Samantha wasn't sure. She also didn't think it should have been cleared away until Earl had had a chance to look at it, but no one was asking her, and she didn't feel she knew anyone except Arlene wel enough to offer an unsolicited opinion. Besides, she was a kid and they were mostly grown-ups.
She had been unable to keep herself from looking at the gruesome sight. The tiny creatures were neatly laid side by side in a row, with their gory heads tidily set above each carcass. Samantha had seen dead mice before, even a mouse who had met its demise in a trap, but this precise carnage was worse than al the rest put together.
She watched as Mabel scoured the carving knife.
Mitchel Pierce had been kil ed with a hunting knife.
Carving knives. Hunting knives. It suddenly seemed that there were an awful lot of knives in the news on Sanpere.
She felt a bit dizzy and shook her head.
“Sam, are you okay?" Arlene was loading bread into baskets. The diet at Maine Sail leaned toward a carbohydrate overload. Today's entrée was macaroni and cheese. Dessert was bread pudding. There was a salad, though, lemon Jel -O with shredded carrots and mayonnaise dressing on an iceberg lettuce leaf.
Samantha nodded. "I'm fine. It's just creepy, especial y after Sunday.”
Arlene nodded knowingly and put an arm around Sam's shoulder. Since she'd started going steady, she'd begun to adopt a kind of big-sister attitude that Sam wasn't sure she total y liked.
“It is creepy, but I know who did it, and he's a harmless creep, believe me."
“You know who did it!"
“Wel , I'm almost positive. It's got to be Duncan, of course. He's like stuck in the third grade or something, and I bet he thought this would be a real y great joke on us and Jim. He hates it here. Maybe he thinks if he does enough weird stuff, they'l send him away. They should send him away al right—to the loony bin. It would serve him right.”
Samantha hadn't given much thought to Duncan Cowley, whom she had yet to meet. Given everything she'd heard, though, Arlene's theory made sense. Samantha was wil ing to bet this had occurred to her employer, too. It certainly would explain why he wanted to make light of the incident.
She was about to ask Arlene to tel her some more about Duncan when one of the doors to the kitchen opened and a woman walked in. It wasn't the way her mother walked, Sam immediately observed—those purposeful strides meant to get you someplace. This walk was more like a glide. A dancer's walk. A beautiful walk.
The woman had very short, very fair hair that hugged her head in a silken helmet. Her eyes, or her contact lenses, were turquoise blue.
“It's Valerie," Arlene said in a low voice. "She's so awesome. Dunc had to have been switched at birth. He just can't be her son.”
Valerie Atherton was speaking to Mabel Hamilton, then came over to the counter where the two girls were working.
“You must be Samantha Mil er. I'm Valerie Atherton."
Her voice was as smooth as the sea on a dead-calm day when you sat in the boat anxiously watching the drooping sail for a hint of tautness. Nothing was taut about Valerie, except her trim body and unlined face, shadowed by a large straw hat with a big red poppy pinned to the brim.
Sam's mother had three hats: a floppy white sun hat with something that was paint or rust on it, a black hat for funerals, and a yel ow rubber rain hat that made her look like the old salt on the package of Gorton's fish sticks.
“Hi." Samantha, star of the debate team, lead in the junior class play, searched for some other words, something that would make an impression on this witty and urbane woman, a woman Arlene worshiped. Sam had heard so much about Mrs. Atherton, she felt she already knew her—her clothes, her car, her cat, Rhett Butler.
Valerie hailed from the South and what was a hint in Louise Frazier's speech was a ful -blown answer in Valerie's.
“Hi," Samantha said again, now ready with a remark.
"I'm Samantha Mil er.”
She met Arlene's eyes and turned scarlet with embarrassment. Someone else might have said, "I know. I said that, stupid," but Valerie appeared to find it new and delightful.
“I just adore your grandmother and your parents. It's lovely of you to be helping us out this summer. I hope you'l come by the house real soon. We can't show it off enough.
It was in such bad taste to build such a big place and we have no excuse, except we al seem to take up so much space and if the house was any smal er, Jim and I would probably end up getting a divorce, so real y we're helping to change those terrible statistics about failed marriages.”
Mabel Hamilton, who'd been beaming since Valerie came into the kitchen, burst out laughing. "I have to remember this. Maybe if I tel Wilbur it's to save our marriage and set a good example for folks, he wil final y winterize the porch so I can have my sewing room.”
Samantha's cheeks were back to their normal color.
She didn't know anyone who blushed as much as she did; it was annoying, so immature. She realized Valerie had entirely changed the mood of the kitchen and gotten everyone thinking of something else in a very short time.
Valerie perched on one of the stools and asked Mabel if she could have a bowl of the macaroni and cheese. "It's my ultimate comfort food" She was looking at Samantha, so Sam nodded and final y found some words. "Mine, too, along with chocolate pudding and whipped cream."
“And warm applesauce," Arlene suggested. Soon everyone was listing their favorites—mashed potatoes, cinnamon toast, tapioca—until Mabel brought the reverie to a halt with her own candidate—sardine sandwiches.
“Ugh! That's more like bait, Mabel," Dot said. She was about to elaborate when they heard the trample of little feet, many little feet. Samantha and Arlene jumped up to take the huge trays of steaming food out to the tables, where the kids helped themselves family-style. But first Jim asked for quiet. Samantha expected some reference to the mouse incident: "If anyone has any information"—the old "Put your heads down on your desks and I won't tel who raises a hand" kind of thing. Yet he didn't mention it. Instead, he recited from Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar," his voice growing slightly husky at "Sunset and evening star/And one clear cal for me!" Jim started every meal with some inspirational nautical quotation. The man must have spent years memorizing them al . Sam was curious to see whether he recycled them each session or whether there would be a new one every day. Irreverently, she wondered whether he had picked today's quote as a tribute to the mice.
She stood near the wal on one side of the dining room, ready to refil platters and the pitchers of milk and water that were set in the middle of each table. She took the opportunity to study Jim. He didn't seem to be Valerie's type. He dressed invariably in L. L. Bean khakis, the camp T-shirt, and, of course, Top-Siders. He was handsome.
Days on the water had bleached out his light brown hair and given him a good tan. His eyes were clear and blue.
He always looked as if he'd had a good night's sleep. But there was nothing exotic about him, nothing special. He didn't have any style. Samantha found herself searching for the exact words that would sum up her employer. Jim Atherton was ... wel , he was just so straight.
As she'd groped for the definition, Jim's antithesis appeared at the dining room door: black/white, ying/yang, right/wrong, you say either—al rol ed up into one. It had to be Duncan. A nudge and a whisper from Arlene confirmed it. Samantha watched as Jim Atherton's gaze, which had been sweeping steadily across the room at regular intervals like the beam from the old Eagle Island lighthouse, rested on his stepson. There was no mistaking Jim's look of dismay. He concealed it hastily and walked toward the young man.