by Lea Wait
“Good. Thank you, Rachel. You did a great job.” She paused for a moment. “And Rachel, did you quit today?”
“I gave notice. I told Walter I’d work through Labor Day, to help with the big auction that weekend, but then I was leaving to plan my new life.”
“Congratulations, Rachel! I hope it’s a wonderful life!”
“It’s going to be, Maggie. I just know it. If I can help with anything else, let me know. I’m going to be working at the library and the gallery for the next couple of weeks, but I’m going to stay as far away from Lew Coleman as I can.”
“That’s a wise idea.”
“Give my best to Aunt Nettie, will you? Tell her I have some of the cranberry-orange muffins that she loves in my freezer. I’ll bring some by for her later this week.”
“She’ll like that. Thank you, Rachel!”
Maggie was beginning to feel pieces of the puzzle coming together. But they didn’t all fit yet.
As if in answer, the clothes dryer beeped. She answered its call, folding the mix of her clothes, Will’s, and Aunt Nettie’s in the kitchen.
Laundry, just like a family, she thought, as she carried the piles upstairs, and put everything away. All mixed together. But it could be sorted out.
What she needed to do was figure out what belonged where.
It was after four o’clock in the afternoon. Shouldn’t the hospital have sent Aunt Nettie home by now? And if they released her this late, what would they all eat? Was there any food in the house?
She was checking the refrigerator when the telephone rang again.
Chapter 34
Petunia nyctaginiflora...Petunia phoenicia...etc. Botanical print illustrating a bouquet of six flowers from Jane Webb Loudon’s (1807-1858) The Ladies Flower-Garden of Ornamental Annuals, c. 1850. London. Hand-colored lithograph enhanced with gum arabic. Mrs. Loudon, as she signed her books, was the first botanical illustrator to paint flowers that bloomed together rather than illustrate examples of a single specimen or classification. She worked beside her horticulturist husband, even during her pregnancies (which was unheard of at the time), and saw the need for more accessible guides to gardening. She made it fashionable for ladies to work in gardens, and her popular books ended up supporting her family. 8 x 11.5 inches. Price: $160.
“Hi, lady. It’s me.” Will’s voice was clear and calm.
“What’s happening at the hospital? I expected you to call hours ago,” Maggie said.
“Sorry. It’s been a bit crazy here. The doctors insisted they had to check Aunt Nettie again, and then Nick came to question her once more to make sure she couldn’t help identify the man who attacked her. I didn’t want to leave her alone.”
“Are they releasing her today?”
“Dr. Simpson signed the papers and one of the nurses is helping her get dressed right now. How’s the house?”
“Pretty well done,” said Maggie, feeling proud of herself. “I’ve about finished the laundry and our rooms. But we’re low on food. I don’t know how much she’ll want to eat, but you and I will need something for dinner.”
As she spoke, Maggie’s stomach rumbled. She hadn’t had lunch. Diet cola plus rum didn’t exactly count as sustenance.
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll stop on the way home and pick something up. And a locksmith should be arriving any time. Nick suggested we change the locks on the doors and put guards at least on the downstairs windows. He knew someone who could come right away, so I told him you’d be there to let him in.”
“Good idea,” said Maggie. “We should have thought of that yesterday.”
“Even with a food stop, I should be home in an hour.”
“See you then. Tell Aunt Nettie it will be good to have her at home again.”
“She’s anxious to get out of the hospital, but I think she’s a little nervous about coming home,” said Will, lowering his voice.
“I’m not surprised. I’d be nervous, too, under the circumstances,” said Maggie. “I’m glad we’ll both be here.”
“Exactly,” said Will, sounding relieved. “That’s what I told her, too. Love you, lady!”
Maggie had barely put down the telephone when a knock on the front door alerted her to the arrival of Butch Osmond, 24-HOUR LOCKSMITH AND HOUSEHOLD PESTS ELIMINATED, according to his orange T-shirt. She authorized his installing deadbolts on both the front and back doors.
It would be good to get as much of that done as possible before Aunt Nettie arrived.
Seeing someone putting heavy defenses on her home would only remind her of what happened Saturday.
In the meantime Maggie refreshed her drink (just a little) and read another journal entry. Once Will and Aunt Nettie arrived there wouldn’t be time for reading.
July 19, 1890
What news! Jessie is all in a dither...Luke Trask has returned! Jessie has delayed all of Orin Colby’s hints and suggestions, but now that Luke has returned she will have to make a decision. Or Luke will.
I wonder if he received my letter? If so, then he knows of Orin’s interest in Jessie, and the challenges he faces.
July 10, 1890
Luke Trask was in church with his family this morning. After services he did not speak with Jessie and her family, as I had expected, but came over and spoke politely to me, asking if he might visit tomorrow evening. Before my mother could respond, I told him that, of course, he was an old friend who was always welcome.
He must have seen Jessie yesterday! We have only one more week to pose for Mr. Homer, but I will see her tomorrow. I can hardly wait to ask her.
July 21, 1890
Jessie told me, with tears in her eyes, that Luke came to call almost immediately upon his arrival Saturday, but her father turned him away, telling him that Jessie was already spoken for.
“What are you going to do?” I asked Jessie.
She just shook her head. “I am going to marry Orin,” she answered. “I must. My father has promised him, and I have reasons of my own. You wouldn’t understand. You have no beaux.”
I would understand better than she thinks, I suspect. But I gave her my handkerchief, which she was in need of. I did try to be sympathetic but, indeed, I could think of nothing but that Jessie had turned Luke away, and that he had asked to call on me!
I have loved him as long as Jessie has, I am sure. Perhaps, for all the strange turns this summer has taken, this might be the turn that will save me.
Now: will he come?
Luke did, indeed, arrive to call this evening, very properly. We sat in the living room, just as courting adults would do. I felt as though we were playing at being man and woman; that we were, inside, still the children who played tag and hide-and-go-seek on the village green and passed notes in school with Jessie. At any moment I expected Luke to reach over and tickle me, or joke about what we were doing.
But he did not, and neither did I. We both played our roles seriously, and I found myself enjoying the grown-up Luke as much as I had hoped to. As much as I had liked the boy. He is very good-looking, as Jessie often said. He is not sophisticated, like Micah, or wealthy, like Jessie’s Orin. But I am comfortable with Luke, and I know he works hard.
Which indeed he will have to do, now he has lost all his fishing gear when the sloop went down.
We talked mainly of Jessie, and his months of longing for her, and his disappointment at her being promised to someone else. But he also said he was glad to have me as a friend, and that our friendship sustained him. I told him the same.
It was not precisely a romantic meeting, but he was in the parlor of my home, not in Jessie’s or in that of some other young woman. And he said he would call again if I were agreeable.
I said I was.
Anna May had managed to get Luke’s attention.
Maggie checked on the locksmith. He had already put new locks on both the front and back doors.
“Tight as they’ll get, ma’am, unless someone was to knock the whole door off its hinges. Those hinges
won‘t last forever, you know,” he’d unreassuringly pointed out. Now he was putting small locks on each of the first-floor windows.
Maggie hoped they wouldn’t make it too hard for Aunt Nettie to open the windows. In New York City and some parts of New Jersey the second-floor windows would need to be reinforced, too, but here in Waymouth... She hoped Nick was right; that wasn’t necessary.
Her home had window locks, and so far (she knocked quickly on a nearby pine side table) she hadn’t had a break-in. But Aunt Nettie had. Of course, Will had left the back door unlocked and so, technically, the intruder had just walked in. She hoped Aunt Nettie would remember to bolt the locks being installed now.
Will’s RV pulled into the driveway a few minutes later. He opened the door for his aunt and offered a hand to help her out as Maggie joined them.
“Welcome home! It’s good to see you out of the hospital, Aunt Nettie.”
“It’s certainly good to be here,” said Nettie, as she stood in the driveway and looked around. “I feel as though I’ve been away years, and aged at least a decade. What’s that truck in the street?”
“I called a locksmith to put new locks on your doors, Aunt Nettie,” said Will, guiding his aunt to the steps up to the front porch. “How’s he coming, Maggie?”
“Almost finished. The front and back doors are done, and he’s put locks on almost all the downstairs windows.”
“Locks on the windows, too! You’ll make me feel I’m in a prison!” said Aunt Nettie. She took the steps carefully, one at a time. A week ago she would have moved three times as quickly. And Maggie noted she didn’t really complain that the locksmith was there.
“Let me sit on the porch a few minutes and look at the river,” said Aunt Nettie, taking her usual place in her usual chair.
“Would you like something to drink?” asked Maggie.
“Some iced tea would be lovely, dear,” said Aunt Nettie. “If it’s not too much bother.”
“No problem,” said Maggie, wishing she’d thought to make some earlier in the day. Will followed her into the house and put his arm around her.
“Thank you, thank you for everything,” he whispered. “I couldn’t have been at the hospital for Aunt Nettie if you hadn’t been here to take care of things at the house.”
“Mr. Brewer? The doors and windows are done. You want to pay me now, or should I bill your aunt?” Butch Osborne stood in the kitchen doorway, toolkit in hand.
“Let me look at what you’ve done,” said Will, releasing Maggie with an extra squeeze. “Have you left three or four copies of a key that will fit both doors?”
As the two men left to talk over door and window issues, Maggie heated water and found teabags, lemon, mint, and sugar. Aunt Nettie liked real sugar, not the artificial sort.
With ice cubes added to cool down the hot tea, it didn’t take long to make enough iced tea for now and later. Maggie poured one glass for Aunt Nettie and put the rest in the refrigerator.
“Sorry, that took a few minutes,” she said, handing the glass to Aunt Nettie on the porch.
The old woman took a long sip, and then handed the glass back to Maggie. “Just put it on the table for me, won’t you?” she asked. “I should feel full of energy after being kept prisoner in that place for days, but I don’t seem to have any strength. Will stopped to get food for dinner, but I’m not sure I’m up to eating very much of it.”
Maggie realized Will hadn’t brought anything else into the house. “Food? Is it in the RV?”
“I guess so. I didn’t look where he put it.”
“I’ll check.” Sure enough, there were two bags inside. “I’m going to see what he bought, Aunt Nettie. Maybe you can eat a little.”
Will must have thought they were going to have guests for dinner. Or he’d been starving when he’d ordered. Maggie remembered the take-out place they’d eaten the summer before. In the bags were fried scallops, fried clams, fried haddock, tiny fried Maine shrimp, and fried onion rings, Will’s favorite. At the bottom of one bag was a container of vegetable soup. He’d even bought three Whoopie Pies, the soft chocolate cake with marshmallow filling that was the local most-evil dessert.
Enough food to sabotage two or three diets all in one meal.
Maggie went back to Aunt Nettie, who looked as though she was almost falling asleep on the porch. “Aunt Nettie, do you think you could eat a little vegetable soup? And maybe a couple of scallops?”
“That would probably be good for me, wouldn’t it?” she said. “Well, you get it ready, Maggie, and then I’ll come in. I don’t want to try to eat soup out here on the porch. It’s getting late. The sea breezes are coming in and I’m getting a bit chilled.”
By the time Maggie’d found Aunt Nettie a sweater to put around her shoulders and set the kitchen table to display all of Will’s offerings, he’d sent the locksmith off with a check. “Go and get Aunt Nettie,” said Maggie. “She said she’s too tired to eat much, but I’m hoping she can manage a little soup and some seafood.”
Will helped his aunt in from the porch, and he and Maggie both tried not to watch as Nettie stirred her soup, but ate very little of it, and managed to cut one large scallop into pieces and eat it in tiny bites. They filled themselves with the rest of the vegetable soup and generous helpings of the fried foods.
“I’m sorry. I guess I’m just not hungry,” said Aunt Nettie. “Will, could you help me upstairs? I think I’ll go to bed early tonight. I’m sure I’ll be back to feeling myself in the morning.”
“No problem,” said Will. “Would you like me to help you get into your night clothes?”
“My dear, no. I’m not an invalid,” said Aunt Nettie. “But maybe, Maggie, if you could help me with my shoes and some of my buttons? I always have trouble with buttons when I’m tired.”
“I’ll go up with you, too,” said Maggie.
It was another half hour before Aunt Nettie was tucked into her bed and Will and Maggie were back downstairs finishing their dinner, now cold.
“I hope she has more strength tomorrow,” said Maggie.
“She didn’t even ask to see the work the locksmith had done, or look at the house,” Will pointed out. “Thank goodness we cleaned it up as much as we did. She didn’t seem to notice that anything was different.”
“She didn’t look,” said Maggie. “She didn’t look at anything. She was depending on you, on us, to help with everything. She couldn’t have come home by herself, Will.”
“I know,” he said. “The doctors said she was fine physically, but I’m not so sure. She certainly isn’t the same. We’ll see how she is tomorrow.”
And the day after, Maggie thought, as she cleaned up the kitchen while Will went to check that his aunt’s door was ajar so he could hear her if she called for him during the night. And the day after that.
Chapter 35
Faneuil Hall, from the Water. Hand-colored steel engraving by William Henry Bartlett (1809-1854), printed in London. Bartlett was the best known and most prolific topographical artist in the first half of the nineteenth century. He made four visits to the United States, and also traveled throughout the British Isles, the Balkans, and the Middle East. His engravings were all published uncolored, but some were subsequently hand-colored. This one is from his American Scenery, published 1839-1842, and shows a schooner and smaller sailing boats docked near Faneuil Hall in Boston. 8 x 11 inches (image 7.5 x 5 inches). Price: $95.
“I have an appointment to meet Brad Pierce tomorrow morning,” said Maggie. “Carolyn’s lawyer. He wants me to see the contents of the trunk she left me. I can’t take possession for six months, but he wants me to know what I’m getting.”
“Okay,” said Will, who’d been pacing the living room in silence for the past fifteen minutes. “When you were cleaning the upstairs today, did you see Aunt Nettie’s photo album?”
“No. And I did look for it. All I saw were dirty clothes and bedding and a lot of dust. Fingerprint powder, and the regular kind of dust, too,” sa
id Maggie. “And Rachel called this afternoon.”
“Did she find out anything about the auction bids?”
“There were two left bids on each of the paintings. We can forget one. It was from the owner of a local inn who only bid two hundred dollars-plus. Way out of the ballpark for any decent oil painting.”
“Just looking for Maine scenes to hang on the walls,” said Will.
“That’s what I figured. But there was a higher bid from someone approved by Lew Coleman, without identifying information or a credit card number.”
Will stopped pacing. “Interesting. What do we know about Lew Coleman, other than that he comes from Waymouth and his father taught math and is now losing it a bit, mentally?”
“I don’t think his father is too far down that path,” said Maggie. “Remember, I met him. But I suppose he could be in the early stages. Rachel said Lew worked in New York before he came home to take care of his dad.”
“If he came from Waymouth, no way he didn’t know about Helen Chase. Rachel said he’d had a call from someone at Sotheby’s, right?”
“Right.”
“If he’d worked there...” Will pointed out.
“Then he would know people there. And definitely know about Helen Chase,” Maggie agreed.
“Maybe he saw those paintings, recognized them, and had someone planted to buy them, so he could resell them at Sotheby’s.” Will looked as though he’d solved the puzzle.
“Illegal, but possible,” Maggie admitted. “But that doesn’t explain how the paintings got into the auction at all. If anyone from Waymouth wanted to sell Helen Chase paintings they could take them to Sotheby’s themselves, instead of using a Maine auction house. Or at least have them identified for what they are! Some Maine auction houses get big prices.”
“But you said none of Helen Chase’s Maine paintings should have been sold. She kept them all, or gave them to Susan. So none of them should have been in any auction house.” Will looked at Maggie.
