by Barbara Ross
Quentin did ask him some technical questions and they chatted in low voices a few minutes, but perhaps eager not to talk about it, or perhaps, like a good host, sensing Chris’s attention drifting off, Geoffrey turned the conversation back to the Garbo.
The men discussed her length, speed, engine size, even the capacity of her hot water heater. I let the conversation wash over me, marveling, not for the first time, at the capacity of men to turn any interesting conversation into a long string of numbers.
Rick served the next course, which he announced as Tarragon Ricotta Gnocchi with Lobster Velouté. I took a bite, prepared for a dish too rich to enjoy, but the gnocchi was light, the taste of the lobster in the sauce definite, but delicate. Like the salad dressing, the velouté tasted familiar and I strained to remember when I’d eaten a similar dish. It was all so good, so perfectly cooked.
Rick cleared the small plates and reappeared with the main course. I thought I was too full, but the piece of cod, flavored with lemon and herbs, and the tiny asparagus seduced me.
The steward brought coffee and dessert, small dishes of strawberry granita. We all complimented the meal. Geoffrey looked gratified. “Rick, ask the chef to come up to receive our appreciation,” he instructed.
Rick nodded and disappeared. A few minutes later the service door opened and a young woman entered, wearing a double-breasted chef’s coat sporting the Garbo name, and a white toque covering her dark hair.
I jumped out of my seat and ran to embrace her. “Genevieve! What are you doing here?”
Chapter 5
The members of the Garbo’s crew sat crowded around the tiny table in their dining area, eating the same gnocchi course we guests had finished, though in larger servings. With Geoffrey’s permission, Genevieve had invited Chris, Quentin, and me to visit the galley. Wyatt had declined to come along: “I’ve seen it.”
Once we were down there, I was grateful. One more person would have made the tiny space impossible to maneuver. Getting to the galley required navigating a maze of steep stairways, appropriately called ladders on a ship, and narrow passages. I was impressed that Rick had moved the food from below to the service pantry, and then on into the dining room, so smoothly. On the Garbo, it was still a world of upstairs, downstairs.
Genevieve introduced the people at the table. Emil, the security guy, and Rick, the head steward, we’d already met. The tousled-haired mate who’d helped us aboard was an Australian named Ian. The others were Marius, the captain; Doug, the engineer; and Maria Consuelo, the junior stewardess. They stood in turn and shook our hands. Aside from Genevieve, Doug was the only American, not at all unusual for a yacht crew.
Doug sized up Chris and Quentin quickly. “Would you gentlemen like to see the big-boy toys and leave the ladies to visit?” He was a bantam rooster of a man, his dark hair slicked back, his skin pale, perhaps because his work was in the bowels of the ship, not on deck. He stood straight, with his chest puffed out.
Quentin and Chris nodded enthusiastically and left for a tour of the engine room and other internal workings of the yacht. The rest of the crew slowly cleared out of the dining area, stopping to clean off their dishes and stack them neatly in the galley sink before they went.
Genevieve fixed herself a plate of gnocchi and sat down at the table, motioning for me to sit next to her. It was after ten o’clock, but she wouldn’t eat until dinner service, both for the owner and the crew, was complete. No wonder the salad dressing and velouté tasted familiar. I’d eaten them before, prepared by Genevieve.
“Spill,” I commanded. “What are you doing here?”
Genevieve swallowed her food and blotted her lips with a cloth napkin. “After I closed my restaurant in Portland, I was lost for a while.”
Though only twenty-six, Genevieve had been a wunderkind seafood chef and part owner of a small chain of five seaside restaurants spread along the Maine coast. But she’d chosen the wrong business partner, and after he was murdered and no longer able to prop up the restaurants with constant infusions of cash, the business had collapsed. Genevieve had fought to hold on to her flagship Portland restaurant in that city’s competitive foodie scene, but during a snowy February, she explained, even that goal had become impossible.
I had met Genevieve when her business partner was murdered, strung up under my brother-in-law Sonny’s dad’s lobster boat in Busman’s Harbor. I’d tried, at the time, to throw her under the bus with the state police detectives investigating the case, if only to move their suspicions away from Sonny. It hadn’t worked, for a number of reasons, chief among them being she wasn’t guilty. And, as I found out later, because the detective sergeant on the case was falling in love with her.
“I’m sorry about your restaurant,” I said.
“Don’t be,” she said. “In some ways, I felt like I’d been liberated. I’ve had responsibilities for running kitchens since I was fifteen. A friend in the business told me about this amazing opportunity. I could spend the rest of the winter sailing around the Mediterranean on a mega-yacht cooking for the crew and a single man who never entertained. I’d often toyed with the idea of being a private chef and the promise of sunlight, travel.... I couldn’t resist. I flew to Sardinia, where I had a quick interview with Mr. Bower and was hired on the spot. I’d brought next to nothing with me. I had to buy clothes in every port. Luckily, I was wearing my chef’s whites most of the time.”
“Was it wonderful?” I’d spent my winter, an unusually harsh one, in Maine for the first time in sixteen years, and the idea of a yacht on the Côte d’Azur seemed like a dream.
Genevieve smiled. “It was. From Sardinia we sailed to Corsica, then Monte Carlo, Antibes, and Saint-Tropez. It was early, before the season began, so the ports weren’t crowded and it was chilly, but every stop was beautiful. Mr. Bower instructed me to buy local ingredients wherever we went. Cooking in a galley was an adjustment”—she gestured around the tiny space—“and cooking when the boat was underway was an adventure, but honestly, I loved it.”
“Tom couldn’t have been happy.” Sergeant Tom Flynn had been one of the investigators in Genevieve’s partner’s murder, though they hadn’t become a couple until after it was solved. He’d rearranged his life for her, moving to Portland as she tried to save her restaurant, and applying for a transfer so he could stay with her.
“He wasn’t, though he worked hard to hide it. The saving grace was knowing I’d be back in Maine this spring. Mr. Bower plans to stay in the area with a skeleton crew while the Garbo is refit. We’ll do a little cruising on the yacht he’s chartered, but we won’t leave the area until the fall. Tom’s coming up tomorrow morning. We’re staying at the Snuggles. You’ll have to come over and say hello.”
The Snuggles Inn was a bed-and-breakfast across the street from Mom’s house, run by the Snugg sisters, who were old family friends and honorary great aunts. I wasn’t sure Sergeant Flynn would want to devote any of his time with Genevieve to me. I’d been involved in a few of his homicide cases during the previous year, and he’d never been a fan of mine. Then we’d worked together on one case over Christmas while his boss was on vacation, and though that had gone a little better, I still wouldn’t have called us friends.
“What’s the crew like?” I asked.
“Like a family. We’re from every corner of the earth, but we work hard and have each other’s backs.”
She showed me around the galley, pointing out the gimbals on the marine stove’s legs, designed to keep it level as the ship moved, and the guards around the stovetop to keep pots from sloshing about. The sous-vide device she’d used to cook the cod still sat in its pot of water. I couldn’t imagine Genevieve putting out the haute cuisine meal we’d just consumed from the tiny space and told her so. “I never could have cooked the fish like that if we were underway,” she said.
“I don’t see how you do it.”
She laughed. “Are you kidding? I have it easy. Most yachts are loaded with guests all the time and many are rented
out as charters. More guests mean more parties and bigger crews. The Garbo has been a great place to learn and figure out what works, but honestly I wish it were livelier. Maybe it will be soon.”
“Why would it change?” I asked.
She ducked her head. “I was referring to Ms. Jayne. Maybe if her relationship with Mr. Bower progresses? Don’t say anything to her, but Geoffrey’s asked everyone to stay off the boat tomorrow night and asked me to prepare a cold supper for two—caviar, shrimp, asparagus, a lobster salad and chocolate strawberries, all with a big red lobster body as the centerpiece. He has a romantic evening planned.”
“How are your accommodations?” I asked.
“I share a tiny cabin with Maria Consuelo. She’s—”
“Young,” I supplied.
“Young, naive, inexperienced. This is her first job out of stew school. Rick hired her because he’s softhearted. And he doesn’t want to make beds and clean bathrooms, even though it’s only Mr. Bower and, for the past week, Ms. Jayne.”
“How long have Wyatt and Geoffrey been dating?” I couldn’t contain my curiosity any longer.
“Several months,” Genevieve answered. “But it’s mostly been long distance. I look at it this way. I have no housing costs. I’m saving nearly every penny of my generous salary. I’d like to have my own restaurant again someday. Financed by me, not by some terrible partner.”
“You’ll do it, Genevieve. I’m sure you will.”
But Genevieve wasn’t listening to me. Her head was tilted up as footsteps, lots of pounding footsteps, ran across the deck above us. “Oh, drat,” she said. “They’re here.”
* * *
Genevieve and I ran up the narrow stairways to the main deck.
“Who’s here?” I panted. “What’s happening?”
She didn’t take time to answer.
The rest of the crew, along with Chris and Quentin, was already there, hanging over the side, ogling the spectacle below. Under the marina’s lights a Blount’s bellboy and the desk clerk, along with a man in a suit who had to be the hotel manager, were engaged in a shouting match with four people down on the dock.
“What the—” Chris said.
Each of the four people held a handmade sign. OCCUPY BLOUNT’S, one of them said. STOP THE 1 PERCENT, and PEOPLE NOT PROFITS, said the others. There were three male protesters, whose faces I couldn’t make out. I did recognize the bent figure of Matilda Patterson, well-known local gadfly. Her sign, which was strung across the front of her walker, said, SCREW THE RICH. If the rumors were true, in her younger days, she had.
“We have the right to lawful assembly,” the guy holding the OCCUPY BLOUNT’S sign shouted. He was taller than the other two men and stood slightly in front of the group. It seemed like he was the leader.
“Again, this is private property,” the man in the suit said. “You must leave.”
“You don’t own the ocean, buddy,” one of the younger men yelled.
“Again, I point out, you are not in the ocean.” The manager was losing his patience. “You are standing on our dock, which is private property.” He put his hand to his brow and squinted up at the gang of us on the Garbo, then turned back to the protesters. “Leave immediately, or I’ll call the police.”
The leader shrugged. “Go ahead.”
Emil, the bodyguard, called down to the Blount’s employees. “I’m disembarking.”
But by the time Ian, the blond deckhand, had the gangway in place, the Blount’s manager was already on his cell phone. If Emil could get off the Garbo via the gangway, didn’t that mean the protesters could rush on? Though I had to admit, they didn’t look particularly ferocious, especially compared to the broad-shouldered Emil, with his visible jacket bulge.
Two Busman’s Harbor cops showed up about two minutes later, as speedy a response as I would have expected on a Thursday evening before the season was fully underway. There wasn’t that much for them to do. My friend, Jamie Dawes, and his partner, Pete Howland, probably represented the entirety of our on-duty police force. Jamie moved down the long wooden steps to the dock with nimble confidence. Pete, of the round gut, took a little longer.
“What seems to be the problem?” Jamie flashed his perfect teeth, friendly and engaging, meant to bring the temperature on the dock down.
“We have guests on the yacht who are being obstructed from disembarking.” Emil exaggerated. We hadn’t said our good-byes and the protesters had so far not prevented us from doing anything. But we did have to get off the ship at some point.
Jamie looked up at the faces hanging over the rail and spotted me. “Figures,” he said, loud enough for us all to hear. He turned to the protesters. “This dock is private property. The manager has asked you to leave. Move along and there won’t be any problems.” He and Howland stood on either side of the end of the gangway and spread their arms. “C’mon down,” Jamie called.
I looked at Chris, who nodded slightly, a “let’s get out of here” signal. I gave Genevieve a hug and murmured, “See you soon.” I was at the top of the gangway before I remembered I was barefoot. “Wait, I—”
Rick appeared with our shoes and cell phones. We put them on. I remembered I was still wearing the Garbo sweater and hastily pulled it off.
Chris, Quentin, and I went down the gangway. Emil stood at the bottom, arms folded, glowering. “Tell Geoffrey and Wyatt thank you for the lovely dinner,” I stammered. “I didn’t even—”
He cut me off. “I am sure they understand.”
We walked through the passageway created by the cops. Jamie barely suppressed his laughter. I made a face at him. The atmosphere, never as threatening as Emil had made it out to be, was by then practically jolly. It was hard to take Matilda and the sign on her walker seriously. I looked at the other three protesters as I went by. Up close, I recognized two of the men, local guys in their early twenties, probably more interested in beer than in Geoffrey Bower’s alleged financial shenanigans. The tall man was definitely a stranger. He was older than I expected, early forties and incredibly handsome, with a swoop of rich brown hair that came over his forehead. He was dressed in khakis and a madras shirt, with a cotton sweater draped over his shoulders, preppy style. Hardly the wild-eyed anarchist.
Chris, Quentin, and I continued up the steps to Blount’s big patio. I turned at the top to see the three male protesters midway up, with Matilda and her walker, assisted by Jamie, and trailed by Officer Howland, bringing up the rear. On the dock, Emil was having an emphatic and apparently unhappy conversation with the Blount’s employees. I couldn’t blame him. It must have taken a good bit of time for Matilda to get down to the dock in the first place, and the staff had all somehow missed her. It didn’t say much for Blount’s security. But then people, even very rich people, didn’t expect to be bothered in our little corner of the universe.
Chapter 6
“You’re awfully quiet.” Chris reached for my hand as we walked up Main Street. It was almost eleven o’clock. Quentin had hurried on ahead to pick up his car. After he retrieved it, he still had to make the long drive out to his house at the end of Westclaw Point.
As Chris and I came up the steep harbor hill, I expected Mom’s house to be dark. Instead it was lit up like a lantern—light glowing in every window. I walked a little faster, worried. What could this be about?
“I want to stop in at Mom’s.”
Chris nodded and picked up his pace to match my own. He’d noticed the lights too. The front door was, as always, unlocked, and as it swung open, I heard the unmistakable wails of a baby. “Mom!”
“In the kitchen.”
Mom stood in the center of her big, old-fashioned kitchen, jiggling my distraught nephew in her arms. Jack was four months old and so far had distinguished himself as the most easygoing baby any of us had ever met.
“What’s wrong?”
“Teething.” Mom used her free hand to take a teething ring out of the freezer and apply it to Jack’s gums.
“Can we h
elp?” I’d no sooner got the words out when there was a whoop, a boom, and a crash from upstairs. “What the heck?”
“Page,” Mom answered. “She has a friend sleeping over, though there hasn’t been any sleeping yet. Julia, can you go up and settle them? Chris, hold Jack. I’m going to fix him some milk and see if he’ll drop off.”
Mom handed Chris the baby as I made for the back stairs, and lo and behold, Jack’s hysterical cries subsided to a gurgling whine. “Wow,” Mom said to Chris. “I’m impressed.”
I found Page and her friend running up and down the hallway on the second floor. They were both in pajamas and giggling wildly.
“Whoa, whoa. What’s going on up here?” I used my sternest tone.
“Hi, Aunt Julia,” Page gasped out between giggles.
“Hi, Aunt Julia,” the friend mimicked.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
The girl looked at me with saucer-sized eyes that took my breath away. The irises were rimmed in a deep green. I knew only one other person with eyes that color. Chris. The girl opened her mouth, but didn’t seem to be able to answer me.
Those eyes momentarily stunned me. The unique color couldn’t be a coincidence, could it?
“She’s Vanessa!” Page shouted, bringing me back into the moment. “Vanessa-bessa, bo-bessa, banana, fanna, fo-fessa!” The two of them collapsed in a giggly heap. Vanessa had tawny brown hair, worn long and disheveled from the hijinks of the evening. She was tiny and thin. They made an odd pair. Page, with her wild red hair and broad swimmer’s shoulders, had inherited her parents’ height.
“Okay, okay, let’s settle down here. It’s way past bedtime and Grammy’s got enough on her hands with Jack.”
“He’s a baby,” Page observed, giggling hard. Hilarious.
“Into your room,” I commanded. “And beds.” I walked them back down the hall to the room my mother had decorated in pink and princesses for Page. When my dad had been dying six years earlier, my sister, Livvie, and a young Page spent so many nights at the house, Mom decided Page should have her own room.