SUPPER WAS LAID OUT, READY TO BE COOKED, when Charlie Pope finally arrived at the house three hours later. By then, it was after six. Jeddy and I were in a fume.
“He’ll be eaten up!”
“What took you so long?”
“Hold your horses, we’ll get there soon enough. Mildred got through to your dad,” Charlie said to Jeddy. “He’s on his way.”
Marina threw on a coat and followed us out the door.
“Well, if it isn’t the Queen of Sheba. Out for a bit of fun?” I heard Charlie say to her in a sarcastic voice.
“I’ll come if I want.”
“Course you will, honey. You always do what you want, don’t you?”
Marina brushed past him and we went out to Charlie’s car for the drive to the beach. I saw how careful she was to keep her distance from him. She sat in the backseat with me, arms folded across her chest. Something was wrong between Charlie and Marina. Jeddy didn’t notice, but I did.
The sun was low in the west when we arrived at the beach. The strong winds of that afternoon were dying. The air smelled of seaweed. We walked single file down the sandy path toward the shore. Jeddy, in the lead, slowed and lifted his head.
“What’s that noise?”
We all cocked an ear. Through the crash and roll of waves came a high, droning buzz. It grew louder as we marched over a rise in the dunes. Jeddy pointed across the bay.
“It’s an airplane!”
I looked and saw a tiny gray form floating above the Newport peninsula. Airplanes weren’t an everyday sight at that time. We all stopped to watch.
“Probably some tycoon coming in from New York,” Charlie said. “I read in the papers how they’ve built a landing field over there. Come and go like thieves in the night.”
He walked ahead, suddenly impatient. “Let’s get moving. I haven’t got all day.”
We set off again, and it wasn’t long before Jeddy and I were squinting along the beach, expecting to see the pack of gulls hard at work at the water’s edge. The closer we got, the more we couldn’t see one bird.
“That’s strange,” I said. “Gulls never give up.”
When we came up on the place, the reason was clear. The shallow pool where the body had lain was empty.
Jeddy stared in disbelief. “It was here!”
“It was,” I agreed.
Charlie glanced up the beach, then out to sea. The dead man could not have floated away. The tide was too low, still going out, in fact.
“The flock of gulls was there,” Jeddy said, pointing. “They were coming after him when we left.”
“Must’ve been hungry,” Charlie said, flashing a grin at Marina. She turned her head away. To Jeddy, he said, “You’re sure this was the place?”
“Yes, sir. It was here!”
“Lying just where, would you say?”
“In this little pool of water. Half in, half out.”
“A man, you said, and he was all dressed up?”
Jeddy explained again about the torn evening suit, the watch, the wedding band and the seaweed.
“He had bare feet,” I added. “His face was kind of mushed in.”
“Well, there’s no sign of him now. No sign of anything,” Charlie said, sounding oddly satisfied. “If somebody came and dragged him off, there’d be marks, wouldn’t you think? There’s not even any footprints.”
We all looked. The beach was smooth, except for the tracks we’d just made coming across the sand. Woven in among them were our first tracks, Jeddy’s and mine. No one else had been on that stretch of shore for the last eight hours.
“They might have come in by sea,” I ventured.
Charlie shook his head. “In here? Naw. It’s too shallow for a boat.”
That was true. The shelf of the beach extended way out into the water.
“Well, listen. There’s something else,” Jeddy said. He sounded desperate. “There was an empty wooden case that was washed in with the body. A bootlegger’s case. That’s gone, too.”
Charlie’s expression changed at this.
“You think this guy was a rumrunner?”
“I don’t know. I’m just saying . . .”
“How could you tell he was shot?” Charlie wanted to know.
“We saw a hole in his neck, at the bottom,” Jeddy said.
“Yeah, but was there any blood?”
Jed shook his head. “It must’ve all washed away.”
“Any sign of bruising?”
“I didn’t see any.”
“This hole was from a bullet, you say?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And how did you make that out?”
“Well, I don’t know. It just seemed that it was.”
“There’s a lot of things that ‘seem,’” Charlie said, glancing over at Marina again.
“I know, but this body—”
“Especially with things like bodies,” Charlie snapped at Jeddy. “There’s a lot you can’t tell from just looking at them. I mean, there are officers whose job it is to say what happened and how it was done and when and where and so forth.” He stopped and gave Jeddy and me a look.
“The thing is, I wouldn’t be spreading the rumor of somebody that’s shot washing up here,” he said. “Since we don’t even know for sure that he was shot.”
“In fact, if you can keep the news down about this body at all, it would be best.”
“It would?”
“And you, too, Marina. Keep it under your bonnet.”
“My what?” she lashed out. “And who says? You?”
“Your dad and me,” Charlie answered. “We’re going to be reporting this supposed body to the proper authorities, and they’re going to be reporting to those above them, and it won’t do any good to have rumors flying about.”
“Supposed body!” Jeddy exclaimed. “What does that mean?”
“It means just what it means.”
“There wasn’t anything ‘supposed’ about this body!” Jeddy said. I saw he was losing his temper. There wasn’t much good that could come from that.
“When you find out, will you let us know who it was?” I asked Charlie.
“I might,” he answered. “And then again, we may never know exactly.”
“Exactly what?”
“What happened.”
Marina laughed out loud. “I can see this investigation is off to a good start,” she said.
Charlie glanced at her angrily, turned his back and walked off.
“So, is that it?” I called after him.
“It is,” he spat over his shoulder. “Whew! Seaweed stinks to high heaven around here.”
There was nothing more to be done. Charlie was determined to drop the case. Even Jeddy’s father, who came a few minutes later, gave us a stern look, as if he was displeased that such a thing as a body should have turned up and been found by anyone, let alone his own son. Now that it had conveniently disappeared, he seemed in no mood to discuss it further.
“I stopped by the house and saw that supper’s ready to be cooked,” he said to Marina. “Shouldn’t you be back there getting to it?”
She spun on her heel without answering and strode away. Charlie and Chief McKenzie went off down the beach for a private chat while Jeddy and I waited. Ten minutes later, the four of us set out after her for home.
Jeddy swung into step with his father. Whatever happened, Jeddy never stayed mad at his dad for long. You could see how he revered the man by the way he walked beside him, matching his stride.
“Hey, Dad, Ruben is coming, too,” he said. “Marina said it was all right.”
“Coming to what?” Chief McKenzie glanced down at him.
“Supper,” Jeddy said. “He called his mother. It’s all set.”
“Well, he can’t. Not tonight, whatever Marina said.”
“But why?”
The chief shook his head. “Because I say so.”
“But Marina invited him! And it’s Saturday night.”
Chief McKenzie glared. “I don’t care what night it is, I’ve had enough fuss and furor for one day!” he thundered. We all looked at him in astonishment.
“What are you staring at?” he shouted. “Marina’s not the head of this house, whatever she may think. Take a rain check, Ruben, all right? Tell your folks I’m sorry. We’ll see you another time.”
“Yes, sir. All right,” I said, and that was that. No one spoke another word the whole way down the beach, or in the chief’s car going back to the McKenzies’. I picked up my bike and scooted for home like a dog in disgrace.
Marina was already back by that time. She’d taken the walking path across the Point that cut between the roads. I saw the white of her apron through the kitchen window as I pedaled by. At the last minute, she looked out and gave me a wave.
That made me feel better. Marina always was a great one for bucking a person up. She could keep her head in murky weather, too, which was a good thing because, with the arrival of that body, murk is what was heading for us. Jeddy and I couldn’t see it yet, but the fog was out there, sifting and swirling, already beginning to close in around the McKenzies’ house.