Devlin's Light

by Mariah Stewart

  “Why, I do believe you’ve done this before.” India grinned, and Corri collapsed in gales of laughter as powerful and as vital as the sobs that had earlier engulfed her. She rolled onto her back on the quilt, still giggling at having outmaneuvered India. Shielding her eyes from the blazing sun, she sat halfway up and called, “Hi, Nick!”

  India turned in time to see the tall, lean form of Nick Enright make its way across the sand. Cutoff jeans revealed amazingly tanned legs, and a pale yellow tank top stretched across his equally darkened shoulders and broad chest. Curly dark brown hair hunkered down beneath a red Philadelphia Phillies baseball cap worn brim-backward. Dark glasses hid his eyes, but she remembered they were light brown, the color of clover honey, of molasses. He smiled, and twin dimples punctuated the corners of his mouth. Had she been too distraught the day before to have noticed?

  And why, she wondered, had Darla not told her about Nicholas Enright?

  “Hi, sugar plum.” Nick reached down and grabbed Corri by one of her bare toes and gave it a little shake, and she giggled.

  He slid his glasses off and turned to India.

  “How are you today?” he asked as if it mattered.

  “Doing better.” She nodded. “Little by little …”

  “Good,” he told her. “I’m happy to hear it.”

  “We’re going to have some lemonade and then we’re going to go home and put on bathing suits and come back and swim and then have a picnic,” Corri announced all in one breath.

  “All that in one morning?” Nick asked earnestly.

  “Yup.” Corri bounced on her knees to the cooler, which she struggled to open. Nick bent down and removed the cap for her.

  Without asking, India poured a glass of lemonade for him and passed it to him, then poured two more. She sat down on the quilt next to Corri, who downed the cool liquid in record time. Just as quickly, Corri refilled her cup, then danced down to the water’s edge to stand in the surf wash and wiggle her toes in the warm bay water.

  “Corri seems a little better today,” Nick noted as he lowered himself to sit on the blanket’s edge.

  “She finally had a good long cry,” India told him, “and I think that helped her enormously.”

  “And you?”

  “I’ve had more than my share of cries this past week,” she said, sipping at her drink, “and none of them seemed to have helped at all.”

  “You know, if there’s anything I can do for you, for your family …”

  “Help us find the person who killed my brother.”

  “If I could do that, it would have been done already.”

  “Sooner or later Ry’s killer will be found,” India insisted. “The answer is always there if you read the evidence the right way.”

  “There was no evidence,” he reminded her.

  “There is always something, Nick. It just hasn’t been found. Or recognized.”

  “You really believe that?”

  “I have to.” She shrugged. “There is someone who knows what happened.”

  “Right. The killer. And all we have to do is figure out who that person is.”

  “It isn’t impossible.”

  “It becomes less and less probable every day, India, but I would guess that you, out of all of us, would best know that.”

  “Someone lured Ry to the lighthouse that night. There was no reason for him to have been there. You said yourself it was a beautiful, calm night. A full moon. No storms. No reason to shine a light from the tower. So someone must have called him, arranged to meet him there.”

  “Well, no one’s been able to come up with a likely suspect, India.”

  “Why would someone want to meet him in the middle of the night? Someone who wouldn’t want to be seen speaking with him?” She frowned as she pondered this. “Why wouldn’t someone want to be seen with him?”

  She stood up and began to pace unconsciously, still speaking, but it was obvious to Nick that she was thinking aloud.

  “Or maybe … someone who had a grudge, a quarrel … a reason to wish him harm …”

  “India, I’ve asked myself those same questions a dozen times.”

  “If we don’t keep asking, we’ll never find the answer.” She stopped and studied his face. “Nick, you’ve lived on the bay for the past year, you must know who is making a living off the crabs, who is fishing for a living these days. And it might help to know who was opposing Ry’s plans to open the beach to tourists during the bird migrations.”

  “I can find out.” Nick nodded.

  “Good. Maybe between the two of us, we’ll come up with something that will help Chief Carpenter to narrow the field. And I still want to come out to the cabin.”

  “Anytime,” Nick offered without hesitation. He had wanted to approach her, to find an excuse to get to know her better, to spend some time with her. If he had to become her personal part-time private investigator to do that, so be it.

  “I think I want it to be on a night when the lighting is the same.”

  “Sort of to re-create the atmosphere?” he suggested.

  “As much as possible.” She nodded. “Of course, there won’t be a full moon for almost another month. I should be back by then.”

  “You’re leaving?” He appeared surprised, as if the thought had not occurred to him that she would leave so soon.

  “I have to. I have a trial set for next week. I’ve done all the work on this case myself and I don’t want to hand it over to anyone else.” Her eyes narrowed. “This particular piece of offal needs to be put away for a very long time.”

  “Sounds personal.”

  “Anytime a man preys upon children, it’s personal.” Her jaw set like stone, India tossed the remaining drops of liquid from her cup onto the sand with a deliberate flick of her wrist.

  “When do you think you’ll be back?”

  “Well, if the trial starts on schedule—which is always impossible to predict—I don’t expect more than a week of testimony. Unless more witnesses crawl out of the woodwork, which can happen with a case like this one. Then I have two more trials coming up.” She shrugged. “I need to sit down with my files and see how much time off I can get, and when.”

  “Well, if you think of anything you want me to do, you know that you only have to call.”

  “Thanks, Nick.”

  Later, she would think back on that moment and wonder if there had not been something there in his eyes. Something meant truly just for her. She would never know, however, what that something might have been, since Corri chose that moment to come flying back up the beach.

  “A peregrine! There, look there, up on the dune!” Corri danced up and down in delight, whispering loudly.

  She pointed a finger trembling with excitement. There, on one of the remaining posts of what had once been a fence across the crest of the dune, sat the bird, regal and lethal.

  “See, Indy, that’s why there’re all gone,” she whispered loudly. “All the birds have left the beach. That’s why they’re all hiding someplace, so that he can’t see them.”

  The falcon turned toward them, bestowed an imperious glance, as if aware of their admiration, then dropped with grave elegance from the fence post. It swept over and past them as it flew toward the lighthouse and the marsh beyond.

  “That’s the same one Ry and I tracked last spring. I know it is.” Corri’s eyes shone brightly. “He always sits there and flies over to there. Isn’t he beautiful?”

  “Magnificent,” India agreed.

  “Can we get our suits now?” Corri begged. The bird, now out of sight, was in fact out of mind, and so on with the agenda.

  “I was just leaving.” Nick stood up, then reached a hand down to assist India. His hands were large, as she had noted on their first meeting, slightly callused, but gentle. He held on to the tips of her fingers and asked, “When do you plan on leaving?”

  “Probably in the morning.”

  “Tomorrow?” Corri’s head shot up, her eyes widening. “You
’re leaving tomorrow?”

  “I have to go back to the city to finish a job that I started,” she said softly, sensing the child’s panic.

  “What kind of job?” Corri was clearly on the verge of tears.

  “The police arrested a very bad man who did very bad things to some very good children,” India explained. “My job is to tell the judge and the jury what the bad man did, so that the jury will decide to send the man to jail for a very long time.”

  Corri thought this over. “Will you come back?”

  “Of course. As soon as I can, sweetie.““And you’ll stay?”

  “For as long as I can,” India promised. “In the meantime, you’ll have Aunt August.”

  “Aunt August doesn’t like to fish.” Corri shoved her hands into the pockets of her shorts.

  “Hey, what about me?” Nick feigned insult. “I can’t fish?”

  “Would you want to take me someday?” she asked hopefully.

  “Sugar plum, I would take you with me every day.”

  “And crabbing too? Aunt August hates to go crabbing. She says, it’s a waste of time at her age to float around the bay waiting for the crabs to bite when she can go right down to the dock and buy them by the bushel and it only takes fifteen minutes.”

  “Well, I can’t say that I won’t feel the same as she does when I get to be her age, so maybe I should get all my crabbing in now, while I still enjoy killing a few hours just floating on the bay.”

  “Early in the morning is best, Ry said,” Corri confided.

  “Looks like you found a partner, Nick,” India said, laughing, “though you might end up doing a lot more crabbing and fishing than you had bargained for.”

  “It’s okay,” he said softly. “I enjoy her company. And we’re pals, right, Corri?”

  “Right.” Corri slapped the open palm he held out to her. “So can we go tomorrow? Aunt August will cook ’em if we catch ’em. And clean ’em, of course. That’s what she always told Ry and me.”

  “They will be caught and cleaned and all ready for your Aunt August to cook.”

  “Yippee.” Corri danced from the blanket onto the sand. “Ow!”

  “What did you step on?” India bent down to inspect the bottom of Corri’s foot.

  “A sharp shell!” Corri wailed, pointing to the offending piece of clamshell.

  “Well then, looks like I’ll have to give you a ride back to the house.” Nick swept her into the air and plopped her onto his shoulders. The small cut on her foot immediately forgotten, Corri threw her thin arms around his neck and squealed her approval.

  Nick took a few steps toward the dune, then turned to call over his shoulder to India, “Are you with us?”

  “Yes,” she said, “I am with you.”

  “Good.” His eyes narrowed slightly as he watched her approach. “I’m all out of shoulders, but I can offer you a hand.”

  He held one out to her, and she took it.

  “A hand will do just fine today,” she said quietly as she folded her fingers into his and walked with him across the dune.

  Chapter 4

  “Aunt August, what do you know about Nick Enright?” Feigning a nonchalance that didn’t fool either her or her aunt, India poured cream from a blue and white pitcher into the morning’s first cup of coffee while she rummaged through the flatware drawer in search of a spoon.

  “Nick?” August set her own cup down on the counter and opened the back door to allow some early morning breeze to fill the kitchen. The last bit of dawn lingered in the semidarkness, but already the birds were gathering to sing in the branches of the pines. August never seemed to get enough of their songs.

  “Well, I know he was a good friend to Ry, India.” August sat down on the edge of the bench forming the window seat overlooking the side yard. From there she could watch the wrens. “And that he’s been a good friend to me. What exactly did you want to know?”

  “Who is he?” India wished it hadn’t come out in such a blurt, but there it was. “Where did he come from? Why is he in Devlin’s Light?”

  “Ry met Nick in graduate school at Rutgers years back. I believe they were both going for their master’s in marine biology at the time. They stayed in touch afterward. Nick visited several times over the past few years.” August sipped cautiously at her coffee, testing the temperature of the brew, and, finding it to her satisfaction, took another sip or two before continuing. “Nick decided to go for his doctorate and began a study on the ecosystem of the bay, what species were here ten thousand years ago, five thousand years ago, a thousand, which are still present in one form or another today. How the bay has changed, and how it is likely to evolve, and so on.”

  “You seem to know a lot about him,” India noted.

  “We spent many an hour talking about the bay, Nick and Ry and I. Nick spends a lot of time here,” August said, then corrected herself, “or at least he did. I hope he still will. For Corri’s sake. And for mine. I’d miss his conversation and his company, I don’t mind saying.”

  “That’s why Ry talked me into agreeing to sell the old crabbers cabin to Nick.”

  “Yes. And I have to say that at first, there was no one more surprised than I was when Ry told me he was selling it. There hasn’t been so much as a foot of Devlin land sold in over a hundred years, since your greatgrandfather sold off that parcel to the town for the park and the library. Charged ’em a whole dollar for the entire transaction. But after I got to know Nick a little better, I knew it was a good thing. He respects the bay, respects its life. He’s been an asset to Devlin’s Light, I don’t mind saying so.”

  “Somehow I can’t seem to picture him living in that little ramshackle cabin.” India smiled, amused at the thought of the handsome Mr. Enright sharing his limited living space with a couple of raccoons.

  “Oh, but you haven’t seen it lately.” August’s eyes began to twinkle. “Nick’s mother came down from someplace outside of Philadelphia and practically had it totally rebuilt.”

  “What?”

  “The cabin. His mother sent some builders down to ‘fix it up a little,’ she told Ry. I can tell you that there’s none of the old crabbers who’d recognize it now.” August chuckled, not for the first time, at the thought of the cabin’s former tenants’ reactions to the new bath and kitchen, the fireplace, the deck, the Berber carpet on the newly installed hardwood floors.

  “His mother did that?” Somehow, Nick Enright had not quite struck India as a “momma’s boy.”

  “Oh, didn’t you know that his mother is Delia Enright?”

  “The writer?” India’s eyes widened. Delia Enright, internationally acclaimed for her series of mysteries, was the only writer whose books India always bought on the day they were released onto the book shelves. “Delia Enright is his mother?”

  “Indeed she is. And I can tell you that she is just so lovely.”

  “You’ve met her?”

  “Oh, yes. She has visited several times.” August refilled both coffee cups while India scraped a little butter onto two English muffins. “She just sort of swept right down on that little cabin and took over. But if the truth were to be told, Nick seemed amused by it all. Oh, yes, Delia definitely has a way about her.”

  “I am a huge fan of hers,” India told her.

  “Really?” August asked, as if she did not know. As if she did not have autographed copies of Delia’s last two books tucked away under her bed as Christmas presents for Indy.

  “She’s a wonderful storyteller.” India was oblivious to August’s sly smile of pleasure at having obtained a gift she knew would delight her niece.

  “Yes, that she is.” August sat a crock of Liddy’s homemade sour cherry preserves on the table.

  India sat down and began to nibble on her muffin, trying to envision what a new kitchen might look like in the old crabbers cabin.

  “Don’t act as if you’re not interested, India.”

  “Interested in what?”

  “In Nick.” Augu
st folded her arms across her chest. “Don’t even try to pretend you haven’t noticed him.”

  “Why, I …” Suddenly feeling like a fourteen-year-old again, India stammered, then blushed, then laughed out loud.

  “Of course I noticed. How could I not notice?” She laughed. “How could anyone not notice a man who looks like that?”

  “That’s a relief.” August sighed and spread some jam on her muffin. “I was beginning to think you’d been working so hard for so long that you’d forgotten what a man looked like.”

  “There are times when I have done exactly that,” India conceded.

  “Well, Nick Enright’s not a man to be soon forgotten.” August met India’s eyes across the table. “I don’t mind saying that I don’t know what I would have done without him that first day. And you know, Indy, Nick—”

  “Damn, look at the time.” Sparing herself her aunt’s recitation of Nick’s virtues, which she was certain was about to follow, India stood up and gulped down the last few remaining mouthfuls of coffee in her cup. “It normally takes me three hours to drive back, and the rain will slow me down. Do you think it will last?”

  “The weather report is for thunderstorms,” August replied, pleased to have confirmed that Nick had in fact caught Indy’s attention.

  India disappeared through the doorway, on her way to the second floor to grab her things and prepare to leave. August heard the squeaking of the third step from the bottom as India’s foot fell upon it as she raced up the steps, heard the door to the third bedroom—Corri’s room—open and close again softly. Corri had been permitted to stay up late the night before to help Indy pack, so it was unlikely she’d wake before Indy left. India’s soft footfall was almost imperceptible, but August knew that her niece was tracing the steps to the back bedroom. Ry’s room. The same room he had slept in as a child had been the room he had returned to after Maris’s accident and he and August had agreed that Corri needed to be surrounded by as much family as possible. August had welcomed him home and been delighted to have Corri move in with them. It had been so long since the house had been filled with young people.