Dangling by a Thread

by Lea Wait

  “They’re on their way to the hospital to see him now.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “Not too well,” I admitted. “I keep thinking it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have moved home from Arizona. Every time I turn around someone seems to get killed.”

  “Rubbish! Bad things happen everywhere. They happened in Arizona, right?”

  “But that was a big city. I didn’t know all the people involved.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m not sure. I’d like to talk with Jed Fitch and Ed Campbell. Tonight I’ll go back to the hospital to see Dave. Sarah was going, but she’s going to talk to Ted Lawrence about Save the Cormorants instead. And Dave has the police there now.”

  “Good thought, Angel. Dave’ll need a friend after the police leave. I was thinking of making cookies. Why don’t you come over and help? You asked me for my maple raisin oatmeal cookie recipe a couple of weeks ago. We’ll double it, and you can take a batch to Dave. They cook up quickly.”

  It took me a fraction of a second to agree.

  Trixi was making herself at home checking out the furniture near the floor in the living room and testing her claws on the wallpaper in the corner. Whoops. Hadn’t thought I’d have to redecorate for her.

  I gently discouraged her from scraping off the wallpaper, so instead she climbed the drapes and made herself comfortable on the shelf Gram had installed for Juno to watch the bird feeder. “That’s a good place for you,” I told her. “But I’d really rather you didn’t use the drapes as a highway.” She seemed unimpressed by my suggestion. The male cardinal eating his supper on the feeder was much more interesting. He was bigger than she was for now, but wouldn’t be for long.

  “You’re going to be an inside cat,” I informed her. “Jesse was trying to protect the great cormorants. The least I can do is make sure our bird feeders are secure. And that you’re away from the street, and fishers, and foxes.” And poison gardens, I added to myself.

  Gram had her mixer out and ingredients on her kitchen table by the time I arrived. “How’s Snowy?” I asked.

  “A little lonely in the bedroom,” she said. “Why don’t you go and say hello?”

  I walked past Juno, who was carefully overseeing what was happening in the kitchen, and opened the bedroom door. Gram and Reverend Tom’s bedroom. I felt like an intruder now that Gram was sharing a bedroom with her husband. My own bedroom suddenly seemed very empty.

  I felt soft fur on my ankle and looked down. Snowy rubbed himself on me and then gave me a little bite. “Do you smell your sister on me?” I asked him. He streaked across the room and hid under the bed. “Your sister’s friendlier,” I told him.

  I headed back to the kitchen. “He’s cute, but a little shy,” I said.

  “I think Juno’s yowls intimidate him,” agreed Gram.

  “Dave will probably take him back when he gets home,” I said. “I feel a little guilty that Patrick and I each adopted one of his kittens.”

  “Don’t feel bad. I don’t think Dave was planning to keep all three anyway. After he gets out of the hospital I’ll take Snowy over. He’ll be company for Dave and Juno will have her peace restored. Now—get me the maple syrup out of the refrigerator. We’ll want to heat it so it flows and measures easily before we add it to the dough.”

  I watched Gram and copied her recipe as she creamed butter and sugar and then added dry ingredients. “That’s all?” I asked. “They’ve always been one of my favorites of your cookies. When I’d get home from school in the afternoon I’d smell baking and know all was well.” I didn’t mention how empty our house had seemed after Mama’d disappeared. No matter how many cookies Gram baked, it hadn’t made up for Mama’s not being there.

  “Now it’s your turn to bring comfort to people. Nothing says love like oatmeal and raisins and maple. Here. You fill one cookie sheet. I’ll do the other,” Gram instructed.

  The smell of baking cookies soon filled the room. “We’re making a lot,” I commented, as we filled the fifth and sixth baking sheets.

  “You’ll take some to Dave and keep some yourself.” She looked at me sideways. “You could take a plate to your friend Patrick, too, and check on his kitten. And maybe find out what was happening with Jesse’s cousin. You said he was staying at Aurora.”

  “Very sneaky, Gram,” I grinned. “Not a bad idea.”

  “Cookies are never a bad idea. Who said the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach?”

  “I don’t know. Probably you,” I said, moving our first two sheets of cooled cookies into a tin box for Gram and Reverend Tom, and chewing on one myself.

  “Plenty here for everyone. First rule of life: There can never be too many cookies.”

  “Did I hear the word ‘cookies’?” Reverend Tom walked into the kitchen. His hand went straight to the cookie box. “Yum! Charlotte, what was my life like without your cooking?”

  “Less caloric,” she answered, and patted him on the rear as she went to take another cookie sheet from the oven. “These aren’t all for us. Angie’s taking some with her.”

  “Heard Jesse Lockhart was murdered,” he said, as he snuck another two cookies off the rack.

  “How did you know?” I said, getting out paper plates for the cookies I was taking with me. “Pete and Ethan were trying to keep it quiet for at least a few hours.”

  “I was making visits at the hospital and ran into them. Pretty clear why they were going to talk with Dave Percy.”

  “Jesse was his friend.”

  “Some friend, who’d shoot you,” Tom commented. “But at least he’s not a suspect. They can be pretty sure where he’s been for the last couple of days.”

  “Wonder who did kill Jesse?” Gram asked. “All he wanted was to be left alone with those birds. No reason for anyone to want to hurt him.”

  “Pete and Ethan will figure it out,” I said, more confidently than I felt.

  “Guess we’ll have a new neighbor soon, then,” continued Tom.

  “Who?” said Gram, turning toward him.

  “Gerry Bentley. Now he’ll be able to buy King’s Island.”

  Chapter 34

  “Now in the cold grave is Marian sleeping

  Unfinished the work her fingers began

  While we finish her task amidst sorry and weeping

  We’ll think of the frailty of short lived man.”

  —Fourteen-year-old Marian Childs of Shelburne, Massachusetts, began this sampler in 1820, but died before she was able to finish it. Family legends say the sampler was finished after her death, and birds and a cross were added then. Marian lived longer than any other child in her family.

  I packed more than my share of the cookies (after all, I was dividing mine with Patrick and Dave) and left Gram and Tom planning to go to dinner with several other couples.

  Couples.

  Would I ever be a part of one of those?

  Gram seemed so happy. And most couples I knew seemed at least comfortable and content. How did they find each other? How did they know “this is the one”? I’d helped solve several mysteries in my life, but I didn’t have a clue about that one.

  “I brought cookies,” I said, as I knocked on the door of Dave’s hospital room.

  He looked paler than he had that morning. “Cookies? I thought you didn’t cook.”

  “Gram and I made them together. But now I have the recipe, including her secret ingredients.” I put the plate on Dave’s wheeling table. “If you don’t feel up to eating them, you could share with the nurses and doctors.”

  He picked one up. “No way. My cookies. You said.”

  “Are you nine years old?”

  “I was thinking six,” he said, grinning as he finished his first cookie and took a second. “Glad you stopped in. Talking to the law was exhausting. Maybe cookies will revive me.”

  “I won’t stay long,” I assured him. “I wanted to make sure you’d survived talking with Pete and Ethan.”

 
“Talking? More like being grilled,” Dave said, lying back on his pillows. “I told them everything I’ve ever known about Jesse Lockhart. But I wasn’t able to help them with their most important question: ‘Who killed him?’”

  “Do you have any suspicions?”

  Dave shook his head. “Not one. I’m still furious about it, too. How could anyone kill him? Jesse was the most peaceful person I’ve ever known. Ethan kept asking me whether he had any enemies. Enemies? He lived by himself on an island. Most people in town either didn’t know him, or called him The Solitary because they didn’t know his name. Who’d want to hurt someone like that?”

  “He wasn’t like other people. That might have made some people uncomfortable.”

  “Granted. He didn’t go out of his way to make friends. But he never bothered anyone, either. The only people who were aggravated at him were the coast guard and marine patrol guys who felt they had to check on him in the winter. Being a nuisance isn’t grounds for murder.”

  “But he had the bow and arrows to protect himself.”

  “To protect his privacy,” Dave quickly corrected me. “His island. His cormorants. Once in a while he shot an arrow high to convince trespassers they should find another island to picnic or camp. But I’m the only one he ever hit.” Dave rubbed his leg gently. “And I was his friend.”

  “Luckily for you, you were in the hospital when Jesse was killed.”

  “That’s what Ethan pointed out. I would have been their number one suspect otherwise.”

  “When we were out on the island another boat was nearby, circling the island.”

  Dave shook his head. “I wasn’t looking at other boats. As you’ll remember, I had a few other things on my mind.”

  “I’m pretty sure I saw a boat, maybe a lobster boat, with several people on board.”

  “Could be. Ocean’s full of boats. No reason one or a dozen wouldn’t be near King’s Island.”

  “But Jesse’s killer must have gone to the island by boat.”

  “True. I haven’t heard of anyone swimming that far,” Dave said drily. “And no one’s installed a helipad yet. But if the boat you saw looked like a lobster boat, it probably was a lobster boat. Several fishermen have traps out in that area, especially in winter.”

  “It’s not winter yet.”

  “Angie, forget it. There aren’t any cameras out on King’s Island, and no one out for a day’s boating, whether for work or pleasure, has to sign in and out.”

  “They do radio to other boats.”

  “Some do,” agreed Dave. “Commercial fishermen do. When they need to. But most of the boats around Haven Harbor in August aren’t commercial. If you want to think about who might have killed Jesse, think about the island itself. Who wanted him off it?”

  “Gerry Bentley, of course. But would a multimillionaire go out to King’s Island and bash in Jesse’s head?”

  Dave winced at my description. “Probably not. But who else would have benefited if Jesse sold the island?”

  “His cousin Simon would get a share of the price of the island, or the whole thing if Jesse were dead. Simon arrived late Wednesday. He was in town when Jesse was killed.”

  “True. But he would have needed to get a boat.” Dave sank back on his pillows. “My head’s throbbing again. Go home, Angie. You look more tired than I feel. Pete and Ethan are looking into it all, and I’m sure they’ll question Simon. Under the circumstances, they’ll question anyone who knew Jesse, or who’s connected to Gerry Bentley.”

  “I hope so.”

  Dave’s voice was getting lower. “Sorry, Angie, but they have me on all sorts of meds. I need to sleep now. Thanks for coming. And for the cookies. Thank Charlotte, too. I’m lucky. I’m not like Jesse. I have a lot of wonderful friends here in Haven Harbor.”

  “Rest well, Dave.”

  Dave was right. He had a lot of friends here in Haven Harbor. He’d made a new life for himself here after his naval career, much as I was trying to make a new life for myself now.

  I’d given myself six months to test the waters here. It was August. I’d been here almost four months.

  Soon, according to the schedule I’d set for myself, I’d have to decide whether I stayed here permanently, or would leave.

  Go back to Arizona?

  My job as assistant to a private investigator had kept me busy. But I hadn’t wanted to do that forever. Friends? I’d known people there, sure. But no one I was even keeping in touch with. No one I counted as a friend.

  On the other hand—none of those people had ever shot me.

  I shook my head as I set out to see Patrick.

  Relationships were complicated.

  Chapter 35

  “Then O Divine benevolence be nigh

  & teach me how to live and how to die.”

  —From sampler worked by Wealthy Griswold, age nine, in 1804. Wealthy was born in Windsor, Connecticut, the eighth of nine children. Her mother died when she was three years old. Her sampler featured a crowned lion, a rosebud border, and a shepherdess looking over her flock. Most of the figures are in cross-stitch, but the background is in vertical long-stitches.

  Patrick answered his door holding Bette. “Look, Bette! We have company!”

  I couldn’t help smiling. Patrick and Bette were bonded already.

  “I brought cookies,” I said, holding them out. “For you. Afraid I didn’t bring any cat toys.”

  “You’re welcome no matter,” said Patrick, gesturing that I should come in.

  I put the cookies on the coffee table. “Looks as though Bette is feeling at home,” I said. The floor was littered with cat toys. “And she’s not confined to the studio anymore.”

  “She seems to like it in here,” said Patrick. “She likes company. And her toys are mostly in here now.”

  He smiled sheepishly as he looked around his living room. “Mom stopped at a pet store yesterday and went a little crazy. Bette doesn’t seem to mind, though.”

  Bette was ignoring all the felt mice and plastic balls and happily chasing a plastic bottle cap that skidded across the floor when she batted it.

  “Those cookies look delicious!” he said. “Oatmeal?”

  “Maple raisin oatmeal. My grandmother’s recipe,” I said as he bit into one.

  “When did you find time to bake cookies?”

  I shrugged. “Gram and I made them over at her house,” I admitted. “I thought you’d like some.”

  “Right on target,” he said, taking another one. “I do cook. Or, I used to, before the fire.” Patrick looked away, as though remembering. “But I’ve never baked. Tasting these, I think I need to learn how. How’s your friend Dave? The one who was shot?”

  “Healing. He’ll be in the hospital a few more days,” I said. “The doctors want to make sure no infections set in.” I hesitated. “Have you heard? Jesse Lockhart was murdered.”

  Patrick’s hand moved from the cookie he was about to take and fell into his lap. “What? That hermit who lived out on King’s Island?”

  “Yes. The man who was protecting the great cormorants.”

  “Do the police know who killed him?”

  I shook my head. “They interviewed me, and Dave, today. Maybe they talked with other people.”

  “The sergeant from the Haven Harbor Police Department who was here yesterday told Simon Lockhart his cousin was dead. He didn’t say his cousin’d been murdered,” Patrick said, sitting back on the couch.

  “They got the medical examiner’s report today.”

  “Are you and your Needlepointers still going to campaign to save the cormorants?” he asked. “I’ve thought about that. I did some research, and I’m with you. I know Uncle Gerry’s the one who wants to buy the island. I told him about how building on the island would be bad for the birds.”

  “And?”

  Patrick didn’t look straight at me. “He listened, but said he was sure the birds could move somewhere else. That his wife liked that island, and with her expecting
in a couple of months, he doesn’t want her upset about anything.”

  “The cormorants would be the ones really upset,” I said. “There are islands all over the Gulf of Maine and Down East that the Bentleys could buy. Not even counting all the estates overlooking the ocean out on peninsulas. Only a few islands are suitable for cormorants.”

  “He doesn’t see it that way. He did say he’d mention the environmental aspects to his Realtor, though. The issue isn’t completely closed.”

  “What does Simon say?”

  “Uncle Gerry said he took Simon to see a lawyer when he first got here. Since then Simon’s been driving around, revisiting places he knew when he was young. He’d planned to talk with Jesse, of course, but I don’t think he had before he heard about Jesse’s death.” Patrick looked at me and shook his head slightly. “He hasn’t decided what to do with the island.”

  Sounded to me as though Simon Lockhart was milking his hosts and hostess for a Maine vacation. “What did he see the lawyer about?”

  “Don’t know. Didn’t ask.”

  “I’d like to meet him.”

  “I’m going to see him later tonight.” Patrick glanced at his watch. “In fact, I have to get over to the house now. Uncle Gerry and June have other plans, so Mom’s taking Simon and me to Camden for dinner. We’re meeting an old friend of hers there.” He looked down at his hands. “She thinks it’s time I tried eating in public.”

  “Her friend who owns a shipbuilding company?”

  “Right. You met him earlier this summer. I forgot that.”

  “You could mention to Simon that I’d like to talk with him. You could say I knew his cousin.”

  “Sure. Be glad to.” Patrick got up. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then, if he finds space on his busy schedule.”

  I suspected Simon’s busy schedule was a myth.

  “My schedule’s flexible,” I confirmed. “Although I do have to see a couple of people.”

  I was hoping to see Jed Fitch and Ed Campbell. Sunday was already sounding like a busy day.