Final Settlement

by Vicki Doudera

  SEVEN

  BITSY CARMICHAEL SIPPED A diet soda and waited. The waitress had come by twice already, and both times she’d put her off. “I’m waiting for my husband,” she’d replied. It had a comforting ring to it.

  She looked at her nails and sighed. The polish was chipping and would look like hell for the wedding. She’d see if there was a beauty parlor on the island, or get back over here in the morning.

  The waitress looked toward the restaurant’s front door and smiled brightly. Sure enough, it was Charles, sliding into the booth and apologizing for making her wait.

  “Give us just a minute,” she said to the waitress. To Charles she gave an expectant look. “Did you find out what you needed?”

  “No.” He closed his menu. “Do you know what you want?”

  She nodded. The waitress again materialized, pad and pen in hand. “Cheeseburger with coleslaw,” Bitsy ordered. “And another diet soda.”

  “I’ll have the low-fat special.” He said it regretfully, and then sighed. “Here’s the thing, Bitsy. Detective Robichaud is totally sympathetic to what I’m saying, but he thinks everything’s got an explanation. The scrapes on Lorraine’s hands, the trauma to her skull—all that could have happened when she first fell in. There is no evidence that anyone else had anything to do with her death.”

  “What about her memory?”

  Another sigh. “He thinks it’s interesting, but not a motive for murder.” He sipped a glass of ice water. “Maybe it’s time for me to let this go.”

  She waited a moment, and then shared an idea that had been percolating all morning.

  “I have an idea. Let’s get another puppy. Another Golden like Aggie.”

  “There’s no dog like Aggie, you know that.” He said it sharply, picturing the canine that had been his companion all those years he was alone. Suddenly his mood changed and he grinned. “Remember when she chewed Derek’s math book? I had to call the school and convince them that yes, the dog really had eaten his homework.”

  Bitsy giggled. “What about that flowered armchair from your mother? I’ll never forget when you sat in it and it just kind of collapsed. Aggie had eaten out all the stuffing from inside, right?”

  He nodded. The waitress arrived with their lunches and plunked down the plates.

  Charles surveyed his cottage cheese, sliced fruit, and shredded lettuce. The scent of Bitsy’s burger was tantalizing, and he watched as she picked it up and took a juicy bite.

  He sighed. Could he truly let this thing with Lorraine go? Accept that perhaps she had indeed suffered a fatal fall off the Breakwater, and that it had been entirely her own doing?

  Resolutely he picked up his fork and scooped a bite of cottage cheese. He didn’t like it, neither his lunch nor the conclusion about Lorraine’s death, but it was just the way it was.

  _____

  Lorraine Delvecchio had lived on a quiet, dead-end street in Manatuck, in an area that had once been attractive single-family homes and was now mostly dilapidated rentals. Of the six or so houses on the street, hers looked the most cared for, although several of the shutters were sagging and the exterior badly needed repainting.

  Tina pulled into the driveway and parked the SUV. “Let’s take a look.”

  “How are we getting in?”

  “Leave it to me, my friend. Leave it to me.” She scurried out of the car and approached a side door of the house. Darby watched as she tried the door, found it to be locked, and then pulled something from her pocket. After several moments, the door swung open.

  Tina turned a triumphant face to Darby and beckoned with a gloved hand.

  Darby hurried up to the house and joined Tina inside a small entryway with a steep back staircase. Coat hooks lined the floral-wallpapered walls. She thought briefly of asking her friend how she’d opened the door so quickly, but decided that she didn’t really want to know.

  “It’s freezing in here,” Tina said. “Her pipes are gonna burst, if they haven’t already.”

  Darby nodded. “I’ll check the oil gauge before we leave and make sure she didn’t run out of fuel.” She entered the living room and looked around. It was neat, with several framed photos of ocean scenes and a shelf of perfectly lined-up books, most of which were suspense and mystery paperbacks.

  Tina had wandered to the front of the house. “Hey, look at this,” she yelled.

  Darby joined her before a pantry in the kitchen. Straight rows of canned goods were aligned in rigid formation, standing at attention like soldiers in a regiment. Boxes of cereal, dried fruit, and pasta were similarly arranged.

  “A little bit of a neat freak, huh?” Tina closed the pantry door.

  “I read that many people with Lorraine’s memory condition have obsessive-compulsive disorder,” Darby said. “I suppose it makes sense when you think of how highly organized their brains are.”

  “Not exactly like mine,” Tina snorted, hugging her jacket around her thin frame. “Let’s get a move on. I’m getting way too cold to hang out much longer.”

  Darby agreed. The two mounted the front stairs, peeking in Lorraine’s blue and yellow bedroom, her tidy bathroom, and a small room used as an office containing a desk, laptop computer, and a small wooden chair.

  “I wish we could take the computer,” Tina said.

  Darby opened one of the desk drawers and pulled out a small red spiral-bound notebook, no bigger than a deck of cards. She flipped through the pages and saw groups of words and numbers. Some of the numbers had dollar signs.

  “Tina, take a look,” Darby said. “She was keeping track of expenditures or something.” There were dates in the upper margins.

  “Stick it in your pocket,” Tina said, shivering. “It’s not like it’s something of value like that computer, right? It’s not gonna do Lorraine any good staying here in her desk and will just get tossed by whomever gets stuck cleaning this place out.” She opened another drawer and exhaled. “Bingo!”

  Darby was just about to ask what she had found when a door slammed downstairs. Both women froze, the same thought on their minds: someone was inside the house.

  _____

  Alcott Bridges awoke with a start. Gracie, Gracie—she’d been in his dreams again, young and vibrant, laughing as they’d climbed Raven Hill for a picnic lunch. How pretty she’d looked, fresh and happy, her smile lighting up the whole hillside.

  He felt a pang of loss. Gracie was gone. Only the guilt remained, eating away at him like acid corroding metal. He closed his eyes, ready to experience that pain, and felt instead unexpectedly light.

  Lorraine Delvecchio was dead. Perhaps the news was in one of the papers littering the living room, or in the one waiting on his porch. He took a shaky breath. I’m free, he realized. I’m finally free.

  He rose stiffly from the armchair in the corner of the studio and stretched gently, his limbs feeling more supple than they had in years. Hunger gnawed at his stomach but fixing food was far from his thoughts. The easel, with his latest canvas half completed, beckoned to him from the center of the room. Alcott Bridges felt it drawing him in, putting brushes in his hands and oils on his palette.

  In a trance-like state, he began to paint.

  _____

  Tina arched her eyebrows as they listened to the footsteps below.

  “Hello?” A female voice, questioning.

  “Hello, we’re up here.” Darby motioned to Tina and they went to the stairs. A heavyset woman wearing a man’s plaid jacket stood below, an orange cap pulled over frizzy brown hair. She looked to be in her sixies, and wore a worried expression on her face.

  “Glad to see it’s you two,” she said. “I was afraid some kids were in here rooting around.”

  “We’re real estate agents from the island,” Tina explained. “This is Darby Farr. She went to school with Lorraine. I’m Tina Ames.”

  “Esther Crandall, the neighbor next door.” She looked around the house and shook her head. “Terrible shame about Lorraine. Falling off the Breakwater
like that? I still can’t believe she’s dead.”

  “Had you known her a long time?” Darby asked.

  “Five or six years. Ever since she bought the place.” Esther Crandall stomped her feet against the cold. “She was a good neighbor, quiet and easy to talk with. She kept her house nice, especially the inside. I used to tease her about the peeling paint and such, and she’d say that the outside didn’t matter, it was what was inside that counted.”

  “Did Lorraine have many visitors? Friends stopping by?”

  The stout woman shook her head at Darby. “Nah. She kept to herself, which was fine with me. Not that she wasn’t friendly.” She gave a sad smile. “Every time she went on one of her trips, she’d bring me a little something. Special hand lotion, or dark chocolate. That was nice of her, I always thought.”

  Darby and Tina nodded.

  “I didn’t know she traveled so much,” Tina said. “What kinds of places?”

  “Oh, all over. Switzerland, Bermuda—you name it. Why, I think it was next week she was going off to the Hawaiian Islands! Guess someone will have to cancel those tickets.” Esther Crandall made a concerned face. “You two are turning into icebergs. Better get out of here.”

  The three went back out the side door, with Esther closing and locking it. “Guess you know about the spare and all,” she said, replacing a metal key on a small hook behind a little “welcome” sign. “I’ll get the oil company over here and see why her furnace isn’t working.” She put a hand on an ample hip. “What’ll you be asking?”

  Darby and Tina exchanged blank looks.

  “For the house. What’ll be the asking price?”

  Tina gave a quick smile. “We’re working on that now, Mrs. Crandall. I’m going to look at what’s sold recently and figure that out. You’ll be the first person I call.”

  The older woman nodded as they climbed into Tina’s car. They saw her wave, the sleeve of the plaid jacket fluttering like a flag, before she lumbered back across the frozen strip of grass between the houses.

  “So little Lorraine Delvecchio was a world traveler,” Tina commented, pushing buttons on her heater until it blasted hot air. “Where in the world did she get the money to take those kinds of trips on her salary?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m hoping this notebook can tell us,” Darby said, tapping the book concealed under her coat. “I’ll start analyzing it as soon as I thaw out.”

  “Good idea,” Tina said, reaching into her coat pocket. “While you’re at it, take a look at this.”

  Smirking, she placed a small computer thumb drive into Darby’s gloved hand.

  “Pretty good score, huh Detective Darby? I just knew she’d have something like this, and bam! There it was in her drawer.”

  “Impressive, Tina. How did you know?”

  Tina steered toward the ferry and pulled into line. She put the car in park and turned to face her friend.

  “You saw those soup cans, lined up like a firing squad? Anyone who’s that crazy organized is gonna have backup for her computer.” Tina gave a satisfied smile. “I’m getting pretty good at this, aren’t I?”

  “Tina, it’s scary how good you are getting. I don’t even want to know how you opened that locked door.”

  Tina feigned innocence. “It just opened right up itself,” she said.

  The two women chuckled as Darby took out her cell phone.

  “Somebody left me a message,” Darby noted, preparing to play it.

  “I got one, too,” said Tina. “It’s Alcott Bridges.” She listened a moment and then shut off her phone. “Darby, he’s decided not to list his house after all. Why do I think the news of Lorraine’s death had something to do with it?”

  “Maybe her notes or the thumb drive will tell us.” Darby listened to her phone and frowned. “My message is from a guy wanting to see that Japanese box I found. He said he can meet me at four o’ clock today.”

  “Wow.” Tina shifted into drive and climbed slowly onto the ferry. “Well, he’d better hurry it up.” She glanced at the cloud-covered sky. “We’re starting to get snow.”

  Darby looked at the surface of the adjacent cars, already thinly coated with thick white flakes. Miles was out there somewhere, sitting on a plane and headed to the island.

  Straight into the path of a blizzard.

  _____

  Darby stood under the shower’s hot water, letting it melt the chill in her bones. Where in the world was Miles? She’d already tried to phone him, receiving only his message. Was he stranded in some airport? If so, why didn’t he call?

  She toweled off and dressed in jeans and a turtleneck. A fire was going in the farmhouse’s fireplace, and Darby fed it until it roared. Outside the snow was coming down fast, and seeing through the flakes to the road was becoming difficult. It was not a night to be anywhere but home.

  Darby took out her phone and called the number for the Portland Jetport. Her heart sank as a harried agent checked Miles’s airline. “Cancelled,” she barked. “No one’s getting into this airport tonight.”

  The agent’s terse message hit Darby harder than she’d expected. Along with the worry about Miles’s whereabouts, there was something else … keen disappointment. I was looking forward to seeing him. We would finally have had time alone.

  She walked into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine. It was not her habit to feel sorry for herself, but she poured it anyway. One glass, she promised, peering out the kitchen window. Although it was not quite four o’ clock, outside it was pitch black, the wind starting to howl like a living thing.

  She ambled back to the living room, pulled a chair and lamp up close to the fire, and opened Lorraine’s notebook. A series of pages appeared to be dated at the top, with two columns, one of numbers and one of letters.

  The letters were grouped in twos, like initials.

  FE, HX, VG.

  Darby couldn’t think of anyone with initials like that. She tried to come up with words, but not much made sense, especially when she contemplated the X.

  She sipped the wine. It was a rich Barolo, and she set her glass by the fire to warm and looked again at the dates. They were each a month apart, going back about a year. Some sort of accounting, but for what?

  She sighed and sipped the warmed wine. Tomorrow was Tina’s wedding, and Darby knew, true to Maine form, it would happen, storm or no storm. “The hairdresser is coming to us,” Tina had announced on the ferry. “One way or another, Donny will get her to the island.” Darby smiled. It will probably be a beautiful, snowbound ceremony. If only Miles could be here …

  A sharp rap on the door startled Darby out of her reverie. Could it be that Miles had found a way to the island despite the storm? She jumped up from the armchair and dashed to the entryway, flinging open the door with a welcoming smile.

  Snow swirled around the figure before her, a tall, dark, handsome man who was most definitely not Miles Porter.

  _____

  “Drink up, Pease!”

  A beer was thrust in front of Donny, some of it sloshing over the rim of the glass onto the table. It was late afternoon at The Eye, and a larger-than-normal crowd had gathered to celebrate with their friend. “Let’s go, drink ’er up!”

  The man goading him on was Lester Ross, Carlene’s younger brother. Unlike his sister, Lester held no grudges against Donny or any members of the Pease family. He was a merchant mariner, home for a month or so, and one of Donny’s best friends.

  “Come on, it’s your last night of freedom!” The others at the table cheered, raising their glasses as Donny lifted the stein and drained his beer. No sooner was his glass empty, than Earl the bartender arrived with a fresh one.

  “So—you ready for this, Pease?” Lester put an arm around his friend’s shoulder.

  “I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Lester chuckled. “Tina’s a good woman. Kind of bossy, but a lot of fun, too. Can she cook at all?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Donny said, remembering
Tina’s famous fruit pies, stews, and chowders. She could cook alright—and he had the expanding waistline to prove it. “I expect that Tina’s one of the best cooks on the island,” he boasted. “We’ll have you over for supper and you’ll see for yourself.”

  “Okay by me,” Lester said, draining his beer. He consulted his watch. “Speaking of wives, mine will be wondering where I am with a snowstorm raging. What do you say I drive you home?”

  “Sure. Let me just visit the facilities.” Donny rose unsteadily to his feet, holding on to the table until the room stopped spinning. Good thing Lester’s driving me home, he thought, beginning to lurch toward the back of the bar. I’ve had a few more than I’m used to.

  Earl grinned as Donny passed him. “You okay there, groom?”

  Donny waved a hand in response. He needed that bathroom, and quick.

  The back hallway of The Eye was crowded with boxes containing bottles of beer, mini pretzels, and toilet paper. Donny found the door of the restroom and yanked it open. He stumbled in, fumbling for the light switch. Where the heck had it gone to? Finally he located a pull cord and tugged, hard.

  Shelves stuffed with more supplies surrounded him. This was not the restroom after all, but a jam-packed, walk-in closet. He grunted and was moving toward the door when a white plastic bag hanging from a nail caught his eye.

  Written on the front in black Sharpie in fancy script was the word “Tina.”

  What the heck?

  Donny reached for the bag, knocking down a whole case of party peanuts as he did so. The crash was loud, and before he could make his getaway, a handful of men had gathered outside, pointing at the prostrate Donny with glee.

  “Just what in the world are you doing, Pease?” Earl pushed his way through the crowd of men, ruffling his hand through his hair. His feet were spread wide, and from Donny’s vantage point he looked enormous. Earl shook his head, no doubt annoyed at the spilled snacks littering the closet floor.