In a strange way, the letter-writing project took on a life of its own and became bigger than just a tactic. It became an almost museum-worthy testimonial not only to a beloved physical landmark but also to a fading way of life and set of values.
I didn’t claim any official role in the letter “campaign,” and I didn’t want any credit for it. I didn’t even tell Jeannie I was doing it (by that time our communication had gone down the crapper anyway). But I did promise that when the collection of letters was ready to be delivered, I would deliver it. And the way I planned to do that was through Miles.
One fog-shrouded evening, a group of the fishermen asked me to meet them on Fish Pier. They stood in a circle around me, and, like a mother handing over her infant for adoption, Billy Staves presented the bulging folder of letters to me. “You asked us to do this,” he said. “It was hard for some of the fellas. But we did it. So we’re counting on you to do right by us.”
“I’m not promising results, Billy,” I said. “But I promise to get this to the people who need to see it.”
“Still sounds like begging to me,” offered Emmet DuPry.
As I walked away from the pier that night, I knew I had been given stewardship of something fragile and intimate. There was a lot of hope—maybe too much hope—bound up in those handwritten pages, but I meant to fulfill my promise, even if my friendship with Miles took a hit.
And it did. Later that evening I asked Miles to join me for drinks at Pete’s.
“There’s no easy way to say this,” I told him, “so I’ll just spit it out. Some of us—myself mainly, but others too—are starting to have some questions about the way you’re presenting this development deal. On both sides of the Gulf. We feel there are… aspects of the situation that maybe your partners aren’t taking into consideration. The fishermen have written some personal letters about the pier, and we’d like to get them to your partners. We need you to deliver them.”
Miles stared sharply at me, as if I’d slapped him.
“If this is the last thing I ever ask of you, Miles, so be it. But I am asking this.”
His face turned lobster red. “How DARE you question my word and try to do an end run around me,” he said. “What gives you the RIGHT?”
“What gives you the right to deceive these fishermen, Miles? These people are my neighbors and friends.”
“Is that so, Mr. Local Hero, savior of the ancient ways no one else gives a fuck about?”
“You don’t give a fuck, that’s for sure. You never intended to preserve Fish Pier, did you? You’ve been posturing about it since the get-go. Your plan since day one has been to—”
“Oh, and what suddenly qualifies Finnian Carroll to analyze high-level real estate deals? Who promoted you from part-time bartender to grownup?”
“Gee, skip the soap and plunge it right in, Miles.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You love playing the poor martyr who gets fucked by The Man.”
“And you love being the big dick who does the fucking. You’re so arrogant it doesn’t even cross your mind that the ‘common people’ can see right through your lies.”
“Oh yeah? Well, here’s one for you, Finn: I really respect your opinion on this matter.”
I rose out of my seat and almost punched him. Things went downhill from there, each of us trying to wound the other with words—and very nearly with more than words.
Finally, after we both calmed down a bit, he said, “If you absolutely insist on my doing this, Finnian, I will do it, I will deliver the letters. But know one thing: if you ask this of me, you are putting our friendship on the waiver wire.”
“You already put our friendship on the waiver wire,” I replied. “Not just this time but many times. Many, many fucking times.” I stood up from the table, handed him the fat file folder, and said, “Deliver the package, Miles,” then walked out. It was the last time Miles and I spoke before I left the island a few days later.
. . . . .
And now as I face my accusers from the deck of Cliff’s fishing boat, I start to get an inkling as to the source of their anger. “So tell me what happened,” I say. “Give me the benefit of the doubt and pretend I don’t know. Because I don’t. I really don’t.”
“The next town meeting,” says Jean-Claude, “when the vote was due, a bunch of your buddy-pal’s golf-shirt-wearin’ partners and lawyers showed up. Guess they figured everything was gonna go their way, and they wanted to be there when the whole shootin’ match was made official. They started barreling ahead with the vote like nothing had changed, and Billy here stood up and asked the head one, the president guy, if he’d gave our letters any thought. Guy was like, ‘What letters?’”
Chapter 34
“The worst part,” says Jean-Claude, “was the guy turned out to be a pretty decent fella. Said he wished he’d-a seen the letters, that he woulda took ‘em into consideration.”
“Bottom line,” says Billy, “it was too late to make changes to the development plan by that time. The vote was held and it passed. And now there’s a fuckin’ cheese boutique where my boat used to dock. Bo Baines went out of business, and the hub fell out of our operation. Now we’re all fending for ourselves, those that are still left. Anchoring out in the harbor, selling our catch on the mainland, working till dark every night, scraping by.”
“Fuck, Billy,” I say. “I never meant for this to happen.” And now my voice does crack, and there’s nothing I can do about it. “I cared about you. All of you guys. That’s the only reason I got involved in the whole thing in the first place. I had nothing to gain from it.”
“So say you,” says Billy.
“Don’t!” I snap at him, feeling my face go red. “Don’t you dare suggest I got some kind of payback out of this. If anyone wants to accuse me of that, you step up here on this deck and you say it right to my face.”
None of the men move, except with the rolling of the waves. For the first time, I see uncertainty register on some of their faces.
“Here’s the truth about Fish Pier that no one wants to remember,” I say. “I loved the thing—I painted it a dozen times—but it was a fucking disaster. It was falling apart and sinking into the seabed. And all you guys used to do was bitch about it. Bitch, bitch, bitch. Walk into Pete’s or Mary’s any time of the day and that’s all you’d hear. Everyone bitching about the pier, everyone blaming someone else for it—fighting over it, taking sides—but no one doing a god-damn thing. Yes, I put the bug in Miles Sutcliffe’s ear about it. And when he came out with his first plan, the one that included money to rehab Fish Pier, I was all in. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was going to help you guys, and that’s all I wanted. And that’s the honest truth.”
It is the honest truth, so I’m pretty sure it rings that way to the men. But still they stare at me as if they’ve brought a noose along.
“I’m not a born islander,” I continue. “I know that will always make me suspect in some of your eyes. But I actually chose this place. I fell in love with Musqasset on my own, and you know why? Because it’s a working island, not some tourist trap from the cover of Yankee magazine. People just try to make a living here, and everyone mucks in together and helps each other out. I loved that, and I wanted to be part of it.
“Who was it that helped you put up your traps every winter, Billy? Who was it that sanded down your boat with you, Gerry, and helped you get an agent to sell your paintings, Mike? Every time there was a trail that needed clearing or a dock that needed new pilings or a fundraiser for the school, who was in there working elbow to elbow with you guys?”
“He did muck in a lot, give him that,” says Billy matter-of-factly to his peers.
“And I was okay
in all of your eyes as long as I was doing that. No one questioned my loyalty then. But the first time something goes a little wonky, you’re all ready to walk me from the nearest plank.” Shame flashes in a couple of pairs of eyes. “Someone lied to you about those letters, that’s for sure. Maybe it was the president of the development group, maybe it was Miles Sutcliffe—or yeah, maybe it was me, but why would you assume that? Why wouldn’t you give me the benefit of the doubt over Miles and his mainland cronies?”
“We got our reasons,” says tied-up Cliff.
“I busted my nuts to get you guys off your apathetic asses and write those letters. Why would I do that just to sell you out?”
“Payola,” says Jean-Claude, but he says it at half-volume.
“Oh, right. Who believes that? Who really believes that? Come on, raise your hands.” No hands go up. “The bunch of you make me sick to my stomach.”
Suddenly it’s as if I’ve become Fishermen’s Court, and the fishermen have become the accused. The shift is palpable. It’s Mike Bourbon who finally speaks to the others. “He’s got a point. We should have talked to him first. Heard him out. We owed him that. We shouldn’t have jumped to... this. I’m out. I’m done.”
No one says a word. Guilty silence reigns.
I untie Cliff and his two buddies, no longer fearing they will harm me—at least not here and now. “Which one of you has my cell phone?” I ask. Gym Bob hands it to me.
I climb over the deck rail and down the ladder into the metal boat that brought me here. Facing my accusers one last time, I say, “I find you all guilty of treason.”
I start the engine. “I’m taking this boat,” I announce. “I’ll leave it at the Greyhook launch.”
I motor off toward the island.
The waves seem to have calmed just a bit. The storm to the east of us is finally moving away.
. . . . .
I haven’t had a chance to look at my phone since before my carnival-o’-laughs in the boat hold. Miles must be wondering what the hell happened to me. I’m so anxious to see my messages, the phone literally feels warm in my pocket, but right now I’ve got my hands full operating this vessel. I’ll check my phone as soon as I’m on terra firma.
I’m able to do some thinking as I putter along, though. It’s only now that I start to untangle the Cliff-Goslin situation. I still find it mind-boggling that Cliff and Goslin aren’t connected to each other at all. The idea that there have indeed been two separate parties trailing me, an absurd notion I rejected early on, is almost inconceivable. And yet Cliff seems to have been telling the truth. He had nothing to do with the forced suicide attempt at my parents’ house. And he didn’t follow me out to Musqasset. Those things were all Goslin.
The dead fish and the nighttime stalkings, those were Cliff and his buddies from Fishermen’s Court. They had their own reason for pursuing me, which had nothing to do with some ancient highway accident. Cliff didn’t care about that accident, either, except to use it as ammo to keep me away from Musqasset. And from Jeannie.
Then what has Goslin been up to since he came to the island? Why hasn’t he made any moves? Why has he been so god-damn quiet?
I wonder if Miles has taken any action on the Goslin front in my absence.
. . . . .
As soon as I’ve hauled the boat aground at the Greyhook landing, I dig out my warm phone. I see voicemails and missed calls from Miles, and texts from Preston Davis and Jeannie. I go to Jeannie’s message first. Considering what Cliff told me about her—and the warning she herself tried to give me—I open it with a hefty dose of wariness.
Her text: There’s something I should have told you, but I chickened out. About Cliff. He fell for me pretty heavy back when he and I were... you know. “Fucking,” I mentally fill in. It wasn’t a casual thing for him, the text goes on. He was in love with me. Big-time. Still is. Won’t let it go. Anyway, he’s a pretty scary and super-insecure guy. (He must have asked me ten times how big your dick was.)
I have the urge to immediately text her back, How big was his?
Just kidding.
Sort of.
After you left the island, her text goes on, I got into badmouthing you with him. One night he filled me full of my favorite truth serum. Patron Silver. And - I am so sorry about this, Finn - I told him the whole story. About you, the bottle, the accident. Anyway, I think you ought to watch out for Cliff. He knows you’re here and he might be trouble for you. Again, I’m sorry.
Thanks, Jeannie. This information might actually have come in handy about three hours—or three days—ago. Our timing has always sucked. I am heartened to know, though, that she felt compelled to be honest with me and to try to warn me.
Or maybe just she’s covering her ass because she knows Cliff and I have already had our little tete a tete. Hmm.
There’s one final chunk of text from her. It causes a hot flutter in my abdomen, which might be pleasure or pain. Last night was amazing, you jerk. Wish I could stop thinking about it.
What Jeannie and I had last night was real. Right? As real as it gets. Right? I have to believe that, or I can’t believe anything—truth no longer has an access point.
The voicemails from Miles are of the worried type I was expecting: Where are you? Are you okay? What happened? What are we going to do about Goslin? Call me, call me, call me.
I’ll call him in a minute.
The text from Preston Davis is the one that sends my mind careering into crazyland for about the ninetieth time this weekend: Called the mainland office, asked about those passenger records. Edgar Goslin took one ferry trip to Musqasset, a little over two weeks ago. Stayed one night, then went back the next day. He’s not on the island now. Hope that helps!
Goslin, not on the island. What? So Goslin is not Trooper Dan or Chokehold—those guys definitely followed me out here; I recorded their voices. But Goslin’s tied up in this thing for sure. My conversation with Priscilla Begley proves it. His trip to Musqasset proves it.
So where is Goslin now? Why has he gone below radar?
I’m about to share Preston’s news with Miles when my phone-finger freezes. I’m suddenly uncertain about talking to Miles. Maybe it’s because I’ve been revisiting all that Fish Pier drama—all the doubts I had about Miles back then, our confrontation—or maybe it’s because I’ve learned those fishermen’s letters never reached their intended recipients, but my trust in Miles is definitely not at a high-water mark.
I’m wondering, in fact, if it’s time to acknowledge the great blue whale that’s been doing pushups in the middle of the room since this whole thing started: maybe Miles knows more about everything than he’s been letting on.
I barely have time to give this idea room to roam when my phone rings. Miles. I hesitate to pick up, but some primal neural override makes me tap Answer.
“Finn, Jesus, where the hell have you been? Are you okay? What happened?”
“There’s a lot to tell.”
“I want to hear all about it. But listen: Jim dropped by. He learned something new about Edgar Goslin. You need to get over here.”
“What about Beth? Won’t she—”
“She’s out. Having lunch with friends and doing some last-minute shopping. Her folks are coming in today.”
“Today? But the ferry isn’t running yet.”
“They don’t use the ferry,” says Miles, scoffing at my blue-collar naïveté. “Just get over here. Hurry.”
. . . . .
“Goslin’s dead,” says Miles, meeting me at the door.
He turns and walks back inside.
Dazed, I follow him to his study, where he has two online newspaper artic
les open on his computer: “Missing Local Man Found Dead in Car” and “Police Find Week-Old Body in Car.” Both articles were written yesterday.
The two articles report essentially the same facts. A car was found just off Route 495 near the Wentworth-Bridgefield border in a heavily wooded area. The driver, dead, was Edgar Goslin. His live-in girlfriend, Priscilla Begley, confirmed he went missing on August 22, nine days earlier, and had not been seen since. The vehicle evidently veered off the highway near an exit ramp and remained hidden by foliage in a gully for over a week. Goslin, who was on blood-thinning medication, seems to have died of blood loss from a traumatic wound, the result of an apparent accident in his home workshop. Police believe he may have been trying to drive himself to the hospital when he became unconscious due to bleeding.
Miles stares at me wordlessly. I look at the date again. My stomach sours.
Goslin died on August 22. The home invaders came to my house on August 23.
Goslin was dead before any of my troubles began.
Chapter 35
All my previous conceptions about how and why I was targeted for extinction by a group of unknown killers are out the window. I have to rethink everything from the ground up.
“Did Jim have any inside information?” I ask Miles. “On Goslin’s death?”
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