behind-the-clouds smile.”
Pix looked at Sam admiringly. "You would have made a good detective"
“Thank you, Mrs. Holmes. Now let's say good-bye and not waste any more of this beautiful day.”
Outside the office, they could hear voices, raised voices.
“I tel you, young man, one more incident and you'l go.
This is not a threat; it's a promise. You are not hiding behind your mother's skirts anymore. Of al the idiotic things to do, frightening some of the younger children half to death!"
“I didn't do it, I tel you!" Duncan screeched. Ànd I'm not going to any fucking military academy. Go ahead and send me. But you can't make me stay there."
“Duncan, Duncan, what choice do we have? Your behavior has been so odd lately." It was Valerie and she sounded as if she had been crying. "At least won't you see the counselor again?"
“I'm not the one who needs a shrink; you are! And this has nothing to do with Daddy. Why can't you just leave me alone!"
“Fine" Valerie's voice was resolute, the voice of a woman who has come to the end of some sort of tether.
"We wil leave you alone—and you leave us alone. One more of these incidents and you'l be sent off. Maybe your grandparents wil keep you for the rest of the summer."
“That's a laugh." Duncan sneered. "Don't forget what they said to you the last time we were there."
“That wil be enough, young man, I wil not have you address your mother in that tone of voice." The Mil ers were unable to move from their spot right outside the door—in Pix's case from outright curiosity; in Sam's because he was mortified they might be heard leaving.
“Don't you touch me!" Duncan's voice was frantic and what sounded like a chair fal ing over was fol owed by the more recognizable noise made when a sharp slap connects with flesh on some part of the body.
Head lowered, Duncan plunged out the door, past the Mil ers, oblivious to their presence. Pix could see two things: He was crying and an angry red handprint streaked across the left side of his face.
They waited a few seconds before Pix cal ed out, "Jim, are you there? We have to be going."
“Come in; come in." Nothing was out of place.
“We've just had another scene with Duncan," Valerie admitted to them. "The last psychologist we took him to said it was al an extended grief reaction, but I'm beginning to think Duncan is milking it. At the moment, he is simply a pain-in-the-ass teenager, no ifs, ands, or buts about it." She laughed at her pun. "Excuse me. This has been a pretty awful morning.”
Pix patted Valerie's shoulder. "I know—and if there's anything more we can do, give us a cal ."
“Thank you both for coming." Jim was a bit stiff. Pix knew he must be wondering how much they had heard—
and seen.
“It wil al sort itself out," Sam assured him. "Maine Sail has one of the finest reputations of any summer camp in the country. Parents know this."
“I hope so," Jim said dismal y. "I also hope I can keep it out of the papers”
As the Mil ers were on the point of leaving, Earl walked into the office. Pix sat down.
“You can let the kids back into their bunks. Nothing, not so much as a drop of red paint on anything. The only thing we've found with any paint on it is a rubber glove—the kind you use for dishwashing. It had washed up on the shore and its mate, the paint, and brush wil probably float in, too. After being in the water for this amount of time, there's no way we can get any prints off it. We'l just have to hope there is a guilty conscience—or more than one—out there. I'm assuming the paint was down in the boathouse. There's a space between two cans of white primer."
“We use red paint for the waterlines and the names, so if you didn't find another can of it, that's where it came from," Jim said, then put out his hand for a hearty masculine shake. "Thanks, Earl, for al your work. I'm pretty convinced it was my stepson. We've been having a lot of trouble with him. You know that.”
Earl nodded and gave them a sympathetic look. The first week in June, Duncan had been picked up for driving his mother's car without a license. He'd only made it down to the end of the Athertons' road when he had the bad luck to encounter Earl. Rather than get bogged down in the juvenile-court system, Earl had placed him on a kind of supervised probation of his own. Now when the boy saw the policeman coming, he tended to walk in the other direction, but not before giving Earl a look that spoke volumes—pretty unprintable ones.
“If you find out anything more, give me a cal . I'l write it up, plus it wil have to go in The Island Crier. Let's hope none of the eager beavers in the national press are reading
`Police Brief' these days."
“Thanks.”
Pix knew what Earl meant. There had been a spate of quaint column fil ers reprinting items from local Maine papers—examples of life Down East. The latest had a Sanpere dateline and purported to quote an island schoolboy's report on George Washington in its entirety:
"George Washington was born off-island." True, that said it al , but the image of the life it represented was as faded as one of those daguerreotypes Earl had been mentioning just yesterday?
“We have to be going." Ever so gently, Sam pul ed his wife to an upright position. "See you.”
They spent the afternoon sailing, and despite her every intention to forget the events of the morning for the time being, Pix kept seeing gobs of red dripping down the smooth white sails they passed.
Ursula Rowe sat on the front porch of The Pines trying to decide whether she should walk down to the beach or stay where she was and finish the book she was reading about Alice James. A few years ago, there would have been no question. She would have leapt up, taken her walk, and returned to read—or even taken the book with her.
Now she eyed the ascent. First there were the porch stairs, then the sloping grass, and final y a line of low rocks that separated the beach from the dirt road leading to the dock.
She sighed. It was too much, especial y with no one around at the moment. It was al wel and good to assert her independence when people were near, but she knew she was slowing down and there were things she just shouldn't attempt anymore. It was profoundly depressing.
It had al started with the car. She'd resisted the cal s of common sense for several months, then when she'd backed over one of the lilacs her mother had planted for her when she first moved into the Aleford house, she'd cal ed Pix and told her to come get the keys. For the first few days, she felt not only trapped but angrily dependent.
Gradual y, she'd become used to relying on friends, taxis—
and Pix. Fortunately, the house wasn't far from the center of Aleford. The day Ursula couldn't walk to the library would be the day she took to her bed for good, she'd told herself dramatical y. Now she knew she'd hang on to every bit of mobility she had, from house to garden, from bedroom to bath, as her world diminished.
The unchanging scene before her lifted her spirits. For al the waves knew, she could stil be that little girl in braids chasing the foam as it swept down the wet sand. Yet this summer had not been a typical one. The murder of Mitchel Pierce hung suspended in the air, accompanied by whispered rumors, hints, accusations. She wished Pix would stay out of it, but knew she wouldn't. Children were so influenced by their friends. Pix was taking a leaf from Faith's book. But then Pix wasn't a child anymore and she, Ursula, wasn't real y a mother—some other category. The magazines talked about role reversal and children becoming parents. Ursula hated that notion. Only it was true. She wasn't walking to the beach anymore without Pix to watch her. Retired mother? Perhaps, but when she thought about Pix and Arnold, named for his father, the fierce pangs of maternal love were not retiring in the least.
It would be good to see Arnold and his wife. What was the old saying? "Your son is your son until he takes a wife.