Chapter 3
The next morning I woke early, made a big pot of coffee, and sat with my notebook to make a list.
The propane situation needed solving first. The generator ran fine, but the five-hundred-gallon tank was nearly empty. It had been running the stove and the water heater, but now the added generator would drain it even faster.
Getting the tank filled was more than a necessity, though.
It felt like a commitment, like I was planting stakes in these wooded slopes.
A five-hundred-gallon tank held four hundred gallons, the rest left to allow the liquid room to expand as outdoor temperatures change.
Even running the generator through the dark months, four hundred gallons would easily carry me through a full winter.
Fall was still months away, but bad weather on the coast of Washington didn't announce itself politely. It crept in through September rains and October storms and by November you were already deep in it.
I found the number for Pacific Cascade Propane on the side of the tank itself, faded but legible, stamped into a service sticker. I dialed it on my cell and waited through four rings.
"Pacific Cascade Propane, this is Tom speaking. How can I help you today?"
"Good to talk to another Tom. My name's Thomas Harmon."
"Hey, Thomas! No kidding. My full name's Thomas too, but everybody here calls me Tom. Started two weeks ago and I'm still figuring out the phone system, so bear with me."
"You're doing great so far."
"Ha! Appreciate that. So what can we do for you, Thomas?"
"I've got a five-hundred-gallon tank out at my property, looks like your company serviced it previously. I need a fill. Probably four hundred gallons to be safe."
"What's your address?" I gave it to him. "Okay, let me pull that up." I heard keys clicking. "Okay, yeah, I see the address in our system. Previous account holder was a Mark James?"
"Yes. I purchased the property from his daughter. I'm the new owner."
"Got it. Well, we can set you up with a new account, no problem.
For four hundred gallons at current rate, you're looking at about $3.
37 a gallon, so that puts you right around $1,350 total.
You're right down the road so we can do a delivery in two days, maybe sooner depending on the route schedule. "
"That's perfect. Let's do it."
"Great. I just need your billing info and we'll get you on the books."
I gave him my name, phone number, and card information. Tom read it all back to me with the careful tone of someone who'd been trained recently and wanted to get it right.
"All set, Thomas. You should see us out there day after tomorrow at the latest. I'll call before to confirm."
"I appreciate it, Tom. Seriously."
"Happy to help. Us Thomases gotta stick together, right?"
"Damn right."
I hung up, feeling good. One problem checked off the list. I made another cup of coffee, opened my laptop, and pulled up the insurance case I'd been working remotely.
A fire loss claim out of Aberdeen, commercial property, the documentation a mess.
The work was familiar and regimented and I was grateful for both.
Two hours in, my phone buzzed. Pacific Cascade Propane on the caller ID.
"Thomas Harmon."
"Hey, Thomas. It's Tom again, from Pacific Cascade."
"Hey. Is there a schedule change? Did a spot open up tomorrow?"
Silence on the other end. Not the comfortable kind.
"Tom?" I prompted.
"Yeah, I'm here. Listen, I... this is awkward.
I don't really know how to say this. So after we hung up this morning, I entered your account into the system like normal and sent the delivery request to dispatch.
About an hour ago my manager pulled me into his office and said the owner had flagged your account. "
"Is there something wrong with my card? Did I read the numbers wrong?"
"No, it's not a credit issue or a scheduling issue. He just said we can't sell to you... at all. A full blacklist. No sales. Period."
I sat very still in my chair in the quiet cabin. I felt a weight settle on my chest, pressing down hard.
"Did he say why?" I asked.
"No. That's what's so weird. My manager just said the owner made the call and that was that. Wouldn't explain it. When I asked, he told me to drop it and move on."
"What's the owner's name?"
"Gary Peters. He's owned the company for about twenty years. I've only met him once, at orientation. Seemed like a regular guy."
I wrote the name down on my notepad. It might matter later.
"Doesn't sound like much chance to change this," I said. "Is there?"
"Honestly, I don't think there's any chance. You're blacklisted. The End. That's what I was told."
"I understand. I appreciate you calling me back."
"I already deleted your card information, for what it's worth. Didn't feel right keeping it in the system if we're not doing business."
"That was decent of you. Thank you."
"Yeah." Another pause. Then, lower, almost conspiratorial, he said, "Can I ask you something? Off the record?"
"Go ahead."
"Did you do something to make the owner mad? Like, personally? Because I've been here two weeks and I've never seen anything like this. We've got customers who are three months late on payment and we still deliver to them. But your account got killed in an hour. That can't be normal."
"Tom, I've never met Gary Peter. I don't even know what he looks like."
"Then why would he do this?"
"That's a good question. I think I know the answer. And that's what makes this whole business shameful. When a man you've never met decides you don't deserve his business, it's not about you. It's about whoever whispered the orders in his ear."
Tom was quiet for a long time.
"That's messed up," he finally muttered.
"It is."
"I'm sorry, Thomas. Really."
"Don't be sorry. You did your job right and you had the guts to call me back and tell me the truth instead of letting it disappear into voicemail. That tells me something about your character. You're going to do well in this job."
"Thanks. I hope so. I mean, assuming the owner doesn't fire me for making this call."
"If he does, you'll land on your feet. Men who do the right thing always do, eventually."
"Good luck out there, man."
"Same to you, Tom."
I set the phone on the table and stared at it. The insurance claim glowed on my laptop screen, all its neat columns of damage estimates and depreciation schedules, the ordered logic of loss reduced to numbers. I closed the laptop.
Harlan Foster.
Of course it was Harlan. The electricity cutoff had been the first shot.
This was the next. Harlan was an asshole, but he wasn't stupid.
He couldn't buy me out, couldn't charm me out, couldn't intimidate me out, so now he'd freeze me out.
Literally. Cut the power, cut the fuel, and wait for winter to do its work.
I sat with the anger for a while, letting it burn through me without acting on it.
Then I opened the laptop again and searched for propane dealers in Forks.
Found one, Olympic Peninsula Propane. Family-owned, servicing the western corridor.
Their delivery range technically didn't cover my area and the extra distance would cost.
I called. A woman answered, older, all business.
"Olympic Peninsula Propane."
"Good afternoon. My name is Thomas Harmon. I need four hundred gallons delivered to a five-hundred-gallon residential tank."
"Address?"
I gave it to her. She typed it into her computer.
"Port Chasten area? That's a haul for us, plus you'd be the only customer out there, so no scheduling a multiple delivery route. We can still do it, but you're looking at a distance and single-trip surcharge on top of the per-gallon rate."
"I understand."
"You're better off getting it closer, from Pacific Cascade Propane. I can give you their number."
"That's not an option," I said, frustration creeping into my voice.
"Uh, okay."
I took a steadying breath. "What's the total price?"
"Current rate is $3.60 a gallon, plus a $250 added fee. So for four hundred gallons you're at $1,540 plus the $250. $1,790 total for the full four hundred gallons, minus what you already have in there."
$440 more than what Tom had quoted me three hours ago. I did the math in my head, but felt it in my wallet.
"Can you do it within the week?"
"Since you're the only one out there, we can get it to you tomorrow. That work?"
"That works. Let's set it up."
I gave her my information, confirmed the delivery time, and hung up. $1,790 for something that should have cost $1,350. The difference was a tax levied by one man's spite. I added it to the ledger I was keeping in my head, the one marked Harlan Foster that grew longer every week.
The rest of the afternoon I spent on the Aberdeen claim, forcing my mind into the clean mechanical work of it. Square footage calculations. Replacement cost versus actual cash value. The antiseptic language of loss that I'd spent twenty-two years learning to speak.
By five o'clock I'd finished the preliminary report. I saved it, emailed it to the firm, and shut the laptop down for the day.
I had a meal of tuna salad and fresh green salad, washed down with Claire's iced tea. Then it was time for my new evening ritual.
I went out onto the porch with my briar pipe and a tin of tobacco I'd gotten from a smoke shop in Forks.
I packed the bowl the way the smoke shop owner showed me.
The first pinch pressed gently, the second with more authority, the third firmed to just the right resistance.
I struck a match, held it above the tobacco, and drew.
The Latakia blend caught, releasing that pungent peat smell, leather and campfire and the faint hint of something almost musty beneath it. Latakia blends were an acquired taste, one I'd enjoyed in my younger days before Sybil made me quit.
I leaned back in the chair and let the smoke drift into the evening air, blue-gray against the green of the forest. The first cool edge of evening had crept in, and the smoke hung in layers, fragrant and still.
I was on my second bowl when headlights appeared on the drive. The white RAV4 pulled up beside the cabin. I waved as Grace climbed out carrying a small cardboard box, her black hair artfully mussed, wearing her usual uniform of a gray hoodie and jeans.
She walked up the porch steps and stopped dead.
"Oh my God." She waved her hand in front of her face. "What the fuck is that?"
"Pipe tobacco. It's a Latakia blend. English style."
"It smells like sweaty ass."
I laughed, the first I'd managed all day. Grace had that effect.
"It's actually a very refined smoke. Notes of wood fire and aged leather."
"Bro, I don't care if it's got notes of Seta Gialla #5. It smells like someone set a boot on fire." She thrust the box toward me, keeping her distance from the pipe. "Here. I got more yakgwa."
I opened the box. Inside, nestled in wax paper, were a dozen small golden pastries shaped like flowers, glistening with a honey glaze.
"How'd you make them?"
"I used the motel kitchen after the breakfast service shut down. Don't tell my manager."
"Grace, these look incredible."
"They're mid, honestly. I didn't have the right flour. Korean stores are scarce around here. But whatever, it's free food."
I bit into one. The outside crumbled into flaky sweetness, then the ginger and sesame hit, warm and deep, chased by the honey that coated everything without drowning it.
"These are not mid. They're fire, yo."
Grace laughed with me, shaking her head. She perched on the porch railing, feet dangling, and checked her phone.
"I can't stay long. Overnight desk shift starts at ten and I still gotta shower and change. The guests get weird if the front desk girl smells like a deep fryer."
"I appreciate you bringing these by."
"No problem. How was your day? You look kinda frazzled."
I set my pipe down and told her about the morning call with Tom, the cheerful scheduling, the callback two hours later. The blacklist. The embarrassment in a stranger's voice as he delivered news that wasn't his to deliver. The Forks dealer who'd charge me $1,790 for what should have cost $1,350.
Grace listened without interrupting, which was unusual for her. When I finished, she was still for a moment, her jaw working.
"So let me get this straight. This old crusty rich dude is now literally trying to freeze you out of your own house?"
"That's the shape of it."
"First the electricity. Now the propane. What's next, he gonna poison the well?"
"Don't give him ideas."
"Thomas, that man needs a punch in the mouth. Straight up. Like, no warning, just walk up to his fancy office and lay him the hell out."
"Tempting."
"I'm not joking. That's some evil landlord shit. And he's not even your landlord! He's just some dude who wants your land and he's out here playing puppet master with the whole damn county."
"He's been doing it for thirty years. He cheated the man who owned this land before me. Cheated his daughter after him. He's patient and connected and smart."
"Well, he's a bitch."
I picked up the pipe again, struck another match, and relit the bowl. The Latakia smoke rose between us.
"You're right about one thing," I said. "He does need to be stopped. But I might have something better than a punch in the mouth."
Grace narrowed her eyes. "What does that mean?"
"It means that Harlan Foster has been very comfortable for a very long time, and comfortable men get sloppy. They leave trails."
"You found something?"
"I found someone."
"Who?" she asked eagerly.
"I'm not ready to talk about it yet. But when the time comes, it could be big. A punch fades in five minutes. What I have in mind is going to last."
Grace studied me for a long moment, her light brown eyes sharp, searching.
"You know, for a guy who smokes a stinky-ass pipe and lives in the woods, you're kind of scary sometimes."
"I'm a former insurance adjuster. We're trained to find where the damage is."
"Okay, that was lowkey badass." She hopped off the railing and snagged a yakgwa from the box. "I gotta bounce. Eat those tonight, they get stale fast."
She jogged down to the RAV4, fired the engine, and backed out. I watched her taillights disappear into the trees and sat alone on the porch with my pipe and the box of honey cookies and the quiet hope that Harlan Foster was facing problems he didn't even know about yet.