Abby Geni - The Lightkeepers

My flu was gone. It had been carried away as rapidly and finally as a fetid odor on the breeze. The fever had broken. The headache had disappeared. Only a residual weakness remained, a tremor in my extremities. I was now ravenous. For three days, I had imbibed nothing but clear fluids. Yet it seemed indelicate to raid the kitchen at this juncture, stuffing my face with crackers and canned fruit as Andrew’s body floated in the surf and Lucy lay in her bedroom. I could hear her crying. Sometimes it was sobs, like a kitten mewing, and sometimes it was deep, wracking breaths, like a woman in labor. From what I gathered, Mick and Charlene were in there with her, making futile attempts to soothe her pain with stale cookies and hot tea.

Beyond the window, Galen and Forest appeared, striding together up the hill. As I watched, they stationed themselves by the helipad to wait. The helicopter was closer now. It moved with startling speed, the whirl of the blades disturbing the sea beneath. There was the suggestion of a dragonfly about its contours. It breached our perimeter, whizzing along the shoreline, casting its shadow on the grass. I saw a trickle of movement amid the green: mice bolting in panic. That glowing bubble maneuvered downward. It alighted in the center of the rectangle of pavement.

Figures began to emerge from inside. The metallic husk disgorged them one at a time, each ducking low, apparently to avoid the blades, though these were at least ten feet off the ground. The rotor slowed, spinning lazily, sending out pulses of breath that shook the grass. I had been expecting blue uniforms, but the policemen were in plain clothes. Galen and Forest hurried forward. There was a round of handshakes. I watched as the group collected by Sea Pigeon Gulch.

There were two officers, plus a doctor, distinguishable by his silver kit. Galen and Forest lingered outside this knot of officialdom. The policemen were plainly having trouble figuring out how to get Andrew onto dry land. He could not be reached by boat; there was nothing on the islands that could maneuver into that narrow inlet. Nor would it be safe for a diver to attempt it; the tide was too strong. The policemen adopted thoughtful poses, stroking their chins and rumpling their hair. It reminded me of the way men would gather around a car that had stalled on the road.

Eventually the group came up with a complicated solution — something to do with ropes and a surfboard. At first I watched the proceedings eagerly. Forest and Galen had taken charge, giving instructions with sweeping gestures. The policemen hurried to obey. The doctor stood to one side, visibly fretting, checking his watch every few minutes. The surfboard was lowered down on a system of rigging. Everyone was working together, shouting encouragement. But it was hard going. From what I could tell, they were trying to work the surfboard under Andrew’s limp form and hoist him upward. This required timing their industry with the surging tide and shifting waves. After their fifth failed attempt, I left the window. I lay down on the bed.

Hours later, Charlene woke me.

“Dinnertime,” she said softly, leaning in at my door.

I sat up, yawning. Through the window, the sky had turned a muted gold, the sun low above the horizon. The helicopter was still in evidence, its bulbous belly refracting the light. The ground was shadowed, the coast guard house a dark, rectangular stain. It seemed remarkable that I had once felt the need to escape to that hulking relic. Now that the fear was gone, the threat removed, I could chastise myself for my carelessness. I was lucky to have escaped with nothing more than a chill.

“How are you feeling?” Charlene asked as we headed down the stairs.

“Great,” I said. “Fine,” I amended, catching her startled look.

The meal was an odd one. The police ate with us, as did the medical examiner, whose name appeared to be Dr. Alfred. None of them were delighted by our repast of macaroni and cheese with canned tuna mixed in. They picked at their plates, peering around the kitchen at the mismatched chairs, chipped cups, and warped utensils, all of which — to me — brought back amiable echoes of dorm life. Mick ate heartily, shoveling pasta into his mouth. I consumed at least twice my share. Forest and Galen engaged in polite conversation with our visitors. Charlene seemed anxious, her dark eyes wider than usual, a deer in the headlights. Lucy was not there.

Gradually I became aware that the two policemen were not policemen at all — they were federal agents. The islands were a refuge with congressionally designated wilderness status. Accordingly, the place fell under the jurisdiction of the men in black. This intrigued me. I had never been around government agents, and I would have expected something more polished, less homey. They were a mismatched pair, clearly alpha and beta. The latter was young, with a mousy, ineffectual beard. The former was a tanned, leathery fellow, a lattice of wrinkles scored across his forehead.

By common consent, we did not discuss the matter at hand. Andrew had been disinterred from his watery grave and was now reposing in a refrigerated unit on board the helicopter; that much I had learned from Charlene as we had slipped downstairs together. During the meal, however, we all spoke instead about the San Francisco beat. Galen seemed to know a great deal about the law. (Of course Galen knew a great deal about everything. ) Mick joined in, and they reminisced about a few cases that had been splashed over the newspapers during the past couple of years.

I was quiet. As I helped myself to more pasta, I wondered for the first time what had actually happened to Andrew. Oddly enough, this question had not occurred to me. I had been so overwhelmed by the shock of my reprieve that the reasons behind it had seemed unimportant.

His corpse had been discovered at eleven a.m., which suggested that he had taken a morning walk. It was unlike him to do so — but stranger things had happened. Perhaps he had headed off to do a little fieldwork for once. He might have been gazing too avidly through his binoculars, not looking where he was going. Nobody had been a witness to the accident, which was hardly surprising. Galen and Forest had been on the water that morning, Mick in the lighthouse, Lucy and Charlene near Breaker Cove. I had been in bed, asleep. It would have been a matter of seconds for Andrew to lose his footing, knock himself unconscious on the rocks, and drop into the drink.

After dinner, the two agents asked us to step into the living room. We distributed ourselves in our usual positions: on the couch, in the armchair, on a few ratty old pillows that were strewn across the rug. Both officers, however, stayed standing. I wondered whether this was intentional; we all had to literally look up at them. Hands on hips, the alpha agent launched into what sounded like a prepared speech, delivered many times before.

“You’ve all had a trying day,” he said. “I’m sorry for your loss. As you can imagine, we need to get as much information as possible before we head back to California. It’s our procedure—”

He broke off. A door had opened. I turned to see Lucy emerging from her bedroom. There were purple crescents beneath her eyes. A blanket was wrapped around her shoulders, trailing across the ground.

“Sorry,” she murmured. Her gaze lingered on the empty spot on the couch beside me, but after a moment she sank unsteadily to the floor, next to Forest. Her arrival had all the ceremony of a stage entrance. Everyone gaped at her. Even the alpha agent’s bureaucratic manner was momentarily derailed. He stood scratching his cheek before continuing, “Galen here — Mr. McNab, I should say — has offered to let us use his bedroom for our interviews. We’ll have a bit more privacy there. I’ll be asking each of you to—”