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cigarette into the night and kissed me.
    It was a rough, tongueless kiss. We both kept wary eyes open and let the kiss die without any attempts to prolong it or move onto other things. I could taste her tobacco in my mouth. No bourbon, yet. It was more a message, I thought, than a kiss. I just had to learn the code.
    I stepped up. She waved me in. The front door slammed. My eyes were immediately captured by the network of hand-hewn timber beams crossing above us and rising up to the roof. The walls and floors were an amalgam of broad planks, pitted, bowed and dark with years. She followed my eyes.
    “I guess you didn’t know. That’s why they call this Dugan’s Dump,” my hostess explained.
    “What?” I turned toward the crackling flames and disintegrating logs in the stone fireplace.
    “They’re ships’ masts, carrying beams and parts of their decks and hulls. All the shacks in ‘The Dump’ are what’s left of Conrad Dugan’s whaling fleet. Here,” she threw back the frilled corner of a faded indigo rug that lay at the foot of the fireplace. Carved deeply into one of the wide floor boards were scrolled capital letters spelling, ‘THE DRAGON QUEEN.’
    “Conrad Dugan,” Kate Barnum shook her head, “that stubborn old bastard. He ran Sound Hill in the whaling days. More than ten of my family manned his ships. Three drowned in the Atlantic while sailing this one,” she dragged her booted foot across the name carved into the flooring.
    “How’d his ships end up out here?” I had a flare for predictable questions.
    “When the whaling industry started its decline, Dugan’s advisers told him to sell off his fleet. Take the money and run. But like I said, Dugan was a stubborn old coot and refused. Seems he got this idea to turn Sound Hill into a combination Coney Island/Mystic Seaport type of affair. Really ahead of his time, if you consider it,” the reporter paused and considered.
    “Well, the old guy figures the tourists would get a real charge out of staying in hotels built out of his old ships. He owned all the land around here. So he had his fleet sailed into Kaitlin Cove and hauled overland the rest of the way. Kind of tough dragging ships through dense woods.”
    “That’s why there’s so much dirt!” I blurted out as if I’d stumbled onto the secret of time travel. “He had all the trees chopped down.”
    “Right,” she gave a condescending wink. “That old tree out front came after the slaughter.”
    “Sounds like an expensive proposition, all that chopping and hauling.”
    “Bankrupted the old prick,” she lit another cigarette. “Coney Whale Land never had a chance.”
    “But there was all this cleared land and the vessels were already on site.”
    “Right again, Klein,” she flicked ashes into the fire. “The town fathers, in conjunction with Dugan’s creditors, had a mini Oklahoma land rush of sorts. For a fifty-dollar fee, any Dugan employee could receive a plot of land out here. The only condition was that the employee had to build a substantial dwelling on the land within two months.”
    “Hence, Dugan’s Dump.” Satisfied with my inductive powers, I threw my flat ass onto a wicker sofa.
    “Don’t get so cozy,” Barnum admonished. “We’ve got to go pick up dinner. I hope you like pizza.”
    “Haven’t found any out here that compares with the city.”
    “Yeah, I know, but you’ll like it better than my cooking. Come on,” she pulled me up and threw on that unclean ski jacket. “This place in Floyd’s Bend is pretty good. Besides, the walk will build up your appetite.”
    “Walk!” I stepped back. “My appetite’s just fine. Floyd’s Bend is five miles from—”
    “Two miles and I know a shortcut. Please.”
    “Fine. Fine,” I relented grudgingly.
    She kissed me again. This time it was soft and close-eyed and encouraging. “Thanks, Klein,” she opened the door. “Walking helps curb my thirst and I don’t want to drink around you. Not tonight,