Fool's Puzzle by Earlene Fowler (reading eggs books .TXT) 📕

“Where does this Skeeter live?”

“Just a minute.”

I strained to understand another muffled discussion.

“He says it’s probably better you don’t know. We’ll meet you in an hour at Port San Patricio. You know, out by Eola Beach?”

“Yes,” I said, impatiently. “I grew up here, remember? Where exactly will you be?”

“Well, don’t get your dander up.”

“Just tell me where, Rita.”

“You know the big building at the end of the pier? Where they clean all the fish?”

“Where the Blue Seal Inn is.”

“Meet me there. In the bar. Skeeter says the restaurant is closed but the bar’s still open. I’ll be in a booth in the back. And, Benni ...” She hesitated for a moment.

“What else?” I cradled the phone on my shoulder while reaching for my boots.

“Thanks,” she said softly. For the first time, her voice sounded serious and a little frightened.

“It’s going to be all right,” I said with faked confidence.

“Oh, I know that.” Her voice suddenly took on the relaxed tone of someone who’d just handed their problems to someone else.

The clock above my fireplace struck nine o‘clock. With good luck, I’d be home to catch the eleven o’clock news; with outstanding luck, I’d have Rita with me.

I drove by the automated teller machine at my bank and drew out a hundred dollars, hoping I wouldn’t need it. I intended on Rita coming home with me, though I suspected the chance of that happening was, as Dove would say, about as probable as a three-legged mule winning a kicking contest. I didn’t even want to contemplate what Ortiz would do if she didn’t return with me.

As I drove down the interstate toward Eola Beach and Port San Patricio, a strong wind came up. It slapped the sides of my truck like a giant palm trying to push me off the road. The heavy cloud cover made the air feel dense, thick; like breathing through a feather pillow. After fifteen miles, I turned off the interstate onto the narrow, winding highway that led to Eola Beach. As the ocean loomed closer, its sharp brine permeated the cab of the truck. I licked my lips and tasted salt.

A half mile before Eola Beach, I passed the Oakhills Mineral Springs Resort. The parking lot was almost full with an eclectic mixture of pickup trucks, BMW’s and Japanese imports. With their private outdoor hot tubs, it was one of the county’s more popular dating spots. Jack and I celebrated our twelfth anniversary in Number Five with a bottle of California champagne, a Don Williams tape and a pizza that was cold by the time we ate it. Seeing it depressed me and I wondered, as I had more than once in the last few months, whether staying in San Celina was such a good idea. The problem was, I had no idea where else to go.

The main street of Eola Beach was dark and quiet. Like many of the tiny beach communities on the Central Coast, Eola Beach subsisted on the money made in the three-to-four-month summer season. I crept past boarded-up frozen banana stands, bikini boutiques with empty window displays, and the only establishment with any life to it, a small, nameless neighborhood bar.

Port San Patricio, a half-mile further north, shared its small peninsula with a Unocal pumping station, the offices of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Boating and Waterways Department and, if my nose was accurate, most of the pelicans and sea gulls on the Central Coast.

A damp, cold wind whistled in my ears when I stepped down from the truck. The air smelled tart and brackish, like old pickle juice. Only two other vehicles sat in the small lot at the end of the pier; an old Ford Bronco I assumed was Skeeter’s, and a small Toyota pickup with a faded bumper sticker—“Commercial Fishermen Feed the World.” I met no one on the long walk to the end of the pier. The low whumping of the Unocal station intermingled with the faint sounds of seals barking, a sort of bipartisan symphony.

The Blue Seal Inn sat inside a huge, barntike building at the end of the pier. When I pulled open the heavy, port-holed door of the inn, a whoosh of warm air hit me. Behind the bar, a dark-eyed man with long hair the color of a palomino’s mane pointed at me with a hand-held soda dispenser.

“You Benni?” he asked.

I nodded. He pointed toward the back as if he were aiming a pistol.

“She’s over there,” he said.

I edged past a pool table being used by an old man in a captain’s hat toward a row of black vinyl booths.

Rita sat alone in the large corner booth, a tall pale drink in front of her. Her teased blond mane careened slightly to the left and her usually flawless makeup appeared slapdash; flakes of black mascara dusted her cheeks and one copper-and-pink shadowed eye didn’t quite match its twin.

“Am I glad to see you,” she said.

I slid into the bench opposite her and gave her a severe look, feeling for all the world like her mother.

“Did you bring the money?” She stirred her drink with a skinny red straw.

“Where’s this Skeeter guy?” I asked.

“Around. He thought it would be better if we talked alone.” She took a quick sip, then nervously stirred again.

“He’s probably right about that. Tell me what happened, Rita. From the beginning. Then we’ll talk about money.”

She sighed and gave me an impatient look. “Marla ...” Her voice wavered. She stopped, swallowed, then began again. “Marla, Eric and I got there about eight o‘clock. He and I hung around listening to the radio while she worked, but then we got hungry, so Eric and I decided to go get some stuff to eat.”

“When was that?”

“I don’t know.” She stuck the straw in her mouth and chewed on it. “Eight forty-five? Maybe. Yeah, that sounds right.”

I gestured for her to go on.

“Well, we drove over to that liquor store about a mile away. You