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On Fire(8)

By:Carla Neggers

           



       

She's just waiting for you to say something. You can talk to her"" She  never wanted me to marry a Granger. "" That's because she was afraid  you'd end up living in his shadow and indulging his whims. When she  realized Matt's a regular guy, she came around. "

"He's not a regular guy. He's a god damned blue- blood with too much money and not enough common sense."

"You sound as if you hate him."

"I wish I did. My life would be so much easier." Sig quickly sipped her  tea and bit into the raisin toast; her mother had slathered on the  butter.

"I said 'goddamn," didn't I?

That's another quarter for the mason jar. "

"You've quit swearing again?"

"I was doing pretty well until I found out I'm having twins." She  inhaled, unable to concentrate on anyone's problems but her own.

"I want these babies, Riley. I want to be a good mother. "

"You will be. You just won't be conventional. You haven't started smoking again, have you?"

"Not a chance. And how're your vices?"

Her sister grinned, and some of the usual spark came back into her dark eyes.

"I have no vices."

"Ha. You're like Emile and Dad. The seven seas are your vice."

"My passion," Riley amended.

"Same difference. Now, are you going to tell me why you look like absolute shit?" When Riley didn't answer, Sig winced.

"I've really fallen off the wagon this time. I've been swearing like a sailor."

But Riley had shut her eyes, and she squeezed back tears.

"Riley..." "I found a dead body and almost threw up on John Straker."

"Holy shit," Sig said.

"No wonder Mom's making you lobster."

Three -^Q /^~ otraker didn't settle quickly back into his routines. He  heated his stew and took a steaming bowl of it onto his porch. It was  early for lunch, but he didn't care. The police had packed up late  yesterday and left, at least for now. The island was quiet again, the  waves, wind, gulls and familiar putter of lobster boats the only sounds.  The return to solitude didn't have the impact he'd expected. A few days  ago, the quiet had soothed his soul. Now, twenty-four hours after Riley  St.

Joe and a dead body had violated his tranquility, it was getting on his nerves.

He spotted Lou Don-man's boat making its way across the bay toward the  island and went down to the rickety dock. The sheriff tied up, jumped  out and greeted him with a curt nod. It was as if Straker's old life had  reached into his new life to remind him there was no escape.

"What's up. Sheriff?" "We just got word from the medical examiner.

He won't have final results for a while, but his preliminary exam suggests our John Doe took a blow to the head."

Straker went still.

"Accident?"

"CID's treating it as a suspicious death. We need to know what role the  head injury played in his death, did he take the hit before he was in  the water, after-maybe when he washed in on the rocks."

"I don't know how he could have washed ashore, with the tide and the currents out here. Doesn't make sense."

Dorrman frowned. He'd gone to school with Straker's father, had once dated Straker's mother.

"You have any visitors out here the past few days? Besides Riley."

"Christ, Lou, if I offed someone, I wouldn't dump his body on the rocks for Riley St. Joe to find."

"Answer the question."

"No. No visitors. And if our John Doe had spent any time on the island,  I'd have known about it." "He wouldn't have anything to do with one of  your FBI cases?"

"If he did," Straker said pointedly, "I wouldn't be sitting on my porch eating a bowl of stew."

Dorrman didn't back down.

"I wish you'd picked somewhere else to sit around for six months.

You're a burr on my butt, Straker. See to it we can find you if we have more questions."

Straker eyed him, took in the red face, the unusual level of aggravation, even for Lou Dorrman.

"What else?" "What do you mean, what else?"

"Something else is eating at you."

The sheriff huffed and gazed out at the water a moment.

"I can't find Emile."

"Hell." "I checked his cottage, I checked the preserve. His boat's gone, his car's gone." Dorrman shifted his back to Straker.                       
       
           



       

"I don't like it. A dead body turns up on Labreque Island one day, Emile disappears the next."

"Did you check inside his cottage?"

"I can't do that without a warrant."

Straker could.

"Give me a lift?"

Twenty minutes later, they put in at Emile's dock. Straker didn't wait  for Dorrman. He headed up to the old man's cottage, mounted the steps  and tried the door. Locked. He held the doorknob, leaned his shoulder  against the door and, putting his weight into it, pushed hard.

The door came on the second push. Piece of cake.

"Christ," Dorrman said from the bottom of the stairs, "I don't believe you."

"I'm his friend. This is what he'd expect. I'll be out in two minutes."

Emile's cottage was more cheap old man than world-famous oceanographer.

He'd left most of his old life behind. The only remnants were copies of  his books and documentaries on a shelf in the main room and a few  pictures of his family aboard the Encounter. He'd taken out the trash,  left a mug in the dish drainer, unplugged the coffeepot. Straker checked  the downstairs bedroom. A tidy sailor to the last, Emile had made his  bed, too.

Straker took the steep, ladder like stairs up to the loft and came  across a red bra, size 34B, under a creaky twin bed. It provided no  clues as to Emile and his whereabouts. It did, however, provide fresh  insight into Riley. She'd never been neat, but Straker wouldn't have  expected her to favor red underwear.

Best to keep his mind on the task at hand.

He joined Dorrman back outside.

"He cleared out."

"Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

"Not my job to wonder. I'm going to take a drive down to Boston." A  sudden wind gusted off the bay; he was thinking up his plan as he went  along, knowing already he'd regret it. He should go back to La- breque  Island and reheat his stew.

"I'll let you know if I run into him."

"You do that. Keep in touch."

"You want to bug my car, make sure I don't take off to Alaska?"

Dorrman sucked in a breath, controlling his irritation.

"If it were up to me, Straker, you'd be hauling in lobsters with your  old man. You're not fit to be an officer of the law. Never have been."

"Does that mean if I'd been killed instead of wounded six months ago you wouldn't have marched in my funeral parade?"

Dorrman's mouth stretched into a thin, mean grin.

"There'd have been a fucking brawl over who got to lead that parade."

Straker took no offense. Louis Dorrman didn't like him. A lot of people  didn't like him. But Straker had friends, and he had people he  trusted--and he did his job. He'd never been the most popular guy  around. It didn't worry him. What worried him were the dead body Riley  St. Joe had found on his island and where Emile had taken himself off  to.

The sheriff grudgingly gave him a ride back to the island and waited  while Straker packed up, grabbed his car keys and rinsed out his stew  bowl. He didn't need to come back to find the place overrun with ants.

He climbed back into Dorrman's boat.

"My car's at my folks' place."

"I know," the sheriff said, as if to remind Straker he knew everything  that went on in his town. He was the one who'd stayed, who hadn't gone  off and joined the FBI. Dorrman gunned the engine and sped across the  bay.

Riley picked up eggplant parmesan from her favorite Porter Square deli  on her way home from work, where, mercifully, no one had heard about  what had happened yesterday on Schoodic Peninsula. She kept the news to  herself. When she'd left Mount Desert Island, she'd said only that she  was taking a long weekend. She hadn't mentioned going to visit Emile.

With any luck, there'd be a message from the police on her answering  machine telling her the man she'd found had been identified, he'd died  in a tragic accident, end of story.

She had a one-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a triple decker  just off Porter Square in Cambridge. There was no message from the  police on her machine. There was one from her mother, asking her if she  was all right. Nothing from Richard St. Joe. Her father was in Bath,  checking on the Encounter II, the state-of-the-art, ecologically  friendly research vessel the center was having built. He would be back  tomorrow.

She heated her eggplant parmesan in the microwave and whisked a bit of  balsamic vinegar and olive oil together for her salad. It felt good to  reacquaint herself with her routines. After dinner, she'd put in a load  of laundry and clean out her fridge.