by Barbara Ross
“Really?” I was surprised. “All the times we talked about how much you loved Busman’s Harbor and how you tried to lead every tour your company sent here, you never mentioned you’d spent a summer here. Or had a relative who lived here.”
“It was so long ago. I didn’t think anyone would remember Georgette.”
“Of course we remember her,” my mother said. “Don’t you, Julia?”
I nodded to confirm I did. I took the pan of scrambled eggs off the burner and over to the kitchen table where my mother buttered toast.
“How long do you expect to stay in town?” I asked Richelle. I thought it was more polite than, “How long do you expect to stay in our house?”
“I have a doctor’s appointment this morning. Jacquie’s taking me. Still not allowed to drive.”
“That’s very nice of you, Jacquie.” I couldn’t resist trying to get a rise out of my mother, but she just munched on her toast.
When we finished breakfast, I glanced at the digital clock on the stove. I wanted to deliver Cabe’s employment application to Binder and Flynn before work. I excused myself, went to our home phone, and called Pammie to make sure she’d be at the ticket kiosk.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Twenty-four hour bug.”
I walked the block and a half to Busman’s Harbor’s ugly, brick, fire-department-town-offices-police complex. Inside, the building was quiet. I crossed behind the empty police reception desk and looked into the community room the state police had used the last time they were in town. Binder and Flynn sat at one of the room’s central tables, heads bowed, deep in conversation. Around the perimeter of the room were a whiteboard with notes scrawled on it in thick black marker, two computer workstations, and dozens and dozens of cardboard boxes.
“Knock, knock.”
“Julia Snowden!” Binder seemed delighted to see me, ready to stop whatever they were doing. Flynn, as always, seemed much less so.
“Come in. Sit down,” Binder said.
Ignoring Flynn’s scowl, I did. “What is all this? I asked, indicating the scores of moving boxes.
“This has to do with the identity of your friend, Stevie Noyes.”
“His identity? You mean you found his next of kin?”
“No. We found out who Stevie Noyes actually was.”
Actually was? “He wasn’t Stevie Noyes?”
“Not always. The dental records you so helpfully pointed us toward got a hit at a federal pen in Pennsylvania. Stevie Noyes used to be T.V. Noyes, big-time stock swindler. He did a federal bill of ten years for a stock con he ran in the early nineties. These boxes contain the trial transcripts, witness lists, and so on. There was a civil suit against him, too, an attempt to recover damages. We’re still waiting on that stuff.”
“I can’t believe it. Stevie Noyes was the nicest person in the world.”
“So everyone has told us. He did his time. Apparently, he was a model prisoner. Taught computer classes to inmates. After he got out, he inherited some money from an uncle and bought the RV park. Hasn’t had so much as a parking ticket since.”
“But that doesn’t mean the people he swindled don’t still feel wronged.” I started to feel hopeful. Maybe Stevie’s past would take the focus off Cabe. “Have you found Stevie’s family and notified his next of kin?”
“Working on it,” Binder answered. “The family situation’s a little screwy. We’ll release his identity to the press today, regardless.”
“A stock swindle, time in prison, and a screwy family. There could be a lot of people who might be interested in killing Stevie Noyes. Maybe finding Cabe isn’t so important,” I suggested.
“Actually, as the investigation’s moved forward, we’ve become more interested in young Mr. Stone, not less,” Binder said.
“He may be in more trouble than ever,” Flynn added.
I couldn’t imagine why that would be. “How can you say that? You’ve just told me you have a boatload of possible suspects from Stevie’s past.”
Flynn folded his hands in front of him and gave me his full attention. “We think you know where Cabe Stone is.”
“What! Why would you ever think that?”
“The kid has no resources. He’s on his own. Someone’s helping him stay out of sight.”
“You can’t know that. And even if someone is, why me?” I looked at Binder. Are you going to sit there and let him accuse me? But Binder said nothing to stop Flynn or defend me.
“Your brother-in-law obviously knows more than he’s telling. I’d suspect him, but he lives out on that island with limited mobility and means of communication. We know the kid’s not hiding on the island.”
How do they know that?
“That leaves you.”
I jumped up from the chair, seething with the unfairness of the accusation. “Are you kidding me? I’m helping you. I gave you the identity of your victim. I pointed you to the dental records. You told me how helpful I was—like two minutes ago!” What a case of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately.
Binder stood up as well. “Ms. Snowden. Julia. This is serious. It’s important for Mr. Stone’s safety and the safety of anyone he may be with that he turns himself in. If he contacts you, tell him to call us. Now.”
Really, this is too much. “He hasn’t contacted me, I swear,” I insisted. “And I don’t appreciate what you’re implying.”
I pivoted and walked briskly out of the office, and then out the station door.
I was so mad I was shaking. How dare Flynn accuse me. And on what possible basis? And all while Binder just sat there.
I felt in my tote bag for my phone to check the time. I had to get to the dock in time to board the Jacquie II. “Damn.” There was the employment application. I’d been so angry I hadn’t given it to the cops. Or told them Cabe had been staying on the island. I briefly considered going back, but it was late and I was mad.
When I finally fished my phone out of the bag, an icon indicated a voicemail. I walked toward the town dock, tapping the phone as I went. A single voicemail from a number I didn’t recognize. It had come in at 3:04 AM when I was in a deep, well-earned sleep in the bow of the Dark Lady. I hadn’t heard it ring. I played the message.
“Julia. It’s me.” I stopped where I stood. Cabe. A tourist bumped into me, excusing herself. I stepped into the sheltered doorway of a shop and replayed the voicemail.
Cabe was whispering, but I understood him clearly. “You said once, if you could ever help me. I think I’m in a lot of trouble. I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. Don’t tell the police about this call. This guy doesn’t even know I’m using his phone. You’ll get him in trouble. He’s passing through. I’ll call you back somehow. Julia, I can’t go to jail. I won’t survive it. Please help me.”
My breath came in ragged gasps. I’d suffered from panic attacks for years and knew what triggered them. They happened when my head and heart conflicted. I knew in my head I should turn around, march back into the police station, and turn my phone over to Binder and Flynn. But my heart wanted to reach out to Cabe, who sounded frightened and alone. Cabe, who had saved my life.
I breathed slowly and deliberately, until the threat of an attack passed. I starting walking again, pressing the CALL BACK icon for the message as I went.
“Allo?” A man’s voice answered.
“May I please speak to Cabe Stone?”
“Qui?”
“Cabe Stone, please.”
“Désolé, c’est une erreur.” Click.
Wrong number. The man hadn’t sounded suspicious or perturbed. He’d treated my call like any inadvertent wrong number. But what was up with the French? Was Cabe already in Canada? But French didn’t necessarily mean Canada. Tons of French-Canadians flocked to Maine for their holidays.
“Cabe, what did you do?” I demanded out loud. I was furious at the universe because I’d missed his call. I wanted to ask him why he’d run.
I’d just lied to Binder and Flynn without knowing it. I’d swo
rn I hadn’t heard from Cabe. How did Flynn know Cabe would reach out to me? More than that, how did he know I wouldn’t tell?
I changed course and headed home. I stopped at the end of my mother’s front walk, shaky and breathless. I knew I wasn’t going to tell. I was going to do anything I could to help Cabe.
Chapter 19
My mother’s car wasn’t in her garage. She and Richelle must be at the doctor’s. I went upstairs to my office to radio Morrow Island.
I didn’t know what I was going to say. I was the head of the company. Surely, “I won’t be on the boat. Something’s come up,” should suffice. I hoped Livvie would answer.
Sonny. Damn. “Hi Sonny. I’m not going to make it to the island today. I’m really sick.” Coward. Sonny paused, giving me ample time to feel ridiculous about calling in fake-sick to a company I ran.
“You seemed fine yesterday.” He sounded suspicious, like he thought I was lying.
I resented his tone. It was the second time today someone had accused me of lying. It was also the second time I was actually lying. Only difference, this time I knew it.
“Came on suddenly. I think it’s the same thing Pammie and Livvie had. I really don’t think I can come to the island.” I dug myself in deeper. “I’m sorry. I know it’s a lot more work.”
Sonny relented. “Of course, don’t come. We’ll manage.” There was some warmth in his voice.
“Thanks,” I said, and meant it. Partly because he was being nice, and partly because I could see an end to the conversation. “I’m sure I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Maybe not,” he answered. “Check the weather forecast.”
Bad weather? How could I not know? I always knew what the marine forecast was. It was my job, especially if there was any chance we’d have to shut down the clambake. After I finished with Sonny, I called Pammie and told her I wouldn’t be going out with the Jacquie II.
She gave me a chipper, “No problem.”
I fired up my computer. If there was one thing I’d learned in my venture capital job, it was how to do research on the Web. Before our firm put any money into a company, we vetted it thoroughly. Sure, we asked the management for all the information they could give us. But we almost always found the most valuable information independently—a competitor who’d recently made a significant advance, or even information about a management team member he or she would have preferred we didn’t discover.
I waved my fingers, warming up like a piano virtuoso preparing for a concert. There were answers inside the magic screen across from me, I was certain of it. I typed T.V. Noyes into a search engine. Why did Stevie’s real name sound fake and his fake name sound real? Floods of information came back. Penny stock swindlers didn’t achieve the household-name status of a Milken or a Madoff, but in its time, Telford Vincent Noyes’s arrest and conviction had been big news.
He’d run a boiler room operation. A stock scam. They were always with us, but I knew from business school they were particularly prevalent in the early nineties, mostly with unregulated penny stocks, companies too small to be traded on the major exchanges.
Early 1990s stock scams worked in a variety of ways. Since the companies they focused on were so small, the stock was easily manipulated. The scammers would talk up a stock, putting out positive rumors about a company. When the stock was high, the scammers would take money from the gullible people on the end of the phone, but not actually use it to buy the stock. Once the scammers had the money in hand, they spread negative stories about the company and the stock would drop like a stone. The con men pocketed the money and the investor was none the wiser, thinking he’d lost it on the stock.
Noyes had run an operation that did that over and over again. He had a unique variation, too. He’d mail 10,000 people one of two newsletters. Half the newsletters would predict a certain, well-known stock was going up, and half would predict it was going down. If the stock went down, he’d mail a second newsletter to the 5000 people who’d received his first, correct prediction. Half would predict another well-known stock would go up, half down. Then he’d send a follow up to just those who’d received the correct prediction. By the time he was down to 625 people, they’d received five correct stock predictions from him in a row. When his boiler room operators called to say he had a huge winner, his audience was more credulous than any normal sampling of people. They invested with him, and they invested big. Huge sums. People lost fortunes. Some lost everything they had.
Eventually, the Feds swept in. Accompanying one of the articles was a photo of Noyes with a raincoat over his head, being perp-walked out of his elegant Upper East Side apartment building. I couldn’t see his face, but I recognized his little body. In the background of the photo, standing under the building’s awning, was a beautiful young woman, dark-haired, petite—and obviously pregnant. The caption said she was T.V.’s wife.
I continued clicking on articles about Noyes. There weren’t many additional mentions until seven months later when he’d been tried on the criminal charges. Several of his employees had been given immunity to testify against him. His wife sat stalwartly behind him every day of the trial.
The employees’ testimonies, along with the rest of the government’s case, must have been devastating. Noyes was sentenced to ten years, a long time for a white-collar crime in those days. But when you added in the mail fraud . . . Plus, one of his early victims had killed himself rather spectacularly, diving off the Empire State Building. I didn’t even know that could be done.
I sat back in my desk chair and rubbed my eyes. There wasn’t much news about Noyes after his sentencing. A short article when he reported to prison included the information that he and his wife had divorced. The civil suit had petered out. Noyes was broke and therefore judgment-proof. There was no point in pursuing the lawsuit.
My mind kept drifting back to Stevie’s wife. The look on her face in the arrest photo haunted me—shock, fear, hurt. What was it like to have your whole life come crashing down around you?
The other thing I fixated on in the photo was her great, pregnant belly. I did some fast subtraction. Her child with Stevie would be nineteen years old. Cabe was nineteen years old. No one knew where he came from. He seemed to have no family. Did Binder and Flynn believe Cabe was Stevie’s son? Was this the deeper connection Binder had hinted at? The reason the cops were more and not less interested in Cabe?
My mouth felt suddenly dry. I hated to even think about it.
I stood, stretched, then went back to the keyboard. T.V.’s pregnant wife was Carole Noyes. Prior to his arrest, she’d been quite visible in New York—attending charity events and serving on boards. Afterwards, she’d disappeared completely. Or maybe she’d gone back to her maiden name?
I tracked backward and found a 1988 marriage announcement for Telford Vincent Noyes and Carole Marsh. Moving forward in time got me another marriage announcement, for Carole Marsh and Donald Crane, in December 1993, only six months after T.V. Noyes reported to prison. The marriage had occurred in New Jersey.
There were a hundred Donald Cranes in New Jersey and thirty-seven Carole Cranes. I was grateful for that e. Taking a chance, I searched on “Donald and Carole Crane,” and got nothing. But without the quotes, there it was. An obituary for Carole Crane, four years ago in Summit, New Jersey. Survived by her husband, Dr. Donald, and her son, Aaron Crane, still living at home.
I looked at the photo accompanying the obituary. No question it was the same woman from the photo of T.V.’s arrest. Dead at age forty-eight, “suddenly.”
Was I looking at a photo of Cabe’s mother? Her sudden death might explain the vulnerability we all saw in him.
There was only one Dr. Donald Crane in Summit, New Jersey. I picked up my cell phone and dialed.
“Dr. Donald Crane.”
I was momentarily tongue-tied. I’d expected a receptionist or a machine. “This is Julia Snowden in Busman’s Harbor, Maine.”
“The state police have already called,” he s
aid matter-of-factly, not hostile. Letting me know.
“Yes. I’m following up. About your son Aaron.”
“As I already told you people, he’s not here. I don’t know where he is.”
He seemed to assume I was with the police. I hadn’t said I was, but I didn’t correct his misunderstanding. He didn’t say more, but I waited silently. Binder’s trick. I didn’t think it would work, but then Crane spoke.
“This has to do with T.V.’s death, I assume. If I’d known where the bastard was, I’d have killed him myself. I didn’t. T.V. Noyes ruined my wife’s life. And my family. I should know. I was Carole’s psychiatrist. When she came to me after his arrest, but well before he went to prison, she was broken. Can you imagine, thinking you were wealthy and married to a prominent man, the father of your unborn child, and it all disappears in one day? T.V. spent the cash from the boiler room operation as fast as he made it. When he was arrested, they were destitute.”
I couldn’t imagine the depths of the deception. That poor woman.
“I wanted to rescue her. As soon as I realized my feelings for her, I resigned as her doctor. But I couldn’t forget her. Later, after Aaron was born, and T.V. went to prison, we married and I adopted Aaron.
“But Carole couldn’t forgive or forget. No matter how I tried to make her happy, her bitterness and anger overwhelmed all the good in her. Four years ago, she closed herself in our garage and turned on her car. Aaron found her.
“I did my best for him, but he couldn’t be rescued, either. He barely attended school. We had truant officers and social workers here. The best child grief psychologist I could find. I hired tutors to catch him up, but he wouldn’t or couldn’t cooperate.
“All that time, we never heard a word from T.V. Not even when he got out of prison. He never asked about his son. Initially, I was glad. I thought Carole, Aaron, and I could be a coherent, bonded family. But when Carole killed herself, I couldn’t forgive T.V. for not even asking about his son. He’d destroyed his family a second time.”