by Anne Canadeo
“That was our friend Jamie,” Dana explained as she began to cast on for the back of Jack’s vest. “He just lost his wife. She was a good friend of ours. She used to knit with us.”
“Too bad. That’s sad.” Crystal stopped tapping and nodded again.
Before the conversation could go any further, Phoebe appeared in the doorway and noisily strolled in on her rubber flip-flops. She was hardly visible under a voluminous white T-shirt, which Lucy guessed belonged to her boyfriend, Josh, and could have done double duty as a minidress. A lumpy-looking knapsack a lot like Crystals was slung over her shoulder.
“I’m here. I couldn’t find my sunblock. Sorry.”
“No problem. I was just hanging with your friends.”
“Yes, Crystal has just been hanging with us,” Maggie echoed, sounding as if she were trying to speak a foreign language but had mangled the accent miserably. “Crystal wants to learn how to knit. You ought to bring her back sometime, when there’s a beginner’s class or a knitting group night.”
“Sure, if she wants. They didn’t freak you out too much, did they?” Phoebe asked blandly.
Lucy knew Phoebe was just being her sarcastic little self. But Crystal didn’t seem to have the same sense of irony and took the question very seriously.
“Um … no. They’re pretty cool?” Goth Girl replied.
Whoa, Crystal thinks we’re pretty cool!? Did anyone else hear that? Lucy wanted to ask her friends.
But she decided to wait until the two girls were out of earshot.
“Catch you later,” Phoebe said, waving as she left for her personal beach day.
“Two o’clock, please, Phoebe. That was our deal. We might be able to have summer hours more often, if this works out,” Maggie called after her. Sort of a promise and a warning intertwined, Lucy thought.
“I guess I’d better go, too,” Suzanne said. “It’s after ten.” She rose and straightened a sleeveless hot pink top bordered by white and yellow flowers that had been appliquéd. She wore it over a white skirt. Lucy remembered when she’d knit the top last winter and fussed as she worked on the flower trim, when it seemed as if summer would never come again. Well, here it was. Suzanne was prepared, looking very stylish and professional.
“That was a lucky break for Jamie, that Gloria had put his name on the deed and changed her will,” Lucy said.
“Lucky for me, too,” Suzanne admitted. “If the house was part of the estate, who knows when he’d be free to sell it. Even if he wanted to.”
“It takes several months for an estate to go through probate. Even when the situation is straightforward,” Dana told them, gathering up her project. “It sounds like Gloria’s might be more complicated. But with the house in his name and his name on the will, it shouldn’t be too bad.”
Maggie’s expression held a thoughtful look. “That was very responsible of Gloria to take care of those details right away. I know she was a good businesswoman, but she could be scattered in a lot of ways, too. Or just didn’t think the rules applied to her. Like she was invulnerable, so why worry about a will? Jamie makes it sound as if she was very concerned that he be taken care of if anything happened to her. Do you think …?” Maggie shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m saying … just forget about it.”
Maggie’s aborted line of logic had caught Lucy’s interest. “Go on, what were you going to say, Maggie? Do you think Gloria had some sort of premonition about her accident?”
“The thought did come to mind,” Maggie admitted. “People do have these intuitive feelings about their … demise. And what he said the other night, about her dark moods. That worried me, too,” she admitted.
Dana had packed up her knitting, but remained at the table. “That was troubling. I had to wonder if it was really an accident. Wasn’t that what he was hinting at?”
“Suicide, you mean,” Maggie said quietly. “It just seems unthinkable if you knew her. But it seems we didn’t know her nearly as well as we thought, from what Jamie disclosed the other night.”
“I wasn’t thinking suicide,” Suzanne piped up. “I kept thinking about those empty wineglasses. And the knock on the door while I was on the phone with her. Someone came to visit that night. Maybe she expected them. Maybe that’s the real reason she didn’t go to Boston to meet Jamie. She had … an appointment.”
“On a Friday night, after eleven o’clock, while her husband is out of town? An appointment? Or maybe … a date?” Lucy’s question hung in the air a moment.
Dana cast a serious look Lucy’s way, confirming that she agreed.
Maggie looked surprised and even alarmed at the direction the conversation had taken.
“Oh, dear … all this speculation is getting a little wild, don’t you think?” Maggie laughed nervously and abruptly left her seat.
She quickly walked to a cupboard and randomly pulled out drawers, looking for something. Signaling the end of the conversation, Lucy felt.
Dana stood up and picked up her purse and knitting bag, preparing to go.
“Wild talk, okay. Maybe. But I have to confess, now that the initial shock has worn off, the entire story of the accident doesn’t sit well with me,” Suzanne insisted. “We all knew Gloria. Don’t you feel there’s something about it that doesn’t add up?” she asked finally. “Something that doesn’t really … ring true?”
Lucy couldn’t put her finger on it. But once Suzanne had voiced her unease aloud, she realized that she felt the same way, too.
Chapter Seven
Before Lucy could voice her agreement, the bell above the shop door sounded. Two women walked in side by side, almost identically dressed in crisp cotton shorts, tank tops and thick-soled sandals, suitable for chasing children across playgrounds or pushing jogging strollers. Each carried a knitting tote hooked over one arm, their eyes glowing with a certain elated look Lucy recognized. Mothers of young children who had managed to escape the house on a Saturday morning.
Their conversation, easily overheard, confirmed Lucy’s guess. “And she knows my kids aren’t allowed to eat anything with white sugar, chocolate, or corn syrup. But at Nana’s house, anything goes. You should have seen them. They were bouncing off the walls.”
“My mother-in-law is exactly the same. She does it just to push my buttons,” the other woman replied.
“Hi there … I’ll be right with you,” Maggie called out politely. “Time for the knitting at the sandbox group. Not that I’m ready yet,” she murmured to her friends.
Suzanne, Dana, and Lucy quickly got out of Maggie’s way so she could start her workday. They exchanged good-byes and headed out the door; Suzanne to her open house, Dana to her patients, and Lucy back to the cottage with Tink.
But it seemed far too nice a day to head straight back home, where—like it or not—housework and real work waited. The laundry had piled shoulder high and puffs of dog hair floated around her living room like rolling balls of sagebrush.
Despite the call of such irksome duties—or maybe, because of it—Lucy took the long way home, heading down Main Street to the harbor and the village green. She preferred her house neater and cleaner, but when she was on a deadline she just had to let everything go, and the last few days so much time and thought had been taken up with Gloria’s accident and memorial service, she’d barely had time to do any work at all.
She passed the Schooner, which still looked busy with breakfast customers, though it was well past 10:00. She wondered how Edie felt about Gloria now. Any remorse at all for wishing the deceased woman ill? Or did she still think Gloria was a fool who’d gotten just what she deserved?
No doubt, Edie would stop in at the Black Sheep sooner or later, to share her opinion with Maggie. Lucy hoped she wouldn’t be there to hear Edie expound on that subject again and was glad Edie had not come by this morning, while Jamie was there.
The conversation had taken a wild turn once Jamie had gone, though, Lucy reflected. Dana had dropped a bombshell and there had been little chance for any
one to respond.
But Dana’s observation had definitely struck a nerve in Lucy. Though the police investigation had seemed thorough, for those who really knew Gloria, something really didn’t add up.
Gloria had seemed so upbeat and cheerful at the Main Street Café that Friday night. And Suzanne reported the same attitude during their phone call. Had she really taken such a drastic turn soon after?
Sucking up so much wine and painkillers that she’d totally lost control and had been unable to save herself?
And what had spurred such a sudden U-turn in her emotions?
Had she heard bad news … maybe from that mysterious visitor?
Or did the mysterious visitor have something to do with her accident?
Maybe she’d fought with Jamie over the phone and he felt too guilty now to admit it.
Lucy’s thoughts were spinning. There was just no way of knowing. And what could they do about it now?
While her friends might agree that all these questions were valid, there was nothing substantial in her suspicions. Or Dana’s. Just a feeling they all had. Except for the doorbell Suzanne claims she heard over the phone and the wineglasses. But the police had either covered those points in their inquest or thought they were unimportant.
Too bad there was no way to see the police report. Jamie had been told it wouldn’t be available for weeks, maybe longer. He’d seemed satisfied with conclusions and explanations of the police and coroner. Was it right of any of them to start questioning and stirring things up?
Lucy couldn’t say. She couldn’t even say if she was imagining things or not. Maybe, when somebody close died as suddenly as Gloria had, it was only natural to seek definitive explanations. To seek closure.
Maybe there were no definitive explanations here and never would be. That was hard to accept, but it seemed they would have to.
She and Tink had reached the village green. A light breeze kicked up a few waves in the harbor. Boats were moored, one right next to the other, so many this time of year it looked like the mall parking lot at the holidays.
While Lucy was lost in thought about Gloria’s sad end, Tink was quietly stalking a huge, slow-waddling goose. Geese were a big problem on the green, but no one could figure out how to get rid of them. As the big dog made her move, Lucy was rudely jerked back into reality.
“Good try, pal,” she told Tink once she’d recovered her balance. “Dream big.”
Matt had his daughter, Dara, this weekend, so Lucy had Saturday night and Sunday free. He wasn’t quite ready to introduce Lucy to his little girl, who looked charming from her photos. Lucy loved kids and was very close to her two nieces, Regina and Sophie, who were around the same age as Dara. But she understood. It was a big step and might even make waves with his almost ex-wife, which was the last thing she wanted right now.
She did miss him, but it was just as well. She needed some time alone this weekend to catch up. Aside from housework, she had to catch up on her real work. And her knitting.
She’d lost a lot of ground in both territories the last few days with Gloria’s death and memorial service. If she’d managed to make it to the computer at all, it would have been too difficult to concentrate. Knitting, of course, was always a balm to her troubled mind and soul. But she’d been too tired and distracted to make much progress on that front, either.
On Sunday morning she sat down to work but found herself answering e-mail, then wandering around the Internet. She’d seen Gloria’s obituary in the Plum Harbor Times the day after her death. Today, for some reason, she decided to take another look. She’d been so upset last week, she’d just skimmed it, with hardly any information registering.
The article came up quickly. The story of Gloria’s drowning had made the front page of the newspaper and her obituary had also been placed prominently, not pushed to the back pages with the rest.
The text ran along a flattering head shot, an official PR photo that Gloria must have sent the newspaper at one time or another. “Gloria Sterling—Real Estate Investor, Recognized for Charity Work, Dead at Age 51” the headline read.
Did they have to put her age in boldfaced type? The irony of it, considering the great efforts Gloria had made to hide that number. Lucy scrolled down the page, skipping over the description of Gloria’s watery demise and her formative years, growing up in foster homes in Woburn, a somewhat depressed suburb of Boston. “Soon after graduating high school, Ms. Sterling relocated to Boston’s metropolitan center and took classes at night at a business school, while working as an administrative assistant in an accounting firm …”
The article spared a single line to her first husband, Bob Cranston, a union that had lasted only three years. Gloria had once referred to Bob as her “starter marriage.” The article then chronicled her rise to the top of the corporate food chain. “While working as a junior accountant at Clive & Thurman, a commercial realty firm, Ms. Sterling met and married her second husband, George Thurman. They were married for ten years, until Mr. Thurman succumbed to lung cancer a year after his diagnosis.
“The Thurmans were very active in the commercial real estate market of Plum Harbor and the surrounding area. They were also prominent political donors and fund-raisers for many charities, and founding partners of the Avalon Group, developing the Stoney Harbor Outlet Mall, Harbor Corporate Park, and many other improvements to the community.”
Did an outlet mall qualify as an improvement to the community? Maybe to some people it did. Lucy wasn’t sure about that one.
“Ms. Sterling sold her interest in the Avalon Group nearly two years ago,” the article reported, “but continued to invest in local building projects and deal in commercial properties.
“In 2008 she received the prestigious Women Who Make a Difference Award from the Three Village Chamber of Commerce for her generous donations and fund-raising efforts on behalf of the Lung Cancer Foundation and New England Women-for-Women, a college scholarship fund and mentoring program for young women from low-income families in New England.”
Wow, Gloria was a busy bee, wasn’t she? Lucy had no idea. But she wasn’t surprised.
The next quote, from a former business partner, Richard Lamont, summed Gloria up perfectly: “Gloria Sterling was formidable. She was an iron French-manicured fist in a velvet glove, part of a generation that paved the way for female executives. She made me sit up and pay attention, I’ll tell you that much.” Lucy recalled Richard Lamont had spoken at the Memorial Services and said practically the same thing about Gloria.
Finally, there was some mention of Jamie toward the very bottom.
“Ms. Sterling often spent winter months at her home in Boca Raton, Florida, where she met and married her third husband, James Barnett, last December. After honeymooning in Brazil and Argentina, the couple returned to Plum Harbor in late March and took up residence in Ms. Sterling’s home in The Landing.
“‘Gloria was an amazing person. She could do anything she set her mind to,’ Mr Barnett, an artist, said of his late wife. ‘She was always an inspiration to me.’
“Ms. Sterling had no children. A memorial service will be held at her home on Friday at twelve noon. Her husband asks for donations to the charities noted above in lieu of flowers.”
Lucy printed out the article, though she wasn’t sure why she wanted to save it. She never saved stuff like that. But this was different. This was Gloria.
Before closing her computer she randomly typed the words “Avalon Group” in the search engine. She knew Gloria had been involved in some heavy-duty business deals, but that was before she’d ever really met her.
A zillion listings instantly appeared. Seems it was a popular name, picked up for everything from information technology firms to Christian rock groups. Lucy found a few listings about the land development group in Plum Harbor, mostly PR announcements about their plans for various building projects.
One article title did catch her eye. It dated back to last November. “DEC Clears Proposed Site of Sea Bree
ze Colony.”
Lucy pulled it up and read it through. It seemed that a parcel of land owned by Gloria’s former partners, and slated as a development of three-and four-bedroom homes on half-acre plots, had been declared by the Department of Environmental Conservation unbuildable, due to pollution from a dry-cleaning plant that had once occupied the spot.
It other words, Avalon was trying to build on a teeming, toxic waste dump, and the government blew the whistle on them.
The land had been ordered for cleanup, but nobody wanted to cover the cost. The county was responsible, but these days the budget had higher priorities. If the Avalon Group wanted to wait for the bureaucrats to clean up the mess, they’d be waiting a long time, Lucy guessed. But the developers didn’t want to pick up the check, either, so a ping-pong match ensued. One that seemed destined for the court system with the building project stalled indefinitely.
But the article reported that, “A recent study by the DEC determined a thick layer of clay under the top soil provides an adequate barrier from possibly harmful toxins. Therefore, the land has been reclassified as fit for use.”
A lucky break for Gloria’s former partners. Their valuable contributions to the community continued.
Lucy checked the date of the article, wondering if the houses had ever gone up. She had no idea how long a building project like that would take. The article was pretty recent and there had been a drastic slowdown in building lately. She assumed the current economic setbacks had slowed this project down, too.
But she didn’t want to waste more time checking on that. What did it matter? She was just about to end her procrastination break and open her files of real work, The Big Book of Things That Flap, Swoop, and Fly, when a familiar name popped up in the very last lines of the story.
“Attorney Michael Novak, representing the Avalon Group, stated that his firm ‘has always been, and continues to be, committed to the safety and well-being of Essex County residents and we are satisfied with the agency’s latest findings.’”
