Malice

19

The sun was rising above the coast range to the east, casting a golden glow across the Pacific Ocean off the Oregon shore. Marlene fixed the pair of binoculars on the surfers who were sitting on their boards a hundred yards away, waiting for the next set of waves. Two began paddling fast when an eight-foot swell rushed in from the west.

Picking up speed down the face of the wave, the faster of the two popped up into a wide stance while the other gave up. Marlene focused on the rider. Definitely a woman. Although she only caught a glimpse of the surfer's face as she finished her ride and began to paddle back out to the lineup, Marlene was pretty sure that she had found who she was looking for: Maly Laska.

"She'll be the only girl out there," her roommate had said. "The currents are pretty strong right now and the swells are big-you have to be ready to play with the big boys…or not give a shit what happens to you if you mess up. She's a little of both."

When Fulton called her at the Basque Cultural Center and told her what he'd learned, Marlene knew that she needed to find Laska, the young woman who claimed Rufus Porter raped her. It had taken a week of digging, but she'd located the girl's parents in Huntington Beach, south of Los Angeles. They'd only just moved there and had been reluctant to say anything until Marlene convinced them that she worked for the good guys. Even then, all they would admit to was that she had moved away months ago. "She's scared and just wants to forget about the whole thing," her mother said. "I wish you people would leave her alone."

Marlene put herself in the young woman's shoes. You've just been raped, reported it to the police and gone through that humiliation, only for the justice system to fail you miserably. Then something happens-a threat?-so you pack up your bags overnight and hightail it home to Mom and Dad. But you're still afraid enough that you don't stay. Where do you go?

The question bothered Marlene for several days until she woke up next to Butch, who'd flown in to begin preparing in earnest with Meyers, at O'Toole's house in Idaho after a restless night. Come on, Marlene, she was originally from San Diego, so you're a beach-girl surfer type who goes to school in Idaho. You're outdoorsy. You go home to your parents, who live in Huntington Beach, but it's not safe for you or them…so…? Sooooo…you return to the ocean and find someplace "safe" to surf.

Of course, that only left a couple thousand miles to search-just counting the West Coast-but it gave Marlene someplace to look. She began by doing database searches of library systems in California, Oregon, and Washington. That turned up a few hits for M. Laska, Mollie Laska, and one Maly Laska living in Lincoln City, Oregon. A quick check of the Lincoln City chamber of commerce website indicated that the town was promoting itself as a "little known but definitely on the rise" spot for surfing.

Two hours later, Marlene was on a flight to Portland, Oregon, where she rented a car and drove to Lincoln City. It was night when she arrived, so she'd waited until morning to head out. The library entry had provided a street address, which led to a pretty little cottage on the cliff above the beach just south of Lincoln City.

The roommate had answered the knock on the door. Marlene identified herself as representing Dan Zook, the prosecutor in Sawtooth, which she'd okayed with him before leaving. "I just need to ask her a few questions."

At first the roommate denied knowing any Maly Laska. But Marlene had pointed out that the broken-down VW bus in the driveway was registered to Maly, a fact she'd been able to ascertain by getting Fulton to call the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles before she approached the house. "So what," the roommate said, and began to close the door.

Placing her hand on the door to keep it open, Marlene said, "Look, I don't want to hurt her or put her through any more than she's already been through. But you know and I know, and Maly knows, that guys like Rufus Porter will just keep doing what he did to her until somebody stands up and puts his ass in prison. I know she's scared. I'm sure she's been threatened. And if she wants me to go away, I will and I'll forget I ever knew where she lives. But I've got other people I'm worried about right now, too-an innocent man who is having his life destroyed by Porter's lies, and a father who's looking for a daughter who disappeared and thinks-however remote the chance is-that somehow this is all connected."

The roommate looked at her and seemed to be debating in her mind before she bowed her head and nodded. "We heard from Maly's folks that you might be up this way," she said. "You might as well come in."

As Marlene entered, she saw the roommate put a handgun back into a drawer of the stand next to the door. The other woman noticed the look and said, "I keep this here, hoping that asshole Porter shows up looking for her someday. I'm going to let him in the door just to make it legal in terms of the 'make my day' law, and then I'm going to shoot him in the balls and watch him die slow."

They'd talked for a few minutes, and then the roommate told her where to look for Maly at the beach several miles north of Lincoln City called Cascade Head. "She usually surfs until about nine. Then she has to come back and get ready for work at a local restaurant."

An hour later, after spotting Maly out on the water, Marlene took off her shoes and went for a walk along the beach. That way she could enjoy the morning and keep an eye on her subject without raising suspicions until Maly stopped surfing.

Marlene picked up a rock and skipped it out toward the breaking waves. It reminded her of days she spent with her father as a young girl, skipping stones into the water at Coney Island. He was at a difficult stage in life now-suffering from dementia and mourning the loss of his wife, Marlene's mother, Concetta. She was still lost in thought, skipping stones an hour later, when she noticed that Laska had caught one last wave in and was paddling to the shore. The young woman reached the beach, picked up her board under one arm, and began crossing the sand on muscular legs to the parking lot. There she rinsed under an outdoor faucet, unzipping her wet suit to reveal a tan, athletic body.

Marlene moved to intercept the girl as she picked up her board again and started to walk toward the highway leading back to Lincoln City. As she approached, the girl gave her a glance and then slowed her pace, as if trying to decide whether to continue on or run back to the water.

"Maly Laska?" Marlene asked as she caught up.

"Don't know her," the young woman replied, and picked up her pace again.

Marlene had to run to keep up. "I'm sorry, I know who you are, but I'm not here to hurt you or give away your hiding place-though to be honest, anyone with a computer could find you if they wanted."

The young woman stopped and studied Marlene with eyes dark green like the ocean she'd just come from. "You with the District Attorney's Office in Sawtooth?" she asked angrily. "I told them I was done with it. I will not press charges and if I'm subpoenaed, I won't show."

"I can appreciate that," Marlene replied. "And no, I'm not with the District Attorney's Office, though he's given me permission to say that I am. I am working with the father of a young woman who disappeared several months before you were raped. He thinks that all of this-her disappearance, the rape, and a case my husband is working on to try to salvage the life of the university baseball coach-is connected through Rufus Porter."

At the mention of the young woman who disappeared, Laska had hung her head. But at the mention of Rufus Porter, she started marching off toward the highway again. "I don't know anything about it," she said. "And if I never hear about Idaho again, it will be too soon. Now, if you don't mind, I need to hitch a ride back to town so I can go to work."

"How about I give you a ride back?" Marlene asked. "Saves you the trouble, I get to ask you a couple of questions; I'll drop you off at your house and then drive off into the sunset, you'll never see me again."

Marlene's rapid-fire speech brought a partial smile to Laska's lips. She looked down the highway. There were no cars in sight. "It can be a pretty tough time of year for hitchhiking," she conceded. "All the tourists are gone… Okay, you get to ask a few questions, I'll decide how to answer them, but then you leave me alone and forget you ever found me. Deal?"

"Deal."

The two women walked to the truck Marlene had rented. Stowing the board in the back, they got in and buckled up, and Marlene asked, "Does the name Maria Santacristina sound familiar?"

Laska looked out the window toward the ocean and didn't look back when she answered. "She was the girl who disappeared. I remember the newspaper stories that she was missing, but there wasn't much else. I didn't know her."

Marlene could almost feel the tension in the girl. "Why are you living here in Lincoln City? I mean, didn't you leave the beach to live in the Rocky Mountains?"

Laska half laughed and half snorted. "I went to Idaho because I knew that if I stayed in SoCal to go to school, or anywhere with an ocean and waves for that matter, I'd never go to class," she said. "So I chose the middle of the country. And I loved it. I was getting into snowboarding and backpacking."

"Then why back to the ocean?"

Laska sighed. "Because after what happened, I felt dirty all the time." The young woman's voice grew strained as she struggled to hold it together. "Only the ocean makes me feel clean. If I could, I'd stay in the water all of the time."

"Does it work?" Marlene asked.

"When I'm surfing, nothing else matters," Laska replied. "It's me, the waves, and my friends. I feel strong and good about myself. But at night, I still have to live with the memory and by morning I just feel dirty again."

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

Laska shook her head. "I was always a little shy around boys. Strange, huh, for a California beach girl. Anyway, I wanted the husband, kids, white picket fence-the whole enchilada. But now I really don't trust men, except my surfing buddies, and I'm just one of the guys to them."

Marlene turned off the highway and down the sandy road leading to Laska's house. It was now or never with the tough questions. "Why did you refuse to go forward with the charges against Porter?"

Laska was growing antsy as the ride drew near its end. "I didn't want to go through with the crap of a trial," she said. "It was all falling apart anyway-the evidence disappearing, people changing their stories, and then…well, and then it just wasn't worth it."

"Wasn't worth it? He raped you, didn't he?"

The young woman looked out at the ocean, her hand on the door handle as if she just wanted to get out and into the water. "Yes," she whispered at last. "He raped me."

"And you are going to let him get away with it?"

Angry again, Laska turned to face Marlene. "It's done. I just want to go on with my life and hope that someday I can forget. Going back to Idaho won't make it better."

Marlene ached for the girl, but she pushed on anyway. "What about the next girl he rapes, or maybe worse, if Maria Santacristina is also a victim?"

"And what about the protection I needed and didn't get," Laska shot back. "I'm sorry about whatever happened to Maria, but I have a life, too, and parents who have been threatened. Porter's crowd are not nice people."

"All the more reason to put him away," Marlene said as she pulled into the driveway of Laska's house.

Laska reached for the door handle. "I'm sorry. I'm scared and I want nothing to do with this anymore."

Marlene reached out and put a hand on Laska's arm. "Please, I'm not asking you to come back, but if there's anything you can tell me about Porter or what happened after you reported the rape, maybe it would help. Please, Maly…Maria's father sets a place for her at his table every night, and every morning he puts it back away until the next night. He's left her bedroom the way it was when she was a child. He can't move on until he finds her."

Laska pulled her arm away. Tears were streaming down her face as she jumped out of the truck and walked to the back to get her surfboard. She got halfway to the house before she stopped and looked up at the sky. Without turning, she said, "Wait here a minute," then walked swiftly to the house, leaned the surfboard next to the door, and went in.

Five minutes passed and Marlene was beginning to wonder if Laska was going to return when she came out of the cottage carrying an envelope. She walked around to the driver's side of the truck.

"This was sent to me after the evidence 'disappeared' from the police station," Laska said, and handed the envelope to Marlene. "Go ahead, open it."

Inside was a piece of white paper with a single typed line and a photograph. "Leave now or take a last ride," Marlene said, reading the paper. She set it aside carefully in order not to disturb any latent fingerprints and looked at the photograph beneath it. When she looked up again at Laska, her eyes glittered with rage. "Can I make a copy?"

Laska shook her head. "Take it, it's yours," she said. "I hope it helps. But either way, I'm done, okay? If you come back here again, I won't be here. And this time I'm going to be a lot harder to find."

"I understand," Marlene said. "I won't try to find you again." She looked out at the glimmering ocean. "I hope you find peace out there."

Laska nodded and smiled grimly. "Thanks. Me, too, if it's possible."