Past Malice (9 page)

“Well, I might not be able to take you out on the water myself today, but maybe I can help. You say you haven’t been sailing for a while, but how would you feel about taking my outboard? It’s tied up at the marina on the other side of the point. The currents can be pretty strong along the point, but if you’re up to it, you’re welcome to take that out and have a look at the historic site from the water today.”

Actually, as little as I liked the idea of being beholden to Aden at this particular moment, it struck me as a great idea. No one expected me back at the house much before noontime, and the thought of being on the water was beguiling, especially if I could rationalize it as being in the name of work. “I’d love to, as long as you don’t….”

“I’m tied up here for the rest of the day. Why don’t you?” He grinned, a nasty little imp’s grin. “I can see you want to.”

Aden seemed to be able to see a good many things and I was beginning to think that it wasn’t his most appealing trait. “Okay, thanks, I’ll do that.”

“Here’s a note.” He began to scribble on a piece of paper and handed it to me. “I doubt that anyone would give you any trouble, but just in case, give them this. But you shouldn’t have any problem.” He reached into a drawer and then handed me a key, “This is for the padlock.”

I took it and put it into my pocket. “Great, thanks. You’re sure you don’t mind?”

“Like I said, there’s no chance of me getting out of here today. I’m a slave to the phone and will be for a while.” He made a sour face. “Not the least of which will be the Chandler family reunionistas, when they hear that there’s been a death here. It is a big fundraiser for us and I can’t let it get away from me…us.”

“I’ll be sure to let you know what I see, if there is anything.” I heard the sound of the scene of the crime squad arriving, and Aden and I both turned our heads instinctively toward the noise. “I’ve got to give Detective Bader the film and then I’ll be off.”

“Film?”

“He wanted the pictures I took of the site during work yesterday, in case they show him anything useful that might help with the investigation of Justin’s death.”

Aden stared at me for a long moment, and I couldn’t fathom the expression on his face. Instinctively I tightened my grip on the strap of my handbag which held the photos. Finally he smiled humorlessly. “What a very curious profession you’re in, Dr. Fielding.”

I nodded, not smiling. “Some days, it’s a little more curious than I like.”

O
N MY WAY OUT TO MY CAR,
I
STOPPED BY THE
site—which was now part of a crime scene. It was no more secure than it had been when I was working there, nothing more than the chain link fence on one side, the house on the other, the shrubs at one end, and a sawhorse and snow fencing at the other by the back of the property, but the addition of police tape certainly made a pronounced difference. I hesitated even to approach, but I guess my sense of self-restriction is a little stronger than most people’s; Bucky wouldn’t have blinked. Maybe it was an indication of birth order or something; whatever it was, it was a good summary of our personality types.

I didn’t have to do much more than pause by the tape when Detective Bader was at my side. “Good morning.”

“Good morning. I brought the pictures. I picked out these,” I handed him the ones I’d sorted out in the car, “because they show the site the night before the murder, and
they are specifically of the areas you’re interested in. I didn’t figure you’d want to see the ones we’d taken of artifacts, but if you want to see them too—”

“No, probably not. Do you mind if I take these for a while?”

“Keep them. I always get duplicates made. In my field, order and redundancy have their rewards.”

He looked as though he were about to say something, but then thought better of it. Before he could speak, however, Stuart Feldman from the crime scene team hailed me.

“How you doing today?” he asked.

“I’m not too bad,” I said. “It’s just kind of horrible to think of someone just…shooting…Justin like that. He was a nice kid.” I caught a glance exchanged between Bader and Feldman. “I mean, he seemed that way to me, the times we talked.”

“No reason to think otherwise,” Stuart said. “Don’t worry, we’ll get whoever did this.”

“I know.”

“And I don’t think we’ll be too much longer than today.” He glanced at Bader, who nodded. “The work is going pretty smoothly. Unless something wildly untoward happens, I’m betting you can get back to work tomorrow, if you like.”

“I guess I would, if you’re sure it won’t be impeding your work.”

“Don’t worry. We wouldn’t let you, otherwise. Say, any interesting finds so far?”

“Not much that’s unusual,” I said. “Mostly household trash—glass, pottery, bone, that sort of thing. But of course you know that we never really focus on the artifacts. It’s the stratigraphy and what it can tell us about what was going on at the site that’s really important.” I grinned at him; the statement was as true as it was false. Understanding the stratigra
phy was the most important part of our work, but the artifacts would always be the principal lure.

“Oh, yeah, right. Dr. Johnston told me that one too. I didn’t buy it from him either.”

I turned back to Bader, aware that he hadn’t said a word through this conversation. I couldn’t tell if he was interested or not. I suppose it didn’t do for him to get too chatty with anyone in my position. I mean, he didn’t know me, didn’t know that I had nothing to do with Justin’s death.

“Well, if you have any questions about the pictures or you think there’s something else I can help you with….” I trailed off; of course he’d find me if he had questions. “I’ll be going.”

“Thanks, for these.” He waved the envelope. “I’ll get them back to you if it turns out that they don’t help us. Wouldn’t want to break a link in your chain of evidence,” he said, and almost smiled.

I turned to go.

“Dr. Fielding?”

I turned but Detective Bader jerked his head, indicating that I should follow him along the chain link fence, a little away from the ongoing investigation.

“I’m…I have a question for you.”

Gone was the curt assurance that characterized the questions he’d asked me yesterday. This was different, I could tell; it had nothing to do with Justin.

“Sure, what is it?” I was more than eager to help.

“I’m interested in history. All sorts.”

My heart beat a little faster, as it always did with the anticipation of a question that I might be able to answer. “Okay.”

“I’ve just started reading about the U.S.–Mexican War, and wondered whether any volunteer units were sent from around here. Can you help me out with that?”

Damn, I thought to myself, let down. I vaguely knew that it was in the mid-nineteenth century, but that was it. “I’m sorry, that’s something I know nothing about. You probably already know to check with the library; they’ll often have a section dedicated to town history, or you could check the state archives. At least they’d be able to tell you where to start looking, if they haven’t got an answer for you themselves.”

Bader’s mouth moved slightly to the side, something that wasn’t quite a grin or a frown, and he blinked slowly. “Thanks anyway,” he said and returned to the site.

I made for the parking lot, wishing that I’d been able to answer the question. I don’t know exactly why, I suppose that it was the faint hope that I could make myself stand out a bit, be trusted, maybe learn a little more firsthand about what had happened to Justin. I reached for my car keys, then thought better of it. The parking would be abominable downtown, and I could just as easily walk to the wharf and leave my car here.

The view from up by the Chandler House was really spectacular, and as I followed the coast road, I could see the whole harbor below. The elevation of the Chandler House wasn’t very high, maybe twenty or thirty feet above sea level, but it was enough to give the place a great vantage point, looking down on the edges of the rest of the neighborhood about a quarter of a mile away. The town was more built up down there, where the land was flatter. I wondered whether there had been a watchtower up this way, at one point, or if it had been on the other side of the harbor, which actually stuck out farther into the ocean. I made a mental note to check the town histories. Not only had the Chandlers had a tremendous view, but they would have also been on view themselves, from nearly every part of town.

I played a little game that I often played while walking
around: What would it have looked like here in the seventeenth century? What would it have looked like fifty years ago? A thousand years ago? Twenty years from now? I tried to put myself in the mind of someone walking into town having just visited Margaret Chandler. Okay, the guardrail wouldn’t have been there, and neither would the pavement and sidewalk. There would be fewer trees; I was guessing that like most places in Massachusetts and elsewhere, the use of trees for fuel and shipbuilding and everything else would have left it denuded around here pretty early on. Okay, the wharves I could see down below me would have been there, but of timber and not concrete, and the ships would have been wooden and not fiberglass; more working vessels, certainly, and few or none devoted solely to pleasure. The beach might have been busier, filled with fishermen repairing nets or selling fish, maybe, and perhaps someone collecting driftwood or clams. There would have been the same crowd of shops, only selling what was coming in on the ships—sugar, textiles, and china—or what was needed to outfit them. Now there were snack joints, souvenir shops, and art galleries—mementoes of journeys and refitting stops, to be sure; the same but different on the face of it all.

Scratch a little deeper into the social history, and, well, that was a different story. I certainly wouldn’t have been striding along alone, the outline of my lower limbs embarrassingly visible to the entire world, pursuing historical research on my own. Actually, if I was very, very lucky, I might have had the privilege and the leisure to read a bit about history, perhaps even travel to see the sites of the classical world, but not much more than that. Most women, most people, weren’t so lucky though, and the odds were that I would have been cleaning fish, or weaving, or stuck with my
head against the side of a cow someplace, six kids hanging off my skirts and crying for their dinner or because the chickens were pecking at them.

I grinned at that and decided to save that particular thought for Brian to laugh at later.

I continued as I followed the road past the common: get rid of the Victorian houses and the telephone poles. Lose the cars and buses and insert a horsed rider or two, maybe a carriage. Add some sheep and some cows and a couple of kids to watch them. Add a lot of mud—the common is a working place, not just a gathering place—and maybe make it market day instead of drill day for the militia. Away from the common and the strictures of the modern-day Stone Harbor Historical Society, there are small houses, maybe eighteenth-century houses underneath the vinyl siding—good against the salt air but bad for my imagination, so away with it. The houses are crowded together, there aren’t the same zoning regulations, but there is the constant worry about fire, especially here, in a place that had been scarred by fire on several occasions, so keep an eye on the smoke coming from the chimneys, smoke that is scented with food and blacksmithing and tar and fish. That might have been a pleasant smell, mingled with the salt air, or it might not have been a happy substitute for the exhaust of the tour bus that passed me, making me cough at its diesel exhaust. The exhaust lingered for a moment on the warm air, then a little breeze dispelled it.

Okay, it’s all a trade-off, I decided. As long as I can visit the past in my work and my imagination, I’m probably better off in the twenty-first century. At least there’s indoor plumbing that doesn’t involve something that looks like a large coffee cup with an extra wide rim.

As I found my way onto the leveler ground of Water Street, I paused to pick a piece of gravel out of the tread of
my sneaker. I pulled it free, dropped it to the side, and retied my laces. The marina wasn’t too far now….

I found Aden’s outboard, unlocked the padlock at the ring at the bow, and removed the tarpaulin cover. The feeling of the boat shifting under my feet brought back a flood of memories that were as situated in my muscles as they were in my brain; it only took a moment to steady myself, get the feel of the boat as I seated myself in the stern. Every time I get this close to the water, I feel like I am getting away with something, getting away from something. It had been far too long.

I checked that there was a life jacket and a fire extinguisher; no problem, but there were no oars. That was no problem either; I wouldn’t be going too far from shore, and my trip today would be a short one. The red gas tank connected by the hose to the engine was nearly empty, but the spare was full; I’d be able to run for a while and then could switch the tanks.

After I put on the life preserver, I squeezed the priming bulb, opened the vent on the top of the gas tank, and pulled the rope to start it. Although I had been prepared to spend the traditional hour of yanking, amazingly, after only two tries, the engine caught. Blue smoke drifted up from the water; I saw the trickle of water under the engine head and knew that water was circulating through the engine. I opened the choke slowly until the engine began to warm up and smooth out, then unhitched the bow and stern lines from the dock and set out.

The boat was vintage and nicely made—I wouldn’t have expected anything less from Aden, who struck me as a man who knew what he was doing and had the money to pay for his pleasures—and I made better progress than I might have expected, given the onshore wind and the chop. I soon fell
back into the rhythm of navigating, keeping one eye over my shoulder and watching out for other craft. I giggled, never imagining that the smell of gasoline and salt air would be so intoxicating. I opened her up and felt the breeze blow my bangs back. The sun was warm, the salty air cool enough to be comfortable, and if I couldn’t be on dry land digging and getting work done, then this was a more than satisfactory alternative.

It took me about fifteen minutes to come around the point, and as I did, I briefly saw the Chandler House before the weeds and shrubs blocked out the sight altogether. I angled back and then cut the engine for a more leisurely view. It was an imposing image to be left with, and put into the context of motorless transport and construction that was based on human brawn and animal traction, impressive. The house would have made a vast statement from land or sea, especially after the back addition was built. I made another note to check where the wharf would have been at the top of the cliff.

I found myself drifting a little too close to the rocks, so I started up again and backed off, heading closer to where the road ended in the cliff. It was just then that I saw it—there!

There was a spot where the ground fell away a bit and was a little lower; with a good set of stairs and a float, there would have been access to the property from the water side. I shivered, not fancying the thought of how the guy building the stairs would have been precariously dangling as he started on his work; the face of the cliff was fairly straight and the water just below it was dark and not particularly calm.

I cut the engine and took the opportunity to switch to the second gas tank. I squeezed the priming bulb and opened the vent on the top of the gas tank, and then realized I should find some landmarks to see whether I could locate the place
again from up on the road. After a couple of minutes of orienting myself, I pulled the rope again. The engine didn’t catch, and, cursing, I tried again, but then stopped: The smell of gasoline was far stronger than it should have been, and that always warrants attention. I couldn’t see anything amiss but the smell was so strong now that I started hunting for it in earnest, worry beginning to build in me. I pulled up one of the floorboards and saw that there was a puddle of gasoline sloshing around beneath me, one that appeared to be increasing in size. A prickle of fear made me shiver, and I saw where the gas was leaking from: There was a puncture in the second gas tank.

A closer inspection gave me a sickening jolt, as I could see that there was no way that the puncture could have been made by accident. The hole looked as though it had been made by a screwdriver, the ragged edges of the hole forced inward. I realized that gas had only stayed in the tank as long as the vent on top was closed. I closed it again, but it didn’t make me feel any better.