Page 25 of Light of Day
“Well, my mother eventually let slip that she had an uncle at that place. That’s why she knew about it. Not a lot of people do. I’d just started with these oral histories, and I thought I might as well begin with my own family. But it was a pointless trip. All he did was ramble. He made no sense. He wanted to show me the cemetery. Wanted to talk about floating houses. I guess that’s what feeble-minded means. The tape wasn’t good either, so between those two things, it was a waste of time.”
Heather’s heart stopped, then started to race.Floating houses?It sounded like something right out of her dream. “Wait. What floating houses?”
“It means nothing. He wasn’t all there.” Jimmy tapped the side of his head. “He had bats in the belfry, as they say.”
Heather didn’t think people said that anymore, but she got the gist. “I wish I could listen to those tapes.”
“You ain’t the only one, so it seems. Denton listened to them thirty years ago, but couldn’t make sense out of them either. Few weeks ago, he asked to borrow them again. He said he’d bring them back, but I guess he hasn’t yet. I told him he oughta leave it alone.” He gazed out the window at the slice of ocean visible through the trees. “You tried him already, yeah?”
“He wasn’t home.”
“He wasn’t? Well, try again, you’ll find him.” His head swiveled back toward them. “You know, I might know why he gave them to your friend. She had a fancy laptop and recording gear. He probably wanted to see if she could do something with the sound on those tapes.”
“Did she interview you?” Luke asked.
“That she did. Like I said, she wanted to know more about the School for the Feeble-Minded. I told her some history is too sad, best to let it be.”
To Heather, that seemed like an odd approach for the former head of a historical society. Wasn’t all history important, happy or sad?
“Do you have any idea where Gabby might be now?” Heather asked. All this was interesting enough, but it didn’t seem to be getting them anywhere. So Gabby had found a story and started digging, done some interviews, gotten some tapes, was maybe even putting together some episodes for the podcast already. But none of that answered the question of where she’d disappeared to.
“I think she said she was staying at the big hotel. Did you look there?”
Heather could have screamed from frustration.
Luke shot her a look that she could read perfectly well.Go easy on the old man. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.
“Yes.” She forced a smile. “We looked there.”
“How’s that father of yours?” he asked suddenly. “Haven’t seen him in a while.”
The change in subject disoriented her. “I…uh…I haven’t either. I’m the wrong person to ask.”
“That man was something else,” Jimmy mused. “He had the best heart out of anyone I’ve ever known.”
“He did?” Heather wondered if they were talking about the same man. She had few memories of her father, most of them involving fights with her mother.
“Oh yes. That’s why he never owned his own boat. He kept giving away everything he earned. It was a funny thing, like he felt too guilty to hang on to anything good. I suppose that included his own family.”
Suddenly, Heather wanted out of that cramped little living room so badly she could hardly stand it. If only she could wave a magic wand and be back in her own apartment in Boston, eating a pint of peanut butter chocolate chip ice cream and cruising Netflix.
Luke’s phone buzzed. “I have to answer this,” he said as he got to his feet. Heather jumped at the chance to leave along with him. She offered to help Jimmy clean up the tea things, but he waved her off.
“What else do I got to do all day, besides wash a dish here and there? When I see Denton I’ll tell him you were looking for him.”
“And Gabby. If you see Gabby again, please tell her to call me.”
Outside, she took a moment to fill her lungs with the fresh salt air coming off the ocean. The wind that had swept away the fog was now stirring the ocean’s surface into cheerful whitecaps. A few sailboats were out, one with a colorful spinnaker making a brilliant splash of orange against the slate blue of the water.
Luke was standing a few yards away, kicking absently at a ledge of granite rising above the grass. His shoulders hunched against the wind, which ruffled the dark hair curling at the back of his neck.
Attractive guy, she thought absently. She could see why Carrie Prevost had fallen for him. The surprise was that he’d married her, and then stuck around after they’d split up.
Then he turned, and the grim look on his face made every other thought flee from her brain. “What?” She could barely mouth the word.
“A guest at the hotel found a body washed up in Seaweed Cove.”
13
