Chapter Ten

So many questions, yes, growing in my mind, and I am going to find answers to a few. Alice has an early evening event on the main pier—to learn about night fishing—children only, no parents allowed, and no me, obviously. I ring Skeet and ask for a pickup at five p.m. He doesn’t come himself but sends a driver I don’t know. He drops us at the seafood market, and I confirm an eight p.m. collection. I’m not driving because I’m going to the bar.

I leave Alice and her suppertime picnic with Cherri and her troop of little ones. It’s a lovely evening. Summer is coming softly to Maine. It’s a privilege to be here, right now, watching late spring blend into the warm richness of July. I walk away from the water, cross Main and turn right, up Oak. Murphy’s Bar is at the end of the block, on the left. Everyone talks about Murphy’s. Maggie’s Diner may be the facial expression of Lobster Cove with its blue and white checks and cheery welcome, but Murphy’s is the heartbeat. Besides, I gather David Hu, the barman, has a reputation as the local shoulder to…well, not cry on exactly—but everyone talks about him like he’s the guy who knows everything and everybody in Lobster Cove. He’s the problem-solver.

Only…no, it can’t be true. I walk into the bar, and it’s like men only.

No way! This is the twenty-first century. Lobster Cove folks must surely be more tolerant and open-minded about sexist issues like this. I hesitate at the door because the barman’s scowling like I’ve committed sacrilege.

“Are you, um, open?” I ask, with a smile.

“What does it goddamn look like?” he growls.

That could mean yes or no, but the door’s open so I reckon it’s a yes. I walk in, sit on a barstool and look around. Apart from the lack of smoke, this could be a downtown bar in any number of fifties’ Hollywood movies. There’s a jukebox, and some guys around a pool table over near the back wall. There are elements of Mo’s in The Simpsons.

The barman stares, old and hostile. He could use a shave. I look him in the eye. “Good evening. I’d like a glass of white wine, please. A sauvignon blanc if you have?”

Without looking away, he reaches down, grabs something, opens it on an under-counter bottle opener and slams it onto the Formica surface in front of me. Beer. A bottle of beer, standing in a small puddle of its own self because Scary Barman bashed it down so hard.

Have I done something wrong? I cast my mind back to what little I know about American women’s rights and feminism. Can men like Scary Barman still be real in a country that gave us Amelia Jenks Bloomer, Gloria Steinhem, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, even Beyoncé? And Jane Goodall, chimpanzee hugger and feminist?

There’s a pleasant wine bar close by, called Merlot’s. I could use a little pleasant right now, to be frank, and I didn’t order beer. I get off my stool and pick up my bag, reaching inside for cash. You know what? I’m not going to pay. I walk out.

“Hey! Excuse me?”

I turn straight back, mouth full of objections, but instead of Scary Barman I’m confronted by an altogether more agreeable person, an Asian man of around fifty, or prematurely grey in his forties, his hands spread out in apology. He’s wearing a Wildflowers of Maine tea towel tucked into his belt as an improvised apron.

“Did you get it in the neck from Uncle Buck? I’m damn sorry.”

Did I?

“He got a bullet in the wrong place in ’Nam.” He guides me back to my stool, whips the beer out of sight and pours me a giant glass of chilled wine. Is there a right place to get a bullet, Vietnam or elsewhere? He hands me the wine. “On the house. Jeez, I’m sorry. You’re Lara, aren’t you? Lis Dalton’s nanny from Blue Rocks?”

I nod. “That’s me. Did I do something wrong, because your colleague—”

“Don’t mind Buck. He helps out around here. Anywhere, really. Whatever he can do. This and that. He has, you know, what they call special needs.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He owned this place way back, but the community formed a cooperative and bought him out, so he didn’t have to shut down and sell. That way he has the funds to pay for his own care. He comes across a little weird if you don’t know what’s what. But he wouldn’t hurt a fly, honest. No need to be afraid.”

“It’s okay.” Now that I know.

“I’m David. David Hu.”

“Pleased to meet you, David.” I glance down the bar. Buck’s polishing glasses, grumbling to himself.

Hu follows my eyes. “We keep him away from the tourists.” Big grin. “Or new folks like you.”

I smile back. “It’s nice that Uncle Buck has something to do, that people care for him.”

“Yeah. Way back his Daddy was a real force in this town. Saved it from developers. Folks don’t forget around here, so everyone looks out for Buck. Lucas is real good to him too. Gives him odd jobs up at the house, stuff like that. He’ll pitch up any day soon, out of the blue, to mow the lawn.”

Folks don’t forget around here. Here’s my gap. “I suppose you know Lucas pretty well.”

“We go way back. Sure. I used to babysit him when I was a teenager. Mrs. Dalton was a pretty generous contributor to my pocket money fund. Nice kid, Lucas. Born to succeed, know what I mean? Born with looks, and now, of course, he’s got the money. He’s one helluva clever guy. I’m not. Not at all. I’m just the nice guy around here.” He laughs—he’s joking, there’s no envy there. Besides, it’s true.

I go for it. “Did you know his wife?”

His face closes. “Sure. We all knew Bonny, like a lotta other folks who live in this town.”

“What was she like?”

He looks at me for a moment, and then comes out from behind the counter, pulling off the tea towel. He tilts his head toward a booth in the corner and picks up my wine. “Come.” He sticks his head through a doorway next to the bar and yells, “Carla, come out here, willya, and bring me a Coke, ice and lemon.”

I go and sit in the booth with Hu. Bonny, he tells me, was the wild one. Lucas was wild enough, but she pushed it right to the raw edge. Lucas, as a teenager, got in trouble with his teachers, had some mild brushes with the law involving fast driving, disturbing the peace, drinking, some drug use. Always a risk-taker, Bonny urged him to new heights, be it cliff-diving at Thunder Bay, swimming in the underwater caves off Skeleton Point or any number of other dangerous activities prohibited by the coastguard.

“But Lucas is bright.” Hu’s Coke arrives, brought by a tall woman with olive skin and black plaits streaked with silver. He thanks her and stabs the ice with a straw while he thinks what to say next, being careful. “Lucas knew—knows—when to stop. Bonny? She always egged it.” He sits back. “Cruising for a bruising. That’s what folks said about those two. When Bonny…when Bonny had her accident…” He looks away across the bar. “…folks kinda agreed she had it coming.”

“They did?”

“Lucas was wild, but he never hurt anyone. She was different.”

“How?”

“When Lis was born, Lucas quietened right down. Took his responsibility seriously, apart from that crazy-ass job he does. Bonny just carried on.”

“Carried on what?”

He jabs the ice, rattling it in the glass, poking at the lemon slice. “She, uh, messed about. He went crazy.”

Crazy enough to murder her?

He shakes his head like he’s reading my mind. “Deep down, Lucas is a real good guy. The best. Nothing wrong with Lucas, in spite of what people think.”

“And what do people think?”

“You speak beautifully, do you know that?”

Eep. I’m losing him. “What do people think about Lucas?”

“Uh, you know.” He drains his glass, probing the last dark drops trickling through the ice.

“Not really.”

“Thing is, a mad old Abenaki woman saw him coming back from Emerald Lake alone, when Bonny should have been with him, the night she died.”

“Agat?”

“You know her?”

“Not really, but I—”

“Hu!” A group of people come in. “Hu! Hiya, Hu.”

Hu slides out of the booth. “I gotta go.”

“Of course. Thanks for the wine.”

“You’re welcome.”

He hurries off, unnecessarily fast, if you ask me, to get his hand pumped and back slapped by the new arrivals. I finish my wine and wander out into the mild evening air to wait for Alice. What, exactly, did Hu mean by messed about?

Does he mean what I think he means? What it universally means?