by Lea Wait
When land is gone and money is spent
Then learning is most excellent.”
—Verse stitched on a sampler by Maggie Tolliver, heroine in The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] (1819 – 1880), published in 1860.
Now I was able to put a face on the president of the local Chamber of Commerce. Did Ed Campbell want Gerry Bentley to buy King’s Island and build a vacation home there? Yes.
But would he have killed Jesse Lockhart?
I couldn’t see that.
On the other hand, I knew from experience that killers couldn’t be identified by their looks or their words.
I also wanted to talk with Jed Fitch. Carole needed to rest. I’d met both of them earlier in the summer; he’d been Skye West’s Realtor when she bought Aurora. According to Patrick, she’d been the one to recommend Jed as a Realtor to Gerry Bentley. Whether in small towns or big cities, a lot of business was based on relationships.
Patrick had said he’d try to find a way for me to meet with Simon, but I wanted to hear Jed’s story first.
After I checked on Trixi I headed downtown to see if Jed was at his realty office. I’d been meaning to talk to him about a home maintenance issue anyway.
In August real estate offices were open seven days a week—as were most businesses. Strike while the tourists were hot, so to speak.
Correction. Seven days a week, but not before one o’clock Sunday afternoon. I read the sign on Jed’s office door twice and decided to stop in to see Sarah instead of standing in the street for half an hour looking as impatient as I felt.
The little nineteenth-century brass doorbell she’d installed jingled softly. “Afternoon, Angie! I was going to call you today. How’s Dave?”
“Better, I think,” I assured her. “I saw him late yesterday. He’s disturbed about Jesse’s murder, of course. I visited him after Pete and Ethan questioned him.”
“And he’s probably still in pain,” Sarah added. “I’ll try to get over to the hospital after I close up today. I called once yesterday afternoon, but he didn’t answer. Maybe he was having tests.”
Or he was being examined by the police. “How was your evening? Did you get a chance to ask Ted Lawrence if he’d help our Save the Cormorants campaign?”
“He agreed!” she said. “He’s a dear. A little lonely. I like him, and I think he likes having me around. I told him you’d want something simple—more symbolic than realistic—something we could embroider, or have printed on tote bags or T-shirts. He promised to have sketches to show me today.”
“Perfect!” I said. I wanted to ask her more, but I knew Sarah well enough to know she’d tell me more when she was ready, not before. “When you’ve seen his drawings, why don’t you and I meet with the rest of the Needlepointers and talk about next steps?”
“Can do,” Sarah said. “So—what else is new in your life?”
“I have a housemate,” I shared, smiling.
“Who? When? Man or woman? Tell all!” asked Sarah.
“Kitten.”
“Ooh, I have to visit!” said Sarah. “Can we have the meeting at your house? When did you adopt a kitten? How old is he—or she?”
“She,” I said firmly. “Her name is Beatrix, but I’m calling her Trixi. Dave had been taking care of her and her brother and sister. Now that he’s in the hospital, they needed new homes.”
“So who else was lucky enough to get one?”
“Gram has one, but she plans to return hers to Dave when he gets home. And Patrick has the third.”
“Patrick?”
“I happened to mention them to him. I think he’s lonely living there at the carriage house. He can’t drive yet. Anyway, he’s smitten. He named his kitten Bette because she’s a tuxedo cat.”
“Cool.” Sarah straightened papers on her counter. “I didn’t know you and Patrick were close.”
“You suggested I drop in to welcome him back to Haven Harbor,” I reminded her. “He invited me to have dinner. We’re friends.”
“Friends?” she said.
“Friends,” I said, firmly. “You said you weren’t interested in him. And you’re spending a lot of time with Ted Lawrence.”
“Not the same thing at all.” Sarah looked at me as though I’d suggested she was dating a ghost.
“Then what is it?”
She turned away and put the papers she’d been sorting on a shelf in back of her register. “Ted’s a friend. Just a friend.”
“And Patrick’s my friend,” I repeated. “Nothing more. I think I have him swayed to our side in the cormorant situation, too. He even talked to Gerry Bentley—his uncle Gerry—about it.”
“And?”
“Unfortunately, Uncle Gerry was more interested in buying King’s Island than in the cormorants.”
“I’ll call you when Ted finishes his cormorant sketches,” said Sarah. “And I do want to meet your Trixi. My old cat’s a dear, but kittens are so much fun! I’d be tempted to adopt one myself, but I don’t think Ruggles would want to share his space.” She glanced at the staircase leading to her apartment, as though Ruggles could overhear her.
“I’m going over to talk with Jed Fitch,” I said. “I’d like to find out more about what’s happening with the sale of King’s Island.”
“Jesse was murdered. I’m not surprised you’re checking into it,” said Sarah.
“You helped me with a couple of investigations earlier this summer,” I pointed out.
“True. But it’s not something I do on a regular basis. You used to be a private investigator. Asking questions is part of who you are.”
“An assistant to a private investigator,” I corrected. “I’m checking into this because Jesse was Dave’s friend. And because I care about what happens to those cormorants.”
“I care about birds, too, Angie. But I care about people more. I suspect you do, too.”
Chapter 38
“We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight,
Producing what? A pair of slippers, sir,
To put on when you’re weary—or a stool
To stumble over and vex you . . . ‘curse that stool!’
Or else at best, a cushion, where you lean
And sleep, and dream of something we are not
But would be for your sake. Alas, alas!
This hurts most, this—that, after all, we are paid
The worth of our work, perhaps.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 – 1861) from Aurora Leigh (1856).
The windows of the real estate storefront were covered with pictures of Haven Harbor houses and lots for sale.
I slowed down to read the listings. I was a new homeowner, but I had no idea how much my house was worth. The week before she and Tom were married Gram had transferred the title of our family home to me. She’d explained about real estate taxes and home insurance, and about home heating oil in winter and basic maintenance.
She’d also suggested I call Jed Fitch about plowing the driveway in winter.
It was August. I hadn’t done that yet.
But it gave me a reason to talk with him. The last time I’d done that was when Skye West had asked me to do some investigating for her. She’d known Jed years ago, when they’d both been in high school.
In Haven Harbor that wasn’t unusual. Most people in town had known one another for decades. Maybe even generations. Known their challenges and their successes, their relationships and their secrets.
Growing up in town I’d overheard gossip, but hadn’t paid much attention to it. My world was focused on me, on my classmates, and on Mama and Gram.
What other grown-ups were doing wasn’t interesting to me. All I’d wanted was to survive—and get out of Maine.
Now, ten years later, I had a lot to catch up with.
Information Gram, who’d lived in town all her life, took for granted.
I pushed open the glass door to the office.
“Angie Curtis!” said Jed, who was sittin
g at one of the front desks. “Good to see you. I’m on the Chamber of Commerce with your—what should I call him? Your step-grandfather. He talks about you all the time.”
He did? “Good to see you, too, Jed,” I said, sitting in one of the two green-leather chairs opposite his desk.
“Heard you own the old Curtis home now,” he said. “Big old house for a young single lady like yourself. Lots of maintenance, too. If you ever want to sell it, get something smaller, you know where I am.”
“I do,” I agreed. “That maintenance is one reason I’m here today. Gram said you’ve been plowing our drive for years. Can I count on your doing that this coming winter?”
Jed made a note in a worn black notebook on the side of his desk. “Can do, Angie. I’ll make sure your house is on my list.”
“And two windows on the second floor are cracked.”
“My schedule’s full right now, but by early September I could get to those for you.” He hesitated a moment. “Unless life interferes, of course.”
“Gram told me your wife is ill. I’m sorry.”
Jed’s salesperson demeanor changed. “Thank you, Angie. Kind of you to think of her. Carole’s having a hard time right now. Having chemo in Portland once a week. Aggressive treatment, they call it.”
“That must be hard on both of you.”
“Harder on Carole, of course. But yeah.” He leaned toward me. “Watching her’s the hardest thing. Watching the medical bills climb isn’t easy, either.” He looked past me, out the window. “Carole and me, we’ve always been healthy. Never had any big medical problems until—wham!—now we do.”
“That must be hard.”
“Don’t want Carole to worry, of course. She has enough problems, dealing with the side effects of the chemo and thinking what will happen if the chemo doesn’t work. But driving her back and forth to Portland every Friday means I’m not here, or showing houses to potential buyers, or even doing the repairs folks hire me to do. Our income is going down, as her bills go up.”
“Rough.” How did families cope with illnesses like that?
“It is. The chemo takes a while, so some days I can race back to Haven Harbor to show a house or get paperwork done while she’s having a treatment, but of course it’s at least an hour each way.” He straightened up. “But you didn’t come here to hear my problems. Was it just about the plowing? Because that’s not a problem. I’ll make sure your drive is clear within an hour or two after the snow stops. Been doing it for Charlotte for years. Your place is on my usual snowplow route. And I’ll get your windows fixed before temperatures drop. Don’t you worry.”
“I won’t,” I assured him. “But I did want to ask you about something else. My friend Patrick West told me you’re working with his uncle, who’d like to buy in the area.”
“That’s true. Forgotten you were such a friend of the Wests,” said Jed. “Skye was kind enough to refer her brother-in-law to me.”
I leaned over and said quietly, confidentially, “I hadn’t planned to sell my home. But you know it. Do you think it’d be the sort of place he’d be looking for?”
Jed shook his head. “Sorry, Angie. If you do decide to sell I’ll do my best for you. But this guy wants to build his own place, to his own specs. Has his eye on an island—can you believe? Islands aren’t an easy sell, even when they’re close to shore. People from away think island living is romantic. They don’t think about boating to town for groceries, or needing propane for electricity, or getting fresh water . . . or even about the isolation, unless you’re living on an island like Islesboro or Monhegan or Swan or Peaks, where there’s a year-round population. The island Gerry Bentley’s set on is three miles out and unpopulated.” Jed looked out the window for a moment before he turned back to me. “I think we can get it for him. But if the deal falls through, that will be the end of it far’s I can tell. He’s made it clear he isn’t interested in anything in town.”
I ignored his comment about King’s Island being unpopulated. After all, as of right now, it was. Except for the great cormorants, of course. “You think he’ll get this island?”
“I do. And if so, it’ll be a good sale for me. But in the meantime there are a few complications. No property sale is simple, but this one’s more involved than most.”
I tried to look as though I was concentrating. Should have taken acting lessons during the short time I was at Arizona State. “You’re not talking about King’s Island, are you? That bird sanctuary where a strange hermit died this week?”
“That’s the one,” Jed agreed. “You keep your ears open, Angie!”
“I know the Wests.”
“Of course, of course. Yes—that’s the place. Seemed like an easy deal: Offer some guy who has nothing a decent price for an island. He can go somewhere and buy a little house, raise chickens, whatever. But then he goes and dies on us.”
Maybe Jed hadn’t heard Jesse’d been murdered.
“Rough on your sale, I assume. Having to probate the will and all that takes time.”
“Right you are, Angie. A couple of lawyers are checking it out now. Don’t know what will happen.” He leaned toward me. “But between us, I think money will tell. And if it does, my six percent will go a long way toward taking care of Carole and keeping our boys in college.”
I stood. “Good luck. To you, and to Carole.”
“And keep me in mind if you ever do decide to sell, Angie,” Jed said, standing. “And, if not, I’ll see you in September about those windows, and then after the first Haven Harbor snowfall.”
Chapter 39
“Blessed is he that considereth the poor. Psalm 41”
—Needlework sampler stitched in 1824 by Eliza Baynard at the “Valley Town Mission School, Cherokee Nation,” (now Cherokee County, North Carolina). Eliza was a Cherokee student at the school. This simple sampler was given to one of the school’s patrons, who lived in Baltimore, Maryland.
Didn’t sound to me as though Jed knew a lot about what was happening, although he was counting on selling King’s Island. Or he didn’t tell me all the details. He had said the sale “had complications.”
If Jed needed money for medical bills, of course he’d do whatever he could to facilitate the sale—and earn his percentage.
Before I headed home I walked to the town wharf. Happily, someone had cleaned Dave’s blood off the Sweet Life. I’d hoped to do that myself, but as Jed had put it, life interfered.
Tourists nibbling saltwater taffy or licking Round Top Ice Cream cones were walking along Water Street, carrying bags from Haven Harbor stores. I hoped some of them contained Mainely Needlepoint cushions. Maine T-shirts and sweatshirts were big sales items in Haven Harbor, along with lobster and starfish jewelry, books of Down East recipes, stuffed toy red lobsters (did they ever think that red lobsters were dead?) to take home to children or grandchildren, and perhaps a small painting or print of a moose or lobster boat. For Sarah’s sake, I hoped a few of those bags also included antiques.
Haven Harbor’s sky was a clear pale blue, with only a few cumulous clouds. The rippling sea below was gray. The tide was coming in; all the boats anchored in the harbor faced the mainland.
Once as a child I’d heard someone from away say, “Mainers always park their boats facing the same direction.”
Before I’d had a chance to comment, Mama’d clapped her hand over my mouth. “They don’t know,” she’d explained. “They don’t understand. They don’t know what we know.”
It was the first time I’d understood that growing up in a harbor town meant I’d absorbed a lot about tides and storms and boats and fishing . . . facts that were a part of my life. Facts that were fascinating to those for whom they were new phenomena.
Everywhere in the world people grew up with special knowledge. I’d built fairy houses in the woods and collected periwinkle and slipper shells on the beaches. I knew which gulls congregated near people and which didn’t. I knew sailboats had the right of way. I knew buoys were different
colors and why, and I could read their messages to boaters.
I’d taken for granted the smell of tidal flats at low tide and why old sneakers shouldn’t be discarded. (They should be saved to wear when swimming, so you didn’t cut your feet on rocks or barnacles or broken sea urchin shells.)
I’d known why cormorants stretched out their wings, and herons walked carefully in shallow waters.
Someone had once told me those things. Or maybe I’d absorbed them, like sunflowers absorbed sunlight. They were part of my world.
I ignored the feel of my vibrating phone and walked over to Pocket Cove Beach, between the wharves and Haven Harbor Light.
Not surprisingly, the beach was strewn with brightly colored blankets and towels. Mothers held toddlers’ hands as they braved the cold ocean water. Older children ran in and out of the low surf, screaming and giggling with delight as waves lapped their legs and bodies. A group of teenagers had strung a net across one corner of the beach and were playing volleyball. An old couple sat in matching red beach chairs, holding hands.
August.
I was enjoying the warmth of the sun on my head and arms, and feeling thankful for the normalcy of Haven Harbor, when a picture of Jesse’s body, lying cold and alone on the wet ground on King’s Island, flashed into my head.
Not everyone was enjoying this Maine day.
I turned and headed for home. I hadn’t seen Dave today. Had he heard when he’d be released from the hospital?
I checked my phone. Patrick had left me a message. Simon’s here for afternoon. We’re having a lobster bake. Come? Five o’clock.
I texted back: I’ll be there.
Patrick hadn’t forgotten I wanted to talk with Simon. Good.
A cloud covered the sun for a few moments. I could feel the difference in temperature on my shoulders and arms. The afternoon was disappearing. But I’d have time to stop and see Dave before I went to Aurora.
A lobster bake? Catered, I assumed. The Wests might have money, but they didn’t have a beach. You couldn’t have an authentic Maine lobster bake without a beach.