Throughout, Duncan watched intently. If the scene had not been fil ed with such potential y evil symbolism, Samantha began to think, it would have been pathetic.
Duncan was pitiful y thin and his chest concave. Al the kids seemed to have spent more time indoors than out; and if they were robust, they were overly so—tending in one boy's case to obesity.
“Do you know everybody?" Samantha whispered to Arlene.
“Yeah, I'l tel you later. It's what we've been saying—
loser kids. But sometimes it's not their fault, like Karen over there. Her old man beats her pretty badly. Everybody knows it." It was the girl with the dark hair.
Now Samantha did want to leave and she poked Fred.
They started to back away from the ledge.
“Let the games begin!" Duncan threw off his robe and turned on the music again, louder. He grabbed a beer, chugged it down, threw the empty can high into the air, and stripped off his pants. The beer can clattered down the rock and rol ed off into the darkness.
“We are al and al is in us. Join with the darkness.
Cast off your garments." He'd definitely been reading more than comics, Samantha thought. His language was getting positively gothic.
“Nobody wants to see your dick, Duncan," one of the girls said. "And besides, I'm not al owed to take my clothes off. My mother says so.”
Duncan looked at her with scorn. "You are not a true sister of blood."
“I'm not a sister of anybody here. If you're going to get foolish, I'm leaving.”
A few others stirred and Duncan appeared to weigh losing his audience against maintaining his noble position.
He decided to go for the numbers and pul ed his jeans back on. "Al right. Let's go climbing instead." This appeared to find more favor. Armed with beers and smokes, they set off, teetering dangerously close to the edge of the quarry precipice.
“Someone's going to get kil ed!" Samantha started forward.
“No, come on. We'l make an anonymous cal to Earl from the CB in my pickup. They're not going to stop because we tel them to," Fred advised.
The three climbed down to the woods below and went back to the truck as fast as they could.
“Assholes," Fred was muttering. "And Duncan's the worst. After we cal , I want to see what's in that trunk of his.
Obviously, the black stuff was the thing he was wearing. He is real y into it.”
Sensibly, Arlene pointed out that as soon as Earl got the news, he'd be up at the quarry and they'd come running back to the cabin.
“Another time, then," Fred said.
Samantha wasn't so sure. The day had been fil ed with images of blood—intended images: the gory sails that greeted them in the clear light of the morning and the streaked faces around the flames in the dark of night.
Another time?
She'd have to think about it.
* * *
The next morning Pix was putting away her chowder pot. She must have been more fatigued than she'd thought to have left it on the beach. Louise had dropped it off. As Pix was pushing it up onto the top shelf in the pantry, the lid fel , clattering to the floor and narrowly missing the side of her head. As she put the pot down and bent to retrieve the lid, she discovered a large Tupperware bowl had inadvertently been placed inside. She opened it up and found a few cookie crumbs. A piece of masking tape clearly marked BAINBRIDGE was on the bottom. The two women had brought a number of desserts to the clambake and this must have been an offering Pix had missed. The crumbs smel ed delicious. She washed the bowl out and decided to go to the vil age to drop it off. Norman might be around and she could pick up some more information about fake antiques. She'd also like to get him alone to ask him about Mitchel Pierce. Mitch dealt with museums, and presumably a New York dealer in the know would be familiar with Mitch's name, even if there hadn't been any business transacted between them. She'd try him on Mother's Brewster chair story again, too.
Pix could not shake the feeling there was something that didn't quite ring true about Norman. She was trying hard to be objective about him and knew that a good part of her mistrust had to do with his Big Apple shine. Then too there were few strangers on the island. There were tourists and people who rented cottages for a week or so, but Norman—someone from away—had managed to insinuate himself into everyday island life to an alarming degree.
Why, he'd even been at the Fraziers' clambake! Things, especial y social y, moved slowly on Sanpere and people waited a decent interval, say ten years, before expecting invitations.
Why was Norman here? She knew what was purported. There was that word again. It reminded her of Mitch. "Purported" activities. Norman and Mitch. Dealers in antiques. Norman had arrived on the island wel before the murder. Where was he at the time?
There was a lot to work into a conversation.
Driving down Route 17 past the turnoff for Little Harbor, she wished Faith were around and resolved to cal her later to talk about these misgivings. Pix turned into the Bainbridges' drive, stopped the car, and got out. The property had once included many acres to the rear and on both sides, but the land had been sold long ago, leaving the farmhouse and barn. The first thing to greet her was the sound of hammering. Curious, she fol owed the noise and sound of hammering. Curious, she fol owed the noise and discovered Seth Marshal and someone obviously working for him inside the barn, replacing a beam.
“Seth!" He dropped his hammer in surprise.
“Now, Pix, I have to keep busy. The police won't let me out there yet"
“But it could be tomorrow. Wel , not the Fourth, but maybe the next day, and you'l be al tied up here!" She was livid. The Fairchild house was becoming a dream one, literal y.
“I told Aunt Addie I would have to stop once I got the go-ahead on another project. Don't worry." Seth spoke soothingly and tried flashing an ingratiating grin. It made him look more like Peck's Bad Boy than ever and Pix was not mol ified.
“I'l give Earl a cal and see if we can get some idea of how much longer they need. Goodness knows, they should be finished by now. I think you had better plan to start Thursday at the latest."
“Which means working here tomorrow," the other man muttered angrily, stopping the rest of his complaint after a glance from the boss.
“Thursday wil be fine. Now, please, remember I want to get started as much as you do.”
Pix certainly hoped so, said as much and good-bye, then walked out into the sunshine and over to the house.
"Aunt Addie" indeed, although she could real y be his aunt, or more likely, great-aunt. The whole island was connected by ties of varying degrees of kinship.
Rebecca answered the door—the back door, of course. A bed of ferns had grown up over the front steps and Pix thought it unlikely that the door with its shiny brass knocker in the shape of an anchor had been opened since James Bainbridge had been carried out in his coffin. It would never have done to take him the back way through the kitchen.
“Who is it?" a querulous voice cal ed out. "Don't just leave whoever it is standing with their chin hanging out!
Invite them in!”
Rebecca ignored Addie's remarks and reached for the Tupperware bowl.
“Oh, Pix, am I glad to see this. I couldn't remember where I had mislaid it, but I knew I had it at the clambake, because I'd fil ed it with butterscotch shortbread* that morning.”
She had missed something good, Pix thought, stepping into the room. The Bainbridges' shortbread was another of those secret family recipes.
“I'm glad I found it. It was in my chowder pot and I might have put it away without opening it until next year, but the top fel off the pot when I was putting it on the shelf."
“The Lord works in mysterious ways," Rebecca said confidently, then led Pix to the front parlor, where Addie was somehow managing to keep herself poised on the slippery horsehair Bainbridge fainting couch. Pix knew that it was a fainting couch because Adelaide had told her once, adding, perhaps unnecessarily, "not that it has ever been used as one" Oddly enough, today she did seem a bit under the weather. She wore a housecoat that made her look like a large pink-and-orange-flowered tea cozy. Her legs were stretched out and she apologized for wearing her bedroom slippers.