The Body in the Lighthouse (6 page)

It was only when Faith walked into the dark, cool auditorium that she remembered something else about the pair. Becky was a Prescott and Ted a Hamilton. Oh life—forget art. These were star-crossed lovers for real, and if their families got wind of what was going on, the play would grind to a halt—or worse.

 

“I'm here! I'm here! Radiator on the Caddie boiled over, and I'm 'bout ready to do the same.”

It was the Nurse. It had to be. She wouldn't need any pillows for the part. Despite the weight, she was an attractive woman with fair skin, large green eyes, and light auburn hair that crackled with an occasional streak of pure red. She was wearing a well-cut white linen pant-suit, and her makeup and nails were salon-perfect. Did she think it was a dress rehearsal? Was the white suit intended to suggest a nurse?

“That's Persis Sanford,” whispered Linda. She seemed about to say more, but then clamped her mouth shut.

The real estate agent. Of course. Persis needed to look as well groomed as her clients—better, in fact. And drive a fancy car. She and her son, Kenny, were about the same height, yet the resemblance ended there. His pale face suggested one of those grubs that emerge when a rock is
turned over; hers was ivory, with a dusting of Revlon Honey Beige. It was hard to tell the color of Kenny's crew cut, but it was at the other end of the spectrum from his mother's hue, and Persis's girth could easily span two or three of his.

“Tell me when you're cool enough to start. Get a cold drink,” Roland said.

“Oh, I'm ready,” Persis declared. They'd have no trouble hearing her in the back rows. “Let's get the show on the road.”

They began rehearsing the scene with Romeo and Mercutio, where Romeo confides his secret marriage plans to his beloved's nurse, but not until Mercutio makes sport of her—she matching each jest with a bawdy one of her own. Faith stopped painting to listen. The three actors spurred one another on and the scene was marvelous. Jill had been right: Roland was coaxing some truly amazing performances from people whose only prior experience trodding the boards had been walking on a pier. The Nurse's servant, Peter, was being played by one of Nan and Freeman Marshall's grandsons. Nan and Freeman were the Fairchilds' nearest neighbors on the point; they lived on the opposite side, and Freeman fished, except when “that fool of a doctor gets my blood pressure wrong.” Faith could picture them on opening night, pleased as punch, sitting in the front row—Freeman in an unaccustomed dress shirt, his hair slicked down, wavy comb marks visible; Nan with her apron off, large Monet pearl earrings and matching necklace,
Christmas gifts from her children. Peter, his name on stage and off, didn't have too many lines, but the way he belted out “Anon” was sure to be remembered.

It was getting close to three o'clock, and there was a sudden increase in activity as new actors arrived to rehearse, while some left for home or work. There were others, too, who, having finished one workday, were volunteering their time to construct the sets or help in other ways, which amounted to another job. It really was a community effort, and Faith marveled anew at Roland's ability to weave all the strands into one whole.

Persis crossed the stage and called out, “Got to run, Roland. See you tomorrow. I can make it at ten. Have to show some Boston people a piece of land at nine, but they aren't going to buy it. Browsers.” She wiped her sweating brow with a hankie from her pocket. “Lord, it's hot, and these lights don't help.” She walked to the rear of the stage and picked up the Moxie bottle, which was on the floor next to the coffin, where Faith had put it after the earlier scene. She put it to her lips, took a swig, and instantly fell to the floor, clutching at her throat.

Roland ran to her, pushing the buttons on his cell phone, but Faith reached the woman first.

Her eyes were glazed and she was breathing with great difficulty. Faith leaned over. There was a faint smell of violets on Persis's breath. The bottle had been empty earlier. Had someone filled it with perfume? and if so, why?

“I've been poisoned,” Persis whispered. “And I know…” Her eyes and mouth closed, as if a puppeteer had pulled a single string.

The stage was oddly silent; then Roland called for someone to put a blanket over her. She was still breathing. There was no mistaking the rise and fall of her bosom.

“The ambulance corps will be here soon. It doesn't take them long,” he said, pacing back and forth. “Ted, go outside and make sure they know where to come.”

Romeo and Juliet had been standing together. He'd put his arm around her, their faces terrified. He jumped from the stage and ran up the aisle. The sound of the door closing startled everyone and the quiet began to be replaced by low, anxious conversation.

Faith continued to crouch at Persis's side. The Moxie bottle had tipped over when Persis dropped it, and Faith knelt to smell the clear liquid that had trickled onto the floor. She had no idea what Moxie was supposed to look like, and the only notion of its taste had come from Tom, who occasionally drank a bottle as a symbol of his New England roots. “Good for you,” he always said, which was enough to keep Faith away.

Careful not to get too close—she didn't want to inhale a deadly poison—Faith took a cautious sniff.

Turpentine. She'd been using it all morning and, in any case, had enough artist friends to know the smell well.

“Roland, tell them it's turpentine. I'm virtually positive.”

He looked surprised, but he relayed this information to the person on the phone.

“Keep her still. We don't want her to vomit. Somebody get some glasses of water. If the EMT crew decides that's what it is, they're going to want water at hand.” He paused, listening. “They want to know if you smelled anything unusual on her breath,” he told Faith.

“Yes, a floral smell. Like violets. I thought she'd drunk some perfume.”

He repeated her answer into the phone and then shut it off.

“They're pretty sure it's turpentine, then. Apparently, that's what it smells like when ingested.”

“Turpentine.” Becky Prescott's voice was trembling. “Can it kill you?”

Faith's reputation as a sometime sleuth was not unknown on the small island, and many eyes turned toward her, the closest thing they had to a resident expert at the moment.

“If you swallow enough, yes, but I don't think Persis did. The taste and the burning in her mouth made her spit it out.”

The victim's eyes and mouth stayed closed, but Faith was sure it wasn't her imagination that the woman's body visibly relaxed.

“I read something in some art book about never keeping a bowl of ice-cold soup, like gazpacho, near where you're working, in case you accidentally dip a turpentine-soaked brush in it,
because then when you eat the soup, the cold will numb your tongue and mouth, so you won't taste or feel the turpentine until it's too late. Sounds like something from a mystery novel.” Linda Forsythe was rattling on, obviously in a state of shock herself. Faith wished someone would slap the woman across the face before she further incriminated herself. But why would Linda put turpentine in a Moxie bottle? She knew the props better than anyone, and they were using old coffee cans for soaking their brushes.

The ambulance corps arrived and cleared everyone away. They concurred with Faith's opinion and, after consulting by phone with the emergency room staff at Blue Hill Hospital, got the woman to drink some water, then rushed her off in the ambulance.

“I'm sure Persis will be fine,” Roland said firmly to the group. “And I know she would want us to keep on going. That's the type of person she is, as we all know.” His words were less mellifluous now, although still powerful. Faith had the distinct feeling of being in a locker room.

She left soon after and collected the kids. Amy was hot and sticky. Ben was hot, sticky, and cross. “Why is it so hot? It's never this hot in Maine. What's wrong? Can we go swimming? We need to go swimming.”

“That, Benjamin William Fairchild, is a perfect idea, and if the tide is right, we can go from our very own beach.”

Faith couldn't believe she was actually saying this, but the lure of the frigid water was irresistible. She thought of all those Norwegians who jumped into snowbanks right after leaving their saunas. It would be something like that. Think of it as a spa treatment, she told herself, scooting the kids along to the air-conditioned car.

She passed Linda in the parking lot. The woman was so intent on her conversation with a worried-looking man Faith had never seen before that it took a repeat of her greeting before Faith got a response.

“Oh, Faith. Thanks for your help. See you tomorrow. Are these your kids?”

Tempted as she was to reply that they were merely rentals—what did the woman think?—Faith introduced her children. But Linda did not introduce
her
friend—a short, stocky man, his graying curly hair joining an equally wiry, bushy beard. He graced the Fairchilds with a cursory glance and appeared not to find them of enough interest to merit more than a nod before returning to his intense conversation with Linda. Then the two got into a shiny new red pickup, taking off with a slight squeal of tires before Faith had strapped Amy into her car seat. Ben, who had adopted a winsome smile and appeared cool as a cucumber, relapsed into his previous fretfulness. Faith was seized by a panic-stricken thought and blurted out, “You like camp, don't you? Didn't you have fun today?”

Ben gave her a sidelong glance, seeming to
read her mind or the balloon coming out of her mouth: If camp doesn't work out, there's no plan B. She hoped he wasn't going to be precocious, grateful for the lack thereof so far.

“I
do
like camp. It's great. We made mobiles out of shells today. I just
don't
like the weather.”

Faith breathed a sigh of relief and headed for home.

 

Simply putting on a bathing suit made Faith feel ten degrees cooler. She slipped on an oversize T-shirt and emerged from the bathroom. The crew was packing up, and Tom had already taken the kids down to the cove. Things looked pretty much the same as the day before—incomplete—but Faith was heartened by the fact that she could see some cabinets stacked against the wall.

Elwell Hamilton stopped on his way out the door. “Heard about Persis. They called Kenny and he went up to the hospital.”

Faith had forgotten about Kenny. She had trouble putting the mother and son together.

“I'm sure she's going to be fine. They'll probably keep her overnight, but fortunately, she didn't actually swallow any of the turpentine.”

Lyle came over and shook his head. “Helluva way to start the month. The fire last night, and now this. Too goddamn hot. That's the problem.”

Elwell left, but Lyle didn't seem to be in a hurry. Faith could hear squeals of delight or acute pain—she wasn't sure which—coming from the water. In any case, she had cooled down considerably,
and plunging into the icy brine was fast losing its appeal. She had a pitcher of iced tea in the fridge and fresh mint in the front garden.

“Would you like a glass of iced tea? I thought I'd sit outside on the deck for a while and think about not swimming.”

Lyle laughed. “I'm happy to think about that any day. I've never gone in on purpose my whole life. Iced tea sounds much better.”

They took their glasses, and Faith grabbed a hat for herself. Lyle's Snap-On Tools cap was a permanent accessory. She added some mint to the glasses, and left the pitcher conveniently close.

Lyle wasn't just passing the time of day.

“You see the whole thing?”

“With Persis?”

“Yup.”

She described what had happened, omitting only Persis's words. Persis could, and would, broadcast that news herself. Faith didn't want to be responsible for repeating such a hot potato, a potato that would be passed quickly from hand to hand. But Lyle was obviously pumping her, and turnabout was fair play.

“You must have a lot of dealings with Persis. She sells houses. You work on them. What's she like?”

Lyle took a long swig of tea. Faith chided herself. She'd been too direct. Lyle did respond, though.

“Not like anybody else. Course, you could say that about anybody. But it especially applies to
Persis. She's one of the sharpest on the island when it comes to business, and that's saying something. Smart enough to realize she couldn't compete with the big agencies that cover more of the coast. So, from the get-go, she came up with her own way of attracting customers.”

Faith was skeptical. “I've never seen any signs on lawns with her name; she must not have that many listings.” These harbingers of the tourist season sprouted like daffodils each spring, often in the same spots for years in a row.

“That's just it. She doesn't advertise. Doesn't even have an office. Works out of her house. It's all word of mouth. Say you're looking for a place here. What's going to reel you in faster—something widely advertised, or someone telling you that there's a local woman who represents a select few sellers and may or may not show you what she's got?”

It
was
brilliant. Persis had been a femme fatale as a younger woman, and she'd translated playing hard to get into a moneymaking real estate operation.

“It's exactly like New York!” Faith exclaimed.

Lyle looked startled. He'd never heard anyone make this comparison before.

“If you want to sell your apartment, the first person you tell is the doorman—or, if you don't have one, the guy at the nearest newsstand. Everyone wants to believe they're getting in on the ground floor.”

“It is the same, I guess.” Lyle laughed. “The
other thing Persis has going for her is that she really does get listings no one else would get, because we all know she's going to get top dollar. Besides, she's from here. Most islanders use her when they sell. She takes a smaller percentage than the others, too.”