ancient history

“I don’t want to see you at my door. I done told you that.”

“That was fifty years ago, Earl. I loved him, too. He’s dead, and we’re all but dead. It’s time to let bygones be bygones. Please let me in. I need your help.”

     She was still a pretty thing. Her silver curls set off those eyes, as green as the swells over the sandbar. The other old women had run to fat, but she was still as trim as the day he had found her with him. He didn’t let her in. But he stepped outside.

    “This murder,” he said.

    “This murder in our back yard. I want to know what you heard or saw.”

     He looked out across Great Salt Pond. “Those police come around. Mainly asking about you. They reckon our Chief of Police can’t be trusted to vouch for you.” His mouth twitched. “I told them you looked to be off Island. No lights on.

     “Did you see anybody near my place?”

     “No.”

    “Anything unusual?  Did you see or hear anything Wednesday? Wednesday night?”

     “Heard your damn dogs barking their heads off. Woke me out of a sound sleep. Not the first time, either! Dogs! Who needs ‘em!”

      “Now, Earl, I know perfectly well you feed my dogs. Tucker and Sister wouldn’t rush over to your place almost every day otherwise.”

      “Maybe a crust once in a while.”

      “When were they barking?”

      “Seemed like all night long. I didn’t look at the clock. Too tired. But I guess they started about midnight or so.”

       “You didn’t hear anything earlier?”

       “Seems like I didn’t hear nothing after the carpenters knocked off. Knocked off late, as I recollect. Practically dark.”

       “Hmm. Shingling?”

        “Damn nail guns.

   There was a boat yesterday. One of those cigarette boats. I was making my sandwich for my dinner when I saw it out the window.  Maybe eleven o’clock. Odd. Not many boats in New Harbor yet.”

     “What about earlier?”

     “Nothing. Never heard the boat come in. No more questions, old woman. Those kiddie cops already drove me crazy, and now I have you after me too.” He turned away and opened the door.

      “I’m sorry, Earl.” She spoke abruptly, and he turned and looked her in the eye for the first time in 50 years. “Not about what happened back then, but that you got mixed up in it. There’s a lot of water under that bridge. Islanders have to stick together now.”

     He went inside, and the screen door slapped shut.

island tour

“Take a busman’s holiday, Bobby. Let’s go on an island tour. I can’t abide being at the crime scene one more minute.”

     “OK, Merry. Hop in. We can talk as well in the car as anywhere.”

     “Better, because we don’t have to stare at each other.”

     He turned around next to the barn that held Meredith’s red ‘68 Mustang and her more recent model Jeep and headed down the dirt track, turning down the Neck towards the North Light. They cruised in silence. Old rock walls lined Corn Neck Road, spotted now with daffodils and forsythia. Spring comes late to Block Island. They passed very old houses like Merideth’s and new minimansions that had little in common with their forebears other than graying shingles. Some landscapers had tried to blend in, but the newly built rock walls didn’t look at all authentic.

    “A lot of houses for sale,” said Merideth finally.

    “The perils of prosperity,” said Bobby. “They don’t even live in them. They come out for a couple weeks and then put them on the market.”

    “And a lot of building, considering how much is for sale. There’s all that construction near me. I’m no early riser, and now I can’t sleep a wink after eight o clock.”

    “Not supposed to start til nine.”

    “I know, but they do anyway. Sounds like a bunch of machine guns going off!”

   “Maybe it was,” said Bobby.

   “Let me think,” said Merideth. “I was on the mainland. Anybody on the island could have told them that. Opportunity!”

    “Motive,” said Bobby.

    “I expect it’s the usual. Money. Sex. Fear.”

    Bobby lifted a finger from the steering wheel to wave at the oncoming pickup. The man waved back.

   “On Block Island, they know you even if you don’t know them. And you damn well better wave before Memorial Day and after Columbus Day,“ he said. “Used to be before July the Fourth and after Labor Day. Now with the longer tourist season, my index finger is getting sore.”

    “After tomorrow no one will wave to each other,” she said. “Are you still working at the Bakers’?”

    “No. I finished the job the other day. Wanted to be clear for season. They may even come out this weekend.”

     “Who knew you had finished?”

    “Well the Bakers did. I told them. But they’re off island.”

    “They have friends here. How about Greg? He’s had a crew on that new house next to the Bakers.”

     “I didn’t tell him I was done, but he can see for himself by looking across the field.”

     “Are you friends? Can you find out who and when his people were working yesterday and the day before?”

      “Sure. I can pretty well count on running into him at the post office around noon. Regular in his habits, Greg. As I’ve gotten to be, thanks to the ferry schedule. Does Joseph know where the killing was done?”

     “They must by now. They’ve been all over the place this morning. I’ll find out.”

      Bobby stopped the van next to Settler’s Rock. The names of the 1661 English settlers were engraved on a plaque. Merideth had relatives among them—probably more than she knew due to inbreeding on the island. They looked out over the surf. Gulls from the bird sanctuary wheeled around the North Light. Piles of balanced stones sprouted from the rocky shore, manmade stalagmites.

    “I hate those things,” said Merideth. “The rocks are more beautiful the way God placed them.”

     “And I like dirt driveways, not like that paving stone obscenity near your place. Do you know anything about those people?”

     “Never seen hide no hair of them. Place was finished a year ago. Workman come and go all the time, but I have no idea what they’re doing in there. I’ve heard that the folks have houses all over the world.”

    “Maybe they’ll show up now they have a security system.  I gave directions to the alarm guys who came over on the boat last week.”

     The road went no further. Bobby turned around and headed back up the Neck. “This would happen right before Memorial Day weekend.” He glanced at Merideth.   I’ll talk to Greg. You talk to Joseph. And somebody is going to have to talk to Young Earl.”

     “I guess that’s going to have to be me.” Merideth sighed.  “And somebody’s going to have to talk to Catherine Adams. And Malcom’s daughter, Kate.”

     “I guess that’s going to have to be me.”

clamming

Young Earl leaned on his clam rake and stared out across the almost unbroken expanse of Great Salt Pond. There was activity around the Block Island Boat Basin on the other side of the pond. The boats would start coming in this weekend, and by God he was going to get his clams for his chowder before they started flushing their sewage into the pond. He tugged at the straps of his hip boots and went back to work.

        “Let me see your license.” He startled up but relaxed when he saw the young woman, pants legs rolled up, wading towards him. “You’re lucky I’m not the shellfish warden,” she said.

      “You’re lucky I’m not. Or the cops, neither.” He made a show of sniffing the distinctive scent that clung to her. “Course the cops have other fish to fry today, what with a murder and all.”

    “It’s legal now, get with the times, old man. More legal than these clams.”

     “When did murder become legal?”

     “Don’t be disingenuous, Earl. Weed. But what do you hear about the murder?”

      “There was one. That’s all I know. Found the body on the Winfield property next door. Heard the sirens. And the chopper. Didn’t know what was going on.”

     “Have you talked to Merideth?”

      “That woman? We haven’t spoken for years.”  He bent over his rake. A “newcomer” of some 15 years, she hadn’t known. On this island you never knew when you were going to put your foot in it, she thought. The icy water lapped around her ankles. A gull cried.

      She lifted her foot out of the water and dropped a clam into his wire basket with her toes.  “Got one.”

      “Where’s your damn clam license? Just want a few more. Hold me through season. I freeze them for my chowder.”

      “Hard shell clams for chowder. What a waste! I just eat them raw with a little bit of lemon.”

       “At my age you can’t be too careful. Pain in the neck to shuck, too. Anyway, they’re what’s in my backyard. Soon enough it will be floating mobile homes and those damn skidoos. They make a helluva commotion.”

   “Mopeds of the sea. Yesterday when I came clamming, I heard a loud boat, like a cigarette boat. Must have shot away fast. Did you see it?”

     “One of those rich toy boats. Low. Mean looking. I saw it when I was fixing my dinner. Olive loaf sandwich, same as I have every day. She sure did cut out of here fast, whoever she was. Never heard her come in.”

     “Little early in the season for drug dealer boats,” she said. Her toes had located another clam. She scooped it up and dropped in his basket.

    “Tithing?” he asked.

    She chuckled. “Just because you have your own path doesn’t mean you own below the high tide line. But I do appreciate your letting me park in your yard. Need a hand getting these to the house?”

    “Nah. I may be old, but I’m not dead yet!”

peonies

Meredith opened her purse. It didn’t look like it usually did—everything was jumbled up—but her money and cards seemed to be there. Even a Kleenex with lipstick on it was there. Embarrassing. Thank God she was too old to have anything more embarrassing in there. She looked out the window to the sea. The boat was turning around to back into the slip. She looked at the peony bed, too. Points of red were just beginning to appear. Well, it wasn’t going to weed itself.  “If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right,” her father used to say.

      Lately she’d come to doubt that pearl of wisdom. Some things could be close enough with no need to get all OCD about it. You could get a lot more done.

     The wheelbarrow must have transported the body. It had her and Bobby’s prints on it as well, of course. Any idiot murderer these days knew enough to wear gloves. But transported from where? And why to her yard? She considered the neighboring properties. Those new people with the appalling driveway. The spec house Greg was putting up. The Bakers, where Bobby had been shingling. Young Earl.

    And she thought about the bygone grievances and island grudges and wondered who would be angry enough with her to do something like this.