Page 5 of South of Nowhere

A slim woman in her sixties with long white hair, today in a single braid, Mary Dove was pulling off her gardening gloves and walking toward the cabin. He had not yet told her about the early warning. He would now get a second cup of coffee and ask her if she knew of anyone named Margaret from the days when she and Ashton were in Berkeley, and if so was there anything concerning about her and her interest in the Compound.

Maybe it was a family friend who’d lost touch. Nothing more than that.

Of course:

Never assume what appears innocent is not a threat.

He heard Mary Dove in the kitchen, the water running, plates clanking. Shaw picked up his coffee cup and started out of the office, happening to glance down at the next sheet of paper on the stack.

He froze.

It was a draft of a letter Ashton had been composing. There were cross-outs and additions, the typical edits one would make in an effort to refine the final product.

Unremarkable in every way, except for one word.

Dr. Sheridan Tillis

Assistant Director of Curriculum

San Francisco Consolidated School Board

Hello, Sheridan:

Thank you for the recommendations of grade schools for my daughter Margaret. It was most helpful and I will keep you apprised of our decision. If you can think of any schools in Marin or Contra Costa as well, they would be appreciated.Please send to the address below. And, again, discretion would be appreciated.

Hope all is well with you and yours.

Kindest regards,

Ashton

The shocking word:daughter.

All right. Assess.

Shaw had never heard any talk that Ashton had been married before Mary Dove or that he had fathered a child before the marriage. In fact, Shaw knew, his parents had gotten together when they were young, meeting by coincidence in a prohibited area of a national park.

Was there some explanation that this letter wasnotevidence of an affair he’d had?

Well, the timing wasn’t going to clear him. The date indicated that it had been written after Ashton had been married to Mary Dove for fifteen years. A child going to grade school at that time meant that she had been conceived well into Shaw’s parents’ marriage.

And the address the recipient was supposed to send the recommendation to was a safe house in San Francisco whose existence Ashton had kept secret from the family; it had been discovered by Shaw and Russell only recently, long after the man’s death.

And there was that telling admonition regarding discretion.

“Colter, are you all right?”

Mary Dove stood in the doorway.

His heart thudded.

“Fine. A little tired.”

The universal response that people used as a fencing foil to parry a question. Men, mostly, Shaw believed.

She held a pot of coffee and lifted it. “More?”

Covering the letter as she walked up would be too suspicious.His mother had an eagle eye. So he strode quickly to her instead, and she poured. He liked milk but was concerned if he went to get some from the kitchen, she might wander to the stack of documents. He’d drink it black.

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