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How could a lighthouse be for sale? Weren’t they public domain? Nate pictured the wooden structure. Nearly everyone in Finnegan Cove was connected to the lighthouse, some in a good way, some in a bad, and in the case of two families, connected tragically.
But for Nate, the building had been a refuge, one he’d eventually come to think of as his personal space. Almost as if the abandoned structure had needed him as much as he needed it.
Until that night in 1988.
Harley cleared his throat. “Aren’t you going to say something?”
Nate tried to keep his voice calm. “The lighthouse is absolutely the worst place you could go. I can’t believe you’re even considering it.”
Harley hesitated. “You have to trust me on this, Nate.”
“But it doesn’t make sense, Dad.”
“I checked into it. The price is right. Eighty thousand dollars.”
As if price was the only concern. But Nate followed this thread of thought. “That’s all? There can’t be much value to the building if that’s what they’re asking. Who’s selling it, anyway?”
“The town council. They’ve owned it since the Coast Guard deeded it to them in the sixties.”
All at once time stood still for Nate. He pictured the six-story beacon tower protruding from the roof of the small cottage flanked by oak trees. He and his father had guided their commercial fishing boat into the channel by its light many times. The closer they got to the lighthouse, the closer they were to home. Those, at least, were good memories, because that was when they’d had a home.
The wheels began to turn in Nate’s head as he struggled to come up with a positive aspect to his father’s decision. Harley was right about one thing. The Finnegan Cove Lighthouse was remote, sheltered, private. As long as he was set on going back there, maybe this was the perfect spot for him.
Nate sat forward, rested his arms on the steering wheel. “Do you know what condition the place is in?” he asked. He wondered when the light station had been built, and seemed to recall a date from the late eighteen hundreds. “It could be falling down.”
“I suppose,” Harley conceded. “But I saw a picture of it. Doesn’t look too bad. And I could fix it up. I’d enjoy doing that.”
“We should have somebody look at it, someone who knows about architectural structure,” Nate said, hoping this logical step would put an end to his father’s irrational plan.
“Fine.” He paused. “Maybe I should try to call—”
Sensing what his father was about to say, and knowing how his brother would react to a call from Harley, Nate stopped him. “Let me handle it,” he said. He had been gone for two decades, only traveling to Michigan once or twice a year to visit his father at the Foggy Creek Correctional Facility. And he’d never been back to Finnegan Cove. But he did know that Mike, a contractor who lived in Sutter’s Point about twenty miles away, was a stranger to both of them now. That was how Mike wanted it. “Let me make the phone call,” he said, and then realized, because of his current schedule, there was nothing to keep him in Los Angeles. “Maybe I’ll fly out and take a look at the place myself.”
“That’d be great, son,” his father said, clearly pleased. “I might be seeing you soon, eh?”
“Maybe. I’ll talk to you.”
He disconnected, shook his head and got out of his car. This was a crazy idea. If that lighthouse hadn’t washed into Lake Michigan, it had to be pretty damn close. But all at once the thought of buying that old place, fixing it up…well, maybe his father had hit on an interesting idea. A project like that, both of them working with their hands, as they had in the old days, when they used to pull in nets loaded with the catch of the day, might be exactly what he and Harley needed.
Of course, the first step in evaluating the practicality of this plan wasn’t going to be easy. Nate hadn’t spoken to his brother in years.
He took the elevator to the fourteenth floor, went inside his condo and got his address book from the desk. He poured himself a gin and tonic and sat at the bar. Then he punched in the phone number of Mike Shelton. Maybe his brother wouldn’t be too busy on a Friday evening to talk to him. If he’d talk to him at all.
A kid answered the phone. Nate’s nephew. He’d be ten now. “Is Mike there?” Nate asked.
“Yes. Who’s calling?”
The boy didn’t react to hearing Nate’s name, just said he’d get his dad. A few seconds later, his brother came on the line. “Nate?” He didn’t even try to hide his surprise. Or the mistrust.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“What do you want?”
He pictured his older brother, brawny, muscles bulging from hard work, eyes tired from reading blueprints. The perpetual scowl on his face that Nate hadn’t seen in years, but figured was still there. “I have news.” Nate waited for a reaction, received none. “Dad’s being paroled.”
He heard Mike grunt. “They’re letting him out?”
“It’s been twenty years, Mike. He was due to have a parole hearing.”
“Whoopee. And this affects me how?”
Nate thought about suggesting that Mike make an effort to see their father, but he knew the futility of that. Mike lived only two hours away from the penitentiary. He’d never once made the trip to Foggy Creek. He’d never even put a stamp on a Christmas card.
“I could use your help,” Nate said.
“Hey, if this involves Harley, count me out. You know how I feel.”
“Yes, I do, but I’m asking for me.”
Nate held his breath, knowing a favor between two estranged brothers wasn’t likely to get a more favorable reaction than one between an estranged father and son.
Surprisingly, Mike said, “What do you need me to do?”
“Dad’s moving back to Finnegan Cove when he gets out in a few weeks.”
“He’s what?” The question was a bark of disbelief.
“I know. I thought it was a bad idea, too. But he’s determined.”
“He’s a mental case, Nathaniel.”
Nate shook his head, not bothering to argue. The Harley Shelton Nate knew today was as calm and rational as anyone he’d ever met. At least that’s what Nate had believed until Harley said he was moving back to the Cove.
“Nevertheless,” Nate continued, “he’s decided to buy the old lighthouse. That’s where he wants to live.”
“Now I know he’s gone off the deep end,” Mike said. “Have you seen that place?”
“No. You have?”
“I’ve been to the Cove a time or two on projects. Drove by it.”
“Oh.” Nate calmly explained the situation, giving Mike time to criticize between sentences.
“I don’t want anything to do with this,” Mike said when he’d finished.
“Just look at the place for me,” Nate said. “I need a professional opinion on how bad the building is, what it would take to fix it up. Can’t you at least meet me down there? You won’t have to see Dad.”
An uncomfortable silence stretched into long seconds. “All right,” Mike finally said. “When are you getting here?”
“I have to take care of some things, but I’ll be flying out on Tuesday. Can you meet me in Finnegan Cove on Wednesday morning?”
“I’ll meet you at the light station at ten o’clock,” Mike said. “Before then, I’ll make a couple of calls, see what I can find out about the old place.” He paused. “And Nate?”
“Yeah?”
“This is it. Don’t ask me to get involved any more than this one visit.”
“Okay. Deal.”
CHAPTER TWO
Finnegan Cove, Michigan
April
J ENNA RACED DOWN the narrow coast route. She didn’t have to worry about cars approaching on the other side of the road. Few drivers were out at six o’clock on a Wednesday morning. If she hurried, she’d just make it to the bakery in time to help with the first tray of doughnuts.
She stretched her back muscles and stuck her arm out her open window. Maybe staying at the college library until eleven and then grabbing a few hours sleep at a friend’s place near campus hadn’t been such a good idea. She wasn’t exactly the fresh young age of a college kid, who could jump up from an air bed and jog into the start of her day. At thirty-three, she found her muscles were protesting.
She rounded a bend and kept her eyes straight ahead, determined not to look at the lighthouse. But as always, she couldn’t resist the haunting pull it had over her. In fact, she slowed her Jeep to a crawl.
The abandoned building rose like a specter in the dawn. Even through the grove of great oak trees, Jenna could see the peeling paint on the tower’s exterior walls, the crumbling stairs to the front door of the keeper’s cottage. The Fresnel lens at the top of the tower had been removed years before, after some kids had destroyed it with buckshot.
Jenna’s grandmother hated to see the building this way. She’d been raised in the small cottage, where her father had been the last light keeper of the Finnegan Cove Station. Hester had fond memories of her childhood along the lake, and the man who’d protected the shoreline. Jenna used to feel the same, but that was before the murder.
The For Sale sign that had been sitting in the yard in front of the lighthouse for over six months creaked in the early morning breeze. To Jenna’s knowledge, no one had made an offer or even looked at the place. But that would change if she had her way.
She stepped on the accelerator and sped by. Ten minutes later she swept through the louvered doors that separated the public area of Cove Bakery from the kitchen. Her mother had left the front door unlocked, probably unwise so early in the morning. Everyone, and especially Marion Malloy, knew that crime visited even this normally peaceful town.
Her mother was stacking loaves of fresh-baked bread onto the chrome rack. “Sorry I’m late,” Jenna said.
“It’s okay. I’ve got the croissants baking, and three dozen pastries are ready.” Marion wiped her hands on her apron. “Have you heard the news?”
News? Jenna had only been gone since yesterday, when she’d left for night class. “Guess not. Something going on?”
“I’ll say. Bill Hastings called last night to tell me someone had inquired about buying the lighthouse.”
Jenna froze, her hands wrapped around a stainless-steel bowl of dough. “What? Who?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say. He just told me that a guy asked the Realtor a lot of questions about the building’s condition.”
Jenna grabbed a rolling pin and began pushing it furiously over the mound of dough she’d just slapped onto a floured cutting board. “What time is it?”
Marion glanced at her watch. “Twenty minutes after six. Why?”
“I’ve got somewhere to be at eight-thirty when Shirley gets here.”
“Where?”
“Just out.”
Marion frowned. “I know what you’re doing. You’re going to the mayor’s office to see what Bill knows about the potential buyer.”
Three Bronx cheers for a mother’s radar. “Maybe I can get him to tell me who’s interested.”
“Let it go, Jenna. That old building isn’t worth your time or worry.”
“I know that, Mom. Nobody knows that better than you and me. But I have plans for that place.”
Jenna had to strain to hear her what her mother said next, but she thought she could make out “obsession.”
“I’m aware of your plans, honey,” Marion said, “but I just don’t want you drawing attention to our family by pressuring Bill Hastings. People will talk.”
Jenna couldn’t believe her mother’s bland reaction to this possible sale. “I want them to talk, Mom. It will take more money and more people on my side before I can buy that place and tear it down.” She stopped rolling out the dough, and stared at her mother. “That lighthouse represents a very sad period of this town’s history, not just our own past.”
“And how close are you to having a down payment on that eighty thousand?”
Jenna frowned, picked up a cookie cutter and layered perfectly round biscuit dough on a baking sheet. “I just need a few more months, maybe a year.”
“I wish you’d forget about this, Jenna,” Marion said. “A young woman like you should be looking to the future, thinking about marriage, a family.”
“I am thinking about those things. All the time.”
Marion sprinkled a row of crullers with cinnamon sugar. “If you’re talking about George, then I have to point out that you’ve been planning this so-called future with him for the past three years, and there’s still no ring on your finger.”
Jenna gave her a sharp glance. “Do you really want to go there, Mom? Because if we discuss the subject of who’s living in the past, I’ll point out that you haven’t had a date since Daddy died twenty years ago.” She immediately regretted she’d said it when she saw the familiar veil of sadness creep over her mother’s eyes. Jenna stopped working and reached for her hand. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”
Marion shrugged. “Don’t apologize. You’re right. I just don’t want to see you follow the path I’ve taken. You’re only thirty-three. You can still make a life outside of this bakery. You’ve made a good start by taking nursing classes at the college, but you’ve got to get over this… thing you have about the lighthouse.”
Jenna stepped back. “I won’t rest until it’s torn down and something positive stands in its place. Something that serves Daddy’s memory.”
Jenna shoved a baking sheet into the oven. “And I am making a life, Mom. I’m going to graduate soon. I’ll have my nursing degree. And I have George. Once I see a beautiful green park in place of that lighthouse, my life will be just about perfect!”
Marion sighed. Jenna walked by her, picked up a waxed bag and stuffed a half-dozen chocolate-covered doughnuts into it.
“Who are those for?” her mother asked.
“Who else? Bill Hastings.” Jenna rattled the bag in the air. “If I can’t reach him with gentle persuasion, I know he’ll accept a bribe.”
“What are you going to do if he does tell you who the interested party is? Are you going to accost the guy?”
Jenna closed the sack and set it aside. “Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I’ll make a friend of him. I’ll tell him if he tears down the lighthouse, I’ll suggest my plan for something in its place and he can name it the Joseph Malloy—John Doe Park.”
T WO HOURS LATER , Jenna entered the reception area of the mayor’s office and nodded to Bill Hastings’s secretary.
“Morning, Jenna,” Lucinda said.
“Hi. Is he in?”
