He said, "See you—"
She was gone before he could say "tomorrow."
****
Before collapsing for the night, Laura went in to see her sister. Corinne was still awake, sitting on the side of her painted iron bed and twisting her hair into a single long braid. In her plain white nightgown and posed against a backdrop of peeling, faded cabbage-rose wallpaper that had been there for at least half a century, she looked like what she was: a farmer's daughter.
"When did they leave?" asked Laura. No need to explain who "they" were.
"Around dark, just like Chief Mellon promised. I almost couldn't breathe while they were here. I was just so aware of them; of what they were doing. They kept filling black plastic bags and then labeling them."
She shook her head slowly, clearly reliving the scene. "Bag after bag after bag ... It was brutal."
"I know. Hopefully they're done digging."
Unless they planned to go hunting for more bodies, of course.
"Lucy called."
"Who?"
"You know—the girl I hired when I thought we were going to be overwhelmed with customers?"
"Oh, yeah. That Lucy." It seemed like at least a decade ago.
"I had to tell her that we wouldn't be needing her," Corinne said, obviously disappointed. "She was really nice. She said she loved what we'd done with the place, then told me to cheer up and said that she was ready to come to work for us whenever we were ready for her. I felt like she was my boss. She was so calm, so reasonable. It really is too bad that we can't hire her."
"Did you ever find out her last name?"
"Oh, gosh. I forgot to ask."
"Oh, well. If she wants us, she'll know where to find us."
"We'll call her Lucy in the Sky," said Corinne, and then added, "Did you have a nice time?"
Laura dropped like a sack into a low-slung, quilted armchair positioned across from the bed. "Yeah. I had a good time," she said with a doleful smile. "Too good. By half. One could say."
"Because when Ken said you were going to have a picnic on the beach, I have to say, I was surprised."
"Oh, the beach was fine, actually fun. It's when we went into his house that things took a turn for the worse. Or the better," she corrected, "depending on how you want to look at it."
"You're not making much sense, you know. What exactly happened?"
"There wasn't penetration, if that's what you're wondering," Laura said glumly. She jammed her fists in her pockets and came up with her bra.
Corinne said with obvious disappointment, "Oh. The cotton one. Too bad you weren't wearing the bitsy thing from Victoria's Secret."
"Who knew?" Laura grimaced and stuffed it back in her pocket.
"So you chickened out. Laura, why?"
"Why do you think I was the one who chickened out?"
"He's a man," Corinne answered, surprised by the question.
With a sigh, Laura said, "You're right, I got cold feet. The timing just didn't seem to be optimal."
Her sister said with a knowing nod, "Because of Max, you mean."
"No, not because of Max. Why is everyone fixated on Max? Max has nothing—nothing!—to do with my feelings about Ken."
"Okay, okay," Corinne said, backing down. "So what are your feelings about Ken?"
"I don't know," Laura admitted, shaking her head. "I don't have a clue. There's chemistry. That's all I know."
But she was thinking, Max would never drink wine from a child's pail the way Ken had. Max didn't even like the beach; he was afraid of getting sand in his laptop. And would Max have carried her in his arms through thorny roses when he could go the easy way around? Not very likely. And forget about wearing a tie with hot-air balloons all over it.
Corinne stood the pillows on edge against the iron posts of her headboard and sat back against them, then pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her forearms around her shins, just the way she used to do before bed when they were growing up. She was ready for girl-talk.
"Was there any chemistry between you and Max?" she asked.
"Max again!"
"There wasn't, was there? I knew it," Corinne said without any glee. "I could tell that from your phone calls, but I never wanted to say anything. Don't take this wrong ... but if Max was so unexciting, why did you get engaged to him in the first place?"
Laura had propped her legs up on the footboard and was studying her feet, which she never really liked. Why on earth did she keep sticking them in sandals for all the world to see? No wonder she'd felt self-conscious back at Ken's patio. It was probably all because of her feet.
"Laura?"
Reluctantly, Laura looked up to see her sister waiting, not too patiently, for an answer.
"You want the truth?" Laura asked.
"What do you think?"
"All right. The truth is—I wanted to get married, I have to get married," Laura said, still surprised and exasperated by the fact. "My clock is ticking. I can't wait forever for the perfect man. I watch 60 Minutes. I read Newsweek. I know my eggs are doing a nosedive even as we speak."
"You want kids?" Corinne said, astonished. "Since when? I can't remember you ever talking about it."
"Because I've hardly ever thought about it. It always seemed like something that was down the road. Well, guess what? I'm a fair way down that road."
"But what about your career?"
"I can do both. One of the reasons that I became a consultant instead of signing up for some big-benefits job was so that I could work from home. I can do both. I will do both."
"The question is," said Corinne, posing her chin on her knees, "who you gonna do it with?"
"If that's a pun, I plan to ignore it," Laura said wryly. "Anyway, just because there's chemistry between Ken and me, that doesn't mean he's husband material."
"Oh, come on. Who better?"
"Okay, let me rephrase: that doesn't mean I'm wife material."
"Aha. Now we're getting at it," Corinne said, pointing a triumphant finger at her sister. "You don't think you're good enough for him! And you're the one who's supposed to have confidence in yourself. God, you sound like me."
"Yeah, but I'm the one with a track record," Laura said. "Let us not forget dear Max."
"But Ken has always known about Uncle Norbert. And that didn't stop him from—"
"Trying to get me into bed. Right. Because, as you said yourself: he is a guy. It doesn't mean a thing. Anyway, I doubt that he'll try again. I told him tonight that Max dumped me."
"Really! Before or after the bra?"
"After. The fact had nothing to do with my backing away from the bed, of course, but at this point Ken thinks I'm an emotional wreck in general, and he thinks Max is part of that."
"Are you? Is he?"
"If I am, it's not because of Max. Oh, I don't want to talk about it," Laura said miserably. "Let's talk about your love life instead. How were things with Gabe after this afternoon's little horror? Could you tell?"
"He's concerned," Corinne said, biting her lower lip. "And very worried about me, about how this will affect me. And Shore Gardens. My dreams for it."
"I'm glad to hear that he feels that way, though I'm not surprised. I half expected to see him on the porch with you when we got back. He's been here every night lately."
Their courtship was so old-fashioned and sweet—tailor-made for a woman like Corinne.
"He stopped in, but he couldn't stay—although he did steal a couple of the Szechuan ribs from Snack on his way out," she added, smiling. "There's a council meeting tonight."
"It's so nice that you've grown up as neighbors," Laura mused. "Not like Ken and me. We hardly know anything about one another except that we have chemistry."
"It's better than not having chemistry," Corinne pointed out.
Laura asked, almost shyly, "Do you, with Gabe?"
Corinne nodded. "When I see him, my heart goes up, up, and away," she said, fluttering her hand upward. "And when he touches me or kisses me
, it's pure heaven."
"You're going to be so happy together," Laura said wistfully. "You're taking it slow but sure. That's the best way."
She was surprised to see her sister's eyes suddenly glaze over.
"How can we be happy, now that this has happened?" Corinne asked. "Gabe wants to run for Congress down the road, everyone knows that. I might have been able to ... to fit in that picture if Shore Gardens were a success. People might have forgotten about our unsavory family. Uncle Norbert might never have been an issue. But now, with another murder here—"
"You don't know it's a murder," Laura said quickly.
"It almost doesn't matter! Bones are bones! That's all people will remember. You know what happens to politicians who are tarred by scandal, even if it's by association. If Gabe were content simply to be the mayor of Chepaquit—but he has bigger dreams than that; he has plans!"
Sighing, Laura said, "Rin, you worry too much. Stop. We're all going to have to take this one day at a time. Gabe's a good man; you ought to trust him."
She got her exhausted body out of the comfy, overstuffed chair by pure force of will and went over to hug her sister. "Now hand me one of those pillows. I'm sleeping here tonight."
"Really?" Corinne said, pleased.
They had shared a bedroom nearly all of their childhood, and Laura used to climb down from her upper bunk to comfort Corinne whenever she was scared or nervous—which was often, given their father's temper.
Tonight, judging from their brooding silence as they lay side by side in their parents' old bed, they were both scared. Both nervous. Eventually, when Laura was on the verge of dropping off to sleep, her sister whispered, "Do you think Uncle Norbert did this one too?"
"I sure hope so," Laura murmured, and then she let herself fall the rest of the way into darkness.
Chapter 21
Breakfast was late. There seemed no point to getting up with the chickens anymore.
"For all practical purposes, we're under house arrest," Snack said, fuming. "What're we supposed to do—sit here twiddling our thumbs? I have work to get done."
As frustrating and appalling as the situation was, Laura found herself laughing out loud at his lament. Work! Snack! Same sentence!
"Little brother, you're officially all growed up. We are so proud of you," she said, planting a big kiss on his newly stubbled cheek. "And you will look so cute when—if—that beard fills out," she teased.
"Quit it," he said, half good-naturedly pushing her away. "We've got to get those trees, and the bigger shrubs, brought closer to the shop; the customers aren't going to hike all the way back to the east end to look them over, even if they were allowed to. Who the hell do these guys think they are, impounding the Deere? I need that tractor. Now," he said, standing up. He looked ready to take on the entire Chepaquit police force—which wasn't very big. But still.
"Oh no you don't," Corinne said, capping his head with one large hand and pushing him back down. "I spent good money for the blueberries in these pancakes, and you're not going anywhere until you've had breakfast. Sit."
The syrup was hot, the bacon sizzling. Snack was persuaded to stay where he was. A minute later, Gabe showed up at the screen door and was waved in. He was dressed in work twills and a dark polo shirt and on his way to work.
"Joe Penchance wants to talk with me about a couple of upgrades," he explained. "As you know, when Joe says 'Jump,' all I say is 'How high?' "
He stole a strip of bacon from Corinne's plate and added, "Let's hope he's heard even half the yammering I've done about Shore Gardens. In which case, you'll have all the business you can handle."
"Thanks, Gabe," Laura said warmly. "We appreciate your putting in a good word for us."
"Oh, and I meant to ask you," Gabe said to Snack. "I hear the Deere's off-limits for a couple of days. Could you use my Bobcat loader?"
"All-wheel steer?"
"Sorry," Gabe said meekly. "Skid steer."
"Hey, it's better'n a sharp stick in the eye. Yeah, man. Definitely, I could use it."
"It's back of the house. Keys are in it. Help yourself."
"Cool," Snack said, breaking into one of his cloud-parting, sunshine grins.
It was heartwarming to see that Gabe wasn't abandoning them. Corinne looked ready to burst into tears yet again—now of just plain joy. She was at a loss for words. The shock of the discovery and the fallout from it were clearly affecting her the most deeply—but then, Corinne was the most emotional of them.
However Gabe felt about the current mess, it was apparent to Laura that he knew more about the discovery than they did. She waited until he finished his bacon and his pleasantries, said goodbye, and went outside. Then she caught up with him.
She kept her voice low and her back to the screen door as she said, "Gabe, you've obviously talked with the police. Do they know yet if it was a man or a woman? They must know. That part's not rocket science. Fat skull or delicate one? Big bones or little ones? I could probably tell the sex if they gave me the chance."
He looked very uncomfortable. "I'm not really supposed to say."
Laura was not in the mood to take no for an answer. "Come on, Gabe," she coaxed. "It's going to come out very shortly; you know it will."
He glanced in the direction of the greenhouse, where the men had progressed in their investigation. Without looking at Laura, he muttered, "It's not a man."
"Oh, damn."
"Remember: I didn't tell you what it was."
"No, I know. But ... oh, damn." It didn't bode well for her theory of two drifters who'd got drunk together and into a fatal argument. She said, "Do they know how old she was? How long ago it was? Can they tell any of that yet?"
Gabe shook his head. "That'll take longer. They have their theories, but nothing solid. They did find part of—well, look, I can't go rattling this stuff off, Laura!" he said, turning to her and clearly angry with himself. "It would compromise the investigation, you know it would."
She felt like saying, Your Chepaquit chums seem plenty willing to tell you all they know, but she couldn't shut down the only avenue of information that was available to her, so she made herself agree with him. Besides, if she had stuck around in Chepaquit, who could say? Maybe she'd be one of the in crowd too.
As if.
Deliberately changing the subject, she said on a more pleasant note, "Are you going to any of the Founders Week events? Since the shop is going to be shut down today, I thought I'd drag Corinne to something. The strain of this on her is unbelievable; she deserves a reprieve. Do you have any recommendations?"
Gabe didn't hesitate. "Take Rinnie to the kite-flying contest. It's a lot of fun and the perfect diversion."
He added with a hapless smile, "I'd love to take her myself, but ... the powerful Mr. Penchance has other plans for me this afternoon."
Gabe didn't have to offer that sweet admission about wanting to take Corinne, but Laura was so glad that he did. She would bring it wrapped up in a bow to her sister, and Corinne could carry it around with her until she saw him again.
"Thanks, Gabe," Laura said softly. "Thanks for everything so far."
"Hey, come on. What're friends for?"
For marriage, she wanted to inform him. Kids. A big old dopey dog like Baskerville running around with a chew-toy in his mouth, instead of someone's thighbone.
"Don't give up on her, Gabe," she said impulsively. "It would break her heart."
He gave her a steady look and said, "You don't have to tell me that."
And on that wounded but reassuring note, he left.
****
Like many Cape Cod villages whose year-round populations numbered in the low thousands, Chepaquit tried hard to make the most of what it had come summer, when tourists flooded the Cape like a hurricane surge at high tide.
There were difficulties, though. Chepaquit was not as old or refined as Sandwich, not as hip and swinging as Woods Hole, not as charmingly commercial as Chatham. Chepaquit didn't even have a lighthouse t
o flaunt (Chatham had that). Chepaquit had sand and water, and that was pretty much it—except for the Legend of the Founders, which Chepaquit played up for all its worth during Founders Week.
The story of the town's beginning was packed with drama: in 1836, approaching the height of the whaling era in America, a heavily laden ship bound for Nantucket became disabled in a fierce nor'easter of hurricane strength and was driven off course until eventually it sank halfway between Nantucket and the stretch of beach that came to be known as Chepaquit. In the last minutes before losing his ship, the captain and eight of his crew took to one of the longboats, the remainder of the crew to the others.
So fierce was the storm that only the captain's longboat survived, wrecking on a beach near a group of fishermen's shacks. In one of the shacks lived the widow of a fisherman; she had stayed on to be of general service to the others. It was she, a woman of rough-and-tumble descent, who nursed the surviving crew and especially its handsome, rugged, and wealthy captain.
Some said the woman, Eliza by name, cast a spell on the captain. In any case, he fell in love with her, and when he was recovered, he bought the land on which the fishermen were squatting. Although he was exonerated from blame for the loss of the ship, Captain Barclay wasn't able to get over the loss of lives under his command; he couldn't bear to go to sea again.
Eventually he founded a town on the land he had purchased, and he named it Chepaquit to honor one of his crew, a Native American who had distinguished himself in an act of heroism aboard ship. Chepaquit and several others of the surprisingly loyal crew settled in the new village with Captain Barclay and Eliza—among them, the ship's steward, James Wellerton.
And now, one and three-quarter centuries later, all that remained of the maritime beginnings of Chepaquit were a few poignant reminders: the handwritten record of Captain Barclay's autobiography in the town's one-room library; the tiller from the longboat that had smashed up on shore; and some of the descendants of captain and crew, none of whom any longer derived his living from the sea.
****
A Month at the Shore Page 19