The Body in the Lighthouse (7 page)

“But she must make up for it if she gets a higher price.”

“Yup, and in the end, everybody's as tickled as a cat with two tails. This tea is some good, Faith. You'll have to tell me how you make it.”

Lyle poured himself some more. She wasn't about to reveal that without a functioning kitchen, it was Arizona iced tea in the pitcher, to which she'd added ice—ice made from the tea, though, so it wouldn't dilute it. And the mint was her own. The request for a recipe didn't surprise her. Lyle was single—at least at the moment—and had told her he liked to cook. When Faith had asked Tom whether there was a girlfriend in the picture, Tom had said, “Not to my knowledge.” Supply and demand was a problem on the island, especially since it was the same of each just slightly older, or too much younger, as time went by. This explained why Lyle wasn't rushing home to his supper.

“I've fixed up a lot of places for Persis, getting them ready for her to sell. Not too finished, but basic stuff.”

“I'd have thought she'd use her son. More cost-effective—keeping it all in the family.”

“Kenny does fine work, but he's better at wood-working—furniture, cabinetry, not the rough stuff.”

Faith filed the thought away. They hadn't found a chest of drawers that would fit under the window in the master bedroom. Maybe Kenny could take on the job.

But back to Persis, she thought.

“Is there anyone who might have a particularly strong grudge against her?”

Lyle choked slightly on his tea and cleared his throat. It wasn't a question he'd been expecting.

“Guess she's stepped on some toes, like most people. Plus, Persis says what's on her mind, even if no one wants to hear it. I've never had a problem with her. Kind of admire her for the way she always pitches in. She's done a lot of good for this island. The KSS people—you know who they are, right?”

Faith nodded.

“They haven't joined the choir when it comes to our Persis. They hate her, of course, but they hate anyone who's destroying the island by daring to sell a foot of land or cut down a branch. Not that there isn't a problem with everything being sold out from under us, so's all we'll be able to afford if we want to stay here is a tent, but Persis isn't a developer. She's not out to make Sanpere into Bar Harbor or Camden.”

In Faith's experience, the invocation of those two place names produced much the same impact on islanders that Sodom and Gomorrah must have on the communities on their outskirts.

Lyle elaborated. “Harold Hapswell—he's a Realtor
and
a developer. Now, you
have
to have seen
his signs. He's what you might call Persis's archrival. Right now, he's putting all his eggs in a basket called Sanpere Shores, a gated—if you can believe it—community on that big point of land in South Beach, Butler's Point. KSS is mightily pissed at him, too. But I can't see any of these people creeping onstage and putting turpentine in an old Moxie bottle.”

The kids and Tom were racing up from the beach. Amy's lips looked blue, or it might be the late-afternoon shadows.

“Neither can I,” Faith said, standing up to wave at them. “I'm pretty sure the turpentine was meant for Romeo.”

 

“The first lighthouses were huge bonfires on the shore, set to guide mariners safely into port. Then someone had the idea of building stone towers and burning the fires up high on top.”

Ursula had given Ben some paper and colored pencils. He was busy drawing lighthouses while she talked. Amy had conked out early. All that salt air. Tom and Faith were reading, but both had put down their books to listen to Ursula.

“The smoke was sometimes a better guide than the fires.” She opened a book at her side. “This is a picture of the Pharos, the lighthouse at the mouth of the harbor in Alexandria, Egypt.”

“Two hundred and eighty
B.C
.,” Ben read. “Wow!”

“One of the Seven Wonders of the World,” Faith added, then promptly doubted herself. Or was it Ten, the Ten Wonders of the World?

“That's right, dear,” Ursula said. Faith breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn't good at these things, so she resolved to keep her mouth shut if any more
Jeopardy!
categories arose.

“The study of lighthouses is called ‘pharology,' after the Pharos,” Ursula told them.

“I never knew that,” Tom said. He, on the other hand,
was
good at this sort of thing, coming from a game-playing family.

Ben was poring over the book, and he soon started copying the picture. “It lasted a thousand years and was forty stories tall. I bet if they sent divers down, they could still find some chunks of it. Why don't they do that?”

“I think they've tried, but the bottom of the Mediterranean has been filled up with layers and layers of sand, silt, and what have you for all those years.”

Faith looked at her watch. It was time for Ben Cousteau—she could see the plan forming in his little mind—to climb the stairs to bed.

Once again, a look and a snack—a raisin-laden hermit cookie—from Ursula sent him off without protest. How does one develop this skill? Faith wondered. She resolved to ask Pix if her mother had always been thus. Could Ursula teach “the look” to Faith? Or Tom? She didn't care who had the gift, because it was a gift—no whining. She sighed. She knew in her heart that she could study Ursula's brow, eyes, and the faint turn of her lips forever but would never achieve the same result. She followed Ben up to help him along. He
still insisted on their nightly ritual, started when he was a toddler. The bedding was an envelope, he was the letter, and Faith or Tom would write an address on his cheeks with a kiss above the right eye to stamp the missive and send it to sleep. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn't. But Ben himself was consistent. They'd always done it, and so far as he was concerned, they always would. Faith pictured herself driving to his dorm at college each night and smiled to herself. The smile changed to a pang when she realized just how soon the tucking-in would stop.

Tom was looking at the book and talking about lighthouses with Ursula when Faith came back downstairs.

“It's fascinating. And I'd like to know more about the ones near here. There's one on Isle au Haut, on Mark, and another on Eagle, right?”

“Yes, and you forgot Butternut. That's why the Coast Guard didn't automate this one, just replaced it with a lighted channel pole. They didn't really need two so close together. I've often wondered if it wasn't some sort of government boon-doggle that got this one built.”

“No matter what it was, I'm glad. I can't imagine the shore without it,” Tom said firmly. He was as enamored of Sanpere as any of the Rowe/Miller family.

Faith smoothed the tousled curls on the top of his head. “There are some blueberry muffins left. (See recipe on Corn Pudding.) I'll make tea or coffee if anyone wants it, and we can finish them off.” The
blueberry harvest had been affected by the drought, yet there were still plenty of berries around for this delicious treat.

“I'd love a cup of tea, but no muffin. I shouldn't have had what I did at dinner, after all I ate yesterday at the Sewing Circle,” Ursula said. “Enough calories for the month. Serena outdid herself, and of course Louella always brings a pie, or two or three.”

Louella Prescott had a bakery, closed only on Sundays, holidays, and Sewing Circle days. She was renowned for her anadama bread, blueberry muffins, and flaky piecrust. She'd generously given Faith all her recipes, but Faith had never been able to duplicate the flavors exactly. It had to be Louella's ovens, or some essence of Louella herself—a woman who had sampled her own wares over the years, to the point where she looked as if she was made of her own fragrant, soft, yeasty dough.

Faith made tea and returned as quickly as possible. She had been waiting for the kids to go to bed to talk about what had happened at the rehearsal. She was sure the Sewing Circle telephone tree had had plenty to say about it, and also about the attack on Seth Marshall's building site. Placing the tray on the table, she reflected that, as usual, more seemed to going on in tiny Sanpere than when she went back home to the Big Apple. In her experience, vacation time was virtually an oxymoron on the island.

“What have you heard about what happened to Persis?”

Ursula shook her head. “No one can make head nor tails of it. Why would anyone want to do a thing like that? And especially to Persis. She's a pillar of this community.”

She stopped and looked at Tom's and Faith's faces.

“Oh, you
are
naughty. You know what I mean. Besides, as I'm sure I told you, Persis was one of the most beautiful young women this island has ever seen. Slender as a reed. Her hair was long—down to her waist just about. And she had the most perfect skin. Still does, in fact. I can see her now. She looked like a Pre-Raphaelite painting, only in a miniskirt. It was the style then.”

“And now,” Faith said, thinking of the micro-minis she'd seen on Aleford's teenage girls and women on Fifth Avenue.

“Persis is a rescue squad volunteer, helps out at the nursing home, raises money for whatever the island is trying to get for the medical center or fire department. And she does it all quietly. You'd never know how much she does unless you lived here.”

Faith nodded. This was the impression she'd received from Lyle.

“What happened to her husband? Kenny's father. I haven't heard anyone mention him,” Faith said.

“I don't think Kenny had a father,” Ursula answered, then blushed slightly. “I mean, of course he had a father, but no one has ever mentioned who he was. When she was young, Persis was
pretty keen to get off the island. Took off for Portland the day she was out of high school, and I guess we all assumed some man was involved. Came back pregnant the following year, just in time for her father's funeral, and stayed. Persis and her mother brought the boy up in the house where he and Persis still live. It's on the shore. Off the main road, going toward Granville. It's where Persis grew up, too. Persis's mother was as strong-minded as Persis, and they were both of the ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child' school. Kenny was always a quiet boy. Had to be, I suppose. I've always felt sorry for him. If he ever did have any spirit, it's long gone. Anyway, if Persis was married, I never heard about it. Sanford is her maiden name.”

If Ursula didn't know who had fathered Kenny Sanford, nobody did. The Sewing Circle was Sanpere's equivalent of the CIA, possibly better.

“What about last night?” Tom asked. “I wanted to call Seth, but it's gotten late. Did his mother say anything more about it?”

Faith was amused to watch Tom availing himself of the local underground.

“They're terribly upset.” Ursula set her teacup down firmly. “Everyone is pretty sure it's those KSS people. Oh, why did they have to pick such a foolish name? Every time I say it, I feel foolish, too!”

Tom also put his cup down. “These ecoterrorists get carried away, certainly, but I'd have thought cooler heads would have prevailed here. I understand Donald Osborn and his wife, Terri,
are involved with the group. I met him last summer, and he seemed very reasonable. We were talking about computers; he telecommutes. It didn't have anything to do with the environment or Sanpere, yet somehow I can't see him creeping around at night, setting fires and hoisting effigies into the trees,” Tom remarked.

Her husband never failed to surprise her. He'd never mentioned Donald Osborn. Faith's own clerical father never displayed any interest in the mundane, presumably because his thoughts were on a loftier plane. Tom, thank God, had a keen appetite for gossip, but Faith was normally the supplier.

She felt compelled to reestablish her position.

“You can never tell what someone will do.” It was the first thing that popped into her head. She might just as well have said, “You can't judge a book by its cover” and been done with it. Then everyone could have said, “Duh,” which is how they were regarding her.

Ursula smiled and patted Faith's hand.

“That's true, dear. Now, why don't I take these things out to the kitchen and you two run along upstairs.”

Faith felt about ten years old, but fortunately, Tom took care of that in the privacy of their own room.

While Faith was drifting off to sleep, Persis prone on the stage flashed into her thoughts. Persis whispering, “I've been poisoned. And I know…”

But the feud. The lobster war. The turpentine
had to have been meant for Romeo, Ted Hamilton. No one could have known that Persis would drink it. Yet why was the woman so positive she was the target?

 

When Faith went down to the kitchen to make breakfast the next morning, Ursula was sitting in her nightclothes at the table, sipping a mug of coffee. She looked up at Faith, but there was no good-morning smile.

“Gert called a half an hour ago. Helen Marshall died last night.”

“I'm so sorry,” Faith said, putting her arms around her friend. “Had she been ill long?” She remembered that Helen, a cousin of Freeman's, lived in a small house right on the shore, outside Granville. She'd dropped Nan there for a visit last summer when their car was in the shop.

“She had a great many things wrong with her,” Ursula conceded, “Mostly as a result of diabetes. She wasn't good about her diet, but we all expected her to go on for some years longer. She was only seventy-nine.”

Faith was getting used to hearing ages like this described as “only.” Apparently in this new millennium, everyone would live well into the hundreds—especially on Sanpere—although anything past fifty or maybe sixty seemed light-years away in her own life.

“I'll bring something over for the family.” Faith knew her duty, and Ursula had plenty of casserole dishes.