Gathering Lies Page 7

  This time I followed, watching the dark red ponytail bob ahead of me. After the rosy sunset the night before, the day had turned chilly, the sky spitting rain. Kim wore only the jeans, long-sleeved sweatshirt and Saucony sports shoes she’d had on when the quake struck the day before. They were soaked clear through.

  I caught up to her. “Kim, listen. I wasn’t thinking when I asked you to come with me. We should have taken more time to find you warm clothes.”

  She smiled. “Guess you’ve never been on location, have you?”

  “No. Pretty tough?”

  “Try swimming in a creek in Yellowstone when it’s thirty degrees out and starting to snow.”

  “Ugh. You must like your work, though, to be so successful at it. They say we thrive the most in the kind of work we love.”

  “I suppose that’s true, at least for some. For me, it’s been a long, hard road, getting to where I am now. Some of it I don’t even want to remember.” Her face clouded over. “What about you?”

  I started to answer just as we rounded another curve on the beach—only to see another stretch of uninhabited shoreline.

  “Damn,” I said. “Where is that house, anyway? I remembered it being closer.”

  “You want to rest?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I do need something to eat, though.” Pulling out the poppyseed muffin, I broke it in two and offered one half to Kim.

  “Thanks. Listen, let’s sit down a minute so I can take my socks off. There’s so much sand lumped inside them, they’re making my toes sore.”

  Holding the piece of muffin in her teeth, she untied her shoes and removed her socks, stuffing them into a pocket. We both sat for a moment, eating silently.

  “You’re a lawyer, right?” Kim said, as the final bite of muffin disappeared. She brushed crumbs off her jeans. “A public defender?”

  “I was.”

  “You were? What happened? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

  I gave a shrug. “It looks like we’re going to be on this blasted island together for a while, so sure, you can ask. I was a public defender in Seattle. I lost my job.”

  “Cutbacks?”

  “No. I was fired.”

  She looked at me sharply. “I can’t imagine you doing something bad enough to get fired over.”

  “Really? But we hardly know each other.”

  “Well, it’s true I haven’t gotten to know you very well,” Kim admitted. “And that’s my fault. Believe it or not, even though I can hang loose in front of a camera, I don’t feel comfortable in groups of women. I don’t seem to have much in common with them, and I never know what to say. But the way you took over yesterday when the quake happened—not getting freaked out or anything—I guess I saw you as being in some sort of responsible job and never doing anything wrong.”

  I almost laughed. “Well, you’ve got some of that right. I was in a responsible job, and I didn’t do anything wrong. Somebody set me up for drug possession with intent to sell, and now I’ve got a trial pending.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “I wish.”

  “But, Sarah, doesn’t being an attorney allow you more of a chance of clearing yourself? You can convince a jury you’re innocent, right? Then you can go back to work?”

  “Aye, and there’s the rub…convincing a jury of my innocence.”

  Kim nodded and sighed. “I was offered a role like that—an innocent woman, behind bars. I turned it down because my agent didn’t want me to play a prisoner.” She rolled her eyes. “Like people don’t know the difference between real life and acting these days. Laura West, who did take the part—Do you know her?”

  “I know of her, of course,” I said. “Julia Roberts’s latest competition, right? Or so it’s said. Personally, I don’t think she can hold a candle to Roberts.”

  “I agree. Even so, she won an Oscar for the part of that inmate. I was left to look at it as the road not taken.”

  “Frost,” I said. “‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—’”

  “‘I took the one less traveled by,’” Kim finished for me, smiling. “High school. And don’t look so surprised. I’ve got a memory like an elephant.”

  “I guess that comes in handy when you have to study a script.”

  She nodded. “It put me in demand when I was first starting out and working in low-budget flicks. Public defenders, though—they don’t make much money, do they?”

  “No. But I didn’t go into it for that.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. I had a role in a film once as the president of a perfume company. Sylvie, her name was. She quit when she was forty to become a missionary.” Kim laughed, a loud, free sound that surprised me, coming from her, and under these circumstances. “A really bad movie. Did you see it? ‘Heavenly Scent’?”

  I smiled at the title. “‘Heavenly Scent’? I’m sorry, no. I haven’t found much time over the years for movies. I usually go over briefs at night and on weekends.”

  “Me, too. When I’m not filming, I mean, I stay home, crash and watch TV. Of course, I usually watch movies on TV. I guess we tend to relax with the same kind of work we do.”

  “How true.”

  “So, this charge you’ve got against you. Is there some way you can prove your innocence? I mean, as a lawyer, you must know how to do that, right?”

  I hesitated. The quake had loosened my tongue, yet I didn’t feel entirely comfortable telling Kim how I planned to prove my innocence.

  “Hopefully, I’ll remember how to be a lawyer when we get out of this,” I settled for. “Why don’t we keep walking? It’s beginning to look like a long day.”

  She wiggled into her damp shoes, and as we walked, a mist moved in over the island. I was reminded of the tsunami warning we’d heard over the radio, the possibility of a wave several stories high striking the shore here and engulfing us all. The one from Alaska in 1964 had reached a height of 250 feet—the approximate height of a twenty-five-story building—and had landed as far south as Crescent City, California, destroying large portions of that town. Would a tsunami, if it originated from a Seattle epicenter, move this way, as the newscaster on the radio had suggested? Or would it travel south?

  I couldn’t remember, from the earthquake preparedness sessions. We could only hope we would find a portable radio at the Ford house. Maybe even a cell phone. Though how much good that would do, if its batteries were dead, I didn’t know. For that matter, would there even be service? Were nearby towers intact, or had they gone down, too?

  I couldn’t think about it. The worry alone was sapping my strength.

  “To answer your question,” I continued, as we dodged incoming ripples on the shore, “I was helping out a working woman—a prostitute. She’d been raped by cops, and they killed her to keep her from testifying. Then they came after me. Two murders would have been too much, I suppose, so they set me up with a phony drug charge to discredit me. They also hoped to scare me into shutting up about what they’d done. Well, with the victim dead, that’s the way it might have gone. The story was in all the papers, as well as on the evening news, that Sarah Lansing—who’d defended criminals so ‘brilliantly’ over the years—was now one of them herself.”

  I paused to scan the line of trees, saw nothing resembling a roofline, and continued. “I already had a record as a public defender for getting the worst kinds of criminals off. That was my job, to provide a defense for anyone—guilty or not—however uncomfortable it might sometimes be. Of course, the cops hated me for it.”

  “They were afraid of you,” Kim said firmly.

  For a brief moment I felt a start, as if she somehow already knew what had happened.

  But then she explained, “If this were a movie, and you were to go after them—which it sounds like you were about to do—you’d be a powerful foe. They’d have to silence you. Right?”

  I paused and bent to pick up a long piece of drift-wood, which I used as a staff to lean on for a moment. This talk, as well as the wal
k, was taking more out of me than I’d imagined it would. My knees were shaky.

  “So,” Kim continued, “what you would need, Sarah, is some sort of evidence the cops couldn’t get to. Something to hold over their heads.”

  I searched her face. “What gave you that idea?”

  She grinned. “I saw it in a movie. I think Brian Dennehy was the good cop, and maybe James Woods was the bad one—but I could be confusing this with another film entirely.”

  Her tone became serious. “All I can say, Sarah, is that you probably want to look out for yourself. These cops don’t sound like they’re going to be satisfied with your just being on trial. Too many things might come out, don’t you think? Things that could incriminate them? Sarah, putting myself in their place, I think I’d be trying to shut you up before that time comes—and I’d do it in a way that fit the drug possession charge. Have you take an overdose, or something. In fact, I’d guess their setting you up on that charge was only a first step in a larger plan.”

  I stared at her. Moments passed. Finally, she laughed, awkwardly. “Sorry. My imagination runs wild sometimes.”

  “That’s a bit of an understatement,” I said.

  My eyes met Kim’s, and she didn’t look away, or even blink. “You’re not going to let them get away with this—are you, Sarah?”

  “I…no,” I said. “No, I’m not.”

  “You have a plan?”

  I realized, now, that I’d said far too much. I had allowed myself to get caught up in that syndrome of bonding with someone I’d been going through a disaster with. But who knew what Kim Stratton’s motives were?

  “Sarah?”

  “Hmm? Sorry.”

  “I was asking, have you been able to get the evidence you need to prove you were set up?”

  I made a wide arc with my walking stick and threw it far out over the water, watching as the swift tide carried it away. I imagined my troubles being carried off with it, disappearing round the bend—like putting all your woes into a big brown bag by your bed at night, so you could go to sleep without worrying about them.

  “You know what?” I said. “I’m so tired of thinking about all this. And I’m almost sure I can see the Ford house chimney up there, through those trees.”

  “You’re right,” Kim said, looking that way. The moment of tension passed. “Thank God!” she said. “I’m getting tired of tramping around this damned island. Besides, if this were a movie, there would at least be a happy ending. I’m not so sure we’re going to get one of those.”

  “I’m afraid you could be right,” I said, as Luke’s house appeared before us. Things did not look good.

  5

  The Ford house—or Ransford, as it had been named after Luke’s grandfather’s first name, Randell, and his last, Ford—had once been even more beautiful than Thornberry. In the past twelve or so hours, however, it had taken a bad blow. One side of it looked as if a giant had come along and crunched it with his foot. The other side seemed oddly intact, like one of those inexplicable survivors standing next to a dismembered airliner, feeling guilty to still be alive.

  The once broad, white portico that had fronted the house was now only a pile of lumber. The front door had fallen completely off its hinges. Tall windows beside it had shattered and now lay in glittering heaps. Kim and I made our way up a path of cobblestones that had scattered in many directions. As we reached the broken glass, I forged a path to the door, kicking shards aside with my hiking boots. Kim, in her canvas shoes, brought up the rear.

  Inside, plaster had crumbled, and chairs, sofas and small tables had been strewn in every direction. The overall effect was that of a junkyard—or, I thought, Homestead, Florida, after Hurricane Andrew. A jumbled pile of wreckage.

  “What a mess,” Kim said.

  “It sure is,” I agreed, sighing. I had spent many happy hours here as a teenager, pretending to read if Luke wasn’t around, listening to my dad and his talk law.

  Luke’s father was a judge in Seattle, and the last I’d heard, he had retired. I wondered how he’d feel if he could see this devastation. Charles Randell Ford had taken great pride in his home, as had Luke’s mother, Priscilla. They were high on the social ladder, and entertained here throughout the summers, bringing in guests on private ferries that pulled up to a dock strung with tiny colored lights and Japanese lanterns. The music from the live bands they brought in could be heard all the way to Thornberry, and there were many nights when I would sneak out through my bedroom window at Thornberry and make my way through the woods to Ransford. There I would sit out of sight beneath a tree and watch people dancing on a platform erected on the lawn. I’d read The Great Gatsby one of those summers, and the Fords became my Gatsby—a standard for elegant living. Now and then I’d even get a glimpse of Luke—though he would more often than not be dancing with some girl I didn’t know, which also, more often than not, sent me home in a bad mood.

  I never knew, till that last summer when we came together, if Luke would have danced with me at his parents’ parties. The one time I was invited by his parents, my own had refused to let me go. I was too young, they told me.

  “But Luke’s not too young, and he’s the same age as me,” I would argue.

  I never did win one of those arguments, and came to understand how difficult it was, for a teenager, having a lawyer for a father.

  “The stairs seem intact,” I said, looking at the wide circular staircase that rose to the second floor. It was covered with debris, however, largely plaster and wood from the walls. The ceiling was, miraculously, still in place.

  “Why don’t we start downstairs?” I suggested. “Let’s see if we can find a cell phone or a radio.”

  We began digging through the rubble with our hands, but as cuts developed, we came up with the idea of using short pieces of lumber to push things around. In the kitchen area, where the refrigerator had toppled and shattered dishes lay on the floor, we were thrilled to find a dustpan. No brush, but we used the pan to scoop trash out of the way as we sorted through it, looking for anything useful. Surprisingly, many dishes had survived intact here, and even a full set of glasses. Odd, I thought, the things that make it through an earthquake. It’s like after a tornado, where one house is left standing untouched, while the one next to it is demolished.

  There was little of use in the way of food, however. I would have expected the Fords to be more prepared for a disaster, as wild as the weather can get up here. There were a few canned goods—pork and beans, chicken and rice soup, creamed corn and a variety of other vegetables. Eighteen cans in all. But no radio. And no cell phone, unless it was hopelessly lost beneath rubble we couldn’t lift.

  I wondered where Grace, Jane and Dana were, and what was taking them so long. We could use them to help us clear the stairs to the second level.

  Exhausted, we stood with our hands on our hips and looked around, shaking our heads in discouragement.

  “Reminds me of that old joke,” I said.

  “Joke?”

  “The woman walks into her apartment with a new friend, and it’s a mess. Clothes, books, tapes, food all over the place. Bureau drawers wide open in the bedroom, shoes all over the floor. The friend says, horrified, ‘My God, you’ve been burglarized!’ The woman says, ‘No, I just didn’t clean today.’”

  Kim laughed. “Works for me.”

  We decided to go through the mess once more, on the theory that we might have missed something useful, focused as we’d been on finding a cell phone and radio. After another twenty minutes of scavenging through kitchen and living area, we had little to show for our efforts: the cans of food, a pair of suede gardening gloves, a screwdriver, and one huge Tweety Bird beach towel.

  “Too bad we didn’t bring backpacks for this stuff,” I said, looking at the results of our heist. “I had two of them, but they were buried in my cottage under all the mess.”

  “I’m afraid I never dreamed I’d need a backpack here,” Kim responded. “Talk about a babe in the
woods.”

  I made a knapsack of the beach towel by tying the corners together, and put our cache inside.

  At my insistence, Kim was already wearing the gloves. “When we get out of this,” I’d argued, “you can’t be making movies with your hands all scarred up. Me? If I ever get out of this, I may just beat a few people up. I could use some calluses.”

  I took the knapsack and set it by the kitchen door, thinking we’d go down to the dock and look around before we left. “I guess we should tackle the second floor while we wait for the others.”

  Kim had been standing at the door, which, since Ransford had been built on a small peninsula, faced the opposite shoreline from where we’d come. Over the past few minutes, dark storm clouds had formed, and a brisk wind was kicking up. Kim anxiously scanned the horizon.

  “What’s next, do you suppose?” she said. “Hurricane? Floods? Pestilence?”

  “We don’t have hurricanes here,” I said. Then, spotting Grace with the others on the beach, I added, “Pestilence, maybe.”

  Kim laughed.

  We headed down the hill to meet them, but as we drew closer, Grace started to run toward the Ransford dock, which was visible from this direction. Dana and Jane began to run, too, and I strained to see what had set them off.

  The dock had broken in two, with one end of it collapsed into the water. Several yards offshore, a boat lay half submerged. My gaze swung back to the dock, then fixed on a figure lying there.

  “It’s a man!” Kim said from behind me. “It’s the body of a man.”

  I still couldn’t see clearly, but some inner sense told me who it was. Looking back, I guess I could say it was wishful thinking. In that instant, however, I honestly wondered if I’d conjured him up. I started running, and when I got to Luke I pushed Grace out of the way.

  “Luke? Luke!” I said, taking his face between my hands. “My God!”

  Blood poured from a cut on his temple, and for a moment I thought he might be dead. But then he groaned, and relief swept over me. His white shirt and jeans were soaked, however, as were his shoes. The wind was kicking up waves, and they were splashing over onto the dock, drenching us all.