“You glue and screw them in. But first we’ll have to taper down the broken ends of the old frames.” Oliver picked up what appeared to be a big electric grinder.
“I’m going to use that thing?” She had never seen her father wield anything quite so big.
“It’s a heavy-duty disk sander,” he explained. “Better let me do this. It takes a light touch. One slip with this thing and you could go right through the side of the boat.”
She bristled at the macho attitude. “And you won’t?”
Oliver put on a dust mask. “Trust me. This is how I make the big bucks,” he said.
“Do you make big bucks?”
The corners of his eyes crinkled above the mask. “No, but I can starve to death slowly.”
“You didn’t get anything done on your boat,” Sarah observed.
“I got tied up on something else.”
“Like Lawnzilla?”
“Partly. Come on, and bring the extension cord.”
Sarah followed, feeling put out.
Soon, Oliver had sanded away a couple of feet of the broken frames so they gradually tapered down to a feather edge where the breaks had been.
“Now we can start gluing in the new pieces to fill in what I sanded away,” he said, brushing off his arms.
“Do I get to do any of that?” she said, feeling still more put out. A cloud of dust lingered in the air. Oliver nodded absentmindedly.
She followed him back into the shop, along with Wes, only less enthusiastic. Oliver donned a pair of latex gloves and had her do the same. He worked the lever on a machine that dispensed two syrupy liquids into a plastic bowl, and handed her the bowl and a mixing stick.
“Epoxy,” Oliver explained. “Stir it for a couple of minutes.” He busied himself with a staple gun and other odds and ends.
Sarah did as she was told, feeling like an apprentice witch preparing some kind of gooey, noxious potion.
“Why did Pearly Gaites send me to you?” she asked. “Aren’t you competitors?”
“Not exactly. For one thing, we make different kinds of boats, and for another, boatbuilders often end up working for each other. Sometimes I go down and help Pearly out, and sometimes he or Eldon comes up here.”
Oliver dumped some white powder into her poisonous soup. “Keep stirring,” he said. “I’ve got a sawmill out back, and I saw boat lumber for Pearly once in a while, too.”
“So he was just too busy to work on Owl?”
“He builds one, maybe two boats a year, but he also stores a bunch of boats for the winter, and has to get them ready in the spring. It’s a hectic time of year.”
“He didn’t mention epoxy.”
“God no. He would have steamed in new frames.”
“Would that have been better?”
“That’s a matter of opinion. It boils down to how important you feel it is to uphold tradition.”
He eyed the sticky mess Sarah was mixing, and added a dash more powder. “Pearly uses epoxy once in a while for certain things, but plank-on-frame construction, like Owl, is the kind of building he grew up with, and knows how to do. And he’s very good at it.”
“How do you build boats differently, besides using this goo?”
“The Whitehall you’ve been helping sand is strip-planked. Instead of using wide boards to plank with, like Owl, you use narrow strips so you can nail and glue the edges together, which means you don’t have to put caulking between them. It may take a little longer to build, but you end up with a hull that’s all one piece, so it’s stronger, doesn’t need as many frames, and doesn’t leak. No leaks means less chance for rot. At least that’s the theory.”
Sarah had wondered why Owl had so many more frames than Oliver’s Whitehall. “Why do people call them frames? They look a lot more like ribs to me.”
Oliver shrugged. “Some people do call them ribs, and that’s what they’re for, holding the shape.”
They went outside, climbed into Owl, and crouched together in the cockpit.
“We’ll just glue in a couple of the strips today and finish the rest tomorrow,” he said, handing her a foam brush. “Spread some epoxy on the strips, and where I sanded the frames. Then we’ll staple the strips in to hold them while the epoxy cures.” He watched for a moment, making her uncomfortable. “Don’t be dainty, slather it on,” he advised.
“Am I keeping you from anything?” she inquired.
“This won’t take long. It can’t or the epoxy will set up.”
“Don’t you like this type of boat? Plank-on-frame was it?” She waved the foam brush around Owl’s cockpit.
“I think any kind of boat is great, and Maine is one of the best places in the world to find traditional construction, and men with skills like Pearly are hard to come by today. Too many of the old ways are dying out, like your pal Myra.”
“And your point is?” She paused, her foam brush poised over the bowl of epoxy.
Oliver stared pointedly at the brush.
“You were here in the sixties,” he said. “Look at the changes. Fishermen like Evan Huggard used to live on the shore, with their boats moored right in front of the house. Today, a lot of them have to commute fifteen or twenty miles to the harbor, because waterfront land is so expensive and property taxes are so high. It’s not surprising that some of the old timers get resentful about all the incomers.”
“But, that sort of thing is happening everywhere,” she protested.
“Tell me about it. I grew up on Cape Cod in the sixties, and it was the same thing down there. Myra, with her vegetables and chickens, was one of the last of her kind. Did you know she was the last native Mainer to own deep water frontage on Squirrel Point? All the rest belongs to people from out of state, and most are just summer people, or land speculators. It’s amazing Myra was able to hang on so long.”
Sarah remembered Kate’s comment about Myra extorting money from people. How did she do that? Was that how she managed to hang on? “You make her sound like some kind of heroine. Believe me, she was no saint.”
“She gave you a boat,” he said, as though that forgave all Myra’s sins.
Chapter 9
Sarah wandered around her apartment, tidying up while she thought idly about lunch. She had called her brother in Chicago and gotten his answering machine, and tried her son and daughter, with the same result. These brief, one-sided communications left her depressed. Maybe Muffy was right and she should she be putting her life back together among her friends in Sudbury.
It was even possible that her coming to Maine had shaken Claude out of his mid-life crisis, and he was serious about turning over a new leaf. His visit had almost convinced her—for a few minutes. And he was right, they had shared a lot, including two kids. Perhaps more counseling . . .
No, she scolded herself, that would be wimping out. Kate and Sam were right. What she really needed was to make some friends around here before she went crazy.
A pounding rattled the door in its frame. “Coming!” she yelled.
Normally, daylight flooded into the room when she opened the door, but not now, for the space was totally blocked.
A giant stared down at her. “They’re wrong. You don’t look anything like Cathy,” he rumbled. “You’re much too old, for one thing.”
“You must be Eldon,” she said.
“You don’t sound anything like Cath, either.”
Sarah’s eyes were on a level with the words “Boston University” on the young man’s sweatshirt. She guessed six-foot-six and a good 300 pounds. She held out her hand, which disappeared into his calloused paw. “I’m Sarah Cassidy,” she said.
“Eldon Tupper.” His smile revealed a surprisingly even set of teeth considering the broken nose that adorned his face. “I heard you were in town, so I came to see if you’d heard anything from Cathy.”
“I got a note, written just before Myra died.”
“A note? What did it say?” he asked eagerly.
Seeing his desperate hope, s
he took Cathy’s note from the kitchen counter and handed it to him.
His eyes devoured the words. “That’s all?”
“Yes. Sorry I can’t help more.”
“She’s gotta turn up soon.” He sounded forlorn.
Sarah had no response, mainly because she had a feeling that Cathy would most likely turn up dead, if at all. “How did you find out I was here at the Merlews?”
“Oliver told me. Said you had a big, ugly black SUV.” He stood for a moment shyly. “You knew Myra from way back?”
“From back in the sixties when I went to Migawoc.”
Eldon stood for a moment, as though contemplating her vast antiquity. “Cathy and I used to go over to visit Myra a lot, clean up the place. You know, the house and the grass. She was kinda gruff sometimes, but she was real generous, too,” Eldon added, “even gave Cathy a car for Christmas. It worked out good because Cath’s car had died a couple of weeks before that.”
“That was generous,” Sarah conceded.
“It was just an old beater Myra used to drive around town. I spent a week getting it to run again.”
“Myra was still driving?”
“Up until they pulled her license a year ago. She was a demon on the road.”
Eldon’s brows furrowed. “She kept having these little strokes, going downhill each time. Would have had to go into a nursing home before long, and the idea of it made her crazy, probably would have killed her. Cath wanted to help her stay at home, so she and I went over to help out, and Ziggy stopped by when he was around.”
Sarah figured another five minutes of staring up at Eldon’s face and she’d need a chiropractor for her neck. “Would you like to come in and have some coffee?”
“Can’t stay. Mostly, I came to see if you’d heard from Cathy, because she wanted to talk to you.” He looked wistful. “Let me know if she calls. I’m at the yard most days.”
“I will. Do you know what she wants to talk about?”
Eldon shook his head. “No idea. She and Myra had something bugging them, but I don’t—”
“There you are,” Sam’s voice was muffled by Eldon’s back. “I saw your truck and figured you must be around here somewhere.”
Eldon looked defensive. “I was meeting missus Cassidy.”
“You don’t need to bother her with Myra’s schemes,” Sam replied with unusual gruffness. “Come on, I’ll show you what needs fixing on the barn next.”
Eldon scowled, opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and turned to follow Sam. Her view of the outside world restored, Sarah’s breath caught in her throat as saw the all-too-familiar front end of Eldon’s battered red pickup truck.
* * *
Sarah treated herself to an afternoon drive and a little shopping in Camden. She took the Turner Plains road on the way back. A sign at the intersection of Route 1 assured her that “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You.”
She was on the opposite side of the Squirrel Point peninsula from Burnt Cove and the inlet was narrower here, about a hundred yards of tidal creek, compared to the broad expanse of Kwiguigum Sound. The houses were more modest as well, in contrast to the mansions sprouting up on the Burnt Cove side. The road wound through stands of softwood, assorted houses, and hayfields. Occasionally, a glimmer of water showed itself down a driveway or a break in the trees.
After a couple of miles, the woods opened up to reveal a large church, clad in weathered grey shingles, whose high-pitched roofs, wooden buttresses, and narrow diamond-pane windows gave it Gothic pretensions. In the late 1800's, Sarah knew, the church had served a wealthy colony of rusticators who built a string of Victorian mansions, nestled on spacious estates, that lined much of the lower end of Squirrel Point. They lasted until the 1947 drought brought a forest fire that leveled them all except for the Hotel.
Sarah pulled up to the front door, where a glass-faced sign board announced that Sunday services were held at ten o’clock.
She got out of the car. A shaggy lawn, populated by a group of ancient pine trees, lay between the church and the still, greenish-blue water. An idyllic spot for a picnic.
She wandered down to the water’s edge and found a dilapidated picnic table sitting in the shade of a big pine.
The inlet narrowed to the right as it withered away to a nondescript stream running through a culvert under Route 1. A tiny island populated by half a dozen spruce trees split the channel to the left. The still air held the aroma of pine, spruce, and salt water. A seagull gave a mournful call as it circled over the mirrored, blue-green surface.
Sarah brushed a few stray pine needles off the picnic table and sat down. She hadn’t been inside a church since her mother died four years ago, and she had no real attachment to the Catholic church, or any other for that matter, though her parents had taken her regularly to Saint Brigid’s in South Boston when she was growing up. It probably didn’t matter which church she went to anyway, so long as she met some interesting people. She sat a little longer, until the black flies chased her back to the car.
* * *
The First Baptist church, a picture-postcard New England structure, sat beside the road just south of Burnt Cove village. Oak Hill rose up behind the church, and the cemetery rested on the hill’s flank, starting just above the church’s dirt parking lot. A stone wall enclosed the cemetery’s back and sides.
A new, freshly paved road, ran just outside the cemetery wall and up the hill on the side farthest from the church. A large sign stood at the end of the road, proclaiming, “Oak Hill Estates, Ocean View Lots, Will Build to Suit.” In smaller print at the bottom were the words “BCD Properties, LLC.” Some wag had spray painted a dripping black arrow on the sign, pointing to the cemetery.
Sarah pulled into the church’s parking lot, where a notice board informed her that the Baptists worshiped at nine-thirty, under the guidance of Pastor John Wilson.
She walked slowly up a path that bisected the cemetery. As Sam had told her, the newer graves were at the top of the slope, which gave them a nice view over the harbor—or would have if fog wasn’t obscuring it. The sky was turning heavy and grey, the air cool and damp as the sun dimmed.
A thin line of trees stood between the back wall of the cemetery and Oak Hill Estates, from which came the sound of a bulldozer and a chainsaw, along with the smell of raw dirt and freshly cut timber.
The flimsy metal marker on Myra’s grave stood in stark contrast to the granite-hard woman Sarah remembered.
She wondered about Eldon’s description of Myra’s generosity. That wasn’t the person she had known. Perhaps Myra behaved differently with locals. Perhaps she just didn’t like the wealthy kids from away.
As a matter of fact, Sarah’s family hadn’t been wealthy, and her parents scrimped and saved to send her to Migawoc, but of course Myra wouldn’t know that. By its very nature, wealth is relative, and even the least well-to-do of Migawoc’s campers were vastly richer than the camp’s crusty neighbor.
“Why did you give me the boat, the deed, and the rest of it?” Sarah asked the marker. “Why me? What in the world were you thinking?”
She didn’t expect an answer, but the lack of response irritated her nonetheless. That, plus the fact she couldn’t help suspecting that Myra’s legacy hadn’t been given out of generosity, but some darker motive.
“Judgement is mine, saith the Lord,” Sarah added, “but I still don’t think you were a generous old woman.”
As if in answer, Sarah turned to see a wall of fog creeping up the slope towards her.
* * *
Dense fog and a cold drizzle swallowed up the afternoon light, leaving Sarah with her nose up against the windshield as she groped her way down the road. The blurred glare of oncoming headlights slowed her to a crawl. She waved to Ziggy Breener, who was peddling soggily towards her, his eyes focused on the ditch. He gave no sign of seeing her.
She turned the church question over in her mind. As far as she knew, the Merlews didn’t go to church. She wonder
ed if Oliver Wendell went to church, and decided not. How had he made friends when he moved here? It almost seemed as though he didn’t feel the need of friends, but that was unfair since she barely knew the man. All she knew for sure was there were none of the tell-tale signs of a woman’s touch at the Hound Hill Boatworks. The place had a scruffy look of vague neglect that suggested a man living alone.
Sarah adjusted her rear view mirror to deflect the glare of headlights from the car behind her as she strained to see the road. A sharp turn suddenly loomed out of the fog and she hit the brakes. The lights behind her came alarmingly close before falling back. “Sorry,” she said to the headlights. At least there was less traffic on this stretch of road.
Maybe the look Kate and Sam had traded when she first mentioned Oliver’s name had to do with his bachelorhood.
Sarah vowed to think of something else. She didn’t need men cluttering up her life right now, and certainly not some oddball like Oliver Wendell.
Just then, the headlights behind her grew again, filling the car with a dazzling glare. A sudden thud rocked the Explorer. Sarah yanked at the wheel, struggling for control as a truck swept by inches away and cut in front. She swerved, the road fell away, and her car shot into the woods.
Chapter 10
The Merlews clucked, fussed, and worried over Sarah’s mishap as though they were her parents. Sarah described the event as an accident to avoid upsetting them, but even so, she was pampered all evening and most of the next morning, so it was a relief when they finally dropped her off at Lulu’s Lunch in Burnt Cove the next day.
Lulu’s place was just beyond Tabler’s Market, and it occupied the same swaybacked building that had been Al’s Diner in Sarah’s youth. Being situated on a low hill, one could catch a glimpse of Burnt Cove harbor through Lulu’s front windows.
In spite of the Merlew’s fussing, Sarah managed to arrive a few minutes ahead of the luncheon rush, such as it was, and she snagged a window table. The cafe-style seating made the place look a good deal brighter than Al’s old booths, and Lulu was more diligent about keeping the windows clean than Al had ever dreamed of. Sarah sat and gazed down Water street, a hundred-yard strip of pavement that led from the intersection of Squirrel Point road and Cross Point road to the waterfront. A misty sun struggled to suck the last reluctant wisps of fog from the air.
Gravely Dead: A Midcoast Maine Mystery Page 7
