Past Malice (23 page)

At least the fieldwork seemed, thankfully, to be answering more of its own questions. Not the one that really perplexed me, though: What had kept the Chandlers from rebuilding the wing that had been destroyed in 1738? I spent a little time with that one too, before I went downstairs for breakfast. The fire that had razed part of Stone Harbor in the same year was confined to the waterfront, well below the Chandler’s house. Official sources attributed it to a malicious servant striking out against his master, something that had gotten out of hand. What was more interesting was that although the man in question, Pike Fisher, was working for William Bradley, the Chandlers’ warehouses had also been badly damaged. More interesting still was whether Pike Fisher had been associated, as the diary of the Reverend Tapley suggested, with pirates. Pirates had been a plague to the coast at the time of the fires, and I wondered if they hadn’t been part of the “roguish band” that Tapley suggested Pike Fisher was involved with. The pirates had been chased away or captured by a group of Stone Harbor citizens before they could do any further damage. Fisher had been the only one charged with the crime, in the end, and there was nothing to suggest that he was responsible for the fire at the Chandler House or Nicholas’s death.

I was sure the incidents were somehow related, but at the moment, I didn’t have the information necessary to put them all together. The only thing I could do was go back out to the site and keep digging. The archives would still be there, ready for more plundering, when I got done. The other thing that popped unbidden into my head was whether there wasn’t some distant connection between the events nearly three hundred years ago and the events of the past week. Fisher was Justin’s last name, too. But surely there couldn’t be any relation between that distant past and the present? Then it occurred to me that everyone connected with the
Historical Society seemed to have a closer relationship with the past than most people.

I realized that I should ask Ted and Fee, who were both taking a break in Fee’s office.

“Depends on which source you check,” Ted said instantly. “There’s lots about pirates in general, in Massachusetts in the eighteenth century, but only two references to them in Stone Harbor then. One is Tapley’s book—the entry you saw—and the other….”

“What?” I looked between him and Fee, who were both shrugging.

“Well, there’s a footnote to one of the town histories that was written in the nineteen-twenties. It’s to a source that we haven’t been able to locate yet, but it suggests that they might have been connected with the fire of seventeen-thirty-eight.”

“What’s that say?” I asked eagerly.

“Well,” Fee said reluctantly—she still wasn’t speaking much to me—“there’s a paragraph about the fire of seventeen-thirty-eight and the footnote says, “See Beecham, eighteen-sixty-seven.”

“That’s it?” I looked at both of them.

“That’s it.” Ted looked pleased that I should be as flummoxed as he was.

“Okay, well, thanks.” I went back out and stared at the pocked and pitted area beside the house for a while.

The remains of the wall were fully exposed now, and the pits seemed to be at the same level, though it was clear that some later ones had been moved around. The afternoon was consumed with another orgy of picture-taking and pencil-gnawing, which did nothing to relieve my headache.

A
FTER WORK THAT DAY,
I
GOT
B
RIAN TO TAKE
Bucky home with him and start dinner, so that I could stay late with the crew and finish the photography. On my way home, I stopped by the striped house that had been a thorn in the aesthetic side of the Stone Harbor Historical Society for a couple of years now and had my first good, close look. Actually, I’d paused a couple of times before, getting the project set up, but now I didn’t mind if anyone caught me looking. In fact, I was hoping that Janice Booth herself would be there.

She was on the side of the house, working in the garden, a prodigious pile of weeds and cuttings a testimony to her labors that day. She was a big woman with short blonde hair shot through with gray; it looked as though she’d cut it herself with dull scissors. She resembled Bray, and I wondered whether there wasn’t a family connection there. Her features looked as though they had been molded by a kid with modeling clay, overexaggerated and a little mannish, but her skin
was flawless, soft and glowing like porcelain that had been handled with loving care over the generations. She was wearing a pair of enormous denim overalls, a man’s collared shirt that was daubed with blue and green paint stains, and a straw sunhat so large that it could have served as a beach umbrella with little modification. A low growling took us both by surprise and alerted Janice to my presence.

“Calm your liver, Franklin.” She spoke to a nearby shrub and then turned to me. “You want something, or just looking at the house?”

I was still trying to see what was making the noise. “Um, I guess I was hoping to talk to you, if you’re Janice.”

“Yeah, I’m Janice.” She began to get up, with some effort.

I raised a hand. “Oh, don’t stop working on my account.”

She took my hand and I helped her up. “I’m stopping on my account, don’t worry. You want something to drink? It’s as hot and steamy as Satan’s jock.”

“Um, sure, thanks.” I tried to keep that particular image out of my mind.

She jerked her head toward the gate, indicating that I should come in that way. “I’ll just be a second. Come on, Franklin, I’ll get you brushed.”

Another growl came, this louder than the first, and a long-haired miniature dachshund waddled out from under the rhododendron. He was showing a lot of gray around the muzzle and a bright green harness didn’t seem to do anything for him besides make him look like one of those long, bulging mozzarella cheeses tied up with string. He took two little steps toward me and began to growl louder, showing his upper teeth. I sighed; my animal karma was for the birds lately.

This time, Janice didn’t bother trying to be polite about it. “Franklin! Cut that shit out, you fat, hairy hot dog! Show some manners, for gossakes!”

Franklin did show some manners, however reluctantly, and at the sound of his mistress’s voice, lumped himself over to where she stood, his face turned up beseechingly, panting and thumping his tail.

“Don’t mind him. It’s the heat. I’ll be back in a second.”

When she did return, she was holding two paper cups of lemonade in one hand, spilling a lot of it, and carrying a brush in the other. Franklin immediately began to jump against Janice’s legs, yipping like fury. She sloshed lemonade all over herself, cursed again, and thrust the now half-empty cups at me. When I took them, she immediately knelt down and brushed Franklin, who rolled around under the brush in a frenzy of excitement. Finally, she’d had enough and paused; Franklin yipped again, and it was funny to watch his stumpy little legs as he jumped.

Janice shook her head. “No, that’s all for now. Go ahead, go get dirty again.”

The dachshund wagged his tail a couple more times in an attempt to coerce her through cuteness, then heaved a giant sigh and lumbered back into his den under the rhododendron. I saw the glint of an aluminum water dish under there and heard sloppy lapping.

“He’s a spoiled little beggar,” she said, but the smile on her face told me the whole story. She reached for a cup. “So. What can I do you for? You don’t look like the sorts who usually come to buy some of my work.”

“I’m sorry, that’s not why I’m here.”

“I didn’t think so. Well, come have a look anyway. You might want one someday.”

I followed her into the house, which wasn’t anything like what you’d expect from the outside. The front room, which would have been the parlor at one time, was painted differently on each wall—one mocha, one white, one sea-foam green, one gray—and this was her gallery. There were no
shades on the windows, just white sheers that didn’t keep out the light and also contributed to the feeling of being on the beach, as they billowed in the breeze. Janice’s paintings were here, and though I don’t know much about art, apart from the portraits that tell me about who I’m studying or which Dutch painters depict seventeenth-century pottery, her work made an impression on me. I did recognize that they were abstract, and though I couldn’t have told you whether they were any good from a technical point of view, I did know what they made me feel. There wasn’t anything that might be recognized as a wave or a cloud by its form, but the colors, the
movement
of the shapes and brushstrokes, if you will, instantly transported me onto the ocean. Nothing was depicted as it looks in nature, but every part of it suggested what it represented. I’d seen that water before. You could smell the salt spray.

“Wow,” was all I could manage.

“That one’s not bad,” Janice conceded. “Sure I can’t tempt you into buying one?”

I glanced at the price sheet on the wall and swallowed. “You can tempt away, but my bankbook will be adamant, I’m afraid.” I looked back at the canvas. “But someday….”

“Someday then. You wanted to know about…?”

“Someone—Ted Cressey—said you could tell me about Aden Fiske—”

“The man was a prick of the first water,” Janice said matter-of-factly. “What else can I do for you today?”

“You weren’t overly fond of Aden, then,” I said.

“Let me count the ways.” She gave me the once-over. “What’s your interest in all this, anyway?”

Her bluntness was catching. “I found him. He was the second body I found in a week, and I’d like to make sure that this is more about him than me. That I’m not the next body.”

That seemed to satisfy her. “I’m sure you’ve heard some of the stories by now.”

“A few strong opinions, but no real particulars.” I didn’t feel too bad about my fib; I needed more information.

“I’ll give you a list. You’ve noticed the house? That’s Aden, all over.” She crumpled her paper cup. “He tried to enforce some stupid-ass historic district regulation about colors, something that shouldn’t even have come up because I was in the house long before that rule was made. I didn’t have the money to do the job the way he wanted it; what I did have was a bunch of paint samples and a friend who explained the letter of the law to me; no one said anything about where the colors had to go on the house.” She exhaled noisily. “It was all personal, of course.”

“How’s that?”

“This house is all I have, and everyone knows it. I get by, with the tenants, and I can do my art, and that’s all I ask of life. Aden, the big real estate magnate, decides he’s going to do me a favor and buy it from me. At a bargain price, of course.” She got another glass of lemonade from a sweating pitcher on the table. “I told him to shove it. He raised the price, something to within spitting distance of fair, I guess, but I’m not going to sell. Ever.

“He tried some other petty shit, like trying to hassle the tenants, get them to move out, even tried to dig up some of my bad, old past to hold over my head.” She smacked her lips. “He forgot that my nasty reputation is also my stock in trade. It didn’t do a bit of damage to me; hell, I prolly sold a couple of paintings on the strength of it. That kind of thing.”

“Nice guy.”

“Go to his wake tonight and you’ll see that I wasn’t the only one glad to see him take the big dirt nap. If I’d have been able to come up with some way to do it myself, I just might of.”

“So you didn’t do it?” I asked, surprising myself. Janice’s bluntness was infectious.

But Janice didn’t take a speck of offense. “No. I’m not much for that kind of thing—”

So she
sort
of goes in for it? I wondered crazily.

“—I think that people generally get what they deserve in the end, but Aden was pushing it. It was fun, kind of, to watch him get worked up and try to figure out what he’d do. He had a kind of cunning that was hypnotic, kinda like a cobra, but you can’t watch it for long and not start to worry about who it was aimed at. That’s why I would have, if I had the mind for it. He hurt too many people.”

“The wake is tonight? That seems kind of quick.”

“Well, you got two choices there. Either those in charge wanted to make sure the bastard was going into the ground and staying there, or someone wanted things pushed along so there would be as little attention paid to the manner of his death as possible. Take your pick.”

“That’s not very reassuring.”

“Hell, at least you know for sure that Aden is dead. Lot of people probably trying to lift the coffin lid and sneak a peek, just to see for themselves.” She gave me a sideways look. “You could ask your friend Doug Bader; he might know.”

“How do you know I know Detective Bader?”

“Same way you knew to come to ask me about Aden: Ted Cressey.”

“Well, he’s not my friend. He’s not likely to tell me anything.” That was an interesting thought, and I made a note to pursue it as I got up to leave. “I appreciate your time. And thanks for the drink.”

“Here.” She shoved a handful of postcards into my hand. “I’m part of a show in another week. Come by and check it out.”

“Sure, thanks again.”

I’d decided I’d better put in an appearance at the memorial service for Aden. Brian didn’t want to go and wasn’t thrilled about me going, but I convinced him that nothing much could happen at a funeral parlor. I was also curious to see who would show up to what must surely size up to be a pretty significant public event.

As I told Brian, I didn’t expect to be too long, just enough time to stop by, pay my respects, and get out. When I saw the line of people waiting to get into the funeral parlor, however, I knew I would be a little longer than I predicted. Cars packed the street and a couple of uniformed officers were directing traffic and waiting by the door. Whew, I thought, Aden was that big a noise in Stone Harbor.

I found a parking space a couple of blocks down—there was no hope of pulling right into the funeral parlor’s lot—and hiked back to get into the line, glad that the overcast was helping mitigate the warmth of the evening, which was a little like walking through clam chowder—muggy, salty, and body temperature. Another couple joined the line behind me, and it was clear that we would be the last ones in the hushed queue as it shuffled forward to the doors and the wake itself. It’s one of those situations where you’re not trying to overhear anything, but such lines are so quiet that it almost can’t be helped.

“It is just so sudden,” said a woman in back of me to her companion in a whisper.

“I know, honey, I know,” came the low reply.

“I can’t believe it, I just can’t—”

“It’s okay, honey.”

“If I can only get through this, I think I’ll be okay.”

“I’m right here with you. You’re all right, honey.”

“I just can’t believe the bastard’s gone. Thank God.”

That took me up short: Did she actually say, “thank God”? Reflex made me imagine that I’d probably heard wrong. But no. The consensus was that Aden was a blackmailer. I was still unprepared for just how many lives he had affected, and how strongly. I was about to learn.

Honey’s friend was a little more cautious. “Let’s just get through this, let’s not get our hopes up, okay, honey? Just a few minutes more, I promise you.”

“I just can’t believe it’s over.”

“Honey, we’re not out of the woods yet. Just keep your voice down and maybe we’ll know in a little while. A half hour. That’s not long, is it? You can do that.”

“You’re right, a half hour’s nothing. Not after what he’s put us through.” The bitterness in Honey’s voice was almost tangible. I wondered what brought it on.

By this time the rapidly moving line had taken me to the steps of the building itself, and I looked around to see whether there were any other wakes being held at the same time as Aden’s. There weren’t. Honey and her friend had been talking about him. Aden’s eccentricity and bonhomie hadn’t been convincing on every front.

The viewing room was very crowded. I signed the visitors book and looked around to see whether I recognized anyone. Daniel and his partner, Charles, were in a corner, but so far away that it was impossible to join them, even if I had been able to discreetly catch their attention. Fee was closer by, and I did catch her eye. She smiled briefly in acknowledgment and then immediately turned away to speak to someone beside her; Grace was nowhere in sight. Perry was chatting quietly with several people I didn’t recognize but thought they looked like her; members of her family, I decided. She looked completely done in. Her face was drawn, her eyes were swollen, and the rest of her face was pale. I wondered whether her arm was bothering her and re
alized I had no idea how long she’d worked with Aden, who I knew had been a friend of her family’s. It looked a little like she was holding court, accepting the concern of others passing by with practiced grace.

Ted Cressey was wearing the coat and tie he wore every day to the historic house. He was off by himself—so far as anyone could be said to be by himself in that crowd. No one spoke to him, and he didn’t attempt to speak to anyone there; when I nodded to him, he only smiled without any gladness or indication that he felt any emotion at all. The smile did not reach his eyes, which kept wandering over the rest of the crowd, not so much looking for anything as keeping track of what and who he saw.

I couldn’t quite suppress a feeling of dislike for him, but it was by following his gaze that I saw the scene before the rest of the heads swiveled around to catch it. The Bellamys were leaving, practically stumbling over each other in their rush to get away from the wake. Mr. Bellamy, who I remembered from one of his early morning complaints over the Chandler House fence, was sweating profusely despite the frigidity of the air conditioning. Claire was hyperventilating so that I thought she might be ill, but I saw her tighten her hold on her husband’s hand and shoot him a look of unadulterated joy as they fled the room.