Free Joggers by R.E. Donald Page B

wharf, she
could see the obscene gash across his throat. El asked for a cup of
coffee.
    “ You here on vacation?”
the friendly cop said as he handed her a takeout coffee from the
restaurant.
    El snorted and turned away.
     
    She couldn’t tell them much, only that
she’d been the first to see the dead man and that he’d floated out
from under the wharf, draped in a garland of kelp, with his nylon
windbreaker ballooning around his neck like a life vest.
    “ Who is he?” she asked. “A
tourist?”
    “ Doubt it,” said the cop.
“Tourists are safe here.” He handed her a business card before he
sent her back to the motel.
     
    “ Let’s get out of here
quick before anything else happens,” she said to Pete the next
morning as she snapped her suitcase shut and yanked it off the bed,
but Pete needed to pee. “Okay,” she told him, “but let’s walk north
this time.”
    The fog was thicker this morning,
rocks and tufts of beach grasses materializing out of the white
soup only yards away. Pete tugged against his leash, his paws
throwing up clumps of sand, until El relented and unclipped it from
his collar. “Stay close,” she told him. “No rolling in crap or
rousting out crazies.” But the dog’s black shape blurred and then
disappeared. She looked back, but the motel was gone, too, and her
only means of orientation was the dirge of the surf. She shuddered,
zipped up her jacket and hugged her elbows.
    “ Pete!” she called.
“Come!” She strained her eyes against the fog and her ears against
the rhythmic thunder. Nothing. He should have done his business by
now. “Pete! COME!”
    El heard the barking first, then a
man’s voice. El’s sweat turned cold and her heart began to pound, a
syncopation of the surf. “Pete!” She started walking in the
direction the sound had come from. “PETE!”
    Suddenly a dark shape streaked past
her, ran a circle around her legs. She lunged for him, grabbed his
tail and pulled until he squealed. “Come here, you little shit.”
She hauled him up and held him against her chest, headed at a brisk
walk towards the motel. She hoped. She could see nothing but sand
and fog. Footfalls, already close by the time she heard them above
the surf, thudded against the sand behind her. She began to run.
Damn this sand! Damn this fog! A clump of beach grass materialized
in front of her and she swerved, lost her footing on the sand, and
went down. Pete fell clear, scampered back to stick his nose in her
face just as the footfalls thudded to a stop behind her
head.
    “ Are you okay?”
    El raised herself on one elbow and
twisted her head around to face the voice. It was the nerd, his
white tee shirt soaked with sweat, navy blue shorts hanging like
curtains around his thighs. Size thirteen Nikes. “I’m fine,
thanks,” she said. He jogged on the spot as she got to her feet and
brushed the sand off her sweatpants, Pete prancing around them
both. The man towered over her, maybe six five or six.
    “ You sure?” He pushed his
glasses up on his nose, baring his teeth as if it hurt.
    She nodded, grunted. “Tripped over my
dog, I guess.” She hauled Pete up again.
    “ Cute little fella.” The
man reached over and tousled Pete’s head. “A
Pomeranian?”
    “ More or less,” she said
with a shrug, stepping back. “Thanks for stopping, eh?”
    “ You Canadian?” he asked,
still jogging on the spot.
    “ Yeah,” she said, clipping
the leash back on Pete’s collar. A clumsy
female tourist, alone in the fog at six thirty the morning after a
murder with a massive, sweaty jogger.
    “ You here on vacation,
too?”
    “ No.” She tugged her
jacket down over her belly. “I’m not on goddamn vacation.” She
dropped the dog. “Let’s go, Pete.” Don’t
antagonize the guy. “Thanks again, eh?
Bye.”
    She heard him say “Bye” to her back as
she limped away. A moment later she recognized the motel’s roof
rising above the fog and picked up her pace.
    Suitcase under one arm