by Rice, Luanne
Joe didn't see any red flags there. He then asked for Edwin Taylor, and the receptionist told him he'd be back from vacation the next day.
And now she said he was in. Joe said a quick hello to Mark Boland and Frank Allingham, then walked across the lobby and was greeted by a man, about thirty-five, with a high forehead, glasses, and a perplexed expression in his eyes.
“I'm sorry I wasn't in yesterday when you came,” Edwin Taylor said, shaking Joe's hand. “I just got back from Scotland, and I'm in total shock. I can't believe what they're saying about Sean. Is it true?”
“From what we've been able to gather,” Joe said. “Why don't you tell me what you know about Sean and his banking practices?”
Edwin Taylor ran through basically the same story Joe had heard from every other Shoreline employee. Sean was a charming, witty guy with a great work ethic and a need to succeed. He had been upset about Mark Boland's appointment to the presidency; like others, Taylor had thought Sean had had a shot at the position.
“What are you called, Mr. Taylor?” Joe asked. Although he had already asked other employees, he wanted to hear it directly from him.
“Excuse me?”
“Is your nickname Ed?”
“No, ‘Trip,' ” he said. “I'm the third. My dad is called Ed. Why?”
“Does your father live nearby? Does he bank here at Shoreline?”
“Yes, to both,” Trip Taylor said. “He lives in Hawthorne, and yes, he banks here.”
“Is he one of Sean McCabe's clients? Or does he work directly with you?”
“Actually, I asked Sean to take care of him,” Taylor said. “Sean's very good at what he does. He did a great job, getting the private banking division up and running. Besides, my dad's a friend of Augusta Renwick's, one of Shoreline's biggest clients, and she's always singing Sean's praises.”
“I'm going to need to talk to your dad,” Joe said grimly, picturing Sean's strange drawings and doodles, remembering the name Edwin Taylor, Jr., from the account ledger Joe had found on Sean's boat.
ELIZA DAY BOAT BUILDERS WAS LOCATED IN A LARGE SHED at the far end of the New London Shipyard. The shipyard did major marine business, including hauling and servicing the ferries that plied Long Island Sound between New London and Orient Point, providing dockage for large yachts and commercial fishing vessels, and serving as home port for the wild-card, dark-horse, and long-shot America's Cup challenger built by Paul James and skippered by Twigg Crawford.
The boatbuilders were a different story. This was a small operation. The shed was large and airy, about the size of a cow barn. With both doors open, the sea wind gusted through, blowing sawdust and feathers all over the place. The feathers were from all the swallows that nested in the rafters. The sawdust was from all the wooden boats built or restored by Dan Connolly, owner. Charlotte Day Connolly had been the backer.
Bent over an old hull, Dan pried back a section of veneer sheathing to see what was underneath. This was a delicate operation, but he had to find out whether the original planks had been planed back enough for the sheathing to lie flush with the ballast.
“Shit,” he said, as the veneer broke off in his hand.
“Nice, Dad,” came a voice from above.
“You really need to get out more,” Dan said.
“Trying to get rid of me?”
“That'd be the general idea.”
“You shouldn't swear at the boats.”
“I wasn't. I was swearing at myself.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Seriously,” Dan said, looking up and over his shoulder to peer into the murky darkness. All he could see were shadows, beams, and two very white legs dangling down. “How did you get here?”
“I flew.”
“That's a bunch of bullshit, and we both know it. How did you get here?”
“I climbed on the back of a sea hawk and said, ‘I'm Eliza Day, take me to my boathouse.' And the sea hawk obliged and just came straight across the harbor . . .”
“You rode in my truck again, didn't you?” Dan asked, straightening up as he smacked his hand down on the now-broken hull. “You hid under the tarp and let me drive you right down the highway; the back gate's been broken all summer, goddamn it, you could have slid straight into traffic, for Christ's—”
“Don't take the name of the Lord in vain,” came the voice, sounding dangerous now.
“And don't tell your father what he can and can't say,” Dan said, voice rising, walking over to the ladder to the loft. “First I can't swear in my own shop, now I can't take the name—”
“Of the Lord in vain,” she said beatifically.
“Get down here right now,” he said, tanned hands on the rough ladder. “Don't make me go up there after you.”
“Or what? Or what? You're going to beat me? Beat your child? Maybe I should just scream for help now. Mr. Crawford will hear me and come rescue me. Maybe they'll take me away from you. You have no idea how to take care of a motherless child.”
“Eliza, shut up.”
“And NOW you tell me to shut up,” she said, her voice rising to a squeak. Were the tears real or fake? Dan had lost the ability to tell. He was at the end of his rope—an excellent cliché, if ever he'd heard one. He thought of boats he'd seen at the end of their ropes—boats in hurricanes, nor'easters, spring tides, ebb tides—violently bucking and straining to break free.
“I didn't mean it,” he said slowly, carefully. “I didn't mean it.”
“Which part? The part where you told me to shut up? Or the part where you threatened to beat me?”
“Eliza, I never did, and you know it. I just meant, don't make me come up there to get you. It's too hot, okay? Take it easy on your old dad. Come on down, and I'll take you to the Dutch for a burger.”
“The Dutch is a bar,” Eliza said.
“True,” Dan said, craving a beer. He never drank during the day when Charlie was alive, and he hardly ever did now, but the desire to check out was strong: He wanted out of the fury and sorrow he almost always felt, and the shame he was trying to bury, and there was nothing like a visit to Dutch's Tavern to help it all along.
“Mom wouldn't want you taking me to a saloon.”
“Mom liked Peter and Martha so much, I think she'd let it slide,” Dan said, thinking of the Dutch's owners. The place was a classic New London hole-in-the-wall, hidden on a side street in an old building with a tin ceiling and scarred wooden tables reputed to have once accommodated Eugene O'Neill. “And you like them, too.”
“Yeah,” Eliza had to agree. “I do.”
“So what're you bellyaching for? Come on down and we'll go to lunch.”
Gripping the ladder, he watched a swallow circle the shed twice before flying out the open door. The white legs just dangled, crossed daintily at the ankles.
“Eliza?”
“Will you make me go home after lunch? Because I don't want to.”
Dan exhaled, grimacing so she couldn't see and counting to ten. He knew this was a test. He could lie, and they'd be on their way to lunch. Or he could equivocate, and work out the details later. “We'll see.”
“Forget it,” she said, pulling her legs up into the darkness so he couldn't see them at all. “Here's the deal, Dad. I stay. That's that. That's all there is to it. This is MY business, and don't you forget it.”
“Oh, yeah? This is a boatbuilding business, in case you didn't know. Who's the one who builds the boats around here?”
“Who's the one who's named ‘Eliza Day' after her great-grandmother with all the MONEY?” screeched the voice.
Just then, Dan heard footsteps on the old plank floor. He looked up and saw someone silhouetted in the light of the doorway, framed by the midday summer sun like some otherworldly figure in the opening credits of one of those quack-religious TV shows Eliza watched.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“You've come a long way since the boardwalk,” said a voice that seemed piercingly familiar. “We both have.”
BAY STOOD IN THE DOORWAY, STARING AT DAN CONNOLLY. She would have known him anywhere. He looked exactly the same as he had twenty-five years ago, but, somehow, very different. He smiled at her, lines around his mouth and eyes scored deep in his tan face. His eyes were blue, the color of his faded jeans, and wary, as if he'd seen too many things he didn't want to see. Lean and strong, he looked like a man who had spent his life building things.
As he came toward her, Bay felt her stomach dip. Their eyes met and held.
“It's really you,” she said, almost unable to believe her eyes.
“Bay?” he asked, taking one hand, then grabbing for the other, and then, because how could a reunion between them be otherwise, pulled her toward him in a hug. She hung on to him, completely lost in the smell of sawdust and machine oil, and then pushed back to look up into his eyes.
“I'd forgotten how tall you were,” she said.
“Why would you remember?” he asked, laughing.
She smiled. If he only knew how she had adored him, how she had reflexively compared all others, Sean included, to him for years.
“The last time I saw you,” he said, “you were fifteen years old.”
“About to turn sixteen,” she said.
“Galway,” he said, using her old nickname.
“Galway Bay . . .” She laughed, remembering.
“How have you been, Bay? How has life treated you?”
She smiled, but her face felt frozen, her insides locked up. “I've had a wonderful life,” she said. Would he notice the past tense?
“Good. I'm glad,” he said.
“How about you, Dan?”
His smile washed away; his face tightened, especially around the eyes. She waited, wondering what would come next. Suddenly he looked like she felt: shell-shocked by life. A week ago, Bay wouldn't have been able to see it, to recognize someone suffering like this. But now she could.
“My life's been . . .” he began.
Just then something came flying down from up above. Shielding her head, Bay ducked and tried to see. Light coming in the big open doors couldn't illuminate the vast darkness above the shed's rafters, but Bay thought she saw two beacon-white legs dangling from one of the beams. Another projectile came whizzing past. Bay crouched down and picked it up: a paper airplane.
“Eliza,” Dan said sternly.
“His life's been ruined,” came a voice from above. “By me. That's what he was going to say.”
“No, I wasn't,” Dan said. “Don't put words into my mouth.”
“That's one of the stupidest clichés around,” the voice said. “How can someone put words into someone else's mouth?”
“How old are you?” Bay called up.
Silence.
“She's twelve,” Dan said.
“Eliza can talk, you know,” said Eliza.
“Is Eliza Day Boat Builders named after you?” Bay asked, squinting into the dark loft.
“Officially, no. It's named after my grandmother. But since I'm named after her, yes. That would be the general idea.”
“Why don't you come down here, Eliza?” Dan asked. “I want you to meet an old friend.”
Bay heard some rustling above, watched as the girl walked gracefully the length of one rafter, as if it were a balance beam, and then climbed down a rough ladder at the end of the shed. She was tall and thin, like her father, but—unlike him—with translucent pale skin, and a wreath of curly blond hair. Her coloring must have come from her mother.
“Eliza, this is my friend, Bay Clarke—”
“Bay McCabe,” she corrected him, watching for a reaction. Dan smiled.
“You married Sean,” he said.
“I couldn't wait forever,” she joked, because it was such a joke—he had broken her young heart without even having a clue.
“WAIT?” Eliza asked. “You mean for my FATHER?”
Bay's heart tugged, thinking of Annie and her proprietary attitude toward Sean. Children cherished the illusion that their parents had never loved anyone but each other. She smiled reassuringly.
“Your father was way out of my league, Eliza,” she said. “I was just a kid—not much older than you. He was the man who fixed everything at the beach. I looked up to him, that's all. He taught me to fix things.”
Eliza nodded, satisfied. She was very pale, as if she never went out in the sun. Even now, standing on the first floor of the big shed, she backed into the shadows, to keep from standing in the summer sunlight pouring through the open doors.
Now Bay handed her the small paper airplane she had picked up. “You must have some of your father's talent,” she said. “For making things. This is a really good airplane.”
“It's a dove,” Eliza said, holding it in her hands. “A white-winged dove.”
“Well, it's beautiful,” Bay said, feeling emotion pouring off the child. Bay felt it herself. She had come here on terrible business, and she didn't even know what to ask. It felt more comfortable to tune in to this little girl, who was so unlike Annie in almost every way—height, weight, pallor, outspokenness—yet like her in heart; Bay could read this girl's pain the way she could her own daughter.
“It reminds me of my mother; the way she is now,” Eliza said, still staring at what Bay now realized was an origami bird. The girl tilted her head, to look up at her father. Following her gaze, Bay was shocked by the expression on Dan's face.
It was hard and cold. His jaw was set, as if he was holding a barrage of feelings inside—and they weren't good, and they weren't simple. He was staring at his daughter as if the sight of her caused him agony.
Eliza registered his expression, too. Her eyes flickered, and as if with acceptance she blinked and looked away.
“Maybe I will go home, Dad,” Eliza said.
“Let me talk to Bay for a minute,” he said, “and then I'll drive you.” The icy stare was gone; his voice was warm and loving. But Bay knew what she had seen, and she leaned just slightly closer to Eliza.
“I'd be happy to give you a ride,” she said. “On my way home . . .”
“You live in Hubbard's Point,” Dan said, over Eliza's pointed silence.
“Yes—you know?” she asked, her heart flipping over at the confirmation of Sean's having been here.
He nodded. “Is the boardwalk still there?”
“Don't tell me you haven't brought your wife and Eliza down to the beach!” Bay said. “Showed them all the things you built—a hurricane washed away the old footbridge, but we replaced it, and almost everything else is still there.”
“Dad builds things to last,” Eliza said. The statement was proud, but she said it quietly, as if there was something dark beneath it. “Too bad people aren't made that way.”
“People?” Bay asked.
“I'm going to wait in your truck, Dad,” Eliza said, as if Bay hadn't just spoken, and as if she hadn't offered to give her a ride. “Tell her about Mom.”
“I'll be right out,” Dan said.
Now, as he turned to face Bay, she saw worry in his eyes. She had his fax with her and she wanted to ask him to explain it, but she couldn't speak just yet. She knew very well those furrows around his eyes, the worry that showed itself in lines on a person's face. She probably had quite a few going herself.
“Thanks for the offer,” Dan said. “But I need to talk to her. You can probably tell, she's got a lot going on. Her mother died last year.”
“Your wife? I'm sorry!” Bay exclaimed.
“Thank you,” he said simply, almost brusquely. “Anyway, we live out of the way for you. The opposite direction, in fact—in Mystic. Near my parents' old house.”
“You've lived in the area this whole time, and I didn't know,” Bay said.
“It's strange. Whenever I drive past the Black Hall exit on Ninety-five, I think about the beach, wonder whether you and some of the others are still there.”
“You must have known, though,” she said, taking the fax from her pocket and handing it to him. “You've
been in touch with my husband.”
“I know,” he said, pulling a pair of reading glasses from his breast pocket. His dark brown hair was streaked with gray. So much time had passed, Bay thought. No one was the same anymore. “I couldn't believe when he came to see me.”
“Why did he?” she asked.
“He wants me to build him a boat,” Danny said, tapping the fax.
“I see that,” Bay said. “But why? Why you?”
Danny's eyes glimmered for a second. “I wondered the same thing. But after we got through the pleasantries, and I asked about you, he got straight to business. His visit was all about boats.”
“Have the—I was wondering—have the police or the,” she paused, because it was still so unbelievable to her, “FBI . . . contacted you?”
“No,” he said, taking off his glasses. “I'm sorry for what you're going through, I've seen the news.”
She nodded with as much dignity as possible. “Thank you,” she said.
“I just barely remember Sean from the beach—really only in context with you,” Dan said.
She took a deep breath, trying to settle down.
Dan's building was filled with works-in-progress. Bay recognized finished but unpainted dories and skiffs, all made of wood, as well as a twenty-foot sailboat under construction. There were gracefully curved ribs, fine cedar planks, sheets of plywood, lengths of oak.
“Are you still particular about wood, Bay?” he asked, watching as she leaned over to touch a smooth-grained board. “That's okoume plywood, and that's luan. For a catboat on order from a guy in Maine. I'll finish it off with white oak and mahogany, and she'll be a pretty boat.”
“I like the way it smells,” she said, closing her eyes.
“Are you still in love with the moon?” he asked quietly.
“Yes, I am,” she said. “Especially the crescent moon . . .”
He nodded. That summer she had kept a moon watch, reporting to him each day on the phases of the moon. “Everyone always thinks the full moon is so romantic,” she used to say, “but I think it's so bright and obvious! I love the crescent moon, just a mysterious little sliver there in the sky . . .”
