A Show of Hands Page 12

  “I see,” said Crisp. “Then the bigger the bolt—”

  “The better,” Mostly concluded with a wink.

  “The better,” Crisp agreed.

  There was no one in the hardware store except Drew, who stood by the cash register at the far end of the counter doing paper-work. He looked up when they came in, waved, and ignored them. Mostly took a handful of candy and raisins from the skillet, and they sat down—Crisp in Petey’s seat, Mostly in Crisp’s, as protocol demanded.

  “I was going to come up and see you this afternoon,” said Crisp.

  “Don’t have to now,” said Mostly, popping a Tootsie Roll Junior in his mouth. “Saved you a pedal.” He doubted there were many pedals left in the professor.

  Crisp nodded. “They say you saw Amanda—”

  “Mandy,” Mostly corrected.

  “Mandy. They said you saw her over in Rockland a day or two after the Calderwood boys’ accident.”

  “Yup. I did.”

  “Where was that?”

  “Rockland?” said Mostly, a little puzzled.

  “No, I mean where in Rockland did you see her?”

  “Oh, gorry . . . she was just comin’ out’ve some store.”

  “Which one?”

  “Shoot, I don’t know. They’re all the same’s far as I’m concerned. Coffee shop’s ’bout the only one I go in.”

  “Did you see her on the ferry over?”

  “Didn’t come on the ferry.”

  “How did you get there?”

  “Took the senator’s launch. She was bein’ pulled out for the winter, down to Hank’s. They flush ’er out and paint ’er for the next season, you know. McKenniston likes keepin’ a boat on the mainland. That way he can get out to the island, if he needs to, after the last ferry’s gone.” Mostly opened another piece of candy and began to chew on it. “Not that he’s ever used it. Doubt if he’d know how to run the thing, myself. But gives him comfort, I guess.”

  “So, what time did you come over?”

  “Oh, just after sunup, there’bouts. Six, maybe.”

  “And you went to the coffee shop?”

  “Oh, that was pretty much later. We had a bunch’ve errands to run first.”

  “Someone was with you?”

  “Two someones. Sarah Quinn and Marky Williams.”

  “Did they just come along for the ride?”

  “Marky did,” said Mostly. “Sarah had to come over to get things to close up the house with. New padlocks, furniture coverin’s—that kind’ve thing. Anyway.” It was a rhetorical “anyway.”

  “They didn’t see Amanda . . . Mandy?”

  Mostly shook his head. “Jus’ me. We was all split up by that time. Sarah went to run her errands up to the hardware store. They open early. Marky went off to do somethin’. He didn’t tell me what. Prob’ly lookin’ at them girlie magazines up to the bus stop.”

  “What time was it when you finally went to the coffee shop?”

  “Oh, ten. Ten and a half.”

  “Hey, Mos’. Senator know you’re loafin’ around downtown on a workday?” Drew had finished doing paperwork, or whatever it was he did behind the counter. He fluffed the cushion in his chair and sat down.

  “You’re a good one to talk. He’s a good one to talk,” Mostly said to Crisp with a wink. “Man never done an honest day’s work in his life. Sits here in fronta this stove all day, eatin’ candy, gossipin’, and robbin’ people blind.”

  “Ain’t gossip,” Drew said matter-of-factly. “It’s news.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” said Mostly. “It’s only gossip when women do it.”

  “What’d you come in here for? McKenniston still has a bill down here, you know. I was just lookin’ at it. You’re the one who’s supposed to take care of those bills before the season’s over, aren’t you?”

  “What bill?”

  “That bill for fifty-seven dollars and eighty-three cents is what bill. Left over from last summer.”

  “I didn’t buy nothin’ for fifty-seven dollars and eighty-three cents,” Mostly objected, sitting forward in his chair.

  Drew swiped calmly at some dust on the stove. “Didn’t say you did. I don’t put down who done the chargin’, only who the chargin’ was done to.”

  “What was it for?”

  “What’s the matter, you don’t believe me?”

  “I think you’d rob your own grandmother if you got a chance, that’s what I think,” Mostly said playfully. He knew full well that if Drew said the senator owed $57.83, then he owed it—not a penny more or less. Nevertheless, for the next few minutes they disinterred each other’s ancestors and heaped abuse upon them.

  It was finally resolved that Mostly would settle the account his next time in. For now, however, he had to add two six- by five-eighths-inch bolts to it, which Drew allowed, though he was loudly skeptical that he would ever see the money.

  “What was we talkin’ about?” said Mostly at last. “Oh, the coffee shop. That’s where I seen ’er. She was comin’ out’ve some store upstreet from there. Just when I was goin’ in, she come out. I called after her—said ‘hi,’ you know, the way you do when you see someone you know over there. Anyway, she didn’t hear, I guess. I don’t doubt it, all that traffic. Some awful crowded.”

  “That was the only time you saw her?”

  “Yup.”

  “And she was walking away from you?”

  “Yup.”

  “Then you didn’t see her face?”

  “Didn’t have to with that girl, did you, Mos’?” said Drew. “Like we was sayin’ earlier, Winston. She was one of a kind.”

  “And that red hair,” said Mostly. “There wasn’t no mistakin’ that red hair. Nope,” he said flatly. “It was her, all right.”

  “Was the store far away—the one you saw her come out of?”

  “Oh, not far, no,” Mostly replied. “Three or four doors down, I guess. Close enough so I could see her, but far enough so she couldn’t hear me when I hollered.”

  “Hard to believe she wouldn’t hear an old foghorn like you,” observed Drew, punctuating the comment with a single-syllable laugh.

  Mostly’s voice was distinctive. High pitched and clear. “That is hard to believe,” Crisp agreed.

  “I bet she heard, all right,” said Drew. “She knew just who it was, and that’s why she didn’t turn around. I’m surprised she didn’t head the opposite direction at a dead run.”

  “Oh, shut up, you ol’ chicken thief,” said Mostly, rising. “Well, I gotta get back up to the salt mines,” he said. “Drop them bolts in a bag, Drew, will ya? I don’t want to lose them washers.”

  “Bag’ll cost you extra.”

  “Charge it to the ol’ man. He’s worked for the gover’ment long enough, he won’t think nothin’ve payin’ a few hundred dollars for a paper bag.”

  “Oh, there’s a big difference when it’s his own money,” said Drew. “You know that as well as I do. Some ol’ tight, he is.”

  The door squeaked its good-bye as Mostly opened it.

  “One more thing,” said Crisp. “How did you get back that day?”

  “Took the ferry.”

  “All three of you?”

  “Yup.”

  “But you’d left your car up at McKenniston’s?”

  “Truck,” Mostly corrected.

  “Truck,” Crisp amended.

  “Yup.”

  “How did you get it?”

  “Just rowed across the Thorofare, got in ’er, an’ took off home.”

  “Across the . . .” A light dawned. “Oh! You took the East Haven ferry.”

  Mostly’s words said, “That’s right.” His tone said, Of course, you poor old idiot. “Wouldn’t make much sense to take the Penobscot ferry when my truck’s all the way up to the north end of the island, would it? Marky lives up there, anyways.”

  “And you gave the Quinn girl a ride home?”

  “Usually, yup. Not that night, though. She stayed awhile to
put them things she bought around the place—drapin’ furniture and whatnot. Straightened up the storeroom out in the barn. Lot more to closin’ up a house that size than jus’ lockin’ the door an’ shuttin’ off the lights, you know. And the McKennistons’re awful particular.”

  “Then how did she get home?”

  “I don’t know. Called her ol’ man, I imagine. He come an’ got ’er sometimes when I had to work late and couldn’t take ’er home.” He looked at his watch. “I gotta get goin’. See you later, gentlemen.”

  “Would you mind if I came up and had another look around?” said Crisp. “Tomorrow sometime?”

  “Tomorrow’s the funeral,” Mostly reminded him. “You goin’?”

  Crisp hadn’t thought about it. “Yes,” he said. Strange. It seemed to him as if she’d been buried for ages. “Yes. I’m going.”

  “Don’t know who else’ll be there. You can come up to the house after that, if you want.”

  “I don’t think I’ll care to then,” said Crisp, more than half to himself. “Another time.”

  “I’ll be there in the mornin’ day after tomorrow, if that’s good for ya,” said Mostly. “I’ve got to go over to Rockland that afternoon to get the launch. Seas’ll only be two to four feet, it said in the Telegraph. Should be nice and calm if I head back about five or so.”

  He was halfway through the door when Crisp called after him. “You didn’t see Mandy on the ferry when you came home?”

  “Nope,” said Mostly. The door closed behind him. Crisp watched him through the window. He waved and strolled away.

  Drew sat back comfortably in his khaki pants and plaid flannel shirt, folded his hands behind his head, and studied Crisp for a moment. “What was that all about?” he said.

  Drew had been the first one to befriend Crisp when he came to the island more than sixty years ago. During World War II they’d both gone into intelligence work and, though Drew labored in a clerical capacity, their paths had crossed on occasion. At the time, Drew realized that his old companion was building a reputation of legendary proportions, working closely with William Donovan and his network of spies at the Office of Strategic Services. But that was only the beginning. Crisp’s real forte was cold war. In that dull gray battleground, a dull gray man such as Crisp was completely invisible, and that’s when a person of his peculiar talents is most lethal. Drew was the only islander in whom Crisp had ever confided about his work, but not much. And even that in a self-effacing way. “You back in business?” Drew asked.

  Crisp sighed long and deep. “Imagine a mouse in a maze, Drew. He knows where to find the cheese, he’s seen it, he can smell it, he knows it’s just around the next corner, or the next, but just as he gets to it, it’s replaced with a picture of cheese. What happens then?”

  “Depends,” said Drew stoically. “Are you the mouse, the cheese, or the one doin’ the experiment?”

  Crisp stood up and tugged on his stocking cap, his coat, and his gloves. “That remains to be seen,” he said as he opened the door with its loud complaint of farewell. “But I’ll tell you something, just between us.” He held his gloved finger beside his nose. “Nobody saw Amanda Murphy on the mainland that day.”

  The sky was half sunshine and half rain clouds. Crisp stepped out into the part that was raining.

  Drew opened the stove door and stirred the coals with the poker. “I wonder who wants to know the things he’s goin’ to find out,” he said to the ghosts of the old men in the empty chairs.

  Alittle graveyard called the Stranger’s Cemetery is tucked among the evergreens, near the old lighthouse at the north end of the island. It’s reserved for people from away who had been called to glory while on the island. Some were strangers indeed, people whose bodies washed up on the beach from time to time. Others were nonnatives who elected to enrich the soil of Penobscot Island with their mortal remains.

  Amanda Murphy’s only living relative, a half brother twice her age, had elected on her behalf to have her buried there. He came to the funeral. He struck Crisp as one of those men, somewhat beyond middle age, who spend their lives being busy. One day he, too, would turn and cast a weary eye back over the parade of his years, would strain to hear the music he’d invested with his life, but hear only silence. Vanity, vanity, said Solomon. Vanity, vanity, thought Crisp. The middle-aged man glanced often at his watch and wondered if the service would be over in time for him to catch the next boat.

  Neddy McKenniston was there, too. Apparently he and the brother didn’t know each other. Neddy had flown in on the mail plane and, as Crisp found out later, left on the last boat from East Haven. He wouldn’t return to the island until he’d finished his last year of postgrad studies at Harvard in another month or so. By that time summer would be in full swing and the caretaker’s committee would have removed the silk flowers from the grave and stored them back in the cupboard at the Legion Hall. Neddy was taller than Crisp had imagined, six foot one or two. Brown hair, like all the family. Lanky. Athletic. With restless eyes and a smile that came and went quickly and meant nothing.

  Leeman Russell was there, as well. Apparently he’d taken time off from his job at the grocery store for the purpose.

  Waymond Webber attended, standing as close to the casket as possible, but he still couldn’t see anything. Mostly Sanborn stood beside Crisp, a little distance from the grave.

  The brother didn’t know any of Amanda’s friends, so they hadn’t been invited. He wondered at this odd assortment of mourners. All men. Imbeciles, as far as he could tell. It was cold. He would be buried in Florida.

  Last of all was the priest who came over from the mainland and seemed to wish he could say something personal but, since he couldn’t, said what was expected. No one else was there.

  The fog was thick and chilling. The lighthouse horn punctuated the ceremony at regular intervals, like a soul in purgatory, calling, calling into the impenetrable mists, with no reply.

  Crisp waxed poetic at funerals.

  The priest called for a moment of silent prayer, then the gathering broke up and everyone except Crisp and Mostly filtered away into the fog. Apparitions.

  “Sad there wasn’t more people here,” said Mostly. “She must’ve had friends’d like to’ve been here. Say good-bye, you know.”

  Crisp nodded. It had been a long night, during which his dreams had resurrected her again. She was running among the ruins of some rambling wooden structure. Up and down flights of creaking stairs, in and out of dark rooms. He’d chased her, never doubting that it was his dull, heavy footfalls from which she was running, but he was unable to stop his pursuit, lest she get away. It would be impossible to find her again among all those rooms. He was out of breath. Even in his dreams he was an old man now, shackled by the frailties of age. He tried to call her, to tell her to stop running, that he meant her no harm, but no words came out. Just gasps and wheezes. His lungs ached. His feet were sore, and his knees buckled at each step. Stabbing pains shot up his spine and down his left arm. The sound of his heart plugged his ears, and tears poured from his eyes and into the bucket of warm, soapy water he carried.

  He’d awakened with a start. His nose was running, and tears puddled deep in his eyes. Someone was in the room; he could make out her silhouette against the window. He rubbed frantically at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Amanda!” He fumbled for his glasses on the bedside table, put them on, grabbed at the light, and snapped it on. Too quickly. It fell to the floor and went out. But in that split second he saw her plainly in the corner of the room, where the eaves meet the dormer. She was standing, with her hands in front of her, almost reaching out to him, but not quite. She was wearing a frilly blue dress with a satin sash. Her hair was swept into an elegant temple of curls, and a cameo adorned the black velvet choker at her neck. “Amanda,” he whispered in the darkness. He strained with all his heart to see her. To hear a reply. But the brief light that burned her image on his brain had temporarily blinded him, and all he saw was its gh
ost in the dark. He heard her breathing, though. Soft. Slow. Soft. Slow. Each breath added weight to his eyes and sent him to sleep again.

  Madmen are those who have discovered that dreams exist in layers. One may wake from one dream into another and keep waking, each time entering a new dream, each more real than the last, but no less a dream.

  “I’m sure she had many friends,” Crisp said softly. “Many friends.”

  There was no reason for him to look up at that particular moment. No sudden sound, no motion. But he did, and when he did, he wondered if he was still dreaming. The fog was so thick that the evergreens in the surrounding forest were melded together in a brooding darkness. But in one place that darkness was broken by a slim patch of light, and the shape of the light was that of a young woman. Crisp was breathless, and his heart rose quickly to his throat. “Most! Look over there.” But as he pointed, the figure withdrew into the mists and, by the time Mostly drew the area into focus, was gone.

  “What?” he said. “Deer?”

  Crisp took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. The residue of dreams. “Probably,” he said. “That’s probably what it was.”

  For half a minute Mostly stared at the place in the forest that Crisp had indicated. He didn’t see any deer. “Well, I gotta get back to work,” he said finally. They began walking down the grassy, rutted road. “How you gettin’ back to town?” Mostly asked. “You didn’t bring that bicycle, did ya?”

  “No,” said Crisp with a smile. “Matty’s nephew—”

  “Billy?”

  “Billy. Yes. He’s running errands for someone up this way.”

  “Prissy Hearthstone, I bet.”

  Crisp nodded. “Odd name.”

  “Well, you never met a less odder woman in your life, I don’t guess,” said Mostly. “One’ve them people, what you see is what you get, though. Nice lady.” All during the funeral, Mostly, in wool sports coat and tie, had been swatting at his shirt front in search of a resting place behind the bib overalls he otherwise wore at all times. His hands were like salmon attempting to return to their spawning grounds, little knowing that the river had been dammed in the intervening year. “Matty and Prissy’s good friends. He’s prob’ly doin’ somethin’ for her, I imagine.”