Summer's Child

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Well, I loved building things, and I found an outlet for my medical interest by becoming an EMT. I have no regrets.”

  “Why aren’t you an EMT now?” he asked.

  “Ten years was long enough. I really loved it, though.” Her throat closed up on that last sentence, and she began pulling the trap from the water, hoping for a crab to help her change the subject. She was lucky. “Look,” she said. “We’ve got two of them.” She pulled the trap onto the pier and emptied the two large blue crabs into the bucket.

  Rory extracted another fish head from the bait box and put it into the trap. He was less vigorous in wiping his hands on the towel this time, and Daria lowered the trap back into the water.

  “You said that Shelly can’t leave the Outer Banks,” Rory said. “Does that mean you plan to live here forever?”

  She hadn’t allowed herself to think that far ahead. “I don’t know,” she said, although she did not see how her situation would ever change. “Right now, though, Shelly needs to be here, and I love it here, so there’s no problem.”

  “But it’s so sparsely populated. How do you meet people? How do you meet men?”

  Daria laughed. “There are men here,” she said. She had dated numerous men on the Outer Banks, but dating had never played the critical role in her life that it seemed to play for other women. She’d been different: she raised her sister, wore sloppy clothes, worked as a carpenter. Chloe had told her she lacked the “primping hormone,” and she guessed that was the truth. That didn’t mean, however, that she didn’t have longings. And the man she longed for most was sitting right next her at that moment. “Men tend to see me as their pal,” she said.

  “I don’t understand that,” Rory said. “You’re attractive and smart and athletic and interesting.”

  “Thanks.” She felt herself glow despite her attempt to conceal how much those words meant to her.

  “But in a way, it makes sense,” Rory recanted his first statement. “You’re straightforward and don’t play games. Not like a lot of other women. And I fear Grace is one of them,” he added as an aside. “So, I could see how guys might treat you like you’re one of them.”

  “Well, I haven’t been totally antisocial,” she said, wanting to correct any warped image of her he might be getting. “I’ve had a few…love interests,” she said, for want of better words to describe the men she’d dated. She remembered the man to whom she’d lost her virginity at the age of twenty. Several days after that momentous occasion, he’d dumped her for a pretty, prissy eighteen-year-old, and Daria feared it had been her performance in bed that led him to leave her. For a couple of years after that, she was afraid to make love. She would not tell Rory about that particular guy.

  “I had a long-term relationship with someone,” she said. “I met him when I was twenty-three, right after I moved here, and we dated for a couple of years. He wanted me to quit my carpentry job and wear a dress and red lipstick, and needless to say, we fought a lot. He finally moved away. Then when I was twenty-seven, I met Pete. The infamous fiancé Shelly mentioned to you. He was a carpenter and an EMT, so we saw eye to eye on most things and got along great for a long time.”

  “What happened?”

  “Shelly was a problem for us,” she said. “Just like Polly was a problem for you and your ex-wife. Pete said I let Shelly run my life and that I should just—” Daria shook her head “—cut ties with her, I guess. Or at least let her fend for herself.”

  “I can’t see you doing that.”

  “You’re right, there was no way I would. It wasn’t an issue at first. Shelly was only sixteen when Pete and I started seeing each other, so it was a given that I was responsible for her. But as she got older, he wanted me to place her somewhere.”

  “Place her? She doesn’t really need that, does she?”

  Daria had never thought so, but ever since the plane crash, she was not sure exactly what Shelly needed. She thought of telling Rory about that incident. It would be so good to tell someone, and she was certainly doing her fair share of gut-spilling here. But she didn’t want to burden him with that, or to color his positive feelings about Shelly. She still wondered what the family of the pilot had been told about how she had met her death. Whatever they’d been told, they’d been lied to.

  “No, I don’t think she needs a placement,” she said. “But she does still need me. Pete was offered a job in Raleigh, and he wanted me to go with him, which, of course, meant leaving Shelly behind, and I couldn’t consider that. Even if Shelly would have been willing to move to Raleigh, Pete would never have allowed her to live with us.” Saying this out loud, reliving it, made her angry with Pete all over again.

  “He doesn’t sound like a very sympathetic sort of guy,” Rory said.

  “Not when it came to Shelly, anyway.”

  “You’re right. It does sound like our problem with Polly, although in retrospect, Glorianne and I had drifted apart on a lot of other issues as well. I don’t like thinking about it,” he said with a shudder. “It was a terrible time, with Polly getting stuck in the middle. That’s when she died, and I can’t help but think that the stress of living with me and Glorianne contributed to that.”

  Daria touched his arm. “I think it was better that she was with you, no matter what the circumstances, than to be left alone after your parents died. Don’t you?”

  “I think so,” he said. “I hope so.” He looked out to sea, and she saw sailboats reflected in the lenses of his sunglasses. Two small lines creased the skin above his eyebrows, and she wanted to touch them, erase them.

  “You’re a good person,” she said softly. “I wish you weren’t so hot on digging into Shelly’s past, but I’m still glad you’ve come to Kill Devil Hills this summer.”

  He smiled. “Me, too.”

  “I do worry about Shelly’s future, though,” she said. “Is she going to clean the church for the rest of her life? The jewelry she makes has given her an ego boost, and she really needed that, but it hardly earns her a living. I know she should really be in some sort of vocational training program, but there is no such thing here.”

  “Can she leave the Outer Banks at all?”

  “Her doctor is in Elizabeth City,” Daria said. “But she freaks out when we go to see him. He always thinks she needs tranquilizers, because she’s such a mess when she’s at his office. He doesn’t realize that she’s completely calm and peaceful when she’s back here.”

  “What happens when there’s a hurricane and you have to evacuate? Shelly said she hates that, but it’s mandatory sometimes, isn’t it?”

  Daria laughed. “She hides,” she said matter-of-factly. “I found her in the storage closet once, and just a couple of years ago, she hid out in one of the neighbor’s cottages that had already been evacuated.”

  “Poor Shelly,” Rory said.

  “She’s still a little girl in so many ways,” Daria said. “She’s not even interested in men, and I’m really glad about that. Otherwise, I’d have birth control to worry about, too.”

  Rory frowned. “Even Polly was interested in men and sex,” he said. “Are you sure about Shelly?”

  “Oh, a few years ago she went through a couple of boyfriends, but they were not the nicest fellas. I was afraid they were using her.” She remembered one of them talking Shelly into buying him a television set. “I broke them up. Shelly was angry with me at the time, but I think that now she’s frankly relieved that she doesn’t have to worry about dealing with a boyfriend.”

  “So,” Rory said, “in your heart of hearts, who do you think abandoned Shelly on the beach twenty-two years ago?”

  She stared at him, incredulous. “You’re incorrigible,” she said.

  “Seriously,” he persisted. “Do you think it was someone on the cul-de-sac, or—”

  “I’m certain it was Cindy Trump,” she interrupted him. “If you must know, that’s who I think it was. I found Shelly on the beach right in front of her
cottage. Cindy could have just walked out her back door, dropped the baby close to the ocean, expecting the waves to wash it out to sea, and walked back into her cottage. Job done.”

  “So, where is Cindy?” Rory asked.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. Shelly is a Cato, Rory,” she said. “Cindy, or whoever Shelly’s mother was, didn’t want her then. She doesn’t deserve to have any part of her now.”

  Her eyes were suddenly drawn to a woman walking toward the bay, a short distance from the pier, and it wasn’t until Daria spotted the three golden retrievers with her that she recognized the woman as Linda. The dogs splashed in the water. Linda threw a stick far into the bay for them to swim after.

  “That’s Linda,” she said to Rory.

  Rory turned to look at the woman. “I met her already,” he said. “And one of her dogs has a thing for me. She sure has changed.”

  Daria could barely remember the timid girl from the old days on the cul-de-sac. This Linda was a tall, impressive-looking woman with short frosty-blond hair.

  They watched Linda and her dogs play together for a while. Daria was glad to be off the topic of Shelly and Cindy Trump. But then Rory brought up an even less pleasant topic: Grace. Daria knew that Grace had been at Poll-Rory at least twice in the past few days.

  “I introduced Grace to Shelly,” he said.

  She knew. Shelly had said that Grace asked her many questions. “She told me,” she said.

  “She has—or had, I guess—some sort of illness. Do you think it would be crude of me to ask her what it was?”

  Daria looked at the crabs in the bucket. One of them raised his claw at her in an angry fashion, but she barely noticed. Rory didn’t even know what Grace’s serious illness was? Exactly how intimate could they be?

  “If you ask her in a supportive way, I don’t see why not,” she counseled, hating herself as she slipped willingly into the role.

  “You can sympathize with what she’s going through, with her divorce,” he said, “since you and Pete were together so long. All three of us have been there. Except you’re much stronger than Grace.”

  His marriage counselor had been right when he’d called Rory a caretaker. He was.

  The sun had grown huge and orange by the time they packed up their equipment, stuck the bucket of crabs in the basket of Rory’s bicycle and headed back across the island. They rode directly to the Sea Shanty.

  Shelly and Chloe were discussing what they should have for dinner when the crabs arrived, and they immediately got into the spirit, digging the crab steamer out from the dark recesses of the cupboards, filling it with water and putting it on to boil. They got out two sticks of butter, hammers, crackers and picks. Laughter filled the kitchen, along with easy chatter, and Daria had to admit to herself that she and Rory were no more than a couple of good friends, cleaning crabs together on a Saturday night.

  17

  BOB MYERSON HANDED RORY A BOTTLE OF BEER AND TOOK a seat in the wicker chair. The trees outside Bob’s living-room window dripped with pale, purply Spanish moss, and Rory’s gaze was drawn to them as he told the retired detective the reason for his visit.

  “I think you’re going to be disappointed,” Bob said.

  “Maybe,” Rory said. “But I have to try. You were closer to that case than anyone else. I’ve read the police reports, but I’d like to hear it firsthand from you. What do you really think happened?”

  The detective’s house was located deep in the woods of Colington Island. Although the island was only a few miles from Kill Devil Hills, Rory had gotten lost and was running late. He was supposed to meet Grace at Poll-Rory at six, and they were planning to go out to dinner with the Cato family. Even Zack was going, although that had taken some arm-twisting. Rory thought he’d be able to squeeze in this meeting with the detective first, but between getting lost and the man’s enthusiasm for discussing football, time was getting short.

  The detective sighed. “We didn’t uncover much, I’m afraid,” he said. “There were a bunch of teenage girls in the area at that time, and every one of them, it seemed, pointed her finger at someone else. But we couldn’t subject anyone to a physical examination without more evidence to go on. So, if it was one of those girls, well, she got away with it.” He shrugged his thick shoulders, and Rory imagined the detective had been formidable in his college-football days, of which he’d already heard too much. “But, to be honest,” Bob continued, “I don’t think it was any of them.”

  “Who do you think it was, then?”

  Bob took a swallow of his beer and rested the bottle on his bare knee. “There were a couple of women who’d been reported missing around that time,” he said. “One of them was from North Carolina, inland a ways, and the other from Virginia. Neither of them was ever found. My best guess is that one of them was Shelly Cato’s mother. The family of the North Carolina girl thought she might be pregnant, although they didn’t think she was that far along. What I think is that the girl was more pregnant than they figured, and she was despondent and scared. I think she delivered the baby right there on the beach sometime that night or early morning, then walked straight out in the ocean and drowned herself.”

  “But wouldn’t her body have washed up, then?” Rory asked.

  “Oh, you can’t really predict what the ocean’s going to do with a body.” Bob took another swallow of his beer.

  “Where can I get information on the girls who were missing?” Rory asked.

  “Their names should be in the police report.”

  Rory vaguely remembered something about a missing girl or two. He would have to reread those reports.

  Bob raised his now-empty bottle of beer in the air. “Ready for another one?” he asked.

  “No, thanks,” Rory stood up. “I’d better be going. I’m meeting some people for dinner.”

  Bob walked him to the door. “You’re neighbors of the baby’s family, aren’t you?” he asked. “The Catos?”

  “That’s right. That’s who I’m having dinner with.”

  “Well, tell that Supergirl Cato…what’s her name?”

  “Daria.”

  “Right. Tell her to get back to work. I’ve heard they miss her over at Emergency Services.”

  “I’ll tell her,” Rory said, although he doubted he would. There was something Daria was not telling him about why she’d quit her EMT position. He’d sensed that each time she talked about it, and he figured she would not take kindly to anyone pressuring her to return to work.

  Rory spotted the Catos on the crowded deck behind the soundside restaurant.

  “There they are,” he said to Grace and Zack as they walked onto the deck.

  Daria and Shelly sat at a large round table with a man and woman. The woman was Ellen, Rory figured, and the man was probably her husband. Chloe was missing.

  He waved, and Daria saw him and stood to wave back. The sound was behind her, still and slate-blue below the setting sun.

  “You found us,” she said. She looked scrubbed clean and pretty, no makeup on her tanned face. She wore a sleeveless white dress, and her thick hair was pulled back in a ponytail. No sawdust in it tonight.

  “Hi, everyone,” Rory said. “This is Grace. I guess only Shelly has officially met her. And this is my son, Zack.” He put his arm around Zack and tried to draw him forward, but Zack remained stiff.

  “I’ve already met them,” Zack said.

  “Well, you’ve met Daria and Shelly, but not Ellen and her husband, right?” Rory tried to keep good cheer in his voice. “Ellen, hi,” he said, then lied politely. “You look great.”

  “Hello, Rory,” Ellen said. “Long time no see.” Ellen had put on quite a bit of weight. Of the three Cato girls he’d known from his youth, she had changed the most. The flesh on her face was looser. Her hair had grayed markedly and had lost its healthy sheen. Chloe and Daria were aging far more gracefully, he thought.

  “This is Ted,” Ellen said, gesturing toward her husband.

&nbs
p; Ted stood and gave Rory a bone crusher of a handshake, yet he was a soft-looking man, with friendly eyes and a spare tire around his middle. “Honored to meet you,” Ted said. “I’m an old Rams fan.”

  “Me, too.” Rory smiled.

  “Have a seat, Zack,” Daria invited, and with a sullen shrug, Zack sat down next to Shelly. Rory held out the chair next to Ted for Grace, then took his own seat between Grace and his son.

  “Where’s Chloe?” he asked.

  “At a vespers service,” Daria said.

  “At St. Esther’s,” Shelly added.

  “Ah,” he said.

  “What a lovely view from here,” Grace said.

  “Surpassed only by the food,” Ted added, and although Rory didn’t look at Zack, he could imagine him rolling his eyes at the banality of the conversation. He knew Zack would far rather be with Kara tonight than at this table filled with adults.

  Grace, on the other hand, had accepted the invitation with delight. She wanted to meet the Catos, she’d said, and she’d love to see Shelly again. Rory was feeling some disappointment in Grace, though, and it had taken him several days to recognize the reason for his subtle dismay: Grace had shown little interest in Zack. She’d asked the boy virtually no questions, and did not even talk to Rory about him. Rory had brought up the subject several times, trying to get Grace’s input on the relationship problems he and Rory were having, but Grace barely seemed to listen as he spoke. Her indifference came as a surprise and a letdown. Especially after the interest she’d shown in Shelly. He’d expected too much of her, he knew. She had her own trials and tribulations to grapple with.

  “Hey, Dar!” A good-looking man walked by their table on the way to his own, stopping to bend low and kiss Daria’s cheek.

  “Hi, Mike, how are you doing?” Daria asked.

  “Just great,” he said, giving her bare shoulders a squeeze. “We miss you.”

  “I miss you guys, too,” Daria said.