"What's been going on around the same time Kara was raped and assaulted?"
He held his fork quite still. "The arsons."
"Right. Someone is merrily burning down Tyler Beach, and at the same time, the detective handling the case has her private life shattered. Her work has suffered, she can't concentrate, and some days she doesn't care who's burning down what."
"So an arsonist is also a rapist?" Felix asked. "That's a hell of a stretch."
"Right," I said. "But something ... I don't know. Something just seems odd there. I think it's worth a look. Tell you what, I'll take care of that, and in a day or two we chat with Doug Miles, and then it's a wrap, unless we come up with something new. Agreed?"
"Oh, I agree, but be careful. I'm going to leave that side of the house entirely up to you. Based on my background, I don't think the local police detective would be very happy with me looking into her personal life."
"Nice way of getting yourself out of that one," I said.
Felix nodded. "Thanks."
When I got up the next morning something was rattling the glass in my bedroom windows, and I sat up and saw only white. After putting on a bathrobe I stepped across the cold floor and observed that the local weather people were having a hell of a year: There was nothing to see except for flying flakes of snow. I showered and shaved and, after getting dressed, went downstairs. The snow was so thick and furious I could barely make out my private cove and the heaving gray waters of the Atlantic. At least six or eight inches were already piled up on my rear deck, and I knew I would have to go out soon to shovel that mess away. I shivered, looking at that marsh and unforgiving water, and imagined what it must have been like, years ago, coming across this ocean in a ship of wood and sails of' canvas. No weather tight cabins with central heating or hot water or TV. Just the unforgiving wind and cold.
I was deciding if it was worth going outside when the phone rang.
"Lewis? It's Paula. Surviving another lovely day of New Hampshire's finest weather?"
"I'm trying," I said. "Where are you? Still at home?"
"Are you kidding?" she asked. "This sucker is becoming a blizzard, and a blizzard is news, and so I'm at work. Listen, I've got some other news for you, and it isn't good."
"Go ahead."
She sighed. "I've spent hours looking into everything about those motels, and I didn't find a single connection. Not a one. I started by looking at each set of minutes, to find out what motels were up for discussion. The first step was easy, because each owner was represented by a lawyer, and that's mentioned right up front. But nobody was sharing the same law firm. Then I went to the town hall and got copies of their construction applications, and still not a thing. They all used different bankers, different architects, different contractors. The only connection I could find is the basic thing, that they were up for a planning board review for some type of work, either renovation or conversion to condos. But they didn't share banks, lawyers, architects, or even landscapers. Zero."
"Any other leads out there that you see?"
Another sigh. "Not a one. Look, do you realize how many hours I spent chasing down this information? And do you think Rollie is going to be happy if he ever finds out the time I wasted doing research for a story that's never going to come together?"
A stronger gust of wind rattled the sliding glass doors to the roar deck. "You didn't waste time, Paula. You were tracking down loads and you were able to eliminate some possible motives, some possible areas of inquiry. I don't call that wasted."
"How nice of you to say that," she said, with exaggerated politeness. "Glad I made your job easier with all my hours of work."
I walked over to the sliding glass doors, trailing the phone in my hand. "Last I remembered, you and I were having dinner III your place, just before the Crescent House burned down, and you said you were going to break this story. I don't remember you saying that you were going to give it to the local columnist for Shoreline."
A bit of a pause. "You're right. Sorry. I've got stories backed up and I'm stuck at a drafty newspaper office in the middle of a blizzard, and I really wanted that arson story wrapped up. Some thing about a corrupt contractor burning down buildings or the like. Would put a nice shine to this lousy winter, and it fell through. Not your fault."
"Not a problem."
"Well, maybe the son of a bitch will come in here tomorrow and confess to me, but I'm not going to hold my breath."
"You never know."
"Yeah, right," she said. "Well, time to get going. I've got to go outside and walk downtown and do the traditional local businesses-adjust-to-blizzard-conditions story."
"Sounds like fun."
"After you've done four or five, they can usually write them selves. Keep in touch, all right?"
"Sure," I said, and I hung up the phone and watched till' snow fly for a bit.
About ten minutes later, I got bundled up and went outside, carrying a pair of snowshoes I had purchased last month as a Christmas present for myself. I squatted down on my stone steps and buckled them on, and then strode across the yard and up the snow-coverer I dirt path that pretended to be a driveway.
Even though I was wearing a Navy wool cap, thick gloves, insulated pants, and a down parka that went down to my thigh, the blustery wind instantly cut through me, chilling my skin am I making me shiver after only a few yards. The area around my house was a wild and horrible beauty of snowdrifts and icicles. I stood for moment, drinking it all in. My house and the nearby garage was blanketed with wet snow, and pounding surf roared up and over the ice-covered rocks, making a booming sound that seemed loud. The ocean was a churning dark gray mass of whitecaps and waves, the waves driving into the shoreline with the fury of a train being tossed off the tracks, and I wondered for a moment if my house would be there when I got back.
Across the parking lot I went over onto Atlantic Avenue, and from here I had the first real sign of the blizzard's magnitude. Usually the town plows manage to keep the roadways clear, and it's a big storm when you can just make out bare pavement on the on the tracks where the cars and trucks drive by. Here, the roadway was solid white with compressed snow and blowing drifts. This was a big one. I peered down the road. Great sheets of snow blew across, was slipping into drifts; scattering across the road. I could barely make out the condos and stores just down the way. There were a few lights on the road from souls either brave enough or stupid enough to drive in such weather.
I made my way across the street and to the Victorian splendor of the Lafayette House, and at the doorway I took off my snowshoes and went in. The interior of the lobby was potted plants and fine paintings and well-dressed women and men, staring out at the snow, wondering where their midwinter vacation had gone. A few looked my way, their expressions saying it all, as if I were an Arctic explorer, lost on some doomed mission. I just gave them all a polite smile and went to the gift shop and left a minute later, with the day's Globe and New York Times. I lucked out, for the newspaper trucks must have made their deliveries before the full brunt of the storm had struck. They felt nice, tucked into my coat as I went back outside put on my snowshoes, and tramped back home.
Breakfast for me is usually something light, but the falling snow seemed to trigger a food switch in my brain, and so this morning I had a couple of scrambled eggs, toast, bacon, and coffee. I read the papers, savoring the feel of newsprint, enjoying reading what was going on in the world as I ate. An odd habit, one I've always had, is the need to read the morning papers before I start my day. Of the few women who have entered my life, only one really shared my need, back in my previous life in the DoD. Sunday morning breakfasts would mean buying two copies of the Post and the Times so we wouldn't fight over the sections, but would leave enough energy for other, more pleasant morning exertions.
I washed the dishes, smiling with melancholy at the memory of my dear Cissy, dead all these years.
After reading through the morning papers, I got bundled up again and went out to t
he rear deck, where I shoveled away the accumulation of snow. The tide was coming up and soon I was being drenched with frozen spray, and that was another clear sign that this was not the typical winter storm. It was quite rare that spray from the waves striking my private cove ever reached up to the house, and to have it drenching me was disturbing. I paused, breathing heavily, leaning against the shovel, looking at the white caps and dark ocean moving toward me and my home. Even the icicles from the roof were growing in lengths I had never seen before, and when I was done shoveling, I reached out with the shovel and broke them clean. They fell like spears, burrowing themselves into the snow banked up against the rear wall of the house.
A change of clothes later, I made some tomato soup and a roast beef sandwich, and watched the noon news out of Manchester and Boston from my living room couch. If this wasn't turning out to be the storm of the century, it was definitely becoming the storm of the decade, and was going to last another half-day. Airports were closed, most highways were clogged, and businesses and schools were also shuttered tight. As I ate and watched the television reporters doing their live remotes out in the roaring wind and snow, I thought of Paula Quinn and how nice it would be to have her here with me, instead of outside in the blizzard, feeling chilled and wet, and no doubt in the company of her photographer friend.
Another round of dishwashing later, I was up in the office, organizing some computer files, wondering what I would write for my next Shoreline column. I would be writing for the June issue and I found it was hard to get ideas for a summer piece when I was sitting in the middle of a blizzard. The rattling noise against the windows was louder, and it sounded like sleet or frozen rain was mixing with the snow. I had left the television set on downstairs and I poked my head down occasionally to check the news.
A couple of hours dragged by in front of the computer screen, and later in the afternoon I decided to give Felix a call, to see how he was surviving the storm, etcetera, and when I picked up the receiver, there was no dial tone. No hum, no buzz, nothing.
Just then the lights in my office went out and my computer went black.
Chapter Sixteen
Well. Things were quite dark and the quiet hum of the computer was now gone, and it seemed like the wind had picked up some, shaking the house and the windows with regular gusts. I got up and peeked out the window, which looked out to the west. At this time of the day, with the heavy clouds and no sun, I should have been able to see the glow from the lights of the Lafayette House.
Nothing. Just darkness and the flailing flakes of snow, and it would be getting even darker, and with no power that meant no furnace, and it would be getting colder. My house is old and has lots of history, but it doesn't have much in the way of insulation.
"Time to get down to basics," I said to no one in particular, and I got to work.
I went down the hallway and into my bedroom, and pulled out a flashlight from a nightstand. Even that little cone of light was comforting as I went downstairs, the shadows crazy upon the walls, hearing the wind roaring outside and the crash of waves. In the living room I knelt at the fireplace and in a few minutes had a nice fire going. Then I went into the kitchen and dug out some old plumber's candles, and within a few minutes the downstairs was lit up with the soft and pleasant light of the centuries.
I went down to the cellar and in a couple of trips I brought up a few more lengths of firewood, my propane camp stove, and a down sleeping bag. In the kitchen I got the stove up and running, making sure it would work later, and I checked the time on a battery-operated clock near the toaster. Not even five o'clock. It seemed much later.
I decided to wait to start dinner and I went back upstairs, flashlight in hand, to turn off my computer. As I switched off the equipment I spotted an unfamiliar manila folder. I picked it up and turned to the papers inside. TYLER PLANNING BOARD MINUTES, it said, with a date from last summer, and it was the collection that Paula Quinn had given me, about a dozen sets. I brought the folder back downstairs and, with the aid of nearby candles, I sat on the couch and started to read, pulling a down comforter over my legs. Pretty dry stuff. Convoluted arguments over site plans, perk tests, rights of way, Zone 4-a, light industry. You never learned in grammar school that democracy could be so complicated or so dry.
I flipped through each set, seeing how the minutes were set up. Each cover sheet listed the members of the board, as well as the agenda for that night. There were an average of about a half dozen building proposals for each night, and the board met every other week. Each proposal was identified either by address or by business name: FOURTEEN KING'S HIGHWAY or CRESCENT HOUSE HOTEL. With each identification there was a listing of who was there, representing the project. So something like a proposal to build a new restaurant up on Weymouth's Point would be listed like so:
BOAR'S HEAD INN, 6 Weymouth Lane
In attendance: JEREMY GRAY, owner
ATTORNEY STEPHEN TWOMBLEY
GUS BALDACCI, Baldacci Construction
The minutes weren't verbatim, either. Just a brief identification of the speaker and the issue, and a thumbnail sketch of what was going on. Like this:
CHAIRMAN KNOWLES asked MR. GRAY if he thought parking might be a problem, since there are already so few spaces on Weymouth's Point. MR. GRAY said he intended to use a valet system of parking, and that he already had a leased parking agreement set up with the Point Hope Motel, which is across the street. CHAIRMAN KNOWLES said that if he were to vote for the proposal, he would want to ensure that some sort of permanent valet parking arrangement be agreed upon by all parties as a condition of his approval. CHAIRMAN KNOWLES reminded everyone that parking at Tyler Beach was a yearly problem, and that new projects shouldn't add to the mess. After a brief discussion, ATIORNEY TWOMBLEY said that his client would not object to such a condition.
Democracy in action. There were almost two hundred pages worth of material, and in flipping through it quickly, I saw how Paula had worked it. She went to the front of each minutes and highlighted the motel being discussed, as well as the attorney and the contracting firm. A few afternoons on the phone and it wouldn't have taken long to find what, if any, connection existed among all the destroyed motels.
And sure enough, it hadn't taken long at all. No connection. After apologizing in advance to town board members everywhere, I yawned a few times and put the packet aside, feeling the onset of hunger pains. I tossed aside the comforter, shivered in to air, and tossed another log on the fire. I went back upstairs and put on a heavier sweater, and in poking around my set of bureaus, I found my battery-operated shortwave radio receiver.
Back downstairs, I set up the radio on the counter as I lit up the stove. On good nights I can pick up Radio Moscow and Radio Beijing and a lot of countries in between, but on this not-so-good night, I wanted to see what was going on closer to home. I picked up a Dover station, and learned the storm of the decade was still packing a punch. The governors in New Hampshire and Massachusetts were declaring states of emergency. A couple of fishing boats from Gloucester and one from Tyler were missing. A few dozen shoppers were stuck inside the Lewington Mall. Power was out along the North Shore of Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire, and probably would be out for most people tomorrow due to the scope of repairs.
While listening to the chaos outside, I made a quick and dirty dinner. Working swiftly in and out of the dark and silent refrigerator, I managed to get the fixings for a weak salad, heavy on lettuce, light on everything else. The appetizer was tomato soup with saltine crackers crumbled over the top and a few chunks of cheddar cheese tossed in for flavoring, and the main course was corned beef hash, heated in an old cast-iron skillet. It was comforting to cook in the candlelight, listening to the confident hiss of the propane tank, knowing I had enough food to last even if the storm lasted a week. I ate standing up at the counter, looking out the windows at the dark ocean. The wind was still howling, buffeting the house and windows.
When I was finished, the demon of sloth almos
t made me crawl back onto the couch, but I didn't listen to the demon and I heated up water on the camp stove and did a fair job of dishwashing. When I was done I could see my breath in the kitchen, and I left the kitchen faucet open a bit, dribbling. I then went upstairs and did the same in the bathroom, and already the cold air was thick up on the second floor. The water dripped and dribbled out of the sink, and I also opened the faucet to the tub and shower. No frozen pipes tonight, thank you. I brushed my teeth and washed my face in the cold water.
Back downstairs I was drawn to the fire and stood there, letting the trapped flames warm me. I thought of my ancestors who were here in the first hundred years or so of settlement. A fire like this was the only thing that kept them alive during those long winters. In many of the homes, the entire family would share a single room, huddled under the covers, staying warm and praying to God they would live to see spring. Food was whatever could be stored for the winter, and the days were cold and short. Some life. It was a wonder any of them survived.
Another two pieces of wood on the fire, and I went around blowing out most of the candles. Quite lovely and romantic, but a quite dangerous if one of the shaking gusts of wind made them tip over when I was sleeping. I went back to the couch, bringing the radio with me, and I unzipped the sleeping bag and quickly stripped down, shivering, and crawled in, radio earphones on my head. The power outages had spread. The fishermen were still missing. Plows were losing the battle to keep the roads and highways open. The shoppers trapped at the mall were spending the night at Sears, sleeping on beds and other furniture. The high tide due later at night would probably flood out most of the low-lying homes and businesses along Falconer, Tyler, North Tyler, Wallis, and Foss Island. (My home, thankfully, is not low-lying.) Off-duty police and fire personnel were being called in. Schools were being used as evacuation centers. The New Hampshire governor was activating the National Guard.
Shattered Shell Page 18
