Stone Cove Island (12 page)

“My mom comes off as so, I don’t know what. Venal.”

“Well, yes, but that’s according to my seventeen-year-old mom. You have to take it with a pretty big grain of salt when you consider the source.” Actually, I thought his mom seemed just as described in the diary, but you couldn’t say that to someone about his own mother. “It’s clear she was into your dad though. She definitely knew what she wanted.”

“That part sounds like her. I think we should look at the section right before Bess’s murder, or what was going on with any of them back then. Maybe she mentions a guy Bess met that summer? Or anything strange?”

“Sure. I haven’t read the whole thing.” The diary was thick and crammed with my mom’s tiny, swirly writing. Pages had words along the margin where she’d run out of space and turned up the side of the page, and little observations added later, crammed in above or below what she’d already written. It gave the book a feverish quality. I sat down on the floor beside him. He was wearing a flannel shirt and it was warm against my shoulder.

“Are you cold?” he asked, reading my mind.

“I’m okay. I didn’t bring anything to write with though. We might want to take notes.” My dad usually had a Sharpie or a carpenter’s pencil lying around in his woodshop. I started to open drawers. Charlie skimmed the August pages.

“So here’s what was going on before Bess died in August,” he began. “My mom was mad that Dad hung out with Bess at a party. Some girl named Lynn cut her hair just like Mom’s and all three of them made fun of her. Mom wanted Willa to tell Bess to stay away from Jimmy, but Willa said no—”

“Willa said no? My God. Red-letter day.” I was still digging around, looking for something to write with. My fingers brushed a rough piece of metal.

“My mom is so mad at everyone all the time in this. Is that what girls are really like?”

“Some girls, I guess.” I reached back farther, feeling for the metal object. It seemed too big and too heavy to be a pen. I grasped what felt like a ring on one end and pulled it from the drawer.

“Charlie,” I gasped.

I was holding a black anchor.

Charlie came over to stand with me at the worktable where I had laid down the anchor. We both stared at it.
Gobsmacked
was the word that leaped to mind for some reason. Theo Dorset, on the British Olympic sailing team, always says it. I don’t think we have an equivalent term, but I certainly had the equivalent feeling. I felt sick, really.

The anchor was made of iron, about four inches long and heavy for its size. It had a ring on one end. You could tie a thin rope to it or wear it as a necklace. Although, picturing the latter, it would be like wearing a metal albatross or brand. I thought back to tenth-grade English, Hester Prynne in
The Scarlet Letter
. She had been banished within her own village, forced to wear the scarlet
A
and parade her shame as she went about her daily activities. I would have left, if it had been me, but it probably wasn’t so easy to do that as a young, pregnant woman back then. Or now, come to think of it.

“It couldn’t be a real anchor of some kind, could it?” asked Charlie. He already knew the answer to that.

“Maybe for a sailboat in your bathtub,” I answered. “Why does my dad have it?” I went to put the anchor back where I’d found it.

“And who’s it for?” he asked. He got out his phone and snapped a picture. “Okay. We better put it back where we found it.”

I put the anchor back exactly as I had discovered it, or close enough I hoped. The blood was pounding in my ears.

“I don’t know what to do now,” I said.

“We need to figure out where it came from and figure out what your dad is planning to do with it.”

“My dad would never hurt anyone,” I said.

“I know,” said Charlie. “We’ll figure out what it means. Don’t worry.” He leaned toward me and kissed my forehead, then circled his arms around me. In just a few days it felt like I’d gone from trusting the whole island to trusting just one person. All of a sudden, I felt scared. I didn’t like change. I’d been lying to myself when I’d kissed him earlier. I liked the way things had been before, Charlie notwithstanding. Of course, Charlie was a big notwithstanding.

IT WAS VERY HARD
to sleep. Charlie had lingered in the backyard with me, our heads and hands together, until I got too nervous that my mom would look out the window or my dad would find us outside. I lay in bed, staring at the water marks on the ceiling left by the storm. I was shocked by the anchor, shocked that it was even possible that the myth about the island could be true, but I could not believe my
dad was part of it: my dad, who had lived here his whole life, who had built and repaired so many homes here, who had spent so many hours coaching swimming just because he loved it, who had patiently nursed my mom through so many dark spells.

Could he really be the one to deliver the threatening anchor? The one to decide who got to stay and who had to go from Stone Cove? I did not think it was in his nature, that kind of judgmental outlook on the world, deciding who belonged and who didn’t. He liked to be part of the gang, a friend to everyone. There had to be some other explanation. I rolled over for the thousandth time, trying to get comfortable. At last, just as I started to drift off, my body jolted back awake, as though I’d caught myself falling. My father who loved swimming, who was a great swimmer. My mother never had been. Bess was an excellent swimmer, and so was Dad.

IN THE MORNING WHEN
I woke up, my eyes felt like they’d been rubbed with sandpaper. My stomach churned. I’d forgotten to eat dinner, but food was the last thing I wanted. I wasn’t sick really, I knew. But I couldn’t go to school. I couldn’t fake my way through a whole day instead of finding out what that black anchor was doing in my dad’s shop. I lay in bed, trying to come up with a plan. I didn’t think Dad would leave something like that lying around for long, even in what was supposed to be his private domain. It seemed too risky. But I couldn’t follow him around the island all day.

I went into the bathroom, ran the hot water in the sink
and threw a towel over my head and let the steam envelop me. Luckily the power was on, so there was hot water. Then I dried my face and stumbled to the kitchen. It wasn’t hard to look exhausted.

“Mom,” I said in a scratchy voice that I hoped I wasn’t overdoing. “I don’t feel well.” She put her hand to my forehead and tensed her own with worry.

“You feel hot. Do you want to go back to bed?”

“But I have school …” I said, my voice wispy.

“Better to get well. Missing one day won’t hurt you.”

I nodded. “Where’s Dad?” I asked.

“At the inn. They’re starting on the roof today. Finally.” If my dad was at the inn, Charlie would be able to keep tabs on the anchor.

“Are you going to be here?”

“I have to go to market this morning but I shouldn’t be long. I can stay home with you,” she replied.

“Thanks,” I said, even though that wasn’t why I was asking. I turned back to my room, got dressed and lay under the covers until I heard her click and bolt the door on her way out. She always locked the door when she left, even if there was still someone at home. Then I counted to one hundred and slipped out the back way.

In the shed, I had the creepy feeling of being watched.
It must be my own guilt
, I thought. The anchor was still in the drawer, exactly as I had left it. That meant my father wasn’t delivering it to the Penders, Colleen or any guests at the inn. Maybe, I told myself optimistically, he’s not delivering it to anyone.

Back inside, I wrote a quick note to my mom—on paper.
She wasn’t much of a text message girl.
Feeling so much better. Going to try school for the afternoon
. I took my book bag, my math notebook and Mom’s diary. I was going to the library to see what I could find out about Grant, Paul and what had happened to the marina. I had until about 4
P.M.
, when my dad would be home from work. I texted Charlie. I wanted him to come to the library with me, but it seemed like a better—less fun, but better—idea for him to stay close to home and see if my dad did anything weird. Charlie texted back that he’d stick around.
miss you though.
That was nice.
ditto
, I wrote.

Terminal 3 was open. The library was almost deserted. That meant I could spread out and not feel worried about anyone reading over my shoulder. Once I reassured Mary Ellen that I didn’t need help, she went back to her office and left me alone. I thought briefly of my bike. How was I going to get it back? I wasn’t in a hurry to return to the marina, that was for sure.

There weren’t any news stories about the town taking over the marina. Grant’s boating accident didn’t even make any paper other than our local one. The
Gazette
ran a short obituary, no picture: Grant Guthy, former owner of the Stone Cove Marina Boatyard and Boat Rentals had drowned in an accident while fishing alone. The vague details and lack of description of Grant himself implied disapproval, which I took to mean either drinking or drugs. Neither Karen nor Bess was mentioned.

Counting backward, I figured Bess would have been about eleven at the time. I wondered if my mom was already friends with her when her father died. My searches
on Paul turned up two DUIs in the
Gazette
crime blotter.
Maybe he could use my bike
, I thought. In the issue before Grant’s death there was an ad for the Marina Boatyard (
UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT!
) but no article.

The transfer seemed to have taken place silently. Had Grant lost the business through debt? Or had he made a lot of money selling it? If that were true, would Bess have inherited the money? Could she have been killed for that reason? What if Paul thought that the money belonged to him? I didn’t know who would be able to answer these questions, but this part of the story felt more like gossip than fact, so I decided to take my coffee break at the Picnic Basket rather than talking to Jay.

NANCY WAS WORKING ALONE
when I arrived. I poured myself a cup of the strong blend from the self-service urns they had out, then spent a long time fussing with the cream and sugar to give us more time to talk.

“You know what’s funny?” I said. I couldn’t think of a subtle way to start the conversation, so I went for picking up where we had left off. “I just saw Paul Guthy. You know Bess’s uncle?”

“Yeah?” she said uncertainly. I waited for her to offer some commentary, but she was uncharacteristically silent. I went on.

“Well, it turns out—you know how Greg said surfers discovered Bess’s clothes after she drowned?—Paul was one of the surfers.”

“I guess I do remember that,” said Nancy.

“Did he work at the marina then? I was wondering if
he’d worked there since Grant died. Taking over for his brother.”

“That’s more recent. Back then he worked for us. He was between things, and Greg liked to help him out.”

“Really? He worked for you around the time Bess drowned?”

“I know he did. He worked the summer fair booth with me the night it happened. I remember thinking afterward how strange it was, everyone in town having fun while that was going on. That’s why I’m sure it wasn’t anyone from here.”

The summer fair was an annual carnival that took place on the green. All the local shops set up booths and there were games and live music. It was funny I hadn’t put together that that had taken place the same night. My mom hadn’t mentioned it in her diary. It was true that the whole island usually did show up for the fair, but I knew that Bess and at least some of her friends had been at The Slip later that night. Mom had mentioned Dad and Jimmy. Was Cat there? The fair ended with a midnight fireworks show. If Paul had worked the Picnic Basket’s booth, he would have stayed for cleanup after that. Nancy couldn’t have moved everything herself. So he couldn’t have been at the lighthouse that night.

“Oh,” I said. “So he wasn’t involved with the marina after the town took over?” I was interrupted by the sound of Greg clearing his throat. Nancy turned and looked like a startled deer. Greg gave her a stern look, and her nervous expression turned to guilt.

“I should get back to work, Eliza. Can I get you anything else?”

“No thanks. Hi, Greg,” I said, super friendly, then slipped out to let them work out whatever domestic squabble was going to ensue. Last time I’d been there, he’d warned her not to talk so much. This time he didn’t want her talking, and she knew it.

BACK AT THE LIBRARY
, I was stuck. Paul had seemed like the obvious choice, but now he had an alibi. I went back to searching old issues of the
Gazette
, but kind of aimlessly. Drowning, I realized, made the truth especially difficult to determine. It wasn’t like a shooting or stabbing. It seemed almost impossible to know exactly what happened, when and how. There had been so many famous, unsolved cases: the actress Natalie Wood, or that architect in the Hamptons. He’d left his clothes behind on the beach as well. Or the singer Jeff Buckley, walking right into the Mississippi River.

BESS HAD NOT COMMITTED
suicide, I reminded myself. Her hair had been cut off. Her clothes were covered in blood. I typed in “drowning” in the
Gazette
archive search, not expecting anything to come up.

I’d made only a few quick notes before a text from Charlie interrupted me.
your dad just left. call me when you are alone. need to talk.

I’d lost track of time. My dad would get home before me now unless I ran. I wished for the third time that I hadn’t left my bike. I made it home in a half-run, half-awkward speed walk, my book bag banging the outside of my thigh painfully. No one was home. That either meant
I’d beat my dad there or already missed him. I hurried to the shed and opened the drawer. Then I called Charlie.

“The anchor is gone,” I said before he’d even said hello.
That was a dumb move
, I thought immediately. If this had been a movie, the killer would have answered instead of Charlie.

“I’m glad you called,” said Charlie. He sounded out of breath, a little off balance. “Some weird stuff happened today. I was outside cleaning paint brushes. I heard my dad and your dad talking. My dad said not to worry, now Malloy wouldn’t be a problem. He just needed a reminder.”