Dangling by a Thread

by Lea Wait

  “Jesse’s will seems to be a problem,” I added.

  “A problem for Simon Lockhart, anyway,” Pete agreed. “The lawyers will have to fight that one out. But Simon’s leaving today, so I think the sale of the island is off the table for a while.”

  “Last night Patrick West told me Simon had changed his mind. He’s going to stay in Maine a few more days.”

  “Maybe he wants to extend his vacation. There’s nothing we’re looking at him for.”

  “Dead end?”

  “For now, that’s the way it looks,” said Pete. “Although I’ll try to talk with Linc Fitch later today, on the chance he knows something. Thanks for the tip.”

  “Let me know?”

  “If I can, Angie. But don’t worry. We’re doing what we can.”

  But were they doing enough?

  Not as long as Jesse’s killer was still free.

  Chapter 48

  “O may my Genius upwards rise,

  Search Wisdoms, found where Knowledge lies.

  On wings sublime trace Heaven’s abode,

  And learn my Duty to my God.”

  —Elaborate sampler stitched in 1808 by Nancy Sibley, age ten, in Barrington, Massachusetts. Nancy used silk on linen with silk, chenille, and paint on appliqued cotton for her three alphabets, numbers, and an elaborate scene of a shepherdess with her flock under trees by a riverside. The wide appliqued black silk border was done in metallic threads and painted paper.

  “Dave? Good morning!”

  “Angie.” Dave’s voice was slurred.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “I’ve been drowsy. I fell asleep.” Dave’s voice was beginning to sound more normal.

  “I contacted all the people involved in the Save the Cormorants group,” I continued. “Everyone but Sarah’s set for this afternoon at two at your house. Sarah can’t come because of the store, but she’s going to drop Ted Lawrence’s logo ideas at your house, in your mailbox, in the next hour.”

  “Good,” said Dave. “Sorry I asked you to do that. I had an awful night. Sleeping on this old couch isn’t comfortable, and my leg hurt, and I kept having nightmares about how Jesse died.”

  “I’ve had those dreams, too,” I said. Dave had known Jesse much better than I had. But I’d seen Jesse’s body. I was glad Dave hadn’t been with us when we found it. “I talked with Pete this morning. They’re still working the case.”

  “I wish they’d find whoever did it,” said Dave. “I can’t think about much else right now.”

  “I have to talk with you about Jesse’s will before the meeting,” I said. “Mind if I come over early? Say, one o’clock?”

  “Why don’t you come for lunch?” he asked. “Yesterday you brought a ton of food here, and Charlotte brought more than dinner last night. Plus, I’d like the company. I’ll unlock the front door now. You and Charlotte were right. That’s easier for me than getting up.”

  “I’ll be there at one o’clock,” I promised. “In the meantime, make sure you rest. Your afternoon’s going to be busy.”

  “I’m looking forward to it. The meds make it hard to follow the story line in a book, and even though I’m drowsy I can’t seem to sleep. I’m looking forward to having company and focusing on something positive. Maybe it’ll take my mind off my leg.”

  “Anything I can bring?”

  “I’m fine for now, Angie. Thanks for asking.”

  I spent the rest of the morning playing with Trixi and straightening out my living room. It had been the office of Mainely Needlepoint for months, but in the past week it had also become my bedroom and Trixi’s playroom, bathroom, and kitchen. Kitty litter was in strange corners, books and papers had mysteriously fallen from my desk onto the floor, and the wastebasket had been overturned, its contents scattered over the floor.

  I didn’t remember Juno causing messes like that. But Juno was an adult cat. Trixi was exploring her world, which also happened to be mine.

  About twelve thirty I’d done enough straightening and cleaning for the day. I headed for Dave’s house.

  Sarah had slipped a large envelope into his mailbox. I looked forward to seeing what Ted Lawrence had designed for a cormorant logo.

  Dave’s door was unlocked, as he’d promised.

  “Dave?” I said as I went inside. “It’s Angie.”

  Dave was sitting on his leather recliner, his injured leg propped on the footrest. He clicked his television set off. “Glad you’re here. After we talked I napped for a while and since then I’ve been watching talk shows. I’m now up-to-date on weight-loss drugs, gluten intolerance, and the pros and cons of artificial eyelashes.”

  “Sounds fascinating. If I want to learn about any of those topics, I’ll know who to check with. How’s your leg?”

  “Not great. But no worse. I took a pain pill about fifteen minutes ago. I’m hoping it’ll kick in so I’ll be okay for our lunch, and for the meeting.”

  I held up the large envelope I’d taken out of his mailbox. “These must be Ted Lawrence’s sketches. I’m dying to see them. Do we have to wait for the meeting?”

  “Open the envelope,” he said, smiling. “Bring them over here so I can see them, too.”

  I’d never seen any of Ted’s work, but his sketches were great. One was a great cormorant standing on its nest, a young bird’s head visible below him. Another showed a cormorant in flight. “This one I love,” I said, looking at the third. It was the simplest of the drawings, showing a great cormorant with his wings outstretched.

  “Me too,” Dave agreed. “And it would look great on a poster or T-shirt.”

  “And be easy to needlepoint,” I added. “That’s important. I think we have our design. Ted Lawrence gets the first cormorant pillow. He did a great job. Exactly what we need.”

  “Right now I could use a little lunch,” Dave said. “Something light.”

  “I’ll fix something for us.”

  He hesitated. “Thank you. I don’t want to use all my energy before anyone else gets here. And while we eat you can tell me what the will situation is.”

  “Anything special you want?” I asked, heading for his kitchen. “So far you’ve had noodle soup and ham and eggs and bread since you’ve been home.”

  “And an apple and banana earlier this morning,” he added. “I don’t want a lot. Tuna salad?”

  “No problem. With onions? Olives? Pickles?”

  “All three would be great.”

  It didn’t take long to find a can opener and two plates in Dave’s organized kitchen. The cans of tuna I’d brought yesterday were still sitting on the counter. “Lemonade?” I called to him, as I mixed the salad.

  “Great,” he answered.

  “There’s a lone brownie on a plate on the kitchen table,” I added. “Want that, too?”

  “I guess,” he answered. “I don’t remember seeing that this morning.”

  He hadn’t been looking. Maybe Gram had brought it last night. She always added something sweet for dinners.

  A few minutes later we were sitting in the living room, salads on our laps.

  “Now. What did you want to tell me about Jesse’s will? I haven’t found a lawyer to talk to about it yet. I haven’t felt up to it. I told you—I didn’t know Jesse had put me in his will until Ethan Trask told me on Sunday. And he said there were questions about it. Frankly, that will hasn’t been my top priority.”

  “I think it needs to be,” I said. “I talked with Patrick last night. Simon’s been staying at Aurora, so Patrick’s heard a lot about the will. The question seems to be whether Jesse could legally leave his share of the island to someone he chose—you—or whether the island would automatically revert to Simon.”

  Dave nodded. “I understand.”

  “Simon’s already sold rights of first refusal to Bentley, in case the island is his.” I hesitated. “Although Patrick thought all these complications were discouraging Gerry Bentley from wanting King’s Island.”

  “I think that’s goo
d news,” said Dave, hesitantly

  “Patrick suggested that if it looks as though the ruling on Jesse’s will is going toward Simon, that you contest it. Quickly. Before anything else happens. That should delay everything. During that time the Save the Cormorants campaign can raise money toward setting up a trust fund to maintain the island. If it turns out you do own part of the island, you can donate your share to the Audubon people. If the campaign is successful enough, it could raise enough money to buy Simon’s part of the island, too.”

  “That’s what Jesse would have wanted,” Dave said slowly. He took a bite of his brownie. “Although I’m sure he didn’t dream it would be this complicated. And there’s no guarantee I’ll end up with any part of the island, much less the whole thing.”

  “True. And it would be a hassle. But I think Jesse would have wanted you to do it.”

  “King’s Island could be the Jesse Lockhart Sanctuary,” said Dave. “I’d like that. I guess the first step is finding another lawyer.”

  “I don’t have one to recommend,” I said. “Maybe Ruth or Anna does.”

  “Good idea,” said Dave. He leaned back in his chair. “I want all this to be over. It’s horrible enough that Jesse’s dead. But to lose King’s Island for the cormorants, too? It’s a nightmare.”

  Dave looked ashen. He needed to rest. “I’ll wash up our dirty dishes. No one else will be here for ten or fifteen minutes. You rest.”

  “All right,” he said, his voice fading. “Right now I don’t feel too good.”

  “You relax until Ruth and Anna and Gram get here.”

  I’d almost finished the dish washing when I heard Dave choking.

  Chapter 49

  “May spotless innocence and truth

  My every action guide

  And guard my unexperienced [sic] youth

  From arrogance and pride.”

  —Sampler stitched by Mary Greenman in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1796. Mary’s words, and a man and woman, two trees, and three dogs, in front of a house, are arranged inside two columns, and the whole sampler is surrounded by a border of flowers.

  “Dave!”

  He’d collapsed over the side of his chair and was vomiting violently. His skin was pale. And he looked scared.

  I ran to the kitchen for a bowl, and to the bathroom for a damp cloth and towels. I did my best, but he was still throwing up when Gram walked in the front door.

  “How long has he been vomiting?” she asked, immediately taking the bowl he’d been using and bringing back a clean one.

  Dave tried to answer her, but couldn’t talk.

  “Six or seven minutes,” I said.

  “Call nine-one-one,” Gram instructed calmly. “He may be having an allergic reaction to one of the drugs he’s on. He needs to get back to the hospital.”

  Dave tried to say, “No.” Then his head fell to the side.

  He’d passed out.

  Ruth and Anna arrived as I was talking to the dispatcher and Gram was trying to clear Dave’s airways so he could breathe and wouldn’t choke on his vomit.

  “What can I do?” Anna asked after she’d helped Ruth to a chair.

  “More clean towels,” Gram said.

  I raced upstairs to Dave’s linen cabinet. I’d only brought two towels down the day before. Anna found rolls of paper towels in the kitchen and brought a bowl of clean, warm water.

  Dave didn’t know what was happening, but between all of us we got him (and his carpet) a little cleaned up by the time the emergency squad arrived.

  “We’re taking him to the hospital,” said the young man I remembered from last week. “Mr. Percy needs to be seen by a doctor immediately. Do you have a sample of what he vomited?”

  Luckily, I hadn’t emptied the bowls. I handed one to him and the others on the squad put Dave on a stretcher and carried him to the ambulance.

  “What happened?” asked Anna.

  No one had a chance to answer before Pete Lambert and Ethan Trask burst into the room.

  Chapter 50

  “Tho’ age must show life’s best pursuits are vain,

  And few the pleasures to be here enjoyed,

  Yet may this work a pleasing proof remain,

  Of youth’s gay period usefully employ’d.”

  —Stitched by Martha Newbold in 1818 in black silk on linen at the Wilmington Boarding School in Delaware. Young women in Maryland and Delaware were not as likely to make samplers as girls from the New England states, and therefore samplers from those areas are prized by collectors today.

  “Where’s Dave Percy?” Ethan asked, looking around as though we’d hidden him under the opened couch. “Is he all right?”

  “The ambulance squad just took him to Haven Harbor Hospital,” I said. “He was vomiting and then passed out.”

  Ethan looked at Pete. “Call the emergency room and tell them.”

  Pete stepped outside and began talking on his phone.

  “What’s happening?” I said.

  “Dave’s been poisoned,” said Ethan.

  Ruth gasped, and I took a step backward. “Why? How?”

  “Will he be all right?” asked Gram.

  “Did Dave eat any brownies in the past hour?” Ethan asked.

  Anna and Ruth looked at each other in confusion.

  “Yes,” I said. “He and I had lunch together. He ate a brownie.”

  “Did you eat any of it?” asked Pete.

  “No. There was only one,” I said.

  “Where did it come from?” asked Ethan.

  “It was on a paper plate on Dave’s kitchen table. I thought Gram had brought it with his dinner last night. I found it when I was making our lunch.”

  “I didn’t bring any brownies last night,” Gram said with assurance. “And I didn’t see any brownies in the house when I was here.”

  Ethan turned to Pete. “She must have brought it over this morning.”

  “Who brought it over?” I asked. “What’s happened?”

  The men ignored me. “But then Dave would have known who’d given it to him. He wouldn’t have thought Charlotte brought it.”

  “Dave slept most of the morning,” I said. “He left the door unlocked. Anyone could have come and gone without his knowing it. But what happened?”

  Finally Ethan turned to me. “We won’t know for sure until we hear from the hospital. But this is the second poisoning today.”

  “Who else?” asked Gram.

  “Carole Fitch,” said Ethan. “She made the brownies, and added a lot of her pain and cancer meds. She was trying to kill Dave, and herself.”

  “She left a note,” added Pete. “That’s how we know.”

  Carole Fitch?

  “How is Carole?” asked Gram.

  “She’s alive. Having her stomach pumped out at the hospital. She’ll be all right. Luckily, Ethan and I got there in time. Angie’d suggested we talk to Linc, the Fitch’s oldest boy. We found him at the boatyard. He seemed almost relieved to have someone ask him questions. Seems he took his mother out to King’s Island last Thursday afternoon so she could try to convince Jesse Lockhart to sell the island. He said she was desperate. She knew she was dying, and she didn’t want to leave her family with medical bills and college tuition unpaid. When Jesse refused to sell the island and told her he’d changed his will, she became furious.”

  “Carole Fitch killed Jesse?” asked Ruth. “Carole?”

  “Her son Linc told us. He didn’t see her do it, but he saw the blood on her clothes, and the next day he heard Jesse was dead.”

  “After we talked to Linc we went to the Fitches’ house, to confront Carole. We found her unconscious on the kitchen floor.”

  “She’d left a confession in what she planned to be a suicide note,” said Ethan. “She wrote that without her medical bills there’d be money for her sons’ tuition. She was taking Dave Percy with her, because now he owned part of the island. She wanted Simon to sell that island so her husband would make enough money to pay their
bills. She wrote over and over that their financial situation was her fault. That if she hadn’t been sick, they wouldn’t have had any problems.”

  The room was silent.

  “That’s horrible,” said Gram. “She felt guilty about having cancer?”

  “She told me that when I saw her Sunday,” I said. “But I never dreamed she’d kill anyone. Or herself.”

  “I can’t imagine. She must have been crazy,” said Anna. “She wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe the meds she was on messed up her mind.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Ethan. “But cancer or no cancer, if she survives she’ll be arrested.”

  “And Dave?”

  “I told the emergency room he’d eaten whatever Carole had,” said Pete. “Plus whatever medications he was on for his injury. He’s going to be feeling pretty awful for a day or two, but they said he should be all right.”

  Chapter 51

  “When wealth to virtuous hands is given

  It blefses like the dews of heavn

  Like heaven it hears the orphan’s cries

  And wipes the tears from widows’ eyes.”

  —Sampler worked by Sarah Kurtz, age nine, Georgetown, Washington, DC, in 1804.

  Wednesday afternoon the hospital finally let me visit Dave.

  I brought flowers and a tiny version of the Save the Cormorants logo that Sarah had stitched for him.

  “I love it,” he said. His voice was hoarse from tubes and medication, but his color was good. And, best of all, he was alive.

  “I still can’t believe it was Carole Fitch,” I said. “She’s in intensive care, but they say she’ll survive.”

  “Unlike Jesse,” Dave said. “No wonder he didn’t have defensive wounds. He wouldn’t have hit a woman. He might not even have defended himself from one.”

  “I have good news,” I said. “Patrick West and Simon Lockhart came to my house last night. Neither of them had met you, but they knew we were friends, and I was involved with the Save the Cormorants campaign. Seems Simon was shaken when he heard what Carole had done to Jesse, to you, and to herself. He’s decided he doesn’t want anything more to do with King’s Island. Once you’re out of the hospital he’ll even pay for a lawyer to do the paperwork, but he wants to make the island a bird sanctuary, in Jesse’s memory.”