A Month at the Shore (40 page)

Just like her brother to insist on putting his worst foot forward.

"Snack, this is serious," she said in soft reproach. "Remember that knife I gave you for eighth-grade graduation? The one with your initials in it?"

"Yeah?"

"They found it among the bones."

He said nothing, then let out a long breath. "Shit."

"Did she steal it from you, by any chance?"

"Well, actually—!" He paused, sighed, and shook his head. "No. I lent it to her. She couldn't find her own, so I lent it to her to use."

Staring at the sea, he let a few seconds pass. "No, that's not true either," he admitted. "I gave it to her as a present. No strings attached."

"Why? Because you liked her so well?"

"Liked?" he said with a melancholy smile. "It was a little more than liked."

"But you were a boy. What did you know about women?"

"Just about nothing. I was a virgin.
"

"Oh," she said vaguely. And then: "Oh."

He looked directly at her, and she was reminded that his eyes were the same shade of green as the shallow waters around Monomoy. When they were kids and if they got the chance, they used to go clamming together at low tide there. How long ago it seemed.

"Will you tell me why you ran away?"

Turning from her, he shrugged, but he kept his gaze fixed on the sea. Laura didn't know if that was meant to be a yes or a no. She stayed where she was, afraid to move down to the seat next to him and frighten him away. He might just as well have been a dragonfly sunning on a post.

"She had this way of getting you to talk," he said at last. "The opposite of you. You're good at the head-on approach. But with Sylvia—I think it was because she didn't really care what you said. You couldn't shock her. She was kind of like a priest in a confessional that way. So one day I told her how much I hated Dad, and that I planned to split. She said, 'Do it. Take your chances out there.' She told me that she
had
stayed, and that she was sorry. After that, she used to stick up for me against Dad."

"I remember that she liked to take him on," Laura said. "I guess I didn't realize for whom."

"Yeah, well, I was whom. Some of the time, anyway." He paused to finish his bottle of water.

"Then, the day I left, Dad had to have that root canal, remember? So naturally, that meant time off for me. I was hanging out in the greenhouse, watching Sylvia work. We talked. She was curious about me. She said she'd never had a virgin. I didn't even have to tell her I'd never
screwed
anyone. She just knew, I guess," he said.

He glanced over his shoulder at Laura, and with that half-smile she knew so well, he asked, "Did I really look that green?"

"You're asking me? I was just as green."

"Anyway, she took me to the
toolshed, and that's where she
—let's say—made a man of me."

"The toolshed! The same place that Dad—"

"Beat the shit out of me later that night. Yeah. That toolshed. And if you don't think I get weird vibrations when I'm around that building, then you've got another think coming. I about lost my lunch when those guys found the satchel there."

"Did you know it was Sylvia's?"

"Of course. Didn't you?"

Laura shook her head. She was becoming almost lightheaded—but whether from the sun beating down on them, or from her brother's rambling confession, she had no idea.

"But if Dad was at the dentist, how did he know?" Because that was obviously why Snack had been whipped late that night; Laura didn't even have to ask, now. "Did you leave a condom around or something?"

Snack's laugh was loud and incredulous; even she had to smile, once she saw it from his side. She said, "Well? How, then?"

"Someone told Dad. I never quite got around to asking who," he said dryly. "I was too busy howling in pain."

"It wasn't Mom; she'd never tell on you, even if she knew anything. Maybe the help?"

"Syl
was
the help."

"Not Corinne. It must have been a customer, then.

Someone saw you two and told someone who told Dad in town at a bar, the drugstore, anywhere. Probably they did it to bait him; anything to get under his skin."

"It doesn't exactly matter, does it?" Snack said, reaching for the pocket of his T-shirt. She knew the gesture; he needed a smoke. He had cut back considerably—but there were times.

"I gave Syl the knife after the toolshed. It was the least I could do," he said with that macho tone Laura always hated to see.

"Then when did you have the fight with her that Billy remembers so vividly?"

"Ah,
that
fight," he said, lighting up a Marlboro. He inhaled, held, let go. "Right after the toolshed, I hung around her like a puppy. I wanted to play some more, but, alas, Sylvia was done with me. 'I did it just to be able to say.' Those were her exact words. I was cut to the quick," he said, collapsing his chin comically on his chest.

"What did you do?"

"There was nothing I
could
do. I ranted and railed at her, which Billy saw, and then I went off for the rest of the day—and night—and licked my wounds and plotted vengeful things against her, like blowing up her car."

"Oh, don't even joke. Especially not with Chief Mellon when you tell him all this."

Again he laughed. "Get real. I'm not telling him anything. You think I've got some kind of death wish?"

"But
... you're telling
me,"
she said, confused.

The sardonic tone disappeared. "Because I trust you, sis. For no other reason than that."

She wanted to say,
I'm not a priest. This picnic table is not a confessional.
Didn't he understand that she was bound to say what she knew if asked under oath? She began backing away from the subject altogether. What if she were wrong about his innocence? Suddenly she didn't want to know.

"I didn't do it, dodo!" Snack said.

"Oh, God, I'm so
rr
y." She was mortified that he'd been able to read her thoughts. "I don't know what I was—too much stuff has been going on."

"So I see," he said, nodding at her hand.

So he'd noticed the ring. That surprised her. She smiled ruefully and said, "Let's hope I'm not doing a Snack."

"You're a big girl now," he said. "I think you got yourself a good one. Which is more than I can say for that clunker in Portland."

"What nerve," she said, laughing. "You never even met the guy."

"I've met guys like him." He was already putting out his cigarette in the sandy soil, sinking it deep.

Laura climbed down from her perch and said, "After you shower, wear the yellow polo shirt we got you. You look more innocent in yellow."

Her brother looked up from his task and smiled. "You always did have a way with advice."

He stood up to go. Still smiling herself, Laura said, "Hey, little brother." She put her arms around him and hugged him close. "Just be nice—and tell the truth—and you'll do just fine."

He sucked in his breath and let it out in a rush. "Yeah." For a split second, he was her little brother again, mad at an unfair world but scared of it, too.

"Fog's starting to roll in," he said gruffly, breaking with her. "You'll have to paint inside, not out. Incidentally, I owe you sixty bucks."

It would have been pointless to pretend she didn't know what he was talking about; Snack knew that she kept track of her money. So she nodded and said, "Okay," and said a little prayer of thanks that he had come clean about taking it the day of their arrival.

They walked back to the house discussing the work list,
which hadn't got any shorter during the lockdown.

And that was the last that Laura heard of her brother until two and a half hours later, when she learned that he'd punched out Andrew Mellon, Chepaquit's chief of police.

"James Mandaren! Gabe uses him. Call him! I can't wait for you, I'm going now. Call him!" Corinne grabbed her purse and was out the door before her sister could tackle her.

Laura was covered in paint spatters from head to toe and cursing herself for not taking the time to put on a zip-up plastic coverall. But it would have meant a run into town to buy one, and it was too clammy to have worn one in any case. And now she was paying the price.

Damn it!

After calling the attorney and leaving a message, she decided to contact Ken at the office. She got his assistant, whose voice and manner changed entirely after Laura identified herself.

"Oh,
yes,
Miss Shore. This is Nancy," the assistant said in a breathless voice. "Mr. Barclay is with someone now, but I'll put your call through."

"No, no
... if you could just say that I called. Actually, don't even do that. It can wait."

"Are you sure?" Nancy said, hesitating.

"Really. It's not important," Laura insisted, and she hurried off the phone.

The last thing she wanted was for Ken to associate her with a new scandal every time they talked. He would wonder what the hell he'd got himself into. Eventually, so would his mother.

Angry—for different reasons—with herself, with Snack, and with Corinne, Laura treaded c
arefully across the half-
torn-up floor of the bathro
om, stepped over the deep claw-
foot tub, and turned on the wobbly shower. Twenty minutes would not make a difference in addressing Snack's latest run-in with the law.

What was he thinking, assaulting a cop? He
did
have a death wish. It hardly mattered that Snack's "assault" consisted of poking the chief in the chest while he vented his outrage at being so clearly under suspicion. What mattered was that Chief Mellon was within his rights to charge Snack and lock him up until a bail hearing. Very handy, if they were putting together a case against him and were afraid that he might run.

She soaped up a loofah and scrubbed her arms and legs viciously. The spatters came off; the blobs did not. She had neither the time nor the patience to clean up thoroughly, so she dried herself off, wrapped the towel around herself, and headed to her room for clothes and a comb.

At the upstairs landing, she jumped back and let out a cry: a male figure was coming up the steps at her.

"Gabe! God, you
scared
me!"

"Yikes—sorry, Laura," he said, looking sheepishly away from her towel-wrapped body.

"Couldn't you
knock
?"
She tucked the towel in more firmly and hurried across the hall to her room.

"I did knock," he said to her retreating back. "Where is everyone? The nursery's deserted. I just assumed that Corinne was up here, showering. She told me to meet her at the house after I got off work; we're supposed to go out
.
Sorry," he repeated, and then added, amused, "I didn't see anything; does that help?"

"Oh, yeah, a lot. My heart attack is nearly gone."

She heard him clumping down the stairs.

"I'll be down in a minute," she called out from her room. "There's been a slight hitch. Snack's just been arrested."

"Arrested!
For what?" Gabe yelled up. He sounded as shocked as they had been, which was gratifying. At least he hadn't jumped to the conclusion that the arrest was for the murder of Sylvia.

Keeping it deliberately light, Laura said, "Oh, you know Snack. He couldn't help getting testy during the latest interview with Chief Mellon, and he poked him a couple of times on a shirt button."

"For crying out loud. What's the
matter
with him? You know, when this is over, that kid's gotta get professional counseling. This goes beyond just having an attitude."

Dragging a comb through her dripping hair, Laura yelled down, "It's not as if he flattened the man or anything, but still. Corinne is completely traumatized," she added. "It's incredibly discouraging. I don't know what it is about our family: we keep trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

"I've noticed that!"

"A few minutes ago, my sister was running around thrilled that we could finally reopen."

"That's why I'm here," he called up. "We were going to go out and have a meal to celebrate before she dives back into work. God. I can't believe it. All these years, and Snack hasn't changed at all."

"Yeah. He needs a Big Brother, a mentor," Laura said, pulling a challis sundress over her head. "Someone like you. Look at the tragedies you overcame: losing both parents, giving up law school
...
.
"

She didn't point out that running a fence company wasn't quite the same as running for United States Senator, which was what Gabe had announced in his senior yearbook that he had every intention of doing. After all, sooner or later, he might very well do it.