“Why don’t you pop down to New York and stay with your sister for a while, if you want to get away?” Muffy said, still furrowing her brow over the shaving. “You could take in a Broadway show, enjoy the city. Or visit the kids. At least you’d be with family and not all alone in the wilderness”
“It’s just for the summer.”
“I wish you two could patch things up,” Muffy said.
“Have you seen him driving around with Lolita?”
“Lurlene,” Muffy corrected reflexively. “It’s just male menopause, you know. A puppy dog kind of fling. He’ll be back in a few months with his tail between his legs.”
Sarah tried not to think about the image Muffy had conjured up. “He’s barely willing to admit we’re divorced, in spite of all the court appearances, legal paperwork, decrees, and settlements. And he’s a lawyer, for heaven’s sake,” she said. “It’s scary.”
“It’s just that he cares about you so much.”
“He has a strange way of showing it,” Sarah said. “Have you seen him when he’s angry? Don’t you remember what happened when my brother was in Boston last year and Claude saw us eating lunch together at Panera's?”
“Claude just didn’t recognize him in time.”
Her ex-husband hadn’t always been so jealous, and Sarah couldn’t figure out how things went wrong, or if she had contributed in some way.
In the end, he found Lurlene, somehow blaming his infidelity on Sarah for being too old, too inattentive, too boring. Sarah gave herself a mental shake. She wasn’t going down that road again.
“He is working on his anger problem,” Muffy said.
“He has to. It was either that or go to jail.”
Chapter 2
Sarah got off the expressway at Brunswick, picking up Route 1 partly for the scenery, and partly so she could travel at a slower pace with the unaccustomed weight of Owl on the trailer behind her Ford Explorer. Tourist traffic was still manageable in early May, so she had time to enjoy the sights.
Many of those sights were changed from her youth, some of them for the better. The Androscoggin River was cleaner than she remembered, with a fresh salt air tang instead of the open sewer aroma of her childhood. Most of the changes, however, had to do with the proliferation of gas stations, motels, antique shops, and the various other conveniences required by a thriving tourist industry.
The bridge over the Kennebec River in Bath, and the smaller bridge over the Sheepscot in Wiscasset were both new, though the views were familiar—except that the derelict coasting schooners in Wiscasset had rotted away.
Sarah continued up Route 1, through Damariscotta and Waldoboro, where she was pleased to see Moody’s Diner was still going strong.
The sign for Burnt Cove was small and set well back from the pavement, almost as though the town didn’t want to be found. The road itself was further hidden by a combination Irving gas station and convenience store. The last time she had been here, Dinger’s used car lot occupied the opposite corner, a patch of dirt with a few tired heaps parked haphazardly, and a tiny shack of an office where Will Dinger used to sit reading girly magazines as he waited for customers. The young entrepreneur must have done well, for the place was now Dinger’s Auto Mall with dozens of cars surrounding a cinder block building whose showroom windows covered more acreage than Will Dinger’s original lot. Sarah slowed to negotiate the sharp turn onto Merrifield road, the most direct route to Burnt Cove.
Maine’s coastline slopes from the southwest up to the northeast in a series of peninsulas that reach like rocky fingers, in a more or less southerly direction, into the sea. Merrifield Road ran along the east side of one of these fingers, and Sarah caught glimpses of the Kwiguigum River as it grew from a tidal brook at Route 1 to a broad sound at Burnt Cove village, half way down the peninsula.
To the confusion of unsuspecting tourists, Merrifield road became Squirrel Point road in the village of Burnt Cove. The town itself sat at the intersection of these byways and the Cross Point road, which bisected the peninsula. Passing through town, Sarah continued south on Squirrel Point road.
She thought about her hosts as she neared their house. The Merlews had been in their late thirties when Sarah started going to the Migawoc Camp for Girls, and they ran the place like a big, extended family—perhaps because Kate and Sam never had children of their own. Sarah figured they were both pushing eighty.
She crept slowly up the Merlews’ driveway, the trailer lurching as it swung off the pavement.
It felt like she was passing through a time portal, with everything looking different and yet the same. The Colonial, set back from the road, looked just as she remembered it. A one-storey kitchen wing jutted out from the back, while beyond the kitchen, in the tradition of New England connected architecture, lay the woodshed, followed by a small apartment that had once been used by Kate’s mother. The apartment would be Sarah’s temporary home. The aroma of wood smoke greeted her nostrils.
The Merlews bustled out the door and stood gaping at her for a moment longer than was comfortable. Finally, Kate, her gray hair done up in a French twist, hurried forward to embrace Sarah.
“Good heavens,” Kate exclaimed, “I never would have recognized you if it weren’t for Owl back there.”
“I’m glad Lester got her down to you all right,” Sam added.
“We were ripping the barn apart, and needed to get Owl out of there, so we figured you wouldn’t mind having her a few months early, ahead of the probate and all the legal mumbo jumbo with Myra’s will,” Kate said.
“Actually, the timing was perfect,” Sarah replied. “Working on Owl gave me something to take my mind off things.”
“Looks like you fixed her all up,” Sam said. “I hope you didn’t find any nasty surprises, like rot or whatever.”
“Actually, she still needs some work. There are a couple of broken ribs that I don’t know how to fix.”
“Sitting in the barn all those years probably wasn’t good for her,” Sam replied.
“Come on in and warm up for a while. Sam can show you the apartment later,” Kate said.
The big Glenwood cookstove had created a sultry atmosphere in the Merlew’s kitchen. The worn, oak-topped table was as Sarah remembered it, but the Victorian era cabinets had been replaced and the wooden countertops were now Formica.
Sarah watched Kate fill three mugs from a Mister Coffee, another jarring sign of change. An old percolator used to live on the stove, where it sat all day, turning the breakfast coffee into something that Sam referred to as “roofing tar” when he drank it in the afternoon. She studied Kate, much as she had examined the scenery on the way up, looking for familiar signs. The old woman had the same compact build, round face, and sparkling blue eyes, but there was a frailty in her expression and actions that hadn’t been there forty years ago. An array of pill bottles lined the shelf over the coffee maker.
“I hope you’re going to enjoy it here,” Kate said.
“You can stay as long as you want,” Sam added. “No one is using the apartment, and there’s no point in letting it go to waste.”
Kate put steaming mugs on the table. “Things aren’t the way they used to be,” she said, as though reading Sarah’s mind.
“It’s a lot more built up than I remembered.”
“A ton of new houses going up in the last few years,” Sam agreed. “You should see the new places out where the camp used to be.”
“Sam’s chairman of the town planning board, so he knows all about those new houses,” Kate added.
“The planning board? That sounds like a lot of work,” Sarah commented.
“Darn right it is, and thankless too,” Kate replied tartly. She sat down across the table with her coffee mug and regarded Sarah. “It’s been a long time.”
“Thanks again for inviting me up for the summer. It’s just what I needed.”
Kate stirred her coffee. “I hope so. You certainly loved sailing.”
“It’s funny,” Sarah
said, “but I didn’t realize Myra owned Owl until you mentioned it in your letter. I thought it belonged to the camp.”
Kate’s spoon twitched as she stirred. “Remember the playing field next to Myra where we had the archery targets? She bought Owl for the kids to use when she and Evan sold us that lot. She rented the boat to us for a dollar a year, plus upkeep. God knows why.”
“I never thought of her as being generous. I never thought she liked the camp kids either.”
“She was a vicious old woman,” Kate said, her face flushed. “Owl was a fluke.”
“But why give the boat to me?”
“She liked you,” Kate said. Sam shifted in his chair.
“I wonder if it had anything to do with Evan,” Sarah blurted out, before she could catch herself.
Surprise and consternation flitted across Kate’s face. “Myra never felt guilty about anything in her entire life,” she snapped.
“Now mother,” Sam pleaded, “she wasn’t all bad.”
Kate glared at her husband. “The woman was a vampire. You know perfectly well that she extorted money from anyone she could sink her fangs into. It’s not surprising that she was murdered.”
Sam heaved an exasperated sigh. “I don’t know any such thing, and you shouldn’t go around spreading talk like that.”
Kate turned to Sarah. “I know what I know.”
Sam shook his head in frustration. “We wrote you that Myra’s house burned down back in January. She probably overloaded the wood stove and forgot to close the firebox door. It was mighty cold that night. They found her body in the front hall, a bunch of bones broken. She must have fallen down the stairs trying to get out.”
“Pushed, more likely. What was she doing with the shotgun? And why had it been fired?” Kate demanded.
“The heat did that,” Sam said, as though reciting a well worn argument. “The police decided it was an accident, so that’s what it was. She shouldn’t have been living there all alone anyway, what with her mind going and not being able to get around very well.”
“If it was an accident, then what happened to Cathy Leduc?” Kate went on relentlessly.
“The police are looking into that. She’ll probably turn up on her own,” Sam replied, sounding peevish. “Cathy dropped in on Myra a lot to help out around the house, towards the end,” he said to Sarah.
“Anyway, Myra’s gone, and good riddance,” Kate said as she fiddled with the plastic pill dispenser in front of her. “But the town won’t be the same without her.”
“It’ll be a lot more peaceful for the planning board,” Sam commented. “Myra sued the town twice over Oak Hill. Lord, she could turn a planning board meeting upside down in five minutes flat.”
Kate scowled. “Cathy helped her—drove Myra over to that lawyer’s office, and persuaded him to work for free.”
“Jamison Kincaid,” Sam added. “He handles most of the real estate transactions around here.”
“They were frivolous lawsuits,” Kate said disapprovingly. “The court threw them out in the end. Typical Myra, stirring up trouble, just for the hell of it.”
“Myra didn’t care much for Oak Hill,” Sam commented.
“What’s Oak Hill?” Sarah asked.
“It’s a development going in behind the Baptist church,” Kate said. “You’ll see the signs when you go into town.”
“Only two lots have been approved so far,” Sam added. “The other ten are still pending.”
“They act like all the lots were approved, putting in that big paved road,” Kate said. “It wasn’t just Oak Hill that had Myra going, either. She didn’t like it one little bit when we started splitting the camp into house lots and selling them
* * *
Sam helped Sarah carry her luggage into the apartment and showed her around. The living space consisted of a sitting area with a sofabed, chairs, and a coffee table. A kitchenette occupied one corner, with a short length of counter separating it from the rest of the room. A small bedroom and a bath were located on the wall that backed up to the woodshed. The apartment was sunny, comfortable, and just what Sarah was looking for.
“You’re awfully kind to let me stay here,” Sarah said again. “I hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience.”
“Hell no. It’ll be nice to have someone here. Give Kate something new to think about.”
“She looks a little frail. Is she all right?”
Sam pointed to a thermostat on the wall as though he hadn’t heard. “You’ve got your own furnace, so you’re completely independent out here. We fixed it up for Kate’s mother, haven’t used it much since she died.”
“We eat at six,” he added, “and Kate said you were welcome to join us, give you a chance to settle in without having to hunt up a meal right off.”
“Thank you. I’d like that.”
He turned to Sarah. “Kate’s had some health problems the last few years. I imagine you saw all the pill bottles. They keep things under control, but Lord, it’s expensive.”
“What about insurance?”
“It helps some, but not enough. Thank god we’ve been able to sell the campground a little bit at a time to pay the bills. The field next to Myra that Kate was talking about? We sold it last year. It was the last of Migawoc. The last piece.” He sighed. “The last piece we bought when we were building the camp up, and the last one we sold.” He shook his head as though trying to clear it of the past. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll get by.”
Sarah suddenly felt like an intruder in Sam and Kate’s lives, stirring up painful memories. She changed the subject. “What about Cathy Leduc? The one who disappeared?”
“She moved here from Lewiston four or five years ago. Works as a receptionist for Doc Caldwell, out on Route 1. She got to know Myra as a patient, and she’d been keeping an eye on the old lady for a couple of years. Cathy went missing right after Myra died. The cops are looking into it, questioning her boyfriend, and all that.”
He went to the door and paused, his hand on the knob. “You remember old Amos Gaites’ boatyard across the sound, where we used to store Owl? His son is running it now. He might be willing to help you work on the boat.”
Chapter 3
Gaites and Son Boats was located across Kwiguigam Sound from Burnt Cove, only two miles away by water. Of course the trip was more like thirty miles by road—up one peninsula to Route 1, and then down the next one. The place consisted of a big, ramshackle boat shed and a couple of smaller buildings on a tidal cove roughly 100 yards across. A pot-holed dirt parking area separated the buildings from a timber pier at the water’s edge.
Parlin Gaites, somewhere beyond the sixty-five-year landmark, and known as Pearly to his friends, was of medium height, with short gray hair hidden beneath a paint stained Red Sox baseball cap. He’d placed a mast on a pair of sawhorses beside the shed and was going over the varnished spruce with sandpaper. Pearly worked outdoors partly to enjoy the unseasonably warm morning, but also to escape Eldon Tupper, his ill-tempered employee, who was working noisily inside. Much of the racket was courtesy of a local country music radio station, while the rest came from various objects being thrown around. The noise level was a reliable indicator of Eldon’s mood, and things were loud today. A pair of State Police detectives had been questioning Eldon again, and Pearly figured it would be a couple of days before the young man was fit to live with.
He looked up as a black Ford Explorer sporting Massachusetts plates lurched into the yard with a Herreshoff 12 in tow. He stared at the woman who dismounted from the SUV, and moved to intercept her before she encountered Eldon, who had taken to bashing something inside the shed as though he was a crazed blacksmith.
“I need to fix a couple of broken ribs on my boat, and I was wondering if you could tell me how,” she said.
Pearly decided that his visitor might be the spitting image of an older Cathy Leduc, but she sure didn’t waste as much time on small talk.
He glanced at the Herreshoff. “I can see the
bulge from here. That’s serious work.” He walked over to get a closer look.
“I’ll do it myself,” the Cathy-look-alike said, “but I need someone to tell me how.”
Pearly groaned inwardly.
“I’ve done some work on it already, the paint and a new shear plank.”
Pearly had clambered onto the trailer’s fender and was leaning over the rail trying to get an inside look at the broken frames. “New shear plank? Which side?”
“The one your leaning on.”
He glanced at the varnished mahogany, paused, and looked again more closely. The plank in question was the topmost one and it was shaped like a piece of molding, a delicate wine-glass curve that echoed the shape of the hull itself. He ran his fingers over the mirror-smooth finish and looked up. “How did you get the shape?”
“I used a plane and a chisel. And lots of sandpaper.”
Pearly meditatively ran his fingers along the plank again. “Nice job.”
“Thanks, but how do I fix my boat?”
Pearly pulled off his Red Sox cap and dragged the back of his arm over his brow. “We’re bound up tight right now, so I couldn’t get to your boat before the end of June.”
“Just tell me what to do,” she repeated.
“It would take longer to show someone how to do a job like that then it would be to do it myself.”
Pearly winced as a series of crashes burst from the shed. Eldon was supposed to be painting the deck on Percival’s boat, not wrestling bears, though Pearly figured his oversized employee would be a good match for a bear. In fact, he had been a hot prospect for the New England Patriots before a bad knee ended his dreams of fame and fortune.
Pearly stepped off the fender and edged further away from the shed door.
“The trouble with an old boat like that is you never know what else may be wrong: rot, bad fastenings. These jobs have a way of growing.”
“Couldn’t I put a fiberglass patch or something on it to get through the summer?” she said.
Gravely Dead: A Midcoast Maine Mystery Page 2