Chapter nine

The sound of tires crunching on the stones in the driveway roused Addy from a deep sleep. She had awakened several times during the night, restless with her secret.

Her dreams had been anxious too, with snippets of visions—the inlet, the shoreline, the body, and Tommy’s bloody hands. The thunderstorm hadn’t helped. The rain cascaded down, obscuring her view of the inlet.

Hearing a car door slam, she crawled out of bed and hurried to the window, her mind instantly on alert. Karen was getting out of the patrol car, fresh and crisp in her uniform. Addy’s heart thumped painfully, from either relief or anxiety, but she was still glad to see her.

She threw on her bathrobe and flew down the stairs, intercepting Karen before she could knock.

“Mornin’, Addy. Sorry to bother you so early.”

“No, it’s all right, come on in. Let me make some coffee.”

Addy hustled into the kitchen, too nervous to ask why she was here. Could someone have discovered the body already and even now the police were on their way? Was Karen here to ease the way for the arresting officers to haul Tommy off to jail? Opening the canister of coffee, Addy spilled half the contents on the floor.

“Hey, are you all right?” Karen knelt and began to scoop the coffee with her hand. Glancing up, she stared at Addy. “You’re pale. Are you sick?”

“No, no, I’m fine. I just didn’t sleep well last night.” She bent to help with the cleanup. Oh, how she wanted to fall into Karen’s arms. She wanted to be held and told that everything would be all right. She inhaled Karen’s scent, nothing but soap and clean skin, and warm memories crept into her already muddled brain. It felt so good to have Karen in the house again. But now what would happen? “What are you doing here?”

“I was hanging out at the Happy Harbor last night when Dee-Dee mentioned you were turning the place into a boarding house.”

“Oh, that.” Addy laughed nervously.

“She said you have two tenants, including old lady Bush. Geez, what a nightmare that must be.”

“Why, good morning, Deputy.”

Fern entered the kitchen, dressed in seersucker and ready for a day at work.

“Oh, uh, good morning, Miss Bush. I didn’t see you come in.” Karen blushed.

“Evidently. As I recall, you were equally unobservant as a child. I believe you rarely borrowed a book and when you did, well, let me just say that your taste in literature was questionable.”

“How do you remember that stuff?” Karen asked, surprise plastered across her face.

“I never forget anything, Deputy. Knowledge sharpens the mind. It’s obvious you haven’t picked up a book since then.”

“I went into the military after high school, remember, Miss Bush?” Karen asked. “The officers there sharpened my mind plenty.”

Fern sniffed and scrutinized Karen. “I’m sure that was precisely the correct fit for someone of your…talents. Now, Addy here, she went off to a prestigious university and made something of herself. I’m sure she’s as keen as a razor.”

“Huh?” The heat rose to Addy’s face, and Karen’s scrutiny did nothing to turn it down. Fern poured coffee into a thermos and left for work. They were silent for a long while and Addy didn’t know what to say, though images from last night flooded her. Tommy simply couldn’t hurt any living creature. Surely he hadn’t acted intentionally. It had to have been an accident. That’s it. That’s what she would tell the police.

But why would he have tried to bury the man’s body? What excuse would she possibly concoct, other than that she had been an accomplice and tried to cover up the crime? Oh, man, this is getting more complicated than I thought.

“Addy, are you all right?”

“I need to talk to you—”

A shout drew their attention to the backyard. Addy ran out to the screened-in porch to see a small boat moored alongside the dock. Two men, standing near the shore, waved frantically, motioning them down to the water. A heavy lump dropped into her stomach and she felt like she was swallowing sand. Karen hurried out of the porch and into the yard, heading for the men and Addy rushed after her.

“Karen, wait!”

Karen stopped midstride and slowly turned around. It was the first time Addy had called her by her first name, and she shivered slightly. Addy had been acting strangely ever since she arrived.

And now Addy seemed terrified. She almost reached out, but stopped herself, knowing she wouldn’t be welcome. Something wasn’t right, and she wanted very much to erase Addy’s fear, but she would have to make the first move.

“What is it?”

“I…I,” Addy stuttered. “I just wanted to say be careful. You don’t know who those men are or what they want.”

Karen gazed at her for a long time. Did Addy really care for her safety or did she have something else on her mind?

She resumed walking toward the water. “Actually, I do know those men. They’re locals, two retired guys who go out fishing most mornings. They’re okay.”

They stumbled along the water’s edge, their feet bogging more than once in the mud, made deeper by the previous evening’s downpour.

A tall, white-haired man dressed in L.L. Bean fishing attire pointed to the ground. “Hey, Deputy. Come quick. Look what we found.”

Karen squatted in the mud. At first she believed the rains had uncovered the body. She wanted to vomit but immediately suppressed the urge because of the onlookers. She had seen dead bodies before, especially in the army, but had never grown immune to the experience.

“Someone bashed his brains in,” the shorter man said.

Addy was overcome with nausea. While it was true, hearing it spoken aloud in such a crude fashion sickened her. She turned her head away from the battered form. It was too late now—too late to tell Karen what she knew. Karen would wonder why she hadn’t called her last night, as soon as she found Tommy standing over the body, his hands dripping with blood. How had everything gone wrong so quickly?

“I need to call the station.” Karen straightened up with mud on the hem of her pants in addition to the back of her pant legs, already splattered with brown spots kicked up from her boot heels. Pointing to the men, she said, “You two stay here. I’ll need to take your statements. Addy, come with me.”

Karen stomped off through the mud and Addy followed her docilely. She knows. Or at least she suspects. What would she tell her? Yes, she’d come out last night hunting for Tommy, who never ventured out of the tree, only to find him standing over the body? And then she’d kept it a secret? God, she and Tommy were both going to wind up in prison.

As they approached the house, Addy chanced a look up at the tree house. Tommy stared down at her, his face expressionless.

She didn’t know if he fully comprehended his actions, but if necessary, she would get an attorney to plead he was mentally incompetent to stand trial. Even so, they’d want to commit him to some type of institution, and she couldn’t allow that to happen either. She held her finger up to her lips and he nodded.

They entered the house through the kitchen and Karen told her to stay put while she went out to the patrol car to call in the crime. As she sat at the kitchen table waiting for Karen to return, she fidgeted with the salt and pepper shakers. Oh, God. If she’d only said something sooner.

Frank stood at the window and trained his binoculars on the police as they wrapped wide yellow tape around a pine tree.

Eventually they’d get around to visiting their house, asking if they had seen anything unusual. No, Officer, we were watching the game and didn’t see a thing.

“Now what are they doing, Frank?” Abel asked as he lit a cigarette.

“Well, by now they’re probably hunting clues, anything that can help identify the body and who killed him. Luckily it rained last night and washed away footprints.”

“Yeah, it’s a good thing,” Clarence said.

“Shut up, you idiot. If you’d been keeping an eye out like you were supposed to, that reporter would never have been able to spy on us.” Frank drew a wallet out of his pocket, examining the contents. “He was only a local reporter. If he was worth his salt, he’d have been working for the big league. I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

He tossed the wallet into the trash bin. He would personally burn it in the barrel after the police left so he didn’t draw suspicion to the house. With this last piece of evidence gone, they should escape detection. Things might be hot for a while and they would have to lay low. But the cops would soon lose interest when they couldn’t solve the crime. They would gradually stop coming every day, and Frank could return to his task. He wasn’t in a hurry, but he was destined to make a name for himself—if not by being a war hero, then by getting back at the federal government.

The police were crawling around the property like little ants hurrying to gather food. Tommy supposed the activity had something to do with the man he had found down by the water, but he guessed Addy would fill him in later.

He was glad Karen was there to help. He liked Karen.

After Jeff Olson, she was his next best friend, and that was only because she was a girl. Addy was a girl too, and she was his sister, but Tommy wasn’t so sure she was as good a friend as Jeff and Karen. It was nice to know that she would be living in the house, though, kind of like the way things used to be. He was happy then and wished things had never changed.

He sighed, got down on his hands and knees, and crawled under his bed. Pulling a nylon duffel bag out from underneath it, he unzipped it to reveal all the treasures he had found or been given over the years. Ignoring most of the contents, he dug around until he found what he wanted—that man’s camera with the letters NI-K-O-N on the front. After Addy thought he was asleep last night, he had gone back to where the man was and picked it up. The word on it was funny, not like anything he’d ever seen, but he understood what a camera was. He held it up and saw his table through the viewfinder. He didn’t know how to make it work, though. Maybe Karen would show him.

Karen had taught him how to do a lot of things, like whittle with his jackknife so that twigs looked like birds. Or how to rub two sticks together on a pile of dry leaves and start a fire. That was cool, but it was really hard. Tommy practiced, but still wasn’t very good at it.

Maybe tomorrow, when all the other policemen weren’t around, he’d ask her to come up and teach him how to make the camera work.