The Perfect Summer (Hubbard's Point)

by Rice, Luanne

  “What do you mean, ‘know' him?” Annie asked, picking up on it.

  “Oh, I mean, he's such a fun-lover. Always up for an adventure, right?” Tara asked mildly. Like philandering, breaking your mother's heart, running out on his family, blowing the money for your tuition at the casinos . . .

  “You mean, fishing? And camping?”

  “Exactly,” Tara said.

  “But what about all that blood?” Annie asked.

  “Darling, I know,” Tara said. She stroked Annie's foot gently, staring into her godchild's worried eyes. There was nothing she could say to explain the blood. If only she could be blithe, like her own mother, and come up with reassuring but slightly askew pearls of wisdom . . . or, as her mother used to say, “pears of wisdom.”

  “Stop, Tara,” Annie said, staring at her toes. “I can't just sit here, letting you give me a pedicure. I should be out looking for him—”

  “No, you should stay right here, Annie,” Tara said. “It's getting dark out, and you can't just go—”

  “No, I have to,” Annie said, almost apologetically, getting up from the wicker couch, hobbling toward the door with her toes arched skyward. “He might need me!”

  “Annie, it's getting dark,” Tara called after her, but Annie walked out of the room, out of the house. She opened the back door, and the smell of sweet tidal decay blew in on the summer breeze. The sky was still light, the trees luminous; they were still in longest-day-of-the-year territory.

  Time to call in the mother. Tara walked upstairs and stood before Bay's closed door. She knocked once, and then walked in. Her best friend sat on the end of the bed, staring into her open hope chest, holding a bunch of letters in her hands. Tara sat beside her, slid her arm around her shoulders.

  “Your daughter is on a mission.”

  “She's gone out to find Sean.”

  “Of course. With seven toes painted pink. I suppose it will make her feel better, to be doing something, but it'll be dark soon.”

  “Okay, let's go get her,” Bay said, standing up.

  “What have you got there?”

  “Danny Connolly.”

  “What?” Tara asked, shocked by the old name.

  Tara sensed that the letters were somehow holding Bay together.

  “I kept our old letters,” Bay said. “And I found one of them on Sean's boat today.”

  “You're kidding—what would he be doing with it?”

  “I have no idea, but I also found a fax from Danny. Seems Sean got in touch with him, about having a boat built. I guess Danny's become a boatbuilder.”

  “That works.” Tara nodded. “That makes sense.”

  “It all seems so far-fetched, Sean going to Danny for anything. With all the troubles in our marriage, what good does he think can come from dredging up that part of the past?”

  “I'd say Sean isn't thinking clearly,” Tara said. “Because he sure doesn't come up looking good next to Dan Connolly—at least the Danny we all knew. That Danny would hate him for what he's put you through. Are you going to call him?”

  “I thought about it just now,” Bay said. “But I don't think so. I don't feel like dropping out of the blue after all these years and saying, ‘Oh, I hear my husband wants to buy a boat from you, and by the way—he's disappeared.' ”

  She took a long breath, as if to continue, when the front door knocker sounded downstairs. Without a word, she dropped the letters on the bed, and Tara glanced down to look. Dan Connolly—the cutest guy ever to swing a hammer within the summer realm of Hubbard's Point.

  Now, there was a man who could have gotten to Bay's soul. Not like Sean McCabe, who'd only managed to break her heart.

  IT WAS DUSK OUT, AND FIREFLIES HAD BEGUN TO BLINK IN the rosebushes as Bay opened the door. Billy and Pegeen had come inside, and she scanned for Annie even as she saw Mark Boland standing on the bottom step. Very tall, he wore a dark blue suit, a red tie, and gold-rimmed glasses. Bay tried to smile in greeting, but as she noticed his stern expression—and the even sterner looks on the faces of the two dark-suited strangers flanking him and several others behind them, and as she saw Officers Perry and Dayton climb out of their squad cars at the end of the driveway—her heart fell and her smile followed.

  “Hi, Mark,” she said.

  “Bay, we need to find Sean,” he said.

  “I know—we're all worried,” she said.

  “Worried doesn't begin to cover it,” Mark said.

  “I'm Special Agent Joe Holmes,” one of the other men said, stepping forward to shake Bay's hand and look her in the eye as if she and he were the only ones there. “I'm with the FBI. This is my colleague, Andrew Crane.”

  “The FBI?” Bay asked, and thought of what Annie had overheard and asked about earlier: the Feds.

  “If you can tell us where he is, Bay,” Mark said, his face bright red and beads of sweat thick along the border of his receding black hair. “He—”

  “This is a search warrant,” Joe Holmes said, handing Bay a piece of paper. She glanced at it as several men walked up the front steps, around her and Tara, into her house.

  “Let me see that,” Tara said, taking the paper from her hand as Bay looked down and saw “. . . data, records, documents, materials . . .” typed in.

  Bay caught the annoyance in Joe Holmes's eye as Tara took charge.

  “And you are?” he asked.

  “I'm Mrs. McCabe's consiglière,” Tara said, eyes glinting dangerously. “Just so you know.”

  Special Agents Holmes and Crane and the others brushed past them. Bay could hear their footsteps on her floors, hear them spreading out through the rooms of her house. She rushed into the kitchen. “Kids!” she called, feeling panicked. “Come here!”

  Billy and Pegeen came running down the hall, looking up at their mother.

  “Billy, honey,” Bay said, patting her pockets for money. Her hands were shaking so hard, she almost couldn't get them to work. She pulled out a ten-dollar bill and handed it to him. “Is the Good Humor truck at the beach? Will you go buy your sister an ice cream?” After-dinner Good Humors were one of the great Hubbard's Point treats, but right now both kids were rooted to the kitchen.

  “What's wrong, Mom?” Billy asked.

  “Mom, there are police cars,” Peggy whispered, staring with wide eyes out the window.

  “I know, Peggy,” Bay said, holding her close. “Try not to worry, okay? Everything will be fine. Now, will you go with your brother down to the beach?”

  “Is it Daddy? Is something wrong with Daddy?” Peggy asked in a reedy voice.

  “Everyone is looking for him,” Bay said. “We'll find him really soon. Billy?”

  Her son nodded reluctantly, and she had to hold back from kissing him. He took the money and grabbed his sister's arm. “C'mon, Peggy.”

  “I don't want to—”

  “Will you keep an eye out for your other sister, too?” Bay asked. “Annie went out a little while ago. I don't want her to be out after it really gets dark. Okay?”

  “It's almost dark now,” Peggy said.

  “Stay close to your brother. Just down to the beach, to the Good Humor truck, okay? I'll come get you in a little while.”

  The kids left the house. What should have been a treat must have felt like exile; Bay watched them walk down the sidewalk, making sure they couldn't hear her, before she wheeled to face Mark Boland.

  “The FBI?” Bay asked, totally shocked. “You called the FBI because of the blood on the boat?”

  “No,” Mark said, looking very sorry.

  Bay blinked, feeling surreal. “Why are they here, Mark? What's going on?”

  “They're investigating Sean, and have been. I received subpoenas last week, for bank records . . .”

  “What are they saying he did?” Bay asked.

  “Embezzled money,” Mark said.

  Bay felt Tara's arm around her. She shook her head. “Not Sean. He wouldn't do that.”

  “Did he ever mention the Cayman
Islands?” Mark asked. “Or Belize? Costa Rica?”

  “Only as a place to dive,” Bay said. “And to go sports fishing . . . He dreamed of taking the Aldebaran down to Belize with the kids . . . take everyone out of school and go after black marlin . . .”

  “Because that's where we think he moved the money. He could have used wire transfers to deposit funds into accounts there and in the Caymans—we're looking into a shell company, the misuse of a trust account . . .”

  “The Aldebaran?” Agent Holmes asked, coming into the kitchen with a sheaf of papers in his hand.

  “Yes—the bright red star in the constellation Taurus, the bull. It's the name of his boat.”

  “Mrs. McCabe,” Special Agent Holmes said, “we've typed the blood on the boat, chances are looking good it's your husband's. Type AB negative is uncommon.”

  “Oh, God,” Bay said, suddenly feeling weak, picturing that blood-soaked blanket.

  “If it's his, and we think it probably is, he lost a lot of blood. He would have needed medical attention . . .”

  “Did you check the hospitals?” Tara asked, supporting Bay. Her voice sounded strong and steady, almost a challenge to the agent.

  “Of course, Ms.—”

  “O'Toole,” Tara said.

  “Well, Ms. O'Toole, we've checked all the local hospitals and emergency clinics. We've found no sign of him, at all.”

  “People don't vanish into thin air,” Tara said. “My grandfather was a policeman, and he always said that.”

  “Your grandfather was right,” the agent said, his brown eyes warm but unyielding as he looked from Tara to Bay and back, locking on Tara's. “People don't vanish. But people with head wounds like Mr. McCabe's are in serious trouble.”

  “How do you know it's a head wound?” Bay asked.

  “Because we found hair and blood on the corner of a table,” Special Agent Holmes said. “Someone hit that table with great force—more than if he just lost his balance. We believe it was Sean, and he was fighting with someone, that they pushed or punched him hard.”

  “Sean wasn't a fighter,” Mark Boland said, looking pale, from the corner of the room. He pushed the hair back from his forehead, looking at Bay. “He was so easygoing.”

  “Is easygoing,” Bay corrected him sharply.

  If only Mark knew how much Sean had hated him, when he had first come over to Shoreline from Anchor Trust to take the presidency Sean had expected for himself.

  “Could he have amnesia?” Tara asked the agent. “If he hit his head?”

  “Anything is possible,” Holmes said. “But this story is going to hit the media tonight, and people will recognize him and contact us. Or call you, Mrs. McCabe. If they haven't already. Have you talked to your husband? Or has anyone seen him?”

  “No,” Bay said quietly, still struck by Mark's use of the past tense. He thought—they all thought—that Sean was long gone. And Bay knew her husband was anything but easygoing. He was fiery, edgy, wildly enthusiastic about everything he loved, and very outspoken about the things he hated. Didn't Mark know that? Sean had been a championship basketball player in high school and college. And he still played hard at everything he did. It was part of who he was. And Sean had often invited Mark aboard the Aldebaran for shark fishing tournaments off Montauk and the Vineyard, as well as to gambling outings to the casino. And golf matches at the club. How many different faces did Sean wear for people? For her?

  Bay remembered the bank's Christmas party at the yacht club last year. Raw from everything with Lindsey, Bay hadn't even wanted to go. She had wanted to stay home, hiding from everyone's prying eyes. But Sean had wrapped her in his arms, rocked her back and forth, asked her to change her mind.

  “You're the one I love,” he'd said, looking straight into her eyes. “I doubt anyone even knows what happened, but if they do, let's show them what we're made of, Bay. Please? People will talk if you stay home. They keep score about things like this—who shows up and who doesn't. Mark and Alise have their perfect marriage—”

  “Who cares, Sean? It's not what people at the bank think—it's what we have between us.”

  “I want it to be better between us; I want to be a better man,” Sean said, his eyes so intense that he caught Bay's attention; she could almost believe he meant it. “I want to stop—”

  “Stop what?” Bay asked.

  Sean had paused, bowing his head, touching his eyes. Bay had tensed up, wondering whether he was about to confess something new about Lindsey—or another woman. Now, thinking back, she wondered whether he had been about to tell her about something else.

  They had gone to the Christmas party at the yacht club. Mark and Alise had greeted them warmly, with hugs and kisses. Lindsey had done the right thing and stayed across the big open room. Frank Allingham had kissed Bay's cheek and made her promise to dance with him. Mark had grabbed Sean, pulled him aside for a moment of bank business . . . thinking back, Bay remembered that Mark had been concerned about one of Sean's private banking clients.

  “My husband is always working,” Alise had said, smiling wryly. “Even at the Christmas party, he can't just let Sean have a good time.”

  Bay remembered being mesmerized by how radiant Alise looked, as if she didn't have a worry in the world. Glowing skin, perfect pageboy hair, diamond earrings, eyes gazing adoringly at her husband. They didn't have kids, and they ran in fancier social circles than the McCabes. Lindsey, Fiona Mills, Frank Allingham—they all looked like perfect people from another world.

  Bay had felt like a wraith, burning with humiliation, just to be in the same room as Lindsey. And she hadn't missed Alise's subtle dig about Mark's seniority. But in spite of all that, she had drawn herself up tall, taken a deep breath, and smiled right back at Alise.

  “My husband never minds taking care of bank business,” Bay said lightly. “You know he'd do anything for his clients, Alise.”

  Now, with the police and FBI swarming through her house, she cringed at the memory. And she thought of Sean's words: “I want to stop.”

  Stop what?

  “Mrs. McCabe,” Special Agent Holmes said. “When you hear from Sean, or if someone calls to tell you they've seen him, I want you to contact me.”

  Bay just stared at him, frozen by memories.

  “Bay always does the right thing, Mr. Holmes,” Tara said, drawing herself up, tossing her black hair back from her tan face. She was black Irish, all fire and nerve. “You can count on that.”

  5

  THIRTEEN DAYS PASSED.

  And in thirteen days, nearly half of one precious summer month, so much happened, and so much didn't. The local press was filled with stories about Sean's alleged embezzlement and disappearance. News trucks from New Haven and Hartford parked outside the McCabes' house. Bay tried to protect the kids from all of it, but it started to feel as if they were living in a fishbowl. One reporter called to Pegeen as she came out the front door, and she started to cry and ran back inside.

  “How do they know our names?” Peggy cried. “Why are they here? Where's Daddy?”

  “The police are still looking for him,” Bay said. “They'll find him, honey.”

  “But they're looking for him because they say he's bad,” Peggy wept. “He's not, Mommy. Tell them he's not!”

  “I will, Peggy.” Bay held and soothed her, boiling inside. When Peggy had calmed down, Bay kissed her forehead, then walked to the door. She took a deep breath, then went down the steps. Flashes snapped, and hand-held video cameras were shoved in her face. Her red hair was a mess, her shirt and shorts wrinkled and salty.

  “Mrs. McCabe, what do you think—”

  “Where is your husband?”

  “What do you say about the allegations that—”

  “The bank trustees blame—”

  Bay took a deep shuddering breath. The reporters, thinking she was about to reply, fell silent. She looked slowly around the crowd, saw all the microphones, cleared her throat.

  “Leave my children alo
ne,” she said quietly, with passion and menace in her heart.

  A moment of shocked silence, and then the questions began again. “The bank . . . your husband . . . serious head wound . . . his whereabouts . . . the accounts . . . the allegations . . .”

  Bay had said all she needed to say. Without another word, she walked back inside her house and closed the door behind her. She called Billy and Peggy downstairs; Annie had gone to Tara's. Her two younger children faced her with fear and trepidation in their eyes.

  “What did you say to them, Mom?” Billy asked.

  “I told them to leave us alone.”

  “Didn't you tell them Daddy is good? I thought you were going to tell them that he's good! They can't keep saying such terrible things about him,” Peg said, the words spilling out. “Everyone has the wrong idea. We have to tell everyone the truth about him!”

  “Yeah,” Billy said. “Peggy's right about that. We have to tell everyone what a great guy Dad is. I'm sick of those jerks writing lies about him! I'm gonna go outside and tell them the real story!”

  “No,” Bay said. “I don't want you to do that, Billy. Do you hear me?”

  Billy's jaw was set tight, his eyes full of fight. He was stubborn, just like his father. Bay wouldn't look away.

  “Do you hear me?”

  Billy nodded, but his face stayed tense.

  “From now on, until the reporters leave, I want you to use the back door. Cut through the yard to the marsh, and go to the beach that way. Okay? No one's going to follow you through the mud. Don't talk to any of them. We want to give your father a chance to explain all this.”

  “Is he coming home?” Billy asked.

  Bay's heart thudded. “I hope so, Billy.”

  “What if bad people hit him over the head and threw him overboard?” Peggy asked.

  “I swear, I'll kill anyone who hurt Dad,” Billy said.

  “Me, too,” Peg said.

  “Don't talk like that,” Bay said gently, looking into their troubled eyes. “Your father tripped and hit his head on the table. The police told us that. Remember?”