a reputation in town for being perpetually happy, kind, unruffled. And if she was telling the truth, she rather liked the way people saw her. But more recently she was finding—disconcertingly so—that when she was sad or downright filled with rage (like right now), she was having more and more trouble holding it in. She was tired of pretending. And with that, she left her house, letting the screen door slam shut behind her, and stormed toward the docks.
* * *
—
“I’ll just put these bags right here.” Anders stood in the room adjacent to his own on the second floor of the bed-and-breakfast on Saturday afternoon, trying not to stare at the hat crowning the guest’s gray curls, looking more like a dead peacock than a fashionable fascinator. “If you need anything, Mrs. Olecki will be happy to help. Oh, and there’s fresh lemonade and chocolate chip cookies downstairs if you’re hungry.”
“Thank you, dear.” The woman smiled, her yellowed dentures poking through her thin lips. “I think I’ll take a short rest first.”
Anders nodded, and with one last glance at the hat, he ambled down the stairs to help himself to one of the cookies Mrs. Olecki had just taken out of the oven. He’d only been on the island for an hour, but he couldn’t shake the jittery feeling he’d had since stepping foot off the ferry and onto the dock. Was he sharing the same tiny strip of land with a cold-blooded killer? It didn’t seem possible. For one thing, Jess was right, the police report had seemed pretty cut-and-dry—but still, something didn’t add up. Who had set the boat on fire? And why? And what about the rumors in town that Tom’s death wasn’t an accident? Anders knew he had to be missing something, but he’d rolled the pieces around in his head all week and just couldn’t seem to make anything fit.
“There you are.” Pearl Olecki’s voice cut into Anders’s thoughts. “Only take two—the rest are for the guests.”
Anders wiped crumbs off his chin with the back of his hand and started to remind her he was a guest, but realized he hadn’t really felt like one in weeks.
“When you’re done, can you help Harold move our china cabinet to the back shed? He’s going to sand and restain it. This salt air wreaks havoc on the wood.”
“Sure.”
She nodded once and then opened the refrigerator and stuck the top half of her body in it. Anders heard the clanking of her moving jars around.
“Hey, can I ask you something?”
Pearl made a noise that sounded like assent.
“Do you ever worry about crime out here?”
While her chest remained perpendicular to the floor, Pearl peeked her head out just enough to look at Anders with eyebrows raised. “Crime?” She let out a hoot. “Heavens no.” Back in the fridge she tutted, mostly to herself. “Crime. As if we’ve got drug dealers and street fighters running amok out here. Crime. Ha!”
Anders paused at her mention of drugs, remembering Mr. Gimby’s senile ranting about a drug ring.
“So there’s never been a crime out here? Not even once?” Anders found that hard to believe. Especially when the island had been home to more than five hundred people back in its heyday. There was no way five hundred people could be upstanding citizens at all times. It was Frick Island—not Pleasantville.
“Well, there was that one time,” Pearl said, straightening up and shutting the refrigerator door with her hip, a bunch of celery and a head of lettuce clutched in either paw. “Lady Judy got her wallet stolen.”
“Really? What happened?”
“She stomped all over this island, in a full-on fit, screeching to anyone who’d listen that whoever had taken her belongings had best be putting it back in its rightful place.” The side of her mouth curled up. “And so Preacher Norm showed up on her front porch that evening, wallet in hand.”
“A preacher had stolen it?”
“No. She’d left it in his house, when she’d stopped by to drop off her offering that she’d forgotten to take to church that morning.”
Pearl chuckled and Anders joined in. He took the last bite of his second cookie and chewed, considering his next question thoughtfully. He knew Mrs. Olecki enough to know if he asked anything off-limits it would just shut her down. He decided to go for it: “What about Tom’s boat?”
He stared at her intently, expecting a reaction of some kind, but she remained unruffled as she ripped leaves of iceberg lettuce apart and dropped them