Boar Island Read online

“Maybe she just isn’t very bright,” Heath offered.

  “She also showed chorea. Involuntary movement in her hands.” Gwen flicked her wrist.

  Suddenly, what had niggled in Anna’s brain snapped into place: bleached blonde, overlapping front teeth, cigarettes being flipped out on the ground.

  “Paulette Duffy?” she asked.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Once again Anna was sitting at Peter Barnes’s kitchen table. As superintendent, he could keep a nine-to-five, Monday-through-Friday schedule if he wanted. Since the baby had been born, he did. Lily was watching television in the front room; Olivia, in a soft pink Onesie, was curled up on the couch beside her, making tiny grunting sounds like a piglet.

  Anna set her teacup down and gazed past Peter at the charming picture on the couch. Mother and daughter, happy, safe, beautiful. Would that it would always be so.

  “Elizabeth’s cyberstalker has sent an ultimatum,” she said more abruptly than she’d intended. “E’s supposed to show up alone, in person, at a time and place to be determined. Or else.”

  “Preying on children! God, but it makes my stomach turn! Throw in sexual perversion and I’m ready to change my stance on the death penalty,” Peter said. He didn’t glance at his baby girl, but Anna noticed his head jerk as if he’d been going to and stopped himself. Attitudes changed when one had skin in the game. Taking a hit while fighting for the principle of a thing was fine, but when the good fight began to cause collateral damage to innocents, how to be a hero became more complex.

  “Heath would be too conspicuous in her wheelchair, and logically, the stalker is someone who knows Elizabeth; ergo, he might know Heath or me or even Gwen. I was hoping to borrow an unknown face so it won’t be only me and Gwen. Though smart and fierce, Gwen is small and somewhere north of seventy-five.”

  “There’s always the Bar Harbor police, the Maine State Troopers, the sheriff’s department,” Peter said drily. “All perfectly legitimate and, from what I’ve experienced, competent options. Not as reassuring as an elderly pediatrician, I’m sure, but they do their best.”

  “I have great respect for small-town police and sheriff’s departments,” Anna said. “They see a little of everything and have to deal with it by themselves. They tend to be generalists, the way rangers were in the good old days, before we carried guns. It’s the time-frame and subject matter that make me want to keep it personal.”

  “How so?” Peter asked.

  “With cyberbullying, police don’t yet know what to do, where they stand, what the procedure is; nobody really does. The police back home more or less blew Elizabeth off. Not out of malice, more out of this-isn’t-my-jurisdiction.

  “The or-else meeting is tomorrow. That’s not much time to coordinate with officers who may not deal well with a girl from Boulder, Colorado, hiding out in Maine, who says she’s meeting a stalker who posts dirty things about her on the Internet. I doubt we’d get things sorted out in less than the twenty-odd hours we’ve got.”

  “Put the guy off. Tell him you’ll meet day after tomorrow, or next week,” Peter suggested. “That might give you time to get things set up with local law enforcement.”

  “It might. It also might scare him back into the cyber woods. Then E will have to live not knowing when the bastard is going to pop out again.”

  “I wouldn’t wish that on anybody, especially not a teenaged girl,” Peter said.

  “Marriage and fatherhood have made you downright sensitive,” Anna joked.

  “Estrogen seems to have a civilizing effect on me,” he admitted. “I can’t give you anybody. I shouldn’t have let you and Denise go on NPS time. Bad judgment on my part, and let’s hope it stays our little secret, at least until I’m retired. What I can do is give Artie the day off—you’re on sick leave—and if you and Artie choose to spend the day hanging out with septuagenarian aunts and underage girls, that’s your business.”

  Anna’s eyes were blurring. Drug residue. She blinked rapidly to clear them.

  “You look like shit,” Peter told her kindly. “You should have let me come out to Boar.”

  “I had cabin fever,” Anna said. Talking hurt—her upper lip was bruised—but nothing like the pain in her left heel or her butt. Gwen had bandaged her various scrapes. Anna felt like she was wearing diapers under her jeans. “I needed to get off the island. I’ll be back in Schoodic tonight.”

  “Hoping for another attack?” Peter asked. He took a sip of hot tea, raising his eyebrows over the rim of the cup at her.

  “No. I’m dead, don’t forget,” she said.

  “Right. How’s that supposed to work for us?” he asked.

  Anna rubbed her face. “I must admit I wasn’t thinking too clearly when I wanted to stay dead. I had a sort of half-baked notion that I could appear like the ghost of Hamlet’s father, and the guilty parties would fall down and confess, or at least look much amazed. Trouble is, this ghost doesn’t know to whom it would be profitable to appear. Now I think I’d like to stay dead until we get this business with the stalker over with. If I’m dead, nobody will be taking potshots at me.”

  “Artie and I made a quiet visit to Schoodic today and had a look around,” Peter said. “We found a broken needle—the kind that fits in a plastic syringe—in front of the Rockefeller building. It’s been bagged and will be tested.”

  “Gwen went through the Mount Desert lab,” Anna told him. “Rohypnol and muscle relaxants were in my blood.”

  “Good to have friends in high places,” Peter said. Being superintendent of a major national park couldn’t get evidence tested in a four-hour time frame: lack of funds and facilities, the need to stand in line behind other law enforcement organization at shared labs. “We found your other boot,” he went on. “Once it’s been through the system, you can have it back. It was about halfway between the Rockefeller building and Schoodic Point. Schoodic was probably where the boat was beached. Nothing interesting in your apartment or on the stairs.”

  “No CSI Acadia?” Anna asked with a smile. “No tiny thread or droplet to lead us to the bad guys?”

  “Sorry,” Peter said. “Have you remembered anything new?”

  “I don’t know,” Anna said honestly. “The Rohypnol has an amnesiac built in. It’s not total, but everything is stretched and warped, like the memory of a dream. Walter said there were two people in the boat, and I sort of remember two people in my apartment—or the parking lot or somewhere. I haven’t any idea whether I really remember two or, because I was told there were two, I think I remember. Most of the day I’ve been poking at my poor raddled brain. I think I might think the two were small. I think I might think they were dressed like ninjas, all in black. I think I might think they wore white gloves like Mickey Mouse. I don’t trust my own memories. Before I can believe myself I need corroboration from people that weren’t stoned out of their minds.”

  “We talked to the sculptors,” Peter said. “Nobody saw anything or heard anything. We talked to your boyfriend—Walter Whitman—”

  “Don’t speak ill of my savior,” Anna said. She sipped her tea. Earl Grey. Right up there with tomato soup for curing what ails.

  “Seems like a good kid. A little monomaniacal about clearing his dad’s name, but I can understand that.”

  “Good thing he is, or I’d be sleeping with the fishes,” Anna said.

  “He gave us a statement about the boat that dumped you, and precisely when and where that dumping occurred. We put out an APB to the Coast Guard and local marinas. Today I’d hoped to get a diver down where you went in. Something might have fallen from the bag you were in, or their boat. Problem is, Denise Castle, the ranger who drove you around, is our only certified diver, and she just retired.”

  “She went through with it?” Anna was surprised at that. Denise didn’t strike her as a woman who had anyplace else to go. It wasn’t anything the woman had said or done, it was the starkness of her apartment: nothing personal, no pictures with people in them, family, friends, or even co
-workers. Just that one bedside photo from which Peter Barnes had been amputated.

  “She did. I think she was as shocked as everybody else.”

  “Struck me that way, too. She’d not talked about it before?” Anna asked.

  Peter looked into the other room, where his wife and child nestled in the flickering light from the television. “Why do you ask?”

  “Not sure,” Anna said.

  Peter sighed and rubbed his jaw like a bad actor trying to indicate he’s thinking. “Yes and no,” he said finally. “She seemed to be happy here, but—you know Denise and I lived together for eleven years?”

  “I remember, vaguely,” Anna said.

  “After the first shit was done hitting the fan, Denise seemed okay. Then Lily came and the baby. Denise seemed fine with that, seemed totally over the split. She brought Olivia a really beautiful coming-home gift—an angel figurine from Lenox, not cheap—and has been nice to Lily. I happen to know Denise has no family and no real friends, so on the one hand, I was surprised she just up and retired without any notice. On the other hand, there have been a few times I’ve caught her looking at Lily or me, or seen her face go kind of odd when somebody mentions our house, that makes me think she might not be as much over the split as she acts. So I wasn’t surprised she up and retired. Does that make sense?”

  “Why now?” Anna asked. The timing of an incident could tell one a great deal. That was the moment when something changed. “After hanging on through the split, the marriage to Lily, the birth of Olivia, why did Denise choose now to retire?”

  “Who knows,” Peter said wearily. “I haven’t a clue as to why Denise does anything. We got Walter Whitman squared away with the local police,” he said, changing the subject. “There wasn’t an arrest warrant out for him. Town police try and stay out of lobster wars. If there’s any danger to Walt, it’ll come from other lobstermen. John Whitman thinks blood has cooled enough the kid could come out of hiding, but that won’t get him his line back. Without fishing rights, he hasn’t got a future. At least not around here. I told him to talk with Gwen. If he’s going to be squatting on Boar to do his spying, it should be with the owner’s permission.”

  “The owner is dead,” Anna said. “Chris Zuckerberg bought the farm this afternoon.”

  Peter sat back in his chair. Inwardly, Anna flinched. Wrapped up in her own troubles, she’d forgotten that Peter probably knew Ms. Zuckerberg. Not only was Acadia a small world during the winters, and people got to know one another, but any self-respecting superintendent would want to have some kind of relationship with his rich, private-land-owning neighbors.

  “Sorry,” Anna murmured as she hid her nose in her teacup. “Did you know Chris had kids?”

  “I didn’t,” Peter said.

  “Twins, girls, adopted out at birth. Chris was trying to find them when she died. Actually had found one—or thought she had. Paulette Duffy.”

  “Mrs. Kurt Duffy?” Peter asked.

  “That’s the one,” Anna said. “Odd, isn’t it, how one day you’ve never heard of Paulette Duffy, then she’s popping up everywhere?”

  “Not so odd. Every time I learn a word I’ve never heard before, guaranteed I’ll hear it three times before the week is out.”

  “There was a legacy, enough to make murdering a husband worthwhile if one didn’t wish to share. Though, from what I hear, most women would have murdered Kurt Duffy for free,” Anna said.

  “Iron-clad alibi,” Peter said. “Half a dozen acquaintances and strangers can attest that she was in the Acadian at the time of the murder.”

  “But if Paulette is Chris Zuckerberg’s long-lost child, she has an identical twin sister,” Anna said.

  Peter digested that for a minute. “Damn,” he said finally. “So mysterious twin sits at the Acadian while Paulette kills her husband?”

  “Maybe,” Anna said. “Or maybe the other way around. Or maybe they’re both innocent.”

  “Speaking of innocents.”

  Lily was standing in the kitchen door, Olivia in her arms. “It’s Livvy’s bedtime.”

  Peter leapt up like a terrier offered a treat. “Come on,” he said to Anna. “You can be an aunt.”

  Because they clearly thought she would like nothing better than to watch them tucking their baby into its bed for the night, Anna obligingly rose and followed the familial parade up the stairs.

  As she would have expected, the nursery was a froth of girly pink, but well done and spotlessly clean. An old-fashioned white antiqued-wood dressing table, with a large looking glass in a matching frame, mirrored the bassinette with its rows of white lace, a mobile of pink and blue and yellow ducklings hanging from the hood.

  Peter and Lily cooed and prattled. Anna looked at the guardian angel. It was a lovely thing, not the usual flowing skirts and tiny feet, but a bell-shaped dress with many colors and sturdy handsome wings. On its arm was a basket of flowers.

  Anna picked it up.

  “Denise gave Livvy that,” Lily said. “Wasn’t that sweet of her?”

  Anna turned it over.

  “Sweet,” she said, but either it wasn’t a Lenox or it had been broken and repaired. The bottom was patched with plaster of paris.

  FORTY

  It was late when Denise finally staggered into the foyer of her apartment building. Her mailbox was empty. She’d half expected a note from Paulette reporting on her latest betrayal.

  There was nothing. Good, she guessed. Maybe.

  Using the handrail as if she were a woman twice her age, Denise dragged herself up the stairs to her apartment, fumbled the key into the lock, and nearly fell into the front room.

  This had been one of the longest days of her life, and it had come at the end of one of the longest nights. Exhaustion swelled like a balloon in her chest. Her head throbbed. Her hands jumped with nerves. Exhausted, but not sleepy, not the least little bit. High-pitched, sharp-edged nervous energy sang through her veins, sawed through her bones, and squirted acid into her belly until her throat burned nearly to her back teeth.

  The Miata, her pathetic attempt at joie de vivre after Peter had summarily tossed her out, was gone. She wouldn’t miss it. In its place, paid for in cash—it took as long to pay the idiot salesman in cash as it would have to get a loan and buy it on time—was a midsized Volvo XC90. Safe. That was what she wanted in a car now, safe and family-friendly. The car had cost a good chunk of her savings, but there was no choice. A family couldn’t drive around in an accident waiting to happen.

  For color, she’d chosen white. There were a zillion white sort-of SUVs with mommies and kiddies in them on every road in America. The Volvo would blend in.

  Dropping keys and purse onto the coffee table, Denise let gravity suck her butt down onto the sofa. Her apartment. Sterile and neat and utterly hers. Nothing where it shouldn’t be. Everything where it should. This was gone, too. Or as good as. She’d turned in her two-week notice to the landlord. In winter, she would have been stuck with six weeks’ rent money. In summer, apartments were at a premium, so she’d only had to flush two weeks’ worth of rent down the rat hole.

  Rat.

  Paulette.

  “No, no, no,” Denise muttered, banging her head against the soft back of the couch with each word.

  Denise had quit her job, bought the most expensive car she’d probably ever own, given up her apartment, and killed two people, for Paulette. Not to mention the hundreds of dollars she’d dumped at Walmart that afternoon. All the while she was hacking off chunks of her life so that their new life together might have a chance at success, Paulette was betraying her.

  It was because of the Walmart shopping spree that Denise knew this. Thinking it would look odd for a retired ranger, who had given two weeks’ notice to her landlord and was supposed to be moving out, to be carting armloads of goods upstairs to her apartment, Denise had taken the risk of driving the lot of it to Paulette’s house in broad daylight. In a new Volvo, she figured if any rangers saw her, they’d never thi
nk it was her. Fancy Volvos and GS-9s didn’t exactly go together.

  Paulette hadn’t been home. At first, Denise was relieved. This wasn’t the time to be arguing about what she’d bought and why and where it should be kept.

  Denise had driven behind the house to unload her purchases into the nursery. Paulette wasn’t in the nursery. Where was Paulette if she wasn’t at work and she wasn’t at home?

  Denise trotted through the trees to the house. Forcing the kitchen door didn’t take much brute strength. A firm shove of her shoulder overwhelmed Paulette’s flimsy attempt at security. Since they were family, Denise didn’t consider it breaking and entering, more like she’d forgotten her key. Paulette should have been home. Denise needed to reassure herself that nothing had happened to her sister; that she hadn’t panicked or gotten sick.

  Denise needed to know where Paulette was.

  The old ads for twins separated at birth, along with the postcard with the cell number on it, were on the kitchen table amid the coffee rings. That was all Denise had to see. She knew what Paulette had done. She’d called the person to ask about the legacy. While Denise was buying and selling and giving notice, Paulette was meeting with their mother, or some lawyer or con woman. Undoubtedly Paulette was drinking up whatever bullshit this individual was pouring out. Undoubtedly Paulette was babbling out their secrets with girlish gusto, hoping for a big fat legacy or, worse, the loving arms of the bitch that had whelped them.

  Denise groaned. Sitting forward, she held her head between her hands, pushing hard on her temples with her palms. Her disposable cell phone had fallen from her bag and lay on the coffee table. She could call Paulette, let her know this shit wasn’t going to fly.

  A hand detached itself from Denise’s head, floating into her field of vision. Not like it was her hand reaching for her phone, more like it was a detached hand, like a balloon-hand in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, floating on wires high above the crowd, then settling down toward the tiny phone on the table.

  Denise reached out with her other hand, caught the one floating, and shoved both of them between her knees. “Poison thoughts,” Denise whispered. “If you think poison thoughts you’ll die.”