It was the day after Eberhart's arrest. Nancy and her friends were all packed for their departure from Catriola on the evening of the next day.
"It's hard to believe that three weeks have passed," said Bess.
"It's hard to believe that you've gone three weeks without shopping in a mall and you haven't complained once," said George.
"That's right," said Bess a little surprised at herself.
At lunch Mr. Fisk said, "Ivy and I will be back here next summer." Mr. Fisk gave a lingering, loving look at his daughter. Ivy averted her eyes, staring with a fixed expression down at her plate. Nancy wondered if she was still blaming herself for almost falling into Eberhart's hands. "Of course we'll drag Julia along whether she can afford the time or not. Does it surprise you, Nancy?"
"No, this is a wonderful place. I hope you have a very happy future here. I'm glad that all the things that have happened in the last three weeks haven't discouraged you."
"I think I can live with the knowledge that some of my neighbors aren't angels. Of course we can't spend much time on the island but I hope to stay long enough and often enough that the locals regard me as something more than a summer visitor."
"It's funny but I never go back to the places where I've traveled and worked on a case. I guess you could say I'm like the lone gunfighter in old westerns. I ride in, clean up the town, then I ride off into the sunset."
"But you're a gunfighter we want to have back in town. You're welcome here whenever and as often as you like. You need a quiet place to relax after all that hustle and bustle in River Heights."
Ivy spoke to Nancy after lunch. She said, "I'm sorry for running out to the rock yesterday without telling you."
"We were really worried about you," Nancy said by way of acknowledging the apology.
"I know that was a dangerous situation. Eberhart could have done anything." For a moment, Ivy's voice faltered and there was a pained expression on her face, but she recovered her composure. "I guess I was thinking that I hadn't contributed much to our investigation. And I was stupid enough to believe everything Jesse told us. I felt I had to do something to make up for it."
Nancy was quick to reassure her. "We've all put ourselves into tight spots more than a few times." Nancy smiled. "I guess you learn from your experiences."
Later, Nancy sat by herself on a rock ledge below Fisk Lookout. Only pale shreds were left of the previous day's storm clouds. A newly washed blue sky shone between the lingering clouds. It was still cool and windy. Nancy did not mind though. The rock absorbed what heat there was in the sun's rays. She found that from particular locations, if she sat at certain angles, it was possible to screen out almost all of the world and see only the serenity of the trees and the ocean beyond. It gave her an unsettling, eerie feeling. Nancy shifted her back against the flat rock surface and turned her gaze. To her surprise she saw Mr. and Mrs. Podmore strolling on the hillside below. Nancy called out to them and descended from her rocky perch.
"I didn't expect to see the two of you here, especially on a weekday."
"Well the store's open seven days a week. I'm not going to be all the time."
"And Alice can take care of the diner when I'm not there."
"I suppose congratulations are on order for the successful completion of your case," said Mr. Podmore.
"I give all the credit to the police for providing a happy ending to the investigation. I was wrong about a lot but I did figure a few things out by the end." Nancy smiled. "Speaking of that, I just wanted to tie up a loose end. Mr. Podmore, were you the one who phoned the police with the tip about Eberhart?"
"Yes," said Mr. Podmore, widening his eyes in surprise. "What I noticed that afternoon was Horace's truck on the road not far from my driveway. I thought that he might have gone down the trail there so I decided to check out what he was doing. A few minutes later I spotted him dragging a couple of black garbage bags. They were full and pretty heavy. Then he went back to get a shovel. He spent the next hour digging a big hole and dumping the contents of the bags in. You wouldn't guess what he had in those bags."
"I think I already know that part, Mr. Podmore," Nancy said politely. "Is that when you called the police?"
"Well, you have to admit it looked pretty suspicious. But it wasn't only that. I've been suspicious of him before. He's been a secretive person. For example, when I wanted to see the cabin he kept making excuses. It was as if he were guarding something inside that building. I think he only gave in because it looked too suspicious to keep saying no."
"What surprises me is that no one reported anything suspicious about Eberhart's operation earlier."
"There are people on this island who turn a blind eye to suspicious activity, Nancy." Mrs. Podmore looked darkly at her. "Oh, they'll make all kinds of excuses. They'll say they aren't going to snoop around on their neighbors. What their neighbors do isn't any of their business. They'll say that you're the exception, Nancy, for wanting to look into a mystery."
"There are even people," Mr. Podmore added, "who think that what Eberhart was doing had nothing to do with the island at all. We don't make the stuff, we don't use it, they'll say. This was only a transshipment point, so to speak. It wasn't an island problem."
"I can see that it's easy in a place like this to get isolated, from other people and from the outside world."
"But we have to fight against that," said Mrs. Podmore with surprising passion. "You have to reach out and listen to the community. You have to let all these stories flow through you and connect up. I've been here a long time Nancy, and sometimes I feel like I'm the warp of a fabric and there are all these threads running across me, and together we make up one fabric. The place, the community, me, we're one fabric." She stopped herself and grinned. "You don't expect to hear me sounding so preachy, do you?"
"Oh, I find your opinions fascinating. I could learn a lot from you."
"I was thinking of an old story or two. That's what got me rambling off topic. They're not very important, you understand. I mean, they don't change the criminal case."
"Now seems like a good time to tell me."
"Yes, you're right. The first thing I was going to mention is that Horace isn't the first person to carry out smuggling operations from this island. During the Prohibition era people used to smuggle crates of liquor into the American islands from here. The Fisk family was at the center of it, or so the story goes. That's how they got the money to buy all this land and to build their house."
Nancy listened thoughtfully. "I noticed that there's a public park named after Cyrus Fisk."
"Yes, years afterwards he donated a big chunk of money used for the park. By then they accepted him as one of the leading citizens of the island. They sort of forgot about the notoriety of his family."