She planned to search for rare wild flowers on a wooded tongue of sand that jutted into the sea, but part of her scanned the waterways for Tate’s boat.
The fog turned stubborn and lingered, twisting its tendrils around tree snags and low-lying limbs. The air was still; even the birds were quiet as she eased forward through the channel. Nearby, a clonk, clonk sounded as a slow-moving oar tapped a gunwale, and then a boat emerged ghoul-like from the haze.
Colors, which had been muted by the dimness, formed into shapes as they moved into the light. Golden hair beneath a red cap. As if coming in from a dream, Tate stood in the stern of his old fishing boat poling through the channel. Kya cut her engine and rowed backward into a thicket to watch him pass. Always backward to watch him pass.
At sundown, calmer, heart back in place, Kya stood on the beach, and recited:
“Sunsets are never simple.
Twilight is refracted and reflected
But never true.
Eventide is a disguise
Covering tracks,
Covering lies.
“We don’t care
That dusk deceives.
We see brilliant colors,
And never learn
The sun has dropped
Beneath the earth
By the time we see the burn.
“Sunsets are in disguise,
Covering truths, covering lies.
“A.H.”
36.
To Trap a Fox
1969
Joe walked through the opened door of the sheriff’s office. “Okay, got the report.”
“Let’s have a look.”
Both men scanned quickly to the last page. Ed said, “That’s it. A perfect match. Fibers from her hat were on Chase’s jacket as he lay dead.” The sheriff slapped the report across his wrist, then continued. “Let’s review what we have here. Number one, the shrimper will testify that he saw Miss Clark boating toward the fire tower just before Chase fell to his death. His colleague will back him up. Two, Patti Love said Miss Clark made the shell necklace for Chase, and it disappeared the night he died. Three, fibers from her hat were on his jacket. Four, motive: the woman wronged. And an alibi we can refute. That should do it.”
“A better motive might help,” Joe said. “Being jilted doesn’t seem like enough.”
“It’s not like we’re finished with the investigation, but we have enough to bring her in for questioning. Probably enough to charge her. We’ll see how it goes once we get her here.”
“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? How? She’s outrun everybody for years. Truant officers, census takers, you name it, she’s outwit ’em all. Includin’ us. We go out there chasin’ her through swamp grass, we’ll make fools of ourselves.”
“I’m not afraid of that. Just because nobody else could catch her doesn’t mean we can’t. But that wouldn’t be the smartest way of doing it. I say we set a trap.”
“Oh yeah. Well,” the deputy said, “I know a thing or two ’bout trappin’. And when you go to trap a fox, it’s usually the trap that gets foxed. It’s not like we have surprise on our side. We been out there knockin’ on her door enough to scare off a brown bear. What about the hounds? That’d be a sure thing.”
The sheriff was silent a few seconds. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting old and soft at the grand ol’ age of fifty-one. But running down a woman with hounds for questioning doesn’t seem right. It’s fine for escaped convicts, people already convicted of some crime. But, like everybody else, she’s innocent until proven guilty, and I can’t see setting hounds on a female suspect. Maybe as a last resort, but not yet.”
“Okay. What kinda trap?”
“That’s what we gotta figure out.”
* * *
• • •
ON DECEMBER 15, as Ed and Joe discussed options of how to bring Kya in, someone knocked on the door. The large form of a man loomed behind the frosted glass.
“Come on in,” the sheriff called.
As the man stepped inside, Ed said, “Well, hello, Rodney. What can we do for you?”
Rodney Horn, a retired mechanic, spent most of his days fishing with his pal Denny Smith. The villagers knew him as quiet and settled, always in bib overalls. Never missed church, but wore his overalls there as well, with a nice fresh shirt ironed and starched stiff as a plank by his wife, Elsie.
Rodney took off his felt hat and held it in front of his belly. Ed offered him a chair, but Rodney shook his head. “This won’t take long,” he said. “Just something might be rel’vant to the Chase Andrews thing.”
“What ya got?” Joe asked.
“Well, it was a while back, now. Me and Denny were out fishin’ on August 30, this year,