Third Time Lucky: Volume 1 (The Coxwells)

by Deborah Cooke

  The silence prompted me to glance in the rearview. Nick looked a bit green around the gills. His fingers were dug deep into the deluxe vinyl upholstery, his donuts forgotten. “Do you always drive like that?”

  “Pretty much.” I wrinkled my nose. “Maybe driving aggressively is my weakness.”

  “And you use the verb loosely.”

  I pretended to be insulted. “Would you rather walk?”

  “Very funny.” He polished off the last donut and checked the corners of the box diligently for strays. “I’ll take my chances.”

  We laughed and the sky pinkened in the east. We might have been old friends riding along on a mission, but that kiss that hadn’t happened rode along with us like an unwelcome passenger.

  And so did the one that had.

  My mind was going faster than the Beast, trying to sort out all the potential repercussions. Nick never did anything by accident, after all. Did ducking a kiss this morning mean that he was worried and distracted, or that he had no long term plans for hanging around?

  Either way, I would find out pretty damn quick once we got to Rosemount.

  Like it or not.

  Chapter Four

  Rosemount is an old New England town, founded in the late seventeenth century. The town looks out to sea, its back braced against a low hill, a site that accurately reflects its indifference to the country behind and its interest, at least once, in old mother England. It has a stern and grey demeanor, like an ancient spinster, perhaps one who enjoys rapping her cane to make sure everyone is listening.

  The town had originally been named Whalers’ End, a tribute to the original source of its income. After a maritime accident—the wreckage of which still provides stalwart divers with adventure—the name had been considered bad luck and had been changed to the more sedate Rosemount. There still weren’t many roses, although the hill behind could have been said to be a mount.

  A little one.

  Maybe a dowager’s hump.

  Boston had once been so far away as to be effectively of another world, and there were still residents who would prefer it stayed that way. The automobile had changed Rosemount, just as it had changed the rest of America. A mere fifty-minute drive from the northern outskirts of Boston ensured that the fishermen of Rosemount had been gradually replaced by commuters.

  The more practical among the town’s citizenry saw this transition as a good sign. Diversifying the local economy was key to survival in a changing world. After all, fish were an integral ingredient in Rosemount’s fishing industry, and everyone knew the stocks were dwindling.

  In fact, an ongoing argument as to who is responsible for the sorry state of the fishing business—local opinion favors alternatively big business, the Japanese, those Canadians or the government, depending on the wind—can be joined at the Merry Widow pub right downtown, if ever you’re so inclined.

  Despite its relatively small size, there’s a big division in the town—between old residents and new, between fishermen and professionals—a division perpetuated by their differing perspectives regarding development.

  The town’s older houses have been restored and renovated, primarily by commuters with fat wallets. A strict historical society ensures that the mood is kept intact for a burgeoning tourist trade. The newcomers want “quaint”, a New England town from the past with picture-perfect views and gregarious locals. Unfortunately, since most of them have demanding careers in the city, they expect this local hospitality to come from the old timers.

  The old timers, predominantly fishermen, just want to get on with the increasingly competitive business of wringing a living from the sea. They don’t want to paint their boats in cheery colors or hang gingham curtains in their smaller older seaside houses. They don’t have time to plant nasturtiums or the interest in greeting every visitor like an old friend. And they are, by and large, a crusty and colorful bunch, content to be who they are rather than worry what they look like.

  The economic disparity between the two groups does little to ensure reconciliation—though in the summers, when revenue flows like a good rain, tensions are slight. Old timers grumble of the intrusion of tourists, but do so under their breaths. More and more of them each year take those tourists to see the whales, or divers out to the wreckage, loading down their boats with something other than nets bulging with silvery fish.

  There are those who don’t quite fit into either camp, the Coxwells and the Sullivans being two such families. Maybe that’s what drew Nick and I to each other. We were never going to mingle with either group and even as kids, we knew it.

  The Coxwells were counted among the old timers by dint of the date of our arrival if not our traditional occupation. My great grandfather acquired our property as a summer retreat around the turn of the century, when such coastal cottages were in vogue.

  The family myth was that he had complained mightily of the cost of renovating Grey Gables, for the house had then been the dilapidated residence of the local doctor and far too small for my great grandmother’s ambitions. She had apparently brooked no argument—she had been smitten with the house, no less her vision of how it should be, and nothing less would do.

  I would have liked to have known her.

  And, Henry Coxwell, being a prominent Boston lawyer, had had deep enough pockets to satisfy his wife’s demands despite his legendary grumbling. They had four kids, so their marriage couldn’t have been all that bad.

  It was my father who had moved out of the city completely, concerned by the wave of change in the sixties and the future of his three impressionable teenage sons. Small town life, fresh air and a Republican vote are the solutions to whatever ails anyone, in Father’s frame of reference. My mom had always hated the rambling old house, but her opinion had been over-ridden.

  It’s an unshakable fact of the Coxwell household that Mom’s opinion seldom counts for much, if a fact that only I seemed to notice. To be sure, she never rails against the unfairness of it all, at least she never has in my presence. It takes two to tango and my parents’ mutual expectations seem to mesh, however unacceptable I find them to be. Maybe Mom was of an age and an era where women adjusted themselves to such unilateral spousal decisions.

  The constantly dipping level in the sherry decanter at Grey Gables hints otherwise.

  If nothing else, my parents have provided a picture postcard of everything a marriage should not be.

  But on this trip, I didn’t take the turn to my parents’ house. I did feel a twinge of requisite guilt and resolved to not even tell them I had been here. Grey Gables is on an old timers’ street, lined as it is with massive horse-chestnut trees, the sports cars and utility vehicles in each drive belying the aura of another era.

  I drove instead to the other side of town—always said with the tone of it being the “wrong” side—where New Money had built flashy shrines. It was here that the investors in the whaling ships and those intrepid merchants of the colonial era had erected sweeping houses, most of which looked out to sea. It was here where those who made fortunes in the twenties built their abodes, and often lost them shortly thereafter. It was here—albeit closer to the highway—that the new suburbs had been slapped up in the decades since Rosemount became a bedroom community.

  And it was here that the Sullivans had staked their claim. They actually hadn’t arrived much later than my family, but their history decreed how they would fit in and where they would live.

  The Sullivan house pre-dates its fellows, looking for all the world like an old timer house tragically misplaced. Everyone in town knew that Nick’s grandfather had bought the house from some disreputable rogue who had died trying to lose his fortune. Despite his untimely end, he’d done a pretty good job and his widow had had to sell the house to see him buried. His name, not inappropriately, was forgotten, or at least eclipsed by the notoriety of the Sullivans.

  There wasn’t a soul in town who didn’t have an opinion about a family who had made their money running booze during Prohi
bition—much less one who had forgotten.

  The house perched on the biggest and best lot on the street, a house not intending to be ignored. In fact, the street itself seemed to be the driveway of the Sullivan house. The house was brick—another whimsy of a heavy purse in a neighborhood of clapboard—and had so many turrets and gables that it looked as though it had been transplanted from the other side of the Atlantic.

  I had once heard a local roofer call the Sullivan house ‘the job from hell’. He had done nice work though, despite his whining, and I didn’t doubt that he sent prospective clients around to check his handiwork.

  And they would come too, grateful for an excuse to gawk.

  There was something about the house that invited rubber-necking, even beyond that of the history of its occupants. It had an eerie aura, that house, and seemed to crouch at the end of the street like a venomous toad. There were reasons why kids dared each other to ring Lucia’s bell on Halloween.

  And reasons they ran for the hills if she answered.

  Even as an adult, I couldn’t even look straight at the house. I keenly felt its disapproval as I pulled into the driveway and turned off the ignition. The silence of the early morning filled my ears and the hair on the back of my neck prickled. I hesitated, Lucia’s death seeming much more real from such proximity.

  I was half-expecting Nick’s grandmother to step out the door, blowing smoke rings and giving me heck for daring to park here.

  But she didn’t.

  And she wouldn’t ever again. I suddenly felt very sad not to have known her better as well.

  Nick reached for the door handle and I noted his gesture. I hit the button for the rear “childproofing” power locks.

  They even worked.

  “You’re supposed to stay out of sight.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “That’s a woman’s provenance and as far as I can tell, you’re not on the team.”

  Nick glared at me in the rear view mirror. “Very funny. Let me out.”

  “No.”

  “You can’t do this, Phil. It’s just going to get you involved in something that isn’t your problem.”

  “I’m already involved.”

  “And I’d like that to stop right here.”

  “Why?”

  He frowned out the tinted window, not answering.

  “What’s changed, Nick?”

  He cast me a dark glance and wiggled the door handle. “Are you going to let me out of this monster, or do I have to come over the seat?”

  He wasn’t going to answer me, which was significant enough to get me wondering. Was this protectiveness the legacy of that kiss? That was something I could ponder later, after this was done.

  But I couldn’t help thinking it was another sign of changed luck. They do say that the third time is the charm.

  “Do you think the front door will be unlocked?” I ignored Nick’s fuming as I gathered my bag. I should have brought my briefcase, or a notebook, or something that would look more official than a purse.

  “Phil, don’t do this.”

  “Too late, I’m doing it. Will it?”

  Nick shrugged, hardly pleased. “It usually is.”

  “Where’s the greenhouse?”

  He held my gaze for a charged moment. “You’re not going to change your mind, are you?”

  “I finish what I start.”

  Nick might have sworn under his breath, but his lips only tightened briefly. “I had forgotten how stubborn you can be.”

  Before I could be insulted, he sighed. “I wish I had a really good reason to disagree with you.”

  “But you don’t and you’re smart enough to know it.”

  “Point taken, but I don’t have to like it.” He shoved a hand through his hair, giving himself that restless and rumpled look again. “The greenhouse is at the back of the house. Just straight through the kitchen. You can’t miss it.”

  “Right.” I reached for the door handle.

  “Phil?”

  “Uh huh?”

  “Be careful, will you?”

  I tried to not be touched by his concern. I really did.

  I slammed the door and hit the key on the remote to lock all the doors, taking some satisfaction in the fact that Nick was indeed out of sight. Maybe I just had a weakness for this man because he listened to me, a rare enough occurrence in my life. I walked to the front door, hoping I looked more confident than I felt.

  I was, after all, going to discover a body. One that had been waiting for a while.

  In the sun.

  I decided not to think about that. No, I would act as though I was here for my own pretence of a reason. I had been summoned to redesign the gardens of one Lucia Sullivan, so I’d concentrate on assessing what was here already.

  Have you ever had the feeling you were being watched? Well, I had it in spades that morning and the gooseflesh to show for it. It wasn’t a benevolent gaze either—someone was sending major “go away” vibes.

  The Force was not with me.

  I ignored it. I checked out the garden, giving my best impression of a consummate professional. There wasn’t much there. Nick was right to say that his grandmother didn’t care about gardens.

  Yet it wouldn’t take much to make a difference. Low maintenance seemed to be the obvious choice—bulbs, perennials and self-sowing annuals.

  What this long bed in front of the house needed was a burst of color, maybe yellow or buttery cream to highlight the russet of the brick. Maybe both, all jumbled up together.

  No, bolder than that. This was Lucia’s house. She was not a woman who was afraid of bright color. (Had been afraid of color, I corrected myself silently.) This garden called for magenta and brilliant yellow, orange and purple, some red tossed in for zing. Yellow crocus, red fringed tulips, hot pink tulips, maybe a few crown fritillaria. They were showy things, a bit vulgar, and would be just the ticket.

  I walked slowly, making a good show of assessing as I went. Yes, and a border of tarda tulips, always cheerful, easy to maintain for those non-gardeners to whom this house seemed to belong. They could become a pest, but there was lots of room for things to run amok here.

  Then, we could follow with some Asiatic lilies—as long as they were out from the shadow of the house, they’d thrive—really tall ones in a mix of improbably hot colors. Some cosmos in dark pink, coreopsis in vivid yellow, and red red poppies. Let the self-seeders fight it out. The place would be a jungle of color in no time at all. By the third summer, it would be completely out of control and over the top.

  Perfect.

  I winced in sympathy for the neglected cedars framing the door and decided killing them would be a mercy. A nice neat spruce—no, a pair of dwarf ones, one on either side of the walk—would frame this great old doorway perfectly and add some order to the chaos I was already envisioning.

  One glimpse of the door and reality returned. The expanse of wood seemed to defy me to even knock. It turned out that I hadn’t really done a good job of distracting myself. Those watchful vibes—along with the dismissive ones—seemed to treble in strength.

  But it was just a house. And pretty much an empty one. I stepped up on to the porch and tried to slow the hammering of my heart. I checked my watch as I thought I should and was surprised to find it not quite eight.

  Was it too early to look plausible? But I was here now, for better or for worse.

  I rang the bell.

  The sound echoed through the house, making it sound huge and hollow. Tomblike, ha ha. Not surprisingly, there was no answer of running footsteps. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, trying to act as though I expected to be greeted. I checked my watch again, knowing that there could be any number of prying eyes checking on my presence.

  Maybe it was the neighbors I felt watching.

  It was stupid to have come so early. No one met gardeners at this hour, especially if they weren’t commuters, and there would be questions about my timing. I cast a glance to the rig
ht, noting the fine array of crocuses in the neighbor’s bed. A cat watched from the porch, a Siamese, its eyes narrowed in suspicion as it watched me. The hair rose on the back of my neck.

  The very fact that the cat was out hinted that its owner was awake.

  And knowing Rosemount, watching.

  It was Evelyn Donnelly’s house, so I shouldn’t have even doubted it. I thought of the ledger she must keep and swallowed a smile.

  I rang the bell again and tried to look a little bit more impatient. Perhaps curious. Definitely surprised.

  Certainly giving my best performance.

  I looked to the left and the right more deliberately, peeked at the shrouded window, checked my watch again.

  Then I noticed the brass door handle.

  It was an old handle with a handgrip and lever for the thumb, the parts where hands had repeatedly touched it now worn smooth. I stared at it, thought of cop shows and mystery novels, and knew that if Nick was the last one to come into this house, his thumbprint would be waiting right there to condemn him.

  That made all of this very real.

  Lucia had been murdered. Nick had been set up. And he would be charged for a crime he hadn’t committed.

  Again.

  But this time, there would be no respite. His thumbprint would condemn him.

  After all, it would be right in the files.

  Before I could think too much about it, I grabbed the handle and smeared my thumb across the lever. I could almost hear my brothers scream in outrage at this tampering with evidence—they probably all simultaneously and inexplicably broke out in hives—but it was done.

  And the door suddenly swung inward with a creak. It moved so abruptly that someone might have opened it from behind.

  I jumped back, but there was no one there. There might as well have been, because that sense of presence was stronger than ever.

  And that presence did not approve of my presence.

  I shivered. This place deserved every bit of its creepy reputation. There used to be stories of people who had hung themselves in the basement, of women locked in the garret who clawed at the windows until they starved to death, of vengeful ghosts that stalked this house’s halls.