“She’ll turn up,” Sarah said, trying to sound as though she believed it. “Do you know what Myra meant by teaching the rich people a lesson?”
Eldon emptied the pitcher into his glass.
“I’ll mix up more,” she said.
“No sweat. I’ll get some water. The Merlews have a good well,” he said, heading for the sink. “I don’t think Myra knew what she meant. She was a little batty about things towards the end.”
He filled his glass.
“You remember that old movie The Russians are Coming?” he said. “We rented it last fall, took the DVD player over. You know, to give Myra a treat. Big mistake. After that, she started seeing Russians everywhere. Cath worried about her imagining things, and all.” He shook his head sadly. “Maybe we should have paid more attention to the Russians. We figured she saw one of the surveyors running a line.”
“Didn’t she go to check on any of them?”
“She could barely make it out to the mailbox by then.”
“I heard that Cathy and Myra had been arguing,” she said before she could catch herself.
Eldon scowled at her, and Sarah wondered if she had gone too far. After a moment he said, “They got going over something around Thanksgiving time last year, but they wouldn’t say what. Said it was better if I didn’t know. Myra could be real tight-mouthed, but I got the idea she wanted to do something and Cath didn’t like it. I told Cath if Myra was trying to make her do something wrong, she should talk to somebody about it, you know, like the Merlews.”
Eldon sat down again. “Did you know Myra well, back when you were in camp?”
“Not all that well, I suppose. A friend of mine and I went over a few times each summer.”
Often when they appeared, Myra would chase them off with curses and threats. It was partly the thrill and uncertainty that kept luring them back.
“I bet she was a terror in the old days,” Eldon said.
He was right in more ways than one. Sarah remembered one afternoon when she and Marlee Sue had traveled the brushy path through the woods to Myra’s back yard. It was their fourth year at Migawoc, and as it turned out, Marlee Sue’s last visit with Myra. As usual, they paused at the tree-line to see how they might be greeted.
Myra had her back to them that day, an ax in one hand, a wildly flapping chicken in the other. A dull thunk on the wood-splitting block and the body fell to the ground, where it staggered in desperate circles while blood spurted. Marlee Sue screamed.
Myra spun around. “Damn you brats! Don’t you know better than to go sneaking up on someone like that?”
She advanced on them, the bloody ax still raised. “What’s the matter with you two? Ain’t you ever seen a chicken with its head cut off? Where do you think the saying came from?”
Sarah watched the dead bird collapse near one of its defunct companions. Choking and gagging, Marlee Sue bolted for the woods. She never darkened Myra’s yard again.
Myra lowered the ax, and a thin smile curled her lip as Marlee Sue vanished among the scrub spruce. “That little twit won’t ever make it.” She turned to Sarah. “But you’re a survivor.”
Eldon had been watching as Sarah sat, lost in the past. Now he interrupted her reverie. “What happened to your car?”
Sarah told him about her encounters with the red pickup.
Eldon’s face purpled. He stood up and grabbed her arm, snatching her out of the chair. “We’re going to straighten this out right now.”
* * *
“Where are we going?” Sarah demanded.
Eldon had practically tossed her into his truck, and now they were hurtling down the road.
Sarah’s companion glared through the windshield in a way that made her nervous. “If someone came to me looking for someone to run a car off the road,” he said, “I’d send them to this guy I know. He’s got a reputation from here clear to Rockland, and he’s been hanging around the yard while I worked on his boat. He might even know something about Cathy, but he ain’t talking.”
Eldon sighed. “Besides, he borrowed my truck about when you got run off the road. He’s a little dim.”
Meadow road ran through a stretch of low, wet ground, verging on swampland, as it meandered inland for a few miles before joining Merrifield Road.
They rattled over the narrow, pot-holed pavement, past decaying single-wides and lopsided houses. Almost every weedy, rutted yard sported a derelict car or a lobsterboat in some state of disrepair. They passed a tiny pond, little more than an overgrown mud puddle, its banks littered with old tires and a rotting Lazy Boy. A toy Fisher Price tugboat floated in the murky water.
A rusty mailbox with the inscription “Z. F. Breener” attracted her attention. Behind it, a swaybacked shack leaned drunkenly. The muddy front yard was filled with a staggering array of junk from rotting rowboats to rusting freezers. A derelict car, with one door missing, served as a chicken coop. Three piglets rooted in the mud beside the decrepit shack, while a goat, tethered to a sapling behind the building, grazed on the rough grass. The Breener estate was run down, even by Meadow Road’s relaxed standards.
“Ziggy’s Zoo,” Eldon commented as they thundered by.
In typical Maine fashion, there were contrasts even here. On the right, across from a battered trailer with a rotting couch on the lawn, stood a neat cottage with a small paddock in front, where a pair of handsome, well-groomed horses were grazing.
Eldon noticed Sarah’s reaction. “There’s more money around here than it looks,” he said.
“Even Ziggy?”
“Can’t tell about Ziggy. He’s different.”
They lurched off the pavement into a small field containing five lobsterboats and an assortment of junk. Three men dressed in jeans and grimy tee shirts were peering under the hood of an aged pickup truck. The truck was red.
A fourth, older man with gray crew-cut hair, was scraping the paint on a lobsterboat nearby.
“God, not again,” one of the trio said fervently as Eldon and Sarah alighted.
Eldon ambled over. “This ain’t about Cathy, Hoot,” he said. “Want you to meet a friend of mine.” Eldon rested a paw on Sarah’s shoulder, almost knocking her over in the process. “She’s staying with the Merlews, and somebody’s been giving her grief ever since she got here.”
The men studied Sarah for a while. “So, why are you telling us?” one of them demanded.
“Because I’m passing the word that I’ll straighten out anyone who bothers her,” Eldon said.
The man called Hoot bristled. “Well, I don’t like your altitude, coming down here threatening people. People shouldn’t be poking around other people’s places anyway.”
Sarah noticed that Hoot had a large wrench in his hand, the second man was now holding a length of pipe, and the third was sidling over to a hammer on the truck’s fender.
If Eldon was concerned by this turn of events, he gave no sign. He stepped forward menacingly, putting himself between Sarah and the men. “I don’t like people trying to run down a harmless old woman, or taking my truck to run her off the road.”
A harmless old woman? Sarah darted in front of Eldon. “I wasn’t ‘poking around’ Myra’s place,” she said. “I knew her when I was a kid, and I was just paying my respects.”
Crew-cut came over. “For chrissake, give it a rest, Hoot,” he said to his companion. “I don’t want my dooryard all stove up like last time, and I’m sure as hell not going to haul the three of you into Pen Bay to get patched up again.”
Crew-cut turned to Eldon. “I’m not saying I know what happened, but my guess is that someone was driving by and saw your friend at Myra’s place and figured maybe it was somebody—”
“—looking to steal something,” Hoot interrupted.
“—looking to buy the place and put up no trespassing signs, cut people off from that nice little clam flat of Myra’s,” crew-cut said. “Hell, there’s hardly any flats left around here where you can go clamming. Maybe this person was pretty
drunk and figured he’d give your friend a little scare, only maybe he nudged her by mistake.”
Crew-cut turned to glare at Hoot and his friends. “It might be that somebody came around later and offered a chunk of money to have a car followed and run it off the road, give the driver a scare. But that’s just an idea I heard going around.”
“Who was the guy with the money?” Eldon demanded.
“Never saw him before,” Hoot said, looking mulish.
* * *
“Why would this Hoot person borrow your truck?” Sarah asked as they drove back in the gathering dusk.
“His is busted half the time. Can’t take care of machinery worth a damn. I’m not even sure he has a license since they got him for DUI last winter.” Eldon sighed. “Guess I’ll have to find someplace else to hide the key.”
“I wonder if it was your truck the first time.”
The vehicle in question lurched as Eldon shifted in his seat. “I Doubt it. The first time sounds like a spur of the moment thing.”
“The red truck back there is Hoot’s?”
“Yeah. He, or somebody, probably saw you at Myra’s and decided to do something about it.”
Sarah was willing to concede that the first time was a “spur of the moment thing,” but the second time wasn’t.
“Would Hoot know Sam or Brian?” she asked.
“Sure. Brian may think he’s too good for this place now, but he grew up here, poor as dirt, and Hoot knows him real well.”
Eldon turned on the headlights. “But maybe Hoot’s lying, or whoever’s behind it hired someone to set things up, cover his tracks. Easy for Brian to pay a stranger to talk to Hoot.”
Sarah started to disagree, but thought better of it. She didn’t know Brian, and though she liked his fun loving way, she had sensed a hint of ruthlessness as well. The kind of ruthlessness that sometimes comes to those who have fought their way out of poverty.
“You don’t seem to like Brian much,” she said.
“He and Doc Caldwell both wanted Myra out of her house, but at least Doc was thinking about her health. Brian just wanted to make a pile of money, and he’s got more than he needs already.”
Eldon nodded. “Brian doesn’t come back here now. He’s not too popular in these parts any more.”
Chapter 17
Sarah stepped outside her apartment Tuesday morning into air that was cool and damp. It took her a moment to notice what had happened to the Explorer. Scrawled across the driver side in blaze orange spray paint was the word “slut.”
She circled the vehicle warily and gingerly touched the lettering. The paint was dry. How long would that take, two hours? She worked at it with a fingernail, to no avail.
Kate and Sam were sitting at the kitchen table when she entered. “Do you have a can of spray paint I can borrow?” Sarah asked. They looked up in surprise.
“Any particular color you’d like?” Sam said.
“Dark.”
“There’s a spray can of Forest Green in the woodshed,” Kate said.
Sam returned with the can. “What’s the project?”
“My car. Somebody vandalized it.”
Kate’s face looked as though it had turned to stone.
Sam headed for the door. “I’d better take a look.”
The luminous orange looked even brighter from a distance.
Sam approached the Ford slowly. “You’re going to paint over that? How about trying some paint thinner on it?”
Sarah was shivering. “It’s dry and won’t scrape off.”
“We could tape some cardboard over it until you go to Dingers. They can touch that up for you in no time.”
“Spray it! The rest of the car’s already trashed, damn it!” She fought back angry tears. “Just look at the poor thing.”
Sam turned to her, his face grave. “I can see this happening on the street in town, but in our driveway? I hate to say it, but I don’t think you’re safe here.”
* * *
“Somebody painted what on your car?” Marlee Sue asked incredulously. She struggled to suppress a grin.
“Slut,” Sarah repeated, “and it’s not funny.”
They were seated in the Quarterdeck restaurant at a table overlooking Camden harbor. At least they got the lunch they had ordered, unlike Lulu’s idiosyncratic eating place.
“No, it’s not funny,” Marlee Sue replied soberly, “and Sam’s right. I don’t think it’s safe for you to be staying at the Merlews, either. First of all, anybody who would drive out there to paint your car isn’t just doing it on a whim; they’ve got to be serious. And second, for all you know it could be the Merlews themselves who are after you.”
“That’s crazy. They invited me to come up here.”
“How do you know they didn’t lure you here for some nefarious purpose?”
“‘Nefarious purpose?’” Sarah smiled in spite of herself. “Isn’t that kind of melodramatic?”
Marlee Sue ignored her. “Think about it. They haven’t seen you for years, and suddenly, out of a clear blue sky, they invite you up to spend the summer. Why would they do that? Out of all the hundreds of kids who went to Migawoc, why would they think of you?”
Sarah stared at the windjammers as they lay tied up to the dock. With Memorial Day only weeks away, people were swarming over the big schooners’ decks, getting them ready for summer.
“I don’t see why the Merlews would ask me up here just to harass me,” Sarah said stubbornly.
“You were almost killed twice, your car is a wreck, and you call it harassment? You may be stubborn, but this is ridiculous. Somebody is out to get you in a big way, and I think it could be the Merlews. You still haven’t told me why they invited you to Maine.”
“They knew Myra had given me Owl, so they wrote when she died to let me know she was gone and invite me to spend the summer. The divorce was going full steam then, so the invitation seemed like a godsend.”
In a way, Sarah regretted having told Marlee Sue about her various adventures. On the other hand, her friend did have a fresh perspective, unlike Oliver and Pearly, who were much too close to the people involved. She remembered Kate’s comment yesterday about being sorry they had “gotten her involved.” In what? Crazy as it seemed, perhaps Marlee Sue was right about them.
“All I did was walk around Myra’s place, and her grave,” Sarah said plaintively. “I don’t see why that should cause so much trouble.”
“Dammit woman, that’s not the point. Someone is stalking you. Doesn’t that make you nervous?”
“It does, when you put it that way,” Sarah admitted, though mostly she was feeling just plain anger at the unreasonableness of it all.
“Good. There’s hope for you yet,” Marlee Sue said, sounding relieved. She leaned over the table. “Look, someone may think you know something dangerous or incriminating, even if you don’t. Or maybe you do know something without realizing it—a trivial little thing about Myra that could make trouble.”
“I’ve wracked my brain and I can’t think of anything. I barely knew the woman. Just our visits over there. You probably knew her as well as I did.”
“Yes, but she liked you and hated me,” Marlee Sue said in a matter-of-fact way. “Face it, Myra was a troublemaker. A lot of people didn’t like her, including me, and now you’ve got yourself stuck in the middle of something she probably cooked up.”
“Myra had some friends.”
“Like who? Myra’s special pal, Cathy Leduc, you were talking about? Nobody knows what happened to her, except that she may have killed Myra and run off. And what about this Eldon character, who beats people up? He drags you down to see his disreputable pals, and just happens to know who has been playing bumper tag with you. That’s a little too convenient for me.”
A young man in a tee shirt and cut-off jeans that were a size too small was carrying a large cardboard box across a swaying gangplank onto the nearest schooner. Sarah admired the view, then turned away, disgusted. Is this what her l
ife had come to, ogling men half her age through a restaurant window? Was she going to end up like Claude, chasing after underage sex-toys?
Marlee Sue flashed a sly grin. “I see your game, Cassidy.” She waved her salad fork at Sarah. “You’re playing Nancy Drew, hunting down Myra’s killer. Don’t do it. Leave it to the cops. Why stick your nose into this?”
“I wasn’t ‘sticking my nose’ into anything, dammit!” Sarah retorted, her pent up rage bursting through. “But I’m not going to sit still while people go around attacking me! I’m going to put a stop to it.”
“Putting a stop to it may get you killed. Did you think about that?”
Marlee Sue saw the anger on Sarah’s face, and shook her head in frustration. “Typical Irish blood. At least let me help. Two heads are better than one, you know. It’ll be like when we were kids at Migawoc. Remember when we used to play spy and they called us the Deadly Duo? We’ll have a blast detecting stuff. Better yet, why don’t you come and stay with me for a while? You and your car will be safer. God knows, somebody has to take care of you.”
Touched by her companion’s offer, Sarah stared out the window again, where Buns was returning to the parking lot for another box. She had kept Pearly’s secret and not mentioned the headstone, even though she would like to have Marlee Sue’s thoughts on the subject. She tried to think of some other way her friend could help.
Marlee Sue took Sarah’s silence as a refusal, so she added, “What about your boyfriend, the one who’s working on Owl? Could you stay with him for a while?”
“Oliver Wendell? He’s definitely not my boyfriend.”
“Okay, don’t get huffy. I’m just trying to help.”
“There is one thing,” Sarah said slowly. “Could you use your banking connections to find out who’s behind the Oak Hill development? The sign said ‘BCD Properties LLC,’ whatever that means.”
Marlee Sue thought for a moment. “Sure. But why don’t you just ask that Realtor, what’s-his-name, in Burnt Cove?”
Gravely Dead: A Midcoast Maine Mystery Page 12