“He’s just an overgrown kid. Why would he be going around asking everybody what they know about Cathy if he was mixed up in something?”
“Who knows? You have no idea what he may have been up to, or what Myra may have got him mixed up in.”
Pearly glared at his companion. “You don’t know the first thing Eldon, and you don’t know the first thing about Burnt Cove. I’ve known that kid all his life. There have been Tuppers around here forever.”
Strictly speaking, Pearly and Eldon didn’t live in Burnt Cove, but the next town over. Even so, the message was clear, and a wave of desolation swept over Oliver. A door had slammed in his face. He thought of Pearly as a friend, and perhaps he was, but they were strangers when it came to this. Oliver hadn’t been born here, hadn’t grown up with Eldon’s parents and grandparents, hadn’t seen Eldon as a baby, or watched him go to school and become an adult. He hadn’t witnessed Eldon’s triumphs and defeats, could never know the young man as Pearly did.
He would always be from away. The gulf could never be closed. His roots simply didn’t reach deep enough into the rocky Maine soil, and nothing could change that. Could he ever know Pearly or Burnt Cove when it came to the important things?
Oliver spoke into the awkward silence. “I’m just saying this is evidence. It could mean that Myra was murdered. The cops should have it. There are probably fingerprints on the bag that’ll tell who put it there.”
“I’ll hang onto it for a few days,” Pearly said in a softer voice, aware of the chasm between them and pulling back from the brink, “until I figure out what’s going on. What harm can a few days do?”
“For one thing, Eldon is going to know what happened when he comes in and sees that hole.”
“The boat won’t be here when he comes in.”
Oliver looked at his companion with a dawning horror. “Oh, no. I’m not taking—”
Pearly finished pushing the stone back into its bag. “You designed the flotation tank, didn’t you?”
“Dammit, Pearly!”
“You got a tarp up at your place?”
Chapter 12
Sarah arrived at St. Agnes Episcopal church just as the Sunday service was about to begin, and she sat near the back in order to be as inconspicuous as possible. Even so, there was a discrete turning of heads in her direction as she took her place. The nave was big enough to seat two hundred, though there were only about fifty worshipers clustered near the front.
She admired the Carpenter Gothic architecture. Whoever designed the place must have had big ambitions. Age-darkened beams arched up into a twilight maze of timbers, high overhead. Wagon-wheel-sized chandeliers, hanging on chains, cast a yellow glow onto the pews. Sarah could imagine a vast colony of bats living up among the rafters, unseen in the perpetual gloom, ignoring the humans that crept about down below.
By way of contrast, sunlight slanted through the stained glass window and bathed the altar in a multicolored light.
An asthmatic pipe organ, played with more enthusiasm than skill, rattled the air and ushered in the procession. Father Millay, a round, gray-haired man with a florid face brought up the rear. The service was enough like a Catholic mass to be comfortably familiar, yet disconcertingly different in places. Sarah concluded that Episcopalians gave the Blessed Virgin short shrift, but otherwise the service was satisfactory, and even some of the hymns were familiar.
When it was over, Father Millay invited everyone—his eyes seemed to single her out—to the parish hall for coffee and a chance to meet each other. Finally, the organ set to work stirring up the bats with a recessional hymn, and the congregation began to file out. Sarah made herself get up. Meeting people was what she came here for, after all. How bad could it be?
* * *
“That’s Sarah Cassidy over there,” Brian told his companions. “I told you she’d come. There goes Mabel, the one-woman-welcome-wagon, homing in on her.”
Harry Caldwell and Roy Tupper studied the stranger from their vantage point a little apart from the rest of the coffee hour attendees.
Roy Tupper was in his early thirties, medium height, sturdily built, and with a prematurely weathered face. “She does look like Cathy,” he said. “An older version.”
“She might be related to Cathy, trying to find out what happened to her,” Brian suggested.
“Eldon talked to her and he doesn’t think so,” Roy said.
Harry Caldwell, tall, slender, bald and distinguished in a three-piece suit, turned to Roy. “Maybe Eldon doesn’t want to think so. Just how real is that Sam Spade act of his anyway?”
Roy’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying my brother is mixed up in this?”
“She is his girlfriend.”
“She’s your receptionist, Doc,” Roy growled. “Maybe she found something in your files.”
“Your brother is a loose cannon and you know it,” Caldwell replied.
The parish hall, like the nave, had a high, vaulted ceiling that extended up into the gloom, and Brian rolled his eyes heavenward, though not in prayer, or in search of bats. “Keep it down,” he said.
“I don’t have to put up with this crap,” Roy muttered.
Caldwell turned on Brian. “You were supposed to find out what she’s up to. The planning board meets in two weeks. Have you even talked to her yet?”
“I got her here, didn’t I?” Brian retorted. “Why don’t you talk to her yourself if you’re in such a fuss?”
Caldwell leaned into Brian’s face. “Because I’m paying you to take care of that stuff,” he hissed.
Roy was staring at Sarah again. “I think I saw her up at Myra’s grave Friday,” he said. “Black Explorer?”
Brian nodded.
“This keeps getting worse and worse,” Caldwell said. “What else was she looking at up there?”
“I’m paid build houses, not spy on people,” Roy said, glowering at Brian.
“Get off my back,” Brian growled. “Come on, Tupper, you can meet her too.”
* * *
“Hello, I’m Mabel Hardwick.” The speaker was a tall, stork-like woman with a halo of gray hair. She looked to be in her eighties. “Are you visiting for the summer?”
“Yes,” Sarah replied, “I’m staying at the Merlew’s.”
Mabel was staring at Sarah in a way that had long-since become irritatingly familiar. “Are you related to Cathy Leduc?”
“No. You’re the organist, aren’t you?”
“Organist isn’t quite the right word,” Mabel said. “I play the piano, really, but I’m all we’ve got. That organ has so many pedals and things. . .”
Mabel spotted Roy and Brian approaching, and stepped in to make the introductions.
“Royal Tupper, this is Sarah Cassidy. She’s staying with the Merlews. Doesn’t she look just like Cathy Leduc?”
“Call me Roy,” he said, extending a calloused hand. “You do look like you could be related to her.”
“Well, I’m not,” Sarah said, more curtly than she intended. “Are you Eldon’s brother? You two don’t look much alike.”
“Half-brother. He kept coming back for more when they handed out big, that’s for sure. Going to be here long?”
“I’ll be here for the summer, and I wanted to get out and meet some people,” Sarah explained.
“This is a good place for it,” Roy commented.
Mabel had been tugging at Brian’s arm. “This is Brian Curtis,” she said.
“We’ve met,” Brian said. “I was hoping the Merlews might persuade you to come.” He gave her an embarrassed smile. “Seriously, I know practically everyone around here—part of my job.” His eyes flicked to Sarah’s ring finger, “so if you and your husband want to look around, just give me a call.”
Sarah flushed. She had removed her engagement ring, but for reasons that weren’t clear to her, had kept the wedding band. “Former husband,” she said.
“Been there, done that,” Brian said cheerfully. “Not to be nosey, but do you know man
y people in town?”
“Just the Merlews and the Vincents.”
“George and Debbie Vincent? I sold them that house lot, and Roy built the house. In fact he’s building the new house next door to them for a couple named Borofsky. Going to be quite a place. Biggest house on the point, so far. Have you seen it?”
“Just from driving by.”
“The Hotel is bigger,” Roy pointed out.
“Stop in and take a look,” Brian said. “I’m sure Roy would be glad to show you around.”
“I’ve got a crew there, and I’m not always around,” Roy said in a off-putting way. “I’m up at Oak Hill a lot of the time.”
Roy saw Harry Caldwell approaching and began to sidle away. “Catch you later,” he said.
Mabel’s eyes lit up as she prepared for another round of introductions.
Chapter 13
Sarah pulled into Oliver’s front yard Sunday afternoon and found a second boat and trailer parked next to Owl. A blue plastic tarp covered the boat’s deck.
Sarah was feeling more cheerful than she had in days, probably the aftereffects of coffee hour at St. Agnes. Mabel Hardwick had been pleasant, though a bit earnest, and Sarah had met Edna Grimstone, a friend of Mabel’s. Brian’s attentiveness had been good for her morale, and he had asked her out on a “luncheon date,” as he gallantly called it. In her present rosy mood, even Oliver was all right, though quirky.
She found that Oliver didn’t share her good spirits.
“Where did that boat come from?” she asked, indicating the tarp-covered mound. A light westerly breeze flapped the blue material.
“It’s Cathy Leduc’s,” Oliver growled in a tone that made it clear the subject was off limits.
They had finished epoxying the broken frames yesterday, and Oliver had screwed the planking to them and sanded the repairs while she was at church. Sarah went to work putting primer on the bare wood inside the boat while Oliver worked underneath, pounding what looked like strands of yarn into some of the seams.
“You’re spending a lot of time working on Owl,” Sarah said. “Aren’t I keeping you away from your boat?”
“You can help me put another coat of paint on it later. Payment in kind.”
“You must be building it for someone?”
“A guy named George Vincent out on Squirrel Point, your old stamping ground.”
“I know the Vincents from when they lived near us in Sudbury. I bumped into Debbie at Myra’s the other day.”
“Small world.” Oliver’s voice drifted up, cool and slightly muffled, from underneath Owl.
“See?” She said mischievously. “The incomers aren’t all bad. They’re buying your boats and bringing money into the area.” Sarah knew she was throwing gasoline on his smoldering ill-humor, but couldn’t resist the temptation.
“Maybe that’s not such a good thing.”
“And poverty is a good thing?”
“Define poverty.”
Sarah slopped on more primer than she intended. “I hope you’re not going to give me a lot of idealistic baloney about Myra Huggard.”
“Myra? Hell, no. She could have sold her place and gotten a condo in Rockland, a nice cottage in Appleton with a vegetable garden, or an assisted living facility, and had money to spare.” Oliver straightened up and watched Sarah busily wielding the brush. “She chose to live in a drafty old house that was falling down around her ears because she wanted to. Does that make her poor? Or crazy? What gives us the right to judge her lifestyle? Who was she hurting?” he demanded.
“I wonder how much grieving the newcomers down there did when Myra and her house burned up,” he concluded.
Sarah put down the brush, feeling defensive because she had wondered the same thing. “Are you suggesting one of the Squirrel Pointers had something to do with her death?”
“‘Squirrel Pointers?’ It sounds like a breed of dog,” he commented. “I’m saying she was standing in the way of progress, and people who do that can get into trouble, especially with so much money involved. Look at the surveyor’s flags along Squirrel Point road. All that waterfront, from Myra to the Hotel, will be house lots in a few years, and her place was an eyesore.”
“But there was no need to kill her. Everyone knew she was dying. A few months and she would have been in a nursing home and her place would have been sold.”
“Do you really think the fire was an accident?”
“Maybe.” She wondered what was going on. Just the other day, he had dismissed Myra’s death as a mishap.
“Do you agree with the police that Eldon killed Cathy?”
“He doesn’t seem like the killer type to me,” she said, remembering Eldon’s bashful smile.
“No, but she’s his girlfriend, and that makes him the most likely candidate. Besides, what about you and Eldon’s truck?”
Sarah was getting more and more confused by Oliver’s change of heart. Hadn’t he been defending Eldon at Lulu’s yesterday? “I met his brother at St. Agnes this morning,” she said.
“That shingled monster out on the Gooseshit Flats road?”
“The Turner Plains road,” Sarah corrected, clinging to her cheerfulness.
“I suppose they had to change the name for 911.”
“You should go to church sometime.” She said, goading him again. “It’s not good to live alone out here.”
“Who’s alone? You think I live in a cave like a hermit? I’ve got Wes, and there’s always somebody coming around to make a pest of themselves.”
As if on cue, Eldon’s truck rumbled up the driveway and lurchedto a stop in front of the barn door. Sarah thought she saw a fresh dent on the truck’s right side, hidden among the older dings and scrapes.
“Just what I need,” Oliver muttered as he moved to put himself between the truck and Cathy’s boat.
To Oliver’s obvious relief, Pearly emerged from Eldon’s truck and sauntered over. “Thought I’d see how you were coming along,” he said. He looked at Sarah’s battered Explorer. “Lord, what happened to that?”
Oliver scowled at his latest visitor. “She got run off the road by Eldon’s truck.”
“You’ve been reading Stephen King again and it’s gone to your head,” Pearly said. “Trucks don’t run people off the road; people in trucks run people off the road.”
“Look at that fresh dent.” Oliver demanded, pointing to Eldon’s truck. “I’ll bet it matches the red smudge on Sarah’s front bumper.”
“Hell, there are dents all over it. You know perfectly well Eldon drives by feel. Besides, everyone borrows his truck.”
“Everyone borrows his truck?” Sarah said.
“He keeps the keys in it all the time, right over the visor,” Pearly explained.
“Don’t be surprised if the cops ask him about it,” Oliver said darkly. “Did you drive up here in that thing just to give me a heart attack?”
“I borrowed it to keep Eldon from driving up here.”
“You told him the boat’s here?” Oliver looked nervous.
“Had to tell him something. I said you took it to get some measurements, take some pictures for your files.”
“And he believed that?”
“He knows I wouldn’t lie to him.”
Oliver shook his head in disgust and pointed to Cathy’s boat. “I want it out of here.”
“Did you build it?” Sarah asked Pearly as she looked again at the shapeless mound under the tarp.
“Eldon built it,” Pearly said. He turned to Oliver. “Have you fixed the hole yet?”
“Fixed it?”
“I can’t take the boat back to Eldon the way it is now,” Pearly replied, as though talking to a retarded child.
“It’s your hole,” Oliver pointed out.
“It’s your flotation tank. Besides, I can’t fix it down there with Eldon around.”
Oliver’s uninvited guest ambled over to the far side of Owl. “Jesus,” he said, “who taught you how to caulk a boat? Where’s the hammer and
iron?”
“Do you want the bag inside the tank when I seal it up?” Oliver spoke with elaborate sarcasm. Pearly ignored him and began pounding at Owl’s seams.
“What bag?” Sarah said, visualizing a packet filled with illicit powders.
“I don’t want it anywhere near the boat,” Pearly said. What with the ringing of Pearly’s hammer and his position under Owl, Sarah had trouble hearing him.
“Don’t pound so hard,” Oliver said. “You aren’t caulking a four-masted schooner, for chrissake.”
Pearly muttered something unintelligible.
“What bag?” Sarah repeated. The tarp flapped at her.
“Just remember, she hasn’t been in the water since the camp closed,” Oliver warned.
Pearly muttered again.
Oliver left Sarah’s side, marched around Owl, and stood over Pearly’s back.
“It’s not staying here, dammit,” Oliver said.
“What’s not staying here?” Sarah demanded.
“I won’t be the only one who ends up in jail if the cops come around,” Oliver growled.
The tarp had been fastened to the trailer with bungee cords, and Sarah snatched it off before the two men could react.
A black trash bag lay in the bilge. It had shifted in its journey, revealing what appeared to be a weathered slab of marble. The worn stone and rough-cut hole made a jarring contrast to the boat’s pristine newness.
“What’s that?” she said.
“You don’t want to get mixed up in this,” Oliver replied. He tried to pull the tarp back in place, but she wouldn’t let go. With a resigned sigh, Oliver gave up the tug-of-war.
“It’s a headstone,” he said, stating the obvious.
Pearly lurched over, painfully straightening his back, which seemed reluctant to unbend after its labors beneath Owl. “All we know is that somebody hid it in the flotation tank.”
“Eldon,” Oliver said.
“Maybe not,” Pearly replied. “I’ve been thinking, and as I remember, Eldon put the plywood in on a Friday afternoon.”
Gravely Dead: A Midcoast Maine Mystery Page 9