The Perfect Summer (Hubbard's Point) (21 page)

Interest was paid quarterly; until her accident, Charlotte had been one of two trustees. The other had been Sean McCabe. Connolly was right; Mark Boland was now a trustee. But he had taken over only after McCabe's death. Daniel Connelly had taken over after Charlotte's accident. Why hadn't he mentioned that Sean had been a trustee until his death in June?

What, if anything, did he have to do with the juggling of funds that had taken place thirteen months ago?

Just around the time of his wife's death.

The investigation of Sean McCabe's crime had opened a deep cavern at Shoreline Bank. Joe was looking for an UNSUB—an unidentified subject. He wasn't sure who or why or how that person had aided McCabe, or even for sure if such a person existed.

All he knew was that there had been misappropriation of funds in two departments: the loan division and the trust division.

And although the money had been quickly paid back, the Eliza Day trust had been pilfered and restored—the records proved it.

Bob Dylan's
Oh Mercy
had been playing on Joe's CD player; inspired by Dan's shirt, he popped it out and inserted Springsteen's
The Rising
in its place. He waited, and watched, feeling the music.

And then his wait became worth its while: Dan Connolly was on the move.

He exited the boat shed, pulled the heavy doors shut, and locked them. He walked across the parking lot and climbed into his truck. As Joe watched, Dan pulled out onto the street, drove straight past Joe's car, and headed west on the Shore Road.

He lived east, across the Gold Star Bridge, in Mystic, so Joe took a wild guess about Dan's destination. He didn't really have any reason for thinking Dan might want to go there; it was more of a gut feeling, an instinct. Perhaps because if he were Dan, that is where Joe would want to go.

The ride took about twenty minutes.

There was very little traffic. With summer over, the crowds had gone. Route 156 was almost empty, except for a slowdown by the grocery stores in Waterford and Silver Bay. Then a straight shot past the Lovecraft Wildlife Refuge and Rocky Neck State Park, past the Wellsweep and the Fireside Restaurant. Connolly turned left under the train trestle—the same tracks that went to New London, past his boatyard—into Hubbard's Point.

He drove past Bay's house, then Tara's, into the beach parking lot. It was September now, and the lot was empty. Joe stopped on the side of the road, just around the corner. He got out of the car and walked through an empty yard to watch.

Dan Connolly was out of his truck, walking across the footbridge that led onto the beach. Hair blowing in the wind, he strode onto the boardwalk, as Joe had known he would.

Although he had a pair of small binoculars in his jacket pocket, Joe just watched Connolly with his naked eyes, from across the yard and sandy lot. He saw the man glance down, as if to remind himself he had built that boardwalk himself, over two decades earlier.

And then he sat down on the white bench, the long empty white bench where so many people must have taken rest and solace over the years. His head was turned slightly, looking west, directly at Bay's house. He was thinking of her, Joe was sure; and he was also listening to the sounds of the waves and gulls.

Two staples of the sea, inseparable from summers at Hubbard's Point or any other beach; a reminder of summers and youth.

And innocence gone by.

20

S
EPTEMBER WAS CLEAR AND BRIGHT, FILLED WITH
golden light as summer slid into autumn, and then it was October, and the air grew cooler, but the water stayed warm enough to swim, and the light turned amber. Like the actual substance of amber, having captured for eternity ancient life, leaves and bees and crickets, the October light of Hubbard's Point was forever filled with preserved memories of summer.

Bay worked hard at Augusta's, mulching, pruning, planting bulbs on Firefly Hill. And then, as if inspired by the promise of beauty in the coming spring, she'd rush home before dark and do the same thing to her own yard.

It gave her hope and comfort to know that these hard, dry bulbs inserted deep into the rocky hillside soil now would yield clouds of snowdrops, scillas, daffodils, narcissus, and tulips, come April and May.

At night, Bay and Tara often met for tea by the fire, always at Bay's, where they could keep an eye on the children doing their homework. Bay had been completely wrapped up in work for the first time since her marriage, and in helping the kids cope with returning to school after their father's death.

“October is actually my favorite time to sail,” Tara said, bundled in a shawl. It was a warm evening, so the two friends were sitting outside, under the moon. “The breeze is more steady, and the water's warm, so if you capsize, it's a nice swim home.”

“That would be nice,” Bay said, smiling as she sipped her tea, wishing Dan were there to see the moon with her. “So nice . . .”

“Why don't you call and invite yourself again?”

“I can't.”

“It's because you don't think it's seemly, right? How dare you go sailing again with someone who likes you?”

“It was so good, just to be out on the water with him,” Bay said. “I'd forgotten it could be like that. He's so gentle.”

“You deserve gentle, Bay.”

“Sean was always so fast and busy, so high-gear . . . it was wonderful to just sail along in an old catboat, not trying to get anywhere fast.”

“He's a good friend,” Tara said. “I remember how much time you used to spend with him—I hardly saw you that summer. You enjoyed each other's company even then, when you were just a kid.”

“I know,” Bay said, glowing with the thought of that moonrise. “It really was an amazing friendship.”

“And still is? Why don't you invite him over for dinner some night?”

Bay had been thinking the same thing. Annie had been hounding her to see Eliza, and Bay had said she could soon.

They stared across the marsh, to the craggy tree-covered hillside. It was dark and mysterious, silvered by moonlight, just a hint of the path leading into the woods, to Little Beach. Bay thought of the adventure, the trail of life, and wondered where it would lead them all next.

“Want to join us for dinner Saturday?” she asked Tara.

Tara smiled, shaking her head. “No, thank you. I think Andy's having a sale that starts that day. I might stop in there.”

“You want to see Joe Holmes, don't you?” Bay said.

“I feel so disloyal,” Tara said. “Considering he's investigating Sean.”

“You really are tired of artists, aren't you?”

“Exhausted, darling,” Tara said. “You have no idea.”

Laughing, Bay heard a car pull into the driveway. She got up, just in time to see Alise Boland coming around the corner of the house carrying a huge pot of orange chrysanthemums.

“I know it's late,” Alise said, setting the pot down on the back step. “I should have called first, but I've just finished the craziest job, and I had some leftover mums, and I wanted to give you some!”

“Thank you—that's so nice of you,” Bay said. “Would you like some tea?”

“Yes, join us,” Tara said.

Alise shook her head. “Thanks, I'd love to another time. But you know how it is—I've been working all day, and I just want to get home and take a shower.”

“Oh,” Bay said, smiling. “Then I'm especially touched you'd stop by. I didn't know you worked with flowers . . .”

“I don't, usually,” Alise said. “I usually just do interiors, but I have one client who likes me to oversee the terraces as well, and I went a little overboard this time. Mark told me you've started gardening.”

“I have,” Bay said. “For Mrs. Renwick.”

“Isn't she a character?” Alise asked, laughing. “Mark just loves having her as a client. He always comes home with great Augusta stories.”

Bay nodded pleasantly; Alise probably didn't know that Augusta had been Sean's client, till last June . . .

“Anyway,” Alise said, “enjoy the flowers. You know, maybe we can work together sometime, Bay. If I get a client who's looking for a gardener, I'll keep you in mind.”

“I'd appreciate that,” Bay said.

It was a small thing, really, but the night made Bay feel . . . normal, after all the months of desolation. To be sitting outside with Tara, having another friend stop by to give her such a lovely plant. It was enough to make her believe everything was going to get better. Bay had felt so unwanted by Sean, and then she had lost him; her grief had been doubled.

But tonight she felt good. She felt secure, to have such good friends, part of a community. To have started working at something she had a talent for, something she understood, that might be the beginning of a real future for her and the kids. To be sitting in front of the house she loved, with her children safe inside.

And to be able to watch the moon and wonder whether Danny was seeing it, too.

THE GOOD
—
THE GREAT
—
NEWS WAS THAT THEY WERE
going
to the McCabes' for dinner, but first Eliza would get to spend the whole day with Annie.

The not so good news was that Eliza felt the darkness coming back. She felt threatened by everything: a knocking at the door when her father wasn't home. A feeling that someone was following her. Scratching at the screen in her bedroom window one warm night last week, and a soft voice:
Eliza, Eliza, your mother wants you.

It sounded so real!

And when she looked, the next day, she saw scratches on the metal mesh—as if someone had tried to cut through with a knife. She even showed her dad. He looked at the marks and said they were just from wear and tear, branches scraping the house during gales and nor'easters. Of course he thought it was in her mind.
Let's face it
, Eliza thought.
Even I think it's in my mind.
It was just like the boy—or girl—who cried wolf. And most of Eliza's life was just one big cry for help.

Some things helped. Annie helped. Sunny days helped. New clothes helped for a short while. But for such a short while, she had to wonder: Why spend the money at all?

Earrings helped, but the piercings helped more. A little prick of pain, another hole in the skin, letting some of the pressure out.

Starving was good. It was so real. The body was really pretty dumb, when you thought about it. It was trained to be hungry when it really didn't need food. Like, show the body a ham sandwich, and its mouth would start to water. Same thing with a chocolate bar, especially, for Eliza's body, one with almonds.

That was the crazy thing: other bodies might go wild for peanuts or coconut. Bodies were very personal in their appetites. Annie, for example, had struggled with her weight. But now, according to the most recent phone calls, the hunger was a bit under control, and her body was shrinking just slightly.

For Eliza, life was a constant struggle. She felt like a worker at a nuclear power plant: Keep the pressure up here, let it off there, let the steam build to a head, then twist the valve and let some escape.

Eliza did that with starving and cutting. Starving let her body build up pressure till her muscles were screaming for vitamins and nutrition, and cutting let the screams fly out of her organs, into the sky.

Her dad was out in the boatyard, outside, and Eliza was in the shed, after work, sitting at the desk, her favorite place in the world to do her work: her cutting.

She called it “the grandfathers' desk,” because that was what it was: created by one grandfather for the other. Not exactly like Annie's story of the beloved grannies, however. This was commerce, not friendship: Her mother's family had had all the money, and her grandfather from that side, Obadiah Day, had hired her grandfather from her father's side, Michael Connolly—poor Irish immigrant that he was—to build and carve him this desk.

It was so, so beautiful, built of mahogany, carved with mermaids, scallop shells, fish, sea horses, sea monsters, and Poseidon. As a little girl, Eliza had had sweet dreams of the mermaids and sea horses. Now, as an almost-grown-up, she had nightmares about the sea monsters.

She sat at the desk, slowly, reverentially, taking her knife from its hiding place, in her sock. Her pulse went up, with excitement. And her throat began to sting with the tears she wished she could shed. Sometimes she thought that maybe, if she could cry, she wouldn't have to cut; her body could weep in a normal way.

Letting her fingers run over the desk's carved surface, she wondered whether this piece of furniture was cursed. If it hadn't been ordered, if one grandfather hadn't been hired by the other grandfather to build and adorn it, would their family have ever come into existence?

Would her mother have met her father? Would Eliza ever have been born?

She so often wished none of those things had ever happened. It was one reason she liked going to Banquo, felt it to be a sanctuary—although a locked one, with hard plastic-covered pillows and too many meds—because there were people there, other girls, who understood her life, who would not think it was one bit weird to hear strange voices outside her window in the night, calling her to join her mother, and who knew, at least a little, what it felt like to be her.

To be her.

Eliza Day Connolly.

Annie knew, a little. She had a tender heart, just like the girls at Banquo, but she also had an amazing core of strength that Eliza loved. It intrigued her the way Annie handled everything so well, and she wished she could learn from Annie.

But she lived so far away; if only Eliza lived in Hubbard's Point, where she could see Annie constantly. She thought of the haunted feeling of the place, as if ghosts of all the beloveds congregated there. She knew Annie felt it, too—and that was just one more reason she loved her.

Ghosts and worries and secrets.

Eliza's mother, for example. When would her hateful secret come out? And did her father already know? She adored him, more than he could ever know, and she would die to help him. That's why the voice at the window bothered her so much—because it reminded Eliza so much of that night her mother died.

But the voice at the window didn't know Eliza's true feelings. It didn't know the secret. That's why Eliza had checked to see if a real person was outside on her roof—because the voices in her head would have known better. Because the voice at her window was ignorant. It didn't know that Eliza had no desire to join her mother. None at all.

Family secrets.

Banquo Hospital was in existence, if you thought about it, because of family secrets. People hurt by the people who loved them most. What other reason could there be for going crazy? Eliza couldn't really think of one. Her father, one of the best secret-keepers of them all, had better watch out, or who knew how he'd get by? He needed Eliza, just to keep him in line.

She was willing to admit this: She gave him a hard time.

Okay—she sometimes did her level best to make his life hell. To keep him on his fatherly toes and remind him that SHE was still here, SHE still needed him, SHE would never desert him. If he was busy taking care of her, he would have less time to feel tormented by what had happened to her mother.

The man was so good and fine, but he was ridiculously blind to certain truths. He thought his good sweet Charlie had left him only in death, that last night by the side of the road? Ha!

Sometimes a daughter knew so much more.

Her lungs searing now, her heart a jackhammer in her skinny chest, Eliza watched her father out the window. She knew he'd be occupied for some time . . .

Eliza closed her eyes, thought of her mother talking to Sean McCabe. Her trusted banker.

It was strange that Annie, her new and only best friend, was Sean McCabe's daughter, but what good was having Dissociative Identity Disorder if you couldn't use it to occasionally dissociate on demand when you wanted and needed to most? It kept her from seeing the maroon van in her dreams . . .

Or from remembering where she had seen it before. It tormented her, the knowledge that she had seen that van before. But where? And where had she heard that voice outside her window?

The questions were driving her crazy, so she lifted her knife.

She picked a spot on her body that her father couldn't see—the top of her forearm, just below the joint; it was fall now, and chilly, and long sleeves were in order—and Eliza began to ever so gently press the blade into her skin.

Nothing too dramatic. Just enough to free the blood, to let the blood come bubbling out. One drop of blood. Another drop of blood.