The Body in the Kelp ff-2

by Katherine Hall Page

  “I'd enjoy that.”

  They collected Ben and Zoë and drove back through the village and turned at the Fraziers' house to get onto Route 17. The cars in front of them appeared to be slowing down, and Faith rolled down her window and leaned out to see what was happening.

  “Pull over, Tom! There's a police car in the Fraziers' driveway and some cop is putting Bill Fox in the backseat! I've got to find out what's going on."

  “They may only be bringing him in for questioning. He was going to marry the girl and presumably he knew her very well."

  “But they could do that here. Why take him some other place?" Faith sprinted along the road and was in time to see the police car pull out and turn left, the way off the island. The Fraziers were standing on their porch. Louise was crying.

  Faith walked slowly up to them, unsure now whether she was intruding, but Elliot called out, "Oh Faith, this is terrible. I'm glad you're here. We can't believe it." She climbed the stairs.

  “They've taken Bill to Ellsworth. They think he killed Bird!"

  “That's incredible. What possible reason could they have for accusing him?”

  Louise spoke, her normally soft voice a whisper. "They found the weapon in his tool shed. They also found a drill and some corks."

  “You mean they think he killed Roger too?"She nodded.

  Faith thought rapidly. "Let me tell my husband what's happened. He can leave the children at the Millers' and come back with Pix. Sam is Bill's lawyer, isn't he? I think Pix should get in touch with him right away.”

  The Fraziers seemed grateful for her help, and when she came back from telling Tom, they moved inside and sat in the kitchen.

  “What did Bill say about the evidence?" Faith asked. Louise paused to pour some tea, and having a mug to hold on to seemed to allow her to strengthen her voice.

  “Nothing, absolutely nothing at first. He just stared at them as if they were crazy, which of course they are," she answered. "Then he stood up and said, `I guess you want me to go with you,' got his jacket, and went. We told him we'd follow and he said not to bother, but as soon as we've talked to Pix, we'll go up there.”

  The two of them looked terribly frail and all of their years. Faith knew that Tom would go with them. He could leave for New Hampshire from Ellsworth. After the events in Aleford when Faith had discovered Cindy Shepherd's corpse, Tom had become an old hand at police procedures and comforting the incarcerated and their friends and families.

  “Did the police say what the weapon was?"

  “They had it with them, all wrapped up in a plastic bag. It was a small hatchet and there was no doubt it was Bill's. Had his initials on a little brass plate. His mother and brother had given him a fancy set of garden tools last Christmas. He thought it was sweet of them, but he liked his old ones best and I doubt he ever used these.”

  Faith flashed back to the blood-stained shack. Hearing about the weapon added the final touch of horror to the scene. It had not been an easy death.

  Pix rushed in the back door, followed by Tom. She put her arms around Louise. "How could they possibly think Bill had anything to do with this? He adored her.”

  Elliot spoke. "I'm afraid that's what they think the motive is. They confronted him with the drill and the corks, and I think they're going to charge him with Roger's death. I imagine they think he killed Roger so he could have Bird."

  “Even admitting that, which I don't," Pix said, "we still come back to Bird. Why destroy the one thing you love?”

  You might have to, thought Faith, if she had somehow discovered the earlier deed. Or she might have decided to go back to Andy and wasn't in the cabin packing, but there to stay. She decided it was neither the time nor the place to air these opinions. And it was Bill Fox they were talking about. The man who had created the gentle world of Selega couldn't have done either of these murders. It just didn't feel right, and Faith was a great believer in hunches.

  “I called Sam and he's going to try to find out what's going on in Ellsworth. He has a lawyer friend who summers in Blue Hill, and he's going to ask him to go straight over. Sam won't be able to get away himself until later in the week, unfortunately, but we're to call if we need him and he'll drop everything. He's fairly certain they won't charge Bill now. It's all pretty circumstantial." Pix was starting to run on and on. Tom interrupted.

  “I don't know Bill Fox, but if you'd like me to come to the jail with you, I'd be happy to be of help," he told the Fraziers.

  “That would be wonderful. We really would like someone to come along with us, and I have the feeling you are the perfect choice," Elliot said.

  Faith thought so too. Calm, unobtrusive, firm. That was her Tom.

  “Oh, dear, we should tell John. He'll probably want to come too," Louise remembered.

  “Would you like me to tell him on my way back?" Faith offered.

  “That would be a big help, because we should be leaving, and in any case, I hate to break news like this over the phone—not to mention our party line. It will be all over the island soon enough. Poor Bill. He came here for privacy, and now it looks like that will be at an end for some time.”

  Pix followed the Fraziers out the front door. She was going along too. Tom and Faith lingered on the porch a moment."I know," said Faith. "It's always something.”

  Tom held her close. "Be careful, darling. I'll be back before you know it, and then we really will have a vacation.”

  “Pix should drive with you so you won't get lost.”

  “That's a good idea, and she can tell me all the things you didn't on the way." Tom shook his head. "I never met Fox, but I read all his books when I was a kid, and I feel like I know him. What do you think. Could he possibly have done this?"

  “I think he was obsessed by her and he might have been driven to some kind of passionate act, but I don't see him plotting to do away with Roger. Or killing her so brutally. He'd have been more likely to give her a poisoned apple and watch her slip into a sleeplike death."

  “I'd better get going. I'll call you from New Hampshire tonight. Try to take it easy today. Play with the kids. Cook." Faith kissed him. "Drive carefully. 1 love you.”

  She watched as the tiny caravan took off, then got into Pix's car. For a moment she was daunted by the number of things confronting her on the Range Rover's dashboard—there was even a compass. Then she set off for John Eggleston's house in Little Harbor, curious to see how the former clergyman lived.

  She pulled into his road and swerved immediately over to the side to avoid the large Lincoln town car speeding in her direction. As it careened past, she saw Paul Edson at the wheel with Edith sitting stiffly beside him. They were not smiling.

  Now what could they want with John Eggleston? Faith wondered. A spiritual crisis?

  He was standing in front of his house. His face was more ruddy than usual and his angry expression softened only slightly when he realized it was Faith.

  It was a small white farmhouse in perfect repair. Peony bushes lined up like choirboys across the front, and a purple martin multiple-dwelling birdhouse adorned a huge pine that stood to one side. There were no other flowers. No lawn decorations—no whirligigs, clam-basket planters, old tires filled with marigolds, or the ubiquitous posterior of a fat lady pending over that had sprouted on many local lawns this sum- mer, the only variation being in the color and pattern of her bloomers.

  It was all pretty stark, until you looked past the house to the view.

  John Eggleston had one of the choicest pieces of waterfront on the island. The backyard stretched out to a salt marsh, and beyond that was a wide, crescent-shaped beach. And beyond that was the sea, a westward view of the islands. They looked like plump green pincushions today beneath a cloudless blue sky. Faith knew why the Edsons had been there and why John was not in the mood to love his neighbor. They'd been trying to get him to sell, and they must have had a reason to think he would.

  She recollected herself and the job at hand.

  “Is th
ere somewhere we can talk? I'm afraid I have some bad news. They've arrested Bill."

  “I'm not surprised," he said, and started walking toward the small gray-cedar-shingled barn at the rear of the house. Faith trotted along behind him.

  She waited for amplification, realized it would not be forthcoming, and asked, "Why do you say you're not surprised?"

  “Because they're all a bunch of fools. Bill included.”

  He opened the door, and they stepped into what was obviously his workshop.

  “They're a bunch of fools to think that Bill could do it, but they haven't the brains to figure out who did. And Bill's a fool for getting involved with the girl in the first place.”

  He picked up a chisel and a mallet and started to hack away at an enormous piece of wood on his workbench. Faith perched on a stool and looked around. There were a number of pieces in various degrees of completion. She needn't wonder about how he supported himself anymore. He was obviously very competent at his craft. She noted the irony that many of the pieces seemed related to religion. There was a beautiful menorah, and an altarpiece, with a crucifix surrounded by flamelike spirals. He followed her glance.

  “Most of my commissions come from churches and synagogues. I had started doing this when I was a priest, and just because I am no longer active in the church doesn't mean I should stop doing what I know best—or stop believing either.”

  He was chipping away for dear life, and Faith noticed how sharp he kept his tools. The metal edges gleamed on the bench, mixing with the shavings that were flying all over the barn. He was certainly a muscular Christian.

  He didn't seem inclined to talk about Bill, and she didn't feel like leaving. If she was ever going to find out anything about this man, she'd have to ask. He wasn't going to give anything away.

  She plunged in. "Why did you leave the church?”

  He glared at her, then turned back to his work. "I should say it's none of your business and it's not, but I'll tell you and you'll see why I think Bill has been such a fool. That girl would have brought him nothing but unhappiness. Has, in fact.”

  Faith waited patiently.

  “My grandfather had been an Episcopal priest, and I loved and respected him more than anyone in the world. I never had any doubt that that was what I wanted to be. He was at peace with himself and the world. And he gave that peace to others. But I lost it. And it was all because of a woman." He gave the wood a particularly violent vicious blow, and Faith drew slightly away.

  “I'm not saying it wasn't my fault too, but let's just say I had a Bird. She was in my congregation and I was drunk with love of her. We were going to get married when she announced she was pregnant and we'd have to move the date up. Now I knew for a fact that baby wasn't mine, but it wasn't long before the parish got wind of it and began to agitate for my removal. Like, a fool I still wanted to marry her, and we decided to go to the next parish, where a friend of mine would perform the ceremony. Well, she never showed up. I heard later she'd gone to Atlanta with some man. By then I'd come to my senses, but I had to leave my church. The church I had led for ten years. I wasn't at peace anymore. Not with myself, my congregation, or my heavenly Father. I've been searching for it ever since. Thought I might find it here. But it remains out of my grasp.”

  He was grasping the chisel so hard, his knuckles were white. "And now Edson is breathing down my neck. How he found out I'll never know. Must steam open the mail somehow—you see, that woman is filing a paternity suit. The baby is nine years old and the mother wants all the back child support. Of course she won't win, but it's going to cost me a lot in lawyers' fees."

  “Maybe Sam can give you some advice," Faith suggested. Eggleston jerked his head up. He appeared to have forgotten she was there.

  “Maybe. Anyway, I'll be damned if I'll sell even an inch of this land.”

  There was a large window in one end of the barn.

  “I don't blame you," Faith said. "It's some of the loveliest land I've seen on the island.”

  He carved in silence for a few moments, then set down his tools and ran a hand through his hair, leaving wood shavings mixed in with his own curls.

  “I guess I better get up to Ellsworth. Bill's never going to be the same again. Damn that girl!" He blurted out the words vehemently.

  Faith got down from the stool and followed him across the lawn. He whirled around and faced her. "Did you read his books?"

  “Yes, many times."

  “So you know what it means, Selega and all that.”

  “It's just a made-up word, isn't it?"

  “Spell it backward," he said grimly, and without saying good-bye strode into his house and closed the door.

  Faith stood and looked at the shore. She could hear the gulls screech as they dropped mussels and sea urchins onto the rocks to crack them open.

  Selega.

  Ageles.

  Ageless.

  She sighed, got into the car, and drove to the Millers'. Efficient as always, Samantha and Arlene had fed the children and put them down for naps. Faith was beginning to think the two of them might do a far better job at parenting than Tom and she ever would. It might be wise simply to turn Ben over immediately. She sent them off for a bike ride and told them she would take care of things. They seemed a bit dubious, and she half expected them to leave a list of emergency numbers, but they took off and she was pleasantly reassured to hear some adolescent giggles and horseplay as they left the drive.

  She made herself a sandwich. Pix seemed to go in heavily for tuna fish, so tuna it was. Hunger will do that. Then she wandered about at loose ends. She didn't want to be out of earshot and she didn't feel like reading. The mornings' events had made her edgy. She wondered what was going on up in Ellsworth. And John Eggleston's revelations had been pretty startling. A genuine misogynist. She felt somewhat uneasy as she thought about the way he was cleaving the wood sculpture.

  Pix had taken the quilt books and magazines back to her house along with the photos to work on some more. Faith didn't know where Pix had hidden the pictures. Probably in her freezer, marked "mystery," but the rest of the stuff was in a pile by one of the large easy chairs set in front of the fireplace.

  Faith didn't need the photos anymore. The three squares they had not yet identified were permanently etched in her memory. She was sure number eight had something to do with ripples and turned to the index to look up any references to sea, ocean, pools, anything with water. After searching through several books, she found Wild Waves, only to be disappointed. It didn't look anything like Matilda's square. Ten minutes later she had it: Ocean Wave. They had been on the right track. She found a piece of paper and sketched the other two. Maybe if she stared at them long enough, inspiration would strike. Number fifteen looked like someone had placed four squares of diminishing sizes on top of each other. It didn't look like anything. Neither did number seventeen—two large diamonds surrounding two smaller ones. She decided to try Pix's method. Seventeen was a four-patch divided in half. She started to go through the books looking under four-patch designs and was making some progress—that is, she had eliminated a whole lot of squares—when she heard Ben's familiar "Mommee! Up!" Zoë was not far behind, and it sounded like an "I'm wet and hungry" cry.

  Maybe one child was enough.

  She changed the baby and decided to go back to her own cottage for the rest of the afternoon and left a note for Pix telling her to call and relating Faith's success with the square.

  Walking back through the woods weighed down with Zoë on her hip, the tedious job of trying to keep Ben from straying too far afield, and the cares that refused to go to the back of her mind, Faith decided to take Tom's advice and spend the afternoon playing with the children outdoors. She knew if she got into the hammock, she'd be asleep in no time, so she spread a blanket on the grass and dumped blocks, cars, whatever she could find in the middle. Maybe later, when she had regained some energy and joie de vivre, she'd bake some cookies. Ben and Zoë could bang on the pots and l
ick spoons. But all she wanted to do now was collapse.

  Pix arrived about four.

  “I'm exhausted, and I didn't stop to eat anything, but I know I've come to the right place. Please feed me."

  “My pleasure. We just finished making these oatmeal cookies, but I have the feeling you need something heartier.”

  Pix picked up one of the crisp, lacy cookies and took a bite. "Ummm, delicious. I'd probably finish the plate.”

  Faith was busy taking things out of the fridge and putting them in front of Pix: a salad of the tiny lentils from LePuy in vinaigrette, some tapenade, tomato slices, and hard-boiled eggs. She grabbed a loaf of bread, cut a few slices, poured two glasses of an '82 Minervois, deposited the children by the large clothes basket of toys she kept in the kitchen, and sat down to listen.

  “Tom left after an hour or so," Pix said after a large mouthful of the salad and a gulp of wine. "Nobody could see Bill, but Sam had gotten hold of the lawyer from Blue Hill, and he arrived before we did and stayed with Bill the whole time. I'm glad Tom was there. The Fraziers are terriblyshaken, and he was able to comfort them. They came home the same time I did. We left messages for Bill, but there was nothing we could do. Oh, John appeared just about when Tom was leaving. He looked wild. His hair was even more on end than usual."

  “I think he is an extremely angry man, certainly bitter. I had a very interesting conversation with him when I went to tell him about Bill. It turns out that the reason Eggleston left the ministry was a woman. And a parishioner at that. She got pregnant while they were seeing each other—not by him, he claims—and the congregation found it difficult to condone. He still wanted to marry her—why I can't imagine, since she was evidently traveling many garden paths at the same time—but he did; then she left him standing at the altar—not his own. He had to leave his church and now she's slapped a paternity suit on him."

  “But there must be some sort of statute of limitations on these things! Did you believe him when he said he wasn't the father?"

  “Yes. He seems so ruthlessly honest. Besides, he's quite confident he'll win the case, but he is worried about the costs. And the plot thickens. I saw the Edsons emerging from his drive. It's uncanny the way those two can nose out financial hardship. They were after his waterfront."