The closest land to Quilcene resembling anything like an airstrip is actually located north of Puget Sound on a small privately owned island close to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Geographically speaking Eliza Island is only a stones throw from Vancouver Island and is generally as close to Canada as it is to the United States. The McDuffy Cessna managed to not lose a screw during the flight and the bumpy landing across the rough field that served as a runway. The best part of the flight was the complete failure of the in-flight audio system, so I didn’t have to suffer through North yakking at the emu or Anne Murray. The unfortunate side of the flight was the fact that there’s apparently an undiscovered market for emu Depends. There is nothing quite like evacuating a small airplane that smells intensely of emu dooky. Even if you’re a whippet, emu dooky is not amusing.
It was only about 4am, when we banked through the grey foggy mist and I could peer down at landscape of trees, mountains and Sound that I hadn’t seen for five years.
It was, of course, raining. I miss my palm trees already. And how’m I going to explain rain to Fine and Dandy? They were whippets, small greyhound-like dogs, without an ounce of fat, no insulation, and built for speed. They’re also used to sleeping on furniture, eating at regular times, and lying out in the sun every day. This whole trip was going to be a shock to their system. Little did I know what a shock to my system it would turn out to be as well.
The Cessna lurched to a stop, and immediately a beat-up, battered, Chevy pick-up circa Anne Murray’s last hit rolled over to meet us. Eliza is a private island, the only way on and off is via plane or boat. The few vehicles on the island live, and die here permanently.
Buzz Brainard, the island caretaker had obviously been alerted to our presence. He also greeted North like an old buddy, which, of course they were. By my math, Buzz and North had been within a grade of each other in high school, depending on whether they graduated as scheduled or not. After a brief potty break, two very disgusted wet whippets loaded into the cab of the truck with me and my suitcase. In their opinion the luxury nature of their travel accommodations definitely was leaving something to be desired this trip. North tied down the Cessna near a black and gold
Buzz shot me a look out of the corner of his eye as we bounced down the rutted road to the public dock, where presumably we’d get a boat back to semi-civilization, meaning Quilcene.
“Hey, Hollywood”. “Been a long time since we’ve seen you in these parts.” I mentally banged my head on the windshield. Besides “Dufflebag” which was a family privilege insult, I hate being called “Hollywood” the worst. If I’d actually been an Oscar-winning starlet, it possibly could be tolerable, but given a cooking show and a couple guest appearances on C.S.I. and Law and Order, usually as a disgusting looking corpse, “Hollywood” seemed more of an insult. “Yeah, well, busy, you know” I tried smiling brightly hoping it would satisfy his need to make conversation. “Uh huh. He said. “But seems you aren’t too busy to come home when the family needs you. You here to help your sister or your brother?”
This floored me. North? Needing help? “What’s going on with North?” I asked as casually as I could manage.
“North?” Buzz guffawed. “North been a survivor since he shot the mountain lion before it ate you for lunch when you were nine.” While true, this is a particularly embarrassing story I don’t like to be reminded of. “I meant your brother Clay.”
“Clay?” As far as I knew, Clay was a deputy sheriff in Jefferson County with a Stepford wife and 2.5 Stepford children. I talk to Clay almost as much as I talk to North, which is obviously nearly never. Nicole keeps me filled in on as much of the family gossip as I want to hear.
“You ain’t heard ‘bout Clay’s little difficulty?” Buzz pulled into the tiny island marina parking lot and gave me an almost toothless grin. “Trust you’ll be hearin’ soon enough”. Maybe you can impress the FBI fellers with your Hollywood hot stuff”.
Buzz hopped out of the truck and paused to look back in at me. “Do ya ever FEED those dogs?”
We were a fairly wet motley crew that made our way down to a Jefferson County Sheriff’s’ SAR boat moored at the public part of the dock. Fine wasn’t sure she liked rain, and she was really sure she wanted no part of the boat. My North Face sweatshirt was soaked through. Dandy dragged me down the gangway with his usual enthusiasm, nearly getting run over by Sully in the process, who had lost his tether to North and shaking his feathers and making booming noises at the top of his lungs.
“Well, what the hell?”. My brother Clay stood on the edge of the 40’ cutter and watched our arrival with one eyebrow raised and his mouth turned down. Clay’s been better than the rest of the family from day one, and rarely chooses to let us forget it. His only concession was to the fact that I actually appeared on TV. on a fairly regular basis, which made me somewhat slightly more sophisticated than the rest of the family.
“What the hell” in this particular case had nothing to do with my rain sodden appearance with two skinny dogs, and more to do with the large angry emu that jumped into the cutter without regard with who he pushed off in the process.
Clay emerged from the water between the dock and the cutter sputtering and screaming. “I’ll have that beast for Thanksgiving, we’ll have king size wings for the Superbowl, we’ll keep KFC in business for a year, what the HELL are you doing with that thing North?” Fair enough to Clay, he knew just whom to blame for the appearance of a large flightless bird.
Buzz, North, and a brown-jacketed deputy managed to fish Clay out of the water using dock fenders and spring lines from the cleat hitch. It wasn’t until he stood soaked and sputtering on the dock that I realized his uniform read “Sheriff” MacDuffy, and not “Deputy” MacDuffy.
“Wait a minute?” I glared at him indignantly. “You got elected Sheriff and nobody told me?”
Buzz gave another toothless grin. “Wasn’t so much he got elected, as it was that Old Abercrombie shot himself in the ass with his service revolver and got booted out for sheer stupidity. Clay here’s taken over until next election time. ‘Course, he ain’t exactly a rocket scientist but he ain’t used his side-arm on his own buttocks yet.” “And if he can’t find the Fowler slut, it won’t matter whether he shoots himself or not, cuz Brian Fowler’ll do it for him.”
I was cold, tired, wet, and confused. And I was the best off of my siblings. Nicole’s husband left her for the Schwans driver, Clay was a sheriff with a missing teen-ager and the FBI in his face, and North was babysitting an emu.
Lord, I miss Lindy Carrington.
After Clay was semi-dry and we were under way for the 30 minute cruise to the marina at Quilcene, we communed in the boat’s cabin.
“Did Buzz say something about a Fowler girl?” I asked. “Is that the same Fowler family we were in school with?”
Clay nodded, looking frustrated and defeated. “Calise Fowler is the daughter of Brian Fowler, he was in Drake’s class. He’s married Annie Carter. Calise has been missing since late Saturday night or early Sunday morning. So just a few days. Depending on who you talk to.”
“So she’d be about Gage’s age then?” Gage is Nicole’s son, Thirteen, macho, comedian, and voted “most likely to be a pro-athlete or used-car salesman”.
“A little older, actually. Don’t you remember Annie was pregnant when she graduated?” Annie had been older than Nic and I, and most of my high school years are blacked out by my constant search for a “get out jail free” card, but I did remember Annie. She was one of those warm, happy, fuzzy types that was so good to be true that you wanted to strangle her.
“Right. So that’d make Calise 16 or 17?” “Not a strange age to disappear. You sure she’s not a runaway?”
Clay sighed. “No, I’m not sure, but I’m also not the popular elected Sheriff. I’m the puppet filling in trying to prove myself until the next election. So I got half the town screaming that I’m not doing anything and why haven’t we called the F.B.I., and the rest of town wondering why I’m wasting tax dollars looking for a teen-age hooker party girl.”
“Was she?” I asked? “A teen-age hooker party girl?”
“I don’t know, really.” Clay sighed again. “So hard to tell with those high school kids, they don’t talk. But Brian and Annie seem to think she was okay, and Drake says she did well in his class.” Drake is the clock-wise normal version of the MacDuffy siblings. He’s ten months older than Nic and I, and usually gets voted an honorary triplet. He teaches science at the high school.
“Why did Buzz seem to think I might be here to help you?” I asked. “He wanted to know if I was here to help you or Nicole.”
Clay looked at me and for the first time since his impromptu bath in the 35 degree Puget Spa, he laughed. “Because you’re Hollywood, dummy.” You’re my sister. You’ve been on those cop shows – I’m much more likely to call you than the F.B.I. right? And then I make everyone happy – I’ve called in an ‘expert’, and I’m not spending a fortune in tax dollars.”
Remember the head-banging noise you heard earlier from the windshield when Buzz called me “Hollywood”? The noise you hear now is my head banging on the hull. What are the chances I could go back and plead that it was a vegetarian chili tofu dog and I’m very sorry, Miss Carrington…? Seems I was going to be needing that get out of jail free card again.
“You don’t really think I’m going to help you, do you?” Suspicions, dulled earlier by my numb, tired mind, started to kick in. “Why do we have a Sheriff’s boat picking your sister up from the island, Clay?” “Isn’t that wasting tax payer dollars?”
“Not really”. Clay jumped back against the side of the boat as Sully stomped down the stairs, looked round at us and then shook his rain soaked feathers much as a large Golden Retriever would shake his wet coat in the midst of company. I chose to ignore this, as did Clay. We were already as cold and wet as we could be.
“I’ve got the F.B.I. showing up this morning, and a whole convention of Spotted Owl supporters staying at Nicole’s. Plus the search parties have been organizing from there. Ginny isn’t worth a damn, and I’m not going to get any cooperation unless I can get someone there who can cook, make coffee and keep thing going.”
I remember now why I don’t come home very often. Weird shit happens here. And thanks to the twisting kaleidoscope that represents my family, I’m always stuck in the middle somehow.
We managed to arrive at the Quilcene Marina without anyone else falling overboard, or serving as towel duty for a wet emu. I did borrow some “bomb sniffing” police K9 jackets for the whippets to try to keep them reasonably warm. Waiting at the Marina was a large black SUV looking more like it belonged to presidential security detail than to a bass-ackward Sheriff’s department. Clay was downright proud of it. “First thing I bought with the new grant this year!”, he explained.
We piled aboard for the last leg of our “planes, boats, and automobiles” adventure, with Sully forced to ride in the very back cargo space with my suitcase and North’s dufflebag. Dandy, Fine and I got the middle row, and North rode shotgun.
The marina is on the opposite side of the bay from town, and there’s a major stretch of Highway 101 that circumvents the bay. It’s an amazing drive. I’d forgotten the beautiful majesty of the Madrona trees, the bonsai effect the near constant winds have on the evergeens, the screams of flying rat seagulls and the fresh saltiness of the air. In Venice Beach, you usually hear blaring radios, and screaming children, and smell suntan lotion and popcorn. It’s not the same
You also never forget the smell of emu dooky. Trust me on this one. About a mile into the drive, my nose startled to prickle. “North!” Both my brothers turned to look at me. “Sully stinks – I think he needs out”. “What the hell? Can’t he wait?” Clay clearly hadn’t had the pleasure of flying with North and emu yet.
“NO!” North and I both replied emphatically. Clay pulled the SUV into the nearest road turnoff, and North hopped out to give Sully a chance at some “er” relief. Dandy and I got out too, in spite of the rain. Dandy never misses a chance to check out the action wherever he is. 101 here is a windy, loopy road with few turnouts that basically ends at the marina. Kids come out here to party, A few intrepids with generators will actually reside out here, and periodically the Lions Club comes through with their adopt-a-higway litter patrol to keep things tidy. The scattered white plastic trash bags in the turn-out indicated their dedication to their civic duty.
“What the hell you feeding that thing?” Clay hollering behind me let me know that Sully was almost finished with business. Dandy had a different idea though. He made his way over to one of the litter patrol bags that seemed a little different – size maybe? I couldn’t really tell. Until Dandy pushed his way around to the other side of the bag and found the human arm and hand with a pretty pink tipped French manicure protruding from the stretchy plastic.
“Uhhhhhh, Clay?”
“What now, we gotta get going?”
“I think you’d better see this.”
To my credit, I didn’t throw up when Clay gingerly opened the bag. I did have to keep a tight handle on Dandy, who knew something was wrong and wanted to fix it. North looked a little pale, but held in there. Sully, on the other hand, got one sniff of the corpse and proceeded to puke up the small amount still left in his stomach.
“Oh for God’s sake” Clay glared at North, “Get that mess cleaned up, it isn’t part of our crime scene. I gotta go call for back up and try like hell to keep the media quiet until we positively identify her.
I didn’t need help positively identifying Calise Fowler. She looked just like her mother, right down to the fact that since she was nude, it definitely appeared that she was at least several months pregnant as a teen-ager.
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