Lights! Camera! Murder!

A Thomas Martindale Mystery

by Ron Lovell

Chapter XIX

The western-most part of Oregon—its coastline and towns located along the Pacific Ocean—is separated from the more populated Willamette Valley by a relatively modest mountain chain, called appropriately enough, the Coast Range. The route over the mountains was a familiar one for me because it was the quickest way to get to the coast, an area I try to visit as often as I can.

I spent my sabbatical in a house in Newport about ten years ago and have been saving ever since for a place of my own along the rugged shoreline. For me, there is no more inspirational place in the world to write than a room with an ocean view.

The road from Corvallis to Newport, Oregon Highway 20, is a sometimes twisting, turning thoroughfare that can be dangerous if you aren’t careful. There are few places to pass another car safely, so I never do, lest I meet a logging truck head-on.

After talking to Dimitri Chekhov and reading the Nexus printout, I decided on a whim to drive to Martino’s inn and have a look around. No one would know me so I hoped I could wander in and not arouse suspicion.

I arrived in Newport a little before one and drove straight to the Canyon Way Restaurant, my favorite place to have lunch. The restaurant was probably the first in Oregon to be part of a bookstore. It was always jammed, both with people and stuff — everything from souvenir sweatshirts to incense burners to a great many books.

You practically have to walk sideways to get to the restaurant, a comfortable, slightly funky, L-shaped room which overlooked an enclosed patio where meals are served in the summer. Although it had outgrown its hippie beginnings, the place still had the feel of the sixties.

The room was only half full as I was led to a table in the corner. I sat down and the hostess handed me a menu.

“Will there be just one of you today?”

“Yes. Just me.”

She picked up the place setting across from me and smiled.

“Enjoy,” she said as she departed.

The eternal blessing of former lower children.

I started reading the menu, but I already knew what I wanted: the teriyaki chicken sandwich with homemade French fries. It was pure heaven, but very messy to eat. I always had to ask for an extra napkin.

As I waited for the waitress, I glanced at the booth in the corner and nearly choked on the water I was drinking. There sat Mr. and Mrs. Martino, big as life, along with someone whose face I couldn’t quite make out. It wasn’t that surprising to see OSU people in here. It was a favorite coastal haunt for many people I knew. It was just rather shocking to see the objects of my soon-to-be skulking around right there in front of me.

“Shit.”

“Sir. Is something wrong?”

In my intense concentration on the booth, I hadn’t seen the waitress arrive. She was smiling and wearing the typical, long, flowered 60s style dress.

“Oh no. Sorry for the language. I just remembered something I needed to do.”

I ordered my meal, then looked again at the reason for my outburst. Kurt Blake, the guy with the scar, and Mrs. Martino’s “nephew” was the other person sitting in the booth. He might remember me from the encounter earlier in the week in the parking lot in Corvallis. I hoped Gloria wouldn't see me. She would probably recall our earlier encounter. I put on my glasses and pulled the menu closer to me. I could always pretend to be reading it if they left before I did.

So far, though, he hadn’t looked in my direction. He and his “aunt” and “uncle” were talking in hushed tones. They were concentrating on each other and not paying much attention to anyone else in the restaurant. I wanted desperately to be a fly on the wall to hear what they were saying. I would have to be content with making my observations and drawing conclusions from across the room.

My salad arrived and I was glad to have something to do. The coach was nice-looking in a dark, Latin lover way—curly hair flecked with gray, bushy eyebrows, a long thin nose. From my meeting with her earlier, I already knew his wife was a knockout, except for all that makeup and big hair. Blake was good looking too: well-built in a body builder way, although shorter than the coach. His shaved head combined with the long scar gave him a menacing look that probably frightened dogs and small children. It sure as hell frightened me.

The main course arrived and I ate it quickly, both because I enjoyed it and because I suddenly decided I would just as soon not let the coach and members of his entourage see me. About half way through my meal, it looked as though they were getting ready to leave. The restaurant was nearly empty at this point so I knew all three of them would look at me when they walked out. To eliminate the possibility that Blake might remember me, I eased into the chair opposite where I was sitting and pulled my plate of food towards me. I did this when the three of them were looking at the bill, their line of sight to my table blocked, in part, by their waitress who was standing at the end of their table. Now, my back would be to them as they walked out, just another late diner enjoying his chicken sandwich. I relaxed a bit, confident that I was probably invisible as far as any chance for recognition was concerned.

In about five minutes, I heard them putting on coats and zipping up zippers. Then, I heard their footsteps creaking on the wooden plank floor. I busied myself with the dessert menu as they passed. It took all of my willpower not to turn and look at them, I was so curious.

“. . .takes about fifteen minutes. . . .” The coach was talking as they passed.

“You’ll love it, Kurt darling.” His wife was chiming in. Do most women call their nephews “darling”? I wonder?

In several more seconds, they were out of the restaurant, maybe planning to spend some time browsing in the bookstore. With more time to kill, I decided to order a piece of pecan pie for dessert.

****

Cape Foulweather is aptly named about six months of the year. As one of the highest promontories along the Oregon Coast, it is in a direct line to receive all the storms roaring in from the Pacific. There is nothing to break the force of the winds that regularly reach 75 miles per hour during the winter. The Cape is where Captain James Cook is reported to have first touched land in what is now Oregon in 1778. Cook didn’t stay long enough to establish a settlement, but the area has an historical marker detailing his brief visit.

Until the past few years, no one has ever lived on top of the cape, probably because of the bad weather. A development of expensive homes was now under construction, however. The bed and breakfast that Martino and his partners had purchased was an old farmhouse, long abandoned until the contractor that sold it to the coach rebuilt and modernized it.

I drove up Highway 101 and reached the top of the cape in about fifteen minutes. I turned left into a tourist parking area. I planned to leave my car here so I could move about more quietly than to announce my arrival with the noise of a car.

The road to the inn intersected with the north end of the parking lot. I parked and locked my car on the south end. To expedite a possible fast departure, I backed the car into a spot, front headed south, for a swift access to 101.

A sign stood to one side of the gate demarcating Martino’s property:

CAPE FOULWEATHER INN

A bed and breakfast experience

you will never forget

Open for the season: May 1

The gate was secured by a chain and padlock threaded through an iron loop screwed into a wooden fence post. There was no way to tell if Martino and the others had gone in, but I guessed that they had. I walked along the chain link fence that began at that post, heading north. The fence soon intersected with its counterpart stretching west. The trees were so dense on the inside of the enclosure that I couldn’t see anything.

I couldn’t risk being seen by anyone at the inn. I looked at my watch. 3:30. It would start getting dark in another 45 minutes. I decided to go back to my car and wait for a while. I wanted just enough light to be able to see to get inside the fence, but not so much that I’d be obvious to anyone looking out.

I walked to my car and watched the traffic roar by on Highway 101. It was less busy than in the peak of the tourist season. There were four RVs and trucks pulling trailers. There were a lot of log trucks, delivery trucks, and private cars. The drivers of the vehicles rarely slowed down along this stretch. That decision was probably something they regretted when southbound drivers hit the big pothole that had been carved out by winter rains just down from the crest of the hill. From my vantage point I could hear the dull thud of tires and then sometimes axles hitting the hole. A lot of cars would need to be realigned after tonight.

At about 4:10, I decided the lighting was finally right for me to make my move. I got out, making sure to tuck a small penlight in my pocket, and I put on my parka.

I turned the corner and walked toward the bluff, acting like a wandering tourist in case someone challenged me. I had put the strap of my camera around my neck and put on a cap with a bill. Sunglasses seemed a bit ridiculous because we had had only liquid sunshine for the past several days.

The fence ended at the edge of the cliff. The corner post was imbedded in a slab of rock which made it firm and steady—at least that is what I hoped. I took hold of the post and stepped around it so that first one foot, then the other were one the other side. Far below, the surf crashed noisily on the rocks with a force that propelled the spray up the wall almost to where I was standing. I could feel the mist on my face and taste the salt water on my lips. I had to fight the vertigo as I peered over the edge.

When viewed from above, a small ledge was the only thing that broke the flat face of the cliff. It was located about half of the way down, a bent and snaggy tree clinging precariously to its surface. All the trees in this part of the coast were sculpted by the wind into looking like they were trimmed by hedge clippers into an aircraft carrier configuration facing east.

It was nearly dark as I set foot on the grounds of the inn. I immediately walked back along the fence so I could stay hidden in the trees. I then began to veer away from the fence and head toward the south, still staying in the trees.

After walking a few hundred yards in that direction, I could see the rear of the inn. Two wings of the wood and stone structure jutted out to surround a swimming pool, filled with water despite the fact that it was January. Wafts of steam rose from the surface, illuminated from below by floodlights.

As I looked from the safety of the trees, a door at the rear of the house opened and Gloria Martino stepped out onto the wooden planks. She was wearing a white terry cloth robe that was so big that it kind of engulfed her with its long sleeves and hood.

“Oh Kurt. It’s so cold. I’ll freeze everything off out here.”

She was then consumed with gales of laughter as she walked to the edge of the pool. Blake then walked out onto the deck. Incongruously, given the cold night, he was wearing only a very tiny pair of swimming trunks, the better to show off his pecs and abs to his admiring audience of one. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t shivering.

She turned to face him and opened her robe. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the robe was all that was separating her from an immediate case of goose bumps. He walked toward her and kissed her hard on the lips. Where was the coach, I wondered?

Blake and Gloria then turned and jumped into the pool, the water splashing onto the wooden decking and the steam rising even higher into the dark, cloudy sky.

As I watched those two cavorting in the pool, I heard the sound of a car pulling up to the other side of the building. I stepped back carefully and walked quickly through the trees in the direction of the sound.

Floodlights bathed the front of the building in brightness so it was easy to see what was going on. A small white car had stopped in front and two younger women were getting out. The front door opened and Coach Martino bounded out.

“. . .great. . . glad. . . see. . . both. We’ll. . . have. . . time.”

He kissed both women in turn and put his arms around them. They giggled and the threesome moved toward the door like a flying wedge. If they didn’t disengage, they would certainly knock the door off the hinges. I couldn’t hear anything being said, only words here and there.

“. . . luggage.”

“. . . get. . . later. . . other plans. . . us.”

Did those other plans include a little menage a trois sexual activity? Was the coach into group sex and wife swapping? But these girls were not anyone’s wife. They really looked young, too young to have been married.

Sticking to the safety of the trees, I moved around the building to the area with the strongest light shining out of the windows. I could see right into what seemed to be a sitting room. A fire was burning in the fireplace and books lined two of the walls — all very elegant and cozy.

As I watched, the threesome came crashing through the door, all three of them laughing. Martino started ripping off their clothes and they, in turn, began to undress him.

I couldn’t watch any more. The whole thing made me sick to my stomach. A football coach, who was supposed to set a good example, was screwing young women inside while his wife was doing the same thing to a guy outside. I walked around to the back.

Gloria and Kurt were still in the pool. At about the time I stopped to watch, Kurt swam over to the edge nearest me and climbed out, and sat so his back was to me. She soon swam toward him. When she got there, she reached up and started tugging on his trunks. He then let her pull them off. Since Bobby Hardy was incapacitated by his steam tunnel burns, I guess Blake had moved to the number one position as the object of her affection.

“I’ve got a big one, just for you,” he laughed.

“Nothing’s too big for me,” she answered, joining in the laughter, tossing her head back.

Did I want to be in the pool with her? In my mind, I took the Fifth Amendment.

I leaned forward to get a better look and then it happened. I stepped on a brittle tree limb and the sound seemed to reverberate throughout the entire forest.

“What the fuck was that?” Kurt was getting to his feet.

“Don’t be vulgar, darling. I didn’t hear anything.”

“No. It sounded like somebody stepped on some twig or something.”

“Probably an animal, darling.”

I was holding my breath and standing very still. I had the advantage, for now, because the lights around the pool area were blinding him. I decided I had better make my move.

As Kurt stepped off the deck and started walking right toward me, I moved quickly to one side, then knocked him down by sticking my foot in his way. He fell hard, the ground probably stinging his bare legs as he went down.

“What the hell?” He seemed momentarily confused by what was happening to him. I took off running back toward the ocean, figuring that I’d have a head start because of Kurt’s dazed state. I found the fence easily, then began running along it toward the rear of the property.

Halfway there, I stepped into some kind of hole and the misstep sent me to my knees, pain shooting up my left leg. It felt like I had probably broken or badly strained my ankle.

I rolled over on my rear end and then dragged myself to the fence so I could rest and collect my thoughts a minutes. I listened for a moment or two, and heard nothing at first. So far, I seemed to be safe. I was beginning to sweat, even in the cold night air. When was I going to stop getting myself into these messes?

In the distance, I could hear the sound of feet hitting the ground hard. Someone was running toward the cliff. Although not heading directly for me, they were probably coming in my general direction.

I dragged myself to my feet and began limping toward the back using the fence as a support. I was almost to the end of the property and another swing around the post when I tripped again.

This time when I scrambled to get to my feet, however, I was not alone. I was staring into the snarling face of the biggest Doberman Pinscher I had ever seen.