The Body in the Basement (31 page)

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Authors: Katherine Hall Page

BOOK: The Body in the Basement
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Earl was pretty tired, too. This was the second time he'd talked with the Athertons and the boy himself. Duncan's denial and alibi had left Earl in a dilemma. He'd been asking around. There were only a few other kids who had the same shoes, mostly summer people. Those things cost a fortune. But in light of Duncan's alibi, he'd have to track down every pair and owner. As alibis went, it was a pretty good one. Patrons who got up in the middle of the film, obscuring the sight of those behind them, did not go unnoticed or unremarked on Sanpere. The only possibility was that Duncan had bought a ticket from Wendell and then immediately went out by another door. Could he have been so furious at Samantha that he'd plotted the attack ahead of time, even providing himself with an alibi? Of course his friends would lie through their teeth for him. At the moment, Earl was trying to find others, less loyal, who might have seen him in the audience. The whole thing was complicated by the group's penchant for the same style and color of dress. He'd have to hope Duncan was the only one with the nifty hairdo.
The boy claimed that he had not even known Samantha and Arlene had been in his cabin. He seemed pretty upset about it. Until Jim told him to shut his mouth and keep it shut, Duncan had tried to turn the tables, inveighing against the two girls. “They're the ones you should get. Trespassing. B and E. That's private property!”
Earl didn't say anything about the knife the girls had taken away. The night before, he'd taken it to the police station in Blue Hill for the state police to pick up. He hadn't heard anything since.
After a further wearying hour, Earl sent Duncan home with Jim and Valerie to what he was sure would be house arrest. Duncan cast an odd look back at the sergeant and Earl had the distinct impression that Duncan would have favored the one
and only cell down the hall from the office-mostly used to store stationery supplies for the town hall.
Valerie had sat tight-lipped and grim throughout the ordeal. She seemed to have erected a wall between herself and the rest of the world. She was dressed in a simple blue-checked skirt and white blouse, no hat, no makeup. At one point, Duncan turned to her and said, “Why would I want to do anything to Samantha Miller? I don't even know her.” Valerie just shook her head in utter defeat.
Earl walked out with them to their car. “Thank you for coming in.”
“A rotten business,” Jim said, “a sorry mess. Samantha's one of the best sailing instructors we've ever had at Maine Sail.” He glared at Duncan.
An old pickup came roaring down the street—it needed a new muffler—and screeched to a halt next to them. John Eggleston, his hair a mess of disheveled fiery locks, leapt out and ran toward them.
“I just heard. Please, let's sit down and talk about what happened before anyone goes off the deep end.”
During the long wait the night before, Pix had filled Earl in on everything Samantha had told her and had also mentioned her conversation with John. And John had, in fact, been in touch with Earl, asking him to keep an eye on the old quarry. Earl had touched on some of this with Duncan and the Athertons.
“You've done enough harm here! All your little talks! We know about the kinds of ‘literature' you've been recommending and you may be hearing from my lawyer.” Jim had apparently already dived in.
John stood for a moment, openmouthed. “Too late,” he muttered, “too late.”
He stood with Earl, watching the family drive away.
“I was hoping they'd let the boy stay with me for a while until things cool down.”
“I doubt there's much hope of that. One way or another, Duncan Cowley is going off this island.”
 
It was almost dark when Pix woke up. She lay still for a moment. Sam had thrown a light blanket over her. The heat was finally breaking. She looked out the window at the familiar line of pines pointing to the boathouse and shore. The outcroppings of pink granite were faintly visible, or maybe it was because she knew they were there that she could see them. She could hear Sam and Samantha talking in her room down the hall. Pix felt warm and safe. She stood up and draped the blanket around her shoulders, trailing it like a queen's mantle as she went in to see her daughter and husband.
“Mom, Daddy's cheating!” Samantha laughed. They were playing Uno.
“That's nice,” said Pix. “What do you want for supper?”
 
Samantha was still in a good mood three days later, but was beginning to get restless. She had been showered with attention in both tangible and intangible forms. The campers had all made cards for her. Susannah and Geoff had created three gushing ones each. The Fairchilds had sent a basket of yellow roses, baby's breath, and daisies—not the kind the Millers gathered in big bunches from the meadow to weave into crowns or set about the house in a variety of containers, but perfect daisies with huge yolk yellow centers and every creamy white petal perfect. No tiny holes as evidence that some creature had rested there. Gert Prescott left two lemon meringue pies. Ursula brought a beautiful conch shell Samantha had long coveted.
Valerie dropped by to leave a tiny porcelain box with the words FORGET ME NOT surrounded by the flowers on the lid. She tried to say how sorry they were to Pix, but Pix, feeling very uncomfortable, cut her off, thanking her and adding,
“Samantha is fine, thank God, and maybe Duncan will get the help he needs now.”
That you all need, she finished silently.
Sam had stayed until Monday night and he and Pix had spent a great deal of time talking together and with Earl about what to do. In the end, with Samantha's approval, they decided not to press charges. It wasn't because of lack of evidence but, rather, because they felt that Duncan might only become more withdrawn and disturbed if caught up in the juvie system. Both Pix and Sam had been very moved by Samantha's description of what the boy kept in his trunk. Earl spoke to the Athertons and they were going to find an appropriate residential school with a summer program—not the military one—for their son as soon as possible. Depending on how he did and what those working with him said, they'd decide whether he would return home in the fall or stay.
Sam had left reluctantly, trying up to the last minute to get his wife and his daughter to go back with him, but neither woman wanted to budge.
“I'm not going to let her out of my sight,” Pix told her husband, “especially at night. Earl doesn't think she's in any danger. Duncan will be leaving soon, and we can't run away.”
Sam agreed intellectually, yet his gut told him otherwise. “I'll be back Friday night.” Pix wasn't going to argue with that.
 
Adelaide Bainbridge's funeral was Tuesday morning.
Pix and Samantha had driven out to The Pines to get Ursula. Rebecca had been picked up earlier by a contingent of Bainbridge cousins feeling pangs of familial obligation: “Poor old Becky.”
Samantha had had plenty of company since she'd returned home from the hospital Saturday morning, none more constant than her grandmother's. Pix knew her mother would be terribly shaken by what had happened and she was right.
Today, Ursula opened the door to Samantha, who was running up the steps, the only evidence of the attack and her slight concussion hidden by her hair. To all intents and purposes, she was fully recovered, but the pain in the older woman's eyes was fresh. Pix was struck anew by how much her mother seemed to have aged since Saturday. There were dark shadows and lines that Pix had never seen on Ursula's face before. When she spoke, it was not in her usual timbre. The volume had been turned down and the treble increased.
“Mother, are you sure you want to go?” Pix asked. “They'll be so many people at the service, no one will miss us.”
“Of course I want to go—and Rebecca would notice, for one. Besides, I couldn't miss Addie's funeral. I've known her for so many years.”
Pix thought her mother would say this and she resolved to get her away as soon as possible after the graveside service.
As they drove across the causeway back toward Sanpere Village, Pix again noted the happy vacationers on the beach and out in their boats, enjoying the typical Maine day. The heat spell had broken and normal July weather was back. There was a good stiff breeze on the water, turning up small whitecaps. The sun shone just enough for comfort and a few hardy souls were swimming.
“I'm glad it's not so hot today. The idea of sitting through the service wondering who was going to pass out, maybe even me, is distinctly unappealing.”
Samantha laughed. The idea of her mother passing out in any situation seemed pretty far-fetched—but then, she had been in no shape to judge on Friday night.
“Addie could never take the heat, even when she was thin.”
“
Addie was thin?”
In Pix's memory, Adelaide had always been a substantial woman.
“Oh yes, she was thin—and very pretty—when she was young. She could have had her pick of any number of the boys. My brother, Tom, used to talk about the beautiful light-housekeeper's
daughter. She'd come over for dances and such, but even then she tended to be outspoken. He thought she'd probably boss a man to death.”
It hit Pix that they were on their way to a funeral. So much had been going on that she'd been viewing the morning's activity as a kind of respite, especially since the medical examiner had ruled the death due to heart failure, plain and simple; nothing to do with quilts, crosses—or knives. Samantha had told her about the knife they'd found. She would have to ask Earl about it.
“Rebecca must have been mistaken about the quilt,” she said to her mother, who was sitting up straight in the seat next to her, holding her purse in gloved hands. “I hope it's not a sign that she's beginning to deteriorate.”
“I don't think Rebecca Bainbridge's going downhill any faster than the rest of us—but she may have made a mistake with the quilt.”
Pix looked over to exchange a smile with her mother about the downhill remark, but her mother's face was shut up tight.
 
The whole island was crowded into the simple white church that sat high on a hill facing out to Penobscot Bay where Addie had worshiped, off and on—mostly on, of late.
The Sanpere Stitchers all sat in one pew, immediately behind Rebecca and the rest of the family. Pix reached for Samantha's hand and gave it a squeeze. She had told her daughter she didn't need to come but had been happy when Samantha wanted to be there. Pix was still not ready to be separated from her, even for an hour or two. She looked around the church, flooded with sunshine from the clear long, glass windows that framed the bay above the plain altar and that on the sides offered a view of the woods on the left, the cemetery on the right. Soon Adelaide would join her husband, James, there. The stone with both their names had been in place for many years, merely waiting for this last date to be carved on its polished granite surface.
Pix looked down the row of faces in her pew: Nan Marshall; Gert, Dot, and Louella Prescott; Mabel Hamilton; Louise Frazier; Jill Merriwether; Serena Marshall; and others. These island women held the community together in so many ways, a root system like the evergreens and ground covers that kept the thin layer of earth on top of this inhabited rock from washing off into the sea. The women were all subdued but showed no outward signs of grief. It was Addie's time. And she had had a long life, not like some: Louella's grandson, lost diving for urchins; Mabel's daughter, killed in a car accident. Pix saw Jill bow her head suddenly. In silent prayer? What—or whom—was she thinking about? Ursula's head was unbowed and her face appeared swept clean of all expression, except to one who knew her as well as her daughter did. Something was troubling Mother. The slight lowering of her eyebrows, the barely perceptible tightening of her lips. Pix looked at her mother's lap. Her hands were clenched together, thumbs locked over each other. Not in prayer. She had been upset about the attack on Samantha and the death of her old friend, of course, but was there something else? Mother was remarkably good at keeping things from people. Pix resolved to find out what was bothering her, even if it took the rest of the summer.
She gave a surreptitious glance over her shoulder as they stood for a hymn. The church was indeed packed. Norman Osgood was in one of the rear pews, solemn-faced. Seth was also in the rear. He seemed perfectly at ease in his unaccustomed formal garb, a well-cut dark suit. Pix wondered why he wasn't up with the rest of the family. Had to get back to work quickly?
They sat down and the minister began his eulogy. Rebecca began to cry audibly. She was going home today, she'd told Ursula. She'd been able to go back ever since the final report from the state medical examiner's office, but at Ursula Rowe's urging, Rebecca had decided to stay at The Pines until after the funeral. Would she move to the front bedroom right
away? Pix wondered. Or would she stay in the small one in back until a decent period of mourning had passed? And what would the family do? Surely not turn her out immediately. Pix hoped the force of island opinion, mainly the formidable force of the Sewing Circle, would prevent that from happening.

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