The Summer House (31 page)

They made it to Cuttyhunk. The small hump of an island was barely visible through the heavy gray curtain that dripped with rain; the harbor itself was amass with few boats but hundreds of orange buoys that bounced with the chop, deserted by boat owners who must have believed that Carol was coming and they needed to get out of her way.

The
Annabella
, however, was, according to Reggie, too old and too mean to be dissuaded.

Once they were safely past the rock jetty and into the inlet, LeeAnn made it topside and helped Danny back onto the bench. She yanked off his shirt—the one covered with saltwater and pee—then washed his chest with a warm, wet cloth, dried him, and pulled a clean Black Dog sweatshirt over his head. Then, while Reggie steered delicately toward the pier, LeeAnn slid off Danny’s pants and studied the mess.

“Tell me what to do to fix you up,” she said, as if nursing duties were something she had willingly signed on for, simply by virtue of being his friend.

In another place, at another time, Danny might have been profoundly humiliated. But with Reggie at the helm and LeeAnn studying him so matter-of-factly, it did not seem humiliating. It seemed, instead, the most natural thing in the world.

He leaned back on the bench and told her what to do. Then he watched as she did everything perfectly, or nearly perfectly, and even told her it was a damn shame he couldn’t feel her touching him because he’d like that a lot, because he knew her hands would feel better on him than those of his Jamaican nurse, Clay.

“Shut up and try to let one of us know when you intend to pee your pants again,” she responded with good humor. She covered him in a pair of Reggie’s clean, dry sweatpants. They were too long but it didn’t matter, because it wasn’t as if Danny had to walk anywhere, and, anyway, he doubted that the fashion police were holed up on Cuttyhunk Island.

He had a quick thought that Josh Miller was shorter than Michael Barton; that Danny was shorter than his sister, Mags, or brother, Greg. Shorter, and now he knew why: it was because he really wasn’t one of them; he was one of the opposite party. He tried to push away his thought.

Warmer and drier now, he thanked LeeAnn and told her she’d make someone a wonderful wife. She gave him the finger, buttoned a slicker around herself, and went out on deck to help Reggie tie off.

Reggie and LeeAnn “borrowed” a golf cart at the marina, hoisted Danny onto the seat, put his wheelchair in the back, and headed for the Vineyard View Bakery
where they hoped to get much-needed food and more-needed shelter.

The restaurant was closed.

Reggie banged on the door. No one came.

“They’re home where they’re safe,” LeeAnn said. “They knew there wouldn’t be tourists on a day like this.”

The tourists, of course, only came and left Cuttyhunk: there were no hotels here, no welcoming inns. Danny had once heard that in winter less than fifty people inhabited the island. He would bet there’d be even fewer next winter if Hurricane Carol picked here to hit land.

Reggie climbed back into the cart and turned it around, the small canvas roof sagging from the persistent rain. He hooked a left and headed up a small hill—at one, two, maybe three miles an hour. Not that it mattered: the roads were deserted. It could have been No Mans Land—that spooky island south of here that was used for target practice in World War II, the place where few dared to go because of the rumored land mines and ammunition and ghosts that were there, ghosts that might have crossed the water and settled on Cuttyhunk for the lack of activity on the main street of town now.

The dim golf cart headlights revealed gray-shingled houses that dotted the road—many boarded, some, perhaps, in anticipation of Carol; some simply because they belonged to summer people who had already returned to the city.

They putt-putted through the wind and the rain until Reggie finally slowed. “Look,” he said, pointing under the golf cart canopy. “People.”

The “people” turned out to be three men, a woman, a child, and a dog, all standing on the porch of a building marked “Cuttyhunk Historical Society.” They were looking off toward the Vineyard, discussing, perhaps,
whether or not Carol would choose to land there instead of … there.

One of the men waved at Reggie, who waved back, pulled up to the white picket fence, and shouted, “Evening, friends. Nice day.”

“Reggie Watson? That you?”

“It’s us,” Reggie replied. “Me and my sweet sister, LeeAnn, and our passenger, who wishes to remain nameless. Do you have any food in that joint or do you prefer to starve your tourists?”

Along with the laughter that rolled down from the porch came the friendly, small-town warmth that Danny had not felt in ages, not since his life had become hospitals and hotel rooms, wheelchairs and airplanes, not since his days were spent being shuttled between patient and poster boy, poor, helpless Danny and the politician’s brave son.

Cuttyhunk was simple, and that was how Danny liked it. He smiled and wondered if he could stay there at least part of forever.

Until they rounded the corner and pulled into the driveway back at the house, Liz had not given up hope that the van would be in the driveway. But it was not there.

The dull ache in her head crawled down to her shoulders. She bent her neck to relieve the pain; it did not work.

She said mechanical thanks to Tuna and was vaguely aware of walking toward the house and of BeBe behind her. Inside, Keith was building a fire in the fireplace.

“Any luck?” he asked.

BeBe shook her head. Liz went into the kitchen to make tea.

“Me either. It’s a mess at the harbor. Everyone’s trying
to get off-island before the storm shuts everything down. But not Danny. At least, if he went, he didn’t take the van. He could have bought a passenger ticket—they wouldn’t have a record of that. But the vehicle … no dice.”

“I suppose you checked the parking lot …” BeBe asked, while, from the other room, Liz tried not to listen. All she wanted to do now was burrow under the big puff on her bed; she wanted to burrow from the world and pretend that Father was not dead, that Josh had not learned about Danny, and that Danny was here, safe in his room. She wanted to turn back the clock to last night—or was it the night before—before she had once again found warmth in Josh Miller’s arms. She wanted to pretend it had not happened, and yet she could not.

Setting the kettle on the stove, Liz fired the heat beneath it, and tried desperately not to think about what would happen if Josh Miller came forward and claimed Danny as his own.

Outside, the rain whipped a tree branch against the window. Liz wondered if Danny was warm and safe and if he’d be all right.

The teapot whistled. She poured the water into her mug and stood mutely watching, while the teabag steeped.

“Lizzie?” Her name was called so quietly, Liz barely heard it. She turned and saw BeBe standing in the doorway. Her sister’s face was white.

Liz gripped the counter, afraid to hear what BeBe was going to tell her.

BeBe came into the kitchen and put her arm around Liz. “Keith saw Danny leave the house earlier.”

“When?”

BeBe removed her arm and wove her fingers together, one by one, the way an ex-smoker or ex-drinker sometimes
does when trying to substitute one action for another.

“Earlier,” she replied, “before the rain started. He didn’t think there was reason for concern at the time.”

“BeBe, what’s going on?”

BeBe shook her head. “I don’t know. But I’m afraid, Liz. I’m afraid this is all my fault.”

“
What’s
all your fault?”

“Keith followed Danny outside. He saw him going down to the path.”

“To the water?”

BeBe averted her eyes from Liz. “Yes. But he thinks Danny turned off at the cove.”

“How? The wheelchair couldn’t make it down the path.”

BeBe struggled with her words. “When Keith was driving to the ferry, he remembered that he’d seen Danny. As soon as he returned from Vineyard Haven, he checked it out. That’s when he saw the ruts of the wheelchair. They’re now filled with rainwater.”

“What are you saying? Is Danny still down there? Did he fall into the water …”

BeBe shook her head. “No. The tracks don’t go all the way to the cove. But I’m afraid they went far enough.”

“Far enough for what, BeBe?”

Silence.

“BeBe?” Liz asked again, wanting to shout, but afraid it might hurt too much, afraid that she was going to need all the energy she had to handle what was coming. “Far enough for what?”

BeBe sucked in her lower lip. “Josh …” was all that she could say.

Liz steadied her eyes on her sister and asked her in a voice that was surprisingly even, “Danny overheard what you said to Josh?”

BeBe could not seem to answer. She mashed her teeth into her lip. Her eyes brimmed with fat, wet tears. Her body trembled.

Liz’s hand went to her throat. The blood in her veins seemed to bubble, coming to a rolling boil like the candy Liz used to help Mother make so often for Father and Daniel and Roger and BeBe in the safety of the house on Beacon Hill.
Bring to a rolling boil
, the cookbook read. If she hadn’t known exactly what that meant before, Liz knew now. One by one, her body parts began to move. Her feet, her hands, her legs, her arms. Her head swiveled from side to side and up and down. Her facial nerves twitched and jerked. Then she pulled back one arm as hard as she could, thrust it forward with a might she hadn’t known that she possessed and slugged her sister smack in the jaw.

Just as BeBe thudded to the floor without a cry, without a whimper or a scream, Joe appeared at the kitchen door. Beside him stood a man in a uniform. “Mrs. Barton?” Joe asked. “This is Sheriff Talbot.”

The sheriff stepped forward and looked down at BeBe. “I’ve come for your sister, Mrs. Barton. She’s wanted for questioning in the murder of Ruiz Arroyo.”

Chapter 28

She wondered if this was where Ted Kennedy had sat back in the Mary Jo Kopechne days that hardly anyone remembered anymore, except maybe the girl’s parents and the islanders who lived near where it happened. She wondered if there was some irony in the fact that she was the sister-in-law of a presidential candidate and he had been the brother of two. No, she guessed that was stretching things. She wondered if she would be thinking more clearly if her jaw didn’t feel as if it had been broken in half.

BeBe sat forward on the narrow cot, rested her aching face in her hands, and tried to figure out why the hell she was here.

The murder of Ruiz Arroyo?

It was what Hugh Talbot had said. That Ruiz had been found this afternoon down in Palm Beach, and that he had been driving a Mercedes registered in her name.

Well, of course, she had given him the Mercedes. He had not been a bad lover, up until that last night. He had not been a bad lover, had not been a bad employee, and taking the car back had seemed so … juvenile, that BeBe
had decided to just let him have it. Besides, the car enabled him to have fast transportation back to his wife and four kids and out of her life.

But now he was dead and they thought she had done it.

“I wasn’t even in Palm Beach!” she shrieked in the cruiser all the way to the county lock-up in Edgartown. “I left there this morning!”

“They said it was an execution-type murder. Something about you hiring someone to do it.”

“Who the hell would I hire? And why?” Her insides were trembling as much as her voice. She felt a sickening combination of disgust and despair at the idea of Ruiz with a bullet in his brain.

“I don’t know the details, BeBe,” Hugh had replied. “I only know we have to hold you here until we can extradite you to Florida after the hurricane.”

She stared at the concrete floor now, then the concrete ceiling, then the concrete walls. She stared at the small window and the tall iron bars that went from top to bottom, as if this were a real cell, in a real jail, like she’d seen at the movies hundreds of times.

It is a real jail, you moron
, she told herself.

What had been as bad as being hauled in for “questioning,” was that Liz had stood by and watched it all happen, without ever coming to her sister’s defense.

She’d tried to tell Hugh Talbot that they had to look for the Cubans—the people behind the boatloads of illegals that were Ruiz’s “other” business, the black market big business that he’d disguised as a charity. She’d tried to tell Hugh, but Hugh didn’t care. His job was simply to put her away for the duration.

She looked back to the iron bars on the window and wondered if the jail would be protected from the storm clearly brewing outside, or if anybody would care if BeBe Adams got washed away in a gale.

Ruiz might have cared back when she was his meal ticket.

But now even he was dead.

Closing her eyes, she knew she should cry for him, and yet she could not.

“Your sister is
where
?” Michael shouted as he stood in the living room of the house on the Vineyard, disheveled from the wind and rain. Liz had been neither disturbed nor elated when she’d seen Michael at the door not long after BeBe had been whisked off by Hugh. She’d been sitting in the living room, waiting for something, though she didn’t know what, perhaps death.