Serious Moonlight(10)

Sitting across the bay from Seattle, Bainbridge Island is an idyllic community that could be considered the Nantucket of the Pacific Northwest, dense with evergreens on land and sailboats on water. It’s a sleepy, laid-back island—nightlife includes a couple of bars and a grocery store that stays open until eleven p.m.—but we get our fair share of photographers and style bloggers who like to use us as a romantic backdrop for pretty pictures. And every day tourists take the ferry over from the city to stroll through the harbor village of Winslow, our downtown area: waterfront seafood restaurants, local wine, art galleries, and a darn good ice cream shop.

There’s not much else to see or do here. But if you’re lucky enough to live on the coast like we do, you get top-notch views of the harbor and, in the distance, Seattle’s skyline.

Those views were not to be underestimated. By the time I disembarked from my ferry and hiked the ten-minute stretch of sidewalk around the harbor, the sun was rising over blue water scattered with sailboats, and it was a welcome sight.

Our waterfront home sat five steps down from the coastal road, through a tidy yard with a greenhouse and a lily-surfaced koi pond with no koi. We used to have a giant white-and-red koi named Clementine in the pond. She was as big as my forearm and lived there since my grandma was a little girl. My grandma took care of her, then my mom, and then me, when I moved in here after Mom died. But Clementine got sluggish after Christmas, and then I found her floating in February. Sometimes koi can live a hundred years, but Clementine only made it to fifty. It was as if she knew Grandma died and didn’t want to go on.

Grandpa and I weren’t ready to replace her yet. Some people think fish are unemotional pets, but they get to know and trust you. Clementine would not only eat watermelon and orange slices from my hand, but she would circle the pond and stay near me when I’d help Grandma weed the flower beds outside the greenhouse. Fish have personalities; they’re just quiet ones. I guess that’s why I liked them. I could relate.

Our house has been in our family since it was built in the early twentieth century. Sometime before I was born, my grandfather painted it sky blue and updated the kitchen—except for the black-and-white checkerboard floor that I crossed now to set my keys in a little bowl on the counter.

After calling upstairs and getting no answer, I padded through the kitchen to look for Grandpa out back. Most of the homes around us had been extensively renovated or torn down and replaced with modern million-dollar masterpieces built by eco-architecture firms. Compared to them, our old Craftsman was an eyesore. But on a clear day, we had the same glittering views of the Seattle skyline and Mount Rainier, the same narrow rocky beach for a backyard—which was where I found my grandfather that morning.

“That you, Birdie?” Grandpa Hugo asked as the screen door slammed behind me.

Shells and rocks ground beneath my shoes as I made my way across the tiny beach to a pair of wooden Adirondack chairs. He sat there, watching the sunrise, as he frequently did. “The one and only,” I said, taking his outstretched hand as he reached back and guided me around to the empty chair next to him. Below his wire-rim glasses, his smile was sincere, and his cheeks were rosy.

“You managed to avoid murder on the ferry,” he said cheerfully.

“Both my own and others.”

He was dressed as he always was: crisp white button-down shirt and pressed slacks held up by black suspenders, which he wore because a belt irritated his metal hip after the boating injury that sent him into early retirement from the Coast Guard—and made him dependent upon mild opiates and the footed walking cane that stood in the stand near his chair.

Despite the bum hip, he was healthy and sharp, and he looked good for his age—especially for someone who slept only a few hours at night. Before Grandpa’s accident, I assumed his work schedule caused him to be sleepy, because he often worked at night, shutting down offshore smuggling operations around the Sound. After the accident, when he was officially diagnosed with narcolepsy, he said he was too old to change his ways and that the medicine his doctor wanted him to take made him feel weird.

If I had to profile Grandpa Hugo, it would look like this:

Suspect: Hugo Lindberg

Age: 59

Occupation: Former criminal investigator, US Coast Guard, base Seattle

Medical conditions: (1) Narcolepsy. (2) Metal hip and pins in left leg. (3) Nearsighted; wears glasses. (4) Comically afraid of big spiders.

Personality traits: Kind. Excellent with details. Good observer.

Background: Born on Bainbridge Island. Parents were Swedish immigrants. Married Eleanor May Gladstone in 1979. Loves paperback thrillers, model ships, and fishing. Has one close friend. Regrets kicking his pregnant teenage daughter out of the house after a major fight, which kept him and his wife estranged from his granddaughter for ten years. Never quite got over his daughter’s untimely death.

“I texted you twice to let you know I was safe,” I told him. Once while I was holed up in the hotel bathroom after work and again when I’d safely made it onto the ferry.

“And I got them. Much appreciated, Birdie.”

“You made me breakfast?”

Orange juice, a carafe of hot tea, muesli cereal, and yogurt. All of it was artfully arranged on an old wooden cable-spool table between us.

“It was exhausting,” he teased. “I could barely get the cereal box open. Scoot your cup over and let me pour you some bergamot tea. Tell me all about your first night. Did you stumble upon any cases that needed solving?”