The Big Grabowski
by
Carolyn J. Rose and Mike Nettleton
Chapter One
“Nothing exciting ever happens in Devil’s Harbor,” Jennifer Daley groused as she trudged along the trail to the edge of the cliff overlooking Neptune’s Grotto. “It’s the most boring town in Oregon. Especially on Sundays.”
And she couldn’t even sleep in. No, she had to count the sea lions hanging out on the rocks in the tiny cove and post the number above the cash register in the gift shop up on the highway.
“Tourists have a right to know exactly how many Steller sea lions they’ll see for their money,” Phil McGenny had lectured her just moments ago, right before he drove off and left her in charge of the roadside attraction. “So don’t go making up a number. And don’t forget to say that the sea lions are protected by law. And if tourists have questions about mating season, tell them to read the brochure.”
Guh-ross. Like she wanted to answer questions about how sea lions do it.
She glanced over her shoulder, saw nothing but the weathered gift shop, and wondered how he’d know whether she counted every single sea lion. He and his wife had gone to Lincoln City and, unless the slot machines ate all their money, they wouldn’t be back until midnight. It would be way too dark then to check. And besides, it wasn’t like the sea lions sat still while you counted. They were always jumping in the water. Except for the males. Phil McGenny said they didn’t go anywhere or eat anything during mating season.
“And they still look fat!”
She kicked at a pebble, skidded on the wet asphalt, and clutched at the slick wooden railing. Yuck. Seagull poop.
She bent and wiped her fingers on the scruffy grass beside the trail, remembering how she’d overheard Latrice McGenny sticking up for her. “Yes, Phil, I know Jennifer’s only seventeen. And I know she’s a little flighty, but deep down she’s responsible. She can handle it.”
“Well, duh,” Jennifer muttered, “it isn’t brain surgery.” You don’t put too much oil or salt on the popcorn, you count out the correct change, and maybe you unload a few “genuine handmade” Devil’s Harbor whirligigs.
“Not!”
Everyone in town knew they were all made in China, but Mr. Grabowski insisted it wasn’t exactly lying to fool people from out of town. And Jennifer knew it was pointless to argue with adults. So, whatever.
The trail cornered and angled down into a wispy fog. Jennifer shivered and rubbed at the goose bumps on her arms. It was creepy out here all alone, kinda like being in one of those slasher or vampire movies where the girl screams and screams and no one hears.
She patted her highlighted ash-blond hair. She was cute enough to star in a movie like that, and her mother said her screams could peel paint. Maybe she’d try out a scream on those stinky sea lions.
The odor rolled up out of the fog and smacked her—dead fish and poop and sea lion morning breath that lasted all day long. Yuck. She’d have to shower twice when she got home, before she tried on her coronation dress again and maybe sewed more sequins on the hem.
Miss Whirligig! Yesss!
She had to win, had to be the one to wear that crown and get the scholarship check from Mr. Grabowski and pose looking all surprised while Molly Donovan took her picture for the newspaper.
She stretched her arms out and waltzed in a tight circle on the steep trail, imagining her victory dances—first with Mayor Deeds and then with the winner of the belly-bucking competition.
Okay, well, that part sucked. Big Billy Bohannon had won the last seven years, and he looked like a pregnant phone booth—danced like one, too. As for the mayor, he was short, fat, sweaty, and smelled like low tide.
Double yuck.
She stopped waltzing, made an O with her lips and raised her hands in surprise, practicing for the newspaper photo. Maybe Molly would interview her, too. After all, Molly had been the first-ever festival queen. And now she was a famous newspaper reporter.
Wondering if Molly would ask about her diet secrets—orange foods only on Wednesdays and never eat pizza crusts—Jennifer reached the viewing area at the base of the trail. Disregarding signs warning against climbing the railing, she hoisted herself to the third rung, held her nose, and peered into the cove.
A huge wave loomed and slammed against the rocky ledges with a boom like thunder, spraying frothy water across a huddle of sea lions a hundred feet below. The cove faced due west and no sunlight would strike the ledges for hours. In the fog-shrouded morning light, the sea lions appeared to be the same color as the rocks they lay on, and both were slick with spray.
Jennifer leveled a finger at the right side of the cove and counted. “One. Two. Three. Four.”
No, that was a rock. Or was it?
A bull the size of a compact car cranked his head back, glared at her, and gronked out a roar.
“You don’t scare me,” she said. “Sea lions eat fish, not people.”
The bull roared again, then lurched to the lip of the ledge, scattering a cluster of barking cows and almost squishing a pup. He thrust himself out over the edge, intent on something bobbing in a floating mat of kelp.
Jennifer squinted, wondering if the thing in the water was a bachelor come to challenge the older bull. A fight, even a fight between sea lions, would break the monotony. She hunched farther over the rail, wishing she hadn’t been worried about smudging her mascara and had brought the binoculars.
Another towering wave broke against the ledges and for a few seconds the big bull disappeared beneath a blanket of foamy spray. When it cleared, he roared once more and launched himself at the thing in the kelp.
Jennifer knew next to nothing about marine biology, but she knew that thing wasn’t a bachelor bull.
Sea lions didn’t wear ties.
* * *
Sergeant Greg Erdman spun his cruiser onto the narrow road looping along Perdition Point north of Neptune’s Grotto. Oblivious to the glittering blue ocean and the surf thundering on rocks far below, he grappled with how to explain to Molly Donovan why he’d stood her up last night.
A simple lie about being ordered out to investigate a robbery or handle a domestic violence call wouldn’t wash with a reporter. Molly would check his alibi. No, he’d have to go with the truth: sprawled in his recliner, he’d drifted off in front of the Mariners’ game.
“Damn.” He kneaded the kink in his neck. Dating at forty was complicated and confusing—almost more trouble than it was worth. “Almost,” he grinned, remembering that night last week when he and Molly had built a driftwood fire on the beach. After splitting a bottle of wine, he’d finally kissed her and had been working up the nerve to grope for the top button on her blouse when his pager erupted. Reaching for it, he’d slammed his elbow against a log, hit his damn funny bone, and jumped around squawking like a psychotic chicken. Molly had laughed her ass off and run for her car. Women! No matter how much daytime TV he watched, he’d never understand what they wanted. Except for his ex-wife, Patsy. She wanted every dime he made.
Wincing, he turned onto a narrow road leading to a viewpoint. The tires bit into thick gravel that rattled against the undercarriage. Ahead, two weathered picnic tables hunkered on a patch of weed-infested grass beside a six-car parking lot. Beyond them, Greg spotted a silver late-model Lincoln, its roof glistening with dew, wedged into the brush at the edge of the lot. The driver’s door hung open; the window was down.
“Damn joy-riders.” Greg eased the cruiser up behind the car and left it idling. Why couldn’t they abandon a car in town where someone else would find it? Where he wouldn’t get stuck with the paperwork. He kicked a rear tire and then peered inside, catching a whiff of faux pine air freshener. The keys were in the ignition and the interior was immaculate. Strange. Joy-riders usually trashed a car.
Using the tip of his pen, he opened the glove box. Cleaned out. Not even an owner’s manual. He was about to call the dispatcher to have her run the plate when she called him.
* * *
“We’re almost home, Molly girl.”
I nodded and waved to my father as the Helen rounded a rocky spit on the north side of Purgatory Bay. Devil’s Harbor lay before us, spread along the lava shelf spewed by an ancient volcano, weathered buildings looking like they’d been cast up by a storm tide. Except for fresh paint and new shingles, the exteriors hadn’t changed since I’d left for journalism school twenty years ago. Beyond them was evidence of so-called progress—a jagged oozing wound slicing across the ridge Vince Grabowski had leveled to build an up-scale development. In keeping with the town theme, he’d named it Devil’s Acres. Then pounding winter rains arrived weeks ahead of schedule and six luxury homes had mud-surfed onto the seventh fairway of his newly turfed golf course.
“Progress.” I shook my head as the Helen plowed toward the narrow curving channel leading to a tiny pocket in the lava. The anchorage sheltered a dock and a dozen boats the size of the one my father had named for the woman he’d loved, married, and lost to cancer the day I turned twelve.
“Smell that air,” Dad ordered from the skimpy bridge rigged off the roof of the small cabin. “Nothing like it anywhere else on earth.”
I waved again, but didn’t answer. Yelling over the throb of the engine would only aggravate the pounding around my eyes. Tangy sea breezes couldn’t clear sinuses clogged by assorted mold spores and the pollen from a wealth of spring blooms. I longed for Albuquerque, for dry air and the sharp aroma of roasting green chile. But more than that, I missed the crime beat and the action of a daily newspaper. Now I hammered out fluff for a paper I delivered myself.
They didn’t even have a crime beat here. “Don’t need one,” my editor insisted. And he had a point. Crime on this stretch of the coast consisted of a dismal round of fender-benders, drunken fistfights, and stop ‘n’ pop artists who cleaned out cars while tourists took in the sights. Of course there were also shady land-grabbers like Grabowski, but my editor called them “shapers of the future.”
Reporting for The North Coast Flotsam beat shucking oysters. Just barely. As they say, necessity is a mother. But I’d be out of here soon.
My father bent to check the depth gauge. His crew-cut white hair was too short for the wind to riffle, his skin too mottled by years of hard weather for the sun to do more damage. At seventy-two, Mike Donovan didn’t need glasses or false teeth or a hearing aid. What he needed was to take it easy to prevent another heart attack.
“Hey, Molly! Think he’s ready to take her in?” Dad bellowed, nodding at the lanky man below him on the deck.
Jeffrey Wolfe turned for my answer and I saw a mix of eagerness and uncertainty on his face. He’d left a bad marriage and a high-stress job at a Chicago ad agency and drifted to the coast to write poetry and, as he put it, “learn to tell time by the tides.” He’d won a regional award and been published in two national magazines, but he’d discovered that it’s not called “free verse” for nothing. If Jeffrey couldn’t pull his own weight and more, I’d stay and crew myself because the odds of keeping Dad off the water were on a par with my chances of capturing a Pulitzer Prize writing about crab molt for The Flotsam.
“What about it, Molly? Shall we let him try?”
I massaged the skin between my eyes. Maybe he’d surprise me.
“Go for it!”
Jeffrey shot me a smile, climbed to the narrow platform beside my father, and clutched the wheel, fingers white against the chrome. Dad stepped onto the top rung of the ladder. “Center up on the middle span of the highway bridge, back off on the power, gauge the wind, watch how the waves break, aim for the starboard piling, then gun her, cut hard to port, and we’re in.”
Jeffrey bobbed his head, but all three of us knew it wasn’t that simple. With the tide nearly full and a strong wind from the south, this was like threading a needle while wearing mittens. His shoulders hunched beneath his bright red T-shirt as he death-gripped the throttle. He stood six feet four inches tall and I doubted he weighed more than a hundred and ninety pounds. Too stringy for my taste, but some women found his wry smile, faded blue eyes, and tousled graying hair attractive.
The bridge loomed above us and I heard the distant hum of tires on pavement. Dry land! In thirty-seven years of pitching and rolling, I’d never found my sea legs. My aunt claimed my red hair and stubborn streak were the only indications that Mike Donovan was my father.
Gulls circled the bow screeching, their black eyes checking for signs we had a catch on board. Forget it, I thought, this is a training mission. Besides, commercial fishing had nearly petered out a few years back. That’s why Dad now cruised up and down the coast, searching for a puff of vapor or the flip of a fluke, and attempting to be pleasant to tourists wetting their lines.
Gripping the railing, I studied Jeffrey as he angled the Helen to starboard. Straight ahead, waves broke against pock-marked lava. Frothing white water streamed down jagged rock to be caught and tossed back by the next wave. On the highway bridge above, a gray-haired couple pointed at the splintered edges of the channel, then focused their cameras, ready to record our certain wreck. Above the thrumming of the twin diesels I heard Dad mutter an obscenity-laden invective against the channel, the Pacific Ocean, and the wind.
“Here we go!” Jeffrey gunned the engines. The Helen rocked and bucked, then shot forward.
The pager clipped to my belt vibrated. Hunkering over to block the sun, I squinted at the digital read-out. The first three numbers were the local prefix. The next four didn’t look familiar. The last three were 666, code for a hot news flash. Right. The last so-called flash involved a grease fire at Grover’s Clam and Ham out on Highway 101. Total damage: two dollars worth of rancid grease and Grover’s eyebrows.
The Helen tilted and shuddered. I took three involuntary steps, clutched in vain at the ladder, and then rebounded against the starboard rail. Boat-crushing rocks loomed before me. Cringing, I shaded my eyes and peered at my father. His lips were sealed against each other. His eyes darted from the rocks to the bow, measuring distance. Jeffrey throttled down and spun the wheel to port, then jerked it back. I thudded against the side of the cabin.
“We’re in, lad,” my father yelled. “You did it! Now aim for the Mark-up, bring her around beside the Searchin’ Urchin and shut her down.
I staggered to my feet, dug the cell phone from my purse in the cramped cabin, and punched in the number from my pager.
“Neptune’s Grotto,” a breathless voice sang out. “Where sea lions come to play and you can see them if you pay.”
“It’s Molly Donovan. Someone paged me.”
“Molly! Ohmigod. It’s me, Jennifer.”
I rolled my eyes. If you looked up space case in the dictionary, you’d find her picture. “What’s up, Jennifer?”
“You gotta get down here. It’s mega-nasty.”
“What is?”
“That man.”
I sighed. “What man?”
“Ohmigod, Molly, I don’t know who he is. He’s in with the sea lions.”
My hand tightened on the phone. Could this be real news? “Did you call the sheriff’s office?”
“Well, duh. I almost called you first, but I didn’t think that would be, like, you know, fair.”
“Fair?”
“I mean, like, I thought they should have a head start. Because you’re such a great reporter.”
Jennifer-logic. Had I been that ditzy at seventeen? “Okaaay.”
“And they told me not to let anyone in. But Mr. McGenny will fire me if I don’t sell tickets, and I need this job to rescue my shoes from lay-away.”
I opened my mouth to set her straight, but grinned instead. Tourists trampling evidence? Not my problem. Why should I help Sergeant Erdman? “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Okay. Ohmigod, Molly, I gotta bail. Here comes a tour bus.”
I snapped the phone shut and stuffed it into my purse, scrabbling for my keys. “Gotta run, Dad.”
“Hold on, Missy.” He tossed a coil of rope to Jeffrey who wound it around a cleat on the dock. “What about lunch at the Devil’s Food Cafe to celebrate?”
“Not today.” I kissed his cheek and vaulted over the rail to the dock. “I’ve got a date with a dead man.”
