by Dana Cameron
“She’ll do okay; she was doing fine with the unit I helped her on.”
I nodded. “I don’t want to spend a lot of time out here, but as long as we have the chance….”
“Right. Quick and dirty. It’ll go faster without the audience participation from the tourons too.”
At the end of the day, everyone was finishing closing up the main part of the site and locking the tools away, when I found Bucky chatting merrily away with Perry, who took every opportunity to drop by and follow our progress. That was also unusual; my sister seldom took the trouble to be social, and Perry—the epitome of what our mother had hoped Bucky and I would be—was definitely not Bucky’s cup of tea. A little too overly mannered, a little too cute. But, I reasoned, Perry was a decent sort, if a little self-centered, and it was possible that Bucky was growing into a few social graces. It was well past time for it.
“—just past the center of town. It’s really simple,” Perry was saying.
“Good deal. Thanks,” my sister said.
“Sorry to break this up,” I said, “but I’ve got to get you off home, Bucks. I’ve got an appointment to get to.”
“No problem, we’re done.” Perry waved her cast. “I’ve got to get going too. Doctor’s appointment.”
She looked really worn and drawn to me. “How’s your arm doing?” I asked.
“Still hurts like a bear, but that shouldn’t be too bad for too much longer. I’m not looking forward to the physical therapy, though. I hear it’s pretty grueling.” She grimaced and I said good-bye.
I dropped Bucky off at home, then rushed back to meet Ted in the parking lot of the Chandler House. He was leaning on the back of his car, a dark blue Dart that was spic and span. He’d never have to worry about getting his trousers dirty. Again, I thought that I really should do something about my ancient Civic. Ted offered to drive.
“Are we heading for Shade’s?” I asked. “They have a pretty good bar in there.”
Ted snorted. “I wouldn’t be caught dead there. Batcha snobs. No, we’re just going down the street and around the bend to the Little Green Bar.”
The part of town we ended up in, literally down the point from the Chandler House, was probably one of the oldest in town that was still standing, and, after the first prosperous generation, it had developed into a working-class neighborhood. Those two factors in mind, it had taken the hardest use over the years: Tiny houses that were built before the Declaration was signed were squeezed between early-twentieth-century triple-deckers with a porch on every floor. All the houses were butted right up against the street with no room for a front yard, though almost every house had at least one windowbox full of blooms. Many were sporting the Stars and Stripes in anticipation of Independence Day, and the near-universal choice of flowers—red geraniums, white impatiens, and purple petunias—also seemed to reflect that sentiment. I realized that some of the flags were looking tattered after having been outside continuously for nearly a year.
The bar was close to the water, a little brick joint with a green door and a couple of neon signs in the high, tiny windows. Ted pulled over onto the dirt verge.
“The original bar was painted green, so when it burned down, the name stayed, even if the owner decided brick was a better idea,” he said. His faults aside, Ted did know the town history.
“You don’t mean that the original burned down back in the fire of seventeen-thirty-eight?” I said doubtfully. “It can’t be that old.”
“No, but I bet there was a bar or a tavern or something here then too.” Ted pulled the door open and held it for me. “A place for the sailors and fishermen to hang out.”
“Makes sense.”
“This place burned down in the nineteen-forties. And again in the nineteen-seventies; that’s when the brick came in.”
“Good idea.” I had to pause in the doorway, the difference in light was so great and the smell was overwhelmingly of old beer and stale cigarette smoke. Inside was nothing remarkable: a television suspended over the bar broadcast the baseball game, and I noted that the Red Sox were playing Cleveland; a mirror behind the bar was doing its best to reflect the backs of the lines of bottles—mostly blended whiskeys, bourbon, gin, and vodka—and struggling through a thick layer of soot or grease to do it; there were three optics, all for national-brand domestic beers. There were only two other drinkers, sitting in a booth, besides the bartender. Ted was the only one wearing a necktie, and he pulled it off and stuck it into a pocket as soon as we sat down.
Ted hesitated. “What’ll you have? I don’t know as they’re set for anything fancy….”
“Draft is fine for me,” I said.
Ted looked pleasantly surprised. “Two drafts, Bill.”
Bill got the beers by feel, as he clearly wasn’t going to tear his eyes away from the game. They were cold and the glasses were clean, and it was nice to be out of the sun.
“So tell me about your theories,” I said after we’d had a chance to wash the dust away.
Ted pursed his lips, almost as if he were belatedly trying to decide whether to keep them closed. “I wouldn’t go so far as to call them theories. That’s too big a word. Call ’em hunches, and you’ll be closer to the truth.” He took a small, neat sip of his beer. “And my hunch is that the Historical Society is a lot of things to a lot of people, if you know what I mean, but the biggest thing it is, is window dressing.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean it makes people feel important when they really aren’t. It makes them feel like they’re a part of the town, you know, or the neighborhood, when they’re not. And it makes them seem respectable, when there isn’t enough decency in some of them to fill an ant’s Dixie cup. Window dressing.” He reached over and adjusted one of the cocktail napkins so that it fit squarely on the top of the pile on the bar.
I nodded. “I was wondering about all that myself. There does seem to be an awful lot going on, between the town and the Historical Society, right about now.”
Again he demurred. “There is and there isn’t, that I know for sure. Some of it’s just Aden flexing his muscles, you know, and some of it’s a real problem, or will be, somewhere down the line. Aden does that, likes to have his power felt, every once in a while, and sometimes he’s more obvious about it than he should be.”
I’d never heard anyone criticize Aden Fiske so openly before, though it seemed that plenty of people would have liked to. Then I recalled Daniel’s assessment of Ted as a political creature and wondered what his motives were in telling me any of this. “Who does he want to feel his power, do you think?”
Now he was certain. “I don’t think: I know. It’s that old guy, Voeller. It doesn’t have anything to do with the bus routes, it has to do with the factory. The two of them act like the town is their private playground. Carving it up between them, trying to outdo each other. It’s a game, and they don’t much care about how it affects anyone else.”
I took a sip of my beer. “You don’t think much of Aden.”
Ted shrugged. “So he writes me a check, so what? The guy’s a runt. I don’t mean like, small physically. I mean he’s got a runt’s attitude, always needs to be the one on top, always needs to act like he’s everyone’s friend. But he’s not choosy about how he builds up his side; if he’s got something on you, he’ll use it.” He took another sip of beer, maybe moving the level of it down an eighth of an inch. “I don’t buy the nicey-nice from him.”
“So you figure that’s why someone punctured the fuel tank in his motorboat?”
Ted looked solemn. “Probably. Hang on a sec.” He leaned over and called to Bill, still engrossed in the game. “Hey Bill, you know anyone got a beef against Aden Fiske?”
Bill’s voice was a low growl and he answered while still glued to the set. “Do I know anyone who doesn’t?”
“Yeah, okay, what about someone willing to act on it?”
“You mean the Tapley House?”
“I mean someone did his boat.�
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That drew Bill’s eyes away from the game. “Let me ask around, okay?” He noticed I was there for the first time and gave me a look like he was wondering if I was the health department. “Who’re you?”
Ted answered for me. “Archaeologist. She’s working down at the house with me.”
“Archaeologist?”
“Yeah, you know. The study of man’s past?”
“Huh.” Bill turned and regarded me as he might any curiosity. “I woulda thought Teddy here’d be more interested in the study of woman’s past—oh, Jesus Christ!”
The Indians had caught a pop fly and effectively ended Bill’s participation in the conversation. I had to steel myself against watching the game, much as I wanted to, and focus on the conversation.
“Don’t mind him, he’s okay,” Ted vouched for the bartender, who was moving in on the television set as if his presence would goose the Sox lineup. “He hears anything, I’ll let you know.”
“What was that I overheard about Aden’s money?” I was assuming that Ted had heard too, but he didn’t seem to mind that. “Some gone missing lately?”
“I don’t know. Market crunch hit a lot of people around here pretty hard, everyone’s short. I doubt it’s his money though; I think if anything, Fee was talking about Chandler House takings.”
“Would she have taken it, do you think?”
Ted stopped to take another tiny sip. He rearranged the glass so that it was exactly in the center of the coaster, which was aligned to be parallel with the line of the bar. He began to say something, thought better of it, then tried again. “Fee’s pretty upright about most things. I don’t think she would’ve taken it.”
“Most things?”
He pursed his lips. “Her business, not mine to say. Not Aden’s either, when it comes down to it, the sumbitch.” He glared darkly at the top of the bar. “It’s not right, how he carries on.” He snapped out of it. “But there are plenty of folks who might tell you more about Aden’s antics, along with Bill, here. Another person, you probably heard of her. Lives down on the common in that house. You know, the one with the stripes.”
It was pretty hard to miss “the one with the stripes,” as it stuck out like a candy-colored zebra in the middle of all those monochromatic cubes, a flower child among stolid burghers. “Who is she?”
“Janice Booth is a painter, does mostly seascapes. She is pretty well known, in her circles, but you know, she’ll never get rich. Well, that house has been in her family since they built it there, and she’s hung on to it with a death grip, specially the last couple of years when the taxes shot up so high. She’s got some other artist-types living with her, paying rent, which is just about tolerated, and that keeps the roof over her head, if not actually leakproof. She’s well liked around here, does some volunteering at the schools to teach kids about art, you know? But she and Aden got about as much use for each other as Bill there’s got use for the Yankees, and something came up a couple of years ago when her place was getting a little rundown. Since the house is technically part of the historic district, there are rules about maintenance and that sort of thing, and Aden took the opportunity to give her some trouble about it. If anyone heard anything about someone with a grudge, she might have.”
Ted took another, almost dainty, sip of beer and grinned humorlessly.
“Aden offered to buy her place, right after he smacked her with the regulations. But Janice is not the kind to roll over and she’s not the kind to neglect the fine print. All she had to see was that it was required that the house be painted in the colors previously approved by the historic district; it didn’t say anything about the house having to be all in one color. So she painted every other clapboard of the sides on the street one of the colors: yellow, gray, white, blue, brown, red. It looks kind of nice too—she wasn’t going to sacrifice her sense of color or anything—but you notice that the sides of the house where she has the garden, where she and her ‘paying guests’ spend their time is all one color—she’s no fool. I guess it helps with her light or something.”
I was a little in admiration of Janice already; that’s the sort of thing that Bucky would have been able to do and get away with. I could never do something like that and have it work out. At the same time, it didn’t seem to fit with the present circumstances.
“Does the boat really sound like the kind of thing she’d do?” I asked. “I mean, that’s more like an issue of her being able to live her own life, on her own terms.”
Ted scratched his head. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t put it past her. She’s got a mean streak, if you cross her, and Aden’s done that. She ran with a pretty rough crowd when she was younger, too, got into all kinds of things she don’t talk much about.” He leaned over, confidentially. “She lived in New York for a while, back in the nineteen-seventies.”
As if that told me exactly what she was capable of, I thought, trying not to smile. I stored that remark away for my friend Marty, who was constantly amazed at the way outsiders, particularly Bostonians and their neighbors, perceived her native city. Of course, she never did anything to change their bizarre misconceptions—she actually seemed to foster as many as she could—but that was her prerogative, I guess.
“What kind of crowd? What kind of things?”
“Politics, some. They called themselves anarchists, but who knows? It was the early seventies.”
I stored that away for later. “She ever have cause to be down by the harbor? By the boats, I mean.”
Ted sucked in his cheeks while he decided how to answer me. “She has a little motorboat. She does seascapes, remember. But that doesn’t mean anything.”
“What about Justin? I mean, that’s the thing I can’t understand.” Everything I’d read in the paper or heard on the news confirmed what I already believed, that he wouldn’t have hurt a fly or been mixed up in anything that should have ended in being shot in the head.
“I have no idea.” He looked at me slyly. “Why don’t you ask your friend, the cop?”
“Detective Bader?”
“That’s the one.”
Ah. Maybe that was it; Ted thought that he might be able to find out something extra and off the record from me. “He’s not about to tell me anything. The man’s like a clam with laryngitis.”
Now Ted started getting a little antsy. “Well, who knows? Maybe if you hear something, you’ll let me know. And maybe if I hear anything….”
He let the thought trail off, almost as if his faith in me as a source was also drying up. I nodded. “Thanks, I appreciate it. No, let me get this,” I said as Ted pulled out his wallet.
Ted was aghast at the suggestion. “Oh, no. I’ve never let a lady pay for her drink and I’m not about to do it now.” Then he smiled to take away some of the reproof. “Even if she does play in the mud all day.”
The next morning, I stopped in to greet Fee, and she asked if I’d seen Aden.
“His truck’s here, and the alarm was off when I arrived, so he’s around here somewhere. I want to ask him about some of the arrangements for the Chandler family reunion.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for him.”
She thanked me, and after I saw that the crew was settled, I followed along after Meg and Bucky. I was a little surprised to see them staring at the uncovered units. Not studying them, just, well, looking, which is different. Something seemed to be stalling them.
“What’s up guys? Something wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Meg said. “I don’t think so. But the cover tarp was missing and I’m trying to see if anyone screwed around with the units.”
“Missing?” I asked. “But you guys weighted it down last night, right? It didn’t just blow away.” But even as I said it, I could see the rocks were still there, some tumbled into the unit, some still scattered about the edges of the unit. “I don’t see anything else amiss here.”
“Maybe one of the guards moved it, for some reason, after we left?” Bucky said. She didn’t sound much
impressed by her own suggestion, however.
“They shouldn’t have done,” I said. “But I’ll ask up at the house, just to make sure. Don’t worry about it for now, just get to work. Dress up that wall, would you, Bucks?”
She leaned back and scrutinized her work. “Isn’t it straight? Damn, I thought I had it. The light under here wasn’t too good in the late afternoon yesterday.”
“She’s starting to learn all the excuses, isn’t she?” I asked Meg.
The graduate student nodded. “Taught her myself. Need the right tools for the job.”
I was about to hike back to the side of the house when I decided that it would be a good idea to have another look at the broken-down fence that sporadically divided the two properties on the far north side of the Chandler land. No sense walking all the way back only to have to return if I could just do it now. I pulled the enlargement of the insurance map out to see if there were any other features that I could identify that might indicate whether there would have been any earlier structures or fence lines out that way. It was also a good excuse to clear my head for a moment and take in the view. When any site director tells you they’re going to do some thinking, the thinking will get done, but there’s a better than fair chance that they’re taking a scenery break as well.
“Hey! Hey, I got something! Hey, Emma!”
It was Bucky, and she was running toward me, Meg following hard behind her.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. It looks like a fish hook or something, but it’s on a chain.”
She held it out to me, a little out of breath, and inwardly I cringed. I hurriedly looked over at Meg, who looked as uninformed as I, but she shook her head. She didn’t even need to be asked my unasked question: Whatever Bucky had found, had she taken it out of its place in situ, in the ground, which would have given us the most information about its context, the place it was found, and its original date?