A Month at the Shore

by Antoinette Stockenberg

Ignoring her, Olivia said to her sister-in-law, "My parents will be outraged. Rand, too. Oh—and my aunt! My uncle!"

  When they were roommates in college, Olivia had told Eileen the whole shocking story of the fugitive and his son: how the gardener had been seen staring at Liv's cousin Alison on more than one occasion. How the hanging had been staged to look like a suicide, except that the rope had come from the gardener's shed. How the police had been on the brink of arresting Francis Leary when he ran off, accompanied by his son Quinn. And how Olivia's parents—the suspect's employers—had been left to fend off a nosy press and negative publicity.

  Olivia had always insisted to Eileen that what little evidence the police had was circumstantial, and that she herself did not believe Francis Leary had murdered her cousin Alison. But then Eileen had begun to date Olivia's brother Rand and discovered that the rest of Olivia's family was convinced that the gardener was guilty.

  And now, seventeen years later, Olivia could see that her open-minded sister-in-law was still trying hard to stay that way about the whole affair, but not succeeding. Eileen looked doubtful and troubled as she said to her little girl, "Come over here, Kristin. Let's get your hat on. Daddy's going to be bringing the car by any minute."

  An impromptu game of hide-and-seek between Olivia's niece and nephew came to a sudden end when Zack knocked over a bolt of ivory fleur de sole onto the parquet floor and into a puddle left by someone's boots. The accident brought an accusing shriek from Kristin, mortifying her older brother and prompting a sharp reprimand from their mother.

  "Okay, that's it! Let's go, you two, before you wreck the whole place," she said, picking up the soiled bolt. "Livvy, I'm so sorry. Bill me for this, would you?"

  Olivia now had two customers waiting with questions and another with a bolt of Ultrasuede in her arms. "Sure, okay," she said, still reeling from the news of Quinn's return.

  Eileen apologized again for the silk as she rebuttoned her daughter's coat. A silver Lexus pulled up in front of the shop. Rand leaned on the horn, and his family hurried to the summons.

  For the next two hours Olivia did the job of three assistants, which was the number that should've been at her shop in the course of the twelve-hour day. But two were sick and one had asked for the evening off to attend a wedding rehearsal; Olivia couldn't very well flog them into coming in. Still, it was the Christmas rush, and they'd put her in a bind.

  And now this. Good grief—Quinn Leary. What was he thinking, strolling onto Town Hill in the middle of the tree lighting? It was the most celebrated event in Keepsake, attended by everyone who was anyone. Her father must have seen him. Had they exchanged words? What could you say at a time like that? Gee, Quinn, the sight of you sure brings back memories of the good old days: reporters peering through our first-floor windows, police rummaging through our garbage cans, neighbors staring over the hedges to see if anyone was coming out in a body bag.

  Olivia's parents had felt utterly betrayed when they learned that their gardener was under suspicion for murder. They'd given Quinn's father a dream job, after all, with a charming cottage for him and his son to live in, good benefits, and frequent raises. Frank Leary himself had once told Olivia that her mother was the best employer he'd ever had.

  To be fair, it was also true that the man was a wizard as a groundskeeper: The extensive grounds on the Bennett estate were the envy of the county and had been photographed for House and Garden a few months before Frank Leary and his son took off in the night. Naturally the HG piece never went to press—one more reason, Olivia supposed, for her father to resent them.

  Him.

  Damn.

  They were going to have to relive the murder all again—the discovery, the shock, the publicity, the depressing realization that Alison would never be a bridesmaid at Olivia's wedding and that Olivia would never be a bridesmaid at her cousin's.

  She remembered a Saturday in her junior year when Alison's father was out of town and Olivia's mother had taken Alison and her to New York on a clandestine shopping spree. Olivia had prepared for the day by reading a book on dressing for success, and then had headed straight for the racks of career clothing. Alison, on the other hand, had gravitated toward more feminine, sexier things: V necks that dipped low, and tops with front zippers.

  "You'll never get a job wearing something like that," Olivia had chided. She had been young and stupid then; what did she know?

  "I don't want a job,". Alison had answered. "I want a husband. I want to get out of my house and away from my father. He won't let me go away to a four-year college; I'm going to have to commute to ECCC. No thanks. You pick your clothes, Livvy, and I'll pick mine."

  When they found Alison at the quarry she was wearing one of those V-necked sweaters that she so preferred. She had put on weight because of the pregnancy: Her breasts were fuller than ever.

  Olivia sighed, then flipped the card that hung by a silken cord in the door window to its closed side. She turned down the lights in the shop and dimmed the recessed halogen lights that hovered over the window display. The holiday window was always her favorite of the year, and this December was no exception. She had draped elegant fabrics—bolts of taffeta, brocade, and tissue in glittering silver and gold—to flow like sparkling streams and tumbling waterfalls into pools of shimmery opulence on the floor of the display window. With the lights dimmed low, the effect was of a winter scene at twilight: pure magic, if only you paused long enough to take it all in.

  And she did. Despite the unnerving news about Quinn's return, despite the surge of seventeen-year-old melancholy at thoughts of her murdered cousin, despite her dread that her family was about to be put through the wringer all over again—despite all those things, Olivia found herself responding to the exquisite beauty before her. It appealed to the artistic side of her in a way that gross receipts and profit margins never could.

  Once upon a time, she had hoped to design her own fabrics. But somehow the business side of her had taken precedence, and this was where she ended up: buying and selling textiles designed by people other than her. Ah, well. Miracourt was a financial success, and so was the mill-end outlet she'd opened six months ago to handle remnants and misprints she was able to buy dirt-cheap from her father's textile mill. For now, a life in commerce would have to do.

  She sighed again, not so cheerful as she had been before, and then she closed up the shop, dreading the slippery drive to her townhouse perched on a steep hill outside of town. She'd been too busy to go car-shopping for that four-wheel drive—or even to have the snow tires put on her minivan—and now she was kicking herself.

  I'm either at Miracourt or at Run of the Mill seven days a week. I don't have time to buy a TV dinner, much less an automobile. Rand is right. I'm out of control.

  But then, wasn't that what lazy Rand would think?

  She sprinted across the snowy street rutted with tire tracks, just two steps ahead of the sluk-sluk-sluk of a Jeep Cherokee bearing down on her. After a last look at the softly lit window in all of its holiday charm, she flipped up the hood of her coat and hurried through falling snow to her van.

  Chapter 3

  "Glad you could squeeze me in, Tony."

  "Ah, don't worry about it," said the barber, shaking out the folds of a white linen smock with a snap, then circling it around Quinn's neck and jamming it inside his collar. "To tell the truth, business ain't been so brisk. I'm losing customers to that ... that franchise down the street. Aagh! Don't get me started. So. How you want it? Short?" he asked hopefully.

  "Maybe take an inch off the bottom."

  Tony gave Quinn a dry look in the mirror they faced. "And the other twelve?"

  "I'll keep a rubber band around it for now."

  The gray-haired barber sighed and, with a look of exquisite distaste, rolled down the band from Quinn's ponytail.

  "Why you want to look like this?" he couldn't help saying as he took up a comb and a small pair of shears. "You're a good-looking guy. Still in good shape. Why you wann
a go around like some hippie?"

  "You think this is bad, you should've seen me with the full beard," Quinn said with a smile.

  "Aagh."

  Quinn didn't bother to explain that the beard and long hair were part of an effort to disguise himself during those first years in hiding. Eventually he had felt secure enough to lose the beard, but the ponytail stayed. He still liked to believe that with his hazel eyes, hawk nose, and ever-present tan, he could dye his sunstreaked hair black and pass for a Native American if he had to.

  In the thoughtful pause that hangs between threads of conversation, the barber ran a comb to the bottom of Quinn's hair and began, under Quinn's watchful eye, to cut it back the inch.

  "I hear you had a little trouble last night."

  Ah. Same old Keepsake. Thank God he hadn't mentioned the bloodied carnations to Vickers.

  "Yeah, some jerk bashed in the windshield," he said. "Do you get a lot of that nowadays?"

  "Never. Mailboxes, yes. Not windshields. Windshields are in the city."

  Quinn grunted, the way men do in barbershops, and then he took a flyer and said, "This guy was driving a pickup."

  There was an infinitesimal break in the rhythm between snips. "That so? What color?"

  "Couldn't say. I'm figuring a truck by the look of the wide tire tracks."

  A much more pronounced gap between snips now. Thinking ... what?

  "Aw, you can't go by tire tracks. That could be anything. SUV, souped-up Camaro, an old clunker Caddy, even. What, uh, did Vickers have to say?"

  So he knew that, too. "He didn't offer an opinion," Quinn said. "Just took down the details and warned me to keep my insurance up to date."

  "Always good advice."

  A dozen snips later, Tony was done. He took a soft bristled brush to the back of Quinn's neck, removed the smock, and after Quinn got out of the chair, spun a push-broom flattened with wear in a quick circuit around the chair's pedestal.

  Quinn fished out a ten and a five, then waved away the attempt to make change.

  "You're doing all right with that landscaping business, then," Tony said, pocketing the cash.

  Quinn had the presence of mind not to show surprise that the barber knew he had a business. Instead he merely said, "Actually, my father worked the landscaping side of it; I work mostly with stone. You'd be surprised what Californians will pay for an old-looking New England wall."

  "I heard millions for the fancier ones," said Tony, fishing for confirmation.

  Quinn merely smiled and said, "I'll be selling off the landscaping part."

  "Oh?"

  "I'm tired of California." Quinn wanted that word out. This was the perfect place to launch the rumor.

  "Never been there myself. Took the wife to Vegas once, though."

  "How'd you do?"

  "Aagh."

  Quinn laughed and said, "I've lost my shirt there once or twice myself."

  They had something in common, it seemed. The barber warmed to Quinn a little. He cocked his head over his sloping shoulder and said, "So you're thinking of pulling up stakes. Any idea where you'll put 'em back down?"

  "I imagine somewhere around here," Quinn said equably. "Know any houses for sale?"

  "You're looking for—what? New construction? Because there's a new subdivision going in at the west end that might suit."

  Quinn seesawed the palm of his hand in the air. "Something with more character, I think."

  Rubbing his cheek thoughtfully with the tips of his fingers, Tony said, "You know what I'd do? I'd go on the Candlelight Tour of upper Main. The houses are open tonight through Tuesday. Check out Hastings House; it's been on the market for a while. The place is maybe older than you're looking for, but it's a local landmark—well, I don't need to tell you that—and it could go cheap. It needs some structural work. Big bucks."

  "Thanks for the tip," Quinn said as he shrugged into his jacket and plucked a brand new ski cap from one of the pockets. "Maybe I'll check it out."

  He hiked his knapsack over his shoulder and let himself out of the tiny two-chair shop, stopping to admire the ancient barber pole out front. It was so much a part of the establishment that he'd hardly noticed it on his way inside. The red-and-white-striped icon looked exactly the same as seventeen years earlier, spinning slowly in its glass housing, its motor still whirring along. A barber pole in working order was a rarity; it was probably worth more than the business itself.

  Quinn felt yet another twinge of regret. Tony Assorio, no-nonsense barber ... the shoemaker languishing around the corner... the watch repairman, struggling in the shop next to him—all of the shopkeepers were old and gray and all of them were doomed to become mere memories, like the soda fountain that once had served cherry cokes, and the elegant Art Deco theater that someone had hacked into a four-screen multiplex. Throwaway goods and volume discounts, that was the name of the game nowadays. How could the little guy hope to compete?

  Maybe Keepsake would be able to hold on to its unique, small-town feel—hadn't Mrs. Dewsbury boasted that they'd recently beat back a Wal-Mart?—but probably it wouldn't. Christ, someone was cramming a subdivision into the west end. Quinn never thought he'd see the day. What next? A theme park?

  "Oh, no," said Mrs. Dewsbury later when he mused aloud to her. "We won't get a theme park here. Someone's already beat us to the punch on that one—thank goodness. Can you imagine the traffic?"

  Quinn reached down to the top of the ladder for the wire crimper, but, like a surgical nurse in mittens, Mrs. Dewsbury insisted on handing it to him.

  "Are you really planning to come back here for good?" she asked as she watched him crimp two wires together in a plastic sleeve.

  It was awkward, working with short wires in the small hole cut into the porch ceiling. And it was finger-freezing cold; he'd hardly had time to adjust to New England's weather. But Quinn's first order of business, cold or no cold, was to get light on the porch. If someone was going to come after him, he was going to have to do it someplace other than at Mrs. Dewsbury's house.

  He had to think about how candid he could afford to be with the elderly widow. She was shrewd and she was fearless, but could she hold her tongue?

  He decided she could.

  "You want the God's honest truth?" he said, gently easing the wires back into the hole ahead of the light fixture. He glanced down at her. She was supporting the back of her neck with gray-mittened hands while she watched him work. Her face had the charming pinkness to it that fair- skinned Yankees, young and old, got when they stood too long on their porches in fifteen-degree temperatures. She looked pleased and satisfied and curious and, yes, she clearly wanted the God's honest truth.

  Quinn flattened the collar of the light fixture against the sky-blue tongue-and-groove planks of the porch ceiling. He jammed a fastener into the wood to make it stay, then began screwing it tight. "I have no intention of moving back east," he said simply. "I'm just putting out rumors. I want to see if I can stir things up a little, make people a little nervous."

  "Oh. Well ... pooh, that's disappointing," he heard her say.

  "If my father didn't murder Alison," he continued, "then someone else did. I doubt that it was a vagrant. It's too coincidental that some homeless character would have stolen the rope from the potting shed, conveniently implicating a man who happened not to have an alibi for the time of the murder."

  He took another screw from his pocket and repeated the routine. "No, I see a deliberate frame-up here. I see someone who knew that my dad always spent Saturday night alone, reading. Someone who knew what he did for a living, and where his tools were stored. Someone local."

  He looked down again. Mrs. Dewsbury was still watching him, still holding the back of her neck with her mittened hands, but her eyes had narrowed in an appraising squint.

  "So you think this was all planned beforehand?"

  "That's one possibility," he said. "Another is that it was a crime of passion and the murderer was a damned good improviser."


  "It's true, you know. Some people are very good under stress," she said in droll agreement.

  After a pause, she said, "Tell me. Don't you think Chief Vickers knows more than he was letting on?"

  "About ...?"

  "The windshield, of course. I've been thinking about it, and you're right. He can't be happy that you're back. It always rankled that your father slipped through his fingers; he told me so himself once. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the chief had someone smash in your windshield."

  Quinn was thinking more of the bloodied flowers. "I dunno."

  "You need to watch out for him."

  Quinn smiled grimly and said, "Okay, I'll bump Vickers up a few slots on the list of Those Who Wish to See Me Dead. How's that?"

  "It's not funny."

  "No, ma'am."

  The last screw slipped through Quinn's numb fingers. He began to climb down the stepladder to retrieve it, but Mrs. Dewsbury insisted on getting it herself. Quinn made himself wait patiently on a rung while she moved the walker to the side, removed a mitten, very slowly got down into a crouch, picked up the screw with an arthritic hand, pulled the walker back to her, and then stood up again.

  "Here you are, dear."

  He finished the job and they went inside. One chore down, thirty-seven to go, according to the list that Quinn had put together so far. He had no doubt that the list would get longer before it got shorter. The house was falling apart in a thousand little ways, some of which could lead to disaster. An electrical short and a subsequent fire, a pitch-dark porch and a nimble arsonist. The combinations were endless.

  ****

  Olivia Bennett had small, slender feet—she was pretty proud of them—but this was ridiculous. There wasn't a foot on the planet that could comfortably fit into the Victorian French-heeled shoe she was trying to wear. The handmade shoe was just one of a vast array of historically accurate reproductions that made up the evening ensemble she had committed to wear in her stint as guide on the Candlelight Tour.

  "I feel like Cinderella's evil stepsister," she growled, jamming her foot into the narrow shoe. Which wasn't a shoe anyway—it was an instrument of torture, tight and stiff and with an outrageous tip that surged a good three inches past her big toe.