

I took several deep breaths. They didn’t help.

Deputy Bobby was still looking at the photos.

“We went swimming,” I said. “And then we came back and played video games. And I beat him, and he tackled me—it was silly.” I thought back to those search results on Gerry’s computer: truancy, luring a minor, solicitation of a minor. And then these photos of me and Keme, making it look like—I had to put my hand on the desk because I felt like I was starting to tip over. Somehow I managed to say, “We were wrestling.”

Deputy Bobby threw me a quick look, and he must have known the right thing to say because he said, “I know, Dash. I know. It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t okay. Gerry—or someone Gerry had hired—had taken those pictures. Gerry had kept those pictures. Gerry had—

“Shoot,” Deputy Bobby said. (But the four-letter version.)

The tension in his voice broke through the cloud of my thoughts, and I followed his gaze. On the sleepy street that never had any traffic, a sheriff’s office cruiser had just pulled up in front of the house.

“Come on,” Deputy Bobby said.

I grabbed my folder.

“Dash—”

“No,” I said. “No.”

Frustration twisted Deputy Bobby’s features, but he nodded and took me by the arm. I wanted to tell him I didn’t need it, but the truth was, it was nice; my whole body felt strangely bloodless, and I had the impression that if Deputy Bobby let go of me, I’d just puddle to the floor.

He hustled me down the length of the house. As we cut through the kitchen toward the back door, a heavy knock came from the front of the house. Deputy Bobby said a few choice words under his breath, but he didn’t slow down. He threw the deadbolt back, opened the door, and shoved me ahead of him out onto the deck. The day still had that perilous half-light, and the hedges, the dune grass, even the ocean all looked cast in lead. The smell of salt water and the stiff breeze helped, though; my head cleared a little, and I felt like I was waking up.

Deputy Bobby was stripping off his disposable gloves. He shoved them into my front pocket, turned me by the shoulders, and said, “Down to the beach, then run. There are stairs that lead back up to the street by the Jeep. Get out of here and go home.”

“But—”

“Go!”

He shoved me, and I either had to stumble into a jog or fall flat on my face. I stopped at the steep flight of stairs that led down to the beach, and Deputy Bobby made a furious gesture. I managed a few of the steps and looked back again. Deputy Bobby was facing the house now, hands out and open at his sides, in a voice meant to carry, he called, “I’m back here. It’s just me.”

That galvanized me into movement, and I ran.