Chapter 22
Along with all his other surprises, it turned out that Barnaby was an excellent teacher. By the time she dropped him off at the dock, Gabby was fully confident in her manual gear-shifting abilities.
“Good luck,” she told him. “And be careful.”
He looked as if he wanted to kiss her, but the dock was crowded with passengers and deckhands unloading cargo.
Pulling her behind the freight shed, he held her close, then hovered his mouth over hers, as if debating whether to go forward or not, until she kissed him out of sheer frustration.
Engulfed in his embrace, lost in the pleasure of those firm lips, she barely heard the last call for the ferry, until he wrenched himself away and ran for the ramp.
Her heart was still jumping as she climbed into the Lightkeeper Inn’s work truck. What now? She wanted to see Tamara again as soon as possible. But there was something else she wanted to check on first.
She’d been thinking more about those hidden cameras. What if someone wanted to monitor Tamara’s clients? If Tamara hadn’t poisoned her own patients, someone else had. Would that person have installed those cameras in order to find out who Tamara was treating?
If so, why had that person chosen Safiya, Andy, Amelia and Buzzy as their targets? Maybe there was a common thread. Safiya was off the island, Andy was probably fishing on a calm sunny day like today, and Amelia was…unavailable. So Buzzy it was.
She drove to Buzzy O’Keefe’s house, which was perched on a long rise of granite close to the shoreline near Seal Cove. She didn’t know Buzzy well, but she had interviewed him for the podcast since he was one of the oldest living people on the island, and he still had a sharp memory.
And some questionable attitudes. But she could handle that.
“Well hello, brown sugar,” he said upon opening the door.
Yeah. Like that one.
“Hello, white salt.”
He cackled in response to that. At least he had a sense of humor and didn’t take himself too seriously. “Want a beer?”
“It’s,” she checked the digital readout on his TV, “nine-thirty in the morning.”
“Eh. I’m retired, I don’t answer to no clock.”
“How about a gin-and-tonic, hold the gin?”
It took him a moment, but he chuckled again. “I can do that. I’ll even throw in a lime.”
Leaning on a cane, he hobbled to the tiny kitchen, which looked out over Seal Cove and its swirling currents. “My wife’s picking crab out in the fish shack. You here for her or me?”
“I’m here for you. I have a couple of follow-up questions.” She followed him into his kitchen. “I like your view. Perfect for spotting selkies in action.”
He paused in the midst of pouring her tonic and turned toward her. “You know about them selkies?”
“Sure. Legend has it they’re seals who shed their skins so they can come onto the land.”
“Legend? Nah. Seen it with my own eyes.”
Um…maybe after too many nine-thirty in the morning beers, she thought, but didn’t say out loud.
“But if you want to talk about selkies, I’m going to need something stronger than beer,” he said.
As much as she would love to explore his mythical creature hallucinations, she was here for business. Tamara’s business. “I’m actually here to talk about Tamara Brown.”
“She ain’t no selkie.”
“I realize that—”
“She’s a wood elf.”
Okay then. This convo was going off the rails. “Were you receiving treatment from Tamara Brown for something? You don’t have to say what it was. Just whether you were or not.”
He handed her a highball glass smeared with his fingerprints. She took it gingerly.
“What’s it to ya?”
Fair question.
“I’m trying to help her out of this legal jam, that’s all. The more I know, the more I can help her. You’re friends, aren’t you?”
“We are. Used to be sweet on her, but she chose someone else.”
That piqued her interest. Tamara had never said a word about the identity of Sophie’s father. “Who did she choose?”
“Oh, he’s gone now. A transient fellow. Type who floats through, works for a bit until the winter gets to be too much.
” He ushered her back into the living room, where the scent of cigarette butts was so strong she nearly gagged.
“That’s how they always did things, those Brown women.
It’s like they didn’t want a man sticking around too long.
Tamara’s mother used to get in hot water with the old biddies.
” He shook his head as he propped his cane against a chair, then struggled to lower himself in.
Should she offer to help him? She hesitated, fighting with her instinct to not get too close to the man. He dropped onto the cushion with a groan before she could decide.
“What do you mean, the old biddies?”
“The gossipmongers. Lisette always gave them something to talk about. She nearly got hounded off the island,” he went on. “Things were stricter back then. Folks shunned her. She was persona non gratin on this island.”
Gabby nearly laughed at his misspeak, but managed to keep a straight face. “Why was she so shunned?” Tamara hadn’t mentioned anything like that.
“She never got married, she had a baby out of wedlock. Free spirit. She helped girls take care of any surprises they didn’t want. Any girl didn’t want her baby, she knew where to go.”
“She performed abortions?”
“That sounds bad, when you put it that way. She grew certain herbs, that’s all, it was up to the girl if she wanted to take them. Lisette helped birth babies, too, so she wasn’t shunned when people needed her.”
Gabby got the impression that Buzzy had admired Lisette. Maybe a crush on an older woman?
“The worst was when they took it out on Tamara.”
“Was she shunned too?” The idea made her both sad and angry.
“Not as much, but a little. Tamara didn’t go to school with us, didn’t come to church.
But we played with her just like anyone else.
Things loosened up over time. No one cared when Tamara had her baby without marrying her man.
That Sophie was such a sweet pretty girl.
So sad when she died. There were whispers she was poisoned, you know. ”
“Really? Can you say more about that?”
“Don’t know more than that. Just island gossip.”
Gabby wanted to question him further, but Barnaby had said his mother died giving birth to him. So it sounded like exactly what Buzzy claimed—island gossip.
She pulled him back to her original question. “So you’ve known Tamara for a very long time. Did you trust her enough to get treatment from her?”
“Here we go again.” He folded his hands on his cane and leaned forward. “Even though it ain’t none of your business, no, I didn’t take any of her herbs and shit. I have a heart condition and I’m on beta blockers and a few other things. She wouldn’t take a chance on any bad interactions.”
“Wait. You’re saying she refused to treat you?”
“That’s right. I consulted with her. She knows her stuff.
I even asked her if I should go off my meds and drink her nasty teas instead.
She told me no. She said I was doing good and if I would just cut back on the alcohol I could live a long time yet.
” He lifted his beer bottle in a toast, then drank half of it down.
“But there’s living and there’s living, if you know what I mean. ”
Interesting. He’d met with Tamara, but received no actual treatment. And yet his name was mentioned as another of her alleged victims. “Did you tell the police that she didn’t give you anything?”
“Sure I did. I wouldn’t lie about it. I told them exactly what happened.”
She nodded, lost in momentary thought. For all she knew, Buzzy had been crossed off the list of potential victims, leaving Safiya, Andy, and Amelia. She’d make Andy Highgrove her next interview.
“Thank you, Buzzy. I appreciate your time and your hospitality.” She always liked to be extra polite to her interview subjects, even beyond the super-politeness her mother had drilled into her. “One more teensy question. Do you know why Amelia would have left her house to Tamara?”
“That house is about to fall off its pier blocks. Don’t even have a real foundation. It’s a money pit, a boondoggle. We all laughed when we heard some famous piano player bought it. My guess? She had a grudge against Tamara. No other reason I can think of.”
Gabby hadn’t thought of it like that. “What did she have against Tamara?”
“Amelia was a spiteful old thing. Could have been anything.”
Not very helpful. “All right. If you think of anything else, like the last time you saw Amelia and Tamara together, or—”
“That one’s easy. I saw them talking at the town meeting about the Sea Smoke Fund. They were arguing, I know that. Most everyone was at that meeting. Folks are worried about what’s gonna happen out here.”
“What do you mean?”
Buzzy leaned back, settling his rear deeper into the chair.
He was probably getting tired, she realized.
The man was nearly ninety, after all. “Supposedly there’s a bunch of folks who got chased away, and now their great-great- grandchildren or whatever might be able to come back and…
do what? Claim their old land? What if someone’s living on it?
The Carmichaels were the ones who got rid of ’em, and if they want to pay them off, fine by us.
But letting them come back when the rest of us have been working hard just to make a living out here, that don’t sit right with everyone.
Folks got heated. Gary Stern threw a chair. ”
Gabby had heard hints about a fiery town meeting, but this was the first time she’d heard any details. “I didn’t realize the possibility of giving back land was on the table.”
“Hopefully it ain’t no more. It’s a bad idea. That girl Sasha is okay. Pretty thing. Heard she’s a nurse. Nothing against her. It’d be good for the island if she built a new house and stayed out here. But that’s where it ought to end.”
As always, when it came down to an individual person, it was harder to hang on to that fear of “the other.” Gabby had seen that same dynamic many times. Fear of the “other,” until the “other” turned out to be just a regular human being.
“Do you happen to know where Amelia stood on the issue?”
“Of course. She got up and spoke. She said she was an immigrant from Germany and if the island could welcome her, they could welcome people with roots here too. The last thing she said was that we ought to get over ourselves. All hell broke out after that.”
So Amelia had been on the side of the descendants. Could that have anything to do with her death? This was a new angle no one had thought about, as far as she knew. Were emotions around the descendants and the fund running that high?
“Was anyone particularly angry about what she said?”
“Me. I was angry. She has no business telling us old-timers how to feel. Has she ever ached down to the bone after a winter’s day hauling lobster pots? Hell no. These new folks come in and think they can run things.” He let out a huge yawn, then a burp.
Maybe he shouldn’t be drinking beer at ten in the morning. But she didn’t want to be one of those “new folks” coming in and telling him what to do.
“I can understand that,” she said, coming to her feet. “I’ll let you be now. Oh, before I go. What about Tamara? Did she speak at the meeting? Any idea where she stands on the issue?”
“Didn’t say a word. Probably too scared to.”
“Why would she be too scared?”
“Like I told ya, she’s always been on the outside. Folks think she’s kinda witchy, and she just looks different. Her daughter was even darker than she is, did you know that? Don’t bother me, but you know how some folks are.”
“But not you,” she said dryly.
“Not me. A gal’s a gal.” His sideways look felt like the perfect cue to get on out of there.