Chapter Eleven
I spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon sucking down oxygen in the emergency room and reading old magazines while wishing I hadn’t left my phone on my bedside table.
Hadley stops by from working in the ER to check on me a few times.
“Two more shifts, then I’m out of here for the next six weeks,” she says, adjusting the oxygen tube around my ears.
I wish Hadley weren’t leaving for Cairo. She’s a reliable ally when tensions rise at Idlewood. “Are you sure you want to miss the summer?” I ask.
“I’ll be back in July,” she says. “And what do you care? You’ll be at work in Boston on Tuesday. You know I can only take so much lake time. I get restless if I stay here more than a few days.”
She places an oximeter on my index finger. “Oxygen levels are low,” she says, “but better than they were. One of my colleagues will be by to suture up that head wound. She’ll assess when you can leave.”
“Do you charge by the minute?” I ask.
Hadley ruffles my hair. “Good health is priceless,” she says.
Tell that to my bank account. “Back at Burkehaven, you called that detective by his first name,” I say. “How do you know Duncan Gilcrest? He’s the same cop who—”
“I work in the ER,” Hadley says, cutting me off.
“Even if it is part-time. I know all the cops in the area. All the detectives, too, and I pay close attention to handsome ones who rescue my nephews. By the way, Duncan would be a great interview for the podcast. His favorite topic is himself. Haven’t you seen him on TV?
He pops up on those true-crime shows once in a while.
Last I heard, he was shooting some pilot in New York. God knows what happened with that.”
The curtain slides open and Gilcrest appears. “The pilot didn’t get picked up,” he says.
“Too bad,” Hadley says. “And don’t eavesdrop. Doctor-patient confidentiality.”
“I’m checking on the patient,” Gilcrest says. “Mind if I ask a few questions?”
Hadley catches my eye.
“I can handle myself,” I say.
“If that changes, tell the nurse to come find me,” Hadley says. “And page me when you’re discharged. I sent your mother a text to let her know what happened and told her I’d drive you home.”
After Hadley leaves, Gilcrest asks, “How’s the head?”
“Throbbing,” I say. “Nothing worse.”
“Want to walk me through what happened again?”
I review the events of the morning. Each time I repeat myself, my memory seems to become clearer.
“The scene must have been overwhelming,” Gilcrest says. “There was the fire, and the boat, and you saw someone struggling to escape. And that’s when you were attacked. Am I getting the timeline right?”
“Just about.”
“Just about, or yes? The details matter.”
“That’s what I remember.”
“Fair enough. A head wound can play tricks with memory. Tell me about the attack.”
“I heard rustling, then saw a tree limb swinging toward me.”
“You didn’t run into something on your own?”
“If I ran into a tree, you’d find blood on it.”
“True. But we haven’t found a bloody tree limb, either.”
“There was an inferno raging fifty yards down the shore,” I say. “And a lake right beside me. Two convenient places to dispose of a bloody tree limb. Someone else was there, someone besides Mrs. Haviland.”
“I believe you,” Gilcrest says. “And you should be a detective, Charlie. If you were, you’d know I have to follow the evidence. We’ll figure out who did this to you soon enough.”
A text beeps into his phone. He glances at the screen.
“Is that about Mrs. Haviland?” I ask.
“She’s still unconscious,” Gilcrest says, without answering the question. “I’ll want to talk to you later. Till then, do me a favor: Don’t play hero.”
After he leaves, I sit with nothing to distract myself but the questions he asked, and the tiniest seed of paranoia beginning to take root that I might be a suspect in my own assault.
I wonder what Gilcrest imagines my motive to be and how he’d shape the details to build a case.
It’s the same kind of work we do at the radio station when we create a narrative around a news story.
I imagine massaging this story and laying out the timeline, who I’d interview to fill in details, how I’d connect today’s events to what happened at Idlewood twenty-five years ago. I could plant red herrings by playing up Gilcrest’s suspicions of me.
I have questions for Gilcrest, too, ones about my father and Isaac Haviland’s murder.
I want him to describe arriving on the scene at Idlewood, finding the bloodstains in the parking area, and discovering the rowboat floating offshore.
I want to know when exactly he realized he’d stumbled into a homicide and how he earned the trust of my brother, a terrified twelve-year-old boy.
The curtain slides aside. A doctor scans my wristband and listens to my lungs again. “No concussion or skull fractures,” she says as she stitches up the wound on my forehead. “You’re lucky.”
“Will I have a scar?” I ask.
“Only in a good way. Adds character.” She types on my chart. “Don’t smoke for a week. It’ll exacerbate the cough.”
“What about weed?” I ask.
“Not even weed,” she says with a smile. “And call 9-1-1 if you get lightheaded or disoriented.”
I won’t be adding a 9-1-1 call to my hospital bills anytime soon. I’m not sure how I’ll pay for this visit. She walks me out of the ER and into the waiting room, where I spend a few moments signing forms. As we finish, I ask, “Could you give me a patient’s room number?”
I’d assumed Mrs. Haviland would be under guard, handcuffed to the bed, waiting for the DA to press charges, but there isn’t a single sign of law enforcement outside her hospital room.
She lies in the bed, eyes closed, an oxygen line running beneath her nose.
I settle into a chair beside her as my mother’s words from last night return to me: Bad marriages don’t have a good guy and a bad guy.
We all play our parts. I played mine, and so did your father.
Something else my mother said last night also gives me pause. She’d assumed my father and Mrs. Haviland were high school sweethearts. Maybe they did have feelings for each other. Maybe the two friends had crossed the line.
“Did you love my father?” I ask, softly. “Have you missed him all these years?”
Mrs. Haviland stirs.
“You were at Burkehaven this morning,” I say as she groans and touches her face, somewhere between sleep and consciousness. “Who were you there to meet? Who was hiding in the woods?”
In the hallway, footsteps approach.
“Wake up soon,” I whisper. “I have some questions for you.”
Seton steps into the room, holding a coffee cup. “Charlie,” she says, “they told me you’d been discharged.”
I stand, my face flushed, somehow feeling as though Seton’s caught me in the middle of something I shouldn’t be doing. I wonder what she’d say to me if she heard the questions I just asked. I look down and shift my weight.
“What?” Seton says.
“I came to see your mother.”
“Well, she’s sedated, but the doctors say she’s out of the woods.”
Now that we’re alone, the detachment she maintained by the lake has been replaced by a kaleidoscope of emotion—concern and fear and apprehension for what the next few days might bring. “Do you mind a hug?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, but steps into my embrace anyway, her body rigid against mine.
“There’s an explanation for this,” I whisper.
“And it’s not a good one,” Seton says, softening into my arms.
“We don’t know that.”
“We do, though.”
I cough.
“Are you okay?” Seton asks into my shoulder.
“Mostly.”
“I’ll give you a ride home.”
“You should stay here. Hadley can take me.”
“I could use a break.” Seton pushes away from me. “And don’t mess with my reputation, Charlie Kilgore. I can’t get teary-eyed where the nurses might see. They’ll never let me forget it.”
She marches out of the room to the elevator, punching at the down button before giving up and taking the stairs.
I trot after her as we make our way through the hospital and outside.
Once Seton reaches her cruiser, she covers her face with her hands and sobs, and I know her well enough to let her be till she swipes at her eyes with a fist. “If you tell one person about this—”
“I know. You’ll kill me,” I say, glancing at the clock on the dashboard. It’s after five. I was in the ER all day. “We could go to the Landing for a drink.”
Seton blows her nose. “I can only be away for so long. Gilcrest must be ready to make an arrest.”
“Gilcrest came by when I was in the ER. He asked me if I ran into a tree.”
“He’s covering his bases,” Seton says as she starts the car and pulls into downtown Kingston.
It’s a bigger town than Hero, with a main street lined with restaurants and shops and an extensive marina.
“If you ran into a tree,” she adds, “then Gilcrest doesn’t need to explain who else was at the scene, and there wouldn’t be reasonable doubt over who started the fire.
He could focus on building the case against my mom.
But he’s a good cop, I’ll give him that.
He won’t go for the easy close. I told him he couldn’t speak to my mom without a lawyer.
And I don’t know why you’re being nice to me after what happened today. ”
Seton’s been nice to me my whole life, despite the events we try not to discuss. I owe her more than she knows. “It’s not like you started the fire,” I say. “How well do you know Gilcrest, anyway?”
“Our paths have crossed a few times. My department works with the state cops pretty often, and this is his county. They handle major crimes.” Seton steers around a pair of bikers pedaling in tandem.
“My father’s murder made Gilcrest’s career.
The state cops scooped him up right away and promoted him after that other detective drowned.
And he’s been prancing around in his fancy suits ever since. ”
A few moments later, she approaches the turnoff for Burkehaven, where the scent of smoke hangs in the air. She pulls to the side of the road and asks, “Hadley stays at that house there when she’s here, right?”
“At the bungalow? Yeah. She takes care of the flower beds, and it gives her some space away from the rest of us.”
“I listened to your 9-1-1 call. You were efficient, appropriately upset.”
“Works in my favor?” I ask.
Seton glances toward the bungalow. “In your favor, yes,” she says.
The 9-1-1 log would show that the call came in from the landline at the bungalow.
And I suspect Seton’s wondering now why it took Hadley so long to arrive at the scene, which I’ve wondered myself.
There could be any number of explanations.
Maybe Hadley sleeps in the nude. Or maybe she didn’t want to talk to her annoying nephew at the crack of dawn.
Or maybe she’d driven to the Landing for coffee.
I won’t offer a theory unless Seton asks.
Thankfully, she pulls onto the lane, pressing the accelerator and mumbling, “Bungalow,” under her breath.
“That’s not like any bungalow I’ve ever seen. It must have five bedrooms.”
It has eight, but they’re small. Plus, there’s the little studio out back.
“I wouldn’t mind living in that bungalow,” Seton says as she jerks to a stop beside Reid’s Audi. I follow her gaze to where Reid stretches on the dock before his afternoon swim.
“Does he always wear a Speedo?” she asks.
“He has one for every day of the month,” I say.
“At least he wears it well. I’ve seen much worse giving tickets at the town beach.” Seton closes her eyes. “I need to find a lawyer.”
“Ask Paul,” I say. “He doesn’t do criminal law, but he must have someone to refer.”
“Paul won’t help me,” Seton says. “My mom burned down his house, and they hate each other anyway. Besides, I need money for the retainer, and I don’t have a clue where it will come from.”
I would help Seton if I could, but most months I barely make my rent check. “I don’t even know how I’ll pay my hospital bill,” I say.
Seton rubs the bridge of her nose. “I’m not asking for a handout, Charlie. And I don’t know how to break this to you, but you’re rich. Don’t act as if you aren’t. You live on the lake. You went to prep school and a fancy private college. And please stop calling that house a bungalow.”
“I’m a production assistant at a public radio station and drive a forty-year-old car I fix myself. And I owe tens of thousands of dollars in student loans.”
“Do you have any idea how much this island is worth?” Seton asks. “Or how much Reid Construction will pull in from building those houses at Burkehaven?”
None of that money’s mine, though Seton doesn’t want to hear that right now. “I could take a loan against my 401(k). I might have five thousand dollars there.”
“I don’t want a loan!” Seton says. “But don’t talk about your hospital bills like we’re in the same boat. I’m sure your mom will pay them for you.”
I put a hand on her arm, but she shakes me off. On the dock, Reid dives into the lake and swims toward the opposite shore, his strokes strong and assured.
“Tell Reid he shouldn’t swim alone,” Seton says. “And you and I should keep our distance from each other till the state cops learn what happened. I have to watch out for myself. And my mom.”
She grips the steering wheel and won’t meet my eyes, and I can tell no matter what I say in this moment, it won’t be the right thing. I get out of the car, and she backs away. “Take care, Charlie,” she says through the open window, before speeding off into the trees.
Seton’s been a friend—maybe a little more—for as long as I can remember, the two of us bonded by shared tragedy.
We could have given up on each other years ago, but if we had, I’d have lost the one person who truly understands growing up under this particular shadow of grief.
I can’t imagine a life without her in it, or that these latest events might finally push us apart.