Chad and Bibi take their cart up to room 307 in silence. Bibi doesn’t touch anything in the room, and she offers to clean the bathroom and do the flowers, which, Chad realizes, is as close to an admission of guilt as he’s going to get.
9. The Cobblestone Telegraph
The summer season is under way on the island and most of us are too busy with our own lives—tracking down the window washer, mulching our gardens, pulling our beach chairs out of storage—to pay attention to the happenings at the Hotel Nantucket. But every once in a while, we’ll drive past and see Zeke English standing on the sidewalk in front of the hotel with a pit bull on a leash sniffing the dandelions, and we’ll wonder how things are going.
Blond Sharon is having dinner at the Deck one evening when JJ O’Malley himself pops out to say hello. Blond Sharon does the intrepid thing and asks if he’s heard how Lizbet likes her new job.
“No, I haven’t,” JJ says. “We don’t speak.”
“Well, I’m sure she’s busy,” Blond Sharon says. “Have you eaten at the Blue Bar yet? Everyone’s raving about it. They have a copper disco ball that drops—”
“Out of the ceiling at nine o’clock,” JJ says. “Yes, I know. But from what I’ve heard, you can’t have a proper dinner there, right? He isn’t serving a chop or a rib eye or even a pan roast.”
“Right,” Blond Sharon says. “It’s more like great cocktail-party food, heavy apps that you can share, and then after you’ve finished grazing, someone comes around with shot glasses of whipped cream in flavors like Kahlúa and passion fruit. It’s called the whipped cream concierge! Have you ever heard of anything so fabulous? And then everyone starts dancing. We went last week and, honestly, I’ve never had more fun in my life.”
JJ O’Malley squares up to his full height and gazes across the creeks, perhaps to remind Blond Sharon that although the Deck doesn’t have a whipped cream concierge, it does have a magnificent view. “The reviews of the hotel on TravelTattler have been underwhelming,” he says.
“Oh,” Blond Sharon says. “Have you been checking?”
Officer Dixon gets a call at four o’clock in the afternoon about a man asleep in his car at Dionis Beach.
“So what?” Dixon says to Sheila in dispatch.
“I guess he’s been sleeping in his car in the parking lot the past three days,” Sheila says. “Some mommy noticed him and thinks he’s a potential predator.”
Dixon takes a breath. A man sleeping in his car is what passes for crime on Nantucket; he supposes he should be glad. He climbs into his cruiser.
When he arrives at Dionis, he sees the man and the car in question—some guy in his early fifties in a 2010 Honda Pilot with Connecticut plates and a WHAT WOULD JIM CALHOUN DO? bumper sticker. The back window sports a decal that says PARENT OF AN AVON MIDDLE SCHOOL HONOR STUDENT.
Threatening stuff. Dixon wonders if he’ll need to call for backup.
He approaches the open car window and sees the guy in the driver’s seat, head slumped back, snoring away. He’s wearing a white polo shirt and swim trunks; his bifocals have slid down to the end of his nose, and there’s a copy of Lee Child’s Blue Moon splayed open in the console next to an open Red Bull. Dixon backs away because he feels like he’s intruding on the guy in his bedroom—and then he notices the open shaving kit on the passenger seat and a hand towel drying on the dashboard. A peek into the back seat reveals a gaping suitcase.
Is this guy…Dixon glances over at the public bathrooms. Dionis is the only beach on Nantucket that has showers. Is this guy living in his car?
“Excuse me, sir,” Dixon says, jostling the guy’s shoulder. “May I see your license and registration, please?”
Richard Decameron, age fifty-four, of Avon, Connecticut, here on the island to work for the summer at the Hotel Nantucket.
“So you’re not…living in this car?” Dixon asks. “Because that’s what it looks like.”
Decameron tries to laugh this off, but it isn’t quite convincing. “No, no, I live at the hotel.”
“Why are you sleeping here in the parking lot? We’ve had reports that you’ve been here the past three days.”
“I’m enjoying the beach,” Decameron says. “I take an early swim, get a shower, read my book, and sometimes I conk out.” He offers Dixon a friendly smile. “Is that against the law?”
He’s “enjoying the beach” by sleeping in the parking lot? Something doesn’t add up. “What’s your position at the hotel?” Dixon asks.
“I work the front desk,” Decameron says.
Dixon nods. Nothing about this guy screams predator or even vagrant. He seems like a regular guy—a Huskies basketball fan, the father of an honor student.
“So tell me something,” Dixon says. “Have you seen the ghost?”
“Not yet,” Decameron says. “She’s playing hard to get.”
Dixon chuckles and slaps the roof of the car. “All right, I’m not going to issue a ticket. Tomorrow, though, you’d better find a different beach.”
“Will do, Officer,” Decameron says. “Thank you.”
Lyric Layton is in her kitchen at seven a.m. making a beet-and-blueberry smoothie after doing yoga on her private beach when she hears a light rapping on her front door. Anne Boleyn, Lyric’s chocolate British shorthair, rises and places her paws on Lyric’s shin, which is something she does only when she’s anxious. Lyric scoops up the cat and goes to see who on earth is knocking at this hour.
It’s Heidi Bick from next door. The Laytons and the Bicks have plans to go to Galley Beach for dinner that night. Lyric wonders if Heidi has somehow heard her news; Lyric was planning on telling Heidi at dinner if Heidi didn’t guess when Lyric ordered sparkling water instead of champagne. But then she sees the stricken look on Heidi’s face.
“Are you the only one up?” Heidi whispers. “I need to talk.”
“Yes, of course,” Lyric says. Her husband, Ari, and the three boys would sleep until noon every day of the summer if she’d let them. “Come on in.”
Lyric leads Heidi into the kitchen, offers her a smoothie—no, thank you, she can’t manage any—and then Lyric opens the slider so they can sit out on the deck. The rising sun spangles the water of Nantucket Sound; the early-morning ferry is gliding past Brant Point Light and out of the harbor.
“I think Michael is having an affair,” Heidi says. She gives a strangled little laugh. “I can’t believe I just said those words. I sound like someone on Netflix. I mean, it’s Michael. We’re Michael and Heidi Bick. This isn’t supposed to happen.”
Well, well, well, Lyric thinks. “Whoa, honey, start at the beginning. What gives you this idea?”