“A fiberglass patch?” Pearly replaced his cap. This was turning ugly. He looked over towards the pier, where a strip of paving, running beside the pilings to the water, served as a launching ramp. Three seagulls were perched on the ramp squabbling over an unidentifiable, long-dead lump of something. “I know someone who might help you. Guy named Oliver Wendell, lives up on the Hound Hill road, off Route 1. Designs and builds boats. He’s John Wendell’s son.”
Pearly saw her blank look. “John Wendell, the yacht designer?” Pearly shrugged. “Better’n he seems, anyhow.”
* * *
Sarah rattled out of Pearly’s driveway onto the tarred road while Owl lurched along behind, a dead weight. She was beginning to think the boat should be named Albatross or Disaster instead of Owl. She’d hoped for a little encouragement, some advice that would get her out on the water in a few days. Instead, Owl was beginning to sound like a lost cause, or months of work at the very least. The boat was becoming a metaphor for her own life—worse than it looked.
Yes, she and Owl had a lot in common. They were both old, useless, beat up, bulging, rotting, on the verge of total collapse.
Sarah headed back up to Route 1, and down Merrifield road to Burnt Cove. She would get some groceries and spend the afternoon settling in, perhaps take a drive around Squirrel Point. Oliver Wendell could wait until tomorrow when she had finished wallowing in her self-pity.
Burnt Cove consisted of a few dozen buildings clustered around a small, sheltered harbor. Like everything else here, the center of town was disconcertingly changed, yet unchanged, from her childhood. Many of the old buildings were still there, but freshly fixed up and surrounded by new ones.
The old Grange hall was now a gift shop. Tabler’s market, on the other hand, looked the same except for pavement replacing dirt in the parking lot.
The archetypal Lobster Shack was still at the water’s edge, hard by the town pier, where it looked like it had sat since the dawn of time. The place had been enlarged, though, and embellished with awnings and picnic tables.
The town pier had been rebuilt and its adjacent parking lot was paved now. A boat hauler, a big, low-slung trailer with hinged, hydraulically-powered arms to support a boat, was easing a forty-foot yawl down the ramp into the water. At least Sarah thought it was a yawl and not a ketch. She tried to remember Sam’s teachings on these matters. She was sure they both had the big mast in front of the small one. Yes, she remembered, a yawl has the small mast in back of the rudder, while a ketch has it in front, just like Y comes after K in the alphabet. Sarah smiled to herself, pleased at being able to dredge up these nautical bits of lore and careful not to think about other, more arcane boat types.
She stopped at Tabler’s market on the way home and picked up a few groceries. Their choice of food had gone upscale. The meat, potatoes, beans, and Wonder bread of old had been augmented by racks of wine, exotic cheeses, and focaccia. The prices were more upscale as well.
* * *
Sarah drove past the Merlew’s driveway and continued on towards Squirrel Point at the tip of the peninsula. Though she didn’t plan to go that far right now, the road eventually led to the rambling, turn-of-the-century Squirrel Point Hotel, where it made a hairpin turn and meandered back up the west side of the peninsula back to Route 1.
Migawoc Camp had once occupied almost twenty acres along the rocky shoreline of Kwiguigum Sound, a sizeable amount of waterfront by present standards. Migawoc’s land was covered with mansions now, most of them huge.
Myra’s small, run-down Colonial had sat at the far edge of the camp, which was how Sarah came to know her in the first place. Driving slowly, Sarah found Myra’s battered mailbox and the short, dirt driveway. Not wanting to maneuver her trailer into Myra’s cramped drive, she parked across the road, next to a “Land For Sale” sign.
Myra’s yard was smaller than Sarah remembered. There was a modest vegetable garden, untended since fall, beside the house. Next to the garden, a small hen house rotted amid a jungle of brush. A derelict Studebaker, whose faded pea-green paint was spotted with rust, sat nearby. A stand of poplar saplings surrounded the vehicle like the bars of a jail cell, and one had managed to grow through a crack between the front bumper and the body as though trying to prevent the car’s escape.
Nothing was left of Myra’s home but a pile of burnt wood that filled the cellar hole. A few charred beams reached drunkenly into the air as though caught while trying to escape the flames, and a shattered chimney jutted out of the wreckage. The smell of damp ashes, overlaid with a faint aroma of decay, hung in the air.
Beyond the blackened foundation stones, a scraggly patch of lawn reached down to a line of trees, with the water just visible through the branches. Most people would have cut down the trees to open up a view across Kwiguigum Sound, but Myra had kept them, claiming they held back the fog.
To Sarah’s left, through a thick stand of brush and softwood, lay Migawoc’s former archery and playing field.
The screech of a power saw echoed through the trees.
Sarah remembered when she and Marlee Sue Ruggles had first met Myra Huggard. The girls were both thirteen, Sarah from South Boston, her friend from New Orleans.
Marlee Sue, with her wealthy southern background, and Sarah with her working-class Boston-Irish upbringing, had both felt out of place in an upscale Maine summer camp at first, and they instinctively banded together from the start.
The day they met Myra, the two city-girls had wandered beyond the archery field and gotten lost in a nearly impenetrable strip of fir and spruce. Eventually, they emerged behind Myra’s chicken coop where their arrival stirred its occupants into a frenzy of squawking that brought Myra out to investigate. She was in her fifties then, a tall, boney, worn, hard-faced woman, her gray hair in an unkempt bun.
“Why are you brats stirring up my hens?” Myra demanded.
“We’re lost,” Sarah replied, noticing that Myra had a black eye.
“Lost? I suppose you’re from the damn camp. I’ve had trouble with you kids before, now git.” She glared down at them and made shooing gestures with her hand as though they were a pair of oversized chickens.
“But we don’t know which way to go,” Marlee Sue said, in her lilting southern accent.
“I don’t care where you go, just get off my land before I take a shotgun to you.” Myra glared some more and swore under her breath. “Come on,” she said impatiently. Without waiting for a response, she pushed her way into the woods.
If Myra Huggard thought that she had permanently disposed of her visitors, she was sadly mistaken.
* * *
A silver-gray Volvo sedan purred into the driveway, jolting Sarah back to the present. Her apprehension at being caught here was relieved by the appearance of the man who emerged from the car. He looked about her age, with a round, friendly face, high forehead, and thinning blonde hair done in an artful comb-over. Overall, he had the appearance of a man who had known hard manual labor in his youth, but had gone soft in middle-age.
“Brian Curtis,” he said, extending his hand and giving her a dazzling smile. “I’m the real estate agent in town, and saw your car out front.”
He, and half the town, she supposed.
“Sarah Cassidy,” she replied, entranced by the smile.
“Looking the place over?”
“No, but I knew Myra and decided to stop by.”
Brian’s expression sharpened. “You knew Myra?”
“I went to Migawoc when I was a girl,” Sarah explained.
“So you know the Merlews, then.”
“Yes. In fact I’m staying with them for the summer.”
“Well good,” Brian said gallantly.
He glanced at the cellar hole. “Terrible accident. You heard what happened?”
“The Merlews told me about it.”
“Myra Huggard will be missed,” he pronounced, looking at his watch. “I’m late for an appointment, but maybe I’ll catch you later. And let me know
if you decide to buy the place.”
Sarah watched the Volvo glide away, then turned to the Studebaker and the rotting hen house. Things really had changed.
Speaking of change, what had become of Marlee Sue? Sarah had lost touch with her long ago, but she pictured her young companion lounging on the veranda of a classic southern mansion while she sipped a mint julep and chatted with a handsome Southern Gentleman whose name began with Colonel.
A southerly wind had sprung up and brought with it cold, damp ocean air. The glimpse of water Sarah could see through the trees had a steely gray look that made her shiver, reminding her that coastal Maine was a lot cooler in early May than Massachusetts.
Sarah decided to explore the shoreline another day.
She emerged from the driveway and started across the road to the Ford. Suddenly, she was engulfed by the roar of an engine, the flash of a red fender, the blast of a horn. She leaped for the ditch, felt a blow, and tumbled through the air as the trees whirled around her.
Chapter 4
A Chickadee sang its spring song in the branches overhead, while a cool wind hummed faintly through the spruce boughs. Dappled sunlight touched the ground where Sarah lay in the ditch and inventoried her aches and pains. Her right hip, wrist, and shoulder were sore. She moved her limbs cautiously. Nothing seemed to be broken, though her forearm was scraped. Sarah lay shivering for a few moments longer amid the smell of balsam, dampness and dead leaves. If she had been any slower . . .
Icy water began to soak through her clothes, and she eased into a standing position, staggered over to the Explorer like a woman twice her age, and leaned against the warmth of its hood. She looked again at the scrape on her forearm, half-heartedly brushed twigs and leaves from her hair and clothing, and wondered why the truck hadn’t stopped. Did he panic?
On the other hand, the truck was accelerating when it swept around the corner, and the driver blew his horn and swerved across the road as though trying to hit her.
That’s when she noticed a man watching. He stood some twenty feet away, beside a battered bicycle with a pair of five-gallon plastic buckets tied on either side of the rear wheels. Unkempt gray hair sprouted from under a grimy, knitted watch cap that looked like it had once been navy blue, untold years ago. A scruffy beard hid most of his face.
He stared at her through bloodshot eyes. “You don’t live here,”he announced.
Sarah looked at his grungy clothes. “No, do you?”
“I live on the planet’s surface,” he replied solemnly.
Sarah wondered if she was hallucinating, or if her hearing had failed, or if she was dealing with a nutcase on a bicycle in addition to a homicidal maniac in a truck. Was the whole town like this?
“Did you see what happened?” she asked. “Do you know whose truck that was?”
“I see things that live in ditches.”
By way of demonstration, he leaned over, picked an empty beer can from the underbrush, and tossed it into one of the buckets.
“Perhaps you aren’t compatible with the space-time continuum,” he added as he remounted his rickety machine and peddled off.
Sarah covered the short drive to her apartment in a daze. She barely glanced at the immense new house going up next Myra’s place, or the second mansion that occupied the former location of Camp Migawoc’s log dining hall.
She parked the car and trailer as far out of the way as possible and limped to her apartment door with the bags of groceries, thankful that she hadn’t bought anything heavy.
Once inside, she finished brushing the stray twigs out of her hair and weighed the relative merits of eating lunch before or after soaking her bruises in a hot tub.
She jumped at the telephone’s unfamiliar ring and looked around. Where was the dammed thing? By the third raspy summons she had located it—a beige Princess phone on the kitchen counter.
“Hello?”
“Where have you been all day, for god’s sake?” Her ex-husband demanded peevishly.
“How did you get this number?”
“You didn’t answer your cell. We have to talk.”
“Talk to my lawyer,” she said. “You’re a legal genius, you can’t have forgotten the restraining order already.”
“That was in Massachusetts,” he said.
“What?”
“What have you done to our house?”
“My house. Remember the papers we signed? And the judge? And all those lawyers?” she retorted.
“There are wood shavings and sawdust all over the place.”
“What the hell were you doing in there?”
“And what did you do to our dining room set?” Claude said, ignoring her. “It looks you’re planning a banquet for a bunch of pygmies. That set cost fourteen-hundred bucks.”
“We got it at a half-price sale, remember? Besides, it’s my dining room set now, so I can have as many pygmies for dinner as I want, and I bet they can’t hold as much booze as your pals, which will save a pile of money.”
Sarah paused to catch her breath. “Wait a minute. How did you get into my house?”
“Muffy let me in.”
So much for changing the locks. She would have a serious talk with Muffy. “I didn’t give her a key so you could go wandering around in there.”
“I was just looking for some of my stuff.”
“What stuff? There’s nothing of yours in there.”
“You’re a hard woman, Sarah. We shared a lot of memories in that house. We raised our kids there, and now you’re trashing it.”
“If you can trash our marriage with Lolita and god knows who else, I can trash my dining room.”
“You know perfectly well her name is Lurlene, and you can’t blame it all on her.”
“It’s a good place to start.”
“Nonsense,” Claude replied in his most lawyer-like voice. “Remember what the marriage couns—”
“Goodbye, Claude.”
“No, wait—”
Sarah hung up and leaned against the counter. Her hip ached. Her arm ached. Her shoulder ached, and now her head ached.
The phone rang. She put it in the refrigerator to muffle the sound, fitting the cord behind the orange juice carton. Claude on ice. How did her life get to be such a mess?
* * *
Brian Curtis put off calling Doc Caldwell until evening, and he regretted mentioning the woman at Myra’s place as soon as the words left his mouth.
“What was she doing up there? What’s she up to?” Harry Caldwell’s voice practically jumped out of the phone.
“What makes you think she’s up to anything?”
“What makes you think she isn’t?”
“Hell, Doc, if I had a nickel for every sightseer who poked around the remains of Myra’s place—”
“She’s not just anybody. You said she knew Myra from the old days. I don’t like it. Did you get her name?”
Brian sighed. “Cassidy. Sarah Cassidy.”
“Jesus. And she’s staying with the Merlews?”
“So what if she is?”
“Sam is the planning board chairman, that’s what. Maybe Sam asked her up here because Myra told her something that would derail Oak Hill.”
“Like what?”
“How do I know?” Caldwell said. “She’s mentioned in Myra’s will, though.”
Brian paused. “Cassidy? How do you know that?”
“The will, of course. Somebody has to keep track of these things.”
“I still think you’re making a mountain out of a mole hill,” Brian grumbled, though he wasn’t so sure now. “Anyway, I don’t see how Cassidy can make trouble for Oak Hill,” Brian added stubbornly.
“You want to take a chance on that? Well I don’t. I’ve got a pile of money sunk in this, and so do you. You’re single; ask her out. Use your charm. Find out what she’s up to,” Caldwell commanded.
Brian fumed. He was goddam tired of people ordering him around like he was a lazy, stupid hayseed.
* *
*
Sarah crawled out of bed Wednesday morning and soaked in the tub, as she had the evening before, until she looked like a prune and the aches subsided. Her hip was a deep purple and showed signs of more spectacular colors to come.
Fortified by a hefty dose of Tylenol and able to walk almost normally, Sarah set out in search of Oliver Wendell.
Yesterday afternoon’s fog still clung, wet and cold, to Squirrel Point and Burnt Cove, but the ground rose and the haze thinned as she headed inland and crossed Route 1. Hound Hill road lifted her still further, into a watery sun. Through the trees, she could see fog filling the valleys below like a biblical flood.
The house was a typical Maine Colonial in a state of genteel decay. Also in typical Maine fashion, a large barn overshadowed the house. A hayfield separated the buildings from the road and a dozen ancient apple trees lined the dirt driveway. A derelict boat was rotting into the ground beside the barn, and Sarah could see the bow of another boat through the building’s open sliding door.
She pulled into the yard, stopping abruptly when a black and white dog, possibly the hound of Hound Hill, bounded out of the barn. It barked and wagged as it circled the Explorer, looking for a way to get in. Sarah watched from the safety of her seat. She wasn’t big on dogs, but this specimen looked fairly safe, though unnecessarily boisterous. She was spared the need to find out more about the beast when a tall, spare man in sawdust-covered work shirt, blue jeans and painter’s hat emerged from the barn’s shadowy interior.
“Wes, come,” he called. Wes responded by standing on his hind legs with his front paws on the driver’s door and woofing through the partly open window.
“Wes, down.” The man came over and hauled his panting, slobbering companion away from the Ford’s door. “Now stay down before you scratch the paint.”
Skeptical of assurances that the dog was harmless, Sarah got out warily. She didn’t see any scratches in the paint, just dirty paw prints. “Hi, I’m looking for Oliver Wendell.”
Gravely Dead: A Midcoast Maine Mystery Page 3