by Lea Wait
Dave’s eyes filled. “That’s what we wanted, wasn’t it?”
“Exactly. And Anna and Gram and Ruth and I talked to the Audubon people. We’ve decided—assuming you agree—to continue our plans for the Save the Cormorants campaign. All the money made will go toward maintaining King’s Island, or other safe seabird nesting areas in Maine. Sarah’s already working on the first pillows, and the Audubon people said they’d contact a local company about printing the logo on T-shirts, sweatshirts, tote bags, and hats. Ted Lawrence’s cormorant is going to be all over Maine within six months.”
“And Jesse won’t be forgotten,” said Dave softly. “His death will help ensure the future of the birds he loved. He would love that.”
“So do I,” I agreed, putting my hand on Dave’s shoulder. “So do I.”
Gram’s Maple Raisin Oatmeal Cookies
1 stick + 6 tablespoons softened butter
¾ cup brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
2 eggs
1½ teaspoons vanilla
¼ cup pure maple syrup
1½ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1¼ teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
3 cups uncooked oatmeal
1½ cups raisins
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Beat butter and sugars in electric mixer until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla and maple syrup and beat well. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt; add to creamed mixture and mix. Stir in oats and raisins.
Drop dough onto ungreased cookie sheets and bake until light brown (about 10 minutes, depending on your oven). Cool on cookie sheets for two to three minutes, then put on wire racks to cool. Store tightly covered.
Note: Cookies are soft and slightly sticky; best to separate layers in cookie tin with waxed paper so cookies don’t stick to each other.
Recipe makes about four dozen cookies and doubles well.
Acknowledgments
With thanks to . . .
My wonderful agent, John Talbot, and editor, John Scognamiglio, who made the Mainely Needlepoint series possible.
To my wonderful copyeditor, Gary Sunshine, who found my foolish errors and corrected them.
My husband, Bob Thomas, whose love and faith in me makes all things possible. And who cooks while I write!
My sister Nancy Cantwell, who this time around was my first reader under extraordinary circumstances.
The real Sarah Byrne, of Australia, who won a “character naming” at a Bouchercon auction, and Pax and Beatrix Henry, whose grandmother won “naming rights” at a benefit for the Wiscasset Library.
To Janet Buck, who generously shared her great-great-grandmother’s sampler with me. I cited it at the beginning of chapter twenty-nine.
My fellow Maine Crime Writers (www.mainecrimewriters.com), with whom I share a blog, a state, a profession, and, most of all, a friendship.
Henry Lyons, who keeps my Web site (www.leawait.com) up-to-date.
All my Facebook and Goodreads friends, who read my books, write reviews, tell their friends, and whose enthusiasm keeps me writing, even on dark days. I invite all my readers to check my Web site (www.leawait.com) for questions for reading groups and links to free prequels for some of my books. And please, friend me on Facebook and Goodreads to keep up-to-date on my writing—and reading.
Books by Lea Wait
Mainely Needlepoint Mysteries
1 – Twisted Threads
2 – Threads of Evidence
3 – Thread and Gone
4 – Dangling by a Thread
5 – Tightening the Threads (coming in April 2017)
Shadows Antique Print Mysteries
1 – Shadows at the Fair
2 – Shadows on the Coast of Maine
3 – Shadows on the Ivy
4 – Shadows at the Spring Show
5 – Shadows of a Down East Summer
6 – Shadows on a Cape Cod Wedding
7 – Shadows on a Maine Christmas
8 – Shadows on a Morning in Maine
Historical Novels for ages eight and up
Stopping to Home
Seaward Born
Wintering Well
Finest Kind
Uncertain Glory
Nonfiction
Living and Writing on the Coast of Maine
In the coastal town of Haven Harbor, blood runs
thicker than water—and just as freely . . .
Antique dealer Sarah Byrne has never unspooled
the truth about her past to anyone—
not even friend and fellow Mainely Needlepointer
Angie Curtis. But the enigmatic Aussie finally
has the one thing she’s searched for
all her life—family. And now she and long-lost
uncle, Ted Lawrence, a wealthy old artist and
gallery owner in town, are ready to reveal their
secret connection . . .
Ted’s adult children are suspicious of their
newfound aunt Sarah—especially after Ted, in
declining health, announces plans to leave her his
museum-worthy heirloom paintings. So when Ted
is poisoned to death during a lobster bake,
everyone assumes she’s guilty. If Sarah and Angie
can’t track down the real murderer in time,
Sarah’s bound to learn how delicate—and
deadly—family dynamics can truly be . . .
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of
Lea Wait’s next
Mainely Needlepoint Mystery
TIGHTENING THE THREADS
coming soon wherever print and e-books are sold!
Chapter 1
“Jesus permit thy gracious name to stand.
As the first efforts of an infant’s hand
And while her fingers o’er this canvas move
Engage her tender heart to seek thy love.”
—“Wrought” by Lucy Ann Babcock, age eleven, in 1831. Lucy lived in Augusta, Maine. Her sampler is now in the Maine State Museum.
Haven Harbor’s streets and yards were littered with green leaves that had fallen too soon.
During the ten years I’d lived in the almost perpetually neutral shades of Arizona I’d missed seeing Maine hills glowing with gold and scarlet and orange in late September.
But the only bright color in Haven Harbor this late afternoon was a blood-red Sumac bush near the patisserie. I paused, admiring its brilliance. Was it poison sumac? I should ask Dave Percy. He was the Mainely Needlepointer who knew poisons. Poison or not, it was gorgeous.
And right now Dave was busy, teaching at the high school during the day and resting his leg at home in the evening. Arrow wounds don’t heal quickly
Besides, I was looking forward to a “girls’ night.” Just Sarah Bryne and me and a little needlepointing. She was an expert. I wasn’t, but I was learning
I stepped around puddles and cracks in the uneven pavement. (“Step on a crack! Break your mother’s back!”) Memories of skipping rope and drawing patterns for hopscotch on these pavements took me back twenty years, to serious competitions between friends for neighborhood rope competition bragging rights. I’d practiced hours in my driveway, determined to be the best. In private, I hardly ever missed. In public, I’d been good—but never the best. Never the prettiest. Never the smartest.
After a while I’d given up trying.
I hadn’t skipped rope since sixth grade. Now I was twenty-seven. All grownup. Or so I kept telling myself.
I had no desire to relive my childhood, although, like now, memories haunted me.
Sarah’s apartment on Main Street above her antiques store wasn’t far from my home. She’d promised home-made pizza and time to talk. My contribution was a cold six-pack of Sam Adams. We hadn’t had a quiet evening together in weeks. Summers in Maine were busy.
Twilight shaded the harbor as I knocked on Sarah’s door.
>
“Come on in!” she called.
I opened her door and caught my breath. “Where did that come from?” I blurted, as I handed Sarah the six-pack. I stared at her wall.
“It was a gift,” she said quietly, putting the beer in her refrigerator.
The painting was immense—or seemed so in Sarah’s small apartment. The canvas was four or five feet long and maybe four feet high. I don’t know much about art, but this seascape of pounding surf below the lighthouse standing guard over our harbor was special. I moved closer, drawn to the scene. An unexpected spot of red, a lobsterman’s buoy, was barely visible, caught in the waves.
“When? Who?” I asked. “It’s amazing.” I looked around. “And how did you get it up the stairs and into the apartment?”
Sarah laughed. The streaks of blue and pink in her white hair glinted in the overhead spotlight focused on the painting.
“Practical Angie! You’re right. Getting it in here wasn’t easy. Jeremy Quill and Patrick West helped me. Jeremy installed the spot, too. Said no painting should be hung without proper lighting.” She grinned, and added lines from an Emily Dickinson poem. “Edifice of Ocean Thy tumultuous Rooms Suit me at a venture Better than the Tombs.” Sarah might be Australian, but she was also a big Emily fan.
Poetry wasn’t my thing. “Who’s Jeremy Quill?” I asked. I knew Patrick West; the artist son of actress Skye West. The guy I was—sort of—dating. “And how did Patrick get involved?”
“Jeremy works for Ted Lawrence, over at the gallery. Has for years. Patrick’s working there now, too.”
Why hadn’t Patrick told me he’d taken a job?
Sarah saw my expression. “Patrick’s only been at the gallery since Labor Day. Ted suggested it would be good for him to get out of his house a couple of days a week and work with art, since his burned hands aren’t ready to paint yet. He’s helping out Fridays and Saturdays, when they’re busiest.”
I’d met Ted Lawrence. Tall, elegant, owner of a high-end art gallery down the street here in Haven Harbor, and another at his home outside of town. I’d heard about the prices of his art and been too intimidated to venture into the gallery. Sarah had become friends with him over the past months. He was more than twice her age, and she’d sworn it wasn’t a romantic relationship, but she’d been spending a lot of time with him, at the gallery and at his home. I figured sometime she’d explain. So far she hadn’t.
“It’s spectacular,” I said, turning to face the painting. “Mesmerizing. I can almost smell the sea, and feel the winds. Did Ted paint it?”
Sarah hesitated. “No. His father did. Robert Lawrence.”
That stopped me. Even I’d heard about Robert Lawrence. The Robert Lawrence. One of the finest painters of the twentieth century. People came to Haven Harbor just to see where he’d lived. His work was in collections and museums all over the United States. Maybe the world.
“I love it,” Sarah continued, looking at the painting. “It’s too big for my apartment, but maybe someday I’ll have a better space for it. In the meantime I’ll admire it up close.”
“But a Robert Lawrence—it must be worth thousands!” I looked from Sarah to the painting and back again.
“Hundreds of thousands,” she said softly. “Or maybe millions. His work has been going high in auctions recently.”
I sank into Sarah’s flowered couch as she handed me a beer. Her apartment was furnished comfortably with second-hand furniture she’d bought at Maine auctions while she was looking for antiques for her shop, “From Here and There.” The Lawrence painting was from a totally different world.
“It was a gift?” I asked again, incredulously.
“From Ted. He gave it to me a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been dying to show it to you, but we’ve both been so busy.”
“He gave you a painting that might be worth a million dollars?” Ted Lawrence was an artist himself. I could have understood his giving one of his own paintings to a friend. But this one? “Why?”
“Because I liked it,” said Sarah.
“Just because you liked it?” I said incredulously.
“And because Robert Lawrence was my grandfather.”
Chapter 2
“Honor blest the Maid whom circling years improve
Her God the object of her warmest love
Whose useful hours successive as they glide
The book, the needle and the pen divide.”
—Worked in 1805 by Ruth Sewall, age eight, in York, Maine, in silk thread over linen. Ruth was the youngest of six sisters. Her mother died the year she completed this work. When Ruth was nineteen she married Captain Brown Thornton of Saco, Maine, who was forty-seven. After he died she married Dr. Jeremiah Putnam of York; they had two children.
“Robert Lawrence was your grandfather? Haven Harbor’s Robert Lawrence?” I couldn’t get my head around my Australian friend now claiming Maine roots.
She nodded, flushing.
“But . . . how?” And then I realized, “Then Ted Lawrence is your—uncle?”
“Yes.”
I started laughing. “If you knew how many people in town wondered about your relationship; about why you two’ve been spending so much time together. Everyone’s assumed you two were . . . an item.”
Sarah smiled self-consciously and looked down. “We are, I guess. Just not the sort of item people imagined.”
“Why haven’t you told anyone? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m telling you now,” she said, looking straight at me. “I’ll tell you everything. But you have to keep it a secret. Don’t even tell Charlotte.”
Not tell my own grandmother? “Why is it a secret?”
“Because Ted hasn’t told his children yet. They should know first.”
My mind was still confused. “How can Ted Lawrence be your uncle?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Then put that pizza in the oven, and start talking, Sarah.”
She grinned. “Will do.”
I followed her to the small kitchen connected to her living room, glancing every few minutes at the painting that dominated the space. “I’ve always wondered how you happened to end up here in Maine.”
Sarah sprinkled her dough with several cheeses and seasonings and added artichoke hearts, black olives, sliced scallions, and crumbled bacon. “These toppings okay?” she asked.
“Better than fine,” I said, peeking over her shoulder at the pizza-in-progress. “Of course, we’re going to die because of that bacon.”
“Then we’ll die happy,” she pronounced. “I have enough dough for another pie if we finish this one. The second will be cheeses and wild mushrooms.” She slid the pizza into her oven and opened a beer for herself. “About fifteen minutes, I’d say. Let’s sit.”
I’d seen spectacular sunsets from Sarah’s windows on other evenings. But today’s gray day had turned to night. The only bright colors I could see were in the Robert Lawrence painting. “So, talk.”
She settled into the blue-cushioned armchair across from me and sipped her beer. “You knew your mother. You have your grandmother. Your Haven Harbor roots are deep. Roots that can hold you strong when storms hit. That’s what I’ve longed for all my life. Roots.”
I let her talk.
“I’ve heard you, and others here in Maine, talk about your families in terms of generations. I grew up knowing almost nothing about anyone related to me, at least on my father’s side.”
“You didn’t ask him?”
“He didn’t know anything about his family. The not knowing haunted him.” Sarah took another sip.
“He must have at least known who his parents were,” I pointed out. Although, I immediately thought, I didn’t know who my father was. I didn’t even know if my mother had known who he was. Without thinking, I reached up and touched the gold angel I wore on a chain around my neck. The angel Mama had bought me for my first communion. The last gift she’d given me.
Sarah got up to check the oven. “I
told you, it’s a long story.” She sliced the pizza and put it on a platter on the low table between us.
For a few minutes we ate in silence. Then I picked up the needlepoint canvas of a Great Cormorant I’d been working.
She began again. “My father was born in the UK. He thought probably he was from England, not Scotland or Ireland or Wales, because older people teased him and the others about their accents.”
“‘The others?’”
“When he was about seven—he didn’t know his exact age—he and dozens of other children were put on a ship and sent to Australia.”
“‘Sent’? By whom?”
Sarah put up her hand. “Just listen. My father didn’t live long enough to tell me his story. But he told my mother’s mum, and she told me, when I was old enough to understand. The children were told they were orphans. That there was no place for them in the UK, so they were being sent to a place where they’d be welcome; where it would be warm; where they’d go to school and have loving new families.” Sarah paused to put down her beer. “It was a lie from the start. No adults paid attention to them, even on the ship. They took care of themselves. When they arrived in Australia they were divided into groups. My dad went with several other boys to a place in West Australia run by an order of monks. Grandmum said whenever he told that part of the story his voice hardened. There was no school there, and no love. The boys, those who came before him, and his group, and others later, were forced to build a monastery, stone by stone. They were flogged and abused in despicable ways, and never had enough to eat.” She paused, staring at the painting. “Some died.”