Sealed Off

by Barbara Ross

  “Went to prison,” Terry finished.

  “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

  He stared at the deck. “Because it doesn’t matter. It has nothing to do with this thing with Emmy. It definitely doesn’t have anything to do with his murder.”

  “How can you say that? From what I heard, Jason abandoned you when you were arrested. You must have resented him. At least that’s what the police are going to say.”

  Terry stared at a spot in the water off the starboard side and said nothing.

  “When I volunteered to help”—I didn’t bother to disguise my anger—“I asked you for one thing. I asked you to tell me the truth about you and Jason.”

  “You didn’t volunteer.” Terry was angry, too. “Chris volunteered you.” He brought his eyes up to meet mine. “You don’t want to do this anymore than I want you doing it.”

  That set me off. “Why wouldn’t you want help?”

  “Help!” he cried. “Do you even know what help is? You’re supposed to be finding out things that make me look less guilty, not more guilty.”

  I brought my voice down, low and direct. “Did you kill Jason Caraway? Is that why you don’t want me poking around?” It was a terrible accusation to make toward anyone, much less someone you hoped you might someday be related to.

  His voice, when he finally spoke, was deadly quiet. “I did not kill Jason Caraway. I took a minor dig at him that he overreacted to. Period. End of story. If you don’t think I’m innocent, then stay out of it. I don’t need your kind of help.”

  * * *

  “Why didn’t you tell me Terry and Jason were old friends?”

  Chris rocked back a little on his heels. “What?” We were in our studio apartment over Gus’s restaurant. He’d walked in after a long, hard day doing fall cleanups for his landscaping company. I hadn’t even let him get all the way up the stairs.

  “You heard me. Jason and Terry were thick as thieves until Terry went to prison. That’s what they were, specifically. Thieves. At least that’s what the Busman’s Harbor PD believed.”

  Chris finished climbing the steps. He leaned against the little dining table where we ate, facing me. I was too keyed up to sit down. “How would I have known that?” he asked.

  “He’s your brother.”

  “I’ve explained this. I barely knew Terry when he was a young adult and I was a teenager. He went off to join the service when he was twenty. After he got out four years later, he basically never came home.”

  “Maybe not back to your cabin, but he was in town.”

  “He was around. I knew that. I’m pretty sure he saw our aunt, our mom’s sister. He may have even seen Cherie, but she and I didn’t talk about him.”

  Cherie was the younger sister Chris had raised from the time he was in high school. After his dad had abandoned them, and then Terry had, and then his mom had gotten too sick and had gone away, too, he’d given up his own chance at college to stay home with her. It had been a terrible mess. The stress of his father’s behavior and his mother’s disease had blown his family apart. Chris’s dad was in Florida, his mom in a nursing home there. Cherie lived in San Diego now. At least Chris thought she did. They never spoke. And Chris had only started visiting Terry in prison at the end of his sentence.

  “I always believed Terry felt guilty about leaving me with Mom, who was obviously sick, and Cherie. And later just with Cherie. He could have contributed, financially, physically, emotionally, but he didn’t.” Chris paused. “The truth is, I didn’t blame him. My dad adopted him and gave him his name, but he made it clear right along that Terry didn’t belong in that house.”

  “You never went to visit him in prison.”

  “I wasn’t angry that he left us, but I was furious that he robbed Hudson’s and shot that kid. That clerk could have died. The truth is, I always looked up to Terry, but when he came back from the service, he was lost. I’d hear he was in town, then I’d hear he was in Portland or in Boston.” Chris pushed off the table and stood up. “Once he was convicted, I wanted nothing to do with him.”

  “Until now.”

  Chris picked at a cuticle on a work-roughened hand. “I’m doing my best, Julia. He’s my brother. I want us to be close, but it’s hard. That’s why I like being around your family so much. It’s so easy.”

  There were plenty of times when it didn’t feel easy with my family. When you worked together and lived in the same small town and most of the money you lived on came out of the same pot, it wasn’t easy. But it was nothing like what Chris had been through. Nothing.

  “I’m not sure he even wants me to help him,” I said. “He blatantly lied to me. This is a small town. Did he think I wouldn’t find out?”

  “He’s panicking. He claims he was innocent last time,” Chris protested. “Can you imagine the nightmare of being in the middle of something like this again?”

  “He was inside Hudson’s when Howland got there. So was the gun. He was convicted,” I said.

  Chris sighed, the long sigh of a man who understood the odds. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I put you in this position. I don’t know what else to do.”

  “I don’t like being lied to.”

  “No one does. I’ll talk to him, make him promise to be straight with you.” He repeated, “I don’t know what else to do.”

  Clearly he didn’t. He was in a tough spot. He had reconnected with his brother, the only family member he was in touch with, and now he might lose him again. “I’m sorry I got mad,” I said.

  “I’m sorry you had a reason to get mad,” he responded.

  We were quiet for a moment.

  “Did you find out anything today?” he asked. “Are there any other suspects?”

  “Not much. Dmitri, the guy on the demo crew who didn’t show up for work, is still missing. They all live together in a house Mark Cochran owns. Dmitri wasn’t there the morning of the murder. Most of his stuff is cleared out.”

  “Well, that’s something, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. According to the kid on the crew who speaks the most English, Dmitri kind of showed up out of the blue and attached himself to them. They don’t seem surprised he left the same way.”

  “What about Pru?” he asked.

  “It didn’t seem right to go there pestering today. I’ll go tomorrow.”

  “So you’ll stay on it? Please?” He couldn’t have looked more appealing.

  “I’ll stay on it. But you need to talk to Terry and tell him he has to level with me from here on or I’m done.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Chris promised. “First thing in the morning.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mom was in the kitchen when we got to her house for dinner. “Hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill,” she said when we came in. “Who knows how many of these beautiful fall evenings we have left. We stopped at Hannaford on the way back from lunch in Damariscotta. I picked up potato salad, baked beans, and a salad in a bag.”

  Mom smiled, but her energy seemed low, as if her houseguests had finally worn her down. Except for two summers ago when I moved back to Busman’s Harbor and stayed with her for the season, she had lived alone since my father died. She valued her privacy and her time. I knew she was thrilled to have Marguerite and Tallulah visit, and she’d be relieved when they left.

  “Kitchen plates and stainless tonight,” Mom said. “Not so much fuss. Chris, will you start the grill?”

  “On it.”

  When I went through the swinging door into the dining room, Marguerite, Tallulah, and Wyatt were at the table, large sheets of architectural drawings laid out in front of them.

  “You’re looking at the plans for the renovation,” I said. “What do you think?”

  “These are the ‘before’ floor plans,” Wyatt corrected. “The way Windsholme is today. We’re trying to figure out how I missed the secret room.”

  “Intriguing.” I approached the table and stood behind Marguerite.

  “So int
eresting,” she said. “To see the halls I wandered in life flattened into two dimensions.” She moved her finger along the bedroom corridor. “The vagaries of childhood memory. Some of these places and rooms are so vivid to me. The master bedroom my mother occupied, the nursery where I slept with the other children, the hallway that connects them. But other spaces might as well be drawn with wavy lines and labeled ‘Terra Ignito.’ I don’t think I ever entered many of these bedrooms. I have no memory of them at all.”

  Tallulah pointed to one. “Here be dragons.”

  “Exactly,” Marguerite replied.

  Wyatt squinted at the drawing of the second floor. “I see some of the problem. The bedroom next to this one is quite large. It’s got its own bath on one side, and a closet on the wall that adjoins the hidden space. I think the governess’s room was originally a dressing room for that bedroom, later opened to the nursery and turned into a nanny’s room when it was needed.” She paused. “Mark probably thought it was boxed-in eaves like I did when he did the detailed measurements.”

  “Will this throw off your design?” I asked.

  “No. The outside measurements are fine. We’ve accounted for the total volume of the house, and the wall between the room and the nursery isn’t structural.” She shook her head. “I’m just concerned this happened, and whether there are any other mistakes. I’ll speak to Mark about it tomorrow.”

  “Let’s see the new plans,” Marguerite said. “I’m ready.”

  Wyatt gathered up the “before” plans and took the plans for the renovation out of a tube. She laid the white sheets of paper on the table with a flourish. She guided Marguerite and Tallulah through the drawings I’d seen hundreds of times. I’d pictured the new rooms in my head, painted the walls, and mentally moved into the space.

  Mom came into the room while Wyatt was talking. She stood fidgeting beside me, neither of us able to relax.

  “It’s lovely!” Marguerite clapped her hands. “I love what you’ve done with it. How practical it is for the business. How wonderful the residences are upstairs. It makes me so happy someone will be using the place again. That the Morrows will be living at Windsholme.”

  I breathed a deep sigh of relief. My mother owned Windsholme outright. Marguerite didn’t get a say in what happened to it. But nonetheless, I’d cared deeply what Marguerite thought about our plans. She was the last living family link to the house as it had been.

  Next to me. Mom seemed to relax as well, the tension and tiredness leaving her body. She cared what Marguerite thought, too. It was like the original Morrows were giving us permission, and without even realizing, we had been waiting for it.

  Wyatt declined Mom’s invitation to dinner, saying she had plans. Livvie and her family arrived. It was a casual gathering, full of side conversations about Page’s day at school, Marguerite and Tallulah’s trip to Pemaquid with Mom.

  Mom thanked Sonny so lavishly for taking down the porch screens that he blushed. It was a miserable job. Almost as miserable as putting the warped old wooden screens up in the spring. Nobody asked about my day, which was probably just as well.

  After dinner the Snugg sisters came over with a plate of Vee’s excellent brownies. Tallulah fetched the journal and Marguerite’s reading glasses. I bit into my brownie. It had a slight crust on the top and was chewy on the inside and so, so chocolaty. Despite the stresses and tragedies of the week, in that moment I nearly passed out from happiness.

  Marguerite read.

  “July 11, 1898

  “There’s going to be a party! There is much excitement in the household. Captain Beal and the crew have sailed to Boston to pick up the guests who will stay the weekend. Others will arrive in their own yachts from points along the Maine coast where they are summering.

  “When the subject of the party first came up, I was unsure what my role would be. Surely, I would make a brief appearance with the young men to say good night and that would be it. But the less formal customs of the summer apply here, too. Mrs. Morrow the younger invited me to choose a dress from her wardrobe.

  “I was happy to be invited, but unsure I could find anything suitable. Mrs. Morrow is fifteen years older than me and prefers to be fully covered even in these hot days of summer. But when I came to her room she had three ball gowns laid out on the bed. They were all quite acceptable, more fashionable than I would have hoped. ‘I won’t be wearing any of these this summer,’ she said. ‘You may choose one for the party.’

  “I chose an ice-blue gown with flowers at the shoulders and yards of gauzy cloth that falls from the back to form a sort of cape. Mrs. Morrow says it was made for her in one of the best shops in Boston. It’s too wide in the waist. Mrs. Morrow says Mrs. Franklin is good with a needle. If she is, it will be the first thing anyone has identified that she is good at. I wore my spectacles when I tried the gown on, so I could see myself, but I won’t wear them to the party. This is my first ball gown and I intend to have a good time.”

  Marguerite stopped. “That’s the end of the entry.”

  “Let’s read one more,” Fee suggested.

  “Yes, please.” Even Page was still interested, captured by the mention of a ball gown no doubt.

  Marguerite looked ahead. “The next entry is short. Let’s do it.” She continued.

  “July 15, 1898

  “The house is all a flutter, cleaning, cooking, making beds, and moving furniture. There are so many guests the young men have moved back into the nursery so visitors can have their rooms. The yacht has returned and the guests are all about the place, playing croquet on the lawn, bathing at the little beach. Only Mr. Morrow doesn’t participate. He is locked up in his study. The family fortune is made from ice. You would think the summer would be slow in the ice business, with no rivers to harvest, but Mr. Morrow says it is the busiest time, ‘because it is when ice is needed the most.’

  “Indeed every day the little boat that comes from Busman’s Harbor to deliver groceries and newspapers brings blocks of ice for the enormous icebox in the kitchen. Mrs. Stout makes ice cream or frozen custard almost every evening. She says on the night of the ball we will have something called baked Alaska. I cannot wait!

  “There is a tension between Mr. Morrow and Mr. Frederick, who is supposed to work for him, but who hasn’t left the island all summer. Mr. Morrow fusses and fumes, but Mrs. Morrow senior can always be counted upon to defend Mr. Frederick. ‘I prefer him to be here with me,’ she says, and that’s the end of the discussion, until the next time.”

  Marguerite closed the journal. Sonny said, “Time to go.”

  “But we didn’t get to hear about the ball,” Page complained.

  “It’s a school night for fifth graders,” Livvie said. “Leave some for next time.”

  After they left, along with the Snugg sisters, Chris and I helped with cleanup and prepared to go, too. I found Marguerite alone in the living room when I went to say good night.

  “Julia, dear, can I ask you for something?”

  “Of course.”

  “I would like to go out to Windsholme again, with only you and Tallulah. It was wonderful having the whole family there the other day, along with Wyatt and Mark, but I didn’t feel I could linger. Wyatt’s plans are beautiful and I am happy for your mother and your family you can do this, but I would like to say good-bye to the house I knew.”

  I hated to disappoint her. “I am so sorry, Marguerite. When I spoke to the state police detectives today, they didn’t know when we’d be able to return to the island.”

  “Perhaps you could tell them I am a very old woman who must return to Boston in four days and who will never get a chance to see my childhood home again.” She cocked her head with the pinned-up white braids to one side and steepled her hands in front of her in supplication. All she needed was a halo.

  I laughed. “Does this work often for you, this very old woman thing?”

  “Very often,” she replied. “Let me know if you need my help with the police officers.”
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  Chapter Fourteen

  The next morning, to my surprise, when I called Lieutenant Binder, he gave me permission to take Marguerite and Tallulah to Morrow Island. The tale of my nonagenarian cousin bidding farewell to the old homestead moved him, exactly as the nonagenarian herself had predicted it would.

  “When can the demo crew get back to work?” I asked Binder. “I’m getting pressure to get the job completed.”

  “Just a minute.” He put me on hold and was gone longer than I expected. That was a change. When I’d seen him work before it had always been his case, his decision. He had the facts at hand and acted quickly. When he finally got back to me, he said, “Here’s the deal. You go over to the island accompanied by Officer Dawes this morning. Our team will do one more search this afternoon. If we don’t find anything, we’ll give you the ‘all clear’ and the demo team can go back to work tomorrow.”

  “Why don’t you go out this morning and be done with it?” I argued. “Then I can take my cousins to the island in the afternoon and not tie up Officer Dawes.” Marguerite had made it clear she didn’t want an entourage.

  Binder hesitated. “We can’t go this morning because we’re waiting on dogs.”

  “Dogs?” So they were still looking for evidence. Probably none of the various hatchets and tools they’d taken from the island had been the murder weapon.

  “Julia.” The warning in his voice told me he’d said as much as he was going to.

  “Okay, be like that. But if you think there’s a good chance demo can resume tomorrow, I’d like to bring the stuff in the sealed-off room back with us.”

  Another long hesitation, though this time he didn’t put me on hold. “Fine. As long as Officer Dawes inspects everything you take.”

  “Deal. Thank you.”

  At Mom’s house Tallulah and I got Marguerite bundled up for the boat ride. Mom was at work at Linens and Pantries. She’d gotten rid of most of her shifts for the duration of her cousins’ visit, but she couldn’t trade them all away. Her absence eliminated any awkwardness for me about taking the trip to Morrow Island without her.