by Lea Wait
“Could we have dinner again tomorrow night? Your cookies are delicious, but I don’t think they’ll sustain me for more than twenty-four hours.”
We’d had dinner together only four days ago, but so much had happened since then. “I’d like that. I could fill you in on what we plan to do to help save the cormorants.”
“Great,” he said, moving toward the door. “Six o’clock? I’ve noticed people eat earlier here than they do out on the Coast.” He looked at me. “The other coast.”
“Six o’clock will be fine,” I agreed. “Shall I bring something?”
“Your own charming self. And your appetite.”
As Patrick walked toward Aurora, I got into my car. The aroma of oatmeal cookies there was tempting.
I was ravenous, and the only food purchase I’d made since my quick trip to the grocery Wednesday was cat food.
I headed toward a pizza place on Route One.
Who’d killed Jesse? Someone with motive. Opportunity. Means.
Means were simple. Rocks were all over King’s Island.
Motive? I made a mental list of everyone who’d benefit from Jesse’s death. Of course, depending on what Jesse had changed in his will, my assumptions might be wrong. But only a few people knew he’d changed the will at all.
Okay. Gerry Bentley and his wife. They’d get to purchase the island they wanted.
Simon Lockhart. He’d be paid. No doubt paid well.
They were the obvious people. Who else? Who wasn’t obvious?
Jed Fitch, Gerry Bentley’s Realtor. He’d make money if King’s Island sold.
Gram’d said the Chamber of Commerce members were excited about the possibility of someone that wealthy moving to town. But I couldn’t see the members of the Chamber of Commerce forming a posse and going out to King’s Island to kill Jesse.
Or would they?
My meeting with Ed Campbell tomorrow could be interesting.
I ordered takeout. Vegetarian (I should eat more vegetables) with pepperoni.
The owner gave me a strange look, but said it would be ready in twenty minutes.
I sat at the bar, ordered a Sam Adams, and filled a corner of my stomach with spicy bar mix. I could still drive after one beer.
Who’d killed Jesse? My brain was a fuddle. A confusion of cormorants and kittens and cookies.
I was pretty sure of the people who might have wanted to kill Jesse. Means were simple. But opportunity? Who’d gone to King’s Island last Thursday afternoon or evening?
I had no idea.
Did the police?
Chapter 36
“Jesus permit thy gracious name to stand
As the first efforts of an infants hand
And while her fingers o’er this canvass move
Engage her tender heart to seek thy love.
With thy dear children let her share a part
And write thy name thyself upon her heart.”
—Caroline Vaughan’s sampler, completed October 28, 1818, when she was ten years old, was “worked at Mary Walden’s School.” Caroline included three alphabets, a basket of flowers, a house, barn, trees, fence, birdhouse, and several birds on her sampler.
That night I slept in my own bed instead of on the living-room couch. I shouldn’t have.
During the night Trixi managed to turn her cat bed upside down, pull wool stitches out of one of my favorite of Gram’s needlepoint cushions on the couch, and, worst of all, make me feel guilty for having left her alone.
I refilled her dishes while coffee was perking and resigned myself to sleeping on the couch until she was bigger. In the meantime, to apologize for my absence, I spent fifteen minutes playing “find the catnip mouse.” The game didn’t challenge her. Every time I hid the gray wool mouse she brought it back to me in triumph.
Where were Patrick and Bette sleeping these nights? Was my kitten the only crazy one? I gave her a gentle cuddle and listened to her purr.
Being a “fur parent” was addicting.
While Trixi circled my ankles I drank two cups of coffee and checked my messages.
I hadn’t heard from Pete about Jesse’s lawyer. Either he hadn’t checked my suggestion, or the lawyer hadn’t told him anything. Of course, I admitted, Pete might have decided not to tell me what he’d found out.
He and Ethan were investigating.
I was just a friend of the victim. And the cormorants.
I sent Clem an e-mail to alert her (and her producers at Channel Seven) about the cormorants possibly losing their nesting ground. I figured she’d be intrigued when I added that the body they hadn’t identified on the news a couple of days ago was a hermit who’d lived on King’s Island and protected the birds, software billionaire Gerry Bentley wanted to buy the island, and the Maine Audubon Society was preparing a short film clip in response.
That should give her enough possible leads to entrance her producer.
Then I realized it was Sunday.
Church.
When I’d been growing up, Gram had insisted I go to Sunday school and church every week. Mama always found an excuse why she couldn’t go. Usually it was that she’d had to work a late Saturday night shift. Sometimes it also involved the amount she’d had to drink after her shift. By the time I was six or seven I knew Haven Harbor restaurants didn’t stay open until two or three in the morning.
Gram always said we should pray for Mama. We’d prayed harder after she’d disappeared. It hadn’t brought her home, but it had felt as though we were letting God—and maybe Mama—know we cared. That we needed her home. That we loved her.
But by high school, like Mama, I’d found excuses not to go to church. Some of my excuses were the same ones she’d used. Like mother, like daughter, people in town said.
But now I was back. Grown-up. Gram’s husband was the minister. True, I hadn’t made it to services every week this summer, but most Sundays I’d sat next to Gram in a conspicuous front pew, or, if the choir was singing and she was in the loft, sat self-consciously alone.
This week I certainly had things to pray about.
I scrambled to find a decent outfit that wouldn’t embarrass Gram and made it through the wide pine doors of the Congregational Church with a minute or two to spare.
As I sank into the pew next to her, Gram handed me a hymnal turned to the opening hymn and patted my knee.
Tom’s sermon was about unexpected tragedies, accepting that they were the will of God.
I glanced around the church. Carole Fitch’s dealing with breast cancer was unexpected and she and her husband, Jed, and their two sons were having to deal with it. Patrick, who wasn’t in church, had tried to save his mother from a fire and now had burn scars that would last the rest of his life. Dave was still in the hospital with his own pain, which would heal, and with the pain of losing a close friend.
All unexpected events that required acceptance.
But what about Jesse’s death? Was murder the will of God?
I couldn’t accept that. Murder was the cruelty of one human being to another.
How could anyone accept that?
After the service I headed to the reception hall where the Ladies’ Guild had put out coffee and tea and homemade cookies and muffins. Breakfast for some, a snack for others. I took a bite of a cranberry nut muffin. I almost never turned down home-cooked food.
“Good morning, Angie.” I turned, and Ethan Trask was standing next to me. Yesterday he’d been questioning me at the police station. Now he was on his own time. Next to him stood a beautiful dark-eyed child holding a sugar cookie as big as her hand. “This is my daughter, Emmie,” said Ethan. “I don’t think you’ve met her.”
“I haven’t,” I said, smiling. I’d never met Ethan’s wife. But Emmie didn’t get her skin tone or eyes or hair from her dad. Ethan’s wife must be African-American.
Emmie was the center of Ethan’s life, especially since her mother was serving in the National Guard in Afghanistan. Weren’t they pulling those troops bac
k? Maybe she’d be home soon.
“Is that a good cookie?” I asked Emmie.
She nodded seriously. “I like chocolate. No chocolate cookies today.”
“How old are you, Emmie?”
She held the cookie, whose crumbs now covered her mouth and the front of her classic pink smocked dress, with one hand, and held up her other sticky hand with three fingers raised.
“Three! Very grown-up,” I said.
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Twenty-seven,” I said.
She considered that for a minute. “That’s old. Like Mommy.”
Ethan smiled. “Mommy will be home soon, won’t she, Emmie?”
“We see Mommy on the computer.”
“Skype,” Ethan said, explaining. “It helps a lot. We don’t want Emmie to forget her mom. And it makes Laura’s deployment easier if she’s able to see Emmie, even if it’s on a screen.”
“Being separated must be hard for all three of you.”
“It is. But I didn’t want to talk about me this morning. I wanted to thank you for answering all our questions yesterday. Pete and I were a little tough on you. Pete wants to be a homicide detective, and I let him help with local investigations. But I think this one means more to him, because he knew Jesse, and he was the one who found Jesse’s body.”
“Have you found out anything more about what happened?”
Ethan shook his head. “We still have a lot of people to talk with. If you have any more ideas, you’ll let us know?”
“Of course,” I agreed.
“Daddy, I need another cookie,” said Emmie, brushing the crumbs off her dress and managing to get many of them stuck in the rows of smocking.
“Okay. Let’s take care of that. And then Uncle Rob is going to take you home,” he said.
Rob Trask waved from across the room. He was Ethan’s younger brother, who’d chosen a more conventional Maine life: He hoped one day to have his own lobster boat.
“How are Rob’s wedding plans coming?” I asked. Rob and Mary Clough were going to be married in October.
Ethan shook his head. “They’ve put off the wedding for now. Mary’s decided to finish high school.”
“That’s great,” I said. “She and Rob are so young! They have lots of time ahead of them.”
“I agree,” said Ethan. “And she’s going to keep her home, at least for now. You remember that needlepoint she found?”
“Of course.”
“The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston told her they didn’t know what it would sell for at auction— no other needlepoint like that has come on the market for years. Mary decided she didn’t care. She’s going to have it framed and keep it.”
“She can always change her mind,” I said.
“Of course. But she was making a lot of major decisions all at once. Now she’s postponing some. And that’s fine.” Ethan looked down at Emmie, who was impatiently pulling on his pant leg, pointing at the table covered with plates of cookies. “Family is what’s important. Family today, and family in the past. And the future, of course.”
“I think a member of your family wants another cookie.”
“One more,” Ethan said, not quite sternly. “After that you’re going home with Uncle Rob. Daddy needs to work. I’ll see you later, Angie. Keep in touch if you hear anything.” He looked at me quizzically. “You seem to have a knack for that.”
He was right. Since I’d been back in Haven Harbor, I’d been able to help with several investigations.
I had no desire to become a member of the police force. But when it came to friends and family being treated unfairly, or worse, I’d do whatever I could to find the guilty party. Then I’d turn the details over to the police.
Remembering people I wanted to talk to, I looked around. Jed Fitch and his wife must have left. Standing and talking with people might be hard for someone undergoing chemotherapy.
Gram was standing in back of the food table, helping keep the home-baked goods moving. She saw me coming and waved. When I got close to the table covered with goodies she leaned over. “You asked about Ed Campbell. He and his wife are over there.” She nodded toward a generously sized man in a pale blue jacket standing next to a woman with short brown hair. “Go introduce yourself.”
“Thanks.”
The couple she’d indicated were sipping coffee and talking to each other. I interrupted, putting my hand out to shake Ed’s. “Good morning. I’m Angie Curtis, Charlotte’s granddaughter. I don’t believe we’ve met.”
Ed glanced at his wife and shook my hand. “No, I don’t think so. I heard Charlotte’s granddaughter was back in town, though. Nice to meet you. This is my wife, Diane.”
Diane smiled.
“Reverend Tom told me you own a car dealership, and you’re president of the Haven Harbor Chamber of Commerce,” I continued, before I lost my nerve. Introducing myself to strangers wasn’t my strong suit, although I seemed to be doing a lot of it recently.
“That’s right. You’re in the market for a car? Pickup?” he asked, looking more interested.
“No, not now. I just bought one,” I admitted. Ed’s attention wandered toward the food table. “But you might have heard, Charlotte’s turned over management of her Mainely Needlepoint business to me. I’m interested in expanding the business. I was wondering if I should join the Chamber of Commerce.”
“Of course, of course,” he agreed. “Membership’s open to everyone in town who owns a business or is head of an organization. We’re all working toward the same goals: making Haven Harbor more attractive to businesses and tourists, so we have more jobs here in town.”
“I’m curious as to how you do that,” I said. I wanted to ask him what he’d been doing Thursday afternoon and early evening, when Jesse died, but that would have been too obvious.
“In the past week we had a meeting of the whole Chamber,” he said. “And committee meetings on several days after that. This time of year we don’t schedule as many meetings as in winter months because everyone’s busy keeping their businesses going. Most meetings are in the evening. Sometimes I meet with a smaller group—like only people with businesses on Route One, or those here in town. Or I work with those who make their living from the sea.”
“Sounds as though you stay busy.”
“Too busy, so far as I’m concerned.” His wife spoke up. “I hardly see the man between his business and that Chamber. The only reason we’re in church together this morning is because he wanted to talk to other church members.”
“Now, dear, you know that’s not entirely true,” Ed said, patting her arm. “I’m as religious as the next guy. But mixing a little religion with a little business? Nothing wrong with that, is there, Ms. Curtis?”
“Thank you for inviting me to join the Chamber,” I said. “I think I may. I’m trying to think of different ways to attract new customers for our products, here in Haven Harbor, in other parts of Maine, and, through e-commerce, throughout the country.”
“That’s ambitious of you,” he said.
I had his attention again.
“If I’m able to do that, of course, I’d be adding employees to Mainely Needlepoint,” I rattled on. “But first I’m looking for new customers. People who’re influential. People I could use as references both in person, in our brochures, and on the Web site I’m developing.”
“I remember hearing you did some work for Skye West earlier this summer. She’s a good contact to have.”
“And she’s been generous with her praise,” I agreed. She’d also been generous with her money. Her payments had enabled me to buy my little car. “I’m hoping she’ll have other friends or relatives who might be interested in our services, too.” Patrick had mentioned he’d like needlepoint cushions, right?
“You may have heard,” said Ed confidentially, “but we may have another rich resident soon. Gerry Bentley’s looking at property in town.”
“That’s funny.” I frowned. “I’d heard he was looki
ng for island property.”
“You have heard,” said Ed. “Yes—he’s looking at building on King’s Island. Taking a deserted piece of land and turning it into a House Beautiful retreat for his family. Of course, he’s in the early stages of negotiation now, but once he starts building, you might want to connect with him, or with his wife, about doing work for them.”
“That’s an excellent idea,” I agreed. “Thanks for suggesting it! Are you sure he’ll be moving to Haven Harbor?”
“Can’t be positive until all the papers are signed, of course. But I’m assured the deal will go through. And, between you and me, with both the Wests and the Bentleys in town we’re bound to get other influential buyers and visitors. I see Haven Harbor as the next Southwest Harbor.”
Southwest Harbor? “You mean, residents like the Rockefellers and Martha Stewart? And other celebrities?” I wasn’t sure who lived in Southwest Harbor, but I knew whoever they were, they had money.
“Exactly,” Ed beamed. “Good for every business in town.”
I hesitated, as though in confusion. “But didn’t I hear that island Gerry Bentley’s interested in is a nesting refuge for great cormorants?”
“Those cormorants aren’t endangered. No birds should stand in the way of progress. Besides”—Ed leaned toward me—“no matter what all those bird lovers say, we already have plenty of double-crested cormorants around. Great cormorants aren’t essential to the coast of Maine. They nest in Canada, too. Let the Canadians worry about them.” He shook his head. “America first. Don’t you agree?”
“Thank you, Mr. Campbell. I appreciate all you’ve said,” I answered. “I’ll think about joining the Chamber.”
“You do that, Angie. I’d be happy to sponsor you. We need bright young women like you determining the future of Haven Harbor.”
A future in which rich people counted far more than great cormorants.
Gram had been right. Ed Campbell was on Gerry Bentley’s side.
Chapter 37
“Look well to what you take in hand,
For learning is better than house or land;
