I couldn’t blame Stacey for helping herself to another beer. She slid behind the bar and pulled the tap with the expertise of an Irish publican, filling the glass while keeping the foam from overflowing.
“Care to explain what you mean about Clay?” she said.
“Not quite yet,” I said. “While you’re there, do me a favor and check the dishwasher.”
She peeked beneath the bar. “How did you know there’s a dishwasher?”
“Anything inside?”
“Two highball glasses. Why?”
“I just had a hunch. For all the umbrage they took at us for not being candid, the Markhams haven’t been telling us the whole truth either. What is it about Ayers Island that the people here can’t help themselves from behaving suspiciously?”
She plopped down beside me on the couch again. “They’re not all shifty. Skip and Dorothea Ayers—you haven’t met them—are sweet old Mainers. And the Goodales are a colorful clan, if nothing else. They were basically sea nomads before they washed up in Maine, sailing from port to port, homeschooling their kids. Jonathan seems like the ideal skipper for Clay, outwardly laid-back but quietly competent.”
“You didn’t meet their son Bear.”
“True.”
I realized I’d forgotten to tell her about our tense encounter with the Persuader on our ride over. I remedied the lapse now.
“Bear seemed devastated,” I said. “I don’t know what to make of that. It could have been guilt or it could have been genuine grief. Maybe he was as infatuated with Hillary Fitzgerald as every other man in a hundred-mile radius seems to have been.”
“Your friend Spinney, for instance.”
I blanched at her referring to him as my friend in light of his recent behavior.
“I’ve decided to stop making excuses for Rick based on who he used to be. The man’s become a total asshole.”
“Or worse,” she said. “He did show up at Baker Island suspiciously early this morning. It was definitely before you made your 9-1-1 call. It might even have been before I made mine. So what was he doing there?”
“Delivering doughnuts?”
“That’s not funny.”
“You’re right that the timing of his arrival is suspicious. I’m upset at myself for not having had that insight myself. But whatever else he might be, I can’t see Rick Spinney as a cold-blooded killer.”
“Might he be a hot-blooded one, though? You just admitted you’ve stopped making excuses for his conduct. Maybe you should talk with his supervisor about what you witnessed on board the Persuader.”
“And be responsible for getting him suspended or worse?”
“He shouldn’t be in the field, Mike. His fellow officers don’t deserve him out there representing them.”
When faced with these decisions, I often asked myself, What would Charley Stevens do? Stacey’s father wasn’t perfect. He had his share of flaws. But I could do worse choosing an ethical lodestar.
Deciding what to do about Spinney could wait, however. A murderer was on the loose. Maybe more than one murderer.
“What did you make of the Speers?” Stacey asked, reading my mind again. “I’ll tell you that Skip and Dorothea don’t have much use for them.”
“Justin is a pseudo-intellectual. Brenna is the brains in the family. She seemed lonely to me, though.”
“Don’t fall for that act.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I got here and saw this pretend village, I felt sorry for these people, too. It seemed like they were all Clay and Alyce’s playthings. It was like I’d landed on the Island of Misfit Toys. But Brenna Speer knows the score. Same with the Goodales. As long as the Markhams lavish them with freebies, they’ll happily assume the role of serfs.”
Again, Stacey had come to a revelation I had failed to grasp. Apart from the Goodale children, the islanders were all here by choice, not necessity. They were not modern versions of the immigrants who had died in the quarries and the birthing beds and were buried now beneath nameless headstones.
“I’d like to have a peek at those historic artifacts Alyce mentioned.” I gestured toward the next room. “Care to join me?”
“Do you think they might have something to do with the murders?”
I shrugged. “Probably not, but you know how much I love history.”
We drifted down the hall and found the little museum behind a glass door. The room was small and lacked windows and had been designed to serve as a climate-controlled archive. Display cases held stone-cutting tools, mauls and spikes and wedges; a bound volume with the name Shakespeare embossed in gold across the front; multicolored bottles that once contained tinctures and patent medicines; blue china plates carried to Maine by windjammers from the Far East.
The eggshell walls had been chosen to show off the period photos of Ayerstown. It was an amazing exhibit of images: half a hundred foreign-looking children standing outside their schoolhouse; a young man herding sheep through the village; schooners pulled up to a wharf, being loaded and unloaded by longshoremen.
Other photographs showed the quarrying operation on Hatchet Island: the vast excavation in the cliffside with fractal lines where blocks had been removed; barges riding low in the water from the weight of heavy slabs; quarrymen posed at the bottom of the deep pit, looking as small as Lilliputians.
“Clay has his studio over on Hatchet Island,” said Stacey off-handedly. “The pit is filled with water now. Someone brought over brown trout a long time ago. He says there are trophy-size fish in the pond because he forbids fishing.”
“Does he row himself back and forth?”
“Most of the time he just walks.”
“Across the water?”
She laughed at the Galilean image I’d evoked. “There’s a sandbar across the channel at low tide. Didn’t you wonder why all the boats are moored at the north approach of the passage? It’s because the water’s too shallow for them at the south end—at least for most of the day.”
“The islands are conjoined.” I felt again like an idiot. “My old map didn’t show the bar.”
“I told you to get a real nautical chart!”
“I never imagined we’d be visiting this place, given its unwelcoming reputation.”
She shivered. The recirculating cold air made it feel like we were trapped inside a refrigerator.
“Dorothea told me the Markhams used to welcome visitors,” Stacey said. “That was before the state opened an investigation into Clay’s treatment of that young employee. The one who overdosed before the district attorney could bring charges of sexual assault.”
“Conveniently overdosed.”
“I already told you not every death is a murder.”
“Yeah, but that was before we set foot on Ayers Island. The scandal may have made Markham less welcoming, but it hasn’t changed his hiring preferences. Those two blond dudes really stand out among the islanders.”
“You mean Heath and Finn?” Stacey said. “At least, they’re adults. If Markham wants to have a couple of pretty boys around, and everyone’s cool with the situation, it’s none of my business.”
“I heard Markham sent one of them in a golf cart to pick you up when he heard you were on the island.”
“He didn’t send the cart. Alyce did.”
“Interesting.”
“She tried to pry information out of me about what happened on Baker last night. But when she realized I wasn’t going to satisfy her curiosity, she let up.” She leaned into me, shivering again. “Oh, Mike, I’m barely holding it together. I’ve tried to distract myself, but when I remember how Kendra was beaten and laid out like a mannequin, it makes me want to kill whoever did it.”
“I feel the same way.”
“The difference is you wouldn’t actually murder someone out of revenge.”
Wouldn’t I?
“You wouldn’t, either, Stace. You’re tempted by the idea. But it’s different when the person is in front of you, and you realize they’re a human being, whatever monstrous thing they did.”
She touched the side of my unshaven face. “No one has ever trusted me the way you do, not even my folks.”
“A wise man named Steve Klesko once said, ‘Don’t judge a person until all the evidence is in.’”
“In my case, I would think you have more than enough evidence.” She wiped the corners of her eyes with her polo shirt hem. “Speaking of Steve, I hope he’s doing OK.”
I checked my phone, which I’d again put into airplane mode for our conversation with the Markhams. When I connected again to the island cell tower, I found a text waiting.
“It’s from Kim,” I said. “Steve is conscious and stable!”
“Thank God.” Stacey wrapped her arms around me and pressed her head against my shoulder. She started to shake, not just from the cold. “What a day, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “What a day.”
The door behind me opened with a click, and I felt the air change. It was Derrick Ridge telling us dinner was ready.