by Barbara Ross
I explained that the gift certificates were missing and I thought they might have been stolen.
Binder looked amused. “You think someone came into your apartment, in the middle of the night, while you were there and took the gift certificates, and only the gift certificates?”
It sounded ridiculous when I heard someone else say it. I felt my face redden. “Yes.”
“Can I assume Mr. Durand was asleep in your apartment as well when you allege this happened?”
Okay, now it truly did sound crazy. “Yes.”
Binder took pity on me. “Relax, Julia. You probably mislaid them. Did the victim pay with a gift certificate?”
The exact thing Jamie had asked me. “Er, no.”
“Then it probably doesn’t matter. Give me what information you have on the credit card and don’t worry about it.”
“I e-mailed it to Officer Dawes.”
“Then you’ve done all you can. I’ll be sure to catch up with him. Our best strategy for figuring out who killed our victim is to figure out who he is and why someone would want to murder him. I’ll follow up on everything you’ve given me, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention, but you have to let me do things in my own time, in my sequence. Okay?”
When I didn’t immediately agree, he continued. “Julia, I’m not fooling around. Do I need to remind you that the perpetrator of this murder has not been identified or captured, and this person may have been inside the building where you live and work? This isn’t a joke.”
Binder and I had had our differences in the past, but he’d never warned me off like this. His words shook me. And I didn’t want to tell him about the continuous sense of unease I had in my own home, because that would only make it worse.
“And be sure to lock your doors,” he added.
“I hear you.” I gave him the envelope, flyer, and card I’d collected from the Bennetts. He took them solemnly and walked me to the door.
* * *
As I walked out of the town building, my cell phone rang. Mom.
“Hullo, Julia. I’m calling to invite you and Chris to dinner tonight. Fee and Vee will be here.” My mother lowered her voice, even though she was probably alone in her kitchen. “The poor dears are upset by what happened to that man who was supposed to stay at their inn. You know, that man who was killed—”
“In my home,” I finished. “Believe me, I get it.”
“So will you come?”
“Who’s cooking?” I tried not to sound anxious, but my mother was a terrible cook. I was happy to spend the evening in comfortable companionship with the Snugg sisters if that’s what they needed, but I wasn’t sure it was worth the potential damage to my taste buds.
Fortunately, Mom took my question the right way. She laughed. “Don’t worry. Livvie and Page are on the way. Your sister’s helping me with dinner.”
“Well, in that case, I’m in. Let me call Chris and see what he’s up to.”
“Great,” Mom said. “Six o’clock? See you then.”
I called Chris right away. “Julia, if you’re going to your mom’s, do you mind if I stay here and do some more work on the cabin? I lost almost all of yesterday.” If he couldn’t rent out the cabin by summer, the whole underpinnings of his economic existence would be threatened.
“Sure. You stay there. See you later.”
“Yup. For sure.”
I arrived back at the restaurant with an hour or so to kill before I was due at Mom’s. Gus was gone for the day, the door locked, lights out. I flipped the lights on and was grateful to see the walk-in divested of its crime scene tape.
I locked the kitchen door behind me carefully, climbed the stairs to my place, and fetched my laptop. When I had moved into the apartment, I’d paid for cable and Internet. There’d been a big discussion with the cable company and with Gus. Chris and I wanted a TV in the bar, for Monday night football and Sunday evenings. Gus was already opposed to the bar; the idea of a TV gave him apoplexy. “I won’t turn my establishment into some doctor’s waiting room with talking heads blabbing on about the Cardonians.”
It took me a moment to figure out he meant the Kardashians. I was surprised he even got that close. Eventually, we negotiated a truce, whereby we got the TV and I promised to hide the remote in my apartment while Gus was in the building. Internet was even more of an issue. We needed it to run credit cards for our restaurant, and since cell service out at the end of the world was just too iffy, we needed Wi-Fi. Plus, I wanted it for my apartment. You can take a girl out of Manhattan, but only so far.
“No Internet!” Gus fumed. “Absolutely not. That’s the last thing I need, people sitting here all day checking their brokerage accounts and writing the great American novel. Never!”
Again, we reached a compromise. We would get Internet and Wi-Fi, but I wouldn’t tell anyone the password.
“No one,” Gus emphasized.
The cable company became convinced we were going to offer connectivity to all our patrons and wanted to charge us an exorbitant business rate. When the cable guy showed up, I let him spend five minutes on his own with Gus. He emerged shaking his head and said he’d be happy to tell the company to charge me the residential rate.
Sitting on my couch, my computer in my lap, I web-searched my way through the couples who’d been at the restaurant two nights before. I was sure someone had brought that group of people together deliberately, and if that was true, there had to be a connection.
I looked up Dr. Henry Caswell first. There were lots of websites ready to tell me his specialty (anesthesiology), but the sites didn’t offer the ratings from patients I’d become accustomed to seeing for doctors. Possibly because his patients were mostly unconscious. He’d worked for the previous twenty years at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Some of the websites noted his retirement, but most did not. I looked for, but couldn’t find, anything controversial—a news report about a malpractice suit, for example.
There was much less information online about his wife, Caroline. She was a stalwart of her garden club in their Maryland suburb and was active with the botanical garden in Busman’s Harbor. Perhaps that was her local substitute for having her own garden, something that wouldn’t be possible at the Baywater Community.
There was tons of information on the web about Phil Bennett. He’d been the chief financial officer of a huge pharmaceutical company until an even bigger European conglomerate had purchased it a year before. I read enough to realize the Bennetts were rich. Not comfortably retired, like the Caswells, but truly wealthy. Deborah had told me they were getting away to Palm Beach for a couple of months. What she hadn’t said was that they owned a house there and an apartment in a New York City co-op building in addition to their Busman’s Harbor “summer cottage.” They’d sold their house in Greenwich, Connecticut, before they’d moved up the harbor, and the listing photos were still available online. The house looked like a palace and was beautifully decorated, as I would have expected.
I thought I’d find a website for Deborah Bennett’s interior decorating business. What little people seemed to know about her always included the information that she was a “professional” interior designer. But there was scant mention of her on the web, and I wondered if all the homes she decorated were her own.
I looked briefly for information about the Walkers, and what I found confirmed what I already knew. The art supplies shop had a terrible website. It looked like someone had persuaded Barry he needed a “web presence” and he’d gone along, but with no idea what he was trying to accomplish. The local paper, which had back issues available online only for the past five years, told me that Barry had been president of the Chamber of Commerce two years ago. Fran was active in the Congregational Church. Nothing I hadn’t known. Nothing that connected them to the Bennetts or the Caswells.
A Sheila Smith had recently retired after seventeen years as a federal judge for the Southern District of New York, presiding over civil cases. That fit with what she’d said about
moving from Westchester County. I found a formal photograph of her in her judge’s robes, her face peering out under her bangs, stolid and grim. When I’d sat in front of her, I’d certainly felt judged. I was glad I’d never been involved in a case that would have brought me before her bench.
I searched for “Michael Smith,” but even adding “Mamaroneck,” it was hopeless. The name was too common to yield any reliable search results.
I sat back to consider what I knew. Four couples, linked by age. All had lived in different places in the northeast United States. The Bennetts were rich and the Caswells well off. The Walkers appeared to struggle financially. I couldn’t begin to guess about the Smiths. I assumed they were comfortable, though with our short tourist season and the amount of fixing up the Fogged Inn had required, I doubted they were making any money as B&B owners.
No obvious connection. But I was sure there had to be one. I just had to find it.
Chapter 14
I locked up the restaurant and headed to Mom’s. Livvie and Page were already there when I arrived, and the place smelled like heaven. Livvie’s meatloaf was in the oven along with baked potatoes, and broccoli was cut and ready to go in the pot.
I gave my pregnant sister a hug. “Where’s Sonny?”
“Beat. I told him I’d bring a plate of food home for him.”
Most of the lobster boats in Busman’s Harbor were out of the water, tucked away in the lobsterman’s side yards, but Livvie’s husband, Sonny, was still hard at work every day on his father’s boat, the Abby. Lobster prices rose ever higher in the winter, due to low supply and high demand, especially from France, where Maine lobster had become a traditional part of the Christmas Eve meal. Bard, Sonny’s dad, was recovering from rotator cuff surgery and Sonny’s younger brother was in treatment for an addiction to painkillers. So it was left to Sonny, despite an inquiry of his own, to haul traps until the weather finally forced the Abby out of the water sometime after the New Year.
“What can I do?” I asked.
“Help Page with the salad,” Livvie answered.
I sat down at the kitchen table next to my soon-to-be ten-year-old niece, who took a sharp knife to some carrots like a pro.
“How’s school?” I asked.
“Same as when you asked me on Sunday. And on Saturday. And on Thanksgiving Day before that.”
What else are you supposed to ask kids? “So you would say it’s—”
“—the same. Yes, it is.” Page turned back to her chopping, humming happily as she did.
Mom came through the swinging door from the dining room. “Hullo, Julia.”
In spite of the schedule she’d kept lately, Mom looked great. Her petite frame was encased in a red cashmere sweater and a pair of navy slacks. Her shortish, thick blond hair was well cut, and she wore just a hint of makeup. This was quite a turnaround for my mother, who’d gone through five rough years after my father’s death. Her look, which had always been casual, had declined from “carefree” to “don’t care” during the years of her mourning. The “little job” at Linens and Pantries agreed with her.
The Snugg sisters arrived, taking off layers of coats and scarves in the front hall. Livvie took the meatloaf out of the oven, and we gathered at the table.
“Delicious,” Vee pronounced after her first bite of meatloaf, some of the roses returning to her cheeks. “Just like I taught you.”
Livvie had learned to cook in self-defense after enduring a decade of my mother’s attempts to turn herself from a privileged, motherless girl raised by a revolving-door series of housekeepers into a Yankee housewife. One of the places Livvie learned her skills was in Vee’s kitchen, and Vee’s meatloaf was one of our favorites.
“Wonderful,” Fee confirmed.
While Page was at the table, the conversation stayed light, but throughout the meal I felt the weight of words unsaid, emotions unexpressed. As soon as Page was excused to do her homework, the subject of the stranger and his murder came up.
“It’s so upsetting,” Fee said, rubbing her fingers bent by arthritis. “The state police have been back again. That Lieutenant Binder was around, without his handsome sergeant.” The sisters shared a crush on Flynn. “He kept asking about the stranger. The man we think was called Justin.”
“Or Jason,” Vee put in.
“Or Jackson.” Fee crinkled her napkin impatiently. “Why can’t we remember? But then, we barely spoke to him. Lieutenant Binder clearly thinks we’re ninnies. He kept asking, ‘When the man made the reservation, where did he say he was calling from?’ ‘When he arrived, where did he say he’d come from?’”
“What the lieutenant doesn’t understand,” Vee said, “is that innkeepers take their cues from the guest. If he wants to talk, so be it. But if he’s getting away to have time alone, we’re not going to force ourselves on him.”
“Speaking of innkeeping, do either of you know the Smiths who bought the Fogged Inn last year?” I asked.
“Goodness, yes,” Fee answered. She paused as though trying to figure out how to put the next part delicately.
“Out with it,” my mother said. “We’re among friends.”
“We’ve heard nothing but complaints about the place. When they first opened, I tried to be neighborly. If we were booked up, I’d refer guests over there. I figured I would help them get on their feet. But they found one reason or another to reject every single person I sent them. No children. Indeed,” Fee said.
“When you’ve been in the business long enough, you learn that guests are self-selecting. The parents who choose a B&B for their family know their kids can live without in-room televisions or a pool. We’ve never had a problem with young people,” Vee added.
“Have you met the new owners?” I asked.
“The Smiths? Just at the post office,” Vee said. “I said hello. She didn’t seem to know who I was.”
That was an enormous breach of protocol. Savvy inn owners would have introduced themselves at all the other B&Bs in town before opening. The hospitality industry lived and died by referrals. Not only did innkeepers refer guests to other inns when they were full, they were also sometimes tasked with finding rooms in multiple B&Bs for big parties in town to celebrate weddings or other events.
“That place will be up for sale by a year from now, just like always,” Fee said. “Mark my words.”
“Do you know the Caswells, Caroline and Henry?” I asked.
Mom, Livvie, and Vee all looked blank, but Fee wrinkled her brow. “The tennis players? I see them quite often when I walk MacCavendish.” MacCavendish, called Mackie, was the latest in the sisters’ long line of Scottish terriers. Their last one had passed away peacefully of old age just before the hectic summer season began. Vee had held the line over the summer, but in the fall Fee prevailed, and Mackie, a five-year-old rescue, had joined their family. For all the warmth and hospitality Fee exuded with her B&B guests, she was really most at home with her dogs.
“So you know the Caswells?” I persisted.
“No. Just to say hello.” Fee paused. “They’re quite new, I think.”
The Caswells needed an additional two decades in the harbor not to be considered “new.”
“Yet there is something so familiar about her face,” Fee said. “Every time I run into her, I’m sure we’ve met before. Where are they from?”
“Maryland.”
Fee shook her head. “Then that’s not it.”
The conversation drifted on to other things. The sisters excused themselves and Mom, Livvie, and I gathered in the kitchen to clean up.
* * *
“Did you know Jamie took a double shift on Thanksgiving because he had no place to go?” Out of old habit, we’d formed an assembly line—Livvie washing, Mom drying, and me putting away the clean dishes. Every time we did it, I missed my dad, who should have been there, joking and laughing as he cleared the table and put away the leftovers. Without us ever discussing it, I had added his duties to my own, but the hole remained in our
family.
“Jamie knows he’s welcome here,” Mom said. “Or he should.”
For years, we’d had Thanksgiving at our house with Mom, me, and Livvie’s little family, plus Fee and Vee, Bard and Kyle Ramsey, and Jamie and his parents. Jamie’s three older siblings were so much older, his mother called him the period at the end of the sentence. “More like an exclamation mark,” his father joked. “Surprise!”
Jamie’s older brother and two sisters had gone off to college and then moved out of state, establishing careers and raising families of their own. Jamie had stayed in town, coping with much older parents who depended on him. This year, they’d gone to Florida to spend the winter with one of his sisters. As far as I knew, Jamie was still rattling around their empty house next door.
“I thought he was spending Thanksgiving with that Gina,” Livvie said, stepping away from the sink, the last of the dishes done.
“He told me that’s not happening anymore.”
Livvie sighed. “Too bad.”
“He didn’t want to talk about it,” I added.
“I’m sure.”
Mom hung her dishtowel on the stove handle. “We can’t let him spend the winter mooning around in that big house. Julia, you need to talk to him.”
Livvie crinkled her eyes at me to show she understood it wouldn’t be that easy. Jamie and I hadn’t been capable of resuming our easy friendship since I got back to town. Partially, that was my fault. I’d been so crazed trying to get the Snowden Family Clambake back on its feet when I first got home, I hadn’t even called him. Then things just got weird between Jamie and me after that kiss.
“I guess I should,” I responded to my mother, making no promises. I didn’t know how to recapture the easy comfort Jamie and I had as kids.
* * *
When I got back to my apartment, I went to my refrigerator, thinking I’d help Gus out and, oh-by-the-way, keep him from stomping through my apartment in the early morning hours by moving his remaining food back down to the walk-in. But when I opened the door, the fridge was empty. Gus must have been by to drop off food downstairs and cleared it out himself.