Breaking Ground

by William Andrews

  “Because of Mary Ellen Swanson?”

  “Of course! She can be such a pain in the butt. But when the groundbreaking is over today, she won’t be able to keep second-guessing everything. And I shouldn’t complain: Mary Ellen’s been good to me—and to the society.”

  “Must be nice to be rich.”

  “And generous. You have to say that for her. Anyway, to answer your question: Yes, I love my job. It’s taken a little longer than I thought to feel at home here because, well, you know, and everyone knows everyone else and knows what’s going on, but I’ve really gotten to like that. Maybe someday I’ll even be accepted.”

  “Don’t count on it. You’ll always be ‘from away.’ This is Maine.”

  “But that’s part of its charm!”

  They were standing in front of her house now, and Julie was almost tempted to stride up the walk, take the four steps up to the long porch, and enter through the front door. If she had, it would have been the first time. But she headed for the side. “Still not ready?” Rich asked.

  “Getting there. Maybe in a day or so. Before you have to leave.” Julie led the way around to the garden, and they entered via the back door.

  Julie had only lived in the house for a month. The Ryland Historical Society owned it, and Julie got free use of it as part of her job. For the last year, however, she had been living in a condo at Ryland Skiway, the resort just north of town, because when she had started work the house’s former owner, Worth Harding, was still in it. Founder of the historical society and its director until he retired and Julie was hired, Harding intended to donate the house as a director’s residence and to extend the society’s land holdings farther up Main Street. But before he moved out, he was murdered—in the house. Julie had been the one to find his body in the front parlor, and she had helped identify the murderer and solve the series of thefts at the historical society that she had uncovered right after she arrived. That was just a little over a year ago, but Julie couldn’t shake the memory of finding the elderly Harding, his head smashed by an iron skillet, lying on the floor by the sofa in the front room. It turned out that another historical society trustee, Martha Preston, had been the murderer.

  For a time Julie had doubted whether she could ever take up residence in Worth’s house, but the appeal of it was too powerful. She loved Victorian architecture, and Harding House, as it was now called, was a classic. Since finally moving in, she avoided the front parlor as much as possible, and hadn’t entered from the front door because that had been the route she had taken when she had discovered Harding’s body.

  While Rich fixed breakfast, Julie showered and then dressed in the outfit she had laid out earlier. She didn’t usually dress with such care. After hearing that Julie wanted to do graduate work in museum studies, her mother had said she’d have to stock up on twin sets and pearls. Julie laughed at the time, not fully understanding; but she subsequently came to appreciate her mother’s comment after seeing so many women in museum jobs wearing an unbuttoned sweater over a jumper, topped off with a string of pearls. Julie didn’t own pearls; indeed, she had few pieces of jewelry. And though she owned plenty of sweaters and turtlenecks that could have been combined into a respectable twin set, that was not her style. Her style, she realized, was almost no style: slacks or skirt and a turtleneck, or sometimes a cotton blouse, plain or at most striped, never patterned. She kept her light-red hair carefully clipped and groomed to mid-ear length, complementing her pale, oval face and blue eyes.

  She checked herself in the mirror. At five-foot-six, she was tall enough to command attention but not tall enough to be regarded as looming. She was slender and well-proportioned, attractive, but not so much that men other than Rich would do a double-take on the street. She looked professional and pleasant in her tan skirt and blue blazer over a pink silk blouse. Not quite a twin set, she told herself, smiling, but a little different from her usual uniform. When she entered the kitchen, Rich, handing her a cup of coffee, noticed her attire and said, “Very nice. Big day.”

  “Two days, actually,” she said. “Don’t forget about the Fourth of July concert on the Town Common tomorrow. We sponsor it, and it’s a big deal for the society.”

  “Right. What time should I show up today?”

  “The ceremony is at eleven-thirty. Are you sure you want to come?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for anything. Like I said, it’s going to be a big day!”

  CHAPTER 3

  “They want a check today,” Mrs. Detweiller said in the general direction of Julie’s office.

  Working at her desk for more than an hour, Julie hadn’t heard her secretary enter Swanson House, but now that she was here Julie knew without looking at her watch that it was nine o’clock. Not 8:55 or 9:08. What Mrs. Detweiller lacked in interpersonal skills—like plain old friendliness—she made up for in punctuality and every other secretarial competency. So she endured Mrs. Detweiller—and after a year of working with her still called her Mrs. Detweiller, since she insisted on referring to Julie as Dr. Williamson. In her early days on the job, Julie had more than once implored the woman to call her Julie, but the secretary’s response was always the same: “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” suggesting by the emphasis that Julie might be suborning her to, at the very least, a criminal misdemeanor. The “doctor” title Mrs. Detweiller insisted on, Julie had come to understand, was less a term of respect than one of distancing. She had earned her doctorate, but included in the local use of the title was, Julie felt, an implicit “but not a real one.”

  “What check, Mrs. Detweiller? And who’s they?” Julie answered as she walked out to where her secretary stood in the main office.

  “For the tent. They want the check today. It certainly seems like a lot of money for nothing—we haven’t had rain for weeks.”

  “Here,” Julie said, reaching for the paper Mrs. Detweiller was waving in front of her. “I’ll sign that and you can write the check for them right away. Are they still here?”

  “On their way. They called and asked if they could pick up the check when they remove the tent, after the ceremony. Such a short time for so much money.”

  “Well, it was good insurance, though. If we hadn’t had it, it might have rained and spoiled things. And, the way the sun is shining out there, we might be glad we have it for the shade, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose it is a special day.” And then from the door as she was withdrawing, Mrs. Detweiller added, “And you’re dressed for it, Dr. Williamson. Very nice.”

  Was it possible, Julie wondered, that Mrs. Detweiller had actually complimented her? Or was she being sarcastic? And was it so obvious that Julie’s style of dress today was so different from her everyday? She sat down at the table she used as a desk and smiled, not at the comment about how she looked but at the remark about the tent. Mrs. Detweiller hadn’t been alone in criticizing Julie for renting the fifteen-by-thirty-two-foot tent. Several trustees had questioned her decision, too, but she was determined that nothing would spoil—or delay—the ceremony.

  She jotted some notes for the toast she planned to make to the Swanson family at the luncheon. Then, glancing up, she noticed the four gleaming shovels leaning against her bookcase by the window. She decided to take them over to the tent. It was still two hours until the ceremony, but she was antsy. She tied a bright red ribbon on each shovel and then, with some degree of difficulty because it was a clumsy load, walked over to the site. She lined the shovels up on the table at the end of the tent, wondering if Mary Ellen would decide to use all four after all.

  “I can’t see the harm in chicken,” Mrs. Detweiller said to Julie when she returned to the office from the construction site.

  “Well, I can’t either, but what’s the problem?”

  “Elizabeth Swanson! She called the inn this morning to request a vegetarian meal. They phoned to see if anyone else wanted something other than chicken. I told them no. At least no one said anything to me. That Elizabeth—just like her to call th
e inn directly instead of going through me.”

  “Oh, well. We certainly don’t want to make Mary Ellen’s daughter-in-law unhappy.”

  “There’s not much you or I can do to prevent that, Dr. Williamson. Mrs. Swanson—the younger Mrs. Swanson—wouldn’t be happy if she weren’t unhappy. It’s easy to see why our Mrs. Swanson doesn’t care for her son’s wife.”

  “Lots of people prefer vegetarian food, Mrs. Detweiller,” Julie said in an attempt to distract the woman from further comments on the topic of Mary Ellen Swanson’s family relations. “I’m just glad she called ahead of time instead of waiting until we got there. Is everything else okay at the inn?”

  “As far as I know. But it might be a good idea for you to go over and check things out. They use so many young people now and you can’t really depend on them to do things right. If you know what I mean.”

  While Julie wasn’t sure she did know what Mrs. Detweiller meant, the opportunity to walk across the Common and inspect the room where the lunch would be held represented another way to use some of her nervous energy. “That’s an excellent idea, Mrs. Detweiller. I’ll walk over there now. I should be back in half an hour and still have some time before the groundbreaking in case anything comes up.”

  As it turned out, checking the room had been a good idea, because the staff at the Ryland Inn had ignored the plan for placing the tables that Julie had provided last week. Instead of setting a head table—for the Swanson family, Julie and Rich, and trustee chair Howard Townsend and his wife—and other tables of seven and eight for the rest, the staff had put a long table for twelve at the front of the room facing tables for four. The catering manager assured Julie he would correct the problem, but she lingered to make sure, and it was ten-thirty before she returned to her office. Without providing all the details that she knew Mrs. Detweiller would have welcomed, Julie thanked her secretary again for the suggestion and said the inn had, indeed, made a mistake.

  “Always good to keep an eye on them,” Mrs. Detweiller said with deep satisfaction.

  “I’ll just finish up in my office,” Julie said. “If I lose track of time, could you call me at eleven? I’d like to be sure I’m over at the site in case anyone comes early.”

  But it was not Mrs. Detweiller who interrupted Julie at work, and it wasn’t at eleven. Ten minutes after she entered her office, Julie heard Howard Townsend in the outer office. If she didn’t know Howard as a quiet, dignified, and entirely self-composed man, she would have sworn he was shouting. And when she walked out to see what was happening, she realized he was.

  “Horrible, just horrible,” he was saying, as much to the air as to Mrs. Detweiller. “We have to call the police. Oh, Julie,” Townsend continued when he saw her, “Mary Ellen is dead.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “Howard, what do you mean—when did Mary Ellen die? Are you okay?” Julie added when she saw his ashen face. “Maybe you should sit down.”

  Howard Townsend didn’t so much sit down as melt down, letting his old, lanky body slip onto the small couch directly across from Mrs. Detweiller’s desk. “Do you need water?” she asked.

  “Please,” Townsend said. “But first we have to call the police.”

  “Mrs. Detweiller, would you get some water,” Julie asked as crisply as she could, presenting an artificial calmness. “Now, tell me, what’s happened?”

  “Mary Ellen’s dead,” Townsend said in such a low voice Julie found herself bending to hear him. “I found her … her body. At the construction site.”

  Now Julie felt the need to sit; before responding she lowered herself to the couch. “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “At the groundbreaking site,” he continued. “I came early. Just to be sure things were in order. And I found her there. Dead. Oh, thank you, Mrs. Detweiller,” he said as he reached for the paper cup of water. “We should call the police, the ambulance, but I think it’s too late. I’m sure she’s dead. She couldn’t have lost all that blood and survived.”

  “Blood?” Julie practically screamed. “What did you see?”

  “First the police and the ambulance. Mrs. Detweiller, please ring them.”

  Julie felt slightly relieved to hear Howard’s naturally authoritative tone returning. “Now tell me what happened,” she said.

  “What happened? I don’t know. All I know is that Mary Ellen was lying beside the table, under that tent, facedown, and the blood was everywhere. It was terrible!” Howard rose from the couch, but Julie put her arm on his shoulder and gently pushed him back. Except for crisp handshakes, this was the first time she had ever touched him.

  “They’re all on their way,” Mrs. Detweiller said as she put the phone down. “Then I’ll go meet them,” Howard said, and again stood, but this time steadily enough that Julie didn’t feel the need to restrain him.

  “I’ll go with you, Howard.”

  “You shouldn’t see Mary Ellen like that. You stay here.”

  “Of course I’ll come,” she said. “You can explain on the way.”

  “There’s not much more to explain,” Howard said as they walked from her office and turned toward the construction site. A man in a khaki uniform, in his mid-thirties and fit enough to run but panting as he reached them, sprinted from the street.

  “Thank you for responding so quickly,” Howard said to Ryland’s police chief, Mike Barlow. “I told Julie not to come, but she insisted.”

  The three of them picked up their pace. There was the backhoe, and there was the tent. And there was Mary Ellen Swanson’s body, lying just as Howard had described. Mike gestured to the other two to stay back and bent down. He reached for Mary Ellen’s right arm. Julie could see him searching her wrist to check for a pulse. How gentle he is, Julie thought, like he’s comforting a child who fell off her bike. Then she saw the blood that covered Mary Ellen’s body, beginning at her neck and continuing down both legs.

  “Are you okay, Julie?” Howard asked, right before Julie abruptly turned away and began to heave. She was sure she was going to vomit, but all she could manage were dry heaves, accompanied now by tears, hot, salty tears pouring down her face and onto her blouse.

  “No,” she answered between heaves. “I mean, yes, I’ll be all right in a minute. It’s just …” Another heave came, and then another, and then Julie knew she was going to vomit, and up came her breakfast, shooting out of her and onto the grassy area beside the tent. “I’m sorry, Howard,” she said as he put his arm around her shoulder.

  Mike stood and walked backwards from Mary Ellen. He pulled the portable radio from his belt and spoke rapidly into it. “No sirens, Jerry” were the only words Julie caught. Barlow reattached the radio and came over to where Howard and Julie were standing.

  “Okay, Julie?” he asked.

  “I’ll be fine in a minute. Don’t step there.”

  Mike pulled himself back from the pool of vomit. “You should sit down, but not here; you can’t disturb the scene.” He gestured toward the rows of chairs at the back of the tent, chairs for the celebrants who would be coming shortly for the groundbreaking. That got Julie’s attention.

  “We’ve got fifty or sixty people coming here for the ceremony in about a half-hour,” she said. “We’ve got to stop them.”

  “Yeah, I don’t want anyone around here,” Mike said. “Can you get some of your folks to stand over there by the parking area and keep the guests out?”

  “I’ll see who’s around to help—some volunteers should be here by now.”

  “If I can help, Julie,” Howard offered in a tone that made her think he wasn’t really prepared to take on such lowly work.

  “Maybe you should just go back to my office and wait, Howard,” she replied, and he assented quickly and began to walk toward Swanson House.

  Julie turned back to speak to the policeman again and then glanced at the table. “The shovels,” she said.

  “What?”

  “The shovels. I put four of them here earlier, but there are only th
ree now.” She pointed to them, each still wearing its red bow. “One’s missing.”

  “You’re thinking someone used a shovel to hit Mrs. Swanson?” Mike asked.

  “I don’t know, but just look at her.” Julie took one quick glance at the bloody body and quickly turned back to the policeman. “Something caused all that blood, and one of the shovels is missing.”

  “I’ll check around here as soon as I get some backup. Was it like these?”

  “Exactly the same. Clif Holdsworth supplied them, and I tied the ribbons on them and brought them all over here this morning.”

  “What time was that?”

  Julie consulted her watch again. “It must have been around nine-fifteen or nine-thirty. Mrs. Detweiller came in at nine, and we talked a bit, and then I came over here.”

  “And Mrs. Swanson wasn’t here?”

  “No. Well, at least I didn’t see her, and if she was around you can be sure she would have made herself known.” Julie began to cry again.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” Mike said.

  “Mary Ellen was so excited about this groundbreaking, and about the project. It’s just so awful!”

  “We’re not used to violent deaths in Ryland,” Mike said. “But this is our second in a year.”

  “Don’t remind me,” she said as the memory of Worth Harding’s body rose before her. Just when she thought she was getting free of it so she could live in his house.

  “Damn, Jerry!” Mike said as the siren wailed behind them. The black-and-white Ryland Town Rescue vehicle stopped in the parking area beside Holder House, its blue lights flashing. “I told Jerry not to use the siren,” he added.

  “Over here,” Mike shouted as he waved to Jerry and the second medic. “You better go organize your troops,” he added to Julie. “Don’t explain anything; just tell them to keep folks away and say the ceremony is off.”

  Julie nodded and walked past the arriving pair from Town Rescue, nodding but not speaking to them. She went into Holder House first and rounded up three volunteer guides. With the town rescue vehicle right outside the window and the police chief clearly visible by the tent, Julie found it impossible to pretend nothing significant had happened. “There’s been an accident at the groundbreaking site,” she said, “and we have to postpone the ceremony. People will be coming soon, and we need to stop them from gathering there and explain.”