Claw Enforcement

by Sofie Ryan

“And you look very handsome,” I said.

  “Thank you. The credit goes to Rosie.” He turned and smiled at her.

  Alfred Peterson was a small man with just a few tufts of gray hair and warm brown eyes behind wire-framed glasses. He may have looked like the stereotypical grandpa who showed up in life insurance ads, but he had a keen, curious mind and computer skills that rivaled hackers a fraction of his age. Most of the time he favored knit golf shirts and pants that tended to creep up to his armpits, but tonight he was dressed in a pair of charcoal gray trousers with a lighter gray turtleneck sweater and a black tweed blazer.

  I shifted my attention to Rose. She was wearing a long-sleeved teal dress with a dove gray coat and gray shoes. “You look so pretty,” I said. “I like that color on you.”

  Rose Jackson was just shy of five feet tall with short white hair and kind gray eyes. She had the type of skin that belonged in a face cream commercial and she could have lied about how old she was if she’d been willing to listen to Liz and color her hair the way Liz did. In theory, the two of us living next door to each other shouldn’t have worked—she had changed my diapers, after all—but it did. We gave each other lots of space—and, in truth, Rose had way more of a personal life than I did.

  She reached up to pat my cheek as she moved past me. “Thank you, my dear,” she said. “I may be a senior citizen, but I’ve still got it.” She squared her shoulders and gave her head a little toss as she headed out the door.

  “That she does,” Mr. P. said, one eyebrow rising slightly as he followed her.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and gave my head a little shake as I brought up the rear. There were some things about Rose’s personal life I was happier having stay personal.

  * * *

  * * *

  The reception was being held in the Emmerson Foundation’s former boardroom. After some recent financial misconduct had come to light, Liz had stepped up to once again take a more active role in the organization’s day-to-day business.

  “Why on earth do we need a boardroom?” she’d asked me as she walked around the huge space one Saturday morning.

  “I don’t know,” I’d said. I’d been trying to estimate the cost of the gorgeous Oriental rug under my feet. I’d almost bid on one recently at an auction but in the end had decided it would be too easy to spend too much money. “How many board meetings do you have in a year?”

  The meeting room was a beautiful space with a high ceiling, a wall of windows looking out toward the view of the bay and gleaming oak floors under that Oriental rug.

  “Not enough to justify having this space sit empty most of the time,” Liz had replied tartly, flicking a speck of lint off of the arm of her cream-colored sweater with an impeccably manicured nail. “And I happen to know that more foundation business gets done in Sam Newman’s pub than is ever accomplished here.” She’d tipped her head to one side then, narrowed her blue eyes, and tapped her chin with the same perfectly polished finger. “Would you have your wedding reception here, Sarah? Theoretically, I mean.”

  “Who am I marrying? Theoretically?”

  Liz had made an exasperated sound. “I don’t know. Hugh Jackman.”

  “I think he’s already married,” I’d said, “but yes, I can picture Hugh and I dancing our first dance as husband and wife in this room, toasting each other with champagne and sharing our first kiss as a married couple.”

  She’d rolled her eyes. “Given the speed at which your love life moves, it’s about as likely as any other possibility.”

  I’d folded my arms over my chest. “Oh are we talking about our love lives now?” I’d asked.

  “No, missy, we most decidedly are not,” Liz had said. “We’re talking about my plans to start renting out this space and using the money we raise to do some very needed work to the Sunshine Camp.”

  And it was as simple as that. Liz had worked out the details with her very capable assistant, Jane Evans, and the former boardroom became available for meetings, parties and receptions like tonight’s event.

  Jane had done a beautiful job with the space. Light gleamed from two teardrop capiz chandeliers. The photos, books and other items that had been found in the old buildings were in glass display cases that stretched across one long side of the room. There were small round tables with starched white cloths clustered by the tall windows and a makeshift bar had been set up in front of the exposed brick wall at the end of the room. There were easily fifty people already milling about and I knew from Liz that more were expected.

  North Harbor sits on the midcoast of Maine, “where the hills touch the sea.” The town stretches from the Swift Hills in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the south. It’s full of beautiful, old buildings and eclectic little businesses, as well as several award-winning restaurants. Our year-round population is just over thirteen thousand people, but that number more than triples in the summer with seasonal residents and tourists. Every business owner in North Harbor knows the value of good word of mouth from what we called the summer people.

  The refurbishment of the harbor front had been talked about for years as a way of enticing visitors to stay in town longer, and more than one developer had submitted a proposal to the town. After several setbacks and delays the current development plan had been accepted. It included a new hotel, a row of shops and restaurants and a rebuilt boardwalk, all in the style and manner of the historic buildings that had been along the waterfront for decades, many for more than a century. Adding an apartment building or condominiums had been tabled for now. The idea was to offer visitors more of what they came to town for—the charm of a New England small town with the services they didn’t want to be without.

  I scanned the room for Liam. I spotted him standing near the bar talking with Joe Roswell, the developer in charge of the hotel and another man I didn’t recognize.

  “Rose, do you know who that is with Liam and Joe Roswell?” I asked.

  “That’s Robb Gorham,” she said.

  I studied the man. He was about average height with broad shoulders under his dark blue suit jacket. He had the stance of a confident person; feet planted firmly on the ground about shoulder width apart, shoulders back, body turned toward the other two men. “I feel as though I should know him,” I said.

  “He’s related to Stella,” Rose said. “A nephew or a cousin or something like that. He’s a building contractor.”

  Stella Hall was a former client of the Angels detective agency.

  “Do you remember the Starlight Inn?” Rose continued.

  I nodded. “It was just outside of town where that ugly motel, the Knights Inn, is now.”

  Mr. P. cleared his throat. “Mr. Gorham built that motel.”

  “Gram started a petition to save the Starlight Inn,” I said. “She threatened to chain herself to one of the newel posts on the verandah to stop it from being torn down.”

  Rose patted my arm. “If you’re introduced it’s probably better not to lead with that.”

  Liam had spotted us and was making his way in our direction. He caught one of Rose’s hands in his and beamed at her. “Rose Jackson, you are a vision,” he said.

  “Flattery doesn’t work on me,” she said.

  Mr. P. and I exchanged a look because we knew Rose had a soft spot for my brother.

  Liam put his free hand over his heart. “But it’s not flattery if it’s the truth.”

  Rose shook her head, but she couldn’t stop a smile from escaping.

  He leaned over and kissed her cheek then straightened up and offered a hand to Mr. P. “Alfred, I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “We found a set of model train cars in the basement of the old hotel. Sarah told me you know a little bit about model trains.”

  Mr. P. knew a little bit about a lot of things. I’d discovered his interest in trains when we were clearing out Stella Hall’s brother’s house and Elv
is unearthed a model steam engine and several cars that turned out to be a valuable Marklin train set.

  “I’d be happy to take a look,” Mr. P. said.

  Liam turned to me then. “You look good, big brother,” I said. He was wearing a dark suit that brought out his blonde hair and blue-gray eyes.

  “You look pretty great yourself,” he said as he hugged me.

  Liam was older by just a few months and he liked to remind me that made him wiser as well. Technically we were stepsiblings, part of a blended family that had been created when his dad, Peter Kennelly, married my mom. To me, Liam was just my brother, the way Peter was just Dad. And I knew Liam felt the same way about Mom and me.

  Liam took Mr. P. off to look at the model train while Rose and I made our way over to look at a collection of photos that were displayed on the wall to our right.

  “Oh my goodness,” Rose exclaimed no more than a couple of minutes after we’d started checking the images. “Sarah, look.” She pointed at a black-and-white photo of an elementary school class. “The back row in the middle.”

  I leaned forward and squinted at the photograph. The little girl Rose had indicated was tall with chin-length dark hair held back with some kind of clip, and a serious expression on her face. “Is that . . . ?” I took another look. “Is that Gram?” I turned to Rose, who nodded. “But she looks so serious.”

  “Having the class picture taken was serious business back then.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, gesturing at her with one finger. “You and Gram were in the same class. Where are you?”

  “Far left in the front row.”

  I turned back to the photo. Then as now, Rose was a sprite. Like Gram, her hair was styled in a chin-length bob, only Rose had thick bangs, which cut across her forehead on a very unfortunate diagonal. Her hands were folded primly in her lap, but there was something in her body language that said there was nothing prim and proper about this little girl.

  I put one arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “You were adorable. You look like you had spunk.”

  “I did have spunk,” she said, a twinkle in her gray eyes. “So did your grandmother.” She paused. “Our principal hated spunk.”

  I gave her another squeeze. “His loss.”

  Rose turned around and surveyed the room. “Where are Isabel and John?”

  “Gram is at a meeting about the sunflower window. They’ll be here later.”

  Rose linked her arm through mine and we moved on to the next collection of photos. “I hope they’ll be able to keep the window in town.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “With Gram and Liz and Judge Halloran involved, I don’t think that window will be going anywhere.”

  The sunflower window was a round, stained-glass window that had been in the old library building. It dated back to the time the library had originally been built, in the late 1800s. The window had gotten its name from the different shades of yellow glass in the flowerlike design. When the old library was torn down, the sunflower window had been removed and stored since it didn’t “fit with the design” of the new structure, according to the library board. In the last couple of months, a businessman from Singapore had offered a significant amount of money to buy the window. Judge Neill Halloran was spearheading the fund-raising to match the offer already on the table and keep the window in North Harbor. He and my grandmother had been friends in school and she’d offered her help.

  Rose and I spent the next fifteen minutes looking for people we knew in the collection of old school pictures, laughing at the way fashion and hairstyles seemed to run in cycles. Mr. P. and Liam rejoined us, with Liam looking like Elvis with a whole sardine to himself.

  “So?” I asked. I knew that grin had to mean good news.

  “They’re Marx tin train cars,” Mr. P. said. “In very good condition considering how long they could have spent in what was likely a damp basement.”

  “And worth several hundred dollars,” Liam added.

  “At least,” Mr. P. agreed.

  Rose beamed at him. “Wonderful!” she exclaimed. “That’s more money for the school’s hot lunch program.”

  Someone touched my arm then and I turned to see Nick Elliot standing there. “Hi,” he said. “What have I missed?” Nick was just over six feet tall, a big teddy bear of a man with broad shoulders and sandy hair. He was handsome and charming and funny and I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it.

  I smiled at him. “Hi yourself. You’ve missed a great school picture of Gram and Rose and you can settle an argument between Rose and me.” I turned and gestured at a photo to my left and just at Nick’s eye level. “Middle of the back row, guy who looks like a stockier Kurt Cobain. Is that Glenn McNamara?”

  Nick leaned forward, studied the picture for a moment and then straightened up. “Yes.”

  Rose grinned like a little girl.

  “C’mon, that’s not Glenn,” I said. “It can’t be. Look at the hair.” Glenn McNamara, who owned the local bakery and sandwich shop, kept his blonde hair in the same brush cut he’d had as a college football player. The young man in the photo that Rose kept insisting was Glenn had blonde hair parted in the middle that just brushed his shoulders and obscured part of his face.

  “It’s Glenn,” Nick insisted. “He’s a head taller than everyone else in that photograph and he told me once that he was always the biggest kid in his class. Besides, it looks like him.”

  “I told you it was Glenn, dear,” Rose said. “All you have to do is look at his eyes.”

  “I can’t see his eyes,” I retorted. “Whoever that is has too much hair.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem.” Her expression turned thoughtful.

  “That’s exactly the problem. It’s impossible to know whether that’s Glenn because you can’t see enough of the person’s face.”

  Rose waved away my words. “No, no that’s definitely Glenn. I mean, maybe the problem is with your eyes. When was the last time you had them examined?” She looked genuinely concerned.

  “I . . . uh . . . not that long ago.” I stumbled over my answer. It had to be less than a year since I’d had my eyes checked and I could see just fine.

  A group of people had just come in. The noise level rose in the room and a man bumped my arm, mumbling an apology as he passed. He smelled of alcohol and a mix of rosemary and mint, aftershave maybe. I noticed as he moved away from me that he seemed to be making an effort not to look intoxicated, although I was pretty certain he was. He wasn’t dressed for the occasion, either. He wore jeans with a white shirt and a tweedy wool sport coat over the top.

  “You are over thirty now, Sarah,” Rose said. “Are you getting enough antioxidants in your diet?”

  “I eat carrots and green beans.”

  “Do you gets lots of leafy greens? Lots of spinach and kale . . . oh and sweet potatoes.”

  Liam was standing just behind her left shoulder not even trying to keep a straight face. I had no problem throwing him under the bus.

  “How do you get your antioxidants, Liam?” I asked. “You’re older than I am.”

  Rose laced her fingers over her midsection and shook her head. “Oh for heaven’s sake. Really, is that the best you can do to distract me? I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night.”

  Color flooded my cheeks. Liam was smirking now. At least Nick and Mr. P. looked a little sympathetic to my plight.

  Rose smiled to let me know there were no hard feelings over my lame attempt to divert her attention away from me. “I know you’re busy,” she said. “So I’ll get Avery to make you one of her smoothies. With extra kale.”

  Avery was Liz’s teenage granddaughter. She had a repertoire of healthy breakfast drinks that all seemed to feature kale. Lots and lots of kale.

  “Um . . . thank you,” I said. I was going to need a big pot of coffee to
wash down one of those smoothies.

  Rose turned around and Liam immediately wiped the grin from his face. She gave him her sweetest little old lady smile, which I’d seen her use more than once to wheedle information out of someone. “Avery will make one for you, too,” she said. “After all, as Sarah pointed out, you’re not getting any younger, either.”

  Raised voices diverted our attention before Liam could reply. We all turned in the direction of the sound. The man who had just bumped into me was accosting Joe Roswell. He’d grabbed the contractor’s arm with one hand and was gesturing with the other. Roswell was a shade less than six feet with a stocky build, and I was certain he could have shaken off the other man’s grip if he’d wanted to.

  “You’re just a sore loser,” the drunken man shouted. “But the judge is going to side with me. Me!”

  Joe Roswell was somewhere in his fifties, I guessed, balding with a salt-and-pepper mustache and wire-framed glasses. His face was lined from years of working outside in the sun and wind and cold. My grandmother would have said he had nice eyes.

  The man yelling at him was somewhere either side of thirty. He was a couple of inches shorter than Roswell and probably thirty pounds or so lighter, with sandy blonde hair that hung in his eyes.

  “Back off,” I heard Roswell say. Even twenty-five feet away I could see the warning in his eyes.

  Liam and Nick exchanged a look and started for the two men.

  Joe Roswell had clearly had enough. He rolled his forearm out and snapped it down on the other man’s arm, breaking the man’s grip. Then instead of moving away he took a step closer. “Walk away, Healy,” Roswell said, his voice sharp with warning. “Otherwise I will call the police. This party is invitation only and you don’t have one.”

  They glared at each other for a long moment, then Mr. Healy said something I didn’t catch and made his way toward the bar. The argument was over.

  People were already shifting their attention back to whatever they had been doing; in fact, I realized that not everyone had even noticed the brief altercation. Liam was talking to Roswell. Nick just stood there, hands stuffed in his pockets, listening. I saw the contractor shake his head. All three men looked in the direction of the bar and I did the same.