Boar Island Page 5

  Paulette led her to the pathetic couch, where they sat side by side, knees almost touching. Paulette began to talk of the little girl she’d been. The joy she’d found in the tide pools, each a tiny universe of beings so incredible it was hard to believe they were real and alive.

  Denise had felt the same.

  Paulette spoke of a puppy she’d had in fourth grade. Rex, she’d called him. Rex was a mixed breed with dark mottled fur and a depth of intelligence in his canny brown eyes.

  Denise, who hadn’t been allowed pets—or much else in the way of comfort—had found solace in a stuffed dog, his fur mottled beige and brown. She’d named him Rex.

  Paulette remembered winning the fifty- and hundred-yard dash in track meets all through grade school.

  Speed was one of Denise’s strengths. Every morning until the snow got too deep, she ran five miles before breakfast. In a strange intoxicating way, Paulette was telling the story of Denise’s life, not factually, of course, but perhaps the life another Denise Castle had lived in a parallel universe. Which, in a way, was the case.

  At some point they moved to the kitchen, and Paulette made tea—not coffee, tea; not fancy, Lipton. Both women drank it unsweetened with a dash of lemon juice.

  Seamlessly the conversation shifted to Denise, and she found herself telling not of the wretchedness of her bouncing around the foster system but of a pair of sunglasses, the lenses shaped like hearts, the plastic frames canary yellow, that she’d had in the second grade, her prize possession, then basking in the warmth of Paulette’s throaty laugh of understanding.

  Paulette’s had been shaped like the eyes of a cat, the frames fire-engine red.

  Paulette had grown up on Isle au Haut, the only child of a lobsterman and his wife. Her mother “did” for the summer people who kept houses there. Much of Isle au Haut was part of Acadia National Park, the southernmost patch in the patchwork quilt of federal lands.

  In her work as a ranger, Denise had been by the tiny one-room school where the island kids went dozens of times. She’d been by Paulette’s house. There had to have been times she had missed Paulette by hours, or even minutes.

  At sixteen Paulette married Kurt Duffy, the son of a lobsterman who ran lines out of Frenchman Bay, and moved to the mainland, then to a tiny house on Otter Creek Road—a thin slice of public land cutting through the main bulk of the park on Mount Desert.

  At sixteen Denise had planned to elope with a boy named Chuck Miles. He had been killed when a logging truck hit his Honda as he was coming to pick her up.

  Paulette worked at Mount Desert Hospital.

  Emergency medical work was Denise’s favorite thing about being a ranger.

  Paulette worked mostly nights. She loved the night.

  Denise loved the night; she volunteered for the latest shifts.

  Twice Paulette had gotten pregnant, and twice Kurt Duffy had beaten her so bad she lost the baby. After the second time she could never get pregnant again; there were complications.

  Denise had gotten pregnant with Peter’s child. He’d slaughtered it. Slaughtered all her children.

  Kurt told Paulette that if she ever left him he would track her down and kill her.

  Peter had made a family that Denise was not part of. A family with a baby.

  Sometime after midnight they found themselves in the cramped bedroom Paulette shared with her husband when he chose to come home. Shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, they sat on the edge of the queen-sized bed and stared at their reflections in the wide mirror over what had once been a fine dressing table. Denise’s dark hair was pulled back from her face into a low-maintenance ponytail at the nape of her neck.

  Paulette pulled her desiccated blond mop back and secured it with a scrunchie. Then they stared. Smoking had roughened the skin around Paulette’s mouth, and the blow to her face had discolored the flesh around her left eye. Other than this, they were the same. The ears were identical; their noses were the same, a little long with a squared tip and thin nostrils. Their eyes were the same shade of blue. Each had a brown fleck in the iris of her left eye, dead center below the pupil. Paulette’s eyebrows had been plucked, but the arch and the long winged taper matched Denise’s.

  “I always felt you out there,” Paulette said, her voice soft with wonder. “When I was little, you were my playmate. Mom said you were my imaginary playmate. I knew better.”

  Denise said nothing. She was afraid if she spoke she would cry or, worse, the woman beside her would vanish.

  “Did you sense that I was here?” Paulette asked timidly.

  Denise shook her head, fascinated at watching her sister’s—her identical twin sister’s—lips move on precisely the same mouth as her own. “I felt you as not here.” Denise tapped her chest over her heart. “Like I wasn’t all here. I felt part of me had gone missing. I thought maybe the doctors had accidentally cut off some part of me when I was born. It confused me because I couldn’t see any part the other kids had that I didn’t. No extra toes or arms or anything. When I got a little older, maybe eight or nine, I lived with a fairly decent family that attended a Presbyterian church. For the eight months I was with them, I went to Sunday school every week along with their kids. The teacher taught us that people had souls. After that, I assumed that I had accidentally been born without a soul. That that was the part that was missing.

  “After that I put it out of my mind.”

  For another few minutes they sat in silence marveling at the faces in the mirror. Denise realized she must have known from the beginning that the battered blonde on the barstool was the part of her that had gone missing.

  She had recovered her lost soul.

  SEVEN

  The specter of Sam Edleson filled the room with the stench of sulfur. Heath caught herself grinding her teeth and made herself stop.

  “I’m going to make a few calls,” Anna said, and slipped from the room as soft-footed as the apocryphal Indian.

  Elizabeth excused herself to go to the bathroom.

  Heath and Gwen waited in terror, neither saying anything, both afraid Elizabeth had gone to harm herself, both afraid they would never again feel safe when the girl was out of their sight.

  “Should I go check on her?” Heath asked.

  “No,” Gwen said. Then, after a minute, “Do you think I should?”

  “No.”

  Gwen began feverishly tidying the room. Heath pored over her daughter’s cell phone, rereading the sordid texts, wanting to delete them but knowing she shouldn’t. They were evidence. Elizabeth was adamant; she didn’t want the police involved. Elizabeth was also sixteen. Heath wasn’t sure police could do anything about the cyberattacks anyway. To ease the pressure, she finally allowed herself to delete one message. It was from herself to Elizabeth reminding her to put the wash in the dryer.

  After what seemed a cruelly long time, Elizabeth returned. Relief flooded Heath when she saw she’d washed her face and combed her hair, signs of hope.

  Then the three of them waited, Heath spinning her mental wheels. Gwen, having straightened every cushion, and aligned every book and magazine, sat on the sofa watching her great-niece with such intensity Elizabeth finally pelted her with a pillow.

  Irritation, another sign the girl was beginning to engage in the world outside her misery.

  Anna returned. “Edleson left his job in Idaho for making improper advances to a seventeen-year-old high school intern. In Idaho it’s only a felony if the girl is sixteen or under. Nobody wanted to press charges, for all the usual reasons. The company didn’t want to fire Edleson because of the adverse publicity and/or unemployment compensation. He was told to quit, and did. Shortly thereafter the family moved to Boulder.” Having delivered the message in as few words as possible, Anna waited, her weight on the balls of her feet. Heath guessed she was hoping to be shot toward Sam Edleson as an arrow is shot from a bow.

  “You called the cops!” Elizabeth cried.

  “I did,” Anna said. “The Coeur d’Alene, Idaho,
police. They have no jurisdiction over you.”

  Reassured, Elizabeth’s attention jumped to the next awful conclusion. “He’s done it before?” she demanded, sounding shocked.

  “Probably more than once,” Anna said. “That’s how these guys are.”

  “Then why were they yelling at me?” The indignation in her voice went far to soothe Heath. Because she was female, it was inevitable Elizabeth would be thinking she had done something wrong, brought this upon herself.

  “Elizabeth, would you get my boots, please?” Heath asked.

  “Which boots?” Elizabeth asked warily. “Your old climbing boots?” This last was asked with a small note of hope.

  “Nope,” replied Heath, dashing it. “The turquoise and silver.” Elizabeth groaned. Almost said something, thought better of it, and levered herself up off the sofa cushions to vanish down the hall.

  “What’s with that?” Anna asked.

  “Now we’re going to pay that nice neighborly call,” Heath said. Her voice came out flat and dark. Even if his wife and daughter lied to themselves and the world about Sam, Heath wanted him to know in no uncertain terms that she knew what he had done.

  “No time like the present,” Anna said.

  “Good cop, bad cop?” Heath asked. She felt silly saying it, but it worked on television, and was the only plan that came to mind.

  “Only if I can be the bad cop,” Anna said without a trace of humor. “Are you going to wear your carapace?”

  Heath thought she detected a note of excitement in Anna’s voice. The electronic exoskeleton fascinated the ranger. Leah, whom Anna had gotten to know on their ill-fated trip down the Fox River, had strapped Anna into the prototype. Though she’d fought the machine as if it were trying to take over her body, she’d come to respect and admire it. Whenever Heath used it, Anna would whistle through her teeth or shake her head and mutter, “I’ll be damned.”

  “Not tonight,” Heath said. “I’ve used up my quota of energy on that scale. Robo-butt will have to do the heavy lifting.”

  “Let me get my—” Gwen began.

  Heath cut her off. It was best not to let the juggernaut pick up any speed. Gwen lacked self-control around people who harmed children. Though Heath wanted to rend the Edlesons limb from limb, burn their house down, and sow the land with salt so nothing would grow there for a thousand years, she suspected she would gather a lot more workable leverage and information by using subtle threats and blackmail.

  “I don’t think this is a good time to leave Elizabeth home alone,” Heath said.

  “Of course not,” Gwen agreed immediately. “I’ll make a fresh pot of tea.” She smiled wearily. “It’s good to have something to hate that can easily be dumped down the drain.”

  As if he understood every word that passed, Wily heaved himself to his paws with a sigh and made ready to follow them. “Protect the children and old people,” Heath said fondly as she rubbed his head. There was a time she would have taken him. He was courageous and as wily as his namesake, but the years were creeping up on him.

  Elizabeth returned carrying a pair of worn but beautiful turquoise cowboy boots with silver threading. “What’s wrong with your sneakers?” Elizabeth asked forlornly. “Or even your hiking boots?”

  “Tonight I intend to kick some ass,” Heath replied. Elizabeth flopped down, her body awkward, her resentment obviously at war with what Heath suspected was the joy of having a champion, regardless of whether she rides out on a white horse or in a gray wheelchair.

  Gentle, as she always was when touching her adoptive mother, Elizabeth waved away Heath’s hands and put the boots on her feet for her.

  “Aren’t those a bit dressy for an unannounced call?” Gwen remarked, coming in from the kitchen with the threatened pot of tea.

  “Power suit,” Elizabeth said.

  Anna said nothing, following as Heath rolled toward the front door.

  The sun was behind the mountains, and though it wasn’t dark, shadows pooled and the sky had grown soft and infinite. The day’s warmth was drifting away from the skin of the mountains on a gentle down-canyon breeze carrying the scent of pine.

  Lights were beginning to come on in the neighborhood, people home from work and cooking supper. Sam’s truck was in the drive, an outsized Dodge Ram that one should not keep if one doesn’t own a ranch where it can run and play. Expertly, Heath wheeled around it. Fortunately, the Edlesons’ house had a wide brick walk and a front door without a step, a rarity Heath hadn’t noticed before her disability. Given this was to be a confrontation, she was glad she didn’t have to be dragged up a front stoop, then wait while Robo was hauled clanking up behind like an albatross.

  When they arrived at the door, Anna reached over Heath’s head and banged the frame of the screen door. There was a doorbell, but Heath was happier with the “Open up. Police!” sound of Anna’s knuckles and left it alone. Disquiet murmured from inside, muttering, then silence, as if a television set had been switched off.

  More silence.

  “Curtains twitched at two o’clock,” Anna murmured. Heath had caught the tiny movement from the corner of her eye—Sam or Terry or Tiffany peeking out the front-room windows to see who was at the door. The phrase “at two o’clock” threatened to make her giggle hysterically, and she wondered when her anger had turned to fear. Heath had no fear that Sam would do them physical damage. Bizarrely enough, given she would probably come out on the wrong end of a physical encounter with a well-muscled man, she would have welcomed that. A compulsion to feel his flesh under her fists—or between her teeth—coursed through her so fiercely that, for a second, she felt she could rise from her chair and kick the door down. Her fear was that something she or Anna might say or do would make it worse for Elizabeth.

  Anna banged again, louder and longer this time. Heath didn’t allow herself to wince.

  She was beginning to think the Edlesons weren’t going to answer the door when she heard the bolt thunk back. The door opened halfway. No lights were on in the front room. The one in the kitchen, a light Heath had noticed when they crossed the drive, had been turned off. Dim behind the screen door, Terry stared out at them, her eyes like black holes in a dead-gray face.

  “Hi, Terry,” Heath said pleasantly. “This is Anna Pigeon, a friend of the family and, for the moment, chief chair wrangler.” She smiled crookedly. Poor little paraplegic couldn’t hurt a fly. It wasn’t one of Heath’s favorite strategies, but she wasn’t above using it now and then if she thought it would give her the upper hand. Maybe she heard a faint snort from Anna; she wasn’t sure. “Could we come in for a minute?”

  Terry didn’t want to let them in. She was breathing hard through pinched nostrils. Heath could hear each sniff. Terry’s lips, usually full and soft-looking, were pressed into a tight little frown.

  “I’m afraid I don’t handle the chill of evening as well as I did before…” Smiling again, Heath waved a hand over her lap to indicate just how very sad and debilitated she was. Terry still didn’t want to let them in, but, like a lot of people, she was intimidated by the wheelchair. How could she say no? Heath was a cripple, for Christ’s sake. The door opened a bit more, and Heath got a wheel in, then, with a push from Anna, she was over the sill and into the house. All Terry could do was get out of the way so Heath wouldn’t run over her feet.

  Before the fall from Keystone, Heath had been brash and ballsy. After, she had been angry and self-destructive. When she finally realized that, though she couldn’t walk, she was still a whole person, she found she’d changed. From the bastion of Robo-butt, the world was different, more layered and complex. Heath learned patience. She learned to watch people, to really listen, to genuinely see them. Something she’d not done much of when she was superwoman climbing tall mountains. Another skill she’d picked up was canniness, an ability to manipulate situations to her advantage, to manipulate people when she had to. Cunning wasn’t a strength much lauded in literature or the media, but it was a strength all the s
ame, and Heath respected it.

  Once they had breached the walls, as it were, Terry’s mood didn’t warm. She did, however, assume the role of hostess, offering them coffee. Anna didn’t accept. Heath did. Hard to toss somebody out before they’ve finished their drink. She parked herself advantageously, blocking the big, leather, man-of-the-house chair so the only remaining seating was on a couch that was too soft or a straight-backed chair that was too hard. She didn’t want Goldilocks getting too comfortable.

  Anna leaned against a dark wood highboy, her ankles crossed, her arms crossed, looking deceptively relaxed.

  In the minute it took for this arrangement, Terry was back with two cups of coffee on a tray along with a bowl of powdered creamer and half a dozen packets of Sweet’N Low. “Sure you won’t have anything?” she asked Anna politely. Being the hostess, probably along with the fact that neither Heath nor Anna had lit into her, seemed to have dialed her hostility down a notch. Coffee served, Terry perched on the edge of the couch, her mug hands as plump and white as the Pillsbury Doughboy’s. Where there should have been knuckles there were babyish dimples. The rest of her was as amorphous; her bland oval face just missed being pretty due to a lack of definition in her features.

  “The girls haven’t been seeing much of one another lately,” Heath opened conversationally.

  “That’s so,” Terry said, then took a careful sip of her coffee. “I think it will be good for them to have a little time just with family.” She was recovering her equilibrium. Heath wanted none of that.

  “So do I,” she said flatly.

  Terry looked up, annoyed or startled. Sam appeared behind her, backlit in the kitchen doorway, shoulder against one side of the frame. His hair was tousled, that nice gold-shot Robert Redford hair, and he wore a plaid shirt half unbuttoned. Heath suspected he’d been in the bathroom primping until this entrance.