It was selfish, reckless, and risky, but I wanted to be the one to get a confession out of Clay Markham. To the state police colonel, I was a mere game warden who had no business being attached to a homicide investigation. I wanted to validate Klesko’s faith in me.
I hadn’t spotted security cameras around the property, but that only meant they’d been installed by a professional. Knowing the value of Clay Markham’s images, along with the couple’s other belongings—those handcrafted European shotguns!—I had to believe the compound was being actively watched. An image of Derrick Ridge sitting before a bank of monitors flashed through my head.
I guided Stacey through a side window that opened onto a pale carpet of newly mowed lawn. Fireflies floated like flickering fairy lights, lost and aimless above the grass. Beyond, the spruce forest made a jagged black edge against a sky bright with stars. The moon would be up above the trees soon. I wasn’t sure if that would be a help or a hindrance.
We timed our sprint for the thirty seconds of darkness between the rotations of the lighthouse. As soon as the beam passed, we raced across the lawn to the woods. An odor of moldering needles and rotting logs rose from the damp forest floor. Neither of us dared to put on our headlamps while we might be visible from the house.
“Now where?” asked Stacey.
“I think we should blaze a trail parallel to the edge of the field until we’re below the compound. Then we can follow the grass road down through the remains of the old town to the village.”
“Or we can follow Markham’s private ATV path.” Although her face was hidden in the darkness, I could tell she was grinning.
“What private ATV path?”
“Honestly, Bowditch, I’m not sure how you’ve survived this long without me. You didn’t notice that Clay turned his four-wheeler into the woods after starting down the hill? Here, I’ll show you.”
I let her lead the way, and sure enough, she found a narrow trail branching off the road. The starlight revealed fresh tire treads stamped into the mud.
“It makes sense for Markham to have a direct route to the sandbar and his studio,” I said. “That way, the busybodies in town can’t keep a log of his comings and goings.”
“Now you’re thinking like a woodsman.”
I would’ve preferred to descend the hill under the cover of darkness. But the trail through the forest was crisscrossed with exposed roots and hidden holes where it would be easy to twist an ankle.
We fastened the straps of our headlamps atop our caps so that the beams shimmered over the brims. Then we started off down the slick and slippery hill.
Stacey immediately grabbed at a sapling to stop her feet from sliding out from under her.
“These sneakers weren’t made for hiking,” she said.
“Neither were these kayaking shoes.”
Markham’s trail skirted the back of the ice pond. The green frogs had begun a discordant chorus, and the blossoming water lilies—Charley called the flowers beaver roots—brought a passing sweetness to the air.
As we picked our way from tree to tree, I caught glimpses of the houses in Ayers Village. A deep cellar hole choked with barberry opened up beside the path. The spinning ATV tires had caused the earth to erode dangerously above the pit.
A moment later we heard a rustle beyond the bushes and an intake of breath.
“Who’s there?” said Stacey.
A goat bleated in reply. What could we do but smile?
A faint scent of hollyhocks and foxgloves told me we had come near the bright gardens outside Brenna Speer’s door. It seemed odd not to hear the buzzing of bees, but the insects were asleep in their hives. Night belonged to the mosquitoes, which were out in force.
Suddenly, I stopped short and swung an arm across her chest.
“Watch your step!”
The trail made a hairpin turn where it emerged from the woods above the channel. I had been watching Markham’s tracks and noticed that he’d hit his brakes hard. If we hadn’t stopped, we might have fallen twenty feet onto the leg-breaking ledge below. Winter storms had excavated the undercut, washing away the soil and exposing the roots of the leaning trees.
The old photographer was more of a daredevil than I gave him credit for being. I had to remember this was the same man who’d journeyed to New Guinea to photograph hill people who might well have eaten him.
We followed tire treads down to the waterline. I tasted brine on my lips and heard, far away, a bell buoy being knocked around by the moonlit waves. As the surf hit the shore, it made a rustling, rumbling noise.
“The bar can’t be far now.”
At the bottom we came upon a field of dinosaur eggs. These were sea-smoothed stones, some palm-size, others bigger than my fist, all made of speckled granite. Round as they were, they rolled easily in the wash. The water was so clear in my headlamp I could see crabs scrambling for cover, whelks creeping in search of mussels.
“This island is so amazing,” Stacey said, speaking as softly as if we had entered a place of worship. “Markham captured the darkness of Maine in his seascapes, but he missed the beauty here.”
“He’s blind to it because he’s obsessed with death. Maybe you should come back with your camera.”
“No,” she said, “it’s ruined for me now.”
I felt the same. After the case was done, I would never return willingly to these islands. It hadn’t occurred to me yet that I might not be leaving them alive.
“There’s the sandbar, and those are his tracks,” said Stacey. “He couldn’t have made it easier to follow him if he’d tried.”
When she had told me of the sandbar between Ayers and Hatchet Islands, I had wondered why the old granite company hadn’t dredged the channel to open a permanent passage for its ships.
I literally stumbled upon the answer when I stubbed my toe on a stone outcropping. The bar consisted of a wide ridge of solid granite with just enough sand and rockweed to conceal its lurking presence. The quarry owners must have calculated that blowing the natural bridge to pieces wasn’t worth the cost of dynamite, especially when the ocean could always undo their work in a single winter.
The powerful arc lights that illuminated the Ayers wharf revealed our shadows on the surface of the water. We thought it best to turn off our headlamps to make the crossing. If someone happened to be night fishing for cunner from the dock, we might be spotted.
It takes as long as half an hour for the human eye to adjust to darkness. We didn’t have the luxury of waiting. When I could make out the constellations of Cassiopeia and Perseus overhead, I deemed it time to go.
From years of traveling back and forth to Hatchet Island, Clay Markham knew where the ledge posed a danger to his tires. We had only to walk in his tracks to keep our footing. Mostly, we felt flat granite beneath our soles, only occasionally sliding off into the sand.
The tide had been high at six o’clock, which meant the bar would continue widening into the night. Unless we got held up for six hours—in which case, we would be facing far worse problems—we were in no danger of being stranded on Hatchet.
As we neared the end, I saw what I thought were two strange bushes ahead. The trail seemed to pass between the ragged balls. They were tangles of rusted razor wire the size of hay bales. Dead leaves had impaled themselves on the steel thorns, and gull feathers were caught in the concertina. Someone (maybe one of the younger Goodales) had hung crab shells, twine, and the black egg cases of skates from the barbs, too. The effect of these decorations was less whimsical than foreboding.
A NO TRESPASSING sign was hammered into the sandy earth beyond the wire. It included an addendum written in such large letters I had no trouble reading it by moonlight.
“‘Violators will be shot,’” I said.
“As if the name isn’t ominous enough,” added Stacey. “Hatchet Island. Who named this place? Nancy Drew?”
I reached for the grip of my Beretta, raised the gun in the holster to be sure it would come out smoothly if needed, then pushed it down until I heard a satisfying click from the thumb release.
I felt Stacey at my shoulder. “Why don’t you take the lead.”
“Thanks.”
“You know I’ll always have your back, Bowditch. Literally!”
We had pursued Markham’s ATV with almost careless enthusiasm, but that excitement had dissipated. We were bantering, I realized, because the wire bales and the sign felt genuinely threatening. I wasn’t scared of Clay Markham, armed or not. But for the first time, a premonition had come over me that unknown dangers lay ahead.
I reached into my pocket for my Fenix tactical light. It was only five inches long with an adjustable illumination output. I switched the beam to the lowest setting of fifteen lumens, keeping the bulb pointed at the ground. I would want a light ready if I was forced to draw my weapon.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” she asked.
“Better than stepping into a bear trap.”
“My dad did that once.”
“He told me the story. I think we should keep quiet from here. Just to be on the safe side.”
We passed between the gap in the wire and found ourselves almost immediately at a crossroads. One trail, wide as a road, followed the shoreline to the north. A second path plunged straight ahead into the forest, ascending to the bare ledges on Hatchet Island’s central hill, if my internal compass was to be believed. The third trail, also broad, headed south along the channel. It must once have led to the ferry that carried miners back and forth to Ayerstown when the tide was too high to wade.
For us, the decision was predetermined. The ATV tracks followed the first trail. We continued along the northern shore.
We came first to a field overgrown with bush honeysuckle, raspberry, and poison ivy. Rising from amid the bushes was a gigantic metal artifact crusted with rust and lichen. It was some great engine from the quarries abandoned here after the last barge had carried away the last blocks of granite.
Out of curiosity, I let the flashlight roam over the industrial fossil until I heard Stacey clear her throat. This was the wrong time for a historic walking tour of Hatchet Island. I took several steps forward, following the thin pale beam, which I held centered on the tracks of the four-wheeler.
That was when I saw the boot prints.
They joined the trail via a narrow footpath that was more like a vee in the bushes, something a stag might have made. A man had recently come this way—within the hour, I judged. I recognized the tracks because they appeared identical to the ones I’d found on Baker Island.
I crouched and drew Stacey’s attention to the prints.
Whoever he was, he seemed to be following Markham toward his studio on the east side of the island, near the old quarry. From the relative shallowness of the prints, I could determine the man was not particularly heavy. From the striding distance between them, I could tell he was moving fast.
Stacey pressed her lips to my ear. “Do you think Clay is in danger?”
“If he’s not, we are.”
I drew my Beretta.
There was enough of a glow from the moon that I could make out the ATV tracks with my naked eye, but I needed better illumination to see the boot prints. There was no sign of the mysterious man having returned, which meant he might be ahead of us.
I decided to risk the flashlight.
The trail widened the farther we got from the wire bales. As I had guessed, it had once been the chief road used by the quarrymen. I could almost perceive the ghosts of those long-dead miners streaming past us to their spectral homes across the channel.
Near the harbor, the dominant cover had been leafy birches and upstart oaks. Now the road passed through a tunnel formed of interlacing spruce and fir boughs. The temperature under the evergreens felt much cooler than it had in the open. The lowest branches were hung with old-man’s beard. Everywhere among the scaly trunks were discarded granite blocks. Some were pale enough to see in the darkness; others were blanketed by the green pincushion moss that seemed intent on overspreading the island.
As we climbed toward what I suspected was the lip of the old quarry, I let my flashlight beam wander off-trail. The light found a sodden cigarette filter in the mud. It had been there awhile—days, maybe weeks. My younger self wouldn’t have given the piece of litter a second thought. It had taken years and many hard lessons for me to learn that noticing details was the essence of my craft.
I knelt for a closer look and saw that it wasn’t a cigarette filter at all but the discarded end of a cigarillo. There were others, too, as if the smoker was accustomed to flicking away his butts before he approached the quarry. My nose conjured the smell from memory: a cloying sweetness atop the harsh reek of low-grade tobacco.
As I rose to my feet, I clicked off my light and dropped my pack to the ground. I extended the pistol ahead of me so that I was looking at the path through the red tritium sights.
Behind me, Stacey drew a breath.
What was Chris Beckwith doing on Hatchet Island?