The Body in the Kelp ff-2

by Katherine Hall Page

  They stood in silence and gazed at it before Pix said, "Workbox," and Faith nodded. Perhaps none of them, not even Faith and Pix, had ever been sure that there would be something there. And here it was—a small box, the black paint worn away in spots with some gold-painted trim still visible around the edge. It had a padlock that was intact.

  “Prosperity," whispered Faith. It was all too much.

  “Well, well," commented Quentin, "I guess we don't need the crowbar for this baby. I can probably pry it open with my hands. That lock must be pretty rusty."

  “No," cried Faith. "We want to save it." She had the feeling that breaking open the box was somehow a desecration. "There are thousands of keys in a drawer at the cottage, and if those don't work, there's always the bobby-pin method. Come on, let's go."

  “Oh my God." Pix put her hand to her mouth. "I forgot all about Samantha. She's waiting at the bridge. Arlene's mother took them to the Bangor Mall today and was going to drop her this side of the bridge to wait for me, since she had to pick up the other kids at six. I've got to go! Faith, would it be too much to ask if you could wait until I got there to open it? Yes, of course it is. Just open it, don't wait."

  “Of course we'll wait. It's yours just as much as it's mine.”

  Hope and Quentin looked a bit disappointed. Quentin, ever gallant, reassured Pix, "Of course we can wait. We didn't even know about it until an hour ago, so we can certainlywait another few minutes. How long did you say it would take you to get your daughter?"

  “I'll be back in a flash," promised Pix, and she was off.

  Faith was feeling slightly dazed. They walked slowly back to the road and she gave the box a shake or two. No coins rattled, but it was heavy.

  “That's an old cash box," Hope told her knowledgeably. "You wouldn't use it to keep your buttons in."

  “You don't know New Englanders. It could just as well be string too short to be saved or something like that," Faith rejoined, but Hope's positive identification increased her already wildly spiralling expectations.

  They got back to the cottage and Faith looked around for a place to put the box. She set it on the table in the living room, but immediately picked it up and put it in one of the desk drawers instead. Who knew how long Pix might be? It was more temptation than anyone should have to bear to have it in plain sight.

  “I'm going to feed Benjamin, and why don't you two go through the keys from the junk drawer in the kitchen and sort out all the small ones? That's not opening the box. If we don't do something, we'll go crazy." She walked about snapping on lights. It was after seven o'clock and getting dark.

  She went into the kitchen and put Ben in the high chair she'd found in the attic and sprinkled a few Cheerios kept for that purpose on the tray to keep him from screaming the place down, since his dinner had not instantly appeared. Hope followed her and took the whole drawer out to the other room to rummage through with Quentin.

  “How about a drink?" Faith called to them.

  “Fay," came Hope's voice—or some approximation of it; this was not her usual strident tone, more like a gasp. "Fay, you'd better come in here.”

  Faith dropped the zucchini she was cutting into strips onto Ben's tray and went into the living room. They must have found a key, she thought.

  But they hadn't. What they had found was Eric—standing in the shadows by the huge fieldstone fireplace that filled up one end of the room. Standing wlth a gun pointed at them with unmistakable intent.

  Eric. Of course, Eric.

  The only possibility—and the most obvious. That part was now clear. What wasn't was why.

  Speculation could come later. She had to do something. Anything was worth a try. "Eric, what on earth are you doing? Did you think these were intruders? This is my sister, Hope, and her friend, Quentin."

  “Pleased to meet you," Eric drawled, suddenly reverting to his Texas youth. "But it's no mistake, Faith. Give me whatever it was you got at Prescott Point. Awful nice of you to go to so much trouble finding it for me.”

  Pix would be coming back, and the noise of the car might startle him enough so Faith could catch him off guard. She moved as close as she dared to the table, which had a large oil lamp on it. She could heave it at him, if he would only look away. She was damned if she was going to give him the box after all their work and especially before they even knew what was in it. There were three of them, after all. There must be some way of getting the gun. She had to stall. Keep him talking.

  “Now, Eric, I'm sure you don't want to hurt anyone. Not after all that has happened. Why don't we look inside the box together and decide what to do?" It was feeble, yet it might distract him.

  “I know what to do. It's you folks who don't. Fetch the box, Faith dear, while junior here gets some rope from the barn. The Thorpes have a pile of it inside the door. Then I'll be on my way and you won't be tied up for long. Somebody is sure to come along one of these days." He laughed unpleasantly. "Now get going. Both of you and I'll keep sis here for company.”

  He walked over to Hope and grabbed her, placing the gun against her temple. Quentin took a step toward them and Eric cocked the gun.

  “Don't think about any noble gestures. Hurting people doesn't particularly bother me.”

  Quentin gave Hope an anguished look and went out the front door toward the barn.

  “Now you, Faith.”

  Faith took the box from the drawer and Eric uncocked the gun, but did not release his hold on Hope.

  “Put it on the floor in front of me and then go back to where you were," he directed her.

  There was still time. Quentin's return could divert him; meanwhile talk. Say anything, just keep him talking and off guard.

  Faith stared Eric squarely in the face. "You did it, didn't you? Sabotaged the boat. Murdered Bird?"

  “Shut up, Faith." His face clouded briefly. "Dumb-ass Roger. If he hadn't been so pure, he'd still be alive. And he was going to marry her, that cunt. He couldn't see what she was like. Anyone would have been better. But he just kept raving about finally finding each other. Made me puke.”

  The house. He was in love with the house.

  “You're leaving your house? After all you said it meant?"

  “Yeah, that's a bitch. But I can't take it with me and anyway I'm going to be able to buy any house I want with what's in this box.”

  Quentin was back and Eric immediately cocked the gun and tightened his grip on Hope.

  “Tie Faith up and don't waste any time, then you can do your girlfriend here. You might even enjoy it," he leered.

  Quentin started over toward Faith and just as he began to loop the rope around her wrists, the front door swung open.

  Sonny Prescott walked in, not Pix. He must have come by boat, since they hadn't heard a car.

  Sonny looked at Eric and the box on the floor, then at the rest of them frozen in various poses around the room.

  Faith had never been so glad to see him in her life, not even the day he had called and said he had fresh salmon.

  “Sonny!" she warned. "He's got a gun, be careful!”

  Eric smiled slowly. "Oh, I don't think old Sonny here has to worry. You see, he's with me.”

  10

  It was a nightmare. The kind where the steady ground under your feet turns out to be quicksand and you can't take a step. Sonny! Sonny and Eric!

  And what made it worst of all was now there were two to deal with.

  Faith frantically tried to figure out how she could do something. If only the light switch wasn't so far away—she could use the element of surprise to get the gun. It wasn't just the box now. The idea of Eric getting away free made her furious.

  She was sure Eric didn't plan on killing them, but he might not mind an injury or two.

  Ben's angry cries of starvation from the kitchen presented an unlikely solution.

  “Go get your brat and shut him up—and don't think about leaving, unless you want to be Mommy and Daddy's only little girl.”

  Fai
th raced into the kitchen and grabbed Ben. She filled a bottle, left from Zoë's stay, with juice and grabbed a large handful of cookies. It was no time to be thinking of the four basic food groups. Then she quietly opened the back door and put Ben in the portable crib on the porch, zipping closed the mesh screening on top. Ben settled right down, charmed by vestigial memories of happy nursing days. She ran back in and took a large cast-iron frying pan from the pantry. Most New England kitchens were a veritable arsenal of utensils.

  She paused to lift the receiver on the ancient dial phone, found the phone dead, as she had suspected, stood behind the door, and started screaming.

  Ben was safely out of the way for the moment and if she could manage to get rid of one of them, the other wouldn't be able to leave his post to search for the baby. Eric had obviously been watching a lot of B movies and Faith had no doubt he would use Ben as a hostage if he decided he needed one.

  She thought of Roger and Bird and Bird's father and Zoë and Bill—all the sadness and horror of the past month. She screamed in real anguish. It felt wonderful.

  The door swung open and Sonny stepped in. Before he had a chance to look around, Faith swung too—bringing the frying pan down on top on his head with all her strength. He crumpled to the floor with a resounding "thunk." She felt for a pulse, was reassured, and started to tie his wrists together with some clothesline from the pantry, which she was beginning to regard as King Midas's storeroom.

  Eric's voice interrupted her.

  “Faith, if you don't get in here right now, I'm going to shoot your sister.”

  He meant it. Faith could tell. He hadn't added any extraneous lines.

  “Fay," implored Quentin. "Fay, please, hurry!”

  The crisis rivaled the tragic benchmark of young Quentin's life to date—the time in October 1987 when the computer was down just before the market closed.

  Faith hurried in. What did they think? She was going to let her own sister die because of a nickname and a few hundred other things that had happened in childhood?

  Eric again had Hope in a stranglehold with the gun up against the side of her head. The box was under his arm. He waved Faith over to the table.

  “I guess I have to assume I'm on my own now," he said in a matter-of-fact voice, which, to Faith's surprise, held no anger. That fight at the dance had been too real to be staged. Maybe he really did hate Sonny's guts. Maybe he just wasn't good at sharing.

  He moved quickly toward the door. When he got there, he pushed Hope to one side and as he did so, the box slid to the floor and opened, spilling its contents all over—contents that appeared to be letters and some kind of currency.

  Just then they heard a car pull up. Pix—and Samantha—ready for the end of a treasure hunt.

  Eric grabbed Hope again and turned out the lights. "Don't answer the door and keep quiet!" he hissed at them.

  The door opened.

  “Eric? Sonny? Anybody heah? I found the note and set off right away.”

  Eric turned the lights on. It was Margery Prescott.

  Things were informal on Sanpere, but this was getting ridiculous, Faith thought. Did the Thorpes have this many unexpected guests when they inhabited the cottage? And who would be dropping by next? Jill? More Prescotts? Were they all in on this?

  “Pick up the papers on the floor and let's get the hell out of here," Eric directed Margery. He let Hope go and she gave him a poisonous look, which had no effect whatsoever.

  “Where's Sonny?" Margery asked as she stuffed everything back in the box.

  Eric grinned nastily. How could she ever have liked him? Faith wondered.

  “He's out cold in the kitchen. Maybe you'd better go make sure he stays that way."

  “What!" exploded Faith. This was too much for her to keep her mouth shut.

  “You just saved us the trouble of doing it offshore.”

  Margery looked at Eric with adoration and nodded. Margery and Eric? Marjorie Main and Douglas Fairbanks?

  “Margery, how can you trust him? He's killed three people. Now look what he's doing to Sonny. Just what do you think he's going to do to you once he's away and doesn't need your help?"

  “That's where you're wrong, Faith. I'll never be finished with Margery. Never have. We go back a long way. Businesspartners who got friendly. And I didn't kill three people, did I, honey?”

  Margery laughed. It was truly repulsive.

  “No, Margery here took care of Bird. Took care of her very well.”

  Faith began to feel sick. She saw the scene in the cabin projected on the living room walls. All that blood and hate. It had been Margery who had hated that beauty so much.

  It was beyond horror. Faith felt completely overwhelmed by the evil in the room.

  “Margery and I are going to take our business to a new location. Maybe north. Maybe south.”

  Business. Did Margery have talent as a potter? Faith looked at her strong hands and stubby fingers. She certainly would be able to wedge a lot of clay.

  “Can you really go back to making pots after all this?" She was stunned. Did Eric actually think he could start production again, even under an assumed name? He must really be mad.

  “Pots?" Eric laughed. "Not pots, but pot. Pot—and other things—in with the lobsters in those nice big trucks of Sonny's. Lobsterpot. Not floats—the real thing." He was enjoying himself. Showing off for Margery, who rewarded him with an affectionate grin.

  The night noises, all that action in the cove. It finally made sense. Too late.

  Margery stood up to go to the kitchen.

  “Bring the baby back with you. He's out there somewhere, probably asleep, since he isn't yowling. We'll forget about tying anybody up. Instead, I think we'd better take him and his auntie for a short boat ride to make sure these folks don't decide to follow us too soon or do something else stupid like call the police."

  “His auntie" directed her "this-is-just-about-enough" look at Ben's mother. The steady gaze was as plain as skywriting on a cloudless day.

  As Margery walked by, Hope tripped her and delivered a forceful, lightning-swift chop to the back of her neck, at the same time grabbing her left arm and twisting it in a way it was never meant to go. Faith didn't stay still to watch. As soon as Hope moved, she threw the oil lamp at Eric, ran over and jumped on him, brought her right knee up sharply between his legs, and wrestled the gun from his surprised hand.

  Only slightly flushed, and firmly astride Margery's lumpy, cursing body, Hope called out to Faith, "Aren't you glad I signed us up for those self-defense courses, Fay?”

  It was a sister act nonpareil.

  Eric was lying on the floor moaning and writhing in pain. Faith stood over him with the gun aimed at his chest. She was in no doubt about the location of his heart—only of its existence. Quentin, somewhat stunned, knelt beside Hope. "Darling," he said with a note of awe in his voice, "will you marry me? Soon?"

  “Of course!" She beamed at him radiantly.

  Faith hated to be a wet blanket, but they did have two murderers and a drug traffIcker to attend to before any epithalamic toasts could be raised.

  “Quentin, you go for the police, but first see how Sonny is. Oh, and Ben too. He's on the porch.”

  Quentin returned immediately with the news that both Sonny and Ben were oblivious. He tied Margery securely, then Hope helped him with Eric, lovingly clover-hitching him to one of the more uncomfortable chairs in the cottage. Faith kept a steady aim and hoped she didn't have to fire any shots. Goodness knows what that would do to their security deposit.

  “If Margery took Sonny's truck, there's a CB in it and you can call for help. Do you know how to work one?”

  Quentin, who despite his flush of joy was beginning to feel a tad inadequate, hastened to assure Faith that a CB was something he was capable of handling. Hope went out into the kitchen, finished tying Sonny up, and dragged him into the living room so they could keep an eye on him.

  “I moved Ben inside, Faith. Do you want him in here?
"

  “No, he's fine where he is and this room is beginning to get badly overcrowded.”

  Quentin returned. "I reached your Sergeant Dickinson. He seemed pretty surprised. I had to repeat everything twice.”

  Eric and Margery, after some foul-mouthed moments, had subsided into bitter silence. Faith had placed a chair by the door and was sitting in it with the gun aimed and cocked. She felt like Annie Oakley.

  Three deaths. Three shattered lives. For what? Money? In Margery's case, love? Money! Faith sat up straight.

  “Hope, let's see what's in the box! I don't know what has happened to Pix and Samantha, but I'm sure they wouldn't blame us for looking after all this."

  “And it is already open," her sister agreed.

  She and Quentin sat as close as possiole on the couch and sorted through the contents. Quentin was making a neat stack of the currency.

  “Sorry, sister-in-law to be, it's a bundle, but it's Confederate money. Still, not completely without value."

  “As wallpaper?" Faith proposed. She was trying hard not to be desperately disappointed.

  “Here's a letter, Fay, from Matilda. I'll read it out loud to you:

  To Whoever Finds This Box:

  I hope you had a good time figuring out my quilt. I had a lot of happy hours planning it and don't intend to die until it's finished. You probably expected the gold, unless it's already been found, but that's someplace else fun. You have to forgive an old woman her amusements.

  Please give the top two papers to my nephew, Sonny Prescott, who is my executor. Tell him he's to call a family meeting and decide what to do with the land. I never wanted anyone to know I had it or I would have been pestered to death years ago by real estate agents and developers. If no one ever finds this box, that would be all right too. Maybe the Point would remain the way it is. I'd like to see it stay unspoiled, but I know this may not be possible. Anyway, I won't be around to know about it.

  As a prize for figuring out an Old Maid's Puzzle, the rest of the contents of the box is yours. Sorry I can't be there to shake your hand.

  Yours respectfully,

  Matilda Louise Prescott