by Lea Wait
“Onion soup and a half haddock sandwich.”
“Then you’re both set.” The waitress nodded and disappeared behind the counter.
“I can’t believe this weekend,” said Sarah. “Could anything else have gone wrong?”
“Your chowder was great,” I said. “And the cake was gorgeous. Ted was pleased.”
She nodded. “Until he was killed. By a clam!”
I thought of what Gram had said that afternoon. “Maybe it was fate.” A woman I’d met in Arizona had wanted her husband investigated. She had lung cancer and was going to change her will if he had a mistress. He didn’t, but I’d seen what stage four lung cancer looked like. “Ted died quickly. He’d done what he wanted to do: seen all his children, introduced you to them, made plans for the future.”
“He hadn’t changed his will.”
“Does it really matter, Sarah? Inheriting those paintings would have changed your life.”
The waitress put my tea on the table and I raised it to Sarah. “To survival.”
“Survival,” she echoed, unconvincingly. “I supposed having the paintings would have meant I could buy a house, and not spend all my time selling low-to-middle-end antiques to people who thought a Beatles poster was an antiquarian artifact.”
“There is that,” I agreed. “But it would have been a lot of responsibility, too. And you do have two of your grandfather’s paintings.”
“I’m so thankful he wanted me to take the portrait of my grandmother yesterday,” said Sarah. “It was almost as though he knew that would be his last chance to give her to me.”
“Have you hung her yet?”
Sarah nodded. “She’s in my bedroom, where I can see her first thing every morning and last thing at night. She’ll remind me of what one mistake can do to change your life. And how lucky I’ve been so far.”
The waitress put our dinners in front of us. I was hungry. My lunch with Dave seemed a long time ago. “Lucky?” Sarah’d lost her parents and her grandmum, her grandmother, and now her uncle. She’d left the country where she’d been born to make a new life on the other side of the world.
“Lucky. Now I know where I came from, and where I want to live.” She smiled into her beer, and then at me. “I have friends instead of family. But now I know what I missed, and it’s really all right. Those cousins of mine might share my blood, but they’re not like me.”
“Luke wasn’t too bad,” I said.
“I guess not. Although I wasn’t thrilled when he threatened to shoot Jeremy this morning.”
“Jeremy was trying to open his dad’s safe.”
“He wouldn’t have stolen anything. He wanted to see the earlier will. Luke did, too.” Sarah shook her head. “I also learned I’d better be careful about alcohol.” She raised her glass in my direction. “My father was an alcoholic, and Michael is certainly headed in that direction, if he isn’t one already. Maybe it’s a genetic thing.”
“Silas was the one who drank the most, though,” I said.
“No wonder Abbie wants to leave him,” Sarah agreed.
“What? Where did you get that idea?”
“She told me, Friday night. You were talking with Patrick—cleaning up the kitchen, I think. Silas had already passed out, and Abbie’d been drinking, too. She said she’d married Silas because she was pregnant. Ted called her a slut and threw her out of their house. She was still mad at her father for not being sympathetic, or helping her.”
“I thought Silas said they’d only known each other a couple of weeks before they’d gotten married.”
“The baby wasn’t his. But he didn’t know that, and it turned out not to matter. The baby was stillborn. Very sad.”
I thought of what I’d heard about Abbie’s mother that afternoon. Sarah didn’t need to hear that now. “Abbie never had other children.”
“Intentionally or not. I don’t know. But she hated living on a farm, and being up in the county. She’d finished college, like she said, because she hoped that would please Ted and he’d give her enough money so she could get a divorce. Leave Silas and Caribou. Start over. But that never happened.”
“She told you a lot.”
“She wasn’t trying to be my friend, Angie. She was angry at her father, and at Silas, and she’d had too much to drink. I think she’d held on to the hope that when Ted died she’d inherit enough to change her life. And have proof Ted still cared about her.”
“Friday night she found out that wouldn’t happen.”
“I told her she and her brothers could sell The Point. It might be worth a million or two, or more, and she’d get a third. But all she was focused on were her grandfather’s paintings. They were what her father had cared about. Cared about more than he’d cared for his children, she told me. If he’d loved them, he would have left them the paintings.”
I thought of Mama, and my absent father, and of the bones in my backyard. Families were complicated.
“I suspect living with Silas would be challenging,” I sympathized.
“Abbie said the best part of her life was working at the kindergarten.”
“I’m glad she has that, then.”
Sarah nodded. We were quiet, eating and thinking. In the background I heard a phone ring. People should turn off their cells before they went into restaurants. They were annoying.
A minute later Pete appeared at our table. “Shouldn’t be giving out information before we know the details. But thought you ladies would want to know. There’s been another death up at The Point.”
“Who?” I asked, thinking of the four people who were there.
“A Silas Reed.”
“Silas is—was—Ted’s son-in-law,” I said. “His daughter, Abbie’s, husband.”
“What happened?” asked Sarah.
“All I know so far is I got a call from the hospital. EMTs brought him in. From the sound of it, he drowned.”
“But?” I said, hearing Pete’s unspoken words.
“But two unattended deaths in two days in one place is strange. Really strange. I’m on my way up there to investigate.”
“Can we help?” said Sarah. “We know the family.”
She didn’t mention she was a member of that family.
“Not right now. I’m going to question them. And there’ll be an autopsy, of course. Could be just a weird coincidence.” Pete started to leave and then muttered, “I sure hope so.”
Chapter Thirty-two
“Pompadour Patterns: The distinctive characteristic of the small floral designs so named is the combination of pink with blue in the colouring. All the tints were of very delicate hues and shades of the same. The style is named after the famous Madame de Pompadour, who appears to have been the first patroness of such a combination of colours in her costumes.”
—From the Dictionary of Needlework: An Encyclopaedia of Artistic, Plain, and Fancy Needlework by Sophia Frances Anne Caulfeild and Blanche C. Saward, London: L. Upcott Gill, 1882.
Sarah and I parted company before seven Sunday evening.
Neither of us ate much after hearing Silas had drowned.
Sarah’s original idea for the evening, “hide under the covers,” was making more and more sense.
At home again, I turned off my telephone, made sure Trixi had clean litter and fresh food for the night, and went to bed.
Ted dying of shellfish poisoning. A child’s bones in my backyard. Lily Lawrence’s drowning, or maybe suicide. And now Silas’s drowning.
Two of those events were long past. The other two were too recent.
I slept restlessly, my mind filled with visions of death, and dying, and trying to drive down a highway and having my vision blocked by a huge heart-shaped balloon hitting the windshield.
After that, I couldn’t stay in bed any longer. I didn’t want to dream.
It seemed as though Sarah and I’d been cleaning and getting ready for Ted’s birthday party weekend at The Point months ago. But that had been Friday. This was Monday morning.<
br />
All over the country normal people were getting up, getting their children ready for school, and heading off to jobs.
Dave would be teaching at the high school. Sarah had a store to open. I’d planned to take the day driving between the gift shops Mainely Needlepointers supplied with Christmas ornaments, taking orders, listening to ideas, and making sure they knew about the Save the Cormorants campaign.
Too much had happened. I didn’t want to leave town today.
I pulled out a file I’d started last week. Marie Meserve, from over to Newcastle, had asked me to find out about a half dozen matching napkins she’d inherited from her great-aunt. The napkins were edged with delicate embroidered blue and white flowers and marked with the letter D in the middle of a wheel. She was curious about the napkins, and where they might have come from, since D wasn’t the first or last letter of anyone’s name in her family. I should pull out my embroidery books and start searching for information. But I couldn’t focus on work.
I checked the new Mainely Needlepoint Web site. One customer had a question (“What size pillow covers do you make?”) that was easy to answer. No orders. Our online sales department (me) was still a work-in-progress.
I was restless. Those unsettling dreams still haunted me. Maybe I should bury the bones now. But first I needed to breathe fresh air and see that, despite all the death I felt surrounded by, life was still good.
I’d gotten into the habit of taking an early morning walk. Usually I ended up on Water Street, looking at the harbor and the ocean beyond. If I were early enough, I watched the lobstermen setting out.
Before I set out I checked my phone. I’d turned it off the night before.
I had three texts. I almost didn’t look at them. But, like everyone else, I was addicted to my phone.
Sarah had texted right after I’d gotten home to thank me for suggesting dinner out.
No problem there.
Dave asked what I’d decided to do with the bones. I texted him back that I’d decided to rebury them. I suspected he’d be disappointed, but I’d made my decision.
The third message was from Patrick, only a few minutes ago. He was at Ted’s downtown gallery. It was important. Could I join him there as soon as possible?
I’d been going for a walk anyway. I texted him back. On my way.
What was he doing at the gallery early on a Monday morning? Usually the gallery was closed Mondays.
I pulled a heavy hoodie over my head. The fall morning was crisp. Soon I’d have to visit the outlets in Freeport or check the winter clothes at Renys to get some warm wools or flannels. The clothes I’d worn in Arizona wouldn’t work for Maine temperatures or winds in late fall or winter. I’d been living in sweatshirts and sweaters I’d found when cleaning out Mama’s clothes in June, but they wouldn’t get me through the cold weather.
Outside I shivered in the stiff breezes. Was it really that cold? Or was my mind still in another place?
The lights were on in the gallery. I knocked on the locked door and Patrick came out, closing the door in back of him.
“Thanks for getting here so fast. I’m in a bit of a quandary, and you know Maine ways. I don’t.”
Why hadn’t he invited me into the gallery? “So you came here?”
He gently touched my lips with a single finger. “I was just too wound up to sleep, so I thought I’d come down here and work.”
“The gallery isn’t usually open Mondays, is it?” I asked.
“No. But Ted gave me a key. And I didn’t think Jeremy would be here today. Jeremy’s job is taking care of the customers, unless they’re important, or friends of Ted’s.”
I didn’t correct his tense. Some customers probably still considered themselves friends of Ted’s.
“Ted was teaching me the business side of the gallery. Contacts, contracts, marketing, setting up shows—that sort of thing. Since I was an artist, I’d seen it all from the other side. I found it fascinating to look at the retail world of art as a profit or loss business.”
Patrick had brought me down here to tell me about how galleries were run?
“You’ve told me you liked working here.”
“I’ve only been here less than a month, but it’s amazing how much I’ve learned.”
“So what can I help you with? I know a little about small businesses. But the art world isn’t like a detective agency or a custom needlepoint business.”
“I’m not looking for business advice, Angie. I’ve found Ted’s will.” He looked down the empty street, as if making sure no one else heard him. “If Jeremy shows up, I don’t want him to know.”
“The current will? The one he was going to revise?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s current. It’s dated less than a year ago. That lawyer you mentioned—Lenore Pendleton—the one who died earlier this summer? Her name is on it.”
“Where was it?”
“A stupid place, actually. Under the old blotter holder Ted kept on his desk. No one uses blotters anymore, but his is Victorian. It has an elaborate brass frame and a heavy cardboard back. You slip the clean blotter into the frame.”
“When you’re writing with a fountain pen and need to blot it.”
“That’s the practical use. I’ve seen modern versions—now they’re called desk pads—in offices of lawyers and judges and executives at theatrical agencies. Instead of brass, most of today’s have leather edges. Or stainless steel. Some people put large calendars in them. Executives have them mainly because they make desks look impressive. My uncle has a set— matching bookends, desk pad, pen set, blotter pad, pencil holder. . . .”
I resisted asking Patrick why he’d been in a judges’ office. “So, Ted had one of these fancy blotter pads.” I rubbed my arms. It was chilly outside. I assumed we weren’t inside the gallery in case Jeremy showed up.
“A couple of weeks ago Ted asked me to read through his artist files. He wanted me to know which of the artists he represented were selling, and what they were selling, and for how much. He went off to have lunch with someone and left me in his office. The stack of files was on his desk, and . . . you know my hands still have trouble picking up things.”
I nodded.
“I picked up the pile of folders, and I picked up the blotter pad, too. Of course, I put it right back. But before I did I noticed there were papers tucked behind the blotter.”
“And you looked at them.”
“Actually, I didn’t. I saw an invoice on the top, from a lawyer. I might have looked further, I’ll admit, but Jeremy came in to make a copy of an artist’s statement for a customer, and then Ted came back from lunch. By the time I remembered the papers, I couldn’t look at them.”
“But you remembered them . . . ?”
“Last night. When I couldn’t sleep. Everyone seemed so upset about the old will, and the possible new one. Neither of them had any importance to me, of course. But they did to all the Lawrences, and to Sarah, and even to Jeremy. So I was curious. I thought about where I would put private legal papers.”
“In a safe deposit box,” I suggested.
“Ideally, yes,” he agreed. “But if Ted was going to rewrite his will next week—as he said he was going to do—then I guessed he would have gotten out his previous will, read it over, and planned what he wanted to change.”
“That makes sense,” I agreed.
“Usually an original will is left with the lawyer, or put in a safe deposit box. Legally, the Lawrences will have to find out where it is, and have it filed.”
“But what you found in back of the blotter . . .”
“Is a copy of the will Ted made out last year. It answers the questions Jeremy and Luke were asking yesterday.”
Chapter Thirty-three
“Mary A. Tyson and Sisters’ Seminary For Young Ladies, on F Street, north side, between 12th and 13th, where is taught a thorough knowledge of all the solid branches of education, and the French and Latin languages; Music on the Piano and Guitar; Worsted and
Ornamental Needlework in all its various branches; also, the making of Wax Flowers, with a knowledge of the preparation of the wax.”
—From an advertisement in the Washington (D.C.) Daily National Intelligencer,
September 5, 1845.
“So—what do I do now?” Patrick looked at me. “I have something I shouldn’t have. Wills are private documents. But I know the family wants to see it.”
I sighed. It wasn’t easy. “They’ve all had such an awful weekend.” Did Patrick even know? “Have you talked to any of the Lawrences since we left yesterday afternoon?”
“Haven’t talked to anyone,” he said. “Except you, now. And Bette. She’s very good at listening to my problems.”
“Trixi’s like that, too. Besides, it doesn’t feel so strange to be living alone and talking out loud when you can say you were talking to a cat.”
“Exactly.”
“Then you haven’t heard. Silas drowned last night.”
“What happened? How?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know any details. Sarah and I were at the Harbor Haunts last night for dinner. We saw Sergeant Pete Lambert there.”
Patrick nodded. “Sure. I remember Pete.”
“While we were having dinner he got a call about Silas from the hospital. He left, to question everyone at the Point. He said two accidental deaths in one place within twenty-four hours didn’t sound right.”
“Two of us. Two of the group that was together this past weekend. How could that be?”
“I don’t know. You and I could come up with reasons people at Ted’s birthday party might have wanted him to die before he rewrote that will. But he wasn’t shot or strangled . . . he was killed by a clam. And I can’t think of any reason to kill Silas.”
“This past weekend I might have wanted to, a couple of times. That guy was a pain.”
“He wasn’t my favorite cast member in that family drama either. But until we know what happened, I don’t think we should joke about it.”
“Sorry. You’re right. So what do we do now?”