Steamed Open

by Barbara Ross

  “You parted on bad terms,” Flynn clarified.

  “You could say that.” There was an uncomfortable silence in the room. “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Binder laughed. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Even Flynn cracked a smile. “But tell me, who else did you see at the beach this morning?”

  I moved my brain back to the morning, picturing Herrickson House, the view down to the beach, the lighthouse and the dark blue water beyond it. “Ms. Fischer,” I answered. “You already know that.”

  “Did you actually see Ms. Fischer leave the premises?”

  I pictured her stalking out the upper gate. “Yes. She was picked up by someone in a brown car.”

  “Were Ms. Fischer, Mr. Frick, and the person in the brown car the only people you saw?” Binder asked.

  “I didn’t see the person behind the wheel of the brown car,” I clarified. “When I left, I ran into Vera French, the woman who lives across Rosehill Road.”

  “She was in her yard?”

  “She asked me to hold the Herrickson gate open so she could get onto the property.”

  Binder put on a pair of half glasses and typed into his laptop. “The same gate Ms. Fischer exited from?”

  “Yes. It locks from the outside, but not from the inside.”

  “Is that how you got to Mr. Frick’s house in the first place?”

  It was so odd to hear it called “Mr. Frick’s house.” He hadn’t lived in it long enough to make a mark. “I climbed over the boulder down at the beach road. I saw Officer Dawes do it yesterday.”

  Binder nodded. “Did this Ms. French in fact enter the property?”

  “She did. Last I saw her, she was headed toward the house.”

  “Thanks, that helps,” Binder said. “We’re looking for witnesses. Anyone else?”

  “When I was leaving, I saw an RV speed down the road. The people in it are called Barnard, Anne and Glen. They’d made a reservation to stay at the keeper’s cottage that Frick refused to honor. Officer Dawes has been involved with them. He told me they’re staying at Camp Glooscap. You can probably get their contact information from him.”

  “Is that it?” Binder didn’t seem to suspect I was holding something back. He was trying to jog my memory.

  But I was holding something back. It felt like a betrayal to say it. But I did.

  “I didn’t see any people. But I saw Will Orsolini’s truck parked at the dead end by the water. It had a boat trailer on the back. I thought he might be clamming in the area.”

  Binder asked me to spell Orsolini and wanted Will’s contact info. I took out my phone and read off Will’s cell number.

  He rose and Flynn did, too. Binder reached across the desk and shook my hand. “Thanks, Julia. We’ll let you know if we need anything else. Please call if you think of anything, or discover anything you believe could be of help to us. Anything at all.”

  I hesitated. “I feel badly about letting that woman through the gate.” Then I remembered. “She propped it open with a rock. Do you think that how the ‘other person,’ as you called the killer, got in?”

  Binder smiled. “Julia, in a twenty-four-hour period, you and Officer Dawes entered the property in the same manner, over the rocks. The place was hardly a fortress.”

  I didn’t move. “I could be more helpful if you told me more. How did Frick die, exactly?”

  “Thanks, Julia,” Binder said firmly.

  The conversation was over.

  CHAPTER 8

  When I left the police station, the streets had quieted. Music and light still tumbled out the doors of the bars and clubs, but even at the season’s peak, Busman’s Harbor was a family town and most people had found their way to their hotel rooms or summer homes for the night.

  I was surprised when Will and Nikki appeared on Main Street, obviously making their way home from the pier. The four-year-old was asleep in the stroller and Will held the toddler in his arms, her head against his shoulder.

  Will raised the hand that wasn’t holding the child as I approached. “Hi, Julia,” he called softly. The words floated on the cool night air. They waited at the corner for me to reach them. “Enjoying a night out with the family.” Will inclined his head toward the sleeping toddler. “I don’t need to get up early. No clamming tomorrow. We’re trying to work out something with the clammers at Keyport Beach, but no deal yet. What was that about on the pier?”

  He was the last person I wanted to see in that moment, asking the last question I wanted to answer. Should I tell him I’d given his name to the police? Even worse that I’d placed him near the scene of a murder?

  I kept my voice low, mostly for the sleeping children, but also because I didn’t want my words to be overheard. “Bart Frick was killed today at Herrickson House. I was there this morning, so the detectives wanted to find out what I knew.”

  “Frick is dead?” Nikki’s shock mirrored how I’d felt when I got the same news.

  “What happened?” Will’s voice was a hoarse but urgent whisper.

  “I don’t know. They wouldn’t give me details. But for sure it wasn’t natural causes.”

  “I’m sorry,” Will said. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

  “It wasn’t so bad. It’s not like I was there when it happened.” It was the moment of truth. Do or die time. I plunged on. “They may want to talk to you.”

  “Me, why?” Will’s blue eyes widened. Nikki drew in a sharp breath in surprise.

  “Because I told them I saw your truck at the end of the road when I left.”

  Will barked a laugh. “That’s all? I took the boat off Herrickson Beach to get some quahogs.” Quahogs were the hard-shell clams used in chowder, baked stuffed clams, and other dishes. Unlike the soft shells we served as steamers, most quahogs lived in the water, below the low tide mark, and were often, though not always, dredged by people in boats.

  “I’m sorry. They asked me who I saw. I didn’t see you, but I saw your truck.”

  “Don’t worry about it. If they ask me, I’ll tell ’em.”

  Will’s reaction was a relief. We said our good-byes and they took off in the direction of home. I walked over the harbor hill to my apartment.

  But once there, I couldn’t settle down. Ordinarily, I would have gone to bed, but that night, I had to find a way to tell the man I loved that he was creeping out a young woman who worked for me with his, it had to be said, obsessive interest in her daughter. Knowing he suspected she was his niece, it wasn’t creepy, but I could certainly appreciate how it might feel that way to Emmy.

  And something else was nagging at me as well. Something at the edge of my memory. I was sure there was something about the morning and my time inside Herrickson House that I hadn’t told Binder and Flynn.

  The whole visit had been odd. From climbing over the boulder to walking past the deserted beach, which should have been crowded on a beautiful day. Then being the recipient of Mrs. Fischer’s resignation, followed by the tour of the mad and marvelously decorated house with Bart Frick. I searched my memory. There was something else, something else.

  Then I remembered. The envelopes. The stack of yellowing envelopes he’d stood next to on the roll top desk. He’d been reading one of the letters, and my sense had been he’d hastily put it back in the envelope when he’d realized I was in the room. Why? It was his house and his stuff, presumably including the letters. But I should have mentioned his behavior to Binder or Flynn, in case it was important. At a minimum, they should look at the letters.

  I was still on the couch, but my eyes were almost closed when Chris came running up the stairs.

  “I heard you were met on the pier by a state policeman. Are you okay?”

  The concern in his eyes melted my heart. I went to him and he folded me in his strong arms. “I’m fine. Bartholomew Frick isn’t. Someone killed him at Herrickson House today.”

  He let go and stepped back so he could look me in the face.
“Frick is dead? Did you see him? Were you there when it happened?”

  “No. I did see him, but he was very much alive when I left him. Binder and Flynn heard I was there today and wanted to ask a few questions. That’s all.”

  “Okay.” He hugged me again. I felt so safe in his arms. I didn’t want to break the spell, but I had to. “I stayed up because we need to talk.”

  “Wait. There’s something else? Besides a murder?”

  I led him to the couch and asked him to sit. We were both exhausted, not the best time to have a serious conversation, but the alternative was not having it at all.

  “Emmy Bailey spoke to me today.”

  “That’s nice . . .” He said the words slowly, drawing them out, making it clear he knew there was more to it.

  “She’s concerned about your interest in Vanessa.”

  “What does that mean?” I had his full attention.

  “You’ve asked her a lot of questions about Vanessa, especially about who her father is. You’ve asked more than once.”

  “Julia—”

  “It’s not a casual conversation former co-workers have.” Chris and Emmy had worked together at Crowley’s before she’d moved to the clambake. “It’s not something people press relative strangers about. It’s not something you’re entitled to know about your girlfriend’s niece’s best friend’s absent parent.”

  “I haven’t pressured her.”

  “You’ve asked more times than she’s comfortable with.”

  “I want Vanessa and Terry to take DNA tests.”

  It wasn’t the response I’d expected. “Chris!” I was tired and short-tempered. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said!”

  “I need to know,” he responded, as if it was an answer. “Vanessa will want to know when she’s older.”

  “Then leave it to them. Terry will be out of prison before the end of the year. Let them resolve this. It really is none of your business.”

  He sat unmoving, his work boots firmly planted on the soft pine floors of the studio, his arms crossed over his chest. The picture of someone who wasn’t going to change his mind.

  The silence hung between us for a long moment. I didn’t want to ask, but I had to. “Are you worried Vanessa is yours?”

  “No! Absolutely not.”

  I waited for him to expand his answer. He didn’t. It wasn’t a completely ridiculous question. Emmy claimed she remembered the other party, but admitted an alcohol and drug-fueled one-night stand that had resulted in Vanessa’s birth. I was sure Chris didn’t remember every encounter in his twenties, either. And there were those green, green eyes.

  When it was clear he wasn’t going to say more, I tried again. “You can see how it’s creepy, right? A thirty-six-year-old man asking a lot of questions about a ten-year-old girl.”

  He got it then. He swore and dropped his head into his hands. He was mad at me, but mostly he was embarrassed. He’d been a man on a mission who hadn’t stopped to think how his actions looked, how his questions made Emmy feel. I moved toward him and put a hand on his shoulder. I felt the warmth, the muscled strength. “So you see you can’t ask Emmy to have Vanessa take a DNA test,” I said quietly.

  “You’re right, I can’t,” he agreed. “You’re going to have to do it.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Chris was gone when I woke up the next morning. We hadn’t spoken much after he’d asked me to talk to Emmy. I hadn’t refused. I suspected in the near future he’d realize the inappropriateness of what he’d asked and back off. In the meantime, I had no intention of attempting to persuade Emmy, or even of raising the subject, at least until Chris answered a lot more questions. But if I didn’t say no directly, it would prevent Chris from asking her, at least for a while. What a mess.

  After I got dressed, I wandered downstairs to Gus’s restaurant, which was noisy and bustling on a Saturday morning. Gus served the best breakfasts in the world, which he offered up, when he got around to you, in his own good time, to a very specific crowd. Gus served only locals. It was discriminatory, not to mention illegal, but I had come to treasure finding a pocket of space where I didn’t have to be “on” for anybody. Over the past year and a half, I’d grown to love running the Snowden Family Clambake, sharing our island and traditions with people from all over the world. But I spent ten hours a day with a smile plastered on my face, dealing with the needs of customers or employees, and it was so great to drop that once in a while.

  I had started toward the only empty stool at the counter, when out of the corner of my eye I spotted Lieutenant Binder seated alone in a booth, eyes glued to his phone.

  He looked up as I slid in across from him. “Of all the gin joints in all the world—” he said.

  “I live upstairs. It’s not much of a coincidence. Did you stay in town overnight?”

  “Naw. I drove back to Augusta and came back early this morning.”

  Binder was an exception to Gus’s “locals only” rule. He’d been in town enough, I guessed, and had originally come into the restaurant accompanied by local cops. Gus’s rules were hard to understand anyway. How many winters did a retiree have to spend in town before he was a local? How many generations did a summer family have to live in the harbor before they were welcome? It was all pretty arbitrary. Like many other people, I suspected it depended on how much Gus liked you.

  “Make yourself at home,” Binder said, after I already had. He smiled when he said it. I asked about his wife and two boys. She was with the state police, too, a motorcycle cop in the summer, in a cruiser in some pretty remote areas of the state the rest of the year. The duel careers put stress on their home life, but they seemed to manage pretty well.

  “How do you think Flynn is doing?” I asked after Binder filled me in on his family’s activities.

  “You mean after having his heart broken?” Binder shrugged. “Pretty well I think. His head’s in the job. He’s back at the gym.”

  I couldn’t imagine Flynn, of the toned body, had ever skipped the gym. He must have been hurting.

  Binder asked after Chris. I kept my answers light. They hadn’t liked each other much at the beginning, particularly after Binder arrested Chris for a crime he didn’t commit. Lately they’d settled into a polite but guarded relationship.

  Binder already had his food and Gus hadn’t spotted that I’d come in, so I got up to get my own coffee, something he tolerated. He called out for my order when I was behind the counter. “Two poached eggs, please,” I responded.

  “You want hash with that?”

  “No thanks. Watching my figure.”

  Gus threw back his head and laughed. He had hawk-like features and white bushy eyebrows he used like weapons. They swooped down on you like great white birds when you said or did something he didn’t like. Gus was old; nobody knew how old, but he opened his restaurant at five in the morning seven days a week for the lobstermen.

  I headed back to Binder’s booth. When I got there, I found that he had cleaned his plate.

  “Have you followed up with any of the people who I told you about?” I asked.

  He glanced at his phone to get the time. “We’re talking to Willis Orsolini in fifteen minutes.” So much for Will’s dreams of sleeping in. “And the neighbor right after,” Binder added.

  “Any word on Frick’s cause of death?”

  Binder grinned from across the table. “I suppose there’s no hope of you staying out of this?”

  “You brought me into this. You had me picked up on the pier when I got off of work.”

  “You brought you into this. You had a meeting with the guy right before he was killed.”

  “Which brings me back to my question. You’re admitting it was murder. Killed how?”

  At that most unfortunate moment, Gus arrived. He slid my poached eggs in front of me and picked up Binder’s empty plate. “Anything else?”

  “Just the check,” Binder answered.

  “Seven oh five,” Gus answered. “No time to fuss w
ith slips of paper.”

  “The bean counters in the state capitol prefer documentation for expenses.” Binder was too smart to take Gus on. He handed over a ten and waved Gus away when he fished in his apron for change. Gus hurried off to grab the next order.

  “The cause of death,” I reminded Binder. “You were going to tell me.”

  “I don’t think I was.” But then he added, “Bled to death from a puncture wound to his carotid artery.”

  That was news. “A puncture wound caused by what?”

  Binder slid out of the booth. “I’d like to keep that under wraps for a while if we can. At least until the autopsy’s official.”

  It wasn’t until he’d disappeared up the stairs that led to the street that I remembered I’d never told him about the pile of yellowed envelopes Bart Frick had been examining at Herrickson House. And how Frick had stowed them away and slammed down the roll top on the desk when I’d entered Lou’s study. It seemed like the police should at least look at them. I decided to call Binder later.

  * * *

  After breakfast, I headed toward Mom’s house. She’d spent the night on Morrow Island with Livvie’s family, her first overnight there since my father had been diagnosed with the cancer that had killed him six years earlier. It was the kind of big deal everybody tried to pretend wasn’t a big deal.

  Before I turned the corner onto Main Street, I spotted a familiar RV driving into town. I hadn’t paid much attention to the Barnards’ vehicle. I had an impression it was big and beige. As they drove past me, I noticed the giant silhouette of a lighthouse on the driver’s side, and lighthouse stickers from around the US plastered across the back. Their license plate was from Arizona, which seemed a curious place for lighthouse lovers to live. Though I hadn’t taken all these details in before, I was sure it was the RV I’d seen at the beach.

  Glen Barnard backed the RV gingerly into an extra-large space in the only parking lot downtown that served large RVs and tour buses. By the time I reached them, Anne had climbed out the passenger-side door, followed by Glen.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Barnard, how are you? Julia Snowden. We met the day before yesterday at the beach.”