Pieces of Hate (A Wendover House Mystery Book 4) (7 page)

Bryson chuckled.

“The shifts some of us are put to.”

“And I better get Kelvin some catnip or I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Bryson picked up the check. He’s old fashioned that way.

“Tess,” he asked as we stepped out into the headache haze, “do you
think we’re going to have another storm tonight?”

I opened my mouth to insist yet again that I had no control over the
weather but changed my mind about what I was going to say.

“Maybe.
And if there is, it might be a good
thing if no one was out in it.” I said this pointedly since Bryson and Everett
made periodic whisky runs into Canada.

“Okay. I’ll pass the word to stay off the water.”

It only occurred to me later that he might not mean that he would call
his brother and
delay
their whisky run, but that he
would also put the word out among the fishermen.

“It’s a good thing that you aren’t a timid woman.”

No, I’m not timid. But I am not insanely brave either. And sometimes
it would be nice to pretend that I am a little timid so someone else could be
courageous.

The sun was
lost in leaden vapor and the
wynd
was sullen and
winter cold. Belatedly I was smote with remorse for my avarice, but repentant
as I was there came no
forgyvness
and my acts lived
in my
mynd
with the
frytful
vitality of a present
evyl
deed. The storm built
itself around the greed and shameful fear which made me murder those wretches
before my crew.

—from the unbound journal of
Halfbeard

It didn’t take more than a glimpse of a bottle of cognac to convince
me that Bryson deserved a reward for bringing me home since he was protecting
and serving above and beyond the call of duty. But it would have to be a short
reward. I didn’t want anyone on the water after dark and not just because it
might storm. I had a creepy-crawly feeling at the back of my neck.

Catnip, check.
Coffee, check.
No tennis balls, but a Kong—check.
And cognac, big, big check.
I also decided to try one of
Blu
Barry’s Truffles, though technically they shouldn’t be
called truffles because of the conglomeration of nuts and candied “
blu
barrys
” coagulated in a
rather dubious nougat.

The canned goods I ignored. Though I know that they are not actually
old enough to have reached a state of decay, they still manage to give that
impression. It must be the light that makes everything on the shelves appear
dusty and faded, but I have no interest in eating anything that looks old
enough and dented enough to have traveled in Paul Revere’s saddlebags.

The younger Mrs.
Mickle
filled me in on the local
gossip as she rang me up.
Slowly.
Though showing the
early signs of senility, she was still the self-appointed record keeper of
illegitimate births and marital infidelities. Not that she was inclined to
ignore any other kind of misdeed, mayhem, or strangeness that happened in her
realm. Mrs. Tudor’s piratical death vision got a full and probably greatly
embellished telling, and I couldn’t escape until she had gnawed the story to
the bone though I very much wanted to avoid hearing about it again.

“There aren’t any
whys
without
becauses
,”
she finished and tapped the counter with a calloused finger. “Mark my words.”
And then she was off again.

I think I gasped in the right places but didn’t add anything at the
end of the performance except that I thought it might be coming on rain that
night and hoped no one would be abroad. Mrs.
Mickle’s
eyes got very big and she nodded solemnly.

I had a vision of my own as I stepped out of the shop, so clear it
passed for divine—or perhaps diabolical—insight. There was a mass of clouds
rolling in on the islands like giant boulders thundering down a mountain and
the sun was driven into a boiling sea. The image was nourished into almost
certain reality by the smell of ozone gathering in the air in spite of the sky
being completely clear by that time.

I shook the hallucination off, but disquiet remained. There was no
fighting it when these moments happened and I surrendered to the inevitable. A
storm was coming. Possibly something else as well and the thought of it made me
cold.

Bryson put away his cell and sniffed at the air as he reached for the
cardboard box I had tucked under my arm. I hoped that he had begun passing the
word while I shopped that people should stay off the water. I didn’t want to
leave the task to young Mrs.
Mickle
alone, formidable
gossip though she was.

We took the direct route to the docks. It came as a bit of a shock to
see people cavorting about in costumes in front of the Emporium. There were
pilgrims and pirates, women in hoopskirts and bonnets that might have come off
an old-fashioned Easter card, soldiers in red coats and soldiers in other color
coats with coonskin caps carrying around very realistic muskets, all of which
had likely been dragged out of people’s attics. There were some bows and
quivers of arrows being
toted
by people in
anachronistic dress. There were a lot of whiskers, beards, mustaches, and
muttonchops, but these did not come from the attic. They were standard
face-wear among certain islanders, though usually they did not gather all their
beards in one place. The scene was absent any vendors selling ice cream or
popcorn, but the street was as crowded and disorganized as opening day at the
county fair and had the same air of expectation.

The sight was more disconcerting that amusing. I was used to everyone
in their proper place in proper dress. This trying on of other identities made
the world seem skewed at a time when I wanted things to be normal.

Could they truly be oblivious to the danger drawing in around us?

The buildings seemed to know we were threatened. They huddled together
as though wishing they could touch. I followed the boards of the Emporium all
the way to the peak and the thick hoisting beam that stuck out like a gallows.
It was black against the sky.

The public address system had been hooked up, or perhaps was in
process because I am pretty sure that grumblings about
quahoggers
being plumb brainless
were not part of any official speech though
it probably pleased
Reverend Ezekiel Burke, a transplant from Salem who
was mostly made of cartilage and ill will and the sourest creature our islands
had ever been encumbered with
.

“They’ll need to fumigate if he stays long,” I muttered. “Can’t
someone pass an ordinance?”

The reverend was retired, which was a good thing because there was a
lack of takers for his kind of religion and it was generally felt that his
attendance was enough to disfigure any event. In part it was his charmless
personality but it did not help his cause that he looked like someone had
skinned a nightmare and then pulled it on over his skull. Certainly he looked
alarmed and aware of danger. Of course, he always looked this way. I couldn’t
imagine what kept him in the islands.

I made a point of turning away from him. He doesn’t approve of my godless
family and we don’t often speak. He could disapprove of me from sea to shining
sea so long as he kept a civil tongue in his head when we were in public. In
front of others I demand respect.

Someone was hanging patriotic bunting on the railing in front of the
Emporium and singing “Grand Old Flag” in a monotone so flat that you couldn’t
get a spatula under it. The Emporium always looks vaguely like a memorial
monument, or at least classical. It was built by a ship’s carpenter just after
the civil war and was the sturdiest building in town. It was also the most
impressive and had a nice echo when you stood under the overhang. It was where
people forgathered when they had some large public event.
Whether
the Emporium wanted them or not.
Another time and I might have hoisted myself
onto a convenient barrel and watched the train wreck.

This was apparently a popular idea because Jonas and Saul, local
brewmasters
, did just that, making sure there was room in
the shade for Amos, the Great Dane. As usual, the dog looked despondent. They
must be out of beer again. Jonas, the jelly-bellied one, pulled out his
portable checkers game and began to set up on the railing. The skeletal Saul,
looking more than ever like he had been picked over by crows, turned to survey
the colorful and strange spectacle with a slightly malicious eye.

“What on earth are they…?”

“Rehearsal for the Goose Haven Founders Day Pageant,” Bryson murmured
when I kept gaping and wrinkling my nose at the growing scent of mothballs
which was getting thick now that the choir had gotten organized and
concentrated their smelly costumes in a large mass about ten feet to our right
and downwind.

His words recalled to mind that we were again due for the traditional,
seasonal celebration. The news wasn’t welcome since I was supposed to give the
keynote speech that year. I had a rough draft started a month ago, but it was
very rough and I needed something polished by Friday. At the moment, that felt
like an impossible goal.

“God is merciless,” I muttered. “What, no gallows? No pillory? Where
are the typhoid victims?
The prohibitionists?
I don’t
think this is historically accurate.”

“Don’t give them any ideas. We already have one Founders Day casualty,”
Bryson muttered back. “Mrs. Biggs isn’t speaking to Mrs. Warwick. They both
want to play the Indian maiden and the committee ruled in favor of Mrs. Warwick
since Mrs. Biggs played her last year. Angered at the decision, Mrs. Biggs has
taken her spear and moccasins and gone home.”

Big cities have short memories, but not so little towns. These
champions of good, old-fashioned values forgot them fast enough when it came
down to deciding who got to be the princess. Things might be forgiven but they
wouldn’t be forgotten. This feud could last decades. There was still anger from
when the historical society had taken over the local museum from the descendant
of the original founder who had turned out to be a scurvy knave who used funds
earmarked for acquiring artifacts to repair a leaking roof. This might have
been forgiven if the roof had been of period slate, but the old director was a
fan of Southwest architecture and had opted for a tile rook imported from
Mexico which is, I have to admit, a bit of an eyesore on the gray clapboard
building.

“What Indian maiden?” I asked against better judgment. “There was no
Indian maiden in Goose Haven. Well, not after the white men came along.
Probably not before then either.
Nobody lived on the islands
back then.”

I knew this from doing preliminary research for my speech. And anyway both
women were long past the age when they could pass for maiden anything so the
quarrel was especially stupid.

Bryson shrugged.

“All I know is the insults are flying and the turbulence has spilled
over to the historical society and museum, since each is refusing to work if
the other one is there, and it’s thrown off everyone’s schedules.”

And probably no one would be happy with the suggested compromise of
having two Indian maidens.

“For pity sakes, let’s make a dash for the docks before they see us
and demand arbitration,” I urged. “I don’t want to get dragged into this.”

“Now, Tess, you know I don’t dash.”

But he didn’t dawdle either. Bryson knows all about the better part of
valor and there were no winners in skirmishes like this one. An onlooker might
have thought that I was herding Bryson for his boat, but really it was a
question of who was herding whom.

I wondered who else would end up as mortal enemies at the end of the
affair. Events like this always spawned quarrels because there were way too
many chiefs without any tact, and not enough Indians—and apparently too many
Indian maidens—who could abide bossiness in silence.

The reminder of the pageant and the fact that I hadn’t chosen a
costume had put my other concerns briefly out of mind, but they reappeared the
moment we got near the water. It wasn’t that I actually felt something bad
would happen in daylight, but there was the sense that there was something
under the waves.
Watching.
Aware.
Nothing would get me out there after dark.

I was also very aware of the enclosed shed of weathered gray wood. The
islands have a lot of historic charm that somehow hasn’t carried over to this
plain building that has no purpose except to hold the bodies of drowned
fisherman until they can be removed. Actually, to hold dead
anyone,
and that likely included Mrs. Tudor.

Who had died babbling about
pirates.
That
couldn’t be good.

Some people will stick their head in the sand and hold it there
forever rather than admit to something they don’t like or weren’t expecting. I
am not one of them, but I sure wished I could be. This kind of free-floating fear
wasn’t dignified in someone who represented the founding family.