sure she’s using clean needles. God, I am so afraid she’s going to get the AIDS virus… She won’t come home. I can’t talk her into that. But she can’t seem to stay out of trouble either. She seemed to be doing better over the winter but then she got mixed up with some guy and he dropped her and she… I fly planes for a living, Lieutenant. I am trained to believe that there is no problem I can’t solve. Becca I can’t solve. Because there’s no solution. There’s only today and tomorrow. It’s utterly perplexing to me. And it’s humbling. And it’s very, very lonely.” He breathed in and out a moment, wringing his hands. “Her mother doesn’t know about it, you see. Any of it. It would kill Bits if she found out Becca was on drugs. She didn’t want her to move out there in the first place, because Becca was always a bit wild. I talked Bits into it. I thought the girl would be fine-she just needed to grow up a little. And now, well, Bits just wouldn’t be able to understand. Or forgive. She’s always been closer to our boy, Matt. Matt knows. And Evan, who has always been tight with Becca. But I live in constant fear that he’ll tell Jamie, who can be very indiscreet when he drinks. If Jamie were to let it slip to Dolly or Bud, it would immediately get back to her. You can’t keep a secret on this island… I-I’m hoping to get her cleaned up and home before it’s too late. She used to love horses. We could get her one. There was a young man here who was fond of her. And would give anything to see her again. She’s a lovely, lovely girl…” He pulled her picture out of his wallet and held it out to Des.
It was a snapshot of a slim blond girl in a tu-tu and ballet slippers. She was not especially pretty. She had too many of her father’s features. What Des found most remarkable was that it was a picture of her when she was no more than twelve years old.
Redfield Peck had some trouble sliding the photo back in his wallet. His eyes were filling with tears now. “Please don’t say anything to my wife about this, Lieutenant,” he pleaded, a wrenching sob erupting from his chest.
Des did not like to see men cry. She knew how painful it was for them. She knew this because she knew how painful it was for her. She got to her feet and said, “My interest is in the investigation of these killings. Nothing more.”
“Then I-I can count on your silence?”
“I am like money in the bank,” she assured him.
Then she left him to his tears. He would have a much easier time if she were not there.
His wife was still digging up the weeds in her flower garden.
“You have got yourself one lovely garden, Mrs. Peck,” Des said to her.
“Why, thank you, Lieutenant,” she responded gaily. “I do love it so. Every morning when I come out here to play I think to myself just how lucky I am to be around things that are fresh and growing. They make me feel so alive and… Oh, beans, those darned birds!” Her eyes had zeroed in on a clump of weeds under the peony bush next to her. “See those shiny green leaves? That’s poison ivy. No matter what I do it comes back. The darned birds spread the seeds. And I am so allergic to it. Even if I’m wearing gloves I break out like the dickens. Red will have to come pull it out for me.”
“Your husband’s not allergic to it?”
“My husband can roll around in it buck naked and not get a rash. It’s not fair. All of the Pecks are lucky that way. Dolly isn’t allergic. Neither is Evan.”
“And Tuck Weems? Did he ever help you pull it out?”
“Yes, he did, now that you mention it. I asked him to once when Red was in Tokyo. Tuck wasn’t allergic either.”
“You folks out here all go to the same doctor?”
“Why, yes. Shoreline Family Practice. Three doctors, actually. Pretty much everyone in town goes there. They’re right across from the A and P on Big Brook Road.” Bitsy Peck climbed to her feet and brushed herself off. “Do you like rhubarb, Lieutenant?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Well, you must let me give you something to take with you.”
Des dabbed at her runny nose with a tissue. “Totally not necessary, Mrs. Peck.”
“Nonsense. You absolutely cannot leave here empty-handed. Do you care for these?” she asked, waving a chubby arm at a wildflower bed that was bursting with white geraniums. “That’s Geranium Cantabriense Biokovo. It originated in the mountains of Yugoslavia. Aren’t they just the loveliest?”
“Yes, they are. Very much so.”
“Well, that settles it, then.” She went trudging off to her potting shed and came back in a moment with a vase filled with water. “It’s a funny thing about geraniums, Lieutenant,” she said, cutting some for her with a small pair of shears. “They’ll never be as pretty as they are at this very instant. The second they leave the garden they’ll start to wither and die. But if they stay here too long they become overgrown and crowd out the other plants. I have to thin them out,” she explained with a touch of sad resignation. “It’s a law of nature that beautiful things have to be shared with others.”
Des nodded, wondering whether Bitsy Peck was talking about her flowers or her drug-addicted daughter. She couldn’t help but get the feeling that this was the woman’s oblique way of letting her know that she actually knew all about Rebecca’s problem. That she wasn’t nearly as clueless as her husband thought.
Bitsy Peck was no fool. She was just old school.
She deftly arranged a generous fistful of the flowers in the vase and handed it to Des. “For your kitchen table, Lieutenant,” she said, smiling at her warmly.
“Thank you.”
“The morning haze is lifting,” she observed, gazing out at the Sound. “It’s going to be a nice day.”
“Yes, it is,” Des agreed. “It’s going to be a very nice day.”
“I’ve already told your sergeant all of this,” Jamie Devers said to Des in total dismay. “At least I think I did. I can never be totally sure, you understand.”
“Why’s that, Mr. Devers?”
“I’ve lost a lot of gray cells along the way,” he responded. “You know those things they told us about how drugs would fry our brains? They were all true.” Now an alarmed expression crossed the former child star’s face. “Oh, God, I’ve just confessed to habitual recreational drug use. Forget I said that, will you? It was the sixties, Southern California. Everyone inhaled.”
“It’s forgotten, Mr. Devers,” she assured him as they strolled along together. “Hey, I am digging on your shop.”
“I’m so glad.” Jamie was relieved to change the subject. “If you see anything you like, don’t be bashful.”
Great White Whale Antiques was housed in a drafty old barn up in Millington, a small country hamlet in the rolling hills north of Dorset. The shop was eclectic and cluttered. He and Evan Havenhurst offered a little bit of everything. Colonial furniture. Weathered Victorian garden ornaments. Rugs, quilts, paintings. There were some very expensive pieces. There were some that bordered on tag sale junk. At the moment, Evan was at an estate sale up in Farmington. There were no customers around.
“We positively freeze our buns off in the winter,” he confided. “There’s zero insulation-and nothing but a wood stove. But it’s fun. And it keeps us off the streets.”
“You have any trouble with mice?”
“Yes, we do. They scare the old ladies to death.”
“What you need is a barn cat.” Maybe two. Rob and Fab would be perfect.
“Please don’t get the wrong idea, Lieutenant,” Jamie said. “I really don’t mean to be difficult. I just don’t see why I have to go through it all again. It seems so unnecessary.”
“It’s necessary.” Des could no longer be sure Soave was feeding her everything.
He folded his arms, looking at her curiously. “Well, what is it you need to know exactly?”
“I need to confirm where you were the night Tuck Weems was shot.”
“As I told your sergeant, I was camped out on Little Sister. Went out there after Dolly’s cocktail party for Mitch. Evan and I often spend the night out there.”
“You two were together?”
“Of course. I can’t sail the damned boat without him.”
“Can he sail it without you?”
“Evan can sail anything. He’s part pirate. Why do you ask?”
Des didn’t respond. Couldn’t respond. Because a certain object had caught her eye over by a china cupboard in the corner. It was a truly fantastic object. In fact, she had never seen anything quite so beautiful. Slowly, she
