Sentinels Page 4

  “It’s a . . . it’s a . . .”

  “Valley of bliss,” she said.

  “Valley of . . . what?”

  “That’s the tantric name for it. Valley of bliss.”

  “Put it away!”

  “Why? It’s nothing to be ashamed of. How can there be shame in a woman’s valley of bliss? Or in a man’s wand of light?”

  “A man’s—”

  “Wand of light. Once Andrew and I reached mutual harmony in our energy bodies, he illuminated my valley of bliss with his wand of light and we began the slow ascent to pure ecstasy. He was amazing that night. We moved our arousal up our spines to our brains, achieved a psychic eruption of enlightenment and bliss. Neither of us had a physical orgasm, yet we were both more fulfilled than if we had. Before we found tantra and began sharing our new sacrament, Andrew always had a problem with premature—”

  “Stop already.” I hoisted myself out of the chair, dislodging Shameless, who gave an indignant yowl and went bounding off across the room. I made eye contact with Kerry. She didn’t seem embarrassed or put off by the explicit sex talk; in fact, she had her hand up to her mouth and seemed to be hiding a smile or stifling a laugh.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Paula asked me. Her voice had gone down-register again. The eye glaze had faded too; she stared up at me with a mixture of condescension and disapproval. “I didn’t realize you were so prudish.”

  I said, “I’m not prudish.”

  Kerry said, “He’s not prudish.”

  “Old-fashioned, then.” Paula waved the yoni thing with what I took to be malicious emphasis. “Sexually repressed.”

  “Get that thing out of my sight, will you?”

  “You know, you’re the first man who ever said that to me. Most men—”

  “I’m not most men.”

  “Well, that’s obvious.”

  “He isn’t sexually repressed,” Kerry said.

  “That’s for damn sure,” I said.

  “He isn’t? Then why does he act as if he is?”

  “Talking explicitly about sex makes him uncomfortable, that’s all. A lot of men are like that, Paula.”

  “Oh, I know they are. Andrew was a bit that way before we got into New Age tantra. But he was always willing to try something new—phone sex, cyberporn, bondage, ice cubes. I like men who are adventurous.”

  “So do I, up to a point. And I haven’t been bored once, before or after our marriage.”

  “All the more reason you should both read The Holy Sexual Communion and then join Andrew and me at one of Alida’s workshops. You may think you’ve known sexual intimacy before, but until he learns how to awaken the goddess in you . . .”

  Now they were talking as though I’d suddenly disappeared. And not only that, but evaluating my sexual prowess. I’d had enough. I said, “Kerry’s goddess is as awake as it’s ever going to be and I don’t need to feed her dates and nuts or beat on an elkskin drum to keep it awake. I’m going into the kitchen and achieve ultimate intimacy with a cold beer.”

  “Andrew was stubborn in the beginning too,” Paula said serenely. “I’d like another glass of wine while you’re out there, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “I’ll get us both another glass,” Kerry said before I could answer. A good thing, too, or I might have said something we’d all have regretted.

  She followed me out to the kitchen. When the door was shut I said, “Valley of bliss, wand of light . . . Christ. That woman is a card-carrying lunatic.”

  “Oh, now, Paula’s not that bad. And neither is New Age tantra. It’s a harmless fad, and I like the basic concept of greater closeness among couples.”

  “Don’t tell me she’s got you interested enough to try dragging me to one of her workshops—”

  “Of course not. There are better ways to achieve closeness than with silly trappings and euphemisms. I’m not a faddist, sexual or otherwise—you know that.”

  “Thank God. Sorry if I got a little exercised in there, but Paula pushes my buttons sometimes.”

  “I know, but you make it worse by provoking her.” Kerry opened the refrigerator, handed me a can of Bud. “She’s a very needy person. That’s why she keeps flitting from one vogue to another. I doubt she’ll ever find anything that will make her happy or keep her fulfilled for very long. It’s sad, really.”

  “Yeah. All right, I’ll try to cut her some slack. You think Andrew is really into this tantra stuff too?”

  “For Paula’s sake, I hope so.”

  For his sake, I thought, I hope not. I watched Kerry refill the two wineglasses from a bottle of Trentadue chardonnay. “You won’t let her hang around too long tonight, will you?”

  “Just long enough to finish this glass.”

  “Good. Mind if we don’t go out for dinner?”

  “No, I wouldn’t mind.”

  “I thought we’d cook something, have a nice, quiet evening alone. I took on a missing persons case today and I’ve got to go out of town for a few days. Leaving early in the morning.”

  “Then we’ll definitely stay home.” She leaned over to kiss me. “If you’re good, I’ll let you light up my valley later on.”

  I winced. “Let’s just call it making love, okay? And if you ever drag out any scented oils or drums or statues of Buddha, or read just one paragraph aloud from The Holy Sexual Communion, I’ll divorce you and your goddess both. Grievous mental cruelty.”

  She grinned and started out. At the door she turned to wink at me. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’d never do anything to make you throw a temper tantra.”

  Temper tantra. Cute. But I couldn’t help chuckling after she was gone.

  I sat at the table to drink my beer. And while I was sitting there I found myself looking at the refrigerator. I kept on looking at it, frowning a little, listening to Paula’s shrill-again voice rise in the living room.

  Ice cubes?

  Chapter Four

  People who don’t live in California, and many who do, have little idea of just how varied the state is, how different one section is from another fifty or five hundred miles away. Geographically and demographically. What sets the northeastern corner—Modoc and Lassen counties—apart from any other region in the state, first, is its remoteness. There are no large or even small cities within a radius of hundreds of miles, no major highways; it takes hours of hard driving through mountainous terrain to get there from San Francisco or Reno or one of the Oregon cities. The area has its share of scenic attractions: Modoc National Forest, South Warner Wilderness Area, Lassen National Forest, dozens of small bodies of water with names like Horse Lake and Moon Lake and Big Sage Reservoir. It also has some of the best hunting and fishing anywhere on the West Coast. But the effort required to get there, and a dearth of the usual tourist amenities, keeps visitors to a minimum even in the summer and fall.

  Population is sparse in both counties, Modoc in particular, and a hefty percentage of the Corner’s residents prefer it that way. And that is the other thing that sets the Corner apart: the attitudes, beliefs, biases, and overall mind-set of its people. They like their status quo and their privacy; they tolerate hunters, fishermen, skiers, tourists, but unlike the inhabitants of other California rural areas, most don’t actively cultivate outsiders. And some of them are insular to the point of clannishness, hostility, even violence.

  The largest town up that way is Susanville, population 7,000, in lower Lassen County. Alturas, near the Oregon border in Modoc County, has half as many residents. The rest of the towns in the two counties are either villages or wide spots along highways 395, 299, and 139—places most native Californians have never even heard of, much less visited. Newell, Fort Bidwell, Lake City, Cedarville, Davis Creek, Likely, Madeline, Termo, Ravendale.

  And Creekside. Creekside, California, population 112.

  I pulled in there at four-thirty on Tuesday afternoon, after nearly six long hours of driving, the last hundred miles over roads still snow-hemmed even though it was
well into spring. It wasn’t much by anybody’s standards. Wide spot just off Highway 395 at the northern border of Lassen County, rimmed by mountains and closely edged on all sides by pine and fir forests. Two-block main drag, winter-potholed, and some short side streets that gave access to an old white hillside church with a high steeple and bell tower and a scattering of houses and newer log cabins squatting among the trees. The business establishments were few and mostly on the east side of Main. Creekside General Store. Trilby’s Hardware & Electric, “We Sell Natural Gas.” Modoc Cafe. Eagle’s Roost Bar and Card Room, “Dancing Every Saturday Nite.” Maxe’s Service and Garage. And at the far end, near the second of two access roads that took you to and from 395—Northern Comfort Cabins, Off-Season Rates, Vacancy.

  I turned into the driveway next to the rustic Northern Comfort sign. The motel was not particularly inviting, even to a weary traveler who had been on the road since eight A.M. A dozen small pineboard cabins set in twin rows of six that faced one another across an unpaved courtyard like old soldiers on a run-down parade ground. The office, which appeared to double as living quarters for the owners, was larger but just as old and not as straight-standing: seedy drill instructor fronting his motley troops. Behind the last of the cabins, where the trees grew in close, a stream ran fast and frothy—the creek, probably, that had given the hamlet its name.

  There were no other cars to keep mine company except for an old Buick with its chrome snout peeking out from behind the office, where the owners’ living quarters were. The whole place had the look of desertion, even with lights on inside the office and smoke twisting out of a rear chimney. I stepped out into a fast-gathering twilight. Cold up here; you could still taste winter in the air. The rush-and-hiss of the stream running was audible even at a distance of a hundred yards, swollen as it was with snow runoff.

  The stream made me think of trout, fat rainbow trout, and the feel of my old fly rod with its Daiwa reel, and the way a mountain creek tugs and swirls around your legs. How long since I’d gotten away for a few days of fishing? Long time. Hell, at least three years. Kerry didn’t care for “murdering innocent fish,” as she called it. None of my male friends were fishermen, and I couldn’t seem to work up enough enthusiasm to go off by myself for the two or three days it would take to get to and then fish a worthwhile trout stream. The last time I’d tied a fly or set a hook for a rainbow had been up in the Sierras, on the Middle Fork south of Quincy. Eberhardt and me, a few months before we’d busted up our friendship and our partnership. Packed in for three days, caught our limit on the first, and spent the rest of the time swilling beer and pretending that we were still as close as we’d once been. . . .

  Eberhardt.

  The hell with him. And the hell with pointless nostalgia. I didn’t need good old Eb and he didn’t need me, for trout fishing or any other damn thing. Friendships die natural deaths the same as people do. Why keep poking around among the bones?

  I flexed some driving kinks out of my shoulders and back and entered the motel office. Small, rustic, dingy. On one wall was a framed, hand-stitched motto that said Praise God; on another was a brass sculpture of a cross and a pair of praying hands. There was nobody behind the narrow counter at the back, not until I bellied up to it. Then a door opened and a tall, cadaverous party came through. He moved in a slow, painful shuffle, as if he had back or leg problems. He was about my age, late fifties, with a beak of a nose and loose skin in folds under his chin and ears and hair that poked up in thin, wispy patches around his scalp. He put me in mind of a molting turkey.

  “Help you?”

  “I’d like a cabin.”

  “Sure thing. Just tonight or longer?”

  “Probably just tonight.”

  “Got your pick,” he said. “Close to the road or farther back. Cabins in back are real quiet.”

  “Quiet is what I like.”

  “Give you number twelve.”

  He put a key and a registration card on my side of the countertop. I laid a credit card and the photograph of Allison McDowell on his side. As soon as he saw the photo, his face closed up. He looked at it for several seconds, his chin tucked down in its nest of wattles. When his head finally came up, his eyes told me nothing at all.

  He said, “Police officer?”

  “Private investigator.”

  “Girl’s family?”

  “What about her family?”

  “They the ones hired you?”

  “My client’s identity is confidential.”

  “Well,” he said, “I already told the sheriffs man everything I know. Which ain’t much.”

  “Mind telling me too, Mr.—?”

  “Bartholomew,” grudgingly. “Ed.”

  “Mr. Bartholomew.”

  “They checked in, they spent the night, they left next morning. I never even seen him. Girl came in for the room. Otherwise—”

  “Otherwise what?”

  He shook his head.

  “Late afternoon when they checked in, right?” I asked. “Week ago Saturday, about this time.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Which cabin did you give them?”

  “Eleven. In back, opposite the one I give you. But they didn’t leave nothing behind. My wife does the cleaning up; she’d of found it if they had.”

  “What time did they check out on Sunday?”

  “Didn’t check out. Just left the key in the cabin.”

  “So Allison paid in advance.”

  “In advance. Made one call, but she put that on her own phone card.”

  “Did you see them leave?”

  “No,” Bartholomew said. “Told you, I never seen the two of ’em together. Or him at all.”

  “How about your wife?”

  “She never seen him either.”

  “So you can’t give me a description of the man.”

  “No. Ask Art Maxe, down at the garage. He seen him.”

  “Allison didn’t put his name on the registration card?”

  “Just hers.”

  “You didn’t ask for it?”

  “No reason to. Law says only one name’s required.”

  “She didn’t mention it? First name, nickname?”

  “Just said her friend. Boyfriend. Some other time I wouldn’t of rented to her.”

  “Why?”

  “Why did I? It’s slow time and we need the money.”

  “No, I mean why wouldn’t you have rented to her?”

  “Wasn’t married. No wedding ring. I asked her and she said she wasn’t.” His lips pursed as if he were tasting something sour. “Sharing a bed out of wedlock is a sin.”

  “They left Creekside around ten Sunday morning, I understand.”

  “That’s what Art Maxe says. He had their car ready at nine-thirty and they picked it up around then and was gone by ten.”

  “When the girl checked in,” I said, “did she happen to mention what route they planned to take from here? Side trips, anything like that?”

  “Nosir. All she said was her and her friend been having trouble with their car and they had to have it towed in to Maxe’s Garage and wasn’t it lucky they was close to a town when it quit on them.”

  While we’d been talking I had filled out the registration card. As I slid it over to him I said, “Mind if I take number eleven instead of twelve?”

  “What for? I told you, nothing in there that’ll tell you where them kids went.”

  “I’d still like eleven. If you don’t mind.”

  “Why should I mind?” he said, and gave me the key to number eleven. I smiled at him before I went out. He didn’t smile back.

  As with Creekside itself, there wasn’t much to the cabin. Small, bare, barely functional—a wooden cell designed for those who came to the Corner expecting to rough it. Four coarse-pine walls, unadorned except for a framed hunting print and, hanging low and off center over the bed, a sepia-toned picture of Christ wearing a crown of thorns. Dresser, nightstand, bedframe, all of scarred pine. N
ew, board-hard mattress covered by a cheap quilt. TV set that had been manufactured about the time of the first Super Bowl. The bathroom was little more than a cubicle with an ancient toilet and a zinc-floored shower. In the old days one of the slang terms for toilet was “growler”; this one reminded me of why. It made noises like an angry Doberman when you flushed it.

  Cold in there too. The only heating appliance was a space heater; I switched it on before I sat on the hard mattress. From outside I could hear the muted rush of the stream. It had a lonesome sound.

  On the nightstand was a telephone with a little card Scotch-taped to the base that told you all long-distance calls had to go through the office. That figured. I lifted the receiver and buzzed the office, and it was a scratchy-voiced woman who answered—Mrs. Bartholomew, no doubt. I gave her Helen McDowell’s private number at In the Mode in Lafayette. She said she’d ring it for me, but she sounded stiff and grudging about it, as if I were asking her to do something that went against her grain.

  Helen McDowell answered on the first ring, with the same eager, desperately hopeful tone she’d used on the phone the day before. Which told me before she did that she’d gone through another day of no word from her daughter, no word from Captain Fassbinder. The sound of my name snuffed out the eagerness, flattened the hope again under a dull weariness. Only the desperation remained, poking through the weariness like an object with sharp edges.

  “You’re in Creekside?” she asked.

  “Yes. Just arrived.”

  “Good.” Pause. “This is the first time all day the phone’s rung.” Pause. “Have you spoken to anyone yet?”

  “Just Ed Bartholomew at the motel. I’ve got a cabin here. He didn’t have anything more to tell me than he told you.”

  “When will you see Art Maxe?”

  “He’s my next stop. I wanted to check in with you first.”

  “You’ll call me if you find out anything, anything at all?”

  “Right away.”

  “Would you call tomorrow in any case? At this point I need . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence.

  “I know,” I said. “I’ll call tomorrow.”