The Widow

CHAPTER 3

Owen Garrison wasn’t one for suntan lotion and picnic baskets and lazy days on a beach. After forty-five minutes on Sand Beach, he was restless. The horseshoe-shaped beach was a rare stretch of sand carved out of Mt. Desert Island’s granite coastline, the water turquoise on the sunny early July afternoon.

Compared to Maine’s more expansive beaches to the south-York, Ogunquit, Wells-it wasn’t crowded at all.

But Owen paced in the sand, which clung to everything, as he kept an eye on Sean and Ian Alden, eleven and nine, towheaded boys who’d known no other home but the fourteen-mile-wide island. Their father was the local police chief. Owen had complicated Doyle and the boys’lives when he’d asked KatieAlden to head up the proposed Fast Rescue field academy in Bar Harbor. He wanted it up and running by fall, and Katie, a paramedic and search-and-rescue specialist, had taken on the challenge. She’d left for six weeks of training in London two days ago. The boys were doing fine, but Doyle was still sulking about not having her around for most of the summer.

Owen was just off a two-week operation in South Asia following a 7.5-magnitude earthquake and figured the least he could do was help watch the boys once in a while.

A kid-maybe Sean or Ian-squealed. Before Owen realized what was happening, he was jerked back into the past, remembering his sister on this same beach, running into the water and out again, squealing in delight, flapping her arms against the power of the waves and the shock of the cold water.

“Come on, Owen. Don’t be a chicken! You get used to the cold.”

But you didn’t, he knew. You might not feel it, but the cold would wear on your body, weaken it.

The day his sister drowned, the water temperature was fifty-five degrees. Early-stage hypothermia had tired her more quickly, shortening the time she could tread water amid the waves and wait for rescue.

Owen, helpless to save her, had watched Doe slip under the water.

Enough.

He snatched up two towels from the heap of stuff the Alden boys had insisted on carting down to the beach. He waved to them. “Time to warm up.”

They didn’t argue, although Owen had no idea whether they cooperated because of something they heard in his tone or because they’d had their fill of waves. Unlike most of their fellow beachgoers, Sean and Ian were wet from head to toe-and they were blue-lipped and shivering. Owen draped towels over them and opened up a blanket, spreading it out on the sticky sand.

“Sit. Wrap up good. Give yourselves a chance to warm up.”

Ian, the younger boy, skinnier than his brother, sat on the blanket and tucked his knees up under him, encasing his entire body in the oversized towel.

“Do you boys know what to do if you get stuck out in cold water?” Owen asked. He was in jeans and a polo shirt. Nice and dry.

Sean, his teeth chattering, sat cross-legged on the blanket. “Yell for help?”

“You should have a whistle with you if you’re out in the woods or on the water, kayaking, canoeing, whatever. If you get into trouble, you blow the whistle to alert people you need help. You should also have a life vest when you’re in any kind of boat. You almost never want to try swimming to shore.”

“Why not?” Sean asked.

“Swimming uses up your body’s heat faster. You want to conserve heat.”

Ian frowned. “Why?”

“So you don’t get hypothermia. That’s when your body temperature drops. At first you get blue lips and start shivering. But it gets worse-you get confused, you slur your words, your muscles get weak. You end up in a world of hurt.”

“Oh, right.” Sean nodded knowledgeably. “Mom told us. She says people don’t dress right on a hike, and they end up dying of the cold. Even in summer.”

“And in water, your body loses heat even faster. Try to keep as much of your body out of water as you can. If you can reach an overturned boat, hang on to it. If you can’t, keep your head out of water and stay as still as possible. Tread water if you’re in a life vest, get into the ‘heat escape lessening position’ or H.E.L.P.-you cross your arms high up on your chest and draw your legs up toward your groin. Huddle with other people in the water.”

“Have you ever been stuck in cold water?” Sean asked.

“No.”

“Have you ever rescued anyone who had hypo-” Ian frowned. “What is it?”

“Hypothermia. Yes. I’ve rescued lots of people with hypothermia.”

And he’d recovered bodies of people who’d died of it, too.

Both boys’ color had improved, and they’d stopped shivering. Owen knew they’d warm up fast, but he probably shouldn’t have let them stay out in the chilly Maine water that long. Their father, though, wouldn’t care-Doyle had grown up on Mt. Desert Island and had a healthy respect for the elements, but he wasn’t afraid of them. And he wouldn’t want his boys to be afraid.

Sean and Ian pulled on sweatshirts and sweatpants but balked at wearing shoes because of the sand stuck between their toes. They ran ahead of Owen up to the parking lot and his truck. He wrapped the extra stuff in the blanket-untouched chocolate bars and water, sunscreen, bug spray, shoes, extra towels-and followed the boys. He could still feel the adrenaline that had sustained him through the past two weeks of nonstop work. It’d be a while before he could relax.

This had been a long year of disasters. He knew he needed to rest.

He tossed the blanket in the back of his truck. He had a full range of emergency supplies and equipment there. If anything had happened down on the beach, he’d have been prepared.

He liked being back on Mt. Desert. A third of the island’s 82,000 acres formed the bulk of Acadia National Park, protecting its glacial landscape of pink granite mountains, finger-shaped ponds, evergreen forests and rockbound coast. Owen was a part-time resident, often away for long stretches, but he knew a part of his soul would always remain there.

The boys had fallen asleep by the time Owen reached the private drive off Route 3 where his great-grandfather, a visionary and an eccentric, had built a stunning “cottage” in 1919 that burned in the great fires of 1947. The mammoth conflagration consumed thousands of acres and hundreds of summer mansions, its path still marked by younger deciduous forests. After the fire, Owen’s grandparents built a smaller house on the ledge behind the original site, above the Atlantic. Now it was eccentric Ellis Cooper’s summer home. But when his family sold their Mt. Desert property after Doe’s death, Owen had talked his grandmother into saving a chunk of waterfront for him. It was where he’d built his own Maine place, working on it on and off over the past ten years.

He turned down the narrow gravel road that led to his house and, up the headland, the Browning house. Will Browning had often helped Owen work on his house. When he was home, Chris would pitch in. He’d lost his parents to the sea as a toddler, and his grandfather, a solitary man, had raised him.

Originally, the Browning house had been a guest cottage, but Owen’s great-grandfather had sold it to Will after he’d worked tirelessly, for days, trying to save the island during the great fires.

Now, the house belonged to Chris’s widow.

Abigail.

Owen pushed her out of his mind and parked at his house. The boys, re-energized from their car nap, ran down to the rocks to investigate what the outgoing tide had left behind in the quiet pools of periwinkles, mussels, lichens and seaweed. But the temperature was even cooler out on his granite point, and Owen filled up the woodbox and rummaged in the cupboards for something hot for the boys to have for dinner.

No one believed he’d last the summer in Maine. If a disaster didn’t call him away, Owen would usually find something that did.

Doyle Alden arrived at dusk to collect his sons. A big, fair-haired man, he and Owen had become friends as boys, when they’d go off hiking and fishing together, when where they were from and who their families were didn’t matter. Sometimes, Chris Browning would join him and Doyle. Chris had always been driven, determined not to live the life his father and grandfather had. As much as Owen knew he respected his family, Chris didn’t want to be a lobsterman or a handyman, and he’d worked hard to have a different future. He’d gone to law school and become an FBI agent, and he’d married the daughter of a man everyone had known would become the next director of the FBI.

And if Chris had chosen another spot for their honeymoon, he might still be alive. Instead, he’d taken his bride home to Mt. Desert Island.

Doyle had been Chris’s best man. Sean had been the ring-bearer.

Owen had arrived in Maine on a two-week leave from the army three days after the wedding.

In time to find Chris’s body.

Doyle’s voice brought Owen back to the present.

“Katie e-mailed me,” Doyle said, staring out the French doors at the water. The boys, finished with dinner, had gone back out. “She says she’s settling in. Says the flowers in England are beautiful right now.”

“She’d notice,” Owen said.

“The six weeks will be up before we know it.”

Owen could hear the struggle in Doyle’s tone to hide his resentment. He’d put the decision to do this training in Katie’s hands, saying it was hers, not his, to make. She’d pleaded with him to discuss his feelings with her, but he’d refused. And now he was irritated, because deep down he’d wanted her to stay.

It was all more complicated than Owen could get his head around, but Doyle and Katie had been together since they were teenagers. As ornery as Doyle could be, he would know that if his wife didn’t need his permission to go to England, she at least deserved his support.

“Summer’s my busiest season,” he said. “Katie could have picked a better time to learn how to save the world.”

“She didn’t pick the time. I did.”

Doyle gave him a faint smile. “Yeah? Well, screw you.”

The boys pounded onto the deck and burst inside with a frenzied energy that seemed to lift their father’s mood. Ian’s fingers were blue-red, a sign he’d been into the tide pools. He had his mother’s curiosity and affection for living things. Sean got more pleasure from scrambling over granite boulders.

“What’s going on?” Doyle asked at their obvious excitement.

“Nothing,” Sean said, his cheeks reddening as he warmed his hands in front of the woodstove, the fire glowing behind the screen.

“Nothing’s got you all excited, huh?”

Ian started to speak, but Sean shot him a warning look. “Dad, can we stay here tonight?”

“Not tonight. Let’s wait until a night I have a meeting, if that’s okay with Owen.”

Owen shrugged. “That’d be fine.” But he could see that Sean and Ian had something they were keeping from their father. “Did you notice the fog on the horizon?”

“Uh-huh.” Ian nodded, but he was watching his older brother, presumably for another warning look if he strayed too close to spilling whatever it was they were hiding. “It’s coming closer. Sean calls it The Blob. We pretend it’s a monster.”

Ian roared and stretched out his arms, pretending he was The Blob. Sean rolled his eyes. Owen followed them and their father out to the car. Sean said he wanted the front seat, Ian said it was his turn-the fight was on. Doyle settled it by making them both sit in back.

“They don’t fight that much,” he told Owen, then gave a tight smile as he opened the car door. “Katie’s doing. They’re more likely to act up around me.”

In the back seat, his window open, Sean had grown pensive. “Dad, do you believe in ghosts?”

Doyle didn’t hesitate. “No. Why? You boys think you saw a ghost?”

Ian’s eyes widened, and he elbowed his brother. “Sean, Dad’ll know what to do.”

Sean snapped his seat belt. “We didn’t see nothing.”

“Anything,” Doyle said. “You didn’t see anything.”

“That’s what I said.”

Doyle started the car. “Forget it.” He looked exhausted, overwhelmed without Katie at his side. “Wouldn’t surprise me if you saw a ghost out here. It’s been that kind of day.”

But as Doyle backed out of the driveway, Owen noticed Ian in the back seat, pale, his blue eyes unblinking, and felt his stomach twist.

They know about Chris Browning.

Owen knew Doyle avoided mentioning his childhood friend in front of Sean and Ian and never discussed the details of a long-unsolved murder that had deeply affected him. Their father’s silence had created a void that the boys, apparently, had filled on their own.

But what had made them think they’d seen a ghost?

Doyle Alden pulled into the short driveway of the little house he and Katie had bought six weeks before Sean was born and fixed up themselves. It was on a side street near the police station, a few miles from Owen’s place. Bar Harbor, where the Fast Rescue Field Academy would be located, was about twelve miles up and across the island, a picturesque drive that his wife would have to start making every morning once the construction was finished.

An unmarked Maine State Police car eased in behind him. Doyle recognized Lieutenant Lou Beeler behind the wheel, and knew it couldn’t be good news.

“Go on inside, guys,” Doyle told his sons. “I’ll be a couple minutes.”

In the glare of the front-door light, Lou looked thin and tired, his hair grayer. He planned to retire in the fall after thirty years on the job, fifteen of them in the Criminal Investigative Division. He was a decent guy with an extraordinary record, one of the most respected detectives in Maine. But riding off into the sunset with Christopher Browning’s murder unsolved grated on him. An FBI agent married to John March’s daughter, a man beloved on Mt. Desert Island-shot on his honeymoon within shouting distance of his boyhood home, left to bleed to death amid the rocks, seaweed, salt water and gulls.

Who wouldn’t want to find Chris’s killer?

“What can I do for you, Lou?” Doyle asked.

Lou rubbed his lower back. He’d have driven to Bar Harbor from his home hear Bangor. “Fog’s rolling in. I can smell it.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“I don’t like driving in it. My eyes aren’t what they used to be. How’s Katie?”

“Fine. She’s in England.”

“I heard. Working with Owen Garrison’s outfit now?”

“Yeah.” Doyle knew Lou was just being friendly, but he hadn’t had much patience for the past few days and wanted the older man to state his business. “The boys and I are on our own for a few weeks. They’re inside now, waiting for me.”

“Sure, sure. I’ll get to the point. Has Abigail Browning been in touch?”

Hell. Doyle shook his head.

“She got a call last night. I thought you should know,” Lou said in a professional tone that belied his personal interest in the case. He then gave Doyle details on the call. “I doubt it’ll amount to anything, but-I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right.”

“Is Abigail on her way here?”

Lou sighed. “I didn’t ask, and she didn’t say. But what do you think?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s here now.”

Lou kept his steady gaze on Doyle. “I don’t know about you, but I never thought I’d still be hunting Chris Browning’s killer after seven years.”

“Didn’t you? Here’s how I see it. A burglar targeted the island seven years ago and stole a lot of jewelry from rich summer residents. He landed at the Browning house, thinking it was a guest cottage for the Garrisons or the Coopers, and Abigail surprised him. She was assaulted, and Chris took matters into his own hands. The burglar killed him and took off, never to return.”

“That’s one scenario.”

“It’s the only one that makes sense and fits the facts. If Abigail thinks she’s going to come up here and find answers, she’s wrong.”

“She’s thought that for seven years-”

“And she’s been wrong for seven years. She just stirs people up for no good reason.”

Lou sank back against the hood of his car. “The caller said things were happening here.”

“It’s a busy island that gets three million tourists every year,” Doyle said. “Of course things are happening here. You can cherry-pick a dozen possibilities without breaking into a sweat or thinking hard.”

“What about things happening among the Garrisons and the Coopers?”

Doyle scoffed. “Something’s always going on with them. Owen’s starting up this field academy. He just got back from digging for earthquake survivors.”

“The Coopers?”

“Grace Cooper’s up for a big State Department appointment. Her father’s doing some complicated business deal. Her uncle’s designed a new garden for one of his rich friends. Her brother’s here this summer. He made it through a whole year of college.” Doyle narrowed his eyes on his fellow, more experienced law enforcement officer. “But you know all that, don’t you, Lou?”

“Yeah. I do. Well…” He smiled. “I hadn’t heard about Linc Cooper not getting kicked out of another college. You’ll call me when Abigail turns up?”

“I’ll call. Thanks for stopping by. By the way, did you stop by the Browning house just now?”

Lou shook his head. “No, why?”

Doyle decided not to tell him about the boys and their ghost. “Just curious. Sure you don’t want to come in?”

“I should get back. Say hi to the boys for me.”

After Lou left, Doyle locked up his car and headed inside. The house wasn’t the same without Katie. He didn’t know how he’d manage for six weeks without her. The place needed vacuuming. He had to take out the trash, clean the bathrooms, mop the kitchen floor. Normally he and Katie and the boys split the housework, but he could see now he hadn’t been doing his fair share.

He didn’t need to deal with Abigail right now. She had a way of getting on his last nerve.

With a little luck, she’d get assigned to a hot case in Boston and forget about the anonymous call. Let the state and local police investigate. Stay out of it.

Doyle snorted, noticing he’d left the coffeepot on that morning.

What was he thinking?

Luck just never seemed to be on his side.