A Beautiful Place to Die by Philip Craig Page B

forgot to pick them up last night.” She had wonderful teeth.
    Feeling good, I went back to Billy’s room. Someone had brought him clean clothes and I helped him get into them. He had a lot of tender places and still wore bandages. But he could walk, so we checked him out and got into the Landcruiser.
    In the five years I’d known the Martins, Billy had treated everyone else badly at one time or another, but had shown only affection for Susie. Was being mad at aman who had refused his sister’s love enough motive to make Billy a murderer?
    I asked him.
    He gave me a shocked look. “What? Me? Are you crazy? Jesus Christ!”
    â€œSusie says you were really mad. I know how you feel about her.”
    He stared out of the windshield, breathing hard. We drove past the rows of cars that lined the road beside the beach. “All right, I admit I was mad. Nobody hurts my sister, you know? I found him up at the Fireside and I was still hot, but we didn’t fight, we talked. And he told me she was his sister, that she was like a sister to him, and that he didn’t know how to handle the way she felt and so he was going to go back home out west. He’d been all over, you know. Said he had an itchy foot and it was time to go home and settle down and let Susie find somebody who’d be right for her. Anyway, we had a couple of beers and we decided to go fishing in the boat.” Then his fists clenched. “We were friends. I hadn’t liked him too much when he first started hanging out with Dad, but it turned out he was a good guy.”
    When we got to the Martin place, his mother met him with tears and tried to put him right to bed, but he put her off.
    â€œI’ve been in bed for days, Mom. I’m fine. J.W. and I are going to walk for a while so I can get some of the kinks out. Don’t worry, we’re not going far. I just want to get some air, you know?”
    We strolled out to the barn where George kept his decoys, his fishing gear, and the flat-bottomed skiff he used for duck hunting and scalloping. We climbed aladder to the loft and Billy moved some boards and buckets aside and got out a nylon athletic bag. Inside were several vials of clear liquid, a pack of white powder, and about a kilo of green leaves packaged in small bags.
    â€œThat’s it,” said Billy. “That’s the whole stash. I should have gotten rid of it long ago, but . . .”
    I still had my pipes. I closed the bag and we left the barn. I put the bag in the Landcruiser.
    â€œThanks,” said Billy. “Thanks for helping.”
    â€œGo see your mother,” I said. “She’s probably got a bowl of chicken soup for you.”
    He went in and I went home, wondering what I’d say if some cop stopped me and asked me what was in the bag. At home I got Julie’s stuff and added it to the bag and put the bag out in the storage shed in more or less plain sight. The purloined letter ploy. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with the stuff. Until I did decide, I had quite a stash of my own.
    It seemed that I was at a dead end in my investigations, such as they were. I had a beer, then worked in the garden for a while. Greens were popping up more and more every day. My lettuce looked promising. I could taste a fresh imaginary salad in my mouth. After an hour I went in and cleaned the house. I changed the sheets and vacuumed with the vacuum cleaner I’d salvaged from the dump. In Edgartown, people throw away things you wouldn’t believe. When I was through inside, I mowed the lawn with the lawnmower I’d salvaged from the dump. The place looked pretty good.
    I thought of Zee while I took a shower. I have an indoor winter shower and an outdoor summer shower. The outdoor one is twice as good, and I used that. I felt halfgood, half discontented. I had another beer and heated up the last of the stuffed bluefish for supper. Delicious.
    At seven I drove down to