Muller, Marcia - [11] Trophies and Dead Things(v1.0)(html) Page A

cottages
with long docks extending out into the gray, choppy water. I saw a
motel, a yacht club, a barbecue restaurant, and a rather bizarre house
with turrets that reminded me of a Greek Orthodox church. Then the road
began to wind uphill through a conifer forest; I swerved sharply coming
around a curve, to avoid a pair of joggers. Shortly after the sign for
the Point Reyes National Seashore appeared, the road forked; Pierce
Point veered to the right, toward McClure's Beach.
    Within a mile the countryside
flattened to dairy graze. Cows stood in clumps or stared stupidly at
the road through the fences. Vegetation became sparser—mainly yellow
gorse and flowering thistles. The
land stretched toward Wuffs that overlooked the distant sea and bay,
its barrenness broken only by clusters of ranch buildings. Although I
encountered a few bicyclists and several other cars, the desolation
overwhelmed me, flattening my spirits; I wondered what this place would
be like in the dark of a moonless night.
    When I'd traveled a little under
four miles, I came to a sharp bend in the road and caught my first
unobstructed view of the Pacific, breakers crashing onto a sand beach.
A backwater extended inland, cut off now at low tide. Its motionless
surface mirrored the somber sky. Abbotts Lagoon, I supposed.
    I came out of the hairpin turn
and pulled into an overlook. Below me the land dropped away steeply,
then sloped gently to the lagoon. Tucked into a hollow between two
cypress-covered knolls was a collection of buildings—white, and small
as toys from this vantage. I drove about twenty yards further before I
spotted a weathered sign for the Moon Ridge Stables. A rutted dirt
driveway led away through the pastureland.
    I followed it, avoiding the
deeper potholes. As I neared the first grove of cypress I saw a long,
low house tucked under them, its paint mostly scoured off by the
elements. The drive continued through more pastureland, and then I came
to a paddock where a half dozen motley-looking horses huddled by an
empty feed rack; beyond it was a weathered barn and various other
outbuildings. Two heavily bundled riders straddled a pair of pintos
directly in front of the barn door, and a woman squatted beside one,
checking the saddle girth. When she heard my car, she glanced over her
shoulder at it, then went on with what she was doing. All I could make
out about her was longish curly dark blond hair.
    I brought the MG to a stop next
to the paddock's rail fence. When I got out, the wind buffeted me,
strong and bitterly cold even in this protected place. The woman
straightened, wiping her palms on the thighs of
her faded jeans. After a few words with her, the riders started off
toward a bridle path that snaked under the trees in the direction of
the lagoon.
    The woman turned and came toward
me, moving in a long, athletic stride. She was tall and rangy, with a
generous mouth and startling violet eyes. Although she was only in her
forties, her skin was as weathered as the paint on the barn, but the
lines and furrows gave an odd attractiveness to what otherwise would
have been a plain face.
    "Hello," she called in a husky
voice. "What can I do for you?"
    I moved around the MG. "I'm
looking for Libby Heikkinen Ross."
    The woman slowed, a wariness
entering her eyes. "That's me."
    "You the owner?" I gestured
around us.
     "Owner and sole
employee, unless you count my worthless
stepson and the kid who cleans out the stalls." Her tone was friendly
but guarded. She stopped, folding her arms across the front of her blue
down jacket.
    I went up to her and handed her
one of my cards. She studied it, then said flatly, "Is this about
Dick?"
    "Dick?"
    "My stepson, the useless little
bastard."
    "No." A sudden blast of cold
air rushed down from the knoll
behind us, whipping my jacket open. "Is there someplace warmer where we
can talk?"
    She nodded curtly and led me
toward the barn. There was a shed attached to one side of it—a tack
room. Saddles rested on pegs