Cape Cod

by William Martin

  Beer flowed in the tent, barrels of raw oysters rolled, and the band went to the gazebo to play “In the Good Old Summertime” and “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”

  No one complained that the original Pilgrims had frowned on any music but psalms. And when an old Congregationalist lady complained about the kegs, Charles reminded her that the Pilgrims had put in at Provincetown because they were running low on beer. Then he poured her a sarsaparilla.

  While the party went on, Johnny Hilyard was charged with keeping Tom in his room, and he did a good job of it for an hour or so.

  But the longer he sat there, with Tom rocking silently and scowling out the window, the louder grew the voice in Johnny’s head. It wasn’t fair. Outside, there was music. People were laughing. Kids played ring-a-lievio. It… wasn’t… fair. And across the lawn, the Japanese lanterns that he had helped to string glowed like fireflies. After all he had been through that day, it wasn’t fair.

  He pulled out a canvas and set it up on the easel. Then he opened Tom’s paint box and squeezed tubes of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet onto the palette. At the sight of the paints, Tom stopped rocking and began to fish in his pockets. Something in his fractured mind always told him he had a paintbrush in his pocket.

  Johnny slipped a brush into his hand. “That ought to keep you busy.”

  About an hour later, a game of hide-and-seek was rambling across the lawn, through buildings and tents, under the feet of the grown-ups, and off into the darkening woods. Johnny’s sister Clara was “it,” counting to a hundred by tens with her face pressed against a pillar on the veranda.

  Johnny scampered through the refreshment tent and snatched the last piece of blueberry pie. Before any of the grown-ups could make him put it back, he wrapped it in his red handkerchief and went outside.

  But where, in all this excitement, could he hide with his pie? Down there, behind the gazebo. The band had taken a rest and the gazebo was deserted. Slip in between the shrubbery and the knee wall and no one would ever see him.

  After he was settled, he tried to decide what was most delicious—that purloined piece of pie, the knowledge that his sister would never find him here, or the view of Dorothy Dickerson, down on the beach, spoonin’ with Teddy Bigelow.

  The pie, he decided. He raised it to his lips, let the bittersweet aroma bring the juices to his mouth, and a girl’s voice whispered from the other side of the rhododendron, “I was here first.”

  Aggie Dickerson’s Pilgrim dress was torn and grass-stained, and a smudge of dirt sat right at the tip of her nose. “I was here first, Johnny Hilyard.”

  “Call me Clam—uh, call me Rake. That’s what the President called me. And so what if you was here first?”

  “This spot’s mine. You can stay if you give me a taste of your pie.”

  Johnny—Rake, gave this some thought, then took the bite he had been planning. He closed his eyes and smacked his lips as though someone had put the rapture of the Lord right on his tongue.

  “Hah-hah, very funny,” said Aggie. “Gimme a bite or I’ll scream your name. Then Clara, she’ll find you and you’ll be it.”

  That would be no good. In the dark, he would never find all the kids. As he reluctantly offered her the pie, he heard a funny toot, almost a yelp, as though somebody had stepped on a dog’s paw. It was followed by a whistle.

  Johnny peered over the knee wall into the gazebo. What he saw caused him to drop like a rock. Tom Hilyard was methodically wiping off the mouthpieces and testing each untended instrument, while Uncle Elwood and Charles Bigelow hurried down the path.

  “I thought you told that nephew of yours to watch him.” Bigelow was shouting in a furious whisper.

  Toot… tootle-toot-toot. Clarinet.

  “He could have destroyed my career,” Bigelow went on. “How could you let him out of the house with that painting?”

  “He’s gettin’ devious.”

  Johnny heard the screen door open, then shut, which meant Elwood and Bigelow were in the gazebo now, and Johnny was in trouble.

  “The painting should have been destroyed years ago,” said Bigelow.

  “It should have been, but… but my brother said we should hide it, in case you ever turned against us.”

  “Turned against you? After the participation of First Comers Cooperative in building your hotel? After we agreed to subdivide the island in 1904 so you could build cottages all over it if the hotel was a success? We had an agreement, Elwood.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I honor my agreements. Ours made you a prosperous man, and it should have protected my reputation.”

  Plink. Plink-plinkle-plunk. What was that? The triangle? The xylophone?

  “Put that down,” said Elwood.

  Johnny peered over the wall again. Charles was in shirtsleeves, but Elwood, for all the tension in his voice, still looked as fresh as the morning paper.

  “C’mon, Tom,” said Elwood.

  Tom shook his head and picked up the trombone.

  Bigelow snatched it out of his hands. “Get back to the hotel and out of sight before you remind the guests of that painting.”

  “Almost no one saw it,” said Elwood, “and First Light made a peace de grace.”

  “But what happens when the reporters ask about it? We can’t very well destroy it.”

  “No one saw the nameplate,” said Elwood. “We can make a new one. Name someone else as the murderer.”

  Tom shook his head.

  Charles wiped his red silk handkerchief across his forehead. “Blame it on someone who died that first winter?”

  “Someone without any offsprouts. That way none of your”—he gestured to the veranda of the hotel—“bonofactors will be offended.”

  Tom shaped his angriest face and tried to plant his feet, as if to say he would not be moved. But the ruined left foot collapsed and he fell to the floor.

  Johnny wanted to help him, but Johnny was in trouble enough already. If they caught him eavesdropping on a grown-up conversation, his father would warm his hide.

  But Elwood and Bigelow were treating Tom like an enfeebled animal. They just stood over him, watching him struggle to get to his feet. This wasn’t right.

  Finally Elwood crouched down next to him. “We’ll help you, Tom. Just come back to the house, like a good fellow.”

  “If Tom could find this painting, wherever you and your brother hid it,” said Bigelow, “he may be able to produce the book he spoke of, the one he called ‘as authentic as Bradford’s log.’ ”

  This was the first time that Johnny “Rake” Hilyard had ever heard mention of the book, and it meant nothing to him.

  “You wouldn’t do that, would you, Tom?” asked Elwood.

  Tom continued to struggle.

  “How much do you think gets through to that devious mind?” asked Bigelow.

  “Who knows? What can doctors know about the brain? They could see his fractured skull and six-month coma, but not whatever happened inside—stroke, cerevral hemorrhage. Can’t talk, can’t communicate, keeps painting one little sliver of his past, like it’s the only shaft of light that still gets through to him.”

  “And he still hates me,” said Bigelow, “in spite of all I’ve done.”

  “We’re grateful,” said Elwood.

  “And trusting.” Bigelow was seized by fury. He dropped to his knees and grabbed Tom by the shoulders. “You said Bradford’s log was not the log. Is there another one? The log of the Mayflower? The book of history?”

  Tom just looked at him.

  “Tell me!” Bigelow shook Tom like a shark shaking a piece of meat.

  Johnny jumped up, but he had no courage and dropped down again. These were grown-ups. They were supposed to know how to act. He looked at little Aggie. She scraped her top teeth across her lower lip and looked back as though Johnny would know what to do.

  “Where is the book!” demanded Bigelow.

  Elwood crouched beside him and whispered, as if to remi
nd Bigelow that voices carried far through the night. “There is no book. We went through his old house from top to bottom before we moved it. There was nothing hidden but the old… the old broadswords.”

  “Broadsides. They spoke of the book more than a hundred years ago.” Bigelow released Tom, stood, straightened himself. “I think it still exists.”

  “Is my trumpet down there?”

  Another voice. Johnny peered over the knee wall and saw old Heman tottering down the path.

  “My trumpet! My hearin’ horn.”

  Charles Bigelow whispered to Elwood, “Did Tom ever go back to the old house?”

  “Zachary took him when he went out there fishin’ or clam-min’. Tom liked Billingsgate. He liked to go there.”

  “And I’ll bet the devious old snake brought that book back with him. If we find it, we should burn it.”

  “Burn what?” demanded Heman.

  “I thought you were deaf,” said his son.

  “What? Where’s my horn, my hearin’ horn?”

  Charles picked up a trumpet and gave it to his father.

  While Heman pressed the valves and held the horn to his ear, Charles whispered to Elwood, “If we find it, we burn it. If we don’t, maybe we should burn the hotel to make sure it’s gone.”

  “Burn the hotel?” said Heman. “Good idea. Hotels bring strangers, and we got strangers wanderin’ all over the island tonight, scarin’ the ducks.”

  “It’s not duck season, Pa.”

  “You don’t want the ducks thinkin’ that.”

  “Ducks don’t think, Pa.”

  “But they see, and they’ll be glad to see that hotel burn.”

  “Just a figure of speech, Pa.” Charles put his arm around his father and led him back up the path. “Let’s go find your trumpet, so you can hear when the band starts up. And no more talk of burnin’.”

  Elwood helped Tom to his feet, brushed off his trousers, and said a few calming words, but Tom would not go. Elwood tugged gently, because he was a gentle man, but Tom would not move. Then Elwood understood. He picked up the slide trombone, the one instrument Tom had not tested.

  Honk. Hoooonk! And Tom left with his cousin.

  Johnny looked at Aggie, and Aggie looked at the pie. “Can I have my bite now?”

  Johnny handed her the whole piece.

  Then they heard, from somewhere on the beach, a slap.

  “Uh-oh,” whispered Clara. “Teddy’s gettin’ fresh.”

  Their attention was turned from the frightening world of grown-up affairs to the more interesting, though confusing, world of older kids kissing in the shadows.

  It seemed that Teddy Bigelow had taken his spoonin’ too far, and Aggie’s big sister had taken exception.

  Dorothy jumped up and started down the beach, but Teddy caught up to her, said something, and kissed her. This time she kissed him back.

  Then they disappeared arm in arm into the night. A moment later, another man came down out of the woods. Johnny could not tell who he was. He seemed to be following Dorothy and Teddy, perhaps spying on them, but his limp made it hard for him to keep up.

  iv.

  On a windy night a month later, long after all the summer guests had left the Hilyard House, Rake was awakened by the sound of a shotgun blast.

  Then he heard the most terrifying cry of all. “Fire!”

  By the time he and his family rushed through the woods, the flames were dancing in the windows of the hotel and licking at the eaves.

  Elwood and the remaining hotel staff were fighting with bucket brigades and hand-pump hoses. But the Hilyard House, a honeycomb of long, drafty hallways and high ceilings, was going up like a driftwood pile on the beach.

  Johnny heard his father say, “We might just as well spit on it, but let’s see if we can help.”

  Then, from the room off the kitchen, there came the sound of an explosion.

  “That’ll be Tom’s linseed oil goin’ off,” said Zachary, and he called to his brother, “Where’s Tom?”

  “We got him out,” shouted Elwood, “he’s in the gazebo.”

  But Tom was not in the gazebo. He was nowhere to be found until the fire was out and the Hilyard House was a smoking pile of ashes. What there was of him lay in his room, with his exploded paints and ruined canvases.

  No one ever knew why he went back, though Charles Bigelow suspected that it was the book that drew him.

  As for the fire, there was no doubt that it was set, and most people thought that crazy Tom himself had done it. A can of linseed oil was found near the veranda where the fire was thought to have started, along with the footprints of a man who limped, a man with a hole in his shoe. Tom limped. Tom had holes in his shoes.

  But who had fired the shotgun to awaken those who might have died by this act of arson? The shell casings found at the edge of the beach were Remington twelve-gauge bird shot. Charles Bigelow knew that this was the ammunition his father used. But his father was found the following morning, in his house on the west side of the island, in his bed, in his nightshirt, with his shoes on his feet, sleeping soundly. So soundly in fact that he would never awaken.

  Charles Bigelow removed his father’s shoes, dumped out the sand, and put his finger through the hole in the sole.

  CHAPTER 31

  July 16

  Mechanical Monsters

  “Whenever I go to Provincetown,” said Agnes, “which isn’t too much, what with all those queer folk—”

  “Gays,” Geoff said.

  “Strange word… Well, whenever I go there, I always smell b.o., and it’s not the gays. It’s Taft. Huge man in a dark suit, sweatin’ to beat the band. And whenever I taste blueberry pie, I always think of that hotel, glitterin’ like a jewel.”

  Geoff had forgotten his hangover, but confusion kept his head pounding. “Who set the fire? Did they find out?”

  She shook her head. “Wooden hotels were like wooden ships, very susceptible to flame.”

  “Did you wonder about Charles Bigelow, after what you heard in the gazebo? Would he have burned the hotel to burn the log?”

  “Of course not. That’s a plug-ugly lie.” Agnes sat back for a moment and started to hum. She always kept a little tune going in her head, if only to hold off the silence.

  “Did anybody investigate Tom’s fall at the State House?”

  “What was there to investigate? He went to Boston to see Charles about a painting and fell down the stairs. He cracked his skull and had some kind of cerebral hemorrhage. The brain surgeons weren’t too good then. Neither were the lawyers, because he didn’t get much of a settlement.”

  “But the fire? Rake must have told his father what Charles said.”

  “The idea that Charles Bigelow would torch the Hilyard House was beyond anyone. He’d financed it after Tom’s accident. And he made his father sign the subdivision plan when Elwood wanted to build a cottage colony all around it.”

  “The 1904 subdivision was a Hilyard’s idea?”

  “It was Elwood’s idea. He had some big dreams. But after the fire, he lost interest. He took the insurance money and built himself the house they use now for the sailing camp. He said it was time to respire like a gentleman. A fool, that Elwood. Silver-plated fool. Zachary preferred work, like a man. I could never see how the same soil that nurtured your grandfather grew Elwood.”

  Geoff couldn’t see how the soil that nurtured Aggie had grown her son Dickerson or her grandson Douglas, and her granddaughter Janice was beginning to bother him, too, but he didn’t say so. Even if he had, Agnes might not have noticed, because her mind was now traveling down the highways to the two-lanes to the crushed-shell roads of her youth.

  “They’d gotten around to building a canal in Sandwich, after three hundred years of talking about it, and a lot of Cape schooners were hauling granite for the breakwaters. Your grandma was pregnant with your father.” Agnes laughed. “Pregnant at forty-five. Some woman. So Zach, he decided to get in on the hauling, make some diaper-pin
money. Last anyone saw of Zach’s old schooner, Zach, or his three eldest sons, they were off Cape Ann, wobblin’ along with a deck load of rocks halfway to the mast.”

  “The sea has taken a lot of Hilyards.”

  “Bigelows, too. My sister and Teddy Bigelow took their honeymoon trip to England and came home on the Titanic. My sister came home a widow.”

  Though she rambled, every path led to another, which led to another, which led ultimately to the log.

  It was Agnes’s sister Dorothy who had been handed Murder on the Mayflower in 1911, who later married one of the Coles of Orleans and had three daughters, two of whom never married, one of whom moved to California and had four children, none of whom cared more for the Orleans home they inherited than to auction it and its contents, among which was a painting found in the attic, which hinted at the identity of the first murderer in America, which could not be proved without the log, which had inspired Tom Hilyard, who had died in the hotel fire, which satisfied Rake for eighty years that the log was gone, until the arrival of the woman named Carolyn Hallissey, who paid sixteen thousand dollars for the painting and somehow inspired Rake to start looking for the log once more. Whew.

  “Did you and Rake ever talk about the log after that night in the gazebo?”

  “A few times. I remember a Sunday morning, July of 1918 it was. I was visitin’ my sister in Orleans, mostly so I could be close to Jack’s Island. You know, Rake was just about the handsomest boy on the Lower Cape. Black hair, blue eyes to make you melt, and—gals weren’t supposed to notice these things—he was spun like steel cable.” She stared off again… hum, hum.

  Geoff waited silently. Downstairs, the grandfather clock in the foyer chimed twice.