I hated to make Stacey wait, but there was one crucial piece of information I needed to validate my deduction. I told her to go inside while I wandered off into the night to call the Bucksport Police Department.
The assistant chief was on duty and gave me the number I requested after I had identified myself. The next call was difficult, painful even, because I couldn’t explain to the woman on the other end why I was asking my cruel, seemingly senseless questions.
Stacey stood in the foyer, beside our packs, with her arms crossed as if the room were freezing. In fact, the sea breeze rippling the curtains was warm, almost subtropical.
I took her by the shoulder and kissed her hard. “Come with me.”
“Mike? What is this?”
I led her to the master bedroom and then into the attached bath. I closed the door and started the shower. The sound of the jets would hide our conversation from any electronic ears.
Stacey smiled when she realized my game.
“This place probably isn’t bugged, but we can’t be too careful,” I said. “I just spoke to Evan Levandowski’s mom. The Bucksport PD gave me the number. She confirmed what I had suspected. After Evan finished his internship on Baker, Maeve got him a two-week photography class with Clay Markham.”
“But Clay told me he doesn’t teach classes. I asked if I could study with him sometime.”
“Mrs. Levandowski doesn’t know that, and Evan didn’t, either. His greatest wish in life was to become a professional photographer, and here’s his new mentor, Maeve McLeary, offering him an apprenticeship with a living legend. As far as Evan was concerned, he’d won the golden ticket.”
“Maeve would never—she would never have pimped a child to Markham.”
“He was eighteen.”
“It doesn’t matter. She would never have done it.”
I took her gently by the shoulders. “It sounds like Clay Markham behaved himself after his accuser overdosed. Maeve might’ve thought to herself, Clay will enjoy having a beautiful boy around for a couple of weeks. Evan will learn about photography, and the next time I ask for a donation, the Markhams will owe me.”
Stacey shook me off. “You’re saying that Clay Markham raped Evan.”
“Held him down and did it?” I rubbed my forehead, which was becoming sweaty from the steaming shower. “Markham strikes me more as a seducer. He plies Evan with booze or drugs and says he wants to take his portrait. Off comes the shirt, and then…”
The mirrors had fully clouded. Stacey fell silent.
“It would explain why the poor kid fell apart last year,” I said. “It would explain his suicide. Especially if he associated returning to Baker with a return trip to Markham’s studio.”
The room had become as close as a greenhouse. Stacey, always smarter than I, switched on the fan, then reached into the shower to turn the water to cold.
“There’s one problem with your theory,” she said. “Kendra would have known that Maeve had arranged for Evan to come here.”
“Not if Maeve swore Evan to secrecy.”
“But why would she, if she didn’t expect anything bad to happen?”
“That’s a question only Maeve could answer.”
“She had a conscience, Mike. After Evan jumped off that bridge, I can’t believe Maeve wouldn’t have gone to the police if she knew anything about Markham having been the cause.”
Stacey was fighting valiantly for her mentor. I admired her loyalty. But I needed her acceptance.
“Levandowski was legally an adult,” I said. “I’m guessing he was forced to have sex without his consent, but you know how hard it is to prove sexual assault when the victim was impaired. Evan didn’t leave a suicide note. But Kendra told you he emailed McLeary the morning he jumped off the bridge. I think he told her what happened with Markham, if he hadn’t already done so. Maybe he even blamed her.”
Her expression showed shock, fear, disbelief. It pained me to have prompted this reaction. But I could sense that I had broken through the cardboard defenses she’d erected to protect McLeary’s memory.
“How did you know Evan came to Ayers Island? Did someone mention seeing him? What made you think to call his mother?”
The mirrors were clearing again as the fan sucked the humidity from the confined space.
“It was the outfit he was wearing in that photograph back at the cookhouse on Baker. He was dressed in the same clothes you’re wearing now. The picture had been taken against a backdrop of spruce trees.”
“And there are no trees on Baker Island.”
“But Ayers and Hatchet are covered with them. Hillary thought that Maeve had taken the photo. She forbade her interns from moving it. That photograph wasn’t just a memorial, it was a mortification.”
Stacey yanked the polo over her head, revealing her sports bra. She stepped out of the navy shorts without removing her sneakers. She stood there in her sports bra and underwear.
“I can’t wear this,” she said. “It makes me feel gross. Even being in this house makes my skin crawl.”
“I don’t feel like we’re under any obligation to stay.”
“Damn right, we’re not staying!”
She threw open the door and made for her backpack in the foyer. I turned off the shower. I found her in the entryway, pulling out clothes at random, dumping them on the stone tiles.
She began buttoning up her sweat-stained hiking shirt. “How could Maeve have been so naive?”
“Maybe she thought she was doing Evan a favor. She might have assumed Markham would behave himself. One of the last comments she made was about cynicism blowing up in a cynic’s face.”
We were out in the open now, with no background noise to obscure our dialogue, and if Ridge was watching or listening, there was nothing to be done.
“Maybe, maybe, maybe.” Stacey knelt to retie her sneakers. “You still haven’t explained how you know Maeve came to the manse yesterday.”
“The Markhams say she never left the waterfront, but Brenna claims to have seen her passing up the hill.”
“You’re putting a lot of trust in Brenna Speer.”
“There’s something else,” I said. “We know from Maeve’s sat phone GPS that the Selkie didn’t leave the harbor yesterday until late. I think she stuck around, probably debating with herself how far she was willing to go to save Baker Island, whether she was capable of blackmail.”
“And eventually she made the decision to go to the house and confront Alyce Markham,” Stacey said.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence Alyce was drinking Maeve’s gin of choice tonight. Or that there were two highball glasses in the dishwasher.”
She was keeping pace with me now. “That’s why you had me look.”
“Maeve McLeary threatened Alyce Markham. She might have claimed she had an incriminating note from Evan, laying out what Clay had done to him. Either the Markhams ponied up the funds to save the Maine Seabird Initiative, or she would go to the police and/or the press.”
“And Alyce sent Ridge to kill her on Baker Island?”
“Not Ridge. He seems too tightly wound for cold-blooded butchery.”
“The nervousness could be an act.”
“True,” I said. “Heath and Finn are possibilities. The point is that Alyce sent someone to Baker to kill Maeve.”
Stacey’s lips parted. “Only Maeve wasn’t there! She was anchored off Spruce Island because she’d been caught in the rainstorm.”
“Spruce is closer with easy anchorage.”
“Then Kendra, Hillary, and Garrett were never the targets.”
“They were collateral damage,” I said.
Just then, we heard the growl of an engine, growing louder as it passed the cottage.
“That’s an ATV,” said Stacey.
She threw open the front door. Two bobbing headlights came around the manse. The four-wheeler triggered the motion-sensitive lights, and I glimpsed the regal man behind the handlebars.
“It’s Clay Markham,” I said. “Where the hell can he be going?”
“To his studio on Hatchet Island. When we were talking photography, he told me he likes to develop film there at night. The tide is falling, and the bar across the thoroughfare must be above water.”
I stepped around her and closed the door.
“What did you do that for?” she asked.
“We need to follow him. But we can’t let Alyce or Ridge know we’ve left the cottage, presuming I haven’t just told them.”
“We should confront her! We should tell her what you know.”
“She’d only deny it. And I don’t have any actual proof. I’m just hoping that Delphine Cruz listens to what I have to say. It would help if I had a confession, and I think I have a chance of getting one from Clay, at least.”
“He’s a fucking rapist! Why should we believe anything Clay Markham says about himself? You seem to be assuming he wasn’t part of the decision to kill Maeve.”
“We need to follow him, Stace. I need you to trust me that getting him alone is the key.”
She could see I was determined to pursue the four-wheeler.
She picked up her pack from the floor and looped the straps over her shoulders. I slung mine across my body so it wouldn’t interfere if I needed to draw my Beretta from its holster.
“What’s our escape plan?” she asked.