by Lea Wait
“And she didn’t show.”
I shook my head slowly. “No. You were there, Gram. I remember that. But I kept looking for Mama. And she never came.”
“If Jenny’d been able to come, she would have been there,” said Gram firmly. “No question about it.”
“This ceremony was Tuesday afternoon?” said Ethan, going back to his notes.
“Brownies met after school. I don’t remember the day of the week.”
“It was Tuesday afternoon,” Gram confirmed. “When I hadn’t seen or heard from my daughter in forty-eight hours, I was certain something was wrong. But I didn’t want to disappoint Angie. I left a note, in case her mother came home. I baked cookies and went.” She looked at me. “Angie did real well, too.” She reached over and patted my hand, as though I was still in the fourth grade.
I shook my head. That was all long ago. I was surprised Gram remembered all the details.
“But she was so upset that her mama hadn’t come. She held it together during the ceremony and the reception afterward, but I could tell she was disappointed. She kept looking at the door, hoping her mama would appear. By the time we got home, she was in tears.” Gram’s expression was strained. “It was a hard evening. I was worried, too, but I kept assuring her that her mama would be home soon, that she’d gotten stuck in traffic or had to work late.”
“You didn’t call the police then?”
“I didn’t. I didn’t see how that would help. My daughter would come home when she was ready to come home. She always had. And I had a child to console. I didn’t want her overhearing me calling the police.”
“But you did, the next morning.”
“After I’d gotten Angel off to school. I was afraid there’d been an accident and Jenny was in a hospital somewhere. That was what I was most worried about. I thought if she’d had an accident or gotten in trouble, the police would know, or have ways to find out.”
He nodded and made a note.
“I don’t see how going over these details so many years later is going to help,” I interrupted the questioning. “Mama left home Sunday afternoon and didn’t come back. What’s important is where she went.”
Ethan turned to me. “We know she left here and walked toward Main Street. The last confirmed information we have about her is from one of your neighbors at the time. Mrs. Lydian Colby said she saw Jenny walking down the hill toward Main Street. Mrs. Colby is deceased now, but then she was an elderly lady who spent a lot of time looking out her window. She particularly remembered your mother because of the bright yellow dress she was wearing.”
“She walked down the hill and disappeared?” I said. “That’s all you know after all these years? Lots of people in town knew her. Someone else must have seen her!”
“No one else ever came forward and said so. Of course, she could have met a friend who gave her a ride. That’s what the officer in charge of her case then thought, since no one remembered seeing her on Main Street. He assumed she’d left town. But now, knowing where her body was found, I’m thinking maybe she did get to Main Street. Maybe she was heading for Greene’s Bakery. It was Sunday, and the bakery was closed, but maybe she was meeting Joe there. But Joe’s gone, and his wife’s gone. The only one left in the family is Lauren, and she says she doesn’t remember that day.”
“Lauren and I were in the same Brownie troop. Mrs. Greene was one of our leaders. She would have been with us Tuesday afternoon,” I said, trying to remember.
“Tuesday afternoon was forty-eight hours after your mother left home.”
Mama didn’t come to the ceremony because she was already dead. That’s what Ethan was saying. “When did Joe Greene rent that storage unit in Union?”
“Good question.” Ethan looked through his notes. “Looks like he rented it about a year before your mother’s death.”
Just because Mama didn’t come to my Girl Scout meeting didn’t mean she was dead. She could have been in a place she couldn’t leave. Someone could have tied her up, or locked her in a room somewhere.
“How often did he visit the unit? What else was in there?”
“Not much,” Ethan answered. “Lauren said her father had a great-uncle who used to live in Union. She guessed he might have left her dad a few pieces of old furniture and a couple of appliances, and her dad rented a storage unit to hold them. She doesn’t know why.”
“Instead of throwing them away or selling them?”
Ethan shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Besides the freezer, there were a couple of cartons of old books, two bureaus in pretty bad condition, a washing machine, and an old couch in the unit. That was it.”
“Have you got any other suspects?”
“That’s one of the points I wanted to check with you both. At the time, Mrs. Curtis, you said you didn’t know where your daughter was planning to go when she left on Sunday. But she was dressed up, in a new dress.”
“She was. Looked real pretty that day.”
“Yes,” I said quietly. “I remember. And happy. She was very happy.”
“That sounds to me as though she was going to meet someone. A boyfriend, maybe?”
“All I know,” said Gram, “is that she didn’t tell me where she was going or what she planned to do.”
“She had a lot of friends in town. And in other towns, too,” I added. “We didn’t always know where she was going, or with whom. That was her way.”
“Part of it was her trying to keep that part of her life separate from you, Angie,” Gram pointed out. “She didn’t want you getting ideas about any of her . . . friends . . . or getting fond of them, if she didn’t think they’d be in her life for long.”
“What about Angie’s father,” Ethan asked. “Who was he?”
“Even I don’t know,” said Gram. “She’d never say. Didn’t put anyone’s name on the birth certificate.”
“She had Angie when she was seventeen. She was living here. Who was she dating at the time? As her mother, you must have known.”
Gram sighed. “There were boys . . . but I don’t know if any of them were Angie’s father. I wondered, of course, but I always had the feeling that if he’d been a Haven Harbor boy, she would have said.” Gram looked at me, her eyes clearly hoping I’d understand. “She got pregnant during the summer. That time of year folks in town are from all over. The father could have been anyone. Could be . . . ,” Gram said sadly, “It could be she didn’t know who he was.”
“Did you ever ask her about your father?” He turned to me.
“Once. All she said was that he was handsome, and tall, and that I would probably be tall, too.” She was wrong about that. I was taller than Mama’d been, but five feet seven wasn’t tall. “Ethan, I was only nine when she left. I knew I didn’t have a dad like other kids did, and I was old enough to know that was embarrassing. Somehow wrong. But I wasn’t old enough to press Mama about it.”
“Mrs. Curtis, your daughter never received child support? Or ever had more money than you would have thought?”
“No child support. She never mentioned the possibility. Jenny never had much money. Her salaries and tips came in, and went out. That’s why she and Angie lived here most of the time. She didn’t have the money to live anywhere else, or the money to pay a babysitter when she was working. I did that for her. And I made sure we had food on the table and Angie had clean clothes that fit her. Jenny loved Angie. But when it came to money, she spent on herself first. She knew I’d make up the slack if Angie didn’t have what she needed. I should have pushed more—maybe she would have taken more responsibility. I wasn’t a perfect mother, Ethan. I tried. But I couldn’t change Jenny. I had hopes for my granddaughter.”
She turned to me and smiled.
I knew Gram had supported us after Mama disappeared. I’d always figured Mama contributed to my upkeep when she was still at home.
“You did a great job, Gram. If I’m not perfect, it isn’t your fault.”
She reached over and covered my
hand with one of her worn ones. “Thank you for that, Angel. I did my best. But I couldn’t replace your mama.”
“Okay,” said Ethan. “Then neither of you has any ideas about who Jenny would have been meeting that Sunday afternoon. Even after all these years of thinking, you haven’t come up with any possibilities.”
Gram shook her head. “She was working at the Harbor Haunts then. You probably have that in your file. Maybe someone at the café would remember. Maybe she met someone there. At the time everyone kept quiet. No one had any ideas about who she’d met. At least, none they shared with me. Or with the police.”
“Did she have any enemies? Anyone she’d argued with? Anyone who’d threatened her?”
I shook my head.
“If she did, she didn’t tell us,” Gram said. “But she always kept her troubles to herself.”
“Ken Bisson owned Harbor Haunts then. I’ll talk to him.” Ethan closed his notebook. “If either of you think of anything else that might help, you’ll let me know, right?”
“What if you don’t find anything new?”
“Then we’ll have to assume that, intentionally or by accident, Joe Greene killed her. Since Joe’s gone, we’ll close the case.”
Shot in the back of the head by accident? It might have been Joe Greene. I knew that. But no way was it an accident.
The question was: Why? The answer to that would point to the killer.
Chapter Twenty
Woman has relied heretofore too entirely for her support on the needle—that one-eyed demon of destruction that slays thousands annually; that evil genius of our sex, which, in spite of all our devotion, will never make us healthy, wealthy, or wise.
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in open letter to women, Seneca Falls, New York, May 1851
Ethan Trask had left. Gram had gone grocery shopping. All was quiet, except in my head. I started in on the accounts for Mainely Needlepoint. They were tedious and confusing, and I couldn’t concentrate. Not a good sign for my first day on the job.
I kept going back to Ethan’s questions that morning. They were all so obvious, and covered the same ground police in the past had put under microscopes. There were two directions to take in Mama’s murder. One was to start with her body, and figure how long it had been in the freezer, and who put it there.... Basically, work backward. Find out when Joe Greene, or anyone else, had visited that storage unit.
I was more intrigued by working forward. Where was Mama going when she left the house in her new yellow dress that Sunday afternoon? And, thinking of that day, that year, who would have had any reason to kill her?
I pulled a clean sheet of paper out of Gram’s printer and labeled it, People to check. Ethan had asked if Mama had any enemies. Gram and I had said no, but we didn’t know everything about her.
“Enemies” was a strong word. The sheet stayed blank.
Okay. Who might have been angry with her?
That was an easier question. I didn’t know specifics, but I knew enough about her life to be able to imagine.
Had she rejected any of her male friends recently? Her reputation to the contrary, Mama sometimes said, “No.”
Did she have problems with those she worked with at Harbor Haunts? More than once, she’d “forgotten” her hours or gone in late. That didn’t endear her to others who worked there. She’d been fired from that job, and other waitressing jobs like it, more than once or twice. Fortunately for her, there weren’t many attractive young women who wanted to work twelve months of the year at a small café. She often got her job back. But maybe this time . . .
Gram was sometimes impatient with her. But . . . no. Gram would never hurt Mama. She might have been frustrated with her, and worried about her, but she wouldn’t have harmed her. And she didn’t have a gun.
Gun. Handgun. Lots of people in town hunted for deer or moose in the fall, and birds of various sorts in season. Hunting and fishing and Maine went together. Most hunters aimed at filling their freezers. A few just liked the sport or the camaraderie of other men (and women) who hunted. A hunter who didn’t want to be bothered with the meat could take his kill to one of several processors in the state who’d prepare and freeze the venison or moose meat and deliver it to a food pantry or soup kitchen.
Some kids I’d grown up with had learned to shoot before their First Communions. By the time they were twelve, some had entered their names in the annual state moose lottery, hoping for a chance to kill one of Maine’s most famous animals.
But Mama’d been killed by a handgun. Who in Haven Harbor had a handgun nineteen years ago? Mama was scared of guns. A childhood friend of hers had been playing in her backyard during hunting season. Despite wearing an orange scarf, she’d been shot and killed by a hunter. It was ruled an accident. Mama had told me that story many times. She’d never forgotten her friend, or forgiven the hunter for shooting close to posted land, to her friend’s home. She’d made sure I wore blaze orange during hunting season, even though I was here in town, or walking along the beach, where no one hunted.
But I’d seen handguns. I knew I had. I thought hard, back to before Mama disappeared. Back to when I was just a little girl, like other little girls, and played at my friends’ homes.
Was it at Lauren’s house? No . . . the bakery! Yes, Joe Greene kept a handgun at his business.
“So he can protect himself from bad people,” Lauren had told me. She’d showed me the gun once, although she wasn’t supposed to touch it. I shuddered, thinking about that day. Children didn’t always do as they were told, and something forbidden was often a temptation. Joe had owned a gun. But who knew where it was now? Or if the medical examiner could identify it based on what had been left of Mama.
But the Greenes weren’t the only ones. Captain Winslow, Ob, who’d retired from the navy and carved wooden decoys and deer and chipmunks before he became a Mainely Needlepointer, had a handgun. I’d seen it once when his wife had been ill and Gram sent me over with a bowl of turkey barley soup for her. The gun had been right on their kitchen counter. I hadn’t known why, and I hadn’t asked. The Winslows had a son younger than I was. Josh was the kid who wriggled so much he kept falling off his chair in class, and drove neighbors crazy with his loud voice and nonstop activity. I remembered hearing a neighbor complain Josh was sinking baskets in his driveway in the middle of the night. Where was Josh now?
But, no matter Josh’s issues, his dad—the captain—had had a gun.
I thought carefully of all the other places in town. I couldn’t remember seeing any other handguns myself, but I was sure other storekeepers had them. And a lot of homeowners.
Even today you didn’t need a license in Maine to buy a handgun, you just needed a permit to conceal the one you carried. Nineteen years ago you probably hadn’t even needed that. There was no way the state police would be able to find out who had a handgun then. It could have been half the people in town, not counting people outside Haven Harbor.
The more I thought about guns, the more I knew I had to apply for that concealed carry permit. I checked to see if I had my passport for identification, wrote a note for Gram, and headed across town.
Sergeant Pete Lambert, who’d helped us get to Mama’s service without being bothered by the media, was on duty. He pulled out a form and handed it to me. “Fill this out and I’ll send it to the state for you. We need to take your picture to go with it. Stacy, over there,” he said, pointing at a young woman sitting at a desk in the corner, “has a camera to do that. But you’ll need to have been a resident for six months.”
“That long? But I already have a permit from Arizona.” I pulled that out to show him.
He nodded. “I see. And I know you’ve moved home. But six months is the law. You can have your gun, of course. Just don’t conceal it, and you’ll be within the law. I know you. I’ll hold your application here and file it for you in six months. You should get your permit pretty soon after that.”
Six months! I might not stay in Maine longer than t
hat.
He stared at my Arizona permit before handing it back to me. “You be careful, though. A handgun isn’t a toy.”
“I know.” I didn’t tell him I’d once had to use mine, not counting when I’d threatened Jacques Lattimore. Wally’d insisted I go with him to the gun range once or twice a week until he was sure I knew what I was doing. Carrying wasn’t something he, or I, took lightly.
Having made an attempt to establish that I was once again a citizen of Maine, I walked down the hill to the commercial part of town. Seasonal businesses started opening in early May, and those open year-round changed their inventories to appeal to summer folks—those people with more money. Flannel shirts, wool socks, and rain and hunting gear were replaced by sweatshirts emblazoned with pictures of lighthouses or moose or sayings such as I found my Haven in Haven Harbor, Maine. Goods no local would ever wear.
Mama had walked down from our house toward Main Street. Had she gotten all the way there? Joe Greene’s bakery, now the French patisserie, was a couple of blocks west of where she would have crossed Main if she’d come straight down the hill.
I waved at Sarah Byrne, who was watering the lilies of the valley in the window of her antique shop. Nothing of interest there. That shop hadn’t been there nineteen years ago.
The hardware store Ethan’s family owned was still open. Mama never went into the gift shops. They were for people from away. And she didn’t buy her clothes in Haven Harbor; she shopped in Freeport. She only wore heavy coats or sweaters on the bitter-cold days when she’d walk to work in below-zero temperatures and snowdrifts blocked cars from seeing around street corners.
When I reached the Harbor Haunts Café, I decided to stop in and have a cup of coffee.
