On the outdated map I had consulted of the Maine coast between the Kennebec River and Pemaquid Point, Baker Island appeared triangular. It was flat on its north end, and long on its eastern and western shores, narrowing to a wedge where it jutted into the Atlantic. In area, it measured a mere eleven acres. Its highest point was a central ridge that rose all of ten feet above the peak of the spring tides. The only permanent structure was the run-down lifesaving station near the southern tip.
As we paddled round the northeast point of the isosceles, Stacey gestured at an unoccupied mooring. It resembled a floating volleyball that was chained to a concrete block on the sea bottom. Nearby, a wooden rowboat rode the chop at the end of a long rope tied to a boulder onshore.
“I’ve never seen Ken that agitated before.” Stacey’s tone was solemn. “Whatever’s going on here is worse than I imagined, Mike.”
“It all comes back to Maeve,” I said.
“How can you say that?”
“Because she’s the one who’s missing.”
Kendra made a bullhorn of her hands. “Tie up your kayaks to the mooring, and row the skiff to the landing.”
“You’re not calling it Plymouth Rock anymore?” Stacey said.
Kendra flopped a hand at her young intern. “Hillary unilaterally canceled the Pilgrims.”
“That’s not true!”
A laughing gull began circling us. It was sleek and black-headed. Suddenly, it let loose with a maniacal cry. Random laughter always makes me think of the criminally insane. I had to remind myself that the gull wasn’t crazed, but it took some doing.
We grabbed our dry bags, rafted up our Seguins, and clipped them to the mooring chain beneath the “volleyball.” Kendra hauled the skiff within reach. The researchers used an impressive “clothesline” system to bring it back and forth to shore and keep it from drifting off in the night. The entire boat was whitewashed with bird droppings: slimy, oozing, and rank with the smell of digested fish.
“Be careful. You don’t want to fall in,” called Kendra.
“Poor Garrett fell in his first day,” said Hillary, whose entire manner had changed with the promise of ice cream. “We should have seen it as a bad omen.”
Garrett, I gathered, was the name of the Maine Seabird Initiative’s third staffer. Stacey had said there was always at least a trio of researchers on Baker Island in addition to Maeve McLeary.
Carefully, we climbed out of our kayaks and into our private ferry.
“The currents around the island are deceptively powerful,” explained Stacey.
“That’s the worst thing about being here,” said Hillary, “not being able to swim on hot days.”
“You can swim all you want,” said Kendra, beginning the work of hauling the rowboat hand over hand to the landing. “You’re just not guaranteed of making it back.”
When the skiff bumped the rock, she gave us each a hand up.
Up close, she smelled of peppermint—she must have used Dr. Bronner’s soap to bathe and launder her clothes—with the faintest hint of marijuana. She stood all of five feet tall. Maybe five feet one. Her black dye job was growing out, revealing lighter roots. In one nostril, she wore a steel ring. Her face was prematurely weathered, a side effect of a decade working in the sun and wind.
“The facilities are on the way to the cookhouse if you need to use them,” said Kendra, who seemed to appreciate how long we’d been stuck in our boats. “We have a state-of-the-art outhouse now with a composting toilet and everything. Maeve spared no expense in building our commode.”
The last line struck me as the telling one—a jab at Maeve McLeary’s spendthrift ways?
Kendra was paying out the algae-slick rope that she’d gathered. When the skiff had drifted thirty yards, she knelt and made the line fast to a rusted cleat hammered into the granite.
Stacey shrugged off her personal flotation device.
I got my life vest off and unfastened my dry suit and stepped out of it. Underneath, I wore a black T-shirt with a warden badge embroidered on the chest and soft-shell pants. Under the hem of my shirt, inside my waistband, was the belt and the concealed holster in which I carried my off-duty gun: a Beretta PX4 Compact.
“Thanks for this,” said Kendra, accepting the cooler from Stacey. “But we’ve been especially well supplied with ice cream and beer this summer, thanks to the siren of Baker Island.”
“I wish you wouldn’t tease me,” said Hillary. “It’s not like I encourage them.”
“Oh, please. You know those lobstermen are all coming here to see you. Don’t try to deny it.”
“I’m not!”
“In your email, you said the lobstermen were hostile,” I said.
“Oh, they hate the rest of us,” said Kendra. “It’s Hillary they’re sweet on. We even have a lovestruck Marine Patrol officer this year. Except he brings us doughnuts instead of PBR.”
“Rick is obviously going through a midlife crisis,” said Hillary. “His wife is divorcing him and taking the kids. What am I supposed to do? Besides, we might need his help.”
“Is his name Rick Spinney?” I asked.
But none of them seemed to have heard me.
Kendra leaned on her black walking stick. “Hillary, shouldn’t you be finishing your shift?”
“I want to hear why you called them,” the intern said with an honest-to-goodness pout. She had large hazel eyes with red lashes and naturally bee-stung lips. “I have a right to be part of the conversation. There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Kendra burst into laughter. “There’s a shitload I’m not telling you. But I promise we’ll discuss it over lunch. Cards on the table. I swear.”
“Mmm,” said Hillary.
“She can’t possibly be that naive,” said Stacey after the intern had left.
“Don’t be fooled by the little-girl act,” said Kendra. “Hillary is as smart as Garrett, and they’re both smarter than I am. She’s an honor student at Cornell and a champion downhill skier, and yes, she did some modeling when she was younger. My theory is that Hillary Fitzgerald is a celestial being from another dimension sent here to remind me of life’s essential absurdity.”
“What about this Garrett?” I asked. “What’s his story?”
Stacey raised her index finger. “I want to talk about Maeve first. In your message, you said she was missing.”
Kendra cast a glance up the grassy bank as if she feared being overheard.
“She’s been gone two nights. We tried radioing her and texting when we could get a signal. My next step was trying a carrier pigeon. Or a carrier puffin, I should say.”
“Well, we know where she is or was,” I said. “Half an hour ago, she nearly ran over us in the Selkie. She had the throttle wide open, and we barely got aside in time. She was headed northeast. I hope she didn’t take out a paddleboarder in the fog.”
“Fuck,” said Kendra.
“She didn’t stop here first?” asked Stacey. “When she was so close to Baker? I assumed she must have.”
It was a good thing Kendra had a stick to lean on because she seemed suddenly unsteady. “No.”
“Do you know where she might be going?” I asked.
“In that direction? I don’t have a clue.”
Stacey put her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “What’s wrong with her, Ken? Why is she acting this way?”
Kendra glanced again at the hummock above the landing. “I know this will sound melodramatic, but I think Maeve is going nuts. I don’t mean she’s old and losing her marbles. I mean she’s going batshit crazy.”