“You’re my only aunt.”
“And your favorite aunt can only take so much lake time before going stir crazy,” Hadley says, nodding down the dirt road. “Seton drove by like a bat out of hell. What’s going on?”
“Her mother’s up to something at Burkehaven,” I say.
“Another sledgehammer?”
“Innocent until proven guilty.”
“You always defend Andrea Haviland.”
“She’s nice to me,” I say. “Same as you. And I’d defend you, too.”
“Good to have an ally,” Hadley says.
I wave as I pull away and into the forest. Here, a thick canopy of trees absorbs the sun, and the woods are damp and green with new growth. A lichen-covered boulder the size of a Volkswagen marks a fork in the road. A sign to the right points toward Burkehaven, while turning left takes me to my home, Idlewood.
Haviland and Kilgore.
Seton’s the one who wants me to play sidekick. We won’t have much narrative tension if I avoid interfering where I don’t belong. Plus, I hear Julian coaching me to insert myself into the story, to be bold and ask uncomfortable questions. If he were here right now, he’d say, “It’s the only way to get to the truth.”
A moment later, the trees open on Burkehaven Cove, which sits on the southern shore of Hero Lake, five miles by boat from town, and a bit longer by car. Like Idlewood, Burkehaven is a family camp, one that used to have a small cabin on the shore and a much larger farmhouse out by the road at the base of the foothills. For years, Paul Burke’s parents maintained the property’s hiking trails and invited people in town to use the long shoreline. But Paul moved away to New York years ago, so when his mother died last year, he decided to sell out and develop the property. Now the cabin’s been leveled, along with most of the trees, replaced by mounds of earth and construction equipment.
I park in a muddy clearing next to Seton’s cruiser, get out of the car, and follow the sound of raised voices. At a bend in the shoreline, the entrance to the cove appears. Farther down, a nearly finished house sits on the point, surrounded by piles of earth ready for landscaping. As I get closer, the signature elements in Reid’s green designs come into shape: rammed earth construction, glass walls, and public and private zones surrounding a central courtyard for intergenerational living—or for hosting parties on the lake.
Hardscape stretches from the courtyard to the shore, where a long dock extends into the water. There, I recognize Andrea Haviland’s gray ponytail poking out from a green cap for the Boston Fleet hockey team. She’s anchored her boat, a Bryant 219, a few yards from shore. It’s the same model we have at Idlewood: nineteen feet long, eight-seater, right down to the maroon siding. My brother, Reid, and Paul Burke stand on the dock, along with Seton, who’s positioned herself between the two men and the boat. Her police badge flashes in the sun each time she pivots.
“There’s nothinggreenabout this development,” Mrs. Haviland says into a bullhorn, her voice echoing across the cove. “You cut down the entire shoreline.”
“It’s only us, Mom,” Seton says. “You don’t need that thing.”
“Traitor,” Mrs. Haviland says into the bullhorn.
“We’re replacing the trees,” Reid says, his blond hair poking from beneath a yellow hard hat. “We’re putting in microforests of native plantings.”
“Microforests?” Mrs. Haviland says. “What the hell is a microforest? And what’s wrong with an old-fashioned macroforest? The one that’s been here for the last hundred years?”
“Come on, Andrea,” Paul says, holding his hands out in a kind of peace offering. “Can you cut me some slack?”
“Don’t play victim, Paul,” Mrs. Haviland says. “You abandoned Hero years ago, when you took off for New York.”
Paul Burke is in his late fifties, the same age my father would be now, with a slim runner’s build and thick salt-and-pepper hair. “I can’t keep the property,” he says. “The taxes are killing me.”
“Burkehaven is worth millions,” Mrs. Haviland says. “You could sell one lot, live off the profit, and donate the rest to the conservation commission.”
“This is about access,” Reid says. “You’re desperate to keep things the way they were. I want to open the lake so people can live here.”
Mrs. Haviland scoffs. “You’re building eight houses that only the one percent can afford on land the whole town used to use. Now no one but your rich friends will haveaccess, and they’ll set up their security cameras and make sure no one else can come here even though they’ll probably use the houses for a week or two a year, tops. But guess whowillbe here. Me and my trusty bullhorn. I call her Heidi.”
“I bet you’ll be here,” Reid says. “Like you were when you smashed the security cameras.”
“I had nothing to do with that,” Mrs. Haviland says.
“Mom, take it down a notch,” Seton says. “Please.”
“You, Seton Haviland, are officially banned for life from the Landing,” Mrs. Haviland says. “Don’t even think about showing up for dinner tonight.”
“We’re replacing the cameras,” Reid says. “I’ll send you the bill. And the building permits are signed. You won’t screw me like you didwith Rocky Nook. You made your case with the zoning board and lost. There’s nothing else to do.”
