The Map of True Places

by Brunonia Barry

  “Into your store?” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ll make you some tea.”

  He looked at her. “What kind of tea?” he asked, thinking about the kind she was famous for.

  She smiled at him.

  “You sure?” he said.

  “I’m not at all sure,” she said. “But I’m feeling adventurous tonight.”

  “Okay,” he said, following her into the store, waiting as she locked the door behind them and led him through the beaded curtain to the back room. “But I won’t be needing any tea.”

  “We’ll see,” she said.

  60

  ZEE MISSED THE LAST boat home. It was ten-thirty. She’d stayed until the very end, through the traditional first dance, the cutting of the cake, and the tossing of the bouquet.

  She walked back from the wharf to the front of the hotel and the taxi stand where Michael stood with his date waiting for the valet. She nodded to him as she passed.

  He excused himself and followed.

  “Zee?” he said.

  She turned around. They had managed to stay away from each other all night. Mattei and Rhonda had seated them at opposite sides of the room, Zee with her colleagues and Michael with his.

  “Happy birthday,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  “I was going to ask you to dance,” he said. “But I got cold feet.”

  “It’s probably better that you didn’t,” Zee said, looking toward his date.

  Michael shrugged. “You’re more daring than I am. I didn’t want to come here alone tonight.”

  She smiled.

  “How’s Finch?”

  “Not very well,” she said.

  “Mattei told me he took a fall,” he said.

  “He’s in a nursing home,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m also sorry about the way I ended things,” he said.

  “It was pretty brutal,” she said.

  “And cowardly,” he added.

  “Maybe.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “Apology accepted.”

  “I was pushing you into something you clearly weren’t ready for,” he said.

  “I don’t think what I was or not ready for was clear in any way,” she said. “Least of all to me.”

  “And is it clear now?”

  It was an odd question to ask, particularly with his new date standing only a few yards away. Still, she knew he deserved an answer and that she had never given him one.

  “It is,” she said.

  “And?”

  “Good-bye, Michael,” she said.

  61

  ROY SAT AT THE kitchen table counting his money. Four hundred and fifty dollars. Plus the money he’d taken off the girl. He hadn’t counted it yet, really had only taken it to make things look like a robbery. The thought of Hawk behind bars made him laugh out loud. He’d left the hammer with Adam’s name on it right next to the body where they would be sure to find it. Roy knew they’d figure things out eventually, but by the time they did, he’d be long gone.

  He spun the lazy Susan around and looked at the cake. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZEE, it said. The letters were crooked and sloping.

  Roy was hungry. He wanted to eat the cake, but he needed something more. He’d already drunk almost two bottles of the wine he’d found in the rack. He wasn’t fond of wine, but it was all he could find. He peered into the refrigerator for some food, but there were only two very old-looking sandwiches that he wasn’t about to touch. Didn’t anyone shop for groceries anymore? Roy found some American cheese in the vegetable bin, individually wrapped slices. He checked the date on the side of the package and unwrapped a piece.

  He couldn’t believe they’d laid him off. He’d been foreman at Cassella Construction for almost twelve years. They’d said it was cutbacks, but you don’t fire your foreman for cutbacks. You do that and your whole crew goes to hell, taking long lunches or not showing up to work on time. Stupid fuck didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

  Besides the paycheck, the worst part was losing the company truck. He’d had to buy an old, beat-up Chevy with his last paycheck, and the damned thing burned oil like a motherfucker. He’d ditch it as soon as he got out of state, if it even made it that far. The thought of the Chevy as a getaway car made him laugh, and he realized he was drunk. He took out the coke he had bought with the last of his money and drew some lines on the table, sucking them up through the gold-cross straw he’d taken from her neck. Christian, right, he thought. So Christian that he’d walked in on her with another guy. He’d been planning to surprise her, bought the drugs she liked with money he should have been saving. Well, he’d surprised her all right, in the end. As soon as the other guy left the house, he’d surprised the hell out of her.

  The coke woke him up. Where the fuck was the shrink? He wasn’t a guy who liked to wait, and for a minute he thought it wasn’t worth it, but then he thought of Lilly and what she had done to her, and his rage flared. How dare she tell Lilly to stay away from him? It was Hawk she should have told her to stay away from, not him. He loved Lilly.

  He had loved her on Halloween night when he’d gone to her house to take her with him, though he couldn’t make her believe him. He had taken the gun just in case anyone tried to stop him. He hadn’t meant to threaten her family. He’d only done that because she’d told him she wouldn’t come with him. The cat was something else. He’d always hated that cat. But he wouldn’t have hurt her family. She had to know that. He confessed his undying love for her, something he’d never done before for any woman. He even told her he’d kill himself if she didn’t come, and still she’d refused him. And then something just snapped in him, and he heard himself threatening to kill them all. He only said it so she would believe him, so she’d know how much he loved her. She had to know he didn’t mean it.

  In the days that followed, he didn’t mean to hit her either, but she just wouldn’t stop crying, telling him she wanted to go home. Roy didn’t blame Lilly for that. He blamed the shrink.

  Roy pounded his fist on the table, and the cocaine dusted upward, then settled back down again in a wide arc, leaving a film on the surface of the old oak table.

  He’d been following Hawk for the last week, waiting for the right time. But that time hadn’t come. When he’d followed him here, Roy knew he’d hit the jackpot. Hawk just sat in his van, looking at the house. Drove right by Roy when he left, never even seeing him. A minute later her Volvo pulled into the driveway, and Dr. Finch got out and went into the house. Roy couldn’t believe his good fortune. He’d been trying to get to her all summer, ever since Lilly died, maybe even before.

  Roy counted his money one more time and wondered how long he could make it last. He’d already rifled through all the drawers in this house, upturning some of them, making it look like a real robbery. He was searching for money—he was going to need it. But there was nothing here, just books and a few prescriptions in the medicine cabinet upstairs, which he pocketed. There was no cash and nothing decent that he could pawn.

  Roy pulled the plastic wrap off the cake and carefully removed the toothpicks that were holding it away from the frosting. When she got here, he would light the candles. Then they would celebrate her birthday, just the two of them. He’d already checked out the house. He thought the upstairs bedroom, her room, was the perfect place for a birthday party.

  He took the rest of the bottle of wine up the stairs. He took the cake, too. He was about to go back for the rest of the cheese when he heard her come in.

  SHE ENTERED THROUGH THE MAIN door on the Turner Street side. She didn’t stop in the kitchen or in the rest of the house. If she had, she would have seen the broken window, the overturned drawers in Finch’s study, their contents dumped on the floor.

  But she was tired. She knew that Jessina had left a cake for her in the kitchen, but she couldn’t face it tonight. The week had been tough, and seeing
Michael again had taken its toll. Instead of stopping she walked straight upstairs to the bedroom. She saw the glow from the birthday candles but thought at first that someone had reported the broken streetlight and it had been repaired. Or maybe they had a new light across the street at the House of the Seven Gables.

  Roy was quick. He gagged her first, coming up behind her as she stared at the cake. Then he pushed her down on the bed and tied her there. She struggled hard, but he was double her size. When he had her where he wanted, he sang “Happy Birthday,” then went over to get them each a piece of cake. He laughed at the thought, because she couldn’t share the birthday cake with a gag on. She couldn’t even blow out the candles.

  He ate the cake slowly, taunting her and seeing the fear in her eyes. He watched her struggle against the ropes he had used to tie her. He’d been careful to use the constrictor knot, one he used for almost everything and one that Hawk would recognize as Roy’s signature, if Hawk was the one who found her.

  62

  JOHN RAFFERTY, SALEM’S CHIEF of police, was waiting on the wharf as the Friendship tied up.

  “I need to talk with you,” he said to Hawk. “You want to take a walk with me?”

  Hawk seemed surprised. He stopped what he was doing and walked down the ramp with Rafferty.

  “Where were you Saturday night?”

  “On the ship.”

  “All night?” Rafferty asked.

  “We were at Star Island first. Then we had dinner in Newburyport.”

  “Can anyone vouch for you?”

  “Sure, they can all vouch for me. Except for about ten minutes when I was making a phone call.”

  “I tried your cell,” Rafferty said. “You didn’t answer.”

  “The battery’s dead,” Hawk said. “What’s going on?”

  “The Marblehead police are looking for you. They got a call from Weirs Beach.”

  “About me?” Hawk was surprised. He hadn’t been anywhere near Weirs Beach.

  “About a hammer with your name and phone number scratched into the handle.”

  Now Hawk was interested.

  Rafferty watched him.

  “What did he do?” Hawk asked.

  “Who?”

  “His name is Roy Brown. He stole my hammer a couple of weeks ago. Said it was payback for one I took of his at my old job site. Which was a total lie.”

  “Did anyone see him take the hammer?” Rafferty asked.

  “Yeah,” Hawk said. “A lot of people.” He thought about it. “Zee Finch was there.”

  “Let’s go talk with Zee,” Rafferty said.

  “I was just going to do that,” Hawk said. “Let me get my gear.”

  “Leave your gear,” Rafferty said.

  Rafferty called the Marblehead police as they walked to his car and told them to pick up Roy at his last known address.

  “What did he do?” Hawk asked again as they got into the car.

  “He killed a woman at Weirs Beach,” Rafferty said.

  63

  ROY SAT AT THE table in her room watching her struggle. He finished both pieces of cake before he got undressed and came to the bed. He wanted to take his time. He was tired, but he was up for this. He folded his clothes neatly and then ripped the strap of her dress. It fell away, revealing her breast.

  A shock like lightning went through him. Maybe it was the coke, maybe it was just knowing what he was going to do and how he was going to do it that made him so excited, but the thrill of it shot through him like electricity, up his arms and all the way down his spine.

  Zee stared, terrified, as Roy moved closer.

  64

  HAWK SPOTTED THE BROKEN kitchen window as Rafferty pulled in. His eyes scanned the street for the red truck. He might have felt relief at not seeing it, but he didn’t. He was out of the car before Rafferty had a chance to pull over.

  Hawk ran into the kitchen, saw the cross and the coke still on the table.

  “Upstairs!” he yelled back at Rafferty, taking the stairs two at a time.

  Rafferty got to the top of the stairs as Hawk pulled Roy off of Zee. Hawk threw him with such force that Roy immediately went into spasm, his back arching wildly, bending him backward until his head almost touched the ground as the first wave of the strychnine hit him.

  There were eight spasms in all before he died. In between he collapsed limply while his body gathered energy for the next spasm.

  Rafferty called for both backup and an ambulance. Beyond that, there was nothing anyone could do but watch.

  PART 5:

  September–October 2008

  The North Star is one of the truest stars in the sky, its location the most constant. But it is often not bright enough to be counted on. One’s bearings must be taken from other stars that sit lower in the sky, stars that rise and set along the horizon.

  65

  MELVILLE PULLED THE OLD lobster boat up to the wharf on Turner Street and helped Zee aboard, taking her duffel bag and a few other things she had brought along and stowing them in the cabin for her.

  “Careful,” he said, holding her arm as she jumped in. “It’s slippery.”

  At the end of the season, Melville had finally gotten his boat back into the water after it sat dry-docked in Finch’s driveway for as long as he could remember. There were a few repairs he’d had to make, but all in all it was in surprisingly good shape.

  Bowditch lay in the stern, sunning and snoring. When Zee jumped aboard, he lifted his head and wagged his tail, though he didn’t get up.

  Melville had talked her into this. She hadn’t wanted to come today.

  “You know what I always did when things got to be too much for me?” he’d said.

  “You ran?” she answered, remembering how he had disappeared.

  “I went to sea,” he said. “Until things cleared up.”

  “How long did that usually take?” she asked.

  “One time it took four months, and the next time it took two years.”

  “I haven’t got two years,” she said. “Or four months, for that matter.”

  “I could argue that point with you,” he said. “Instead I’m going to suggest a week or two.”

  “Where would we go?” she asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Not really,” she said.

  “South,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  THEY HEADED DOWN TOWARD CAPE Cod, cutting through the canal and out the other side and then on over open ocean to the Vineyard. Melville picked up a mooring from the Edgartown harbormaster, and they stayed on the boat. Though there were plenty of bunks below, Melville would often awaken to find Zee sleeping on the bench in the stern of the boat, as she had done as a child in the years after Maureen died. Bowditch snored loudly, asleep next to her on the deck.

  Melville called once a day to see how things were going at home. Sometimes he talked to Ann or Mickey, who were taking shifts visiting Finch, but mostly he spoke with Jessina.

  “He’s well,” she told him. “What I mean to say, in other words, is he’s not worse. No falls, no new developments. He’s eating a lot of my cookies.”

  The fact that Jessina considered the cookies a positive sign might have alarmed Melville even a few weeks ago. Now he was grateful that Finch had an appetite and wasn’t showing signs of depression at Zee’s absence.

  “I’m doing what you would want me to do for our girl,” he said aloud. Lately he’d been talking to Finch as if he were here, hoping that whatever earthly rules and constraints we come to accept as normal no longer applied in whatever mental realm Finch now inhabited. It was clearly an act of faith, something new for Melville.

  There were phone and text messages from Hawk and from Michael. He answered the ones from Mattei.

  “How is she?” Mattei asked.

  “It’s hard to tell,” Melville said. “She doesn’t want to talk.”

  “I can understand that,” she said.

  “I’m worried about her.”
/>   Mattei considered. “She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’ll talk to you when she’s ready.”

  Melville’s sense of time seemed to be shifting. Summer was slipping into fall. September turned to October. The maple leaves were turning yellow and red.

  When it was too cold to stay on the boat, Melville rented them adjoining rooms at an inn in town, a place that would allow pets. She took her duffel bag and he took his. Then he went back to the boat to get another load. He handed her some other items she’d brought along, some books, a jacket, and a mahogany case he didn’t remember seeing before.

  “That’s not mine,” she said when he put it in her room.

  “It’s not mine either,” he said.

  He opened it up and saw the brass sextant.

  “That belongs to Hawk,” she said. “How did you get it?”

  “I don’t know. I thought you brought it.”

  “I didn’t,” she said.

  He handed her a paper, thinking it was a note.

  “You read it,” she said.

  He opened the paper and looked at it curiously. “It’s not a note,” he said. “It’s a chart of the constellations.”

  “You didn’t know about this?” she said to him.

  “I swear I didn’t,” he said. “I can put it in my room if it bothers you.”

  “No,” she said. “Leave it.”

  He closed the mahogany case and left it on her bureau.

  THE NEXT TWO WEEKS WERE bad. The weather was gloomy, and they both missed being on the boat. At night he left the door open between their two rooms so he could wake her from her recurring nightmares. Bowditch planted himself in the doorway between them.

  THE THIRD WEEK OF OCTOBER, the weather cleared and Zee went outside. She walked to town in the mornings. At night, if she couldn’t sleep, she would sometimes walk to the beach. He worried about it, and told her so.