Riptide

Chapter 38

Hatch swung the Plain Jane's dinghy past Cranberry Neck and into the broad, slow reach of the Passabec River. He glanced over his shoulder as he angled the boat closer to shore: Burnt Head lay three miles behind, a reddish-colored smudge against the southern horizon. The late summer morning air held a chill that was pregnant with the promise of winter.

He kept the little engine running hard, concentrating on thinking about nothing.

As the river narrowed and became less tidal, the water grew calm and green. Now he was passing what as a boy he'd called Millionaire's Row: a series of grand nineteenth-century "cottages" adorned with turrets, gables, and mansard roofs. A small child, dressed in the fantastically anachronistic outfit of pinafore and yellow umbrella, waved to him from a porch swing as he went by.

Inland, the landscape softened. Rocky shores gave way to low pebbled beaches, and spruce trees were replaced by mossy oaks and stands of birches. He passed a ruined pier, then a fishing shack on stilts. Not much farther now. Around another bend, and there it was: the shingle beach he remembered so well, its massive, improbable banks of oyster shells heaped twenty feet high. It was deserted, as he knew it would be. Most local residents of Stormhaven and Black Harbor had little interest in prehistoric Indian encampments, or the shell heaps they'd left behind. Most, but not all: this was the place Professor Horn had taken him and his brother one warm cloudless afternoon, the day before Johnny died.

Hatch pulled the dinghy up onto the beach, then retrieved his battered paintbox and collapsible chair from the bow. He looked around a moment, deciding on a spot beneath a lone birch tree. It was out of the glare of the sun, and his paints wouldn't dry up in the heat. He placed the paintbox and chair in the shade of the tree, then went back to the dinghy for the fold-up easel and portfolio.

As he set up, he found himself looking around, choosing theme and viewpoint, arranging landscape elements. Sitting down, he gazed out at the scene through a viewing frame, squinting to better understand the distribution of color and mass. The light gray of the shell heaps in the foreground made a perfect contrast to the distant purple bulk of Mount Lovell. No need for a quick pencil sketch here; he could go straight to the watercolor.

Opening the portfolio, he carefully removed a large sheet of 240-pound, cold-pressed paper. He taped it to the easel, then ran his fingertips appreciatively over the pure linen rag. An expensive indulgence, but worth every penny: the paper had a tooth that would hold the paint and make detail work easier, even with the kind of wet-on-wet style he favored.

He unrolled the cardboard from around each of the brushes, then examined his selection: a square-end, a couple of sable rounds, a goat-hair mop, and an old quarter-inch flat for dry-brushing clouds into the background. Next, he half-filled a palette well with water. Reaching into the paintbox and removing a tube of cerulean blue, he squeezed the paint into the well and stirred, momentarily annoyed that his injured hand wasn't healing as quickly as it should. He dampened the paper with a cotton ball, then glanced out at the landscape for a long moment. Finally, fetching a deep breath, he dipped a brush in the well and laid a flat blue wash over the top two-thirds of the sheet.

As the brush ran along the paper in thick, broad strokes, Hatch felt something coiled tight within him begin to come loose. It was healing work, painting this landscape; cleansing work. And it felt right, somehow, returning to this place. In the years after Johnny's death, he'd never been able to come back to the Indian shell heaps. And yet, returning to Stormhaven a quarter century later—and especially now, after the discovery of his brother's body—Hatch sensed himself turning a corner. There was pain, but there was also an end to pain. His brother's bones had been found. Perhaps—if he could decide on a fitting memorial—they would be removed from the earth where they had lain for so long. Perhaps there would also be time to understand the fiendish mechanism that caused his death. But even that was less important now. He could close the chapter and move on.

He returned to the painting. Time to lay down a foreground. The stony pebbles of the beach were an almost perfect match for his yellow ochre. And he could mix the ochre with the tube of Payne's gray to catch the color of the shell heaps.

As he reached for another brush, he heard the sound of an inboard coming upriver. Looking up, he saw a familiar figure scanning the riverbanks, the tanned skin dark under a large-brimmed straw hat. Bonterre caught sight of him, smiled and waved, then nosed the Thalassa launch gently toward the shore and killed the motor.

"Isobel!" he said.

She anchored the boat on the beach, then came toward him, removing the hat and shaking her long hair back. "I have been spying on you from the post office. They have a nice old telescope there. I watched you take your little boat into this river, and I got curious."

So that's how she's going to play it, he thought: business as usual, no dewy-eyed empathy, no treacly references to what happened the day before. He felt vastly relieved.

She jerked her thumb downriver. "Impressive houses back there."

"A group of wealthy New York families used to come up to Black Harbor in the summertime," Hatch replied. "Built all those houses. FDR used to spend his summers at Campobello Island, ten miles north of here."

Bonterre frowned. "FDR?"

"President Roosevelt."

She nodded. "Ah. You Americans, so fond of abbreviating your leaders. JFK. LBJ." Her eyes widened. "But look at you! Painting! Monsieur le docteur, I never expected such artistic depth."

"You'd better reserve judgment until you see the finished product," he replied, dabbing in the shingle beach with short brush strokes. "I became interested in med school. Helped me relax. I found I enjoyed watercolors most. Especially for landscapes like this."

"And what a landscape!" Bonterre said, pointing at the shell heaps. "Mon dieu, they are enormous!"

"Yes. The oyster shells at the bottom supposedly date back three thousand years, and the ones at the top are early seventeenth century, when the Indians were driven out." Hatch gestured upriver. "There are several prehistoric Indian encampments along the river. And there's an interesting Micmac site on Rackitash Island."

Bonterre moved away, scrambling up the oyster-covered bank to the bottom of the nearest heap. "But why did they leave their shells in just this place?" she called back.

"Nobody knows. It must've been a lot of trouble. I remember reading that there may have been some kind of religious reasons."

Bonterre broke into laughter. "Ah. Religious reasons. That is what we archaeologists always say when we do not understand something."

Hatch chose another brush. "Tell me, Isobel," he said. "To what do I owe this visit? Surely you have better ways to spend your Sundays than following old bachelor doctors around."

Bonterre grinned mischievously. "I wanted to find out why you had not asked me for a second date."

"I figured you thought I was a weak reed. Remember what you said about us northerners having had the marrow sucked from our bones?"

"That is true enough. But I would not call you a weak reed, if I understand the term. Perhaps a kitchen match would be a better analogy, non? All you really need is the right woman to ignite you." She carelessly picked up an oyster shell and sent it spinning into the water. "The real problem will be making sure you do not flare out too quickly."

Hatch turned back to his painting. In this kind of sparring, Bonterre would always be the victor.

Bonterre approached him again. "Besides, I was afraid you were seeing that other woman."

Hatch looked up.

"Yes, what is her name: the minister's wife. Your old, old friend."

"That's all she is," Hatch said, more sharply than he intended. "A friend." Bonterre scrutinized him curiously, and he sighed. "She's made that very clear to me."

Bonterre arched her brows. "You are disappointed."

Hatch lowered his brush. "To tell you the truth, I don't know what I expected when I came home. But she's made it clear that our relationship belongs to the past, not the present. Wrote me a letter, in fact. That part hurt. But you know what? She's absolutely right."

Bonterre looked at him, a smile slowly forming.

"What are you grinning at?" Hatch said. "The doctor and his romance problems? You must have had your share of peccadilloes."

Bonterre laughed out loud, refusing to be baited. "I am grinning with relief, monsieur. But you have obviously misunderstood me all along." She slid an index finger along the back of his wrist. "I like to play the game, comprends? But only for the right man will I allow myself to be caught. My mother raised a good Catholic."

Hatch stared at her for a minute in surprise. Then he lifted the paintbrush again. "I'd have guessed you'd be closeted with Neidelman today, poring over charts and diagrams."

At this change of subject, a cloud passed over her face. "No," she said, good humor suddenly gone. "The Captain no longer has the patience for careful archaeology. He wants to rush, rush, vitement, and to hell with everything else. He is down in the Pit now, preparing to excavate the bottom of the shaft. No screening for artifacts, no stratigraphic analysis. I cannot bear it."

Hatch looked at her in surprise. "He's working today?" Working on Sunday, with the medical office unmanned, was a breach of regulations.

Bonterre nodded. "Since the discovery of the spire, he has been a man possessed. I do not think he has slept in a week, he is so busy. But do you know, despite all his eagerness, it still took him two days to ask my dear digger for help? I told him again and again that Christophe, with his knowledge of architecture, was the very man he needed to reconstruct the supports. But he did not seem to listen." She shook her head. "I never understood him. But now, I think, I understand him less."

For a moment, Hatch considered telling her about Neidelman's worries of a traitor, then decided against it. He thought of mentioning the documents he'd found, but once again decided it could wait. It could all wait. Let Neidelman dig his damned fool ass off on a Sunday if he wanted to. It was Hatch's day off, and what he wanted to do was finish his painting.

"Time for me to add Mount Lovell," he said, nodding at the dark shape in the distance. As Bonterre watched, he dipped a brush in the Payne's gray, mixing it with a touch of cobalt blue, then laid down a heavy line, dragging it above the spot on the paper where the land met the sky. Then, taking the board off the easel, he turned the painting upside down, waiting until the fresh paint had flowed into the horizon. Then he righted the board and placed it back on the easel.

"Man dieu! Where did you learn that?"

"There's a trick in every trade," Hatch said, cleaning the bristles and replacing the tubes into the paintbox. He stood up. "It needs to dry a bit. Why don't we have a climb?"

They scrambled up the side of the tallest shell heap, oysters crunching beneath their feet. From the top, Hatch looked past their boats toward the river. Birds rustled in the spreading oaks. The air was warm and clear: if there was a storm gathering, it certainly wasn't evident. Upriver, there was no sigh of human habitation, just the blue twists of water and the tops of trees, broken here and there by meadows, stretching as far as the eyes could see.

"Magnifique," said Bonterre. "What a magical place."

"I used to come here with Johnny," Hatch said. "An old high school teacher of mine would bring us here, every now and then on Saturday afternoons. We were here the day before Johnny died."

"Tell me about him," Bonterre said simply.

Silently, Hatch took a seat, the oysters rustling and whispering under his weight. "Well, he was very bossy. There weren't that many kids in Stormhaven, so we did lots of things together. We were best friends, I guess—at least, when he wasn't busy beating me up."

Bonterre laughed.

"He loved everything to do with science—even more than me. He had incredible collections of butterflies, rocks, and fossils. He knew the names of all the constellations. He even built his own telescope."

Hatch leaned back on his elbows and looked through the trees. "Johnny would have done something amazing with his life. I think one of the reasons I worked so hard, got through Harvard Medical School, was to make up for what happened."

"What did you have to make up for?" Bonterre asked gently.

"It was my idea to go to Ragged Island that day," Hatch replied.

Bonterre repeated none of the usual platitudes, and again Hatch found himself feeling grateful. He fetched a deep breath, then another, letting them out slowly. It seemed that, with every breath, he was exhaling the pent-up poisons of many years.

"After Johnny disappeared in the tunnel," he went on, "it took me a while to find my way out. I don't remember how long. The fact is, I don't remember much of anything. I've tried, but there's a stretch of time that remains a complete blank. We were crawling down the shaft, and Johnny lit another match. . . . After that, the first thing I remember clearly is arriving at my parents' dock.

They were just getting home from lunch or something, and they raced out to Ragged Island, along with half the town. I'll never forget my father's face when he reappeared at the entrance to the tunnel. He was covered with Johnny's blood. He was yelling out, pounding on the beams, crying."

He paused a minute, replaying the scene in his mind.

"They couldn't find the body. They searched, dug holes in the walls and ceiling. The Coast Guard came out, and a mining engineer with listening equipment. They floated out a backhoe, but the ground was too unstable and they couldn't get into position."

Bonterre remained silent, listening.

"They spent all that night, and the next day, and the next. Then, when it became clear Johnny couldn't possibly be alive, people began to drop away. The medical team said the amount of blood in the tunnel meant Johnny must be dead, but Dad kept looking. He refused to leave. After a week people pretty much gave up, even Mom, but Dad stayed out there. The tragedy did something to his mind. He wandered around, climbed down into the shafts, dug holes with a pick and shovel, yelling until he was so hoarse he couldn't speak. He wouldn't leave the island. God, weeks went by. Mom begged him to leave, but he wouldn't. Then one day she came out with food and he wasn't there. There was another search, and this time they found a body. Dad was floating in one of the shafts. Drowned. Nobody said anything to us. But talk turned to suicide."

Hatch continued staring at the pattern of leaves against the blue sky. He had never told anyone this much of the story before, and he could never have imagined what a vast relief it was simply to talk: the lifting of a burden that had been with him so long he'd forgotten it was there.

"We stayed in Stormhaven for another six years. I think Mom hoped it would go away, somehow. But it never did. A little town like this never forgets. Everyone was so ... nice. But the talk never stopped. I didn't hear much of it, but I knew it was there, all the same. It went on and on. There was something about the body never being found that really preyed on people's minds.

And, you know, some of the fishermen's families believed in the curse. Later, I learned that some parents wouldn't let their kids play with me. Finally, when I was sixteen, my mother couldn't stand it any longer. She took me to Boston for the summer. We were only supposed to stay a few months, but then September came, and I had to start school, and a year went by, then another. And then I went off to college. And I never came back. Until now."

A great blue heron glided down the length of the river, then settled on a dead branch, waiting.

"And then?"

"Medical school, the Peace Corps, Medecins sans Frontieres, Mount Auburn Hospital. And then one day your Captain walked into my office. There you have it." Hatch paused. "You know, after the Pit was drained and they located the spot where the shore tunnel angled in, I kept quiet. I didn't insist they explore it right away. You'd have thought I would have been all over the Captain about it. But the fact was, now that we were this close, I was scared. I wasn't sure I wanted to know what really happened."

"So you're sorry you signed the Captain's agreement?" Bonterre asked.

"Actually, he signed my agreement." Hatch fell silent a moment. "But no, I'm not sorry. If I was, yesterday changed all that."

"And in a week or two, you can retire as one of the richest men in America."

Hatch laughed. "Isobel," he said, "I've decided to put the money into a foundation in my brother's name."

"All of it?"

"Yes." He hesitated. "Well, I'm still thinking about that."

Bonterre settled back on the shells, squinting at him skeptically. "I am a good judge of character, monsieur le docteur. You may put most of the money into this foundation. But I will be skinned alive if you do not keep a tidy little sum back for yourself. You would not be human otherwise. And I am sure I would not like you so much if you were not human."

Automatically, Hatch opened his mouth to protest. Then he relaxed again.

"Either way, you are a saint," said Bonterre. "I have more venal things planned for my share. Like buying a very fast car—and of course, I will send a large sum to my family in Martinique." She looked over at him, and he was surprised to see that she seemed to be seeking his approval.

"That's fine," he said. "For you, it's a professional thing. For me, it was personal."

"You and Gerard Neidelman both," Bonterre replied. "You may have exorcised your demons, but I think he is still summoning his, n'est-ce pas? The Ragged Island treasure has always held a special spell for him. But all this obsession with Macallan, c'est incroyable! Everything is now like a personal affront, a direct challenge. I do not think he will be happy until he wrangs that old architect's neck."

"Wrings," Hatch corrected lazily.

"Whatever." Bonterre shifted, searching for a more comfortable position. "A plague on both their houses."

They fell silent, lying on their backs in the late morning sun. A squirrel edged out on a branch above their heads, gathering acorns, chattering softly. Hatch closed his eyes. Vaguely, he realized that he'd have to tell Bill Banns at the paper about the discovery of Johnny's body. Bonterre was saying something, but he was growing too drowsy to listen. And then he drifted off into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.