The Shadow Box

by Luanne Rice

  A simulator wizard spit out computational algorithms to approximate drift and to aid in the development of the grid search pattern. The last known location of the Sallie B—a forty-two-foot Loring cabin cruiser—caused particular challenges because it was close to the spot where Long Island Sound met Fishers Island Sound, flowed into Block Island Sound, and from there into the Atlantic Ocean, creating a much larger search area. And now it was night.

  Sunset occurred at 8:40 p.m. By that time, thirty minutes ago, the SAR had been underway for two hours. Tom was aboard the 270-foot USCG Cutter Nehantic. Joining the search were two rescue boats—measuring 45 feet each—from Coast Guard Station Port Twigg, Rhode Island, an HC-144 fixed-wing aircraft, and an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter out of Air Station Cape Cod.

  Although the day had been warm—with a high of 76 degrees, warmer than average for the end of May—the temperature at 9:10 p.m. had dipped to 59 degrees. The surface temperature of the water was 51.1 degrees. In those conditions, a person could survive for thirty to sixty minutes. Less if badly injured, very old, or very young.

  Gwen was nine and Charlie was seven.

  From what Tom had seen of the debris and heard about the USCG investigator’s short interview with Dan Benson, there had been a catastrophic explosion on board the Sallie B. Except for fragments of the hull and some personal items found floating nearby, the boat had sunk over a deep reef running perpendicular to the current, where the sea bottom rose sharply from 131 feet to 52 feet.

  Dan Benson had hauled himself onto the base of bell buoy R 22 and was currently at Easterly Hospital being treated for hypothermia, second- and third-degree burns on his hands and forearms, and a punctured lung. He had been sedated, rushed into surgery to repair his lung. According to USCG Lieutenant Commander Alicia Gauthier, who had talked to the victim two hours earlier, Benson had been inconsolable—hysterical was the word Gauthier used—crying for his children, begging that they be found.

  “What about Sallie?” Tom asked.

  “He didn’t mention her,” Gauthier said. “Only the children.”

  “Did you question him about that?” Tom asked, wondering exactly what Benson had seen, whether he had witnessed his wife dead or dying but not his children.

  “He could barely talk. All I could get out of him was that Sallie had gone below to fix supper,” Gauthier said. “The kids had been playing in some kind of raft on deck. Sounded like a toy boat. Yellow. And he said they were wearing life jackets—family policy out on the water.”

  “So they were on deck with him?”

  “Near him. In the toy boat. Tom, what if they both got thrown clear, along with him?”

  “It’s awfully cold out here,” Tom said, scanning the sea. “Thanks, Alicia.”

  Tom wondered if the explosion had occurred when Sallie had been below. Had the propane stove malfunctioned? Had something on the burner caught fire? Or had fuel leaked into the bilge, ignited by a spark?

  Searchlights illuminated the ocean and sky. What if Sallie and the children, like Dan and the dog, had escaped the flames? Even if they had, it would be unlikely that they could survive the cold water and night air. Some personal floatation devices had whistles and waterproof flashlights attached. It would be hard to see through the brightness of the searchlights, difficult to hear over the drone of ship and aircraft engines, but Tom knew every officer on the search was keeping a sharp lookout.

  Tom’s cell phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen. The call was from his stepdaughter Hunter Tyrone. Inspired by Tom’s younger brother, Conor, she had joined the Connecticut State Police and was an eager rookie. Tom hit the default message button: Can’t talk now. Two seconds later she texted back: Emergency. Pick up!

  She rang again, and this time he answered.

  “Hunter, what is it?” he asked.

  “Are you on SAR for the Benson family?”

  “Yes, which is why I can’t talk now.”

  “Tom, I’m at the hospital with Jake.” Her partner on the state police force. “Detective Miano is here too.”

  “Jen, yeah?” Tom asked. Jen Miano had been Conor’s partner for a few years.

  “She just finished talking to the dad—he’s out of surgery—and she’s going to call coast guard command, but I know how long it can take for information to get to you guys, so I wanted to make sure you heard it right away.”

  “What’s she going to tell us?”

  “First, that Dan said ‘they got her.’ He kept repeating it.”

  “What does that mean?” Tom asked. “Was he talking about Sallie?”

  “I don’t know. He was out of it. Detective Miano will ask him more when he’s awake. But listen, Tom—the kids might have made it. Dan said they were playing in the little boat, and he saw it floating away—intact—when he surfaced after the blast.”

  “That was a toy raft,” Tom said. “I’ve already heard about it from our investigator.”

  “No, it wasn’t a toy. He said the kids sometimes played in it, but it was an actual life raft. They could be alive. It’s completely possible.”

  “Wow. Thanks, Hunter,” Tom said, hanging up fast. Then he radioed the rest of the fleet, and the SAR throttled up, taking on a whole new energy. The search was on for a small yellow boat with the two Benson children aboard.

  FIVE DAYS EARLIER

  8

  CLAIRE

  On Sunday morning I got up just before dawn. Griffin slept beside me, and I moved carefully, so I wouldn’t wake him. I turned on the coffee maker in the kitchen, then grabbed my red Patagonia fleece and walked outside. The air was chilly, the sun still below the horizon, the eastern sky starting to glow deep, clear blue.

  Instead of taking the path through the woods, I climbed down rickety steps onto the beach. I walked the tide line, soothed by the sound of waves hitting the shore. As the sun rose, I began to collect shells and sea glass. Moonstones gleamed in the wet sand. They rattled as I filled my pockets. Walking the beach had always been my comfort and inspiration.

  During a blizzard last December, an entire tree washed ashore. It had been uprooted by the wind, left here on our beach. Wind and waves had stripped off the bark, and what remained was a magnificent bone-white relic. With each subsequent storm, the branches and root system broke apart a little more. I always wondered where the tree had come from and stopped to look at it. Twigs and broken branches glistened in the early light; I picked up some of the smallest to add to my other treasures.

  When I got to the cove, I couldn’t help going straight to the spot where I’d found Ellen Fielding’s body twenty-five years ago. I’d been coming here lately, pulled by a powerful force. Ellen and I had so much in common. We had both seen the other side of Griffin, the one he kept hidden from everyone else. I wondered if Margot had seen it too. I figured she had.

  I used to place flowers in the pool where Ellen’s body had lain, but they seemed too pretty, too frivolous. So I’d started leaving pebbles, moonstones, and wishing rocks—smooth round stones perfectly encircled by a contrasting ring. I crouched down now, placed a handful of offerings just under the water’s shallow surface. It was as if no time had passed at all; I remembered the sound of the crabs. While I was there, I collected some empty crab shells and claws—no longer glossy, just dry and brittle, bleached a pale orange-red by sea and sun.

  “I’m almost there, Ellen,” I whispered. “You’ve helped me get to this point. But I promise I will come back no matter what. I’m going to leave him. And I’m going to tell.”

  “Who are you talking to?” Griffin asked. I jumped—so startled that I practically tumbled into the tide pool. He was standing right behind me. I hadn’t even heard him approach.

  “What are you doing up so early?” I asked, my heart racing.

  “Good morning to you too,” he said. He held out his hand to help me up. “I heard you leave, and I figured you’d be beachcombing. Less than a week till your show. You fiddling around on some last-minute shadow box things?”

/>   “Yes,” I said. “There’s one I haven’t quite finished.”

  “Well, it’s Sunday, my only day off, and I was hoping we could go out in the boat,” he said. “It’s a photo opportunity. The Shoreline Gazette is sending a photographer—you know, Chase family outing, humanize the candidate.”

  “Everyone already loves you, Griffin,” I said. Could he read my true feelings? The idea of having to play the role of smiling wife, standing at his side during the election, shook me to the core.

  “You’ll come out on the boat?” he asked.

  “Of course,” I said, because of course was always the right thing to say to Griffin. “Should we have breakfast first? And let me put the stuff I collected in my studio.”

  “Claire, what are you doing with dead shellfish?” he asked, noticing a pile of crab carapaces I’d placed on the rock ledge. “You want your work to sell, don’t you? Collectors aren’t going to buy if it smells like rot.” He smashed his foot down on the fragile shells.

  I steeled myself, pretending not to care. At one time I would have reacted, but I had learned. There was another way.

  “You’ll thank me,” he said. “When you walk into the gallery on Friday and people aren’t holding their noses. Right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  One of Griffin’s favorite moves was to hurt and insult me, then make me say I agreed-understood-admired him for having my best interests at heart. There was no point in fighting it.

  “Why do you come here anyway?” he asked.

  “I love the beach,” I said.

  “I’m not talking about the beach,” he said. “I’m talking about this cove. It’s full of traumatic memories for both of us.”

  “Oh, Griffin,” I said. “Remember that night when you walked me home, toward Hubbard’s Point, and you said the night was about us, that we should remember it for our kiss and for the shooting stars?”

  He stared at me. Did he realize I was mocking him? This moment could go either way; I tensed, ready for the blowup. But he decided to let me stroke his ego. “You’re right,” he said. “That night was our beginning.”

  “It was,” I said. I looked into his sea-green eyes and tried to remember how I had felt on the blanket, waiting for his kiss. He was still the handsomest man I knew. His gaze was penetrating—in his cases, he looked straight into the defendants, saw who they were, and used his knowledge to convict them. When he focused those eyes on me, I felt he could see into my soul. I had always felt that way.

  “When I first walked up just now,” Griffin said, “I heard you say something.”

  “I don’t remember,” I said, thinking: I’m going to leave him. And I’m going to tell what I know. “Talking to myself, I guess.”

  I waited for him to challenge me, but he didn’t. He just stood there looking at me. Then he broke into a big smile.

  “Let’s go back and have breakfast,” he said, his smile widening. “I really want to get out on the water—it’s going to be a perfect day.”

  We started walking. When I was young, I thought that living at Catamount Bluff would be the luckiest, most wonderful thing that could ever happen. I would look at the big house where the road ended at the sea and imagine the people who lived there. The naive girl I used to be had pictured Griffin and his friends in blue blazers, girls in summer dresses, gin and tonics on silver trays, and all the happiness and confidence and goodness that must come from the ease of that life.

  Six years ago, we got married just down the road, in a small ceremony at the Lockwoods’ house. Alexander and Ford were Griffin’s best men. Our only guests were Leonora and Wade, Jackie and Tom. I wore a dove-gray dress and a wreath of flowers in my hair. Griffin wore khaki pants and a white linen shirt. He held my hand when we stood in front of Enid Drake, justice of the peace, and kissed me in the middle of the ceremony, before she pronounced us husband and wife.

  “A little impatient, are we?” Enid asked, smiling.

  Griffin ignored her, just smiled and kissed me again before Enid could resume the ceremony.

  We were a lightning storm together—but without the thunder, no fighting, nothing but electricity. I had felt insane desire for him that summer after college, tried to bury it during the years I was with Nate, and was overtaken again, from the minute we reconnected at that Black Hall cocktail party.

  When I walked home from the cove that day, my jacket pockets were full of beach finds. Griffin headed into the house through the kitchen door, and I ducked through the hedge to my studio. I took a deep breath—this was my true home, far more than the big house. It calmed me to come in here.

  My collections were organized in baskets and pottery bowls—different ones for mussel shells, quahog shells, periwinkles and moon shells, green sea glass, brown sea glass, interesting bits of seaweed, and driftwood. I emptied my pockets, putting every object where it belonged. The sea-scoured twigs went directly onto my worktable—I would be incorporating them into my last piece.

  I spent a few extra moments staring at a large basket. It was full of crustacean shells, both lobster and crab. I could still hear the sound of Griffin’s angry heel smashing the ones I had collected this morning.

  What had made him this way? That question never stopped running through my head, because the answer was so terrible. Another question was, Why had I stayed so long? The weight of his anger reverberated, and I knew I would use the sound and the feeling it had caused in my chest to complete my project.

  I checked to make sure the letter was exactly where I had left it. It had arrived the week before, and I had been debating what to do about it. Written on expensive blue English stationery, monogrammed EC, it had come out of nowhere from a woman I had met only once. I left it in its hiding place, deciding I would deal with it after my opening.

  When I walked into our big, sterile pure-white kitchen, Griffin was sitting at the table reading the Shoreline Gazette. He was getting ready to start a trial, prosecuting Gary Jackson, a middle school teacher, for sexually assaulting two female students. There were articles nearly every day. I opened the refrigerator, took out bacon, eggs, and a perfectly ripe cantaloupe.

  I refilled his coffee cup and poured one for myself. While the bacon was frying, I set the melon on the counter. Griffin had had the kitchen redone after we got married. He told me the plans the late May day we moved in. We had returned from our honeymoon in Italy early because he had had to get back for a trial. He carried me over the threshold and made the announcement.

  “Say goodbye to this old kitchen, Claire,” he had said. “I’m having a new one built for you,” he said.

  “But I love this one!” I said. It was cozy and beachy, nothing fancy about it: Butcher block counters had been well used. The porcelain sink dated back seventy years or more, an oak ice chest was being used as a liquor cabinet, and black-and-white Chase family photos hung on the beadboard walls.

  “There are plenty of memories I want to wipe out,” he said.

  “Really?” I asked, feeling compassion. I’d thought he had a good upbringing—perhaps not as close to his family as I was to mine—but happy and well loved. “You don’t talk about your childhood much.”

  “There’s not much to say,” he said. “I’d rather live in the present. Erase my parents, erase Margot.”

  I stayed quiet, listening.

  “She sat there,” he said, pointing at the window seat I had already pegged as a wonderful reading nook. “And that was her bar.” He gestured at the oak chest. “She was never far from it.”

  “That must have been painful,” I said.

  “Her drinking? Yes, you could say that.”

  “We can make this our own,” I said gently. “Change small things.” I didn’t want to impose myself on this home that had been in his family for generations, but I supposed we could get new curtains, paint the cabinets.

  He didn’t reply. He spread out plans on the counter. I felt a little shocked—he had already had them drawn up?

  “Th
e overall plan is by David Masterson of Chester Architects—he is the absolute best in New England. You’re going to love it.”

  “Oh, Griffin . . . I love the comfiness of this kitchen. You don’t have to spend money to make me happy—the opposite. I just want us to be together. I’m going to cook everything you love, right here. We can fish off the beach, grill the bluefish and stripers we catch. I want to plant a vegetable garden too.” I glanced across the room at the lovely old enameled stove; I couldn’t wait to use it.

  “I’ve hired Sallie Benson to do the design,” Griffin said, as if he hadn’t heard me. “David gives her his top recommendation, says she did the interior at the Pemberley Inn, as well as some very important properties in Watch Hill and Newport. She has a fantastic vision.” He paused. “Her husband’s an acquaintance of mine.”

  I had heard of Sallie Benson and knew she had a great reputation, but I felt stung by the idea that someone else was going to redesign the kitchen I already loved and felt at home in. I couldn’t stop glancing at the window seat.

  “Griffin,” I began—he was the crush of my teenage years, the love of my life, the most passionate man I’d ever been with. “You’re all I need. Not a fancy kitchen. Besides, if there’s a big renovation, we’ll have workmen in our house for who knows how long. We’re newlyweds, and I just want to be alone with you. We . . .”

  The look on his face stopped me.

  This was the first time it happened. It would be far from the last, but I will remember this moment until I die. It was as if I had thrown a switch. My loving husband who had constantly said he adored me, felt blessed to be with me, loved me to death, transformed into someone I had never seen. His eyes glared straight into me, and they changed color from pale green to pure black.