The Body in the Lighthouse (12 page)

A third man got up. He looked to be in his early fifties and was dressed like Lyle, Seth, and the other builders, who'd exchanged dirty jeans for clean ones and their T-shirts for blue denim work shirts. He was tall, very thin, and had probably been attractive in a boyish way when younger. Now he was a plain man, and a man who looked tired, as well.

“Looks like this project is getting to old Harold,” Lyle whispered. “He looks plumb wore out.”

Harold Hapswell himself. He didn't look like a
real estate mogul. “Where is he from?” Faith asked. The suits were conferring with Harold and passing out fancy-looking folders to the members of the board.

“Comes from Connecticut or someplace like that, but he's been here thirty years or more. Didn't get into this business until about ten years ago. Before that, he did a little of everything—mostly fishing, though he tried selling his photographs to the tourists for a while, but this was before the whole art thing caught on big.”

Hapswell smiled at something Willard said, and his whole face changed. It was as if an unseen hand had erased one chalk drawing from the blackboard and then drawn another, handsomer, happier, more energetic one in its place. He was talking about his project. That was clear. And Sanpere Shores was what made him happy.

“I was with him once when he was trying to sell some land to some summer people. He wanted a builder to come along, and I was the only one desperate enough for the work at that time. You'd think his cradle had been a lobster trap, the way he talked. Straight out of ‘Bert and I.' The customers were lapping it up. They agreed to buy the property, and the moment they left in their car, Harold was back to being the hard-nosed, son of a bitch businessman he is, voice and all. He was going to take his cut for bringing me aboard, and it was going to bleed something wicked. I told him to find another pigeon.”

Faith laughed, then stopped. Lyle's words had
been lightheartedly spoken, yet his eyes reflected a deep and bitter hatred. It shocked her. Hapswell was apparently as horrible as everyone had been saying. Could he have been behind the attack on Seth Marshall's job? To drive away the competition? Except his own projects had been under fire, literally, too.

“Oh shit, here comes Persis!” Lyle said. The look was gone. Now he was just plain annoyed.

“What's the matter?” Tom asked.

“She and Hapswell are like oil and water. She'll start asking questions; he'll get riled, raise a ruction, and we'll be here until dawn. She's just pissed she didn't think of Sanpere Shores first. That land has been sitting there for years. Just ask the people Harold gypped out of it.”

Persis did look like someone who had failed to get in on a major deal. Again, Faith was struck by how similar the cutthroat real estate action on Sanpere was to Manhattan's. Substitute “Deep Water, Shore Frontage, South Beach” for “Prewar, Parking, Upper East Side” and there you had it.

Persis took a seat in the front row. Everyone was facing forward and things looked like they were getting under way. Then a few heads turned toward the rear, although there hadn't been any noise. Curious to see what people were looking at, Faith turned around, too. It was the lady in the Mercedes. She had more clothing on this time, but it clung to her body so tightly, she might as well have dispensed with it altogether. For some reason, she was wearing dark glasses.

“Who
is
that?” Faith quizzed Lyle. “I saw her on one of the Sanpere Shores lots on Tuesday.”

“I have no idea,” he said, drooling along with virtually every other male in the room. Faith cast a hasty glance at her own husband, who had suddenly found the floor extremely interesting. “And,” he added, “I'd keep that fact to yourself, or you'll have every male with a breath in his body out on Harold's land, hoping to get a glimpse of her.”

“She must have some connection to Harold if she was out there. Maybe she's buying one of the lots,” Faith speculated.

“We can only pray.” Lyle put his hands together. “But you were there, and you're not buying. She may just have turned off the road. Anyway, we'll know who she is soon enough.”

Faith nodded. One of the virtues of living on a small island.

“Ahem.” Heads swung forward and the younger of the two suited men shone a laser pointer on the first visual, an overview of the entire Sanpere Shores subdivision.

“Now, here we have the existing lots, for which plans have already been approved by this board. And here.” He moved the red beam farther along. It looked like a gash from where Faith was sitting.

Donald Osborn stood up and began speaking, interrupting the proceedings. He seemed completely unperturbed by the angry looks directed his way from the presenters and Harold, and some of the audience.

“On behalf of the citizens of Sanpere Island,” he intoned, “I would like the following statement entered into the minutes: ‘We the undersigned do fully and forcibly object—'”

The chairman rapped the gavel.

“Mr. Osborn, you are not on the agenda. We are hearing a proposal from Mr. Hapswell at the moment. If you wish to present a proposal to the board, you know the procedure. You must file it a week in advance, so it can be duly noted in the newspaper. Our next meeting will be in three weeks.”

Donald ignored the chairman and began reading again. “The so-called Sanpere Shores development threatens the habitats of endangered wildlife and violates the State's wetlands code.”

“Sit down,” someone shouted from the rear.

“Better still,” called another voice, “go home.”

There was a lot of laughter, but Faith could see that Donald and those around him, who were standing in solidarity, weren't amused. He raised his voice and continued. The chairman raised her voice, too.

“I must ask you to stop, Mr. Osborn. You are disrupting this meeting. Please!”

Harold walked over and stood in front of Osborn.

“Shut up and sit down,” he bellowed.

“We're in for it now,” Lyle said. “Be ready to make a run.”

“What!” Faith exclaimed.

It was hard to tell whose face was more purple
with rage—Donald Osborn's or Harold Hapswell's. They were both about the same age. Harold had the advantage in height, Donald in weight. The two men in suits, an architect and a lawyer from Blue Hill, were looking disdainful. Faith felt an immediate need to wipe those smug “Look at this rabble” expressions from their faces, no matter what she thought of the positions each side held.

The KSS members started to chant, “Take back the land! Take back the land! Keep Sanpere Sanpere!”

Harold shoved Donald, or Donald shoved Harold, and suddenly the room exploded. Chairs were being overturned and voices were raised in furious shouts.

“What is this? The 1968 Democratic National Convention?” Faith cried as Tom pulled her to the side of the room and made for the door Lyle had opened. In a moment, they were on the sidewalk with others who had streamed out of the building. Sounds of the scuffle still going on inside were plainly audible.

Laughing, Lyle left them to join a group across the street. Faith heard someone greet him, “Put the whole lot of them in a leaky bucket! Gorry, did you see old Harry's face? Thought he would bust a gut!”

There was no sign of the woman in the Mercedes.

Faith found Harold Hapswell's dead body wedged between two granite ledges at the base of the old lighthouse at 7:38
P.M
. on Friday just as the sun was setting. She noted the exact time, because she had an idea it might be important. The tide was going out.

Harold was wearing jeans and a dark T-shirt. It could have been black or navy. It was wet, so it was hard to tell. In the waning light, the yellow rockweed sparkled like gold. It was wet, too. Wet and slippery. Harold's long, thin body was lying on its side, as if he'd been filed between the two large rocks. His hair was wet and his eyes were closed. He'd been there at high tide and he hadn't gone anywhere. It was a tight fit.

She thought of his angry, mottled face at the meeting the night before. It was drained of color now and expressionless. She stood looking down
at him. It had been such a lovely evening and she had wanted to be out in the night air—cool, clear. It was still clear, but the cool had turned to cold. The seaweed made a faint popping noise. A crab scuttled out from beneath the thick strands, strands hiding all kinds of activity, large and small.

Her children were asleep. Her husband was nodding over an ancient
National Geographic.
Ursula was knitting and listening to a broadcast of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's concert at Tanglewood.

I need to call Earl. I need to tell someone, Faith almost spoke aloud. Yet still she didn't move, her eyes locked on the corpse below. Was this what the summer had been leading toward? This odd, out-of-kilter summer on Sanpere? What would happen now? She didn't know whether Hapswell was married or had any children. KSS would be pleased. The thought was not so much unbidden as unwelcome. She thought of it immediately, although she didn't want to. Those kinds of groups don't kill people. Ursula had said so. But they'd been talking about Persis, about the turpentine. The raucous cry of a gull startled Faith from her thoughts. She turned and ran as fast as she could to the Pines.

 

“A glooming peace this morning with it brings. The sun for sorrow will not show his head. Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; some shall be pardoned, and more punishèd—”

“It's ‘some punished,' not ‘more,' Prince, and remember who you are. A statesman, a leader. Look straight out at the audience.” Roland's correction was made gently. Death was on every mind—not Romeo's, Juliet's, or that of the others who perished in the play, but the real death of Harold Hapswell. There had been no official mention of it at the rehearsal. He was not connected to the production, unlike Persis—that one-woman Sanpere chamber of commerce, involved in every project no matter the size. Harold might have come to the play, or not. No official mention, but much conversation in lowered voices offstage.

After repeated assurances that Faith was fine, Tom had gone to work on the house; then Ursula had pushed Faith out the door for the Saturday-afternoon rehearsal. It was one of Gert Prescott's days. “If the two of us can't manage two small children, we'll have to resign from the grandmother club,” Ursula declared.

Faith was actually happy to leave the scene. It was filled with too many images—images that hadn't faded yet. Last night, the quiet landscape had exploded into noise and movement. The area around the lighthouse had teemed with police cars, an ambulance, and other vehicles. Lights had whirled, voices had shouted, and tires had squealed. A crime scene. It didn't seem like their lighthouse anymore, but something menacing, a dark pinnacle piercing the night sky. Faith had watched from the window. “But it's too late,” she'd kept repeating to herself. “Why are you
hurrying? The man is dead.” Mercifully, the children had not awakened. Their rooms were at the rear of the house, away from it all. Ursula had made Faith drink a large mug of very sweet peppermint tea. The mint had taken over a corner of the back garden and was thriving despite the drought. She'd found herself talking about the mint to Ursula. The way mint would grow anywhere, spreading its runners underground, invasive, impossible to kill. Ursula had listened and brought more tea while Tom draped a blanket over Faith's shoulders. She hadn't been aware that she needed it—she had felt as if she was burning up after drinking the hot tea. Then, feeling the warmth of the wool, she'd clutched it tightly, chilled to the bone. Soon after, Earl and another officer had come in and she had told them how she'd found the body. It was a short story. “I went for a walk and there he was.” For the life of her, she hadn't been able to think of anything to add.

Earl had snapped his little notebook shut and put his pen in his pocket.

“No marks on him to suggest anything other than an accident. Those rocks have a slick coat of mud, plus the seaweed, and he was wearing sandals. Feet must have gone out from under him. He fell, was knocked out, and then the tide got him. Anybody around wouldn't have seen him until it was low again.”

Faith hadn't noticed the sandals. Harold didn't seem like a sandals kind of guy, but it had been a hot day. Too hot for work boots.

“What do you think he was doing here? And why would he have been climbing on the rocks like that?” she'd asked. She hadn't wanted Earl to go. He was so steady, so sane. He'd make a good husband for Jill. He'd make a good husband for anybody. If she kept asking questions, he'd have to stay.

Earl had shaken his head. He never pretended to have all the answers. “No idea yet. But his truck is parked by the lighthouse, and someone mentioned that Harold owned the place.”

At that, Ursula had appeared surprised. “I thought it belonged to one of the Prescotts. They bought it from the Sanfords, who got it when the government auctioned it off. My father had first refusal—he'd missed the auction—and I guess I thought I did, too.” Her voice was filled with regret.

“Probably did belong to the Prescotts, but just now I heard that Harold bought it last spring. Was going to make it into apartments or one of those bed-and-breakfast places. What we think happened is that he came out here to make some plans, take some pictures. There was a camera hanging from his shoulder, wedged under the body, and enough keys in his pockets to fit every house on the island. We're checking to see if any are for the lighthouse door.”

“Good Lord!” Ursula had exclaimed. She obviously wasn't responding to the comment about Harold's keys. It was as close as she got to real profanity, and a sign of extreme agitation. Faith concurred, choosing a silent, more pithy epithet.
Hapswell had been planning to turn Ursula's—and by extension, their—own personal lighthouse into a kind of motel, complete with brochure!

 

“…and
some
punishèd; for never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.' How was that, Mr. Hayes?” The Prince of Verona, who would be dressed in his high school graduation suit, but wore cutoffs today, turned as he finished to grin at his friend Romeo, who was lying on the stage.

“That was perfect, except for the smirk you have on your face now.
Always, always
stay in character until you're actually off the stage. No, make that out of the auditorium. No matter what.” Roland was walking toward them, a smile on his face. “I'm the only one allowed to do whatever I please.”

Romeo got up and pulled Juliet to her feet. Clearly, Roland's injunction was good news to them. Stay in character. No problem.

Faith had been keeping a close eye on Linda Forsythe. Yes, Earl had said it was an accident, “a tragic accident,” he'd repeated this morning when he brought a typed statement of Faith's account for her to sign. It was too soon for an official report from the medical examiner, but he'd initially concurred with the conclusion the police and EMTs had reached the night before. Unless an autopsy turned up something in Harold's system. Earl had stopped at this point, and Faith had
filled in the blank—poison. Not hard to come by on an island where people saved not only string too short to be saved but everything else as well, including all those tonics, pills for what ails you, weed and pest killers Grandma bought, which contained hefty doses of arsenic, strychnine, nicotine, and cyanide. Of course, it would have had to be something that didn't produce death throes, no ghastly final grimace. Harold's expression had been blank. Totally blank. Totally dead. An accident.

But it was a happy accident for Linda—and the other KSS members. Faith's conversation with Linda on the beach about the existence of Sanpere Shores kept getting mixed up with the lines onstage as she filled in Linda's sketch for the balcony scene with bright paint. “Maybe it will and maybe it won't” Linda had said firmly, determinedly, stubbornly—in sum, like someone who was extremely sure that Sanpere Shores wouldn't be built. Today, Ms. Forsythe, the stage manager, was strictly business, instructing Faith and a visiting friend of Roland's about how to paint the new flats. If Linda was pleased—or worried—she wasn't letting on. Until she got a phone call.

Roland had been explicit about calls. There was an extension backstage, but they had all been told it was for emergency use only. There was a pay phone in the school lobby if you needed to tell someone you were going to be late. Faith had discovered that her cell phone didn't work on Sanpere. Some sort of warp. Roland had one, but no
one else did. When the backstage phone rang, three people ran for it at once and everything on stage stopped.

“It's for Linda,” Becky called out. She'd sprinted to the front of the pack.

Linda put her brush down deliberately and walked off.

“Come on,” Roland shouted from the rear of the auditorium. “We don't have much time, and there's no rehearsal tomorrow, remember.”

Fishermen didn't go out on Sundays—couldn't. It was against the law in Maine. Some went to church; some didn't. But Sunday was a day off, a day of rest for people who didn't get much. A day when everyone in the cast was free to rehearse. But this Sunday was the Fish 'n' Fritter Fry, which was held yearly to raise money for the swimming pool project, and if you weren't helping out, you were going. Roland had canceled the rehearsal, since no one would show up anyway. He was signed up for the Wacky Rowboat races himself, he'd told them. The entire Fairchild family had been looking forward to the event all summer. The kids still were. Faith wasn't sure what forward was anymore.

She followed Linda. “Maybe it will and maybe it won't” was all the justification she needed to linger in the hall, listening to Linda's side of the conversation.

“Oh, it's you. You shouldn't call here. You know what Roland's like.” There was a long pause.

“If they came to you, they'll come to me. We'd better get our stories straight.” Another longer pause.

“Okay. Same place. At nine.”

She hung up, and Faith ducked into the girls' lavatory. For a moment, she was startled, feeling like Alice in the “Drink Me” scene, then reminded herself that it was the K–3 section of the elementary school and the fixtures were conveniently smaller-scaled.

Linda had said, “get our stories straight.” She had obviously been talking to a fellow KSS member, a fellow KSSer, KSSite? Faith wrenched her mind from inanities. Whether Linda was involved in Hapswell's death or not, there was no question that there was something she didn't want the police to know. Clearly, “If they came to you, they'll come to me” was not a reference to the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Back at work, Faith went over to where Linda was sketching out the new sets.

“Linda,” she said, and the woman snapped her head around, obviously startled.

“Linda, I just wanted to know what I should do next,” Faith said.

“Oh, why don't you…I mean…” She was stuttering, then stopped. “Ask Roland if anyone needs you to hear lines,” she said finally.

“Sure. Good idea,” Faith said, leaving. It was impossible not to notice that Linda Forsythe's hands were shaking like the leaves on the aspen trees that grew in a grove beside her cabin and
that her face was as white as the sand on the beach Harold Hapswell had owned until yesterday.

 

Sunday dawned, gray and hazy. They arrived at church early to get Ben settled into his Sunday school class and Amy in child care. As usual, there were small knots of people congregated outside talking, some smoking, until the first bell rang. Today the groups seemed more subdued than usual. Ursula went to join her Sewing Circle friends and Faith hurried the kids off. Tom was assisting with the service. Upon her return, she joined the stitchers.

“More spray painting,” Ursula told Faith straight out. “On the Sanpere Shores billboard.”

“Pretty sick,” Louella Prescott said. “Man isn't even in the ground yet. I wouldn't have believed it, even of those people.”

Faith's heart sank. She wouldn't have believed it, either—at least not of Linda. Whom had she met at nine o'clock, and what had they done besides getting their stories straight? The woman's cabin was conveniently close to the large sign.

The bell rang and the obedient flock moved quietly into the church. “Did they mention what it said?” Faith whispered to Ursula as they sat in a pew near the front and handed the hymnals around.

“Something about ‘Good riddance' and ‘Power to the people of Sanpere.' Poor Harold.”

“I didn't know you'd known him,” Faith said,
thinking what a stupid assumption that had been. Ursula knew everybody.

“Hush, dear, we'll talk later,” Ursula said as the strains of “Lead Kindly Light” filled the church.

But later would have to wait until still later. As soon as she got home, Faith rushed to change and took her car down to Granville to help with the food for the Fish 'n' Fritter Fry scheduled to start at one o'clock. Life, especially Faith's life at the moment, went on.

Huge vats of fish chowder were already simmering on the burners under the tent that had been erected on Granville's fish pier. The weather had stayed iffy. Rain wasn't predicted, but the sky was overcast, although the sun was making a valiant effort to burst through the clouds.