"Are we getting close to that lunatic's property line?" he kept asking.
"Yes," I said finally. "We'll start our detour in a few minutes. I just want to go a little farther up this path. There's a lookout point where we can see quite a way down the shore."
"Damn!"
I whirled, to see Michael sprawled facedown in the mud.
"Michael! What's wrong?"
"Tripped over another of these damned water pipes," he said. "Why don't they bury the damned things where they'll be out of the way?"
"Well, for one thing, half the places the pipes run don't have enough topsoil to bury a matchstick, much less one of these pipes," I said, pausing in the path to get my breath. "And for another, they take the pipes up in the fall to prevent them from freezing. They'd have a hard time doing that if they buried them."
"Take them up?" he echoed. "What do they do for water in the winter?"
"Use cisterns," I said. "And practice rigorous water conservation."
"When in the fall?" he asked. "They're not going to take them up while we're here, are they?"
"Not unless there's a freeze predicted," I said. "Make sure you didn't disconnect the pipe you tripped over, by the way."
"Right," he said. "You go on; I'll catch up in a second."
As Michael bent over to examine the pipe, still shaking his head in disbelief, I trudged up the path until I emerged from the trees into the open and could see along the shore to the end of the point of land on which Resnick's house and studio stood. I was hoping to see Dad, alive and well and ready to come back to the house to dry off and warm up.
Instead, I saw a dead body.
Chapter 11
From Puffin to Eternity
The body lay facedown in a shallow, rocky pool, but my money wasn't on drowning as the cause of death.
"Michael," I yelled. "Could you come up here a second?"
I stood looking down the slope at the tidal pool where the body floated. I was shivering, from nerves as much as the cold rain, as Michael scrambled out to the cliff's edge and stood beside me.
"Meg, maybe we should just go back to the house," he said, his voice raised to be heard over the wind and surf. "Your father's probably back there by now; I'm sure he was only kidding about wanting to stand on Green Point and watch the hurricane hit the island."
"I'm sure he wasn't, but never mind that now," I said. "Look down there."
"Oh my God," Michael said. He tried to pull me away so I couldn't see the body. "It's not him, is it?"
"You mean Dad? Heavens no! Look at all that hair."
"You're right," Michael said. "Sorry. I panicked for a second. So who is he?"
"I think it's Resnick."
Michael craned his head to look at the body from another angle.
"I think you're right. Well, that's a relief, for us at least."
"Not much of a relief, considering he was almost certainly murdered."
"Murdered! What makes you think that? I mean, why not drowned?"
"Look at that gash on the back of his head."
Michael peered through the rain.
"Oh," he said. "Not so much of a relief after all, I suppose; and before you say anything, I only meant a relief because it wasn't your dad. I didn't mean I was glad Resnick was dead or anything like that."
"Although I have a feeling a lot of people will be, even if they don't admit it."
We just stood there for a moment, staring at the body.
"We'd better go and tell somebody," Michael said. "The helpful Constable Barnes, I suppose."
"We'd better haul the body up first," I said with a shudder.
"We can't; we'd be disturbing a crime scene," Michael protested.
"I think the storm's going to do more than disturb the crime scene by the time we could get down to the village, much less bring anyone back. If we don't haul him up, he's going to wash out to sea."
As if to emphasize my point, the crest of a particularly big wave washed over the rocks into the tidal pool. The body rocked slightly, and the right arm moved back and forth, as if Resnick were waving to us.
"See, the tide's rising," I said. "We'd better hurry."
"Right," Michael said. He took a deep breath and then began easing himself over the side of the ledge, feeling for a foothold on the rocky slope.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Not your fault," he replied, looking up with a reassuring smile.
"Yes, it is," I said. "I got us into this. Coming here was my idea. Some romantic getaway."
"Well, you never promised me a tropical paradise."
He gave me a hand over the edge of the cliff, and I began carefully following him down the slope. It wasn't all that steep; if there had been solid ground at the bottom, I'd have just slid and slithered down in a hurry. But considering what waited below--a dead body and a rapidly rising ocean--I very definitely didn't want to lose my footing.