Murder With Puffins

Chapter 5

These Puffins Were Made for Walking

We tried. We really did. The Monhegan House's three dozen rooms were filled with birders. The Island Inn was full, as well. Overflowing, in fact. I'd forgotten about the oversupply of birders.

"We've called up everyone on the island, trying to find rooms for them all," the owner of the Island Inn explained. "We even have a bunch of birders camping out down in the church."

"Well, so much for peace and quiet and privacy," Michael said. "I assume on an island this size, everyone has a pretty good idea who has a vacancy and who doesn't?"

"On an island this size, everyone has a pretty good idea who's running low on corn flakes and toilet paper," I said. "I think we can take it as a given that there's no room at the inn. Any inn."

So by 9:00 a.m.--an hour when I normally prefer to be fast asleep--we had already given up on our search. We sat for a few minutes on a soggy wooden swing on the front porch of the Island Inn and watched the pedestrians hiking up and down the streets. The rain had temporarily slacked off to a mere icy mist, and both birds and birders made the most of it. I only caught fleeting glimpses of the birds, but I was getting to know the plumage and feeding habits of the common New England bird-watcher pretty well.

Actually, at first glance, it was hard to tell the locals from the bird-watchers. Everyone had some kind of waterproof footgear, with the unfortunate exception of Michael and me. Rain ponchos and down vests were commonplace.

I wondered if it had occurred to any of them how many birds had given their all to fill those vests.

But while most of the locals scurried about with canvas tote bags full of supplies and bits of lumber for boarding things up, the birders carried enough waterproof surveillance hardware to equip a squad of Navy SEALS. Binoculars, telescopes, cameras, tape recorders, video cameras--you name it, they had it.

Every couple of minutes, a troop of birders would swarm up the steps of the inn and ask us where we'd been and what we'd seen and whether we'd spotted the kestrels up on Black Head yet. When we explained that we hadn't been anywhere or seen any birds and thought the kestrels up on Black Head had enough company already, they would look at us oddly and slip inside to refill their thermoses with hot coffee.

"Apart from going back to the cottage and listening to more Wagner, what else is there to do on the island?" Michael asked.

"We could stroll through the village and see the sights," I said.

Just then, Fred Dickerman rattled by in his pickup truck, leaning on the horn, while a quartet of birders sprinted just ahead of his bumper. Monhegan has no sidewalks; any pedestrian walking in the road when a truck approached was expected to step aside to let the vehicle pass. Or jump aside, if the driver was Fred. Most truck drivers took it slowly when they went through the village, but Fred evidently enjoyed chivvying tourists into puddles and brier patches.

"Reminds me of running before the bulls at Pamplona," Michael remarked as the birders finally reached a wide spot in the road and hurled themselves to safety.

"Oh, have you actually done that?"

"No, and I'm not about to start now," he said. "Doesn't look too restful, strolling through the village. Anything else?"

"Mostly healthy, outdoorsy things like hiking around the circumference of the island."

"All right, let's hike," Michael said, standing up and holding out his hand.

"You've got to be kidding. In this weather?"

"It's not actually raining now, and the weather's going to be a lot worse in a few hours," he said. "Let's go and see the sights before it gets bad."

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"Why not? At least once we've done it, when the birders ask us if we want to go to the South Pole with them to see the penguins, we can say, 'No thanks, we've already circumnavigated the island.' "

"Okay," I said. "You're on."

I could tell after the first fifteen minutes that circumnavigating the island was a lot less fun to do than to brag about afterward. But I wasn't about to confess that I couldn't handle it, so for the next hour or two, we squelched and slopped up and down the muddy parts of the trail and inched our way gingerly over the rain-slick rocky parts.

And invariably, every time we paused, panting, to catch our breath, a covey of middle-aged or elderly birders would breeze past us.

"I always thought bird-watching was a sedate pastime," Michael said as we took temporary refuge beneath a rocky outcropping that sheltered us from the worst of the drizzle. "These people could probably ace an Iron Man competition."

"Yes. Stirs up all my deep-seated feelings of inadequacy," I said, panting slightly.

"Oh, I don't know," Michael said, putting an arm around my waist. "You look pretty adequate to me."

It wasn't exactly the tropical beach of my dreams, but this was the closest I'd gotten to being alone with Michael since we'd arrived on the island. I snuggled closer, and he bent his head down toward mine. Then he froze.

"Why are those people watching us through their binoculars?" he muttered.

I followed the direction of his eye.

"I think they're looking at that bird at our feet," I whispered back.

"Why? Is that some kind of rare and exotic bird?"

I glanced down. The bird was moderately large, light brown, with a black-and-white mask over its face. It had bits of red and yellow on its wings, and the end of its tail had been dipped in yellow.

"How the devil should I know?" I said. "It looks like a paint-spattered female cardinal; cardinals certainly aren't rare."

"Damn," Michael said, a little more loudly this time.

The bird, whatever it was, took flight The three birders removed the binoculars from their eyes and stared at us accusingly.

"That was a Bohemian waxwing," one of them said.

"Did you get any photos?" the second asked.

"No," said the third. "They frightened it off before I got the chance."

"Oh, you mean that bird with the yellow-tipped tail?" I asked.

The birders nodded and frowned at us. Madame Defarge looked more kindly on her victims.

"We've seen them around here a lot," I said.

"They're quite rare in this part of the continent," one of the birders replied.

"Yes, that's what I was telling Michael," I said. "How rare to see so many Bohemian waxwings here. If you just stay quietly where you are, you'll probably see dozens."

With that, Michael and I fled down the path, until we had rounded a corner and could collapse in gales of laughter.

"Bohemian waxwings?" Michael spluttered. "That can't possibly be a real bird."

"I'm sure it is," I said, peeping around the comer. The three birders had hunched down by the path and were on the alert, scanning the landscape through their binoculars, one looking left, one right, and the third straight out toward the ocean.

"Come on," I said. "Let's get out of here, in case the Bohemian waxwing has flown the coop completely."

We giggled intermittently over the antics of the birders for the next hour or so. But the day got colder and damper, and every time we rounded a headland that I thought would bring us to the end of our journey, we'd encounter another stretch of path. And another flock of birders.

In one place, I spotted the remains of a campsite back in the trees, some distance from the trail.

"How odd," I said. "Let's go take a look at this."

"What's so odd?" Michael asked. "Looks like someone camped here."

"Definitely," I said, using my foot to rake leaves away from a charred spot. "You can see where they had a fire, right here, and they buried something over there. Garbage, I guess"

"Beer cans, mostly," Michael said, looking down at the trash-disposal area. "Someone had quite a party."

The unknown campers had buried their empties on the side of a hill, and the heavy rain had washed away a good deal of the covering dirt, exposing a vein of silver-and-blue aluminum cans.

"Definitely odd," I murmured.

"Yes, I should think conditions back in the village are primitive enough to satisfy even the most discriminating masochist. What kind of nut would come all the way over to this side of the island for even more Spartan conditions?"

"Well, I'm sure some people want to," I said. "But it's illegal. No camping permitted. To protect the fragile ecosystem on the undeveloped side of the island. And definitely no open fires. Normally, they're very quick to chase off anyone who tries."

"Maybe they did," Michael said. "Whoever did it is long gone."

Still, I couldn't help fretting as we hiked, and looking for further signs of neglect or environmental damage. I thought of summers past when Dad, Aunt Phoebe, and the rest of their generation would denounce some new change to the island. I'd thought them tiresome, a little cracked on the subject of keeping Monhegan unspoiled. And yet, here I was, fretting about the same thing.

At least until my energy began to flag again.

"Maybe it's my imagination," I said, stopping to pant. "But the path around the island seems longer than it did when I was a little kid."

"Your father used to let you walk around this path?" Michael said, peering over the edge of a precipice to the surf crashing twenty feet below.

"Let us? He'd insist on it. He thought it was good exercise. If we didn't voluntarily hike around the island every few days, he'd drag us along on a nature walk."

"And he was never prosecuted for child abuse? Amazing. I hope he at least insisted that you learn to swim before turning you loose on these cliffs."

"Technically, yes; though I don't see what good swimming would do anyone who fell off the cliffs. The undertow could drag away a small submarine, and if the undertow didn't get you, the waves would pound you to death against the rocks."

"What a vacation paradise," Michael said, chuckling as we resumed our hike. "I see why he brought you here; the place is as escapeproof as Alcatraz. He wouldn't have to worry about you sneaking over to the mainland and getting into any trouble."

"We managed anyway," I said. "The sneaking over to the mainland part anyway; we never could find much trouble when we got there. But you can reach the mainland quite easily if you know someone with a small boat. Not in weather like this, of course."

"Oh, the weather's not that bad," Michael said. "Great weather for sitting around by the fire."

"Sorry. Hiking wasn't that good an idea, was it?"

"Nonsense. It was a great idea," Michael said, smiling over his shoulder at me before turning and beginning to climb the next hill. "The scenery's fantastic, and when we get back to the cottage, I'll appreciate the fire all the more."

If only we could appreciate it by ourselves, I thought, pausing for a moment to enjoy the view of Michael's long legs as he jumped over a small gully that interrupted the path. Perhaps if all the rest of the family went hiking. But no, the weather would soon be too foul for hiking. And anyway, Mother never hiked. Turn her loose in a mall, or, better yet, on a street lined with quaint boutiques and expensive shops, and she could walk combat-trained marines into the ground, but here on Monhegan, there wasn't much shopping, even in the summer. How could we possibly get Mother out of the house? I sighed.

"Tired?" Michael asked, looking down at me. I shook my head.

"Just figuring where we are," I said. "It can't be too much farther. I'm sure we're getting close to the village."

"You said that an hour ago," he said, chuckling.

"That was wishful thinking," I said. "Now that I've gotten my bearings back, not to mention my second wind, I know exactly where we are. Just over the next hill we're going to see a quaint little shack that's been converted to an artist's studio. It's on a headland with one of the most spectacular views of the island."

"Over this hill?" Michael said. He had reached the top and paused to catch his breath.

"Yes. Look a little to your right. You should be able to see it peeping through the trees."

"Yes, that's quite a quaint little shack."

I leached his side and looked down, expecting to see one of my favorite rustic Monhegan landscapes. Instead, I saw a glittering, spiky forest of steel beams and glass plates.

"Wrong hill again?" Michael said.

"No, it's the right hill. I recognize the view, at least what little we can see of it behind that monstrosity. What the hell is it anyway? Some horrible new piece of weather equipment from the Coast Guard?"

"A rather large and very modern house," Michael said.

He was right, of course; when I'd stared at it a few minutes, the jumble resolved itself into something resembling doors, walls, and windows.

"I wonder how in the world they got permission to build it," I said. "The town council is very conservative about new development It took Aunt Phoebe two years to get permission to expand her deck."

"We did hear the Dickermans saying that someone's new house was an eyesore."

"Yes, but around here, that just means someone painted the house the wrong shade of blue," I said. "Or painted it at all, instead of just allowing it to fade to the usual, tasteful weather-beaten gray. This is more than an eyesore; it's an abomination."

"I don't think the house itself is all that bad," Michael said, squinting at it. "Not my cup of tea, but you have to admit it's striking."

"True," I said, sighing. "Anywhere else I might actually find it interesting, although I can't imagine living in something that bare and modern. But here on Monhegan, it's completely out of place."

"No argument from me," Michael said.

"I was going to suggest stopping to enjoy the view, but I've changed my mind," I said. "Let's hurry up and get past that eyesore."

"Fine by me," Michael said.

We started down the hill, Michael again in the lead. I was craning my neck, trying to see something of sea and sky beyond the abomination, and mentally composing scathing letters to the town council, when--

"Look out!" Michael yelled. He ran back up the path a few feet, knocked me to the ground, and threw himself on top of me. I heard a sharp noise somewhere, and then a lot of sand and pebbles sifted down on us from higher up the hill.

"What's going on?"

"Some lunatic is shooting at us!" Michael said.