by Lanyon, Josh
At the same time, he couldn’t help being afraid of waking this particular old hound dog. It was a small island, and he was painfully aware that he could rule out the possibility that Fitch had been killed by a passing madman. The odds were, whoever had killed Fitch was someone Finn knew quite well. Maybe loved.
Granted, Fitch had had his secrets—certainly Finn hadn’t known about Con and Fitch until the day that he’d discovered them in the lighthouse. Maybe there was someone else on the island who had known another side of Fitch.
Or maybe someone had followed Fitch to the island. Finn glanced across the table, and Paul met his eyes.
No.
No, right? Because if Paul had been going to kill Fitch, it probably would have been when they were still together. Who waited years? And Paul had moved on. Well, he didn’t have a steady lover—but neither did Finn. No. But it wouldn’t hurt to ask whether Paul had an alibi for that weekend.
When at last the meal was finished, Uncle Tom and Barnaby took their brandies and went off to the study to play checkers.
“Where can we go to talk?” Paul asked in a stage whisper.
Finn shook his head, rising. He led the way upstairs to Fitch’s bedroom. A little frisson rippled down his spine as he pushed the door open and turned on the light.
Looking around himself, Paul said, “This was his room?”
Finn nodded. There was an obstruction in his throat that made it difficult to speak.
The room was the twin of his own—same window seat flanked by dormer windows, same funny-sloping ceiling and long bookshelves. The heavy, mismatched furniture was similar—both rooms had been furnished from other rooms within the house. As with his own room, nothing had been moved or changed, although the room was neatly dusted, the bed made.
How weird to stand here in this room again. Finn closed his eyes, trying to remember, trying to…perhaps reach out to Fitch. But all he sensed was a room that hadn’t been used for a long time. He opened his eyes. There were photos stuck on the mirror over the dresser: a snapshot of himself crossing his eyes for Fitch’s camera, a much older picture of them together swimming, and several shots of people unknown to him. There was a small bowl on the dresser with loose change, a couple of fishing lures, and a pair of dice.
Paul opened the closet door. “His clothes are still here.”
Finn joined him, looking inside. There were some odds and ends pushed to the side. A fishing vest, a couple of flannel shirts, a heavy parka. “Those are mostly his older things. Stuff he’d outgrown or only wore here on the island. He took—well, someone took—most of what he’d brought with him that summer. His suitcases are gone.”
Paul backed out of the closet and looked around the room. “There’s not a lot here.”
“He didn’t like collecting junk.”
Fitch had never been one for acquiring possessions. He had a few books, not nearly the number Finn had—nothing from his childhood. There were no games, no equivalent of Finn’s collection of old sailboat models. There was a fishing pole behind the door and a tennis racket in the closet.
“Did he keep a journal?” Paul asked.
Finn shook his head.
Paul went over to the dresser and took the photos down from the mirror, one by one. “I know some of these people.”
Finn joined him, glancing at the familiar and unfamiliar faces. “Anyone with a grudge against him?”
Paul snorted. “I have no idea why, but most people thought Fitch was perfectly charming—even when he was screwing them over.”
Finn moved to the desk and examined the desktop calendar. It was open to August 18. There was nothing noted for the day. No “betray my brother before breakfast” reminder. He flipped through the back pages, but they were all blank. He said slowly, his thoughts on Uncle Thomas and Barnaby, “I can’t decide if they honestly don’t believe Fitch is dead, or if they’re afraid he really is.”
“I think they know he’s dead. I think your uncle has suspected it long enough that it’s not even a shock.”
Finn sighed. “They’re right, though. I can’t go to the police without something more than this.”
“You could file a missing persons report and let it follow its natural course. Let the police decide if there are grounds for a murder investigation.”
“Yes, but what they said is true. If I open this can of worms, there’s no way of controlling it.”
“So?”
“So? So if the police determine that a murder investigation is warranted, Con and I will both be prime suspects.”
Paul studied Finn, head tilted to one side. “Did you kill him?”
“Ha-ha.”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you had.”
“I didn’t kill my brother,” Finn said shortly. “If I had, I wouldn’t be pointing out to everyone that I thought he’d been murdered.”
“You might,” Paul said seriously. “If you thought it had been long enough that people were going to start wondering and asking questions.”
Finn said wearily, “If I had been going to kill anyone that day, it would have been myself. And I wasn’t about to kill myself.”
“You still had too many wonderful paintings left to give the world,” Paul trilled, waving his arm in a broad gesture toward the room’s only painting—one of Finn’s early studies of the lighthouse.
“Yeah, actually. You can laugh about it, but as miserable as I was, I still had a strong sense of the work I wanted to do. I knew it wasn’t always going to be as bad as it was right then.”
“I suppose that makes sense.” Paul eyed him speculatively. “And so you fled to me.”
“You were the only person I knew in Manhattan.”
“Now don’t spoil it, because I’ve always been immensely flattered that you came to me.”
Finn spluttered, “I told you that day when I apologized for barging in on you.”
“Shhhhh, don’t speak…no no no…don’t speak,” Paul said, seemingly channeling Dianne Wiest in Bullets Over Broadway. “Now that I think of it, I wonder why we never got together. We had an obvious natural bond.”
Was rage at Fitch an obvious natural bond? Finn answered, “Because I was still in love with Con and you were still in love with Fitch.”
For a long moment, Paul stared at him. He smiled—he had a surprisingly sweet smile. “I guess that’s true.” He put a hand on his hip, surveying the room thoughtfully. “All right. So if you were a body, where would you hide?”
Chapter Eight
It was a small island, but there were many places one could hide a body. It could be buried in Bell Woods or in the soft sand of the cave at Otter Cove. It could lie undiscovered beneath the wildflowers in one of the meadows or on a hillside beneath a cairn of stones.
The first challenge would be in transporting a corpse in broad daylight.
If Fitch had died at the lighthouse—and Finn and Paul could not agree on this point, as Paul did not concur that the scratches in the light tower looked like marks left by clawing fingernails. But for the sake of argument, if Fitch had died at the lighthouse…the simplest thing would have been to bury him there. The lighthouse was off the beaten track and there was less chance of discovery by a stray hiker’s dog. It also eliminated the need to move the body any distance.
“It wouldn’t be hard to lift you,” Paul commented, examining Finn, who was sitting on Fitch’s bed. “Even when you’re your normal weight, you’re pretty skinny. Maybe one forty, one forty-five? Fitch was more muscular—not a lot a heavier, though.”
“A deadweight is different.”
“Even so. I could do it. You could do it if you didn’t have to carry someone too far.”
Finn considered. “We should talk to Miss Minton. I don’t know if her memory is as sharp as it used to be, but in the old days, no one traveled the road to The Birches without her seeing them. Con said she saw him that day. She might have seen someone else.”
“Is there another way to get to this house beside
s the main road?”
“There isn’t another drive. There’s a trail that leads to the back of the property.” He remembered that Hiram had been clearing poison ivy out that day along the path.
There was a tap on the door frame, and both Finn and Paul jumped guiltily.
“You boys have been up here awhile,” Martha said, bringing a tray into the bedroom and setting it on the desk where Paul sat. “I brought you some hot chocolate and lobster butter cookies.”
Paul spluttered and put a hand over his mouth, his gaze finding Finn’s.
Martha straightened and eyed Finn sternly. “Mr. Carlyle called a little while ago. He wanted to make sure you got home safely.”
Paul laughed outright. Finn ignored him. He said to Martha, “Con and I argued. It’s not anything new.”
“I don’t understand these things,” she said. “It seems to me that Mr. Carlyle still has powerful feelings for you. And despite what you say, I think you still have feelings for him. Is that such a bad thing? It’s not like there’s so much love in the world that people can afford to go turning it away.”
Finn tried to imagine what Con must have said to Martha to inspire that little speech.
He opened his mouth, but Paul forestalled him, saying, “Martha, between us, who do you think might have killed Fitch?”
She turned slowly and stared at him. “I loved Fitch,” she said. “But I’ll tell you right now, sonny, you’re meddling in things best left alone. And you’re dragging Finn into dangerous waters with you.”
“No one’s dragging me into anything,” Finn said quietly. “If someone killed Fitch, I can’t ignore that.”
“There are all kinds of things we have to ignore every day,” Martha said. “Sometimes it’s better for everyone to let certain things go.”
“You’re talking about turning a blind eye to murder, not spitting on the sidewalk,” Paul said shrilly.
“I know exactly what I’m talking about,” Martha said grimly. She looked at Finn. “Don’t you stay up too late, Finn.”
Paul closed the door after her with a suggestion of a bang. Catching Finn’s expression, he burst out laughing.
* * * * *
It was still raining on Thursday morning, a steady wash of silver rain that was almost invisible in the gray daylight. Fog shrouded the sea, pierced here and there by a dripping tree. It did not look like a particularly auspicious day for sleuthing.
“You don’t think it’s going to snow, do you?” Paul asked, meeting Finn on his way down to breakfast.
“It’s not cold enough.”
“Are you kidding me? I thought the next ice age had come last night.”
Finn threw Paul a guilty glance. He’d been perfectly warm; Martha had brought him extra blankets before he’d fallen asleep. Well, perhaps there was a blanket shortage at The Birches these days. Or perhaps not.
Probably not—as Martha still seemed a little stern when they found her in the kitchen. She ordered them to the table and began piling their plates.
It brought back comfortable memories. The kitchen was very warm and smelled deliciously of bacon and coffee and cinnamon rolls. Martha had the radio on low as she listened to the weather report.
“Paul and I are going to borrow the station wagon this morning,” Finn told her as she refilled his coffee cup. “Unless you or Hiram need it for something?”
Martha directed a disapproving look at Paul, who was busily eating his haystack eggs—baked eggs on fried potato sticks with cheese and bacon topping.
“Dangerous driving conditions today,” she pronounced like a hash-slinging oracle.
“We’ll be careful.”
Martha hmphed. “I don’t need the car today.” She didn’t say more, though it was clear she wished to. Paul grimaced at his plate without looking up.
Breakfast finished, Finn and Paul climbed into the station wagon—Paul driving—and headed slowly and cautiously down the muddy road to Estelle Minton’s.
“So your uncle and the ex-school teacher… Are they…?” Paul peered over the steering wheel at the lazy whorl of fog before them.
“Are they— Huh?” Finn stared at him and did a double take. “Uncle Thomas and Barnaby? God no. They’ve been friends forever.”
“So?”
“You better get your gaydar recalibrated. Neither of them is a member of the sisterhood. I think Barnaby used to have a thing for Miss Minton, and Uncle Thomas was once engaged to a lady from the mainland.”
“What happened to the lady from the mainland?”
“The story is she declined to live on an island, and Uncle Tom couldn’t picture living anywhere else.”
“Uncle Tom is a little set in his ways, isn’t he?”
“Here it is,” Finn interrupted. “You can pull to the side of the road, but don’t get stuck in the mud.”
Most days Miss Minton could be found working out in her yard, but today there was no sign of her, although the battered pickup in the drive indicated she was home. White trails of fog wreathed the rosebushes and trees as though dragged there by the rain. A wheelbarrow sat tipped over next to stacked bags of fertilizer and soil amendment.
Finn swore as his cane sank into the mud, and Paul laughed.
“Need a hand?”
“How about a new leg?”
Crossing the deserted road, they entered through the gate. They knocked on the front door, and after a few seconds it opened. Miss Minton, dressed in comfortably baggy flannels and jeans, stared at them in surprise.
“Finn Barret. Something wrong at The Birches?”
“Nothing like that,” Finn said apologetically. “I was hoping to maybe have a word with you?”
“Well, well.” She directed a skeptical look at Paul. “I expect you’d better come in.”
They followed her into a large room with a picture window that looked out on the road. The room was comfortably furnished in crisp blue and white. A fire burned cheerfully in the grate. A black cat leisurely groomed itself on the pillow-piled sofa.
“Well, you’d better have a seat,” their hostess said. “This isn’t weather for fooling around on the roads. It must be something pretty important to bring you down here?”
Finn glanced at Paul, who was watching him, clearly wanting Finn to take charge here. Which was all very well, but it seemed sort of tactless to hint to Miss Minton he thought her longtime friends and neighbors might be murderers.
“This is going to seem like an odd request,” he said. “I wanted to put that famous memory of yours to the test.”
Miss Minton raised her eyebrows but said nothing.
“August, three years ago…Fitch and I both left the island.” He paused, but Miss Minton had nothing to say to that. “I left on the nineteenth. It was a Tuesday, about eleven o’clock in the morning. We always thought Fitch left on the previous Monday afternoon.”
“But?”
“But no one ever saw him again,” Finn said. “At least, if they did, they’re not admitting it.”
Miss Minton’s brows knitted. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Are you saying… What are you saying?”
“We think Fitch is dead,” Paul said as Finn groped for a less shocking way to break the news. “We think someone on this island might have killed him.”
Finn turned on him, and meeting that exasperated stare, Paul said, “What? That’s what we think!”
To Miss Minton, Finn said, “It does seem like Fitch never left the island, and what we were wondering was whether you remembered anything that might have stood out from the ordinary.”
“When?”
“That Monday. The eighteenth of August. I thought you might remember because it was during the time you were still taking art lessons from Uncle Tom.”
Miss Minton looked taken aback. “You expect me to remember something that happened three years ago? Such as what?”
“Like who traveled to and from The Birches that day.”
She was watching him with a peculiar al
ertness. “Ah,” she said finally. She seemed to look inward. At last she said, “My lessons were Mondays and Wednesdays, but I don’t remember taking a lesson that week.”
“Uncle Tom was supposed to fly to Boston or somewhere for an art show or a lecture. His flight was canceled on Monday, but he spent most of the day in Portland at the airport.”
“That’s right…” Miss Minton said slowly. “I do remember. Con walked past here about lunchtime right before I came in from the garden to change clothes. I don’t remember seeing him walk back, but he wasn’t at The Birches when I arrived about half an hour later. No one was there at all, and I came back home.”
“Did you see anyone else pass here on their way to The Birches that day?”
“It was a long time ago, Finn. I seem to remember your uncle driving past early in the evening. And you and Con walked by about an hour and a half after that.” Her smile was wry. “Con’s voice carried. I remember that.”
Finn colored.
“I’m surprised I remember that much after all this time,” Miss Minton commented, reaching for the cat and cuddling it in her arms.
“Why do you suppose that is?” Paul asked.
Miss Minton gave him a considering stare. “I don’t know. I guess the reason it stayed in my mind is because it was the summer—the very week, in fact—the Barret Boys left Seal Island.”
* * * * *
“She’s like something straight out of Stephen King,” Paul commented as they got back into the car. “Or possibly, What Not to Wear.”
“I don’t see that,” Finn replied irritably. Sometimes Paul’s casual unkindness reminded him of Fitch. “She’s had a hard life.”
“So had Dolores Claiborne. So had Cujo.”
Finn sat unmoving, not really listening. The fog blanketed the car in white, giving them the illusion of complete and utter privacy. “She used to be different when she was younger.”
