The Night Mark(71)

“You look like a boy.”

“Boys look good,” Faye wrote. Dolly only rolled her eyes and went back to work.

Dolly had picked a pale green paint for the bedroom, the same color as the kitchen walls. Lead-based paint, of course. Faye doubted one could find any other kind in 1921, but as long as she didn’t eat the paint or lick the walls, she could probably avoid dying of lead poisoning.

Between the two of them and with a few minutes’ worth of pushing and sweating, they managed to move the bed to the center of the room. The dresser wouldn’t budge, however, as it was far too heavy for either of them and refused to slide no matter how hard they pushed. Faye pulled the drawers out and stacked them on the bed. Once the dresser was emptied of its load, it moved easily. Faye pushed, and the dresser shifted and wobbled, nearly toppling over. Faye looked down and saw why. One leg was shorter than the other by almost two inches. Someone had slipped a book under the dresser to even the legs out.

“Must not be a fan of Lucy Maud Montgomery,” Faye said as she picked up the book, Anne’s House of Dreams. Faye had read the whole series as a girl. When she opened the book, she gasped.

Dolly dropped her paintbrush on the floor, and if Faye had been holding a paintbrush she would have dropped it, too.

Someone had cut a rectangular hole in the center of the book’s pages and stuffed money in it. Cash, and lots of it.

Faye looked at Dolly, who stared at the money in wide-eyed amazement. Faye riffled through the bundle of money and saw every bill was a Benjamin Franklin, and there were about one hundred Bens. That was about ten thousand dollars. Carrick had told her an assistant lighthouse keeper made about eight hundred dollars a year. Faye wasn’t sure what that meant in 1921 money, but she knew if this cash constituted about twelve years’ salary for a lighthouse keeper, it was a lot of money.

Dolly grabbed her slate and wrote quickly.

“I put that book there to steady the dresser,” she said.

“When?” Faye wrote back.

“Right before you came.”

“Hartwell,” Faye wrote on Dolly’s slate and Dolly nodded sagely.

So this was why Hartwell kept sneaking around the house. The Landrys had left money for him in this book, and Dolly had moved it before Hartwell could fetch it. She was stunned and relieved all at once. Hartwell didn’t want to hurt them. He just wanted his damn money back. Even in 2015, ten thousand dollars was a lot of money. She’d want it back, too.

“Tell Chief,” Dolly wrote. “He’ll know what to do.”

Faye slid the money back in the book and stuffed it in her dresser drawer. She hated to wake him up, but she knew this couldn’t wait. For that much money, Hartwell was sure to come back, and he might not stop with just threats next time.

When she went to his room, Faye saw she needn’t have worried about waking Carrick. She found him standing at the window of his bedroom wearing only his work trousers, a T-shirt and a worried expression on his face. She knew it was worry because she knew that look—the furrowed brow, the tight line of his lips, the hard set of his jaw. In his hands Carrick held his silver rosary beads. With his thumb he clicked through the beads, turning them over rapidly like a bicycle chain whirling in gear.

“What’s wrong?” Faye went to stand next to him by the window. She tried to see what it was he saw, but apart from a cloudless sky she saw nothing.

Carrick slipped his rosary beads into the pocket of his pants.

“It’s quiet out. Hear it?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly. Listen again. Tell me what you don’t hear.”

Faye listened. She heard the water lapping the shore. She heard a rustle of wind in the trees. She smelled something like copper in the air. Nothing else. No sounds. No smells.

“Where are the birds?” she asked.

“Gone.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing good.”

“Hurricane?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But bad weather is coming. Big, bad weather.”

“How bad?”

“Bad enough to scare the birds away. The barometer’s falling fast. It’s going to be an ugly day. I want you and Dolly in the lighthouse with me.”

“Won’t her father be coming for her?”

“He knows better than to come out here in a storm. Pack up some blankets and food. We’ll camp in the watch room tonight.”

Faye’s heartbeat hastened. She’d never been this close to the ocean during a tropical storm before. Hartwell and his dirty money could wait.

“I’ll go get Dolly,” Faye said.

“You do that—what on earth are you wearing?” Carrick had finally noticed her clothes. “Are those trousers?”

“I had Dolly sew them for me.”

“They look like long underwear.”

“Don’t be mad. I told Dolly you wouldn’t care if I wore them around the house when I was working.”

“But pants?” He screwed up his face in a mixture of confusion and suspicion.

“Would you want to do your work in a long skirt?”

“Well...no.”

“See? I promise I’ll change into my very best dress the second someone comes to visit. While I’m scrubbing floors and weeding the garden, I want pants.”