by Barbara Ross
All other conversation ceased. Everyone at the long table was listening.
“You know, she went to Kim’s Beauty Salon every week for years,” someone said. “When she went to the wigs, she didn’t want Kim to lose out on the income, so she sent a wig over to her once a week to be styled. She told Kim to be as creative as she wanted.”
“And Kim was.” Mom smiled, remembering.
“Those wigs came from a really expensive store in Boston,” Leila told us. “When I had my cancer, Lou sent me there. She called ahead and told them to give me whichever one I wanted and she’d pay for it.”
Everyone was quiet. We all remembered Leila’s cancer.
“She didn’t even know me,” Leila continued. “My uncle used to plow her driveway. He was so worried she’d fall, he’d shovel her steps and her walk right down to the concrete. She’d come out to chat while he worked, all bundled up. One time she asked him why he looked so worried and he told her I was sick. That was all it took.”
“She was like that,” Mary agreed.
“Yes, always,” Mom said.
There was another moment of silence as people thought about all Heloise Herrickson had done. She’d given generously to the institutions summer people supported—the Botanical Garden, the Historical Society, and her special passion, the Art League. But there’d also been many small acts of personal charity, like Leila’s wig. More than any of us knew.
“And the memorial?” Mary asked.
“It was lovely, absolutely lovely,” Mom said. “Exactly as she would have wanted.” I noticed Mom didn’t mention that Bartholomew Frick, the only relative and heir, had been late, and rude, and hadn’t spoken about his great aunt. Or talked to anyone for that matter.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t the immediate focus of the conversation. “I wonder if he’ll keep that old mansion?” Mary said.
“And will he keep Mrs. Fischer?” Leila asked. Ida Fischer had been Lou Herrickson’s housekeeper forever. I’d noticed that she and Bartholomew Frick hadn’t greeted each other or spoken while on the boat. Ida had huddled with her good friends, our neighbors, the Snugg sisters, and Frick had kept to himself.
“What mansion?” Wyatt asked, eyes bright.
“Herrickson House,” my mother answered. “It’s a huge old thing overlooking Sea Glass Beach. Quentin can sail you by it. It’s always reminded me a little of Windsholme. Same era, I think and I’ve heard maybe even the same architect. It’s been in Francis Herrickson’s family for generations. No one thought Lou would like it there. She’s from Philadelphia originally and met Frank when she lived in Palm Beach. But she adopted the house and the town as if they were her own. She loved that old place.”
“The grandnephew will probably sell it to a developer who’ll tear it down and build ten houses for summer people,” my brother-in-law Sonny said. “Lotta land there. All with sea views. Has to be worth a fortune.”
“Maybe the land’s protected because of Herrickson Point Light?” Leila suggested. “I think it has some kind of historical designation.”
“Frank Herrickson’s great-grandfather was the lighthouse keeper,” Mom told Wyatt. “That’s why they bought the land. And then, when the U.S. government declared the lighthouse excess, they bought it, too.”
“We can hope Frick keeps it as it is,” Mary responded.
“If it was really designed by Henry Gilbert, we have to get inside,” Wyatt said.
“We can ask Mr. Frick when he’s a little more settled,” Mom assured her.
Based on what I’d seen that morning, I was skeptical Bartholomew Frick would be open to the idea of strangers tramping through his house inspecting the moldings.
Sonny and his crew bused their dishes and headed back to the clambake fire. I stood as well. “Back to work,” I announced. “There’s another group due here in forty-five minutes.”
One by one we went off to ready our stations and do it all again.
CHAPTER 2
I was in the Snowden Family Clambake office on the second floor of my mother’s house bright and early the next morning. Mom had been in the kitchen when I came through her always-unlocked back door. She pointed toward the half-full coffee pot on the counter while barely looking up from the Busman’s Harbor Gazette. I poured a cup and went up the back stairs.
I loved my mornings in the office, a pause to get the day organized before the craziness began. The office had been my father’s before it was mine and still held his big mahogany desk, metal filing cabinets, and prints of ships on the high seas on the walls. I’d thought about changing the decor, making it more my own, but I wasn’t ready to let go of Dad, even though he’d been dead for six years. As long as his things were in that room, he was there, too, guiding me through the day-to-day decisions that meant success or failure, good or bad experiences for our guests, and a livelihood for our employees and my family.
I drifted to the three big front windows in the office and looked out, down over Main Street, past the Snuggles Inn across the street and onto the pier where our ticket kiosk was already open for the day. The sun was out, bathing the town in the bright, flat light that had led so many artists to Maine. The sea was calm. It was a perfect day for a clambake. The tide was coming in, as I’d suspected. When you live near the water and make your living on it, the tides become as internalized as the time.
The tide meant I could call the clammers who sold us our steamers, the soft-shell clams that were an integral part of the clambake meal. Those clammers who didn’t double as lobstermen would be at home, not out on the beaches at work. We bought the lobsters for the bake from the co-op. I could have bought our clams the same way, but I spread our business around to several local clammers, cutting out the middleman to put a little more money in their pockets and a tiny bit of savings in ours. I dialed Will Orsolini first.
“Will here.”
It was a routine call. Will had delivered three fifty-pound bushels of clams to us every day since we’d opened in June without a hitch. But I’d been taught to check and double-check by my father. “Never assume,” he’d said, “because when you assume, you make . . .” etc., etc.
“Hi Will. Julia Snowden. I’m calling to check on deliveries for today. We’ve got a full house once again. It’s been a good season.”
“Julia, I was just about to call you. I got nothing for you today.”
“What? Is everything okay? Are you hurt?” Raking steamers was backbreaking work and it wasn’t unusual for clammers to be injured. But normally Will would have called to give a heads up if he wasn’t going out.
“No. Nothing—when—Herrickson Point—morning—chain link gate—end of the access road—not letting anybody on the beach.”
“What? I can’t hear you. There’s a lot of noise in the background. Who’s not letting anybody on the beach?”
“Is that better?” He’d obviously moved the phone closer to his mouth. He didn’t wait for my response before he continued. “Frickin’ Frick, that’s who. I’m still at the Point. There’s a bunch of people here trying to get on the beach. Not just clammers. It’s getting kind of ugly.” He was quiet for a moment and I could hear angry shouts in the background. “Call some of the guys who clam over on Keyport Beach. They should be able to cover you. Sorry to let you down.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “Take care of yourself. It sounds like it could get nasty out there.”
“Already has,” he answered. “Already has.”
* * *
Will was right. A few of the clammers who worked Keyport Beach were able to fill my order and were happy to help. All of them had heard about the fuss at Herrickson Point and a couple said they were headed over there to see what was going on.
A quick glance at my phone told me I had time to check it out before I had to be on the boat to the clambake. I was curious, and concerned about my clam supply. I pulled my ancient maroon Chevy Caprice out of Mom’s garage where I kept it. The car had been meant as a winter beater,
a vehicle to brave the ice and snow and salt on Maine roads, so cheap it would be abandoned as soon as it needed a major repair, or even a minor one. But the car had failed to die with the season, and I was bent on running it into the ground.
The ride took me out of town, over the bridge onto Thistle Island and out to the farthest point of land on its opposite side. Herrickson Point was hard to miss. There were twenty or so cars and pickups parked along Rosehill Road, which dead-ended just past the turnoff to the beach. A large knot of people milled around the entrance to the turnoff. I pulled the Caprice behind the last truck and hurried over to the beach access road.
Or more correctly, the beach “no access” road. A shiny, new, ten-foot chain link gate blocked the road. High on it was a sign in large black letters that said KEEP OUT—PRIVATE PROPERTY.
The crowd was revved up. “Let us through. It’s our right!” a man yelled.
“This is an outrage,” an older woman carrying a beach chair shouted. When I got closer I realized she was the deeply tanned woman who’d been at Lou’s memorial.
The crowd began to chant, “Let us in! Let us in! Let us in!” More than a dozen people held clam rakes aloft, moving them up and down in time to the words. The rakes had short wooden handles with curved tines and wire baskets at the end. The crowd looked like an angry mob carrying pitchforks. Will Orsolini was at the front near the fence.
I worked my way to him. “What’s going on?”
Will squinted into the sun behind me, his dark eyebrows drawn over his bright blue eyes. “Put this up overnight. I was here practically until sunset yesterday.”
Obviously then, it had been planned well in advance, even though there had been no notice. “Can he do that?” I asked.
“He thinks he can.”
I peered through the fence. The beach access road and parking lot ran from where I stood about two hundred yards to the end of the point where the buildings that made up Herrickson Point Light stood on the rocks. There was the light itself, tall and white-washed, a two-story keeper’s house, and an outbuilding where the light’s fuel had been stored back in the days when it had been lit by oil. To the left of the parking lot was a crescent of sandy beach. Sea Glass Beach wasn’t wide, and it wasn’t entirely sand. Boulders were strewn about both on the beach and in the water, but it was a long stretch for this part of Maine. Well back from the parking lot, up on a bluff, was Herrickson House, a shingled mansion loaded with turrets, balconies, and porches.
“This isn’t what Lou would have wanted,” I said to Will.
“No. She was a nice lady. I’m sorry we weren’t at the memorial yesterday. I had to work and so did Nikki.”
“I’m sure Lou would have understood,” I assured him.
“You’re right. I used to take her clams from time to time as a way to say thank you for letting us use the beach. Just enough for her and the housekeeper. Lou was always grateful and said so. She wasn’t stuck up in the least.”
A woop-woop sounded behind us as a police car made its way through the crowd. It stopped in the middle of the road and my childhood friend Jamie Dawes got out. He stood for a moment, assessing, and then made his way toward Will and me.
“I’d ask, ‘what seems to be the problem,’ but I think I can guess.” He smiled while his eyes traveled up the fence.
“He can’t keep us out, can he?” a clammer asked.
“I don’t know,” Jamie answered. “Why don’t you folks take off and I’ll go up to the house to see what he has to say?”
“We’ll wait,” Will responded for everyone.
Jamie shrugged. “Suit yourselves. But don’t make any trouble, and absolutely no destruction of property.” He looked meaningfully at the gate. Then he scaled the boulder next to the fence pole, as sure-footed as a mountain goat. He ducked around the pole, jumped off the rock, and trudged toward Herrickson House. The crowd, so raucous only moments before, watched in silence as the door opened and Jamie disappeared inside.
I checked my phone. I had to leave in ten minutes if I wanted to make it to the boat in time. The Caprice was still the last in the line of parked cars, well clear of Jamie’s cruiser in the middle of the road. I should have gone while the getting was good, but I wanted to know the end of the story.
At that moment, the biggest RV I’d ever seen in motion rumbled down the road and stopped behind the police car. The door opened and a man got out. He was short, with a fringe of white hair around his bald head. When his feet hit the ground after leaving the RV’s lower step, he looked at the crowd, hiking up his madras slacks. He walked purposefully toward Will and me. “You in charge here?” he asked.
I could see why he assumed it. We were standing at the front of the crowd, and Jamie, the obvious authority figure, was inside the mansion.
“Not us.” Will gestured with his arm, sweeping it across the entire group of angry, chattering people. “We’re trying to figure out what’s going on like everybody else.”
“Have you figured any of it?” The man smiled when he said it, but there was tension in his voice.
“Nope. I clam here low tide near every day, usually twice a day,” Will answered. “Got here this morning and found this gate and sign.” He jerked his thumb toward the gate.
“The owner of the land died recently,” I added. “She always welcomed access to the beach and the lighthouse, but it appears maybe her heir isn’t so accommodating.”
“Oh, we know about the death of Mrs. Herrickson.” The man stuck his hand out. “Glen Barnard,” he said.
Will shook first. “Willis Orsolini.”
I gave him a quizzical look. I’d always assumed his full name was William. “Julia Snowden.” I took the man’s outstretched hand and shook.
The man turned toward the RV, cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled. “Anne, we have a situation.”
A trim, white-haired woman opened the door to the RV and stood on the top step. “A what?” It wasn’t until I saw her that I realized they were the couple in the lighthouse sweatshirts at Lou’s memorial service the day before.
The man waved her over. There was no use shouting above the restless crowd. She worked her way toward us. “The access road and parking lot have been blocked,” he said when she reached us. He explained what we’d told him.
“But we have a reservation. We paid a deposit,” she said.
Lou rented the keeper’s cottage to a few lucky folks every summer. The reservations were coveted and hard to get. Lighthouse lovers, and just plain lovers, from all over North America and sometimes even farther away, entered a lottery in March and ten lucky winners got a week each over the summer. The cost was nominal. Lou told people around town she did it to have a reason to keep the cottage comfortably furnished and in good repair.
“I imagine you’ll have to speak to Mrs. Herrickson’s grandnephew about honoring your reservation,” I told them.
“What’s his deal?” the man asked.
“His name is Bartholomew Frick. I don’t really know him. He was at the memorial service.”
“The je—guy with the Porsche?” I could tell Glen had almost said, “jerk.” I didn’t disagree.
Jamie emerged from the house and made the long walk down the drive. He climbed up onto the boulder he’d scaled to get in. “Listen up,” he said. He stayed up the rock, speaking from above our heads. Jamie and I are the same age, thirty-one, and he was the newest member of the Busman’s Harbor PD, but his height and his deep, resonant voice conveyed a sense of authority that extended beyond his uniform. The crowd quieted.
“I spoke to Mr. Frick. He has a number of documents up there and claims to have the legal right to block access to the beach. I’m not a lawyer. Someone smarter than me is going to have to sort this out.” He shifted his weight to steady himself on the rock. “You should all go home, or back to your hotels, or wherever you came from. There will be no using the beach today.”
There was grumbling. Some of the people at the back turned away, but the li
ttle knot of people around me didn’t move.
“Tide’s too high anyway,” Will said. “Today is lost.”
I looked at my phone. I had to get going. “That’s Officer Dawes,” I said to the couple from the RV. “Speak to him about your reservation. He may be willing to go back and ask Mr. Frick about it.”
“Thank you,” the man said, clasping my arm. “I can’t tell you how much this means to us.”
“Bye. Good luck.” I ran for my car.
CHAPTER 3
At ten o’clock that night, after I’d returned to the harbor on the Jacquie II along with our dinner guests, I sat on the broken-down couch in my apartment over Gus’s restaurant and opened my laptop. Chris was still at his job as a bouncer at Crowley’s, Busman’s Harbor’s most raucous, touristy bar. After the lights in the bar came up at 1:00 AM, he’d ferry drunks back to their hotels and rental houses in the taxi he owned. In a bigger town, people might wonder if there was a conflict of interest when the bouncer who’d taken their car keys showed up later that night in the cab he owned, ready to drive them home. But in a seasonal resort, everyone worked three jobs when they could in order to get through the long winters. Most people understood and were grateful for the ride. Chris’s primary business was landscaping, caring for summer people’s homes. During the season all three jobs kept him hopping.
I should have gone to bed. I had work in the morning, as I did seven days a week during tourist season. With Sea Glass Beach closed, I had to get in to the office early to ensure I had enough steamers for our two fully booked clambake meals that day. Every restaurant in town would be competing for a diminished supply.
But I was determined to stay up until Chris got home. That afternoon, for the first time ever, he’d gone to visit his older brother, Terry, who was incarcerated in the Maine State Prison in Warren, and had been for close to ten years. When the Jacquie II had sailed past Dinkum’s Light, my phone had downloaded the texts and e-mails that had been waiting for me all day. There was a text from Chris saying he was back in Busman’s Harbor and had returned to work, but other than that I hadn’t heard anything.