First Light

by Philip R. Craig

  And I thought of little Diana’s insistence, when she first saw it, that the stone cottage was haunted by ghosts.

  Such complexities were, for some, evidence that there is no God. For others, they were the best evidence that there is.

  I parked in front of our little house.

  The kids came running out. “Can we sleep in the tree house tonight? It’s not raining.”

  The sun was low in the west, but the sky was clear.

  “Your mother’s going fishing with Brady.”

  “Just you and us, then, Pa. Can we?”

  Their small faces looked up into mine, bright with innocence and eagerness, green and golden in the heyday of Time’s eyes.

  “Sure,” I said.

  And that night, under the simple stars, we three slept until the sun grew round again and the world was born anew.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Brady

  I didn’t wake up until close to noon the next day. When I staggered downstairs, I found Nate sitting at the kitchen table cradling a mug of coffee in his big hands.

  He looked up at me with his eyebrows arched.

  I nodded, went to the coffeepot, poured myself a mugful, and sat across from him. “You heard, huh?” I said.

  “Always thought that boy was wound pretty tight,” he said. “They’ve been digging corpses out of my cottage all morning. Place is swarming with cops. Wouldn’t let me near my own beach.”

  “Where’s Eliza?”

  “Scrounging around for a lawyer for her son.” Nate cocked his head at me and grinned. “Guess she doesn’t trust you.”

  I lit a cigarette. “Tell me about Eliza and Patrick,” I said.

  He flapped his hands. “What’s to tell? It’s been her and him since his father killed himself back when he was a toddler. She dragged the boy around with her, moving here and there, resorts, fancy places, chasing one guy after another, marrying and divorcing and never settling down, always trying to live the good life. Who knows what he saw growing up? She always treated him like a baby. Hell, I’m no shrink, but I can tell you this. It’s no wonder he got messed up.”

  “They figure he killed Molly Wood, huh?”

  “Her and half a dozen others, sounds like.”

  “And buried them in the cellar.”

  Nate nodded. “He’s been jumpy ever since my mother started talking about selling this place. Guess he figured whoever bought it would bulldoze the cottage and find all those bodies.”

  “That’s why he wanted to kill me,” I said. “With Sarah in the hospital, incompetent to agree to a deal herself, and me with her power of attorney, if I was out of commission, no deal would be done.”

  Nate shrugged. “Don’t ask me. All I know is, the hospital called this morning. My mother’s in a coma. She’s getting worse, not better.”

  “I’m sorry, Nate.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s a tough old bird, but she’s had a lot of pain from the cancer, and maybe this is better.” He smiled quickly. “I’m gonna miss her, I’ll tell you that.”

  I nodded. “Me, too.”

  “You still planning on selling the place?”

  “It’s what Sarah wants,” I said. “The Isle of Dreams and the Marshall Lea folks are supposed to submit their final offers tomorrow. I’ll look them over and try to make a decision.”

  He shook his head. “Any way you can write in a little clause giving me access to my beach, at least?”

  “Believe it or not,” I said, “I already thought of that.

  Of course, I’d expect you to share access with a certain visiting Boston lawyer from time to time, and also with the Jackson family.”

  “You’re a mean son of a bitch,” grumbled Nate. “Never should’ve hauled you out of the water. Should’ve let you and Jackson drift away on that tide. All my problems would’ve been over.”

  “Well,” I said, “you showed your true colors yesterday morning. Far as I’m concerned, you’re a hero.”

  He smiled. “You better not tell anybody,” he said. “I got a reputation to protect.”

  I was refilling my mug when the doorbell rang. Nate went to answer it, and a minute later he came back. J.W. was with him, and he had my fly rod.

  “Zee thinks we still owe you. She wants to take you fishing tonight, if you’re up to it.”

  And that’s when I remembered. I’d lost my bet with Billy. So what if I’d had a morphine hangover after nearly dying and then squandered an entire night saving J.W.’s life when I could have been fishing? Billy would accept no weak excuses. A bet was a bet.

  “Sure,” I told J.W. “I’m always up for fishing.”

  “Come for dinner. Supposed to be a nice night. Zee wants to try Wasque again. Tide and wind should both be right.”

  “Just stay the hell off my beach,” said Nate.

  A school of bluefish came blitzing through the rip at Wasque right at sunset, and for about an hour Zee and I and a dozen other Derby competitors caught fish as fast as we could cast into the water and haul them out. They all ran to a size—five or six pounds—not worth entering into the competition, but as Zee pointed out, they were perfect eating size, and soon there were bluefish flopping in the sand all up and down the beach.

  It ended as abruptly as it had begun, and one by one we all stopped casting.

  Zee and I sat on the sand watching the water as the darkness gathered over the sea. The sky was clear and infinite, and a million stars filled it with light. They were huge balls of fire, but so distant that to us on our little, faraway planet they were mere yellow specks. Some of them had burned out eons ago, but their light was still traveling through space and time.

  We talked about Molly Wood and the other blonde, middle-aged women whom Patrick had seduced, strangled, and buried in the cellar.

  Zee was an emergency room nurse. She’d seen a lot of death and tragedy and craziness. But she had no philosophy for what Patrick Fairchild had done, and neither did I. She kept talking about her kids, the world she’d brought them into and her responsibility for them, and it took me a while to realize that she was really thinking of Eliza, and what she’d done to Patrick, and how so many other lives had been affected, and how Eliza had been shaped by Sarah, her own mother, and how parents and children were connected back through the generations.

  And as I sat there on the Martha’s Vineyard sand, I thought of my own boys, Billy out in Idaho rowing rich fly-fishing clients downriver in the summer and teaching rich people how to ski in the winter, and Joey studying law at Stanford, and I hoped I’d done okay by them.

  I thought I had. But you never knew for sure.

  Sarah Fairchild died that night sometime while I was sitting on the beach with Zee gazing at the stars and sharing infinite thoughts.

  I spent Sunday morning with Eliza and Nate, helping them agree on arrangements for their mother’s memorial service and burial. The two of them were solemn, and at one point when tears began dribbling down Eliza’s cheeks, Nate put his arm around her and cried, too.

  I called the representatives of both the Marshall Lea Foundation and the Isle of Dreams Development Corporation and told them that the Fairchild property was off the market, at least for the foreseeable future. When Sarah died, so did my power of attorney. Now my job was to execute her will. Once that was done, the only people authorized to sell the property would be Sarah’s rightful heirs, Eliza and Nate and, depending on what happened to him, Patrick.

  J.W. drove me to the ferry on Monday morning. Joshua and Diana came with us. They were bubbling about their tree house. Diana told me that she was trying to persuade her father to install a woodstove so they could live in it all winter. She invited me to be her guest next summer when I visited.

  J.W. allowed as how it was pretty comfy, though they hadn’t quite worked out the plumbing yet.

  An hour later I was sneaking a cigarette at the stern on the top deck of the ferry. We had chugged halfway across the sound to Woods Hole, and the island of Martha’s Vineyard
was a blurry green mound rising out of the sea on the horizon. It looked bountiful and peaceful, the way it must have looked to its early settlers when they first sighted it from their wooden sailing vessels. A refuge. A good place to live and raise children and grow old surrounded by people you loved.

  I flipped my cigarette into the wake of the ferry, gave the Vineyard a final glance, then walked up to the front. From there I watched the mainland of America grow larger, and I turned my thoughts to my law practice, to Boston, to home.

  RECIPES

  SEAFOOD ST. JACQUES À LA J. W. JACKSON

  (Serves eight)

  Note: This dish is most commonly cooked as Coquilles St. Jacques, which is made with scallops. Here it’s made with a combination of fish or shellfish. Scallops are the classic element, of course.

  1. Bring to boil: ½ pound sliced mushrooms, 4 tablespoons butter, 1 cup dry white wine, 1 minced onion, 1 bay leaf, 1 teaspoon thyme, juice of 1 lemon.

  2. Simmer 3 minutes, then add 2 pounds of any combination of fish or shellfish and simmer 2 minutes more. Drain, reserving liquid.

  3. Make white roux: melt 4 tablespoons butter, stir in 4 tablespoons flour, stir in 1 cup milk, then continue to stir until thickened slightly.

  4. Add roux to reserved liquid and whisk until thickened. Add 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper.

  5. Beat 4 egg yolks and 1 cup cream or milk, then slowly whisk egg mixture into roux. Bring up to a boil but do not boil. Sauce should coat spoon.

  6. Put fish mixture in ovenproof pan, remove bay leaf, and spoon on sauce. Cover with mixture of 1 cup Parmesan cheese and 1 cup bread crumbs, and dribble with 2 tablespoons melted butter. (Note: At this point the dish may be refrigerated or frozen.)

  7. Bring to room temperature if prepared in advance, bake uncovered in 350° oven until hot (20 minutes, more or less).

  8. Glaze under broiler and serve with rice or potatoes.

  NANA’S STEAMED PUDDING FROM J.W.

  1. Sift together: 2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon powdered cloves, 1 teaspoon salt.

  2. Mix: 1 cup New Orleans molasses (light), 1 cup melted butter or margarine, 1 cup warm milk, 2 beaten eggs.

  3. Add dry ingredients to wet in stages.

  4. Add to batter: 1 cup seedless raisins (plumped in hot water, dried, and floured), 1 pint jar candied mixed fruit (floured).

  5. Add 1 jigger good brandy.

  6. Put in a well-greased and -floured steamer mold. Tie on lid. Place steamer mold in boiling water in a pan and cover. Water should be ⅔ of the way up the side of the mold. Steam, boiling continuously, for 2 hours. Serve with hard sauce or other sauce.

  BRADY’S THANKSGIVING SEA DUCK

  Sea ducks such as eiders, scoters, and old squaw (not to be confused with puddle ducks such as mallards, and nothing at all like the bland, fatty domestic duck served in restaurants) abound at the Vineyard. Sea ducks have an undeservedly bad reputation as table fare. As a result, J.W.’s duck-hunting friends like to give away what they manage to shoot. I happen to think sea ducks are delish, and J.W. and Zee agree with me. They are strong-flavored, dark-meated, and decidedly gamy, but prepared properly they’re a feast. We believe a dinner of sea ducks with all the trimmings is a suitable way to remember our first settlers, who lived off the land and probably considered sea ducks delish, too.

  Sea ducks should be prepared the day before you intend to serve them, as you need to marinate the meat for about 36 hours.

  1. Remove the breasts including the skin and discard the rest of the ducks. One eider breast feeds two. With smaller ducks such as old squaw, figure one breast per person.

  2. Slice the meat off the breasts. The slices should be about ½ inch thick.

  3. Spread the breast slices in a high-sided platter and cover with milk. Cover the platter with aluminum foil and marinate in the refrigerator all day, for about 12 hours. The evening before your feast, drain off the milk, rinse the meat, pat it dry on paper towels, then cover again in fresh milk and marinate overnight, 8 to 12 hours. The two rounds of milk marinade will neutralize the gaminess and bring out the distinctive flavor of sea ducks.

  4. The morning before you plan to serve it, drain off the milk, rinse and pat dry again, and cover the meat with a robust red wine. Let it marinate in the refrigerator for about 6 hours.

  5. Drain the meat and pat it dry with paper towels. Do not rinse it this time.

  6. Rub both sides of the meat with salt, fresh-ground black pepper, ground red pepper, and dried sage and rosemary.

  7. In a very hot skillet coated with olive oil sear the meat on both sides. Do not overcook. It should be rare on the inside.

  8. Serve with cranberry sauce or chutney, wild rice, fresh green vegetables (steamed asparagus would be my choice, but it’s not in season in New England in November), a green salad, and an excellent red wine.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  William G. Tapply is a retired high school history teacher who now teaches writing at Emerson College, Clark University, and for The Writers Digest School. The author of eighteen Brady Coyne novels as well as five volumes on outdoor living and fishing, he is a contributing editor to Field and Stream magazine. He lives in Pepperell, Massachusetts.

  Philip R. Craig grew up on a small cattle ranch southeast of Durango, Colorado. He earned his M.F.A. at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is a professor emeritus of literature at Wheelock College in Boston. He is the author of thirteen J. W. Jackson/Martha’s Vineyard mysteries. He and his wife live on Martha’s Vineyard.