Last Day

by Luanne Rice

  “Moonlight,” Tom said. “Maybe Harris took it.”

  Reid drank, staring into the mirror behind the bar. “Funny,” he said. “He’s not into art, but he could be into the moon.”

  “Let me guess. Big dreams of being an astronaut?” Tom asked.

  “Nope. But he probably taught those college students about the moon.”

  “Yeah?” Tom asked. “What’d he teach?”

  “Astronomy,” Reid said. “He loves the stars. Claims that’s why he had those other postcards. Small Connecticut towns with night skies dark enough to see the stars.”

  His brother stared at him. “Well, that’s it.”

  “What?”

  “Pete’s a sailor. We both saw him at Menemsha, aboard Huntress. They’d been out in the ocean.”

  “I don’t follow,” Reid said.

  “The stars, idiot.”

  “Okay. They’re over the ocean. And every other place,” Reid said.

  “Celestial navigation,” Tom said. “It’s old school, but a lot of yacht guys like Pete learn it. They buy expensive sextants, find someone to teach them to shoot sun lines, steer by the stars. Makes them feel like old salts, worthy of their million-dollar yachts.”

  Reid’s mind was racing. He wasn’t a sailor himself, would have had no idea how to recognize a sextant if his brother hadn’t lived his life on the sea. He could picture the heavy mahogany box his brother’s sextant was stored in, the beautiful brass instrument inside, with fine optics and a half-moon-protractor-looking component, used to measure angles between the horizon and the sun, the earth, and the stars. Had anything like that been cataloged at the gallery, at the Lathrops’ house?

  “Your phone’s ringing,” Tom said, gesturing.

  Reid grabbed it off the bar. He recognized Kate’s number.

  “Conor Reid,” he said, answering. Playing it cool.

  “Do you know about Jed Hilliard?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, drawing a blank on the name. “Why?”

  “Because he’s someone my sister loved. I’m beginning to wonder if Pete was even the father of her baby,” she said.

  Reid was stunned. He’d never even heard of him. “I’ll be right over.”

  When he hung up, Tom nodded.

  “You’ve got to go,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Reid said.

  Tom gestured at Reid’s half-empty glass. “I got this. Next time’s on you. And think about the connection.”

  “The stars,” Reid said. And he left the bar.

  33

  It was nearly midnight. Tyler had a cold, and Nicola rocked him, trying to get him to sleep. She couldn’t bear that he was so uncomfortable, and Pete’s glower from across Mathilda’s library didn’t help. He wasn’t supposed to be here in Mathilda’s house—Kate had been very clear about that—but he’d spent at least part of every night with her and Tyler. He wanted Nicola to be grateful for it, but mostly it wore her out and made her nervous. The French doors were open to a cool breeze blowing off the river. The late-summer sounds of crickets, rustling leaves, and a distant owl came through.

  “You don’t have to stay,” Nicola said to Pete.

  “I’m waiting for him to stop crying.”

  “Well, he’s not feeling well.”

  “I realize that,” Pete said with exaggerated patience.

  “It’s normal for babies.”

  “It wasn’t normal for Sam. Beth always seemed to know just what to do. She always got Sam to sleep through the night.”

  “Guess I’m not Beth.”

  “I guess you’re not.”

  Things had changed so drastically. Back when Nicola was working at the gallery and she and Pete were first getting together, he spoke about all the things Beth did wrong. How she wasn’t supportive of him, how she had always been distracted by gallery work, neglecting Sam. He’d complained about how she would rather catalog paintings for the next show instead of watching Sam’s soccer games.

  Now all he did was praise Beth. Nicola thought his current attitude reflected the real Beth, not the one he’d created to justify their affair. Nicola had loved her; she could say that honestly.

  Contrary to what Pete used to say, Beth had been a great mother. Having a great mother herself, Nicola knew. Although Beth had money and could have afforded a nanny, she did everything with and for Sam. She had dreamed of a great life for Sam, and the deepest thorn in Nicola’s heart was that her relationship with Pete had devastated both his wife and daughter.

  “I never would have thought you could do this,” Beth had said to Nicola. It was a week after the nightmare, when Beth had let herself into Mathilda’s house, caught her resting in bed beside Pete, seen Tyler in the antique cradle. Beth had called Nicola, asked her to meet her at the coffee shop next to the Black Hall A&P. Nicola had been so scared, holding the car seat in which her three-week-old infant slept, approaching the booth where Beth sat, and sitting across from her.

  “It just happened,” Nicola said.

  “Like a lightning strike, like a hurricane?”

  “Don’t say it like that. Don’t make fun of me,” Nicola said. “I never wanted to hurt you.” She actually heard those movie-sappy words coming out of her mouth.

  “It’s not just me; it’s Sam,” Beth said. “I think she’s known all along. That’s why she’s slipping in school. She knew what her father was doing, and she had to protect me.”

  “I care about Sam.”

  “Don’t insult me by pretending you do,” Beth said.

  Nicola felt the words like a kick in the face.

  “I thought the world of you. Both Kate and I did. We wanted to support you. We knew how hard you worked to get where you are, how you excelled all along the way. I wanted that for Sam. I wanted schools like the ones you went to.”

  “She can still have them.”

  “Right now she can’t even show up for her stage design workshop. She has stomach pains and had to drop out. She’s a wreck, and it’s because of you and her father.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Nicola said.

  “What you think you have with him isn’t real,” Beth said.

  “It is,” Nicola said softly, glancing at Tyler.

  The waitress came by to take Nicola’s order and refill Beth’s coffee cup. Nicola shook her head, sent her away. There were maroon paper place mats on the table, and Beth moved hers closer to Nicola. She slid the salt and pepper shakers and the sugar bowl onto her place mat.

  “You don’t know him,” Beth said. “Or maybe you do. Haven’t you seen his moods?”

  Nicola made sure she showed no emotion.

  “This is me,” Beth said, pointing at the salt, “and this is Pete.” She touched the pepper. “Here is Sam,” she said, holding the sugar bowl in both her hands. “No matter how I feel about him now, this is our family.” She met Nicola’s eyes, a sharp expression in hers. She tapped her coffee spoon, and it slid onto the floor. “And that’s you. You’re off the place mat. You’re out of our lives.”

  “Not out of Pete’s,” Nicola said. The waitress came by to pick up the spoon and give Beth a clean one.

  “You are,” Beth said as the waitress left. “You just don’t realize it yet. He’s not capable. I’ll do anything for Sam, and when it comes down to it, so will Pete.” Her gaze was hard and furious, and she raised her hand as if she wanted to hit Nicola.

  “Tyler needs his father too,” Nicola said.

  A look of deep anguish crossed Beth’s face. Her whole demeanor changed. She crumpled, putting her head in her hands. Nicola wanted to reach across the table to comfort her. She started to, hand hovering above the back of Beth’s head. But she had known it would make everything worse, so she had lowered her hand and touched her sleeping son instead.

  Now, sitting in the cozy library with Pete, Nicola caressed their son’s head again. It felt warm, but not like before. The fever was breaking. His crying had subsided, and she knew he was ready to fall asleep. The breeze had picked
up, and the air was suddenly cool. Nicola wore a sage-green cashmere shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Afraid Tyler would get a chill, Nicola pulled the shawl off and tucked it around him.

  “Fresh air is good for him,” Pete said.

  “He still has a little fever.”

  “You coddle him.”

  “Pete, you’re being unreasonable.”

  She saw him scowl, and she waited for his anger. He hated being challenged. She thought about asking to see his back. She could wash and dress his wounds, kiss them so tenderly. It might head him off, stop him from blowing up. He opened his mouth to say something, but then his phone rang. He answered, keeping his eyes on Nicola, but then he walked out the French doors to take the call in private. When he returned, he looked angrier than ever.

  “Is everything okay?” Nicola said.

  “No,” Pete said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Sam is spending the night at Kate’s. And you know why, don’t you?”

  Nicola shook her head.

  “Because I’m here. Trying to keep you happy instead of being home with my daughter, where I belong.”

  “Then go,” Nicola said.

  “It’s too late now,” Pete said. “She’s at her aunt’s. I swear to God, if Kate keeps poisoning her against me . . .”

  “No one can do that,” Nicola said, staring at Pete with all the truth in the world. “Sam loves you. You’re all she has left.”

  “Yes,” Pete said, looking away from Nicola and Tyler.

  34

  “Hello, Kate,” Reid said, meeting her and Popcorn outside her loft on Bank Street at midnight, a few blocks from where he’d just left Tom at the Y-Knot. “Jed Hilliard.”

  “My sister loved him,” Kate said with a note of despair in her voice. Reid was a little buzzed. He focused on her face, on the lines in her forehead, and he felt her unhappiness. “And she didn’t tell me.”

  Ah, Kate, Reid thought. Close sisters, a secret between them. That could hurt. It could break a heart.

  “Who was he to her?” Reid asked.

  “An artist she met. And cared about, and encouraged. And . . . fell in love with.”

  “And Pete found out?” Reid asked, checking another box in the motive column.

  “That I don’t know. Not yet, but I will find out.”

  “Take it easy, Kate. Tell me the details, and I’ll track it all down. Where did she meet him?”

  “At Ainsworth,” she said. “Visiting our father. And later at the soup kitchen.”

  Ainsworth. Martin Harris had been incarcerated there too, and Reid wondered if Harris and Jed had known each other. Or if Harris had known Garth Woodward, for that matter.

  “You’re thinking something,” Kate said, grabbing Reid’s hand. “I can tell.”

  Reid held her hand tighter. The whiskey was hitting him.

  “You’re right; I am,” he said. Could she smell the whiskey on him? Did he seem too loose? He couldn’t seem to let go of her hand.

  “I want to know—please tell me.”

  “Did you ever hear of anyone named Martin Harris? Did Beth mention him? Or your father?”

  “I don’t think so; why?”

  “Someone from Ainsworth who might have run into Beth,” Reid said, deliberately vague.

  “The name doesn’t sound familiar,” she said. “But, Conor, she was head over heels. I think Jed might have been the reason she was going to leave Pete. Now I wonder if Matthew was Pete’s baby at all. What if he was Jed’s?”

  Reid thought of the screwup, how he hadn’t requested a paternity test during the autopsy. He swallowed hard, couldn’t bring himself to tell Kate, and it seemed she hadn’t yet thought of it herself. She seemed to be reeling, just coming to grips with the fact her sister had had a lover she hadn’t known about.

  “This might sound out of left field,” he said, “but do you know if Pete is into celestial navigation?”

  She seemed taken aback, thrown off course from thinking about Beth and Jed.

  “Why?” she asked. “What would that have to do with the case?”

  “I’m just curious.”

  “He was interested in it,” Kate said. “Not seriously, but because of sailing, he thought it would be good to know.”

  “Does he have a sextant?”

  “No,” she said. “But I do. I need to navigate to fly. My grandmother thought it was just as important to be able to fly by the stars as it was by using instruments. I have the sextant she gave me, and I loaned it to Pete so he could practice.”

  “When was that?” Reid asked, his pulse quickening.

  “I’m not sure exactly. Maybe a year ago? Something like that,” Kate said.

  Reid nodded. What if Pete had encountered Harris while studying how to steer by the stars? Maybe Harris had been his teacher. Maybe Harris had figured out Pete’s crime because of something they had talked about. Pete was the bragging type. He might have felt comfortable confiding in a guy who had committed atrocious crimes against women, a guy who might admire Pete for the way he had killed his wife. Or what if Pete had used Harris to actually kill Beth?

  Reid and Kate were standing on the sidewalk in the middle of New London, the ambient light from apartments and bars and streetlights filling the sky, making it hard to see stars. But he looked up, and there were a few visible through the city’s bright haze. He couldn’t identify them, but they were there.

  Reid looked into Kate’s eyes. He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t just had two scotches, but he brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. Was it his imagination, or was she leaning into it? There was so much he wanted to tell her.

  He raised his gaze again, looking into the sky.

  “Beth and I used to look up too,” Kate whispered. “And we’d make wishes.”

  “You did?” he asked.

  “Yes. They didn’t all come true, but some of them did.”

  “What did you wish on?” he asked.

  “The stars, of course,” she said.

  Reid nodded. He stared into her eyes for a long time, thought of her and Beth, their wishes, their grandmother and her sextant, celestial navigation. He thought of his brother and what he had said barely twenty minutes ago.

  The connection between Pete and Harris: the stars.

  35

  “Let’s go for a ride,” Kate said. It had been two days since Sam had seen her father, two nights since she had started staying at the loft again. Kate had given Conor Jed’s name and told him what she knew. The murder was his investigation, but learning more about Beth’s secret life was Kate’s. Perhaps the two would intersect.

  “Where will we go?” Sam asked.

  “I was thinking the Ledges.”

  “I haven’t been there in a long time,” Sam said.

  “Neither have I.”

  They climbed into Kate’s Porsche. It was a tight squeeze with Popcorn crammed into the tiny back seat along with a canvas bag filled with picnic things. Kate put the top down, and they took back roads through the hills and countryside. The wind blew through Kate’s and Sam’s hair, and Popcorn rode with his tongue out and ears flying back in pure bliss. Passing Mathilda’s gates, Kate glanced at Sam, who stared straight ahead.

  A few bends in the road later, she pulled between two crumbling stone pillars. The driveway was cracked and rutted with unrepaired frost heaves. There was a parking area a quarter mile in, and as soon as the car stopped, Popcorn bounded out and ran to the edge of the field.

  “Which way do you want to go?” Kate asked. The choices were up the hill toward the abandoned stone house built high on a granite ledge or down a dirt trail to the river. The formal gardens were near the house, but rose mallows grew in abundance along the swampy inlet. Her father had said he’d suggested that Jed Hilliard come here to draw flowers.

  “River,” Sam said.

  They trekked through a meadow, silvery in sunlight. The tall grass was crisscrossed with deer trails. A gray ghost—a northern h
arrier—flew low over the marsh in search of prey. The amphitheater loomed on the cliff above. Kate’s family had spent so many happy Sundays there, but now it was a wreck, crumbling stones taken over by weeds and vines, Connecticut’s own version of ancient ruins.

  “This place made Mom nervous,” Sam said.

  “She brought you here?”

  “Yeah, sometimes, but she was always afraid of deer ticks and Lyme disease. The grass would tickle her legs, and she’d jump.”

  “What would she and you do?”

  Sam shrugged. “Sketch, mainly. Or she’d tell me stories about how the Black Hall artists would come here over a hundred years ago, set up their easels, and paint the view. You know, there weren’t enough women.”

  “Really?” Kate asked.

  “Yep. Matilda Browne and Mary Cassatt were the only women who really made it as American Impressionists. I mean, Miss Florence ran the boarding house for artists, but she wasn’t one herself. Willard Metcalf was my favorite, but he looked down on girls who came for art lessons, so now I’m not sure how I feel about him. Did you know he called girls blots, as in blots on the landscape?”

  “I’ve heard that,” Kate said, picturing the panel at the museum, Poor Little Bloticelli—a fifteen-year-old girl in her straw hat and white dress, painting at her easel. Kate had gone through the same thing at Sam’s age, being disillusioned by the artists’ lives and wondering if it was okay to still love their art.

  They walked toward a stand of weeping willow trees, and Kate set down the canvas bag. She shook out a plaid picnic blanket, handed Sam her sandwich, and opened her own. They sat by the river, eating lunch, watching kayakers paddle along the Essex side. A fifty-five-foot boat with a catamaran hull headed slowly south, carrying tourists on a nature cruise. She glanced at Sam. If Sam had spent lots of time here with her mother, how big of a letdown must it be to come here now with her aunt?

  “See that island?” Sam asked, pointing.

  “Yes,” Kate said. She knew it well. Growing up at her grandmother’s, she’d heard all about the granite quarries worked in the early twentieth century for stone to pave New York City. Rare indigo hummingbirds were known to nest there every ten years. Most magical were the giant lotus lilies, completely unknown to the United States, that had bloomed on the island.