Nine Lives(67)

In his room, where the smell was worse, he studied the tide table, confirming that low tide was going to be at 1:49 a.m., and high tide was at 7:53 a.m. It was perfect. It didn’t give him a lot of time to do what he’d come here to do, but it was enough. He cracked the seal on a bottle of Macallan 25 and poured some into the water glass he’d taken from the bathroom. Then he sat at the desk and wrote his letter.

At just past midnight he poured the remainder of the scotch into a sterling silver flask he’d had since college and left the resort, going out the back entrance that led to the rear parking lot. The cold wind was still whistling over the empty asphalt. Jonathan wore waterproof boots and flannel-lined jeans, plus a thick fisherman’s sweater under his parka. He’d always hated the cold, and despite what he planned to do, was nervous about the temperature outside. He dug the woolen cap out of his pocket and put it on his head, then walked purposefully across Micmac Avenue and down toward the stone jetty.

The night was clear, the sky peppered with stars, and with a three-quarters moon. He had no trouble making his way across the dark beach, despite the damp wind that tugged at his parka. When he got to the jetty, he risked using his flashlight briefly to locate what he believed was the place where his sister had been left to die over fifty years ago. He’d scouted the spot earlier, back when he’d waited out here for Frank Hopkins. He couldn’t be one hundred percent positive that it was the exact location, but it was close enough, a crevice in the base of the stone wall just large enough for an adult to squeeze into. He studied it now, a tidal pool reflecting the moon, something scuttling away as he pressed his boot into the damp sand.

He dug the pills out of the front pocket of his jeans and washed them down with the rest of the scotch. Then he lowered himself to his knees and wriggled his way under the seaweed-blanketed rocks, finding a position that wasn’t exactly comfortable, but that wasn’t painful. It was actually okay nestled in the blackness of the rocks, even as the icy water began to rush in, then out again, occasionally splashing up against his face. He could taste the saltwater on his lips. There was a roaring in his ears, the water filling every available cavity around him. Something, maybe a crab, touched the back of his neck. He closed his eyes and thought of Faye. He was very tired, actually. There was something almost soothing about the sound of the water shushing into the cave, then shushing out again. Shushing in. Shushing out.

He thought he’d be colder, but he wasn’t. Maybe it was because he was out of the wind. Or maybe it was the pills and the scotch starting to kick in. It was cheating, of course, to have ensured that he would be unconscious as the tide rose. Faye hadn’t had that luxury. But he wasn’t a perfect man. He never had been.





NONE





1





FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 5:13 P.M.


Sam Hamilton settled onto a stool at the bar at the Windward Lounge and ordered a Shipyard IPA.

“Oh, hey, Sam,” Shelly said, looking up at him as she poured his beer. “Nice to see a familiar face. It’s tourist season in December this year.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“The lookie-loos are out in force.”

“What do you tell them?”

“Depends on my mood. Usually I tell them the truth—that I never saw him the night he was here. But just for the fun of it I did tell a couple of folks that he was in here buying drinks for the whole bar. I mean, you think he might’ve done that, considering he was going to walk down to the jetty and drown himself.”

“It would’ve been generous.”

“Right. That’s what I’m saying. You can’t take it with you, you might as well buy a few drinks for your fellow man. You staying for dinner tonight?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Sam said.

“Well, no rush. The special is striped bass and Thomas tells me it’s pretty good.”

Shelly went down the bar and poured two glasses of wine for a middle-aged couple. When she came back, Sam said, “Shelly, correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s still a library here, right?”

“A library?”

“Yeah, like a help-yourself lending library.”

“Oh, right. Of course. On the third floor.”

He took a long pull of his beer, suddenly eager to go upstairs and look through the library. He’d just remembered it existed, a room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, all filled with donated books. It had been started way back when by Frank Hopkins’s father, Murray, the original owner of the Windward Resort—there was a faded handmade sign that called the library something like “Uncle Murray’s Book Nook.” He only knew about it because two or three years ago he used to spend an occasional night at the Windward with a divorced real estate agent from York. She refused to come to his apartment—for reasons he never understood—but she’d meet him at the hotel, stay for only an hour, and then leave him with a room for the night that he didn’t really need. He’d discovered Uncle Murray’s library, a collection that had been started when the Windward was more of a resort, back when families would come for a month, or a whole summer.

On the last night of Jack Radebaugh’s life, after he’d checked into room 207, it was clear that he’d written some sort of note or letter. There was a pen on the desk and a few sheets of blank paper. But they’d yet to find whatever it was that he had written. The current theory was that he brought it down with him to the jetty and it had washed out to sea with the tide. But Sam had given that theory a lot of thought and it hadn’t made sense to him. If he’d written some sort of letter—a confession, maybe—then why not just leave it in his hotel room. Unless, of course, like the killer in And Then There Were None, he felt the need to write a letter explaining why and how he did what he did, but then he hid it somehow. In the book the killer put the letter in a bottle and threw it into the sea. Had Jack Radebaugh done the same thing? Or had he hidden it some other way?