Shadows of a Down East Summer

by Lea Wait

  We later agreed between us not to tell our mothers we were asked to remove any part of our clothing. Truthfully, I was increasingly glad of Madame Homer’s presence.

  Posing involves standing in one position for long periods of time. Several times I thought my arms would fall from exhaustion from holding the net and I would be embarrassed, but Mr. Homer seemed to know exactly how long we could stand without moving. We would pose for perhaps twenty minutes, and then he would allow us five minutes’ rest, during which we could eat some of the fruit Madame Homer brought, or walk a bit on the beach. Madame Homer sat quietly on a large rock and embroidered for most of the morning. I do not think she and Mr. Homer exchanged more than a few words during the entire time we were there.

  I was much relieved when Mr. Homer announced about noon that “The light has changed!” We soon discovered that meant our posing was over for the day.

  We followed him back up to his studio, where he bowed graciously to us, gave us each fifty cents, and reminded us to come dressed less elegantly tomorrow.

  Artists are not like other people, I have decided. But it was not bad work, and I now have fifty cents I did not have yesterday. We will return tomorrow. With our hair down.

  Chapter 10

  Death’s-head Hawk Moth. Hand-colored steel engraving from the Butterflies and Moths volume of The Naturalist’s Library (1843), a forty-volume set of small, delicately illustrated natural history books edited and published by Sir William Jardine and engraved by Scotsman William Lizar. As was popular at the time, only the subject of the engraving is hand-colored; backgrounds are left in the original black-and-white, giving the engravings a classical feel. The Death’s-head Hawk moth is so-called because the coloring behind its head is shaped very like a human skull. 4 x 6.25 inches. Price: $60.

  Maggie reached down, put her arms around Will’s neck, and gently kissed his forehead. “Haven’t you finished that coffee yet? It’s a beautiful morning, and the sea air is calling me.”

  “Is that it? The sea air?” Will grinned, put his coffee cup down on the kitchen table, and reached up to kiss her properly. “I thought it must be my magnetic presence. Or maybe my aftershave.”

  “I wish you didn’t have to paint the house. It would be a perfect day to go to the beach, or climb the rocks at Pemaquid and look at the ocean.”

  “It will also be a perfect day for paint to dry. The faster I get the house painted, the sooner we’ll have more time together.” He kissed the end of Maggie’s nose. “Remember, I have that one-day show to do Saturday. That’s another day we won’t be able to play.”

  “But I told you I’d help out! We’ll be together.”

  “True enough. So we’ll look forward to that. For now, I need to work.” He grinned at her. “I checked Walter English’s auction house. He’s having an auction Saturday, and the preview is open today and tomorrow. Why don’t I finish up painting by midafternoon and we check out the showroom then?”

  “It’s a date. At least Aunt Nettie’s house doesn’t have an ell and a barn to paint, too.” Maggie touched his cheek lightly and walked to the window, hoping she didn’t sound too petulant. “I’ll call Carolyn and see if she’s thought of anything I can help her with before the funeral. Maybe I can buy her a glass of wine and some lunch.”

  “Why don’t you walk over? Her aunt’s house is only a few blocks away. Carolyn spent a lot of time here as a child, but it’s been years. I don’t think she knows many people in town. She may need a friend. Even though her aunt was ill, dealing with death isn’t easy.”

  Maggie poured herself more Diet Pepsi, and neither she nor Will spoke for a few minutes. Both were conscious they’d made funeral arrangements for spouses who’d died suddenly, too young. “At least Susan lived a full life,” said Maggie. “She was in her nineties.”

  “In her prime, so far as I’m concerned,” said Aunt Nettie, as she joined them. “Haven’t you young people finished breakfast yet? It’s almost nine. I’ve been up for hours and walked to the post office and back besides.”

  “We’re about to get going,” said Will, clearing the dishes off the table. “I’m planning to scrape and paint half of the back of the house today.”

  “I’m going to see Carolyn,” said Maggie.

  “Take the casserole and the muffins with you,” said Aunt Nettie. “The casserole’s a nice one, with shrimp and rice. Tell Carolyn it’ll freeze if she’d like. The blueberry muffins, too.”

  Maggie pulled a navy cardigan over her red Somerset College T-shirt. When she reached the street she turned in the opposite direction from the main street of town. The air was crisp and cool. The sun hadn’t yet warmed it for the day. She was thankful for both the sweater and the opportunity to do some brisk walking. Seafood was not virtuous when it was fried or dipped in butter, and she hadn’t been virtuous since she’d been in Maine. Walking might burn off a few calories.

  She shifted the casserole and plastic bag full of muffins in her arms. The glass casserole dish was heavier than she’d anticipated.

  Waymouth’s streets were narrow, lined mainly with white Colonial houses with dark green shutters, although every sixth or seventh house had been defiantly painted cream, or boasted a red door. Lawns were not wide or deep, but most lots included flower gardens. Yellow daylilies vied with tiger lilies for being the most dramatic early August blooms.

  A teenaged boy in shorts was mowing a lawn, and a young mother pushed a double stroller toward Main Street. The low hum of traffic from the center of town and the drone of an occasional motorboat on the river were in the background, but the sound of gulls crying, song sparrows twittering, and chickadees calling to each other filled the morning quiet. Maggie didn’t remember hearing birds in New Jersey. They must be there. She was probably just too preoccupied, or moving too quickly between cars and buildings to pay attention. Here in Waymouth nature asserted itself.

  Susan Newall had died, but life was going on in her small Maine community. Maggie hoped Carolyn was feeling the same sense of calm and continuity she was.

  She made a left on Spruce Street and counted three houses in. Aunt Susan’s house was small, and needed a coat of paint. Salt air was hard on paint, and many of the houses in town could have used a refresher coat.

  Maggie walked up two granite steps onto the small front porch and knocked. After a few moments she knocked again. A yellow Nissan with New York plates was in the driveway. Carolyn was home, unless she’d also decided to go for a morning’s walk.

  After the third knock Maggie decided to check the back of the house. Carolyn could be lingering over a cup of coffee in the backyard.

  The back door was half-open. Maggie knocked again. “Carolyn? Carolyn, it’s Maggie!” When there was no answer she pushed the door open.

  Carolyn couldn’t have answered.

  Her body was sprawled face down on the faded 1930s black-and-white patterned kitchen linoleum. Her head was lying in a pool of dark blood. A marble rolling pin smeared with blood lay on the floor a few feet away.

  The kind used for pastry, Maggie thought automatically. But this rolling pin hadn’t been used to roll out dough.

  It had been used to kill Carolyn Chase.

  Chapter 11

  At Sea—Signaling a Passing Steamer. Winslow Homer wood engraving published in Every Saturday on April 8, 1871. Although Homer was later known for his oils and watercolors of sea scenes, and did a number of engravings of beaches and harbors, he only did three engravings of ships at sea. This is a night scene, with rough waves threatening a schooner’s survival. One mariner on a high deck is signaling for help with a lantern beam. 8.75 x 11.6 inches. Price: $275.

  Maggie stepped carefully around Carolyn’s body, trying not to look at it too closely. She forced herself to focus on what she had to do, not on what had been done to Carolyn. She reached for the old-fashioned black telephone hanging on the wall. It had been a long time since she’d used a dial phone. Why hadn’t she thought to bring her cell phone? She’d left i
t at Aunt Nettie’s, along with everything else in her red canvas bag.

  “Waymouth Police? This is Maggie Summer. I’m at Seventeen Spruce Street. A woman has been killed.”

  After promising the police not to touch anything, she looked around the room. Dirty dishes were in the sink and two navy placemats and two white mugs were on the table. One mug had overturned. Remnants of the dark liquid that had been in it had dripped through a crack in the table onto the floor. Dirty pans were on the cold stove.

  Maggie’s stomach began to turn. Those pancakes she’d had for breakfast were not agreeing with a murder scene.

  Carolyn had shared her last meal with someone last night. Had she argued with her guest? Or left the kitchen to be cleaned up later, perhaps this morning? Maggie didn’t know her well enough to guess.

  But Carolyn wouldn’t have left most of the cabinet doors open, and two drawers turned upside down on the floor, scattering their contents all over the floor. Maggie bent down to look. Most of the papers were Fair Point Telephone, Central Maine Power, and doctors’ bills. She was careful not to step on any of them. Especially those soaked in Carolyn’s blood.

  The killer was probably not looking for an elderly lady’s utility bills.

  Maggie squelched her curiosity and didn’t look in any of the other rooms.

  Waymouth wasn’t a large town. The police would arrive quickly, and she didn’t want to be found somewhere she shouldn’t be. She’d been in Maine before; she knew being from away would already make her a suspect in the eyes of many Mainers.

  She stepped around Carolyn and waited on the back steps next to the food she’d brought.

  The day no longer seemed sunny.

  Who could have wanted to hurt Carolyn? She kept thinking of her face as she’d happily shared her news with the genealogy group Tuesday night. Now, just a day and a half later, not only was her Aunt Susan dead, but Carolyn herself was gone.

  She tried not to think of the pool of blood on the kitchen floor of the house Carolyn had planned to restore and make a quiet country retreat. The house in which she’d spent so many happy summers.

  “I remember you. Maggie Summer. Will Brewer’s friend. You’re back.”

  Maggie stood up. She’d been so preoccupied with Carolyn’s death that she hadn’t heard the police car drive up. “Good morning, Detective Strait.”

  Nick Strait was an old friend of Will’s. She’d met him when he was investigating another homicide the year before. Under the circumstances it didn’t seem right to say “Good to see you again.”

  “You called to report a possible homicide.”

  “Carolyn Chase. She’s on the floor of the kitchen.” Maggie pointed, and moved herself and the food out into the yard. She felt foolish carrying around a casserole and blueberry muffins, but they certainly explained her presence. Any Mainer would understand bringing food to the bereaved.

  Strait and a younger cop went into the house. They returned almost immediately. “I assume you found her?” Detective Strait had his notebook out. “You called the police department.”

  “Yes. I came to keep her company. Her aunt, Susan Newall, died Tuesday night.”

  He looked down at the casserole.

  “I was bringing her some food.”

  “When did you get here?”

  Maggie checked her watch. “About fifteen minutes ago. I knocked on the front door. No one answered, but I saw Carolyn’s car, so I came around to the back. The door here was open.”

  “And you walked in.”

  “Yes. After knocking first and getting no response.”

  “Did you touch anything?”

  “I walked to the telephone to call the police, and then came outside to wait for you.” Maggie didn’t mention her few steps to look at the rest of the kitchen. What could they matter?

  Detective Strait sighed. “I suppose you’re in town with Will again?”

  Maggie nodded. “We’re staying at his Aunt Nettie’s house. Nettie Brewer.”

  Detective Strait raised his eyebrows a bit. “At her house this year? Interesting.”

  Maggie felt herself blushing. It was no business of Nick Strait’s where she stayed when she visited Waymouth.

  “How did you know Carolyn Chase?”

  “Aunt Nettie introduced us. Carolyn was writing a biography of her mother, Helen Chase, the artist.”

  “I know who Helen Chase was, and I know Carolyn’s been staying at her cousin’s house. What I don’t know is your connection to them.”

  Maggie thought quickly. Everything had happened so fast. What would make sense? The truth sounded a bit strange, but it was just that: the truth.

  “I was helping Carolyn with research for her book. I teach American Studies in New Jersey, and I’m familiar with nineteenth-century American art. Aunt Nettie suggested Carolyn and I might have interests in common. We met Monday night at Nettie’s house, and then had lunch Tuesday, and went to a meeting Tuesday night.”

  Detective Strait was taking notes. “What meeting was that?”

  “A group of people who meet at the Waymouth Library to discuss genealogy.”

  “I’ll check with the library. Did Carolyn mention, during this short acquaintance, that she was being threatened by anyone? Scared of anyone?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Had you been to the Newall house before? Would you be able to tell if anything was missing?”

  Maggie shook her head. “I’ve never been inside the house before.”

  “When was the last time you spoke with Carolyn?”

  “Yesterday morning. She called to say she couldn’t meet me for lunch, as we’d planned. Her cousin had died, and she had to make arrangements.”

  Strait put his pad in his pocket. “You’ll be staying with Nettie for a while?”

  “A couple of weeks.”

  The detective nodded. “I’ll probably need to talk with you again. Be nice to see Will, too. Why don’t you stay pretty close to Nettie’s for the next day or so.”

  It didn’t sound like a question.

  Chapter 12

  He Says You May Go and Open the Chest in the Corner and You Will See the Devil Crouching Inside It. Tipped-in illustration (lithograph) by Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) for story “Little Claus and Big Claus” by Hans Christian Andersen in 1912 Fairy Tales. Picture of older man talking to younger man at country table groaning with food while alarmed woman listens nearby. Rackham was one of the major artists of the “Golden Age of Illustration.” Born in London, his highly detailed illustrations were known for their strange depictions of ogres, trolls, fairies, and strange unnamed creatures hidden in branches or roots of trees. 6 x 5 inches. Price: $65.

  “Not Carolyn!” Aunt Nettie, who normally took even the most devastating news with the grace and perspective of her years, sat down hard on one of the kitchen Windsor chairs. “Oh, Maggie. How could that have happened?” She looked pale.

  “Let me get you a glass of iced tea.” Maggie was glad to do something that might help. “Sit a moment. Then we’ll talk.”

  She put the casserole and blueberry muffins into Aunt Nettie’s freezer, feeling as though she’d been freed of a burden, and reached up into the cupboard to where she’d learned tall glasses were stored.

  Spearmint grew just outside the kitchen door, lemons were in the Flow Blue bowl in the pine cupboard by the refrigerator, and within a few minutes she’d made a pitcher of iced tea and filled three glasses with ice. “I’m going to tell Will,” she explained, as she handed one glass to Aunt Nettie. “I’ll be right back.”

  He returned with her, wiping his paint-splattered hands on a tattered cloth, and sat down at the table, careful that none of the wet paint on his coveralls touched the furniture.

  Maggie explained what had happened. “I assume your friend Nick Strait is going to be in charge of the investigation, Will. By the way, he said he’d like to see you.”

  Will shook his head. “Maggie, why is it that when you’re around Nick and I can
’t seem to have a beer together without the occasion’s having sinister legal overtones?” He sighed. “At least neither you nor any of your old friends are suspects this time. You won’t benefit from Carolyn’s death.” He paused as they all remembered the previous summer’s events. “I can’t imagine anyone would gain from Carolyn’s death. Or who could be angry at her. She didn’t even know many people in town.”

  “Actually,” Maggie said, “I’ve been thinking about that. I don’t know who killed Carolyn. Or why. But Carolyn did tell me a little about her will while we were having lunch the other day.”

  “Why ever would you be talking about her will?” asked Aunt Nettie, who’d recovered somewhat. “It was Susan we knew would be dying soon. Susan probably left her estate to Carolyn.”

  “That’s right,” said Maggie. “Carolyn just found that out, although she’d suspected it before. She’d met with Susan and Susan’s lawyer, Brad Pierce, at the nursing home on Monday. It sounded as though her Aunt Susan’s mind was sharp right until the end.”

  “Thank goodness for that,” put in Aunt Nettie. “If my mind starts to go, Will, just smother me with a pillow and put me down in Spruce Point Cemetery with the rest of the Brewers so I’m no trouble to anyone. Having your body go is enough of a curse. If your mind isn’t with you any more, you might as well just fold your cards and skedaddle.” She looked straight at Will. “You remember I said that, young man.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Will, winking at his aunt.

  Maggie took a deep breath. “In any case, so far as I know Susan’s mind was fine. Carolyn said she’d thanked her, and told her she’d be happy to keep the house. She planned to live in it at least part-time, during the summers. I assume she was also getting everything in the house.”

  Aunt Nettie nodded. “Susan told me some time ago that’s what she’d planned. She had some lovely things, you know; a few of Helen’s paintings of Waymouth, and some family furniture and china that was good. I don’t know the fancy names for things, the way you antiques people do, but a lot of her furnishings were old, for sure. Some of the pieces are in those old pictures I showed you. Susan inherited the Newall family house.”