Katherine Page - The Body in the Kelp

The gondola swayed and the wheel began to turn. Down they swept past the Millers and Ben, past the midway, the animal barns, the 4-H Beef Show, the State of Maine Two Crusted Blueberry Pie Contest goods lined up in the exhibition hall, the John Deere oooth, and the grandstand where people were patiently waiting for Joie Chitwood's Auto Thrill Show to start.

Faith was content. Pix had sworn there was a concession run by a local grange that served up a perfect lobster stew, and after that there would be fireworks. The last night of the fair. The last night of summer.

The wheel began to slow and soon they were up at the top again, immobile for a brief moment as people got off. "Hey, honey, wanna neck?" Tom breathed into her ear. "Okay, out I'd better tell you right now. I go all the way.”

“I'm a lucky guy. Do you want to go 'round again?”

“Absolutely, but I think we'd better relieve Pix and Sam.

Maybe after we eat.”

The wheel lowered them down and they stepped out. Ben oegan to squeal with delight as soon as he saw them.

“Daddee, Daddee!" Far from having forgotten Tom, as was feared, Ben would barely let him out of his sight.

“Lead us to that lobster stew, Pix. I'm starving," Tom said as he hoisted Ben up on his shoulders.

“This way. The Fraziers are meeting us there, but I want to get some french fries first.”

Pix had been steadily consuming french fries since they arrived. Faith succumbed as well when she saw the sacks of potatoes outside the stands and tasted one of Pix's fries—crisp, fresh, and with a bit of the skin still clinging to it. But douse it with vinegar, as was the local custom, adopted by the Millers, she would not.

The Fraziers were eating corn on the cob, near the French Fry Queen's stand. Louise's chin was shiny with butter and they looked as if they were having their first good time in a long time.

They all made their way together to the picnic tables set up by the grange under a tent. The night air was beginning to assume an autumnal character and it was pleasant to walk into the warm tent filled with the smells of fair food.

They sat down around a big table and ordered lobster stew, biscuits, and coffee. While they were waiting, Jill came in. Jill and Sergeant Dickinson. Faith wasn't surprised. She had expected the full cast of characters to appear—those that were not dead or in jail, that is. They had already seen the Hamiltons at the 3,200-pound six-foot oxen pull and Hope and Quentin were happily wandering the arcades, toting an enormous white bison Quentin had won pitching pennies. This was what "Meet Me at the Fair" was all about. Sooner or later you'd run into everyone you had met all summer.

Faith waved. "Come join us," she called.

“Thank you. We'd be glad to," answered Earl, putting a protective arm around Jill and steering her toward the table. So it was like that.

Jill was the first to bring up what was on everyone's mind.

"Don't think you have to avoid talking about what has

happened because of me," she told them. "It's going to take

a long time to sort it all out and talking is the only way to do it. To say that I didn't know what Eric was like is a major understatement.”

Faith was relieved. She still had a question or two and the people who could supply some of the answers were sitting right there.

“I still can't believe I missed the whole thing," Pix said ruefully. "If Arlene's mother had taken proper care of her tires, she wouldn't have had a flat on the way back from Bangor. I spent all my time driving back and forth from the bridge to the Prescotts', sick with worry about Samantha. Of course, if they hadn't been delayed, I would have had her with me and that wouldn't have been good."

“Or good for you either, sweetheart," Sam said emphatically. "There's no telling what you might have taken it into your head to do.”

Faith was afraid they were going to get hopelessly sidetracked on one of the famous Miller tangents. She interrupted.

“You're off duty, Earl, or so it seems." She smiled as she caught him dipping a spoon to taste Jill's chowder. He'd ordered a hamburger. "What were Eric and the Prescotts up to?"

“Well, I figure you have a better right than most to know, Mrs. Fairchild. Anyway, it's no secret now. Sonny Prescott has turned state's evidence and hasn't stopped talking since we got him to Ellsworth. He's pretty sore about Margery. Never knew she was carrying on like that. Come to mention it, quite a few of us were surprised."

“Matilda never liked Margery," Louise commented. "Said she used to poke around the house and attic at night. Looking for that gold, I suppose."

“I think we can forget about the gold. I know it was in that letter in the box you found, but I've been hearing about it since I was a kid, and nobody ever saw it or ever will."

“Don't forget, Earl, somebody over in Penobscot dug up a vase near the Bagaduce river with more than two thousand gold coins inside. It was believed to be pirate gold," Jill reminded him.

“Honey, that was more than a hundred years ago! Any gold around these parts has already been found or is just imagined. Anyway, a lot of people believed Matilda had the gold and I have an idea she liked them to. But that didn't get her killed. No, what got her killed was kindness or foolishness or both."

“What do you mean?" Tom asked. He had a lot of catching up to do and had barely gotten all the people straight. What he did have straight was that his wife had once more unaccountably landed herself and child in danger and been miraculously spared. He squeezed her hand as he fed Ben some stew.

“Matilda's people weren't paying a whole lot of mind to her, and those two young fellows were. She was flattered and got to care for them. Genuine niceness on Roger's part, more than likely, but Eric must have always had his eye on the main chance. I thought he might have burned his house down himself to convince her to leave them hers. But Sonny did that and he's been kicking himself ever since."

“Sonny? Why?" Faith realized she had missed something. "He was trying to get Eric to leave the island. He tried other things too, but nothing worked."

“So that fight at the dance was real." Faith was beginning to put it all together. "He wanted out of the business, right?"

“Ayuh. I'm not saying what he did wasn't wrong, very wrong, especially when you see all the drugged-out kids around this area. Right here tonight—kids who would have been showing the sheep they raised or the jams they put up before all this hit. I blamed the bridge that they built to the mainland, but that's neither here nor there and it was bound to happen one of these days. Pretty hard getting across the reach by boat in the winter.”

Now it was Earl who was off.

Faith felt like the lady they had seen at the sheepdog trials earlier. She resisted the impulse to say "come on, Laddie.”

“But you think Sonny did have some excuse for doing what he did?"

“Not excuse. Reason. He was in big trouble financially. Two summers ago was a bad one for lobsterin' and an especial bad one for Prescott's pound. They had just bought anew six-wheeler when they lost a boat in a storm and then there just weren't any lobsters. That was when Eric came along. Sonny was only going to do it until he got on his feet again, but it was easy money and after a lifetime of strain and struggle, which fishing is, I guess a little easy money was like heaven. They landed the bales on some of the small islands offshore, then loaded them into the front of the trucks at the Old Ferry Cove dock, which hasn't been used for years. Then they'd go back to the lobster pool and fill the rest up with lobsters. If they did get stopped, an inspector looking for shorts would never make them unload the whole truck without a pretty good reason. And they were lucky. The drivers didn't know what they were driving and Eric had it all worked out on the New York end. Sonny didn't even see the stuff. He just provided the transport. Andy and his crew from Camden were doing the heavy work."