Page 24 of Dead of Summer
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 patterninto 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.
