Sarah rested her hand on Eldon’s arm to prop herself up. “When I told Marlee Sue that Owl belonged to Myra, she must have started wondering if the old lady had hidden her copy of the will in the boat instead of the house, and had given Owl to me figuring I‘d find it.”
“I wondered about that too,” Oliver said. “What threw me off was that Myra didn’t have access to Owl and couldn’t hide the new will in there. Then I realized Marlee Sue probably didn’t know that Owl had been in the Merlew’s barn for years, so to her the boat would seem like a logical hiding place.”
“So she went to your place to steal Owl,” Sarah added.
“What about the headstone?” Pearly asked.
“Your turn,” Oliver said to Sarah.
“The location of Gerhard’s grave was lost for all those years because it wasn’t in the Oak Hill cemetery, but on Huggard land, and of course the two families didn’t get along. Marlee Sue found the grave when we were kids, and remembered it, but I didn’t realize it until today when I thought about Myra’s photos.”
Sarah paused to collect her thoughts. “Myra knew where Gerhard was buried, but she was too secretive to tell anyone until Marlee Sue had her land surveyed. That’s when Myra sent Cathy over to take pictures and grab the headstone so they’d have proof they knew where the grave was, and then they quarreled over what to do about it. I expect Cathy wanted to go to the town, but Myra wanted to go after Grinshnell.”
Oliver turned to Eldon. “Remember the photos you saw Myra and Cathy looking at last November? I bet Myra was showing Cathy where to find the headstone, and she got the top half, which happened to be right near the property line, but the ground had frozen and the bottom was buried too deep for her to dig up.”
“Marlee Sue dug it up this spring and dumped it on Myra’s land to get it out of the way,” Sarah added.
Eldon beamed at Oliver. “See? I told you, ‘Find the rest of the headstone and you’ll find the killer.’ Maybe I should be a detective.”
“Heaven help us,” Pearly replied.
Chapter 32
The sun slid below the rooftops of Burnt Cove, taking with it both the daylight, and the wind. Owl drifted across the glassy water towards her mooring where Oliver’s Puffin, a graceful eight-foot dinghy dubbed Puff by Sarah, waited patiently.
The three figures were still as they watched the shrinking distance to the mooring. Wes scanned the water from his perch at the forward end of the cockpit, with Oliver beside him, and Sarah at the helm. The sling was gone from her arm, but she still needed help at times.
They crept up to the mooring at last and put everything away, performing their individual tasks in a well practiced routine that had become almost like a dance. Reluctant to go ashore, they sat in the cockpit in silence, as though afraid to shatter the evening quiet, and watched night descend.
Sarah had moved to Oliver’s left, out of respect for her tender arm. Wes, sitting beside her, sniffed the bandage, more out of habit than concern, and lay down with his head on her leg. She absentmindedly scratched his ears, careful of the partially bald spot on his neck.
They sat close in the cool air, and Oliver’s arm, resting on the cockpit rail, felt warm across her shoulders.
“I just learned that the Borofskys have decided not to press charges after all,” she said. “It was good of them, considering what I did to their house.”
Oliver glanced at Sarah. This was the first time she had mentioned the subject since Marlee Sue’s death.
“I think Claude threatened them somehow,” she added.
“Are Cara and her son still contesting the will?”
Sarah nodded. “She’s pretty upset. After all, the original will did leave the place to her.”
“Are those Boston lawyers your ex came up with going to be able to uphold the new will?”
“They seem to think so, but it may take some time.”
“Lucky for Myra you’re here to protect her interests.”
“I still don’t see why she picked on me. She knew a teenage girl for six summers.”
“You and Myra shared more than you imagine. Think about all those visits with her. You kept going back when the other kids didn’t bother. And there was Evan’s murder.”
“Yes, there was Evan’s murder.”
They sat in silence for a while, hearing only the occasional lap of water against Owl’s hull.
“I hear they caught Kincaid trying to sneak out of the country with the firm’s escrow account,” Oliver said finally, “and he’s singing like a bird.”
“A vulture,” she replied. “According to him, the plan was to produce the phony will if Marlee Sue’s neighborhood improvement bonfire succeeded in destroying Myra’s copy. Otherwise, he’d have to go with the real will.”
“The cautious legal mind at work,” Oliver said.
“Marlee Sue had promised him ten percent of the profit on her land for his services. He swears the plan was for Marlee Sue to burn the house after Myra was dead and gone, and he had no idea anybody would be killed, even after Myra asked him to sign the land over to Ziggy,”
“He’s trying to plea-bargain his way out of an accessory to murder charge?”
“In return for admitting to the phony will.” She turned to look at Oliver’s profile as he surveyed the harbor. “Now it’s your turn. How did you know Myra had left her land to Ziggy?”
“I didn’t know, exactly. I just couldn’t see Myra leaving her place to Cara, who had left Burnt Cove years ago and obviously didn’t care about the property. It didn’t fit with the Myra I know—forty years ago, maybe, but not today.”
Oliver paused. “Remember when we were launching Owl, and you asked Pearly about Evan’s boats? Something bothered me at the time, but I was so focused on the missing dory that it took a while to realize it wasn’t the boats that were bothering me, but the will itself.
“If Cara was the beneficiary in the original will, then what did Myra actually change when she rewrote it last November? Leaving her boats, plural, to you must have been in the old will, because she’d already given you Owl and didn’t have any other boats. That meant the only real change was adding you and Cathy as beneficiaries.”
Sarah nodded. “And why rewrite the whole thing just for that, when a codicil would have been enough. And if they did rewrite the whole thing, why not put in the correct number of boats?”
“Yes. And that got me wondering if perhaps Myra had made a bigger change, in addition to adding you and Cathy—like making someone else the beneficiary of her land instead of Cara. All Kincaid had to do was a little cutting and pasting to add you and Cathy to the original will and pretend it was the new one.”
Sarah nodded. “Myra wanted to save part of Squirrel Point the way she remembered it, and who better than Ziggy?”
“Holding onto the last of her roots.”
Sarah sighed. “I suppose that’s what the boundary-line photos and the old deed were really about—showing us what was important to her: her roots, the way of life she grew up with, that the place had originally been in her family. Burndt land.”
“Her Home Place. Her Heart Place.”
“Anyway, Myra won, as long as Ziggy can afford it,” she said.
“He’s going to lease part of the place to the Spruce Cone Camp,” Oliver said, “and they’ll pay the taxes. It’s an ideal spot for them, and there’s more land than Ziggy needs for his livestock, even if he does get a bunch more chickens and pigs.”
“You like the idea of Ziggy’s Zoo, and a horde of noisy teens moving into the middle of all those mansions, don’t you?”
“I love it,” he said placidly. “It’s the Maine way.”
“I’m sure Ziggy will be true to Myra’s memory.”
“He sees it as a crusade against the powers of darkness, a battle against Mammon and the evils of materialism, a chance to balance the space-time continuum, and an opportunity to bring harmony to the mists of Myra’s karma.”
“You’re making
fun of Ziggy,” she said accusingly.
“God no, I’m quoting him, and he’s just the man for the job.”
After a while, Oliver said, “What about the photos in Owl? Did they show Sam in the dory with Evan’s body?”
“The moisture had gotten to them. There was nothing to see.” Sarah felt his gaze on her. “I burned them.”
“I don’t think Myra cared about blackmailing Sam anyway; she just wanted you to have the boat,” he said. “Still, Sam was an accessory to murder by protecting Marlee Sue.”
“Even so, I burned them. Kate and Sam were relieved.”
“It might have been better if Sam hadn’t protected her.”
“She was only eighteen. Who could have guessed what would be better?”
“It wasn’t just about Myra’s will, was it?” he said.
“Marlee Sue couldn’t stand the idea that Myra looked down on her. It was a mutual hatred.”
“So, Myra was both the victim and the villain.”
“Yes, and more.” Sarah gave him a peck on the cheek. “She was such a strong person, a force of nature. She left her mark on both Marlee Sue and me more than we realized.”
Shore-front windows sent out beams of light that lay on the still water like arthritic fingers reaching towards them.
“For better or worse, Myra was part of our lives,” she added, “never far away. And in the end she drew us back.”
Gravely Dead: A Midcoast Maine Mystery Page 22