Ursula was miffed that Pix hadn't informed her immediately about her grisly find, but Pix had always been a good little girl. So when Earl told her to keep her mouth shut, she took it as a sacred trust.
“But certainly you could have said something to your own mother!'
“I didn't even tel Sam. Now, of course, I can, since everyone seems to know even more than I do and I found him.' Pix often found being good didn't shower one with the rewards implicitly promised.
“Why don't you come over here for tea and we'l talk about it. How is Samantha?'
“She slept when we came back and seems fine now.
Arlene and her boyfriend asked her to go to the movies in El sworth and that should take her mind off it. And it wil help when she knows who it was. I doubt she ever met him. If it had been someone she knew, that would have been worse.'
“Al right, then. When she leaves, you come on over.'
Pix agreed and hung up. She real y ought to cal Sam now and most certainly should cal the Fairchilds. Tom was probably out on parish business. Maybe it would be better if they were both together and she could tel Sam at the same time, because the first thing he'd do after hanging up would be to run next door. Besides, her mother might have picked up some more things and Pix would have further information for them. She'd wait until she came back.
Feeling like the abject coward she knew herself to be, she waved good-bye to Samantha, whose color was back, and set off for tea and maybe sympathy.
The tea tray was on the front porch and her mother was waiting. The family took as many meals outside as the weather and time of day permitted. None of the Rowes liked to be indoors when they could be enjoying the view and the air up close.
“It must have been terribly upsetting for you, darling,'
Ursula said, taking Pix's hand in both of her own.
“It was.' Pix sat down in one of the wicker chairs that they had never thought to cushion. The latticework that appeared on the back of one's legs when one was wearing shorts was a kind of badge of authenticity. 'I was mostly worried about Samantha. But she seems to be al right, even a little excited. None of her friends have ever found a body,' Pix added with a slight grimace.
“A dubious distinction at best, but I'm glad she is not upset. The whole thing is puzzling, though. Who on earth would want to kil Mitchel ? He was always a complete gentleman when he was here, although I know others have not been so fortunate in their dealings with him. He did a beautiful job removing al that dry rot in the back addition. I'd hoped he would be able to repair the latticework on the porches this summer. I suppose it's too late now.'
“Much too late, Mother. The man is dead.'
“I know, dear. I told you, remember.”
Pix did.
“I hope the Fairchilds weren't too disturbed by al this.
It's not the way one likes to start a new house.'
“I haven't reached them yet.' Pix skirted the truth. 'But I don't think they'l be too upset. It just happened to be their basement. It could have been anybody's—and they didn't know him.'
“This business of wrapping him in a quilt ... such an odd thing to do. What was the pattern?”
Pix was amazed there was something her mother didn't know.
“It was a red-and-white Drunkard's Path—very nicely done, tiny hand stitching. It looked old. Although, I couldn't see much of it.' And there were those bloodstains obscuring the work. Pix gagged on her tea and her mother had to pound her vigorously on the back before she stopped coughing.
“Wel , whoever did kil him must be an exceptional y nasty person.'
“I think we can assume that,' Pix said.
“No, besides being evil. Drunkard's Path—it's just plain nasty to cal attention to Mitchel 's drinking problem.
He'd been fighting it for years”
Ursula must have grown very close to Mitchel over the dry rot, Pix speculated. There didn't appear to be much she didn't know about the man. No reason not to take advantage of Mother's winning ways.
“Did he have a family? I never heard that he was married.'
“No, he never married. I don't think he was real y very interested in women—or men. Just things. He definitely liked things, especial y beautiful and valuable things. Of course he must have had a mother and father, but he never spoke of them—or any brothers or sisters. He did mention that he grew up in Rhode Island, though.'
“We should tel Earl that. It might be a lead.'
“I wil , or you can tel him. Mitchel knew a great many people on the island, but not many people knew him. He minded his own business.”
And probably for very good reasons as far as Mitchel was concerned, Pix thought.
“Seth knew him best, I'd say.'
“Seth!'
“Yes, when he was a teenager, he worked for Mitchel .
I've often heard Seth say he learned everything he knows about building and restoring houses from Mitch. They were very close for a time. You know the way boys that age look up to someone a little older who seems to know everything.
I think Mitchel even lived with the Marshal s one winter.
Maybe Seth can repair the latticework. I hadn't thought of him.'
“Not until he finishes the Fairchilds' house,' Pix said firmly. 'The latticework has needed repair for several years and it can hold out a little longer.”
She took another cup of tea, turned down her mother's offer of sherry as sunset drew nigh, and set off for home to make her phone cal s.
The Pines was across a causeway connecting Sanpere and Little Sanpere. It was a short road, but it twisted and turned precariously above the rocky shoreline.
It was another favorite place for the local kids to drag and had witnessed several tragedies over the years. There were no guardrails. Large rocks had been set on either side and this year they were painted with bright white luminous paint to help keep drivers on track. It wasn't a road she liked to think of Samantha negotiating at night.
She passed through Sanpere Vil age with its lovely old ship captains' houses, some with widow's walks, facing the sea. Her friends El iot and Louise Frazier lived in one, and Louise was planting geraniums in a huge old blue-and-white stoneware crock in the fading daylight. Pix waved and continued on. The Fraziers belonged to the same group that Pix fancied her family did—people not orginal y from Sanpere who either now lived here year-round or had been coming in the summer for so long that the line between native-born and 'summer person' had blurred. They weren't islanders, but they were close to it. El iot Frazier had been the postmaster for years and both he and Louise had served on many of the town's boards. They were even further across the line than the Mil ers and Rowes, although if there had been an honorary islander award, Pix's mother would have won it years ago. Being admitted to the Sewing Circle amounted to the same thing.
As Pix drove across the island on one of the three roads that connected the loop Route 17 made around the circumference, she thought about al these distinctions and wondered why people always found it so necessary to put other people in neat little categories, and why indeed she prided herself so much on her own label.
Many of the summer people actively fought the moniker—buying their clothes at the fishermen's supply, driving beat-up old trucks, and studiously avoiding the vacation community on the island. These same people tended to count how often they received the traditional island road greeting—a few fingers casual y raised from the top of the steering wheel and maybe a slight nod as vehicles passed.
The rusticators, families who had been coming for generations, had always hired local people to work for them as caretakers and cooks, and they didn't pretend—or in some cases want—to blend in. Their ways had been set by a grandmother or grandfather in '02 and successive generations found no reason for change. They sailed. They took vigorous walks. They picnicked—with the same immense wicker hampers outfitted with thermos bottles, china, utensils, a rug to spread on the ground, and a folding camp stool if required by an elderly member. They wore squashed salt-encrusted, white canvas sun hats that did not prevent their faces from turning a ruddy bronze,
