The Sense of Reckoning

by Matty Dalrymple

  Scott and Ann were about to start loading up Scott’s Prius when Mike appeared with his keychain.

  “Why don’t you take Audrey, it’ll be more comfortable,” he said, handing the keys to Scott.

  “You’re letting us take Audrey? Are you sure?” Audrey was an older model Audi, but so meticulously maintained by the car detailer, to whom Mike sent a bottle of good vodka every Christmas, that it could pass as new.

  “Sure, why not. You’re a better driver than I am anyway.” Mike patted the hood of the car. “Take good care of my girl.”

  Ann and Scott headed out at eight o’clock. The day was sunny and the weather continued to be unusually warm. Ann threw her down parka in the trunk only at Scott’s insistence.

  Scott had a five-miles-over-the-speed-limit, both-hands-on-the-wheel, cruise-control-is-cheating driving style that Ann found preferable to Mike’s somewhat competitive approach. Scott chatted as they drove, commenting on the scenery or other drivers or whatever song was on the radio; Ann found it soothing because he seemed equally content whether or not she responded. As they navigated the area around New York City, she teased him about his tendency to make excuses for irresponsible driving: “Goodness, he must be late for an appointment,” or, “He probably couldn’t see me—he’s missing his side-view mirrors.”

  At various stops throughout the trip, Scott produced from the cooler a mid-morning snack, lunch, and afternoon tea, complete with a thermos of Earl Grey. They consumed each picnic meal in as scenic a spot as Scott could find without venturing too far from the route.

  It was dark when they passed through Trenton, Maine, and crossed the short bridge over Mount Desert Narrows that brought them onto Mount Desert Island. In the dark, only the lack of lights distinguished the water from the land. They passed through Somesville and continued on to Southwest Harbor.

  The inn where they were staying was located on a residential side street. Theirs was the only car in the small parking lot, but the house was cheerfully lit. Scott got his small leather satchel from the trunk. Ann had a wheeled carry-on that Mike had loaned her—since she kept clothes at Mike and Scott’s house, she never had to bring luggage when she visited them. The temperature had dropped as they drove north, and Ann was glad to have the parka.

  Scott held the door for her and they stepped into the lobby of the inn. It was charmingly furnished in a style that suggested Victorian without being cloying. The walls were hung with quite nice paintings of Maine coastal scenes, each with a discreet tag with the artist’s name and the painting’s price. Classical music played softly. A bowl of Hershey’s Kisses sat on the reception desk next to a small brass bell, which Scott rang.

  The person who appeared could hardly have been less in tune with the surroundings: black hair so short it was almost a crew cut, pale skin made more pale-looking by the dark liner around the eyes, a row of rings along the edge of each ear, a nose ring, and a lip ring. A frayed denim jacket, fully buttoned up, hung loose on a thin frame.

  “Welcome to the Clarks Point Inn,” said their greeter, whose light voice revealed it to be a girl. She managed to sound like a recording, except for the slight lisp caused by the post in her tongue.

  “Good evening!” said Scott. “I’m Scott Pate and this is Ann Kinnear, and we have a reservation for the next several nights.”

  “My mom had to go out so she asked me to show you to your rooms when you got here,” she said, striking a balance between following the script her mother had obviously given her while injecting a barely discernible level of sullenness to indicate that this was not how she would have preferred to spend her evening.

  “Well, we certainly appreciate that. What’s your name?”

  “Mace.”

  “Mace?” asked Ann. “Like ... what you spray on muggers?”

  “Uh huh,” said Mace.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mace,” said Scott.

  Mace nodded an acknowledgement. “Do you need help with your bags?”

  “Oh no, I think we can manage—can’t we, Annie?”

  Ann would have like to have asked the girl to carry the bags just to see how that would have gone—Ann guessed that, as light as they were traveling, their bags would have represented a good portion of the girl’s own weight. “Yup, we can manage,” she said.

  “Right this way,” said Mace woodenly.

  She led them to the second floor and showed them into adjoining rooms, both just as tastefully decorated as the first floor. Ann guessed Mace hated the decor. “Is there anything I can get you?” It was clear that the desired answer was “no.”

  “Do you have any recommendations for where we could get dinner without driving too far?” asked Scott.

  “I think Bloom’s Cafe is still open,” said Mace. “It’s right down the street.”

  “Within walking distance?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Perfect!” said Scott. “We may be here for a few days—is there anything you especially like to do on the island that you would recommend?”

  “Uh ... hiking and stuff?”

  “Where do you like to go hiking?”

  “Well, not me, but tourists, you know ...” she mumbled. Mace was clearly not comfortable when the interaction with the guests went off script.

  “But what do you like to do? It’s always much more interesting to try out things that people who live in a place enjoy doing.”

  “Well,” said Mace, warming to the topic despite herself. “Bar Harbor is just a tourist trap during the day, but there’s stuff to do there at night.”

  “Oh yes? And what do you do there?”

  “Well ... they have live music.” Mace was working hard not to let her enthusiasm show.

  “No kidding, what kind?”

  “All kinds. Jazz sometimes.”

  “I love jazz!” exclaimed Scott.

  “Yeah, they get some pretty good people coming through.” Mace smiled shyly, and Ann could see that underneath all that metal and the black hair (that, based on the girl’s fair complexion, was probably naturally blonde) was a non-truculent person struggling to get out.

  “Well, I’d very much like to see that,” said Scott. “Could you let me know how I can get more information?”

  “Sure, I’ll print some stuff out for you.” Mace sidled past Ann and banged down the stairs, her heavy boots thudding on the treads.

  Since it was late, Ann and Scott didn’t bother unpacking before walking the short distance into town for a late dinner. Bloom’s Cafe had a coffee bar near the door, a bar decorated with strings of white lights along the back wall, and fewer than a dozen tables with mismatched wooden chairs crowded into the remaining space. There was a small but boisterous group at the bar, but Ann and Scott were the only diners. They both ordered risotto, which Ann deemed to be too rich but Scott enjoyed, and Bar Harbor Real Ales.

  After their plates were cleared away, Scott glanced at his watch. “Want to go back to the inn?”

  “Not yet, it’s nice here. We could have an after-dinner drink.”

  “Okay. What do you want?”

  “Hmmm ... How about a glass of port?”

  “Okay.” Scott went to the bar to place their order and struck up a conversation with the group there. In a few minutes he returned to the table with Ann’s port and another beer for himself.

  “Guess what I found out!”

  “What?”

  “It’s not Mount ‘DEH-zert,’ it’s Mount ‘De-ZERT.’”

  “That’s weird.”

  “It’s French for ‘barren’—I guess because it looked barren to the first Europeans who came here. Who must have been French.”

  “Huh.”

  “Plus I learned that we’re ‘from away’!”

  “What?”

  “‘From away’ means we aren’t locals. Evidently your family has to have been here forever or you’re considered ‘from away.’ I guess Mr. Masser must still be considered ‘from away,’ even though you said he’s lived here for quite a
while.” He took a sip of his beer. “Mike would think that was interesting.” He pulled out his mobile phone and speed dialed Mike.

  Chapter 9

  Garrick gripped the steering wheel and hunched forward, peering out the windshield, although he would have been able to see equally well had he sat back. One of his greatest annoyances with his current engagement was that he was not able to hire someone to drive him to it, especially since it meant driving at night, which he particularly disliked.

  Garrick dreamed of a vintage Rolls Royce and a chauffeur, but even his excellent reputation and delivered results were not quite enough to fund that dream. He had compromised on a black Cadillac Fleetwood with a comfortable amount of room for his long legs, and usually hired a neighbor to drive him. But the client’s insistence on secrecy extended to not having anyone know the location of the engagement, so he was forced to drive himself.

  He saw the sign for Lynam’s Point Road and slowly turned off, much to the relief of the motorist who had followed him from Somesville. Lynam’s Point Road ran perpendicular to Indian Point Road for a short distance, then turned left, to the south, before looping north to run along the shore of the peninsula. Most of the peninsula was part of Acadia National Park and thus undeveloped, but as he approached the northern tip of the peninsula, he passed between two stone pillars that marked the entrance to the Lynam’s Point Hotel property. Shortly after that, he passed on his left the Lynam family cemetery, utilitarian granite headstones surrounded by an unpicturesque chain-link fence. Finally, a circular drive came into view. It was lined with dim lights, the uneven spacing of which showed where some of the bulbs had burned out. Beyond the glow of the lights, one could sense the mass of the old hotel blocking the stars beyond. Other than the lights at the drive, which the client had turned on—somewhat reluctantly—at Garrick’s request, the only illumination was the dim glow of a lamp burning in the hotel’s lobby.

  Garrick eased the Cadillac behind a rust-pocked Jeep Cherokee and, getting a flashlight out of the glove compartment, unfolded himself from the car. The crunch of his boots on the gravel drive was loud over the murmur of the water surrounding the hotel on its point of land. The client must have been watching for him because as soon as he stepped onto the veranda, the lights along the drive were extinguished.

  Ellen Lynam pushed open the door of the hotel and stood aside to let Garrick in, then closed and locked the door behind him. She was a large woman, not fat but physically formidable. Weathered skin and thick hair pulled back in a messy bun made her look older than her forty years. She wore worn corduroy pants and a hand-knit sweater, stretched unnaturally long by the weight of whatever she carried in its pockets. Thick tortoise-shell glasses magnified her hazel eyes. A delicate jade pendant hung from a black ribbon around her neck.

  Garrick turned off the flashlight and dropped it into a coat pocket, then drew the collar of his coat up. “It’s colder in here than it is outside.”

  “Good evening to you too, Garrick,” she replied, leading the way through the lobby. “I can’t heat the whole building for just the two of us. I have a space heater running in the lounge.”

  They entered what had, in more prosperous times, served as the hotel’s restaurant and now, in these leaner times, as an overly large and under-furnished sitting room. Along the wall to the left was an elaborate bar, its shelves now bare. On the right was a wall of windows, cold mirrors against the darkness outside. Three dining room chairs stood in the center of the room, grouped around a small heater that clicked softly.

  Garrick took off his gloves, rubbed his hands together, then pulled out a pocket watch and glanced at it. “It’s early, we could put the kettle on.”

  Ellen glanced at her wristwatch. “Alright, but let’s do it quickly.”

  Garrick followed Ellen to the far end of the lounge and through a pair of swinging doors that led to the hotel kitchen. The kitchen was a strange amalgam of large and small scale. The wide metal counters held a microwave, a toaster oven, a four-cup coffeemaker, and a considerable amount of clutter for one person—a scattering of unopened mail, cans of fruit and boxes of cereal, some unwashed plates near the sink. On the large central worktable, a meat mallet held open a food-spotted book. A stack of Hotel Management magazines threatened to spill onto the floor. A small refrigerator, more appropriate for a college dorm room, hummed in the corner next to the large commercial refrigerator, the door of which was propped open, the interior dark. Ellen took a tea kettle from the stove to the cavernous sink.

  “Tea?” she asked.

  “No, just water.”

  She filled the kettle and set it to heat on one of the burners of the industrial gas range.

  Garrick passed back through the swinging doors and walked through the lounge to the lobby. A painting hung in shadows over the fireplace. Even in the dark, Garrick could picture its somewhat primitive depiction of the hotel in its heyday. Except for a couple of chairs upholstered in faded chintz, most of the furniture had been covered with sheets, and rolled-up rugs had been pushed against the wall. Garrick remembered when those chairs held lounging visitors and the rugs muffled the steps of Topsiders-clad feet.

  Soon he heard the whistle of the kettle and a minute later Ellen appeared with steaming mugs—one of which had the string of a tea bag draped over its rim. She handed the other to Garrick. They stood looking out at the lobby for a minute, sipping their hot drinks.

  “We’ve had lots of sensings here, haven’t we, Garrick?” said Ellen as she glanced around the lobby.

  “Yes.”

  “Remember Mr. Holl, the one who died of a heart attack in his room, who kept coming to the front desk asking for his money back?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that Indian you saw by the boathouse?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re still with us, aren’t they?”

  “Not Mr. Holl.”

  “Well, no, you did a good job of explaining to him that there wasn’t anything we could do for him.” Ellen sipped her tea. “It’s too bad the ‘Evening with Spirits’ idea didn’t work out. Tourists usually like that sort of thing.”

  “Tourists usually like seeing the spirits for themselves, not just being told about them.”

  “Yes, you warned me, but you were a good sport to give it a try anyway.”

  “Yes, well ...” Garrick took a sip of his hot water.

  “I wonder why we never saw Daddy.”

  “He might have been content to pass on.”

  “Yes, maybe.” She swirled her tea contemplatively with the tea bag. “But no one really completely leaves, don’t you think? Dying isn’t really about disappearing, it’s about experiencing existence in a different way.” She waited for a moment for a reply and, not receiving one, prompted, “Don’t you think?”

  Garrick sighed. “We’ve had this conversation before, Ellen. I can only tell you that some people continue to exist as a spirit that I can perceive and some don’t.”

  “Well, I think when a person dies they don’t leave us, they just ... change. Maybe change for the better.”

  “It’s a theory.”

  “Although certainly Loring hasn’t changed for the better. He’s just as difficult dead as alive.”

  “Loring had a difficult life—inheriting the hotel so young when your father died, taking care of you.”

  “Yes,” said Ellen grudgingly, then burst out, “But he never loved it! He never loved the hotel like Daddy and I did!”

  “It was foisted on him when he was seventeen. I think he had other plans for his life than running a hotel. Plus, he had a seven-year-old sister to care for. And your father didn’t leave him in the best position financially.”

  Ellen took a distracted sip of tea. “Daddy had a lot of problems to deal with. MDI wasn’t as popular in the seventies.”

  “Hmmm,” said Garrick noncommittally.

  “Plus,” she said reluctantly, “I think Mother had more of a head for business from what Daddy and Lorin
g told me. They met when they both worked at one of the grand houses in Bar Harbor, did you know that?”

  Garrick did, in fact, know that. He nodded.

  “If she hadn’t died when I was born, I might have learned a lot from her. I’ve seen pictures of her, she was very pretty.”

  Ellen put her mug down on the registration desk, crossed the room, and straightened the painting over the fireplace. She turned and surveyed the lobby and ran her fingers along the frayed piping of one of the chintz chairs. “Garrick,” she said anxiously, “if we don’t find the lady, some rich bigwig is going to tear down the hotel and put up some modern monstrosity. Probably with a pool, for God’s sake. Surrounded by water and they always want to put in a pool.” Ellen glanced at her watch. “It’s almost time, bring your water along,” she said.

  Garrick followed Ellen back to the lounge and settled himself into one of the chairs. Ellen sat in another that had a notepad and a pencil lying underneath it.

  They sat in silence for some time, Ellen glancing impatiently at her watch. Finally she said, “Is he here yet?”

  “No, Ellen, he’s not here yet. I’ll tell you when he arrives.”

  “He’s usually here by now,” said Ellen fretfully.

  “He’s not going to be any more considerate dead than alive.”

  They sat in silence again—Ellen fidgeting, Garrick with his hands clasped loosely in his lap.

  Finally Garrick said, “He’s here.” His gaze was fixed on the doorway to the lobby, then tracked to the third chair.

  Ellen glanced toward the chair, then switched her gaze back to Garrick. “Ask him where the lady is.”

  Garrick sighed. “Loring, Ellen would like to know where the lady is.”

  “Tell him about the deadline—”

  Garrick waved a hand to silence her, his gaze fixed on the invisible presence in the third chair. He shook his head once, then a few moments later said, “No, that’s not what she—” and then, “I don’t think it’s necessary to provide the entire—” and finally sighed resignedly. “He’s ready to talk about the lady.”