10

That evening it was difficult to be alone with my thoughts. Spike had not shown up, even when I shook his box of kibbles. I was no longer used to being on my own. So many evenings in a row with Joe and the sound of the surf. Even when I spent the night at Joe’s apartment in DC, or he at mine, one of us would often wake to the commotion of the other rushing off to answer some call. And besides that, in the evenings in DC, whenever I get home at a normal hour instead of 2 A.M., I bring work home. Or, rather, work set up to do at home via a computer hooked into the FBI’s system. I don’t really sit thinking, I sit in front of my screen computing. Auerbach has taught me a lot.

So I ate. The leftovers in Joe’s refrigerator contained a great variety of temptations as he likes cooking, he likes serving food, and he likes eating. He’d made shrimp salad from the extra he bought when he did shrimp and pasta; he’d let the remains of barbecued steaks get cold, whereupon he sliced what was left of them paper thin with a machine you only see behind deli counters and made his own horseradish sauce to go with the slices; and there was a bowl of curried vegetables that was so delicious I had to control my urge to take the whole bowl plus fork out onto the slate terrace and eat the entire contents. Instead, I treated the refrigerator like a buffet table and put a little of this and a little of that on my plate.

Like Esther, I plunked a bottle of wine next to my glass on the table by the chaise.

It was a hot night, hot because there wasn’t a breeze, a Block Island rarity. Joe said it happened once per summer. Nothing to be done about it but sit on the terrace and star-gaze. This morning at the coffee shop before Fitzy had arrived, Billy and Mick said we could expect a short spell of heat and then we’d all be rewarded afterward when a twelve-hour front of clouds and showers passing through brought crisp dry air in their wake. “Air clear as a bell, the sky blue as Rebekah’s eyes, ocean purple as ink.”

I’d asked, “Who is Rebekah?”

“Statue at the corner of Old Town and Center.”

“Isn’t there a stone horse trough at the corner of Old Town and Center?”

“Rebekah used to stand on top of it.”

Mick said, “Rebekah’s bein’ restored.”

Billy added, by way of explanation: “He means dried out. Some idiot filled the statue with cement after some kids knocked her head off. Figured no kid could knock her over if she weighed two tons. But cement draws water. Rebekah started crumbling from the inside out. Trouble is, the bill for fixin’ her up is forty-thousand and something. That was in 1972. Nobody wanted to pay up. Lord only knows what they’d want to fix her now. So Rebekah gets to stay in storage in Jim Lane’s garage, right, kid?”

Jim Lane’s kid said, “Wrapped in a tarp.”

I asked, “What’s the statue made of?”

Billy said, “Whatever statues are made of.”

The kid said, “Cast kettle iron.”

Not all statues.

“So how are her eyes blue, Mick, if she’s made of iron?”

“Well, if you want to see Rebekah today, you have to close your eyes and imagine her. If you do, you’ll see her eyes are blue.”

I said, “That’s very romantic.”

Billy hooted and Mick pulled his cap down over his eyes.

I was really beginning to get a kick out of Joe’s Block Island coterie. There was definitely a hidden charm.

Now, tonight, I watched a half-moon, all that was left of it, rise out of the eastern horizon. I could smell the salt of the sea hanging in the air. Suddenly, I was grateful to be alone, though at that moment I actually missed Spike. I didn’t miss Joe. Joe would have been talking where Spike would only purr. Sometimes Joe helped me think, but tonight I realized I needed to muse uninterrupted.

It was not meant to be.

I listened to my thoughts, to the waves and the cicadas and then, after the night had drawn on and the moon hung suspended right above me, I listened to something else that didn’t belong. Soft footsteps. It wasn’t Spike, who would have crept in on little cat feet, i.e., soundless. I sat up straight. I couldn’t tell if they were behind me, next to me, or what. A half-moon doesn’t give much light. I listened some more but could only hear the pounding of my heart because the footsteps had stopped. I looked over my shoulder. No night creature was standing there. I scanned the cliff top. The bayberry was a murky green carpet, covering all. Beyond the line of growth that ended just a few feet from the cliff edge, I saw someone sitting—a night-loving tourist who didn’t realize the danger he was in—his legs dangling over the side.

The drop was eighty feet. Not to mention the fact that, on Block Island, the bluffs are gradually crumbling into the sea. One doesn’t sit on cliff edges. Joe told me that in one hundred years his cottage would also crumble into the sea.

The fellow was kind of bobbing. I’d seen the motion before. It was Jake.

I got up, walked across the terrace, and took the path to the bluff edge. I tried to make enough noise for Jake to hear me but not enough to startle him. I was ten yards away when he saw me. He didn’t startle. He was calmed by the quiet of the night.

“Hello, Jake.”

He looked over my head. “Hello.” Autistics, Joe said, don’t make eye contact. Too intense. It would hurt Jake to look anyone in the eye.

“It’s a very beautiful night, isn’t it?”

“Beautiful night.”

“Would you like to come and sit with me? Have something to drink? Maybe a snack? Over there at Joe’s house.”

“No.”

Okay. “Well, if you change your mind, I’ll be sitting outside on the terrace.”

He looked away and I turned back, reached the terrace, sat down again, and poured another glass of wine. I watched Jake swaying a little, bobbing a little, and then he got up. I closed my eyes and waited a minute. If he was going to fall over the edge, I didn’t want to see it. I opened my eyes again. He was heading down the path that paralleled Joe’s drive, on his way to the road. Then he looked my way. He stopped, turned, and walked toward me. When he reached the perimeter of the terrace, he stood in front of me staring at his shoes and said, “Like chocolate milk.”

“Let me go and see if Joe has syrup.”

“Has it.”

“All right then.” I got up. He didn’t move. “Please sit down, Jake.”

He did. Right where he’d been standing. I meant for him to pull up another chaise. He got up and sat down again two more times.

I went in the kitchen. Joe had everything so Jake was probably right—just a matter of locating what you wanted. There was a bottle of chocolate syrup on a shelf on the refrigerator door. The bottle was glass. It wasn’t Nestlé’s Quik. The syrup was imported from Switzerland.

I was still stirring when I brought the chocolate milk to Jake, sitting there on the hard slate. I took the spoon out and handed the glass to him. He handed it back. We made three exchanges. Then he said, “Spoon.” I gave him the spoon. Another three exchanges. He licked it clean, three licks. I said, “Would you rather sit in a chair?”

“No.”

I sat down in mine. He took three slow spoonfuls of chocolate milk and then drank the rest in three gulps, knocking the glass back as if he were drinking shots of whiskey. He banged the glass down on the slate, picked it up, banged it down again, picked it up, banged it down. Joe has serious glasses. They don’t break easily.

Now Jake sported a chocolate-milk mustache. I studied his face. He could have been the boy in the newspaper, I thought, but that was because his face was so childlike.

“Jake, does Tommy know you’re out?”

“Don’t know.”

Couldn’t care. Amoral but always truthful. No reason to deceive. Joe had told me another time that Jake did not anticipate.

“Will he worry about you?”

“Don’t know.”

Jake didn’t comprehend caring that someone might be worried about him. That was not his problem. He had enough problems keeping chaos out of his head by doing everything three times.

He stood up. “Going now.”

Joe said he didn’t use pronouns or names. Too intense.

“All right. I could give you a ride.”

He cringed. “No.”

He walked around the cottage to the drive instead of going back to the path. He’d walked around the cottage before. Probably many times, a place where no one would talk to him, try to get him to say a pronoun. Joe told me he’d see Jake around the cottage once in a while, walking the paths once it was dark. “Until I started bringing Spike. The noises animals make are difficult for him.” Joe had felt bad about it.

Now Jake stopped and looked over his shoulder at me. Not at my face, but at a spot just above my head. “Fanks.” He pointed a finger at me. My guess, a replacement for not being able to say my name. And he couldn’t pronounce th, couldn’t say thanks. Neither could Delby’s youngest. Immaturity, not autism. But Jake wasn’t three years old.

“You’re welcome, Jake. Jake?”

He looked at his shoes.

“Jake, have you seen anything strange? Do you know what happened to the girls from the camp?”

He didn’t answer.

“Do you watch the girls through their window sometimes?”

“Yes.”

Then he bobbed up and down, turned, and galloped away, arms akimbo.

Had a camp girl said something, done something, that Jake couldn’t tolerate? Could he have killed those girls in some mad-genius way? No. No reason to deceive.

Could he have grabbed Spike and thrown him over the cliff? I should have asked him.

*   *   *

Fitzy, the next morning, over yet another breakfast, knew all the particulars on the sisters who had tortured the little boy. First of all, the whole thing was true. The case was sealed, though. There was no identifying the boy. The reporter hadn’t wanted to do that. Fitzy said, “But I’m starting the tape unrolling so the homicide department may be able to get the information for us. The guy who runs the dead files room is in his seventies now. Maybe he’ll remember some old fisherman who’s been coming to Block Island every year during striper season who may have been that kid.”

“This is striper season, I take it?”

“Yes.”

“How long to unroll the tape?”

“That’s the problem. Unless we find another dead girl, I’ll have to steal the tape. The number three is important when it comes to investigating a serial killer officially. Our number is two. I can only hope the killer is so old he’ll just kick the bucket and our troubles will be over. Then all that would be left would be to prove that what we know to be true is true, and then we can give the parents of the dead girls the answer they’re sorely needing. Part of it anyway. That they were murdered. We won’t have to say how.”

Somewhere behind the facade, Fitzy was one sensitive man. Unrealistic, too. They go together. That was probably what had led to his downfall. Taking to drink didn’t help.

“The footprints at Rodman’s Hollow were Fred’s. The one’s under the camp window are generic. Rubber fishing boots.”

I lowered my voice. “They were Jake’s.”

Fitzy didn’t lower his. “What?”

“I ran into him and asked.”

I told Fitzy about Jake’s visit with me.

“He didn’t answer when you asked him what happened to the girls?”

“No. He must know something. But as to what happened to them, Jake doesn’t know or he’d have told me. Joe was right. Not a thread of compunction. I think he’s like Esther. He watches, but he doesn’t delve. In his case, delving would disrupt his compulsions.”

“She delved inadvertently.”

“True.”

He scanned the breakfast regulars. “Where is Esther anyway?”

They were all there but her.

We wondered about Esther out loud to Ernie when he trundled our coffee over to us. He said, “Thinkin’ about that myself. Maybe she’s workin’ on some picture and can’t tear herself away. Or caught a cold, who knows? Or she’s still upset after seein’ that body.” He turned to his wife. “Hey, Willa, how about we make a little something for Esther. Poppy wouldn’t mind taking it over.” Back to me. “Right, Poppy?”

“I wouldn’t mind at all.”

Willa jumped off her stool. “Esther would call if she wanted something. I’m going to the store.”

She took off her apron, hung it on a hook, and left. Ernie said, “She’s got a lot of produce comin’ in today. As if Esther’d call. I’ll make a little something for her. My wife gets nervy when she’s under pressure. And Esther—ya know, she’s startin’ to—never mind.”

Fitzy said, “I’ll take the breakfast over to her. See if she’ll give me the time of day.” Poor Fitzy. As if the only sort of person he might have a chance with was a depressed misanthrope. “But you come too, Poppy, otherwise she might not let me in the door, breakfast or otherwise.”

“Okay. Maybe we can push her on figuring out where she came up with those clippings.”

“Yeah, we’ll do that.”

As we were finishing our own breakfasts, Ernie gave us a Styrofoam box of French toast and sausage.

Fitzy said, “This smells good. Tomorrow, instead of bacon, I’ll have sausage. Don’t let me forget, Ernie.”

“Gotcha.”

Fitzy patted his beer gut. Then he said to me, “Where the hell do you put all the food you gorge, FBI?”

“Eating is only my second priority. Give me a choice between a doughnut and a bike ride, I get on the bike.”

“I’d take the doughnut in a minute.”

I shrugged.

“Goody Two-Shoes, aren’t you?”

“You asked.”

“So let’s give Esther her breakfast before I open this box and sneak out the sausages.”

Esther was not on the porch. We knocked, waited, and then went in. Maybe she did have a cold. Summer cold. The worst kind.

The door off her porch into the living room was opened. I stepped across the threshold and stopped. Fitzy walked into me. But instantly, he saw over my shoulder what had stopped me. Esther’s body was sprawled across the floor, twisted and contorted, arms wrapped around her torso, her legs bent up. Her clothes, though, hadn’t been ripped away. Her face was mottled, and copious amounts of saliva had dried on her chin and cheek and on the floor beneath her face too.

Fitzy and I reacted in the same way. We turned toward each other, face-to-face. We said nothing. We breathed each other’s air. And then we both went to Esther and knelt on either side of her. Fitzy was the first to speak. He said, “Jesus Christ.”

He laid the Styrofoam tray with Esther’s breakfast on the floor. He said, “Poison.” Then he bent her left arm and moved it down to her side. No cadaveric contractions. “Copy cat.”

“Yes. Except the killer didn’t know about the bells.”

“That’s right.”

“Esther found out other things too, didn’t she? Not just the story of the boy.”

“I’d say so. Not inadvertently either.”

“I’m sorry, Fitzy.”

“Yeah.”

Fitzy looked more carefully into Esther’s face, gazing down at her intently without speaking. He was not studying her face for forensic information; he had the crux of that at a glance. He was mourning her death.

“Fitzy, did you ever discover a body before? I mean, without a dispatcher first reporting a homicide? Without benefit of an anonymous call?”

“No.” He looked up at me again.

“That’s what happened to me. A few days ago.”

“But you didn’t know her.”

“So it’s much worse for you. Take a minute.”

I stood and stepped away, looked around. The sale bin had been emptied, the framed souvenirs scattered over the floor. The papers from Esther’s stack of folders were strewn everywhere. The folders had names on them. All our names. Esther collected information. Great hobby, a lot cheaper than most. Dangerous, though.

“Fitzy, whoever did this probably found what he was looking for.”

“Probably. I’ll have to go through all the stuff anyway.”

He stood too. We went through the house, room by room. Esther was not a neat housekeeper. You can’t vacuum and dust if you’re a painter or there’d be no time to paint, or to think about what you’re painting. And she certainly didn’t have the money to hire someone to clean for her. Several Styrofoam boxes were still on the kitchen table from her other meals. She was sloppy, but it was clear her killer hadn’t needed to tear the rest of Esther’s house apart to find what he was looking for. She held the spirit of organization. Everything he might have been interested in was in that plywood bin or in the box of folders.

I started going through the scattered clippings on the floor, positive that what we needed to find was already gone. But Fitzy was right, he’d have to pore over all of it. Sometimes what is left in a robbery leaves an investigator able to guess at what was taken.

I opened a file with my name in it. There was one page. She’d written my name, that I was an FBI agent, and that Joe Barnow was in love with me. I showed it to Fitzy. “Why would she want to do this?”

“Maybe she didn’t like crossword puzzles … television … who knows?”

I picked up Fitzy’s file and handed it to him. He opened it, read his paper, and did that smile, one corner of his mouth tilted up. He chose not to share with me what Esther had written about him.

He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and picked up the phone. Fitzy described to his commissioner what we’d found. He talked to several different people after that, assuring a few that the body was accessible, it was not down in a swamp. It wouldn’t be long before the state police helicopter was making its way back to Block Island. I listened to all he was saying in bits and pieces while I looked through Esther’s papers. I didn’t read the file with Joe’s name. I didn’t want to intrude. The Rhode Island investigators would do that. It would take many days and a lot of shoe leather before any of it might lead to whoever wanted to shut her up forever.

I spotted a genealogy. The title on the file was DUTCHY KITTEN. Esther had already done what I’d suggested, only not in needlepoint. With pen and ink she’d drawn a fine and many-branched family tree, tall and wide. A majestic tree, the kind that won’t be found on Block Island for a lot of years, however long it takes a young sycamore to reach forty feet. In the file with the drawing of the tree, on several sheets of paper, she’d written a narrative, putting a story behind the names sprinkled amid the tree’s branches. I read the first line and was sucked in.

Four years after Dutchy Kitten was rescued from the wreck of the Palatine, she’d given birth to a baby girl named Cradle. Esther noted that the islanders probably could not say the baby’s real name just as they didn’t understand her mother as a child when she’d tried to tell them her name was Katerina. Esther guessed the child’s actual name could have been African.

African? I read on. On the tree, Cradle had no last name. Her father’s name was next to Dutchy Kitten, though there was no marriage date. His name was Orange; he was the same age as Dutchy; both estimated to be sixteen at the time of Cradle’s birth. The date of Orange’s death was just a few days after Cradle was born. I flipped to the narrative and found an explanation of his suicide. Orange had been a slave leased to Captain Ezra Dodge. He’d killed himself because the lease was about to expire. He wanted to avoid being sent back to Virginia. He was buried in the Indian cemetery where Dutchy later built a shack for herself and Cradle just a few feet away from where he lay. Dutchy’s grave was dug next to his sixty-seven years later.

Cradle married the grandson of Orange’s temporary owner, Captain Dodge, an original settler. They’d had twelve children; three survived.

I went back to the tree. From Cradle and Hiram Dodge came a line of descendents through to the present day. All the names on the tree were the names of settlers and their descendents—Dodges and Littlefields, Howes and Motts, names engraved on plaques all over the island. Some of the living descendents had asterisks next to their names. I went to the bottom of the page; those were the people presently living on the island. The list included all the Richard’s Patio regulars: Ernie and Willa, Billy and Mick, Tommy and the taxi brothers, Jim Lane, Esther herself, and Aggie from the Pleasant View. Even Jake. But Jake’s parents had blanks where their names should have gone. Esther had chosen to make Jake part of the lineage. Next to his birth date: Adopted. Also listed, with a tiny sword next to the name, was Joseph Barnow. The sword reference at the bottom of the page noted that he was a seasonal resident. Joe had been visiting Block Island all his life because he was connected to it by blood.

Next time I talked to Delby, I’d have to tell her there were plenty of black folk on Block Island, one of whom she knew fairly well.

I showed it to Fitzy when he got off the phone. He said, “There’s a name for this.”

“What?”

“Incest.”

“That’s a bit harsh.”

“Inbreeding, then.”

I didn’t comment further.

“But so what,” he said. And his eyes went from hard to compassionate. “Esther found out something she wasn’t meant to.” He looked into my eyes. “So did you, maybe.”

*   *   *

Back at the cottage, I called Joe and broke the news. First, about Esther’s death. I let the jolt set in and when he emerged a few seconds later he said, “What in God’s name was I thinking?” Then, he went back to being stunned. I waited. The next thing he said was, “I’ve got a couple of days ahead of me here, things I have to take care of. Then I’ll be back, Poppy. Because if Esther’s habit of keeping a history of that place has evolved into her finding secrets that were meant to remain secrets—at least in the eyes of someone who would murder her—Jesus. I could have prevented this.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Esther said I should find out what the girl took. That day in the Patio.”

The girl hadn’t taken anything. But for now I would let sleeping dogs lie.

I proceeded to break the other news—what I’d learned from the genealogy Esther had drawn and narrated, the story of his ancestors, Dutchy and Orange. I said to Joe, “At least we know no one would murder anyone to keep the history of your family from being known. The killer didn’t take the genealogy.”

“The history of my family has never been a secret, it just wasn’t … parlor talk. But, Poppy, shame and humiliation were thrust upon Cradle’s descendents, and their descendents, and theirs, in order to keep an underclass alive. Orange and Dutchy were courageous people. So was their daughter and her husband. But the children of Cradle and Hiram Dodge and those children’s children—right on down—they were the underclass. There was a statute that said the descendents of slaves could not own property, a statute passed by the brothers of Hiram Dodge. This island used to be as segregated as any town in Mississippi. Until 1961, we had a Negro school. Esther’s mother was the last teacher. It was where my grandparents were educated, Willa and Ernie, Billy and Mick. Everybody went to school there. And there was no opportunity after finishing school. They couldn’t buy land, couldn’t even own a car, for God’s sake. Most got out. My grandparents got out. When I came back I found the ownership law my father told me about was true. My father wasn’t joking. It was still on the books. Which is what happens when everyone is mute.

“Keeping that group impoverished, Poppy, allowed the economy of the island to function. Someone had to clean the fish.”

“So what changed the law?”

“Me. When I found out it really did exist. From Esther. I pointed it out to the state legislator who represents Block Island. First he laughed. Thought I was joking just the way I’d thought my father was. When he realized I wasn’t, he had the statute removed. So I bought a cliff top and built my house. I set everyone free by doing that, didn’t I? I’m sorry, I’m not being caustic. It just came out that way.”

“I cannot believe what you are saying.”

“I know. But Poppy, Willa’s family has worked in the grocery since the middle of the nineteenth century. She bought it. When Billy and Mick went to the owner of the Debbie about purchasing it, he gave it to them. They used to pay rent on it in catch. They still give the former owner a couple of lobsters every week. Because they feel like it. And Aggie bought the guesthouse where her mother and her grandmother used to do the laundry.

“There has been no shame in our history. Not the history. The shame was in the impotency it rendered. Children should be seen and not heard. The way it is. Because, in a way, they’d all remained children—powerless. But what we have to focus on now is that Esther found out something grievous to one individual having nothing to do with genealogy. And we’ve got to find out what it was so we’ll know who killed her. That poor woman. This crime—”

I waited. “You okay, Joe?”

“Yes. I’m in, Poppy. I’m in now. I’m getting back there as soon as I can. The first thing I intend to do is—no. The first thing I’ll do is apologize to you.”

I said, “No need. You don’t know my life secrets either, Joe.”

“I’m not talking about what we choose to keep from each other. We’ll stop doing that as soon as you trust me enough to marry me. Though how I can expect you to trust me.… I need to apologize for deserting you.”

Good Lord, was he proposing? He picked a swell time for that. Then he said, “Any sign of Spike?”

“No.”