Murder With Puffins

'Obviously practice doesn't always make perfect,' I said. 'I don't think his drafts were getting any better.'

'Oh, I don't know,' Michael said. 'I don't recall seeing this bit about her turquoise eyes rolling on the floor in the draft we found. Sounds more tike a game of marbles than a love scene.'

'Sounds painful, if you ask me. Yes, and some instinct for self-preservation made him take out all the bits about him nurturing other artists' careers. I somehow doubt that he even met Keith Haring and Basquiat, much less nurtured them.'

'I think we've pretty well established who the biographer is,' Michael said. 'Now we have to decide what to do about it.'

I sighed. For my part, I wanted to reformat the hard drive and burn every scrap of evidence that the biography had ever existed. But I had a dreadful feeling Michael wouldn't consider this ethical.

'What do you think we should do?' I asked, and braced myself for an answer I wasn't going to like.

'Reformat the computer and burn every scrap of paper,' Michael said readily. 'Don't you agree?' he asked, seeing my jaw drop. 'I mean, we have to reformat it; you can recover deleted files with a good utility program. We can back up the nonbiography stuff to diskettes before we do it.'

'Sounds great to me,' I said. 'But I wasn't sure you'd see it that way.'

'We know Jim Dickerman killed Resnick,' Michael said. 'At best, all this stuff will only embarrass your family. At worst, Jim's lawyer could use it to cast doubt on his guilt.'

'What about the painting?' I asked.

'We'll take it with us.'

'Take it with us?'

'The old coot owes us something,' Michael said. 'After all, we solved his murder, at considerable personal risk.'

'And if someone catches us with it?'

'We've got the bill of sale from your grandfather's files, remember?'

'I like the way you think,' I said, grabbing an armload of papers and heading for the fireplace. 'Let's do it.'

'No, no!' Michael said. 'Not that fireplace; do you want everyone on the island to see? We'll use the one in the bathroom--there's no window in there. You work on the computer; I'll take care of the fire.'

I sat and watched the computer grinding away, first backing up Resnick's other files--there weren't many-- then reformatting. Michael ferried armload after armload of papers back to the bathroom fireplace.

'How's it going?' he asked, coming up behind my chair and putting his hands on my shoulders.

'Nearly there,' I said. 'How's the fire?'

'It'll take a while,' he said. 'But I figure we'll have to hang out here until all the firemen go home or fall asleep, so that's no problem.' He straightened up and went out into the kitchen.

Checking for papers there, I assumed. Probably not a bad idea.

I heard a sudden loud pop from the kitchen.

'Michael?' I called. 'Is something wrong?'

'Everything's fine,' he said, reappearing with two filled champagne flutes. 'Absolutely fine.'

'Isn't that Resnick's champagne?' I asked.

'Yes, and a very fine one at that,' he said, handing me one flute. 'Like I said, the old coot owes us one. To our host!'

'To our host!' I echoed, and sipped the champagne.

'Why don't you take these in and keep an eye on the fire?' Michael said, handing me his flute. 'I'll see what we have in the pantry. Oh, and I found a jar of bath salts; goodness knows what Resnick wanted with that.'

The bathroom was warm and wonderfully scented. Steam rose from the tub, and the fire blazed away merrily. From the size of the paper mound, I knew we'd need quite a few hours to burn them all. And who knows how many glasses of champagne.

'To our host,' I said again, raising my glass. And then I fed a few more pages of the biography into the fire and kicked off my sneakers.

Chapter 33

Hair of the Puffin

'You'd think after all we went through to steal the damned painting, we'd get a little gratitude,' I muttered.

Gaahhh! replied the seagull to whom I was speaking. I lighed and fed another handful of trash into the rusty barrel hat served Aunt Phoebe as an incinerator. Given Monhejan's astronomical trash-removal fees, most residents only paid for hauling away things they couldn't possibly burn or feed to the gulls. As a kid, I'd always adored the giant trash fire that marked our last day on the island.

Of course, as a child I'd never had to burn the trash with a raging champagne hangover. Or all by myself. The police lad dropped in to question us far earlier than I'd planned on getting up. Then Dad hauled off both Michael and Rob to help him with a project, leaving me stuck with all the chores and errands that Mother, Aunt Phoebe, and Mrs. Fenniman together could think up. At least as long as I stayed down here at the water's edge burning trash, they couldn't dump any more work on me. And it was relatively quiet. And I was getting very, very good at feeding trash nto the fire without moving my throbbing head or, for that matter, opening my eyes.

Pyromania was a lot more fun last night, I thought, examining my fingers, whose tips still looked faintly prune-like, although the garbage and kerosene had long since overpowered the faint lingering scent of the bath salts.

I closed my eyes. Yes, the aspirin had begun to work. I'd given up trying to recall last night's rapture; all I asked was a slight lessening in the severity of my headache.

'Good Lord, there's more trash now than when I left,' came Michael's voice, startling me out of my concentration.

'Last day's like that,' I said, stirring up the fire in the barrel and managing a feeble smile. 'Heard anything more from the police?' He shook his head, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Luckily for us, the police had found searching for Jim much more interesting than poking though Resnick's house; they'd taken at face value our story of rescuing papers and paintings by hauling them into the wine cellar. And I suspected he'd had a word with the younger of the two detectives to explain the still-damp sunken tub.

'Your Dad's been running us ragged, going all over the island taking pictures with the digital cameras and downloading them into your brother's laptop,' Michael said, massaging his shoulder. He'd been at the aspirin bottle, too.

'Pictures of what?'

'Resnick's house, the Anchor Inn, the place where we found the body--everything. Documenting your latest detective triumph, as he calls it.'

'Good Lord,' I muttered. 'He does remember that those aren't his cameras, doesn't he?'

'Yes, eventually we filled up Rob's hard drive and had to give the cameras back to their owners,' he said. 'And by the way, it's still looking good for the ferry tomorrow, or possibly even this afternoon,' he added. 'In fact, your Dad went up to the cottage to get everyone started packing. We should probably head up there, too.'

'Give it a few minutes,' I said. 'I want to stay out of Mother's way right now.'

'Why?'

'She's presenting Dad with a late wedding present, and I'm wondering how he's going to like it.'

'A late wedding present?' Michael echoed. 'What?'

'The painting.'

'The painting--my God, you've got to be joking!'

'No. Hang on, here they come.'

They strolled out onto the deck, Mother limping gracefully, with the support of Dad's arm. Dad was beaming from ear to ear.