Brush with Death

by Karen MacInerney

  Once I got the groceries stowed, I ran up to check on Gwen, who was painting in the Crow’s Nest. She looked miserable, and the canvas she was struggling with didn’t look much better, but I said a few encouraging words before closing the door behind me. I grabbed a coat and headed down to John’s workshop, but he wasn’t there—or in the carriage house, either. As I headed back up the path, I found myself wondering what to do with the little house. We could rent it out as a summer place … or John could keep it for himself. Would it be better if we both moved in there? I sighed and pushed the thoughts from my head. We had enough to deal with without adding more complications to the equation.

  I jogged back up the path to the inn, did a last check to make sure I had the dinner prep taken care of, and checked my messages; John told me he’d be in late and would hitch a ride from the dock, and the new attorney had called to confirm an appointment tomorrow. Feeling more hopeful that at least some progress was being made on the mortgage front, I pushed through the swinging door to the public portion of the inn.

  As it turned out, I didn’t need to knock on Frederick’s door; he was sitting on the sofa in the parlor, gazing moodily at the fire.

  “How did it go with Father Timothy?” I asked, sitting down across from him.

  He barely glanced at me. “That witch showed up,” he said. “She wants everything. The memorial service, the house … the whole shebang.”

  “Was he able to calm her down?” I asked.

  He snorted. “He kept suggesting we work together, but she rejected it out of hand. She told him she’d have the service back in Bangor if he kept giving her a hard time.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  He shrugged. “What can you do?” Despite the light words, I could hear the despair in his voice. “At least I have the key to his house.”

  I blinked in surprise. “She doesn’t?”

  “Why would she? She hasn’t seen him in years.”

  I thought of the mail boat card I’d seen in her room. “Did Fernand tell you that?” I asked.

  “He told me she hadn’t been in touch with him since he moved to the island.”

  I didn’t contradict him, but filed that bit of information away. Why had she been on the island recently? And why hadn’t Fernand mentioned it to Frederick?

  “So,” he said, standing up and giving himself a shake, as if trying to discard Fernand’s sister’s words. “Shall we go and see if we can find out who Fernand’s secret admirer was?”

  “If you’re up for it,” I said.

  “I am,” he said grimly. “As long as that woman isn’t in the car with us. He drove us both back to the inn, you know.”

  “That can’t have been pleasant.”

  “It wasn’t,” he said, and left it at that.

  _____

  Evening had begun to fall as we pulled up outside of Fernand’s house. The Christmas lights still dangled from the trees outside the gallery, and the wreath still hung on the front door, its red ribbon flapping in the wind. My heart ached, knowing my friend would never celebrate Christmas again.

  Frederick, too, was feeling the wash of emotion, and swiped at his eyes as I put the van in park and turned the ignition off. “Ready?” I asked.

  He nodded, and together we marched up to the front door, Frederick fumbling with his keys.

  The house was almost as cold inside as out, and a breeze pushed through the front hallway, almost tearing the doorknob from Frederick’s hand. “It’s not locked,” he said, pushing the door open.

  “Did you turn the heat off?” I asked as he switched on a light.

  “No,” he said. A breeze gusted, and the door slammed itself shut behind us, making us both jump. “Why is it so cold in here?”

  My feet crunched on something as I took a step back. Frederick and I both looked down: broken glass.

  “Somebody broke the window,” he said.

  “Somebody broke into the house,” I corrected. “That’s why the front door was open.” The glass had been knocked clean out of the sidelight, which is why I hadn’t noticed it initially. I felt a shiver course through me. If Fernand had killed himself, why would someone feel the need to break in?

  Frederick evidently had the same thought. “What would someone be looking for that they needed to break in?” he asked. “Unless it was that sister of his.”

  I turned toward the living room and gasped. The couches had been pulled apart, the floor was littered with pillows, and the books had been pulled from the bookshelf and lay scattered across the rug.

  “No,” Frederick said, his hand to his mouth. “No, no, no.” Tears welled in his eyes. “Fernand would have hated this.”

  “We’ll put it back in order after we call the police,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Whoever it was was looking for something. Can you go with me and tell me if you notice anything missing?” I asked.

  “I … I’ll do my best,” he said.

  “Thank you, Frederick. I know how hard this must be for you.”

  He nodded and followed me into the living room. Automatically, he bent to pick up a book; I touched his shoulder again.

  “Try not to touch anything. The detectives may want to dust for fingerprints.”

  He straightened, but his shoulders were slumped. The chaos was bothering both of us; it felt like a desecration of Fernand’s space. When Frederick ascertained that he couldn’t tell if anything was missing, we moved on, both feeling jumpy. We walked into Fernand’s study; the neat stack of papers had been shuffled through and left in a messy pile on the floor.

  “There’s a phone,” Frederick said in a hoarse voice, pointing to the handset on the desk. “Can we touch that at least? To check the calls?”

  “I have gloves,” I said, pulling my wool gloves out of my pockets and slipping them on to turn the phone over gingerly. I pushed the button for recent calls; the first number that popped up had a 202 area code.

  “Do you have a piece of paper?” I asked.

  “No, but there’s a blank one here,” he said, stooping down to pick up a sheet that had drifted free, but he froze before he touched it. “Do you think it’s okay to pick it up and use it?”

  “If whoever did this left prints, there will be enough on other things, probably,” I said, looking around at the messy room. I plucked a pen from the mug on the back of Fernand’s desk—I couldn’t imagine the intruder had fingered the Bic pens—and jotted down times, dates, and numbers as I scrolled through the calls. There was only one 202 area code, which I recognized as New York, and it had come the day of the party. Torrone’s agent? I wondered. The others were all from Maine. A few were from the island—I recognized the phone numbers—but many were from elsewhere. His sister in Bangor, perhaps?

  And then there was the most frequent caller: Blocked. Blocked, blocked, blocked, blocked. Whoever it was had called repeatedly, though; up to fifteen times in a row. I marked down the times and dates until the phone history ran out. Whoever it was had called 65 times over a three-day period. The last call was the evening of the party; there were none after it. Was it because the caller was the killer, and knew Fernand was dead? A chill ran up my spine.

  “Looks like we found Fernand’s secret admirer,” Frederick said.

  “Too bad he knows star 69,” I said. I wrote down the last number and looked up from the phone. “Do you have any idea where Fernand might have kept the letters the mystery person sent?”

  “If he kept them at all,” Frederick said. “Fernand might well have burned them. He didn’t appreciate the attention.”

  I surveyed the room. “Whoever broke in was looking for something.”

  “The letters?”

  “Maybe. I wish I knew,” I said, pocketing the paper with the numbers.

  We searched the rest of the house, but found nothing incriminating. Whoever had broken in had been very thorough; every room had been torn apart. As we entered the bedroom, Frederick blanched. “It’s a desecration,” he said, lookin
g at the dresser. The drawers had been pulled out and dumped, and Fernand’s cashmere sweaters were scattered like used towels on the floor. I glanced at Frederick; his face was white, and he looked as if he might be sick. He picked up one of the sweaters and brought it to his nose. “I bought this for him for his birthday,” he said, touching the soft wool as if it were Fernand himself.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “Can I keep it?”

  “I can’t think why not,” I said. “Do you see anything missing?” I asked gently.

  “Just Fernand,” he said miserably.

  _____

  The smell of sautéing bacon and garlic filled the inn when Frederick and I got back a while later. Frederick returned to his room, still holding Fernand’s sweater, and I walked into the kitchen to find John at the stove.

  “Smells great in here,” I said as he added butter to the pan.

  “Where were you?” he asked, worry creasing his forehead.

  “Frederick and I went over to Fernand’s house. Someone had turned the place upside-down.” I hung my coat on the hook by the door and pulled up a chair at the table. Biscuit abandoned her post on the radiator and crossed the floor to leap up onto my lap.

  “A break-in?” John put down the spatula and turned to face me.

  I nodded, stroking the purring cat. “Whoever it was broke the window next to the door.”

  “When did you arrive?” he asked.

  “Just a few minutes ago.”

  “Was there anything missing?”

  “Not that Frederick or I could tell.” I rubbed behind Biscuit’s ears, and she purred louder. “Frederick told me Fernand had a secret admirer; we were wondering if he might have something to do with what happened to Fernand. I checked the phone and wrote down all the callers for the last several days,” I said, pulling the piece of paper from my back pocket.

  John took it from me and scanned it, frowning. “Until we get this sorted out, I don’t want you to go anywhere alone with Frederick,” he said. “Or with Fernand’s sister.” Then, before I could ask more, he continued. “What’s all this about a secret admirer? Gwen didn’t say anything about it.”

  “Frederick mentioned it.” The pan on the stove sizzled loudly. “You’d better check on the food,” I said, and he put down the paper and picked up the spatula.

  “Any other evidence of this admirer?” he asked as he stirred garlic into the pan.

  I scratched Biscuit under her chin. “Somebody called a lot—but blocked his number.”

  “How do you know it’s a man?”

  “According to Frederick, Fernand told him it was a man.”

  John made a skeptical noise. “We don’t even know if Fernand and Frederick were still together. It could be that Frederick was the caller.”

  I thought of Frederick, cradling Fernand’s sweater as if it were the most precious thing in the world. Had Fernand broken up with him? Was Frederick desperate to get him back—and had he perhaps killed Fernand when he wouldn’t continue to see him? Biscuit gave a rumbling purr, then meowed to remind me to continue petting her.

  “Did Fernand say anything to anyone else about this admirer?” John asked.

  “Selene of Island Artists mentioned something about a stalker today at Winter Knitters. She said Fernand was thinking about talking to the police about it.”

  “I’ll have to pass that on to Detective Penney,” he said, giving the onions he’d just added a stir.

  “You never told me how it went on the mainland,” I said.

  “I dropped off the doll and the blood sample,” he said. “I talked with Detective Penney, too. The toxicology reports came back.”

  I paused with my cookie halfway to my mouth. “And?”

  “Ativan and alcohol in his system,” he said.

  “Did he have a prescription for Ativan?”

  “No.” John added mushrooms to the pan, making the kitchen smell heavenly. “They have a copy of the will, now, too.”

  “Who inherits?”

  “Fernand changed it six months ago. The old version left everything to his sister, but the new one changed everything.”

  “Who did he leave the house to, then?” I asked, leaning forward as Biscuit, tired of being petted, leaped off my lap.

  “Frederick.”

  “So they were still together?”

  “They were last summer, at least,” John said. “A lot can happen in a few months.” He added a handful of sliced carrots to the pan. “Frederick wasn’t the only one in the will, though.”

  “No?”

  “He left the studio and gallery to Gwen,” John said.

  I sat back and let out a low whistle. “Does she know?”

  “I hope not,” John said. “Because if she does, she might be a murder suspect.”

  EIGHTEEN

  “ARE YOU SAYING THEY’RE reopening the investigation?” I asked, stunned.

  “It looks like he was unconscious at the time he slit his wrists.” John grimaced. “His death is now considered a homicide.”

  “Gwen was right, then,” I said.

  “Seems that way. They’re sealing the house this afternoon and will be questioning people again tomorrow.

  I sat up straight. “My fingerprints are on the door.”

  “Did you touch anything else?”

  “Once I figured out the house had been broken into, no,” I said, thinking back to our visit to the house. I had put my gloves on before touching the phone, and hadn’t taken them off.

  “Good.”

  “What you said about Gwen being a suspect. Do you really think she is one?”

  “They’ll consider everyone,” he said.

  “She’s told everyone she thought it was murder from the beginning. Shouldn’t that count for something?”

  “One would hope so,” he said. “I don’t know much about this detective.”

  “Have you told Gwen yet?”

  “I wanted to talk to you first,” he said. “And get this chicken in the oven.”

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “You got bread, right?”

  “Came over from Little Notch Bakery on the mail boat.”

  “We’ll make a salad right before dinner and cook up a pot of noodles, and I think we’re set.”

  “Dessert?”

  “I defrosted a cheesecake.” He pointed to the creamy round cake on the counter.

  “You’re amazing,” I told him, breaking off a piece of cookie and nibbling at it.

  “Of course, my mother won’t touch it.”

  Catherine. I’d almost forgotten about her. “Would you believe your mother got us into Cliffside today?”

  “Why?”

  “For old time’s sake. You never told me that was where you stayed!”

  He shrugged. “I guess it didn’t seem important. Mother always complained about the house—I’m surprised she wanted to go back to see it.”

  I sucked in my breath. “She told me it was the last place she and your father were happy,” I said.

  John ran a hand through his sandy hair and leaned against the counter. “What the heck does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. She clammed up after that,” I said.

  “They never were particularly happy, from what I can remember.” John shook his head. “My father wasn’t home much, and my mother was always off at society luncheons or benefits.”

  “Where was your father?” I asked, inhaling the scent of garlic as the pan sizzled.

  “Working. The only time we really spent together as a family was when we were in Maine.”

  “Maybe that’s what she meant,” I said.

  Before we could take the conversation further, Gwen pushed through the door, her shoulders slumped. “It’s useless,” she said.

  “What is?” I asked.

  “This whole art thing. I’m meeting with Mr. Munger tomorrow, and I know he’s going to hate all of my paintings. And with Fernand gone …” She slumped into the chair nex
t to mine. “Maybe my mother’s right, and I should go back to California.”

  “I think you’re being too hard on yourself,” I said, reaching out to rub her back. “I think the change in medium is the problem.”

  “I just don’t know anymore, Aunt Nat. With Fernand gone …”

  “I believe in you,” John said. “And Fernand did, too.” He lifted the last pieces of chicken out of the pan and turned to face Gwen. “In fact, he believed in you enough that he left you his studio.”

  Gwen sat up straight. “He what?”

  “It’s in his will,” I said. “He left the studio to you. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t believe in you.”

  As she sat looking stunned, John added, “The police finally believe you, too.”

  She was quiet for a moment, then comprehension dawned. “You mean …”

  “They believe Fernand was murdered,” John said.

  “I knew it,” she said. “I knew he didn’t kill himself.” Then she put her head down on the table and burst into tears.

  _____

  Detective Penney arrived the next morning, just after I finished serving breakfast to Frederick and Irene. Catherine stayed in the kitchen, eating a thimbleful of plain oatmeal and looking fidgety. I didn’t know if it was because of what she’d told me yesterday or because of the jeweler’s appraisal of the ring; we hadn’t discussed it since. She had been surprised by the appraisal, but not shocked, or even guilty, I decided. What was going on with her?

  Irene and Frederick had sat on opposite ends of the dining room. While Irene had made quite a dent in the French toast casserole, Frederick, as usual, hadn’t touched much. Was it guilt over murdering Fernand? I wondered. Or grief? Despite John’s warning, I was tempted to believe the latter. Although it could, as he suggested, be both.

  Irene was a puzzle, too. If she had loved her brother, she was hiding it well; she seemed tense, but not grief-stricken, although Father Timothy had told me once that different people expressed grief in different ways. Had she heard about the will yet? I wondered as I filled her coffee cup with dark French Roast coffee. If not, I wished I could be a fly on the wall when she learned about the change her brother had made. I thought again about the mail boat ticket in her room. When had she been on the island? Again, I wished I had a photo of her to show to George McLeod; he remembered faces pretty well, and would likely be able to tell me if and when he’d seen her.