“FRANKLY, I WISH DOLLY had rented the place to someone else,” Kinsley Havenhurst declared flatly. “Nothing against you, Mitch. I just would rather have seen the carriage house go to someone we know.”
Mitch was seated in Havenhurst’s law office, where he had come to sign the lease and pass inspection. Which he clearly did not. When they’d shaken hands, Havenhurst had told him that everyone except his late mother called him Bud. It was the only cordial thing that Dolly Seymour’s lawyer said to him. Bud Havenhurst was too well bred to be overtly hostile, but he was chilly. Clearly, he saw Mitch as the point man for an invading army of loud, pushy New Yorkers bearing cell phones. Clearly, he felt threatened by him.
His law office was over an art gallery in the center of Dorset’s Historic District. The building had once been a grain and feed store. The office was quaintly old-fashioned, with a roll-top desk, potbellied stove and decidedly nautical air. There was an aged brass ship’s barometer mounted on the wall. Also a number of maritime charts and architectural drawings of sailboats. Havenhurst’s Yale Law School diploma hung in the outer office where his secretary sat. She evidently walked to work. There had been only one car in the rear lot where Mitch parked-a mud-splattered Range Rover.
“To be perfectly honest,” Bud Havenhurst added, “I’d rather she simply hadn’t rented it out at all.”
Bud Havenhurst was in his early fifties and he struck Mitch as someone who had always been rich and good-looking and sure of himself. He was tall and tanned and sleekly built, with closecropped salt and pepper hair, a long, patrician blade of a nose and a big, forward-thrusting chin. He wore a blue button-down shirt, striped tie, khakis and a pair of scuffed Topsider boating shoes. He had an air of privilege about him. Also an air of authority. He was Somebody in Dorset.
“She did seem a bit reluctant,” Mitch allowed.
“Young fellow, it’s important for you to understand the caliber of individual you’re dealing with here. Dolly happens to be the product of an exceedingly distinguished American family.”
“She told me about how the Pecks founded Dorset.”
Bud sat back in his sea captain’s chair, narrowing his gray eyes at Mitch. “Did she tell you that her father was the U.S. ambassador to Japan during the Carter Administration? That her grandfather, Harrison, was a U.S. senator from the state of Connecticut from 1948 until 1960? That her great-grandfather was chief justice of the state supreme court? That her great-great-great grandfather was a vice president of the United States under Benjamin Harrison?”
“Why, no. She didn’t.”
“My own family has been here since the early seventeen-hundreds,” Bud pointed out loftily. “The Havenhursts came here to fell the white oaks. Milled them for barrels and boats and sent them back to England, where lumber was scarce. As the colonies grew, the Connecticut River became a major shipping artery. Dorset grew into a bustling port. General Washington slept here en route to New York after taking command of the American Army in April of 1776. And that’s no joke. Lafayette marched through here with his troops. His men slept out on Peck’s Point before they were ferried across the river.” Bud got up out of his chair and went over to the window and looked out at the carefully preserved mansions lining Dorset Street. “Nowadays, this is a place for people who want to live somewhere lovely and quiet. Somewhere that isn’t as trendy and touristy as Newport or the Hamptons. I happen to serve as town counsel. I’ve fought hard to preserve Dorset’s small-town flavor. And, believe me, it has been a fight. We’ve had to keep out the condo developers, the hamburger franchises, drive-through windows, motels… Every day there’s a new fight. And every day we take it on-because Dorset is a gem. And we want to keep it that way.” Now he turned away from the window and stared down his long narrow nose at Mitch. “Dolly Seymour is a gem, too. And she’s on her own now. And I don’t want to see anyone take advantage of her.”
“I gather that her husband left her,” Mitch said.
“It was quite a blow to her,” Bud confirmed. “She loved Niles. But nice ladies don’t always have great taste in men, do they? It didn’t last long-three years. It was a second marriage for her. Her first lasted twenty-four years. It was a good marriage to a local fellow from a good family-me, as it happens.” He glanced at Mitch sharply. “I imagine you think it’s odd that I represent my ex-wife’s legal affairs.”
Downright weird, actually. Also none of his business. “No, not at all.”
“I’ve remarried myself,” Bud explained, sitting back down. “Quite happily. Mandy and I live out on Big Sister, as a matter of fact. I took over the guest cottage as part of our divorce settlement. My mother lived there for the last ten years of her life and Dolly knew how attached I was to the place. We’re still good friends. I’m like another brother to her. Hell, we started going around together when we were thirteen years old…” A fond glow came over his face now. “We used to call her Peanut in those days. She was the cutest little thing you ever saw. And I got her. I was the lucky one. And I still care for her. The feelings, they don’t end just because the marriage ends.”
“No, they don’t.”
“Actually, we’re all family out on Big Sister. Evan, our son, lives in the old lighthouse-keeper’s cottage with his friend Jamie. The two of them have an antique store up in Hadlyme. And the big summer cottage belongs to Dolly’s brother Redfield and his wife, Bitsy. We’re not used to having strangers out there. That’s why I’d rather she had rented the carriage house to someone we know. But she accepted your deposit and your references check out, so here we are…”
“Yes, here we are.” Mitch reached for a pen.
Bud hesitated, glancing uncertainly down at the lease on his desk. “Unless, that is, you wish to reconsider. Dolly would gladly refund your deposit.”
“Not a chance.” Mitch signed it with a happy flourish. He didn’t give a damn whether Dolly Seymour’s ex-husband wanted him there or not.
Bud let out a long sigh. “Well, I sincerely hope you won’t have reason to regret this.”
“Why would I?”
Bud Havenhurst didn’t answer. And Mitch wondered why the man had said it. It was, he reflected, a very odd thing to say.
Dolly had assured Mitch the little house would be scrubbed and painted, and it was. A local handyman in overalls named Tuck Weems came out to do the work. Weems was a big, strapping man in his fifties with unruly blond hair and every appearance of a substance-abuse problem. He definitely had the shakes. Could not seem to shave without cutting himself. Bits of toilet paper were stuck to different parts of his chin and neck every morning. And his electric-blue eyes were lit by drugs or drink. He was not a friendly native. His face was a tight mask of anger. Twice Mitch tried to strike up a conversation with him. Twice the man walked away without responding. But Weems was a steady and capable worker. He repaired the windows, replaced the rotted shingles and sills, cut back the shrubbery that was threatening to engulf the little house. Within two weeks, it qualified as habitable.
Wheels were a necessity. Happily, Dolly had an old pickup she was willing to part with for a song provided Mitch was willing to make the occasional dump run for her. Not a problem, he assured her. As a result Mitch became the proud owner of a rust-free, plum-colored 1956 Studebaker half-ton with a V-8 engine and three-speed overdrive transmission. It was an uncommonly bulbous-looking vehicle compared to the aerodynamic styling of everything else on the road. And it did have 186,000 miles on it. But it ran like a champ. And he didn’t intend to drive it back and forth to New York. Only as far as Old Saybrook, the neighboring town across the river, which had an Amtrak station.
He did drive it into the city once to gather up some things and put in an appearance at the paper. The Sunday Travel editor had been very happy with the Weekend Getaway piece Mitch had filed on Dorset. She’d especially liked Mitch’s one-on-one interview with the cow. And Lacy took it as a very positive sign that he had rented himself a place there. Although she was a bit surprised.
“I have trouble picturing you there,” she said, when he stopped by her elegantly appointed office to see her.
“Why is that?”
“Have you ever actually lived in a village before, Mitch?”
“Not unless you count Greenwich Village. Why?”
“Because I have. And it’s way different, believe me.”
“I’ll say it is,” Mitch exclaimed. “People smile at each other. They say please and thank you. They don’t park in the handicapped spaces unless they are genuinely handicapped. It’s utterly remarkable.”
“And utterly fake,” she argued. “They carry sharp knives, Mitch. Everyone is into everyone else’s business. It’s what they do for amusement. There’s no privacy. And no secrets. Village life is one big soap opera.”
“I have nothing against soap operas.”
“You will when you discover you’ve become a character in one.”
Since the advance screenings for the first big wave of summer film releases had already crested, Mitch informed Lacy that he intended to spend most of his summer out there. He would come in for any screenings as they arose but it figured to be pretty quiet until the studios started gearing up again for fall. She agreed that this would be fine, and wished him luck. There was no more talk from her about where Mitch’s life was heading.
“I just want to be left alone to work on my book, Lacy,” he explained.
“Good luck. But that won’t happen, Mitch.”
“Yes, it will,” he insisted. “Why wouldn’t it?”
He brought out the brown corduroy love seat that was crammed into the corner of his study, collecting newspapers and dust. He brought out his Stratocaster and stack, figuring he now had the perfect setup for playing as loudly as he wanted. He brought out two pieces of art, some dishes and pots and pans, bedding and linens, the stereo and television that they’d bought for Fire Island. Mitch’s super gladly helped him load it all into the Studey. He liked Mitch. Mitch was the only tenant who gave him free tickets to Broadway musicals.
Mitch needed a bed. He bought one from a mattress outlet in Westbrook. The rest he scavenged. He found a rocker and kitchen table in Dolly’s barn. A beat-up little rowboat worked as a coffee table with a storm window fitted atop it. A steamer trunk served as a nightstand. He bought a comfortably worn armchair for ten dollars at a tag sale in town. Also a set of gallantly hideous bright yellow kitchen chairs.
At the town dump he found a fine old raised panel oak door which he mounted on sawhorses to serve as his desk. Actually, the dump was a picker’s paradise. He almost always came back from there with more than he took in-a pair of shell-back aluminum garden chairs, lamps, bookcases. And he was generally in very good company. Mitch rubbed shoulders with a former mayor of New York City, a Tony Award-winning actress and a bestselling author of children’s books at the dump. They, too, were picking.
He put in long, hard days outfitting his new cottage. For nourishment he feasted on prodigious quantities of his famous American Chop Suey. His recipe was a closely guarded secret: one large jar of Ragu, one pound of ground beef, one box of spaghetti, an onion, a green pepper and a package of frozen mixed vegetables. Garlic salt to taste. Maisie had pronounced it dog food and refused to eat it. Mitch could survive on it for several days straight. The nights were still cool on Big Sister. After dinner, he would make a fire in the fireplace and stretch out with a pint of Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Swiss Almond and a spoon, gazing at it. He would fall into bed early, lulled to sleep by the hard work and the rhythm of the water slapping gently against the rocks outside his little cottage. He had not slept so soundly in months. The bright morning sunlight would awaken him well before seven. The Fisher’s Island Ferry was already making its return trip to New London. The fishermen and sailors were already out. He would stand at the living room window, breathing in the clean sea air and watching them, the slanted early-morning light on the water reminding him of Edward Hopper’s Maine seacoast paintings.
He liked to walk the island’s rocky little beach in the morning, particularly when the tide was out. He rolled up his pants and slogged his way barefoot through the tidal pools, marveling at the diversity of life forms to be found there. Sargassum, Irish moss, bright green sea lettuce. Crabs and oysters. Orange-beaked oyster catchers, terns and cormorants. Geese flew right overhead in V-formation, honking loudly.
And he liked to observe his fellow islanders as they went about their lives of vigorous and accomplished leisure. Frequently, as dusk approached, he would sit out on a lawn chair and watch them-competing on the island’s tennis court or returning home to the dock from a sail, sunburned and exhilarated. For Mitch, watching from his front-row seat, these bluebloods were as exotic as the characters in a Merchant-Ivory movie. There was handsome young Evan, Dolly and Bud’s son, who drove a Porsche 911 and shared the stone lighthouse-keeper’s cottage with Jamie, an older man. Those two spent a lot of time together on their boat. There was Bud and his very hot young wife, Mandy, a tall, athletic blonde with good legs who drove a vintage MGA and regularly destroyed the lawyer on the tennis court. One afternoon, they had a croquet party on their lawn. Their guests arrived in white flannels. The men wore straw boaters on their heads. The sounds of laughter and the clinking of glasses wafted across the island toward Mitch like bubbles on a current of warm air. There was Dolly’s mysterious brother, Redfield, who left for work before dawn and was regularly gone for days at a time. Mitch didn’t know what he did for work, but he decided he had to be in the CIA. His wife, Bitsy, was a chubby hausfrau who spent endless hours in her garden, where she grew flowers and vegetables with spectacular success.
Mitch they utterly ignored. No one welcomed him. No one invited him over for a drink. He was sharing the island with them, but he was not one of them.
His sleeping loft was not wired for electricity. In order to read in bed, Mitch found it necessary to buy an oil lamp at the village’s magnificently cluttered hardware store. Dennis, the jovial, applecheeked owner, assured him it would also come in plenty handy during hurricane season. Having established that Mitch was a new resident, Dennis insisted on opening an account for him. And when Mitch gave him his address he was treated to quite some reaction.
For one thing, the name Niles Seymour did not go down too well around the tubby shopkeeper. “He still owes me two hundred bucks, the cheap bastard,” Dennis snarled, his round cheeks reddening. “You’d think he could settle his accounts with the poor local business people before he flies the coop on her.” For another, the man seemed genuinely startled by the news that Dolly had rented out her carriage house. “You are a brave man moving into that place,” he confided to Mitch over the counter in a low, husky voice. “Me, I don’t think I’d have the nerve.”
Dennis did not elaborate. And Mitch did not have the slightest idea what he meant. But he did wonder-same as he had wondered when Bud Havenhurst said he hoped Mitch wouldn’t have any reason to feel sorry.
Mitch was toodling home on the Old Shore Road in his truck, puzzling over this, when a state trooper in a gray cruiser came up on his tail, flashing his lights at him. Mitch pulled over onto the shoulder and waited. Out climbed a tall, broad-shouldered figure in his fifties wearing a trimly tailored uniform and a wide-brimmed Smokey the Bear hat. His sideburns were a bristly gray, face square and leathery, posture erect, stomach flat. One look at him and Mitch immediately thought of Randolph Scott in A Lawless Street.
“Was I speeding?” Mitch asked him incredulously through his open window. “I didn’t think I could even go fifty without a strong tail wind.”
“No, sir, nothing like that,” the trooper said politely. “I recognized the old truck. Didn’t recognize the man behind the wheel. I figured you must be Mr. Berger.”
“That’s right…”
“Just wanted to say hello. I like to get to know folks. Answer any questions they might have.” He stuck a big brown hand through the window. “I’m Tal Bliss, the resident trooper.”
Mitch shook it. “So you’re the welcome wagon?”
Bliss smiled at him. “Yessir. Something like that.”
“That’s very nice of you. I appreciate it.” Mitch decided it would be more neighborly if he got out and joined him. He did so-and immediately felt utterly dwarfed. Tal Bliss was at least six foot four, and that was without the big hat. With it, the lawman was a calm, soft-spoken giant.
“You’re a good deal younger than I imagined,” he said to Mitch, waving at two old characters in a Jeep as they passed by. “When I heard you were a widower I was expecting an older gentleman.”
“Believe me, it came as something of a surprise to me, too.”
“I lost a lot of my friends-and myself-in ’Nam,” Bliss said quietly. “Never did think I’d heal. The hardest part was being patient.” His eyes drifted over to the nearby salt marsh, where an osprey was wafting on the breeze, circling. “This is a good place for it. You picked a good place.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Mitch, who was not expecting to have this conversation with this particular stranger.
“Dolly’s an old, old friend, you know.” Bliss kicked at the hard dirt with the toe of his boot. “We grew up together.”
“She seems very nice.”
“She is,” Bliss affirmed, coloring slightly. “She’s about the nicest person I’ve ever known.”
“How well do you know Bud Havenhurst?”
“Quite well,” he replied. “Why?”
“Because I do have a question that you might be able to answer.”
The rugged trooper peered at him intently. “Sure thing.”
“When I was signing the lease, he said he hoped I wouldn’t be sorry. And Dennis at the hardware store said that I was a brave man. Is there something about Big Sister that I should know?”
Bliss took off his big hat and turned it over in his hands, examining it for a long moment before he leveled his eyes at Mitch. “You might want to ask Dolly about this.”
“I’m asking you.”
Bliss puffed out his cheeks. “Very well. Maybe it is better this way. Have you met a fellow named Tuck Weems?”
“Kind of. I said hello, he didn’t.”
Bliss smiled faintly. “That’s Tuck, all right. He grew up on Big Sister. Tuck’s father, Roy, was the caretaker. The two of them and Tuck’s mom, Louisa, lived out there in your little carriage house. Right after we got out of high school, when Tuck and I were serving in ’Nam, well, Roy went over the edge. Blew poor Louisa’s head off with his shotgun. And then did the same thing to himself. It happened right there-in your carriage house. And it was Dolly who found them. A horrible, horrible thing for that lovely seventeen-year-old girl to walk in on… Anyway, the house has been vacant ever since. No one has lived there-until now. You’re the first. I suppose Dolly didn’t say anything to you about it because she doesn’t like to dwell on it. You see, Dolly’s extremely delicate. Fragile, you might say. And these are tough times for her. She got hit pretty hard when her new husband pulled up stakes on her.” The trooper paused, his eyes searching Mitch’s face. “I sure do hope you’ll be considerate of her feelings.”
Mitch cocked his head at him curiously. “How do you mean?”
Bliss swallowed uneasily. “I just would hate to see some fellow come to town and take advantage of her again.”
“Again?”
“Niles.” The trooper spat out the name as if it were a dirty word. “He swooped down on her, flattered her, manipulated her, stole her from Bud. And just look how things turned out. She got her poor heart broken. I don’t want to see that happen again. Can you understand that?”
Mitch understood, all right. The trooper was telling him to stay away from Dolly. Not that he was the least bit interested in her. Hell, she was practically old enough to be his mother. What Mitch didn’t understand was in what capacity Bliss was delivering this warning. Was he speaking to him as Dorset’s resident trooper-a public servant empowered to preserve and protect the family’s interests? Or was he speaking to him as a man who happened to be in love with Dolly himself and wanted no rivals for her affections? Mitch didn’t know. But either way, his answer was the same: “You’re making yourself quite clear.”
The trooper’s face creased into a smile. “That’s good. I’m glad we understand each other, Mr. Berger.” Then he tipped his hat at him and strode back to his cruiser and took off, leaving Mitch there with his head spinning.
His dream cottage was a death shack.
As he headed back across the narrow bridge, the island looked different to him now. It wasn’t a carefree Yankee eden. It was sinister. And his little cottage gave him the creeps. He could feel the death in the air the second he walked inside. The ceiling seemed lower, the walls closer together. The quiet was no longer soothing. It was ominous.
Shaken, Mitch grabbed himself a Bass Ale, went back outside and sat on one of his garden chairs in the late-day sun, wondering if he could still be happy here. Could he forget what had happened? Why not? He was trying to cut himself loose from his own past, wasn’t he? Was this not the same thing? No, it wasn’t, actually. He wasn’t trying to forget that Maisie had ever existed. But he was trying to live in the present, not the past. And that part wasn’t so different, was it?
Mitch didn’t know. He only knew that his feelings about this place would never be the same.
He was still sitting there an hour later when he saw a Ford pickup pull up. Tuck Weems. He had come to mow the lush green expanse of lawn that grew between Dolly’s place and the carriage house. Mitch waved to him. Weems didn’t wave back. Business as usual. As he sat there watching Weems unload his big mower, Mitch saw Dolly coming along the gravel path toward his house, smiling at him shyly. It was not hard for Mitch to picture her as a lovely, light-footed young girl with a tennis racket in her hand and an easy smile on her lips. No, it was not hard at all. She was wearing a pair of trimly tailored gray slacks and a black cashmere sweater with a plunging V-neck. She carried a small jar in one hand, a rusty old horseshoe in the other. As she got nearer, he could smell tart, lemony perfume.
“I’ve brought you a house-warming gift, Mitch,” she said graciously, holding the horseshoe out to him. “It’s an old New England tradition. One hangs it over the front door, pointing upward, and it’s supposed to bring good luck. It’s one of our own shoes-I found it in the barn.”
“Why, thank you,” Mitch said, hefting it in his hand. “Please sit. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Thank you, no,” she said, sliding into his other garden chair. “But you could… That is, I’m having some people in and I simply cannot get these pimientos open.” She pronounced it pim-ee-entos. Mitch had never heard anyone pronounce it that way before. At least not anyone who wasn’t trying to do Noel Coward. “I tried warm water. I tried one of those cursed ergonomically advanced jar openers. Utterly useless. The thing seems cemented shut. Would you please try?”
“I’d be happy to.”
The jar opened for him right away. It wasn’t easy, but wasn’t that hard either.
“Bless you!” she exclaimed gratefully. “It is so nice to have a man around sometimes. I’ve been terribly remiss in not inviting you over for a drink. We must do that some evening.”
They sat there in silence a moment, watching Weems work. He did nothing to acknowledge their presence there.
“You haven’t done much entertaining since you’ve been here,” Dolly mentioned, glancing at Mitch with a raised eyebrow. “That’s not to say I’ve been studying your every move out my window with binoculars, but do you not find yourself terribly lonely?”
“Not terribly, no.”
“But it is hard, is it not?” she persisted. “Adjusting to the absence of joy in one’s life. When one has grown used to it, I mean.”
“Yes, it’s very hard.”
She nodded to herself. “I don’t believe it’s humanly possible to experience joy by oneself. It takes two. I suppose one does come to appreciate the smaller pleasures. And to accept them. But there are so many nights I just cry myself to sleep asking myself why.” She broke off into silence. “You probably understand this better than most people.”
“I’m sorry to say I do.”
Her eyes locked on to his imploringly. There was tremendous strain in hers. She seemed very tightly wound. In fact, she seemed as if she were on the verge of cracking. “No one has ever told me he didn’t want me anymore. I suppose that’s a silly thing for a person my age to say
… To go all these years without ever being rejected by anyone. I-I’d been very lucky, you see. I just didn’t know how lucky. Now I do. That’s what I keep telling myself-you were very lucky, Dolly. Take comfort in that.” She broke off, her small breasts rising and falling. “Oh, dear, I shouldn’t be going on like this. You must be sorry you ever met me.”
“Not at all. In fact, I was just thinking how glad I am.”
“You’re a very sweet man. Are you wanting for anything, Mitch? Is there anything you need?”
“Just some answers, I guess. I met Trooper Bliss today…”
“Yes, I know. He told me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It was a long time ago, Mitch. I didn’t think it would matter anymore. Particularly to someone who wasn’t here at the time. Why, does it…?”
“I don’t know, to be truthful,” Mitch answered. “Does it bother him that you’ve rented the place out?” Referring to Weems.
“One can never tell with Tuck,” she replied. “He’s rather closed off that way. When I informed him of my intentions, he simply nodded and walked away.” She gazed across the lawn at him, her face softening. “That’s Tuck. He’s been this way since we were small children.”
Mitch wondered about that first kiss Dolly had told him about. He wondered if the boy had been Tuck. “Exactly where in the house did it happen?”
“Upstairs,” she replied, her voice hollow and distant. “I found them in bed together, dead. It was… quite awful.” Abruptly, Dolly climbed to her feet, her eyes avoiding his now. “If you wish to leave, Mitch, I’ll understand. But I sincerely hope you will not.”
And with that she marched back to her house with her jar of pimientos.
Mitch went inside and hung his horseshoe over the door.
He liked it here. He wanted to stay. He was going to stay. This was home now.
The only real problem with the little house was the strong, persistent smell of mildew downstairs. Mitch had a detailed online chat with his newspaper’s home repairs columnist on the subject. She felt his trouble was poor air circulation down in the crawl space, and recommended two courses of action. Mitch rolled up his sleeves and got to work.
First, he located the air vents in the little house’s foundation. There were four of them, each approximately one-foot square. Sure enough, they’d been boarded shut to keep cold air and small animals out. Mitch pried the boards out with a pry bar-instantly unleashing a dank, dungeony odor-and installed breathable wire mesh in their place.
The next step was to roll out a vapor barrier of 6-mil plastic over the moist, exposed earth down in that dark crawl space. Since there was only about eighteen inches of clearance down there, this meant Mitch had to spend most of a day slithering around on his belly with a flashlight in what he quickly discovered was the preferred habitat of mice, black snakes and large, curious spiders. In some areas, such as over by the fireplace, the space was so shallow that his head would whack into the floor joists if he tried to raise his nose up out of the dirt. Mitch was not especially claustrophobic-he was not, say, Charles Bronson in The Great Escape. But it was not pleasant to be facedown in that confined, filthy space, rolling out the plastic, cutting it to fit, securing it in place with rocks and bricks. It was not pleasant to have a living rodent scurry over him, lose its footing on his head and scrabble around in his hair, screeching. It was not comforting to know that his only way in and out of there, the kitchen trap door, was a good twenty-foot slither away. It was slow, tedious work. But Mitch did have nearly half of the house done when he heard footsteps outside on the gravel path, coming toward the house.
They entered the house, clomping slowly and heavily on the wood flooring directly over Mitch’s head.
“I’m down here!” he called out. “The crawl space! Hello…?!”
The footsteps moved over toward the kitchen, more determinedly now. And Mitch heard a sharp noise. Something slamming shut-the trap door.
Instantly, it got even darker down there.
“Hey, what’s going on!?” he cried out as the footsteps rapidly retreated, running from the house on the gravel path. “Hey, come back!”
Mitch wriggled his way furiously back around the main water lines to the trap door and tested it. No good. The brass transom catch was like an old refrigerator door-self-locking. And the mechanism was topside. So were the hinges. All that faced him was the door itself. He tried prying the door open with his scissors. He shoved at it with all of his might. No use. It was good and locked.
His next response was to slither his way over to the nearest of the air vents, thinking maybe he could kick out the wire mesh and escape that way. No use either. The air vent was way too small for him to squeeze through.
Now the realization hit Mitch-he was trapped down there. Briefly, panic seized him. His pulse quickened. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead. But he steadied himself. Breathed in and out slowly and deeply, reciting the words: I must not panic. I cannot panic.
He recalled that he could see Dolly’s garage from one of the vents. He would call to her from there. That’s what he’d do. He slithered his way across the length of the house toward it, the beam from his flashlight growing feebler by the minute, only to discover that her car was gone. She was out. Damn. The other houses? They were too far away to be within earshot over the steady rippling of the receding tide.
He determined this by screaming “HELP!” at the top of his lungs until he was hoarse.
He finally gave up. Lay there on his stomach, enraged. Why had someone done this to him? What manner of asshole would find this funny? He would like to meet and strangle said asshole.
Mitch stayed there by the air vent. He remained calm. There was nothing to be afraid of. When the black snake slithered its way over toward him and coiled itself between his legs, he did not freak out. Black snakes were not poisonous. He knew this from Camp Tacaloma. Still, he lay there tensed and motionless, until finally it decided to move on.
He had been locked in down there for more than three hours when at last he heard the rattle of Dolly’s Mercedes diesel drawing near. He had never been so glad to hear an engine in his life. She pulled into her garage with a splatter of gravel and shut it off. He raised his face to the wire mesh and called out to her.
She was removing shopping bags from the trunk. She turned around at the sound of his voice, smiling. And then frowning. Clearly, she was baffled to discover she could not see him. He called out “Crawl space!” to her several times before she finally started her way toward the carriage house, her face a mask of confusion.
“Good heavens!” she cried out when she located his semi-contorted face pressed up against the wire. “What are you doing down there, you silly man?”
“I’m locked in, Dolly.”
“You most certainly are not,” she said, with utter conviction.
“I assure you I am.”
“Why, how absurd!”
“I could not agree more. Will you please let me out?”
She came in at once and unlatched the trap door, bathing the area under the kitchen in light.
“It must have blown shut,” she called to him as he slithered his way toward her.
“Not a chance,” he groaned as he climbed back up into the kitchen, his muscles aching, his face and hair caked with earth. Spiders and a host of other insects fell from his clothes. “Someone deliberately did it.”
“Who?”
“Someone with a sick sense of humor. I couldn’t tell you who.”
“How do you know this?”
“I heard footsteps.”
Dolly immediately froze, all color draining from her face. Briefly, Mitch thought she might faint. “Y-You heard what?” she gasped, her voice scarcely more than a whisper.
“I heard footsteps,” Mitch repeated, watching her curiously.
“No, you didn’t!” she snapped with sudden vehemence. “That can’t be. It must have been your imagination. It must.” And with that Dolly Seymour turned on her heel and darted out the door to her own house, leaving him utterly confused.
It was not his imagination. Someone had purposely locked him in down there. He’d heard the footsteps. This was a fact. But who, some kid? There were no kids on Big Sister. So who, then-Tuck Weems? Was this his way of telling Mitch he wasn’t happy to have him living there? Why had Dolly gotten so upset when he mentioned hearing footsteps? What was up with that?
Mitch didn’t know. But he did have his first nightmare that night.
He dreamt that he was down there in the crawl space, only now it felt as if the whole weight of the carriage house was pressing down on his chest. Pressing down on him so hard that he could barely breathe. He was all wet, too. Water was seeping down through the floorboards onto him. Only when he tried to wipe it from his eyes he discovered it wasn’t water. It was the blood of Roy and Louisa Weems. And it was all over him. In his mouth. In his nose. In his…
He awoke with a yelp, heart racing, his body drenched with sweat. As he lay there, panting, Mitch heard something-the crunch of footsteps outside on the gravel path. And he wasn’t dreaming now. This was real. Someone was out there… Mitch tiptoed over to the staircase. Slowly, he descended into his moonlit living room. He paused, listening. Hearing the blood rushing in his ears. Hearing the waters of the Sound lap against the rocks. Hearing more footsteps. There was an outdoor light over the front door. He flicked it on. He threw open the door…
And he came face to face with two deer who were munching on the azaleas planted next to the house. Startled, they went galloping off, hooves clip-clopping on the gravel.
Mitch let out a huge laugh and shut the door and went back to bed. He lay there, breathing in and out. Through the skylight over his head, the moon was full, with a pearly ring around like in The Wolfman. As he lay there gazing up at it, Mitch ached for Maisie’s presence next to him in the bed. A person wasn’t gone if she lived on inside of you. And Maisie did live on inside of Mitch. He could still hear her. He could still see her.
The only thing Mitch could not do was hold her.
In the morning, he decided he simply could not put it off any longer. The house was in decent shape. It was time to tackle his book. He had a ton of good material. A collection of hidden treasures like Silver Lode, the much-overlooked 1954 Allan Dwan Western in which John Payne uttered the immortal lines: “If you can kill one man the second one’s not so hard. The third one’s easy.” He had a salute to the largely forgotten exploits of the Three Mesquiteers, a trio of thirties Republic Pictures sagebrush cutups-dim-witted Ray Corrigan, daffy Max Terhune (a ventriloquist who rode around on horseback with a dummy) and handsome young John Wayne. Not many fans knew about this particular chapter in the Duke’s early film career-his Three Mesquiteers roles were usually not included in his filmography. Just the sort of thing Mitch loved to unearth and write about. He made himself a fresh pot of coffee. He sat down at his desk in front of the windows. He juiced up his computer. He got started.
And he got somewhere. He was focused. He was passionate. He was in the groove again. As Mitch’s fingers flew over the keyboard, his brain leaping from one sharp observation to the next, he came to the happy realization that it was finally happening:
He was healing.
After a couple of good, productive hours he got up and punched the power button on his stack, feeling the blue Stratocaster come to life in his hands, its six silver strings humming. He closed his eyes. He played. Good hard chops first, laying down Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “I’m Crying.” Then, when he was in there, Mitch started riffing off of it, bending it, soaring way, way up there where it was sweet and fine. Fingers squeezing out the notes. One set of toes curled around the wa-wa pedal, the other around the tube screamer. Mitch Berger was not gifted. He knew this. But he had the love and the hurt and the power. Oh, God, he had the power.
He didn’t realize he had company, too, until he opened his eyes and discovered Dolly standing there, looking positively pie-eyed. “My Lord,” she exclaimed. “I could not imagine what that noise was.”
“I’m sorry if I bothered you,” Mitch apologized. “I’ll turn it down.”
“No, no. It’s quite all right. That’s not why I’ve come,” she said hurriedly. She was in a dither of some sort. Positively rattled. “Oh, dear, I do hope I am not annoying you, because I know how you writers need your privacy and ordinarily I would not intrude. But, you see, there’s this fox in my rose garden. And it’s, well, quite dead. And I simply don’t know what to do about it. I tried phoning Tuck but he’s not answering his phone and every other man on island is gone for the day so I was wondering if you would be so kind as to…”
“Yes, of course,” Mitch said quickly. “I’ll take care of it right away.” He put on his shoes and grabbed his work gloves and followed her back to her garden, stopping to fetch a shovel from the barn.
Dolly had a lovely garden. There were peonies and foxgloves, wild geranium, irises, bleeding heart. Everything was in bloom at once. It was an explosion of controlled chaos. Her rose garden was set apart by low, carefully cropped boxwood hedges. A brick path crisscrossed it and a copper birdbath anchored its center. Next to the birdbath lay the dead fox. It was red. It was staring right at him. Flies were buzzing around it, but it did not smell too bad yet.
“It must have been searching for water, poor thing,” Dolly said hoarsely. “It’s probably been living in our woods.”
That was where Mitch buried it-in the wooded area between her place and the big summer house. He dug two feet down in the soft soil and slid it in and covered it over, tamping the soil down with his feet and laying a flat, heavy stone over it to keep other animals out.
Dolly was so grateful she invited Mitch over for a drink that very evening to meet his fellow islanders. “It’s the very least I can do,” she said. “It would be terribly impolite of me not to.”
Mitch politely declined. He ranked among the socially lost even when he was at his best. Right now he was far from his best.
But Dolly would not take no for an answer. “You must get out and meet people, Mitch,” she clucked. “It’s not healthy to spend so much time alone. You will come. I insist. It’s casual.”
Casual, on Big Sister, turned out to mean blazer and no socks. Mitch got it backwards-he wore socks and no blazer. He was also, seemingly, the only guest who arrived at Dolly’s cocktail party sober.
He had not been inside her house before, aside from the laundry room off of the garage. He’d been expecting an interior to match the old house’s immaculately restored exterior-a house filled with cherished antiques and family heirlooms, floors of wide-planked oak, walls lined with oil portraits of departed pilgrim ancestors. Such was not the case at all. Dolly’s parents had rebelled and gone contemporary in the fifties. Laid down harvest-gold shag carpeting over the old plank floors. Thrown coat upon coat of paint over the paneled walls. Converted the fireplaces to gas logs. Hung gold lame drapes over the old casement windows. Installed a breakfast nook in the kitchen of avocado-colored vinyl. Most of the furniture, which was newish, was covered in persimmon-colored chintz.
Dolly, who was drinking martinis, seemed as giddy as a little girl on roller-skates. Bud Havenhurst was downright jolly, too. It was Bud who tended the bar, which was set up on a sideboard in the study, complete with ice bucket and tongs. It was Bud who made the introductions.
The first islander Mitch met was Bud’s tall, young tennis-playing wife, Mandy. Mitch found her to be even more striking upon close encounter. Mandy Havenhurst had long, creamy blond hair, big blue eyes, lusciously plump lips and a dazzling smile. Her short, sleeveless white linen dress handsomely offset her tanned, toned arms and legs. She was not fashion-model pretty. Her jaw was a shade mannish, her nose rather broad and flat. But she was a very attractive woman, and certainly no older than thirty.
Her handshake was firm, her manner direct. “You’re the heavy metal guitarist?”
“Blues, actually. Just loud.”
“And you have a place in New York?”
“Yes, I do,” he replied, sipping his Bushmill on the rocks.
“So do we. Nothing fancy-just a little pied-a-terre.” She spoke in rushed bursts and didn’t move her mouth when she talked. “I’d be lost without it. I spend as much time there as I can. The city is so alive. But I don’t have to tell you that. I read your reviews regularly. I almost never agree with you. But you write so well.”
“Thank you, I think…” Mitch was already sorry he had come. He was out of practice. He felt tongue-tied and awkward.
Or maybe it was just that there was something so decidedly MGM Technicolor about the whole scene. The ice bucket and tongs. The Dave Brubeck album tinkling softly in the background. The vast assortment of retro hors d’?uvres that Dolly had prepared-pigs in a blanket, chicken livers wrapped in bacon, miniature egg rolls. Mitch half-expected Gig Young to come tottering through the doorway in a plaid vest, hiccoughing discreetly.
But it was Redfield and Bitsy Peck who arrived next. Dolly’s older brother did not resemble her in the least. He was a darkly colored, craggy-faced man with a massive head, barrel chest and uncommonly short legs. His trouser size, Mitch reflected, must have been 36-20. And, unlike Dolly, he was extremely reserved.
“You’re the heavy metal guitarist?” he asked Mitch, his voice a mild murmur.
“Blues, actually. Just loud.”
“Do you gun, Mitch?”
“Do I what?”
“Gun. Hunt. Do you hunt?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Too bad. Have to thin out the deer periodically or they take over the whole island. Can never get anyone to help me.” Red Peck then wandered over to the window and sipped his drink, gazing out at the Sound. He was, seemingly, out of conversation.
Bitsy was warm and bustling and full of enthusiasm. It was she who explained to Mitch why her husband was gone so much-Red was a pilot for United, specializing in the New York to Tokyo route. She also told him that they had two children, a son who was finishing up his sophomore year at Duke and a daughter, a dancer, who lived in San Francisco. Bitsy was a short, round, snub-nosed woman with freckles and light brown hair that she wore in a page-boy. She had on a denim jumper, a turtleneck, tights and garden clogs. She was friendly and motherly.
And she and Dolly appeared to be soulmates. They immediately started burbling away about each other’s flowers, Dolly coming up for air just long enough to mention that she had to take more things out of the oven. Mitch asked her if she needed any help. She allowed as how she did. And so he joined the two of them in the kitchen, where they immediately lit into Mandy’s outfit.
“If the poor dear’s going to wear her dresses that short,” observed Dolly, “then she should really do something about the backs of her thighs, don’t you think?”
“I do,” Bitsy concurred. “She’s not sixteen. Then again, maybe men don’t notice or mind the pronounced wattling. Do they, Mitch?”
“She’s a good-looking woman.”
“Well, if you’re going to spout baloney like that you can go back to the study with the men,” Bitsy said merrily.
“Mitch is planning to revive Niles’s vegetable garden,” Dolly informed her as she slid a sheet of egg rolls out of the oven.
Bitsy let out a squeal of delight. “Outstanding! I can get you started whenever you’re ready, Mitch. I have dried chicken manure. I have bunny dung. I have the hugest compost pile in the state. They call me the Compost Lady. You’re welcome to as many wheelbarrow-loads as you can handle!”
“That’s very nice of you.”
“Now tell me what you want to plant,” she commanded him.
“I was thinking about tomatoes.”
“Oh, excellent!” she exclaimed. “I am doing several heirlooms this year, but I also have Sweet One Millions and a few early disease-resistant varieties. Your timing is perfect. The soil temperature is ideal. And if you move fast you can still get your cukes in. I have a whole forest of lettuce you can have, too. The season’s running a bit late this year.” She paused to sample an egg roll, nibbling at it delicately. “Tell me, did your wife garden?”
A sudden tidal wave of emotion came crashing over Mitch. His Adam’s apple seemed to double in size, eyes stung, chest tightened. It still happened to him sometimes when Maisie came up unexpectedly. “Yes
…” he responded hoarsely. “Yes, she did.” Then he excused himself and fled for the powder room.
Only there wasn’t one. No bathroom downstairs, period. He finally found one at the top of the stairs. It was the master bath, complete with claw-footed tub and festive wallpaper featuring horseless carriages and men wearing goggles and long duffel coats. Mitch rinsed his face and gazed at his reflection in the mirror, breathing in and out. His eye strayed over to a cluster of prescription pill bottles on the top shelf of a white wicker unit next to the sink. It was, he observed, a full-fledged dispensary of mother’s little helpers. Dolly Seymour had prescriptions for Prozac, for Valium and for Vicodin, also known as housewife’s heroin. Dolly also had a prescription for lithium, which was serious medicine for serious manic-depression. This was, Mitch reflected, one hurting lady. There was a bottle of Relafen, an anti-inflammatory, that was in Niles Seymour’s name. Also a bottle of Urispas, a prostate medication. The man had left his pills behind when he flew the coop. And Dolly had kept them. Mitch found this mildly curious.
Mandy Havenhurst was seated on the stairs when he came back down, blocking his way. Her skirt was hiked up very invitingly on her thighs. From where Mitch was standing, there was not a thing wrong with them.
“You didn’t have children?” she asked, tossing her long blond hair at him provocatively.
“No, we didn’t.” Mitch was trapped there on the steps. He couldn’t go around her. He couldn’t go over her. He sat down on a step above her and said, “We weren’t ready.”
“I’m so ready I could bust. I’d like to have at least two. Maybe three. But Bud keeps saying he’s too old to be a father all over again.”
Mitch nodded, wondering why she was telling a complete stranger this.
“I’m in the city a lot,” she went on. “We should go to a museum together or something. I know nobody. And Bud will never go in. He’s afraid of New York, I think. He grew up out here. Everyone he knows he’s known since childhood. I can’t imagine that, can you? Knowing all the same people your whole life?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Don’t get me wrong-I love it here. But it can be so insulated. I’d go stir-crazy if I had to be out here full-time.” She hesitated, glancing up at him through her long eyelashes. “What I mean is, it’s nice to meet up with someone who’s real.”
“Thank you,” he said, suddenly aware that they were not alone.
Bud Havenhurst was hovering in the doorway, jealously watching the two of them. Dolly’s ex-husband was positively coiled with tension, his eyes agleam. He reminded Mitch of Claude Rains in Notorious any time Ingrid Bergman got near Cary Grant. Clearly, Bud could not believe that this lovely blond trophy was his. Clearly, he did believe that every other man wanted her as much as he did. Did Mandy encourage this belief by being just a bit too attentive toward younger, available men? Mitch wondered. Because they did seem to be playing some kind of a game. She was staring right back at her husband now, her chin raised, a look of brazen challenge on her face.
I do not want to get mixed up in this, Mitch said to himself.
“Freshen your drink, Mitch?” Bud asked him tightly.
Mandy had to let him pass now. He joined Bud in the study. There was a love seat and a pair of matching armchairs in there. Also a desk with a computer and printer on it.
“I wanted you to know, Mitch, just how great I think it is to have some new blood out here,” the lawyer said as he mixed his drink. He sounded very edgy. And he was gripping the glass so tightly Mitch thought it might shatter in his hand. “I hope you didn’t think I was being rude to you the day you came to my office. I’m just very protective of Dolly. We all are. Niles Seymour put her through hell.” He handed Mitch his refilled glass, peering at him carefully. “Fine girl, Mandy, don’t you think?”
“She seems very nice.”
“I’m a lucky man,” Bud acknowledged, beaming. “There are some mornings when I wake up… Hey, boy, I can’t believe how happy I am.”
Mitch heard jovial voices coming from the entry hall now. Young Evan had arrived with his companion, Jamie. Evan was in his mid-twenties, tall and slender and tanned, with wavy black hair and Dolly’s delicate features and blue eyes. He wore a gauzy shirt unbuttoned to his stomach, jeans and leather sandals. Jamie was about fifty, trimly built and fashionably turned out in a blue blazer, yellow Sea Island cotton shirt and white slacks. Mitch was positive he looked familiar, but he couldn’t place him.
“So you’re the heavy metal metal guitarist,” Jamie exclaimed, pumping Mitch’s hand.
“Blues, actually. Just loud. I guess I’ll have to amp down.”
“Not on our account,” Evan assured him.
Jamie nodded in agreement. “‘To each his own, said the old woman as she French-kissed the cow.’ An old expression of my dear mom’s, slightly embellished by myself. Welcome to B.S., Mitch. I’m a huge fan of your work. For one thing, you actually know what you’re talking about-which is shockingly unusual. And you are not personal or mean. So many critics these days just want to land a zinger. They don’t realize how much words can hurt.”
“Sure they do,” Mitch countered. “That’s why they do it.”
“You’ll have to come see our lighthouse,” said Evan. “It’s way cool. Second tallest on the Southern New England Coast. The Block Island Lighthouse is taller by ten feet.”
“I’d love to. Is it used for anything anymore?”
“Absolutely,” Jamie replied cheerfully. “It’s a great place to get high.”
Now it clicked-it was the drug reference that did it. “I just realized something,” Mitch said. “You’re Jamie Devers.”
“It’s true,” Jamie confessed, smiling. “I was.”
Better known to the world as Bucky Stevens, the resident little cute kid on Just Blame Bucky, which ranked as one of the classic fifties family sitcoms, right up there with Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver and The Donna Reed Show. In his heyday, Jamie Devers had been one of the biggest stars on television, a round-faced little munchkin with freckles and a cowlick and an amusingly adenoidal way of saying, “I didn’t dood it.” But, as so often happened, he outgrew his cuteness. And the show got cancelled. Jamie Devers grew a beard and got mixed up with the Peter Fonda-Dennis Hopper Hollywood drug scene of the late sixties. Got himself busted several times. Then disappeared from public view altogether. Until he’d surfaced a few years back with a highly controversial tell-all memoir, which alleged that during his prepubescent heyday he had regularly been sexually abused by a secret gay fraternity of male studio executives, agents and actors. His scathing memoir, entitled I Dood It, also claimed that the actress who’d played Bucky’s television mom had carried on a long, secret love affair with a black L.A. Dodgers outfielder. The book had become a huge bestseller and thrust Jamie back in the limelight for a brief time. Now he was out here, living on Big Sister with Evan Havenhurst and dealing in antiques. He seemed at peace. He was certainly fit and cheerful.
“Do you sail?” he asked Mitch.
“No, I’m a city kid, through and through. I can’t even swim.”
“Not a problem-that’s why they have life preservers. I can’t swim either. Child stars can’t do anything. Hell, I didn’t learn how to tie my own shoelaces until I was…” Jamie paused, glancing down at own his feet. “Actually, I still don’t know how to.” He let out a huge guffaw. “You’ll have to come out for a sail sometime with us, Mitch. You’ll enjoy it. And I promise you we’ll even wear clothes.”
This comment did not go over well with Bud, who immediately stalked off, red-faced.
Evan let out a pained sigh. “Jaymo, why must you rub his nose in it?”
“Sorry, Ev,” said Jamie, patting his hand. “The Bud man’s just such a prig I can’t help myself.”
Evan went to fetch them drinks, leaving Mitch with the one-time star.
“Still doing any acting, Jamie?”
“Boyfriend, I never was an actor,” he replied, with no trace of bitterness. “Being a child star means being you. When you get to be older, and you find out they now expect you to play a role, you discover you never really learned how. And you have no real life experiences to draw upon, since you’ve had no real life.” Evan returned now with glasses of wine for each of them. Jamie thanked him and turned back to Mitch. “In answer to your next question: No, I never watch the reruns. It was all a lie. Bogus people living in a bogus world. In fact, we don’t even own a TV That’s all behind me now. So is Tinsel Town. Beverly Hills is the only ghetto in America where the rats don’t live in the walls. Being here, I have achieved peace for the first time in my life.” He glanced fondly at his handsome young companion. “Poor Evan still has the bug, I’m afraid. That’s how we met-he was in an acting class that I was teaching in New York. I’ve been doing my best to talk him out of it. That’s absolutely the only thing Bud and I see eye to eye on.”
Evan had brought hors d’?uvres that needed heating. He excused himself to go take care of them. Mitch and Jamie drifted into the study, where Bud and Red sat talking. The subject was Niles Seymour and what a bastard he was.
“It wasn’t enough that he broke Dolly’s heart,” Red was saying, his voice a low murmur. “He had to leave her high and dry, too. That’s the detestable part.”
“Unforgivable,” agreed Jamie, sipping his wine.
“He cleaned out their joint checking and savings accounts,” Bud explained to Mitch. “He even liquidated their stock portfolio. Well over a hundred thousand dollars altogether. And he used their joint Visa card to buy two airplane tickets to St. Croix-before Dolly could get around to freezing it.”
Mitch nodded, wondering why they were suddenly being so open with him.
“Has he filed for the divorce yet?” Jamie asked Bud.
“No, but she will,” Bud replied. “On the grounds of desertion.”
“I call it outright theft,” Red fumed. “He should be in jail. The man is a no-good con artist.”
“I wouldn’t call him no good,” Jamie said. “I’d call him damned good. He’s handsome. He’s charming. And he’s as persuasive as hell. Convinced Dolly to put his name on everything, didn’t he?”
“We can’t touch him, Red,” Bud admitted glumly. “Niles had a legal right to that money.”
“But the money in those accounts was hers,” Red said insistently. He had grown considerably more loquacious with a couple of stiff drinks in him. And, like Bud, he was very protective of Dolly. “Those investments were hers. They do not belong to Niles Seymour and that… that… bimbo.”
“Who is the other woman?” Mitch asked.
“We don’t know,” Bud answered, reaching for his scotch. “Some little redhead he knew in Atlantic City before he met Dolly, apparently. All we can say for certain is that one day she showed up at the Saybrook Point Inn and the next day Niles, his car and every penny Dolly had to her name were gone.”
“We spotted them together,” Red mentioned. “Bud and I. We’d docked at the inn after a sail for a bite of brunch. And there they were having a cozy breakfast together in the dining room. She was exactly what you’d expect from Niles-young and sleazy. A thorough tramp.”
“Dolly found a Dear John letter on the kitchen table the next morning,” Bud added. “Bastard didn’t even have the nerve to face her. Just cleared out.”
“What does he do for a living?”
Evan came in now with a platter of quesadillas. He lingered, refilling his father’s scotch and Jamie’s wineglass.
“He sells things,” Red answered. “Menswear, cars, yachts…”
“And himself,” Bud added bitterly. “Above all, Niles Seymour sells himself.”
At the mention of the name Evan abruptly slammed the wine bottle down and went fleeing back to the kitchen.
“Evan doesn’t like to talk about him,” Jamie explained to Mitch quietly. “He murdered Bobo, you see. We loved Bobo. She was our baby. Most traumatic experience of Evan’s life, watching that poor little dachsund writhe in pain in his arms, unable to do a thing to help her. The vet did an autopsy-said someone had fed her ground meat laced with arsenic. We could never prove it was Niles, but we have no doubt. He’s the one who was always complaining about her barking.” Jamie’s face tightened at the memory. “He used to call us the Queers. Was always leaving us nasty little notes that began: ‘Dear Queers.’ If we left a trash can out. If we had people in for drinks… I think he believed we were having gay orgies. He’s a truly horrible person.”
“None of us were particularly sorry to see him go, Mitch,” Red said. “It was almost as if he went out of his way to antagonize every single person on this island. Kept pushing me to build luxury condos out here. He wanted to bulldoze the woods, have plans drawn up. Condos
…” Coming out of Red’s mouth it sounded like the single dirtiest word in the English language. “Can you imagine?”
“He put the moves on Mandy repeatedly,” Bud spoke up angrily. “She was not the least bit interested. But he wouldn’t leave her alone. I finally confronted him about it. Do you know what that bastard said to me? He said, ‘Don’t blame me if your wife is a common slut.’ I popped him one right in the nose. First time I’d hit someone in thirty-five years.”
“Niles used to smack Dolly around,” Red recalled. “I saw the bruises. So did Tuck Weems, who threatened to strangle him. That put a solid scare into Niles-Tuck not being the stablest individual around. Niles reported Tuck to Tal Bliss.”
“Did Bliss arrest him?” Mitch asked.
“No, that’s not Tal’s style,” Bud answered. “He just told Tuck that it would be best if he didn’t work here on Big Sister anymore. Now that Niles is gone, he’s back. Dolly insisted. She’s always been fond of Tuck.”
Red stared morosely into his empty glass. “I must confess there’s one thing that greatly concerns me…”
“What’s that, Red?” Bud asked.
“What’ll happen when Niles comes back. Because he will be back-just as soon as the money runs out.”
“Never,” Bud snapped. “That’s totally unthinkable.”
Jamie said, “I agree with Red. The bastard will come crawling back. What’s more, Dolly will take him back.”
“After what he did to her?” Mitch said. “How could she?”
“Oldest reason of all,” Red replied. “She still loves him.”
They fell into grim silence. Outside, ominous clouds were rolling in over the Sound. The sky was growing dark.
“Understand you got yourself locked in your crawl space yesterday, Mitch,” Bud said offhandedly.
“Yes, I did. Someone closed the trap door on me.”
“Damned foolish thing to do,” muttered Red.
“Who did it?” asked Jamie.
“No idea,” said Mitch. “All I know is I heard footsteps. Heavy footsteps.”
“I see…” Bud glanced uneasily over at Red, who seemed a bit uncomfortable himself. “May I ask-how did Dolly react to your little misadventure?”
“Rather strangely, now that you mention it. She maintained I hadn’t heard any footsteps. She was quite insistent about it, actually.”
“Well, she would be,” Red said heavily.
“What do you mean by that?” Mitch asked.
Red gazed out the window at the approaching darkness. “Not that it’s anything you should be concerned about-because, well, we are talking about someone who was clinically deranged-but Tuck’s father, old Roy Weems…”
The madman who had shot his wife and himself in Mitch’s bedroom. Mitch leaned forward in his seat. “Yes…? What about him?”
“In the weeks leading up to the incident,” Red Peck said, “Roy kept claiming he heard footsteps.”
Now was when Mitch had his second nightmare.
This one was a doozy. This time Mitch was back in Dolly’s study with those three men. Only now their eyes were red and their teeth very sharp, like the vampires in those garish Hammer Films horror flicks with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. And Maisie was in this one. In fact, she was one of them. She was trying to kill him. To get away from her he fled back down into the crawl space-only they followed him. They all did. Their eyes glowed at him in the darkness. And they had him surrounded. And they were edging closer and closer and…
He awoke screaming. His heart was racing. His T-shirt was drenched with sweat. And his little house was shaking. A wicked storm had blown in. The wind was howling. Lightning crackled in the sky. Thunder rumbled. And the Sound had come to life, pounding angrily against the rocks.
As Mitch lay there in the darkness, listening to this, he heard footsteps again. At first, he felt he might be letting his imagination get the best of him. But he wasn’t. These footsteps were real. And they were in the house. Downstairs. Now they were on the stairs. He could hear the stairs creak. Each creak was a footstep, each one louder than the last. Someone was moving steadily, stealthily toward him in the darkness. Growing closer. And closer…
“Who’s there?” Mitch demanded to know.
Silence. Only silence.
He fumbled for matches. Lit his hurricane lamp, bathing the upstairs loft in a golden light.
Dolly Seymour stood there at the top of the stairs.
She wore a long white nightgown and an utterly blank expression. She was barefoot. She was shivering. She stood with her hands clasped behind her, rather like a child posing for a class picture. Except she was no child. She was a mature, lovely woman. And her nightgown was very nearly sheer. Mitch could make out the fullness of her breasts, the rosy hue of her nipples, the darkness of her pubic hair.
“What is it, Dolly?” he asked her huskily. “Are you all right?”
She didn’t answer him. Just stared at him, her gaze eerily unfocused. She seemed to be in a kind of trance. Was she sleepwalking? Drugged? He couldn’t tell. Her lips were moving, a low murmur coming out of her mouth. But no words. At least, none he could comprehend.
He raised his voice. “Dolly, can you hear me?!”
“The mother,” she said in a soft little sing-song voice. Saliva bubbled from her lips.
“What about the mother?”
“The mother is hurt.” Now she started across the loft toward Mitch, unclasping her hands, raising one of them over her head.
She held a carving knife in her hand. A long carving knife. And she was coming right at him with it.
Mitch clambered from the bed and grappled with her, wrestling the knife from her hand. Dolly relinquished it with little resistance. Their brief struggle seemed to rouse her from her trance. She blinked her eyes several times now. And she looked around at the loft, wide-eyed. Then she let out a gasp of utter horror and fainted dead away in Mitch’s arms. He stood there holding her for a moment. He thought about putting her right to bed here in his bed. But then he thought better of it. He carried her sideways down the narrow stairs, hugging her to his chest, feeling the aliveness, the animal warmth of her in his arms and his hands. He carried her out his open front door into the darkness, the wind howling, the trees rustling. Fat raindrops were beginning to patter down. Soon it would pour. He started down the gravel path with her toward her place. It was a long way to carry someone but she was as light as a feather. He made it through the laundry room door with her and managed to flick on the kitchen light. Several drawers were open, the contents strewn on the floor as if the place had been burgled. He carried her up to her bedroom and set her down gently on her bed. He turned on the nightstand light. Dolly was stirring now, her eyes flickering. Her tiny hands and feet were frozen. He began rubbing them for her.
That was when she came to. She panicked at the sight of him there. “Why, Mitch!” she cried, pulling her nightgown tightly around herself. “Wh-What are you doing here in my…?”
“You were wandering in the night, Dolly. You were in my house.”
“That’s not possible!”
“I assure you it is. You came all the way upstairs to my room.”
“Oh, dear.” She swallowed, reddening. “I’m so sorry, Mitch. I do sleepwalk from time to time. I-I’m sorry to have put you to so much trouble.”
“Not a problem. That’s what neighbors are for.”
“Thank you for being so kind.” Her eyes softened now, her gaze holding his. She reached out for his hand and took it, gripping it tightly. She seemed very frightened and alone at that moment, very vulnerable.
And, suddenly, Mitch was keenly aware of just how awkward the silence was becoming. He remembered how she had felt in his arms. He realized how long he had gone without a woman. But he was also aware that it was a genuinely bad idea to go down this road. So he said, “Can I get you anything-a glass of water, another blanket?”
“No, no,” she said quickly. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I’m just so sorry I bothered you. Imagine what you must have thought…” She yawned. She suddenly seemed overwhelmingly sleepy. “Good night, Mitch,” she mumbled, burrowing under the covers. “And thank you.”
Mitch shut off the light and went back downstairs, only to discover he was not alone.
Bud Havenhurst was standing there in the kitchen in a silk bathrobe, glowering at him. “I saw the light,” he said to Mitch accusingly. “Just exactly what do you think you’re doing here?”
“She was sleepwalking. She came into my bedroom. I brought her home.”
“Do you honestly expect me to believe that?”
“I honestly don’t care what you believe,” Mitch shot back. “But that’s what happened. I didn’t invite it. I didn’t enjoy it. And I sure as hell don’t appreciate where you and your dirty mind are going. So back off, understand?”
“You’re right, you’re right,” Havenhurst said hurriedly. “You’re absolutely right. I had no call to…” He ran a hand over his face, slumping against the kitchen counter. “I was out of line. My apologies.”
Mitch stood there studying him. “Are you always up at three in the morning watching your ex-wife’s house?”
“Old habits die hard. I learned to sleep lightly when she and I were married.”
“Meaning what, she does this often?”
“Look, she’s fine, all right?” Bud said wearily. “Everyone’s fine. So just go home.”
Mitch didn’t budge. “That woman nearly stabbed me in my own bed.”
Bud drew his breath in. “She had a knife with her?”
“She did.”
“I wondered, when all I saw all of the drawers open…” A horrible thought seemed to cross his mind now. “You aren’t planning to call Tal Bliss about this, are you?”
“I will if you don’t tell me what the story is.”
“Fair enough,” Bud agreed reluctantly. “Dolly has episodes. They come and go. There have been stretches where she’s fine for three, four years. And then-” He snapped his fingers. “She’s off to the races again. No one knows why. The shrinks at Yale-New Haven never could come up with anything concrete. ‘It’s an inexact science,’ was how they kept putting it. Care for a glass of milk, Mitch?”
“No, thanks.”
“I think I may have one.” He fetched it from the refrigerator. It came in a glass bottle from a nearby dairy in Salem. He poured himself some and sipped it thoughtfully. “This storm might have set her off. Wind scares her. Always has. Or she might still be upset about Niles. Hard to say. Apparently it all dates back to when she found the bodies of Louisa and Roy Weems. Did she speak at all? Did she say anything?”
“Just one thing: ‘The mother is hurt.’”
Bud nodded gravely. “That would be Louisa Weems, Tuck’s mother. Dolly was seventeen years old, Mitch. A sheltered and sensitive young girl. It was more than she could handle. The brutality, the horror. She was severely traumatized by it. It made her…” He broke off, pained by the memory. “She became a different person. She’d been a carefree, sunny girl up until then. Always laughing, full of fun. After that, she went into a dark depression. Had to be hospitalized for months, under heavy sedation. There was even talk of electro-shock therapy. Fortunately, she pulled out of it before that became necessary. But she’s still very, very delicate. Still needs to go on her medication from time to time. And she… she still acts up in the night sometimes. So I keep an eye out.”
“Did she ever attack you?”
“No, never,” he said quickly. “But she did go after Evan once. Or she tried to-with a steak knife. I stopped her in time, thank God, and we sent him away to boarding school. As long as it was just we two, I always felt I could control the situation.”
“What about after she married Niles Seymour?”
“He was told about it. Red told him. As far as I know, there were no episodes. Dolly was happy with Niles,” Bud added with ill-disguised bitterness. He finished his milk and rinsed out the glass, sighing heavily. “Well, now you know all of the family secrets, Mitch. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep this to yourself. No need for anyone around town to know about it, right?”
Mitch stared at him a moment. Appearances. Gossip. That’s all that was on the man’s mind. All that he was worried about. “They won’t hear about it from me,” Mitch said.
“I appreciate that,” he said, looking around at the mess. “I’ll take over from here. Good night.”
The rain was starting to come down in windblown gusts as Mitch scampered back to his place. He found the bread knife on the floor next to his bed and put it away in a kitchen drawer. He had just climbed back into bed when it truly began to pour outside, the rain furiously lashing the house, gale force winds buffeting it. Mitch felt as if he were in a ship in an angry sea. After one particularly loud clap of thunder he heard a pop and Dolly’s porch light went dark. Downstairs, his refrigerator had gone silent. The power was off all over the island. Mitch burrowed under the covers, feeling curiously calmed by the violent storm. It made sense. It was real. He slept.
The worst of it was gone by morning, but it was still raw and drizzly out, the sky and the Sound an identical shade of pewter. He could hear a foghorn from somewhere in the distance. No boats were out. Not a one. And his power was still off, meaning he had no heat and no water-both the oil burner and his well pump required electricity. He climbed into his heavy wool robe and built a huge fire in the fireplace against the damp and the cold. His stove ran on propane, so he was able to light a burner with a match and boil some bottled water for coffee. He was huddled before the fire with a cup of it, feeling very groggy after his adventurous night, when the power finally came back on. He showered and shaved and dressed. He made himself some scrambled eggs and slab bacon and toast. He was just finishing up the dishes when he heard the clatter of a garden cart out on the gravel path.
It was Bitsy Peck, bustling along in bright yellow Gore-Tex bib overalls and green rubber rain boots, her cart loaded down with tray upon tray of seedlings. The woman had brought Mitch a small nursery. He went outside to greet her.
“Good morning, Mitch!” she burbled at him excitedly. “We seem to have Big Sis all to ourselves this morning. Red left at five A.M. for New York. Mandy hitched a ride with him. The boys are at their shop. Bud’s at the office. And Dolly’s at the dentist. I understand she paid you a little visit last night-she’s totally aghast. Embarrassed beyond belief. Afraid you might have gotten the wrong idea. That was quite some Nor’easter, wasn’t it? I do hope someone warned you that we almost always lose power. All it takes is one hiccough and poof. I can live without the lights but no shower, no toilets, no way.” She came up for air, puffing slightly. “I’ve been up since four, in case you’re wondering why I’m chattering away like a magpie.”
“This is incredibly nice of you,” Mitch observed, sorting through the trays of seedlings.
“Nonsense,” she clucked. “After a storm is the best time to plant. I can help you get started-unless you have something else you need to do right now.”
He needed to work on his damned book. But he was thrilled to have such a good excuse not to. Besides, she seemed downright anxious to get at it. She’d even brought her own fork and spade. A true garden zealot. “There’s nothing else I need to do,” Mitch assured her. “Let’s get cracking.”
The vegetable patch that Niles Seymour had tended was out behind the barn. This was the sunniest spot on the property when the sun happened to be out, which it was not. It was roughly twelve by sixteen feet. A crude, homemade chicken-wire fence served as an enclosure.
“That’s to keep the rabbits out,” Bitsy informed him as she nudged the rickety gate open. “Although, to be perfectly honest, nothing can keep them out if they want in.”
The patch was in a state of serious neglect-lumpy, furrowed and weedy. Wild berry bushes and small volunteer trees had begun to take hold. Bitsy knelt and pierced the muddy earth with a trowel, inspecting its composition with an expert eye. She fetched her spade and dug deeper, sifting the dense soil through her fingers, muttering under her breath. She reminded Mitch of Walter Huston studying a gold vein in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
“As my son Jeremy would say,” she concluded, “it’s totally bogus.”
“Bogus how?”
“All Niles did was dress the top layer, that’s how. If you go down six inches it’s thoroughly compacted. Look at this-there’s zero drainage. Nothing will take root here. Nothing. Either he hasn’t a clue how to garden or he’s just plain lazy. Probably a bit of both.” She leaned back on her ample haunches, sighing. “Mitch, we’re going to have to double dig.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
“Going down two spade-lengths. Removing the rocks. Enriching the soil with compost and manure, adding peat moss for drainage. Then, and only then, can we plant.”
“I didn’t realize it would be so much work,” Mitch said doubtfully.
“This is what proper gardening is, my young friend. Soil preparation is everything. We can take your truck to my place for the organic matter. But first…” She thrust a chubby index finger in the air. “We dig!”
A nut, Mitch reflected. This woman was a nut.
He went to the barn for a shovel and a fork and returned with them. She was already at it, turning soil like a demon.
And so they dug. Soon they began hitting rocks. Some of these were small. Some could be loosely classified as boulders. They piled them just inside the fence, Mitch quickly working up a sweat in the damp morning air. Fine pinpoints of perspiration formed on Bitsy’s upper lip, but she was surprisingly fit for such a round woman. Downright tireless. And raring to gossip.
“You are probably filled with a million questions after last night,” she said gaily. “In answer to what is no doubt your first one, Mandy is the only one on this island who has any real money. The girl’s filthy with it, actually. Her family started a brewery in St. Louis back in the eighteen-hundreds. What the poor dear hasn’t got is any social class. The women in town loathe her-she wears too much gold and not enough clothing. She didn’t go to Miss Porter’s. She didn’t graduate from Smith.”
“Did you?”
“Sure,” Bitsy said offhandedly. “Believe me, if you met her father you would think he drives a truck for a living. That’s why she married Bud.”
“She seems to want kids,” Mitch said, puffing.
“Desperately,” Bitsy confirmed. “Or so she says. I’m never quite sure whether I believe her. She’s one of those women who is always telling people what she thinks they want to hear. I also suspect she has a young hunk of a boyfriend in New York. Bud only keeps that apartment at her insistence.”
“He watches her like a hawk.”
“Why do you say that?” Bitsy asked eagerly. “Did she hit on you?”
“Not really. I doubt I’m her type.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Mitch. You’re a very nice-looking young man.”
“Are you hitting on me?”
“Stop that!” she commanded, howling with laughter. “Now, as for Jamie and Evan, Jamie will play the village queen role just a teensy bit-to rile Bud, mostly. But he’s a good-hearted man. And he’s been so good for Evan, who was just the lostest little bunny before Jamie came along.”
“Did Bud have a hard time accepting Evan’s gayness?”
“As you can well imagine,” she affirmed. “Bud has a hard time accepting anything that isn’t what he knows. Actually, Bud has been something of a puzzle to me. He’s still so devoted to Dolly. And acts so crushed by what happened. Yet he let Niles steal her away from him.”
Mitch’s shoulders were starting to ache from driving the spade into so many chunks of granite. “He did?”
“Of course. A good woman like Dolly isn’t lured away from her husband. She has to be driven away. Bud didn’t want her anymore. When Niles came along, she was feeling unloved and unattractive. Believe me, it can also get a bit lonely out here. Look at my own situation. Red makes four flights a month to Tokyo. He’s four days on-two days to get there, two days to get back-then he’s three days off, asleep mostly, the poor lamb. And then he’s gone again. Poor Red was such a disappointment to his parents. They wanted him to carry on the Peck political legacy. But he doesn’t like giving speeches. Or mingling with strangers. He likes peace and quiet. His cockpit. His little island. We’re hoping our boy, Jeremy, will show a taste for public life. He is talking about law school after he… Oh, beans!” Her spade had collided with yet another solid object. It didn’t give off the sharp clank of metal upon stone. This was more of a dull thud. “I was afraid of this,” she said.
Mitch leaned on his spade, catching his breath. “What is it?”
“Tree root.” She gazed around them with a critical eye. “One of your garden’s worst enemies, Mitch. It will hog all of the soil’s moisture and nutrients.”
“Is it from that oak?” There was a fine old one over next to the barn.
“No, they have a tap root-straight down. It’s probably that mulberry over there. I’ll fetch my pruning saw. We’ll make short work of it.” She went waddling off toward her place, swiping at the mud on her overalls.
Mitch started digging out the soil from around it so they could get a clear shot at it-when suddenly the smell hit him. It was powerful. It was putrid. It was so sickening he gagged and very nearly threw up.
The solid object was not a tree root at all. It was somebody’s leg.