REVEREND MCMURTRY CAME OUT to bless the new roof, and all of Aileen’s friends and neighbours were invited to the celebration. It was a ceremony that had been customary in the early days along this coast, and the minister had recently brought it back. After the roof blessing he stayed for a while to mingle. Aileen served food and drink, and Pete Woolner, who had once been a fisherman but now drove the school bus, played the accordion, and someone had brought a tin whistle and someone else a washboard and spoons. People’s cars and pickups were parked on the gravel road and on Margaret’s property.
Throughout the event the minister avoided her, but as he left she followed him to his car.
“Reverend,” she said. “Please wait. Isn’t there perhaps something I can say or do to make you reconsider about the funeral service?”
“Oh dear. Please not that again, Mrs. Bradley.”
He opened the door to his Morris and squeezed in and quickly shut the door. But he did crank down the window. She put her hand on the frame and he looked at it wearily.
“Reverend, please,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be good for this dying community?”
“Is it dying?”
“Well, of course it is. What are its prospects? Where are the young people? The fishing’s just about killed off, and even the tire factory is running half shifts now. Look at the numbers, Reverend. And look at the turnout for this roof blessing. How we appreciate every opportunity to congregate and shake hands! A funeral service for two strange young people who’ve died here among us, far from their parents. The dignity accorded them. Imagine the turnout, Reverend. The good feeling for your church.”
He started his engine and shifted into reverse. Then he shifted back into neutral and let out the clutch and turned to her.
“Margaret, you speak plainly, so let me do the same. I knew your grandmother all my young life. She died when I was away at the seminary. AJ was one of the most generous and independent, but also one of the most maddeningly stubborn people I ever came across, to put it mildly. But she knew what she wanted, and I admired that. And then your father and his forest conservation project. For how many years did he work on it? Years, Margaret. Years. And now we have you and your relentless crusade for these dead, unknown young people.”
He shook his head. But there was the hint of a smile on his face now.
He looked away from her, down past his knees for the right pedal, and he shifted and backed up and shifted again. He turned to her and nodded goodbye, and then he cranked his wheel furiously and drove away. A moment later his hand came out the little window and waved to her.
Later that day a hard wind came up and it began to rain again. The wind came from a long fetch across open water, and at times it blew so hard and steady that the rain came nearly sideways past her kitchen window. She was waiting for Inspector Sorensen. He had called because the results of Danny’s blood test were in, and he’d said he wanted to talk to her about that and about something else.
When he arrived he parked on her rock and then hurried toward the house clutching his hat with both hands. She held the door open for him.
“Wild,” he said. “Did it ever stop since last time?”
“It did. This just started a little while ago and it’ll calm down again. But this is our storm season, and it’ll get much worse. At some point we tie our houses down. Literally. We have steel trusses for that, on this stretch of the coast, with our onshore winds.”
He hung up his coat and hat, and they sat again at the kitchen table.
“So,” he said. “You’ll be glad to hear that the blood in the wheelhouse of Danny’s boat is his all right, and his story about the broken window checks out.”
“Does that mean he can have his boat back?”
“Yes, it does. Sergeant Sullivan will give him a signed release. But there’s something else I wanted to tell you. We’ve made some progress in our search for people with the right boats and the right skills, and now we’re pretty sure we know who did the Crieff Island run that night. We haven’t found the man himself yet, but we found his truck and it had blood in the passenger seat. The blood of the man who got slashed on the dock and lost his shoe.” “Who’s the owner of the truck?”
“I can’t tell you that. But we have a warrant out for him.” “You can’t tell me who he is?”
“I can’t release the name yet, but I can tell you that he’s an old fisherman. A former fisherman.”
“We have many of those. Maybe they stole his truck.” “It’s possible. We’ll find that out when we talk to him. We went to his place but there was no one there. The neighbours haven’t seen him in a while. We asked at the marina and he hasn’t been seen there in a while either.”
“And his boat?”
“We’re looking for it.”
“So what happens next?”
“Detail work. We’ll keep looking. After a while we’ll post a public warrant for him and the boat.”
For a moment they sat in silence. They could hear the wind and the rain. The house creaked in its joinery, and Sorensen cocked his head and turned and looked around the room.
“That’s just the wind,” she said. “The roof structure is tied directly into the full frame, and it’s all pegged with what they called trunnels or treenails. In a strong blow the house actually changes shape. Fractionally. Like a ship at sea.”
He shook his head. “It’s all so different down here. And the people too. So scrappy. Like your Aileen. The first time I met her she just about bit my head off. In the meantime, I’ve come to like little Sweetbarry. Why is it spelled that way, with an a?”
“We don’t know. It’s written that way in the founding scroll at the town hall. Maybe it’s the scribe’s fault. But I’m sorry, I haven’t offered you any coffee yet. Would you like some? Or some cornbread and olives?”
He shook his head. “No time. But thank you.”
After he’d left she waited a while, and when the weather had calmed somewhat she stepped into her boots and put on her father’s old slicker and cap and walked next door. She found Danny pacing the rock, searching the ground for nails.
“Danny,” she shouted. “Good news. You can have your boat back. But there’s something else that’s not so good.”
When she got back to the house there was a message on the machine, and she rewound the tape and listened. It was the minister saying that he wasn’t sure what it was, but something about their last conversation was making him willing to reconsider about the funeral service. He said it wasn’t so much her Joubert stubbornness but more what she’d said about the community. And he cared about the community. It was the reason why he’d brought back the roof blessing. In addition to that, he said, he’d been reminded that sinners before man-made laws may not be sinners before God.
“So yes, Margaret. I make no promises, but come and talk to me. Tell me again what you have in mind.”
She was smiling. She played the tape a second time, then she put on her good coat and shoes and pocketed the pager, and drove to the church.