Page 7 of Nightshade
STILWELL WOKE SATURDAY morning with a headache firing on all pistons behind his eyes. He didn’t know whether to blame the fumes he had inhaled during the dive the day before or the two fingers of Knob Creek he had put down after finally getting off work the night before.
He went into the kitchen and put a pot of coffee on to brew, then went to the front door. It was seven a.m. and he had received no calls from the sub during the night, so he took that as a sign that all was quiet.
The Catalina Call was on the front porch. Stilwell picked it up and sat on one of the Adirondacks as he unfolded it. A photo of the sheriff’s dive boat with the tented back deck was the center image on the front page. The headline was big and bold: HARBOR HOMICIDE: BOUND BODY RECOVERED . Stilwell smiled slightly as he thought about Mayor Allen unfolding the paper to the same image and words. He guessed that the editor of the Call had not gotten the message that murder was bad for business.
The story carried Lionel N. McKey’s byline, and most of its details had been supplied by an interview with Denzel Abbott. The sheriff’s department officially declined to comment, which Stilwell believed would put him in the clear with the mayor.
The Call was tabloid-size, and the splash of the photo and story on the harbor homicide left room for only two other articles on the front page. One focused on the town council receiving a first look at design plans to build a giant Ferris wheel on the pier that would be lighted in neon and visible at night all the way from the mainland. Though billed as a project that would boost tourism to the island, it was a controversial proposal. Polling by the Call revealed significant opposition from Avalon residents. It had become common to see signs on lawns and in windows that said TURN THE WHEEL DOWN ! And this was before any real plans had even been seen.
The last story on the page was another McKey-authored piece on the mystery surrounding the mutilation of a buffalo on the mountain preserve three nights earlier. The animal had been cleanly beheaded and the head remained missing. The mystery tapped into the island’s long history of supposed UFO and USO sightings. With no official update from Stilwell on the investigation, McKey had turned to a chorus of self-proclaimed extraterrestrial experts who were eager to plant the idea of alien mischief at the preserve. “Look, they’ve been coming to Catalina since forever,” said Jack Sprague from the Center for the Study of Unidentified Submersible Objects. “They’re in the air and water. This doesn’t surprise me at all.”
Other so-called alien experts were quoted as well, though none offered an opinion, scientific or otherwise, as to why the aliens would want a buffalo’s head.
Stilwell was about to turn to the continuation of the story inside the paper when he heard the front door open behind him.
“Coffee should be ready,” he said.
“I’ve gotta go,” Tash Dano said. “I’ll get some at the tower.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. Anything in there about the body?”
Stilwell stood up to show her the front page.
“The mayor didn’t get to Denzel Abbott,” he said. “He told McKey everything.”
“Oh, man,” Tash said. “His Honor’s not going to be happy about that.”
“Well, on the other hand, there’s an alien story on the front page. That should be good enough to get a boatload or two of true believers to come out and spend their money.”
“Aliens cancel out murders. Nice. You have any extraterrestrial suspects yet?”
“I have suspects. But they’re more of the terrestrial kind.”
“Hmm, too bad.”
She was already dressed for the day in khaki cargo pants and a black polo with the harbormaster badge embroidered on it. Tash was a beauty in Stilwell’s opinion. She was a lean and tanned island girl with dark hair and dark eyes, and she didn’t need anything in the world beyond the twenty-two-mile-long island where she’d been born. Their relationship had started soon after Stilwell’s arrival and their first lunch meeting. Stilwell had been coming out of a divorce at the time, and she’d just broken up with another island native.
She was also eight years younger than Stilwell, and that at first gave him pause. He was worried they would not be on the same page when it came to things like music and movies and politics. But soon that didn’t seem to matter. Tash loved the outdoors—boating, fishing, and camping—and so did he. That was where they connected and where they could leave the world behind. They had initially decided to keep the relationship under wraps, until they saw how it went, but now they were no longer as protective of the secret.
“You want me to run you down to the pier in the cart?” Stilwell asked.
“No, it’s downhill,” Tash said. “An easy walk.”
“Okay. Be good.”
“And you be safe.”
They kissed goodbye and Stilwell watched her walk down Eucalyptus toward the harbor. He thought about where they were in the relationship and where they were going. It had started out as a casual, no-demands sort of thing. They both were on the rebound from their previous relationships and moving cautiously. But as the months went by, their connection deepened, and then Tash started staying over most nights of the week. Stilwell stopped going to the mainland on his days off. He put the condo he’d bought after his divorce up for sale. Tash kept her apartment but mostly because a storage unit for her furniture would cost almost as much as her rent. Keeping the place also offered a refuge if things with Stilwell didn’t work out. But they both knew that was the next move—if she gave up her place, they were in it for the long haul.
Stilwell felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. It was Mercy.
“Sergeant, we have a situation with a visitor from overtown.”
“What’s going on?”
“Looks like an alcohol poisoning at the Crescent Hotel. Paramedics on scene and they’re calling a medevac.”
Stilwell checked his phone screen. It was only :10 a.m., but the busy times were starting.
“Okay, Mercy, I’m on my way.”