The Bay at Midnight

with the nuns in catechism class.

I read the note aloud.

“You are a decietful pig and I hate you,” I read. “I can’t wait to tell my father everything. He adores me and you can bet he will kill you.”

The three of us were quiet, letting the words sink in.

Ethan was first to speak, his voice a tired whisper. “Damn,” he said. “She and Ned must have been on the outs.”

I thought of telling him my suspicion about Ned’s involvement with Pam, but before I could speak, I realized that Lucy was crying.

“Oh, honey.” I put my arm around her, guessing that she was moved and shaken by seeing a note from our sister. But that was not it.

“I remembered something,” she said, to both of us now.

Ethan pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her, and she pressed it to her eyes.

“The night Isabel died,” she said, “I woke up alone in the attic. I was afraid and came downstairs, looking for you—” she spoke to me “—but of course, I couldn’t find you, since you’d gone out in the boat. I went to the bathroom, and when I came out, I happened to look toward the road and I saw someone out there. I saw the burning tip of a cigarette. I thought it was Isabel at first, walking home from one of her girlfriends’ houses. But then the person walked right past our house and up your driveway.” She looked at Ethan.

Ethan closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. We were all quiet for a moment.

“I feel sick,” he said finally.

“Did Ned smoke?” Lucy asked.

Ethan nodded without opening his eyes. “Like a chimney.”

“I’m sorry, Ethan,” I said.

“It still doesn’t make sense, though.” Ethan opened his eyes and looked at the note again as if he might be able to read between the lines. “What does this mean? How did he deceive her?” He shook his head with a stubborn resolve. “I still refuse to think that Ned was capable of killing anyone.”

“I think he was seeing Pam Durant on the side,” I said.

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

I told him the reasons for my suspicions—George possibly spotting Ned and Pam together on the boat, Mitzi’s suggestion that they would start dating after Isabel’s death, and how Ned had turned to Pam for comfort.

“Isabel probably found out,” I suggested. “She wrote him this note. He met her on the platform at the bay and they argued and he…”

“Maybe it was an accident,” Lucy said kindly. “He didn’t mean to kill her.”

“Things don’t add up,” Ethan said. “I mean, to begin with, Ned told you to tell Isabel he couldn’t meet her that night.”

“But remember, he called her at Mitzi’s to say he might be able to.”

Ethan looked surprised. “I don’t think I ever knew that,” he said.

“How did the note end up in your Nancy Drew box, of all places?” Lucy asked.

“I have no idea,” I said. “They used me as a messenger, giving me the giraffe to pass between them, but I never realized it was a puzzle. Something they could hide notes in. And maybe I…I have no memory of this at all… but maybe I did stick it in the box and don’t remember doing it.”

“Or maybe Ned put it in there thinking you’d find it and realize what had happened and turn him in,” Lucy said. “Maybe he felt guilty but couldn’t bring himself to admit what he’d done.”

“Wait a minute,” Ethan said. “He had an alibi. He was in our yard with my father.”

“Ethan.” I rested my hand on his forearm. “Did it ever occur to you that your father was just trying to protect him? That he made up the alibi for him?”

Ethan shook his head. “He wouldn’t do that,” he said, but I thought he was only saying what he longed to believe.

I don’t think any of us slept that night. Next to me, Ethan tossed and turned. I was haunted, not so much by what Isabel had written or by the realization that Ned was probably responsible for her death, because this was not a surprise to me, but by seeing Izzy’s handwriting. By seeing that part of her, still so alive all these years later. Seeing the rounded a’s and the misspelling of deceitful. The misspelling made me want to cry. It humanized my big sister and made her seem so young and guileless.

Over breakfast the next morning, Lucy suggested we leave the shore early, drive home and pay a visit to our mother to tell her about the note before giving it to the police.

“I don’t think we need to tell her,” I argued. “You know she hasn’t been herself lately, and this would only upset her more.” I knew I was protecting myself, as well. I didn’t want to talk to my mother about Isabel any more than I had to.

“I know it’ll upset her,” Lucy said, “but that’s inevitable, and I want to keep her abreast of things. The less she learns from the police instead of from us, the better.”

“I think Lucy’s right,” Ethan said. “And as soon as the cops see this note, they’re going to want to talk to my father again. I can’t believe, though, that he would have lied about where Ned was that night.”

“Maybe he wasn’t lying,” Lucy offered. “Maybe he was just off on his timing. Give him a chance to explain.”