Stowed Away

by Barbara Ross

  “Phippsburg. My ex worked there. We had a little house.”

  “Vanessa mentioned the house.” She hadn’t mentioned the dad.

  “She misses it. It’s hard for her to understand. My husband lost his job, couldn’t find another. He really tried. I give him that. I had to quit my job because of this guy.” She jostled baby Luther on her knee, as if to say there were no hard feelings. “We fell behind on the mortgage. The bank foreclosed, we had to move, and Art, my husband, he—he fell apart.” She smiled, but a brave smile, not a happy one. “My grandma had this trailer on her property. My dad lived here after my parents separated. Dad got a job down in Bath and he and his second wife moved out last fall.” She looked around the property with satisfaction. “We got really, really lucky.” It was hard to see it as luck, but she did. People did what they had to.

  “Does Vanessa see her dad?” I asked.

  “Art isn’t Nessa’s dad, but she lived with him for more than half her life. They love each other. He’s in Portland now. He’s got a part-time gig and an apartment. It’s expensive down there. He has roommates, but he’s hoping the job will turn into something, then he’ll take Vanessa some when he takes Luther.”

  I’d finished my beer while she talked. Emmy took a last pull. “Want another?”

  I pointed at the Caprice. “Better not. I’m driving and I have someplace else I need to go tonight before I head home. Thanks for the offer, though. I’m new in town myself. Came back last year after sixteen years away.”

  “A familiar story.”

  Not quite the same one, thank goodness. I’d been overwhelmed last year with the responsibility of a family business teetering on the brink of insolvency, but it was nothing like the personal upheaval Emmy had been through. “If you need a hand once my sister and her family move out to Morrow Island, give me a call. I can’t guarantee I’ll be around once the clambake season starts, but I’m in town a lot of nights waiting for Chris to finish work at Crowley’s.”

  Emmy’s eyes flickered with recognition, and something else I couldn’t read. “He’s a good guy.”

  “Yes,” I said. “He is.”

  * * *

  It was fully dark as I sped down lonely Westclaw Point Road toward Quentin’s house. When I turned into his drive, my high beams illuminated the glare of the shiny granite building looming against the night sky like it had been thrust out of the rocks. The absence of lights shining from inside didn’t mean Quentin wasn’t home. Most of the windows and all of the living space were on the other side of the house, facing the water and Morrow Island. Quentin’s station wagon was parked on the sandy track that served as his driveway.

  I hoped the sound of my car would alert him to my arrival, so that he’d turn on the outdoor lights or even come out to greet me, but he didn’t. When I switched off my headlights, blackness enveloped the car. I felt my way to the walk and up the steps to his deck.

  By the time I made it halfway to the water side of the house, I saw the glow of indoor lighting from the giant windows that faced his deck and heard the sounds of a television. Quentin was home on a Sunday evening watching PBS, like millions of other people. I shook my shoulders to push away the tension, put a smile on my face, and knocked on the glass door. At the sound, Quentin’s head snapped up, his features etched with surprise. But when he recognized me, his face relaxed into a grin.

  “Julia,” he said as he opened the door. “You gave me a start.”

  “People who live in glass houses—” I started.

  “Shouldn’t pick their noses while watching television,” he chimed in, though he’d been doing nothing of the sort. “Come in.”

  He used the remote to turn off the TV. “Sit,” he said. “Wine?”

  “Not after my drive out on Westclaw Point Road. Water, maybe.”

  “Coming up.” He slid behind us into the open kitchen. I heard the whir and clunk of the ice machine. “Not an impromptu social call, I take it?” He handed me a tall glass and sat opposite.

  “Not entirely,” I admitted. “Why didn’t you tell me you were Wyatt’s alibi for the afternoon Geoffrey was murdered?”

  “Alibi?” His eyebrows shot up. “We’re not to that point, surely.”

  “We may be past that point. Lieutenant Binder believes two people committed the murder. It would have been difficult for a single person to have moved, dressed, and staged Geoffrey’s corpse. So Binder’s looking at the pairs of people who alibied one another that day. Emil and Marius, Doug and Ian, Genevieve and Flynn, you and Wyatt. What did you two do that afternoon?”

  Quentin sat back, startled. “Are you honestly asking if Wyatt and I killed Geoffrey Bower?”

  I took a sip of the water, thinking about how to form my vague worries into words. “No. I’m asking if you’re providing Wyatt with an alibi when she has none.”

  He put his glass on the coffee table with more force than necessary. “Absolutely not. I was with her all day.”

  “Where were you?”

  His gaze shifted from side to side, anywhere but at me. “I picked her up at the boat at eleven thirty. We were here all day. Or maybe we went to town. I drove her over to Blount’s a little before eight. It was an unremarkable day, until Wyatt found Geoffrey.”

  “Is that how you answered Binder?” My voice rose. “You may have gone to town? You’re lucky you haven’t been charged with murder already.”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  I exhaled. Getting upset wouldn’t help things. “I am. For effect. I know you weren’t here all day. I looked over from Morrow Island at around two and your car wasn’t here. Where did you go?”

  He let out an exasperated sigh. “All right. All right. I took Wyatt to visit my parents. It’s easily verifiable.”

  To visit his parents? I didn’t believe him. “Is that what you told Binder?”

  “Yes. Because it’s true.”

  “You have parents nearby?” I was stunned. “You never talk about your family,” I said. “You never say anything like, ‘I’m off to visit my mom,’ or ‘Had a barbecue with my sister’s family.’ Do you even have a sister?”

  “Julia, you’re like a toddler who doesn’t understand object permanence. Even when you can’t see people, they still exist. They’re off living their own lives.”

  “Very funny.” I wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily. “But not an answer.”

  He raised a sandy eyebrow. “Long habits of a private person.”

  I wasn’t placated. “It’s called sharing your life. You do it with your friends. You certainly know everything there is to know about my family.”

  “You’re right. I value our friendship. I’ll do better. Yes, I have a sister, and a brother too. Both living here in town, married with kids. My mother was a lawyer. She’s retired. My dad owned, still owns, the Busman’s Harbor Gazette, though my brother-in-law runs it now.”

  I’d known his family was local in the sense that there were Tuppers all over the peninsula. I hadn’t known he had close family right in town. I’d passed his mother’s former law offices, which occupied the second story of Gordon’s Jewelry, nearly every day. The name TUPPER AND TUPPER was stenciled in gold on the window. Like everyone in Busman’s Harbor, I read the Gazette every week. During tourist season I turned first to our print ad to make sure the placement was good, before going to the police report to find out what was up with my fellow citizens. I knew Tuppers owned it, but there were so many Tuppers in town, the branches spread out like octopus tentacles, I’d never taken the time to properly place Quentin, and he certainly hadn’t seemed eager for me to do so.

  “Why would you take Wyatt to visit your parents?” I asked.

  “Because they became friendly when she and I dated, and she wanted to see them.”

  “When you dated?” I tried to disguise my surprise. I was sure Quentin was gay.

  “I told you she worked on this house, and that’s true. But really, I hired her firm because I knew her. She’d spent
a year in New York between college and architecture school. She was the last woman I dated”—he paused as the seconds ticked by—“before I came out to my family.”

  “We’ve never had this conversation.”

  “I didn’t think we needed to.” He paused again, and then went on. “Wyatt was perfect. Ten years younger than me, naive, inexperienced. Undemanding. She was my unwitting beard. But when I broke up with her, she was stunned. And hurt. I made a real mess of it and I felt terrible. It was the final push to me coming out. Since then, I’ve tried to keep tabs on her, send business her way when I could.” He stopped, realizing what he’d said. “Not that that’s what I’m doing with your mother. Wyatt will be perfect for Windsholme.”

  I wasn’t the least surprised Quentin was gay, but the sophisticated Wyatt I knew—naive? Was it possible? What seemed sophisticated to me, as a ninth-grader, probably wasn’t real. But inexperienced, even after college? Also possible. I had no idea what path her life had taken after we parted company at the age of eighteen. One thing Quentin’s story did prove: Wyatt had at least one previous relationship with a wealthy, older man in which sex was nonexistent, or at least not an important feature. Perhaps she had a type.

  Quentin sat forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “As long as we’re here truth-telling, it’s time for you to tell me. Why are you so negative about Wyatt?”

  I thought about my reasons, and how I should explain them. “It’s complicated, and happened long ago, but the bottom line is, I don’t trust her.”

  Quentin rose and collected our water glasses, carrying them to the kitchen. He returned with a bottle of red wine and two elegant, stemmed glasses. “I don’t know if you’re ready for this, but I need it.” He poured each of us a glass. “I understand complicated, believe me.”

  So I told him. About Wyatt and Lainey, Amber, and Melissa and the luncheon we planned together for Ms. Davis.

  On the day of the luncheon, Wyatt had gone off to get dressed in Lainey’s room. She was borrowing a dress from her and it seemed like a convenience. The plan was to meet in the common room of our dorm, where a limo we had hired would whisk us, along with Ms. Davis, to the inn.

  I dressed with care, adding the single pearl drop necklace my parents had given me for middle school graduation to the plain blue dress. I counted my cash one last time, grabbed my coat, which was unfortunately a fluffy, maroon, down jacket, not the sophisticated wool coat a grown-up would wear, and anxiously headed downstairs. I was the first one to arrive.

  Melissa arrived next. She was dressed in a simple but gorgeous wrap dress that hung on her perfectly. She eyed me with suspicion and didn’t greet me. Was I inappropriately dressed? Self-conscious, but determined, I shrugged on the big down coat and zipped it closed. Amber came next and she and Melissa whispered together, glancing in my direction. Ms. Davis arrived through the front door. Melissa and Amber greeted her, and I went over to the little group to do the same.

  Wyatt and Lainey came down last, laughing so noisily we could hear them in the stairway before we could see them. Wyatt stopped short at the bottom of the stairs, then came forward to say hi to Ms. Davis.

  “Can I talk to you?” she whispered to me. “Over there?” She pointed to a far corner of the common room. I followed her over.

  “What are you doing here?” she hissed.

  For a moment, I truly was confused. “Going to lunch.” But before she said the words, I understood her meaning and my heart sank.

  “You’re not a part of this.”

  I fought to keep my face composed, but my eyes betrayed me. Tears sprang unbidden and rolled down my cheeks.

  Wyatt’s features softened. “I’m sorry, but we never invited you. The reservation is for five and that’s all the town car can take. Otherwise—” She let her words hang in the air, as if she might have included me even then, but the logistics were too tricky. The rest of the group stared at us, the girls scowling, Ms. Davis with a look of confusion, like she didn’t know what was going on, but knew it wasn’t good.

  Wyatt turned me around and gently shoved me toward the stairwell. “Our ride’s here,” she called brightly to the others.

  “A week later a girl in another dorm dropped out of school,” I told Quentin. “When I relayed my long, sad story to the housing officer, she felt so badly for me she decided I should have the girl’s single room, even though I was a freshman and there were others more deserving. I moved out. End of story.”

  Quentin’s face was solemn. He didn’t laugh at the hijinks of teenaged Mean Girls or at my heartbreak. “I understand what it’s like to be on the outside in high school. Did it ever get better for you?”

  “I did make some friends, not many, but good ones.” But mostly I studied hard, losing myself in my work. It became the habit of my lifetime, almost to the exclusion of everything else, until I’d moved back to Busman’s Harbor the year before.

  “And Wyatt?” Quentin asked. “Did she ever apologize?”

  “There were only three hundred students in our school. Wyatt was unavoidable, though we never spoke a single word outside class or clubs. Except at graduation when she threw her arms around me and wished me all the best. ‘My first roommate,’ she called me. I’ve wondered since, was she saying she was sorry, or had she completely forgotten about that terrible day because it meant so little to her?”

  * * *

  To my enormous relief, Chris’s truck was parked in Gus’s lot when I got back to the apartment. I was exhausted and emotionally strung out from my conversation with Quentin. The only person in the world I wanted to see was Chris.

  When I came up the stairs to the apartment, I was happy to find him awake, staring at a Red Sox game playing silently on our old television. He turned when he heard my footsteps. “Hey, beautiful.” And then a frown. “What’s the matter?”

  So I told him. I told it all, about Quentin and Wyatt, and about Wyatt and me. He listened without interrupting, his arm around me, snuggled on the couch.

  “So you see why I don’t trust her?” I pressed.

  “I see she hurt you.” His deep voice was soft. I felt the reassuring vibrations of his chest when he spoke. “But do you think she’s capable of murder?”

  “No, I don’t. I do think I know how and why the murder was committed. After I got back from Morrow Island, I spent the rest of my afternoon on that. It has to do with the Black Widow.” I explained about my theory, and my visit with Flynn to Mr. Gordon.

  Chris whistled. “It’s not a coincidence he bought the diamond and then came to town.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  He was quiet for a moment, then he smiled. “Is that it? I’m not sure I can take much more.”

  I exhaled, moved out of his arms, and faced him. “Yes, one other thing.”

  He reached for my hand. “What is it?”

  “I drove Vanessa home tonight.” Did he look uneasy, or was I seeing something that wasn’t there? “Have you noticed that child’s eyes?”

  “Yes,” he admitted, looking down at the seat cushion. “They’re exactly like my mother’s.”

  “Your mother’s?” It was strange that when he looked at Vanessa, he didn’t see himself. Or maybe it wasn’t. I wanted to shout, ‘How would I know? I’ve never met your mother!’ But instead I waited, barely breathing.

  It took several moments, but then he pushed the words out in a rush. “I think Vanessa is my brother’s daughter.”

  Brother? Is that what he said? “You don’t have a brother.”

  He looked up from the couch cushion, straight into my eyes. “I do. He’s ten years older.”

  “But you never mention him. You mention your parents, occasionally, when I push you, and your sister, once in a blue moon. You’ve never mentioned a brother. Does he live far away too? In Washington State, or Alaska?” The fourth corner of the country, as far away as possible from his parents in Florida, Chris in Maine and his sister in San Diego.

  “He lives,” Chris an
swered, “at the Maine State Prison at Warren.”

  We talked after that, or rather I fired questions at Chris while he paced around the studio apartment.

  I was stunned. Stunned Chris had a brother. Stunned his brother was in prison. It took me a minute to get my bearings. Chris waited silently while I took it all in. “Why is he in prison?” I asked.

  “Armed robbery.”

  “How much longer does he have to serve?”

  “Five more years, last I heard.”

  “Was anyone hurt in the robbery?”

  “No, thank God, not physically, but anything could have happened.”

  Chris had a brother. A brother he’d never mentioned. “How come you never told me?”

  He stopped walking to look at me. “It’s not something I’m proud of.”

  “It’s not nothing either. And it’s not like you were in prison. He’s your brother.”

  Chris lost his patience. “My family’s not like yours, Julia. My brother thought it was a good idea to take a sawed-off shotgun into a convenience store and demand all their money. It wasn’t a good idea, it turns out.”

  An awful thought flickered. “Has everyone but me known this all along?”

  He shrugged. “Sonny knows, I’m sure. He’s never said anything?”

  “Why didn’t he tell me?” It really wasn’t a question for Chris, whose sin of omission was the greater one.

  “I’m guessing he thought it wasn’t his to tell. Can we go to bed, please? I had a long day and I’ve got another one tomorrow.”

  I agreed, even though I knew I wouldn’t sleep. While Chris fell quickly into a deep slumber, I stared into the darkness, wide awake, mind reeling. Twice in the same evening, men I loved had revealed they’d held things back from me about their families. Did that say something about me, or something about the men I let into my life?

  I burned with questions. How, exactly, had Chris’s family been unhappy? My family wasn’t a barrel of laughs all the time either. My father had died too young. My mother had grieved long and hard. Livvie had gotten pregnant in high school. Sonny and I fought about the business. But none of it meant I would stay away from them. They were the best things in my life, along with Chris. The best thing, and the worst thing. Isn’t that what families were to most people?