Embers

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Right now he felt almost brave, picking his way around the exposed, rank, half-dried seaweed. When he got to Bar Island, Wyler breathed an irrational sigh of relief. Here he was. Now what?

  He'd brought a book in his backpack, a history of Bar Harbor that included an account of the fire. He didn't dare admit it to Meg or Allie, but he'd been absolutely fascinated by Orel Tremblay's story of the evacuation from the town dock, and that was part of the reason he was here now. He found a comfortable spot on the west side of Bar Island, across the water from the town pier where everyone had assembled in fear that long-ago night.

  Today, at least, the setting was idyllic: warm and sunny and still. Wyler took off his shirt, then his shoes and socks, and rolled up his khakis. The ticktock of time flattened into a monotonous hum, the drone of buzzing insects. For the first time since he'd arrived, Wyler felt totally relaxed. He decided to begin his history at the beginning, on page 1.

  He read for a while, turning the pages lazily, stopping now and then to gaze at the huge old shorefront "cottages" across the way that had been spared by the fire, or to listen to the earsplitting din of a passing lobster boat, its unmuffled engines piercing the pristine silence of the morning.

  Sometime after chapter 3, he fell asleep.

  ****

  The crowd that had gathered was big, the first sign that the hostage crisis had gone on too long. He got out of the squad car and went up to the containment officers. "So what have we got?" he said.

  "Everyone in the building's out, except for the hostage taker and the little girl. We've got the girl's mother — the guy's girlfriend — in custody; she's zonked out of her mind. Useless. The guy swears he went to school with you. St. Teresa's on Campbell Street? That right?"

  "Yeah. For a year."

  "He said you got whacked on the knuckles more than he did. That you wanted to be an airline pilot. That he wanted to be a priest."

  "Who remembers?"

  "Apparently the girlfriend said she's leaving him. He freaked. The kid's not his, by the way. Anyway, he won't send her out until he talks to you. He's thrown out a gun. One gun. The kid's name is Cindy."

  "Everyone in place?"

  "Oh, yeah."

  "Okay, where's the hookup?"

  But there was no response to his "Eddy, this is Tom Wyler." Only blubbering. He could make out the words "not my fault." Then more blubbering.

  "Eddy, listen to me. Send out the little girl. Send out Cindy. And then you and I will talk."

  "Can't ... do that ... you ... come in ..." Wracking sobs. "Nothing ever ... turns out right."

  Drugs, booze. But did Eddy have another gun?

  He handed the phone back to the negotiator. Their approach was by the book. Backup in place. The hail was lit; no problem there. The apartment door was open, a good sign. Only one little thing, the filthy quilt bundled on the floor in the hail. Wyler pushed it with his foot. It resisted. He bent down ... lifted one corner.

  A four-year-old, blue eyes open, blue eyes blank. Thick black lashes. Pretty. Cindy. Dead. Jesus.

  Then a shot, two shots, three shots, all in slow motion. An answering hail of shots from behind him, thunderous.

  He was down, his leg on fire, the seaweed wrapping itself around him, pulling him down, pulling him under, on fire.

  ****

  Wyler jolted awake from his island nap in time to hear the explosive rat-a-tat of a lobster boat's unmuffled engine as it passed nearby. He was sweating profusely; his hair was drenched.

  Not again.

  He thought he'd put the dream behind him; he hadn't relived the episode since his arrival at Bar Harbor. Dammit. He was back at square one.

  Wyler stood up, stiff all over, and was struck by an instant, bone-piercing chill: the sea breeze had filled in, dropping the temperature ten degrees. He looked at his watch: almost noon. Noon! Noon was not when low tide was. He dressed slowly — he was sunburned, of course — and limped back to the sandbar without much hope.

  He'd read about swift Maine tides, but this was ridiculous: the highway of sand was gone, rolled over by whitecapped seas. Forget walking, wading, or swimming. In a helicopter, maybe. He jammed his cane into the sand in disgust. Two hours until high tide, six more after that before he saw the sandbar again.

  Elemental physics, he'd told her.

  He tried signaling a runabout, but the boat was too busy running about. A sailboat glided into sight, but its sails blocked him from its owner's view. Eventually a lobster boat showed up nearby, but it went deliberately on its way despite Wyler's yells and whistles.

  Finally another boat, a slow-moving skiff with an outboard, began heading his way from the Bar Harbor side. Clearly he'd been spotted. Throwing his dignity to the wind, Wyler began waving his cane and his backpack in wide arcs above his head. As the skiff drew nearer the shore, it became obvious that the person on the helm was a woman, and one he knew.

  He swore under his breath as Meg Hazard hove into view. Anyone but her. The only thing worse than being a fool was having announced it beforehand. Time and tide wait for no one. Shit.

  "Hey, there," he said in a loud, utterly false voice as the skiff drew near. "Fancy meeting you here."

  "Small world," Meg shouted, doing her best, he thought, to suppress a snotty smile.

  She cut the outboard, turned, and released the engine to lift its prop out of the water, all in one fluid motion, as the nose of the skiff anchored itself on the small strip of beach that was still exposed. Clearly she knew her way around the water.

  "Hop in."

  Wyler climbed over the bow and dropped into the skiff with a thunk. He swallowed the jolt of pain that shot through his leg and smiled briskly. "Go ahead," he said, inviting her razzing. "I deserve it."

  "Hey," Meg said with a shrug. She took a weathered oar from the bottom of the skiff and shoved off with it, then lowered the prop back into the water and started up the engine, backing down from the shore.

  "Probably this kind of thing happens all the time, tourists getting stranded," he said hopefully.

  "Not usually."

  She sat down on the aft seat; he followed her example amidships. "So how did you find me?" he asked, although a voice inside told him to never mind.

  "A boater must've seen you and passed it on; I heard it on the police scanner."

  "Super." He sighed in disgust and looked away. When he turned back to her, he was surprised to see that she was studying him intently. Caught in the act, she blushed and said, "You got burned today."

  "I nodded off. Blame it on Bar Harbor."

  She didn't answer.

  "Still mad?" he asked playfully.

  Again he'd caught her by surprise; her blush deepened, giving her cheeks a healthy, rosy glow. The wind whipped her chestnut hair across her face and he noticed for the first time how sun streaked it was. Angry or embarrassed, Meg looked very attractive just then. She ‘s in her element, he decided. Being outdoors suits her. Her sister was made for candlelight and dancing. Meg was made for — well, for this.

  "Yeah, I'm mad," she said calmly, squinting in the sun. "I don't see why you can't help me out on this. You're here. You know the ropes. You could at least tell me how to get started."

  "On —?"

  "Oh, come on, Lieutenant; don't play dumb. I'm talking about Gordon Camplin. If you don't want to advise me, just say so."

  "Okay. I'm saying so."

  "How can you say that? What if he's guilty?"

  "What if he isn't?"

  "He could easily have gotten carried away by my grandmother! He could easily have become obsessed! Men do that!"

  "All too often."

  "Then what's the problem?"

  "Men are doing that now; that's the problem. Everyday, everywhere. They ‘re the ones I have to —"

  "Oh, like you have to ration your energy to track down murderers."

  "That's right. I'm rationing."

  "But you're not doing anything. You have the time!"

  "I am
doing something!" he said, out of patience with her at last. "I'm putting myself back together again. Call it the Humpty Dumpty syndrome."

  "I can't believe this; where's your sense of outrage?"

  "I'm fresh out of outrage just now," he shot back. "I left all I had with a four-year-old named Cindy. You want outrage? Check her coffin," he said viciously.

  "Well —" She faltered, then rallied. "Well, excuse me," she said, grabbing a stern line. "Around here we keep going till the job's done. We don't have the luxury of taking timeouts to renew our spirits," she said, spitting out the last word with contempt.

  "Around here you don't need the luxury of time-outs. Every day is a time-out."

  "Really? Wait until August," she said, throwing the outboard into neutral. She played the wind perfectly; the skiff glided to a perfect stop alongside a small floating dock. Above them a grizzled old-timer sat fishing on the edge of the fixed pier, a drop line dangling between the legs of his trousers down into the water.

  "Afternoon, Daniel," Meg said, nailing the boat with a quick hitch over a rusty cleat. "How they actin'?"

  "Ain't," he answered.

  Meg gave Wyler an out-of-the-boat-now look. He scrambled onto the dock, too annoyed with her to care that he was doing it awkwardly.

  "I was right about you after all," Meg said, turning her back on him. "Your heart is hardened."

  Pushy, controlling, relentless --

  She undid her hitch and took off in the skiff, ignoring his shouted, parting remark: "Thanks so much! Are you sure I can't take you to lunch?"

  Wyler stood there for a while, mulling over her anger. One thought, more than any other, kept scurrying to the front of his mind: There was no better cover-up for a murder than a fire of biblical proportions.

  Chapter 7

  Meg knew something was up when she overheard Terry saying to Timmy, "Did we pull the heads off all our G.I. Joes?"

  A minute later the twins were in their room, overturning a plastic laundry basket filled to the brim with discarded and broken toys. Coughdrop was with them, tail wagging, tongue heaving expectantly at the thought of buried edibles long forgotten.

  Meg paused in their doorway, holding a stack of Country Living magazines destined for the guest rooms. "I thought you two decided G.I. Joe was kid stuff," she said, curious. "What's up?"

  Two pairs of piercing blue eyes looked up at the same time. "We need 'em for the dollhouse," Timmy said. "They're gonna be the national guard."

  "Yeah; we're gonna play L.A. riots," said Terry. "Hey, Tim, maybe we can make, like, a smoke bomb or something. To look like fire."

  "What?"

  "Cool. Or what about if we painted all the inside bulbs with red nail polish, to make it look like the house was on fire."

  "Or even better —"

  "Hold it! L.A. riots? What dollhouse?"

  "The one they're unloading outside," Terry said, rummaging through the pile intently. "Here's one! No, wait, the legs are gone," he said with real regret. "I remember now."

  Meg stepped over the mound of debris and marched over to the boys' window. Far below, she saw two men in the process of muscling a dollhouse — the dollhouse — from the back of a Ford pickup parked in front of the Inn Between. A third man was stepping down from the veranda and walking back to the truck.

  "Don't bring it up on the porch," she heard him tell the other two. "She says it won't fit through the front door. They have double doors leading to the garden; we'll go in that way."

  Meg threw the sash all the way up. "Hey, down there! What're you doing?"

  The third man turned and looked up at her from under the rim of his baseball cap. "Deliverin' the dollhouse. The furniture is still being boxed up; we'll bring it soon's it's done."

  "Waitaminnit, hold the phone! Wait till I get down there —"

  "Meg! For heaven's sake, whatever is going on?"

  Comfort, winded and panting, was standing behind her sons with a look of absolute bewilderment on her face. She held out a business-size envelope to Meg. "He gave me this. From Orel Tremblay, he said."

  Meg took it, tore it open, and read the wobbly handwriting.

  Dear Mrs. Hazard, This is yours, free and clear. You're the only one can see the connection and do what's right by Margaret Mary. I don't pass on this burden lightly.

  The letter was accompanied by a formal-looking document, signed and witnessed, bequeathing the dollhouse and all its contents to Meg.

  Meg handed the letter to Comfort, who read it, collapsed on the lower bunk bed, and read it again.

  "But you're not even related," she said blankly. "And Mr. Tremblay's not even dead!"

  "Those aren't always requirements," Meg said, distracted.

  They were to Comfort. "Won't someone else want it? The niece you talked about?"

  "Probably," Meg admitted. She turned to the twins. "Don't even look at a box of matches. Ever!" she warned. She rushed downstairs, with Comfort and Coughdrop close on her heels.

  Working through a rising tide of excitement, Meg cleared away a brass lamp and some gardening books from a gateleg table in the sitting room. In the meantime Comfort filched a blanket from the nearest guest room and threw it over the dark pine tabletop, then swung open the old French doors that led to a patio surrounded by rhododendrons and mountain laurel, some of it in bloom.

  "In here," Meg said breathlessly to the three struggling workmen. It was beginning to dawn on her that the dollhouse was coming to her, Margaret Mary Atwells Hazard, direct descendant of Margaret Mary Atwells, and that both their fates were bound up in the fate of the little house itself. She didn't know why, she didn't know how. But Orel Tremblay believed she would see the connection; right now, that was good enough for her.

  But first they had to get the dollhouse inside, and Coughdrop wasn't having it. The dog was on the threshold of the sitting room, barking noisily and pacing back and forth across the width of the French doors, determined to keep the intruders out.

  "Pay him no mind," said Comfort to the deliverymen. "He wouldn't bite a biscuit."

  She called the dog back and he came, but he wasn't happy about it. Two seconds later he lunged back toward the dollhouse. In trying to hop out of his way, one of the men ended up stepping on the dog's paw, sending Coughdrop into a yelping fury and scaring the dickens out of one of the others, who promptly let go of his end of the dollhouse, upsetting the balance. The unsupported end dropped to the floor, popping two of the pillars on one of the roofed verandas.

  Aghast, Meg cried, "Oh, no," and grabbed the dog by his collar and tried to separate him, still barking furiously, from the house and its movers. At the last minute Coughdrop remembered that he was part retriever and lunged for one of the fallen pillars, then broke free of Meg and took off for the garden with the stick between his teeth. Comfort chased after him, screaming his name in a tremulous, shrill voice that brought the twins downstairs instantly to see what the ruction was all about.

  In the meantime Meg was refusing to let any of the workmen move an inch until she had a chance to look the patient over, as it were, for other, more serious broken bones. Into the middle of all the chaos strolled Allie with her new and fairly constant companion, Tom Wyler. And since it was Wednesday, Chicken Pie Night, Uncle Billy was right behind them.

  "Good Lord," said Bill Atwells, stopped cold by the sight. "Eagle's Nest! Damned if I don't remember it after all!"

  Allie knew at once what was going on. "Meg, he's giving it to you, how wonderful. Well, he should, when you think about it; he owes us. Why is it half on the floor? Oh, God, it's broken already! Oh, for Pete's sake —"

  "What happened?" asked Uncle Bill.

  Meg was on her hands and knees, still checking for damage. "Oh, Coughdrop went crazy."

  "I said it before and I'll say it again: that dog's dumb as a bucket of fish manure." With a muffled "oof," Bill Atwells lowered his ample weight to the floor. "It don't look too bad. Them pillars'll stick right back in."

  "I've never se
en Coughdrop behave like that," Meg said, wondering. "Listen to him out there." She stood up and directed the dollhouse onto the table, then gave the men a little something for their trouble and saw them to the door.

  Everyone was gathered around the empty house, marveling at its craftsmanship. Allie wanted to know if the furniture came with it, and when Meg explained that it was being packed up for delivery, her sister said, "Great! We'll have a house-decorating party. It'll be like a tree-trimming party, only with tables and cradles instead."

  Meg's first impulse was to say, "Not on your life," but her uncle made that unnecessary.

  "Don't be silly, Allie," he said. "You can't go risking breakage that way. These ain't Barbie doll accessories. This kind of stuff's for the collector." He turned to Meg with a broad grin, obviously pleased at the turn in the family's fortunes. "It's a fairy tale, Meggie," he said, "and you're our crown princess."

  "I don't think crowns are my style," Meg said thoughtfully. She ran her finger along a delicately wrought banister of the dollhouse. For all its power to please and enchant, the house seemed to have an equal and opposite power to disturb and repel. She thought of haunted houses and witches behind cobwebby curtains and suppressed a shudder.

  Was she alone in feeling that way about the house? Everyone else seemed pretty delighted by it, including Tom Wyler.

  "Well, Lieutenant?" she couldn't resist asking. "Don't you think this proves how serious Orel Tremblay is?"

  Uncle Billy looked up from the dollhouse. "What d'you mean, 'serious'?"

  Damn. Meg had forgotten her uncle was there. She'd forgotten anyone was there besides Tom Wyler. It was becoming awkward, the way she kept picking fights with Tom. If only he'd bend a little and get involved.

  "I only meant, how seriously Mr. Tremblay feels about the history of Bar Harbor," Meg said quickly. "He wants to make sure the dollhouse stays right here."

  Uncle Billy grunted. "You're the right owner for it, then. You'll never leave Bar Harbor."

  Tom, hands in his pockets, had been watching Meg lie her way out of her jam. Out of the blue he said to her, "How about joining Allie and me for dinner in town?"

  Allie's head shot up in amazement.