Chapter Four
The town of Hero spills over the foothills and clings to the lakeshore.
Eagle’s Nest Landing, the café Isaac Haviland built all those years ago—the one Seton’s mother, Andrea Haviland, owns now—sits in an old train depot at the end of a long-defunct rail line.
Out in the marina, piers have begun to fill with boats coming out of dry dock for the season.
Quaint shops, a nineteenth-century hotel, a summer stock theater, and a grid of antique homes, one of which Seton’s mother lives in, form the core of the town.
On the southern side of the marina, brand-new condos rise from where a crumbling motel once sat, part of my brother Reid’s plan to transform Hero and bring in more summer residents.
Beyond town, the street narrows as it curves through densely packed summer cabins dotting the shore.
After a few miles, the houses grow sparse and then disappear as the road swerves away from the lake and past a cemetery with two dozen weatherworn headstones.
A blue bungalow, my mother’s winter home, sits at a T in the road.
I pull alongside a well-tended perennial garden, where my aunt Hadley’s head of short dark hair bobs among daisies begging to bud. She holds up a hand to block the sun. “You’re here,” she says, her voice soft and girlish.
“Up for the weekend,” I say. “Then it’s back to the grind.”
“At the radio station?”
“As long as they’ll have me.”
“I fly to Cairo Tuesday morning,” Hadley says. “Maybe I can hitch a ride with you to the airport.”
Hadley volunteers around the world as a trauma surgeon.
When she’s in Hero, she takes shifts at the Kingston Hospital ER on the other side of the lake.
She’s in her mid-fifties, her short hair cut more for practicality than fashion.
Even when she’s not at work, she usually wears scrubs, like this set, which is covered with what appear to be hand puppets.
“I’ll be here most weekends this summer,” I say. “I wish you were staying longer.”
“I’m your favorite aunt.”
“You’re my only aunt.”
“And your favorite aunt can only take so much lake time before going stir crazy,” Hadley says, nodding down the dirt road. “Seton drove by like a bat out of hell. What’s going on?”
“Her mother’s up to something at Burkehaven,” I say.
“Another sledgehammer?”
“Innocent until proven guilty.”
“You always defend Andrea Haviland.”
“She’s nice to me,” I say. “Same as you. And I’d defend you, too.”
“Good to have an ally,” Hadley says.
I wave as I pull away and into the forest. Here, a thick canopy of trees absorbs the sun, and the woods are damp and green with new growth.
A lichen-covered boulder the size of a Volkswagen marks a fork in the road.
A sign to the right points toward Burkehaven, while turning left takes me to my home, Idlewood.
Haviland and Kilgore.
Seton’s the one who wants me to play sidekick.
We won’t have much narrative tension if I avoid interfering where I don’t belong.
Plus, I hear Julian coaching me to insert myself into the story, to be bold and ask uncomfortable questions.
If he were here right now, he’d say, “It’s the only way to get to the truth. ”
A moment later, the trees open on Burkehaven Cove, which sits on the southern shore of Hero Lake, five miles by boat from town, and a bit longer by car.
Like Idlewood, Burkehaven is a family camp, one that used to have a small cabin on the shore and a much larger farmhouse out by the road at the base of the foothills.
For years, Paul Burke’s parents maintained the property’s hiking trails and invited people in town to use the long shoreline.
But Paul moved away to New York years ago, so when his mother died last year, he decided to sell out and develop the property.
Now the cabin’s been leveled, along with most of the trees, replaced by mounds of earth and construction equipment.
I park in a muddy clearing next to Seton’s cruiser, get out of the car, and follow the sound of raised voices.
At a bend in the shoreline, the entrance to the cove appears.
Farther down, a nearly finished house sits on the point, surrounded by piles of earth ready for landscaping.
As I get closer, the signature elements in Reid’s green designs come into shape: rammed earth construction, glass walls, and public and private zones surrounding a central courtyard for intergenerational living—or for hosting parties on the lake.
Hardscape stretches from the courtyard to the shore, where a long dock extends into the water.
There, I recognize Andrea Haviland’s gray ponytail poking out from a green cap for the Boston Fleet hockey team.
She’s anchored her boat, a Bryant 219, a few yards from shore.
It’s the same model we have at Idlewood: nineteen feet long, eight-seater, right down to the maroon siding.
My brother, Reid, and Paul Burke stand on the dock, along with Seton, who’s positioned herself between the two men and the boat.
Her police badge flashes in the sun each time she pivots.
“There’s nothing green about this development,” Mrs. Haviland says into a bullhorn, her voice echoing across the cove. “You cut down the entire shoreline.”
“It’s only us, Mom,” Seton says. “You don’t need that thing.”
“Traitor,” Mrs. Haviland says into the bullhorn.
“We’re replacing the trees,” Reid says, his blond hair poking from beneath a yellow hard hat. “We’re putting in microforests of native plantings.”
“Microforests?” Mrs. Haviland says. “What the hell is a microforest? And what’s wrong with an old-fashioned macroforest? The one that’s been here for the last hundred years?”
“Come on, Andrea,” Paul says, holding his hands out in a kind of peace offering. “Can you cut me some slack?”
“Don’t play victim, Paul,” Mrs. Haviland says. “You abandoned Hero years ago, when you took off for New York.”
Paul Burke is in his late fifties, the same age my father would be now, with a slim runner’s build and thick salt-and-pepper hair. “I can’t keep the property,” he says. “The taxes are killing me.”
“Burkehaven is worth millions,” Mrs. Haviland says. “You could sell one lot, live off the profit, and donate the rest to the conservation commission.”
“This is about access,” Reid says. “You’re desperate to keep things the way they were. I want to open the lake so people can live here.”
Mrs. Haviland scoffs. “You’re building eight houses that only the one percent can afford on land the whole town used to use.
Now no one but your rich friends will have access, and they’ll set up their security cameras and make sure no one else can come here even though they’ll probably use the houses for a week or two a year, tops.
But guess who will be here. Me and my trusty bullhorn. I call her Heidi.”
“I bet you’ll be here,” Reid says. “Like you were when you smashed the security cameras.”
“I had nothing to do with that,” Mrs. Haviland says.
“Mom, take it down a notch,” Seton says. “Please.”
“You, Seton Haviland, are officially banned for life from the Landing,” Mrs. Haviland says. “Don’t even think about showing up for dinner tonight.”
“We’re replacing the cameras,” Reid says. “I’ll send you the bill. And the building permits are signed. You won’t screw me like you did with Rocky Nook. You made your case with the zoning board and lost. There’s nothing else to do.”
“Oh, there’s plenty to do,” Mrs. Haviland says. “And don’t worry. I’ll find another violation to keep you from working. I’ll put you out of business if I have to.”
Reid moves toward her, his hands clenched, but Seton blocks his path. “Keep it civil, Reid,” she says.
“Do something, then,” Reid says. “Your mother’s trespassing.”
“I’m in my boat, on the people’s lake,” Mrs. Haviland says. “Public access. No one owns the waterways—not you or your rich friends.”
Seton takes a deep breath. “She can be anywhere she wants on the water.”
The conversation is getting heated, too heated. I announce my presence by catching a stone with the toe of my shoe and letting it skitter across the dock and into the water. I add a little stumble for effect as Seton spins to face me. “I told you to stay out of this,” she says.
“Kilgore and Haviland?” I say.
“Thanks, hack,” she says. “And it’s Haviland and Kilgore.”
“Charlie Bear!” Reid says, his shoulders relaxing. “Nice cardigan. You’re rocking the geezer look.”
While I dress like an old man, my brother opts for a carefully cultivated aesthetic of expensive thick-rimmed glasses and the plaid flannel that helps him blend in on a construction site.
“Don’t listen to him,” Paul says, pulling me in for a hug.
I nod toward Mrs. Haviland’s hockey cap. “We did a story at the station on the women’s hockey league last month. Have you been to any of the games?”
“A few,” she says.
“You and I should go together sometime. It’s easy enough for me to get to Lowell. We could meet there.”
One of my strengths is that no one takes me seriously, so I can defuse almost any situation.
Mrs. Haviland offers a hint of a smile. “The season’s over, but maybe next year,” she says. “If I’m still talking to you.”
She flips on the boat’s blower and turns the key.
The engine chugs and then roars to life as she hauls the anchor on board.
“Good to see you, Charlie,” she says. “I’ll catch you on the lake this summer.
We can go water-skiing. The rest of you can go to hell.
And don’t think about starting up construction, Reid. Not a single nail.”
As she speeds away, Reid turns on Seton. “She reported an OSHA violation and got us shut down. That’s the third time she’s done this. I’m bleeding money, and if we can’t start up by Tuesday, I’ll lose my crew.”
Seton raises her hands. “If you want to keep from getting shut down, Reid, play by the rules.”
“Tell your mother to stay away from us.”
“The water is public access,” Seton says. “My mom can take her boat wherever she wants, even right up to the end of your dock, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
A voice behind me says, “Let it alone, Reid. Seton’s doing her job.”
I turn to see my mother, Jane, emerge from the half-constructed home, her silver-kissed curls spilling from beneath a hard hat, a scarf tied around her neck, tan work boots poking from under the hem of her blue summer dress.
“Hi, Jane,” I say.
My mother kisses my cheek. “Thanks for coming, Seton,” she says, “but the situation’s under control.”
Seton’s resolve melts a bit. “I’m sorry about all this, Mrs. Reid.”
“Call me Jane. Charlie does,” my mother says, scowling at me. “And ‘Mrs. Reid’ makes me feel old.”
Once Seton leaves in her cruiser, my mother glares after Andrea Haviland’s retreating boat, now a dot on the horizon. Nothing pisses my mother off more than an idle construction site. “One of these days,” she says, “Andrea Haviland will get herself killed.”