Authors: Katherine Hall Page

The Body in the Kelp (24 page)

BOOK: The Body in the Kelp

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“I'm sure you do. We stopped for clams at Beal's, but I can eat again. How about you, honey?” Quentin said. He was very appreciative of Hope's sister's talents. Hope herself had firmly told him her own culinary expertise involved knowing which number to dial.

“We have been eating like pigs. Lobster, clams, all those biscuits and pies, but it's vacation, so lead me to the trough.” She was on a permanent diet. The Sibley side of Faith and Hope's family were tall and also had what was referred to kindly as “big bones.” Hope's skin had been stretched tightly, but not too tightly, over those bones so far, and with her dark hair and deep-green eyesâthe only ones in the family, to Faith's chagrinâthe
hearts Hope Sibley did not cause to quicken in fear over her business acumen quickened for more pleasurable reasons. Quentin was tall too, although less exotic in appearance: light brown hair, brown eyes. Just your average, run of the mill, good-looking-enough-for-any-ad-campaign-from-Dior-to-Dewars kind of guy. They made a nice couple.

They settled onto the porch and took turns retrieving Benjamin from trying to climb onto the Jeep's hood. He had settled into car worship and Faith had to keep her car locked at all times after once discovering him at the wheel, steering away and screeching in imitation of squealing tires.

Quentin seemed to find it all very amusing, and Faith and Hope exchanged looks of relief. Quentin did not have a great deal of experience with children. None, in fact, and viewed the whole notion of parenthood with fear and loathing. There was no question of avoidance, he had told Faith once as she was cleaning spit up off his linen suit in Ben's earlier days. The line must continue, but preferably out of sight with a good nanny. Hope felt almost the same way, with moments of thaw when Ben was particularly winsome.

Faith raised an eyebrow in inquiry and glanced in the direction of her sister's ring finger. Hope shook her head slightly. She didn't seem worried about when and if Quentin would pop the question. He could do no wrong.

They began to eat the gravlax Faith had made with the salmon from Sonny Prescott and dill from the Millers' garden. There was dark-brown bread to go with it, and Faith had heated up some tiny chÃ¨vre tarts, in case anyone was still hungry.

“Delicious ! And we certainly won't need dinner after all this.” Hope leaned back against Quentin, sitting on the stair above.

“Speak for yourself. I always need Faith's dinners,” he protested.

“Me too,” Faith said. “Besides, we'll eat later, after Ben is in bed. Anyway, it's a simple meal, a bourride, some saladâ”

Hope sat up. “And now, sister dear,” she said, fixing Faith with that gimlet eye usually employed in sizing up a building, or individual, in her capacity as a real estate appraiser for Citibank,
“tell all, and I do mean allânot the edited-for-Mother-and-Father version.”

Faith had sandwiched a brief mention of finding Roger's body between glorious descriptions of the flora and fauna of the Maine coast in a letter to her parents. After finding Bird's body, she had decided not to say anything more and confined herself to postcards of lighthouses and sunsets with brief messages about the weather.

“I know you found some poor drowned man's body on the beach, Fay, but knowing you I figured there had to be a whole lot more going on.”

Her sister was smart. But where to begin and where to stop? She gave an only slightly edited version of the last few weeks, and had just gotten to Bill Fox's suicide when the phone rang.

“I hope that's Pix,” Faith cried, and ran inside.

It was.

“Faith, I had just about given up. They weren't home again. Then on my way back, I passed them on Route 17 and waved them over to the side. They'd been at Nan's sister's house helping her pack. She's moving to her daughter's in Granville or maybe it's South Beach.”

“Pix ! Tell me about it later! Did they know where the road was?”

“Of course, and what's more we all drove over there and I know where it is now too. Is your sister there yet?”

“Yes, and there's just enough daylight to go and have a look. I haven't had a chance to tell them about it, but I'll fill them in on the way. Can you meet me there in ten minutes?”

“Of course. See you then.”

Faith ran back to the porch and hastily told Quentin and Hope about the quilt.

“Are you making this all up to entertain us?” Quentin asked reasonably. “If so, it's very kind of you and a lot of funâespecially after the tale of horrors you've been relating.”

“I swear it's true,” Faith protested.

They were still claiming disbelief as they got into the Jeep while Faith threw some shovels, trowels, a pick, and a crowbarâ
all easily to hand in the Thorpe cottage's well-equipped barnâinto the back. Soon they were headed off to Prescott Point. Ben chortled with joy at riding in the Jeep and made little
vroom-vroom
noises all the way there.

Pix was waiting by the side of the road.

“We have to walk in. A car can't get through anymore, but the Hamiltons said to follow the remnants of this stone wall and we'd end up where the house used to be. Maybe Jacob's Ladder was meant to look like a stone wall.”

Quentin swung Benjamin up on his shoulders and they set off. It was easy going at first; then they had to pick their way through a dense mass of alders. They emerged into what had obviously once been a clearing and looked across to a heap of fallen boards in an old cellar hole. The stairs were almost intact and looked odd leading to the pile of dereliction behind them.

“That's it! Those are the stairs! Come on, let's look for ferns.”

Quentin and Hope clearly believed Faith had gone mad and taken her neighbor and friend with her, but they decided to humor her. After all, there could be money involved. They walked purposively over to the steps and fanned out to look for ferns.

A few minutes later Quentin, with Ben, his adoring disciple, in tow, strolled over to Faith. “This is a fern, isn't it?” he asked, waving a giant frond at her.

“Yes! Where did you find it?”

“Over there”âhe waved his handâ“by that fence.”

“Faith!” Pix screamed. “Rail Fence!” This was no light-hearted scavenger hunt now.

They all raced over to the fence.

“Then,” said Faith slowly, “the treasure must be buried under this pine.” She looked up at the towering tree, starting to merge with the sky in the dusky twilight. She was developing quite an affection for the pines of the Pinetree State. “It's the only one standing alone.” Matilda's clues had been perfect.

They circled the base of the tree. Quentin handed Ben over to Faith and began to dig in a few places. The earth was packed solid.

“I think we ought to come back with a metal detector,” he
suggested. “There's no telling how deep this thing is buried, if it's here at all.”

“It's here,” Faith and Pix chorused.

Hope had been looking at a piece of ground between two exposed roots. “Why don't you try this spot, darling? This would be where I would have hidden something; then I'd have these roots to guide me if I ever wanted to dig it up again.”

Sensible, very sensible.

Quentin started to dig, and at two feet the tip of the shovel hit something. He removed some more dirt, and Faith took the hand trowel and carefully scraped away the rest. After a long five minutes, she lifted a small tin box out of the hole.

They stood in silence and gazed at it before Pix said, “Workbox,” and Faith nodded. Perhaps none of them, not even Faith and Pix, had ever been sure that there would be something there. And here it wasâa small box, the black paint worn away in spots with some gold-painted trim still visible around the edge. It had a padlock that was intact.

“Prosperity,” whispered Faith. It was all too much.

“Well, well,” commented Quentin, “I guess we don't need the crowbar for this baby. I can probably pry it open with my hands. That lock must be pretty rusty.”

“No,” cried Faith. “We want to save it.” She had the feeling that breaking open the box was somehow a desecration. “There are thousands of keys in a drawer at the cottage, and if those don't work, there's always the bobby-pin method. Come on, let's go.”

“Oh my God.” Pix put her hand to her mouth. “I forgot all about Samantha. She's waiting at the bridge. Arlene's mother took them to the Bangor Mall today and was going to drop her this side of the bridge to wait for me, since she had to pick up the other kids at six. I've got to go! Faith, would it be too much to ask if you could wait until I got there to open it? Yes, of course it is. Just open it, don't wait.”

“Of course we'll wait. It's yours just as much as it's mine.”

Hope and Quentin looked a bit disappointed. Quentin, ever gallant, reassured Pix, “Of course we can wait. We didn't even know about it until an hour ago, so we can certainly wait another
few minutes. How long did you say it would take you to get your daughter”

“I'll be back in a flash,” promised Pix, and she was off.

Faith was feeling slightly dazed. They walked slowly back to the road and she gave the box a shake or two. No coins rattled, but it was heavy.

“That's an old cash box,” Hope told her knowledgeably. “You wouldn't use it to keep your buttons in.”

“You don't know New Englanders. It could just as well be string too short to be saved or something like that,” Faith rejoined, but Hope's positive identification increased her already wildly spiralling expectations.

They got back to the cottage and Faith looked around for a place to put the box. She set it on the table in the living room, but immediately picked it up and put it in one of the desk drawers instead. Who knew how long Pix might be? It was more temptation than anyone should have to bear to have it in plain sight.

“I'm going to feed Benjamin, and why don't you two go through the keys from the junk drawer in the kitchen and sort out all the small ones? That's not opening the box. If we don't do something, we'll go crazy.” She walked about snapping on lights. It was after seven o'clock and getting dark.

She went into the kitchen and put Ben in the high chair she'd found in the attic and sprinkled a few Cheerios kept for that purpose on the tray to keep him from screaming the place down, since his dinner had not instantly appeared. Hope followed her and took the whole drawer out to the other room to rummage through with Quentin.

“How about a drink?” Faith called to them.

“Fay,” came Hope's voiceâor some approximation of it; this was not her usual strident tone, more like a gasp. “Fay, you'd better come in here.”

Faith dropped the zucchini she was cutting into strips onto Ben's tray and went into the living room. They must have found a key, she thought.

But they hadn't. What they had found was Ericâstanding in the shadows by the huge fieldstone fireplace that filled up one
end of the room. Standing with a gun pointed at them with unmistakable intent.

Eric. Of course, Eric.

The only possibilityâand the most obvious. That part was now clear. What wasn't was why.

Speculation could come later. She had to do something. Anything was worth a try. “Eric, what on earth are you doing? Did you think these were intruders? This is my sister, Hope, and her friend, Quentin.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Eric drawled, suddenly reverting to his Texas youth. “But it's no mistake, Faith. Give me whatever it was you got at Prescott Point. Awful nice of you to go to so much trouble finding it for me.”

Pix would be coming back, and the noise of the car might startle him enough so Faith could catch him off guard. She moved as close as she dared to the table, which had a large oil lamp on it. She could heave it at him, if he would only look away. She was damned if she was going to give him the box after all their work and especially before they even knew what was in it. There were three of them, after all. There must be some way of getting the gun. She had to stall. Keep him talking.

“Now, Eric, I'm sure you don't want to hurt anyone. Not after all that has happened. Why don't we look inside the box together and decide what to do?” It was feeble, yet it might distract him.

“I
know
what to do. It's you folks who don't. Fetch the box, Faith dear, while junior here gets some rope from the barn. The Thorpes have a pile of it inside the door. Then I'll be on my way and you won't be tied up for long. Somebody is sure to come along one of these days.” He laughed unpleasantly. “Now get going. Both of you and I'll keep sis here for company.”

He walked over to Hope and grabbed her, placing the gun against her temple. Quentin took a step toward them and Eric cocked the gun.

“Don't think about any noble gestures. Hurting people doesn't particularly bother me.”

BOOK: The Body in the Kelp

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