Page 6 of Fire Harbor
“Somebody got a pasta maker for Christmas,” Lake said with a laugh as she ran a hand over the cover. “I can’t keep this one copy on the shelves. It’s popular because the author breaks down how to make each special dough and turns each one into so many different shapes. She goes over all the fillings and then gives you a multitude of recipes for sauces.”
“That’s what I heard. This one got rave reviews when it came out last fall. You see, I did get a pasta maker for Christmas,” Julianne confessed. “I’ve been promising Ryder a homecooked meal ever since. Plus, we have company coming for Easter. With spring break next week, I thought it was the perfect time to crack open a cookbook and serve something other than ham for Easter dinner.”
As a vegetarian, Lake nodded with approval. “Great idea. Start with the wild mushroom sauce on page 257. It’s delicious. But do take your time reading it from cover to cover. That way, you’ll discover your own favorites by trying each recipe.”
Julianne hugged the book to her chest. “I’m looking forward to it already. Thanks, Lake. If I don’t see you tomorrow, have a great weekend.”
“Be sure to let me know how the Easter dinner goes.”
“Will do.”
The last patron of the day was fifty-year-old Gloria Peacock, who worked at the courthouse and checked out five mysteries by the same author per week.
Lake stamped each book and grinned. “This must be your Michael Connelly phase.”
“Definitely. I like to read everything by one author before going on to the next writer.”
“Now that’s a plan I should push to our younger readers. How many of these do you read in one day?” Lake asked the petite woman.
“What with nothing on TV these days but trashy reality shows, I read during my lunch break and evenings, which means I’ll be back in here next Wednesday ready to switch authors. I’ve already read everything else Connelly’s written. Do you ever get so fed up with those two silly girls squabbling that you want to ban them? All they do is call people names.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever banned anyone before, maybe because I’m used to their bickering. Alice always finds something to complain about, and Nikki always takes the opposite point of view. That’s why they never sit together when they’re here, preferring to keep their distance at separate tables.”
But Lake didn’t add that she knew both girls stayed here after school because they didn’t want to go home. She didn’t have the heart to turn them away.
Instead of taking the time to gossip further, Lake turned the lock behind Mrs. Peacock and wandered the aisles doing a quick sweep through the computer area and bookshelves to make sure no one had been left behind. When she was satisfied that everyone had cleared out, she reached beneath her desk to grab her cardigan, her bookbag, her bike helmet, and the yellow retro 1965 Snoopy lunch box that had belonged to her dad, the one she carried every day to bring lunch from home.
As was her routine, she exited out the side door, which automatically locked behind her, to where she’d parked her bicycle, a Huffy cruiser left over from her teenage years. She tossed her bag and lunch box into the basket and slipped the helmet on over her head before bending down to undo the lock.
Thanks to daylight savings time, she still had at least two hours before sunset. Lake intended to make the most of her time outdoors. After being cooped up most of the day indoors, she breathed in the fresh air and straddled the bike, gladly taking her time pedaling toward home.
On the corner of Pacific Street and Bishops Bay sat the hundred-year-old shingled-style house where Lake Marigold had grown up. Built with a hint of Victorian influence, it was painted in a subdued grayish blue with white trim and stood out from the rest of the houses on the block because of its age. But it also had an odd look about it. With its tall mansard roof, its ornate Italianesque accents, yet slender wooden columns with fashionable spindles adorning the long porch, the property had been in Lake’s family since 1900 when the land had belonged to a farmer who grew oranges.
Her great-grandfather William Marigold had changed all that.
He’d been a young tightfisted Scrooge from San Francisco who had sought to buy cheap land where he could build a decent-sized home for his growing family. He struck a deal with the struggling grower who had fallen on hard times. Some say Marigold flat-out stole the property from under the farmer for a ridiculously low price. Others claimed he rescued the land from developers. Still, others argued that the citrus trees were infested with pests and, therefore, the fruit unsellable.
Whatever the true story was, once her descendant had taken possession, he leveled the orchard to make room for a modest one-story cottage-style house.
It remained that way until around 1914 when William hired an architect from Long Island named Leland Sloan. Sloan would add a second story and change the façade to a more traditional Second Empire look with its roots born in nineteenth-century Paris. Sloan copied a style popular on the East Coast at the time, specifically along the waterfront in Lloyd Harbor.
By the close of World War I, what had started out as a humble abode had become a showplace befitting the town’s newly appointed bank president, which happened to be William Marigold. A decade of prosperity followed. But William’s good fortune would come to an end with the collapse of Wall Street in 1929. Wiped out like so many others, William died of a heart attack two months later on the 29th of December at the age of fifty-six, leaving his wife Edna with five children to feed, the youngest aged eight and the oldest seventeen.
To make ends meet, the two older boys got jobs at a nearby lumber mill while their mother began taking in boarders, filling every bedroom with long-term, paying guests, and forcing the children to share cramped quarters in one room downstairs off the kitchen.
Through hardships and another war, the Marigolds somehow managed to hold onto the house, handing it down from one generation to the next until it came to Lake’s father, Samuel Marigold.
Long gone were the great uncles, lost to battle and combat or old age. Long gone were the great aunts, who had married and moved away to start their own lives in other parts of the country.
No longer a boarding house, Samuel Marigold, a mathematics professor at Cal Poly, now living three hours south in San Luis Obispo, had deeded the property as a graduation present to his only daughter. With her Ph.D. in library science in hand and a local job, Lake could ensure the house stayed in the family for as long as she wanted to remain in Pelican Pointe.
And Lake Marigold had no plans to go anywhere.
She lived a quiet life with no desire to shake things up. She liked the familiar, waking up to the same things every day and keeping to her routine. Unlike her mother, who had found everything about routine boring, especially small-town life in Pelican Pointe, Lake loved it. That was probably why Lake had turned out more like her father than Dina Marigold—now Dina Whittaker, who lived out of state and married to a Texas oil man. Everyone in town knew the story. Dina had taken off in the middle of the night, leaving behind her daughter and husband so she could be with a prosperous man twenty years her senior.
Lake had been five years old when her mother left.
Since Dina’s departure, Lake knew Sam had done his best to be both mother and father. And she was fine with that. She’d made her peace a long time ago growing up without a mother. She saw no reason to change the way she felt now as an adult.