Shadows of a Down East Summer
Page 24
“So you killed Carolyn?” asked Maggie.
“No! I wouldn’t hurt Carolyn! I did what I had to do. I went back to Mirage and told Betsy what Carolyn had said. I told her we’d better stop pushing the Winslow Homer connection, and maybe Carolyn would soft-pedal what she’d found out from her aunt.”
“Betsy must not have been very happy,” said Maggie.
“She was furious. She insisted I get the journal and destroy it, so there would be no proof.” Kevin hesitated. “You saw her when you came for tea. She sometimes drinks a little too much. That night she had. So I left her and went to bed. I thought she’d go to bed, too, and sleep it off.” He stopped again. “The next morning I heard the news about Carolyn.”
“You’re sure Carolyn was alive when you left her house?”
“Of course I’m sure! Carolyn was doing what she thought was right for her family. I was angry with her right then, I’ll admit. And disappointed. I’d hoped that journal would confirm the Winslow Homer connection to make Betsy happy, and help my dissertation. But I wouldn’t hurt Carolyn!”
“Do you think Betsy went to Carolyn’s house that night?”
“She was too drunk to get there. But Josh—Josh will do anything she wants, as long as she keeps his allowance going. I heard his car going out later that night.”
“Kevin, why did you ask me for the journal back there on the rocks?”
“I want to give it to Betsy, so she can destroy it, and all this craziness can stop! Carolyn Chase is dead, and I heard that old lady, Miss Brewer, was hurt. I don’t want anything else to happen,” said Kevin. “I don’t want anyone else to be hurt. I should never have accepted money from Betsy to write the dissertation she wanted. Now she’s angry with me, and at Josh. All she does is drink. Maybe if she had that journal she’d calm down and leave both of us alone.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” said Maggie. “You haven’t hurt anyone, right?”
“No.”
“You weren’t the one who broke into Miss Brewer’s home?”
“No! I don’t even know where she lives! I just met her at the library a couple of times!”
“And you’re sure you didn’t hurt Carolyn.”
“Of course I’m sure!”
Maggie took Kevin’s arm. “Let’s walk past Winslow Homer’s studio. It shouldn’t be too far from here, right? Then we’ll go back to Waymouth. You and I need to talk to the police.”
Chapter 40
New Regulation Uniform of the New York Police. Wood engraving from Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, 1854. Shows men dressed as captain, chief, reserve corps, lieutenant, and private. The uniform is a navy blue double-breasted frock coat, with a skirt extending two-thirds of the way from the top of the hip to the knee with a collar of black velvet, a navy blue cloth cap, and a gold shield or star on the left breast. Police forces were still new in 1854, and an accompanying article suggests that every city should adopt the idea of a uniform. 5.25 x 7.25 inches. Price: $50.
Maggie sat on the couch in Betsy Thompson’s living room, her legs crossed, and a determined smile on her face. “Betsy, I understand you’ve been looking for the 1890 journal Anna May Pratt wrote. I have it.”
“Yes. I want it,” said Betsy. Her eyes almost glittered, like a cat’s in the darkness.
“Susan Newall and Carolyn left it to me, so it’s mine to do with as I please. I know it’s worth a lot. To more than one person,” said Maggie. She reached into her red bag and pulled out the old journal.
Betsy moved toward her on the couch.
Maggie got up, walked into the center of the room, and stood facing her. “You want it, because of what it says about Jessie Wakefield Thompson. It does not say that Winslow Homer was the father of her son, Homer; in fact, it pretty much names another man as the likely father. But scholars working on the life of Helen Chase will also want this book, because it’s written by her grandmother, and tells of how she, too, was a victim of that same man. It also appears, circumstantially, that Jessie Thompson told Anna May’s husband he was not the father of their daughter, and he reacted by killing both Anna May and himself, leaving his daughter an orphan.”
Betsy stood up and walked toward her, reaching for the book again.
Maggie moved a little further away. “And Winslow Homer scholars would love to see this book, because it describes Homer and his studio, and some of the people around him in 1890, in a first-person perspective not available anywhere else.” Maggie walked around the room, perusing the journal. “I could get a very good price for this little book at an auction gallery in New York. If I decide not to publish it myself first.”
“No!” Betsy said, reaching again for the book. “I want that journal, Maggie. You don’t know what the information in that journal means to my family. I’ll give you whatever you want for it.”
“Really?” said Maggie, turning abruptly to face Betsy. “Then I want your stepson, Josh.”
“What?” said Betsy, sitting down hard on a pine bench near the wall. “What do you mean, you want Josh?”
Maggie pulled her tape recorder out of her bag, put it down on the coffee table, and turned it on. “I want you to tell me how Josh knew you were upset about the journal. How he went to Carolyn’s house to look for it, and killed Carolyn. And then, when he still couldn’t find it, he went to Nettie Brewer’s house, tied her up, and searched her house, too.”
“How would I know what Josh did?” asked Betsy.
“You knew because you asked him to do it,” said Maggie. “Because you threatened to cut off his allowance if he didn’t do what you asked. He also knew that if the Winslow Homer heritage story was proved untrue that would end your dreams of wealth for the family. His family. So it was important to him, too.”
“I never told him to kill anyone,” said Betsy. “Never.”
“Perhaps not,” said Maggie. “But you told him to go to Carolyn’s house and get the journal, right?”
“I told him we had to have that book. To do whatever he had to do to get it.”
“And when he came home without it?”
“We assumed you had it, Maggie. As you do. You told me you’d be at that antique show on Saturday, so he went to Nettie Brewer’s house after you left for the show. No one was supposed to get hurt. I told him that! And Miss Brewer is all right. I heard she was out of the hospital. Josh is so stupid. He brought home a photograph album instead of a journal.”
“She’s better, yes,” said Maggie, thinking of the condition Aunt Nettie had been in, and how weak and fragile she was still.
“Now: I’ve told you what I did. Give me the journal,” said Betsy, reaching out for it.
“Not quite,” said Nick Strait, opening the back door. “Thank you, Maggie.” He walked up to Betsy. “Elizabeth Thompson, you’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder. We’ll discuss the details down at the station house.” He turned. “Thank you, Maggie. I think we have all the angles figured out now.”
“But I didn’t do anything!” said Betsy. “It was Josh! He did it!”
“You’ll both have a chance to tell us all about that down at the station,” said Nick. “Josh is already there.”
“You’ve already arrested him for murder?” Maggie asked, handing Nick her tape recorder.
“Not yet. We have him and Joann Burt there for stealing two paintings from Susan Newall’s home and trying to sell them. Turns out you were right. They’re drinking pals of Lew Coleman. Joann was the one who removed the paintings from Susan Newall’s house when she was working there as a home health aide. If you hadn’t identified the paintings as Helen Chase’s, Lew would have sold the paintings to Josh, who was acting as a buyer under another name. They’d already contacted Sotheby’s, having established the provenance of finding the paintings at a country auction in Waymouth, Maine. Lew’s down at the station, too. They’re all talking.”
“You have a crowded place today.”
“We do. But there’s a new priso
n down the road at Two Rivers. We’ll find space for all of ’em.” Nick turned. “Come on Betsy, let’s go. Give my best to Will, Maggie. Good to see you again. Even if you are from New Jersey.”
Chapter 41
The End. Last page from Maxfield Parrish’s The Knave of Hearts, 1925. Keyhole-shaped illustration of jester/narrator bowing to audience with“The End” apparently carved in granite underneath him; sky of Parrish blue in back of figure. 10.5 x 12.5 inches. Price: $250.
Maggie and Will sat comfortably close on the grayed wooden porch swing and looked out over the river. Will was quite proud of himself for having made a salad and steamed the mussels in wine, under Aunt Nettie’s supervision, and they’d cut “store bought” raspberry and chocolate and peanut Whoopie Pies in quarters and shared them. Aunt Nettie had retired early.
“It’s finally over, isn’t it?” said Maggie, snuggling closer. “All the bad guys are in jail, and Aunt Nettie’s feeling a little stronger. We have an antiques show to do this weekend. And the light on the river is beautiful tonight.”
“All true,” said Will. “Thanks to you, and Nick.”
“I just wish Carolyn were here,” said Maggie. “She died for such a stupid reason. To keep an old lie alive.”
“So now you’re the keeper of the journal that holds all the secrets, and the trunk full of stories of yesteryear,” said Will. “What are you going to do with the papers?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” said Maggie. “I won’t have most of them for six months, so I have time to plan. I’m thinking of taking the sections of the journal that are about Winslow Homer and Prouts Neck and writing an article based on them, so the information will be available to anyone doing research on Homer, not lost in cartons of papers about Helen Chase.”
“And the rest?”
“Carolyn mentioned that she’d like me to continue her work writing a biography of her mother, but I’m not sure I want to do that. Someone may, and whoever that is should certainly have access to the papers.” She paused. “Kevin Bradman’s a nice young man who learned a lot this summer. He may need a new dissertation topic. I think I’ll keep in touch with him. Ultimately, I think the papers should go with the rest of Carolyn’s estate to the Portland Museum, where they’ll be cared for, and available to researchers.”
“Sounds like an excellent plan,” said Will, nibbling Maggie’s ear.
“And Aunt Nettie? Do you think you can leave her here alone?”
“I’m going to stay an extra month,” said Will. “I’ll see how she is, and what possibilities there are for home care and respite services. I can’t totally give up my antiques business; it supports me. But it may be time to consider other options than keeping my house in Buffalo. I’m not there that often anyway.”
Maggie looked deep into his blue eyes. She could almost see the stars reflected in them. “You always said that someday you’d move to Maine.”
“I did. So, I’ll be thinking a little harder about it now.” He held her a little closer, and his next kiss was a little deeper. “But not tonight. I’m not going to think about that at all tonight.”
Historical Note
Shadows of a Down East Summer is fiction. The town of Waymouth, Maine is a composite of several Maine communities, and the Brewer, Pratt, Thompson, and Chase families in this book grew out of my imagination, not out of Maine coast granite.
However, Prouts Neck, a section of Scarborough, Maine, is a real place, and Winslow Homer did live and paint there in the late nineteenth century. He was fifty-four in the summer of 1890. His studio was owned by the Homer family until 2006, when it was purchased by the Portland Museum of Art, which boasts an excellent collection of Homer paintings and engravings. The Black Point Inn is smaller than it was when it was called South Gate House in the nineteenth century, but it is still elegant, and open for business.
Although Anna May and Jessie did not pose for Winslow Homer, he did hire local Maine women (and men) to pose for him. In the major paintings he did in 1890, A Summer Night and Cloud Shadows, those models were most likely Mrs. Maude Sanborn Googins Libby and Cora Googins Sanborn. I beg their pardon for borrowing their roles for Anna May and Jessie, and do not mean to imply any improprieties on their parts. Micah Wright is also a fictional character. A Summer Night is now in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and Cloud Shadows is at the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas.
The description of Homer’s studio, attire, deportment, and friends Duck and Sam is, from all accounts that I can find, accurate. The addition to his studio and home that was built in the summer of 1890 he later called his “painting room.” He died in that room in 1910.
About the Author
Lea Wait is a fourth-generation antiques dealer who has been researching, buying, and selling antique prints since 1977. She lived and worked in New Jersey while she was raising the four daughters she adopted as a single parent. Wait now lives in Maine, writes mysteries and books for children and young adults full-time, and is married to artist Bob Thomas. Her first mystery, Shadows at the Fair, was nominated for an Agatha Award.
Lea Wait may be visited at www.leawait.com and on Facebook.
Photo: Bob Thomas
Books by Lea Wait
In the Maggie Summer “Shadows” Antique Print Mystery Series:
Shadows at the Fair
Shadows on the Coast of Maine
Shadows on the Ivy
Shadows at the Spring Show
Shadows of a Down East Summer
Novels for children and young adults:
Stopping to Home
Seaward Born
Wintering Well
Finest Kind
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Historical Note
About the Author