Embers (11 page)

It was Orel Tremblay
'
s fault. He
'
d summoned her from a very busy, very useful, very ordinary life and handed her a dilemma she couldn
'
t possibly resolve.

If she went after Gordon Camplin, a prominent member of
Bar Harbor
society, she ran the very real risk of being sued for slander. Like all business people who dealt with the public, Meg had a healthy fear of liability. The ceilings of the Inn Between might need a new coat of paint, but all the smoke detectors worked, and the fire exits were clearly marked.

On the other hand, if Meg ignored Orel Tremblay
'
s story, then Gordon Camplin would go free. Well, obviously he
'
d
been
free, for all of his
—
what? Seventy-five years
now
? Was it worth it to deny one old man a few years of freedom just to satisfy another old man
'
s dying wish to avenge a woman whom Meg had never even known?

She wasn
'
t sure. Maybe that was where the jitteriness came from. Indecisiveness wasn
'
t Meg
'
s thing. She sighed, aware that the decision, when it did come, would be hers alone. The rest of the family had too many concerns on their minds than to go rummaging in the past looking for more: Comfort had the twins to worry about, and Lloyd had Comfort, and Everett Atwells had his advancing age. Allie had Tom Wyler. And Meg? Meg had
all
of them to worry about.

And now Margaret Mary Atwells as well. That might make one too many generations for Meg to handle. She shook her head, laughing under her bre
ath. Where had all this mother-
hen-ness come from, anyway? She told herself that she
'
d merely stepped into the void left by her mother
'
s death. She told herself that if her mother hadn
'
t died so young, Meg Hazard would be living on a houseboat on the
Intracoastal Waterway
and earning her living as a wildlife photographer.

Meg gazed out at the moon, silver and solitary and somehow cruel, that hung in the late-evening sky.
Trouble is,
she thought,
I
'
m too young to be matriarch of this clan. On a night like this, with a moon like that, I
'
m definitely too young.

The sound
s
of a man
'
s voice, and
laughter, low and melodious, drifted through the darkness to mock her thoughts. It was Allie
'
s laugh, with something new in it, something
...
surprised and delighted. Allie didn
'
t surprise easily. She
'
d had too many men cut open their veins and spill their desire at her feet. What could Tom Wyler possibly be saying that surprised and delighted her?

Meg gave herself another push on the porch swing.
Creak, creak. Creak, creak.

"
Whoops
...
occupied,
"
she heard Allie say.

And then the voices turned and faded, hers
and the lieuten
ant
'
s
,
and Meg sat alone for a long while, wondering how it was that Allie could feel so convinced that he was the one.

****

Allie had risen before dawn for the long drive down to
Boston
to interview at a Days Inn there. She was trying to save on travel expenses whenever she could, and Meg appreciated that. She just hoped Allie didn
'
t get an offer to interview at the Maui Prince Hotel. They
'
d have to take out a third mortgage on the Inn Between.

Meg was helping Comfort put out a continental breakfast of cranberry muffins and poppy-seed cake for their guests when Lieutenant Wyler showed up at the kitchen door. Meg let him in and was surprised to see that the cane was back.

"
I overdid it last night,
"
he admitted.
"
Your sister is convinced that I can walk away my wounds.
"

"
Her degree
'
s in hospitality, not hospitals,
"
Meg reminded him.
"
In any case, you
'
re safe for now. She
'
s in
Boston
. As you know,
"
she added, just in case he didn
'
t.

"
Sure,
"
he said easily. He handed Meg a windbreaker that Allie had left behind.
"
Actually, I plan to hobble across the sandbar to
Bar
Island
at low tide,
"
he said, glancing at his watch.

"
Why?
"

He shrugged.
"
Allie says it
'
s the tourist thing to do.
"
He looked at Meg thoughtfully and said softly,
"
How
'
re you doing today?
"

"
Oh
...
better than yesterday. Although I have to admit, this thing about my grandmother is obsessing me.
"
She shrugged helplessly.
"
I could use some advice,
"
she said with a beseeching look.

"
Yeah, well
—
I
'
d better be off,
"
he said in a tone that struck her as practically rude.
"
You know what they say: time and tide wait for no one.
"
He started backpedaling out of the kitchen.

Meg felt like a patient who
'
d tried to get her dentist to look at a tooth in the middle of
Main Street
. She gave him a
be-
that-way look and said,
"
Lieutenant? Don
'
t forget: After the tide rolls out
—
it rolls back in.
"

"
Elemental physics,
"
he agreed, looking back at her with a dry half smile.

****

The walk down to
Bridge Street
was shorter and easier than Wyler had anticipated. Allie was right: walking helped.

He was surprised at how quiet the town was, even allowing that it was a weekday. How
did
Bar Harbor
manage to survive on a tourist economy? Give him a big city like
Chicago
with its broad shoulders anytime; at least it was diverse. Still, there was a certain tattered charm about
Bar Harbor
that he found appealing. It didn
'
t pretend to be anything more than it was: a once-grand watering hole humbled by a war, a Depression, a fire, and the income tax, not necessarily in that order.

He was aware that old
—
very old
—
money still summered here. But they were being mighty discreet about it; Bar Harbor was no
South
ampton
. He liked that too. Why rub everyone else
'
s face in it? It only led to class warfare. He daydreamed in a general way about the gap between rich and poor, between master and servant, and that led him, inevitably, to Meg
'
s grandmother.

The way he saw it, Margaret Mary Atwells
'
s case had two parts to it: (1) was she murdered, and (2) did it matter. The knee-jerk answers were: no and no. But even if someone were looking for trouble, even if someone were determined to find some irregularity in the victim
'
s death, it still came down to this: it made no real difference. The course of history would not be changed, the flow of money would not be altered.

But, of course, Meg Hazard could do what she wanted. Just so long as she didn
'
t drag
him
into it. He had no intention of spending a busman
'
s holiday here. He swept aside all thoughts of Margaret Mary Atwells as he made his way to the damp and pebbly sandbar that was now fully exposed between the town and
Bar
Island
.

He
'
d imagined a treacherous, narrow slit of sand cutting a swath through crashing seas. What he found was a sandbar the size of a highway, strewn about with rocks, with a calm and gentle sea receding from both sides of it.

He found that vastly reassuring. The plain fact was, Lieutenant Thomas Wyler, who
'
d seen more dead bodies than he
'
d ever care to count, bodies that had been run down, gunned down, cut up, burned, and strangled
—
this same fearless officer of homicide investigations was afraid
—
God, how he hated to have to admit it
—
of water.

He snorted out loud at the thought. He knew exactly where the phobia had come from, of course. It happened when he was seven and playing hooky from school. He
'
d headed straight for
Humboldt
Park
, a green and peaceful
Chicago
oasis that nowadays was a haven for rival gangs
—
where before long he got hot and decided to take a dip in the pond. He
'
d stripped down to his underwear and struck out boldly. But the muddy bottom was so squishy and disgusting that he had no choice but to swim for deeper water.

Which would
'
ve worked out swell if he
'
d known how to swim. Instead, his feet had got bound up in seaweed, and he very nearly drowned before a passerby leapt in, fully clothed, and hauled him out, then rolled him over and gave him what used to be called artificial respiration. When he came to, the first thing he saw were leeches clinging to his ankles. To this day, the sight of seaweed swaying just beneath a water
'
s
sur
face made him nauseous.

Right now he felt almost brave, picking his way around the exposed, rank, half-dried seaweed. When he got to
Bar
Island
, Wyler breathed an irrational sigh of relief. Here he was. Now what?

He
'
d brought a book in his backpack, a history of
Bar Harbor
that included an account of the fire. He didn
'
t dare admit it to Meg or Allie, but he
'
d been
absolutely
fascinated
by Orel Tremblay
'
s story of the evacuation from the town dock, and that was part of the reason he was here now. He found a comfortable spot on the west side of
Bar
Island
, across the water from the town pier where everyone had assembled in fear that long-ago night.

Today, at least, the setting was idyllic: warm and sunny and still. Wyler took off his shirt, then his shoes and socks, and rolled up his khakis. The ticktock of time flattened into a monotonous hum, the drone of buzzing insects. For the first time since he
'
d arrived, Wyler felt totally relaxed. He decided to begin his history at the beginning, on page 1.

He read for a while, turning the pages lazily, stopping now and then to gaze at the huge old shorefront
"
cottages
"
across the way that had been spared by the fire, or to listen to the earsplitting din of a passing lobster boat, its un
m
uffled engines piercing the pristine silence of the morning.

Sometime afte
r chapter 3, he fell asleep.

****

The crowd that had gathered was big, the first sign that the hostage crisis had gone on too long. He got out of the squad car and went up to the containment officers.
"
So what have we got?
"
he said.

"
Everyone in the building
'
s out, except for the hostage taker and the little girl. We
'
ve got the girl
'
s mother
—
the guy
'
s girlfriend
—
in custody; she
'
s zonked out of her mind. Useless. The guy swears he went to school with you. St. Teresa
'
s on
Campbell Street
? That right?
"