by Lanyon, Josh
“I don’t think it does. Not that flipper, anyway. Not sabotage.”
“Fine. The boat conveniently sank so we don’t know for sure if Fitch took it or not. That doesn’t mean this is a dead end. It’s merely…a cul-de-sac. What I think you should do is start with the person with the strongest motive for getting rid of Fitch, and then work backward.”
“That would be me,” Finn said.
“Ah. Then…second strongest motive. And that would be Con-man.”
Irritably, Finn said, “Don’t call him that.”
Paul chuckled. “Int-ter-esssting.”
“No,” Finn said.
“No? What do you mean? Are you telling me you don’t have any feelings for him at all? Hmm?”
“I’m saying I don’t want to talk about it with you. I don’t ask you about what happened between you and Fitch.”
“That’s because you already had Fitch’s version.”
“That’s one side of the story.”
“It was probably true. I never knew Fitch to lie. Even when it would have been the smart or kind thing to do.”
That was true. Fitch was not a liar. Brutal frankness was his specialty. According to Fitch, he had grown bored with Paul’s jealousy and tantrums. But then Fitch always found something to grow bored with.
Paul said, “Well, personally I rule you out. At least for now. Which still leaves Con Carne or whatever his name is. You need to go and ask him the obvious question, which is: what happened after you ran off?”
“I didn’t run off. I walked off in a slow and dignified manner.”
“Whatever. What we want to know is, what did Con and Fitch chat about after you stalked off? Can you imagine being a fly on that wall?”
No. He couldn’t. Or maybe he didn’t want to, because he was sure whatever had been said would have hurt him even more badly. He said, “I still don’t see why Con would have a motive for getting rid of Fitch.”
“Oh my God. Keep your day job, lambkin! Fitch deliberately seduced him and broke up his relationship with you. Of course he would want to strangle him.”
Finn sighed, staring unseeingly at the mountain of lobster traps to the side of the car. “It wasn’t like that, though. First of all, Con had told me that he wasn’t interested in anything long-term, and that he wasn’t going to make promises to be monogamous. Secondly, although I was too stupid to see it at the time, Con had had some kind of relationship with Fitch before I ever came into the picture.”
“You’re kidding!”
Finn shook his head again.
“And they both kept that from you?”
“Fitch wasn’t staying on the island when Con and I started up. He came home later that summer—Con was already getting restless. I knew that. I could see the signs. He kept doing stuff to push me away.” Finn’s mouth curved bitterly. “I saw it, but I was in love with him.”
Paul considered this grimly. “That doesn’t mean he didn’t resent being manipulated by Fitch.”
“What makes you think Fitch manipulated him?”
“You forget. I was on the receiving end of Fitch—and I mean that in every possible sense—for nine months. I know exactly how he operated. And it wasn’t pretty.”
Finn considered Paul. Fitch could be—and frequently was—a bastard, but Paul was the only one of Fitch’s ex-lovers—that Finn knew of—who carried a grudge against him. And Paul definitely carried a grudge. He’d taken Fitch to small claims court for three months of back rent and the monetary equivalent of several gifts.
“What kind of temper does Con have?”
“I never thought of him as having a bad temper.”
“Maybe he’s the type that represses it, and when it blows…kaboom!”
Finn said doubtfully, “I just…don’t really see that.”
“You’re not being very helpful.” Paul tapped his tooth with a buffed fingernail. “Fine, who else would have had it in for Fitch? Who inherits his share of the family fortune?”
“I don’t know… I guess it would be split between me and Uncle Tom. But if money was the motive, why conceal the fact that Fitch is dead?”
“Good point.” Paul started the engine. “It’s Con. It’s got to be. You need to go talk to him.”
Finn gave a disbelieving laugh, staring as Paul guided the car across the uneven road. “You think he’s a killer and you want me to go talk to him? Thanks!”
“Are you afraid of him?”
“Of course not.” He felt a little indignant at the idea, for reasons probably best not to analyze.
“So what’s the problem? It was probably an accident.”
If it had been an accident, then Fitch’s body would have turned up. You didn’t accidentally dispose of a body.
Paul said thoughtfully, “Could it have been an accident? I mean, could he have fallen into the ocean?”
Finn considered it. “I don’t think so. He’d have washed up sooner or later. If not here, then on one of the other islands or the mainland.” He shivered, stared unseeingly out the window at the choppy green-blue water.
* * * * *
Martha was beginning to “take against” Paul. Finn knew the signs. It was not so much what she said as what she didn’t say, uncharacteristically cryptic as she fed them a late lunch of smoky potato soup with bacon croutons after their return from a hard morning of snooping.
Her dark gaze rested on the back of Paul’s head with a certain grimness, and when she caught Finn watching, Martha gave a little disapproving sniff. Paul represented Finn’s new life, which was probably reason enough right there for Martha to dislike him.
It was a shame, because Martha was generally a gold mine of information, but her suspicion of Paul made her closemouthed. Granted, she had not been on the island the day Fitch left. She had not been there that entire week. She had been tending to her sick sister on the mainland. By the time Martha returned to the island, it had all been over and both Finn and Fitch were gone—Fitch perhaps forever.
After lunch, pressured by Paul, who had decided sleuthing was the only credible means of entertainment on Seal Island, Finn went up to Uncle Thomas’s study to ask if he remembered anything about the day Fitch had disappeared.
Uncle Thomas, up to his elbows in art books, looked up distractedly and frowned. “Disappeared? You mean the day he left? I wasn’t here.”
“But you came back that evening.”
Uncle Thomas frowned. “I don’t recall seeing you or Fitch.”
“Fitch was already gone by then. We just didn’t know it.”
“Perhaps he left the following morning.”
“No, because I left the following morning. Hiram had to walk down to the village to get the car.”
“I’m sorry,” Uncle Thomas said, a fraction impatiently. “What was the question again?”
That really was the crux of it. What was it that Finn was hoping to learn? And why was he asking the people most unlikely to have reason to want Fitch dead? Was he stalling because he was afraid to face the person to whom he should most obviously be talking?
“If Fitch is dead,” he asked finally, “who inherits?”
Uncle Thomas looked taken aback. He answered without having to consider it, “You do. You and Fitch equally inherited your mother’s share of this estate. If one of you predeceases the other, the survivor takes all.”
Since Finn seemed to have nothing to say to that, Uncle Thomas went back to his research, and Finn went downstairs to find Paul. Hearing him out, Paul seemed unreasonably amused.
“We’re building quite a case against you,” he said.
“I’m laughing so hard.”
“It’s ironic, don’t you think?”
“Mostly irritating.”
Paul smirked. “Well, my suggestion is we—meaning you—go talk to the only real suspect we have.”
Finn rubbed his face in his hands without answering.
“You said you weren’t afraid of him.”
“I’m not,” he rep
lied, his voice muffled behind his hands.
“You can take my cell phone, and if I don’t hear from you in…say, one hour, I’ll start yelling my head off.”
“I’m not afraid of Con.”
Which wasn’t exactly true—although he wasn’t afraid of Con for the reasons Paul probably imagined.
In the end, he decided to walk down to the cottage. He needed the exercise, and he wanted time to think before he arrived on Con’s doorstep. But no sooner did he close the door on The Birches than he seemed to be facing Con’s front door, and he could not claim that the walk had done anything to clear his thoughts.
He knocked before he had time to change his mind and beat a retreat.
Con came to the door. He wore jeans and a heather-and-blue tweed sweater. Reading glasses were pushed back on his forehead, and he held a green-and-white paperback titled The Princes in the Tower, keeping his place with a finger between the pages. He stared at Finn as though he were the last person in the world he expected to see—which was probably about right.
“Are you busy?” Finn asked awkwardly, since it was obvious Con was.
“Not too busy for you.” He said it simply and moved aside so that Finn could step inside the cottage.
The last time he had been here, he had been too tired and pained to really look around, but his impression of time unchanged seemed accurate now. It was all as it had been: the same comfortable furniture and rugs, the same pictures on the wall—including Finn’s painting of the cave at Otter Cove, the first place they had made love. Well, Finn had made love. For Con it had been fucking, but that was all right. Either way, Finn had good memories of that day.
The computer was a new one, and there were a couple of framed snapshots on the fireplace mantle. Finn noticed because Con had never been one for family photos.
“Did you walk down here?” Con was frowning.
“Yeah.” As Con’s frown deepened, he said, “I’m supposed to walk. Really. It’s good for me.”
“It’s two miles from The Birches. I doubt if your doctor had that kind of hike in mind.”
Finn didn’t really register that, because he had realized that while one of the photos on the mantle was of Con and his family at some anniversary celebration, the other one was of Fitch. It gave him a very strange feeling, and he missed the next two things Con said.
Picking up the frame, he studied it. They were standing outside some kind of antique store, and Fitch was smiling. He looked relaxed and happy—and so did Con. He had draped a casual arm around Fitch, who was holding a large handcrafted model of an “Ironsides” yacht.
When the hell had Fitch and Con gone off together…? Finn had the peculiar sensation of missing a step in the dark because…it wasn’t Fitch in the photo, it was him. He had completely forgotten that trip to Union—less than a week before he’d walked in on Fitch and Con in the lighthouse keeper’s cottage.
Ironically, he had started to believe that weekend that Con was falling in love with him.
“Finn, what’s the matter?” Con asked for the third time, and by now he sounded alarmed. He put a hesitant hand on Finn’s shoulder. “Why don’t you sit down?”
That seemed like a good idea, and Finn dropped into the nearest chair, still holding the framed photograph.
“You can’t keep doing this,” Con said, and if had been anyone besides Con, Finn would have considered him to be fussing. “You can’t keep doing these marathons until you’re stronger. You could fall, you could faint—”
Finn looked up into his hard, anxious face. “What happened between you and Fitch that day?”
His question cut Con off midsentence. “What do you mean?” He sounded wary.
“After I left the lighthouse cottage. What happened between you?”
“Nothing.”
Finn was abruptly irritated. He put the framed photo on the table next to him with a clatter. “Nothing? Something must have happened. You must have had something to say to each other. Like…gosh, this is awkward!”
“I don’t recall what I said to him.” Con’s expression was bleak. “I think—”
“What?”
After a hesitation, Con said, “I think I hit him.”
“You…hit him?”
“He was laughing. I don’t even remember what he said, but I…I seem to recall punching him.”
Finn closed his eyes for an instant. “Did you kill him?”
“What?”
Finn opened his eyes, and Con was staring at him, aghast. “No, I didn’t kill him. What the hell are you talking about?”
“No one has seen Fitch since that day.”
“What? What are you saying?”
Finn didn’t bother to repeat it. Con’s black gaze seemed fixed on his.
“That’s not possible. He left the island. Someone had to have seen him go.”
“I haven’t found anyone so far.”
“Wait a minute,” Con said, and it was his normal, brisk tone. He sat down in the chair across from Finn’s, leaning forward, his expression intent—he could have been applying his mind to any academic puzzle. “Let me get this straight. You’re saying no one has seen Fitch in three years?”
“Right.”
“That’s not possible.”
“It’s not possible if he’s still alive.”
“You think he’s dead?”
Finn said carefully, “As far as I can make out, you were the last person to see him alive.”
Con drew back. His expression was startled, but not…particularly guilty. He seemed astonished more than anything.
“I didn’t kill him, Finn.” Con said it plain and simple, and Finn found that unexpectedly reassuring. “I was angry, but…it was mostly at myself. What I’d done. What I’d…destroyed.”
“What happened after you hit him?”
“I didn’t wait to see. I went after you. I spent the entire fucking day searching the island for you. I thought you would go to the cove. I waited there. Then I thought you might come here. Then I thought you might go into the village. Then I tried the cove again. Then I tried The Birches. Finally I thought of Ballard’s Rock, and that’s where I was headed when I found you that night.” He swallowed hard. “By then I was…terrified…”
Finn’s smile was caustic. “You thought I’d done something dramatic like pitch myself from the cliff?”
Con said quietly, “All I knew was that you loved me and I took that love and shoved it right back in your face. You weren’t the most worldly kid.”
“I wasn’t a kid.”
“You were twenty-three, but you’d spent most of your life on this rock in the company of folks who were a lot older than you. People who thought queer only happened to other people. People in big bad cities—like Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Finn said defensively, “I had Fitch.”
Con said nothing.
“You don’t know a damn thing about it,” Finn argued hotly. “No, I wasn’t worldly, but I did get that I was only a passing thing for you. And I wasn’t about to kill myself over it.”
“I know,” Con said. “I realize that now. At the time I was…scared.”
Unappeased, Finn said shortly, “So you punched Fitch and left him there, and in all this running around the island, you never ran into him again?”
Con shook his head.
“What about when you went to The Birches?”
“I didn’t see him—” Con paused, and his expression changed.
“What? What did you remember?”
“When I was waiting for you outside the cave in Otter Cove, I vaguely remember seeing someone up in the lighthouse tower. My first thought was it was you, but then I remembered your tracks had led away down the beach.”
“So who was it?”
“I couldn’t tell at that distance, but at the time I think I assumed it was Fitch. If he’d wanted to see where either of us went, the tower would have given him a bird’s-eye view of half the island.”
“What time wa
s that?”
“Less than half an hour after all hell broke loose.” Con studied Finn’s face. “Are you serious about this? You honestly believe Fitch is dead?”
“I…don’t know.”
Con was frowning, watching him. “Then why does everyone believe he left the island that afternoon?”
“Because his things were gone. His suitcases and clothes were gone, and Hiram’s station wagon was left at the wharf as though Fitch had driven down there and caught the boat for the mainland. And it made sense given everything that happened.”
“Does it? But didn’t Martha see him come back and pack? Didn’t Hiram drive him? Didn’t he say good-bye to Tom?”
“Martha was in Harpswell that entire week. Her sister was sick. Hiram was clearing out poison ivy at the back of the property all that afternoon. Uncle Tom was in Portland stuck at the airport. Everyone assumed Fitch came in, packed, and drove the station wagon down to the village himself.”
“He didn’t leave a note or anything?”
Finn shook his head. “But that wasn’t so unusual. He always came and went as he liked. Anytime he left a note, it was for me. He wouldn’t have done that this time…”
“I’m not so sure. I always thought that scene was more about Fitch’s jealousy over you, than Fitch’s jealousy over me.”
“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.”
“It means,” Con said dryly, “that you were the most important person in Fitch’s life, and he didn’t like sharing you. Especially with me.” Finn opened his mouth to object, but Con was already following another thought. “Someone at the wharf or in the village must have seen him leave that day. There would be a record of a ticket sale, a ship’s log—something that would prove either way?”
“Paul and I did some checking earlier. The only ship that Fitch could have sailed on was The Sea Auk, which sank last year in that freak storm. No records. As for anyone remembering seeing Fitch…it was the summer. There were all kinds of visitors on the island. If this had happened last week…but three years ago? Nobody remembers anything. Even Martha and Hiram aren’t that clear on the details, and they’re part of the household.”
“But you realize what you’re saying?” Con asked quietly. “If Fitch didn’t leave the island, you’re hypothesizing that someone went into the house, packed up his things, and borrowed the station wagon to make it look like he did. You’re saying someone deliberately concealed the fact that Fitch was dead.”
