Embers (18 page)

As they cleaned up after breakfast, Meg and Allie discussed strategies with wild abandon, because for a change they had the house to themselves. Comfort was in the principal
'
s office (again), Lloyd was out tracking down used parts for the pickup (again), and their father was out fishing with his poker pals. No self-respecting visitor to
Acadia
would stay inside on a day so glorious: The half-dozen guests staying at the Inn Between were long gone.

Wyler apparently had taken his cue from the weather as well; his car wasn
'
t in its usual space. Allie was disappointed, Meg relieved. In the meantime, Allie was being wonderfully cooperative about joining forces to nail Gordon Camplin. After all, a deal was a deal.

"
If only it weren
'
t so long ago,
"
Allie said, folding the checked towel over the stove handle the way Comfort liked it.
"
What possible evidence can there be? Everything burned to the ground in
'
47. All that survived of the houses were the chimneys. Look at the photo.
"

Meg, sitting on a high stool at the Formica-topped work island that Lloyd had proudly built, was doing just that. She had an old, photo album open in front of her, an album that her father had put together at the age of fifteen to deal with his grief at losing his mother to the fire. Meg had taken it out after her second visit to Orel Trem
blay and paged through it, lookin
g for obvious clues. She hadn
'
t found them then, and she wasn
'
t finding them now.

The small black-and-white photograph of the ruins of Eagle
'
s Nest, for example, offered little to see: a rambling granite foundation and seven naked, standing chimneys of granite and brick with gaping fireplaces in them. Everything else was flattened into burned-out rubble. It was hard to believe that so much grandeur could be reduced to so few ashes.

It was hard to believe that somewhere in the black-and
white rubble were Margaret Atwells
'
s bones.

Meg took up a magnifying lens and pored over the photograph again. All it magnified was the fact that there was nothing left to see.

Allie said,
"
We at
least
have to go through the local papers that covered the fire
—
Bar Harbor,
Bangor
,
Portland
. I can do that.
"

"
Mmm, no, I think I should do that,
"
Meg said absently, leafing backward through the album
'
s pages.

"
Oh, here we go: I
'
d-rather-do-it-myself. I should
'
ve known,
"
Allie said, annoyed.
"
Are you going to let me help, or not?
"

Meg had focused the magnifying glass over a family photo of her father, uncle, and grandparents.
"
Sure,
"
she said without looking up.
"
You can find out what charitable committees and events Camplin
'
s signed on to this year.
"

"
What
'
re we going to do? Go to some society affair disguised as waitresses?
"

"
No, we
'
re going to
be
waitresses,
"
said Meg calmly, looking up from the photo.
"
Everyone knows how hard up we are; and God knows we
'
re experienced at serving cheese and crackers. We
'
ll hire on as temps.
"

Allie gave her sister a skeptical look.
"
And then what? We trap him in the kitchen and hold a toothpick to his throat until he confesses?
"

Meg shrugged.
"
Who knows? But I
'
d like to catch him in his element. His guard will be down then.
"

Allie warmed to the idea.
"
If that
'
s true, maybe I should just get a job with the staff at his summer house. Maybe he
'
d suffer some kind of flashback episode when he saw me.
"

"
I doubt it. You
'
re not the one who looks like Grandmother. Here, take a look,
"
Meg said, handing her sister the magnifying glass.
"
Do I really look like her?
"

Allie zoomed the lens in and out on the small photograph.
"
Not
really.  Yeah
, maybe
...
especially the eyes, except your eyebrows are thinner. Your hair is lighter, but then, you
'
re outside every chance you get. I don
'
t suppose a nursemaid had that luxury. Look how small her waist is; smaller than mine, even.
"

"
Corsets,
"
said Meg instantly, feeling self-conscious that her waist was bigger than either.
"
I like this photo. Obviously the family
'
s dressed to go out. They look so normal. Look at that little peplum jacket with the fir collar she
'
s wearing, and that gored skirt of giant plaid
—
and look, the hat she
'
s holding is made of the same plaid.
"
Meg plucked at the shoulder of her own vee-necked T-shirt.
"
Margaret Mary Atwells was more of a clotheshorse than
I
'
ll
ever be.
"

"
We live in a more casual era,
"
said Allie generously, even though she herself liked to dress to the nines when the mood hit. She laughed and added,
"
Look at the grip she has on Dad
'
s shoulder. And we wonder why he
'
s so meek around women.
"

"
Don
'
t sell Dad short. Maybe she
'
s holding on to him so he doesn
'
t yank out the photographer
'
s tripod. Terry would.
"

The sisters exchanged one of their ironic looks.

"
Dad? I don
'
t
think
so,
"
Allie said, stealing a sip of her sister
'
s cold coffee. She held the lens over the photo again.
"
One thing that
'
s the same, although it
'
s hard to tell in a person that
'
s only an inch high
—
look at her smile. That
'
s just the way you smile when some guest with a baby comes through, or when you arrange flowers for the sitting room. When you like something a lot.
"

"
Really?
"
Meg took the magnifying lens and stared at the woman in plaid. It
was
a friendly smile, very natural, very appealing
—
but was it a smile to make a man besotted enough to kill?

Suddenly she didn
'
t relish being connected to the photo, even if by the shadow of a smile. She turned the fragile black paper in search of other photographs of her grandmother, but she knew, and Allie knew, t
hat there were none. The plaid-
skirt photo was dated September 1947, a month before the fire.

"
Okay,
"
Meg said, closing the album with a resolute sigh.
"
I
'
ll start with the historical society. Then the library. You start with the social calendar
"

"
Right now, today?
"
her sister asked eagerly.

"
You don
'
t have to run out the door,
"
Meg said, smiling.
"
Whenever you have time. There
'
s no huge rush.
"

"
But there
is,
"
Allie answered, surprised by her sister
'
s whenever-attitude.
"
Gordon Camplin could
die
if we
'
re not quick.
"

"
I don
'
t see why,
"
Meg said laconically.
"
I
'
ve seen him speed walking. He looks pretty damn fit.
"

Allie, hands on her hips, stared at Meg as if she
'
d just climbed down from a potato truck.
"
Don
'
t be dumb, Meg; fitness has
nothing
to do with it.
"

"
Oh. Right. What was I thinking. Obviously there
'
s no connection between fitness and long life.
"
Meg stuck her
Ben
ningt
on
mug in the microwave for sixty seconds of coffee warm-up.

"
That
'
s not what I mean,
"
Allie said impatiently.
"
What I
'
m trying to say is, if Gordon Camplin
is
guilty, he could very well be connect
ed on some psychic plane to Orel
Tremblay. With Mr. Tremblay dead, well
—
you know how sometimes an elderly husband will die within hours of his wife, or vice versa? It happens. All the time.
"

"
Because they
'
re
close,
"
Meg argued.
"
Gordon Camplin probably didn
'
t even know Orel Tremblay was alive.
"

"
Well, he knows Mr. Tremblay
'
s dead, or will know, as soon as he sees the obituaries.
"

"
Meaning what? We have to rush him off to the electric chair before he dies of natural
—
excuse me, supernatural
— causes? This isn
'
t about vengeance, Allie-cat,
"
Meg said quietly.

Allie snorted incredulously.
"
What else, then?
"

Meg gathered her golden-streaked hair and held it off her neck the way she did when she was working something through.
"
It
'
s about
...
I don
'
t know
...
it
'
s about doing the right thing.
"
She smiled self-consciously.
"
Doesn
'
t that sound corny? Don
'
t I sound old?
"

Allie, twelve full years younger than her sister, laughed and leaned across the work island with an affectionate look.
"
You
are
old. Nyah, nyah.
"

"
Yeah, brat? Then what
'
s
this,
"
Meg said, reaching to pluck a hair from her sister
'
s scalp. She dangled the strand between them like a contest prize: Long. Wavy. Gray.

Allie
'
s eyes widened in horror.
"
Oh,
no.
"
She grabbed the hair from her sister
'
s grasp.
"
This can
'
t
be.
I
'
m only twenty- five years old.
"
She stretched it between her fingers as if it were a kind of ruler, a fine-spun measure of her mortality.
"
Oh, no,
"
she whispered.