Matinicus by Darcy Scott

Author:Darcy Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: murder mystery, historical fiction, maine, ghost story, lobster, matinicus
Publisher: Darcy Scott

NINETEEN

Gotta say I’m impressed.

As it happens, services for the Matinicus departed involve none of the usual falderal foisted on the rest of us by the megalithic funeral industry—things like viewing hours, recycled flowers, or dreary organ musak wafting from hidden speakers in suspicious-smelling rental chapels. Nor, I should mention, was Clayton embalmed, which is why he was delivered to the dirt not an hour after Josh fetched him home from Rockland this afternoon on the Mary Kate.

No over-priced professional strangers gonna bury our dead—nosuh. Got it straight from Gail. Out here, and much as they always have, folks come together to dig and bury, saying a few words over whomever before slapping the dirt from their hands and heading off to work or home or, in this case, free beer at the Hatch.

The monsoons have finally abated, it’s crisp and clear—not a cloud in the sky. One of those handful of pristine summer days that always seem to tail a spate of lousy weather. Looks like the whole island is here, too, which is to say forty or fifty people of varying ages peppered with a few of us summer folk, among whom are Kirtley and myself—she alluring and demure in a black knee-length skirt and a sheer blue top which unfortunately does nothing to hide her amazing bod as she weaves sylphlike through the throng. My blood’s been thrumming since I caught sight of her at the service, having arrived in my usual tardy fashion after waking late to the damp and chill of the keeping room floor. Not only that, but last night’s perusal of Hannah’s diary has left me in a state of lingering arousal I recognize as the familiar longing for that which can only end badly. Not a good sign.

I didn’t greet Kirtley at the cemetery, nor she me, but the charge between us could have melted every plastic flower within twenty-feet—this despite our not having spoken since the afternoon she breezed oh-so-casually into the dugout, shattering my studied sang-froid.

Hoping to avoid any further assaults on my weakening willpower, I hung back as small groups peeled off toward the harbor. Besides, I figured, high time I paid my respects to Ben—something I’d been putting off for weeks—but after fifteen minutes I still hadn’t found any gravestone with the name Leland on it.

“Wasn’t buried here,” Al tells me when I show up at the Hatch maybe half an hour later. “Rachel asked, but much as we all liked the boy, if you’re not from Matinicus or married to someone who is, you get planted somewhere else,” he says, slapping a mug down and pouring me some coffee. “Non-negotiable. You gonna eat?”

Three choices on the sandwich board today: Yaz, Little Joe, and The Oil Can—named for mediocre pitcher and rage-aholic Oil Can Boyd—the tamer gustatory version being your basic tuna, tomato, and cheese melt on rye, which is what I go for. Free dessert if you get the nickname derivation right.

“Oil is Mississippi slang for beer, of which the man was overly fond,” I tell Al.

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