But that night Ethan came to me. He said—Help me I’ll help you. I destroy phone note. If you say I was with you. Easy!! No email then. Long time ago. No electronic document trails. Just the one piece of paper. So he burned it. And I told police we spent that day in conference room. A win-win.
I finished reading and looked up in astonishment.
He turned to a clean page and wrote, I’m not proud.
“I should think not.”
Assumed it was about a woman. He needed excuse for his wife, for where he’d been. Ethan was always ladies man.
“And what do you think now?” My voice was like ice.
Ladies man. He underlined it. Not a murderer!!!
“You don’t know that. That’s the point. You don’t know where he was, what he did that day.”
Another shrug.
“I need you to make a statement. Tell the police what you’ve told me. There’s an old detective, Sergeant Beasley, who knows this case well—”
Snow shook his head. He wrote, Goodbye Caroline.
With that he tore the pages from the binding, everything that he had written, crumpled and threw them into the fire. The edges caught. Blue flames licked up. Within moments the pages were ashes.
I breathed in sharply. “I can type up what you’ve told me. All you need to do is sign your name at the bottom. Just the part about Ethan not being with you. Nobody cares about the rest of it anymore. The statute of limitations has probably run out anyway, on the insider trading charge—”
But Verlin Snow had closed his eyes and sunk back into the La-Z-Boy. He looked tiny and old and ill.
“Mr. Snow?” I tapped his leg. “Mr. Snow?”
He opened his eyes to a slit. Whacked my hand away from his thigh. His lips made no noise but formed themselves into an unmistakable round O.
No, he said, as distinctly as if he’d actually spoken the word aloud. The eyes snapped back shut.
I found my coat where Marie had hung it behind the stairs and let myself out.
? ? ?
NANTUCKET IN LATE fall is like a ghost town. A silvery, misty, freezing, prosperous ghost town.
I trudged through drizzle from Verlin Snow’s house, back past the church on Main Street, then left and up Center Street. My flight out was not until tomorrow morning, 9:05 a.m., so I’d booked at a bed-and-breakfast for the night.
In the room I scrubbed my face with hot water, kicked off my boots, curled up on the bed, and slept again. Four dreamless hours. When I woke it was dark. I threw off the blanket and wondered how a hotel room could manage to feel both boiling hot and dankly damp at once. I needed to get out.
The boy minding the front desk looked barely old enough to drive. Judging from the full wall of keys behind him, I might be the only guest tonight. He spent a minute reeling off the names of restaurants I should come back in high season to try, and another minute singing the praises of a bar at the tip of the island, if only I had a car to get there.
“Just somewhere close,” I pleaded. “Close and open would be good. My standards aren’t high tonight.”
“Brotherhood of Thieves is thirty seconds that way.” He pointed. “Walk out the front door, you’re on Broad Street, turn left, and you’re there. It’s an old whaling bar.”
“Perfect.”
“Awesome beer on tap. Try the Cisco ale. Or the seasonal Pumple Drumkin, if they’ve still got it. Brewed here on Nantucket. They add chunks of pumpkin and spices. Awesome.” That sounded perfectly vile, but I refrained from saying so.
Brotherhood of Thieves was dark, with low, timbered ceilings and a roaring fire. Lanterns hung from brick walls. Only two tables were occupied, one by an awkward couple who appeared to be on a date, another by four old men who had the air of regulars. Two empty beer pitchers sat stickily on the table between them, and a third looked well on its way to being guzzled. I squeezed into a seat at the bar, caught the bartender’s eye, and started to order my usual glass of dry white wine, then reconsidered.
“Double Bulleit, please, neat.”
“Nice.” He pushed a bowl of pretzels my way.
I held a menu up to a candle to read in the dark. For once I could not face meat. “What are quahogs?”
“Clams.”
“Ah. I’ll take a bowl of the Island Quahog Chowder then.”
“Good choice. Top you up?” He dangled the Bulleit bottle above my glass. I glanced down. I’d already drained my double.
“Yes. Why not. And a glass of water.” I should go easy. Neither Will Zartman nor my brothers were here to carry me home tonight. My heart twisted at the thought of Will. The last time I’d been in a bar was the Georgia Grille, the night he surprised me in Atlanta. I held a sip of rye on my tongue and closed my eyes and remembered how it had felt when he touched me, when he had drawn his circles on my wrist, my collarbone, my breast. How difficult it was to breathe when he pressed his hips against mine.
When I opened my eyes, the bartender was placing chowder and a packet of oyster crackers in front of me. “Bowl’s hot, watch yourself.”
I took a spoonful. It was peppery and creamy and rich. The old men had a fresh pitcher on their table. The beer was a light, straw yellow; they were steering clear of the Pumple Drumkin, too. The couple had gone. On the TV above the bar were pictures of a jubilant crowd waving Red Sox banners. Confetti filled the air behind them.
“Did the Red Sox win again?” I asked the bartender.
“Did they win again? Where have you been? They won the World Series this week. That’s the victory parade, today in Boston.”
He leaned sideways to watch. The screen showed a caravan of duck boats rolling down a street in Boston, Red Sox players riding on top and whooping. They were still sporting their lucky beards, and when I looked closely, I noticed many of the duck boats had been decorated with matching caveman-style whiskers. A band started up playing “God Bless America.” The camera panned to a small girl dancing in the street, her face painted and her blond hair streaked with Red Sox red. Vuvuzelas and car horns brayed.
“Boston Strong,” said the bartender, thumping his chest.