skirting the inlet, and driving beside the chins of the marina where the sports boutiques and playing fields would be. The road was rough and unlit. The musty smell of low tide rushed in through the window. In the middle of the inlet the half-sunken hull of a junk ship jutted black against the fog. And the headlights of the patrol car and the ambulance sent white cotton-candy cones across the water into the oblivion of the fog. The red pulsers blinked on and off, turning Rainbow Village an unnatural pink. That acre of sagging vehicles looked like a neon mirage.
I pulled up next to the patrol car. A gusty cold wind blew in from the bay, carrying with it the fresher smell of salt water. By the entrance to Rainbow Village two homemade flags flapped. Both of the patrol officers protecting the scene had their collars turned up. Behind them a crowd of maybe seventy-five people had divided itself into three groups. The nearest and by far the largest section was predominantly tourists from the Inn, dressed for a casual dinner by the bay—men in sports jackets, women with vacation skirts pressed tightly around the backs of their legs and light jackets pulled around arms they couldn’t protect from the wind. A few still clutched wine glasses.
Next to them, a dozen men and three women in fishing gear stood, several hunched against the night, hands in pockets, gazing straight ahead; several others smoked. For them death was not an abstraction. It lurked in the ocean waters every time they headed out into the vast predawn blackness of the Pacific. It hid behind a freak wave, or in a storm that rose with fatal suddenness, tossing forty-foot crafts, obliterating the shore. They stood silent, fearful, waiting. This close to the docks, the dead person could be one of their own.
A knot of Rainbow Villagers clustered by the hurricane fence, as if that wall would protect them from danger or suspicion. Those villagers who had been around for a while had seen death here. And the transients knew well enough what it was to be undesirable, expendable, the obvious suspect of affront to “regular society.”
The tourists divided their attention between the activity at the shoreline and the spectacle of the wary villagers.
I moved on past them toward the three men at the water’s edge. The headlights threw their shadows—long, emaciated forms jerking spastically on the ripples of the water.
Murakawa, the beat officer, turned toward me. He was assigned to Morning Watch, seven A.M. to three P.M.; he had covered for a friend on Day Watch; and now it was nearly midnight, but he didn’t look tired. “Drowning. No I.D.”
The medics moved back and I saw the chair—the wheelchair—lying on its side.
I took a breath, then moved closer. Next to it, laid on a tarpaulin, was the body. It was Liz Goldenstern.
I turned away and swallowed hard. The nauseatingly thick ice cream welled in my throat. I swallowed again. I had seen my share of bodies, but those had belonged to strangers, not to a woman I had just pushed home.
I closed my eyes and swallowed once more, then forcing myself to turn back and look down at Liz. The piercing white of the headlights struck her face, sending a dark triangle of shadow from her nose onto the forehead. Those dark eyes that had flashed with her anger and glowed in triumph when an Avenue merchant capitulated were coated with mud and brine. Her April-pale skin was colorless except for a brown oval beside her nose where the blood had settled after death. Her mouth, which I’d seen so often set determinedly, hung open. Death had so distorted her face that it looked not like Liz but a relative of hers, a relative I didn’t need to care about.
But there was no flaccidity in her fingers; the skin was taut and the first two fingers were pressed together harder than I’d thought her damaged body would allow.
“Drowned,” Murakawa said. “The chair was tipped; it must have catapulted her.”
I stared down at her
I pulled up next to the patrol car. A gusty cold wind blew in from the bay, carrying with it the fresher smell of salt water. By the entrance to Rainbow Village two homemade flags flapped. Both of the patrol officers protecting the scene had their collars turned up. Behind them a crowd of maybe seventy-five people had divided itself into three groups. The nearest and by far the largest section was predominantly tourists from the Inn, dressed for a casual dinner by the bay—men in sports jackets, women with vacation skirts pressed tightly around the backs of their legs and light jackets pulled around arms they couldn’t protect from the wind. A few still clutched wine glasses.
Next to them, a dozen men and three women in fishing gear stood, several hunched against the night, hands in pockets, gazing straight ahead; several others smoked. For them death was not an abstraction. It lurked in the ocean waters every time they headed out into the vast predawn blackness of the Pacific. It hid behind a freak wave, or in a storm that rose with fatal suddenness, tossing forty-foot crafts, obliterating the shore. They stood silent, fearful, waiting. This close to the docks, the dead person could be one of their own.
A knot of Rainbow Villagers clustered by the hurricane fence, as if that wall would protect them from danger or suspicion. Those villagers who had been around for a while had seen death here. And the transients knew well enough what it was to be undesirable, expendable, the obvious suspect of affront to “regular society.”
The tourists divided their attention between the activity at the shoreline and the spectacle of the wary villagers.
I moved on past them toward the three men at the water’s edge. The headlights threw their shadows—long, emaciated forms jerking spastically on the ripples of the water.
Murakawa, the beat officer, turned toward me. He was assigned to Morning Watch, seven A.M. to three P.M.; he had covered for a friend on Day Watch; and now it was nearly midnight, but he didn’t look tired. “Drowning. No I.D.”
The medics moved back and I saw the chair—the wheelchair—lying on its side.
I took a breath, then moved closer. Next to it, laid on a tarpaulin, was the body. It was Liz Goldenstern.
I turned away and swallowed hard. The nauseatingly thick ice cream welled in my throat. I swallowed again. I had seen my share of bodies, but those had belonged to strangers, not to a woman I had just pushed home.
I closed my eyes and swallowed once more, then forcing myself to turn back and look down at Liz. The piercing white of the headlights struck her face, sending a dark triangle of shadow from her nose onto the forehead. Those dark eyes that had flashed with her anger and glowed in triumph when an Avenue merchant capitulated were coated with mud and brine. Her April-pale skin was colorless except for a brown oval beside her nose where the blood had settled after death. Her mouth, which I’d seen so often set determinedly, hung open. Death had so distorted her face that it looked not like Liz but a relative of hers, a relative I didn’t need to care about.
But there was no flaccidity in her fingers; the skin was taut and the first two fingers were pressed together harder than I’d thought her damaged body would allow.
“Drowned,” Murakawa said. “The chair was tipped; it must have catapulted her.”
I stared down at her
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