Page 62 of South of Nowhere

“And that’s not the only problem. Southwest of town there’s an oil and gas fracking field. They pollute too. They say they don’t but don’t believe that bullshit…” A grimace. “Ha, you got me going today. I’ll have to put two quarters in the swear jar tonight. So forget Hinowah, Mr. Stone. You want to live in Windermere! You play golf.”Not a question. Of course, every man on the face of the earth owned a set of clubs.

“My handicap isn’t what I’d like,” Shaw told him, with only a vague idea of what a handicap was.

“Well, our course’ll be just the place to work on it!”

Shaw shook the man’s big hand, and walked to the door, stowing the brochure in his backpack.

He fired up the cycle and backed away from the sales office, then sped off, keeping the license tag out of view. As he navigated back to Route 13 and passed through theRoad Closed—Detourbarricade, he was thinking: A helpful trip.

For one thing, he had eliminated a suspect.

But more important, the boisterous man had pointed him to another one.

Someone who had possibly blown up the levee to steal not land but something else altogether.

Something definitely worth killing for.

26.

Dorion Shaw’s phone hummed with a text.

It was from Mary Dove.

Hello, love. Route 44 closed—mudslide. Will be cleared around midnight. Too late for these roads. Days Inn here. I’ll be there for the night. I’ve called the woman you asked me about, Mrs. Petaluma. Twice. No answer. Left messages—English, Ohlone and Miwok. I’ll try again. And let you know if anything changes. See you in the morning. MDMD

The last letters were a joke within the family, the nickname being her initials and her professional designation, as she was a licensed physician.

Dorion texted a cheerful and warm response.

Zipping her windbreaker up against a blustery gust of wind, she walked to the fiberboard table that dominated the main command post tent and regarded the map on the seventeen-inch Dell. The intersection the woman had referred to was about ten miles from theCompound, and it was also on the route that the mysterious and possibly dangerous Margaret would have to have taken to get there if she’d learned its location.

Dorion pictured the improbable scenario: Mary Dove was stuck on the northbound portion of 44, while on the other side of the blockage, one hundred feet away, Margaret waited in the southbound.

And they both got rooms for the night at the Days Inn.

No, beyond improbable.

Perhaps…

Begging the question: Had the half-sisteralreadyfound the Compound? It would not be easy to track the place down. Ashton had titled the property through layers of offshore companies. But that in itself might be a clue Margaret would capitalize on—a review of local deeds books would reveal a large parcel titled in the name Emerson Trust IV, which would certainly stand out among names of other area property owners like Jones and Smith and Rodriguez.

She turned from these thoughts for a moment and sent texts seeking updates to Eduardo Gutiérrez, Tomas Martinez, TC McGuire and several other townspeople who were designated “evacuators,” including most of the waylaid sandbagging team, pulled off that duty because of the risk of another explosion at the levee. She was pleased to learn that the evac was going well. McGuire reported:

Only had to cuff two, and that got the message across, tho one was the coach of my son’s soccer team. I suspect my boy’ll be sitting out most of the games this season oh well…

She calculated about three or four dozen remainers in the direct path of the flood, Mrs. Petaluma included. These would not be the lazy or uninformed, but those with the iron-core attitude that government should keep its hands off citizens.

Pill for stupid…

Part of her job, though, was protecting even people like that, and once the evac teams were done, she would descend into town herself and make her final pleas.

Her eyes on the hypnotic flow of water over the levee, she placed a call.

Tony Rossano answered. “Dor. All good there?”

She turned from the increasingly fragile earthworks and said, “Peachy. How’s your Ashton homework?”

“I’m into my three-diopter reading glasses. Does anyone have smaller handwriting than your father?”

---