The Wanderer

Two

Roger McCain headed home for the day. He lived in a large house he couldn’t quite afford with three kids and his aunt Lou. He was thirty-six and his oldest, Eve, was sixteen. Ryan was twelve, and Dee Dee was ten. When he got home, his first stop was the gun safe in the garage. He locked up his guns before going into the house. Though his kids had been both lectured and trained, guns did not enter his house.

It was about five-thirty when he walked into the kitchen from the garage. Lou stood at the sink, rinsing dishes. Lou was not Aunt Bee to his Andy of Mayberry. She was sixty, but didn’t look a day of it. She wore fitted jeans, a white silky blouse, leather vest and boots on her young, trim body. Her curly, shoulder-length hair was auburn with some gold highlights and her nails were manicured in bright colors. She complained of crow’s feet and what she called a wattle under her chin, but he didn’t know what she was talking about. Lou called herself his old-maid aunt—she’d never married or had children of her own—but in truth she was young, energetic and feisty, exactly what he needed, even if it did drive him crazy at times.

Without even turning around she said, “There are tacos. The kids have eaten. Eve is going to take the van to the game tonight. She’s meeting a couple of her friends. That leaves you and me and the kids to go together. In less than an hour.”

Friday night. High school football. Eve was a cheerleader. A gorgeous, young cheerleader who resembled her mother and caused him to quake in fear every time he looked at her.

“Did it occur to you to ask me if I was all right with that—Eve taking the van?”

She turned from the sink. “It did,” she said, giving him a sharp nod. “It always occurs to me. But you say no and argue and then give in so you can pace and grumble. She’s sixteen and a good girl. She’s earned it.”

He nodded, but he hated it. His ex-wife Cee Jay—short for Cecilia Jayne—had been a cheerleader; he’d been a football player back in Coquille. Cee Jay had gotten pregnant at sixteen. By nineteen, he’d been a brand-new husband with a baby on the way.

Cee Jay left when Dee Dee was nine months old; that’s when they had moved in with Lou. Cee Jay had been so young when she left—only twenty-three. Mac wasn’t sure why he’d felt so old, as he’d been only twenty-six. But he’d been pretty busy, trying to support his family on two jobs. He was a rookie deputy, working nights, and by day he worked security on an armored car.

His dirty little secret was that sometimes he didn’t mind the two jobs. But Cee Jay, left alone too much, scrimping to get by and buried in small children, complained a lot. There wasn’t enough money, the house was small, old and falling apart, the kids were out of control, there was no fun in her life and very little attention from her husband, whom she accused of showing up only long enough to throw food down his throat and take off for the next job. She needed more money but hated that he was always working.

And then one day Cee Jay snapped. She packed a big suitcase, put the kids at the neighbor’s house and waited for him to get home from his day job. “I can’t take it anymore,” she told him. “I’m sick of getting puked on, sick of the diapers and noise, sick of this dump we live in, tired of not being able to get out of the grocery store with ten cents left in my purse. I’ve had enough. I’m leaving.”

For the past nine years, he had asked himself why he’d been stunned. Her complaints hadn’t changed, they’d just been accompanied by a suitcase. “L-leaving?” he had stuttered.

“The kids are next door,” she said. “I’m taking my clothes and two hundred dollars.”

His entire body had vibrated with fear. Dread. Pain. “Cee Jay, you can’t do this to me.”

“Yeah, well, you did it to me first. I was sixteen, Mac. Sixteen and pregnant!”

“But you were happy! And you wanted Ryan—you argued for Ryan! Dee Dee was an accident, but you—”

“And you thought that I had a clue, at sixteen or twenty-two?”

“Listen, I was only nineteen! So—we were too young, you think I don’t know that? You can’t just leave your children!”

“I have no way to support them and I can’t take this anymore!”

“Cee Jay, how’m I supposed to work and take care of the kids?”

He remembered the sound of a horn honking. She zipped her bag. “I don’t know, but you’ll figure it out. Call your aunt—she always hated me anyway.”

He had grabbed her by the shoulders and shaken her. It was the harshest hand he’d ever laid to a woman. “Are you crazy? What is this? Is that some guy picking you up?”

When he stopped shaking her, she said, “There’s no guy! That’s a cab! You want me to call the cops? Let go of me!”

Of course there was a guy. It took him all of three weeks to figure it out—some pro golfer. At first, the mystery was how she had found the time to have enough of a relationship with him to talk him into taking her away. But he caught on—girlfriends. Young mothers like Cee Jay, running around, swapping kids, stealing time for themselves. Once Mac learned his name and began following his movements through the news, the second mystery followed: why she didn’t come home to her family once the relationship was over, which took only a month or so.

He fantasized how he wouldn’t make her beg much, just enough to be sure she had had a change of heart and was ready to commit, ready to promise never to do it again. No one could ever know the depth of humiliation at not being able to hang on to the mother of your children. At the time he had lived in Coquille, and it took roughly forty-eight hours for everyone who’d ever heard of him to be talking about how Cee Jay McCain left her young husband and three small children to run off with a golf pro. He spent the next five years nurturing a fantasy that she’d eventually come to her senses and be back, if only to see her children. Then it finally dawned on him to be afraid of that very scenario—that once he’d figured out how to manage, she’d stalk back in and stake some kind of claim. So he got himself a divorce. He had to locate her to do that—she turned up in Los Angeles. They didn’t communicate. She signed the papers, relinquished custody and he let go except for a couple of tiny threads. He hated her for what she’d done to their children. And he was terrified of ever getting involved with a woman again.

It was with the divorce that they moved to the outskirts of Thunder Point, about thirty minutes east to Coquille, the sheriff’s office. Even if Mac had to go back to the central office, he could commute. It was here, in a down economy, that he managed to find a larger home, one big enough for his family—three kids, Aunt Lou and two Labs.

Since Mac had lost his parents young and had lived with Lou during junior high and high school, you’d think she’d be as terrified as he was that Eve would slip and fall into some horny football player’s lap and end up with the mess of a life her mother had. They had never talked about it; it had never been voiced. But they both knew what was eating Mac. He wanted Eve to be twenty-seven, settled and safe. Real. Fast.

And just then his daughter dashed through the kitchen, wearing her barely there cheerleading uniform. Short, pleated skirt, V-neck sweater, letter jacket, long, beautiful legs, and a head full of thick dark hair she wore down most of the time. She had the biggest blue eyes. Her smile was positively hypnotizing; he’d barely paid off the orthodontist’s bill, just in time to start on the next two mouths. Blue eyes ran in their genes but not perfect teeth. If not for the dental benefits offered by the Sheriff’s Department, his kids would have teeth growing out of their ears.

“I’ll wave to you at the game, Daddy,” she said, rising on her toes to kiss his cheek. “We’re going out after,” she said.

“Midnight, Eve,” he reminded her. As if she couldn’t get into trouble before midnight. It wasn’t that. It was just that it was all he could take. He needed his kids home and tucked in so he could relax.

“How often have I been late?”

“A few times,” he said.

“Well, not very late,” she reminded him. Then she beamed. “I think we’re going to kick some Raider tail tonight!”

And he grinned at her. She was his doll; he’d die for her, it was that simple.

When she was out the door, Lou was shaking her head. “I wish you’d get a life,” she said.

“This is my life,” he said, and sat at the table, commencing to build himself some tacos.

“You need a little more going on. Like a woman.”

“Why? You have somewhere to go?”

“I just might,” she challenged.

“Well, knock yourself out,” he said. “I can manage.”

She laughed at him. “I’d love to see that,” she said. She pulled a cold cola out of the fridge for him and sat at the table with him. “Tell me about the crime in Thunder Point, Mac. I haven’t heard anything interesting all day.”

“Well now,” he said, sprinkling cheese on top of four large tacos. “No interesting crime, but an old friend of Ben Bailey’s came to town, wanting to know what happened to him. He’s sitting in his fifth wheel out at the bar. Says he’s going to hang around a few days.”

“Ray Anne mentioned something about that. She’s not one to miss a new man in town.” Lou clucked and shook her head. “Still can’t believe Ben’s gone.”

“No one can believe it,” Mac said. Then he dove into his first taco.

* * *

Cooper moved his trailer around to the far side of Ben’s bar on the parking tarmac, pretty much out of sight of the road to 101. The small parking lot could only accommodate twenty or thirty cars, but he discovered a road toward the front of the structure that led to the beach. More of a downhill driveway, really. The road to the beach looked much kinder than that trip up Bailey Pass and Gibbons to the highway.

He roamed around the locked-up property, peeking in windows. The newest and nicest part of the whole structure was an impressive deck, complete with tables and chairs surrounding the two sides of the building with a view. But a look through the windows revealed what he considered a dump. There was a long bar lined with stools, liquor bottles on the shelf, but only a half-dozen small tables. Life preservers, nets, shells and other seaside paraphernalia hung from the walls. A few turning racks of postcards and souvenirs sat about. The place looked like it hadn’t been improved in years. He could see the dust and grime from the window. This came as no surprise. Ben had been kind and generous to a fault, good with engines and just about anything mechanical, but he wasn’t exactly enterprising. He could be a little on the lazy side, unless he had an engine maintenance job to do. And he hadn’t been too good with money; he spent what he had. When Cooper first met him, he was living a cash existence, just like his father had. He sure hadn’t been classy. Cheap Drinks. Just a kindhearted good old boy.

Cooper unloaded the WaveRunner, his all-terrain vehicle—the Rhino—and his motorcycle. There was a large metal shed at the end of the parking lot, up against the hill, but it was padlocked. He stored his toys under a tarp, locked up in chains so they couldn’t be stolen without a blowtorch and trailer.

He wandered down to the beach to the dock. There was a fueling tank perched on the end and a paved boat launch. He wondered if Ben had a boat in the shed, which was as big as a garage. The sun was lowering and it was getting damn cold on the water, unlike the Southern climate he’d come from. He encountered a few people out walking or jogging and gave a nod. He was glad he carried a Glock in his back waistband, under his jacket. After all, he was alone out here, no one knew him, and he still had reservations about Ben falling down the stairs. Big man like Ben, you’d think he’d have survived even a steep fall with only some bruises. Worst case, a broken bone.

With night beginning to fall, he headed back to the toy hauler. He’d have time to explore Thunder Point tomorrow. He figured he’d relax, get a good night’s sleep and get to know the men and women who’d been Ben’s friends in the morning.

But at around eleven, he heard the noise of people talking. He put on his jacket, gun tucked in his waistband, and went outside. He brought the binoculars from the truck, wandered around the deck. The waterfront had come alive. He saw kids on the beach, partying around a couple of campfires. From the shouts and squeals, they were teenagers. A set of headlights from clear on the other side of the beach near the town brought it all together. Ben’s place was probably most often accessed from the beach side, especially at night. Sure enough, the headlights he saw pulled right up on the sand, next to a row of all-terrain vehicles—Rhinos, quads, dune buggies.

Yep, this was a beach bar. Complete with Laundromat, bait and gas for boats. It all made sense now—in winter and bad weather, Ben likely had moderate sales, but in summers he probably did a brisk business. Folks from Thunder Point, on the other side of the beach, stopping for a soda or morning coffee when they were out walking their dogs; people from the town driving over in beach buggies to have a drink on the deck at sunset. Sport fishermen or sailors could start or end their days here.

Cooper was a little bit sorry he wasn’t going to be around to watch the summer storms roll in over the Pacific. Or the whales migrating in spring and fall. Whales wouldn’t be in the bay, but he was willing to bet the view was great from either the far edge of the cliff or the point on the opposite side of the bay.

This would have appealed to Ben for a million reasons. It was his father’s and he’d spent years here. The view was fantastic, and no one liked to put his feet up and relax more than Ben Bailey.

There was some loud popping and shrieking on the beach and he automatically reached for that Glock, but it was followed by laughter. Firecrackers. Then there was some chanting. Go, Cougars, Go. Go, Cougars, Go. Go, Go, Get ’Em, Get ’Em, Go, Get ’Em, Go!

Cheers. That’s what was going on. It was October. Football and teenagers. This was what coastal kids did after a game and probably all summer long. Coop had spent many of his early years on the Gulf, but by the time he was a teenager his parents had moved inland, away from the water to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Cooper and his friends often went out to the remote desert, away from the prying eyes of adults where they could build a fire, drink a few beers, make out with their girlfriends.

What a perfect setup. There was a whole coastline all the way to Canada, but this little piece of it didn’t have easy access. You either came at it by way of Ben’s or from the town, on foot or armed with a beach mobile. There wouldn’t be many strangers around.

He went back to his camper and settled in—door locked, gun handy. He let the TV drown out the noise from the kids until it faded away. In the morning he brewed coffee and took a cup with him to the dock, then the beach. Although he had no investment in this place, he found himself hoping they had cleaned up after themselves and hadn’t left trash all over the beach.

And what do you know? There were a couple of big green trash cans with lids up against the hill, full of bottles, cans, snack wrappers, spent firecrackers. The tide had taken out the remnants of a fire. Except for being raked, the beach was cleaned up. Who were these kids? The Stepford teenagers?

He took a deep breath of foggy sea air and decided he’d shower and hit the town. He’d like to know a little more about this place.

* * *

Cooper thought about taking the Rhino across the beach to the town, but instead he took the truck back up to 101, just to check out the distance. The freeway curved east, to the right, away from the town, and it was five miles before he saw a small sign for Thunder Point. Then it was a left turn and another five miles to access the town. He was about a mile, maybe mile and a half across the beach, or ten miles on the road.

Heading into Thunder Point from 101, he passed the high school—circa 1960s—on the edge of town. Not too big, he noted. Then he came to the main street, Indigo Sea Drive.

He had passed through a hundred towns like this, maybe a thousand. There wasn’t a lot of commerce—dry cleaner, bakery, diner. There was a very small library at the end of the street. Next to it, the elementary and middle schools sat side by side. He spotted a secondhand clothing store right next to a thrift shop and wondered what the difference was. There was a grocery, liquor store, pharmacy, gas station, hardware store and small motel. There was a dingy-looking bar, Waylan’s. And yes, Fresh Fish. There was also McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Subway and Carrie’s Deli and Catering. The Sheriff’s Department was a small storefront that sat between the deli and a boarded-up store, although a man was tearing the boards off one large window. New business moving in? Cooper wondered.

Driving around, he discovered four roads that ran downhill to the beach or marina, through the neighborhoods that surrounded the main street. The beach and the bay were like a basin dug out of the land. All roads seemed to lead either up or down—down to the marina, up to the main street, down to the beach, up to Bailey’s.

It appeared the main street and marina were the life of the town. Most of the slips were empty—fishing boats, out early in the morning, he assumed. He saw two boat-launch ramps and a fueling station. There were a number of small fishing and pleasure boats still tied up and one big cabin cruiser. There was a restaurant—Cliffhanger’s, which also advertised a bar—at the far end of the marina, far enough up the hill to avoid high tides and flooding.

He went back to the main street and drove west, out onto the point. There were houses out there, as well. On the end of the promontory was a very large home with a gated driveway. Whoever owned that house got the best view imaginable, as the point was a high, rocky cliff. From Ben’s deck he had noticed a small lighthouse, somewhere below this mansion.

It wasn’t exactly a cute little town, but there were some nice touches, like big pots of flowers in front of some businesses, old-fashioned lampposts, benches here and there along wide sidewalks.

He reasoned the best places to perch for local news would be one of the bars or the local diner. Cliffhanger’s wasn’t open yet. Waylan’s probably was, but he wasn’t in the mood for a seedy bar. He went to the diner and sat at the counter. It was either designed to be retro or it was fifty years old. By the cracks in the linoleum floor, he guessed it was all about age. The waitress was there in a flash, with a coffeepot in her hand. Her blond hair was in a ponytail and she wore a black-and-white-checkered blouse. Her name tag said Gina.

“Good morning, Gina,” he said.

She filled his cup. “And good morning, strange man. Hungry?”

“As a matter of fact, I am. What have you got for eggs?” Cooper asked.

She put down the coffeepot and leaned both hands on the counter. With a wide smile, she said, “It’s the darnedest thing, we have eggs for eggs.”

He couldn’t suppress a grin. “Mess up a couple for me. Toast, too, and...you have sausage for sausage?”

“Link or patty?”

“Patty,” he said.

“Whole wheat or whole wheat?”

“Why don’t I live recklessly? Whole wheat.”

“Good choice. It’s better for you. Now drink that coffee slow so I don’t have to keep coming back here.”