“Don't you touch me!' Duncan's voice was frantic and what sounded like a chair fal ing over was fol owed by the more recognizable noise made when a sharp slap connects with flesh on some part of the body.
Head lowered, Duncan plunged out the door, past the Mil ers, oblivious to their presence. Pix could see two things: He was crying and an angry red handprint streaked across the left side of his face.
They waited a few seconds before Pix cal ed out, 'Jim, are you there? We have to be going.'
“Come in; come in.' Nothing was out of place.
“We've just had another scene with Duncan,' Valerie admitted to them. 'The last psychologist we took him to said it was al an extended grief reaction, but I'm beginning to think Duncan is milking it. At the moment, he is simply a pain-in-the-ass teenager, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.' She laughed at her pun. 'Excuse me. This has been a pretty awful morning.”
Pix patted Valerie's shoulder. 'I know—and if there's anything more we can do, give us a cal .'
“Thank you both for coming.' Jim was a bit stiff. Pix knew he must be wondering how much they had heard —
and seen.
“It wil al sort itself out,' Sam assured him. 'Maine Sail has one of the finest reputations of any summer camp in the country. Parents know this.'
“I hope so,' Jim said dismal y. 'I also hope I can keep it out of the papers”
As the Mil ers were on the point of leaving, Earl walked into the office. Pix sat down.
“You can let the kids back into their bunks. Nothing, not so much as a drop of red paint on anything. The only thing we've found with any paint on it is a rubber glove—the kind you use for dishwashing. It had washed up on the shore and its mate, the paint, and brush wil probably float in, too. After being in the water for this amount of time, there's no way we can get any prints off it. We'l just have to hope there is a guilty conscience—or more than one— out there. I'm assuming the paint was down in the boathouse. There's a space between two cans of white primer.'
“We use red paint for the waterlines and the names, so if you didn't find another can of it, that's where it came from,' Jim said, then put out his hand for a hearty masculine shake. 'Thanks, Earl, for al your work. I'm pretty convinced it was my stepson. We've been having a lot of trouble with him. You know that.”
Earl nodded and gave them a sympathetic look. The first week in June, Duncan had been picked up for driving his mother's car without a license. He'd only made it down to the end of the Athertons' road when he had the bad luck to encounter Earl. Rather than get bogged down in the juvenile-court system, Earl had placed him on a kind of supervised probation of his own. Now when the boy saw the policeman coming, he tended to walk in the other direction, but not before giving Earl a look that spoke volumes—pretty unprintable ones.
“If you find out anything more, give me a cal . I'l write it up, plus it wil have to go in The Island Crier. Let's hope none of the eager beavers in the national press are reading
`Police Brief' these days.'
“Thanks.”
Pix knew what Earl meant. There had been a spate of quaint column fil ers reprinting items from local Maine papers—examples of life Down East. The latest had a Sanpere dateline and purported to quote an island schoolboy's report on George Washington in its entirety:
'George Washington was born off-island.' True, that said it al , but the image of the life it represented was as faded as one of those daguerreotypes Earl had been mentioning just yesterday?
“We have to be going.' Ever so gently, Sam pul ed his wife to an upright position. 'See you.”
They spent the afternoon sailing, and despite her every intention to forget the events of the morning for the time being, Pix kept seeing gobs of red dripping down the smooth white sails they passed.
Ursula Rowe sat on the front porch of The Pines trying to decide whether she should walk down to the beach or stay where she was and finish the book she was reading about Alice James. A few years ago, there would have been no question. She would have leapt up, taken her walk, and returned to read—or even taken the book with her.
Now she eyed the ascent. First there were the porch stairs, then the sloping grass, and final y a line of low rocks that separated the beach from the dirt road leading to the dock.
She sighed. It was too much, especial y with no one around at the moment. It was al wel and good to assert her independence when people were near, but she knew she was slowing down and there were things she just shouldn't attempt anymore. It was profoundly depressing.
It had al started with the car. She'd resisted the cal s of common sense for several months, then when she'd backed over one of the lilacs her mother had planted for her when she first moved into the Aleford house, she'd cal ed Pix and told her to come get the keys. For the first few days, she felt not only trapped but angrily dependent.
Gradual y, she'd become used to relying on friends, taxis—
and Pix. Fortunately, the house wasn't far from the center of Aleford. The day Ursula couldn't walk to the library would be the day she took to her bed for good, she'd told herself dramatical y. Now she knew she'd hang on to every bit of mobility she had, from house to garden, from bedroom to bath, as her world diminished.
The unchanging scene before her lifted her spirits. For al the waves knew, she could stil be that little girl in braids chasing the foam as it swept down the wet sand. Yet this summer had not been a typical one. The murder of Mitchel Pierce hung suspended in the air, accompanied by whispered rumors, hints, accusations. She wished Pix would stay out of it, but knew she wouldn't. Children were so influenced by their friends. Pix was taking a leaf from Faith's book. But then Pix wasn't a child anymore and she, Ursula, wasn't real y a mother—some other category. The magazines talked about role reversal and children becoming parents. Ursula hated that notion. Only it was true. She wasn't walking to the beach anymore without Pix to watch her. Retired mother? Perhaps, but when she thought about Pix and Arnold, named for his father, the fierce pangs of maternal love were not retiring in the least.
It would be good to see Arnold and his wife. What was the old saying? 'Your son is your son until he takes a wife.
Your daughter's your daughter for the rest of your life' Or was it 'her life'? Some daughterly element in one's makeup that just kept on going along, even when the mother was gone? Had she felt this way about her own mother? She didn't think so. Her older sisters had assigned themselves caretaker roles early on and there wasn't much left for Ursula to do save visit from time to time—like Arnold and Claire. He was her son. She was proud of him, but it was a good thing she had Pix.
She thought about her conversation with John Eggleston at the clambake. 'It's no loss to anyone I know or can imagine' She'd been surprised at the uncharitableness of the remark. She ought to tel Pix about it. The clambake had seemed like a kind of play. Perhaps it was because she knew that at eighty, she wouldn't be at too many more of them. She had tended to regard the day as several acts and many scenes one after another. Addie Bainbridge had been watching, too. Or maybe holding court was a better description. Ursula resolved to invite Addie and Rebecca for tea later in the week, after the Fourth of July festivities.
Give Rebecca a break. Addie was inclined to ride roughshod over her. What could Adelaide's childhood have actual y been like out at the lighthouse? It sounded idyl ic, and reflecting on her own upbringing, one of seven, in a wel -appointed but unavoidably crowded town house on Boston's Beacon Hil , Ursula thought how lovely it would have been not to have so many people to talk to al the time. That was what had always made The Pines so special. You could be alone.
She could stil be alone. Except now she didn't want to be.
Six
A midnight curfew was a definite disadvantage to detective work, Samantha decided as once more she entered the woods behind Maine Sail Camp with Fred and Arlene. Fred had no curfew, of course, and Arlene's was a great deal more elastic than Samantha's own. Whatever Duncan and his friends were up to, Sam was wil ing to bet, things didn't get rol ing until the wee hours.
This time, there were lights flickering in the windows of the cabin, just visible through Duncan's elaborate camouflage.
“Should we try to look through the back window?'
Arlene whispered.
