“Maybe, but lots of people on the island must own boats and might have helped Mike if he felt it was important to flee. And there are people on the mainland who could have traveled across the Sound, tied up at a private dock where no one was home, and helped Mike leave.”

“That’s possible. But it’s also possible that the young man didn’t have the right contacts to have access to a boat and was thrilled to stay at the Baineses’ house until the investigation had cooled down a bit.”

“True.” She started the engine as the ferry bumped gently into the shore. “Well, maybe we’ll know more in a bit.”

“How are we going to learn anything without getting into the house?”

“Donald told Brett that there’s a key hidden beneath a flowerpot near the back door.”

“How convenient.”

“Well, we’ll find out if it’s there if we find the house.” Susan drove off the boat and turned at the first main road they came to. “This is the road. Brett said to turn right and continue on for three or four miles.”

“What number are we looking for?” Kathleen asked, peering out the windshield.

“That’s the problem. The island has a quaint tradition of naming properties rather than bothering with boring things like street numbers. We’re looking for Windswept. Apparently it’s painted on a board at the end of a dirt road that leads to their driveway.”

“You’re kidding. How do people get deliveries? Mail or FedEx or whatever?”

“I have no idea. Just keep looking on your side of the road for Windswept. It must be on the water, don’t you think?”

“It may be, but that doesn’t mean we’ll find it,” Kathleen replied, squinting to read a hand-painted sign that, as far as she could guess, said UBERHOLM.

They drove along slowly, but they didn’t find what they were searching for. Susan was about to suggest giving up when she realized what she was looking for was right in front of her. “That’s it! Windswept! It isn’t on the water! It’s right there. On the left. On my side!” She slammed on the brakes, turned down the road she had almost missed, and found herself on a narrow, bumpy dirt road through the woods. During the summer, it would be impossible to look through the woods, but now, with the leaves barely covering the branches on the trees, there could be little doubt that the house they were traveling toward had no near neighbors.

“Tell me again why Donald says he allowed Mike to live in this house,” Kathleen demanded.

“He told Brett that Mike had trouble finding a place to stay on the island and, since he was working nights, didn’t want to travel back and forth to the mainland. So Donald offered Mike a room in the caretaker’s cottage on the property here in exchange for helping keep the driveway plowed in the winter.”

“I don’t understand how they even ended up in contact with each other.”

“Well, Donald claims that Mike went to the real estate agency in town looking for a place. And the agent there, who knows that the Baineses rent out their place in the summer and were looking for someone to do some minor caretaking over the winter, put them in contact with each other.”

“Makes sense.”

“Yes, but there is one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“ Shannon was doing laundry when I left and I ran down to the basement and asked her about all this and she says it’s a lie. She says that when Mike couldn’t get off the island for some reason, he sacked out in a storage room near the kitchen, that he never, ever stayed in any place owned by the Baineses.”

“Interesting… Well, will you look at that?”

“Yes.” Susan put her foot on the brake and both women stared at the sight before them. “Will you look at that?” Susan repeated Kathleen’s words.

TWENTY-SIX

“IT LOOKS LIKE IT COULD USE A BIT OF CARETAKING,” KATHLEEN said.

“It looks like it could star in an old Alfred Hitchcock movie,” Susan replied, getting out of the car without taking her eyes off the house standing before them.

“This family invests in some incredible real estate, doesn’t it?”

“I’ll say.”

“Windswept. Woodwinds. Maybe they’re just collecting mansions with similar names.” Kathleen was walking up the pebble drive toward the house.

Susan followed her, still trying to absorb the sight in front of them. Built in the shingle style so popular on the Connecticut and Long Island coasts in the early twentieth century, the house was immense and gloomy, rising out of the land without benefit of landscaping. A four-car garage sat off to one side and, as Kathleen made her way up onto the deep porch that encircled the house’s first floor, Susan wandered over to take a closer look. Windows on the floor above the car ells were curtained and she suspected this was the caretaker’s apartment that Donald had mentioned. Piles of plastic flowerpots leaned against the side of the building and she went over to rummage around for the house key.

Spiders fled and a mouse scared her almost as much as she scared it, but she didn’t find the key and was giving up her search when she heard Kathleen calling her name.

“It’s open! Susan, it’s open!” she was saying. Susan stood up and realized that her friend was standing in the doorway of the mansion. She ran over to join her. “How did you get the door open?”

“Turned the knob. Did you try the door out there?”

“It never even occurred to me.” Susan walked into the house. “It’s got to be ten degrees colder in here than it is outside.”

“Probably feels wonderful in the middle of summer,” Kathleen said, pulling her jacket closed.

“Yeah, I guess. Let’s look around.”

“Do you think Mike could have stayed here?”

“I suppose anyone could have.” Despite the bedraggled grandeur of the outside of the house, the interior had been decorated in the fashion of many vacation homes with hand-me-downs and cheap upholstered pieces. Dust bunnies hugged the corners and mouse droppings dotted the worn area rugs. Susan and Kathleen had a wonderful time looking around. The kitchen pantry was bare except for a few cans of tomato soup and a musty box of Triscuits, but there were sheets on beds in two of the nine bedrooms upstairs and one had obviously been slept in. The electricity worked although space heaters seemed to be the only source of warmth.

“He might have stayed here for a bit,” Susan said as she and Kathleen wandered into the last bedroom on the floor.

“Yeah, I guess.” Kathleen walked over to the window. “You know, we may be on the highest spot on the island. The view is incredible from here.”

Susan joined her. “You’re right. Look, there’s the Perry Island Care Center.”

“Where?”

Susan pointed.

“Wow! That is some location. Right on that thin peninsula out on the Sound. Amazing!”

Susan stared out the window. “You’re right. I didn’t realize it when I was inside the building.” She stood a while longer considering the scene before her and then turned to her friend. “I don’t think there’s anything else to be seen here. Obviously Mike Armstrong could have stayed here, but I don’t see what that proves. Let’s go out to Perry Island Care Center. Maybe we’ll come up with something there.”

Susan glanced down at her watch. “We still have about half an hour before we’re expected there.”

“Do you have another idea?”

“Yes. I’d like to see the real estate office where Blaine Baines got her start. It must be downtown.”

“Are you just curious or are you thinking of buying a second home?” Kathleen asked as they made their way downstairs.

“I’m just curious, but that’s not the story I’m going to tell anyone who asks.” She looked around as Kathleen closed the door behind them. “I wonder just how much a place like this costs.”

“Well, we’re going to the right place to find out.”

“You know, we’ve been in a lot of real estate offices in the past week, but this is the first one without the Baines name on the door,” Kathleen said, as they paused outside Perry Island Realty.