Murder With Puffins (2 page)

"I'm sold," he said. "I can't skip Wednesday night's faculty meeting, but I'll get someone to cover my classes for the rest of the week, come by for you early Thursday morning, and we'll drive up."

As I said, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Even the two flat tires that stranded us in a Motel Six near the New Jersey Turnpike for the first night of our getaway hadn't dimmed our enthusiasm. But standing there on the deck of the ferry, I wasn't sure any of that would make sense. I focused back on the present, where Winnie and Binkie were still patiently waiting for an answer. From the way they looked at us, they probably thought we were on the run from something.

"Well, things were so hectic down in Yorktown, and I told Michael about what a great place Monhegan was for getting away from it all," I said finally. "I didn't really stop to think how far past the season it is."

"Yes, you've had quite a time," Winnie said. "We had a note from your father when they were in Rome, and he mentioned your detective adventures. You'll have to come over for dinner and tell us all about it."

Michael winced. I could almost hear his thoughts: So much for anonymity and privacy.

"Yes, that's a wonderful idea," Binkie said. Then her smile suddenly vanished, and she flung her hand out to point over her husband's shoulder.

"Bird!" she cried.

Winnie whirled, and they both produced gleaming hightech waterproof binoculars from beneath their rain gear. They plastered themselves against the boat rail and locked their lenses on their distant prey. I couldn't see a thing. I glanced at Michael. He shrugged.

I had assumed that the other passengers clinging to the rail were seasick, like us, and either optimistically hoping the fresh air would make them feel better or pessimistically placing themselves where the weather could take care of the inevitable cleanup. But up and down the rail, a forest of binoculars appeared, all trained on the distant speck.

"Only a common tern, I'm afraid," Binkie said. "Still, would you like to see?"

Under Binkie's guidance, I managed to focus on a small black dot atop a distant buoy. Even with the binoculars, you could recognize the dot as a bird only if you already knew what it was.

"Poor thing!" Binkie said "Imagine being out in weather like this!"

I didn't need to imagine; we
were
out in it.

"Oh, there's another tern at three o'clock!"

Dozens of binoculars swerved with the uncanny accuracy of a precision drill team. Binkie redirected my binoculars to another, closer buoy. This one definitely had a morose bird perched on top. I deduced that terns must be closely related to seagulls; this looked like just another seagull to me. The buoy gave a lurch, and the tern had to flap its wings and scramble to keep its footing before hunching down again. It cocked its head and looked at the boat. In the binoculars, it seemed to stare directly at me. It shook its head, pulled it farther back between its shoulders, and looked so miserable and grumpy that I identified with it immediately.

"Poor thing," I said.

"Oh, they're fine," Winnie said. "Coming back very well."

"Coming back from where?"

"Extinction, dear," Binkie said. "Things looked very bad for them at the beginning of the century, poor things, but we've managed to turn that around."

"We have several hundred nests on Egg Island, and, of course, nearly a dozen pair of puffins," Winnie said. "If you get a chance, you should take the tour. The boat leaves from Monhegan and anchors off the island for several hours."

"In the spring, love," Binkie said. "I imagine they stop running after Labor Day. The puffins would be mostly gone by now."

"True," Winnie said. "But if there are still a few puffins there, perhaps we could arrange a special tour for Meg. If the weather lets up a bit," he added, glancing up.

I forced a smile and handed Binkie her binoculars. The weather would have to let up more than a bit before I'd set out from Monhegan again in a boat. But if by some misfortune Winnie and Binkie succeeded in convincing a suicidal boat captain to take them out puffin-watching, I'd find some excuse.

"Just what is a puffin anyway?" Michael asked.

I winced. Dangerous question. The Burnhams and several nearby birders pulled out their field guides and began imparting puffin lore.

If I'd been explaining, I'd have said to keep his eye out for a black-and-white bird about a foot high that looked like a small penguin wearing an enormous clown nose over his beak and bright orange stockings on his feet. The birders did a good job of describing the beak--a gray-and-yellow triangle with a wide red tip--but they went into too much detail on the chunky body, the stubby wings, the distinctive, clumsy flight, and the precise patterning of the black-and-white feathers. I doubt if Michael needed to know quite so much detail on how to tell immature puffins from other birds he'd never heard of, or if he cared in the slightest about puffins' breeding and nesting habits. When Winnie and another birder began competing to see who could more accurately imitate the low, growling
an!
that the usually silent puffins make when their nests are disturbed, I groaned in exasperation.

"Don't worry, dear," Binkie said, patting me on the shoulder. "It always gets a little rough when we're this close to the harbor."

"Close to the harbor?" I said. "You mean we'll be landing soon?"

"Thank God," Michael muttered. I wasn't sure whether the ocean or the bird lore made his exclamation so fervent.

And sure enough, within minutes we saw the ferry dock. Quite a crowd of people stood on it with great mounds of luggage. More birders, I supposed, since at least half of them peered through the rain with binoculars. Like the birders on the boat, they scrutinized the gulls that wheeled overhead--hoping, I suppose, to spot a rare species of seagull. The two sets of birders also scanned one another. As we approached the dock, they began pointing, waving, and calling greetings.

"Good Lord, Binkie, look who's on the dock," Winnie said. "Just beside the gift shop."

"Oh no, not Victor!" Binkie exclaimed. "How awful! I did so hope we'd seen the last of him."

"No such luck," Winnie growled. "Turns up like a bad penny every few years. Wonder what the old ba--scoundrel's up to this time."

"Never borrow trouble," Binkie said. "We don't know for sure that he's up to anything."

"Like hell we don't."

I peered at the dock, wondering who Victor was and how he could possibly have aroused this much animosity in the normally mild-mannered Burnhams. But without binoculars, I couldn't see many details; if the docks held a sinister villain twirling his mustache or sporting cloven hooves, I couldn't spot him.

"Oh, look, Dr. and Mrs. Peabody," Binkie said--no doubt to distract Winnie from his irritation with the nefarious Victor. "What rotten luck; they're leaving just when we're getting here."

"I wouldn't count on it," Winnie replied, inspecting the Peabodys through his binoculars. "I overheard the captain speaking rather sharply to someone over the radio. Said he'd never have set out if they'd accurately predicted the size of the swells."

I was glad Winnie hadn't mentioned this until after we could see the dock.

"You think he'll ride out the storm here, then?" Binkie asked.

"If he has any sense," Winnie replied.

"Luck was certainly with you two," Binkie said, turning to Michael and me. "You very nearly missed the boat!"

The boat picked that moment to make a sudden free-fall drop into the trough of a wave.

"Lucky us," Michael muttered.

"So this is Monhegan," Michael said as he stood in the middle of the dock, inspecting the landscape.

I was relieved to see that he looked better already. Entirely due to being back on dry land, I was sure. Certainly nothing about our surroundings would cheer anyone up. Did the Monhegan dock always look this seedy and rundown, I wondered? Or were the weather and my queasy stomach still coloring my view of things?

After the boat docked, we had the usual mad scramble to sort out the enormous piles of luggage. Michael and I were luckier than most; the birders tended to favor battered rucksacks and ancient suitcases covered with peeling travel stickers from unpronounceable foreign birding meccas. Our more sedate urban luggage was comparatively easy to spot.

"What next?" Michael asked when we had all our gear.

"Next, we negotiate for someone to take our luggage to the cottage."

I pointed to the island's half a dozen pickup trucks lined up, fender-to-fender, on the dock, with their tailgates open toward the arriving crowds. Beyond the trucks, a steep gravel road, already swarming with birders, led up toward the village proper.

"The two hotels each have a pickup truck to take their guests' baggage," I said. "If you're staying at a bed-and-breakfast or a cottage, you hire one of the freelance pickups to haul your stuff."

"Just our stuff?" Michael said. "What about us?"

"We walk," I said. "Unless you want us to get a reputation as lazy city folks."

Michael and I stood back, though, until the logjam of birders cleared. Which didn't take long: As soon as the birders realized the ferry wasn't going anywhere, they all panicked and scurried up the hill. Birders who had planned to leave set out to reclaim the rooms they had recently vacated before the newly arrived birders checked in. The new arrivals hurried after them to wave their confirmation letters and credit cards before their stranded colleagues established squatters' rights.

Within minutes, the dock lay deserted. The few travelers, like Winnie and Binkie, who owned cottages and didn't have to worry about someone else displacing them had gone into the small shop at the foot of the hill to drink hot tea and catch up on the local gossip. Lucky that Michael and I weren't staying in a hotel; I didn't think I could have beaten even the oldest and most arthritic birder up the hill. We declined an invitation to join the Bumhams and found ourselves alone on the dock, surrounded by mountains of luggage higher than our heads.

"Are they all just going to leave their luggage here?" Michael asked.

"Why not?" I said. "Who would steal it, and where could they possibly hide it if they did? There's no getting off the island until the ferry starts running again."

We found a truck with room for our larger bags, and paid the exorbitant hauling fee. Despite my warnings, Michael tried to talk the driver into giving us a ride.

"No room," said the driver. His broad face looked vaguely familiar. He was about my age, which meant if he was a local, I'd probably played with him as a child. Or, more likely, beaten the tar out of him for picking on my much younger brother, Rob, if my memories of some of the other children we'd played with on the island were accurate. His clothes smelled of cigarette smoke and beer, and he had a seedy, furtive air that made me wonder, just for a moment, if letting him have our baggage was really a good idea.

"We could wait till you come back," Michael said.

"Not coming back," the driver replied. "Not for a while anyway. You could walk there sooner."

"I'm not sure my friend is up to the walk," Michael said, putting a protective arm around me.

I did my best to look frail and in need of protection as the driver peered at me. I could tell I wasn't succeeding. Which didn't surprise me; when you're nearly five foot nine, people tend to look at you and think, Sturdy. Unless you're model-thin, which I'm not. Even with Michael looming half a foot taller beside me, I obviously didn't look like the driver's idea of a damsel in distress.

"She's getting over a broken ankle," Michael said. "She's not supposed to overdo it."

I switched from frail to suffering stoically. The driver still wasn't fooled.

"Only a quarter of a mile," he said. "Ain't even uphill most of the way."

With that, he jumped into the cab of the truck and gunned the engine.

The truck took off, spinning its wheels a little before the tires got enough traction to climb the steep slope up from the docks. Little blobs of mud spattered us.

"Bloody little weasel," I snapped. "Bad enough he wouldn't give us a ride--"

"Don't worry," Michael said, wiping a bit of mud out of his left eye. "It'll wash off by the time we get to the cottage."

"Yes, it is beginning to drizzle a bit more heavily, isn't it?"

"We follow him?"

I glanced over. Michael was staring up the hill.

"Strange," I said. "The hill didn't seem as steep when I was a kid."

Michael chuckled.

"I remember it always used to drive me crazy how long it took for us to get to the cottage from the docks."

"Oh great."

"But that was mostly because Dad insisted on stopping to talk to everyone along the way. We'd take two or three hours, sometimes. But really it's only a fifteen-minute walk."

"The sooner we begin, the sooner we'll get warm and dry," Michael said, hoisting his carry-on bag to his shoulder. "Lead on, Macduff."

We trudged up the hill. Ahead of us, we could see the last two birders hiking stoutly toward the crest. The rest had no doubt reached their hotels or bed-and-breakfast lodgings long ago and were now watching whatever birders watch when the weather deprives them of their natural prey.

At the crest of the hill, we turned right on the island's main thoroughfare--another dirt and gravel road, but this one slightly better maintained. It wound through a seemingly haphazard scattering of buildings, most made of weather-beaten gray boards. I tried to see the place through a stranger's eyes, and cringed. You forget little details over time, like how many yards contained untidy stacks of lobster traps in need of mending. Or how the utilitarian PVC pipes that brought water down from the central reservoir lined every road. I could see Michael darting glances around, and I suspected he was wondering why the devil we'd come all mis way to such an unprepossessing place. The picturesque charm of the island definitely came across better on a sunny summer day than in the wake of a fall hurricane.

The drizzle had escalated to a light shower by the time we turned down the lane to Aunt Phoebe's cottage. About time; a little later and we'd have had to stumble along in the dark. Monhegan has no streetlights. And Aunt Phoebe thought repairing the ruts in her lane a citified affectation, which made finding your way in the dark a nightmare.