From the Walfang Gazette
Police Blotter: Drowning Death of New
York City Man Ruled a Suicide
Fifty-six-year-old Terrance “Terry” Milton died on Wednesday as a result of an apparent suicide. He maintained a summer house close to where his body was found Thursday morning. Neighbors state that Mr. Milton had been depressed since the death of his mother last year…
“Will! You’re just in time!” his father said as Will came down the stairs. “Come try some of this wine. This is Mr. Jameson-he has a vineyard on the North Fork. We’re thinking of selling some at the stand.”
Will’s mother sat silently on the couch, sipping from a glass of pale amber liquid.
“Don’t you need a liquor license for that?” Will asked as he shook his head at the wine. “No thanks.”
“You probably wouldn’t need a license to take orders,” Mr. Jameson said. He was handsome in an aging-daytime-TV-star kind of way: tall, gray hair slicked back, tanned skin, brilliant smile. “We’re still working everything out, but it looks like we can offer same-day delivery.”
“People are going to go nuts for this sauvignon blanc,” Will’s dad said. “Are you sure you don’t want some, Will?”
“It’s really delicious,” his mother said quietly.
“I’m about to hop on the bike,” Will told them.
“One sip?” Mr. Jameson laughed.
Will just smiled a tight smile. The truth was, he hated wine. Beer, too. But he didn’t want to explain that to Mr. Former Soap Opera Star.
“My teetotaler son.” Will’s dad rolled his eyes. “Where are you headed?”
“Just into town.”
“You remember you’re working a shift later?” Mrs. Archer asked.
“How could I forget?”
Mr. Archer waved his hand at his son and said, “Go on, get out of here! Have fun!” He gave a false, hearty laugh that made Will want to be sick. Will waved and headed for the motorcycle. He yanked on his helmet and kicked the bike to life. It started with a roar, and Will revved it a couple of times before pulling out of the driveway.
He tore up the road, breathing easier with every inch of space between himself and his father. Will resented the elaborate act Mr. Archer put on for others. He didn’t understand it. And it made him furious that the act seemed to take up all of his father’s energy. He barely spoke to Will when they were alone.
Will parked the bike and stored his helmet, then made his way over to the storefront. He stared at the sign on the door for a long moment, tracing the ornate gold letters with his eyes: Worthington’s Fine Antiques. Will ran his thumb beneath the wide canvas strap slung across his chest, hitching his messenger bag higher onto his shoulder. He caught a glimpse of his face in the glass door. Beneath his tan, his complexion seemed dull and gray. His night had been filled with dreams. He’d been surfing with Tim, laughing and tumbling in the waves. It wasn’t until he woke up that the dream seemed nightmarish. Tim was dead, and somewhere perhaps a green-eyed girl was, too.
Finally Will touched the brass handle and pushed his way in.
The proprietor, an older gentleman, was arranging something in a glass display case as Will stepped into the cool, dim store. The man popped his head over the edge of the counter. “I’ll be right with you,” he said, then disappeared again into his antiques-lined gopher hole.
Will took the opportunity to look around the store. To his left was a large desk. It was ornately carved with the heads of lions and other exotic animals. The feet were bird claws clutching round balls. The desk was enormous, and was designed so that people could sit at either side. Fascinated, Will inspected it from all angles.
“It’s a nineteenth-century partners desk,” the man explained, coming up behind Will. “They could face each other and argue over budget items, presumably.”
“There’s no price on it,” Will pointed out.
“This item sells for forty thousand dollars,” the man said.
Will laughed. “Well, I guess it’s good I already have a desk.”
The owner smiled, which made his prim appearance seem more approachable. Now he was just a lanky man with tiny round bifocals and khaki pants, rather than the proprietor of the kind of store that sold desks that cost more than Will’s father’s car. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Well…” Will dug in his bag and pulled out something wrapped in a brown paper bag. The man peered closely as Will gently removed the flute and held it out for inspection. “Do you know anything about this? There’s one like it in your window.” Will gestured over his shoulder.
The man scurried behind the counter and yanked on a pair of white cotton gloves. Then he reached for the flute and handled it very carefully. “This instrument is quite an antique.”
“How old?”
“I’m not sure. I’d have to have it authenticated, of course, but it could be as much as five hundred years old. Are you looking to sell it?”
“No.” The mere question made Will’s palms itch. He wanted that flute back, but didn’t want to snatch it from the man’s hands. “I just-I just want to know more about it.”
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you much. The one in the window is extremely rare. In fact, I’m just waiting for some authentication documents so that it can be shipped to its new home in a museum in Nice, France.” He took the flute to the counter and set it down gently. Then he came up with a cloth sack. The man gingerly dropped the flute into the sack, then rolled it back up. He handed it to Will. “Something this precious should be protected,” the man said.
“Thanks.” Will tucked the flute back into his bag, feeling embarrassed about the crumpled paper bag. “Can you at least tell me where you got the other one?”
“Interestingly, that was also from a young person. She works right next door.” The man scribbled something onto the back of a business card. ASIA MARIN, read the all-capital scrawl.
“She works at Bella’s?” Will asked, surprised at this piece of luck. “That’s great-I’m headed there, anyway.”
“The hand of fate,” the man intoned. Will nodded, amused at how quickly the gentleman’s primness had returned. “Maybe so.”
Will settled into a two-person booth and set his gray messenger bag gently on the table. It was late morning, and the early lunch crowd was starting to trickle in. Gretchen had told Will that she’d been stuck with mostly lunch shifts, but he wasn’t sure she was working today. He surveyed the long space. Men in farmer caps, huddled in their booths, were bent close over fish and chips. Two fat women laughed over a shared banana split. Everywhere, people were talking and eating. Just like normal life, Will thought.
Will pulled the flute from his bag, then carefully stripped it of its wrappings. He supposed he should be wearing gloves like the man in the antiques store, but he’d already held the flute a hundred times, so he couldn’t see what difference it would make now. The wood was light in his hand, like the bone of a bird.
It had been Tim’s flute. Not that Tim played the flute. As far as Will knew, his brother had played only the guitar. Nevertheless, this was Tim’s flute. At least, Will thought of it that way.
Weeks after his family installed a headstone over an empty box, Angus’s uncle had called Will down to the station. He said he had something for him. When Will arrived, Police Chief Barry McFarlan had pulled a plastic evidence bag from his desk drawer. He explained that the officer called to the scene of Tim’s death had found the flute on the boat, wedged into the rigging. It didn’t seem to have any bearing on the case, so they could let it go. “I know Tim was really into music. It must have been his,” Barry said, and asked Will if he wanted it, “as a memento.”
A memento, Will had thought. A memento of my brother’s death. As if he didn’t have enough of those. Still, he’d taken the flute. Then he’d slipped it into his bottom drawer-the one he never opened-and forgotten about it until a couple of days ago. He knew it was crazy to think that the flute had anything to do with his brother. Still, it was connected simply by proximity. And when Will had spotted its twin, or at least its cousin, in the store window, he’d decided to find out something about it.
Will surveyed the diner, but he didn’t see Gretchen anywhere. A punk-nerd waitress with rag doll hair and a gray uniform was joking with a table of old ladies. The short-order cook-Angel, a Bella’s fixture from the beginning of Will’s memory-was at his place behind the stove. Will could see him through the food-delivery window. Wondering if the punk girl could be Asia, he picked up a newspaper that someone had left on the seat. He scanned the front page, then the back page. The front page of the local news section, with its obituaries and police blotter. He found a short mention of the body Angus had told Will about at the beginning of the week, but nothing about a dark-haired girl. Will conjured her in his mind and was surprised at just how clearly he could see her green sea-glass eyes, her pale skin, her high cheekbones. The way her black hair streamed behind her like ribbons as she waded into the sea.
The whole scene had an air of unreality to it. No girl could be that beautiful. No one would wade into a violent ocean during a storm. It was like one of those nightmares that seem so real they leave you gasping with relief when you wake up and find yourself surrounded by your own walls, sleeping in your own bed.
“What would you like?”
Will looked up, and his heart froze. It didn’t just stop, it felt cold and fragile, as if a single tap could break it. It’s her.
Luminous green eyes were trained on his face, and her black hair was tied in a knot at the back of her neck. She was wearing the standard dreary waitress uniform and had a pencil tucked behind her ear, but still, she seemed too beautiful to be real.
“Are you all right?” she asked in a voice that fogged his mind. Will knew that he had to say something, but he couldn’t find words. “A Coke,” he choked out finally.
She wrote that down. When she looked up again, her head tilted slightly. Does she recognize me, too?
The waitress glanced down at the table, and her expression changed. “Where did you get this?” she asked. Her voice was careful, her eyes guarded.
Will looked down at his hands, which were still holding the wooden flute. His mind felt like a scrambled radio signal-he couldn’t make sense of words. He didn’t know what to tell her. “It may have belonged to my dead brother”? “A cop gave it to me as a memento”? Finally his eyes landed on her name tag.
“Asia Marin,” Will said aloud.
Asia cocked her head again, as if she suspected that Will was pulling an elaborate joke-one she didn’t like much. “Do I know you?”
Will wasn’t sure how to answer that. Don’t you? he wanted to ask. I nearly ran you over, then tried to stop your suicide in the sea, remember?
“No,” Will said at last. “I, uh-the man in the antiques store next door sent me. He said that you’d sold him a flute like this one.”
Asia slipped into the seat across from Will’s. She took the flute from him with delicate fingers and studied the instrument. “Very similar, yes,” she admitted.
She was sitting so close that Will could practically feel her breath. He was stunned at how silken her voice was. It was something to wrap yourself in. “I’m no expert…” She looked at him, her eyes wary.
“This isn’t Antiques Roadshow,” Will told her. “Just-anything you can tell me. This flute’s a complete mystery.” He pretended to lean closer to have a look at the flute, but really, he just wanted to be closer to this gorgeous girl.
“Well… technically, this isn’t a flute. When it has holes like this, it’s called a recorder.” A slender finger indicated the rough-hewn holes. “I think this is probably European. And it’s old-as old as the one I had, maybe older. It could be four or five hundred years old. I think it’s pretty hard to date these things.”
“How did you get yours?” Will asked.
“It was a gift.”
“So why did you sell it?”
“I had no further use for it.” Asia’s eyes narrowed, as if Will had stepped to the edge of dangerous waters. “Are you asking about my flute or yours?”
“Sorry. Mine. What kind of wood is it?” Will asked.
Asia’s eyes met his. “Not wood,” she told him. “Bone.”
A tiny shiver went through him, as if the temperature in the diner had dropped ten degrees.
“Asia!” Angel bellowed from the kitchen. “Am I paying you to sit on your butt all day?”
“Oh, are we getting paid?” called out the nerd-punk waitress. Her old-lady customers cackled gleefully.
“I’d better go get your Coke,” Asia said. She placed the flute gently atop its cloth bag and stood up. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
Will just nodded, still partially dazed. Her beauty and her mellifluous voice had left him so dazzled that he’d completely forgotten to ask Asia where her flute had come from. He hadn’t managed to ask her why-or even if-she’d walked into the sea. I’ll ask her when she comes back, Will thought. But when his Coke arrived, it was the nerd-punk waitress who delivered it.
“Is Asia on break?” Will asked.
The waitress just gave him a look, as if she was used to guys asking about Asia. “Yeah,” she said, half wary, half bored.
Will drank his Coke, then looked at his watch. He had to get to the farm stand; it was time for his shift. He couldn’t wait for Asia forever.
Now that he’d found her, he’d just have to find her again later. At least she’s real.
That thought should have been more comforting than it was.
“Hey, toots, that old lady in the corner is snapping in your general direction.” Lisette’s arms were piled with lunch platters for table four, so she pursed her goth-painted lips in the direction of one of Gretchen’s booths. Lisette was in her mid-twenties, but she talked like someone from the 1960s. She wore horn-rimmed glasses over brown eyes rimmed in dark blue eye shadow. Her hair was an extremely unlikely shade of red reminiscent of Raggedy Ann, and today she had it spouting like a small fountain from the top of her head. She’d worked at Bella’s for three years and had her pet regulars, like the guys from the security company at table four. “I’ve seen that old witch in here before. You’d better get over there before she turns you into a frog, sweets.”
“Lisette, am I paying you to chat with Gretchen?” Angel O’Rourke-Bella’s short-order cook and manager-scowled, twitching his orange moustache into a frown. Gretchen liked to think of him as the Irish-Dominican version of Oscar the Grouch.
“Oh, go flip something, Angel,” Lisette shot back before taking off toward her table.
Gretchen slapped her sketch pad closed and looked over at the woman in the corner. She was heavyset, with hair that was a wild mess of gray frosted with three different shades of blond. Her face was like a wrinkled sheet spread over a fluffy featherbed, and her frowning lips were outlined in bright pink. Snap, snap, snap. Once she realized that she had Gretchen’s attention, the woman held up her coffee mug and tapped it with a hot-pink nail.
Gretchen hurried over.
“This coffee is cold.” The woman set it down primly on the paper placemat that sat on the gold-flecked Formica table.
Gretchen took the mug-surprisingly warm-from the woman’s hands.
“And it tastes old. You might want to brew up a fresh batch.” The woman looked down at the newspaper that was spread open across her table.
“This batch was brewed five minutes before I served it to you,” Gretchen protested.
Frosty the Hairstyle shot her a withering look. “Then you’d better get a new brand, because that stuff tastes like battery acid.”
Gretchen felt a flame of anger rise in her chest. She was just about to snap at the customer when she felt a cool hand, like a gentle splash of water, at her elbow.
“Everything okay here?” asked a silken voice. Asia’s steady gaze landed on the woman, who seemed to retreat a little, like a turtle into its shell. “Hello, Mrs. Cuthbert,” Asia purred. “How are you feeling today?”
There was something about Asia’s stillness that gave Gretchen a sense of vertigo, as if she were staring up at Asia from a great distance. And yet the other waitress wasn’t particularly tall. She was just very still. With her long dark hair pinned back in a bun and her fine features, she looked like a Greek statue.
“My knee is still bothering me,” Mrs. Cuthbert admitted. Her expression turned into a sulky pout. “I was up all night with it.”
Asia leaned over and whispered something into Mrs. Cuthbert’s ear-or maybe she didn’t. Gretchen didn’t see Asia’s lips move. But the old woman smiled slightly.
“Thank you, dear.” She glanced at Gretchen, but the claws had retracted from her eyes.
Wordlessly Asia took the mug and steered Gretchen-still tense from the expectation of a fight-away from the table.
When Gretchen looked back over her shoulder, she saw that Mrs. Cuthbert was gazing out the window. She was smiling faintly, her head swaying back and forth slightly, as if she were bending with a breeze that no one else could feel.
Asia headed behind the counter.
“Are you going to toss that coffee? There’s nothing wrong with it,” Gretchen told her. “I just brewed it. And it’s still hot.” Bella’s was known for its coffee-delicious and always brewed to be melt-your-lips-off strong.
Asia nodded, smiling softly. “Yes, I know.”
“Then-?”
“I’m just going to stand here, count to sixty, and then bring her the same mug all over again. She’ll be happy with it this time.” Gretchen looked doubtful, but Asia gave her a confident smile and touched her on the arm. “You’ll see.”
Gretchen watched as Asia made her way to Mrs. Cuthbert’s table. The old woman turned away from the window to pick up the mug. She took a sip, then smiled up at Asia.
“Is Asia charming the cobras again?” Lisette asked as she reached behind the counter for a yellow squeeze bottle of mustard.
“It looks like it,” Gretchen admitted.
“That girl could charm the cute right out of a Cabbage Patch Kid.” Lisette rolled her eyes as she held the mustard aloft. “All right, keep your pants on,” she called to one of the guys at table four, who had just hollered that his burger was getting cold.
The bell behind Gretchen rang. “Table seven, order up,” Angel called.
Gretchen stifled a groan. Seven was Mrs. Cuthbert’s table. Gretchen half expected her to put up a fight about the quality of the sandwich, but Mrs. Cuthbert’s mood had clearly shifted. “Thank you, dear,” she said pleasantly as Gretchen set the platter on the table.
Surprised, Gretchen mumbled an awkward “you’re welcome” and retreated. Since Bella’s was half empty-it was three forty-five-Gretchen wiped down the countertops. Then she filled the paper napkin dispensers. Then she sorted cutlery. And when all of that was done, she went back to her sketch. She wanted to capture the interlocking spiderweb of wrinkles on Ms. Cuthbert’s neck. The way they danced as she ate was fascinating…
“Beautiful.”
Gretchen started again. “I need to get a bell to put around your neck,” she told Asia, who was peering over her shoulder at the sketch.
Asia smiled. Her fingers traced the drawing lightly, the touch too delicate to smudge the work. She reached for the sketchbook, then hesitated. “May I?” She flipped through several sketches, studying each a moment, then moving on. Most people looked through her book with limited attention, like they were flipping though a magazine. But Asia really seemed to be studying each drawing. She came to a portrait and stopped. “I know this person, I think.”
“No.”
Asia’s eyebrows lifted, and Gretchen felt like a fool. She knew her voice had come out harsher than she’d intended. “It’s just-this is a picture of someone…” She couldn’t say it. A thousand emotions threatened to overwhelm her-rage, pain, love, fear.
“Someone…” Asia studied her face. “Gone.”
Gretchen nodded.
Asia let the words hang in the air. After a moment, Gretchen could almost feel them floating away. She inhaled.
Asia looked down at the sketch-at Tim’s grinning face. Gretchen studied the portrait of Tim, with the almost-too-long nose, the straight teeth, the shaggy hair. She’d drawn it at the beginning of last summer, before he’d had a chance to buzz his locks. Before he vanished.
“I do know him,” Asia said. Her voice was low, almost a murmur, like the babble of a brook running over rocks. Her finger traced the edge of the paper. “There was someone who looked like this, who came into the restaurant. But with a scar.” She traced a line from her temple to her cheekbone. “Here.”
“That’s Will.” Asia met Will? Gretchen shifted uncomfortably. “He’s-” There were many things that Gretchen could have said here, but she chose, “This picture is of his brother.”
Asia nodded. She didn’t ask any of the usual questions: What happened? How did he die? Was he sick? Were they close? How did you know them? She just sat with Gretchen. Normally Gretchen hated those questions. But, somehow, having them just sit there unasked was worse. Almost involuntarily: “It was an accident. Tim drowned last year.”
“You were there.” It wasn’t a question.
“No.” Gretchen’s voice wavered. “Will was, though.”
“What happened?”
“Nobody knows.”
Asia tilted her head, looking at Gretchen carefully.
“Will can’t remember. And the body was never found.”
Asia took a moment to digest this piece of information. “Sorrow,” she said.
It was such a strange thing to say. Sorrow. Yes, that was what she felt, in many different ways. Overwhelming sorrow.
With deliberate slowness, Asia turned to the next drawing.
“Do you like art?” Gretchen asked suddenly.
“Doesn’t everyone like art?” Asia asked.
“Not really.” Gretchen shrugged. “That is, a lot of people aren’t very interested in it. People our age, especially.” This was one of the reasons that she found it so hard to talk to the girls in her prep school in New York City. None of them was interested in the things she was interested in. Frankly, most of them didn’t seem interested in anything.
Asia seemed to absorb Gretchen’s comment for a moment. “True. I suppose not everyone likes all art. But everyone likes some kind of art-dance, music, movies…”
“I guess I meant visual art.”
Asia smiled, and Gretchen studied her face. She is charming, that’s for sure, Gretchen thought. It was more than just the fact that she had taken care of Gretchen’s angry customer. There was something in her voice, in her fluid manner, that made people feel relaxed around her. For some reason, Gretchen felt as if she knew Asia. Yet there was something a little reserved about her. Gretchen felt a coldness radiating off her, like vapor from dry ice.
“Were you thinking of some particular visual art?” Asia asked.
“There’s an exhibit at the Miller,” Gretchen said. The Miller Gallery was the tiny local gallery that often showed surprisingly excellent work. It featured local artists, which-out here-meant world-renowned artists. The list of luminaries who had started their careers there was bright enough to light the eastern seaboard. “ ‘Gifts of the Sea,’ it’s called. It’s terrific. I went there the other day. You should check it out.”
“Perhaps I will,” Asia said. She passed by Gretchen on her way to take a plate from Angel, and her physical presence gave Gretchen a shiver.
There’s definitely something cold about her, Gretchen decided. Cold as the bottom of the sea.