Fire Works in the Hamptons : A Willow Tate Novel (9781101547649) (29 page)

I brushed tears off my cheeks, too. I'd miss the kid. And I'd miss Piet when he left.

CHAPTER 28

“
L
ET'S GO.

“I promised her two hours.”

I promised the beetles days ago. I remembered how nervous I was with the burning baby at first, though, so I tried to control my impatience. I ate Elladaire's leftover graham crackers that I forgot to pack.

Piet put the TV on to the Weather Channel: forest fires in the west, tinder-dry conditions through the midlands, lightning strikes in Texas. Damnation.

He didn't say anything, but he switched to CNN to read the scrolls along the bottom of the screen.

“Will they want you to go to one of those places?”

He shrugged. “I couldn't get to all of them, no matter what, and some will take weeks to put out entirely, they're so big, with so much kindling. They'll call if they want me. But DUE has its own priorities, like Paumanok Harbor. They also have scores of prognosticators like your father on their staff. They'll know where I'm needed most.”

I prayed their seers were better than mine. Heaven knew where Dad would send Piet, if not to Saks. It suddenly occurred to me that ancient soothsayers used entrails to predict the future. Did the people from Royce do that also? The idea of sacrificing a chicken when I was trying to save a swarm of beetles did not make sense. Surely the modern sibyls were wiser than that.

While Piet watched and listened, wondering if he should pack up his truck, for all I knew, I stuffed a sketch pad into a backpack, along with sunscreen, water, a first aid kit, and granola bars. I put the bug spray back on the shelf, with regrets, but found plastic gloves and two carpenter's face masks my mother had for when she refinished furniture. “Is it time?”

“It's been fifteen minutes.”

“I'm sorry. I'm being selfish, I know. Janie needs the security of having you nearby. It's just that I'm worried. You heard what Joe said. Mama's stuck.”

“I didn't see anything in the dog bowl except a floating leaf. Did you?”

“No, but that doesn't mean anything. Joe saw it.”

“If what he saw was your unknown creature stuck in the mud, then she's not going anywhere for the next couple of hours.”

“It'll take us almost twenty minutes to get to the marsh. We'll be in cell phone range for most of that.”

“Two hours.” He flipped back to the Weather Channel.

One hour and forty-five minutes, I calculated, but kept it to myself. To fill the time, I decided to brush the dogs. They'd taken second place to the baby and looked neglected. The two big dogs were no problem. They liked the attention. Little Red had knots the brush pulled on. I took the Band-Aids out of my backpack.

The weather commentator was talking about the lack of rain in New England and the fear of a catastrophic fire season unless a fall hurricane dropped a lot of rain in the area.

“Great, something else to worry about,” I said, giving the dogs biscuits and putting away the brush. “A hurricane can flood the whole of the salt marsh. If Mama is trapped there . . .” I couldn't complete the thought. “We've really got to go soon.”

“There are no hurricanes on the weather map, and you've got to learn to relax. Go with the flow. Take things as they come.”

Things like trolls and flaming flies? Or floods and wildfires? If he thought I'd sit back and put my feet up when the world—or my world, anyway—was in danger, he didn't know me at all. I was a worrier. It was in my DNA. Look at Dad. He dreamed of disasters. And my mother fretted over every lost dog in the country.

Or was he still thinking about sex, that I should stop overthinking the issue and accept the current that flew between us? For all I knew, putting out fires and making love were relaxing for him. Why not? There was no pressure involved with either. He was a wizard in at least one of the fields, most likely both. I only stopped worrying when—

Before I could recall the last time I'd been at ease, his phone rang.

I wanted to shout at him not to answer it, that Elladaire didn't cry sparks, that his beeper would go off in a real emergency. Unless the emergency was in California or Texas or at Janie's house. Or his family needed him. I bit my lip.

He let “Come on, Baby, Light My Fire” play through while he checked the caller ID.

“It's Chief Haversmith.”

At least it wasn't Joe the plumber, calling from the hospital. “If the police are calling and it's not poker night, you better answer.”

He listened, went, “Uh-huh” a couple of times, then asked if they had cell reception there.

My hopes sank.

“I'll meet you at the fire station.”

And drowned.

“They didn't sound the alarm or beep the volunteers.”

“No, this fire is out. It was a cabin where an old summer camp used to be. Off a place or a road called Three Mile Harbor. I didn't ask which. The chief said he'd drive, so I don't have to know.”

Most likely the old Blue Bay property or Boys Harbor. “If the fire is out, why do you have to go?”

“People reported fireworks out there, but the local fire department found no spent shells or evidence of rockets. I need to look for dead bugs. The arson squad wouldn't think to look for them, which is lucky for us. If I find them, we can still keep Paumanok Harbor and the fireflies—and you—out of the investigation. Let's hope your friend Barry isn't checking, too.”

I wondered how the lightning bugs got so far away, and why. If their mother was near the Harbor, and they tended to stick near her or me, then maybe someone took them out to Springs. Someone who knew both areas were isolated and untended. Someone like Roy Ruskin.

Piet nodded when I told him my theory, but he wasn't convinced. “If I don't find any beetles, it's plain arson. If I find hurt ones, someone is using them. But if they are setting fires themselves, they've got to be dealt with.”

I did not ask how. With dread I imagined the police and the fire department spread out in the marsh and my backyard. Piet could turn the bugs off, the troops could net them or spray them or gas them while they were disoriented and helpless.

“No! It's not them, it's Roy. Or some other freak playing with matches. And we can get them to leave if we free Mama, I'm sure.”

“I should be back in a couple of hours. We'll go looking then.”

That would be too late if the chief decided the beetles were guilty. He never minded taking the law into his own hands, or a miscreant. Paumanok Harbor was always his first priority, and to hell with civil liberties and endangered species. He'd declare an emergency security risk and worry about the results later.

Piet would side with him, I knew. He lived to put out fires, permanently, if possible. I stepped back before he could kiss me good-bye.

 

I couldn't stay here safe at home. I couldn't go searching by myself. Aside from the fact that I had a yellow stripe down my back, my front, and everywhere in between, I didn't have a boat. No canoe, kayak, rowboat, or inflatable raft. The reason I didn't have a seaworthy craft was I didn't like the sea. Water had crabs and eels and leeches and undertows and sometimes no ground beneath your feet. And waves. I got seasick.

The alternative, hiking hours and miles through that dismal wet wasteland again, was worse. So I called Rick Stamfield at the marina and asked if he'd ferry me out to the marshes, then lower a dinghy to get ashore. And come with me. Mostly come with me. I had a copy of Piet's map of the grid. “I know where to go.”

“That'll be a nice change.” Rick wished he could take me out of the harbor and drown me, but that's not what he said. He told me he had to wait for the insurance examiners to come to the marina, again. He also told me to do something, now.

“I'm trying, damn it. I have to get there first.”

Martin Armbruster had a boat. And hell would freeze over before I led him to Mama.

My friend Louisa's husband Dante had a couple of boats. He used to live on the big one, but he kept a smaller outboard for fishing in the bay. I called the arts center, but the woman who answered Louisa's phone said the whole family had gone west to visit with Mrs. Rivera's family for the weekend.

Susan knew a lot of guys with boats, but then she'd want to come. I'd rather face ten swamp monsters and a tidal wave than my family's wrath if I dragged Susan into danger.

Her father had a small cabin cruiser. He'd bought it from my father when Dad moved full time to Florida, for day trips when he wasn't working at Grandma Eve's farm. Unfortunately, Uncle Roger told me, the boat never got out of dry dock this year. Uncle Roger'd had Lyme disease so bad he'd spent time in the hospital, time the boat needed. “Next year, Willy.”

Next week might be too late. The Lucifers fretted about time. The fire department wanted the flare-ups gone yesterday.

I gave up on private boats and called the Bay Constable. Leonard was too busy keeping boats away from the area. Besides, his orders were to keep anyone from going ashore in the marsh until the water analysis came back and the air quality improved.

I tried the harbormaster next, even though the eastern shore wasn't Elgin's territory. If I'd wanted a breeze to push a sailboat, he could have done something, but he couldn't take me out in his patrol boat. He had the DEC coming to check for environmental damage, and a hazmat crew.

“You can't let them go traipsing around there!”

“I can't stop them, Willow. Your friend Martin tried to make himself look important by reporting the localized smell, the poor air quality, and a sighting of rare, dangerous animals. He called the DEC, the EPA, and the BSA.”

“The Boy Scouts?”

“The Beetle Society of America. Can you believe it? There's an organization for everything. Now we'll have a lot of geeks out here with nets and microscopes and reference books. Which will not have pictures of your beetles.”

“They're not my beetles.”

He ignored my protest, grumbling.

“It'll be like that time someone spotted an albino albatross or something that belonged in the Arctic. They sent it into the Audubon Society rare bird sighting website and we had traffic jams of telescope toters up and down the shore roads. They came from New Jersey and Connecticut, if you can believe it. This could be worse, because the entomologist types won't be happy with a sighting or a photograph. They'll want specimens, which means nets at night, on other people's property.”

It also meant the beetle society people could get burned.

Uncle Henry already knew about the government meddlers when I called him at the police station. “We've got enough trouble with the fires now. And the smell in the wetlands. At least it's staying where it is.”

“What are they going to do about it, the Environmental Protection people and everyone else?”

“They decided we need a survey committee to decide how to protect the shoreline. They cannot act, they say, before they get a better idea of what they're facing.”

“So we have time?”

“They're on the way.”

“You have to get rid of them.”

“How? Whatever we do will only bring more attention and publicity to the Harbor. The better solution would be to get rid of your bugs, now.”

He didn't point a finger over the phone line, but I felt the accusation and the guilt. He might as well have pinned a scarlet letter on my chest. Maybe D for disaster and doom. T for troublemaker. F for you really fucked up this time.

“I'm working on it.”

CHAPTER 29

W
HO NEEDED JOGGING when they could pace away the graham cracker calories? I'd wear out my mother's carpet soon if I didn't get shin splints or a plan. There had to be someone willing to help, someone who didn't blame me for every misfortune in the village. A lot was at stake here, and you'd think when I sent a call out for help someone in the Harbor would answer. It was their way of life on the line here, too. And not just the espers who ran the place, but the nontalented locals also deserved their privacy from sensational journalists, their safety from arsonists, their clean beaches and water and air. Surely I could find someone who cared enough about the people and the creatures to . . .