Generation Loss (37 page)

The
press had a field day. Within hours the incident had leaked to the national
media, with headlines like photo finish and silence of the snapping turtles.
Denny's story had nearly everything—murders, abductions, madness, art. Best of
all, a teenage girl who survived to tell the tale—though not, it turned out, to
the tabloids. Merrill Libby surprised me again by taking a relatively hard line
with any exploitation of his daughter. There was an exclusive interview with
the
Bangor Daily News,
and that would be it. For now, anyway. Kenzie was
in counseling; she'd been sent to stay with relatives near Collinstown for a
few days. Merrill had been in touch with her mother for the first time in
several years.

The
wreckage of the Boston Whaler was recovered. Denny's body was never found,
despite divers who searched the frigid waters off Tolba Island. This further
complicated things as far as the investigation went.

All
this must have been terrible for Gryffin. I still hadn't seen him. Toby said he
was caught up with the details of his mother's funeral, as well as with the
nightmare of learning his father was a compulsive murderer. It was unnerving to
think that, in the space of a few days, I had effectively orphaned him.

I'd
also insured that the youth of Paswegas County would be provided with a
campfire story for years to come. Toby told me the locals were already
referring to Denny as The Mad Hatter, after I'd explained to the investigators
about the contents of Denny's darkroom. All artists crave some kind of
immortality. Denny Ahearn had achieved his. Unless, of course, he really was
too tough to die.

The
night after Kenzie's rescue, I finally called Phil Cohen back in the city.

"Cassandra
Android! There's a horrible picture of you in the
Daily
News!
What
the hell happened up there?"

I
gave him a thumbnail account. "Thanks for doing me another favor, Phil."

"Jesus,"
he said. I could hear the city around him—traffic, voices. Even at this
distance, it sounded impossibly loud, compared to the wind and crying gulls
above Burnt Harbor. "Hey, Neary—tell me there's no causal relationship
between all this shit and your being there?"

"No
causal relationship whatsoever."

I could
tell from the silence that he didn't believe me.

"So,"
he said at last. "Did you at least get an interview before the old lady
kicked?"

"Nope."

"Photos?"

"Uh-uh."

"So
what the hell did you do up there? I mean, other than saving the kid."

"Not
a lot, Phil," I said. "Listen, does this mean I don't get a kill
fee?"

"A
kill fee?" He laughed. "I'll see what I can do, okay? You could bank
this story, you know that, right? You and the girl, that's real Scary Neary
shit, you could really—"

"Forget
it," I said. "I've gotta go. I'll be back in a few
days; I'll
call you."

"Wait—!"

I
hung up.

The
following morning, Merrill Libby came to my cabin and said that Kenzie wanted
to see me.

"What
you did." He stood outside the door, sweating even though it was starting
to snow. "That was a good thing, Mrs. Neary."

"It's
Ms. Neary." I took his outstretched hand and shook it tentatively.
"But thanks."

Late
that afternoon, Toby drove me to Collinstown. Heavy wet snow splattered the
windshield as we crept along a gravel road. The pickup's tires were bald, so we
went very slowly. The house was a new modular, surrounded by scraped earth
sifted white and starred with children's footprints. Kenzie opened the door.

"Hey,"
she said shyly.

Her
aunt and cousins looked just like Merrill. But they were friendly and didn't
ask me any questions.

"Kenzie's
staying in Shannon's room," her aunt said. "I told Shannon to give
you some privacy."

She
turned and told the kids to keep it down. Toby settled with them on the couch to
watch TV.

"Thanks
for coming," Kenzie said as we walked down the hall. "I'm going kind
of crazy here. They're nice, but.. ."

We
entered a small room. Pink walls, pink cartoon-patterned sheets, one bed and a
sleeping bag on the floor. I sat on the bed. Kenzie flopped onto the floor and
picked up a black vinyl CD case. She wore a new red hoodie with Tinkerbelle
printed on it. The fretwork of scars on her face had already begun to fade, and
while there were dark circles under her eyes, her cheeks were pink. When she
looked at me, she smiled.

"I
really want to go down to Florida to see my mom."

"They
won't let you?"

"No,
they will. In a few days, I think. It's just boring."

"You
have a high threshold for excitement."

She
pointed at my eyepatch. "Does that hurt?"

"Not
really."

"Are
you blind?"

"Nah.
They just don't want the stitches under it to tear. The skin there's really
sensitive."

She
smiled that sweet kid's smile. "It looks really, really cool."

"Yeah?"
I touched the corner of the patch gingerly. "Maybe I should keep it."

"You
should."

She
stared at her knees. I reached for the CD case and began flipping through it.
"Shit. Is this what you listen to?"

"Pretty
much. My mom says she's going to get me an iPod when I'm down there."

I
read some of the CD titles and grimaced. "Jesus. Well, these are
okay—" I tapped
Fire of Love
and volume two of the
Ramones
Anthology.

"I
like their early stuff better."

"Yeah,
me too." I stared at the case for another moment then handed it back to
her. "Listen, when I get back to the city I'll send you some CDs to rip.
You like Patti Smith?"

"I
love her! 'Dancing Barefoot'. .."

"Forget
that. Her first album, you have that one? No? I'll send it to you. You're
online, right? Give me your email address, I'll write and tell you some other
stuff you should be listening to."

"Really?
That would be so great."

I
stood. "I better get back. Toby's truck, it doesn't do too good in the
snow."

I
stepped to the door of the bedroom. Kenzie followed, hands shoved in the
pockets of her cargo pants.

"Here,"
she said. She withdrew her hand from her pocket and handed me something.
"I made this for you."

It
was a bracelet of braided string and fishing line and seaglass, beertabs and
red glass beads.

"Thanks."
I looked at her and smiled. "It's beautiful. Really."

She
hesitated, then said, "They said you did a book? Like, photographs of
stuff? I'd like to read it."

"I
would've thought you had enough of photography."

"No.
I mean, yeah, but not this kind. I'm going to get a digital camera. My father
said I could, with the money we get from the article."

"Yeah?
That's really cool. You do that. Send me your stuff. I'd like to see what you
come up with."

She
walked me to the front door. Toby got up, and we walked outside.

"Thanks,
Cass," Kenzie called as we picked our way through the snow.

"I'll
send you those CDs," I said and got into the pickup.

Toby
backed into the road. I stared at the house. Kenzie had followed us out into
the darkness and stood there, snow swirling around her pale face and settling
onto her black hair. I rolled down the window.

"Bye
Kenzie," I said. She waved as we drove back to Burnt Harbor.

28

The
next afternoon there was a memorial service for Aphrodite at the Burnt Harbor
Congregational Church. I didn't go, though Toby thought I should. He'd returned
to the island after dropping me off the night before, and spent the night with
Gryffin. Now it was two-thirty in the afternoon.

"You
really should come to the service. You should say good-bye to Gryffin, at
least." Toby stood in the door of my cabin, wearing dark wool pants and a
pinstriped jacket that smelled of mothballs. He'd trimmed his beard and
rebraided his pigtail. "We're going to dinner afterward at the Good Tern.
You should come. You need closure."

"Closure?
I've had enough closure to last a lifetime." I shook my head. "I
already feel like the bad fairy at the christening. I need to get on the
road."

My
car remained parked down in Burnt Harbor. I still hadn't been back to it. I'd
been sleeping way too much—I had a sleep deficit going back at least a week—but
I figured if I left before dark I could get as far as Bangor, find another
motel, then hit the road again first thing next morning.

This
time tomorrow I'd be in the city again. It felt like I'd been gone a year.

Toby's
face creased. "Can't you wait till after the service? So we can at least
say good-bye? You'll need a ride down to get your car at the harbor,
anyway."

I
sighed. "Yeah, sure. Whatever."

"Good."
He brightened and stepped back outside. "We'll come by afterward. See you
then."

"Toby."
He stopped, and I said, "I—well, just thanks, that's all. For
everything."

"Oh,
sure." He stared at his feet, reached down to wipe snow from his boots,
then with a sigh straightened. "Jesus. What a horrible week. Poor Gryffin.
Poor Aphrodite. And Denny ..."

"Poor
everyone."

He
looked at the sky. "It's supposed to snow later. A big storm. I heard
eighteen inches," he added. He waved at me and left.

It
was almost three o'clock. It had been a flawless day, new snow glittering like
broken glass and the evergreens green as malachite against the cloudless sky.

But
already the light was failing. I didn't believe it was going to snow— there was
a thin ridge of clouds to the west, but otherwise it was the nicest day I'd
seen since arriving in Maine. I watched through my cabin window until Toby
drove off. Then I sat on the bed and stared at my camera bag. Finally I
withdrew the copy of
Deceptio Visus
and opened it.

Our
gaze changes all that it falls upon .
.
.

Denny's
gaze certainly had changed things. Aphrodite's too, I supposed; though as I
looked through
Deceptio Visus
now, her photos seemed calculated and
overdone.

And
too easy. She'd photographed beautiful things—islands, clouds, the rising sun—and
made them more beautiful. Whereas Denny had striven to capture something
horrifying and make it beautiful, beautiful and eternal. For him, Hannah
Meadows had never really died. Or maybe it was that she had never stopped
dying. In all the years since he'd found her drowned corpse by that quarry,
he'd never been able to look away.

I
found the stolen photograph of Gryffin.

"I
see you," I whispered.

I
closed the book and put it in the bottom of my bag. Then I got my camera,
removed the exposed film and loaded it with my last roll of Tri-X, and went
outside.

The
dying light sent long, thin shadows across the snow. The pines were still
sheathed in white. I walked into the woods that bordered my cabin, found a
small clearing, and began to shoot.

I
wasn't trying for anything special. I just wanted to feel myself behind the
camera. I wanted to see if my eye, injured or not, had changed.

And
I guess I wanted to see if the world had changed as well. I shot most of the
roll before I lost the light, black branches and the shadows between fallen
leaves, a pile of punctured acorns like tiny skulls, gaps in the underbrush
where it seemed that small faces stared back at me. Once I thought I heard
something moving in the crotch of a tree overhead, and I stumbled backward and
nearly fell.

But
when I looked up there was nothing there, only a flickering shadow that might
have been a squirrel or crow, or maybe something larger.

The
light was gone when I walked back to my cabin. I went into my cabin and cleaned
up for the last time and replaced my bandage. I checked to make sure I hadn't
left anything behind, then sat to wait for Toby.

It
was past five when someone knocked at the door. I stood and opened it.

"Cass.
Hi."

It
was Gryffin. He looked down at me, his face pale and eyes red. "Toby's got
Suze and Ray and Robert all crammed into his truck. So I said I'd get you. You
have everything?"

"I
think so." I struggled to keep my voice calm as I put on my jacket,
wincing as I stuck my bad arm through the sleeve. I picked up my bag and my
camera. "This is it."

We
walked to where he'd parked his old gray Volvo, outside the motel office. I
went inside—the door was open—and left my room key on the desk. Merrill was
gone. There was a note he'd be back that night. As I returned to Gryffin's car
I saw that the sign now read closed for the season.