Boar Island Read online

  Kneeling beside Heath, she called down, “Aunt Gwen? Is that you?”

  “The lift bell didn’t ring,” Heath breathed.

  Nothing but darkness rose from the tower rooms below.

  “Anybody there?” Heath called, since the sanctity of the silence had been broken.

  A creak? A tiny scrape of leather on wood? The hushed thump of a door closing? Nothing?

  “A trick of the wind,” Heath said firmly. “Light the lamp before we scare ourselves silly.”

  Before Elizabeth could find the matches, the radio blared, lights snapped on, and both women screamed.

  E had been right.

  Ghosts didn’t like being laughed at.

  THIRTEEN

  Statistically speaking, getting away with murder wasn’t all that hard to do. The key was to murder someone who had no connection with your life. A stranger. The thing was, nobody but a psychopath would do that. Denise found it ironic that you could only kill with impunity people whom you had no reason to kill. Cops—even rangers—tended to be rational individuals. They liked there to be a reason for a crime. If they scented a reason, a motive, they sniffed and dug and pestered until they had enough for an arrest.

  The drive-by shooters, freeway snipers, the people who put poison in Advil bottles at the drugstore—those with universal malice were almost impossible to catch. Even serial killers who kept on keeping on with their personal death marches were hard to get. Lots of evidence, lots of proof of crime, but no rhyme or reason behind it. At least not that a sane person could understand. When they did get caught it was because they wanted to. A younger, nicer, Denise had thought they wanted to get caught because they wanted to be stopped, felt a need to be punished. Now she guessed it was because they wanted credit for their work.

  Because she was in law enforcement, and because America was a nation in love with serial killers, Denise had read interviews with those who had finally been captured and prosecuted. Never, not once, did one of them give a satisfactory answer to why they did what they did. Son of Sam’s “The dog made me do it” was one of the clearer explanations.

  That was why Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train was such a brilliant concept. Had both men been true killers, they never would have gotten caught.

  Was she a true killer? Denise had never thought about it. She’d thought about killing: thought about killing Peter, Lily, and for a brief—very brief—time, she’d even thought about killing Olivia, to hurt them as she had been hurt, to take from Peter what he had taken from her.

  Thinking about killing was not the same as being a killer. Thinking was not doing. The Catholics were wrong; sinning in the heart didn’t count.

  As she sat in the hot airless dark of the nursery in the old shed, she went again through the plan she and her sister had come up with. Paulette would go to the old Acadian bar and stay there drinking from before Kurt’s boat came in until after his body was discovered. Tuesday night was bowling night for him and his buddies, bowling and getting sloppy drunk on beer. Either Kurt would get a ride to the bowling alley with a guy named Lou, who lived a couple of houses away in the tiny town, or Kurt would pick Lou up. The pattern seldom varied.

  That meant Kurt would come off the lobster boat about seven in the evening. He and his pals would hoist a few and eat burgers at a joint near the docks. Then home by nine thirty to shower, put on clean clothes, and be ready to fetch or be fetched by ten o’clock. Either way there was a half-hour window when he’d be home by himself.

  Then the body would be discovered.

  Lou would come to pick him up and find it, or Lou would come over to find out why Kurt hadn’t picked him up and find it.

  Paulette would stay in the Acadian, making sure the bartender noticed her, until eleven forty-five to be on the safe side. Then she’d come home and be surprised to find police cars all over the place. Not ranger cars—or maybe just a polite presence of green and gray in the background. The national park’s law enforcement didn’t have jurisdiction in Otter Creek. Who did have jurisdiction was complicated. On paper, the state of Maine and the national park (aka federal government) had concurrent jurisdiction. With Bar Harbor and other small-town police and fire departments figured in, it wasn’t as straightforward as it might seem. That, too, would help. For a while state and local law enforcement might not be sure who had to do what.

  It also helped that the chief ranger was out of the park. Artie was a joke. Gris was the real thing. Before he’d joined the Park Service he’d been a detective in D.C. Little Miss Bird Breath from out west would be gone in three weeks. She’d probably be only too happy to let the state do its job.

  Nearly five hours in the bar at the Acadian for Paulette to establish an unbreakable alibi so she would be free and could inherit Kurt’s property, thirty minutes for Denise to murder her brother-in-law.

  Having greater expertise in the area of violent crime, Denise had worked out the details. After choosing the day and time, she and Paulette hadn’t talked about it. Maybe identical twins didn’t need to verbalize as much as other people. Certainly Denise’s thoughts and her sister’s seemed to run down identical channels. The killing was necessary, Denise assured herself for the umpteenth time. One, Kurt would eventually beat Paulette to death, and two, he would track her down if he wasn’t dead, pursue them into their new lives for the sole purpose of ruining everything for his wife.

  After the dust from the killing settled and Paulette inherited, she’d sell the property; then she and Denise would leave. Law enforcement rangers could retire after twenty years of service, just like real cops. Denise could have retired six months ago. She only stayed on because she didn’t want to move her hatred from Peter’s field of vision. Being a thorn in his side, a shadow on his wall, a fly in his ointment, was better than having nothing. Hurting someone was something. You were there. Alive. Noticed. If she’d retired and quietly disappeared into the woodwork, what would have been left for her?

  Now that was all changed. There was Paulette. There was Kurt’s land to sell and, maybe, the “family legacy,” if they were the twins referred to in the ads Paulette had saved. They would finish with the park. They would have the money from the land and Denise’s pension.

  Money was important. Denise had never been rich, but she had been dirt poor, and intended never to be that helpless and hopeless again. Besides, they would need new things; the family would need things. They would move somewhere nobody knew them and they would be able to be out in the open, two sisters, a family.

  Unused to hope, Denise felt nervous entertaining the feathered thing. The picture was so pretty she wanted to stay in it, yet was afraid that would jinx it. The gods liked to snatch away hope. Accepting the risk, she allowed the movie to continue playing in her mind. They would both cut their hair short and style it the same way. Paulette could dye hers back to their natural brown—or Denise could go blond. Hard to picture that. Better brunette and short. Paulette’s hair was in bad shape from all the bleach jobs. A cut would be good for it.

  They wouldn’t dress alike, not in public—too corny. In private they might. Denise would order her sister a pair of pajamas identical to the ones she always wore. No. She would order new pajamas for the both of them. A new start. Together. They’d settle in a small town, maybe in the hills of North Carolina or Georgia. Someplace warm; they had already suffered enough winters in their lives. Eighty-two years of winters between them; nearly a century of cold. A house in an old neighborhood full of mature trees; a neighborhood where no one would know who they had been. What they had done. A small house, maybe three bedrooms, one for each of them and one for …

  Hoping.

  Damn.

  Denise knew better.

  The dream winked out with the suddenness of a match dunked in water.

  Pushing the tiny button on the side of her watch, she read the time by the faint green glow. Nine fifteen. Paulette would be nursing a beer at the Acadian by now. In half an hour she’d be sipping the next a
nd Denise would be murdering Kurt.

  Would she respect herself in the morning? Yes, Denise decided, she would. Being a victim shamed her. Taking charge, killing the man who beat her sister, so that she and Paulette might have a new life together almost made her proud. It did make her proud. It made her a hero.

  She rose from the rocking chair, then crossed the hand-hooked throw rug to open the shed door. With ancient trees blocking a quarter moon and stars, the dark of the woods was as complete as the darkness inside the windowless room. In black jeans, black running shoes, and a black T-shirt, Denise scarcely disturbed the void. Wearing all black was kind of theatrical but practical, and these days everybody wore black a lot. If someone were to see her, it wouldn’t be remarkable. Should Kurt see her, it wouldn’t ring any alarm bells in her brother-in-law’s booze-raddled head.

  Stretching, readying herself to be quick and calm and deadly, she listened to the sounds of the island. Mosquitoes whined; car engines hummed faintly on the road; there was a distant whispering that sounded like the ocean but probably wasn’t. A faint breeze in the treetops was more likely. With the quiet and the open door, she would be able to hear Kurt’s car pull onto the gravel in front of the house. She and Paulette had tried it. It wasn’t loud, but it was enough.

  As soon as she heard the car on the gravel, she would walk softly toward the house, using Kurt’s car and entry noises to cover what sounds she might make. The back porch light was already on. As long as she walked directly toward it there would be no obstacles. When she reached the back porch, she would stand with her back to the wall between the door into the kitchen and the window where the bathroom was. Though she would be in the light, the rear porch could not be seen by neighbors or from the road. After Kurt stepped into the shower, she would let herself in through the kitchen—the door was unlocked—slip through the bedroom, open the bathroom door, and shoot him. A shower scene, like in Psycho. Life mirrors art.

  She would leave the same way she’d come, returning to the nursery. There she would collect the flashlight. Using it, she would walk cross-country the quarter mile to Otter Cove. Her blue runabout was moored in the reeds, invisible in the dark. In the runabout, she would row out about a hundred yards, start the engine, drop the pistol over the side, and be back at the dock in Somes Sound before eleven. No one would be there at that hour, and if they were, she was known for going out alone at night in her boat. They wouldn’t give it a second thought.

  From there she would drive home. For good measure she would burn her gloves and clothes in her tiny fireplace. No muss, no fuss, no motive, and the prime suspect in full view at the Acadian Lounge. A job well done, Denise would pour herself a double vodka, no ice, and order two pairs of pajamas from Victoria’s Secret online. Not sleazy sexy ones; flannel would be better, cute and comfy.

  An engine purred in the dark, got louder; tires crunched on the gravel.

  Killing time, Denise thought.

  FOURTEEN

  Before she got under her own covers, Elizabeth helped Heath down the stairs to her bed. They had a system. Elizabeth sat with her back to Heath and one step below. She then folded Heath’s legs—which weighed less than one would think—across her lap. This way they could descend step by step on a three count. “One, two, three, push up with the arms and the butts bump down.”

  Goofy as it was, Heath knew Elizabeth enjoyed working out new strange ways of locomotion with her. She would, of course, die of shame if anybody but Anna or Aunt Gwen saw them doing it. As long as there were no witnesses, E had fun. So did Heath. It was like being little kids, crawling around and wriggling. Better than being a kid, because what Elizabeth did really mattered; it mattered because compassion mattered. Compassion and courage.

  As far as Heath was concerned, cowards were more dangerous than evil people. An evil person did an evil thing to get his evil way. It was focused, rational. If you didn’t have what the bad guy wanted, you were safe.

  Cowards were like broken safety rails or frayed climbing ropes. You counted on them, and one day, they gave way and down you went.

  When she was a child of nine, Elizabeth had been slated to be married off to Father Dwayne Sheppard because E’s mother was a coward. What happened to the biological father was a bit vague. Heath guessed the responsibility of a family scared him. He took off when E was an infant. At any rate, Elizabeth had no memory of him. Rather than to make it on her own, E’s mom became Sheppard’s fifth wife.

  Though she’d been nine when she’d last seen her mother, E said she didn’t remember her clearly. Heath did. Hard to forget a woman who had abandoned her child twice, once to Sheppard’s demands and, finally, to Heath.

  Even the all-powerful Prophet Sheppard had a yellow streak down his back. Why else work so hard to dominate weak people and children?

  Cowards were dangerous.

  Elizabeth was one of the bravest people Heath had ever known. Until this. This onslaught of threats and secrets and lies, and something E wasn’t telling her or Gwen or Anna, was disabling her.

  Heath knew herself to be a coward. Being disabled scared her. Being a mom terrified her. That she couldn’t keep E safe made her blood run cold. As far as she was concerned her only saving grace was that she’d learned to hide what a big fat scaredy-cat she was. According to Aunt Gwen, that was courage, to be afraid and not let it stop you from doing what was right.

  After what had happened to Elizabeth and the other girls when she was nine—what they had done, what had been done to them—it didn’t surprise Heath that E’s courage had holes in it. Being frightened was like getting a soft-tissue injury. Once, and you recovered. If injured again in the same place, it could cripple you. This web of mystery and unknown horrors was the third strike at the core of who Elizabeth was, how she fundamentally viewed herself.

  The razor and the bath had been a call for help. It had also been an indicator of how deeply E had suffered—was suffering.

  Elizabeth never spoke of the bad old days, not unless she talked about it with her therapist. As far as Heath knew, she’d never spoken to the other two victims about their experience, never contacted anyone from the old compound, never reached out to her mother, never even asked what became of them when the compound was shut down and the families scattered.

  Once she’d admitted that sometimes she missed the compound. There were always lots of kids around. They played simple games like tag and Mother-may-I. All the girls played with dolls, handmade of rags and buttons. A lot of the dolls were pretty. The sister-wives took pride in their sewing. As an adult Heath understood that the simplicity and safety Father Sheppard promised were false, but to a little girl, they would have felt real.

  For a little kid, it would all have been real: Sheppard’s brand of religion, angels, plural wives, demons, pedophilia, ghosts.

  For a long time after she’d moved in with Heath, E was afraid to sleep alone in her room at night for fear demons would get inside of her. Mormons—real Mormons—weren’t big on ghosts or demons. Mormons were a practical people. Heath and Aunt Gwen explained over and over that Sheppard invented the evil spirits to use as another tool of control. Mostly she believed them.

  Most wasn’t all.

  Then there were those damn ethereal footsteps. Given the situation, even Heath’s skin had gone prickly and cold. Heath guessed that E, who still slept with every part of her under the covers because exposed bits were irresistible to monsters living beneath beds, had been more freaked out than she’d let on.

  Elizabeth was hiding her emotions. Heath suspected it was a result of too much unconditional love. Gwen and Heath loved E way too much. Even Anna showed glimmers of it. None of them could hide the fact that they were bleeding to death behind their eyes, could diguise the great howling need to do something. If Elizabeth had said, “Hey, if you guys chop your hands off, I’ll feel better,” Heath would be rolling up her sleeves while Gwen ran for the surgical saw.

  That kind of love had to be a burden. Like having a Dodge Ra
m parked on one’s shoulders. Dealing with that, and the fact that she was being called a whore—with the pictures to prove it—to everybody she knew, and about a zillion people she didn’t, that her social life was deader than roadkill, that there was no way she could go back to school in the fall without wearing a paper bag over her head so nobody would recognize her, and that some creep might actually be slithering out of his hole to lay his creepy hands on her to …

  Take her, Heath thought suddenly. For a minute she thought she would vomit. Grabbing the bar over her bed, she dragged herself into a sitting position.

  Take her.

  The psycho who had taken her and the other little girls so long ago was dead, Heath reassured herself. Not imprisoned, not appealing his death sentence, not getting out for good behavior: dead. Good and dead.

  Copycat.

  She was definitely going to vomit.

  Was E’s stalker planning to re-create the Rocky Mountain horror?

  Heath knew lightning did strike twice in the same place.

  “Don’t go there,” Heath said out loud, but not so loudly E might hear and come down. “Not at night when there are ghosts whisking around.” “There” was a place to be avoided. “There” was supposed to be where the bad things were. Tonight, “there” was here.

  “Wily,” she whispered. He was already awake and watching her, his eyebrows cocked. “Come up on the bed.”

  FIFTEEN

  Using the noise of Kurt’s tires crunching on gravel for cover, Denise moved through the dark as fast as she dared, heading toward the porch light. She cursed herself for not having gotten closer earlier. There were plenty of woods, plenty of darkness. It would have been safe enough to have halved the distance. More than that; she should have lain under the back porch or squatted behind the trash cans at the side of the house.