Page 20 of Dead of Summer
FAITH
Well, well, if it isn’t Alice Gallo back from the dead,” Walter says from his stool when Faith walks into the Salty Crab.
“Yep,” Faith says, wondering if coming back here so soon was a bad idea. “It’s me. Couldn’t stay away.” The truth was she had no idea where to go.
“Not at the beach like the rest of ’em?” Walter asks, his eyes traveling around the near-empty bar.
“No, I’ve actually had enough beach time for a little while,” she says wryly, sliding onto a stool a few down from his.
The beach had been packed by the time she and David had left. Faith had closed her eyes and made a silent wish that they could have been included. Instead, they sat together tensely. Orla’s visit had upended things. David was distracted and snippy with her.
“I really wish you’d tell me what is going on,” she’d said gently after enough time had passed and the lack of conversation was beginning to feel like a punishment. But David had only retreated further from her.
“I’m going to jump in,” he’d said, not inviting her to join him. Faith had watched, her vision blurring behind her sunglasses as he walked out into the water, not even pausing in the cold. He’d raised his arms above his head, the muscles in his back tensing as he dove under the waves.
The David she thought she knew had once again dropped away.
Maybe they’d been together once, she’d thought, watching the bob of his head as he swam parallel to the shore.
He’d seemed back to normal when he returned, giving her a smile as he dried off.
He looked at his phone and his eyebrows furrowed.
“What?” she’d asked, still anxious.
“Just got a text from Dad. Looks like I have some meetings today after all,” David had said.
She could detect some relief in his voice, as though Geoffrey had provided a convenient escape from her potential prying into his past. He had the look in his eyes again, the same one he’d had that first week they were here.
There was no use trying to talk to him when he was like this.
He would be impenetrable. When they got to the parking lot, she’d held back.
“You go on,” she’d said, “I’ll walk. I’d like to enjoy the beautiful day.
” It had come out snottier than she’d meant, but Faith couldn’t bear the thought of returning to the house only to wait around all day.
If David noticed, he didn’t show it. He tossed their beach gear into the back of the Porsche and got in alone, not looking back as he sped off toward the estate.
She’d finally turned the other way, toward town where she knew the Crab would be waiting for her along with all the town gossip she’d need to find out who Orla was and whether she was a threat.
“You’re back,” Jean says flatly, coming around the bar. Faith can’t tell whether Jean thinks this is a good thing. These New Englanders are impossible to read.
“I am,” she says, wondering if the goodwill she’d felt at the end of her last visit was imagined.
“One of your tomato cocktails?”
“Just a Coke this time,” Faith says. “And some of those clam cakes, please.”
Walter leans back and takes a long drink of his beer, staring at her. There is something creepy about Walter , she thinks for the first time. When he smiles, it feels a bit too familiar. “Didn’t have a chance to ask you where you’re staying last time. You must be in a rental.”
“I’m here with my boyfriend,” she says quickly, happy in the moment that it is true. Faith catches herself before she says the word fiancé. Too soon , she scolds herself. Don’t be getting ahead of yourself .
“Local boy?” Jean asks. Her hand is thickly bandaged, and she winces as she wipes down the bar.
“Not exactly. He comes every summer, though. David Clarke.”
Jean freezes behind the bar. Walter puts his glass down and refocuses his attention on her. “David Clarke? You’re serious?”
Faith nods. Of course, everyone would have heard of Hadley Island’s billionaire family. Jean’s eyes are wide and fearful.
“You’re staying up there on the hill in that big mansion of theirs, hoo boy.” Walter whistles under his breath.
“What do you mean? Have you been there?” Faith asks.
“Only to do some seafood deliveries for one of their parties, years ago now. But that place made me glad to not be rich.”
Faith wants to ask what he means. Jean has turned away but not before Faith can see the trouble on her face. She yanks glasses from the dishwasher, her eyebrows furrowed.
“That family never comes down from their castle, do they?” Walter asks.
“Oh, I’m sure they must come out to dinner here sometimes?” As she says it Faith realizes that it is probably not true.
Jean lets out a bitter laugh. “Maybe some of the other restaurants in town, but definitely never to the Crab if they do. This isn’t exactly the Clarkes’ thing.”
When Jean goes to the other side of the bar, Faith turns back to Walter, whose eyes are in fact starting to droop.
She recognizes this stage of drunk well.
He has two choices now, either go home and sleep it off or power through and keep tipping them back until he reaches a state of delirium.
She suspects Walter is an expert in the latter.
“Do people really not like the Clarkes?” Faith asks him.
“Well, let’s be honest. Geoffrey is an all-around prick. And that son of his, sorry, your boyfriend, well,” he lets out a dry chuckle. “He gets away with whatever he wants, don’t he.”
Jean is moving around now, avoiding eye contact as she busily unloads the washer and begins to stack beer glasses, but Faith can tell she wants to say something more.
The girl —Faith hears Geoffrey’s voice again from behind the office door— I’m tired of thinking about her. Maybe she’d been wrong about the conversation. Maybe they hadn’t been talking about her at all.
“Alice Gallo, what happened to her,” Faith says.
“She drowned,” Jean says quickly. Walter hesitates before nodding in agreement.
“No way to survive out there. You’d have to be an Olympic swimmer.” Walter glances at the back windows, which frame a view of glittering blue waves. Hard to imagine anything bad happening on a day like today. “And nowhere to swim to even if you were strong enough.”
“Your boyfriend didn’t tell you all this?” Jean finally asks.
“He did,” Faith says quickly. “Kind of. David said he knew Alice a little?”
Jean’s eyes cloud. “More than a little. They were close. Inseparable. Spent the whole summer together every year traipsing around the island. I always wondered what kind of trouble they were getting into. The three of them, those two and Orla O’Connor.”
Faith’s chest constricts at Orla’s name.
“They were with her the night the girl died. Did he tell you that?” Walter prods.
“Was this on the Fourth of July?” Faith ventures.
“That’s right. Night of the big Clarke party. Or always used to be, haven’t had it since that year.”
“They’re having it again this year,” she says, nervously tracing a pattern into the sweat on her Coke glass. Something is happening that she doesn’t quite understand. She can feel it in the air, as though the Clarkes coming up had shifted the air around her. Walter and Jean are staring at her.
“Now why would they do a thing like that?” Jean snaps.
“Apparently something to do with the mooring for Geoffrey’s new yacht.” Jean’s head swivels toward her. Her eyes narrow.
“That’s what they told you?” Walter snorts, amused. This annoys her. She’s not an idiot. But it bothers her even more that she would be kept in the dark by David.
“What other reason would they have?” she asks.
“Maybe they want folks around here to think certain things about them.” He shrugs, drinking from his beer.
“What kinds of things?” Faith doesn’t know what Walter is getting at, but she doesn’t like it.
He raises a finger and wags it. “There have been people circling that family for years. Anyone that rich has things to hide. Big money equals big secrets.” He coughs, wiping his mouth with the back of a leathery hand.
“Having to do with Alice Gallo?” Faith pries. His eyes go big above his glass.
“Did I say that?” He recoils as though she were the one gossiping.
“I don’t think I said that. Though that snobby little twit never made things easy for anyone.
” Faith isn’t sure if he is talking about David or Geoffrey now.
She waits, hoping he’ll continue, but he is maudlin now, looking down into his beer like he wonders where it’s gone.
“I heard the man living out on the island killed her, that he drowned her purposely after he did something to her.” The idea of it is so terrifying that Faith shudders when she says the last part.
Walter’s head snaps up at her. “Shhhh, don’t let Jean hear you say that. Henry Wright is her brother-in-law, you know?”
“I had no idea.” Faith gazes at Jean, whose mouth is twisted in worry as she struggles to slice a lemon into wedges with her bandaged hand. She sighs, placing her head into her good hand for a moment before she shuffles to the side of the bar.
Walter sniffs. “She doesn’t like when people speculate, but of course they do. Who wouldn’t? Miracle Henry isn’t in prison on the mainland after all that.”
“After what?”
“Henry has always been an odd bird. But I don’t think anyone thought he was any trouble until he got friendly with young Alice. People saw him talking to her back behind the old wharf. He was a bit obsessed with her, it seems. And then, well. Poor thing.”
Faith glances at Jean, who is now leaning up against the far side of the bar, the receiver of an old landline pressed up to her ear.
“Gemma, it’s Jean again. Not sure where you went.
You were a lifesaver this morning, but I need you back tonight.
We have a band in, you’ll make some good money.
” She wraps the cord around her hand anxiously.
“What happened to Alice’s family?” Faith pries, a sick feeling taking hold of her.
Walter looks up, surprised that she doesn’t already know. “They left a big ol’ house behind, a couple blocks down Harbor Street.” He jerks a thumb at the wall of the bar. “Just up and went to the mainland. Let it go to ruin.”