The Body in the Kelp ff-2

by Katherine Hall Page

  She pulled up in front of Jill's shop. Benjamin had fallen asleep in his car seat, waking drowsily when the car stopped. The shop was closed, but Faith knew Jill lived in the apartment over it and decided to go around back and knock. Jill came almost immediately. Her eyes were swollen and she was still crying. She was tucking a shirt into her jeans and was obviously getting ready to go someplace.

  “Oh, Faith, I'm so glad you came. I've been calling you since I heard. I just can't believe it. Roger was such a strong swimmer." She began to sob, and Faith stepped into the back of the store and put her arms around her—quite a feat, since she was carrying Benjamin.

  “I don't know anything about these waters, Jill. It may have been some kind of undertow." She had no idea what an undertow was, but people usually said that in these situations, Faith recalled, and it was reassuring to blame Nature.

  Jill wasn't really listening to Faith, which was understandable. She had stepped back and kept talking.

  “I've got to go to Eric. There's no phone where he is, andanyway i don't want him to hear me news twin a stranger.

  She turned to face Faith suddenly, fully taking in her presence for the first time. "Faith, tell me honestly, was the body in bad shape?"

  “I can tell you the truth, and it may help Eric too. There were no marks or cuts of any kind. Benjamin saw him first and he thought a man was swimming, and it would have been easy to think that." Except for the expression on his face and the fact that he seemed to have no bones, Faith thought.

  “That's a relief. And Eric will be happy to hear at least that. I don't know what he'll do. They've known each other so long and are closer to each other than to anyone else on earth. You couldn't be friends with one and not the other, not that that was likely in any case." She was moving around the back of the store, closing the windows and putting things into a large purse.

  “What about Roger's family? Will the police notify them?" Faith asked, suddenly curious as usual.

  “Roger has been estranged from his family for years. It was a source of great bitterness to him. He came from Iowa, and they never understood his way of life or approved it. I don't know what Eric will say, but I'm pretty sure Roger will stay right here, in the place he loved most." That started the tears again. "Faith, he was so wonderful to me—you can't imagine how many times I've cried on his shoulder, especially when I was starting the store and didn't know what I was doing. It's the weirdest thing. I keep thinking, `I've got to go see Roger, he'll comfort me'; then I remember.”

  It suddenly occurred to Faith that taciturn Jill was talking and, what's more, as if they were old friends. She sat down in a chair by the cluttered desk. Benjamin was all but asleep and rapidly becoming a dead weight in her arms.

  “Please tell Eric if there's anything I can do, let me know. Or if he wants to talk to me about finding the body, although there isn't much to tell. We walked up on the rocks at the end of the long beach at the Point, and Roger was lying in one of the pools.”

  Which was a pretty calm way to describe finding a body, she thought. She wanted to take some of the horror out of it for Jill. There was enough in the event itself without the details. The details that were running through Faith's mind like a video—the water in and out of Roger's mouth, his fingers clutching the rockweed.

  No, it certainly wasn't necessary to recount that.

  Jill was ready. Faith noticed she paused long enough to put on some lipstick and run a comb through her hair.

  “Are you all right to drive? Ben and I could come with you if you want?" Faith offered, suddenly concerned at the possibility of another accident.

  “Thank you, Faith, but the worst is over now and I have to be strong for Eric. He's going to need all my help.”

  And, Faith realized, that might not be such a bad thing for Jill.

  They left the store, and Faith waved good-bye to Jill before lowering Ben into his car seat. It looked as though he would be having his nap in several locations today. She stopped at the post office, dashed in, and found a letter from Hope and a circular from True Value Hardware in her box. She dropped the junk mail in the trash and sat in the car to read what Hope had to say.

  Her sister was writing to confirm that she and Quentin were definitely coming at the end of the month, and after that she chattered on about what they had been doing. Faith felt a swift pang of longing as she read about their weekend at the house of friends in Oyster Bay, the great meal they had had at Le Bernardin, and the terrific Armani suit Hope had found at Barney's. Faith looked through the windshield at the harbor in front of her with the quaint wooden houses sloping up from either side. There was such a thing as too much charm.

  But this was good news. A welcome distraction after the tragedy of Roger's death. She was glad they were coming. Now that she no longer had to live with her, she was always happy to see her sister, and Quentin was growing on her. He was so intense and well organized under a carefully composed surface calm that he made her feel incurably frivolous—suspecting, no doubt, she hadn't firmed up her plans for the next twenty years or so. He was the only person Faithknew whose Plan To Do Today list was the same as his Did Today one. She was sure they weren't getting married yet because Quentin hadn't planned to until he was thirty and had made X amount of money. And Hope loved it. Faith folded the letter, put it in her pocket, and resolved firmly that this visit she would finally tell her sister she hated being called Fay.

  Pix didn't get back until after five o'clock, and she rushed straight over to Faith's. Faith and Benjamin were eating spaghetti alla carbonara in the kitchen. Pix had paled under the color the summer sun had given her and slumped into a chair. Faith made her a drink, and after a few sips she started to cry.

  “I can't understand it, Faith! How could he have drowned? He was in great shape, and I think I heard he swam in college. It was wonderful having them this summer. We had all become so close. Samantha doesn't even want to talk about it. She's up in her room and I can't reach Sam.”

  Faith had called Tom earlier and had been lucky enough to catch him between events. He offered to come up the next weekend, but she said she was fine. She just wanted to hear his voice.

  Pix finished her drink and ate some spaghetti. Faith had discovered earlier that she was starving, and Pix seemed to be too.

  “I'm sure he'll be buried here. He wasn't close to his family."

  “That's what Jill said."

  “I don't know what Eric will do without him. Roger was like the rudder. He kept the business, and actually their lives, on course. He was the one who pushed to move up here. Jill told me once that Eric had been close to a breakdown and had to get away.”

  Bright lights, big city, Faith thought, and remembered her conversation with Eric. It sounded like he not only wanted to be away from the city, but needed to be. An artist friend of hers had once shown her his engagement book. It was crammed with openings, cocktail parties, private showings.

  She had wondered how he ever found the time, or energy, to paint.

  “Eric had been afraid that they would lose their customers and contacts up here, but Roger convinced him that they had built up a solid-enough reputation to make a move. And if anything they have become more well known in the last years. Living on an island gave a certain aura of inaccessibility to their work, having to be tracked down and persuaded, although of course it is all much more businesslike than that."

  “Maybe Eric will marry Jill now," Faith mused out loud.

  “I wouldn't be surprised. It's going to be terribly lonely for him without Roger. And the island is no place to be alone." Tears were running down Pix's face, and Faith knew she was mentally getting her guest room ready for a long visit from Eric.

  “I've got to get back to Samantha and try Sam some more," Pix continued as she got up and brought her plate to the sink.

  “Leave that, Pix, and call me if I can do anything," Faith said, thinking that she had already done enough. In some perverse form of logic she reasoned if she hadn
't found the body, Roger would still be alive. Or it would be yesterday and she could tell him not to go for a swim.

  “Thanks, Faith. I keep forgetting what an awful time you've had. Do you want to spend the night?"

  “No, but if I change my mind I'll come knocking at your door. It's funny, but I'm beginning to think of this as my house and my own little bed. It feels very comforting.”

  Ben had been miraculously quiet, playing with a wooden train Faith had bought at H.O.M.E. in Orland. She resolved to go back to the store and get cars, trucks, whatever they had. He looked up with one of those surprisingly adult expressions children sometimes assume. This one was slightly careworn, a little weltschmerz, a "why do these things have to happen?" look.

  Faith felt the same way and, despite her assurances to Pix, had trouble blotting out the images of Roger's body, which kept floating across her eyes every time she closed them to go to sleep. It wasn't just a reminder of the fragility and transitoriness of life; it was a dreadful reminder.

  The next day brought the real horror.

  Freeman Hamilton was setting traps off the Point when he spotted a dinghy washed up on the shore. It was Roger's, and when Sgt. Dickinson and Freeman went over it, they found a number of recently drilled holes. Since it was unlikely that Roger would drill holes in his boat and then put to sea, there was only one conclusion.

  Murder.

  Faith heard the news in the market after church and once more found herself with the grim task of bearing bad tidings to Pix. As she steered the old Woody over the hills and dips on Route 17, she kept repeating the same question over and over to herself: "Who on earth would want to kill Roger Barnett?”

  And this was Pix's second response. Her first was that there had to have been some mistake.

  But there was no mistake. The boat was definitely Roger's. He had painted it bright turquoise with a broad white stripe around at the waterline. Apparently the holes under the seats had been filled with corks and painted over. It wasn't a spur-of-the-moment job.

  “And it was in our boathouse! Whoever did it had to have done it there!" Pix cried.

  Roger didn't use the boat much. Mostly for picnics on one of the small islands nearby. He had been planning to replace it with something larger and more seaworthy. In fact, they had joked about it the night of the dinner party at Faith's. "I have to bail so much, I never get to see where I'm going," he had said. He would probably not have noticed anything unusual about water in the bottom of the boat until he got a ways out and it was too late.

  “But why Roger? He didn't have an enemy in the world. I just can't understand it, Faith.”

  Faith was picturing the phalanx of Prescotts surrounding Roger and Eric at the auction and thought they might aptly be described as enemies. Still, you didn't go around killing someone just because he inherited the house you wanted. Or did you? On reflection, it was a pretty good motive. Pix evidently thought so too.

  “The only thing I can think of is that one of the Prescotts trashed the boat to give him a scare or whatever and had no idea it would turn out this way.”

  Which seemed to be the prevailing opinion on the island, fueled by Eric's angry accusations. He had arrived back late in the morning and headed straight for the police station, or rather the police room in the combined town hall, office of the law, and post office in Granville. He wanted Sgt. Dickinson to bring in Sonny Prescott and any other Prescotts around for questioning. The sergeant had already decided to do this, but he didn't want Eric or anybody else telling him what to do. Instead, according to Eric's incensed account to Pix and Faith later, he ordered him to sit down and grilled him on his whereabouts and relationship with Roger.

  Eric looked terrible. He had obviously not slept and his eyes were red. He had started to cry when he saw Pix.

  “What am I going to do without him? I'm nothing without Roger. Why didn't they kill me?”

  Pix made a pot of strong tea and Eric began to calm down.

  “I called his mother, and do you know what she said? `The world is full of sin. He is in a better place now.' Can you imagine that? That's what you say when you hear your son is dead!"

  “Maybe it was the shock, Eric. Roger always said she had become very religious after his father died."

  “Well, she doesn't want to have anything to do with his burial, and that doesn't seem very Christian. She said to do what I wanted. That it was no concern of hers. Roger had made his choices. All that old stuff. No wonder she made him crazy." He laughed bitterly. "The last thing she said was `Did he leave a will?' I just hung up. I couldn't believe it.”

  Well, did he? Faith wondered.

  “I asked young Dick Tracy down at the police station when we could have the service, and he said as soon as they finished the autopsy, probably Tuesday. Roger wouldn't haveliked a big production, so I thought I would just ask John to say a few words at the cemetery." Eric's voice was cracking. Pix put her arms around him.

  “Do you think you could sleep a little? Maybe that tea was a mistake."

  “No, it was good, and I couldn't sleep anyway. But I guess I'll lie down. Jill said shed come by later, so would you tell her where I am?"

  “Of course," Pix assured him.

  Eric left and they watched him walk slowly down the path to the little house he and Roger had shared all summer. Faith imagined how shattering it must be to walk into a room and see all the everyday possessions left so casually and so recently by someone you loved. She thought of Tom's old bathrobe hanging on the hook in the closet, the coffee mug that said, "I love you, Dad," that Benjamin had given him for Father's Day, the books he was reading. That would be the worst part. The things. They'd never be used again. The owner wasn't coming back.

  Pix was saying something.

  “He did make a will, though. He asked Sam to make one for him when we were here in May opening the cottage. I'm sure Eric knows about it."

  “He wouldn't have had much to leave then, would he? I mean that was before he inherited the house."

  “Well, he couldn't have left that in any case, because of the provisions in Matilda's will. But I imagine he did have quite a bit saved. The business was very profitable, and I've heard both of them talk about their broker, so he must have had investments. He might have left something to his mother, and I think there are some brothers and sisters, but I'm sure the bulk of it has gone to Eric.”

  The tragedy was compounded by the news on Monday that the autopsy showed a significant amount of marijuana in Roger's body at the time of death. This time Pix brought the news. Faith and Ben were in the kitchen. Faith was experimenting with zucchini chutney recipes to help stem the squash invasion in the Millers' garden, and Ben was banging on pots as usual. Faith looked at him sternly. "Get it out of your system now, Buddy Rich, because you're not getting drums." She was startled by the knock on the door and Pix's serious face.

  “Oh, Pix, tell me quickly. It's more bad news, isn't it?"

  “Sad news. The autopsy showed that Roger had been using drugs just before he died. Oh Faith, that was why he couldn't swim. He was too stoned!”

  Somehow Faith wasn't surprised. The few times she had seen Roger, he had seemed to be slightly more relaxed than the rest of the group. But it was sad. Terribly sad. He had probably taken a few hits in the boat, and it was enough to disorient him when it sank.

  “I never knew he used drugs, or Eric either."

  “Now, Pix, you don't know that either of them were habitual drug takers. I wouldn't leap to any conclusions.”

  But there was a conclusion. If Roger hadn't taken anything, he'd probably be alive.

  The coroner thought so too. Roger had never been too far offshore and was a strong swimmer. The water was cold, but not killing cold as in the wintertime.

  It was Jill who reassured Pix that she had not unwittingly been landlady to an opium den all summer. Eric didn't use any drugs at all, and Roger only occasionally rolled a joint with some home-grown, pretty mild marijuana a friend on the m
ainland grew mixed in with his herbs and vegetables.

  The state police had virtually concluded that the whole thing was a tragic accident. The holes were drilled by persons unknown and the investigation would continue, but it was clear that whoever had done it had not known it would lead to Roger's death. Roger's reputation as a swimmer was well known, and the boat would have filled with water before he was away from the shoreline of the Point. Death by misadventure, possibly second-degree murder. Sgt. Dickinson was not having much luck questioning the Prescotts. To a man, and woman, they denied any tampering and were indignant that the question was raised. Everyone on the island had a drill, and it was easy to approach the Millers' boathouse undetected from the shore, so it looked like one of those islandmysteries where eventually everyone would know who had done it, but no one would tell.

  Roger's body was released and Eric made the arrangements to have him buried in the Northview cemetery. He bought a plot and told Pix there would be plenty of room for him and anyone else who cared to be there. Pix thanked him, but explained that she and Sam had purchased a plot in the King Row cemetery years ago. The Fraziers were on one side and some cousins of Pix's on the other, so she figured she'd have plenty of company and conversation should that turn out to be what awaited.

  Tuesday arrived. A foggy Tuesday and humid. The kind of day that made some people's hair curl and some people's go limp. Faith's was curling damply as she searched through her summer wardrobe for something vaguely appropriate to wear. She hadn't planned on this kind of occasion when she packed, but she did have a black dress—an indispensable Anne Klein that she'd rolled up and tucked in at the last moment in case something came up off island at Bar Harbor. It would do very well for the funeral. She slipped into it, and it immediately stuck to her like a second skin. Maybe there would be a breeze at the cemetery.

  Samantha was happy to watch Benjamin. She didn't want to go to the funeral and Pix didn't see why she should. Samantha prefered to remember Roger the way he had been when she had seen him last. He had been teaching her how to use the kickwheel, and she had been making steady progress under his guidance. They'd had a long session on Friday before he left for his row. It occured to Faith that Samantha might well have been the last person to see Roger alive.