CHAPTER 15

“WHAT’S SHE DOING WITH HIM?” COMMANDER Blaine said with a grunt of disgust. He wasn’t really talking to me, more to himself, as he followed me down the stairs of Lodge. His comment was directed at Dinah, who was sitting in one of the easy chairs by the fireplace, talking to Spenser Futterman. My take was a little different. Good for Dinah! She was already working on her mission, and from here it looked like she was doing a good job with the phony flirting. She was doing a lot of blinking, and her amethyst drop earrings did a jiggly dance as if she was oh-so-amused at whatever he was saying.

The workshops had broken up for the day and everyone was wandering around, still caught in the afterglow of the creative afternoon, and had changed into loose-fitting clothes. Next up was tai chi on the beach.

Commander Blaine caught up with me on the landing, and grumbled again about Dinah talking to Spenser. This time he seemed to be talking to me.

“Do you know him from Tarzana?” I asked innocently. I already knew Spenser was one of Commander’s customers. “I keep seeing him around, but he doesn’t seem to be with our group.”

“Yes, I know him,” Commander said, not taking his eyes off the couple below us. He was silent after that, and it appeared that was all he was going to say. But I wanted to know more. I had a feeling what I was about to say was going to start trouble, but it would get him to talk.

“I was just wondering about him, you know, kind of doing girlfriend duty to check up on Dinah’s guy.”

“Her guy?” Commander sputtered. “When did that happen?” He took my arm and led me back up the stairs to the empty hallway. “He’s not right for her. If you’re really her friend, you’ll tell her he’s all wrong for her.”

And then tell her you’re perfect for her, right? Actually, the more I’d seen of Commander, the more we were on the same page about that. If Dinah could get past a few details, I knew she’d appreciate his good traits.

“How, exactly, do you know him?”

“You know I have a mail center in Tarzana, right? He has a mailbox at my place, and he does his copying there. Even with the copying ability of everyone’s printer, when they need a lot done, they still come to me.” He seemed to want to dismiss Spenser and get back to talking about himself. “Maybe if you understand-” He seemed thoughtful for a moment before he spoke. “I really like your friend. She’s the first person who’s sparked any interest in me since…” His voice trailed off and he looked down. When he put his head back up, his eyes were watery. “My wife died three years ago. We’d been married for a very long time, and I fell into kind of a black hole without her. When I finally started to get myself together again, I found I was terribly lonely. And you know how they say if you think about somebody else’s loneliness, it helps with your own? I got to know some of the people who have mailboxes at my place. Most of them work out of their houses and are pretty isolated. When you have a home office, there’s no socializing in the coffee room. Sometimes I thought I was the only person they talked to all day. So, I started to organize get-togethers, and since they were all strangers, I made sure there were activities that would get them talking. And it went from there.” He was facing me. “I want you to understand that I’m not some playboy type who’s after every woman. Dinah is special to me.”

I had to admit that what he said touched me, though when he got to the playboy part, I had a hard time not laughing. If there was any label I wouldn’t stick on him, that was it. I knew from my own experience of losing Charlie how hard it is to start over again. Commander certainly had come up with a unique and positive way of handling his own problem. And probably helped a lot of his customers, too.

“Did Spenser come to your parties?” I asked, not giving up on getting information.

“No, he was never interested-or very friendly, for that matter. When I first saw him up here, he just nodded a greeting, not even a friendly hello. I think he has some kind of accounting business, but there’s something else he does. I never got a look at what he was copying, but he seemed very excited about it.”

“What about Izabelle Landers?” I asked, suddenly remembering all the handouts she’d brought.

“What about her?” Commander sounded wary.

“Did she come into your shop?”

“Sure. She had a mailbox there, too. She came in to make the copies for her workshops.”

“So you knew she was coming up here,” I said.

“I saw her name on the schedule.”

“What about Spenser Futterman? Did Izabelle know him?”

Commander was getting impatient. It was obvious all he wanted to do was bury Spenser and talk himself up, and I wasn’t cooperating by asking all my questions.

“I don’t know, maybe. I think I saw them talking once. He was showing her something.” I asked if he had heard what they said, and his face grew stern.

“I respect my customers’ privacy and I don’t snoop.” He had gone back to the stairs and was looking over the banister. I could tell by his expression that Dinah and Spenser were still in conversation. “Put in a good word with your friend for me, will you?” With that he went down the stairs and through the communal living room without stopping.

When I finally got outside, I was surprised to see sunshine and blue sky. How nice, just in time for tai chi. Dinah had been deeply entrenched in her conversation with Spenser. I’m sure she saw me when I went past, though she certainly didn’t show it. If she was getting some good information, I certainly didn’t want to disturb her. I wondered if she had noticed Commander go by.

Everything seemed to sparkle and look more cheerful with the addition of the sun. A trickle of people were walking on the boardwalk toward the beach. I joined them, thinking about Izabelle. A day ago at almost the same time she had been going this same way. I pictured her with her pouch purse dangling at her side. What was her mood when she headed toward the beach? Most important, who was she meeting? I walked out through the gate and crossed the street. The entrance to the beach was shaped by the fenced-off planted areas on either side. It was in one of those that we’d found the pouch purse. As I walked down the sandy entrance, I tried to figure out how Izabelle could have accidentally dropped her bag on the other side of the fence, as Sergeant French thought. Could she have been so impatient that she decided to cut through the plants? Maybe she was carrying shopping bags with the s’more ingredients and some wood for the fire, and with her arms full took the shortcut and the bag fell off her arm and she didn’t even notice. Still, the biggest question was how she came to eat the peanut butter-laced s’more.

It was giving me a headache to think about it, and I put all thoughts on hold as I walked across the sand toward where Mason was setting up.

This was the first time I was really seeing the beach. Before, it had been either foggy or night. Now I could see the huge waves rolling to the shore and admire their color. The water was actually sea foam green. As I stepped through the sand, I was taken with how white and silky it was. Adele had said the sand on this beach was unusual because it was formed by the waves wearing away granodiorite rocks along the shoreline. As I looked out over the open water, I pictured a map and saw myself standing on the edge of the peninsula between Carmel Bay and Monterey Bay. As Commander had said, it was the edge of the continent. Just a little way down, the Point Pinos lighthouse, with its beacon and foghorn, had been protecting sailors from crashing onto this outcropping of land since the 1850s. The breeze was fresh and constant-invigorating without being cold.

I had briefly wondered about taking part in the tai chi. Would it compromise my authority if people saw me stumbling in the sand? I’d never done tai chi, and the pull of the chance to try it won. Besides, I wanted to support Mason.