Osprey Island

The truck stalled. Lance doubled over onto Squee, his hand flying up to his face to cup it where the gun had slashed. When he rose again, the shock on his face was mixed with pride, as though he were somehow responsible for the nerve of this old lady. The angle had been awkward, the swipe relatively ineffective, like a pool shot slipped at the last second, the cue just glancing the ball and nudging it aside. Lance lifted his head as if to congratulate Eden on a brave try there, only to find that in the seconds he’d been down she’d managed to turn the gun around. She had one hand on the barrel, the other on the stock, and as Lance opened his mouth to speak, she steadied herself, and with the kind of force she’d only ever used to bring an ax down across the neck of a chicken, Eden Jacobs slammed the butt of that shotgun into Lance Squire’s forehead.

Twenty-two

NIGHT IS THE SUREST NURSE OF TROUBLED SOULS

Carl Jenkins, 67, of Strawberry Lane reported a speeding car on SouthFerry Road. Police responded to the call and were unable to locate the alleged vehicle . . . Firefighters responded to an anonymous call reporting the smell of smoke in the vicinity of Wickham Beach; a homeowner was found burning leaves with a valid burn permit . . .Police jump-started a car on the Osprey Island Ferry line . . . AScallopshell Beach resident reported a deer in the woods, but was uncertain as to whether the deer was sleeping or dead. Police were unable to locate the alleged animal.

—from the police blotter, Island Times, 1988

LANCE FELL OVER SQUEE on the truck seat; neither of them moved or made a sound. Yards off, Roddy gave up the struggle to stand and just lay there breathing at the sky. Peg peered out from behind the door of the house, which she had employed as a full-body shield. Beside Lance’s truck, Eden had gotten the shotgun turned back around so that it was once again aimed at Lance’s chest. She had no idea whether or not the gun was loaded—had always been somewhat afraid to check, envisioning the headline: “WIDOW DIES AT OWN HAND—LATE HUSBAND’S HUNTING RIFLE TO BLAME.” At the very least she could see herself in the Island Times weekly police blotter: “Eden Jacobs, 56, summoned police to her home on Island Drive after a shotgun accidentally misfired, causing damage to her living room wall and sofa. Mrs. Jacobs claimed to have been attempting to unload the gun, which belonged to her late husband, Roderick, when it went off.” She’d always made Roderick promise to keep them empty in the gun case, but she knew he lied to her and kept a few loaded for raccoons on the property, a deer down by the ravine, the occasional stray pheasant in the driveway. In either case, loaded or not, she felt safer standing there with the more dangerous part of the gun pointed away. She had no idea how hard she’d hit Lance in the forehead. As she waited those painfully long minutes for the sirens to come up the hill, she feared that she had killed him—envisioned a trickle of blood right now running out from his ear and onto his son beneath him. Such things happened. Agatha Christie killed people off with candlestick and statuette blows to the head all the time.