A Month at the Shore

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  "Can I come over anyway?" His voice was a low, irresistible plea. "We could play Scrabble."

  "How persistent you are," she said, smiling.

  "I'm a good speller, that's all; I like to show off."

  She was charmed into capitulation. "All right. You win. Scrabble it is."

  "An hour and a half, tops," he promised.

  Whatever game they were playing, it wasn't Scrabble. With a smile that wouldn't go away, Laura returned to her Windex and was surprised to see that her sister had abandoned her post. Wandering through the farmhouse, she tracked Corinne to the front porch.

  She was standing alongside Snack, facing down the law.

  No question, Laura felt as if she were watching a scene out of a Western. There they were: homesteader Corinne, in bib overalls and clutching a window-cleaning rag; prodigal son Snack, looking lean and rough and dangerous with his stubbled chin and a red bandanna tied around his head; and the posse, in the form of two investigators who weren't looking too terribly thrilled with Snack at the moment.

  "You got a warrant?" Snack was asking with barely concealed contempt.

  Laura couldn't believe he was actually saying that. "Snack, don't," she commanded.

  The men, dressed casually but looking official all the same, sounded equally contemptuous. "All we're saying is, it's not the best thing to be painting the porch right now, before the death investigation is complete."

  "And all I'm saying is, if you don't have a homicide investigation, then you don't have cause. Go away and let me paint."

  Jumping in to save Snack from being dragged off in handcuffs behind their horses, Laura smiled sweetly and said to them, "My brother is only home for a very limited time, and naturally he wants to get as much accomplished as possible. Since we can't conduct our Founders Week sale as we'd planned, you can see how frustrated we all naturally feel."

  "It can't be helped, ma'am."

  "Yes. We understand. I'll speak with Chief Mellon about whether we can paint or not, and in the meantime, we will leave all the bird poop DNA right where it is on the porch so that it's available to you in your ongoing investigation."

  She picked up the brush lying across the gallon container, then picked up the paint. "Snack? The sooner they get done, the sooner we can get back to the business of saving the ranch. Shall we leave them to it?"

  Put that way, Snack couldn't say no. He turned to go back into the house and then, maybe to have the last word, he turned back around. An expert spitter from way back, he let loose a missile of phlegm that went flying over the banister and within a foot of the investigator who both looked and talked like Joe Friday.

  It could have been worse, Laura told herself, sighing. At least Snack was still a good shot. Without daring to look at the investigators' reactions, she followed her brother and sister inside.

  Chapter 23

  Ken stood on the sidelines at the marina, watching Jay Creasey slide his trailer under the bow of sweet Eliza in preparation for her launch.

  He shouldn't be feeling so good, he knew. With Shore Gardens shut down and a forensic exam in the works, there was more than enough gloom to cast a pall over the moment. But the moment was traditionally one of the sweetest of the year, and savoring it was almost automatic.

  And besides, there were reasons to feel optimistic about the ongoing investigation. He had learned from Chief Andy Mellon that the woman's bones had been in the compost pile for a long time, perhaps generations. That was the initial word from the ME, and Ken had taken heart from it. He wanted no one—no one—in Laura's own generation to be under a cloud of suspicion.

  Still, assuming that it was a murder, which seemed likely, it was disheartening to realize that an obvious suspect was Laura's uncle, and that another might be Laura's father. Ken did not want it to be Laura's anything.

  He had never known Norbert Shore, who'd been in prison with cancer by the time Ken became old enough to learn the story of how the man had strangled his wife. But Ken certainly had known Norbert's brother, and as far as he was concerned, Oliver Shore had been nothing less than a foul-tempered menace. No wonder Laura and Snack had run as fast and as far as they could to escape him.

  Ken's newly avowed goal was clear: somehow he had to make Chepaquit accept Laura and Snack and Corinne for who they were and not hold the sins of their uncle—or of their father—against them. He was ready and willing to throw his name, his money, and his time into the effort.

  If Laura would let him. She had this thing about fighting her own battles, and Ken wasn't altogether sure that she was currently signing up enlistees in her cause.

  His reverie was broken when Jay Creasey leaned out the window of his cab and yelled, "Hey, Cap! You got all your dock lines set up?"

  "Yessir," he told the marina manager. "And fenders at the ready."

  "You're gonna need 'em. Wind's pickin' up. Want some help takin' her around?"

  "Nah. But if someone's on the dock to take a line, I wouldn't mind."

  Creasey nodded. "Last thing you need is a big fat gouge in that paint job," he agreed. "Nice work, by the way."

  High praise, coming from Jay Creasey. Ken said to the older man, "Thankee, sir. I try my best."

  "You ever quit your day job," Creasey added with a gruff nod, "you come round to the office, and I'll put you right to work."

  It would be dream work, as far as Ken was concerned. Messing around in boats all day? Dream work. He grinned and said, "I might take you up on that offer—but only if you let me pay you."

  Creasey snorted and then began barking instructions to the help, a muscular kid with a ponytail who looked as if he would run screaming from anything so terrifying as a desk.

  He'll probably end up skipper of a windjammer in the Caribbean, whereas I—I'll still be running Chepaquit Savings.

  Ken had to smile. It happened every year around launching time: the restless wanderlust, the second-guessing about might-have-beens. So it was coming as a bit of a pleasant shock that this year, he was feeling happy to be sticking around Chepaquit. He envisioned taking Laura sailing, taking Laura dining, taking Laura dancing, taking Laura to bed. Stick a bottle of Windex in his hand, and he could even envision himself ....

  Okay, something was going on here. The day that Ken Barclay could picture himself with a bottle of Windex in his hand was the day that he was in trouble. What the hell was going on here? The biggest commitment he'd ever made in his life was to something called Eliza. Someone called Laura—that was a whole new level of commitment. Man, a whole new level.

  His musings were so intense, so real, that he had to be chided back to the present.

  "Yo! Move it!" Creasey roared.

  Ken was standing right in the path of the truck that was guiding the Eliza down the ways and into the sea.

  Embarrassed to be yelled at like some landlubber, he jumped clear and watched with his usual fascination as the small, graceful sloop made her annual slide into the warming waters of Nantucket Sound. The Eliza slipped off the padded arms of the hydraulic cradle and dipped and bobbed becomingly; she was afloat again.

  Ken climbed aboard the sloop from the wobbly floating dock that was casually moored alongside the deep end of the ways. The little ship yielded gently to the pressure of his boarding and then righted herself, ready to go.

  It felt good—it felt great—to be waterborne again after months of being on land. Ken thought of his ancestor Captain Barclay, as he always did, with a mixture of awe and sympathy. To captain a whaling ship successfully around the world with nothing but the stars to steer her by, only to lose her so close to home—that was enough to break any man's spirit. Never mind that at least half a dozen other vessels in New England foundered during the same storm, and with far greater loss of life. By all accounts, Captain Barclay after the storm was not the same man as before it.

  What was it like, to have responsibility for a man's life? Ken had never even baby-sat, let alone had complete responsibility for the crew of a square-rigger. The
grief had to be crushing.

  He tossed Creasey a stern line and the yardhand a bow line to hold the boat temporarily. Then he flipped the secured fenders over the port side, which he knew would be driven into his slip by the raw southeast wind that had come up and was still rising.

  Rain soon, he thought as he scanned the dull gray sky.

  He turned the key to the sloop's auxiliary engine. After a slow start, the diesel knocked to life and thumped solidly, a heartbeat in a winged angel. Ken was glad to hear it: no mechanic, he considered it a minor miracle whenever the engine awoke from its winter sleep, stretched, yawned, and began moving again.

  "Okay, you can cast off; I'll take her around now," he told Creasey and the yardhand.

  The men unfastened the lines, coiled them loosely, and tossed them back on deck as Ken put the sloop smartly in reverse, compensating for the adverse wind. He backed all the way out from between the two rows of slips, turned into the Sound, and then threw the boat into forward gear, heading for the same berth that had been in his family since the marina was built half a century earlier.

  It took some smart maneuvering, but Ken knew the boat and he knew the slip. He didn't really need anyone to catch the lines—but he'd got a damn good paint job on the hull this year, and he wasn't taking any chances. Hell, everyone knew that bankers were conservative folk.

  As he approached, he was surprised to see Billy Benwith weighing down one end of the narrow float as he tried to squeeze his big body out of the way of the two men arriving. Ken acknowledged Billy with a distracted nod and threw the boat into neutral and then reverse and back to neutral again, gauging the wind speed and direction well enough so that the boat made a painless soft landing. The men tied up the Eliza, Ken thanked them for working late, and they knocked off for the day.

  Not Billy. He carried his bulk forward a little sheepishly and said, "They told me you were launchin' tonight. Is this an okay time?"

  "For—?"

  "Because I've got something, y'know, to tell you. I was gonna tell Laura, but then I thought, she's such a delicate lady. And this isn't delicate, what I have to say. You been giving me work, just like the Shores. For years and years." He took a deep breath after his long speech and said, "So—can I tell you now?"

  "Sure. Now's good," Ken said, baffled by what he was hearing. Billy was known around town as the gentle giant, but just then, he had Ken's hairs standing on end. "C'mon aboard," he said.

  Billy grabbed the stanchions on either side of the sloop's gate and hauled himself up. The Eliza angled sharply to take his weight, then righted herself as well as she could, which wasn't completely: Ken felt the boat take on a slight starboard list as Billy settled opposite him on the cockpit seat.

  "What's up?" Ken asked, even though in the back of his mind, he was thinking that he should first take the time to rig a forward spring line. The wind really was picking up.

  Billy always looked a little ill at ease when he talked to anyone, but his manner just then went far beyond his usual awkward shyness: the man looked genuinely scared. "It's okay, Billy," Ken found himself saying. "Whatever it is, we can make it right again."

  "I don't know," said Billy disconsolately. "I don't know."

  "What happened?"

  "I'm not sure anything happened. But it could've. Maybe. You know those bones?"

  "Oh, yes."

  "Well, I think I know how they got there."

  God Almighty. "Okay," Ken said, nodding calmly. "Tell me how you think they got there."

  Billy seemed eager to spill it all out, frowning as he concentrated on what he had to say. "Well, I was doing deliveries for Shore Gardens," he began. "We were real busy with graduations and weddings and all. And back then, the flower arrangements were usually done in the greenhouse. You remember?"

  "Not exactly, but that's all right; go ahead."

  "Mr. Shore used to keep Laura and Rinnie working in the store because of handling money and all, which nobody else ever got to do but them. The flower arrangers, they were just people he hired around busy season—usually from Easter to weddings. And also before Christmas, 'course."

  "Sure. That makes sense," said Ken, wondering where Billy was taking this. "Spring through June is a busy time, and so is Christmas."

  "But Christmas season, that's only a coupla weeks. But it would be too cold to heat the greenhouse in December, so then they used to make do in the shop. But it was really crowded when everyone was jammed in there like that. They had to make do."

  "Yes. I understand. So what then? What about the flower arrangers?"

  Billy looked a little huddled, rubbing his bare, massive arms briskly in the chill wind. He stared at his reflection in the brass ship's bell that was mounted on the bulkhead as he said, "There was this one girl ... she was younger than the usual. Prettier. The prettiest of all. Prettier than—promise you won't tell?"

  "Promise."

  "Prettier even than Laura. You remember?"

  "Ah ... can't say that I do," Ken admitted. He was becoming more baffled by the second. "What was her name?"

  "Sylvia. Her name was Sylvia. I don't know her other name." He sighed. His brow twitched in the effort to focus. "No, I don't know it. If I ever knew it."

  Sylvia again. Ken said carefully, "Well, this Sylvia—she must have been really good-looking, because she sure seems to have made an impression. When did she work at Shore Gardens?"

  "She worked there when I worked there," Billy said, blinking at the question.

  "No, I mean, how long ago was that? Do you remember?"

  "Yes," Billy said, nodding eagerly. "I had my driver's license. Laura and me both. We practiced in the same car in Driver's Ed. We were in the same grade—well, me because I was held back. And on driving too. I didn't like that part!"

  Ken felt obligated to apologize for his lack of knowledge. "I was going to school in western Mass by then," he said, "so I guess I kind of lost touch with everyone."

  Billy nodded again and gave Ken a look, as if he were taking it personally. You went K through 8 with us, and then you ditched us for a fancy high school. What, we weren't good enough for you?

  Or maybe that was just Ken, projecting. He said, "So you were delivering flowers for Shore Gardens, and a very pretty girl named Sylvia was doing the arrangements. Did she work in the greenhouse or in the shop?"

  "For sure, the greenhouse! She started work during Founders Week. I said, when I got my driver's license—right? Everyone knows the driver's test is in May."

  Except Ken. "Right, right. Sorry. And then what?"

  Suddenly Billy seemed not to want to continue, after all. He said to Ken, "Would it be okay if I rang the bell?"

  "Uh ... sure, go ahead," Ken said, wondering at the wild shift in subject matter.

  Billy carefully took hold of the macramé lanyard attached to the clapper of the brass bell and gave it a timid rap against the strike.

  "Ooh! It's loud," he said with a startled giggle.

  Ken made himself smile. "That's so other boats can hear you in the fog."

  "Yeah. It wouldn't help if no one could hear; they wouldn't know where you were," said Billy. "Then what would be the point?"

  "Exactly," said Ken, nodding.

  "It's Snack," Billy blurted. "Sylvia had a big fight with Snack. They were screamin' at each other, just screamin'. I didn't even go into the greenhouse, that's how mad they sounded. They were just screamin' at the top of their lungs."

  That's all this was about? Thank God. "Ah, so you heard an argument between Snack and this girl Sylvia. And because of that, you think—?"

  "It could be Sylvia they found. He could've done it. I wish he didn't," Billy said miserably, "but he could've."

  Relieved that Billy's big news came down to overhearing an argument between Snack and a girl, Ken was nonetheless thrown into a quandary. The news about the exceptional length of time that the bones had been in the compost pile wasn't common knowledge yet—but on the other hand, Billy could do a lot of damage spre
ading his story around. Ken understood how small towns worked. The simplest event could be twisted into something unrecognizable within the space of a single conversation over a picket fence.

  That was unacceptable. "Billy," he said, "you have absolutely nothing to worry about; I have great news for you. But first: can you keep a secret?"

  "I think so," said Billy. He looked as if he'd never been asked to do it before.

  "It won't be forever. Just temporarily."

  Billy looked excited, relieved, and curious, in that order. "What's the secret?"

  "I've already been told that the bones were in the compost pile for much, much longer than when you're talking about," Ken explained. "The bones are not Sylvia's, Billy. You don't have to worry about that. Okay?"

  Now came really happy nodding of his big, shaggy head. "Okay!" Billy said. He looked ready to hug Ken.

  And Ken was just about ready to hug him back. What profound relief to know there wasn't anything to Billy's fears. Ken was jumpier about the investigation than he'd realized.

  "Well, I'm glad that's settled," he said, smacking his hands together. "How about a Coke?"

  "Yeah, that would—oh. But ... then what were they doing, dragging it into the compost pile?"

  "Who?"

  Billy cringed visibly, as if his teacher had asked him to name the capital of Baluchistan.

  "If Snack didn't do anything, then I guess I don't know. I always figured it musta been Snack."

  "Dragging what?"

  "I ... don't know. Something heavy?"

  "When, for God's sake?" Ken snapped.

  "That's what I been trying to say: after the fight."

  "Right after it?"

  "Not right after it. Later that day. Maybe about eight o'clock? It was really foggy, and practically dark, I don't care if it was June or not. I was late because I was driving real slow, because I just got my license. I got it the same time as Laura. We were in the same grade, because I was held—"

  "Yes, yes. Do you remember what the person looked like that you saw dragging something heavy into the compost pile?"

  "Not hardly. It was really, really thick out. I drove the van up to the greenhouse like I always did, so I could just load up the next day and go. So I wasn't real close to the compost pile. And then a song came on that I liked a lot—'I Dream of You.' You know it?"