Page 84 of The Summer Guests

“There’s Arthur Fox,” said Declan.

She raised her binoculars again and watched as Fox descended the steps from his back deck and headed down the lawn toward the water. “He’s really eighty-two? He looks very fit for his age,” she noted.

“Two days ago,Iwas fit for my age.”

She snorted. “Two days ago, you were young and foolish. You climbed that tree.”

“Does ourvery fitMr. Fox look capable of tossing a fifteen-year-old girl into a ravine?”

She watched Fox drag his kayak away from the water’s edge and haul it uphill, to a more secure spot on the grass. “I’d say so.”

Declan flipped through his notebook again. “As Ingrid discovered, Mr. Fox calls himself a ‘retired energy consultant.’”

“As ifthat’snot a giveaway.”

“He’s never been married, has no children as far as we know. His early stint with the US Army is where it gets interesting. We know he was stationed at Fort Holabird, Maryland.”

“US Army Intelligence.”

“And here’s another interesting detail. Ten years ago, he became an ordained Universalist minister. Maybe he had a crisis of conscience.”

“Assuming he has a conscience.”

Fox vanished back into his cottage, and she turned her attention to Moonview. Both the Conover vehicles were parked at the house, so she assumed the entire family must be at home. Someone moved past a downstairs window, then paced back again, but no one stepped outside. It was too chilly and damp to be outdoors today, and she thought of Susan, trapped inside the house amid all the tensions swirling between her and her in-laws.

Maggie could not think of a more miserable situation.

She turned her attention to the opposite shore, and focused her binoculars on the sad little house where Reuben and Abigail Tarkin lived. Unlike the Conovers, who were merely summer residents, Reuben and his sister lived year round on Maiden Pond. For true Mainers like the Tarkins, hard winters and spring mud seasons were the price one paid to deserve these few precious months of summer.

She lowered her binoculars. “What did Betty Jones tell you about the Tarkins?” she asked.

“She said the property’s been in their family for generations. That’s the undesirable side of the pond, marshy, lots of mosquitoes. Their house is so old, it’s probably still on the original well and septic.”

“I mean, aside from the value of their real estate. What did she say about the Tarkins themselves?”

“Their mother died just last year, left the house to Reuben and his sister Abigail. Neither one’s ever been married. Betty says the family’s been pretty much shunned by the town, ever since Sam Tarkin killed those people on Main Street.”

Maggie lowered her binoculars. “Okay, let’s go.”

“Where?”

“It’s time to hear the real reason why Reuben Tarkin hates the Conovers.”

Reuben stood in his doorway, as unyielding as a praetorian guarding his palace, although this palace was little more than a shack with a moss-covered roof. He was not a tall man, and his hair had gone almost entirely gray, but at age sixty-five, he was still solid and muscular and powerful enough to be a problem should he decide to be. She’d ordered Declan to stay in the car because she thought a lone woman would seem less threatening to Reuben. Now she wondered if she’d miscalculated, if Reuben would consider a lone woman as simply easier to overcome.

“Mr. Tarkin, my name is Maggie Bird,” she said. “I’m working with Jo Thibodeau to find out who abducted Zoe Conover.”

“I had nothing to do with it.”

“I know that.”

“Then why are you talking tome?”

“Because you may be able to help us. We need information about the people across the pond.”

“The Conovers, you mean.”

“And Arthur Fox. And the late Dr. Greene. They were all working together, weren’t they?”

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