Stormy Cove (33 page)

Things were getting more and more tangled. Lori felt some tension at her temples heralding a headache.

Lloyd’s voice sounded like an echo.

“Do the police know about it?”

“About what?”

“Beth dropping in?”

“Nobody’s asked me about it yet.”

“Maybe it’s got something to do with them.”

“With what?”

“With the arrowheads.”

Lori wanted some clarification, but Weston wriggled his way out of the conversation with a hasty apology for needing to hang up.

She plopped down on the sofa and sat there for a while, stunned.

She didn’t want to hear anything, think anything, feel anything.

Fog was creeping over the hill, its edges transparent like a fine web, dark and menacing on the horizon. It made the world of Stormy Cove smaller and tighter than it already was.

She twitched when the phone rang but didn’t move an inch. It was her passive rebellion against the events steamrolling over her.

But she couldn’t escape them. The answering machine kicked in.

“Lori, it’s Emma. You can pick up the bakeapple jelly Winnie promised you. Drop by her place anytime.”

Two things registered with Lori. Noah’s mother had never promised her bakeapple jelly. And she hadn’t called herself but commissioned her daughter-in-law to do it.
Winnie is summoning me.

She should deal with Winnie right away. Perhaps she’d learn something about Noah, whose truck wasn’t at his place, as a glance out the window told her.

Winnie Whalen was not alone; Nate was with her in the living room. The TV was on, and Lori recognized
The Price Is Right
, where contestants guessed the price of certain products. She didn’t find the program quite so ridiculous since Nate admitted that thanks to it, he’d found an ointment for the itchy eczema he’d picked up from the constant moisture while out fishing.

Winnie was sitting in front of the TV, beside an aquarium with a single goldfish. Lori couldn’t understand a word she said until Nate turned down the TV.

The old lady repeated her question, “How’s your day been?”

Lori knew that she should say “Fine,” but she balked.

“Sad. I still can’t believe . . . it’s a nightmare.”

“That reporter should not have gone out with Jack, and at night, she—”

“Mother,” Nate interrupted her.

But she didn’t leave it alone.

“Jack’s always caused problems, even as a little kid. My ducks had chicks, and he crushed them with his boots. Isn’t that so, Nate?”

“Yeah, sure, but things are bad enough. We don’t have to dredge that up now.”

“He always gets everything from his parents. He’s driven three snowmobiles into the ground. And then they buy him an ATV for twelve thousand dollars. Somebody like that must think he’s entitled to everything.”

Nate kept quiet, but his face had an agonized look.

“And now Jack’s parents say it was an accident. That they were just romping around. Who believes such a thing? He always grabbed our girls.”

“Mother, Lori doesn’t want to hear this.”

Winnie looked out the window, but her words were addressed to Lori.

“What you said in the store was right. Noah is not a murderer.”

In the store. Lori coming to Noah’s defense. Of course Winnie Whalen had heard about it. This was her way of thanking Lori.

Her eyes wandered back to her visitor.

“But you won’t put it in your book, will you?”

“Put what?”

“This business about Jack.”

As if it were only about Jack.

She folded her hands.

“I’m making a coffee table book. But I think that there’ll be other people who will write about Reanna.”

“Yes. Vera said a woman’s already going from house to house and talking to people. She’s supposed to be a relative of the reporter. But she’s got no business being here.”

Nate cleared his throat.

“I’ve got to go, Mother. Are you going to give Lori her jelly?”

“It’s in the fridge.”

Nate saw Lori out.

Tiny drops of mist hung in the air.

“I’m going to my cabin in the woods,” Nate said. “Noah’s there. He’s repairing our wood stove.” Nate looked at his shoes. “It’s very beautiful there. Maybe you’d like to take a few pictures.”

Lori zipped up her windbreaker.

“Maybe Noah would like to be alone.”

“I think . . . it’d be better if he had somebody with him. I can’t stay. Got to take my boys to Saleau Cove for their basketball game.”

She could tell by Nate’s embarrassed look how much this request cost him.

“OK,” she said, “I’ll get my camera out of the car.”

She arrived in an enchanted setting. A clearing opened up before them, surrounded by low trees that only half blocked the view of a little lake. Not a trace of coastal fog. Diffuse soft sunlight flooded the green oasis. Lori got out of the truck and looked around. Noah’s pickup was parked in front of a rough-hewn cabin. Moose antlers above the red-painted door, three blue plastic chairs, and clutter all over a narrow wood patio. The customary lace curtains in the windows, bright pink this time, and to top it all off, a hanging mobile with Snow White and the dwarves.

Noah came through the doorway, his flannel shirt half-unbuttoned. He tried to conceal his surprise, but Lori could see he was pleased.

“I thought you were bringing tools and spare parts,” he shouted to Nate, who was dragging a pipe along.

“Sure, what do you think this is?” Nate retorted, pointing to a drill. “Make the lady some coffee.”

Noah bounced up and down on his toes.

“Oh, I don’t think she came here for that.”

CHAPTER 37

After taking off her shoes and socks, Lori rolled up her pant legs and waded into the lake. She could only take the cold water if she ran back to the narrow strip of beach every now and then to thaw out.

“C’mon in!” she shouted to Noah, who was sitting on a rock, watching in amusement.

He shook his head.

“I only look at water from above.”

She felt smooth stones underfoot and sluggish seaweed tickling her ankles. A weight seemed to lift from her shoulders.

Noah took the camera and clicked the shutter again and again. She spread out her arms as if trying to embrace everything. Everything and him.

On the shore, she dried her feet with her socks and climbed up on Noah’s rock. They sat there in silence for a while, listening to the soft rustling of the wind and the water lapping at the shore.

“It’s beautiful,” she said softly. “I’m so thankful that this much beauty still exists.”

Noah looked over quietly and then put an arm around her. She pressed her head to his shoulder. Nothing mattered more than the nearness of his body, the longing for his touch, the warmth of his lips when he kissed her, gently and then with the full force of his desire.

Hand in hand they walked down the worn path to the cabin.

Now and then they embraced and kissed. He stroked his strong fingers over her cheeks and lips. She felt his repressed emotion. Her hands meandered over his back. He drew her to him with both arms, carefully and powerfully. He felt even better than she’d dreamed of during those lonely nights.

They embraced on the steps of the patio and smiled coyly at each other while Noah tried to repair the stove, because “otherwise our toes will freeze tonight, and you’ll only remember the cold,” as he explained.

A wave of tenderness flooded over her.

“Freeze, tonight? Far from it.”

She kissed the back of his neck and stroked him until he abandoned his project and carried her to the old bed with its colorful quilt.

“You’re the most wonderful woman I’ve ever met,” he murmured as he leaned over her. “I’m so happy you’re turning my life upside down.”

She took his face in her hands and drew him down toward her.

Noah needn’t have had any fear. The cold couldn’t hurt her as long as she lay in his arms. She carefully wrapped herself in the blankets afterward. By the light of kerosene lamps, they drank Iceberg Beer and ate the poached salmon Noah had brought from home—cold, with Miracle Whip. Her eyes devoured him, and he was as delighted by it as a little kid.

Their conversations were intimate and probing, but they completely avoided discussing the events in Stormy Cove, as if protecting their precious hours together from whatever was to come.

The next morning, they stayed under the covers, talking and laughing, and, when words weren’t enough, seeking out each other’s bodies all over again.

Only when a strong wind came up and the cabin walls creaked and trembled did they surface from their warm cocoon and take note of where they were. Lori stayed in bed and watched Noah work on the stove, drinking in the concentration on his face, his purposeful, deft gestures, the sway of his hips. He looked up, met her gaze, and gave her a smile, half-embarrassed, half-flattered.

“Like what you see?”

“I certainly do.”

She pulled the blankets around her more tightly.

“Where did you learn all that?”

“You mean my artful lovemaking or this here?”

They both laughed.

“I do
not
need to hear any particulars about the first bit. Where did you learn how to fix a wood stove?”

“Dunno, probably by watching. Always fun to watch. I wanted to be an engineer, took the entry course in Saleau Cove, but my parents didn’t have the money for me to keep studying. So I took up fishing.”

“Did you already have . . .” she was about to add “a boat” but caught herself in time. “Did you already have a fishing license?”

“No, not then. I fished with a jigger, a fishhook. You had to swish your hands back and forth in the water to get them to bite. Sometimes I was out on the water for sixteen hours; my hands hurt like crazy at night.”

“All alone out there for sixteen hours at a stretch?”

“Yep, had no choice. Had to earn money somehow. Sometimes came back at night with two hundred cod.”

She looked out the window and saw the bushes swaying in the wind. Sixteen hours at sea by yourself, day after day after day. How little she knew about him!

Noah stood up with a grin.

“So you see, I can wait patiently until I catch something.”

“I’m not a something,” she protested.

“But you’ll admit I caught you?”

“First tell me if we’re ever going to be able to make coffee on that thing.”

By way of an answer, he dove onto the bed and buried her underneath him.

An hour later, a fire was burning in the stove, and Noah made coffee for them to drink in bed while he read her Newfoundland stories. His own library, he confessed, mainly consisted of shipwrecks, sailor’s yarns, true murder cases, and Newfoundland titles like
Grandpa, Tell Us a Story
,
We’re Still Fishin’
, and
Survival on the Raging Sea
.

Lori snuggled up next to him.

“I’m getting a new book about Marguerite de Roberval. Aurelia had it sent specially from the library in St. John’s.”

He smiled.

“That story really has its claws in you, eh?”

“I definitely want to go there again,” she said. “I’ve got to take a couple of pictures of the Isle of Demons.”

“Didn’t the howling scare you off?”

“I admit it was the creepiest thing I’ve ever experienced. I don’t know what I’d do if I heard it again. But I’m fascinated. There must be a natural explanation for it.”

“If there is, nobody’s found it yet. Nobody around here believes there is.”

“Will you come with me again?”

He didn’t reply. It took a few seconds until it occurred to her that it was impossible—he didn’t have a boat anymore. How could she be so stupid!

She immediately proposed a walk through the woods around the cabin. The wind that had shaken the walls a half hour before had finally relented.

They wandered over to a nearby abandoned lodge that once belonged to a Newfoundlander who’d made a pile of money in Alberta, had grand plans for a new life in his native province but went bankrupt, leaving the half-finished lodge to fall to ruins.

On the way back, they almost got lost on the moose paths through the bush, but they heard cars close by that helped them locate the gravel road. When they saw the cabin again, a white Chevrolet Tahoe was sitting beside it. They turned a corner. Noah still held Lori’s hand.

Greta was in one of the blue plastic chairs, smoking.

“Pretty nice love nest you’ve got here,” she said, not sounding very cheerful.

Lori detected circles under her eyes and hard lines around her mouth. One look at that face and she knew that their carefree hours were over.

Greta gave no reason for her unannounced arrival; that wasn’t on the Stormy Cove list of rules.

Noah opened the door,

“Like to join us for lunch?”

Greta released the smoke from her lungs.

“No, but you got a beer?”

During their picnic of bread, cheddar, ham, and canned peaches, they talked about Nate’s cabin and other people’s and how Nate had to install running water because otherwise Emma would never go there.

Noah mentioned the decrepit lodge, and at that moment, Greta lit another cigarette and said, “I know how Jacinta died.”

She looked straight out through the trees at the shimmering lake and spoke rapidly, as if afraid she might be interrupted.

“Cletus and me were together in the woods behind where Gideon’s lodge had been, not too close to it—would have been too conspicuous—and not near Aurelia and Gideon’s mother’s house. Not that we expected anybody to go strolling through the woods and catch us at it. Aurelia’s mother was never one to go walking much, with those bad legs of hers, but we didn’t want to take any risks. We used to do it mostly in the car, but you can’t always find a private place to park, especially during the day, and we just felt like doing it outdoors one nice sunny day. So we were down by the pond where the snowmobile path goes past—What’s it called, Noah?”

“Black Duck Pond.” He sounded hoarse. Lori shot him a glance, but he didn’t look back.

Scared. He’s scared.

“That’s it, but I think it’s called Darrell’s Pond now since Darrell Arnold fell in on his snowmobile. Anyway, we didn’t hear anything at first, I mean, we were pretty loud ourselves, if you get my meaning. But when we were finished, Cletus said, ‘What’s that?’ I heard it too, a shout somewhere; we got dressed and ran as fast as we could to help. We came out of the woods right where the bog begins, and then we heard the voice again. But we didn’t see anything, and Cletus said somebody must be stuck. We went around the bog to the east. Cletus thought he could see a head and part of a body. I’ve got bad eyes, and I was quite a ways away, but the voice . . . ‘Is that Jacinta?’ I asked him. He wasn’t sure. He wanted to go right into the bog. I didn’t want to let him, much too dangerous, but he said he had to. I grabbed his arm. ‘Let somebody else do it,’ I yelled at him. ‘It’ll be too late,” he said. He shook me off. I’ll never forget it. First he jumped over the wet spots, then crawled on his stomach like an animal. I heard him shout: ‘Don’t move! Don’t move!’ But she was probably struggling the whole time and sinking all the faster. I didn’t hear her voice again. He told me afterward that when he got to her, all he could see was the top of her head.”

Greta took a drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke out her nose. Noah braced his elbows on his thighs and grabbed his temples.

“He left his orange hunting cap on the spot and crawled all the way back. ‘She’s a goner.’ That’s all he said.”

Greta put the beer can to her lips and made loud glugging noises. Nobody uttered a word. Lori wanted to run from the scene. But it was too late for that; Greta had made her a confidante.

“If we’d told the Parsonses, if they’d have found out we were there when Jacinta died, they’d have made life hell for us. Noah, you know that. They would have blamed us for her death. They’d have said we chased her into the bog. Or hadn’t helped her. Isn’t that right, eh? Aren’t I right!”

Noah didn’t move for several long seconds.

“She was probably following us,” he said.

“What? Following who?” Greta seemed to return from another world.

“Glowena and me.”

He stared at the empty plate in front of him.

“Jacinta was always spying on us. Glowena said their father made her do it and then he’d question Jacinta about us.”

“Why? Were you two at Black Duck Pond too?”

Noah writhed around on his chair.

“No, not that day. Glowena was working at the dig, and I was fishing with Abe and Seb. But we met there a lot. Every other day, for a spell.”

Again Lori felt the urge to flee, but she couldn’t move her limbs, like in a bad dream.

Greta nodded vigorously. “Can well imagine that Scott Parsons was hard on Glowena. Jacinta always used to cuddle up to her father and give him the gossip about people.”

It’s not about the Parsonses, it’s about you two,
Lori thought.

As if Greta had read her mind, she said, “I asked Cletus what we should do. He said he’d take care of it. We promised to keep silent as the grave. We were extra careful not to be seen sneaking back home—we were used to that, naturally. We never spoke about it again, not a word. But I knew he went back because he had to fetch his cap. I didn’t put two and two together until . . . until they found Jacinta’s grave.”

She crushed her cigarette butt on the empty beer can.

“Christ, I thought it served them right!
We
had to live with the knowledge that Scott Parsons let father die a lousy, stinking death,” she blurted out as if in response to Lori’s reproachful thoughts. “And Scott just walked away from it. Is that fair? Cletus tried to save Jacinta. He risked his life. He could have sunk into the bog too. But the Parsonses would have used it against us and hung us out to dry. They were that pissed that we wanted Father’s fishing license back. They were just waiting for an excuse. So it’s Scott Parsons who’s the killer. He’s the murderer.”