Passing Through Paradise

by Susan Wiggs

  Some people believed he was “living the dream”— he’d restored the forty-two-foot boat to a pristine liveaboard with an office, a snug galley, two staterooms and two baths. But without the kids, it was a ghost ship, adrift on unremembered dreams—now his only dream was to stay connected to the kids.

  The custody evaluator assigned to his case wasn’t into living the dream. Even though the kids were wild about the boat, the court-appointed evaluator gave the Fat Chance only temporary approval. Mike had until the start of the new school year to find a permanent residence. According to Loretta, he’d get better evaluations if he settled down in a proper house.

  Frustrated, he’d stayed up late last night, putting his thoughts together about the Babcock place. Earlier today, he had replaced her mailbox. It had only taken him about five minutes and he hadn’t even honked his horn to get her attention. He figured she’d know who had fixed it for her.

  Part of him wished he could tell the Winslow woman he wasn’t interested in her house, but another part wanted to tackle the challenge of a one-of-a-kind restoration. Besides, it was his best prospect for a long-term job. He studied the sea chart beside the computer, his eye going to the spidery lines marking the coast.

  He traced his finger from the port of Paradise to Blue Moon Beach. Six nautical miles. North by northeast. Maybe his luck was about to change.

  “Let’s go, Zeke.”

  The dog scrambled to the sliding-glass door and bolted the moment Mike cracked it open. Zeke vaulted ahead, leaping through the cockpit deck and onto the creaking dock, sniffing like crazy. Like he hoped to find something different in a place that never changed.

  Mike followed more slowly and stood in the hushed aftermath of the storm, listening to the hiss of the sea and the restless crying of gulls, watching the twilight glitter on the gale-churned water.

  And thinking about Sandra Winslow again.

  Who the hell was she, and why had Victor married her? He never made a random choice in his life, and he rarely made mistakes. That was supposed to be Mike’s specialty. But a year ago, Victor had wound up dead and Mike lived alone now, his only company a poodle with a bad haircut.

  The air held the sort of chill found only at the brittle edge of the New England coast. Mike turned up the collar of his parka and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets.

  “Hey, Mike.”

  He turned to see Lenny Carmichael coming toward him on the dock. A flat fisherman’s cap made Lenny seem even shorter and squatter than he was, so that he resembled a railroad spike someone had hit with a hammer. He moved with the ambling gait of a man who was never far from the sea. And he wasn’t. His father was a lobster fisherman; Lenny had joined the family business as soon as he was old enough to drop out of school.

  “Hey.” Mike nodded his head. “What do you know?”

  “I heard you were up at the lighthouse, fixing a broken window.”

  Privacy, Mike reflected, was in short supply in Paradise. “Yep,” he said. “Hell of a way to spend the afternoon.”

  “We missed you at Schillers. Archie bought everyone a round in your honor. You should have been there. You’re off to a good start, Mikey. There was never any doubt.”

  Mike thought it strange that people still held a high opinion of him, even after all these years.

  “Gloria sent you this.” Lenny set down a loosely closed cardboard box. “She made too much, like always.” He spoke with the flat, elongated Rhode Island accent the locals all tried to lose if they wanted to get somewhere in life. Lenny, of course, didn’t want to go anywhere. Neither did Gloria. She liked feeding people. Especially guys who’d been dumped by their wives.

  Mike knew what he’d find in the box. A big, boiled lobster worth seventy-five bucks in a Manhattan restaurant, a couple of dinner rolls, potatoes swimming in butter. At first, Mike had been embarrassed by Gloria’s charity. To be honest, it had pissed him off. But a pissed-off guy could never intimidate Gloria Carmichael. She was married to Lenny, after all.

  “Be sure to thank her,” Mike said. “She doesn’t have to keep feeding me, though.”

  “I’ll tell her thanks, but not the other,” Lenny said. “She was just saying she’s sick of looking at the rotten railing of our front porch. I bet she’ll be calling you soon.”

  “Tell her I don’t accept cash, checks or credit cards. Only food.”

  “She’ll love that. What can I say? My old lady likes cooking better than sex.”

  “Maybe that’s why the restaurant’s such a hit,” Mike suggested. A couple of years back, Gloria had opened a summer shack up at Point Judith, selling lobster rolls and egg salad sandwiches to tourists from Boston and New York.

  “I’d rather have the sex,” Lenny grumbled.

  “I hear you, buddy. I hear you.”

  “So,” Lenny went on, “things are going okay for you.”

  Considering the lightning speed of the local gossip network, Mike decided he’d best let his old friend know what he was up to. “I got a lead on a big job off Ocean Road. On Curlew.” He pretended the idle comment had just occurred to him. “I’m putting in a bid to restore the old Babcock place.”

  “The Winslow woman’s house, you mean?” Lenny gave a low whistle. “She didn’t waste any time, spending her husband’s money.”

  “There’s no deal yet,” Mike said.

  “Gloria’d tell you to milk her for all she’s worth.”

  “What’s Gloria got against Sandra Winslow?”

  “The woman’s young, good-looking and she got away with murder. What’s not to hate?” Lenny spread his hands. “The wife’s been following that scandal like a soap opera, on account of it’s local. Say, didn’t you used to be really tight with Victor Winslow?”

  “When we were kids. We lost touch.” Mike remembered how he’d been back then, filled with pride that he was actually going off to college, the first of his family to do so. He felt as though someone had taken the shrinkwrap off his ambitions, at last. For two years he had soared, playing football, making the grade, dating the head cheerleader, devouring life like a giant submarine sandwich, all for him.

  Then came the tackle that had ripped his right knee into separate parts, the dismissal from the team, three surgeries . . . and finally Angela. The head cheerleader had shown up in his hospital room, brandishing a small white stick with a pink plus sign on one end. Pregnant. He had to quit school, get a job and marry her.

  “So what’s the Black Widow of Blue Moon Beach like, up close and personal?” Lenny asked.

  Mike studied the line of bobbing fishing vessels, their skeletal arms raised against the darkening sky. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. Her house needs fixing, and I need the work.” He knew he wouldn’t tell Lenny that she’d been crying when he met her, that she looked amazing in blue jeans and rubber boots, that her voice was soft and husky and that she never once smiled.

  “Gloria still thinks she’s guilty as mortal sin.” Lenny bumped the toe of his shoe against an iron cleat. “I mean, the car went right off the bridge, for chrissake. The dame got herself out, not a scratch on her. Meanwhile, he’s shark bait.”

  “Maybe when the car was sinking, she only had time to get herself out.”

  “She claims she doesn’t remember squat about the wreck. Selective amnesia, if you ask me.”

  “You don’t believe her?”

  “Hell, nobody believes her.”

  “Then why the accident ruling? Why not charge her?”

  “I guess that shyster lawyer from Newport fixed things.” He took out an old burl pipe and tucked tobacco into the bowl. “I just feel sorry as hell for the guy’s family. Really nice folks, the Winslows. They didn’t deserve this.”

  Mike felt a twinge of guilt when he thought of Victor’s parents. Ronald Winslow had returned from Vietnam with a purple heart and a crushed spinal cord. Challenged rather than defeated by his disability, he’d graduated with honors from Harvard Divinity School and had become pastor of the
largest Protestant church in southern Rhode Island.

  He’d married Winifred van Deusen for love, though it was a great convenience that she came with a large, inherited fortune. They’d doted on their only child, putting all their dreams into Victor.

  The thought of losing a child made Mike’s blood run cold.

  He’d better pay the Winslows a call, tell them he was planning to work on Sandra’s house. He wanted the job, needed it, but he owed it to the family to let them know.

  Lenny lit his pipe, shielding the lighter with his cupped hand. Zeke came skittering along the dock, something disgusting held in his jaws, dripping down his untrimmed chin whiskers. He dropped it at Mike’s feet. Today’s catch was a clump of black mussels strung together with a tough beard of seaweed. Mike kicked it over the edge of the dock and into the water.

  Lenny puffed on his pipe. “When are you going to get a real dog, Mike?”

  “I didn’t pick him. I’m just the sucker that wound up with him. Anyway, the kids are nuts about Zeke.”

  “I guess you’re stuck with him, then.”

  “Yeah.” Mike acknowledged that Mary Margaret and Kevin were his whole world, the reason he got up in the morning, the reason he took the next breath of air.

  His immediate reaction to the divorce had been to secure his rights as a father. He’d spent pretty much all he had, fighting for time with the kids. But in the end, Angela dictated the visitation schedule. Married to a wealthy Newport restaurateur, repped by the hottest family law firm money could buy, she won it all—the house, the kids, her father’s stake in the construction firm. Mike had been granted limited visitation with the kids, and for now, his home was the old trawler his father used to take out fishing. Angela’s money and the right lawyer could tip the scales of justice, so that a mother’s indiscretion was considered insignificant, and the environment less harmful to his children than sleeping on a pair of bunks on his boat.

  “So the Babcock job’s going to keep you busy?” Lenny asked.

  “Maybe,” said Mike, “if she likes my proposal.”

  “She better be damned grateful you’re willing to help her at all.”

  “I can’t be picky about where the work comes from, not right now.”

  Lenny tapped the bowl of his pipe on the heel of his shoe. “I better be going. Got to get an early start in the morning. See you around, Mikey.”

  “See you.” Mike whistled through his teeth, and Zeke came running. It was warm in the galley of the trawler; at least that was what Mike told himself. He tried not to burn too much propane for heat. Except when the kids were with him. He’d set his own hair on fire if it would keep his kids warm.

  Chapter 5

  Journal Entry—January 5—Saturday Afternoon

  Ten Things to Eat Without Cooking

  1. Carrot and celery sticks with nonfat ranch dressing.

  2. A Macintosh apple.

  3. A slice of melba toast.

  4. A cup of nonfat cottage cheese.

  5. A handful of dry-roasted peanuts.

  6. Popcorn with no butter or salt.

  7. Popcorn with a ton of butter and salt.

  8. A bag of deep-fried pork rinds.

  9. A quart of Cherry Garcia ice cream.

  10. A pound of Godiva chocolate.

  The blisters were healing. At twilight, Sandra stood over the kitchen sink, unraveled gauze trailing from her wrists as she inspected her palms. She was washing her hands when she heard a truck roll up.

  A FedEx. Running very late.

  It could mean anything. The ordeal of the past year had taught her to expect the worst.

  Hurrying to the front door, she signed for the flat, nearly weightless envelope and thanked the bored-looking driver, who seemed relieved to have reached his last stop of the day.

  Zipping through the seal, she opened the parcel to find a long, perforated business check from Claggett, Banks, Saunders & Lefkowitz, the firm she’d engaged after Victor’s death. The memo on the check stub noted succinctly that this was the first payment from the insurance settlement, less the firm’s fee for obtaining it. The insurance company had, of course, termed Sandra’s claim fraudulent because Victor’s body was never recovered. But the ME’s ruling of death, based on brutally clear circumstantial evidence, had brought the situation to a grim conclusion.

  She stared, unblinking, at the check in her hand. So this was it. Victor’s life, reduced to a dollar amount.

  An unsettled feeling stirred in her chest. Setting the check on the hall table, she stepped out onto the porch, into the cold evening. She walked down to the yard, haunted now by shadows of deepest indigo and by a breeze that still held the muscle of the afternoon storm.

  She’d come to love the wild, isolated coast, the stark views and the clean-washed smell in the aftermath of a storm. Could she ever find a place like this again? Running her thumb along the peeling paint of the porch rail, she tried not to allow her heart to ache over having to go, but regrets kept pounding at her, relentless as the waves. She’d spent the past year trying not to feel anything, and the effort was beginning to exhaust her. It’s just a stupid old falling-down house, she told herself. She should feel glad she was getting rid of it.

  “Ah, Victor,” she said to the searching wind. “I wish you could give me a sign. Tell me what to do.” One of the hardest things about being alone was that there was no one to toss things around with, no one to consult. She was on her own, rafting through unknown waters, and hadn’t a clue about whether or not she was choosing the right course.

  Heading to the shed to get more firewood, she glanced toward the road and stopped in her tracks. Then, with inborn caution, she walked to the side of the road.

  There, atop a square post next to the ditch, was a new mailbox of galvanized steel, with the address stuck on in reflective numbers.

  Malloy, she thought. When had he fixed this? He really was a drive-by handyman.

  Chilled by the night air, she hurried back inside and fed another log to the iron stove. Then she settled on the sofa to go through the mail. It was the usual assortment of junk solicitations and bills. NRA stuff again. Why were they always after her? She supposed because Victor had been so firmly in favor of gun control. Setting aside the mail, she picked up the phone to let her lawyer know the check had arrived. Although he’d not been her favorite person, Milton Banks had been her advocate through the entire investigation, and when the ruling had come down Thursday afternoon, he’d been ebullient.

  When his voice mail clicked on, she started speaking, only to be interrupted by Milton himself, live and inperson.

  “So you got it. Ha! Are we quick or what?” he demanded in a working-class Boston accent. “You can rest easy for now.”

  So can you, she thought, considering the size of the firm’s fee.

  “I won’t be resting,” she said. “I have plans.”

  He hesitated. “What kind of plans?”

  “I’m going to fix up this house, sell it and get the heck out of Dodge.”

  “Christ, Sandra, you ought to know better.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you take off now, it’ll look like you’re fleeing.”

  “I am.” She curled the phone cord around her index finger.

  He was quiet for a moment. “Look, I told you, the ruling’s only the first battle. Just because they didn’t find probable cause doesn’t mean you’re home free.”

  A chill touched the base of her spine. “But I am. Home. And free.”

  “Of course you are,” he said quickly. “But what’s your hurry? Stick around. Do it on your own, so the court doesn’t order you to.”

  “I’ve stuck around for a year, Milton.” The icy apprehension slid through her and tightened in her gut.

  “I warned you about this months ago. Regardless of what the ME found, there’s going to be a civil suit. The Winslows’ attorneys have been researching their case for months.”

  Irritation pushed through her f
ear. Milton had warned her to expect trouble, but she put it out of her mind. The idea that her in-laws would sue her shouldn’t come as a surprise—nothing should. The unbelievable had already happened. “How do you know it’ll even materialize?”

  She could hear the long pause of an inhale while Milton lit a cigarette, then exhaled into the receiver. “Because I’m a good lawyer. They’ve been in pre-suit prep forever, poking around for leads. Dollars to donuts they’re getting ready to file as we speak. Mark my words—they want somebody to go down, Sandra, and you’re the one. You were in the driver’s seat that night. Sorry to say, they’ve got options—negligent, careless, reckless—they might even try to pin ‘intentional’ on you. So brace yourself.”

  She pressed her teeth together until her jaw ached, holding in a scream. Unwinding the phone cord, she drummed her fingers on the receiver. The old affliction strangled her, and it took several seconds of breathing exercises before she could force her next words out. “The place needs a lot of work, so we’ve got some time,” she informed Milton. “But believe me, the minute it’s fixed, I’m out of here, lawsuit or no lawsuit.”

  “Just relax, kiddo. No judge will let this go to trial on such flimsy evidence. They’ll have to find something a lot more compelling than they’ve uncovered so far.”

  Sandra gripped the receiver so hard that her healing blisters stung. There was plenty of evidence to find, and if it came to light, she was toast.

  Chapter 6

  Journal Entry—January 6—Sunday

  10 Things to Do on a Sunday Morning

  1. The NYT crossword puzzle.

  2. Make pancakes in the shape of lawyers.

  3. Go to church.

  Sandra stared at item number three, and her heart sped up. Could she? Did she dare?

  Until she actually wrote the words, she didn’t realize that the outrageous idea had been hovering at the edge of her mind, pulling at her even as she tried to push it away.