Barrett was a big guy, six-two and rangy. Television handsome, short-cropped hair with a flip in the front, a stylish stubble, and his mother’s intense light-blue eyes.
“I’m sorry if I seemed rude,” he said.
“Not at all,” I said. “It’s a very difficult time, I’m sure.”
“I just want you to know the real story. Of my mother.”
“Me, too,” I said.
“She was a wonderful person. Like, completely unselfish.”
I started to write.
“I still can’t believe she’s gone,” Barrett Hines said.
“I’m sure. It’s crazy.”
“We talked every day, especially since she moved over here from the island.”
“She was getting divorced?” I said.
“Yeah. My stepfather, he’s a contractor on MDI. He relied on her for all the financial stuff. They used to argue like crazy, him making her cut all these corners. Ha, I hope to hell the IRS shows up, nails the sleezeball.”
I looked up at him.
“Sounds like it wasn’t amicable,” I said.
“Rod is an asshole,” he said. “An egotistical, narcissistic philanderer. I blame him for my mother’s death.”
He looked at my notebook.
“Go ahead. Write that down,” he said. “You can quote me.”
I scribbled in shorthand, looked up at him.
“But your stepdad, he didn’t attack your mother. Why do you blame—”
“That bastard. You don’t know the story,” Hines said.
“That’s why I’m here,” I said.
He crossed his legs, settled in. I waited.
“Okay. Rod and my mom got married right out of college. My mom had gotten pregnant in high school, then the guy went and got killed driving drunk.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Whatever. Totally useless human being. Mom went to UMaine, lived at home with my grandmother. Rod played basketball, but he wasn’t a starter. I mean, as much as he tries to tell everybody he was a big star. He was a high school star. Big deal. Mom was cute and smart, way too nice. He can turn it on, I’ll give him that. He probably cheated on her there, too, I don’t know.”
At least one picture was emerging.
“Okay. Fast-forward. And you have to understand MDI. That’s Mount Desert Island.”
“Right.”
“There’s the big money on the island. New York, Philadelphia, hedge funders, Rockefellers, Martha Stewart. Then there’s the tourists—Acadia and all that—and there’s people who have the shops and galleries and restaurants and B-and-Bs. And then there’s people like my mom and Rod who work for the wealthy summer folks. If you’re good at it, and you get in with the right people, you can make serious money.”
I wrote in my notebook.
“Am I going too fast?”
“No.”
He stood up, seemed even taller. Started to pace.
“For a few years, when I’m a kid, my dad is small-time. Garages. Boat sheds. Decks. Additions for the locals. Then he gets a break, does a carriage house for these people from Delaware who have this sort of average mansion in Northeast Harbor. Then it’s a bigger fancy addition in Seal Harbor, bigger money. Then up in Northeast, these people have a fire and my dad gets the rebuild. Like I said. He can talk.”
He stopped pacing, looked down at me.
“You see how this is going, right?”
“Things take off.”
“Right. I mean, all of a sudden, Spruce Rock is, like, big-time. My dad’s hiring, buying new trucks and equipment, subs are knocking on his door for work.”
“All good,” I said.
He turned toward the river, then spun back and said, “And who do you think was a huge part of making that happen.”
“Your mom.”
“Exactly,” Hines said, almost triumphantly.
“She was the brains?”
“The financial brains, for sure. She majored in accounting at UMaine, and this was her thing. She did the estimates, the bids, negotiating for materials, figured out the margins they needed, took in the payments. Hiring and payroll and all the government forms and the permits and on and on.”
“What does your dad do?”
“Struts around like he’s a big deal. Have you met him?”
I shook my head.
“Marlboro Man with a hammer. He’s a big guy, my size. That was a coincidence. Pretty jacked, good-looking. Like a Carhartt ad. The wives up in Northeast—their husbands are gone most of the time, out making money to pay for all of it—Rod’s like some porn fantasy come true.”
“Did he take them up on it?”
“I don’t know. But I think it planted the seed. ‘Hey, these women think I’m pretty hot. Maybe I am.’ ”
“Started to believe his own act?” I said.
“You got it.”
“That why he and your mother split up?”
Barrett sat down in the chair, leaned toward me.
“The gym,” he said.
“Ah.”
“How many fifty-year-old contractors need to go to the gym? I mean, he’s lifting stuff, hauling a nail gun around. Maybe not as much as he used to. I figure he felt like he was looking old. He’s vain as hell.”
I had stopped taking notes. Barrett didn’t seem to notice.
“So at the gym there’s this fitness coach.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Her name is Silk.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Right. She’s, like, maybe forty.”
“Attractive?”
“In a too-old-for-that-ponytail sort of way. Built like you would expect for a fitness coach.”
“I see.”
“They hook up. And you can guess the rest.”
“They’re still together?” I said.
“My mom moved out. Silk moved in.”
“Huh.”
“She wanted a horse. Rod built her a horse barn.”
“Who’s doing the books now?”
“Rod hired an accountant.”
I wrote that down.
“That’s an expense,” I said.
“Hey, he’s making money hand over fist, at least on paper. Building like a six-thousand-square-foot guesthouse in Northeast right now. I heard it’s some super design, all glass on the ocean side. Guy runs some freaking hedge fund. I don’t think he even asked how much it would cost.”
I scribbled a bit more. Shifted in my leather chair.
“Your stepdad tell you all of this?” I said.
“We don’t speak,” Barrett said. “I talk—or should I say, talked—to my mom. She was just a wonderful person.”
“Did you not speak because—”
I hesitated.
“Me being gay?”
“Yeah.”
“I embarrassed him. Let him down. He thought I was great when I was a kid, playing sports, doing what he expected Rod Blaine’s stepson to do. But when I came out, he made sure he let me know I was a big disappointment.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.
“Hey, it’s all about him. Textbook narcissist. A gay son? All these construction guys he works with?”
“What? Gay guys don’t work construction?”
“Of course they do. But in rural Maine, they’re just careful who they tell,” Barrett said. “Make sure they don’t date too close to home.”
“Sad,” I said.
“Reality,” he said.
“How did your mom feel about the split?”
“Like you’d expect. Hurt. Betrayed. I mean, she was so nice, she always gave him the benefit of the doubt. And then she couldn’t. And she knew she’d wasted twenty-five years of her life.”
I hesitat
ed, then said it.
“I met her.”
Barrett froze in mid-stride.
“What? When—how?”
I told him. The two of us in the parking lot. Ten minutes later, people screaming.
He stared off as it sank in.
“How did she seem?” he asked.
“Happy,” I said.
I didn’t say she’d wanted to chat.
“She had the dog with her. She was friendly, smiling. She seemed like a good person.”
“Oh, she was. Then you know. Why the hell did she have to be there at that minute? Why did this asshole have to be there? Why the fuck did he pick her out?”
His eyes filled and he wiped them with the back of his hand.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m trying to figure it out.”
“If my dad hadn’t decided to screw around, she’d be alive. Living on MDI, going about her business,” Barrett said. “That’s the bottom line.”
He watched me and waited as I wrote down those two sentences.
“I want you to put that in the New York Times. I want the whole world to know that.”
I nodded, said, “I understand.”
Barrett stood again, walked to the window. I got up from the chair, slipped my notebook into my pocket. I walked over and stood beside him. He was crying silently. I waited and he wiped his eyes again, took a long, deep breath. On the river, a bald eagle was flapping its way downstream. I don’t know that Barrett saw it.
“Can I ask you a crazy question?” he said.
“Sure.”
“My mom and dad were separated.”
“Right.”
“Mom would be getting substantial alimony. She helped build the business over twenty years. She’s entitled to half of that, I would think.”
“Sounds right. But I assume that’s what the lawyers would be negotiating.”
I glanced at him and he said, “What happens now that she’s gone?”
“I don’t know. But I guess the whole thing ends. The divorce, I mean.”
“You can’t divorce a deceased person, right?” Barrett said. “And you can’t pay alimony to one, either. You think it’s occurred to them? The cops, I mean.”
“If they’re good.”
“Are they?” Barrett said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Too early to tell.”
He stared straight ahead. I waited.
“This guy is schizophrenic or something, right?” Barrett said.
“Or something. He’s pretty sick. Thinks comic books are real and he’s living in one.”
Barrett was thinking. I waited for him and finally gave up and said, “How did your parents get along lately? Did they argue?”
“Not anymore. It was all through lawyers.”
We stood, still looking out at the Penobscot. Another eagle flew by, an immature one, mottled brown.
“I could ruin the fucker,” Barrett said.
I kept my eyes on the river.
“How so?”
“I know stuff. About the business. Things he made my mother do.”
“Like with the books?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“He had a guy pay him, like, two hundred grand in cash for a job that cost sixty thousand.”
“Money laundering?”
“Guy was some investment type from Manhattan.”
“Your mom told you this,” I said.
“Right. Just saying. That’s off the record. I’m saving it for when I need it.”
I nodded, almost imperceptibly. Gulls flew by, then a single raven, but no more eagles.
“You’re sure about blaming your dad for your mom being in Riverport?” I said. “In the story, I mean.”
“Yes. I want that in there,” Barrett said. “If I decide to use the money stuff, I’ll go straight to the cops.”
“Okay,” I said. We turned and I held out my hand and he shook it, a strong, firm grip. I said I was very sorry for what had happened and I appreciated him talking to me, that I’d be back in touch with any questions.
“Do my mother justice,” Barrett said.
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
Too little, too late?
I started for the door and he followed. We stepped outside and I turned back and said, “I do have another question. What did your mom say about working for Loaves and Fishes?”
“Just that the books were a gigantic mess. Boxes of crap that the person who runs it, she brought over to the office. Some of it literally on napkins. Nothing in order. A lot of it in the head of the lady there.”
“Harriet. More than your mom signed up for?”
“Mom said she’d straighten things out, but it was going to be a project.”
“How did Harriet like that your mom was coming in?”
“Not very much. But my mom was a positive person. She said she’d win her over, bring the place into the twenty-first century.”
Barrett paused.
“She never had a chance. It just totally sucks.”
“Yes,” I said. “It does.”
12
k
I was back home in Prosperity at 6:15. Roxanne had dinner on the table: tuna melts and a salad with kale and almond slivers and dried cranberries. Sophie sat and began picking the berries out of her salad with her fingers.
“Fork, please,” Roxanne said, and Sophie began spearing the berries, one by one.
Roxanne asked what I’d been doing, and I said I went up to a town called Orrington and saw two eagles flying down the river. Sophie asked if they had a lot of eagles in Orrington, and I said it appeared they had a few. She asked if I was writing a story about eagles and I said, no, but maybe I should.
Easier than writing about a woman who’d had her head split open.
There was chat about school, a boy named Jo-Jo who was new and his moms brought him to class. Sophie said they seemed really nice, and Jo-Jo was crying when they left.
And then it was bath time and I went upstairs and started the tub. They followed and Sophie climbed in and started making crazy hairdos with soapsuds. I laughed and Sophie did, too, and then my phone buzzed and I slipped it out and left the room and stood in the hall.
It was Clair. He said we should work in the woods in the morning.
“Is Louis coming?”
“I don’t know, but we need to talk,” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “We do.”
There was a story, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. It was reassuring, a world where a steam shovel had eyes and a big smile. As we were reading, I wondered if this was what Teak felt like when he left the real world for the one he’d made up. A world better than the one you were stuck in.
And then Sophie was tucked in and we turned off the lights and Roxanne and I went downstairs. In the kitchen, she started loading the dishwasher. I put food in containers and the containers in the refrigerator. When it was done, I went to the study and plunged in.
I rewrote my notes, circling the critical stuff, filling in missing words. How much of Barrett would I use? The embittered son lashing out at his stepfather? Was it really Rod Blaine’s fault that his soon-to-be-ex had been murdered?
He cheated on her. I kept working.
After Barrett, I picked up a second notebook. Bunbury. Who said anything about torture? I underlined that, flipped the pages. Looked up at the screen and typed in BVI police. The website came up. There was a picture of a commissioner, an older guy in a too-tight uniform. There was a paragraph on the department’s vision, two more on their mission, a list of values, mostly about being fair and impartial.
Nothing about a rich guy who was slashed to death in his fancy house, or a girlfriend who bolted before the—
A touch on my shoulder.
Roxanne. I hadn’t heard her come into the room.
“You’re throwing yourself into this story to keep your distance.”
“When I’m reporting and writing, I can control that much,” I said.
Roxanne squeezed my arm.
I turned to her. She leaned against me, kneaded my shoulder.
“Lindy Hines moved to Riverport because her husband of twenty-some years dumped her for a younger woman,” I said. “His fitness coach. They were negotiating alimony, which would have been sizable.”
“His lucky day?” Roxanne said.
“I’d say so,” I said, and looked away.
She looked at me. “Am I losing you, Jack? You’ve got that look where you shut everything else out and then you’re gone.”
“Just a lot on my mind.”
I stared at the screen, the cheesy BVI police department website. Roxanne waited. I sighed, turned to her.
“She wanted to talk,” I said.
“Who?”
“Lindy Hines. When I met her in the parking lot this morning. She said something about us being early birds. You know how you throw something out to start a conversation?”
“Jack, don’t,” Roxanne said.
“I was in a hurry, wanted to stay on schedule. I pretended I didn’t hear her. Kept going.”
“No.”
“If I’d just turned around, chatted with her some more. ‘Hey, why are you here so early?’ Walked into the store with her, even.”
“Jack, it’s not your fault.”
“Maybe if she hadn’t looked like she was there alone. Maybe he would have changed his mind, gotten this crazy idea out of his head.”
“You couldn’t have controlled this, Jack.”
“But what if I had just—”
“Enough. Is that why you’re doing this story? Because you feel guilty that you didn’t escort this stranger through Home Department?”
“It might have helped.”
“Or he might have killed you, too,” Roxanne said.
“I’m not helpless Lindy Hines. So this story is like a headstone for her. It says this isn’t normal. I owe her that much.”
“Are you going to write that you feel you could have saved her?”
I hesitated.
“What? Some first-person sidebar? I don’t know.”
Roxanne gave me a last squeeze on the shoulder, then stepped back like we’d finished our good-byes.
RandomActNEWpub Page 9
