long as I kept my eyes closed, I could pretend that everything was just the way I'd imagined it when I planned our getaway. Michael and I sitting warm and cozy on a soft couch in front of the fireplace, listening to the crackling of the fire and the pounding of the surf outside the cottage.
And my brother sneezing, and Mrs. Fenniman rattling plates in the kitchen, and, of course, the wind periodically slamming large objects into the side of the house. So much for cozy.
'You haven't had any coleslaw yet.'
I opened one eye and saw a large, virtually untouched bowl of coleslaw floating just under my nose. I had given up telling Mrs. Fenniman that I hated coleslaw.
'No thanks,' I said, closing my eye again.
'It was great, really,' Michael said. 'But I'm stuffed.'
Mrs. Fenniman sighed and moved on to thrust the bowl under Rob's nose. I heard a sudden crash.
'What was that?' came a voice from above.
We all looked up to where Mother was standing on the balcony above us.
'I just knocked over another one of Phoebe's damned flowerpots,' Mrs. Fenniman grumbled, picking her way through the shards of pottery toward the kitchen.
Mother disappeared back into her room.
I felt something cold and wet on my ankle. Spike, having investigated the remains of the flowerpot and found them inedible, had returned to my feet and now resumed licking me obsessively. I discouraged his attempts to climb into my lap. For one thing, he'd probably bite Michael, and for another, if he'd eaten even half of the food I'd stuck under the coffee table, he'd probably start throwing up later in the evening. Better on my ankle than in my lap.
I looked around. The living room looked more like a consignment shop for used lawn and garden equipment than the cozy retreat of my vision. If I peeked over the forest of flowerpots and garden gnomes infesting the coffee table, I could see Rob reclining on the other sofa, reading a law book and adding to his thick sheaf of notes. Part of me wanted to shriek at him for being so lost in his role-playing game when we had no idea if Dad was even alive-- and another part of me envied him.
His side of the coffee table was covered with plates and bowls containing samples of all the various foods Mrs. Fenniman had dished out. Mrs. Fenniman seemed to work on the theory that the hurricane wasn't going away until we'd emptied out the larder, but even Rob was long past the point where he could help her out.
She reappeared with a broom and dustpan, and a plastic ice-cream tub. She plopped the orphaned plant and some of its dirt into the tub and began sweeping up the rest of the dirt and the bits of broken pot. I jumped to move a birdbath out of the way before she knocked it over with the broom handle. Mrs. Fenniman continued flailing away with the broom, and I stood by, ready to rescue anything else that got in her way.
But she lost energy; with a final flourish, she swept a few more specks of dirt into the dustpan, then marched off into the kitchen, leaving a trail of potting soil behind her. I sighed and slumped down, shoving my hands into my pockets.
And my fingers encountered a piece of damp paper: the map.
I pulled it out and studied it. Traveling in my pocket had made it even more damp and wrinkled than when I'd found it, but you could still recognize Dad's distinctive printing.
'Meg? Is something wrong?'
Michael looked up at me with an anxious expression on his face.
'I need to talk to you for a moment,' I said.
We both glanced upstairs, saw Mother limping dramatically past the railing, looked at each other, and shook our heads in unison. We could hear Mrs. Fenniman singing sea chanties out in the kitchen, so that was out.
'The garden shed?' Michael suggested.
'We're going to check how the shutters are holding up,' I told Rob. He barely looked up as Michael and I donned our slickers. On the way out, I grabbed my flashlight and, remembering the envelope I'd picked up outside Resnick's shed, my knapsack. We trooped out the door and over to the garden shed and managed to clear enough space to squeeze inside and close the door.
'Alone at last!' Michael said, putting his arms around me.
Chapter 15
Okay, we allowed ourselves a brief distraction from the original purpose of our visit to the garden shed. But--call me unromantic if you like--there are limits to how successfully I can be overcome with passion when I'm sopping wet and shivering in an unheated shed that I'm half-convinced won't survive the next strong wind.
'I hate to spoil the moment,' I said, 'but could you move a little to the left? There's a croquet mallet digging into my kidney.'
'If I move to the left, I'll probably drown; the leaks are much worse over there.'
'Sorry,' I said.
'So much for my hopes that we'd found a hideaway suitable for romantic trysts,' Michael said, shoving aside several life jackets and a lobster pot to clear a space for us to sit on a stack of old magazines in the driest part of the shed. 'You wanted to talk about something? Or was that just an excuse to get me alone?'
'No, there was something. Here,' I said, handing him the map as I perched beside him. He turned on his flashlight and peered down at the paper.
'Your dad's map of the island,' he said. 'Does this mean you've got some idea where he is?'
'Unfortunately, no.'
'Then what's the big deal?'
I took a deep breath.
'I found it down on the shore. Near where we found Resnick's body.'
'Damn,' Michael said. He closed his eyes and leaned against the side of the shed. 'The police will find this very suspicious.'
'The police!' I said, startled. 'We can't give this to the police!'
'Meg, we can't not give it to them,' Michael said, sitting up again. 'That would be concealing evidence.'
'Evidence that would make my dad the primary suspect in Resnick's murder. You saw how Jeb and Mamie reacted when they heard Dad had disappeared. For some stupid reason, everyone thinks Dad has some kind of grudge against Resnick because he used to date Mother fifty years ago, before she even met Dad. You heard them. The map will clinch it.'
'That doesn't give us the right to conceal evidence. You do realize that, don't you?'
I sat staring at him. I felt betrayed. I'd trusted Michael with something that could hurt Dad, and here he was threatening to squeal to the authorities.
'Meg,' Michael said, gently taking my hand. 'I don't believe he did it any more than you do. But you have to see that we can't help him by concealing evidence. I mean, for all we know, that map could be what the police need to find and convict the real killer.'
I sighed. I didn't like it. I didn't know the local police, wasn't sure I trusted them to find the real killer. But much as I hated the idea, I had to admit he was right.
'Okay,' I said. 'We'll turn in the map. But to the police, when they get here. Not to Constable Jeb or Mayor Mamie or anyone else on the island when Resnick was killed.'
'That's sensible enough,' he said.
'Which gives us a day or two to find the real killer,' I said.
'You know, you're more like your dad than you want to admit,' he said, grinning. 'Never pass up a chance to play detective, right?'
'Michael, this is serious,' I said. 'We've all heard about cases where the police find a likely suspect and don't look any further. We can't let that happen to Dad.'
'Of course not,' he said. 'Though I'm curious how we're going to find the killer in the middle of a hurricane. Not to mention--well, never mind.'
