King - Obsidian: a DreadfulWater mystery

Whatever that meant. I T HAD BEEN over a month since the drive from Chinook out to Eureka on the Northern California coast. Three days on the road. A stop in Boise the first night. A second stop just outside Grants Pass. He had pulled into Crescent City just before noon on the third day and stopped for lunch at a funky caf called Gordi Bros, a yellow building just off the main road that specialized in Mexican fast food.

He had ordered a pork chile-verde burrito along with a bottle of MexiCoke, a variation of Coca-Cola made and bottled in Mexico that used cane sugar instead of fructose. The caf was busy, but there was a small table in a dark corner. He ate his lunch in silence while a table of men in tan and green uniforms drank beer and swapped stories about the inmates at Pelican Bay. Thumps was familiar with the place from his days as a deputy sheriff, had always thought it ironic that the state had built a supermax prison along a tourist corridor, two miles off the coast, in the middle of a forest. He had seen an aerial view of the facility. No matter how you turned it, Pelican Bay was an ugly thing, a dull, grey scar, a hard-edged clear-cut that resembled the head of an axe.

At one point there had been legislative talk about making prisons pay their own way, and some bright light in Sacramento had come up with the idea of a Pelican Bay Supermax Tour, where families on vacation could stop off and take a guided trek around the facility. All aboard the Crime and Punishment Trolley. See dangerous inmates in their cages. Killers, rapists, and thieves. Oh my. Mental illness, addiction, and poverty.

The penal systems version of a Jurassic Park ride. T HUMPS HAD LINGERED in Gordis, the Maslow file on the table next to his plate. Nina Maslow. Reality television. Malice Aforethought. Nina Maslow and Sydney Pearl had come to Chinook to do an episode on the death of Trudy Samuels, a local woman from a wealthy family.

Samuelss death had originally been ruled a misadventure. Maslow, with ratings in mind, wanted to prove it had been murder. It hadnt. Trudys death had been a tragic accident, but Maslow hadnt been fazed by this setback. As it turned out, she had already started work on another, more exciting, episode. The Obsidian Murders.

Thumps picked up the folder. He didnt need to read Maslows notes. He knew the case by heart. Six years ago, ten bodies were found on a cluster of beaches along the Northern California coast, the work of a serial killer who appeared and disappeared without a trace. Two of the victims had been Anna Tripp and her daughter, Callie. At the time, Thumps had been a deputy sheriff with the Humboldt County Sheriffs Department, had been away at a law enforcement forensics conference, had returned to find his lover and her child dead.

Maslow had known of Thumpss involvement in the case, of his relationship with Anna Tripp, and she had come to Chinook not only to look into the death of Trudy Samuels but to try to convince him to be a part of the show she was planning to do on the Obsidian Murders. F ROM C RESCENT C ITY, there was only one way south. Highway 101 was an old motorway, built in the days when roads followed slopes and contours, before highway construction simply flattened mountains and cut straight lines through the land. Instead of zipping along, the road took its sweet time, winding through stands of giant redwoods, running out along salt lagoons, and floating past long, narrow beaches that fronted the open ocean. Just south of Trinidad, Thumps had turned off the highway onto a frontage road that ended in a small parking lot banked against sand dunes and seagrass. Clam Beach.

This was where it had started. On this unremarkable stretch of shore and sky, fixed between Little River and Patrick Creek. The Obsidian Murders. Thats what the press had called the killings, each victim found with a small piece of black obsidian in their mouth. Thumps got out of the car, intending to visit the spot in the dusty green and yellow grass where Anna Tripp and her daughter, Callie, had been found. At least that had been the plan.

Instead, he stood in the lot, watching the fog come ashore, listening to the seagulls argue with the wind. And then he got back in his car and drove into Eureka. R ON P EATS HOUSE was within walking distance of Old Town. It was a two-storey shiplap Victorian that Ron had bought cheap when these white elephants were being given away to anyone foolish enough to buy them, before interest in such architectural extravagances had come around again. Eureka was known for its ornate turn-of-the-century mansesthe Clark House, the Pink Lady, the Carson Mansionand while Rons house was the same age, the similarities stopped there. His was one of the poorer relations, a plain-Jane Victorian with none of the gingerbread flourishes that celebrated the conspicuous excesses of that era.

Most people would have left well enough alone. Ron wasnt one of them, and all of his free time outside the Humboldt County Sheriffs Office had been spent fabricating wood rosettes, dentils, spindles, and patterned appliqus that he painstakingly added to the porch and the gables and the window surrounds. Unfortunately, Rons woodworking skills had not been a match for his enthusiasm, and the house had slowly taken on some of the more disturbing aspects of Frankensteins monster, a creature made up of mismatched parts. Even a six-colour paint job had failed to hide the errors in shape and scale. Still, Thumps had admired Rons determination, had even helped him put up a pair of oversized and oddly ornamented wood brackets above the corner windows. T HE WOMAN WHO answered the door was young, the baby in her arms only a few months old.

Hi, Thumps said. Im looking for Ron Peat. Mr. Peat? Ron and I used to work together, Thumps told her. Humboldt County Sheriffs Office. Youre a cop? Not anymore.

But I used to be. Deputy sheriff. Serve and protect. The woman warmed a bit. He was putting fish-scale siding on the upper gable. Even before Thumps asked the question, he knew the answer.

They think the ladder twisted, said the woman. Im really sorry. Ron had done all the renovations himself. Every Saturday morning, you would find him camped out at Piersons hardware at the south end of town, sorting through tile and lighting fixtures, through kitchen sinks and toilets, walking the aisles, looking at saws and drills and sanders, in case there was a tool he didnt have. This house was his project. Thumps couldnt think of anything else to say.

Did you know, he did all the work himself. The woman had shifted the baby to a hip. My husbands going to fix it. Thumps was halfway to his car when the woman called out. What did you say your name was? DreadfulWater. Thumps DreadfulWater.

Theres a bunch of stuff in the basement that my husband keeps promising to take to the dump. I remember. Some of the boxes have your name on them. F IRST LIGHT HAD found the horizon. Thumps checked his watch. It would take him the better part of an hour to drive across the belly of the valley and reach Chinook.

By then Als would be open. He could slip into the caf, sit down on his favourite stool, and pretend that he had never left. Or he could go home, crawl into bed, and hide out for a few days before he had to deal with Archie and the sheriff, with Al and Beth. And Claire. Especially Claire. People who would want to know what had happened, what had been resolved.