by Barbara Ross
“How do you know Quentin?”
It wasn’t the question she’d expected. “We’re old friends. I told you.”
Exactly the answer he had given. “When did you meet?”
“In New York, the summer after I finished my undergrad.”
“Did you work on his house?”
“His house here? I was a part of that team, though a junior one at the time. But that was a few years after I met him. Why are you asking about Quentin?”
Because I wanted to know why he felt obligated to her. Clearly she was more to him than an architect he was recommending to my mother. “Quentin said you were interviewed by the police again this morning.”
“It was awful. I’m afraid they think I killed Geoffrey. They won’t tell me what’s going on. Not even exactly how he died, or why his face looked like that.” She sat hunched over, arms tight across her chest. “Don’t they always suspect the girlfriend? Do you think I need a lawyer if they talk to me again?”
“I have a friend, a local criminal lawyer who’s been helpful to me. Quentin knows him too. I can give you his name and number if you like.”
“I didn’t do it, Julia. Whatever it was that was done to him. Do they even know?”
I thought back to my conversation with Flynn that morning. “Last I heard, they hadn’t determined exactly what killed him, but they believe it was something he ate or drank. Those tests will take a couple more days.” The waitress delivered our wine and hurried off. “I’m sorry, Wyatt. I know this is hard for you. How did you and Geoffrey meet?”
“When he decided to refit the Garbo at the boatyard here, he hired my firm to design the interiors. I was assigned to the job.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Eight months.”
I counted backward. October. “And your work assignment developed into a romance.”
“Not right away. We worked together closely. I’ve never had such a strong, shared vision with a client. We were effortlessly in sync. It moved me.”
The drawings she’d showed us of the refit of the Garbo were certainly beautiful, and harmonious, the product of a successful collaboration.
“How did you work together, logistically?”
“He was already in the Mediterranean. The typical pattern was we’d talk on the phone about what he wanted for each deck. I’d draw up plans and e-mail them to him. He’d come back with comments and changes. Occasionally, if we had to look at something together, we’d videoconference. We had a lovely working relationship.”
“And then it got more personal.”
“Yes, gradually it crossed that line. His e-mails to me were warm and friendly from the beginning. As time went on they became more personal.” She sighed. “He wrote the most beautiful things. He sent flowers and gifts to my office. We’d talk on the phone all night. It was so old-fashioned and romantic. Not like guys our age.”
“Did you ever meet Geoffrey in person? I mean before the Garbo came to Busman’s Harbor?”
“Yes, twice. We met once in the beginning of the design process, in Portofino, before our relationship changed, and once more toward the middle, in Capri. You can’t imagine settings more conducive to falling in love.” Wyatt sat up a little straighter and even managed a fleeting smile.
“When you met, did anything about him strike you as odd?”
“You mean that he was a billionaire who never left his yacht? Of course it was odd. I’m not an imbecile, Julia.” The mood in our little corner of the patio changed quickly. Color rose in her face and her voice took on the hard, dismissive edge I’d known so well at school. I braced for her to come after me with both barrels, but instead she slumped, the wind gone out of her. “I wish you had gotten to know him better. He was the most charming gentleman.”
“Geoffrey toured those places with you? Portofino, Capri?” I coaxed.
“No. He never left the Garbo. At Capri, we took the launch around the island at sunset. It was beautiful, but we never went ashore. He was worried about his security. And there were always the protesters.”
“He drew protesters everywhere? Even in Europe?”
“Europe had a banking crisis too,” she reminded me. “That’s why he wanted the Garbo to fit his taste so perfectly, because it was his home.”
Sounds more like a prison. “Had you talked about the future?” Had she intended to live aboard the redone yacht, roaming the earth, never disembarking? Couldn’t imagine a life like that. So glamorous on the outside, so hollow and disconnected on the inside.
Her face fell. “We hadn’t gotten as far as discussing the future. And now we never will. It feels like it was a dream. I woke up this morning wondering if it had ever happened—the boat, Capri, the murder. Today, when that Lieutenant Binder questioned me, I had to keep repeating in my head, ‘This is real. This is real. This is real.’” She broke down, sobbing noisily. I reached across the table and held her hand. I didn’t like her. I had never liked her. But nobody deserved this.
Wyatt may have thought the future was a long way off, but it seemed like Geoffrey had planned for it to arrive sooner. “Wyatt, were you expecting Geoffrey to propose to you last night?”
She sat up straight, pulling her hand away as she did. “You’re asking about the diamond you supposedly saw last night. The lieutenant asked me about it. I swear I didn’t see it and I didn’t expect it. I expected . . .” Wyatt took a deep breath. “I expected he wanted to sleep with me.”
Her shock seemed genuine. Unless she was an award-worthy actress, she’d had no idea Geoffrey was about to propose. And she hadn’t noticed the ring on the table.
* * *
I walked Wyatt back to her room. I offered to stay, but she said she wanted to be alone.
My stomach rumbled. I decided to grab a burger at Crowley’s. On the way, I passed Busman’s Harbor’s ugly, modern town-hall-police-station-firehouse. A familiar state police sedan sat in the parking lot. I walked through the door on the police side and approached the civilian dispatcher. “Lieutenant Binder in?” I cocked my head toward the closed door to the multipurpose room that the state police used when they were in town.
“I’ll check if he’s free.” She spoke into her headset, nodding as she did. “You can go in.”
Lieutenant Binder looked up from his laptop. Under his ski-slope nose, his mouth opened into a genuine grin. At least it felt genuine. “Julia Snowden. To what do I owe the honor? We don’t have an appointment, do we?”
“No, no appointment. Just a deep curiosity.” I sat in the folding chair on the other side of his folding table. He hadn’t asked me to, I just did. I hoped the act sent a signal I intended to stay, and had every right to be there.
If me sitting down bothered Binder, he didn’t show it. “Not much I can tell you, yet. We’ll be briefing the press on the results of the autopsy tomorrow.”
“But you have some preliminary results.”
“I do. And I don’t see any harm in telling you. Geoffrey Bower was poisoned by something he ingested. His stomach contents are still being analyzed, but most likely it was something he ate.” He paused, looking at me. “You don’t have to pretend to look surprised. I know Sergeant Flynn told you.”
Flynn was off the case, but the two of them were clearly communicating. “Was the ‘something he ate’ on that dining table at the time of his death?”
“We’re testing everything, as you might assume, but no. He’d been dead for several hours when Ms. Jayne found him at eight o’clock. Nothing from that meal was found in his stomach contents. The medical examiner doesn’t know exactly what the poison was, but from that awful look on his face, the thinking is it’s something that causes seizures. The perimortem bruising on his body supports that conclusion. He would have been a mess—on the floor, clothes disheveled, drooling or worse. It’s likely the entire scene you saw was staged after his death.”
“Who would do that? And why?” This was new information. If the scene was staged, an enormous amount
of work was put into the tableau.
Binder didn’t have to look in his notes to find the answer. “According to the forensic psychologist who consults with the department, the scene-setting shows regret, a desire to put things back as they were before the crime was committed. It means there was a deep connection between the killer and the victim.”
“And everyone from the crew had left before he died?” I asked.
Binder pulled something up on the laptop and scanned, squinting. “Allegedly.”
“Are there security cameras on the dock or on the Garbo?”
“No.”
“The hotel I get,” I said. “None of the hotels around here have security cameras. They’re small and informal, even Blount’s. But no cameras on a yacht that size with a full-time bodyguard on board? That seems odd.”
“Maybe. But as we know, Bower valued his privacy.” His cell phone vibrated on the desk. He picked it up, “Hang on a minute.” Turning back to me he said, “Excuse me I have to take this.”
I stood. “Of course, of course. Has Maria Consuelo turned up yet?”
He muted the phone with a flick of his thumb. “No sign of Ms. Lopez”
I hesitated. “And the diamond?”
“The diamond that Ms. Jayne didn’t see and Mr. Durand didn’t see? The diamond that only you saw?”
“Are. You. Looking for. It?” I said the words clearly and distinctly.
“Julia, I’ve had officers and crime scene techs swarming all over that boat all day. You see what an enormous job it is. That ship has more nooks and crannies than an English muffin.” He gave me one final stare. “We’ve put out the word to pawn shops from here to Boston. I’m taking it seriously. That’s all I can tell you. I really have to take this call.”
And with that, I was dismissed.
* * *
Chris was working the door when I arrived at Crowley’s. Though he mumbled hello and bent to give me a hug, he kept his eyes on the sidewalk. The Crowley’s building was an old harborside warehouse, the kind of place with high ceilings and rough wooden floors. The drinks were expensive and watered down. The locals avoided it, except for a small group of “family,” the spouses, boyfriends, and girlfriends of the employees, and of whichever band was playing that evening. I made my way to their usual table.
The band was on a break and there wasn’t a seat at the long table for me. When the chef’s husband started to get up, I put out my hand. “I’m here for a meal. I’ll grab a seat at the bar.”
“Don’t be silly, we’ll pull a chair over.” He retrieved one for me from a nearby table.
I ordered my burger—cheese, cooked onion, medium rare—and we caught up on the events of the winter and spring. It was a mixed crew, including several people I wouldn’t have normally been friends with, but sitting at that table had a cool, insider vibe, one I’d rarely experienced in my life, a vibe I reveled in.
It didn’t take long for the conversation to turn to the murder on the mega-yacht. The theories abounded, everything from suicide to the Russian mafia. “He was a billionaire who made money on the banking collapse. Of course he was a target,” someone said.
“It was the girlfriend,” the husband of the chef declared.
“Why do you say that?” I kept my tone conversational, not challenging.
“It’s always the girlfriend,” he answered.
“I don’t see how it benefits her,” I countered.
“Maybe he was terrible in bed,” someone offered.
“If that were a reason for murder, half the men at this table would be dead,” the bartender’s wife joked.
“What do you mean, half?” a girlfriend of one of the band members deadpanned. Everybody laughed.
“Maybe he was a jerk.”
Maybe he had been—though the man I’d met had seemed quirkily charming, neither an eccentric recluse nor a cartoonishly villainous financier. Quentin had asked me if I thought Wyatt was capable of murder. When my imagination allowed me to consider she might be, I didn’t think she was the type to murder a jerky boyfriend in a fit of anger. Besides, poison required premeditation. Staging a death scene required postmeditation. Geoffrey Bower’s murder hadn’t been a crime of passion.
The waitress delivered my burger and I dug in. Delicious and cooked to perfection. The best place to order bar food was in a bar.
“What about his chef, the Pelletier woman?” the bartender’s wife asked. “She was a suspect in a murder in town last fall.”
“She wasn’t guilty,” someone else pointed out. “She wasn’t even involved.”
“Yeah, but she’s been murder adjacent. Makes me wonder.”
With that remark, all eyes turned toward me. I was the most murder-adjacent person at the table by a wide margin. “What do you think, Julia?”
“I know Wyatt Jane and Genevieve Pelletier. I can’t picture either of them committing murder.”
The band members slowly got up from the table and returned to the slightly raised platform that served as a stage. Once gathered, they started up a raucous number. Couples rose to dance. From across the room, Emmy Bailey spotted me and waved with her free hand. The other held a tray filled with beer bottles. I waved back.
“What do you know about the new waitress?” I shouted over the music.
“I hear she’s nice,” the bartender’s wife said. “A hard worker.”
“I think she has a kid,” the chef’s husband added.
“Two,” I shouted back. “The ten-year-old is a friend of my niece.” I wondered who was caring for Vanessa while Emmy worked tonight. My mom or my sister was my guess. “Do you know where they’re from?”
“Moved here this winter from Phippsburg,” the woman on my right answered. “I think Emmy grew up in Bath, but there’s a local connection. Her grandparents lived out on Thistle Island. Her grandma’s still there. That’s why Emmy moved here.”
A town connection, especially a long established one, elevated one’s standing with the locals. It was working to Emmy’s benefit with this crowd.
“What’s with the interest?” the chef’s husband asked. “Chris was over here earlier tonight asking the exact same questions.”
That shut me up. I pushed my plate away, half the burger still on it, and scanned the room. Chris was at his usual station by the door. Why had he been asking about Emmy?
As I watched, Quentin came in, shook Chris’s hand, and leaned in to ask him something. Chris nodded yes and pointed in my direction. It was only then that I thought to check my phone, which was in my tote bag, hanging on the back of my chair. But there were no recent texts or calls. Whatever Quentin wanted, it couldn’t be too urgent if he’d come looking for me instead of calling. I said my good-byes and left money on the table to cover my meal.
“Take a walk?” Quentin asked.
“Sure.” I turned to ask Chris if he planned to sleep at the apartment, but he’d moved rapidly toward the dance floor where a drunk young man stood, screaming obscenities at his equally drunk partner. I followed Quentin out the door.
“Wyatt told me you talked to her.” Quentin was beside me as we walked toward my apartment. His step was jaunty, his arms swung loosely at his sides. “Does this mean you’re going to help?”
I didn’t answer the question directly. “I’ve spoken to Tom Flynn, Lieutenant Binder, Genevieve Pelletier, and Wyatt. I’m interested in following this case. I’ll pass anything I hear that’s of value along to you and to Wyatt.”
Quentin nodded. “I hear you. I can’t ask for more.”
“I don’t think you have much to worry about,” I assured him. “Why would Wyatt kill her super-rich boyfriend? What’s her motive? Unless the police have something we don’t know about, they’ll move on from her soon.” I stopped on the sidewalk, turning to face him. “Normally, anything that included the police, reporters, and crime would have you running in the other direction.”
“I do value my privacy.”
“So what’s different about this sit
uation? Why are you running toward it?”
He started off again. I did a quickstep to stay by his side. “I’m not running toward it.” His voice was forceful in denial. “But I care about Wyatt.”
“Why do you care so much about Wyatt?”
“I’ve told you. She’s an old friend. You would do the same for a friend. Have done, in fact.”
I stopped again. “You don’t have friends.”
He took a step back. “That’s mean. I thought we were friends.”
We’d been over this ground before. The asymmetrical nature of our relationship. Where he knew everything about my family and me and was comfortable commenting about it. Where I knew next to nothing about him. We’d left it hanging the previous fall when he’d taken off for warmer climates. Here we were again. He looked startled and a little hurt. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I didn’t want to offer any reassurances either. I wanted him to tell me the truth.
Chapter 15
I awoke the next morning, alone in my bed. There was a text from Chris. SLEEPING ON THE DARK LADY. It had come in long after I’d gone to sleep, after Crowley’s closing time, after he’d driven the last drunk home in the cab he owned, his third job. I lay for a moment in my cozy bed, nostalgic for the winter, when we’d run the restaurant and lived together every day.
From downstairs came the sounds of chattering and cooking for the early crowd at Gus’s. There would be a lull, then the post-church crew would arrive. Though I wouldn’t have believed it if someone had told me a year ago, I loved living in a place with rhythms and seasons I knew so well.
I pushed the sheet and summer blanket aside and put my feet on the floor. Outside the big window, the sky was gray and streaks of water ran down the glass. A rainy day, as expected. Tourists from New England and New York would probably head home early, depriving the local restaurants of lunch trade, the minigolf courses and boat tours of customers. I felt lucky we were unaffected, our opening still a few days away. Captain George, the pilot of our tour boat, planned a shakedown cruise for the afternoon. He’d already trained his crew, mostly new hires, in how to work the lines, work behind the snack bar, and keep the guests safe. Today he’d take them to the island and back. It would burn a lot of fuel with no return, but seeing how they performed underway, and doing any last-minute training, would be invaluable. I hoped to join the boat when it sailed at noon.