At the end of the walkway, we passed through a small gateway that had an Asilomar sign. There was a little bit of sandy sidewalk, and then I recognized the blacktop of the street. When I tried looking both ways, I realized it was useless. I couldn’t possibly have seen a car, nor its driver, me, until it was too late. For the first time I really understood why the roads had been shut down and how isolated we were.
Even though there was supposed to be no traffic, habit made me hurry across the street. On the other side, low fencing protected the replanted area. A walkway was formed between the fenced areas and led to the open beach. The sand felt silky soft underfoot and immediately got into my shoes.
I thought the whole looking-for-driftwood thing was a line Commander had used to try to spend some time alone with Dinah, but as soon as we got onto the beach, he handed us each a reusable grocery bag and told us to start looking.
He went on a little ahead and stopped to pick up something, then dropped it quickly. I saw a dark hunk hit the sand.
“Be careful, somebody had a campfire here and it’s still smoldering.” He bent down again, then straightened, holding something. “Well, that’s not very considerate.” We’d caught up with him by then, and the sand was damp and easier to walk on. Ahead there seemed to be some kind of channel in the sand with brackish water moving toward the waves. Commander held two long wire forks identical to the one Mason had used for the marshmallows. “These aren’t throw-away items. I need them back for the next s’mores break.”
He searched around the area a little more and used one of the forks to pull out the partially burned remains of a s’mores bag. “Looks like somebody decided to do their own campfire. Pretty careless, not even throwing away their trash.”
He ran the bag through the sand and then touched it to make sure it was cool. Then he dropped it, along with the fork, in the canvas bag he’d brought to collect the driftwood. We were careful to walk around the remains of the campfire. Dinah went ahead toward something dark on the sand. I saw her take a step, and then she tripped and screamed.
Commander and I rushed toward her. Dinah was sprawled on the ground, and when I got close, I saw an arm clothed in a black wool jacket with pink crocheted flowers around the sleeve sticking out from below her. Commander Blaine pulled Dinah to her feet, and the three of us gasped.
CHAPTER 9
“TUR N HER OVER, TURN HER OVER,” DINAH squealed. When Dinah had gotten up, the rest of Izabelle Landers had become visible as she lay facedown in the sand.
We got Izabelle on her back, and her face looked blue and distorted. Dinah felt her wrist and thought she detected a faint pulse.
“Call 911,” she said quickly. The adrenaline rush had given Dinah’s voice a high-pitched, panicky sound. I reached for my cell phone, then realized I’d left it in my tote in the administration building. Commander didn’t have his phone, either.
“I’ll go back and call,” he said, gesturing toward the Asilomar grounds, still invisible in the fog. He walked quickly through the sand, the bag for collecting driftwood swinging on his arm.
Dinah and I knelt down in the sand on either side of Izabelle.
She looked terrible. Now that I was closer, I could see the red blotches on her face. Dinah and I tried to comfort her and tell her that we were getting help. Nothing in her face gave any indication she heard us.
I checked the area around her. A sand-encrusted s’more lay on the ground near her hand.
Commander Blaine came back to tell us the paramedics were on the way, then went to stand by the street to flag down the ambulance. Luckily we had the Asilomar gate as a landmark. It seemed like it took the paramedics forever to arrive. The fog made it impossible for them to drive fast.
Two men in dark blue uniforms hustled across the beach, carrying a stretcher and a large case. They got Izabelle on the stretcher, and one started doing CPR and put some kind of bag on her face. The other asked me what had happened, and I gave him the little information I had. I also mentioned the sandy s’more. He scooped it up and put it in a plastic bag. The paramedic working on Izabelle continued the CPR as Commander helped get the stretcher across the sand. I thought I saw Izabelle move her head as I followed them to the street.
“You better come with us,” one of the paramedics said as they loaded the stretcher into the ambulance. A police cruiser had pulled over to the curb, and two officers got out. They walked onto the beach, shaking their heads at the low visibility.
Dinah had followed us. She stood with Commander and told me not to worry, they would take care of things in my absence. All of us were operating on nerves by then. I climbed into the back of the ambulance. When I looked back, Commander and Dinah were talking to the police.
“I’m not an expert, but she looks like she had some kind of attack,” I said to the paramedic. He was too busy working on Izabelle to answer.
The ride to the emergency room was painstakingly slow until we got out of the fogged-in area. The man monitoring her vitals was very quiet, and I had a bad feeling.
Izabelle was taken right into the emergency room when we arrived. I was directed to a waiting room. The only good part was that it was empty. I think ER waiting rooms probably all look the same. Uncomfortable but indestructible plastic chairs, a gray linoleum floor, a TV tuned to CNN with the sound tuned so low you get only every fourth word and a vibe of worry.
I wished I had brought some crocheting. I wished I’d brought my purse. Most of all, I wished I wasn’t there in the first place. A woman with dark circles under her eyes called me to the reception desk, and I gave her the information I had. Before we finished, a somber-looking doctor walked out. I figured his bad news before he said it. He said he was sorry but they’d lost her.
“It appears she had a severe allergic reaction. It’s called anaphylactic shock.” He explained that it caused her throat to constrict so she couldn’t breathe and her blood pressure to drop. He asked me a lot of questions about Izabelle that I couldn’t answer. I didn’t even know how old she was, let alone if she was allergic to anything. “Sometimes people suddenly develop a severe allergy and it catches them off guard. A severe reaction can happen in minutes and requires immediate care,” the doctor said. “Maybe that’s what happened in this case. There was some peanut butter in the food item the paramedics brought in. That might have triggered it.” He asked me more questions regarding her family, and again I had no answers. While he was talking, a police officer came in and joined us.
“Sergeant French, Pacific Grove PD,” he said, introducing himself to me. The doctor obviously knew him and nodded in greeting. The police officer turned back to me and spoke in a kind tone. “You look a little green around the gills. Are you all right?”
“Not really,” I said, feeling my stomach churn and threaten to empty its contents. I suppose someone good at being in charge wouldn’t have said that. I should have sounded unflappable, like someone dying while under my authority was something I could completely handle.
The craggy-faced police officer had good people skills. He tried to put me at ease and suggested I sit down. “I just need to get some information from you. When someone dies on the beach, we investigate,” he said, keeping a friendly voice.
Of course, Sergeant French knew about the fog and how it had brought everything to a standstill on the tip of the peninsula. I told him about the creative weekend and Commander Blaine and the s’mores. He kept taking notes. When I mentioned finding the burned wood, he looked up. “Fires aren’t allowed on the beach,” he warned.