The Body in the Lighthouse (14 page)

“Used to be quite an item, those two. Although you could say that about Persis and a lot of folks. Before she got so beamy. Still, there's plenty of men on the island who wouldn't mind Persis keeping them warm at night. Didn't bother with us near and dear, though. Went for the summer boys. She knew us all too well, she said.” Ken laughed. “You know, as Aesop said, ‘Familiarity breeds contempt.' Well, that was the problem.” He laughed some more. “Course, it was Mark Twain who added ‘and children' to the line.”

Ken had a degree from the University of Maine, Faith knew, but she was still startled when he sprinkled references like these in the midst of his decidedly Down East parlance. It reminded her of what Lyle had said about Harold—the way Hapswell adopted the local speech patterns to lure customers, returning to his native Constitution State cadences once the deal was done.

The mention of children reminded Faith of something that had been nagging at her. She hadn't heard any mention of wife or family. Ursula had said that as far as she knew, Hapswell wasn't married. Maybe Ken knew more.

“Was he ever married? Have any kids?”

“Not that I know of. Always had a woman
around, but they generally moved on and Harold stayed put.”

Faith wasn't surprised. She remembered the way the man's smile had transformed his face. He wasn't bad-looking, and in the last few years, anyway, he'd have had money, although the vehicle he'd left by the lighthouse was an old Ford pickup.

“What about other family?”

Ken smiled. “Why don't you just ask who's going to get his pile, Faith? And I'll tell you I haven't a clue. Had a few dogs. Mebbe he left it to them, because I never heard of anybody else, but relatives have a surprising way of crawling out from the woodwork when there's money around.”

Faith laughed and slipped in another question. “Why did he come to Sanpere?”

“I suppose it was like a lot of people who aren't local. Came for the summer when he was young—his folks had a place. Then, too, there used to be a couple of camps on the island for kids. Maybe he was hitching up the coast with nothing better to do when he was older, came back again, and stayed. People did that in the sixties. It was a very safe choice.”

Realizing his blunder, he amended it.

“I mean, for most people. The ones who know enough to stay off slippery rocks when they want to snap a picture. Nobody bothers you here, unless you bother them. Until recently, you could scrape by on not much. Now with all these out-
of-staters buying up everything, housing's a problem. But not when Harold came. Also a good place to be if you don't want to be found.”

At that, Ken apparently decided he'd said enough on the subject. “Did I ever tell you that in my dad's time lobster was two cents a pound? You could hardly give it away, and we'd complain when Mother served it twice in a week.” Faith took the hint and went back to work. Ken was going to stick to neutral topics. Besides, a new crowd was arriving, a hungry crowd.

Sanpere was a very musical island, and the Melodic Mariners had been followed by a variety of offerings, ranging from a man who looked to be in his nineties delighting the audience with old tunes picked out on a flat-back mandolin to one of a number of local garage bands, good enough to have played Camden. Now a sixteen-piece all-island swing band was setting up in the dusk. The swimming pool fund-raisers had strung Christmas lights between the poles with floodlights, which normally illuminated the pier at night. By the time Tom came to claim his wife, all the lights were on and the place looked dreamlike.

“Believe it or not, the only food left are hot dogs, hamburgers, and whoopie pies. Plenty of soda—sorry, make that tonic—and coffee. But not a single fritter, no chowder, nothing with scales of any kind.”

“Except for that,” Tom quipped as the band tuned up.

“If you make another pun, I won't dance with you.”

“Just try and stop me.”

Working on an all-male crew, pounding nails, and staining his T-shirts with the sweat of his brow were definitely having an effect on her husband. Much more of it and he'd be out banging drums in the woods.

“Come on, you. Let's dance,” she said, stripping off her hair net and gloves, enjoying the light breeze once she was out from under the tent. Her talk with Ken had left her feeling the way she was supposed to feel on Sanpere—relaxed and on vacation. Harold had gone to the beach to take pictures of the lighthouse for a brochure for a bed-and-breakfast or even for Sanpere Shores, the lighthouse being notable local color. He'd slipped and drowned in the incoming tide. The spray painting, arson, and ghoulish dummy were the work of KSS, whose over-the-top actions would be bound to get its members caught soon and then they'd be forced to disband. There was nothing mysterious about any of it. At least not tonight, she told herself, settling into her husband's arms. It was a simple waltz, and that was something Tom could do.

The band was good. Better than good. Great. Faith and Tom whirled about, passing the other dancers. Their plumber passed them with his little girl. She was standing on his shoes, clutching his hands, her head thrown back in delight as he danced her close to the band. Couples who'd ob
viously been dancing for years matched their steps as perfectly as Arthur and Katherine, if not Fred and Ginger. The Fairchilds kept dancing as the band played on, number after number. Nan and Freeman Marshall passed them. Freeman winked as if to say, Didn't know the old geezer could cut a rug, did you? Faith heard his voice inside her head, and other voices, too. Their friends Elliot and Louise Frazier—Elliot, the retired postmaster; Louise still with a trace of the southern accent she'd brought to the island as a bride. And Jill and Earl—Earl still in uniform, Jill in a gauzy white linen sundress, looking like a bride already. She blew the Fairchilds a kiss and happily called out something they couldn't hear. The music kept playing. Terri and Donald Osborn swept by, their steps unrecognizable. A tango? A samba? Or perhaps the two combined? Their Birkenstocks hit the asphalt pier with a steady
splat, splat.
Like Linda, Terri favored the flower-child look, and some of her beads had become entangled with her long earrings. Then there was Linda herself, dancing with Kenny Sanford. And why not? He'd probably worked on her cabin, too. They rocked from side to side, just barely in time to the music. Kenny seemed to be counting. His mother careened by, scattering couples in her wake. She was dancing with Roland, who was red-faced from the exertion of keeping up. And they kept coming—Seth Marshall, his mother, Sonny, Becky, and yet more Prescotts, as well as Hamiltons and Sanfords, and John Eggleston, the wood
sculptor, and the Durgen brothers from the funeral home and so many more people that it seemed the pier would collapse from the weight. Tom spun Faith around faster and faster. The tempo increased. Above her head, the lights streamed against the darkness like a string of comets. The music got louder and louder. The saxophone player was playing into her left ear. People were laughing. Tom was laughing, too. He was kissing her neck, then her mouth. Faith realized she was going to scream, and she broke from his arms, running to the side, where onlookers sat on the beach chairs they'd brought or perched on the stone blocks that lined the sides of the pier. Panting, she dropped onto the nearest one and closed her eyes. The music grew fainter and the whirling in her head stopped.

“Faith, what is it? Are you all right?” Tom took her hand in both of his.

She opened her eyes to the man who had seemed to be a stranger a few seconds ago.

“It's all right, darling. I just got a little dizzy.”

“Do you want to go home?” he asked. The concern in his voice surrounded her like the fog that was starting to roll in.

She nodded, realized that away from the lights, it was too dark for him to see her, and said, “Yes. I want to go home.”

There weren't many streetlights on Granville's Main Street. An overflow from the crowd on the pier had gathered in smaller groups—some in the light, some in the shadows, and a whole lot in cars
and trucks. Brown paper bags were being passed around, and as Faith walked to where Tom had left the car, she heard the sounds of laughter, love-making, and an occasional argument.

Persis's Cadillac, directly under one of the lights, was as conspicuous as the woman herself, and she made no attempt to hide the bottle of Wild Turkey she and her friends were passing around. Their conversation was no secret, either.

“See my Kenny with that witch from KSS—you know she tried to kill me—doing something that mighta been dancin'?”

“Come on, Persis. Maybe Kenny's just trying to get some for himself.”

“Even that Miss Mouse is too much woman for him. If I hadn't been in labor for God knows how many days, I'd swear he wasn't mine!”

There was loud laughter, and someone said something Faith didn't catch. Then Persis said, “Can't pretend to be sorry when I'm not. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

“Ssssh,” someone said. “Here comes that minister and his wife.”

“They're okay. She's working on the play,” Persis replied, and hailed Faith from the open car window.

“We appreciate all you're doing to help us get the pool. You must have fried five hundred fritters today. You have a good night, now. See you at the next rehearsal.” She rolled the window back up on the smoke-filled, whisky-fumed interior before Faith could answer.

“Didn't know you and Persis were such buddies,” Tom commented, tightening the arm he had around her waist.

“I don't think we are, but you never know.” They were almost at their car. “I hope Kenny didn't hear any of that. He was in front of us.”

“I hope not, too, but I don't see him now,” Tom said, and then abruptly they both stopped walking, hesitating in the darkness.

Behind them, they had heard a sharp slap, the unmistakable sound of flesh connecting with flesh. But it wasn't Kenny and Persis or anything to do with that family's dynamics. It was another family's.

“If I ever catch you doing anything like that again, you will go straight to your grandma's until school starts! Do you hear me, young lady!” shouted an angry male voice.

“I was only being polite. Someone asks you to dance, you don't want to hurt their feelings.”

Faith knew that voice. It was female; it was Juliet's.

“Hamiltons don't have no feelings, and don't you forget it. I see that boy around you again anywhere 'cept where he's supposed to be for this play, he's dead, you hear me. He's dead.”

“It's the loneliest of all the lighthouse stations in the United States. Twenty miles from the mainland, and I don't know if you could even call it an island. More like a big ledge or rock. That's what it's called, Mount Desert Rock. The force of the winter seas there can move seventy-five-ton boulders as if they were some of your LEGO bricks.” Ursula was continuing her lighthouse tales before a rapt audience of Ben and both his parents.

“But it goes to show you what people will do even in the worst of circumstances. Mount Desert Rock—a half acre, if that—is the site of God's Rock Garden. After the lighthouse was built, lobstermen and other mariners would bring bags of soil of all sorts and sizes every spring. Sometimes they just had the dirt in their pockets. Yet it was worth all the money in the world to the people on the rock. The keepers and their families would pat
it into the cracks, then plant seeds. I heard one of the keeper's wives on the radio once, reminiscing about what she grew: nasturtiums, zinnias, bachelor's buttons, carrots, lettuce, peas, and beans. It must have been a sight—all those colors. During the winter, every speck of soil would be washed off, but they'd just start again the next spring.”

Faith didn't know whether to feel uplifted or depressed. The story was inspirational—an example of the indomitable human spirit—but she also imagined herself as the keeper's wife: Here we go again. The damn water's washing all our hard work away and how did I end up on this godforsaken rock in the first place? God should have arranged it so his rock garden was a whole lot farther above sea level.

Clearly, none of these cynical thoughts were crossing the minds of those around her. Ben was quite obviously picturing himself funneling the precious earth into the crevices and planting, say, corn or watermelons or even pumpkins. Big stuff.

“That's an amazing story, Ursula,” Tom said. “I'd like to work it into a sermon. Think of the mustard seed.”

Faith sighed. She
had
married a minister, after all, and conversations like this were par for the course. Not that she wasn't proud, but when she thought of mustard seeds, she thought of Dijon or dill pickles.

“Tell us some more,” Ben begged.

“Well, let me see.” Ursula paused to drink some of the rich, chocolately hot cocoa Faith had made.
The weather on the island had cooled down, and they had even had a few showers in the morning.

“There was one group that wasn't happy when so many lighthouses began to be built. These were the mooncussers.”

“Mooncussers! What does that mean?” Ben asked, darting a look at his mother. Oh joy, was Mrs. Rowe
swearing
?

“Exactly what it sounds like—people who cursed the moon, the full moon in particular, because it shed too much light, and light was the enemy of the mooncusser.”

Tom smiled. “I know about mooncussers.”

“Me, too,” said Faith, who had read Daphne du Maurier's
Jamaica Inn
at least twice. “They were horrible, though, and caused a great deal of harm. Were there many on Sanpere?”

“They were everywhere. You see, Ben, the law says that if you find something on the beach that the tide's brought in, it's yours. The mooncussers would deliberately cause shipwrecks, then claim the cargo that floated ashore for themselves.”

“How could they wreck a ship from the shore?”

“They'd swing a lantern to lure the ships into an unsafe harbor. The captain would think the signal meant it was all right. If the moon was bright, the captain would see what lay ahead and avoid it.”

“So the mooncussers cussed the moon!”

“And, later, the lighthouses.”

“Mooncussers were really pirates, and there was nothing romantic about them,” Tom added.
“They didn't always wait for the cargo to come ashore, but would board the wrecked ship. Laws were passed, making a deliberate shipwreck punishable by death, but the practice continued until the Civil War.”

“More,” said Ben, reaching for a peanut butter cookie as large as his hand and settling himself comfortably against the cushions of the sofa.

“Tomorrow,” Ursula said, and gave him a kiss. “You run along with your cookie.”

And he did.

Faith and Tom went up together to tuck him in, returning to sit with Ursula a bit longer.

“It must have been terrifying,” Ursula said. “To think you were coming into a good harbor, only to have your boat dashed upon the rocks.”

“The precursors of hijackings,” Tom commented.

“But pure avarice, no politics,” Faith interjected.

“Greed has always been easier to understand.” Ursula sighed.

Tom stretched. “Got to get a good night's sleep. I want to be in Ellsworth by ten, and with our luck, we'll get behind someone from Minnesota or some other place who's traveling at twenty miles an hour, and it will add an hour to our trip.”

Tom really was going native. Lyle had been complaining the other day about how much longer it took him to get anywhere in the summer; then Faith had heard the same thing from Ted Hamilton at rehearsal. Islanders automati
cally added at least thirty minutes to their driving time after the Fourth of July.

“You'll have fun, dear,” Ursula said, patting Faith on the shoulder as she went toward the stairs. “Choosing paint colors always makes it seem like the work is near completion.”

Lyle had announced on Friday that they'd start painting on Wednesday. Pleased that it was so soon and alarmed at having to make such momentous decisions so fast, Faith was about to make her very first trip to a Home Depot.

 

“Why didn't you tell me about this place before!” Faith exclaimed. “Forget Gracious Home!”

Tom had been spending many, many hours at the Home Depot closest to their home in Aleford, Massachusetts, bringing back countertop samples and cabinet brochures for Faith's consideration. She had had neither the time nor the inclination to go to the store in person. She'd seen it from Route 128. Hangarlike spaces filled with lumber, tools, and plumbing fixtures were not her idea of fun shopping destinations. Now, she had completely changed her mind.

They'd gotten there late. After dropping the kids off at camp at nine, they had indeed ended up behind a slow driver—this one from Maryland: Tom had continued fuming until he ripped past just before Blue Hill. It was after 10:30 when they pulled into Ellsworth. This was lunchtime for contractors, builders, and other early risers who needed nails in a hurry. Like Lyle, they wore
serious-looking tape measures clipped to their belts. Tom had taken to wearing one, too, and in his worn jeans, work boots, and Barton's Lumber cap, he blended right in. Even his T-shirt with the slogan
DOG IS GOD SPELLED BACKWARD
, which one of the only members of the vestry with a sense of humor had given him, didn't raise an eye.

The store smelled wonderful. Like new wood and fresh paint. Then there were all these extremely helpful people. Salespeople. Actually around when you needed them. They had their names on their aprons and wore various sorts of pins for selling a thousand faucets or whatever. It was all very intriguing. Tom wanted to check out a light fixture for the deck while Faith selected the paint colors.

“You're way better than I am at this sort of thing. Knock yourself out.”

When he got to the paint aisle a good forty-five minutes later—he'd gotten sidetracked by the solar garden lighting—Faith was deep in conversation with Ted.

“Better stick to the formula, deah. Those fellas generally know what they're doing,” he was advising.

“Oh, Tom, I was just explaining to Ted—Ted, Tom, Tom, Ted—that this would be the perfect color for our bedroom, but more tomato bisque, not cream of tomato.”

“The names are pretty funny, aren't they?” Tom chuckled.

“They are, but these are my names.”

“Mebbe you two want to discuss it a little longer.” Ted diplomatically removed himself from the discussion. He'd seen an old movie once where a lady acted the same way—wanted the walls of her “dream house” to match the A&P's best butter and apple blossoms, but just before they fell, not after.

Tom was looking at the chips Faith had laid out on the counter. “Gentle Clarity, Peaceful Time, Nostalgic Tale—I think I may have found my true calling. Forget having to write a whole sermon; I can name paint.”

“You missed Angel's Gaze and Hope Floats,” Faith added.

“Okay, so what
have
you picked?”

“I feel silly saying them, but here goes—Cozy Melon for our room; Alpine Lace for the big room; Bubbling Brook for Ben's; Touch of Nectar for Amy's and the upstairs bath; Water's Edge—couldn't resist—for the guest room and downstairs bath.”

“What about the trim? If we have the same color throughout, it will make life a lot simpler—and the job will go faster.”

“Already thought of that,” Faith said. Although, the perfect color—crème fraîche with a touch of chèvre—had a name she just couldn't overlook: Lighthouse. She'd think of it every time she dusted, every time she walked by. And at the moment, the word
lighthouse
was something she wanted to keep far from her thoughts.

“How about Oslo? You've always been partial to Scandinavians.” Tom had dated a Norwegian
exchange student his senior year in high school, and they continued to send each other cards at Christmas. Inge had four children, and Faith was happy to see the effects of that and a little too much lutefisk in this year's picture. Still had that damn long blond hair, though.

“Oslo it is. Now, let's get this all ordered and then I'll take you to lunch.”

They wandered around while Ted mixed the paint. Faith found herself unaccountably picking up brochures about refinishing your own furniture and laying tile. She began to think she should have sponge-painted some of the walls. Projects beckoned—and objects, thousands and thousands of objects.

“Look at that tubing, Tom. It would make a wonderful outdoor sculpture,” she enthused.

She was heading for the plants and shrubs when he grabbed her. “Faith, get a grip. We can come back. You're like a kid in a candy store!”

He was laughing. This was the last reaction he'd expected from his high-fashion, label-conscious wife. Faith Sibley Fairchild was fast becoming a Home Depot junkie.

He managed to get her out with only the addition of a large round mirror, etched at the edge with leaves. As they pushed the large flatbed cart toward the car, Faith felt her head clear and she came somewhat back to her senses. She realized she had two Formica chips in her hand, with no memory of having taken them.

“Do you think it's the lighting? Do they spray
something in the air or what? And Ted. No one can be that nice after working a long shift. He's got to be an alien.”

They transferred their purchases to the trunk.

“Why don't we discuss the matter over two very large lobster rolls?” Tom suggested. “And if you're very good, you can have pie for dessert.”

 

Happily filled with the food and the pleasure of being alone with Tom, Faith went to the school to put in a little time on
Romeo and Juliet.
The lobster roll had been perfect—plenty of lobster meat, Hellman's mayonnaise, and a little salt and pepper piled on a hot dog roll that had been toasted in butter. No frou-frou ingredients like capers, not even lettuce. It wasn't on the Atkins diet—or any diet—but it was sublime.

She went backstage to get the old shirt she wore to cover her clothes. No one was rehearsing at the moment. Roland was sitting by himself, bent over a notebook. He looked up and smiled.

“I haven't had a chance to thank you for all your help.”

“I'm having fun,” Faith said, meaning it. “The play will be wonderful. I'm amazed at some of the performances you've been able to get from the actors.”

“There's a lot of talent on the island,” he said. “People underestimate themselves—and of course everybody underestimates everybody else. When I first proposed this idea as a fund-raiser, people thought I was crazy. But then,
they're used to that. From me, I mean. I got it when I started the Latin program. Now the kids have a Roman banquet, complete with togas, every year and sweep the state in the Latin competitions.”

Faith had heard about this. It took just one person. Like the teacher who got all the kids fired up about chess years ago. Since then, Sanpere routinely went on to the national competitions.

“I thought you taught English.”

“I did, but Latin is a kind of hobby of mine, and I taught it to the kids who were interested. When I was a kid, my idea of heaven was to go to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to look at the Roman antiquities. Yeah, and I learned a lot from the Greek vases, too, although they didn't have the really sexy ones on exhibit then.”

“You're from Boston?”

“Home of the bean and the cod. I came here summers and took a temporary teaching job at the high school after college. After a while, temporary became permanent.”

“Sanpere does have a way of growing on you,” Faith admitted. Her first summer on the island was supposed to have been the only one.

Ted Hamilton walked in, smelling strongly of bait.

“Sorry, Mr. Hayes. I changed, but I didn't want to take time for a shower. Besides, Ma's screaming about the electric bills.”

“You want to go over some lines?” Faith offered. They could always sit outside. Downwind.

“Sure,” Ted said, and looked at Roland, who nodded.

“Again, our thanks,” he said to Faith, who told him once more that she was glad to help.

What was Roland Hayes's story? All these years on the island. Didn't he ever miss the city? Admittedly, Boston was a pale imitation of the real thing, the Big Apple, yet it still offered a wide range of activities—and food. She almost laughed out loud. At lunch, Tom and she had figured out the sure way to make their fortune—a Chinese restaurant on Sanpere. A take-out place with pupu platters, sweet-and-sour everything, egg foo yung, chop suey—all the things the islanders were crazy about, driving as far as Ellsworth for a fix.