Boobytrap

4

Nils Ostergaard was well into his seventies, judging from the wisps of snowy hair that poked out from under his shapeless fisherman’s hat, the cross-hatching of lines on his face, and the skin folds that hung from a set of bulldog jowls. Big and powerful once, still strong-looking now but leaned down to sinew and bone encased in Levi’s and a khaki vest that had half a dozen bulging pockets. Age seemed not to have slowed him down much, though. He slid his skiff in alongside the Dixons’ dock with the ease of long practice, hopped out, and quickly wound a short bowline around a cleat.

The three of us had gone out on the dock to meet him. He hugged Marian, whispered something into her ear that made her laugh, pumped Chuck’s hand, gave me a mildly suspicious look from under wild white eyebrow tufts, and demanded, “Where’s Pat?” Marian told him, and he nodded and fixed his bright blue gaze on me again. “Who’s this?”

I said, “Chauffeur and squatter for a week next door,” and introduced myself.

“He’s not really a chauffeur,” Chuck said. “He’s a private eye.”

“The hell he is.”

“No bull. He’s a friend of Dad’s and he drove us up. Mr. Zaleski’s letting him stay at his cabin for a week, free.”

“Free, huh?” To me, Ostergaard said, “You don’t look much like a private eye.”

“You don’t look much like a retired sheriff’s deputy.”

“Show you my badge if you want to see it.”

“Show you my license if you want to see it.”

“You two can show each other whatever you like,” Marian said, “but don’t do it in front of us.”

We all laughed except for Chuck. He said, “Somebody stole our padlocks, Mr. Ostergaard.”

“What’s that?”

“Off the boathouse and storeroom doors. Both of ‘em.”

The old man scowled. “Busted in? What’d they steal?”

“That’s just it,” Marian said. “Nothing’s missing. Not a thing.”

“Damage?”

“No. It wasn’t vandalism, either. Just the padlocks missing.”

“Hell. Doesn’t make any sense.”

“We were just saying the same thing.”

“Callie and me been up since late March,” he said. For my benefit he added, “Do that every year, soon as the road’s open. Check everything out, then keep an eye on things until Judson’s opens first of May. Afterward, too. Didn’t notice any missing padlocks last time I was over here.”

“When was that?” I asked.

“Few days ago.”

“That makes it even odder,” Marian said. “Why would someone take such a risk with the lake starting to crowd up for the summer, and then not even steal anything?”

“Beats me. You check the Zaleskis’ property? Boathouse and storeroom padlocks over there?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“How about you and me go do that right now, private eye?”

I agreed it was a good idea, and Ostergaard led the way to a barely discernible path that wound up over the hump of wooded ground separating the two properties. He set a fast pace, climbing over rocks and plowing through scrub brush and around tree trunks; I had to work to keep up with him and I was a little winded by the time we reached the Zaleski boathouse. Which proved to both of us that he was in better condition than a city dweller fifteen years his junior, not that I would have disputed it anyway.

A padlock was in place on the boathouse door, an old and sturdy Schlage that yielded to the key on the ring Pat Dixon had given me. Ostergaard took a look inside, shook his head to tell me that nothing had been disturbed, then took me around to the far side of the cabin to where a storage shed had been grafted onto the wall. Same thing there. Padlock in place, no apparent breach of the shed.

“Well, hell,” Ostergaard said as we started back. “Kids, some sort of screwy prank — that’s all I can figure.”

“Local kids, you mean?”

“Probably. Lake’s too far off the beaten track for outsiders to come prowling around at night.”

“Could’ve been done during the day, couldn’t it?”

“Suppose so. But I’m out and around a lot and my eyesight’s as good as it ever was.”

Your nose, too, I’ll bet. But I kept the thought to myself.

“I catch anybody messing around again,” he muttered darkly, “they’ll wish they’d gone someplace else. You keep that private eye of yours open, too. Let me know if you see anything that don’t look kosher.”

“I’m not a Pinkerton,” I said. “They’re the ones who never sleep.”

That got a chuckle out of him. He asked, “What’s your first name again?” and when I told him he said “Nils” and shook my hand for the first time. “You were a cop once, too, am I right?”

“You’re right. SFPD for a dozen years before I opened my own agency.”

“Thought so. Get so you can tell one of your own.”

“Biggest fraternity in the country.”

“And one of the most maligned. I been retired ten years now and I’m still on the job, at least as far as my head’s concerned. Once a cop, always a cop.”

“It’s in the blood,” I agreed. “Even when the blood isn’t as thick as it used to be.”

“Mine’s still thick enough,” he said. “So’s yours, seems like. Be thicker still if you got more exercise, shed that half-inflated spare tire you’re lugging around inside your belt.”

I didn’t argue with him. He was right, and there was no malice in the advice. We knew each other now; we were comfortable with each other and would be whenever we met again. That was one of the plusses in a couple of old birds of a feather coming together: The common ground was enough for both to share and it no longer mattered which one had the biggest pecker.

The one major difference between the Zaleski cabin and the Dixon cabin was a massive elk’s head and horns that took up much of the wall above the native stone fireplace. I wondered if Tom Zaleski was a hunter and it was a personal trophy. Considering the fact that he was a Sacramento lawyer, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out he’d stumbled across the animal dead in his backyard and decided to take advantage of the situation. The stuffed head wore a baleful expression and the glass eyes seemed outraged, as if the elk had been mad as hell at dying before his time. I reached up and patted his flared snout and said to him, not at all facetiously, “I’d feel the same way, brother, if some son of a bitch shot me full of holes and then cut off my head and stuck it up on a wall.”

The place smelled even mustier than the Dixons’. I opened windows and shutters and doors, fired up the generator and switched on an old-fashioned ceiling fan in the front room. Then I tested the plumbing — no problem there — and hooked up the propane tank. The beer I’d bought for myself in Quincy had warmed up, but I popped the top on one anyway and slugged at it as I put the groceries away, unpacked my suitcase in the knotty pine bedroom.

Small surprise when I went to hang up a few things in the closet: The door was locked. I found the key to it on the ring and the reason for the lock as soon as I opened up. Bolted to the back wall was a glass-fronted cabinet containing two rifles, a cased telescopic sight, and a Mossberg .410 pump shotgun. Zaleski was a hunter, all right. The cabinet was locked, too, and if there was a key for that on the ring I didn’t check for it. Guns don’t interest me much, sporting arms not at all.

One more thing to do before I could start to relax in earnest — the property check I’d promised to make for Zaleski. I finished it in less than ten minutes. No winter storm damage that I could see and no other evident problems. About the only thing that needed attention was a collected mat of pine needles around the chimney on the roof that were already beginning to dry out. The spark arrester on the chimney’s top looked okay, but dry needles are highly flammable and they ought to be cleared off as a precaution. Not by me, though, with my dislike of heights and a steep-slanted roof like this one. Marian would know somebody who could do the job — Chuck, maybe. Or Nils Ostergaard would know.

It was four-thirty by the time I finished, and I thought that if I was going to have any chance of catching Kerry at her hotel — two-hour time difference, getting on toward dinnertime in Houston — I’d better call right away. The phone had been turned on as promised and provided a static-free connection to the Houston Center Marriott. That was the good news; the bad news was that Kerry wasn’t in. I left a safe-arrival message and the phone number with the hotel operator.

I locked up and set off on foot for Judson’s Resort. It was a fine evening for a stroll — some of the needed exercise Nils Ostergaard had alluded to. The day was still warm and the thin air was so rich in the scents of pine resin and lake water that it went to your head, gave you a kind of natural buzz.

There were two men inside the store half of the main resort building when I walked in. One, a shaggy, barrel-chested guy about my age, stood behind the counter; the other, dour and angular, wearing a fisherman’s slouch hat, was bent over in front of a cooler marked Live Bait. Through a doorway on the right, a noisy bunch — men and women both — were grouped along the cafe’s bar counter, most of them clutching long-necked bottles of Miller and Bud.

The shaggy guy said cheerfully, “Help you?” as I came up to the counter.

“You can if you’re Mack Judson.”

“In the flesh.” He grinned and patted the paunch that hid his belt buckle. The hair on his hands and arms and curling up through the neck of his polo shirt was as thick and black and coarse as bear fur. “If you’re looking for accommodations, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. We’re full up.”

“I’ve got a place to stay,” I said, “thanks to Tom Zaleski and Pat Dixon.” I introduced myself and explained how I happened to be there.

“Any friend of Pat’s,” he said, and grated my finger bones in a bearlike paw. “Welcome to God’s country, my friend.”

“Thanks. Glad to be here.”

The angular customer had sidled over next to me. He nudged my arm and asked, “What line’re you in?” The question came with a distillery aroma. Sour-mash bourbon.

“Does it matter?”

“I like to know what a man does for a living.”

“What do I look like I do?”

“Cop,” he said immediately.

“Close enough. I’m a private investigator.”

“The hell you say. What brings a private eye up here?”

“Same thing that brought you.”

“The fishing, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“A private eye that fishes. How about that.”

“Lake or stream?” Judson asked me.

“Stream. Pat Dixon says you can point me to a couple of good spots.”

“That I can.”

“Good spots for the likes of us,” the angular guy said. He was about forty, thin-lipped, hollow-eyed. Long, flattened ears and a pointy jaw gave his head a squeezed look. “He reserves the best places for himself and his cronies, don’t you, Mack?”

Judson’s expression remained affable, but dislike leaked through at the edges. “Well, I’ll tell you, Mr. Dyce,” he said. “My wife and me been running this resort twenty-two years and nobody who took my advice ever went home without his limit.”

“Limit, sure. Little brookies and rainbows. Easy catches.”

“Easy? Easy’s when you go to a trout farm. Come up here, you work for every fish you take. Harder you work, the more you get for your effort — like anything else in this life.”

“Meaning I oughta go hiking around the backcountry on my own. I don’t know these mountains, I could get my ass lost or break a leg or something.”

Judson shrugged. “Accidents can happen anywhere, if you’re not careful. Point is, even if I told you where you might catch a five-pound cutthroat, you’d have to work like the devil to get there. Risk your ass, if you want to put it that way. And you might not catch that five-pounder anyway.”

“Suppose I paid you to guide me?”

“I’m not a guide. I’m a resort owner.”

“Close-mouthed one, you want my opinion,” Dyce said. He turned his attention my way again. “So what kind of private eye are you?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

“What kind of jobs you specialize in? Divorce work?”

“No.”

“Get the dirt on some poor bastard for his bitch of a wife?”

“I said no.”

“Bodyguarding, that kind of thing?”

“Not that, either. Most of my business is skip-tracing and insurance-related.”

“Minding other people’s business. Isn’t that what a private eye really does?”

“Professionally, maybe. Personally I mind my own business.”

“You telling me to mind mine?”

“I’m not telling you anything, Dyce.”

“Wise guys,” Dyce said. “Man can’t get away from wise guys no matter where he goes.”

I didn’t say anything. Neither did Judson.

Dyce looked from one to the other of us, curled his lip the way his type does when feeling superior, and stalked out. The screen door smacked shut behind him, loud as a pistol shot.

“What’s his problem?” I asked Judson.

“Pretty obvious, isn’t it? Mr. Fred Dyce is an asshole.”

“Other than that.”

“I couldn’t tell you. Chip on his shoulder a yard wide, who knows why. Maybe because he drinks too much, maybe from breathing all that smog in L.A. That’s where he’s from.”

“Spoiling for a fight, I’d say.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of — that somebody’ll provoke him without even meaning to. He’s been here two days, already seems like two weeks. But I can’t kick him out for what might happen, much as I’d like to. He’s the kind that’d sue.”

“His first time here?”

“And his last,” Judson said. “He calls up next year, we’re full the entire season. Well, hell, why let one schmuck spoil it for the rest of us? Everybody else staying here gets along fine. Come on, I’ll introduce you to Rita — that’s my missus — and the folks in the cafe. Buy you a beer, too, if you drink beer.”

“I drink it.”

“Good. It’s a tradition we got here: first beer’s on Mack and Rita.”

I didn’t feel much like socializing — I was in a mood for my own company tonight, after the long drive — but Judson had been offended enough by Dyce without my adding a refusal of his hospitality. I followed him into the cafe.

Rita Judson, a sinewy brunette with a sharp eye and an unflappable manner, was behind the bar. I found out a little later that she and Mack handled all of the resort duties except for cooking, waitressing, dishwashing, and maid service; they had a hired couple who took care of those chores. Rita shook my hand with a grip as firm as any man’s, welcomed me to Deep Mountain Lake, and served me an ice-cold bottle of Bud. Mack introduced me to the seven other people at the bar, four summer residents and three short-stay fishermen. They were all just names and faces at first, except for two other first-timers like Dyce and me. One was on the lean side of forty, the backslapping salesman type, friendly but in a sly, pushy way. Cantrell, Hal Cantrell. The other was Mr. Average: medium height, medium weight, medium features, medium coloring, of an age anywhere between forty and fifty. The kind of individual who fades into the background in any social situation and disappears completely when a score of people are present. He didn’t have much to say — the complete opposite of Cantrell. The only thing about him that made any impression on me were his eyes, gray eyes so pale they were almost colorless, like smoke just before it fades away. His first name was unusual enough to stick in my memory: Jacob. But I heard his last name only once and couldn’t remember it afterward.

Naturally there were questions for me, a spate of them when Judson announced my profession, but then things settled down into a companionable discussion of fishing matters — the old debate over whether it’s best to fish upstream or downstream, the relative merits of both dry flies and live bait in the streams that fed Deep Mountain Lake, that kind of thing. Once the others realized I had enough knowledge to lift me out of the rank amateur class, I was accepted without reservation.

Judson gave me a hand-drawn map — actually a photocopy of one from a folder behind the bar — that showed side roads and trout pools in the area. I listened to advice from him and a couple of the others on which spots were best this year for cutthroat browns and rainbows. The most votes went to a pool labeled Two Creek Bar.

“It takes some hiking,” Rita said, “about a mile and a half crosscountry, but the terrain’s not too rough.”

“I don’t mind a good hike.”

“Two Creek’s the place to go, then.”

“I’ll give it a try first thing tomorrow.”

I bought a round of beers and then managed to slip away more or less gracefully, in deference to my growling stomach.

Chuck came knocking at the door as I was broiling a small steak and making a salad to go with it. “Mom sent me over to invite you to dinner tomorrow night,” he said when I let him in.

I gestured at my fixings. “Good thing it’s not tonight.”

“Yeah, that steak smells good. We’re having chili. Tomorrow it’ll be trout. Pan-cooked on the Weber.”

“Sounds tasty.”

“Tasty? Man, they’ll be outstanding.”

“What time?”

“Seven, she said.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Cool. She talked to Dad a little while ago.”

“Everything okay back home?”

“Sure. But they haven’t caught that asshole yet. You know, the bomber.”

“Any new leads?”

“Not yet. Dad thinks something’ll break pretty soon. You know where you’re going first?”

“Going?” Kids can switch subjects fast enough to throw an Einstein off stride.

“In the morning. Where you’re gonna fish.”

“Oh. Place called Two Creek Bar.”

“Yeah, that’s an okay spot.”

“But not one of the best?”

“Nah.” His eyes took on an anticipatory shine. “The best, the absolute best, bar none, that’s where I’m going.”

“That what it’s called? Bar None?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Dumb joke.”

“It doesn’t have a name,” he said. “Dad found it a few years ago, caught a three-pound cutthroat right off the bat. Last year I hooked one that weighed three and a quarter. Man, I can’t wait to get out there!”

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to share the secret.”

“Nah, it’s just for us. But there’s a spot I found that’s almost as good that I’ll show you. You still want to go out, just the two of us?”

“Sure. Any time.”

“How about Monday morning?”

“If we’re not too full of tomorrow’s catch.”

“Can’t ever get too full of pan-cooked trout.”

“No argument there. Okay, Monday morning it is.”

“Way cool.”

After supper I sat on the deck watching night settle around the lake. It was chilly with the sun gone and the sunset colors fading, the sky darkening into a deep, velvety indigo; there was a wind off the water now, thin and gusty, with an edge I could feel through the lined jacket I’d put on. I thought that I ought to go inside, build up the fire I’d started earlier, but I wasn’t ready to do that just yet. Nice out here, despite the temperature. Peaceful. The kind of night in the kind of setting that takes hold of your thoughts, turns them inward.

Indigo modulated into purple, then into star-hazed black. No moon yet, but the starshine was so bright it cast a whiteness over lake and trees and mountain peaks that made them seem almost pearlescent. The sky was so clear you could see the broad, awesome sweep of the Milky Way. When you deal with ugliness and evil as often as I had, for as many years, you can lose sight of how much beauty and serenity there is in the world. Places like this remind you of that fact — just the sort of reminder I needed at this point in my life. It helps put everything back into a proper perspective.

From somewhere — Judson’s, probably — I could hear music, so faint that the melody wasn’t identifiable. Otherwise, except for the soughing of the wind in the pines and the intermittent splash of a fish jumping after insects, the night hush seemed thick and palpable, a gentle pressure against the eardrums. There was a lonesome quality to both the stillness and the mountain vastness: I missed Kerry and wished she were here to share this time with me. But it was a mild sort of yearning, almost pleasurable, like the anticipation of something you want very much and know for certain you’ll soon have.

Mainly I was at ease. With myself as well as my surroundings.

All the sad, hurtful things that had troubled my life seemed far away and less important or not important at all; even Eberhardt’s sudden suicide and the bitter reasons behind it, only two months in the past and the source of so much internal chaos at the time, had a remoteness now, here, that led me to wonder briefly if I were turning callous in my incipient old age, walling myself off from the strong feelings that had always been an integral part of my nature. The answer, I decided, was no. My feelings, like a lot of my opinions, were as strong as ever; it was the interpretation I put on them, how I let them affect me, that was undergoing a change.

Mellowing. Well, maybe, but that was only part of it. There was something else, something deeper, that I was only just beginning to understand. Give it time. It would become clear to me eventually.

My, my, I thought then. Learning patience and insight, too, after nearly sixty years? Wonders never cease.

I laughed out loud, gazing up at the Milky Way. I hadn’t felt this good, this secure, in a long time.