by Nancy Geary
Although the Manchester Yacht Club was less than a five-minute drive away, it still seemed ungracious of the Cabots to have left before their guests arrived.
“Aren’t you joining us?” Adelaide asked.
“Yeah. But Dad takes a while to get the boat ready, so I thought I’d take a quick walk. I’ll meet you over there.”
“Would you like company?” Frances offered.
Jack gulped his drink, then nodded in her direction, seeming to indicate that he would. “We’ll only be a few minutes,” he said to the Lawrences.
“Take your time,” Adelaide replied, touching Frances’s arm.
Frances and Jack fell into stride as they walked down the winding drive. Neither one spoke. Realizing it was premature for conversation, Frances tried to enjoy the spectacular landscape, the thick green lawn, tall trees, and horses grazing peacefully, the sounds of crickets starting to come out in the early evening, and the changing light in the sky.
Just before they reached the road, Jack stopped. “Let me show you something.”
He picked up his pace, extending his gait so that Frances was almost jogging to keep up. She felt like a child scrambling beside a long-limbed parent and wondered how he could walk so fast without breaking into a trot himself. They raced across the lawn parallel to the road, then cut back up through a grove of willow trees in the direction of the house. He stopped abruptly in front of a low stone wall.
Frances looked around, trying to assess the significance of their locale.
“Hope loved this wall,” Jack said, patting one of the stones. “We used to come here when we were first dating. She’d sit cross-legged on top, and I’d stand in front of her, trying to kiss her as she spoke. When she was determined to tell a story, though, I was totally out of luck. You couldn’t distract her for a moment.”
Frances smiled, wanting to share in his happy memory. “What kinds of stories did she tell?”
“When we were younger, it was mostly about friends. Who said what to whom, gossipy stuff. Occasionally, she spoke of how hard it was to be an only child, the loneliness and the pressure of being the sole focus of your parents’ attention. She and I had that in common, and I think she thought I could relate.”
So even Hope had discounted Penelope’s existence within the family, Frances thought.
“We hadn’t been out here in a long time, months, but then we came twice just before our wedding. The first time was August fifteenth. I remember because it was the anniversary of the day I proposed, and it was the last time I saw Hope happy, truly happy, or at least that’s what I wanted to believe. She seemed ebullient, excited about being my wife. She wanted the ceremony over with—I think all the fuss, all her mother’s planning, had finally exhausted her—but we talked about how wonderful it would be to live together, to make our own way. She told me how much she loved me. I wanted to think she meant it.”
Jack’s memory was painful to hear, especially in light of what Hope had written in her diary the previous day: her desire not to be married and her fear of his wrath. Frances remembered the words. Had Hope lost her resolve, or had something made her change her mind, even if only temporarily? Listening to Jack, she realized how difficult it was for someone on the outside to ever understand the dynamics of a relationship, the different but other equally legitimate perspectives. It still seemed odd, though, that Hope and he could have been so far apart in their thoughts.
“She wanted a different wedding from what had been planned. Only the two of us here, with this stone wall as the altar. ‘The trees will bear witness,’ she said. She felt hypocritical getting married in the church.”
“Why?”
“I think she felt judged there. She’d gotten involved with Holy Spirit and Father Whitney after several of her poems had been rejected for publication and she felt dejected. She didn’t think she could succeed as a poet, not that I cared. She didn’t have to work or accomplish anything for my sake, but some creative or humanitarian outlet was important to her. In religion she saw the opportunity to help others, and she thought that would give her some direction. She craved a sense of spirituality in a way I’ve never seen before. There was an obsessive quality to her drive to find some higher meaning to life. Then, recently, her attitude seemed to change, almost overnight. It was as if she suddenly realized the church was just like everything else. There were personalities and politics, good and bad people, ambitions. You name it. And it seemed to destroy her. She wanted to discover a world of angels, or perhaps of saints, and they weren’t there.”
Frances shrugged. “Maybe that’s the problem with religion. People expect too much—everything from forgiveness to salvation. And what institution can live up to that standard?”
“Maybe.” Jack clenched his jaw. His agitated eyes fixated on hers while his left hand slapped repeatedly at his thigh. “But I think she also thought the church could protect her.”
“From what?”
“Her demons. Her past.”
“Why did she need protection?”
“I don’t know exactly. Something from her childhood seemed to torment her. She had all kinds of fears, nightmares. I kept telling her she should switch shrinks.”
“She was seeing a psychiatrist?”
“Yeah. Some guy at the Avery Bowes Institute. If you ask me, he didn’t help her one iota. She’d been in therapy since she was a teenager, and I often thought it was making her worse.”
“Was her doctor named Peter Frank?”
Jack curled his nose. “I think so. The name sounds familiar.”
Frances decided not to ask him if he knew his mother had consulted with him, too. The coincidence was haunting. They stood for a moment in silence before Jack said, “You must think my family’s horrible to have asked for a prenuptial.”
“It’s not my place to judge,” she offered, feeling taken aback by the sudden shift in conversation.
“I didn’t want it. It wasn’t necessary. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine life without Hope as my wife, so the last thing I cared about was what happened to my money. And then this.”
“Did you and she discuss it?”
“Not like you might think. A prenuptial was my father’s brainchild. He wanted it to protect the Cabot riches, whatever they are. But if you ask me, it really had to do with Carl. He distrusted Hope and resented that I’d agreed to marry her despite that relationship.”
“Did you know him?” she asked, surprised that he even knew of him.
“Hope talked about him, but we never met.” He paused and gave Frances a quizzical look, appearing to wonder how much he could say. When he spoke again, his words came slowly. “I knew they were still having sex. I’m sure that sounds bizarre, since we were about to get married. I always told myself I could never deal with someone who was unfaithful, but reality doesn’t work that way. I couldn’t turn off my feelings just because she was sleeping with another man. Carl gave her something I couldn’t, and I wanted more than anything for her to be happy. I’d take whatever part of her I could get.”
Frances was stunned. It had never occurred to her that Jack knew about, let alone tolerated, Hope’s affair. She realized how often she’d had the same thought, that she could simply dismiss someone she cared about if he cheated on her. Yet Jack was right. Emotions didn’t end with an off switch. “Did you expect their involvement to end when you married?”
“I don’t know what I expected. The truth is that our relationship got better because of him, if you can believe that. We’d broken up because I couldn’t stand that she was seeing someone else, too, but when we got back together, it was magic. She seemed liberated, freer emotionally and physically. We were doing stuff we’d never done before, and she was initiating it. It was as if some passion within her got unleashed and I was the beneficiary. How could I object?”
Frances no doubt appeared as startled as she felt by this revelation, because Jack quickly added, “You must think I’m the one who needs the shrink. I guess it’s hard to
explain if you didn’t grow up around here. But it’s a pretty puritanical bunch. I’m not sure anyone owns a copy of the Kama Sutra, if you know what I mean. And to find someone who’s seriously into pleasure, who wants to explore, it just blew my mind.”
Even though she was learning from another teacher, Frances thought. “How much did your parents know?”
“I don’t know what they knew versus what they suspected, but Dad definitely wanted to sabotage our relationship. It seemed as if he felt personally insulted by Hope’s affair. As if she’d betrayed his biology or rebuffed his Y chromosome or something. I think he thought a prenuptial might do the trick. But I would never hurt Hope that way, by asking. So good old Dad spoke to the Lawrences himself, and they agreed. I think Bill and Adelaide were just as paranoid about the Carl situation—the idea that Hope might end up with someone from the wrong side of the tracks was too much of a slap in the face—so they basically agreed to whatever Dad wanted. There was this unbelievable negotiation between our parents over something we weren’t going to do. Dad’s lawyer even prepared a draft based on what they decided, although Hope never signed and neither did I. We spoke about the situation, being horrified by our parents, but that was the context. She knew I didn’t doubt the strength of our relationship for one moment.”
“What happened when you wouldn’t sign?”
“Dad was livid. You see, the money’s tied up in trust. It has been for years. I get the income and my children get the principal when I die. He thought if we didn’t make it, Hope would have a claim to fifty percent of the income, which she might have. I’m no divorce lawyer. He thought this was some sacrilege.”
“Did you know Hope couldn’t have children?”
He nodded. “Not until recently, though. Mom found out somehow and threw it in my face as evidence of Hope’s great deceptions.”
“How did she know?”
“Don’t ask me. For all I know, they were investigating Hope. They were constantly critical, suspicious, judgmental. But in the last couple of days before our wedding, that was their fixation. As I understand it, the way the trust documents are set up, my children have to be blood. If we’d adopted, those kids wouldn’t be covered.”
“Issue of the body,” Frances mumbled, remembering the arcane scenario from law school. How could a parent, or in this case a grandparent, distinguish between a biological and an adopted child?
“That’s it.”
“So there was no prenuptial?”
“No. And there never will be,” he said to himself. Silence fell between them as they listened to the crickets.
“You said you came here twice. What happened the second time?” she coaxed.
Jack blushed slightly and smiled to himself. When he spoke, his voice sounded wistful. “We met the morning of our wedding. It was early, around six, I think, because Hope wanted to get back before anyone woke up. There was still dew on the grass. I thought Hope wanted to talk—she’d asked me to come—and I expected that she wanted to explain the odd way she’d acted at the rehearsal dinner. But she hardly said a word. Just took off all her clothes, lay down in the grass, and wanted me to touch her. She looked so beautiful, and she was incredibly aroused. Then, almost as if nothing had happened, she stood up, got dressed, gave me a kiss on the top of my head, and scurried off.” He looked down at his tassel loafers and, reflexively, touched his hair, perhaps remembering where she had laid her last kiss.
Surprisingly, Frances didn’t feel embarrassed at the intimacy of the conversation. All she could think was that she was happy for Jack that he had that memory of their last encounter to cherish. “Did Hope ever let you read her diaries?”
“No. I saw her writing in them all the time, but she was very careful to keep them private. When she finished one journal, she’d put it away in a safe deposit box.”
“Do you know where?”
“One of the banks in town.”
Frances remembered the unidentified key that had been inventoried by the police. Perhaps that unlocked the box. She leaned against the stone wall next to Jack. There was a certain maturity in his expressions, an adulthood permeating his boyish face brought on by his immense sorrow. Listening to him talk about Hope, or various aspects of their shared dreams, she was struck by the thought that he might have been the only one who had truly appreciated and loved her for who she was.
Jack coughed to clear his throat and then spoke, almost as if he were thinking aloud. “I couldn’t imagine life without her, and now she’s gone. So I’m waiting for my imagination to catch up with reality. In the interim, here I am, missing her every moment.”
“I guess you’ve heard about the arrest, the caterer’s employee.”
“Yeah.” He bent over and pulled a long weed from the ground, then began to split its stalk with his fingers. “I guess it’s better it’s a total stranger.”
“What do you mean?”
“Before the police found him, you know my mind was racing, trying to figure out who might have done it and why. I’d convinced myself it was someone Hope knew. Otherwise there would have been signs of a struggle, or that’s what I told myself. Hope had much more of a fighter instinct than people gave her credit for. So I’d been racking my brain, thinking about all the anger and animosity that’s been generated around here recently. In my craziness, I even got to thinking it might be Dad, you know, ‘cause he was so furious about this stupid prenuptial. I figured if he was pissed off enough to skip his own son’s wedding, he was irrational enough to do anything. I guess the possibility that some sicko snuck in and did this before she knew what was coming never occurred to me. I hope for her sake…” He couldn’t finish his sentence. He coughed to clear his throat and, Frances thought, to cover the tears in his voice.
“We better head over to the Yacht Club,” she said.
“Yeah. God only knows what fire has already been started.”
The pink sky illuminated the silhouette of the Lucky Day as it swayed slightly on its mooring. As Frances approached the dock, she could see Jim rigging the sails. With his Oxford shirt billowing in the wind, he moved quickly and easily about the deck, hoisting the enormous triangles of canvas up to the tops of the masts. Fiona scurried about behind him, seeming to await instructions that never came on how she could assist. With a yellow-and-orange scarf tied around her head, Adelaide sat in a teak deck chair, holding a wineglass. Alone, Bill stood at the bow, gazing out to sea.
The harbor was full of boats, and the symphony of clanging masts filled the evening air. While Jack rowed the dinghy, Frances glanced back at the shore. People milled about the porch of the domed clubhouse with beers in hand, and several children played tag on the hill sloping down to the sea. She could hear the high-pitched laughter, the glee emanating from the small bodies and drifting through the air. The serenity of the evening could have made her forget, but for the nautical flags flown at half-mast in remembrance of Hope.
Jim was waiting by the ladder as they approached. Jack threw him a line, which he quickly belayed to a cleat. “What took you so long?” he asked as they climbed aboard.
“We lost track of time,” Jack muttered.
“Well, hurry up, then. Let’s get off this mooring. We’re losing a great sunset.”
“I can see it from here.”
Jim leaned toward Jack as he patted him on the bottom. “Don’t be smart with me,” he whispered. Given his low tone, Frances couldn’t tell whether the comment was a jest or a reprimand.
Jim went to the helm as Jack swung himself around a cable. She could hear his Top-Siders squeaking as the rubber soles gripped the deck. He walked to the bow and released the mooring line. The diesel engine turned over, and they were under way, motoring out of the harbor. “We’ll get under sail as soon as we’re past the lighthouse,” Jim called to his passengers, his words somewhat muffled in the wind.
“I actually prefer motoring. It’s a lot smoother,” Fiona said as she made her way into the cabin. “Excuse me. I’m going to ge
t hors d’oeuvres.”
Jack perched against the side of the boat and fingered a loose piece of rope in his hands. He knotted and unknotted the string.
“Hope should be here,” Adelaide said to no one in particular.
But could she have been? Frances thought, recalling how afraid Hope apparently was of the sea. It was an unusual phobia for someone who had grown up on the water, who was part of a Yacht Club society, where boating—under sail or by motor—was how people spent their free time. Wasn’t familiarity supposed to have the opposite effect? But then she remembered that one fateful voyage, the capsized sailboat that had nearly cost Hope her life. Perhaps her fear hadn’t been irrational after all.
She settled in the chair next to her aunt and poured herself a glass of Pinot Grigio from one of several uncorked bottles in a cooler. Maybe the wine would help her think of something to say, something comforting, but it was doubtful. Jack’s description of his last romantic moment with Hope, his wistful words, filled her mind.
“Here,” Jack said as he leaned over her shoulder and handed her a piece of rope. “This is a bowline knot. This is what I’m talking about. Pull,” he directed. As she did, the knot tightened. Even though it was only a sample, the exercise made her uneasy. “Pretty simple. But not common knowledge.”
Frances thought of Michael Davis, wondering whether he had nautical experience. Even though Mark seemed convinced he was the killer, and everyone else seemed relieved that an arrest had been made, she had serious reservations. It didn’t make sense. Various questions tumbled over and over in her mind, and she could come up with no rational answers. If he had strangled Hope for her ring, why would he go to the trouble of making her murder appear to be a suicide? He’d clearly intended to skip town—he was on his way when he was arrested—so why the cover? The time and effort had only increased the likelihood that he would be caught. She’d assumed the murderer was someone who couldn’t leave Manchester and therefore wanted to throw the police off. What the killer didn’t want was an investigation.