Shadows of a Down East Summer

by Lea Wait

  (Mr. Homer did not seem to care that Duck pecked at Jessie and me, but was quite aggravated when Duck decided that tubes of paint might be edible.)

  Truthfully, it was an exhausting day, but one full of possibilities. I have determined to somehow see the inside of one of those grand inns this summer.

  Prouts Neck is definitely a more interesting place than Waymouth.

  The Champagne was chilled by the time Will arrived at the Inn.

  “What are we celebrating?” he said, bending to give Maggie a kiss that lingered long enough to promise more.

  “Aunt Nettie’s recovery, and a quiet night just for us,” she said, closing the journal and slipping it back inside her canvas bag. For now, the nineteenth century could stay in the past.

  “Sounds perfect,” he agreed. They ordered mussels steamed in white wine and herbs, and lobster. “To us,” he proposed, as their champagne flutes clicked.

  “And to Maine,” Maggie added.

  The mussels were seasoned with just the right amount of garlic, and the lobsters were sweet soft-shells. “They’re calling these ‘new shells,’ now, I noticed at one of the restaurants,” Will commented. “But I’m an old-timer. Lobsters will always be either hard-shells or soft-shells to me.”

  “Is there really a difference?” asked Maggie, picking carefully through the body of her lobster for the small pieces of meat in the body behind the legs. “Other than the hard-shelled ones being thicker and harder to open, of course.”

  “I like the soft-shells. I think the meat is sweeter,” said Will. “Of course, since the lobsters have just shed their old shells and grown new ones, there’s empty space in the shells and they’re messier to eat. But for my five dollars, or whatever the going rate per pound is this year, they’re definitely worth it.”

  “These are delicious,” agreed Maggie. “Right out of the water.”

  “Every hour out of the ocean or deep salt river makes a difference,” said Will. “Anyone who thinks a tank in a restaurant or supermarket keeps lobster fresh just because they’re alive hasn’t eaten the real thing.”

  They didn’t talk much, as they dipped their meat in lemon butter.

  “So, your visit to the Thompsons was interesting,” said Will.

  “I never did see the art I was invited there to see,” said Maggie. “But I did look at a lot of art from the 1930s colony. Horrible stuff. Mirage was a good name for the Thompsons’ place. That colony must have attracted every wannabe artist in the Northeast. It definitely was not Ogunquit or Kennebunk or Monhegan. I didn’t meet the senior Thompson, either, who I gather is quite elderly now, although his wife Betsy is not over thirty-five. But I did meet his son, Josh.”

  “Josh?” Will thought a minute. “I don’t remember a son. But I know he was married to someone a lot older than Betsy years ago. So I assume that was wife number one or two, and Betsy is the latest edition.”

  “Maybe. Josh looks like trouble. Doesn’t look as though he gets along with his stepmum, as he called Betsy. And I wondered why the Harvard grad student, Kevin Bradman, was living there for the summer. I’m still not sure, but he might be Josh’s boyfriend. Or maybe he’s Betsy’s boy toy. He certainly looked very friendly with everyone.”

  Will grinned. “Sounds like the current version of the artists’ colony is still humming. Didn’t those colonies all have pretty racy reputations?”

  “Some did. But a lot of work was done in many of them. Good work. I’m not sure what kind of work, if any, is being done at Mirage right now.”

  Will took another sip of the Champagne. “When I talked with Nick earlier he said they hadn’t found anything in Nettie’s house that would help them identify whoever broke in. At least she seems to be better, and whatever damage he did wasn’t worse. Nick didn’t think he’d found a stranger’s fingerprints; whoever was there must have been wearing gloves. Our fingerprints are on file, since we’ve both been teachers. We’ll have to clean up the house the best we can, and hope Aunt Nettie can see whether there is anything missing.”

  “There doesn’t seem to be any reason for someone to break in, then?”

  “Not that Nick can figure out. I also had a call from Rachel. She wants to see us tomorrow. I have no idea what that’s about, but she is family. Maybe she just heard about Aunt Nettie and wants to hear from us how she is.”

  Maggie shrugged. “There are too many things happening. Now that we know Aunt Nettie’s all right, I want to know who killed Carolyn. No word on anything there?”

  “You were going to talk with her lawyer tomorrow, weren’t you? He may have heard something. I don’t think they’ve even set a date for the funerals yet.”

  “Sounds like we have a full day lined up. Especially if we’ll be bringing Aunt Nettie home. We’ve got to get her room looking decent before she sees it. Despite how she thinks she feels, she’s going to be weak, and need someone to keep an eye on her at first.”

  “How about we end this day then?” said Will. “Champagne, lobster, and a lovely lady. I can only think of a couple of other possibilities to make the night sweeter.”

  “Chocolate?” teased Maggie, as they got up to leave the restaurant.

  “Chocolate is one possibility,” Will agreed. “Have you ever tasted Round Top’s Chocolate-Raspberry Chip ice cream?”

  “No, but if it’s as good as it sounds, it might be the beginning of a serious relationship,” Maggie said, putting her hand in his, as they walked together down the quiet street toward a nearby ice cream shop.

  Chapter 29

  A New England Home. Currier & Ives hand-colored lithograph, 152 Nassau Street, New York, c.1860. Idyllic picture of square, white, shuttered, two-story Colonial home with center chimney, front and side doors, front porch. Separate barn; cows, chickens, light carriage pulled by horses; several children playing in drive; hills in distance. Currier & Ives prints (first under the name Stodart + Currier, and then N. Currier) were published from 1834 until 1907. Calling themselves “Printmakers to the American People,” they published over 7500 prints, most subjects United States-related. Their low prices (five cents to three dollars) made them affordable by average Americans. Small folio, 8 x 12.5 inches. Price: $450.

  The evening had ended in a most satisfying way. Maggie stretched as she began to wake the next morning. She peered at the motel’s digital clock radio: 7:10. Uncharacteristically, she had wakened first. Will was still snoring softly on the pillow next to hers. He must have been even more tired than he’d let on.

  She slipped out of the bed, made a bathroom stop, and decided to use the time until Will woke up to sneak in another chapter of the journal. After what she’d heard at the Thompsons’ house about Jessie’s future, or at least what family stories said was Jessie’s future, she was anxious to find out what Anna May’s version of the summer of 1890 had been.

  June 27, 1890

  I have not written in a few days because there has been nothing new to write. Jessie and I have been to Prouts Neck three days this week, during which time Sam’s house has been completed, and Duck’s enclosure also.

  Mr. Homer has a special garden next to his studio in which he grows all manner of vegetables and flowers, and at the end of today’s work he bowed to Jessie and me and gave each of us a nosegay before wishing us well. Since next week ends in the Fourth of July, and all its related celebrations, and both of Mr. Homer’s brothers are expected at the Ark (one of them traveling with his family all the way from Houston, Texas, Mr. Wright told us!) we are not expected back until July 7.

  It will be a dull week in Waymouth with only the usual parade and fireworks and reading of the Declaration and such. But Mother is relieved I will be here to help her cook for the church picnic. I am also planning to spend some of the money I have earned on new ribbons for my hat in an attempt to make it a bit more stylish. After seeing those elegantly dressed women outside the inns at Prouts Neck (and I am sure they believe they are in their vacation attire) I am more and more conscious of how countri
fied we are here in Waymouth, no matter how many copies of the Boston Globe’s fashion pages we study.

  July 4, 1890

  What excitement we have had! The wife of the captain of Luke Trask’s ship received a telegram that the ship was indeed damaged in the storms some weeks past, but all aboard were rescued by a fishing ship out of Newfoundland, and survived, to the joy and relief of everyone here in Waymouth, since all seven are local fishermen, and many feared them lost.

  The men are making their way south to Halifax, where they will find passage back to Waymouth. Their ship was lost, which is a considerable financial hardship to its owner and captain, but not a major concern for Luke, since he had no loss but his gear and time.

  Jessie was the one to tell me the news. She knocked on our door early this morning. She was smiling so, my mother said her happiness would dim the sun.

  She said it would take Luke another year to pay for new gear, but that was nothing in comparison with what might have been lost, which, of course, was the truth.

  I also rejoiced, but more silently, since both my concern before and my rejoicing now must be private.

  After Jessie left, Mother wondered out loud what Orin Colby would think when he saw her joy today. I lied when I told Mother I thought he would understand Jessie was relieved to hear that her childhood friend was safe.

  We knew other men on board, of course, so there were happy tears throughout the town, and the Independence Day Parade celebrated the good news as well as our Independence from Great Britain. The whole town, it seemed, gathered as always on the village green for a picnic after the parade, while the children and some of the fathers and young men played games and the women chatted and gossiped.

  Jessie stayed with her family and I with mine, while my sister Sarah sat with a group of young women of her age from the church who later entertained us with a selection of patriotic songs. The mayor, as always, read the Declaration of Independence, the school band played, and when it was dark enough for a few couples to be seen walking into the shadows at the side of the green there were fireworks over the river, provided by the two shipyards and the mill in town. As we walked home afterwards I heard several young men shooting their rifles, as they frequently do on the Fourth, especially after they have imbibed to excess in celebration.

  Since I had no one to sneak off the green with, and Mother’s friends’ gossip held no interest for me, the day’s excitement had come early. But I have next week to look forward to, when I return to Prouts Neck.

  Will turned over and opened one eye. “Maggie? It’s almost eight-thirty!” He sat up. “We have to get over to Aunt Nettie’s house. Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “You needed the sleep,” Maggie pronounced, not mentioning she’d been so focused on Anna May’s lavender script that she hadn’t looked at the clock in forty-five minutes.

  “Maybe,” Will admitted, pulling his new L.L. Bean jeans on, “but we have work to do.” He looked at her. “You’re reading the journal?”

  “It’s fascinating,” she answered, putting the book down.

  “That’s good,” Will said, obviously focused on the present, not on 1890. He walked around the motel room, throwing their dirty clothes from Saturday and their toiletries into one of the shopping bags Maggie had brought back from Freeport. “Make sure we have everything. We need to check out and get going.”

  Within fifteen minutes they were back at Aunt Nettie’s house. The yellow crime scene tape had been removed, but the mess left by whoever had broken in was only the beginning. Investigators had left gray fingerprinting dust on every surface in the house, and moved the few things on the second floor that had not already been misplaced. The first floor hadn’t escaped the rampage either.

  Maggie walked through quickly to get an overview. “I don’t know the house as well as you do, Will. But I can scrub woodwork and counters. I’ll start on the downstairs woodwork and put the kitchen back together. If you throw Aunt Nettie’s sheets and towels down the stairs, I’ll start a load in the washing machine so we can have fresh sheets on her bed when she gets home.”

  Will looked more overwhelmed than Maggie. “I keep thinking of someone going through her things. The china figurines and souvenirs and pictures that would mean nothing to anyone but her. It’s going to be hard for her to come back and see all this.”

  “That’s why we have to get as much back in order as possible,” Maggie agreed. “The bathroom upstairs, and her bedroom are the most important. For now we can close the doors of our rooms and she might not even have to see those.”

  “You’re right,” nodded Will. “I’ll get the sheets.” He headed up the stairs.

  Maggie started the washing machine as soon as the first load of laundry arrived. The rhythmic sounds of water pouring in, and then the familiar side-to-side whooshing of the washer was soothing. She scrubbed the woodwork and counters and stovetop and washed the dishes that had been left out. Everything had acquired a veneer of fingerprinting dust in the past thirty-six hours.

  A mop she found in the closet cleaned the floor adequately. You couldn’t eat off the floor, she thought, but it would do for walking. Most of the muddy footprints had more to do with the heavy rains Friday and Saturday than with forensic evidence. There had been a lot of people walking in and out during the past two days.

  The living room and dining room seemed to have been skipped by both the intruder and the police. The only dust looked like the sort she would no doubt find in her own house once she got back home. She took a dishcloth to use as a duster, and cleaned off the table tops and open shelves. Might as well do some basic housecleaning while they were at it. Aunt Nettie wouldn’t be up to it when she got home. She found the vacuum cleaner in the back hall, and gave the carpets what Aunt Nettie would have called “a lick and a promise.”

  What women of 1890 wouldn’t have given for an electric vacuum she thought, as it roared away dust and stray crumbs and pieces of crumbled leaves and dirt that had been walked in on wet shoes and boots. Anna May and Jessie and their mothers would have had to take up rugs, carry them outside, hang them over clothes lines, and hit them with carpet beaters to get the dust and grime out of them in spring and fall.

  When had they invented carpet sweepers? She couldn’t remember. In the 1870s sometime. They must have seemed revolutionary!

  When the washing machine paused she could hear Will moving about upstairs, putting drawers back in bureaus, and returning furniture to where it belonged. Maybe she should go and help him.

  But now she was curious. In that book of old photographs Aunt Nettie had shown them that first night she was in Maine, the night Carolyn had come for dinner, had there been any pictures of Anna May or Jessie? There’d been a picture of Carolyn’s grandmother, Kathleen, she was sure. Helen Chase’s mother. Did the photographs go further back?

  She couldn’t resist taking a peek. It would be wonderful to find a picture of Luke Trask, too, or even of Orin Colby. Who were these people she was reading about? What had they looked like?

  She was sure Aunt Nettie had put the red morocco photograph album on top of the bookcase by the fireplace. But there was nothing like it on the bookcase. Or in it.

  Maybe she was mistaken. She checked another, smaller bookcase, and the shelf under the coffee table. Nothing. No morocco leather photograph album anywhere.

  She felt a chill. Could the person who broke into the house have taken it? Who would want a century-old photograph album? Maybe Aunt Nettie had taken it upstairs to her room, to look at it again. It contained her memories, after all.

  Sudden silence signaled the end of the washer cycle. Maggie shifted Aunt Nettie’s sheets and other bedding to the dryer. She was about halfway upstairs when Will’s phone rang.

  “Rachel! I was going to call you as soon as I finished at Aunt Nettie’s house.” Pause. “No, she’s a lot better. We’re hoping she can come home today. Is it critical we see you now?”

  What could Rachel want that could be so important? A
unt Nettie’s health was the issue right now. That and solving Carolyn’s murder, of course.

  “I’m sorry, Rachel. But I can’t imagine... How long will you be at the library? Then we’ll stop there in about an hour. Take it easy. I’ll take Aunt Nettie’s car. See you then.”

  Maggie continued up the stairs. “What was that about?”

  “Rachel. She says Lew Coleman, that young guy who works at the auction house, blames her for the police removing the two paintings we thought were by Helen Chase from the auction last week. Coleman’s threatening to have her fired.”

  “What?” said Maggie. “Why? It would be illegal for them to sell stolen art. If the paintings weren’t stolen, then they should have records to prove that. All reputable galleries are careful about that sort of thing. And why fire Rachel in any case?”

  “Because she’s my cousin, and you’re my girl, and she was seen talking to us before the police came and checked on the paintings. We’re both linked with Carolyn Chase. And, it turns out, Rachel took two calls from someone at Sotheby’s last Sunday for Lew Coleman.”

  “So?”

  “Lew didn’t want anyone to know about the calls. Rachel picked up his private line, thinking she was doing him a favor, and left the message note on the auction staff bulletin board.”

  “Let me guess: where his boss, Walter English, saw it,” said Maggie.

  “Right.” Will sighed. “I don’t know what that’s all about, but we’re somehow mixed up in it, so she wants to talk with us.” He stood in Aunt Nettie’s room. The furniture was back in place, fresh sheets were on the bed, and drawers were back in the two bureaus, but Maggie suspected not everything was exactly as it had been. How could either she or Will know which drawer Aunt Nettie used for her unmentionables and which for her out-of-season clothes?

  At least the room looked presentable on the surface.

  “You’ve done a lot of work. The bathroom?”

  “Clean as I can make it,” he said, opening the door to show her. “Luckily, it wasn’t as messed up in there. Whatever the guy was looking for, I don’t think it was drugs. At least not Aunt Nettie’s aspirin and cough drops, which were all that were in there.”