Bunker 01 - Slipknot (8 page)

“Lucy, darling. Please try to be polite to our guest. Accidents happen,” Blaine wheedled.

“She’s not our guest, and most accidents are covered by insurance. Come on. Let’s get this over with. I have to be at the boutique at eleven.” Lucy swept her right arm toward the door, inviting and insisting that Blaine and I exit ahead of her. Blaine grabbed a ball cap from a hook in the entryway, pulled it on over his thinning curly hair, and held the screen door for the ladies with his foot while cradling the full dustpan to his chest. The three of us marched along the mussel shells with me in the lead and moving quickly. I wondered how Lucy was faring with her heels, but I never glanced back s l i p k n o t

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to check. Once we were on the boardwalk, the heels clicked closely behind. I nearly ran the length of the granite pier and stopped abruptly at the top of the ramp, where Lucy almost ran up my back.

“Ms. Bunker, we’ll only be a few minutes sprinkling the ashes around the shore. Then I’d be delighted to show you
Fairways
. Come on, sweetheart,” Blaine said to Lucy.

Lucy ran her eyes along the shore, where the tide had receded, exposing a narrow band of clam flats. Then she looked down at her shoes. “I’ll just watch from here. But hurry. I’m meeting Victoria Cole at the shop. She’s always good for a grand. How long will this survey take?” Lucy asked me.

“Well, I’m not sure.” I hesitated, hoping to discourage Lucy from joining us aboard the boat. “Your vessel hasn’t been surveyed since Mr. Hamilton, Sr., had it built, and you’ve made some changes, right?”

“Yes, yes, that’s correct. There have been some changes—

improvements, upgrades. That’s why I need a new survey. I have no other plans for the morning. You can have all the time you need,” Blaine chirped pleasantly. “Sweetheart, you can’t be thinking of going with us. You’ve never been aboard
Fairways
. You’ll surely have trouble climbing in and out of the dink wearing that dress.” The use of the word “dink” for his dinghy reminded me that Blaine was indeed a member of the upper crust of society; watermen below the yachting class would have called the dinghy anything but.

“Don’t you worry about me,” Lucy warned. “I am no stranger to boats. I was born and raised in this town, on the

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water,
and
in a dress. My grandfather came here from Italy to fish,” she added proudly.

“I thought your grandfather came from Poland to work as a stonecutter in the granite quarry,” said Blaine.

“Yeah. That, too.” Now Lucy sounded irritated. “Come on. Snap it up!”

“Yes, dear.” As Blaine made his way to the edge of the water, Lucy followed me down the ramp and onto the float. I untied the dinghy’s painter, jerked the tiny boat around by the bow so that it lay with its side against the float, and hopped down into the stern seat, leaving the bow for Lucy, as she appeared to be the lightest of the three of us. Not to be out-done, and taking her cue from me, Lucy pushed her hair from her face, took a deep breath, and moved to the edge of the float adjacent to the dinghy’s bow. As she attempted a step onto the tiny triangular seat, her dress stopped her foot short of making contact. She quickly withdrew, hiked her dress up a notch, and tried again. I had allowed the slight breeze to blow the bow off just enough to keep the seat out of reach of the fully exposed leg. Again Lucy withdrew to a secure and square stance on the dock. “Need a hand?” I asked.

“No.” Lucy shrank into a deep knee bend and reached for the painter, the bitter end of which was lying on the middle seat. Her long, perfectly manicured nails were one inch short of the line. She placed her knees on the float, gripped the starboard oarlock with her left hand, and stretched with her right. She easily grabbed the line, exhaled in relief, and gave me a “see, I can do it, too” smirk. She triumphantly pushed against the dinghy to right her full weight back on the float.

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The boat moved out, rather than her weight up, leaving Lucy neither here nor there. She arched between boat and float like a human bridge. She held fast, seemingly trying to decide whether to lunge for dinghy or dock. The gap between the two widened, flattening the arch in her back to nearly hori-zontal. There really was nothing I could do to help at this point, even if I had wanted to. All Lucy managed to utter before splashing was “My shoes.”

Blaine came sprinting down the ramp in time to see his wife treading water. Her wet black hair was plastered to her tiny skull, which bobbed up and down like that of a seal looking for a mackerel. I switched myself into the middle seat, placed the oars in their brass locks, and maneuvered back to the edge of the float. I hopped onto the dock, secured the dinghy, and moved quickly to assist Blaine, who was pulling his wife out of the ocean by her fragile-looking arms. Although, of course, I did not laugh, I was amused; I knew I was seconds from a real visual of the expression “mad as a wet hornet.” We worked together to haul Lucy first onto the float and then to her feet. The red dress clung to every curve, like a peach in heavy syrup to the side of a bowl.

I didn’t know whether Lucy’s trembling was from cold or rage, but I broke the silence with an explanation to answer the puzzled look on Blaine’s face. “I think one of her spikes got jammed in these boards on the deck,” I said, dragging the toe of my sensible shoe along the crack between two eight-inch planks. “Ouch! Look at those legs! There must be a barnacle factory down there,” I said, drawing all attention to Lucy’s shins. Rivulets of salt water trickled from the lower

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hem of the dress, over her knees, and onto her shins, where they mixed with blood from multiple scrapes. The shredded panty hose did little to contain the streams as they irrigated Lucy’s very expensive-looking shoes. Lucy’s fists were balled up tight. Her entire body stiffened with what I perceived as extreme ire and indignation.

“Sweetheart, are you all right?” Blaine winced with what I understood to be apprehension and anticipation of a lashing wrath I was certain Lucy was fit to deliver.

“I’m fine,” Lucy answered calmly as she smoothed her dress and pulled her dripping tangles behind her head, then let them plop onto her back, which was stippled with goose bumps. “Ahhh. First swim of the season. Quite refreshing. I need to shower and change before meeting Mrs. Cole.” As she sloshed past me, Lucy hesitated long enough to slit her eyes, clotted with damp makeup, and mouth something un-readable at me. She went up the ramp slowly and gracefully, with a seemingly forced nonchalance.

I stepped over the puddle left by Lucy and called out, “Nice to have met you, Mrs. Hamilton. Sorry about your vase.”

Lucy never turned around, but she threw her head back, said “Urn” to the sky, quickened her pace, and disappeared up the boardwalk.

I climbed nimbly into the dinghy and took the rear seat, facing Blaine, who held the boat against the float while I got settled. Pushing off, Blaine placed the oars in their locks and pulled strongly and rhythmically toward the majestic dark-hulled sailboat. The size of the dinghy mandated a physical closeness that I found strangely warm and comfortable. With s l i p k n o t

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each dipping of the oars, the dinghy rose up slightly, forged ahead, and settled back into a short glide before the next powerful stroke.

I shook myself from the lazy state that so naturally lulls the one in the stern seat. Knowing that my time alone with Blaine would be brief, I initiated conversation with “Interesting hat,”

referring to his cap. Its embroidered endorsement for the wind farm very much reminded me of the button pinned to the deceased. Seemingly relieved to have the stillness interrupted, Blaine apologized profusely for his wife’s lack of manners, excusing her actions with an explanation that led naturally to the questions I had come here hoping to ask. “Lucy is distraught over the death of Nick Dow. She hasn’t been acting at all normal—beside herself with grief, I suppose.”

“They were friends?” I hoped for more.

“Well, sort of.” Blaine lifted the starboard oar into the boat and tucked the glistening blade under the stern seat.

One short backstroke with the other oar landed the dinghy gently against the side of
Fairways
. Blaine grabbed the edge of the three-runged ladder that hung over the rail and waited for me to climb aboard the large vessel. I did not budge. I sat waiting for more of an explanation. It eventually came. “Not friends, exactly,” he continued. “Lucy had taken Nick on as a project, like a community service. She accompanied him to A.A. meetings, delivered meals to his place, took calls from him at all hours . . . I suppose she’s feeling somewhat responsible for his death, since he was clearly fully intoxicated the evening of his accident.” Blaine motioned toward the ladder with his free hand and said, “After you.”

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One of my few assets was something innate that compelled others to open up to me. Wanting to hear more but not wanting to appear overly interested, I climbed over the rail and onto the deck of
Fairways
. Blaine followed. As he secured the dinghy to a cleat, I said, “That town meeting was my first look at Green Haven. I didn’t have a clue what was going on.”

“You’re fortunate to not know. It was appalling, wasn’t it?” Blaine’s soft voice was lower than what I assumed was normal for him as he recounted the same sequence of events that I had heard from Audrey in the café earlier this morning and had witnessed myself last night. Of course, Blaine’s take on the episode was centered on Dow’s misbehavior and how his actions had riled the town to the breaking point. He did not make any mention of the contentious wind-power proposal and how this had disturbed an otherwise complacent community. So I supposed his recounting was, in part, a way of dismissing any responsibility he might otherwise have to face for the meeting’s outcome.

I went about the business of surveying the Hinckley while Blaine supplied a few pertinent details of Dow’s fated evening, including the fact that Lucy had stayed out all night following the mayhem at the gymnasium, supposedly looking for Dow and her son. “She was worried about Alex. He was verbally attacked and publicly humiliated by someone whom only she hadn’t given up on. Not to mention that it was all because of my wind farm proposal. It’s become my pet project.

The money I’ve spent . . . That’s pressing particularly hard on Lucy. She knows that wind power will be great for Green s l i p k n o t

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Haven, and she supports my efforts, but she’s a native and has strong ties to tradition and the town’s fishing heritage.

Green Haven is under a lot of stress. Progressives and tradi-tionalists are butting heads. Many folks are torn—they don’t know which side they’re on. Change, even when it’s for the good, can be gut-wrenching.”

By the time I had inspected every nook in the bilge, every corner of each crawl space, every inch of rigging, and every other system aboard, I had as much detailed knowledge of the vessel’s owner as I did of his ship. The boat had been maintained to a T, and as my mentor would say, she was ship-shape, Bristol-fashion. Blaine Hamilton did not quite share the same harmony, in my opinion. This was not to say, I thought, that he was a wreck—just not at ease with his lot in life. He seemed unhappy. Blaine had amply apologized not only for his wife’s rudeness but also for his money. It was clear to me by the time we rowed back ashore that Mr. Hamilton felt unworthy of his birthright. The constant denials endeared him to me, as I’d been born with nothing and still had nothing but
was
content. I was glad that Blaine was not the ogre that Audrey had made him out to be. My suspicions that he could have had a hand in Dow’s death had been quelled, but his explanations, coupled with his wife’s actions, had put Lucy in the running for prime suspect. The cynic in me couldn’t help but wonder if this had been his intention all along.

As we entered the house, I smelled the lingering sulfur from a freshly lit match. No need to ask for a drink of water, I thought. Lucy had already burned the mysterious envelope.

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Blaine signed the application required by Top Notch Securities to increase the insurance on
Fairways,
and I bade him farewell and wished him luck with the wind farm project.

Blaine walked me to the Duster and opened the door for me.

“Wow, nonelectric windows. My first car had manual windows. Neat!” I sensed that Blaine was sincerely fascinated with my old wreck, so I was not embarrassed as I stomped the accelerator three times and turned the key. Blaine closed my door, waved goodbye, and backed away from the car. I stared at the gas gauge, willing it to move above the big “E.” It did, but just a hair.

5

i jammed the Duster’s transmission into park. After I’d turned off the ignition, my hand lingered on the door latch as I inspected a new wooden sign through the windshield. The thoroughly weathered board—it must have appeared sometime after I’d left my apartment this morning—clearly marked the parking space as mine. jane bunker had been scribed in penmanship identical to that which designated the three other spots for vickerson and customers only. Apparently, my landlord, Henry Vickerson, had been busy with his burning tool again.

I grabbed my messenger bag and squeezed through the narrowly opened driver’s side, being careful to not allow the Duster to make contact with the Vickersons’ shiny new Cadillac. Maybe it was my imagination, but the twin plastic dachshunds perched on the ledge behind the Caddy’s rear seat appeared to be bobbing their heads and wagging their tails as maniacally as they had been this morning. Although I had yet to witness the dogs’ eyes light up, Alice and Henry had assured me that they were wired directly to the car’s brake lights. The box of Kleenex sitting proudly on the car’s

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