Family of Liars(57)

She is somber as we meet the police boat at the staff dock. It unloads two Martha’s Vineyard officers in uniform. Both are ruddy white guys. One is burly and young, a buffalo of a man. The other is wiry, weathered, and quite a bit older, more of a python.

They assure us that a team is looking for Pfeff at sea. They ask us questions about where we were anchored when he died.

We lie.

They accept coffee from my mother. They say they do not need to talk to Major and George, Luda or Gerrard, but they speak briefly to my parents and interview me, Penny, and Bess separately.

My sisters and I all know our story.

I sit down with the officers in the dining room. My skin feels sore from fatigue but I force myself to look them in the eyes.

What time did you take the boat out?

“Five-thirty.” I know my mother’s alarm rings at 5:45.

That’s awfully early.

“We wanted to catch the sunrise.” I looked the time up in the morning paper.

Still, that’s early for teenagers, yeah?

“It’s a thing we’ve done before,” I say. “You can ask George and Major. But the truth is, sir, we planned this particular morning extra early, thinking my little sister Bess would sleep through and not come with us. She’s always wanting to do things with the older kids, you know? A tagalong.”

The early start time was supposed to be a deterrent.

“Yes, sir.”

But she came.

“She did.”

Your mother tells me you were with this boy, Lawrence. That he was your boyfriend.

“She said that, sir?” Penny, Bess, and I have agreed on this story. “I would never call him a boyfriend. But yes, there was something between us. A summer fling. It was his idea to go boating.” This is part of our story—that Pfeff and I weren’t serious. And that he’d wanted to make things up with me and asked me to go out on the boat. We hope this will be enough to convince George and Major.

So you met up at five a.m.?

“Five-thirty. My sisters and I brought food from the big house, and Pfeff—I mean, Lor, Lawrence—he brought coffee and towels and stuff.”

Tell me what happened after that.

I tell the story we told my parents. How he seemed drunk. I shouldn’t have let him swim. It could have been a shark. “Do you think he drowned?”

Could be. Drowning is surprisingly silent and swift. We have several drownings a year in these parts.

“It was like he disappeared. So fast.”

People go under in sixty seconds or less. A lot of them never wave or yell for help. There’s a physiological response that stops them.

“We didn’t hear anything. But we were busy with the anchor. The string to our anchor broke.”

The officers write something down about the anchor.

“He was drinking,” I add. “I’m not positive, but pretty sure. Maybe something in the thermos.”

Mm-hm. We have a team looking for the body now.

“Will you send divers?” We have told the officers that Pfeff drowned in a different area from where we left him, nearly an hour’s boat ride away, but still—I’d like to know.

Yes, miss. A team of divers.

“Oh gosh. And how long does it take?”

Couple days.

“Will you tell us if you find him?”

Sure thing.

And they let me go, for now.

We’ll need to talk to you again later. Don’t be afraid. This is all standard procedure.

Additional team members arrive on the island. They are in plain clothes. They seem to be here to search Guzzler. I stand in Rosemary’s old room and watch them from her window.

They photograph everything. They look at our bags and boxes of half-eaten snacks. Our piles of damp towels and Pop-Tart wrappers. I watch as they open every thermos. They smell the contents. They pick up Pfeff’s T-shirt, shoes, and socks. They look at the cord for the missing anchor.

Harris comes down to see them, followed by the dogs. He talks for a minute. And as he heads back toward the house, I notice something: The board is missing.

The board, which I sprayed with bleach cleaner and washed in the sea.

I know I placed it back where it had been lying all summer. I know I did.

But it is not there anymore.





64.


I WANT TO ask my sisters where the board is, but Penny, Bess, and I have agreed that we absolutely will not confer with one another this day. We know it will be tempting to talk about our situation, but someone could overhear us. It is not worth the risk. We cry and let our mother comfort us. We tell the story, individually, to Major and George.

When the day is done, the police leave. Later, they telephone my mother. They say they have had no luck yet finding a body, but divers will go back out tomorrow.

Pfeff’s parents have been notified.

Major and George have made plans to leave Beechwood tomorrow.

We eat a somber supper indoors. Tipper puts out place mats and wineglasses. She and Luda serve a simple linguine with meat sauce, followed by a salad and a cheese plate.

We are mostly silent as we eat. Bess cries a little. Penny says, “Oh please, you knew him the least of any of us,” which makes Bess cry harder, until she has to leave the table.

George, wearing a suit jacket and with his hair slicked to the side like a businessman’s, tries to make conversation with my father, while Major wears a black T-shirt and stares miserably into his plate, swallowing almost nothing.