by Barbara Ross
When we passed Mom’s house, the lights were off, the windows silent pools of black. The girls must have gone to bed willingly.
“Did you see a diamond ring on the table in the dining room?” I tried to keep my voice light, an off-hand inquiry about a detail.
He pulled the truck into the parking lot at Gus’s. The windows to our apartment upstairs were as dark as the others in town. “Nope. The detective asked me about a ring too. I told him the same thing. Didn’t see it. Honestly, Julia, I couldn’t notice much beyond that awful smile of Geoffrey’s.” He opened the door to the truck, but didn’t get out. In the dome light, I could see his rugged profile, his broad shoulders. I fell against his chest and he wrapped his strong arms around me.
“It’s going to be okay,” was all he said.
Chapter 11
In the morning I woke up to the chirp of my cell phone. I glanced at the screen. Mom. It was after nine o’clock. I’d slept in without intending to. The other side of the bed was empty. Chris had a lot to do before his landscaping clients arrived in town, and after that he was working a Saturday night shift at Crowley’s. Even the late night, crazy events at Blount’s hadn’t kept him in bed.
I answered the phone.
“Oh, good. I need a favor.” Mom started without even a hello. “Can you run Vanessa home? I don’t want to be late for work since it’s my last day for the summer.”
I had over an hour before I was supposed to meet Livvie and her family to go out to Morrow Island. “Sure. Where does she live?”
“On Thistle Island. I’m sorry. I know you’re busy.”
Thistle Island was not an island like Morrow. It was connected to Busman’s Harbor by a swing bridge, a bridge that opened, turning on a central pivot, to allow boat traffic to pass through. Thistle was in the opposite direction from Mom’s job at Linens and Pantries in Topsham. It was the first job Mom had held outside the Snowden family business since before I was born. She’d gotten off to a rough start, baffled by the technology and the sheer size of the place, but she’d found her feet and been promoted to assistant manager in the spring. She hoped to return after the clambake closed in the fall, and she wouldn’t want to leave on a low note.
“What’s happening with Page?” I asked.
“She has her swim team picnic today. It’s on my way.”
“Give me ten minutes.”
Mom met me on the front porch, car keys in her hand. “What happened with Wyatt last night after you and Chris ran out of here? Why didn’t you call?”
“Sorry. It got late.” I took her hand. “Mom, Geoffrey Bower died last night. Wyatt discovered his body.”
My mother’s mouth fell open, followed by a sharp intake of breath. “That poor girl. Was it a heart attack? A stroke?”
The awful rictus grin on Geoffrey’s corpse rose out of my memory, unbidden. “Lieutenant Binder’s in town along with a team from the Major Crimes Unit.”
That stopped Mom short. “They think it was murder? That poor, poor girl.” Mom took her hand from mine, glancing at the delicate watch on her wrist as she did. “I have to go. Girls!”
Page and Vanessa hustled out the door. Vanessa was in the same shorts and T-shirt she’d worn the evening before. She’d made a partially successful attempt to detangle her long brown hair. The rest of her tiny features made the big, deep-set green eyes seem bigger and more haunting.
We had a brief tussle when she tried to climb into the front seat of the ancient Chevy Caprice I kept stored in Mom’s garage.
“My mom lets me,” she protested when I shooed her to the backseat.
“I don’t care what your mom does. In my car, you ride in the back.” Sometimes even when you don’t have kids, you turn into your own mother.
Vanessa was quiet on the ride until we got to the swing bridge, where I asked her whether to go right or left on the road that ringed Thistle Island.
“Left.” Her voice was so soft, I had to strain to hear, but the single word loosened her tongue. “If you tear down Windsholme, where will the ghost live?”
Evidently the girls had overheard more of the previous night’s discussion than the adults intended. I had to think for a moment about that one. “I don’t think ghosts need houses exactly.”
“But you said she’s waiting for her lover.” She pronounced the word “lover” without irony, but even that sounded strange coming from a child. “If the house is gone, he won’t know where to go. How will they find each other?”
I had no answer for that, so we rode in silence for a moment.
“Why didn’t she have her own house?” Vanessa asked.
“Who?”
“Lenora Bailey. Why did she live with your family?”
I didn’t know beyond the basics. In 1892 domestic help lived in, or at least they did if you were a rich family who lived on an island. But what had Lenora’s circumstances been? Was she a local girl, or maybe a recent immigrant? Did she travel with my family from their home in Boston, or only work for them during the summer?
“Turn here.”
“What?”
“Turn right here. That’s our driveway.”
The Caprice struggled up a steep, dirt drive to a flat spot where an old trailer stood next to a ramshackle cottage. In the rearview mirror, across the ring road, I could see a dense wood with a gate at the start of a well-kept gravel driveway. Through those woods, there would be a big house with magnificent views of Townsend Bay and a deep-water dock for a large motorboat or sailboat. Maybe both.
I’d sailed those waters all my life, and I didn’t have to see the house to know it was there. Over the past two generations almost all the waterfront in the county had been bought by affluent summer people and rich retirees who had built or renovated beautiful homes, sited to capture the views. But less than a quarter mile away from some of those homes, on lots without views, stood places like this trailer, sheltering lives of constant struggle. Thistle Island was like a juicy peach, beautiful and inviting on the outside, with a hard pit at the center.
I heard Vanessa’s seat belt click open as I turned off the Caprice’s engine. “Which one is yours?” I asked, indicating the trailer and the cottage. “I want to make sure your mom knows you’re here.”
“That one.” Vanessa pointed to the trailer. “The house is my mom’s grandma’s. We used to have a house of our own, but we had to move.”
A woman with a cute, round face and curly blond hair appeared in the trailer’s doorway. She wore a short robe and held a chubby baby in her arms. She was small like Vanessa and maybe my age.
“Mom!” Vanessa bolted, running toward her mother.
“Whoa.” She smiled at her daughter, putting out her other hand to stop a collision. “Thank you for bringing her,” she called to me. “And thank your mom and sister.”
I left the car door open and walked toward her. “You’re welcome. I’m Julia, by the way.”
“Emmy Bailey. Pleased to meet you.”
“Same here.”
She nodded with her chin toward the baby, who blew a bubble. “My grandma can handle him, but not both of them. Besides, Vanessa loves Page so much.” The baby’s eyes were blue, not green.
“I’m sure my mom was happy to do it.” Even as I said it, I wondered what this woman’s plans were for the rest of the season. Mom wouldn’t be able to help with child care once she was back at the shop on Morrow Island. Our tour boat didn’t return to town until ten o’clock, after the second seating finished dinner. “I think you might know my boyfriend. He works at Crowley’s too. Chris Durand.”
Emmy blinked. “Is that his last name? We’ve only worked the same shift once or twice. I guess I’ll see more of him once the season gets going.”
I said my good-byes and turned back toward my car, waving at Vanessa, who was hanging on a rusty swing set. Back in the Caprice, I laughed at myself for my stupid suspicions. Emmy hadn’t even known Chris’s name. I drove carefully down the steep drive and back to Busman’s Harbo
r.
* * *
On the way home, the swing bridge was open. I was the fifth car in line as we waited for a majestic sailboat to glide through, leaving the salt water of the back harbor for the brackish and ultimately fresh water of Townsend Bay. My phone pinged with a text. Livvie. RUNNING LATE WILL MEET U NOON. Great. But with a baby, Livvie wasn’t the master of her time.
Quentin sat on my mother’s porch as I pulled in her driveway. I put the Caprice in its usual spot in Mom’s sagging and too short garage, and walked around to the front of the house to greet him.
“Quentin.”
He started and looked toward me. His mind must have been somewhere else. “May I have a word?” he asked.
“Of course.” I stepped inside the porch, closing the screen door behind us. I gestured toward the sturdy rattan furniture with its old, flowered cushions.
Quentin took a seat on the sofa and I sat across from him on one of the generously proportioned chairs. He put his elbows on his knees and looked at me, his blue eyes made brighter by his rich-man’s tan. He had the coloring of someone who could afford to chase summer across the globe. But there was no mistaking the worry in his eyes. “Will you help her?” he asked.
He meant Wyatt. “What makes you think she needs help?”
He exhaled heavily, his shoulders rising and falling. “C’mon, Julia. Lieutenant Binder asked me more questions about Wyatt last night than he did about Bower.”
“You know Wyatt better than Bower. Better than anyone else in town does.” I put my hand on his forearm. His skin was warm. “They always focus on the significant other first. Once they’re satisfied Wyatt had no reason to kill Geoffrey, they’ll move on.”
“Maybe, maybe not. From what she told me, Binder put her through the wringer last night. She’s sure they suspect her.”
I removed my hand. “But you don’t.”
He grimaced in exasperation. “C’mon, Julia. I know you and Wyatt have this thing, but you don’t think she could kill anyone, do you?”
“We don’t have a thing,” I protested. “I haven’t seen her in thirteen years. How would I know what she is and isn’t capable of?”
“You do have a thing. A high school thing. When she’s around, you’re tight as a guitar string ready to snap. Do you seriously think because she beat you out for captain of the debate team, or whatever, Wyatt is capable of murder?”
“Of course not.”
“Then help her.”
Across the street at the Snuggles Inn, the heavy mahogany front door opened and Sergeant Tom Flynn appeared on the porch. He was dressed in jeans and a maroon T-shirt, which meant he was still off the case. He strode off toward the old stable behind the inn that served as the Snuggles storage facility and garage.
Quentin watched me watching Flynn. “Even if I wanted to, what makes you think I can help her?” I asked him.
“You’ve assisted both Binder and Flynn in the past. They know you. They trust you. Or, at least, Binder does. You can find out what they’re thinking. And you can help prove Wyatt is innocent. Steer them in another direction.”
“Why? Why do you want me to help her? What’s the story with you two?”
“Wyatt’s been a friend for a long time. A good friend.” His eyes sought mine and held them, looking for comprehension. “Please.”
Quentin was my friend too, and part owner of my business. Though he could buy and sell me a hundred times over, he’d always treated me as an equal. It was impossible to say no, so I attempted to set some ground rules. “Okay, but Wyatt’s got to meet with me and tell me everything she knows.”
He nodded. “Agreed. Though I didn’t tell her I was going to ask you, so let me talk to her first.”
I grunted. Maybe this whole request would come to nothing. Across the street, Flynn reappeared lugging something heavy and awkward. A swing. He set it down on the porch.
I turned back to Quentin. “And you too. You’re going to have to tell me everything you know. Everything.”
“I will. I promise. But right now, I’ve got to get to the police station. Wyatt’s being questioned again and I want to be there when she gets out. We’ll talk later. And thank you.” He stood, then bent and gave me a peck on cheek. He went through the screen door, climbed down the front steps, and walked off without looking back.
I called after him, “Don’t thank me yet.”
Chapter 12
I watched Quentin go down Mom’s walk, turn left, and head toward town. I wasn’t sure about his plea to help Wyatt. I’d been involved in too many police investigations since I’d come back to Busman’s Harbor, for one. And, until two days before, I hadn’t seen Wyatt since she’d been called up to the podium a dozen times to receive awards and recognitions at our prep school graduation. I had a business to start up for the season and I didn’t owe her anything.
On the other hand, it was Quentin who had asked, not Wyatt. And I had my own reason for being interested. The diamond ring. I was deeply curious about its origins, and whether it drew a line, even a convoluted one, between Geoffrey Bower and me.
Across the street, Flynn appeared around the corner from the back of the Snuggles Inn again, this time carrying a ladder. He set it up on the front porch and prepared to hang the swing.
The inn’s owners, the Snugg sisters, had a way of getting their B&B guests to do chores. That people would drive up from the city, do a bunch of annoying but necessary household tasks, and actually pay the Snuggs for the privilege had always confounded me. The sisters were charming, no doubt. And, since they were well into their seventies, some of the heavier lifting that had to be done around the inn was out of the question for them. I thought maybe they reminded their guests of some aged relative, a beloved grandmother now gone, to whom they could never say no. Whatever the reason, guests returned to the Snuggles year after year to wash the windows, scrub the beautiful oak floors, or put out the porch furniture. They just did. It was a kind of Snugg sister magic.
Flynn wasn’t a regular guest, though the sisters had a soft spot for Genevieve, who had stayed with them before. They also had an admiration for Sergeant Flynn’s muscles, both from an aesthetic and practical point of view, and obviously hadn’t been able to resist putting him to work.
I hesitated, but not long, and then headed across the street.
“Julia.” Flynn gave me a curt nod as he set up the ladder.
“Sergeant.”
“I’m Tom today.” Our relationship had been tense in the beginning. He’d disapproved of the way Lieutenant Binder sometimes took my advice or gave me information. But over Christmas, Flynn and I had worked on a case while the lieutenant was on vacation, and Flynn’s attitude toward me had softened.
“So last night was wild,” I said.
“Yup,” he agreed. “Genevieve got the call about Bower when we were halfway through dinner. Not the romantic evening I’d planned.” Flynn was up on the ladder. I squinted to make out his expression in the shadow of the porch ceiling. The elegant gingerbread framing the structure scrolled behind his head, filtering the high June sun. I untangled the heavy chain and handed one end of it up to him. I lifted the swing as he attempted to get the link over the hook in the ceiling.
“You have your sources,” I continued. “Have you heard anything?”
Flynn looked down at me. “I suppose there’s no chance of you staying out of this.” He successfully hooked the chain and came down the ladder. “No, I didn’t think so. I’ll tell you what I know, if it will keep you out of Lieutenant Binder’s hair, but you can’t tell anyone where this came from.”
“Agreed.”
“And one other thing. You’ll tell me what you find out.”
This was something new. In the past, Flynn had been uninterested in any information I had to offer. Evidently things were different when he too was on the outside.
Flynn moved the ladder under the other hook and climbed up. “At this point, they’re waiting for the autopsy, but proceeding as if Bow
er’s death is a homicide.”
“I noticed, but how could they come to that conclusion so quickly?”
Flynn grunted as I lifted the swing toward him. “Definitely homicide. Something he ingested. They’re still testing to find out what. According to the medical examiner, he’d been dead three, maybe four hours, when Ms. Jayne found him. Or when she said she found him.”
“You think she’s lying?”
He shrugged. “Anybody might be lying.”
“She seemed genuinely hysterical to me.”
“The key word being ‘seemed.’ It’s way too early to speculate.”
He slipped the second chain over the hook and the swing moved gently on its own. It was one of my favorite places to sit on a summer day. Not that there’d be much, or even any, sitting around once the clambake was open.
Flynn moved back down the ladder like a lithe cat. He was a fitness freak, rigid about what he ate and religious about his running and gym routines. I grinned appreciatively at the sight of his muscled torso. He noticed me noticing and I blushed.
“Who was the last person to see Bower alive?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I picked Genevieve up at the Garbo at ten thirty yesterday morning. According to Vieve the rest of the crew were planning to leave throughout the day. Days off are rare on a yacht with a full-time owner aboard. Everyone wanted to take advantage for some R and R.”
“If Genevieve left the Garbo more than four hours before Bower died, doesn’t that put her in the clear, and you back on the case?”
“No, because Bower died from something he ingested. Genevieve left the food for both lunch yesterday and the dinner last night in the refrigerator, all laid out on platters. He could have eaten it at any time.” Flynn caught my eyes and held them. I nodded. I got it. “Or, maybe that’s not how it happened at all,” he continued. “They’re testing all the food. We don’t know at this point. I don’t know at this point. Bower has no family. His lawyer is on the way to town. I suppose the team will know more after they talk to him. And once they figure out what killed Bower.”
