Dark Nantucket Noon by Jane Langton Page B

Roper was bringing up a chair. The formalities were over. “You’re representing Miss Clark, I understand,” he said. He sat down on the other side of his desk, behind a pile of Wall Street Journals.
    â€œYes. Would you mind repeating for me what you told Chief Pike last week?”
    â€œCertainly. Glad to oblige. Where shall I start?”
    â€œWell, first of all,” said Homer, “you might tell me anything you know about Helen Green’s physical condition. I saw the autopsy report yesterday. It mentioned some old black-and-blue marks on her arms and legs. Do you know anything about that? According to her husband’s statement she had fallen downstairs earlier in the week. Is that accurate?”
    Richard Roper smiled. “Well, if he said so, I presume that’s what happened. If you’re thinking he beat her, or something absurd like that, you’re off on the wrong track. As for her health, I would say she was a woman in splendid physical condition. I admit I have an eye for feminine pulchritude, and Helen Green was one of the most purely beautiful women I’ve ever encountered. Classic features, golden hair. A real goddess. You know, tall and strong, like whooseywhatsis. Diana, the goddess of the hunt.”
    Homer felt a pang on behalf of Kitty Clark’s dark hair and brooding face, which had been set aside for the sake of this goddess. “I only saw the corpse,” he mumbled crudely. “Tell me, Mr. Roper, why did you and your wife decide to go to Great Point?”
    â€œWell, Letty told me the Greens were planning to see the eclipse from Great Point. She writes for the paper, you see, and she was the one who wrote that story about what people were planning to do that day. So I suggested we go out there too, and then we could see the eclipse from the top of the lighthouse. Seemed a good place. The Chief Officer of the Nantucket Coast Guard is an old buddy of mine and I knew we could get the key from him. He and I often go out there in my old Chris-Craft to do a little fishing off Great Point Rip. Blues, mostly. Best fishing around the island. Helen knew that. She used to go out there too, and we’d see her surf casting plenty of times. She used to take that jeep all over the place. Of course she wasn’t like some of those fools who tear up the grass that holds the dunes in place and drive over the nests of the terns in June. She was a real sportswoman, all right. Powerful golf and tennis player too. Anyway, I called her up and we arranged to go out to Great Point as a foursome to see the eclipse.”
    â€œThen there were the five of you out there, right? You and your wife, and Joe and Helen Green, and Arthur Bird?”
    â€œThat’s right. Bird was already there when we got to the lighthouse. He’s sort of a friend of Joe’s. Although I gather Joe didn’t much like the way he hung around all the time. Kind of a pain in the neck—you could see that.”
    â€œWhat time did you leave home to go out to Great Point?”
    â€œAt noon. We set off in Joe’s jeep from his house at twelve o’clock. We had arranged to leave half an hour earlier but Helen was late. She’d been shopping. But we still had plenty of time to get there before the interesting part of the eclipse began. Must have been about twelve-thirty when we got to the lighthouse. The partial phase of the eclipse was just beginning. We all sat down on the west side of the lighthouse, eating our picnic lunch. And then a few minutes before totality we picked up our stuff and went upstairs. Helen saw a snake. I forgot about that. It was kind of a funny thing. She’d forgotten her bag, so after starting up the stairs she ran back down to get it, and when she started up again after us she said she’d seen a snake slithering away in the sand. Must have been that weird sort of darkness that had us all seeing things. Well, you know what it was