Misery Bay: A Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

it to an island in the dark. Stinks so bad no one wants to get near it. When it’s safe, they go in and take out what they stashed. But he never proved it, and I think it was probably unlikely—way too much work for those sorts of people. They don’t like to work. It’s what the business is all about really. Not having to do real work.”
    “I suppose you know Roland?”
    She grinned. The freckles seemed to leap about her face like the spray of freshly poured seltzer.
    “Everybody knows Roland. That’s his house set back from the wharf. Of course, you know that, having grown up around here.”
    “I ran into him on my way into town.”
    “Lucky you. He mention our Ar-teest problem?”
    He raised an eyebrow. “It came up.”
    “It always does with Roland. They’re really quite nice, you know. From Wolfville. An ex-university teacher at Acadia, his wife and a woman friend—all artists. They pooled their money and bought the big house in the bay that circles in behind Roland’s place.”
    “Next door to Roland.” He shook his head. “Talk about your poor real estate locations.”
    “Well, they’re not exactly next door … across the narrow inlet there, though Roland’s back porch looks right over their home.” She nodded out the window. “That would be too close for me. Some days I’m very glad I have a hundred-yard buffer. The artists have created something quite elegant. You passed the house on your way in. It’s completely modern and about as out of place as you could get in a little fishing cove like this. Three stories high, round like an early Shaker barn, with circular redwood decks all the way up. High-end furnishings, fancy art, a studio work space. It’s way beyond Roland’s comprehension. He was hostile to them from the start. It’s been very hard on them to have him as a close neighbor, and I gather the whole thing has escalated. Ingrid claims Roland dumps his fish carcasses in the sea behind their house. It causes an awful stench. They had a trench dug at the edge of their property for drainage that unexpectedly blocked Roland’s ability to pull his scallop boat onshore to winter behind his house. So Roland built a barn and used it to store his bait in an old cooler. He placed it at the edge of his property line, twenty yards from Ingrid’s house. The motor faces their bedroom window. He runs it day and night and it’s so loud they can’t sleep.”
    “I’ll talk to him. That will stop.”
    “Would you do that, really? That would be a very good thing.”
    “Roland’s always been something of a bully—even when he was a kid. He’s skinny but wiry and stronger than he looks. It’s all toothless, though. He’s about as powerless an individual as there is—no money, fewer friends, poor health and precious little backbone. He backs down if anyone at all confronts him. You might want to tell your friends that. Fact is, if they got a solicitor to issue a threatening letter or two, that would probably put an end to it.”
    Her eyes appraised him. “Maybe you really did grow up here,” she said. “I sort of suggested the same thing to Ingrid, but they don’t want to make waves, you know? They just want to be left alone. Her husband still works part-time at Acadia and he’s gone a lot, leaving it to Ingrid and Grace to deal with all this. The last thing they need is a reputation as unpleasant city people who go to the police for every little problem.”
    “Roland’s not a little problem. Especially if he happens to be your neighbor. I can’t imagine having him right next door. Half a mile from my home was always way too close.”
    “You actually lived here in the cove, then?”
    “Up the overgrown lane where the road circles the bay. The old family home’s been closed up for years. I haven’t even seen it yet. Came straight to see you first.”
    “Of course! I know the house. Used to belong to Jim and Beatrice Barkhouse.”
    “My parents.”
    Her face lit up. “My God,