Bad Men

The changeover went smoothly. Lockwood and Barker came out on the first ferry and started the weekly test of the medical and fire equipment at the station house. At eleven A.M., Dupree checked in with them, then drove down Main Street to the post office, parking the Explorer in the lot on the right-hand side of the white clapboard building. He had called Larry Amerling that morning to tell him that there was something he wanted to talk to him about. It struck him that Amerling might have been expecting the call.

Amerling knew more about the island than anyone else, maybe even more than Dupree himself. His home was filled with books and papers on the history of Casco Bay, including copies of his own pamphlet, printed privately and sold at the market and at the bookstores over in Portland. Amerling was a widower, and had been for ten years. His children lived on the mainland, but they visited regularly, little trains of grandchildren in tow. Dupree usually spent Thanksgiving with Amerling, as it was his family’s tradition to return to the island and celebrate the feast together. They were good people, even if it was Larry Amerling who had first christened the policeman Melancholy Joe. Only a handful of people used that name, and few of them used it to his face, although among the cops assigned to the island the name had stuck.

Dupree thought that Amerling would be alone when he called, as the old man usually took a half-hour’s time-out at eleven A.M. to get some paperwork done and drink his green tea, but the postmaster had company that morning. The painter, Giacomelli, was standing against the wall, drinking take-out coffee from the market. He looked troubled. So did Amerling. Dupree nodded a greeting to them both.

“I interrupt something?” he asked.

“No,” said Amerling. “We’ve been waiting for you. You want some tea?”

Dupree poured some of the green tea into one of Amerling’s delicate little Chinese cups. He held the cup gently in the palm of his hand. The three men exchanged pleasantries and island gossip for a time before lapsing into an uneasy silence. Dupree had spent the morning trying to put his concerns into words, to explain them in a way that did not make him sound like a superstitious fool. In the end, Amerling saved his blushes.

“Jack’s here for the same reason you’re here, I think,” Amerling began.

“Which would be?”

“There’s something wrong on the island.”

Dupree didn’t respond. It was Jack who spoke next.

“I thought it was just me, but it isn’t. The woods feel different, and…”

“Go on,” said Amerling.

Jack looked at the policeman.

“I haven’t been drinking, if that’s what you’re thinking, least of all not enough for this.”

“I didn’t think that at all,” said Dupree. There was no way to tell if he was lying or not.

“Well, you may reconsider when you hear this. My paintings are changing.”

Dupree waited a heartbeat.

“You mean they’re getting better?”

There was a burst of laughter that eased the tension a little and seemed to relax the painter slightly.

“No, smart-ass. They’re as good as they’re gonna get. There are marks appearing on the canvases. They look like men, but I didn’t put them there. They’re in the sea paintings and now they’re in some of the landscapes as well.”

“You think someone is sneaking into your house and painting in figures on your work?”

He tried to keep the disbelief from his voice. He almost succeeded, but Jack spotted it.

“I know it sounds weird. The thing of it is, these figures aren’t painted on.”

He reached down to the floor and lifted up a board wrapped in an old cloth. He removed the cloth, revealing one of his seascapes. Dupree stepped closer and saw what looked like two men in the shallows. They were little more than stick figures, but they were there. He reached out a finger.

“Can I touch it?”

“Sure.”

Dupree ran his finger over the board, feeling the traces of the brush strokes against his skin. When he came to the figures, he paused, then raised the tips of his fingers to his nose and sniffed.

“That’s right,” said Jack. “They’ve been burned into the board.”

He picked up a second painting and handed it to Dupree.

“You know what this is?”

Dupree felt uncomfortable even looking at the painting. It was certainly one of Jack’s better efforts. He sucked at sea and hills, but he did good trees. They were mostly bare and in the background of the picture, almost hidden by mist, Dupree could make out a stone cross. It was definitely a departure for the painter.

“It’s the approach to the Site,” he said. “I have to tell you, Jack, you’re never going to sell this painting. Just looking at it gives me the creeps.”

“It’s not for sale. I do some of these for, well, I guess out of my own curiosity. Tell me what you see.”

Dupree held the painting at arm’s length and tried to concentrate on it.

“I see trees, grass, marsh. I see the cross. I see-”

He stopped and peered more closely at the detail on the canvas.

“What is that?”