Murder With Puffins(14)

"Let's start with the down-to-earth place," Michael said. "There's something obscenely decadent about eating Brie in the eye of a hurricane."

Decadent or not, it sounded perfectly lovely to me, but Michael was obviously getting into the spirit of things, roughing it here on the island, so I didn't argue.

"Actually, since we already have more food than we'll ever eat, I thought we could leave the grocery store till later." I said. "Maybe we should start with our other mission."

"Other mission?"

"Finding you a room of your own. One without a roommate."

"One where I might possibly entertain a friend without being interrupted every five minutes to drink another cup of herbal tea?" he said, raising one eyebrow.

"You've got the idea."

"I like the way you think," he said.





Chapter 5





These Puffins Were Made for Walking




We tried. We really did. The Monhegan House's three dozen rooms were filled with birders. The Island Inn was full, as well. Overflowing, in fact. I'd forgotten about the oversupply of birders.

"We've called up everyone on the island, trying to find rooms for them all," the owner of the Island Inn explained. "We even have a bunch of birders camping out down in the church."

"Well, so much for peace and quiet and privacy," Michael said. "I assume on an island this size, everyone has a pretty good idea who has a vacancy and who doesn't?"

"On an island this size, everyone has a pretty good idea who's running low on corn flakes and toilet paper," I said. "I think we can take it as a given that there's no room at the inn. Any inn."

So by 9:00 a.m.--an hour when I normally prefer to be fast asleep--we had already given up on our search. We sat for a few minutes on a soggy wooden swing on the front porch of the Island Inn and watched the pedestrians hiking up and down the streets. The rain had temporarily slacked off to a mere icy mist, and both birds and birders made the most of it. I only caught fleeting glimpses of the birds, but I was getting to know the plumage and feeding habits of the common New England bird-watcher pretty well.

Actually, at first glance, it was hard to tell the locals from the bird-watchers. Everyone had some kind of waterproof footgear, with the unfortunate exception of Michael and me. Rain ponchos and down vests were commonplace.

I wondered if it had occurred to any of them how many birds had given their all to fill those vests.

But while most of the locals scurried about with canvas tote bags full of supplies and bits of lumber for boarding things up, the birders carried enough waterproof surveillance hardware to equip a squad of Navy SEALS. Binoculars, telescopes, cameras, tape recorders, video cameras--you name it, they had it.

Every couple of minutes, a troop of birders would swarm up the steps of the inn and ask us where we'd been and what we'd seen and whether we'd spotted the kestrels up on Black Head yet. When we explained that we hadn't been anywhere or seen any birds and thought the kestrels up on Black Head had enough company already, they would look at us oddly and slip inside to refill their thermoses with hot coffee.

"Apart from going back to the cottage and listening to more Wagner, what else is there to do on the island?" Michael asked.

"We could stroll through the village and see the sights," I said.

Just then, Fred Dickerman rattled by in his pickup truck, leaning on the horn, while a quartet of birders sprinted just ahead of his bumper. Monhegan has no sidewalks; any pedestrian walking in the road when a truck approached was expected to step aside to let the vehicle pass. Or jump aside, if the driver was Fred. Most truck drivers took it slowly when they went through the village, but Fred evidently enjoyed chivvying tourists into puddles and brier patches.

"Reminds me of running before the bulls at Pamplona," Michael remarked as the birders finally reached a wide spot in the road and hurled themselves to safety.

"Oh, have you actually done that?"

"No, and I'm not about to start now," he said. "Doesn't look too restful, strolling through the village. Anything else?"

"Mostly healthy, outdoorsy things like hiking around the circumference of the island."

"All right, let's hike," Michael said, standing up and holding out his hand.

"You've got to be kidding. In this weather?"

"It's not actually raining now, and the weather's going to be a lot worse in a few hours," he said. "Let's go and see the sights before it gets bad."

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"Why not? At least once we've done it, when the birders ask us if we want to go to the South Pole with them to see the penguins, we can say, 'No thanks, we've already circumnavigated the island.' "