Carrying my backpack, as well as Stacey’s, I felt like a weary traveler arriving at an inn. Ridge opened the door mere seconds after I rang. He peered past me into the twilight.
“I thought I heard voices.”
“I was speaking with a Marine Patrol officer. He just left.”
“Wasn’t he your ride? I was under the impression that you and Stacey were going back to shore with him.”
It passed through my mind to ask why our plans were any of his business.
“We have our kayaks to deal with.”
“If you’re willing to leave them for now, I don’t mind taking you back on the Spindrift—with Alyce’s permission, of course.”
Ridge had waxed and curled the tips of his mustache. His beard looked to have been dyed to hide the gray. He struck me as too old to dress like a hipster. And wasn’t that trend over even in Brooklyn or wherever?
“We’re still discussing our options,” I said. “I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself before. I’m Mike Bowditch with the Maine Warden Service.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I didn’t get your last name.”
“Ridge is my last name. You didn’t get my first name because no one ever uses it. But it’s Derrick—like the oil rig.”
“You wouldn’t have happened to see my girlfriend, Derrick?”
I might have imagined it, but Ridge seemed uncomfortable being addressed by his given name.
“Stacey’s in the great room with the Markhams. I saw her wandering around outside with her camera, looking a little lost, and thought she might want to clean up after the incident with the bee.”
The incident with the bee? He made it sound like a Tintin adventure.
“May I come inside, Derrick?”
“My apologies!” Ridge stepped backward, the movement almost waltz-like, and opened the door wide. “Come right in, please.”
The entryway was illuminated by a wrought iron chandelier. The floor was of granite, gray with specks of pink and blue that sparkled beneath the brightness of the bulbs. I assumed the stones must have been quarried over at Hatchet Island. I understood now why those blocks had been so highly prized by the enterprising builders of the nineteenth century.
A framed photograph hung beside the door. I felt a funereal chill descend without warning.
“You recognize Shipbreaker, I see!” said Ridge.
“We had a print in my house growing up. I’ve seen it in waiting rooms and college dorms. That picture seems to be everywhere.”
He leaned forward conspiratorially. He’d brushed his teeth since smoking his last cigarette, too. An exotic-smelling cologne emanated from his skin. His mustache wax had its own odor. He was one of those highly fragrant men. “Don’t let Alyce hear you using that word about one of Clay’s images.”
“Which word?”
“Picture.”
“Do you mind if I take a photo of this?”
He leaned close again. “Clay frowns on people doing that. He hates that Alyce even hung the photograph here. He’d prefer his more recent works be displayed.”
“You mean the dead children?”
Ridge chuckled as only a barrel-chested man can. “They’re not really dead. Have you seen the photos?”
“No, and I don’t care to. I am going to take Alyce’s side in the choice of wall art.”
“She’s always been his best publicist. She recognizes the importance of an artist cultivating a certain mystique. She hung Shipbreaker there for certain visitors to the house—gallerists and art writers—because it announces they are entering the home of a genius.” When he grinned, the effect was heightened by the curled tips of his mustache. “Go ahead and take a photo. It’ll be our little secret.”
While I was lining up the shot, getting the focus right, I asked, “I’ve always wondered. Did the fishermen onboard the boat survive? It seems impossible they could’ve lived.”
“But you don’t know for sure!” he said. “The uncertainty is central to the work’s greatness. Did they survive or didn’t they survive? What answer would you secretly prefer?”
“Why secretly?”
“Because we all have desires we won’t admit, even to ourselves.”
I felt like I was back in Justin Speer’s studio listening to him drone on about the uncanny valley. To say I didn’t have the patience for another conversation about aesthetics would be the understatement of this miserable day.
“I have no secret desires. As someone who’s devoted his life to rescuing people, I hope the fishermen made it.”
Ridge must have been the house docent, in addition to his other vague duties, because he seemed to have given this lecture before. “Why does it matter? People die every day. And this photograph was taken before you and I were born. Clay would argue that your desire for a yes-or-no answer is an excuse to avoid facing your emotional response to the image.”
“What would I argue?” The drawling voice echoed off all that stone as it might have down a mine shaft.
Clay Markham stood in shadow, at the end of a hall.
“The warden and I were just discussing Shipbreaker.”
“I told Alyce to take that monstrosity down.” The photographer advanced into the pooling light of the chandelier. His cowboy boots echoed off the granite. “I would have thought you’d be talking about that poor detective. Have you gotten word about his condition, Warden Bowditch?”
“I haven’t, Mr. Markham.”
“In my house, everyone calls me Clay—unless they’re here to sell me something or ask for a donation. It’s the curse of wealth and fame, Warden. There’s always another beggar with a tin cup.”
His wife appeared behind him. The silver color of her hair, seen in this icy light, seemed intensely metallic. She had put on a red cardigan meant to complement her red-framed glasses. She had also removed her gardening shoes. I found it surprising she went barefoot on the cold flagstones.
“Officer Spinney has left the island,” said Ridge, “and Mike and Stacey don’t have a ride back to shore. Alyce, would it be all right with you if I took them in on the Spindrift?”
“They’re staying with us,” pronounced Alyce Markham.
I couldn’t stop myself. “We are?”
“God knows we have room for guests. Unless you need to be home tonight…”
I thought of Shadow. One night away, and I missed the big guy. But Logan Cronk would happily keep an eye on the wolf. The brute would punish me for my absence, however; of that I was certain.
“It seems bad form to pressure them.” Derrick Ridge was doing his utmost to convey that he wanted to be rid of us.
“Stop being a nincompoop, Ridge,” said Alyce. “We’re not holding these people captive. We’re merely offering them a room.”
“Thank you,” I said. “But Stacey and I don’t want to put you out. We thought we might camp over on Hatchet—”
“Out of the question,” said Clay with such force that his words echoed down the mineshaft and into darkened chambers beyond. He forced himself to take a calming breath. “What I meant to say is we take pride in how we treat our guests on Ayers. Forcing you to sleep outside defies every tenet of Southern hospitality. It’s one of the last traditions I observe from my upbringing.”
Now it was Stacey’s turn to make her entrance onstage.
“We don’t want to impose,” she said.
“If you were imposing, you’d already have felt my boots on your behinds,” said Clay Markham.
“Don’t believe him,” said Alyce. “Clay plays the rough character, but he’s the softest touch I know. I’ve spent our entire marriage standing between the man and those who would exploit him. He’d offer you our own bed if I weren’t here to curb his overgenerous impulses.”
My head hurt, my muscles were sore, and I didn’t know if I had it in me to continue bantering with these people.
“There’s an ethical issue involved,” I said. “In my position as a law enforcement officer investigating multiple crimes, accepting a gift from you might be seen—would be seen—as a conflict of interest.”
“That would only be true if you consider us suspects,” said Alyce perceptively. “Are we suspects?”
Markham raised his big hands. “You’ve got me, Warden. I confess.”
“Shut up, Clay,” said Alyce with sudden sharpness. “This is a legitimate question.”
“A man can’t make a joke.” The photographer shook his handsome head with exaggerated world-weariness. “Best to tell my wife the truth, Warden. The woman has a lie detector where her heart should be.”
Stacey locked gazes with me, both of us thinking the same thought.
Charming couple.
“First, I should say that I’m not an investigating detective,” I said. “But you should understand that I’m working closely with the state police and will be obliged to tell the new primary anything you might disclose to me about Baker Island.”
“What is a primary?” said Markham.
You don’t become a world-famous photographer without being curious to a fault, I thought.
Alyce answered his question for me. “It’s the new lead detective taking over for the other one. What is his name? Do you know yet?”
“Her name is Detective Delphine Cruz.”
“That’s quite a moniker!” said Markham. “And she’s a homicide detective, you say?”
“There are female detectives now, dear,” Alyce said. “There have been for a very long time. I’ll never understand how you’ve lived three-quarters of a century and managed to remain such a naif.”
For a moment, I wasn’t sure how Markham would receive this judgment on his character. Then he let out a laugh that would have shamed a donkey.
“Mr. Shakespeare has an answer for that. ‘The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.’ I’ve always known what I am, my dear. Pity I can’t remember the play.”
“As You Like It!” said Ridge with the eagerness of the first student in class to raise his hand.
The Markhams ignored him.
“May I make a suggestion?” Alyce Markham included both Stacey and me in her address. “Would you join us for drinks and dinner before you make a decision about staying? I’m not Southern—as you’ve no doubt noticed—but I try to hold myself to my husband’s standard of courtesy. I think we should be able to get through a meal without Clay confessing to the Gardner Museum heist.”
“I was in New Guinea for that art robbery,” said Markham mischievously. “Please do indulge us. You must be famished from the day you’ve had.”
“It’s been ages since we entertained visitors,” said Alyce. “We promise not to interrogate you about what happened on the puffin island.”
“Who promises?” Clay gave Stacey a wink. “I never promised.”
“I am hungry,” I admitted. “How about you, Stace?”
Before she could answer, Alyce Markham instructed Ridge that we would be having the cioppino she’d made the night before.
“You two are in for a treat.” Clay all but licked his lips. “My wife is one heck of a cook. And a better mixologist. This way to the saloon.”
He led us down four steps into a spacious room that turned out, when he hit the light switch, to be even more cavernous than the entryway. Decorated in the Maine cottage style, wood-paneled, and with a surfeit of couches and rocking chairs, it resembled the lobby of some grand hotel. A wall of plate glass windows offered a view of the lighthouse. The beacon had finally been ignited and was turning in thirty-second rotations against a sky deepening to indigo.
Stacey and I sat facing Clay Markham across a coffee table the size of a barn door.
On the tabletop was a creased and coffee-spotted landscaper’s map documenting all the construction Alyce Markham had overseen in bringing her vision for Ayers Island into being. The new houses were overlaid atop the ghost roads and buildings of the long-abandoned mining town.
Meanwhile, Alyce slipped behind a zinc bar long enough to fit five stools. A horizontal mirror mounted on the wall showed the back of her silvery head.
“What’ll you have?” she asked.
“The usual,” said Clay.
“I know what you’ll have. I’m speaking to our guests.”
“A beer?” said Stacey.
“You need to be more specific. Do you want a lager, a pale ale, a stout? We have multiple choices.”
“You decide for me.”
This nonanswer seemed to displease Alyce. “What about you, Warden? Let me guess. Club soda because you’re working? Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time we have entertained the police in this room, although the less said about that travesty of justice, the better.”
Her husband frowned. His eyes began to shift around the room as if following a flying insect. I followed his gaze to a gun case against the far wall. The glass-fronted cabinet contained half a dozen double-barreled shotguns.
Stacey attempted to break the mood. “Where and when did you two meet?”
“That’s a blunt question!” Alyce said, pouring a double Laphroaig into a tumbler.
“I’ve never been good with small talk,” Stacey admitted, flushing.
“That makes two of us,” said Markham kindly. “I was never much for sweet talk. I stole Alyce away from her studies with my brooding good looks. This was back in the city, how many years ago?”
“Fifty-two. I was a premed at Columbia with dreams of being the next Dr. Schweitzer, trekking into the jungle to bring modern medicine to the natives. Then along came this swashbuckling photographer with his Southern drawl, and he said, ‘Heck, I can take you to Kenya tomorrow if you’re hot to go on safari.’ Remember the flamingos, Clay? There must have been a million of them at Lake Bogoria.’”
The nostalgic memory prompted the long-married couple to gaze at each other with affection.
“I’d so love to see East Africa,” said Stacey.
“It’s gotten dirtier since we first visited.” Alyce returned to her bartending. “But Kenya is where I first fell in love with birds. I suppose you already know, Warden, how much money we’ve given the Maine Seabird Initiative over the years.”
“I imagine quite a lot.”
Clay peered directly into my eyes. “The short answer is, ‘Too much.’”
“Were you aware of the difficulties—financial and otherwise—the Seabird Initiative is facing?” I asked.
“Of course we were aware,” said Alyce as if the question had insulted her.
“Maeve McLeary told you?” Stacey blurted out.
As far as I knew, the Markhams were unaware of Maeve’s suicide, unless Ridge had picked up the news in the village along with the other gossip. I felt it best not to break it to them. I was concerned the revelation might shut them up.
Markham cast a questioning glance at his wife, as if seeking her permission. When she didn’t respond, he remained quiet, too.
“How would you describe your relationship with Dr. McLeary?” I asked.
“Is this conversation turning into an interrogation?” Alyce said.
“I wouldn’t use that term.” I tried to keep my tone light. “But since you volunteered that you’ve had a longstanding connection with Baker Island—”
“You decided to get out the thumbscrews.”
“It’ll be painless, I promise.”
“Said the proctologist to the man on the table,” said Markham.
Alyce came over with a silver tray on which she’d set four glasses. Club soda for me. A pint of the local IPA for Stacey. The double scotch for her husband. And a fizzing gin and tonic for herself. I’d watched her in the mirror while she poured the Tanqueray.