•••
It wasn’t until I got back to Bainbridge Island that I remembered Grandpa was gone on his fishing trip with Cass. Instead of heading home, I walked past the harbor shops and hiked up the main drag to Aunt Mona’s house while the sun timidly peeked through gray clouds. But when I spied the retro red letters ofTHE RIVERAon the marquee above the doorway, I also spotted a shiny black SUV parked in front of the door. My first thought was that the cops had come to arrest Mona for stealing that painting from Sharkovsky’s house, but as I quickened my steps, hugging my purse against my ribs, I realized it was something far worse.
Leon Snodgrass.
He was putting something in the back seat of the SUV. When he shut the door and looked up, our eyes met. It had been more than a year since I’d seen him, and some things looked exactly as I remembered: pasty-white rich-boy complexion. Long nose. Stupid 1990s band T-shirt, in an attempt to look less like the stockbroker that he was.
But other things had changed. No longer clipped short, his chin-length light brown hair was tucked behind his ears. A matching beard covered the lower half of his face. And he was wearing jeans. I’d never seen him outside a pair of khakis.
If I had to profile Leon Snodgrass, it would look a little like this:
Suspect:Leon Snodgrass
Age:39
Occupation:Investment banker
Medical conditions:(1) Allergic to mangoes. (2) Terrible yet frequent golfer. (3) Thinks “da bomb” is a funny way to describe things he likes. (4) Says Monopoly is better than Clue. (5) Possible foot fetish; always looking at Mona’s feet.
Background:Born into an upper-middle class family on Bainbridge Island; great-grandfather owned a shipbuilding company in Scotland in the early twentieth century. Went to the University of Washington; has master’s degree in finance and brags that he met former President Barack Obama in 2010 when the man made an appearance at a bakery in Pioneer Square, and that President Obama complimented his shoes. Won a bunch of sailing competitions after college. Started dating Mona four years ago; broke up. Then again two years ago, before going on a “break” a year later, during which time, seventeen-year-old Birdie Lindberg took photographs of him laughing it up over calamari with Cathy Wong inside Doc’s Marina Grill. A month later he moved to Texas. Some of us wished he’d stayed there.
“Birdie,” Leon said, blinking at me as if I were a figment of his imagination.
“Leon,” I replied, hugging my purse more tightly. “Heard you were in town.”
He nervously tucked his hair more firmly behind his ears. “Yeah. Decided to move back to the island. Austin was great, but it’s sweltering, and the traffic is insane. And I got sick of waiting in line for breakfast tacos.”
Did he say “move back”? As in permanently?
“Well, hoo-boy,” I said. “You came back to a real restaurant mecca here, didn’t you?” I said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “Now you get to wait in line behind chatty Mrs. Carmichael at Pegasus Coffee.”
He laughed softly and scratched the back of his head. “Believe it or not, I’ve missed all this. You don’t realize how fresh the air is until you’ve gone.”
“Like Murden Cove’s tidal flats?” Farther north on the island, they start stinking like sulfur in the summer during low tide.
“Ugh,MurderCove,” he says, wincing. “Okay, maybe I didn’t miss that. But the rest of it. Plus, the city is right across the water. I can zip over there if I’m missing nightlife.”
“In your super-dope new yacht?” I said. “What was that you named it?The Spirit of a Woman I Don’t Deserve?”
“Oof,” he said, blowing out a hard breath. “Why are teens so vicious?”
“Because we haven’t learned the art of being phony yet, Mr. Soundgarden.”
He looked down at his T-shirt. “They were the first band I ever saw in concert.”
“And what’s with the hair and the jeans? Trying to relive your golden years? Is that why you’re chasing Mona again? You know she doesn’t fit in with your golfing lifestyle, right? That hasn’t changed.”
“I don’t have a golfing lifestyle. I learned to play golf so that I could schmooze my clients. It’s called being good at my job.”
“Now you’re bad and bourgeois, buying yachts and making it rain?”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“That doesn’t surprise me in the least.”
“Why are you throwing all this shade on me, Birdie?” He said this as if he were partly teasing, partly confused.
My patience was in tatters. Everything I’d endured over the last couple of days—Daniel’s confession over sushi, our emotional talk in Green Gables, my accidental foray into stoner life, the cataplexy episode last night, and getting yelled at by Cherry this morning... It felt as if I were in the middle of a lake, trying to paddle a canoe by myself, and some unseen force was poking holes in the boat, letting in more and more water. My canoe was sinking, and Leon had the misfortune of being a fish in the wrong place at the wrong time.
