The Body In The Basement

Five

Jil and Earl had joined the Mil ers, bringing cups of fresh-brewed coffee for everyone. As soon as the sun had gone down, the air had assumed some of its more characteristic Maine snap and the sight of the steaming cups was a welcome one.

“You take yours with milk and Sam doesn't take anything, right?" Jil had an amazing memory. Pix could barely recal the preferences of her immediate family, let alone friends. This was why she made lists. But then, Jil might get lost on the intricate carpool routes Pix routinely negotiated without a second thought.

“Thanks," Sam said. "When I find the energy—which could be sometime next week—I'l make a pie run.”

They talked about the summer. Jil bemoaned the economy; Earl bemoaned the increase in the island pop ulation—it doubled during these months---and Sam bemoaned the fact that he wouldn't be back again until August. It took a while for Pix to steer the conversation around to antiques.

“We had a good time with Valerie the other day exploring the antique stores in Searsport. She has a wonderful eye. Plus, having an expert along was insurance against getting duped by fakes. Have you heard much about antique fraud along the coast?" She addressed Earl directly, evidently striking a nerve.

“Have we! It's big business. I went to some seminars last winter in Augusta on this very subject. The Sheriff's Department has a special unit that does nothing else but deal with these scams."

“What kinds of things are being faked?" Pix asked in as idle a way as she could muster, aware that her mother had joined them, slipping quietly next to Sam.

“You name it. Toys are big." Earl started to warm to his subject. He must have been a star pupil. "One way is to make them from scratch, putting cel uloid or bisque into molds from originals to imitate things that are popular col ectibles, like Mickey Mouse figures. The modern ones are easy to spot once you know how—different colors, obvious brushstrokes, but even dealers get fooled.

Especial y if they're made by joining a new toy with an old one, it's cal ed `marrying.' "

“What do you mean?" Pix was glad to hear the word introduced, yet this sort seemed more likely to be headed for divorce.

“Wel , you might have a part missing from an original and you substitute a fake, but often these two never left the factory together. Like Mickey in a car becomes Minnie at the controls. That sort of thing. Then they even forge Steiff buttons and insert them in the ears of new stuffed bears or other animals that have been made to look worn. Another thing we learned is that both fake and genuine toys are put into òriginal' boxes printed by color laser to increase the values. The boxes are the easiest to detect. You just need a good magnifying glass, my dear Watsons. You should see dots, not the paral el lines the laser produces.”

Pix remembered that Valerie had a whole battery of devices tucked into her jaunty Pierre Deux bag when they had gone off yesterday: a fancy kind of flashlight, a Swiss army knife with more than an extra blade and toothpick, plus a magnifying glass.

“This is amazing," Ursula commented. "I had no idea things were so sophisticated. Tel us more.”

Pix looked at her mother. Ursula's face showed nothing other than sincere interest, but it was almost as if she was in on the plot. Whatever the motive, Pix silently thanked her for keeping the conversation going.

“Oh, I could talk al night about this," Earl said jovial y.

"There's nothing I hate more than a fraud, and these crooks are accomplished ones”

Jil , oddly enough, since antiques were a current and growing interest, did not seem as fascinated. "I'm sure we al do, but I think Louise is cutting the pies."

“Oh, she's barely started, and I can't eat anything yet, anyway," Pix said quickly. "Do tel us some more, Earl"

“Part of the problem is that some people pay such fool prices for things that even legitimate dealers get itchy. Take a painting, for instance. You might think it's old, but you get tempted to sweeten the pot a little by rubbing some dirt and grime on it, tucking it under the cobwebs you don't sweep away in the back of your shop for some tourist tòdiscover.'

A real con man—or woman—takes what he or she knows is a new painting, maybe even painted it him or herself, and does the same thing. Just now, the unit is getting a lot of cal s about paintings—and photographs, fake tintypes and ambrotypes."

“What's an ambrotype?" Sam asked. "Is that anything like a daguerreotype?"

“Yup, daguerreotypes are older and they were more expensive. Ambrotypes used a glass plate to capture an image. And tintypes were obviously on metal. They were the most common, relatively cheap compared with the other two. The thing is that now al three methods can be duplicated using the old cameras or even doctoring a modern image with the right emulsions. So you get a friend to dress up as an Indian chief or a Civil War soldier—this is what people want—and lo and behold, in a few months you've made enough for that condo in Florida."

“I had no idea you were learning so much at those seminars," Jil remarked a bit tartly. "Do you think it has much relevance for law and order on the island?”

Earl frowned. Her tone was decidedly un-Jil -like.

“Maybe not, although what with everyone and his uncle putting some thundermugs in the shed and cal ing it an antiques store, it wil probably pay off one of these days."

“Are you by chance referring to my decision to carry antiques?”

Pix was not happy with the turn the conversation was taking. Not only were they veering from the topic but it seemed that Jil and Earl were heading for a quarrel and about to topple off the top of the cake.

“Of course he isn't!" she said in what she hoped was a lighthearted tone. "We're just gossiping. It's fun to hear about how other people get fooled, so long as you're not one of them."

“Exactly." Ursula came to the rescue again. "Like the Pilgrim chair hoax."

“What was that?" Earl asked eagerly, slipping his arm around Jil in an attempt to make up—for what, he knew not.

She sat stiffly but didn't shrug him off.

“This al happened about twenty years ago and it was big news. Our forefathers and mothers didn't have dining sets—they were lucky to have a crude trestle table and a few stools; however there were exceptions. These few people, men, of course, had imposing throne like chairs with elaborately turned spindles at the back and below the rush seat. You can see the one said to have belonged to Elder Wil iam Brewster at the Pilgrim Hal down in Plymouth. Sometimes the chairs are cal ed `Brewster chairs,' and nobody had to remind you to sit up straight in one. It must have been pure torture for them, and perhaps why they always have such sour expressions in the paintings. Now, where was I? Oh yes, in the 1970s, a Rhode Island furniture restorer concocted one of these chairs and aged it by, among other things, putting it in a steel drum with a smoky fire to get the right patina, if that's the right word, on the wood. He then al owed the chair to surface on a porch here in Maine."

“I do remember this story," Earl exclaimed. "Some museum bought it for a bundle, right? And now they have it on display as a fake next to one of the real ones."

“Yes." Ursula nodded. "The hoax worked and the restorer always claimed it was not his intent to make money, merely to point out how easy it was to fool even the experts, and you can believe him or not." Ursula's stern expression made her own prejudice clear. "It's in the Ford Museum in Michigan. I don't know if it's next to a real one, but they do have it on display with a note tel ing the real story—that it was stil a tree in 1969.”

Earl was off and running again. "Furniture can become an antique over night—a little ink spil ed in a drawer or table and chair legs rubbed with a brick on the bottoms to simulate wear. Old furniture isn't that difficult to duplicate for a master furniture builder. You can age wood by just throwing it into the woods for a winter, and period nails are available—people col ect those, too! But legitimate reproductions are marked as such, and they command a lot of money!"

“Yet not as much as originals," Sam said.

“There are stil bargains to be had," Jil asserted emphatical y.

“I know"—Sam laughed—"just look at what my wife carts home!”

Before they got back on the question of pie again Pix had noticed Sam's eye turning in that direction—she squeezed in her last question. "Who's doing the faking mostly, and what kind of crime is it?"

“To answer your first question, we'd like to find out.

Some of the rings have been broken up and they've included dealers, but it's also people who know nothing about antiques, except for the ones they're duplicating. It's a business to them, just not a legal one. Which answers the next part: Sel ing fakes is larceny. Transporting them across state lines is not a federal offense, however a phone cal to set up the transport is—fraud by wire—and we got some guys that way. I guess I get pretty worked up about the whole business, because people come to Maine trusting that they'l find some nice old things here and instead they get burned by a few selfish, crooked individuals. And we haven't even talked about al the traffic in stolen antiques!"

“But we have talked enough about this business for one night. I for one want dessert." Jil jumped up and headed for the table with a seeming determination for pie that brooked no opposition.

“Sure, honey, I want pie, too." Earl joined her and Pix could hear him asking, "Now what's going on? What did I ...

" The rest of his remarks were inaudible, as was Jil 's reply, but what al could see was that this time she did shake his arm away.

Pix and her mother looked at each other. Ursula raised one eyebrow. Even Sam, normal y oblivious to the ins and outs of the relationships about him—his own was enough to keep track of—noticed and said, "I thought those two were an item. They don't seem very chummy tonight."

“A lovers' quarrel—or more like a spat," Ursula said.

“I expect they'l iron things out. You and Pix do.”

“Oh, come on, Mother, Sam and I never fight.”

“Then you probably should.”

It was hard to get around Mother.

With one accord, they al started walking toward the dessert table, discreetly waiting for Jil and Earl to get theirs and disappear in the darkness. At least, Pix thought Jil got a piece of pie. In the dim light, it was hard to see.

“Did I hear you talking about antiques as I passed a while ago?" asked a voice at Pix's elbow. It was the Bainbridge's guest, Norman, and he was returning for seconds, or maybe thirds, judging from the crumbs that lingered on what Pix assumed was his normal y impeccable mouth.

“I'm Norman Osgood, by the way. I came with Adelaide and Rebecca Bainbridge.”

The Mil ers introduced themselves in turn and while doing so, Pix reflected that it was never Rebecca and Adelaide, always the other way around. Was it Pix and Sam Mil er? Or Sam and Pix? She thought they were getting roughly equal time.

“We were talking about antiques, or rather, fake antiques."

“Fakes. So unpleasant when one has been burned. I'm in the antique business myself and have been total y tricked on several occasions—once by a nice Russian lady from New Jersey who one would have sworn was directly related to the Romanovs, but in fact, al her trinkets might as wel have been prizes from a penny arcade. Has one of you come across such artifice lately?”

Pix wondered whether it was her imagination at work again, but his query seemed to be couched in a rather probing tone. Why was he so interested? Merely because it was his business?

“No—at least not to our knowledge," she added. "But al of us are interested in antiques and we like to know what to guard against."

“Stick to reputable dealers and beware of bargains, that's my advice," Norman said.

Pix thought of her quilt with a twinge. It was too gorgeous. It had to be real. The pile had been in a dusty corner with more than a few cobwebs, but the whole barn had been like that.

“Of course, one does sometimes come across a steal.

But that's pretty rare these days."

“What kind of antiques do you sel ?" Pix asked. "Early American furniture, some European; paintings before 1900; and clocks. I adore clocks."

“My mother was just tel ing us about the Pilgrim chair hoax. You must have heard about it."

“Oh, indeed. Such a scandal. Now I must rejoin my lovely hostesses. I believe Adelaide is getting tired. It's been quite a day.”

Pix watched his elegant back retreat into the darkness.

Up close, she could see some extremely attractive muscles of the rippling variety under his thin silk shirt. The man kept himself in good shape. It was hard to say whether he knew the story of the hoax or not. A real dealer would, no doubt.

And he was a real dealer, wasn't he?

“It has been quite a day," Sam said contentedly, tucking into an enormous slab of strawberry-rhubarb pie. "I wouldn't miss this clambake for the world. Thank goodness we had a sensible jury."

“Obviously, since they found in favor of your client.”

“That's what sensible means—and they did it quickly.”

Pix looked at her own pie. She real y wasn't hungry, but she began to eat it in a mechanical fashion that became less so as her taste buds awoke. It had been quite a day, and night. There had been that scene with the Athertons, then the talk with Earl and his tiff with Jil . She looked about the beach at the shadowy figures. Then there were al the things that might have gone on at the party that she didn't even know about.

“Let's get Samantha and start packing up ourselves. I want to check on the dogs." Dusty, Artie, and Henry tended to run amok at gatherings like this and so had regretful y been left at home. "I don't know why having this much fun should be so tiring, but it is," she added.

Sam nodded. "Something about the combination of sand, sun, and beer, I think. Where is Samantha, by the way?"

“I saw her with a group of kids by the bonfire a while ago. She was eating her lobster. I think I can stil make her out. They're al singing old Everly Brothers songs with John Eggleston. That man has talents we've never suspected."

“I'l make them sing À Real Nice Clambake.' Louise always likes that. I think that Carousel was the sum total of her knowledge about Maine before she arrived here. It must have been a shock to find out that bait smel ed and people didn't dance on the wharf.”

Sam went off down the beach in the direction of the fire and Pix started to assemble the stuff they'd brought. She knew the Fraziers hired some of the local kids to help clean up each year, so she didn't feel she had to stay any longer.

Ursula cal ed out to her as she was making the first trip to the car.

“Pix, are you leaving? May I beg a ride? Then I won't have to trouble the Moores"

“Of course you can have a ride. I was planning to look for you. Sam is getting Samantha and they'l start back in his car." As she spoke, husband and daughter came up the path with the rest of the Mil ers' belongings. Sam's song suggestion had been successful and he was singing along from afar: "The vittles we et were good, you bet! The company was the same." His energetic performance contrasted with his daughter's lagging footsteps. She wasn't joining in, not even at her favorite part: "Fitten fer an angel's choir!" Pix was immediately concerned.

“Samantha, are you al right? You look a little wan. I hope you haven't picked up something from one of the campers, al those smal children just loaded with germs.”

Samantha was quick to squelch any notions her mother might have of bed rest and herb tea.

“Mother! I'm fine. There's absolutely nothing wrong No bugs, no microbes of any sort whatsoever.”

But she wasn't fine. Duncan's words continued to haunt her. She hadn't seen him come back to the bead and would be happy never to see him again. She needed to talk to Arlene. If she wasn't home, she might be a Fred's house.

The last thing Samantha wanted was he mother's eagle eye on her. She'd made plans for the evening while she sat staring into the flames of the bon fire, listening to everybody sing. Samantha didn't wan to be watched at al .

Ursula came straight to the point as usual. "What an you up to, darling? Al those questions to Earl about phony antiques. And Mitch sold antiques, among hi other trades.

You're trying to find the answer to his murder, aren't you?”

It was the time-honored parental ploy for asking questions—trapping one's offspring in the car. Short o turning the wheel over to her mother and walking home there was no way for Pix to escape.

“Don't be ridiculous," she lied. "I'm just interested the antiques business. You yourself said it was al àmazing,' if I recal correctly."

“Hmmmm," her mother replied, which left the conversation hanging until Pix could stand it no longer am started talking again—another trick, and one Pix herself had used occasional y to her advantage with her own children.

“Anyway, I don't see how asking a few questions that may or may not relate to Mitchel Pierce's death can hurt anything."

“But it can hurt something—you, or dear Samantha or Sam. We have al assumed the person who did this left the island after the terrible deed, yet it may not be so. I think you need to exercise some caution."

“Stop worrying, Mother. I'm not going to do anything foolish."

“I believe I've heard that before.”

Mother could, in fact, be very irritating. Pix saw her into the house, kissed her good night, and then took great pleasure in driving as fast as she dared up and down the hil s across the island to her own cottage.

Sam was groggily reading the latest issue of The Island Crier by an unlighted hearth.

“Honey," Pix asked immediately, "why don't you go up to bed? And where's Samantha? In her room?"

“Arlene and that pimply-faced boyfriend of hers came to get her for some kind of bonfire at his parents' camp.

You know, where the Ames' are—down near the bridge.

Bert Ames is taking everyone in turns in his outboard to look at the underneath of the bridge by moonlight, al very safe and sound. I said yes and reminded her when curfew rang.”

Sam was feeling mel ow and happy. Pix hated to destroy his mood. She ventured a tentative, "But Samantha did seem tired .. "

“So she'l go to bed early tomorrow night or the night after. Besides, my little chickadee, this gives us a few precious moments alone, a rare thing, you may recal , these last twenty-plus years”

There was something to what the man said. Samantha was young and healthy. And so were her parents.

An hour later, Pix was stretched out next to her sleeping husband. The only sounds she could hear were his heavy breathing, the soft wind in the trees, a far-off bul frog, and her own heart pounding insistently in her ears as she lay in bed wide awake.

Samantha Mil er was not at Fred Ames's parents'

camp. Neither was Arlene or Fred himself. They had put in a brief appearance for appearance's sake—not long enough for a boat ride, to Samantha's regret. She loved seeing the long arch spanning the Reach from al vantage points, especial y gliding underneath through the water, looking straight up. The bridge—Sanpere's connection to the mainland. To the outside world. There were stil some people on the island who wished it had never been built and blamed it for everything from teenage rowdiness to the increase in traffic on Route 17.

“I can't believe he actual y said that!" Arlene was nestled close to Fred in the front of his pickup. Like his nestled close to Fred in the front of his pickup. Like his father, Fred planned to be a fisherman as soon as he graduated from high school next June. Also like his father, he planned to marry his high school sweetheart shortly thereafter. Things looked good. He and Arlene had been king and queen of the junior prom, which virtual y ensured a long and happy life together, Fred believed. If she stil wanted to go to col ege, fine. He didn't care just so long as she went as Mrs. Fred Ames.

Samantha was feeling a lot less frightened now that she'd told Arlene and Fred about the scene with Duncan.

Sitting by the fire at the clambake, she'd decided she had to find out what he was up to. It could be nothing—or it could explain a lot of what had been happening lately. She had a feeling that after the fight with his parents, he wouldn't go home, but would gather his "club" together and do something. Arlene and Fred agreed. Fred had an idea where Duncan might be.

“There's an old cabin in the woods behind the camp that used to be a place counselors went on their days off in the olden times before Jim was the director and figured out it was the perfect place to screw. Maybe used it himself."

Fred laughed. Arlene made a face.

“It's gross enough to think of adults doing it, without having to think of Jim Atherton as a teenager.”

Samantha agreed and asked, "What about the cabin?

Do you real y think Duncan hangs out there? It's pretty near the camp. Wouldn't he want to get farther away?"

“That's what I've heard. Besides, the kid isn't old enough to drive. How far can he go? Though some of his loser friends are older and have cars. But I think he'd pick his own spot, something close to hand, and chances are he'l be there tonight. After what you described, he'd be nuts to go home. Doesn't spend much time in the mansion, anyway. My cousin worked on it and said Duncan's room was pretty cheesy compared to the rest of the place. Smal and no Jacuzzi in the bath."

“Wel , no wonder the boy's disturbed," mocked Arlene, and they al laughed. It occurred to Samantha that she'd never heard Fred talk so much, and what he said made sense. Maybe Arlene knew what she was about.

“We can park on the road and go in the back way. I'm pretty sure I can find it."

“You sound awful y familiar with the cabin yourself, Frederick Ames," Arlene said.

“So, maybe we took some brews there once or twice on a cold winter's day," he admitted, "but we never hurt anything. The place was pretty wel trashed before we ever found it.”

He stopped the truck, got a flashlight from the glove compartment, and they started to walk silently through the woods. Samantha wasn't sure what she thought she would find, yet it seemed like a good idea at the time, and if she'd stayed at home doing nothing, she would have gone out of her mind. If nothing else, she'd provided Fred with some excitement for the night. He was as keyed up as if he was stalking a stag.

They almost missed the tumbled-down cabin.

Evergreen boughs and fal en trees had been piled around it in an attempt at camouflage. In the dark, it was quite effective.

“Probably doesn't want his stepfather to notice it's stil here when he's leading one of his hikes," Arlene whispered.

“Sssh" Fred put his hand over her mouth, expecting a kiss. The abruptness with which he pul ed away told Samantha he got something else. Arlene was not easily shushed.

They crept up to the front of the cabin and could make out the door. It was closed and no light shone beneath it, nor at any of the windows.

“It doesn't look like he's here," Samantha said. She was disappointed.

Fred switched on the flashlight and they went up the steps. A board was missing from one and Samantha's foot almost went through. She grabbed at the rickety railing.

“Be careful. This place is liable to fal apart like Lincoln Logs," Fred warned.

They peered in the window, glass surprisingly stil intact, unless Duncan had replaced it. It was pitch-dark and they couldn't see a thing. Fred shone the flashlight in and they could make out a heavy-metal calendar and a King Diamond poster on the far wal .

“What did you expect? Joey Lawrence? Come on, let's go in," Arlene said.

The door was open. It appeared the cabin had never been wired for electricity. There were lots of candles around, especial y on a low shelf just above a smal footlocker. A table with an ashtray fil ed with cigarette butts, a couple of dilapidated chairs, and a mattress with a sleeping bag on top completed the decor. There were more posters on the wal s: Kiss, AC/DC, and one with a winged skul . Fred walked over to the ashtray and sniffed at the contents. "Marlboros, nothing else. If he's got a stash, it's someplace else. Like in that trunk over there.”

The trunk had drawn Samantha's eye, too. So far, the room indicated perhaps a borderline unhealthy fascination with the occult and satanic music, yet nothing like upside-down crosses or inverted pentagrams to indicate the need for an emergency exorcist. Duncan seemed to spend his leisure time reading—not Proust or even Catcher in the Rye, but comic books. There was a stack of them next to the mattress. Arlene picked up a couple. "Look at this. The kid is real y total y weird. I mean he's got Ghost Rider and X-Men mixed in with Archies. He doesn't know if he's six or sixteen.”

Fred had flipped the two catches and was fiddling around with the center lock on the footlocker. It looked like the kind you took to camp, and maybe Duncan had, some summer in his past life. Samantha found it hard to imagine him as a normal kid in shorts playing capture the flag in a camp T-shirt.

“These things are pretty easy to open." Fred took out his knife.

“What's that sticking out from the side?" Samantha asked.

Fred pul ed at it. "I dunno. Some kind of black cloth.

Maybe he has orgies or something here and they dressup."

He inserted the knife into the lock and began to twist it open.

Samantha had a funny feeling about al this. It was one thing to walk through an open door but another to open someone's private property, even if that someone was Duncan Cowley. She was also not sure she wanted to know what was inside.

“He's coming! Let's get out of here!" Arlene had been watching at the window. "I can see his shoes! Come on, run!”

They flew down the front stairs and into the woods.

Samantha could see Duncan's shoes blinking in the dark.

He wasn't far behind them and he'd realized someone had been at the cabin.

“You bastard!" he screamed. "Come back here. I know who you are. You can't get away from me.”

They ran until they reached the pickup and then were back on the main road in a few moments.

“That was close," Fred said.

They drove in silence for a while. The feeling of the dark cabin and what it might contain seemed to have invaded the thoughts of al three teenagers. Now that she was away, Samantha perversely felt she had to find out what Duncan was up to—even if it meant breaking into the footlocker. She reached over and grabbed Arlene's hand. It was as cold as her own.

“It was great of you guys to come with me, but I've got to get home or my mother wil have a fit"

“Mine, too," Arlene said.

They pul ed into the drive in front of the Mil ers' cottage and Samantha got out. "Tomorrow night?" Fred asked. In the beams of his headlights, Samantha nodded solemnly.

Tomorrow night.

* * *

The phone rang early the next morning. Sam was asleep and Samantha had already left for work, taking her bike. Pix was drinking a cup of coffee, stil in her nightclothes, out on the back deck. She dashed inside. Her hel o was a little breathless. It had been the fourth ring; islanders were known to hang up after less, assuming no one was home or didn't want to be bothered.

“Mom!" It was Samantha and she was breathless, too.

"Get over here right away! It's the sails! They're covered with blood and al these dead bats are lying around in the hul s!"

“Blood! Bats! My God, what's happened?" Pix could scarcely

believe

Samantha's

words.

"Samantha!

Samantha!" The line appeared to have gone dead.

“That was Arlene." Samantha was back on the phone and her voice was marginal y calmer. "It's not blood. It's paint, red paint. And the bats are plastic. But it looked like blood when the sails were raised and the bats were total y gross with red stuff coming out of them, so we al ran back here. I could have sworn it was real!"

“Darling, how dreadful!"

“Just come, okay?"

“I'l be there as soon as I can." Pix was already unbuttoning her pajamas. After she hung up, she raced upstairs.

“Sam, Sam, wake up! There's some trouble over at the camp. Someone painted the sails with red paint and they al thought it was blood, because there were bats in the boats that they thought were dead. But they turned out to be fake too." Pix was struggling for lucidity.

“Bats? What kind of bats? Basebal bats? Paint?

Blood?" Sam sat up, rubbing his eyes. "What the hel is going on over there? Wait while I throw something on"

When the Mil ers pul ed into the parking lot at Maine Sail Camp, they could see that Sergeant Dickinson had beaten them. They hurried down to the waterfront, where the entire camp was gathered. Samantha was in the center of a group of the youngest campers. Two were literal y clinging to her. Pix was proud of the way her daughter was handling the crisis. Stroking one head while patting another, Samantha was saying, "It's just someone's idea of a stupid joke. A very, very bad joke and that's al . We'l get the extra sails and be out on the water in no time”

One of the children, a little girl, looked up at Samantha with absolute certainty that she would get an honest answer from this goddess. "Are you sure? So many spooky things have been happening—the mice and those other tricks”

Sam turned to Pix. "Mice?" he asked softly, not wanting to upset the scene further.

“I'l tel you later," Pix replied. "Another nasty prank."

She wanted to listen. What was this about "other tricks"?

Jim strode over to them, obviously pleased at their presence.

“Sam, Pix. Good of you to come. Earl is down on the beach now and then he wants to search al the cabins.

Clayton Dickinson is working here as handyman this summer. He's Earl's cousin, I believe, and is going to help him. The kids are understandably upset. Do you think you could give us a hand? We're going to gather in the dining hal and sing some songs. Mabel is getting together some cookies and milk. The counselors have been terrific, but the kids need some more adult reassurance."

“No problem," Sam replied, abandoning his morning sail with only a slight trace of regret. "Before you start your hootenanny though, I think you'd better talk about what's happened. There's the possibility that someone may have some information, but mostly you want to keep it al out in the open or you're going to have them jumping ship in droves."

“Don't I know it. One kid has already demanded to leave. His parents are on a barge in Burgundy, pretty unreachable, as he wel knows, but he's stirring up the others"

“Is this one of Samantha's group? She said there was a boy who was pretty annoyed at his mother and father.”

Jim nodded. "Geoff Baxter. He may have been too immature for such a long sleep-away session.”

Pix went over to Samantha and began to help her move the kids into the dining room. Sam went to another group. "Hootenanny?" Had her husband been listening to his old Pete Seeger records while the family was away?

The clingers were stil clinging and Pix gently pried the little girl away from Samantha. Pix had the distinct impression that the campers around Samantha, and especial y those who had commandeered each of her daughter's hands, were not so much scared as excited, despite appearances to the contrary. There was definitely something in the air. She made a mental note to talk to Samantha about it later—and also ask her how she liked being the object of such devotion. The crushes at Maine Sail were beginning to resemble some sort of food chain—

beginning with Samantha's on Valerie.

“Now, listen to Samantha. She's right. It's just a rotten trick. What's your name?" The girl gulped, took a tissue Pix offered, and blew her nose. "It's Susannah." Obviously the effort was too much and she began to cry, adding the tearful protest, "I didn't do it. I don't know who did it!"

“Shut up, Susannah, and stop showing off." It was one of the boys in the group. "Nobody thinks you did it. Besides, you would never have the guts”

Pix was inclined to agree with him. Whoever had done it would have had to have nerve and some to spare. The sails had been fine the day before, Samantha said, so the deed involved getting up in the dead of night, raising the sails, painting them without leaving a trace of the evidence on one's person, then making everything shipshape before going back to bed.

It would have been very difficult for any of the campers

—or counselors—to do without someone detecting his or her absence.

That left ... Arlene supplied the name uppermost in everyone's minds, whispering to Pix as she swept by, several charges in tow, "It's just creepy Duncan again. If this doesn't get him sent away, I don't know what wil ." She was smiling.

In the cavernous dining room, the commotion was deafening and it took Jim several minutes to get everyone quieted down. During that time, Pix saw Valerie and Duncan slip in through the side door. Valerie looked furious. Duncan's mouth was set in a tight line. He looked as if he hadn't slept—or changed his clothes—for a few weeks. When Pix tried to read the expression in his eyes, al she could come up with was fear. If there was red paint on his body, it wasn't anywhere that showed.

“Campers, staff, I know how upset everyone is, and believe me, I feel it just as much as you do—more. Right now, what we need is to stay calm and do everything we can to help Sergeant Dickinson figure out who did this.

While the kitchen crew gives us a little snack, we'l have a few songs and practice for the parade. I'm going to be in my office in case any of you wants to come to talk to me. If you want to bring a friend, fine. I'm prepared to treat this as a very bad joke—something that maybe seemed like a fun idea at midnight, to scare your friends the next morning. But I wil find out who did it.”

Jim Atherton was definitely displaying the non pussycat side of his camp-director role this morning.

Nobody but nobody messed with Maine Sail.

Samantha joined her parents. Pix took the opportunity to ask her a few questions as the group began to sing

"There Was a Tree," volume increasing as they went along, until it sounded like any other camp group. Al they needed was to be on a bus or tramping through the woods.

“What did the kids mean by the other tricks?"

“Oh, those were just the normal things that go on in a place like this—salt in the sugar bowls, short-sheeting the counselors' beds—the ones who don't have sleeping bags

—and cow-pats in people's shoes.”

Pix nodded. These were the typical perils of camp existence. "Nothing else? Nothing like the mice?"

“Not that I know of, though the kids have been saying they hear creepy noises at night—scary music, rustling in the bushes—but I'm pretty sure it's one or two kids wanting to get the others worked up."

“Now what is this about the mice?" Sam demanded.

He real y wanted to be sailing. It was a gorgeous day and through the window he could see luckier folk skimming the surface of the water just beyond the vandalized boats moored in the camp harbor. They did look pretty dreadful and reminded him of an. ancient Greek myth, only those sails had been black. He shuddered slightly and put any and al implications firmly out of his mind.

They fil ed him in on the mice and he commented, "The sole connection I can see is blood and gore. Kids this age love it, but I'm damned if I can figure out how a kid could have done it."

“The Athertons were at the clambake al afternoon; someone could have snuck away then," Pix proposed.

“Except the whole camp was here practicing for the Fourth of July parade. The counselors have planned an elaborate routine where the campers flip cards as they march and sing, like at sports events. If someone was missing, it would have been spotted right away. You couldn't do that much damage in the time it might have taken to go the bathroom"

“Samantha's right, which leaves an outsider.”

Samantha elaborated. "Which leaves Duncan. We know he had a wicked big fight with his parents. What better way to get even than try to get the camp closed down? If Jim can't keep this hushed up, there are a lot of parents who'l want their kids out of here. You know, `Kid's Camp Cult Target'—that sort of thing.

“Duncan had plenty of time to do it while the rest of us were eating lobster—or he could have done it later after everyone was asleep." Or, she said to herself silently, he could have been coming from his painting party just in time to surprise us at the cabin.

“Wel ," Sam said, rubbing his hands together, "I don't see that there's too much more we can do here." The group was lustily singing "One Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wal " and it was time to leave—tide or no tide. "Why don't we go talk to Jim, see if anything more has turned up, and skedaddle." Skedaddle? Pix thought. What was happening to her husband's vocabulary. He definitely needed to be around his family more.

“I'l come, too. Are you staying, darling?"

“Mother! Of course! It's my job. Besides, I want to.”

Samantha went back to her post. The worshippers were waiting.

“It seems odd that little Susannah would have felt it necessary to protest her innocence," Pix remarked to her husband as they started across the ground, so heavily carpeted with years of fal en fir needles that their every footfal released a strong scent of balsam as they crunched along.

“Maybe she's the salt/sugar culprit. She has the perfect face for it—those big baby blues and that sunshine from-behind-the-clouds smile.”

behind-the-clouds smile.”

Pix looked at Sam admiringly. "You would have made a good detective"

“Thank you, Mrs. Holmes. Now let's say good-bye and not waste any more of this beautiful day.”

Outside the office, they could hear voices, raised voices.

“I tel you, young man, one more incident and you'l go.

This is not a threat; it's a promise. You are not hiding behind your mother's skirts anymore. Of al the idiotic things to do, frightening some of the younger children half to death!"

“I didn't do it, I tel you!" Duncan screeched. Ànd I'm not going to any fucking military academy. Go ahead and send me. But you can't make me stay there."

“Duncan, Duncan, what choice do we have? Your behavior has been so odd lately." It was Valerie and she sounded as if she had been crying. "At least won't you see the counselor again?"

“I'm not the one who needs a shrink; you are! And this has nothing to do with Daddy. Why can't you just leave me alone!"

“Fine" Valerie's voice was resolute, the voice of a woman who has come to the end of some sort of tether.

"We wil leave you alone—and you leave us alone. One more of these incidents and you'l be sent off. Maybe your grandparents wil keep you for the rest of the summer."

“That's a laugh." Duncan sneered. "Don't forget what they said to you the last time we were there."

“That wil be enough, young man, I wil not have you address your mother in that tone of voice." The Mil ers were unable to move from their spot right outside the door—in Pix's case from outright curiosity; in Sam's because he was mortified they might be heard leaving.

“Don't you touch me!" Duncan's voice was frantic and what sounded like a chair fal ing over was fol owed by the more recognizable noise made when a sharp slap connects with flesh on some part of the body.

Head lowered, Duncan plunged out the door, past the Mil ers, oblivious to their presence. Pix could see two things: He was crying and an angry red handprint streaked across the left side of his face.

They waited a few seconds before Pix cal ed out, "Jim, are you there? We have to be going."

“Come in; come in." Nothing was out of place.

“We've just had another scene with Duncan," Valerie admitted to them. "The last psychologist we took him to said it was al an extended grief reaction, but I'm beginning to think Duncan is milking it. At the moment, he is simply a pain-in-the-ass teenager, no ifs, ands, or buts about it." She laughed at her pun. "Excuse me. This has been a pretty awful morning.”

Pix patted Valerie's shoulder. "I know—and if there's anything more we can do, give us a cal ."

“Thank you both for coming." Jim was a bit stiff. Pix knew he must be wondering how much they had heard—

and seen.

“It wil al sort itself out," Sam assured him. "Maine Sail has one of the finest reputations of any summer camp in the country. Parents know this."

“I hope so," Jim said dismal y. "I also hope I can keep it out of the papers”

As the Mil ers were on the point of leaving, Earl walked into the office. Pix sat down.

“You can let the kids back into their bunks. Nothing, not so much as a drop of red paint on anything. The only thing we've found with any paint on it is a rubber glove—the kind you use for dishwashing. It had washed up on the shore and its mate, the paint, and brush wil probably float in, too. After being in the water for this amount of time, there's no way we can get any prints off it. We'l just have to hope there is a guilty conscience—or more than one—out there. I'm assuming the paint was down in the boathouse. There's a space between two cans of white primer."

“We use red paint for the waterlines and the names, so if you didn't find another can of it, that's where it came from," Jim said, then put out his hand for a hearty masculine shake. "Thanks, Earl, for al your work. I'm pretty convinced it was my stepson. We've been having a lot of trouble with him. You know that.”

Earl nodded and gave them a sympathetic look. The first week in June, Duncan had been picked up for driving his mother's car without a license. He'd only made it down to the end of the Athertons' road when he had the bad luck to encounter Earl. Rather than get bogged down in the juvenile-court system, Earl had placed him on a kind of supervised probation of his own. Now when the boy saw the policeman coming, he tended to walk in the other direction, but not before giving Earl a look that spoke volumes—pretty unprintable ones.

“If you find out anything more, give me a cal . I'l write it up, plus it wil have to go in The Island Crier. Let's hope none of the eager beavers in the national press are reading

`Police Brief' these days."

“Thanks.”

Pix knew what Earl meant. There had been a spate of quaint column fil ers reprinting items from local Maine papers—examples of life Down East. The latest had a Sanpere dateline and purported to quote an island schoolboy's report on George Washington in its entirety:

"George Washington was born off-island." True, that said it al , but the image of the life it represented was as faded as one of those daguerreotypes Earl had been mentioning just yesterday?

“We have to be going." Ever so gently, Sam pul ed his wife to an upright position. "See you.”

They spent the afternoon sailing, and despite her every intention to forget the events of the morning for the time being, Pix kept seeing gobs of red dripping down the smooth white sails they passed.

Ursula Rowe sat on the front porch of The Pines trying to decide whether she should walk down to the beach or stay where she was and finish the book she was reading about Alice James. A few years ago, there would have been no question. She would have leapt up, taken her walk, and returned to read—or even taken the book with her.

Now she eyed the ascent. First there were the porch stairs, then the sloping grass, and final y a line of low rocks that separated the beach from the dirt road leading to the dock.

She sighed. It was too much, especial y with no one around at the moment. It was al wel and good to assert her independence when people were near, but she knew she was slowing down and there were things she just shouldn't attempt anymore. It was profoundly depressing.

It had al started with the car. She'd resisted the cal s of common sense for several months, then when she'd backed over one of the lilacs her mother had planted for her when she first moved into the Aleford house, she'd cal ed Pix and told her to come get the keys. For the first few days, she felt not only trapped but angrily dependent.

Gradual y, she'd become used to relying on friends, taxis—

and Pix. Fortunately, the house wasn't far from the center of Aleford. The day Ursula couldn't walk to the library would be the day she took to her bed for good, she'd told herself dramatical y. Now she knew she'd hang on to every bit of mobility she had, from house to garden, from bedroom to bath, as her world diminished.

The unchanging scene before her lifted her spirits. For al the waves knew, she could stil be that little girl in braids chasing the foam as it swept down the wet sand. Yet this summer had not been a typical one. The murder of Mitchel Pierce hung suspended in the air, accompanied by whispered rumors, hints, accusations. She wished Pix would stay out of it, but knew she wouldn't. Children were so influenced by their friends. Pix was taking a leaf from Faith's book. But then Pix wasn't a child anymore and she, Ursula, wasn't real y a mother—some other category. The magazines talked about role reversal and children becoming parents. Ursula hated that notion. Only it was true. She wasn't walking to the beach anymore without Pix to watch her. Retired mother? Perhaps, but when she thought about Pix and Arnold, named for his father, the fierce pangs of maternal love were not retiring in the least.

It would be good to see Arnold and his wife. What was the old saying? "Your son is your son until he takes a wife.

Your daughter's your daughter for the rest of your life" Or was it "her life"? Some daughterly element in one's makeup that just kept on going along, even when the mother was gone? Had she felt this way about her own mother? She didn't think so. Her older sisters had assigned themselves caretaker roles early on and there wasn't much left for Ursula to do save visit from time to time—like Arnold and Claire. He was her son. She was proud of him, but it was a good thing she had Pix.

She thought about her conversation with John Eggleston at the clambake. "It's no loss to anyone I know or can imagine" She'd been surprised at the uncharitableness of the remark. She ought to tel Pix about it. The clambake had seemed like a kind of play. Perhaps it was because she knew that at eighty, she wouldn't be at too many more of them. She had tended to regard the day as several acts and many scenes one after another. Addie Bainbridge had been watching, too. Or maybe holding court was a better description. Ursula resolved to invite Addie and Rebecca for tea later in the week, after the Fourth of July festivities.

Give Rebecca a break. Addie was inclined to ride roughshod over her. What could Adelaide's childhood have actual y been like out at the lighthouse? It sounded idyl ic, and reflecting on her own upbringing, one of seven, in a wel -appointed but unavoidably crowded town house on Boston's Beacon Hil , Ursula thought how lovely it would have been not to have so many people to talk to al the time. That was what had always made The Pines so special. You could be alone.

She could stil be alone. Except now she didn't want to be.