Assassin

Chapter Eight

Dark Harbor, Maine

DEIRDRE SLADE GLANCED OUT HER UPSTAIRS BEDROOM window at the sound of an approaching motor. It was too foggy to see anything, even with the floodlights on the rocks and one out at the end of the dock. But she knew by the distinctive putt-putt of the motor that it was Amos McCullough’s ancient lobster boat. Nice of him to bring his granddaughter over on a pea-souper night like this. He may not have all his marbles, Deirdre thought, but by God, Amos McCullough still had his good old-fashioned Yankee manners.

She looked at her small diamond evening watch and rushed back into her dressing room, her cheeks expelling a little puff of air. Almost seven. She was going to be late if she didn’t get off island by seven-thirty or so. Invitation had said eight sharp and it was a good twenty minutes in the Whaler over to the Dark Harbor Yacht Club docks. Night like this, with the fog really socked in, it could easily take her half an hour.

The Old Guard still took invitations seriously up in this part of Maine. Show up a little late, or a little stewed, or, worse yet, not at all, and you are definitely going to be Topic A at the Beach Club next morning. Deirdre had, over the years, been guilty of all three transgressions.

Thank God Amos had made sure his granddaughter Millie, the babysitter, was on time. Charlie and Laura, five and six, had had their macaroni and cheese dinner and were already bathed and in their Harry Potter jammies. She and her two children had been having a ball here on Pine Island, the three sole inhabitants of the big old house up on the rocks her parents had bought in the fifties. It was the house she’d grown up in and she adored every musty nook and cranny.

Deirdre added a little gloss to her lipstick and stepped back to look at herself in the full-length mirror. Black Chanel dress. White pearls. Black satin Manolo Blahnik heels. Pretty good for an aging babe, she thought, fooling around with her shoulder-length blonde hair. Certainly good enough for the Maine Historical Society dinner at the Dark Harbor Yacht Club.

She took a quick sip of the glass of grocery store Chardonnay sitting on the mirrored top of her dressing table.

God, she hated these things. Especially when she had to go without her husband. Still, it was fun to bring the kids back to Maine for a couple of weeks. It was spring break at their school in Madrid. Evan was of course supposed to be here. But, at the last minute, his job had gotten in the way. He had promised to join them if he could duck out of some urgent Mideast talks in Bahrain a few days early. She wasn’t holding her breath. These were tough times for diplomats, and Evan took his job very seriously. He’d plainly been on edge on the phone tonight. Something was bothering him.

Something was going on in sunny Madrid.

He wouldn’t, or more than likely, couldn’t talk about it. What had he said to her when they’d said good-bye in the lounge at the Madrid Barajas airport? Keep your eyes open, darling. It’s going to get much worse before it gets better. She waited for more, but she could see in his eyes it wasn’t coming. Over the years, she’d learned not to ask. They had a good marriage. If there was something that needed saying, and it was something that could be said, it got said.

She’d replaced the receiver and sat on her bedside, staring out into the swirling fog beyond the bedroom windows. Keep him safe, she whispered, on the off chance that there really was somebody up there listening. You keep him safe.

“Hiya, Amos,” Deirdre said descending the stairway. All she could see at first were his yellow rubber boots and the legs of the foul-weather gear, but she’d know that stance anywhere. The wide-apart stance of an old man who’d spent years on the slippery wet deck of a wildly pitching lobster boat.

“And, hello, Millicent,” Deirdre started to say. “It’s awfully nice of you to—”

It wasn’t Millicent.

“Hi,” the girl said, coming towards her with her hand outstretched. She had some flowers rolled up in newspaper. “You’re Mrs. Slade. I’m Siri. A good friend of Millie’s at school. Here, these are for you.”

Deirdre took the flowers, then her hand, and shook it.

“Thank you, these are lovely. Iris. Truly one of my favorite flowers. Sorry, I didn’t catch your last name?”

“It’s Adjelis. Siri Adjelis. Millie couldn’t make it. She was so sick at her stomach and she was so upset, and, like, you know, worried about canceling at the last minute and everything. So, I was like, hey, why not, I could use the money. I hope it’s okay.”

“She normally calls if there’s a problem,” Deirdre said, now looking at Amos. “Is Millie all right, Amos?”

“Oh, she tried,” Siri said, interrupting. “Sorry, Mrs. Slade, but your line was tied up and then it was time for me and Mr. McCullough to get in the boat and head over here to the island or we’d be late.”

“Very kind of you to help out, Siri,” Deirdre said. “Funny. I’ve never heard Millie mention your name. Have you lived in Dark Harbor long?”

“No, not really, Mrs. Slade. My family just moved up here from New York six months ago. But Millie and I have homeroom together and we just, like, you know, bonded or whatever. We were like instant soul mates. You know?”

Deirdre was looking at Amos, who held his dripping sou’wester in his hands, turning it round and round by the brim, looking cold and soggy in his old blue flannel shirt and yellow foul-weather overalls.

“Amos, you look chilled to the bone. Come out in the kitchen and let me pour you an inside-outer. An old-fashioned stomach-warmer. Siri, the children are upstairs in the playroom. They’ve already had dinner and bathed. They’re allowed story time for exactly one hour. Not a minute longer. I’m halfway through Black Beauty and they love it. It’s on top of the dresser. Can I bring you up something, Siri? Water? Diet Coke?”

“No, I’m fine, Mrs. Slade. I’ll just go up and introduce myself to the kids. Larry and Carla, right?”

“Charles and Laura.”

“Oh, right. Sorry. Brain fade. My bad, totally. Millie told me Charlie and Laura. Is five dollars an hour too much?”

“I pay Millie four.”

“Four’s fine. I just didn’t know.”

“All right. You go on up and say hello. I’ll come up and say good-bye to the kids before I leave.”

“Amos,” Deirdre said in the kitchen, pouring the old man a tumbler full of Dewar’s. “How well do you know this girl?”

She poured a short one for herself even though she’d already had two glasses of chardonnay. The edginess in Evan’s voice on the phone had somehow been creeping around the corners of her mind ever since they’d hung up.

“Know her pretty well.”

“How?”

“How what, dear?”

“How? How do you know her?”

“Oh, you know. Over to the house all the time. Up in Millie’s room. Listenin’ to that damn M&M music.”

“Have you met her parents?”

“Yup.”

“Nice people?”

“Reckon so.”

“What does the father do?”

“Some kind of mechanic, I think.”

“Oh. Where?”

“Works on airplanes. Over to the airport.”

“And the mother?”

“Nurse over to General. Pediatrics.”

“Jesus. I’ll tell you something, this world is turning us all a little bit paranoid, Amos. I’m sure she’s perfectly nice if she’s a friend of your lovely granddaughter’s. Please tell Millie I understand and hope she’s feeling better in the morning. Well, salut. Bottoms up, you sweet old soul. I suppose I’d better shove off.”

“Thick as chowdah out there tonight Dee-Dee,” Amos said, draining his whiskey. “Woman alone out in that pea souper in that little toy Boston Whaler of yours. No instruments, a’ tall. Easy to lose your bearings in a fog bank that way. Yup. That’s what happened to that Kennedy boy a few summers ago, you may remembah, over to the Vineyard. Got himself into a fog bank. My opinion is that poor boy ran out of luck and experience at about the same time.”

“I’ve been making that crossing twice a day since I was six years old, Amos, and you know it. Follow your ears out to that old bell buoy and hang a right. Yacht Club docks dead ahead. I could do it blindfolded.”

She’d found Siri on the floor with the kids, reading Black Beauty aloud. The light from Laura’s spinning carousel lamp was causing shadowy horses to gallop around the room. “Mommy,” Laura had said with a big smile. “We like Siri! She’s funny! She doesn’t speak Spanish but she speaks another funny language.”

“I’m glad you like her, darling. That means you’ll listen to her when she says it’s night-night time, right?” She kissed them both good-bye and said to Siri, “I’ll be home by midnight. You know the rules, I’m sure. No smoking, no drinking, no boys. Okay?”

“Yes, Mrs. Slade,” Siri said smiling. “I know the rules. Would it be all right if I watch TV after they’re asleep?”

“We don’t own a TV, Siri. Sorry. You will find plenty of good books in the library downstairs.”

She’d found Amos still on the dock. He insisted she follow his boat over to the club. On his way home, anyway.

“Thanks, Amos,” she said, climbing down into the Whaler. “And tell Millie I hope she feels better soon.”

“Yup. Ain’t like her to come down with a bug. Girl has a cast-iron stomach. Always has. Never sick a day in her life that I can recall.”

“I should be home by midnight if you want to pick up the babysitter then, Amos.”

“Sure thing. See you then, dear girl.”

She followed the halo of the hazy white running light on Amos’s stern through the fog, around old Number Nine, clanging mournfully, and fifteen minutes later tied up at the club dock. Eight on the button. She shrugged off her foul-weather gear, shook the beaded moisture off the old yellow jacket, and threw it down across the boat’s thwart seat. Her hair was damp and matted, but what the hell. Wasn’t like this was some big embassy do where she had to—

“Deirdre, darling,” a bourbon-soaked male voice said, emerging from the fog. “Popped out for a quick puff and saw your yacht steaming in.”

“Oh, hello, Graham. Fancy meeting you here.”

“Well, Michelle’s just popped down to New York with the kids for some birthday shopping or something and I’m afraid they’ve stuck you next to me. Table nine. The two bachelors, as it were.”

“No, Graham, you’re the bachelor wannabe. I’m the happily married woman. Could you possibly find someone and order me a whiskey?”

“Certainly, my dear. Bit nippy out for early June, this.”

She had to smile. She loved Americans who’d lived in London for a few years and came home with the most agonizingly affected British accents. Next thing she knew, he’d be inviting her to “nip round to his flat for a capper.” He pulled the club’s front door open for her and she waded in, waiting for it, yes, here it came, “After you, luv.”

Graham was one of the club’s self-proclaimed Wharf Rats. Never took their boats out, would never dare venture out off the perilous rocky coast of Maine. No, they just sat there in their stern chairs and drank, their fancy radars spinning merrily away on the sunniest afternoons. He was insufferable, unctuous was the word, but easy on the eyes in his black tie, and she allowed herself to just float on the buzz of conversation, the bad hors d’oeuvres, the mindless chitchat about children and summer plans.

She’d heard it all a thousand times, the major themes, the minor variations, and, smiling and nodding at appropriate moments, she could get through one of these cocktail buffets in her sleep.

When they were finally seated, Graham was on her right. He kept refilling her wineglass, trying to get her tipsy, and after a while she tired of putting her hand over the top to stop him. The wine was a way to float over the thing, look down upon the actors on the stage, paying just enough attention to be ready for the cue for her next line.

Faye Gilchrist, two seats away on her left, was saying something about children being sent home from school that day. High fevers. Something about tainted flu shots.

“Faye, excuse me for interrupting,” Deirdre said. “What did you say about the children being sent home?”

“Well, Dee-Dee, it’s just the most horrendous thing, darling. Apparently they’ve all come down with horrific fevers and stomach cramps. One child went into convulsions and is apparently in critical condition.”

“Lord. What happened?” Deirdre asked. “Something bad in the cafeteria food at lunch?”

“Oh, no, my dear. It was in the morning. A nurse in the gym giving flu shots. When the children started getting violently ill, someone called the hospital. Apparently, well, from what I hear, this nurse wasn’t even on their records and—well, she’s been suspended pending investigation. Isn’t it awful? To think that our children—”

“Excuse me,” Deirdre said, knocking over a big goblet of red wine as she got to her feet. “Sorry, I’m not feeling well and I must rush off…sorry. You must excuse me…”

She somehow managed to navigate the crowded dining room and took the shortest route through the club towards the docks, through the kitchen, everyone back there smiling at her and saying good evening, Mrs. Slade. She reached the payphone in the pantry, pulled the door closed and opened her evening bag. No cell phones allowed in the club but she managed to find two quarters at the bottom of the bag and slammed them into the machine.

“Hello, Slade residence.”

“Siri, it’s Mrs. Slade.”

“Oh, hi! What’s up?”

“Nothing. I just…just wanted to check on…to check…”

“Mrs. Slade?”

“Check on the children. Are they all right?”

“Oh, yes. Sleeping like two little angels.”

“Angels,” Deirdre said and was about to hang up.

“Will your husband be coming back with you, Mrs. Slade?”

“My husband? Why do you—”

She burst out the swinging double doors and took a deep breath, willing her heart to slow. It had grown colder, and the swirling fog wrapping itself around her snapped her out of the daze of wine and words, clicking everything back into sharp focus.

Line was tied up. Cast-iron stomach. Never sick a day in her life. Nurse, pediatrics. Nurse suspended pending investigation.

She’d been staring numbly at Faye Gilchrist, her salad fork poised in mid-air, when Siri’s breezy lie turned her insides to ice.

No, Siri, the line was most definitely not tied up.

There were two lines running under the bay and into the house. The old one they’d had since she was a child. And then a later one Evan had had installed. If the second line rang, it was one of a small number of people they’d given the number to. It was the only line Evan used when he called from Madrid or Washington because he knew she’d pick up. That was the line they’d been on tonight. The only call she’d taken on the old one was when her sister had called from San Obispo around three that afternoon.

Line was tied up. Sorry, Mrs. Slade.

She leapt down into the Whaler and yanked the starter rope. It came to life, thank God, on the first pull. Graham was swaying on the dock above her, sloshing drink in hand, saying something ridiculous about a nightcap in his fluty Queen’s Guards accent, and she threw the lines off and twisted the throttle wide open, up on plane before she was twenty yards from the dock.

Will your husband be coming back with you, Mrs. Slade?

Fog was even worse but she kept the gas wide open, straining her ears for the tolling of Number Nine. Her heart was pounding again and she felt rivulets of moisture running down between her breasts, the fog wrapped like a cold wet cloak round her shoulders. The blood was pounding so loudly in her ears now she almost missed it. There. A muffled clang. Then, another. She waited until she judged herself to be just abeam of the buoy and then shoved the tiller hard to starboard. She was trying to shave it close, maybe gain a few seconds.

She’d shaved it too close. The bow of the little boat shuddered as it struck and then glanced off the big buoy. She was thrown forward, into the bottom of the boat, and the motor sputtered and died. Her shoulder was screaming with pain, but she climbed back up onto the wooden bench seat and yanked the cord. Shit. She tried twice more and the third time it caught. She was still cursing herself for misjudging the buoy’s location when the hazy yellow lights of the big house up on the rocks loomed before her.

She ran up the curving rock steps leading to the house. All the lights were on downstairs and nothing looked amiss, thank God. Still, she took off her heels when she got to wide steps of the verandah. The front door would be unlocked. You didn’t have to lock doors when you lived on an island. That’s why you lived on an island.

She pushed open the front door and stepped into the foyer. All the lights off upstairs. There was a fire in the library fireplace. She could hear it crackling, the flickering yellow light visible beneath the doors. One of the double mahogany doors was slightly ajar. She crossed quickly and pulled it open.

Siri was on the floor. She was sitting cross-legged on a pillow, staring into the roaring fire, the flames silhouetting her long dark hair and shoulders. Siri didn’t turn around at the sound of the door being opened.

“Siri?”

No answer.

“Siri!” She screamed it this time, loud enough to wake the dead.

“My name isn’t Siri,” the girl said in a flat monotone. She still didn’t turn around. “It’s Iris, like the flowers I brought you. Siri is just Iris spelled backwards.”

“Look at me, goddamn you, whoever you are!” Deirdre felt for the switch on the wall that turned on the big crystal chandelier, but her hand was shaking so badly she couldn’t find it. “I said look at me!”

Siri, Iris, whatever, turned around, a white smile in the middle of her dark face. Her face, the whole front of her body looked odd. It was all black and—her fingers finally found the switch and flipped the lights on. Suddenly, the black on the girl’s face wasn’t black anymore; that was just a trick of the firelight making it look black: no, it was bright red. It was red on her arms and hands, too. Red was—

“Oh, my God, what have you done?”

She was staggering backwards against the door. Iris got to her feet, hands behind her back now, and started coming towards her. One hand was coming up and Deirdre didn’t wait to see the knife she instinctively knew was in it. But it wasn’t a knife. No, it was a…what…video camera! A blinking red eye! Filming her and—

“Get away from me! Leave me alone! I’ve got to go up and see my babies!” Deirdre turned in the doorway, stumbling through it.

“I wouldn’t go up there, Mrs. Slade. Definitely not a good idea,” she heard Iris say behind her.

Deirdre’s mind broke apart then. She ran for the stairs.

“Oh, my God! Oh, no! What have you done to—”

She never made it to the top of the stairs. The last thing she heard before she died was someone saying, “…like two little angels, I told you, Mrs. Slade.”

Chief Ellen Ainslie of the Dark Harbor Police Department and her young deputy Nikos Savalas found Mrs. Slade next morning, sprawled halfway up the main staircase, dead of multiple stab wounds. A bunch of long-stemmed blue flowers had been strewn over the corpse. Chief Ainslie bent down and looked closely at the victim’s face and the blood-caked handle of a large kitchen knife protruding from under her right shoulder.

“It’s Dee-Dee Slade, all right.”

“She’s got two little ones, doesn’t she?” Deputy Savalas said, bending down to get a closer look.

“She did have, anyway, yep,” the chief said. “Let’s go take a look.”

“Her husband’s somebody pretty important down in Washington, right?” Savalas asked. “A big-shot senator or something?”

“Ambassador to Spain,” the chief said, looking at the baby-faced young deputy with the full black moustache. He’d only been with the force three months and he’d certainly never seen anything remotely as horrific as what he was about to encounter. “Let’s go,” she said, stepping carefully over Mrs. Slade’s body and climbing the stairs up to the second floor, even though it was the very last thing on earth she wanted to do.