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STIX 247
She took three ensembles and a pair of fur-lined winter boots.
They were snug, but looked chic with her short skirt and suit
jacket. She dug through a box of costume jewelry, some of which
was quite good, selecting several pieces and put them into a
suitcase that had undoubtedly come with the rest of the estate
and carried everything out to the Honda. She started the engine,
so that it would be nice and warn when she was ready to go, and
cleaned the blood off the seat and steering wheel with window
cleaner and paper towels that she d brought from the kitchen.
She kept the window cleaner and took the bloody paper towels
back into the house where she opened the damper and put them
in the wood stove in the living room. Then she carried a pair of
fire tongs into the bathroom and picked the bloody coveralls,
clothing, bandages, and shop towels up with them and carried the
entire mess into the living room and put them in the stove too.
Oh! She said, when a small piece of burning wood fell out
onto the brick hearth. She tried to pick it up with the tongs, that
failing, she used the little shovel that was part of the hearth set
and scooped the hot coals up and put them in the stove.
She knew that she would have to wait a few minutes until most
of the contents burned, then stir the rest to make sure that there
wasn t any evidence of what she d burned.
While she waited, she fixed another cup of coffee and moved
the TV back into the living room. When she turned it back on,
she was just in time to catch the latest bulletin in which they
showed graphic photos of the murdered barmaid.
Daniel! What did you do to her? Margo burst into tears at
the sight of the woman s battered body. I am not going to let
you come out for a very long time.
She opened the stove and poked randomly at the fire until she
was able to regain her composure. Then she closed the damper,
washed her coffee cup, and, leaving the cottage as she d found it,
left.
Chapter Eight
She climbed into the Honda, slid the seat ahead two notches,
rolled the window down, adjusted the side mirror, and pulled out
onto the county road. She remembered something Dan had said
about it always raining here. Well, he was wrong. Sometimes it
snowed.
The world was an opaque sea of white. Margo had never
driven in snow before and was apprehensive. And as fate would
have it, a snowplow came up behind her. She pulled over and let
it by, unaware that the only reason it was on this lightly traveled
road was because the main plow, a new rotary, that plied the
Sunset Highway, had lost its transmission. To get this plow--
normally a backup on the Wilson River Highway on site in less
than twenty minutes (as opposed to the usual hour), it had been
re-routed. Instead of going all the way around through Banks and
back to the tunnel on the Sunset, some thirty-five miles, it took a
shorter route across Timber Road.
No one had told the driver not to drop his blade, and when
Gregory saw a single woman in a small snow-covered car, he
dropped the plow and led her over the hump, through Timber and
out to the Sunset Highway. She flashed her lights at him as he
turned up the highway. So it took him an extra ten minutes.
From the Sunset Highway, Margo followed the Nehalem River
into Vernonia. She knew from Dan having been here once that
there was a motel that rented cabins by the week not far from
where you come into town. He had laughed and added, Of
course that s not far from where you go out of town either.
Margo felt that Dan s humor was, at best, lacking.
250 DAVE MEAD
She drove part-way through town, getting as far as the grade
school before she turned around and, watching carefully, still
nearly missed the small blue arrow with the word MOTEL in
faded red under the arrow. It pointed up the hill. The tires
slipped then found traction as Margo gunned the little car up the
narrow street. A twin arrow to the one two blocks below pointed
her in the general direction of the planet Jupiter. Rather than
Jupiter she found a row of small cabins fronted by carports and
single garages.
She parked two cabins south of the one with the flickering
OFFICE sign and got out. A jolt of pain let her know that she
didn t have a lot of time before she had to be someplace where
she could administer her painkillers and then lie down.
Margo could hear the sound of a TV and smell overcooked food
even before she opened the door into the office. The counter was
perhaps four feet long and greasy. A small chrome bell that
leaned to one side sat in the middle of the counter.
Margo pinged it, twice.
From behind the door that lead from the minuscule office she
heard a chair scrape and then the door opened. A small, balding,
going-to-fat man wearing wrinkled khaki pants and a matching
shirt came through the door and padded barefoot up to the
counter.
Help ya? he asked and pushed the glasses back up on his
nose.
Yes, I m Penny. Penny Phillips. I drove up from Salem
today. She made her eyes big and scared, You can t imagine
the traffic. She wasn t Penny. She was Margo. Margo McKinley.
But one did not go around leaving her real name when she was
not wishing to be found.
He swallowed, wiped the grease from his dinner off his mouth
with the back of his hand, and said, I ve been watchin the tube.
It looks to be a real good storm.
Do you have a cabin available?
Yeah. Got two of em. They re both one bedroom, full kitchen
with all you need for two people. They go for one-forty a week.
Do they have garages?
STIX 251
Number six does. But it s an extra twenty a week.
Oh my. That is a lot, isn t it?
I could come down to one-fifty a week for it, if you pay cash
up front.
That s really very nice of you. She set her purse on the
counter and after digging through it for a while came up with her
billfold and began counting out money. I would like to rent it for
three weeks. I m working on another novel and I need peace and
quiet. She smiled at him, watching him wish he were Tom Cruise
instead of what he was. I totally want to apologize for coming so
late, but the roads were almost impossible.
When he puffed his chest out, it still didn t stick out as far as
his gut did, Hey, that s what I m here for. You need something
just let me know.
She filled the card out, trying not to touch the counter top.
Oh dear. I don t remember my license number.
Don t worry about it. Payin cash gets you a few favors.
He put two keys, each attached to a large plastic tag, on the
counter along with a garage door opener. That should do it, he
said.
Are there towels and things like that in there?
Yeah, sure. And when you want more just come get em.
That way won t nobody bother you unless you want it different.
After she left he turned the card around and read, 1983
Maroon Chevy.
He nodded to himself thinking that she was a looker. Maybe in
a day or so he d kinda drop by and see if she needed anything--
like about eight inches. He laughed at his humor, folded the bills
in half and stuck them in the left front pocket of his pants and
went back in to finish his dinner. In a day or so if she didn t
complain about something and want her money back, he d tear up
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