Still Water (32 page)

“Provoke me. Accuse me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said with exaggerated effect. “Does it offend your honour?”

“You can be such a bastard.”

“Come on Kate. Remember who you’re talking to. It was my so called friend that you jumped into bed with remember? When I was lying all smashed up in my hospital bed. I expect you both thought I was going to die. It must have disappointed the hell out of you. You don’t expect me to believe he was the only one do you?”

Kate shook her head, from weariness more than anything. How many times had she heard this same old grinding theme? She’d made a mistake, a human error because she had been half out of her mind at the time and she’d needed someone to turn to, and Evan had never let her forget it. And he’d accused her often enough that one day her resistance had collapsed. Why not be guilty of what he accused her?

But now? She didn’t know if she could carry on any more. Not now. Her eyes had been opened. She made for the door and he shouted after her.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“Away from here. Out of this place,” she snapped.

He came after her, his features twisted. “Away from me?”

“Yes. To get away from you!”

It was out before she could stop herself. She saw the way he looked at her, the mixture of fear and loathing and maybe even his love that had been long twisted into need. A heady cocktail, smouldering behind his eyes.

“I know you were out that night, Kate,” he said as she put her hand on the door. She froze, her heart beating wildly. In the silence she could feel him grinning as he saw her reaction. “You know the night I’m talking about, don’t you Kate? The night that fisherman vanished. Maybe I should call the police. Or should I tell that lawyer that was here?”

She turned, and he smiled with gloating triumph.

“You didn’t think I heard you did you? I saw you from the window when you came back. You want to know what woke me? It was the shots. I heard rifle shots. What do you think about that, Kate?”

She stared at him, then went out and slammed the door behind her. She heard him as she left the house, yelling for her to come back, but she ignored him. As she drove away the wheels of the Mercedes spun for traction, throwing gravel back in the air.

Dave Baxter was taking a break when Kate Little pulled over in her Mercedes. He was parked near the docks, listening to the sound of loud voices spilling from a bar along the street. She jerked to a sudden stop, the tyres screeching, then she got out and crossed the street, slamming the door closed behind her.

He felt the way he always did when he saw her, which was mostly a deep longing ache that started in his chest and seemed to extend all the way down to the pit of his stomach. The other thing he felt was pretty stupid.

He hadn’t meant to end up feeling the way he did about Kate Little. In fact, to begin with he hadn’t really been aware that it was happening. It wasn’t like some blinding flash, some teenage love at first sight crap like in some of those romance stories they sold at the grocery store. It had been a slow process that had started off as him feeling a little sorry for her. He couldn’t even say when his feelings had begun to change, if it had happened over one summer or several. He just knew that when Kate had first started coming to the island, what had struck him most of all about her was not the way she looked, which was pretty hard not to notice, but the way she hardly ever smiled. Not that she was unapproachable, or that she acted as if simply because she had money she was different from anyone else, it was more like she was preoccupied all the time. Like she had something on her mind and whatever it was it made her sad.

That first year Kate hadn’t come into town much, except to do some shopping or whatever. There were stories about the guy she was married to, that he seemed to drink a lot and was pretty unfriendly. Frank Hunter who did maintenance at the house saw him more than anyone, and his view was that Evan Little was an asshole. It was the second summer the Littles came to the island that Kate started being seen around town more often, and she was beginning to drink enough that she was being talked about. Baxter didn’t know which had come first, the stories about her drinking, or the rumours about her seeing men. Either way, some people started acting like she had some kind of social disease when they were around her. Baxter knew how people liked to talk in places like Sanctuary Harbor. Especially about summer people. Kate was an easy target. She was rich, she drank and she was good looking. Put all that together with the fact that she didn’t seem to give a damn and she was bound to get talked about. A lot of what was said about her wasn’t true, Baxter knew, but he’d seen her once with a guy called Keller who’d lived on the island for a while, and it was pretty obvious there was something between them. He guessed there might have been others too, like Jordan Osborne.

But underneath it all, Baxter had always felt there was more to Kate than people thought. Whenever he saw her it was the sadness in her eyes that struck him. She was unhappy. When he was alone at his house, or when he was out on his boat, he’d find himself thinking about her. Even over the long winter months when the house on the point was closed down and empty, he’d wonder where she was and what she was doing. He’d never put a name to what he felt, but he came to accept it, as he accepted he would never do anything about it. It was pretty ridiculous, some middle-aged, small town cop who was carrying a little too much weight, feeling the way he did about a woman who had probably never even noticed his existence. A woman who was married anyway.

Across the street, Kate went into a convenience store and on impulse Baxter followed her. She was at the counter, waiting her turn when he went in and he picked up a magazine from the rack which he pretended to look at.

Meg Thorn was behind the counter. She said goodnight to the customer she was serving, then when she saw Kate her expression hardened.

“I’d like a pack of Pall Mall,” Kate said.

Meg hesitated, then it seemed with deliberate slowness she turned around and took a pack from the display which she slapped on the counter. Her expression didn’t alter a fraction. Kate handed over a bill and Meg accepted it as if it was tainted then put it down by the register while she rang up the sale. Baxter had seen the way people could show their meanness in lots of small and hurtful ways, but this was blatant.

“Wait a minute,” Kate said. There was a different tone in her voice.

Meg stopped what she was doing and looked surprised.

“I changed my mind.” Kate pushed the. Pall Malls back over the counter. “I want something else.” She looked at the display of brands all plainly there for her to see. “What else do you have?”

Confused, Meg indicated the display, then resentfully she said, “This is everything.”

“My eyesight isn’t so good. Tell me what’s there.”

The two women stared at each other. It seemed like Meg was going to refuse to answer. It was a standoff. Baxter took the magazine he was looking at over to the counter and put it down.

“The lady asked what brands you have, Meg.”

She turned her angry stare on him, then under the weight of so much opposition she gave in, and though she didn’t sound too happy about it, she began reciting off all the different brands. Kate waited until she’d been through them all.

“I guess I’ll take these after all.” Kate picked up the Pall Malls again. “Keep the change,” she said and with a brief nod to Baxter she walked out of the store.

He caught up with her outside as she started along the street. She glanced at him as he fell in beside her.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” she said.

“Meg’s not so bad.”

“If you say so.” She paused. “Anyway, thanks … I’m sorry I don’t know your name.”

“It’s Baxter.”

“Well, thanks Officer Baxter. Goodnight.”

She started to walk away, and Baxter watched her go, then at last he called after her. “Mrs. Little?”

She stopped and waited.

He caught up, unsure now what he had in mind. “Were you going someplace in particular?”

“Yes. No. I was going to have a drink.”

“I was thinking I might have a beer myself … I mean, if you wanted some company. I’m not busy right now.”

Kate looked at him for several seconds, and Baxter was glad that it was dark enough that maybe she wouldn’t see the way his colour had risen. He could feel the heat in his face, and his palms felt suddenly sweaty. He thought she would turn him down, but then after what seemed like forever she nodded.

“Okay Officer Baxter. Why not?”

He smiled. “It’s Dave by the way.”

“Dave,” she said.

They went to The Lobster Pot, and ordered drinks and sat at a table in the corner. Kate lit a cigarette. Rita brought their drinks over and gave Baxter a funny kind of puzzled look which he ignored. They talked for a little while, about nothing much. Kate asked him questions about himself, how long he’d been a cop, had he always lived on the island, things that Baxter felt she really had little interest in. She was just being polite. Every now and then she’d gaze off into space and he had the feeling she hadn’t heard what he’d been saying.

“Do you have children?” she asked him after one short silence, during which he’d been trying to think of something to talk about that wouldn’t make him seem so dull. As he’d told her about himself it had struck him how ordinary and uneventful his life had been.

“I was never married.”

She looked surprised at that. “I can’t imagine why some woman around here didn’t snap you up a long time ago.”

“Well, I don’t know myself,” Baxter said, laughing a little. He thought he heard a slight wistful note that made him think that maybe she wasn’t being entirely flippant. Inwardly he told himself he was dreaming. “I keep waiting, you know? But they don’t exactly come hammering down my door.”

Kate smiled, and he thought her mood was better than when they had first sat down. She seemed to have forgotten her troubles, or at least put them aside for a little while.

“It’s a pity, I bet you would have made a good dad. Didn’t you ever want children?”

“I did once.” He shrugged. “I stopped thinking about it I guess.”

“Perhaps you will someday.”

“Maybe,” he said, though he doubted it. “What about you Mrs. Little. You don’t have children?”

Kate looked away, and her expression clouded with regret. “No. After my husband’s accident…” She picked up her drink and then shrugged. “Just one of those things.”

Baxter didn’t know what to say. He wished he’d kept his mouth shut. He changed the subject and started to tell her about how he’d been to New York a couple of times when he was younger, but she only nodded vaguely and he knew she wasn’t really listening. He tried to make her smile again, telling her a couple of things that had happened over the years that were kind of funny, but either he was a bad story teller or she just wasn’t in the mood. After a while she finished her drink and said she ought to be going.

“It was nice talking to you.” Baxter stood up with her.

“You too,” she told him. “I’m sorry if I was a little distant.” She seemed about to leave, but then she hesitated. “That man, Bryan Roderick? Has there been any news about him?”

There was an off-key note in her tone. She tried to make her question sound casual, but it didn’t quite come off. “No,” he told her.

“But you think he was murdered? I mean that’s what I hear.”

“It looks that way,” Baxter admitted.

She looked as if she might ask something more, but then changed her mind. “I was just curious. Well, thank you again.”

“Anytime.”

After Kate had left he sat quietly and finished his drink. He thought about their conversation, musing for a while on a foolish dream he’d long had where she came to his house and they ate barbecue on the patio and sat and talked into the night. For the first time his fantasy seemed a little more real. As if it was something that could actually happen. Then he thought about the way she’d asked about Bryan Roderick, and his good mood dissipated. He remembered what Matt Jones had said, the suggestion that Kate was mixed up in this somehow, and much as he’d fought the idea, it kept popping back up in his mind, refusing to go away.

As he put down his glass Rita came over and asked if he wanted another.

“No thanks, I’m all set.”

She picked up his empty glass and reached for Kate’s. Baxter stopped her.

“Leave that would you Rita?”

She looked puzzled, then shrugged. “Sure, whatever.”

After she’d gone Baxter stared at the empty glass, then he carefully wrapped it in a handkerchief he took from his pocket and when he left he took it with him.

Anne Laine finished examining Matt’s nose. “It isn’t bad. Only a fracture.” She went around her desk and sat down. “I can bandage it for you if you like, but you’ll heal just as well without it.”

“I’ll go without then,” Matt said, gingerly touching his nose.

“I’ll give you something for the pain. Try not to get in any more fights for a while. What happened anyway? I didn’t figure you for the type to get caught up in bar room brawls.”

“Well, I’m a dark horse.”

She smiled. “I had a whole bunch of them in here this morning. One with a broken finger, half a dozen with bruising and a couple with cracked ribs. Russ Williams took a fair crack on the head himself. He told me some vacationers from a charter boat got in an argument with some of our local guys in the Schooner. Somebody threw a punch and next thing the whole place blew up.” She shook her head with resignation. Then they come in here and expect me to patch them up so they can all go and do the same thing again tonight.” She tore off a sheet from her pad and passed it across. “Okay, you’re all set.”

Matt folded the prescription and put it in his pocket. Anne regarded him frankly. She hailed originally from New Hampshire, from a small town up around the lakes. She wore red rimmed glasses and a red shirt with blue jeans, and other than the stethoscope lying coiled on her desk she didn’t look much like a doctor.

“You want to tell me what really happened to you? I had Jake Roderick in here earlier with a cracked jaw, you know.”