The Body in the Lighthouse (19 page)

Instantly, Faith began to climb. She wanted to go to the very top, go where the massive light had once streamed out across the water. Maybe she could get out on the catwalk and stand high up over the sea, a part of the night sky herself. She felt giddy with the spontaneity of it all and almost went to get Tom, but she could bring him tomorrow. She'd been silly to avoid the lighthouse and anything connected to it, even selecting another paint name. The lighthouse was like the tide—neutral, an eternal bystander. The door had opened to her touch. It was like a fairy tale. It was meant to be.

They must have been in good shape, those lighthouse keepers, she thought, pausing to catch her breath. And had good heads. She judged that she had gone only a third of the way up, if that. With no windows, it was hard to tell how high
she'd climbed—and already she was experiencing some mild vertigo.

The stairs went round and round. She put her hand on the wall to steady herself. It felt damp. Around and around. Amy's current favorite song sprang into her thoughts, “The wheels on the bus go round and round, all around the town-o.” But Faith wasn't on a bus. Her sandals made a soft rhythmic sound on the cast-iron stairs. Around and around.

There had been the large room on the ground floor, and she could see another floor above her. The stairs disappeared into the room. How tall was the lighthouse? How many feet high? Ursula knew. After all his conversations with her, Ben probably did, too, by now. It was a beach lighthouse, so it had to be tall. Sandbars and beaches had this kind of beacon. One hundred and fifty feet? Something like that. No windows until the top. She switched the flashlight to her other hand and clutched the railing.

The first time she heard the sound, she thought it must be coming from outside. What could be inside the lighthouse? There was nothing for an animal to eat. Although it could be a mouse. Mice existed everywhere. That mattress would have made a nice nest. Or cockroaches. Cockroaches could live on paint, but she didn't think Sanpere had cockroaches. Manhattan did; even Jane Sibley's Upper East Side kitchen had been invaded. The little man who took care of these things would come and then they'd be all right for a while.

The noise came again. Only it didn't sound like a mouse—tiny claws skittering across a surface. Mice didn't bother her, except when they got into her pantry. But there were no pantries here. There would have been in the keeper's house. But that had burned down. Like the new houses on Sanpere. The fires. Too many fires.

She heard it once more. It was below her—or was it above her? Climbing round and round had disoriented her. She trained the beam of her flashlight up and then down—nothing. Then it was quiet. The inside of the lighthouse smelled musty and faintly metallic. She was very, very tired. This hadn't been such a good idea after all. The exhilaration she'd felt left her in a rush, allowing all the troubled thoughts so recently on the surface to return, bobbing like corks in the water. It was time to go back. She reversed her steps, felt her body pitch forward with the downward momentum, and straightened up. Ramrod-straight. As she descended, the noise began again, growing louder. She quickly turned the flashlight off.

Click.

Instantly, darkness engulfed her, so palpable it seemed to shape itself around her body like another layer of skin.

There was no mistaking what the sound was now. It was footsteps.

Someone was in the lighthouse. Someone was coming up the stairs. Slowly, steadily, purposefully.

She felt a scream gather in the back of her
throat, choking her. She tried to let it out, producing instead a small, strained squeal. Up, she had to go back up!

But what was above her? She was trapped no matter what she did. She could stop and wait, climb and try to hide. Jump? How high was she? Her mind was muddled by fatigue and fear. A thought crashed through and she was able to make a sound.

“Tom, oh Tom, is that you?” she called. “I know you said to wait, that it wouldn't take you a minute to get some wine, but it was so lovely out. Do you have the wine? You're so romantic. It won't take us long to climb to the top.”

There was no reply. She hadn't expected one. But now there was silence. Welcome silence. The footsteps had stopped. As long as they stayed that way, she was safe.

Who could it be? She remembered the light she'd seen after Ursula had told them about Abbie Burgess, the lighthouse keeper's daughter on Matinicus. It hadn't been a ghost light. She knew that. It wasn't a ghost now. Was someone sleeping here at night? A squatter? The thought was reassuring. That was what the mattress was for. Someone who needed a place to stay. But how did they get in? The door was always locked. Ben tried it repeatedly whenever they went past. Tonight, it had been open. Why?
Oh, why had it been open!

Ben. Amy. Tom. She repeated the names as a litany. Ben. Amy. Tom.

She sat on the stair. It was freezing cold now
that she'd stopped her ascent. She didn't care. She would sit and wait and be safe in the silence until the sun rose and morning came.

 

She jerked her head up. How long had she been asleep? She'd left her watch on the table beside the bed. Had it been hours, or merely minutes? Was it dawn or dark? Her legs were cramped and her feet were all pins and needles. She stood up unsteadily, reached for the railing, and dropped the flashlight. It hit the step below with a crack and fell over the side. She heard another crack, a faint one when it hit the bottom. Faith felt her eyes fill with tears. Even if she had dared to turn it on, she couldn't now. She took a step down, then back up. It was absolutely quiet. Whoever was or had been in the lighthouse was or had been no more eager to encounter her than she him—or her. Was/had been. The person had to be long gone, having left while she slept. Had to be.

She couldn't bear to stay entombed in the lighthouse for a minute longer. She placed her foot firmly down on the next step and kept going this time. She wouldn't let herself think about what she might encounter on the step below. Or the next. Or the next. Around and around, clinging to the wall in the darkness. She reached for the thin railing, but it seemed suspended in the air, insubstantial, liable to give way and send her plummeting after the flashlight. The wall was better. Solid. Around and around. The only noises she heard were her own footsteps and, even louder, the blood pound
ing in her ears. She was so dizzy by the time she reached the bottom that she fell when her foot failed to hit another step, connecting with the floor instead. She didn't get up, but crawled in what she hoped was the direction of the door, groping for the flashlight at the same time, although it would certainly have been shattered. She put her hand up from time to time and soon felt the rough wood of the door frame. She stood and grabbed the handle. Then she was out.

It was still night and the light from the stars was blinding. She opened and closed her eyes, adjusting to the glare. There was the Pines, their car in the drive, her family asleep. All was as she'd left it. She'd wake Tom and he'd hold her tight. It was over. Tom, who slept so soundly that nothing wakened him except for a child's cry in the night, or a child's cough, didn't know that she had been gone. She'd wake him up and he would hold her tight.

Stepping away from the door, Faith pushed it closed behind her and walked past the boulders that lay tumbled against the lighthouse, dark shapes. These random piles left so long ago that to try to get a sense of the amount of time that had passed was incomprehensible for her. Just as it was to try to think about the time ahead, the expanding universe, the cooling sun aeons into the future. The rocks were heaped on either side of the lighthouse and heaped below where Harold had died. Her steps quickened. The grass was wet.

Then one of the rocks moved. A rounded one,
dark as the water behind it. The rock moved—stood up, ran, and threw her to the ground. She kicked and tried to free her arms, pinned to her sides immediately by other arms. Black, the figure was completely black. No face, nothing but black. A gloved hand was over her mouth. She tried to bite through it and felt soft flesh beneath the rough fabric. A startled cry, the hand moved. The blow to her head was sharp and quick. She didn't feel any pain, just terror. Numb fear. Before she lost consciousness, she was aware of only one sensation: smell.

The smell of turpentine.

Faith had no idea where she was. She'd opened her eyes and the bright sun had forced them closed again. Her head ached. It was the worst hangover she'd ever had in her life. Only she hadn't been drinking. She opened her eyes again. She wasn't in bed. She was swinging. The sun was like a flashbulb; she saw bright, hot dots in front of her eyes. She closed them. She wondered whether she was going to throw up. It felt as if she might. She tried to sit, but she was tangled in a blanket and the struggle caused more swinging.

Last night. She had no trouble remembering that. The lighthouse. The footsteps. The rock that moved. The longest night of her life. She had to get up. She had to find Tom.

Freeing herself from her cover, Faith was able to turn and see where she was. She hadn't gone far. Her assailant had thoughtfully brought her
back to the porch. The porch where she'd sat so contentedly hours earlier. The porch she should never have left. Now she was in the hammock that was suspended in a frame at one end. The blanket was a throw that Ursula kept on the wicker settee in case anyone felt chilled.

Faith felt very chilled.

She managed to extricate herself and stood on the porch. Her sandals were gone, but she was otherwise in one piece. It must still be very early, she thought. There was no sound from inside the house. Slightly unsteady, she turned to go indoors—and stopped. The sun shone down on the lighthouse, picking out the silver shimmer of the mica in its granite blocks, and picking out the shiny green spray paint on those same blocks. The lower portion of the light was now covered with familiar slogans. No mystery here. No doubt as to her attacker. Faith had interrupted the KSS version of paint ball.

 

Tom was angry. Earl was angry. Jill was angry. Ursula was the angriest of all. Her lips were so tightly pursed that they all but disappeared. Returning from Blue Hill Hospital with strong injunctions regarding rest and notifying them in case of further symptoms, Faith was tucked up on the couch in the living room of the Pines. She had been hit hard enough to knock her out, but it had been her fatigue and shock that had produced her deep sleep, not a concussion. Outside, volunteers were already busy scrubbing the paint from the
stones, having been given the go-ahead by Earl after the state police had taken their photographs. The lighthouse was fast becoming a familiar law-enforcement destination. Ben was with the group, assiduously attacking the graffiti, indignant at the assault on his lighthouse; he didn't know about the one on his mother. Amy was at new friend Bobby's.

“They've gone way too far this time,” Earl said. “KSS, ELF, whoever. What we do know is that the person who attacked you must be someone you know or have met, Faith, worried you'd recognize him. You're sure it was a him?”

“I'm not sure of anything,” Faith admitted, although she had told Earl earlier she thought it was a man. Something about the hand on her mouth. She knew the kind of gloves that had covered that hand. Sold at Barton's, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, you name it. Everyone on the island had a pair—thick dark cotton work gloves. Everyone also had a pair of the tawny orange leather kind, the thickly padded striped ones, and the long waterproof type fishermen wore. The average Mainer might not have an extensive wardrobe, but he did have gloves.

She wasn't afraid. Someone who intended to do you harm didn't pick you up, put you in a hammock, and cover you with a warm blanket. Someone intending harm would have finished her off by the lighthouse—or at least left her there.

Returning from the hospital, they'd discovered
that the Sanpere casserole and comfort-food brigade had been out in full force. The kitchen table was covered with everything from Nan's Comfort Cookies to Louise Frazier's southern fried chicken. Even Persis had left an offering, her standard Tuna Wiggle, and a note telling Faith to get better soon; they needed her for the play. Nibbling on a cookie and watching Tom tuck into one of the pies—Gert's black walnut—Faith wanted to talk.

“I can't tell you for sure whether the person was a man or a woman, short or tall, fat or thin. I know it sounds dumb, but one second I was looking at the rocks; then one of them moved and I was out like a light. I bit the glove and I think I bit through it. Maybe you should go around and see if anyone has a fresh wound on the palm of his or her hand.” Stigmata, but maybe not all that useful. The hands of working people on Sanpere were always cut up—and the tourists' were, too, after climbing on rocks with barnacles like razors.

“It would have had to be someone strong enough to carry you to the porch,” Jill said, “though you're so light, most adults could manage that.”

“But why go after me at all?” Faith mused. “Obviously, the person—or persons, if there was more than one vandal involved—wanted to wait until I was out of the lighthouse so I wouldn't surprise him in the act. I thought I'd been asleep for longer than I must have been, so there wasn't all that much time between when I heard the footsteps and when I left. My attacker could have re
mained still and I would have never been the wiser.”

“That's what's been bothering me, too,” Tom said.

“It may have been the plan; then the person realized there was something you'd see, something that would give everything away, so you had to be stopped.” As usual, Ursula had hit the nail on the head. “I imagine whoever it was hadn't hidden his car well enough and didn't realize it until you were walking past.”

Earl nodded. It was the only explanation that possibly made sense. Not that any of this did. Things like this didn't happen on Sanpere—the spray painting, the fires, the attack.

“Faith, when you stepped out of the lighthouse, do you recall anything that isn't usually here? Lots of cars and trucks park here during the day, but it's empty by the dock at night,” the sergeant said. This wasn't an official session. He'd questioned her earlier. Now Faith was surrounded by friends and family. But the officer figured something might jog her memory.

She closed her eyes and was back in the moment, even smelling the night air—the smell before the turpentine. She opened them and shook her head. “What struck me was that everything looked the same as it had when I went in. I had been so terrified that it seemed something in the outside world would mirror that. But it was all normal. The houses, our car.”

“What about before you went in?” Jill asked excitedly, “Was yours the only car?” Maybe the
blow on the head had been intended to obliterate a memory, not forestall one.

Again, Faith had to shake her head. “Nothing.”

There was a knock at the door and Tom jumped up to answer it. More food.

Linda Forsythe crept into the room. She appeared daunted at the presence of so many people.

“I wanted to drop this off.” She was holding a basket covered with a bright flowered napkin. “Raspberry scones. My bushes are loaded with berries….” She was as scarlet as a berry herself. “Roland says to tell you not to hurry back, although we'll all miss you.” She stopped again and blushed some more, if that was possible. Faith came to her rescue.

“Thank you. I'm sure the scones are delicious, and tell Roland I'll be back Monday. There really isn't anything wrong with me. I was very lucky.”

The others in the room were eyeing Linda less charitably, and Earl seemed about to say something, when Linda blurted out the real reason for her visit.

Still clutching the basket, an aging Red Riding Hood, she stammered, “It wasn't just the scones. I mean, I wanted to bring you something, but what I wanted to say…that is what I meant to do…Look, we didn't do it. KSS had nothing to do with what happened last night. I'm positive. I've spoken to Don…to several members, and no one did it—or would have. The spray painting, hitting you on the head—it wasn't us.” She looked straight into Faith's eyes.

What to say? Thank you for not attacking me? Thank you for not defacing one of Maine's historical and architectural treasures?

Ursula reached for the basket. Linda loosened the death grip she had on it and handed it over.

“I'm sure we're all very glad to hear what you've had to say, dear,” Ursula said. “Now, Faith needs to rest. I was just about to tell that to the others. Please inform Roland that she
may
be back Monday. We'll see.”

Faith smiled. Yes, Mother, she said to herself. It felt wonderful to be coddled. It must have been very difficult for Linda to come to the Pines, and she reached out her hand toward the woman. “I appreciate your stopping by to tell me this,” she said.

Linda took her hand and Faith pulled her in for a little hug. The others murmured some sort of good-bye. None of them was in the mood for anything remotely connected to KSS.

“Think she was telling the truth?” Tom asked after Linda had left.

“I think she hopes we think so,” Faith replied, suddenly exhausted. When she'd taken Linda's hand, it was impossible not to notice the large fresh Band-Aid that stretched across her palm.

 

“I'm getting on a plane as soon as we reach Vancouver!” Pix Miller was adamant.

“Don't be ridiculous. You'll miss Jasper. You've always wanted to go to Jasper,” Faith said, wondering what there could possibly be to eat there.

The sigh that came across the wires was palpable. “I'd feel better about things if I were there with you.”

“I know your presence is formidable, especially on Sanpere Island, and that deep in your heart you think if you'd been here, none of this would have happened, but you're wrong. Whatever's happening has nothing to do with you or me. I was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Twice, Faith told herself.

Ignoring her friend's implied affront to her ability to control the universe, Pix asked, “Why paint slogans on the lighthouse? Harold is dead, so any plans for opening up a Motel Six are, at the very most, on hold. You do know that Mother wants to buy it from his widow? We have to hope she wants some quick cash and doesn't wait for someone to offer an exorbitant amount.”

Faith had a strong feeling that Victoria Viceroy Hapswell wanted both, but she kept her mouth shut. She, too, wanted Ursula to buy the lighthouse. If buyer and seller met, there was a chance a deal could be struck. Ursula, like Pix, was pretty good at getting her own way. Quietly, firmly, but definitely her way.

Pix wasn't getting it now, though. Cutting her family vacation short was out of the question, and Faith was not going to allow her friend to do it. She was pretty good at getting her own way, too, although without the sleight of hand the Rowe women had acquired over the years.

But the lighthouse.

“From what I learned from the Web site Jill and I looked at, these actions are often planned far in advance,” Faith said. “The cell members wear disguises—basic black in this case—so they may not know one another, or who to call if a foray is going to be canceled. Earl thinks there was a whole list drawn up months ago—kind of ‘Be there or be square.' The state police will be stepping up night patrols here on the island, figuring there will be another one at least before the end of the summer. The sheriff's office is involved too.”

“Hmm,” said Pix. “It shouldn't be too hard to figure out who will be attacked. I'm sure Earl has made a list, too. He always does. I hope Jill can get him to leave his little notebook home on their wedding day. Anyway, the targets are easy to predict. All you'd have to do would be go to Mabel and look at the figures from the tax rolls.”

Last week, Tom had asked Faith to drop by the Town Hall when she had a chance to double-check theirs, since they had to increase their home owner's insurance because of the new addition and he'd left all that information back in Aleford. She hadn't gotten around to it yet.

“It's public information? What everyone's assessed at?” she asked.

“Absolutely. People go in all the time, check on what their neighbor's place is worth compared to theirs, make sure the town isn't overcharging. Or so they say. I think it's plain old nosiness myself.”

“Not that there's anything wrong with that,” Faith said.

“Now, Faith…” Pix laughed.

“Okay, okay. I'll be good. But you finish your vacation. I don't expect to see you here until the thirtieth at the earliest.”

“We bought tickets for the play for Friday, and of course Jill's wedding is Saturday. We may be back sooner.”

Faith knew this wouldn't happen. The trusty Miller van would lurch in late Thursday or even Friday. They'd take showers, put on fresh jeans, and head off to
Romeo and Juliet.

“How is the play coming, by the way?” Pix asked.

“The
play
is fantastic, and if Persis ever learns her lines, it will be absolutely perfect. The
rehearsals
have been something else. Becky Prescott's family started sending a family member to keep an eye on things after the Fish 'n' Fritter Fry, when she danced with Ted. The Hamiltons heard about it and started sending their own representatives. It would be funny if it weren't so deadly serious. The lobster war, that is, and all these repercussions. Roland finally had enough, so now all the rehearsals are closed.” The Hamiltons and Prescotts who had turned up weren't disruptive, but they'd sat on opposite sides of the auditorium, with arms folded across their chests and such stony faces that it was impossible for the actors to perform. Some days, there was a whole phalanx of these onlookers; sometimes only a few kids—tattletales. The balcony scene had had all the ardor of “kissing your
sister,” and after numerous equally wooden repetitions, Roland had delivered his ultimatum. It helped that he had taught most of them. There were a few angry shouts about having every right to be there, but in the end, the two camps left. Play duty had been seriously cutting into work time, and as one of the Hamiltons told Freeman, “a little of that Shakespeare fellow goes a long way.”