by Rice, Luanne
“You're the best, aren't you?” she asked, wondering if he was just being modest.
“I don't know,” he said.
“That's why Sean went to you,” Bay said. “Because he always had to have the best of everything.”
“The man had great taste in some things, obviously,” Dan said. “But he didn't know wooden boats. Now that you're asking me about it, I did wonder what was driving him. There's such a difference between people who like plastic—big glossy powerboats—and people who like wood.”
“Yes, I know,” Bay said quietly. To her, wooden boats were like the moon: subtle, cool, and reflective. While powerboats were huge suns, blasting everyone with too much heat and light. But she held back from saying that to Dan.
“So, when he showed up at the shop, I couldn't really figure him out. He asked a lot of questions, he was ready to pay what I charge, but he wasn't—” He paused, searching for the right word. “Passionate. People who buy wooden boats are pretty in love with the whole thing.”
“What was Sean?”
Dan took a long drink of his lemonade, as if he wanted to postpone for as long as possible answering that question. “I don't know,” he said, looking away. “Maybe he just didn't like that we'd written each other letters.”
“He might have teased me about you long ago, but I don't think he ever felt threatened,” Bay said. “About me with anyone . . .” Her eyes filled, thinking of how it had been the other way around.
“I'm sorry,” Dan said. “Did I say something wrong?”
Bay shook her head, getting herself under control. She didn't need to tell Danny Connolly her woes, confide in him about her marriage problems.
“The letter has been bothering me,” she said. “I haven't told the police about it.”
“Why would you?” he asked, frowning slightly.
“Because I found it in a folder on Sean's boat. I know they've been looking into everything that was in that folder—account statements, some scribbles Sean left behind. I've been wondering what the letter was doing there.”
“Okay, then why don't you show it to them?”
“Because it's private,” she said. “It's all so private, and I don't like having strangers look through my life this way. I don't want them knowing us—and now, what's even the point? Sean's gone.”
“Don't you want to know why he did what he did?”
“I'm not sure I do,” she said. “I just want to get my family back to normal.”
“I want that for you, too, Bay. I'll help however I can.”
“Annie likes Eliza,” Bay said. “A lot. She wants me to drive her over to Mystic so they can get together. And we'd like for Eliza to come to our house, too.”
“Well, I'm sure she'd love it,” he said. “Do you have a day in mind?”
“We'll have to have them check their schedules.” Bay smiled. “Wouldn't want to make assumptions, but how about Saturday?”
“Good. But about the other thing—the woman who called?”
“I guess the police will have to know,” she said. “I'm so sorry that knowing Sean means involving you in an investigation.”
Looking across the table, she saw him react to her words: He flinched, as if he hadn't quite thought of it that way. His eyes clouded over, troubled. She waited for him to say something, but he didn't. The seconds ticked by.
“Danny?” she asked.
“Just what you said before, about things being private. It's weird, thinking of calling the police, or having them call me.”
Bay closed her eyes. She wished the police would just disappear from their lives. “I know,” she said. “At least you're not part of the main investigation. Tell them whatever you think you should, about the call. And I'll probably tell them about the letter, too.”
“Okay,” he said. “I'm glad I know that.”
Opening her eyes, she took a sip of lemonade. “Why do I feel like we're coconspirators?”
“Just like the old days. When the beach board of governors wanted green shutters on the guardhouse and I made them blue, because blue was your favorite color.”
“You did that,” she said, trying to smile. “I'd forgotten. You used to bring me here for lemonade sometimes . . . you said it was to thank me, for doing half your job.”
“I didn't want you to think I was getting away cheap. And besides, they did have the best lemonade here. They still do,” he said, draining his glass. “What makes it so different?”
Foley's lemonade was famous, made with fresh lemons and two secret ingredients. No one but the Foley family—not even the summer kids who worked here every season—knew what they were. Back when they were teenagers, Tara had had Allie's job, and she swore she wouldn't quit till she'd divined the potion. “Fresh mint!” she'd announce after work. Or, “Lime peel!” or “Cayenne!” But no matter how they tried, no one in Hubbard's Point had ever been able to replicate the taste outside the store.
“No one knows,” she said.
“Not even you, Galway?” he asked. “After all your summers here?”
She gazed at him, thinking of how fast those summers had sped by. His face was weathered, his hair graying at the temples, but his blue eyes still seemed so lively, so ready to smile.
“Not even me,” she said.
“Old Mr. Foley tried to hire me to sand these tables,” Dan said. “He wanted me to come in with a belt sander and take the wood right down to the grain. Get rid of all the carvings . . .”
“The kids would have just carved them again,” Bay said.
“I think he knew that,” Dan said.
“Beach tradition . . . such a simple thing,” Bay said, tracing Sean's deeply scored initials with her fingertips.
“Well, I wish making life good for you was still as simple, Bay McCabe,” he said, “as painting the shutters blue. Or taking you here for lemonade.”
She couldn't really say anything after that. She drank the rest of her drink, and then just sat there at the scarred old table, holding the cool, empty glass in her hands and waiting for the lump in her throat to go away.
12
JOE HOLMES SAT IN HIS OFFICE, THE TEMPORARY satellite office of the FBI tucked in between East Shore Coffee Roasters and Andy's Used Records in a strip mall, or what passed for a strip mall here in Black Hall, Connecticut. This town was classy, with a capital C. Their idea of commercialism was allowing the coffee shop to fly a flag with their logo—“ESCR” printed on a steaming mug—on a pole jutting out from the storefront. Joe liked the coffee, he liked Andy and his used records, but right now he had to concentrate.
He had thrown his jacket over the back of his chair, and now he loosened his tie and rolled up his white shirtsleeves, running down the list of things he knew so far, and what he still had to learn before he could close out the case. He really wanted to take the detail off Bay McCabe, but he couldn't quite yet. Andy Crane was doing background even now interviewing neighbors. And for what? To learn that Bay had a secret; deeply hidden penchant for diamonds and platinum? Joe stared at Sean's file.
Sean McCabe. Ruthless criminal or hapless idiot? Unfortunately, like most of the people—“perps” was actually too edgy a word for these guys—Joe investigated, he was both. While the air conditioner hummed, he looked through the file. Sean's corporate portrait beamed out at him: neatly combed sandy hair, green eyes, huge smile, blue suit, and red tie. The picture said, “I went to school with you; we can shoot hoops together; our wives shop at the same A&P.”
The nine-by-twelve color picture had joined the gallery hanging in the bank foyer to convince the customers that their money was safe.
Except it wasn't.
Most small-town bankers were fine, honest, upstanding individuals who wouldn't dream of stealing. They earned their clients' trust by hard work, impeccable management, wise investments, good community relations. They had degrees from fine colleges and had every bit as much financial acumen as their counterparts on Wall Street.
Working in small
banks suited their temperaments better. They weren't so high-flying, so likely to take risks. If the rewards weren't as heady and extreme, they were more steady and consistent. Instead of penthouse apartments with airplane views and late city hours, local bankers had big houses on expansive lots and generally made it home every night in time to play with the kids before dinner.
Joe had investigated scammers all over, had logged time in New York and Boston, going after major-league hotshots who hid their money in Switzerland or Buenos Aires. The public could better handle thinking of some savoir-faire sophisticate skating off with the clients' money than Mr. Regular, the next-door neighbor who coached their kids in Little League.
Sean was an especially tough case. Everyone had loved him. Joe was getting it everywhere he went: “I've known Sean his whole life—he couldn't have done this.” “He has the nicest wife in the world. There's no way.” “We went fishing together!” “We went golfing together!” “I saw him play basketball in the state championship!” “We saw him at church on Sundays . . .”
The sense of betrayal among the townspeople was great, exceeded only—if possible—by their denial. Joe got this all the time in these cases; an unwillingness, or inability, to believe that this nice guy everyone trusted could have stolen their money. Getting victims to testify was very often a bitch. Augusta Renwick was the exception, Joe thought, and he smiled to remember her phone call earlier that day, saying she wished crooks had three lives so she could repeat the pleasure she would feel sitting on the witness stand and making her disgust at Sean McCabe part of the record.
Still, she was the exception, not the rule. Most of the other victims still wanted to believe there was an explanation, or that the crime really hadn't happened at all—that the money had simply been shifted around in an accounting error. But it ain't coming back, Joe's mentor would always say.
In Sean's case, some of it had. Of the hundred seventy-five thousand dollars that had disappeared with Sean, one hundred thousand had been found hidden in the driver's door panel.
Joe pored through the evidence, trying to determine whether Sean had acted alone. He examined the folder found on the Aldebaran. Why were these accounts highlighted? Were these the only customers Sean had stolen from? And why the vehemence with which Sean had written in the margins? Who was Ed, and what had he done to get his name underlined and circled so many times?
Visiting Shoreline Bank's main office, Joe was frequently welcomed by Mark Boland, the president, himself. Mark had made all documents available, and he had told his staff to be open and forthcoming.
Boland was worried about the bank's reputation, anxious for Joe to wrap up his investigation.
“No one had any idea,” Boland said, sitting in his big leather swivel chair, across the desk from Joe. “We all loved Sean. Everyone did.”
“Did you and he personally get along?”
“Yes. We went through a phase, a couple of years ago, where I got the job he wanted and came over from Anchor, but we made it past that. We both love sports, played all through school and college; he put me up for membership at the yacht club . . . my nephew plays baseball with Billy, and we'd always sit together in the stands. I never saw this coming. Never.” Boland raked his hair back with one hand; his eyes were filled with pain. “If he had needed money—anything—he could have come to me.”
“Did he seem especially close to anyone else here?”
“Frank Allingham,” Mark said.
Joe had already known that, but they'd taken the opportunity to call Allingham into the office. Frank was a short, bald man, affable and easygoing. He had been the one to call Bay that first day, tell her that Sean had missed the meeting.
“And did you have any idea of what Sean was doing? Did he seem troubled? Unfocused? Especially secretive?”
“No to everything.”
“Drugs. Did you know he used cocaine?”
Mark Boland shook his head vehemently no. Allingham hesitated.
“Did you?” Joe pressed.
“Once, driving home from Eagle Feather, Sean asked me if I'd ever used cocaine. I said no, and he said—”
“Go ahead, Mr. Allingham.”
“He said it was a great high. That it made him feel like he could fly. And . . .” The man had a deep summer tan, but he blushed from his neck to the shiny top of his bald head. “And he said it made sex amazing.”
“Did he use any that night?”
Frank shook his head. “Not in front of me. I don't see why he would have needed it. Sean was always so energetic, so full of himself—he was always riding a thermal. He didn't need cocaine to fly.”
“If I'd known about drug use,” Mark Boland said, “I'd have fired him. We have drug testing for employees—Sean administered it! Besides, he was an athlete, going way back.”
“He liked risks,” Joe said. “He probably enjoyed coke while others had to worry about getting caught.”
“Well, you know . . .” Mark began, reddening. Joe could feel the man's tension, but he just sat back and waited. “You know how you've been asking about ‘the girl'?”
“Yes,” Joe said.
“I know what Sean meant by that.” Mark cast a glance over at Frank. “You do, too, don't you, Frank?”
“Jesus, yes,” Frank said, shaking his head. “I don't want to say—because it will hurt Bay.”
“That's why we've both stayed quiet,” Mark said. “Please don't take this the wrong way—Shoreline Bank doesn't want to do anything to impede the investigation in any way. The decision to hold this back was mine alone.”
“And mine,” Frank said.
“‘The girl,' ” Mark said, speaking methodically, holding a pen between the index fingers of both hands, as if he was too embarrassed to look up, “referred to ‘the girl of the moment.' Sean's next conquest.”
“His what?”
“Sean's libido was world-class,” Frank said. “This guy treated women like an Olympic sport. To Sean, meeting a new woman, asking her out, was all a big game. He never even pretended it was love. To him it was just a score.”
“Really,” Joe said.
Mark nodded. “He even did it here at the bank. I won't go into details, but it came to my attention that he was crossing the line with one of our female executives. I told him he was leaving himself—and the bank—wide open for a sexual harassment suit. I told him to stop. And he said, ‘Mark, I'm just chasing the girl. That's all.' ”
“Was he referring to someone in particular?”
“No,” Frank said, glancing from Mark to Joe. “I've heard him say it, too. About strangers. At the casino—‘the girl.' At the dock—‘the girl.' The whole thing . . .” Frank trailed off. “I never understood it. A guy with a nice family like that . . .”
That was the part that got under Joe's skin, too. He wasn't supposed to care, but he couldn't help himself. What kind of moron had a wife like Bay and left her alone, while he ran, chanced messing everything up with cocaine and other women? And what father of daughters would speak so cavalierly about girls? It was so crummy, it almost didn't ring true, even for Sean.
Most recently, Joe Holmes's focus had become a safety-deposit box.
Box 463 in the Silver Bay branch of Anchor Trust Company. Joe might never have stumbled upon it if, while questioning Ralph “Red” Benjamin, the bank's lawyer hadn't casually mentioned Sean's spare tire while Joe was interviewing him.
“So, was the car badly wrecked?” Mr. Benjamin had asked.
“Badly enough to kill McCabe.”
“Is the crash what killed him? There was talk about murder.”
“There still is.”
“You don't think he drove off the road on purpose?” Benjamin asked. “He knew you were closing in on him, and he wanted out?”
“It wasn't on purpose,” Joe said simply, picturing the deep gash in Sean's head, the scarlet edges and white bone. The injury alone, untreated, would have killed him; he would have bled out, which he ultimately did.
> But there were other signs of murder as well; the tire patterns that argued against an accident; Sean's toxicology screen which had revealed the cocaine, and evidence of a passenger: the door ajar, a perfume bottle that had held cocaine, suggesting the presence of a woman, a pair of latex gloves caught in reeds along the shore.
“Why are the divers still down in that creek?” Red Benjamin had asked. “I went by this morning, and the trucks are still there; I saw the red-and-white flag, bobbing on the float . . .”
“It's a murder investigation,” Joe had said. He wasn't about to tell the lawyer they were searching for McCabe's cell phone. Everyone Joe had talked to said Sean never went anywhere without it, but it hadn't been in the car. Strong currents beneath the bridge might have swept it away; the divers were dredging the marsh's silted bottom.
“Huh,” Benjamin had said, and he shook his head and gave Joe a wry smile. “Thought they might be looking into Sean's spare tire.”
“Why would they do that?”
Benjamin shrugged, still half smiling. He was about McCabe's age, early forties, with a receding hairline and a serious paunch. Joe was a little older, but he stayed in shape with ass-kicking workouts.
“No one's told you?” Benjamin asked, surprised. “Shit, I should have held out and gone looking myself . . .”
“The car is no longer in the water,” Joe said, his interest piqued, watching the lawyer's reaction.
“I wouldn't think so. Well. It's just that Sean used to stuff his valuables, including casino winnings, back in the wheel well. Guess he thought it was safer back there.”
“Valuables?” Joe asked.
“Yeah. When he had them. Neither one of us had much luck at the casino. Sean used to talk about going to Vegas or Monte Carlo, but that was just talk. He said his wife would like Monte Carlo.”
“He said that, did he?” Joe asked, deadpan; it was one of the first comments he'd heard McCabe had made that took Bay into consideration at all.
“Yes. He said she'd like to see the flowers on the Cote d'Azur. She's a sweet girl; likes nature. Simple things.” The lawyer's expression revealed that he agreed with Sean, and that he didn't consider simple things to be worth much. Joe couldn't understand his own reaction, which was to want to shove the lawyer's smug smile down his throat.