by Edwin Hill
“That’s all run from the mainland,” Lydia said. “On the island, we mostly watch out for one another.”
“Is anyone watching out for Frankie Sullivan?” Hester asked.
Lydia drank down a gulp of her beer. “You can only help people who want it,” she said.
“Even when they’re four years old?”
“We spent the night searching for him because he didn’t pay attention to the tide.”
“Four-year-olds don’t usually know how to read tides,” Hester said, sitting back in the rocking chair and holding the beer bottle to her forehead. She’d been up for almost thirty-six hours now, and, honestly, Lydia’s island wasn’t sitting well with her.
“You’re right,” Lydia said. “Sorry. None of us got much sleep last night, you included, it seems. You hungry?”
“I could be,” Hester said.
“Wait here.”
Lydia disappeared and returned a moment later with two more beers and a charcuterie platter. Instinctively, Hester went to block Waffles from snagging anything from the tray.
“I can spot a dog owner from a mile away,” Lydia said.
“Guilty,” Hester said.
Lydia held up her beer and clinked it against Hester’s.
“Could Annie have left this morning?” Hester asked. “On the ferry to Bar Harbor?”
Lydia shook her head. “That boat was canceled. The water was too rough to sail.”
Right then, Rory Dunbar let himself in to the garden and took his hat off. He waved to them, then carefully closed the gate behind him in a way that made Hester’s heart sink as she realized he was here with bad news, news that she’d helped uncover. Oliver ran to the deputy and gave him a high five.
“Could I talk to you?” he said to Lydia.
“I’ll leave you two,” Hester said. “We’ll get ourselves sorted out upstairs.” She stood and called to Kate. “Oliver, you come too.”
“What’s going on?” Lydia asked.
“Let me know what you need,” Hester said.
She left as Rory sat in the rocking chair beside Lydia and took her hand.
CHAPTER 15
Hester waited at the top of the staircase for Lydia’s sobs to begin. When they didn’t, she turned to Kate and Oliver. “Play on your own,” she said, as the children barely looked up from a coloring book. “And don’t get into anything,” she added, which only made Kate glare at her.
A few steps out of the room, Hester found that she couldn’t go any farther. “This is pathetic,” she mumbled, taking the children’s hands—Kate tried to pull away—and dragging them along after her, but she had no idea what was in that bedroom, what dangers lurked. Whether a fire might start. This house would go up in flames in an instant.
Stop.
So much for solving her own craziness. Though, in her own defense, she had found a dead body.
The inn’s age made moving with any stealth out of the question, but as Hester came off the landing, it was clear that neither Lydia nor Rory cared what anyone saw. Rory held Lydia’s head to his chest, tenderly stroking her hair. His eyes were closed, and he rocked her slowly. When floorboards groaned under Hester’s weight, Rory’s eyes popped open, a flash of guilt coloring his face. He was enjoying this, in a way, at least.
“Can I get you anything, Lydia?” Hester asked.
Lydia squinted as though waking from a dream and pushed away from Rory. “Do you have everything you need in your room?” she asked.
“I don’t need anything,” Hester said.
Lydia turned toward Rory, steeling herself. “Where is he?” she asked.
“Out by the lighthouse,” Rory said. “I pulled his body up the shore to keep him from washing out to sea.” Rory caught himself, as though hearing his own words. “Sorry,” he said.
“No, I want to know,” Lydia said. “Tell me what else you did.”
“The state police hadn’t left yet, so they’ve taken over while we wait for the medical examiner.”
“Did he drown?” Lydia asked. “Or hit his head?”
Rory caught Hester’s eye, and she pictured the knife sticking out of the corpse’s back. “We don’t know yet,” Rory said. “The body hasn’t been released. The autopsy will tell us.”
“Who drownded?” Oliver asked.
“Jesus Christ,” Lydia said, putting an arm out and giving the boy a hug. “We should talk someplace else,” she said to Rory. “And there’ll be tuna casseroles all over this house within the hour.”
“I’ll take him,” Hester said, crouching to meet Oliver’s gaze. “Let’s go back upstairs and play.”
“Angry Birds!” Kate said.
“Or something else,” Hester said, leading the two children upstairs, where Kate showed Sebastian to Oliver and told him that the toy was off limits. A moment later, Rory knocked on their open door and looked around for a chair, but Hester patted the mattress beside her. “We have chaperones,” she added.
Rory hesitated before perching on the edge of the bed. “Could you tell me what you saw?” he asked. “You’ll have to repeat it all to the state cops, but sometimes it’s best to talk right away.”
The whole scene had pretty much seared itself into Hester’s memory, but she went over each detail with Rory, from the visit to the Victorian, to her walk to the lighthouse, to the walk back.
“What about the guy at the house,” Rory said.
“Seth,” Hester said.
“Seth, right. I looked for him last night but couldn’t find him. Seth told you that Frankie had taken Ethan out to the beach. But you never saw her?”
“Nope, not a sign, though I ran into her later. I was hoping Annie might be there, but the lighthouse was empty. The door had been kicked in. And I saw that guy with the black lab. He was sopping wet from collecting buoys.”
“Vaughn?” Rory said, sitting up.
“Yeah, that’s him. But if he stabbed someone, there was no blood on his clothes.”
“But he’d gone in the water. Make sure to tell the state police when you see them. Every detail. Okay?”
“Of course,” Hester said. “I have no skin in this game.”
“Seems you might have some,” Rory said, standing up and heading to the door. “You showed up looking for a friend who disappeared, then a dead body washed up on shore. Doesn’t look good for Annie, I’ll tell you that much. Got any secrets you should share?”
Hester groaned, at least she did on the inside. She knew it was time to show her cards. “How’s this for a secret. Annie . . .” she began.
Rory waited her out.
“That’s not her name. Her name is Daphne Maguire. She’s been missing for the last year, and she sent me a text in the middle of the night asking me to come here even though I haven’t really heard from her the whole time she’s been gone. And now I’m really, truly worried. Also”—Hester nodded toward Kate, her voice low—“that’s her daughter.”
“You didn’t think to tell me this earlier?” Rory said. “Like when you got off the ferry?”
“None of this mattered when I got off the ferry. It was just an embarrassing personal situation. And I hadn’t found a dead person. But now I have, so now it does. That’s why I’m telling you.”
“Who’s dead?” Kate asked.
“I’ll tell you later,” Hester said.
“When?”
“Not now.”
Hester stood and pulled Rory into the hallway. “Little ears . . .” she mumbled.
“So you don’t think it matters that you haven’t heard from your friend in a year?” Rory asked. “The friend who abandoned her own child, leaving her with you to raise?”
Hester hated when people vocalized her situation to her. “You’d be surprised how quickly you can adapt to things,” she said. “Even caring for someone else’s child.”
Rory looked her over one more time. “The state cops are at the community center. You need to come in and make a statement to Detective Kelley. Come in an hour or so. M
aybe we’ll be back from the beach by then.”
“Please find Annie. Whatever it takes, and whatever she’s done. She can’t have just disappeared.”
“Her name’s Daphne,” Rory said.
“Fine,” Hester said. “Please find Daphne.”
“I’ll do what I can.” Rory closed his eyes and sighed. “I promise. It’s my job.”
“Thank you,” Hester said.
“Can Oliver stay with you for a bit? Lydia needs to come with me to identify the body.”
“Of course,” Hester said.
She listened to Rory’s footsteps as he made his way down the narrow staircase. She watched as Kate began to let Oliver play with Sebastian, as though the little girl understood the sadness the boy would face in the coming days. It used to be that Hester didn’t believe she could care for a child—she hadn’t wanted to, and part of her had thought she wasn’t capable of doing so. Now, here she was with two of them, neither of them hers. “What are you playing over there?” she asked.
“It’s Sebastian’s birthday,” Kate said.
“How could I have forgotten?” Hester said, joining them on the floor.
Today, Sebastian’s birthday was sparser than usual, with mini soaps from the bathroom serving as presents. Kate had never seen a hotel soap and marveled at its tininess, using her imagination to turn them into birthday cake and iPhones, and directing Oliver through the whole game. Oliver took Kate’s instruction well, absorbing the bossiness Hester hoped Kate would carry with her into adulthood. They played till the autumn sun began to move toward the horizon. The inn remained quiet, but Hester suspected the doorbell would soon start to ring with the promise of those casseroles and cakes that came with death.
“We should go,” she said after an hour had gone by. “It’s time to face the music.”
“Like the Wiggles?” Kate asked.
“Worse,” Hester said. “More like Barney.”
* * *
“Where did they all come from?” Lydia asked as Rory pulled around the bend on Little Ef.
At least a dozen state troopers stood in a group by the side of the road. A coast guard cutter had dropped the reinforcements off soon after word of Trey’s death hit the mainland, because nothing brought out the forces or agency cooperation like a death to one of their own. “Everyone cared about Trey,” he said to Lydia. “Will you be okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Lydia said, already back to her stoic Maine self.
“Stay here for a minute,” Rory said as he parked the Jeep. “I’ll come get you.”
Police tape lined the area leading out to the lighthouse, and Trey’s body still lay where Rory had dragged it earlier. Barb Kelley was on her radio as he approached her. “Best place to land is by the pier,” she said, waving Rory over as she signed off. “Medical examiner is on his way from Portland. But I don’t need a doctor to tell me the cause of death on this one. Thanks for handling the notification,” she added. “That couldn’t have been easy.”
Rory wouldn’t have let anyone else do it. “Comes with the territory,” he said. “She’s in the car to do the ID.”
“I think we know who it is,” Barb said. “But let’s make it official.” She lifted the tape and ducked under it. “Walk me through what happened again. What you saw and what you found.”
Rory gestured toward the water. “The tide was coming in, and he was on the sand, nearly floating out to sea.”
“So you did what?”
“I photographed the scene, pulled the body out of the water, and radioed in,” Rory said. After a beat, he added, “Following protocol.”
“Not exactly protocol,” Barb said, letting that smile slip in. “Even a rookie knows not to touch a body till it’s released by the medical examiner. But it’s what I’d have done too. Send me those photos.”
Rory had spent enough time with Barb to know that each of her actions had meaning and that he was both investigator and suspect, both part of the team and miles outside of it. Barb had seen how Trey treated him. She knew what people in town thought of Rory. He hoped she’d see beyond it.
“The body was in the water,” Barb said.
“That’s not exactly right,” Rory said. “The body was on the sand, but the tide was on its way in. Last night was a moon tide, which means the water comes in fast and the final tide will reach to about here.” Rory walked to a dark line on the stone. “All this tape will be gone within the next hour.”
“Good to know,” Barb said, calling Nate over and telling him to move things back. “So much for a secured crime scene, I guess. Let’s hope the good ol’ doc gets here before then.”
She lifted the edge of the blue tarp that covered the body, and Rory caught a glimpse of Trey’s hand, the skin rubbery.
“God knows how long he’s been dead,” Barb said. “My guess is a few hours at the very least, though getting an accurate time of death will be tough. It doesn’t help that he’s been soaking in seawater. Could the body have floated from somewhere else?”
“My best guess would be maybe.”
“Did you see anything around the body?” Barb asked. “Any footprints?”
“Not even footprints from the woman who found it. The tide had washed them away.”
“But anything from here up would be fresh,” Barb said, pointing to the tide line. “Anything old would have been swept away in last night’s rain.”
Barb lived on the water in South Portland, and like anyone who lived on the water, she understood tides. But Rory would let her play her game and ask the questions that she already had answers for. He’d play along too, as long as it made sense.
“Two sets of prints,” Barb said. “Tiny and tinier.”
“That’s the woman and the girl.”
Barb walked to the water’s edge and faced the horizon, hands on her hips, her legs apart, her feet firmly planted. “This is my Superman pose,” she said. “Or Superwoman. It’s supposed to make you feel invincible. I heard it on a TED Talk, and I do it whenever I don’t know what to do next.”
“Does it work?” Rory asked.
Barb sighed. “I hate TED Talks,” she said. “Why don’t we pull together a list of suspects? Good thing is, there are only so many people on this island, right? And who do we start with?”
Rory glanced toward the Jeep as Lydia stepped out of it and headed toward him. “The wife. Always start with the spouse.”
Barb followed his gaze. “Will you be okay with that?”
Rory remembered Lydia and Vaughn in the ravine the night before, the way Trey had tried to cut their line. And he remembered sitting outside Lydia’s window, watching her. “I’ll have to be,” he said.
Barb relaxed out of her pose. “What is it with this island, anyway? Missing children. Now a murder. Who else is on that suspect list?”
I am, Rory thought. Or, I should be.
“Rory?”
Lydia waited at the police tape. Barb nodded, and he led Lydia to the blue tarp. “Are you ready for this?” he asked, and she nodded sharply.
He lifted the edge of the tarp. Lydia inhaled.
“It’s him, right?” Rory asked.
“Have you seen Vaughn?” Lydia asked.
The sound of Vaughn’s name hit Rory right in the heart. He had held Lydia as close as he dared when he’d told her about Trey, making sure she didn’t collapse from grief. Or so he’d convinced himself. Now, he felt her slipping away again. “Haven’t seen him since I tackled him at your place.”
“The two of you,” Lydia said. “You’ve been brawling since high school. Fighting over nothing.”
You’re not nothing, Rory wanted to say, you’re everything. But Barb’s radio crackled to life. She ducked under the tape and headed toward shore, then waited to see if Rory would follow.
“Do you want to stay?” he asked Lydia.
“I’m done,” she said.
“I’ll take you home.”
“I’ll walk,” Lydia said. “I could use the air.”
“What about Oliver? He’s with that woman, at the inn. With Hester.”
“I’ll have to go get him, then.” She turned back to where a breeze lifted the edges of the blue tarp. “This is gonna be hard,” she said.
It took everything he had to turn away from her and get into the Jeep beside Barb. “The woman who found the body showed up at the community center. Let’s find out what she saw,” she said, watching Lydia out the window. “You and the widow, Pelletier. What’s going on there?”
“She’s like a sister.”
“Not like any sister I’ve ever known.”
Rory put the Jeep in gear and sped toward town, watching in the rearview mirror till Lydia disappeared.
“You really need to get more cars out here,” Barb said. “It’s like the nineteenth century.”
“That’s how we like it.”
“Yeah, but if you had more cars and tolls on this rock, we’d know where people were. You can track just about anything these days as long as there’s some data attached to it.”
Rory swerved around a tree that had fallen into the road. “Did you meet Annie?” he asked.
Barb paused, and Rory could almost see her putting a mental pin in their conversation about Lydia. “Homeless woman from last night? Red hair?” Barb said.
“That’s her. We’re meeting her friend, Hester. She showed up on the ferry this afternoon looking for Annie, and it turns out that Annie’s name isn’t Annie, it’s Daphne. But now Annie slash Daphne is missing, even though she wrote to Hester last night asking her to come here. Then Hester finds Trey’s body. I thought Annie had left the island, but now, I don’t know where she went.”
Rory pulled in front of the community center, and Barb sat for a moment thinking. “Like I said, murders, missing children. Now missing women who use aliases. Maybe there were two bodies on that beach? Maybe one of them washed out to sea? Come on! Let’s find out what we can.”
Inside, Hester Thursby waited on a metal folding chair with the little girl and Oliver sitting on the floor beside her.
Barb strode across the room. “I have two, about the same age. Maybe one of the officers can watch them. It’ll make it easier to chat.”