by Lea Wait
“It’s a solid, well-known gallery.” He gestured at the room. “And will remind me, every day, of the father who didn’t have enough courage to acknowledge me.”
“Over the years you did meet his—other—children. Did you get to know them well?”
He shook his head. “Abbie was already living up in the County by the time I met Ted, and the boys were in New York. The first few years the boys came for the Fourth of July, and sometimes one of them would come for Christmas. But they just saw me as their dad’s employee. I wasn’t included in family gatherings.” He paused. “And now they’re my half brothers and sister. I still can’t believe it.”
“So,” I said as I continued walking through the gallery, “does owning this gallery mean you own all these paintings, along with your father’s?”
“Goodness, no!” he said. “Once in a while Ted would buy a painting or two at an auction and hang it here. There are several of those upstairs—would you like to look?”
“Not right now,” I said.
“Those belonged to him, to the gallery. I assume they’ll soon belong to me, if they haven’t sold first. But we hang most of the artists we represent on consignment.”
“So the gallery only gets paid when a painting sells,” I said, making sure I understood.
“Exactly. The artist creates the work, and we advertise it, and have an opening for each exhibit, and display the work for a contracted period of time. Usually in the summer we hang a new exhibit every month; in the winter, we may leave an exhibit up for two months, or even ten weeks.”
“And if you sell a painting?” I asked.
“The gallery gets fifty percent of the sale price,” he said.
“The gallery gets as much as the artist?”
“Think of the space we pay for, and the advertising, and food at the openings, and keeping up our mailing lists and having one or two gallerists here at all times. And, most important, the prestigious name of the gallery, and our clients. The artists give their time and creativity. We invest in their work and introduce them to the world.”
“And if the paintings don’t sell?”
“Then they go back to the artist at the end of the exhibit. Finito, until the next show.”
“Interesting. I had no idea how this business was run. I thought galleries owned the art they displayed.”
“Not at all,” he said. “Happy to have explained it. I’d much rather talk about the business than about what happened last weekend. Have you spoken to the police yet? They seem convinced those two horrible accidents out at Ted’s house were murders. Can you believe?”
“I haven’t talked with them,” I said. “But I heard they were investigating. They’ve already been here?”
“An hour or so ago,” he said.
“What did they ask you?”
“They wanted to know how long I’d known Ted. That’s no secret. And they wanted to know about the birthday party, and about his will.”
“What did you say?”
“The truth. I told them Ted planned the weekend, and Sarah helped make it happen. Of course, since Ted and Sarah talked here, I knew a lot about it, too. But I had no clue about Ted’s wills. His old one or the one he planned to make out.” He paused. “I thought I knew everything about myself, and about Ted. But I didn’t know the most important thing of all. I’m a Lawrence.” Jeremy looked as though he’d just grown another inch or two.
“You didn’t think you or Ted had secrets from each other.”
“Oh, Angie Curtis, everyone has secrets! But Ted and I trusted each other. I was the only one who knew the worth of the business, and I helped him with his accounts.” Jeremy paused. “I was his only employee until he invited Patrick West to work here, too.”
“Wasn’t it unusual that Patrick started working here at the end of the season? Wouldn’t you need extra help earlier in the summer? Not the fall?”
“Some of our biggest sales are this time of year. Leaf peepers and Christmas shoppers, you know. But between us, I think he felt sorry for Patrick. All those horrible burn scars.” Jeremy shuddered. “The man has talent, but he’ll never be able to paint again. And his uncle’s been one of Ted’s best customers over the years. Why not offer Patrick a job? He knows art, and his working here would please his uncle. Plus, his mother’s a celebrity. That might even lead to more sales. The way I saw it, Patrick was a pity hire.”
Ouch. I hoped Patrick never heard that.
“Will you keep him on? When you own the gallery, I mean?”
Jeremy shook his head. “No need. I can run the place by myself, or hire someone younger who wants to learn the business.”
And who you could pay less, I thought to myself. “You kept the gallery open last Friday until early afternoon.”
“I did. Then I stopped at the patisserie—wonderful, decadent, place!—and picked up the breads and pastries and cake for the weekend. You were in the kitchen at The Point when I brought them in.”
“And you were at the party Friday night, and heard Ted’s announcement.” I leaned over. “Are you sure you didn’t know any of that ahead of time? After all, you were so close to Ted.”
“I’ll admit Ted once hinted that Sarah was a distant relation. I didn’t know the details, but I suspected that was one of the reasons for the party. And I knew he’d been tired recently, and taking more time off, and I’d seen doctors’ names in his appointment book.”
I looked at him.
“Not that I was snooping, you understand. But sometimes I worked at his desk. Checking on customer interests and so forth. Or a doctor’s office would call here and leave a message about an appointment. I was as shocked as anyone when Ted said he had cancer. Shocked. Just shocked. And then when Patrick read out that will Sunday! Well, I was just flummoxed. So amazed. So honored.”
But hadn’t Jeremy been able to give the Haven Harbor Hospital staff the name of Ted’s oncologist? I decided not to press the point.
“So the gallery was closed Saturday.”
“Ted wanted me to be at The Point Friday afternoon and evening, and all day Saturday, to help out. He knew the lobster bake would take a lot of work, and he wasn’t sure how excited his children would be about it.”
“Patrick, too. He wanted Patrick at the house.”
He nodded. “Patrick too, of course.”
“So you and Luke and Michael went clamming together.”
“Not exactly together, but yes, we ended up doing that. Patrick, of course, with his hands? He couldn’t have done it. And clamming’s too messy for women.”
I bit my tongue. I’d been clamming more than a few times in my teens. Muddy, yes. And not always rewarding. Like a scavenger hunt, where the prizes moved. No one who hadn’t been clamming could understand how fast a clam could move.
“Where did the three of you go?”
Jeremy counted on his fingers. “First, I drove us to Abenaki Eddy. But diggers were already there.”
Diggers with licenses, I guessed. Diggers who wouldn’t welcome amateurs.
“Then we went to Conyer’s Cove. Luke dug a couple of clams there, but Michael and I had no luck. Then we argued; they wanted to go and buy clams instead of trying to dig them. I told them we’d promised Ted we’d do it ourselves.” He paused. “They made some comments about how they could do what needed to be done without me, that I hadn’t been around in the old days and they’d managed. We were all angry and frustrated. I dropped Michael at Mackerel Point and Luke at Eagle Rock, as they’d asked. They said they’d get another ride home. As I told the police”—he looked at me as though he knew this wasn’t casual conversation—“I don’t know how many clams they got. I went back to Conyer’s Cove and this time I got a couple dozen. Then I drove back to The Point alone. Michael and Luke called Abbie and she picked them up. When we were back at The Point we threw all our clams in the kitchen sink to clean them, and then took them down to the beach. Ted was the one who ate the bad one. It could have been any of us, you know. Any
of us. You or I could be dead right now.”
Chapter Forty-four
“Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. recorded family stories and adventures in needlepoint and crewel stitching. She bordered her work with depictions of animals her husband had hunted. Mrs. Roosevelt: ‘Each evening, Mr. Roosevelt would examine the animal I had worked upon during the day, offering constructive and anatomical criticism until we arrived at the proper effect for each animal.’”
—From American Needlework: The History of Decorative Stitchery and Embroidery from the Late 16th to the 20th Century
by Georgiana Brown Harbeson, New York: Bonanza Books, 1938.
Jeremy’s words stayed in my head. You or I could be dead right now.
I’d seen the clams. There was no way of knowing which clams had come from which flat, or which digger had brought them home. Clams opened when they were steamed. Opened or closed, they looked the same except for their sizes.
If Ted had died from eating a bad clam, Jeremy was right. Any of us might have gotten that one clam.
But more than one clam at the lobster bake would have been affected. If a flat were covered with Red Tide, all the clams dug there would have the problem. The water, and the algaes in it, would cover the whole flat. From what Jeremy had said, the three clammers had brought back multiple clams from each location.
Anna Winslow had seen postings on Mackerel Point. Michael had been clamming at the Point Saturday. Hadn’t he seen the sign?
Maybe the clams weren’t meant to poison Ted. Could they have been meant for someone else? No one else had gotten sick, but not all the clams had been eaten. And Ted was the only one of us at the lobster bake who had a fatal illness. He was the most vulnerable. Had he died by chance, as we’d first assumed?
Dave had said other poisons could affect someone the same way Red Tide could.
He’d mentioned botulism. And arsenic. And some kinds of mushrooms . . .
Who would have access to any of those?
And always the question: Why would anyone have wanted Ted Lawrence—or anyone else at the gathering—to die?
I took a deep breath. I had to talk to Sarah. Maybe she’d thought of something I hadn’t. And although I didn’t want to talk to her about Patrick, I had to.
Sarah’d befriended me since I’d been back in Haven Harbor. We’d worked together on Mainely Needlepoint projects. We shouldn’t keep secrets from each other. Especially secrets about the men we were seeing. Or hoped to see.
The sun was going down. It disappeared faster with every September day. By six-thirty tonight it would be dark. The lights in Sarah’s store were off. I climbed the stairs to her apartment and knocked on the door.
She opened it cautiously. “Angie? I didn’t expect you to come tonight.”
“We need to talk. I overreacted this morning. And I need your help. May I come in?”
She opened the door wider and gestured that I should come in. “Beer or wine?”
“Wine,” I said, tentatively. Should I ask Sarah about Patrick? Would she say anything? “I should have brought some. But I just came from the gallery.”
“How’s Jeremy doing?” Sarah picked a bottle of merlot and poured me a glass. I noticed she was drinking soda.
“He’s gone a little dramatic. Draped all the paintings with black cloths and hung a black wreath on the door.”
“Very nineteenth century,” Sarah commented.
“He told me when he was in school he wanted to be a set designer.”
“So now all his world is his stage.” Sarah and I looked at each other and both laughed.
I raised my glass to hers, and we clinked.
“I’ll admit. You and Patrick caught me off guard this morning. I thought you and he were over,” I said, as we sat on the couch.
“We never were ‘on,’ as you would say,” said Sarah. “I had some fantasies when we first met early in the summer, But—no—we weren’t doing anything.”
“Sarah, you can tell me,” I said, not smiling. “You weren’t doing anything? He just hangs around in your shower early in the morning?”
“He came over last night because he thought I needed someone to talk with. He was right. We talked, and drank, and finally we ate some crackers and cheese—you know I don’t keep a lot of food in the house, and I wasn’t thinking about grocery shopping this past weekend. I told him he shouldn’t drive home. He slept on the couch.” She looked straight at me. “That’s all that happened.”
Unless she was getting much better at lying, she was telling the truth. Plus, I wanted to believe her. “He slept on this very couch? The one we are currently seated on?”
“This very couch,” she answered seriously. “Would you like to move to a chair?”
We both started laughing. True, I hadn’t slept with Patrick and had no claim on him. But Haven Harbor was a small town. There wasn’t a large selection of eligible men around. And I was attracted to Patrick.
“He’s a nice guy,” I said.
“Very nice,” Sarah agreed. “And remains unclaimed, so far as I’m concerned. Angie, I’m having enough trouble dealing with a family that appears and disappears and then springs up in different places.”
“As in . . . the gallery?”
“Jeremy’s a dear. A dear cousin, I guess. He’s been nicer to me than Abbie or Michael or Luke, for sure.”
“That’s one of the reasons I’m here, Sarah. Luke called me this morning. Seems the police are investigating.”
“You told me this morning before you ran off. They’ve already been here. They haven’t gotten to you yet?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. But I’ve been talking to everyone, too. Luke was upset about the medical examiner’s report—actually, as I think about it, the medical examiner’s report was exactly what he was upset about. Not the fact that his father and brother-in-law might have been murdered by someone.” That family reputation again.
“I don’t understand those Lawrences,” said Sarah, taking a good drink of her soda, “even if I am one.”
“Well, you’ll appreciate this. Luke hired me to investigate everyone who was at the party this weekend to see if I could come up with something the police missed.”
“Does he know you’re pretty good at doing that?”
“He knows I worked for a private investigator in Arizona.”
“So, are you here to dish, or to question me?”
“A little of both. You knew Ted well. You spent a lot of time with him over the past couple of months. Did he tell you anything about his children that might help us figure out whether one of them killed him?”
“He never said much. Abbie was married to someone he didn’t approve of. Michael wasn’t talented, but fancied himself a poet, and Ted hoped someday he’d settle into academic life. Luke he hardly mentioned except to say he was doing well and seemed happy.” She shrugged. “Which isn’t a bad thing to say about your son.”
“And Jeremy?”
“Jeremy was almost always around—at the gallery, for sure, and sometimes at The Point. I was certainly surprised to hear he was Ted’s son. But maybe I should have guessed. Jeremy does look a little like the other Lawrences, and Ted was clearly fond of him. Son or not, Jeremy was Ted’s protégé. It seems right that he inherit the gallery. And Ted’s paintings? That was a sentimental gift. They’re not worth much, but I like that he left them to Jeremy.”
“I’m glad he gave you the two Robert Lawrence paintings before he died. At least you got something of your father’s.”
“Now I have to have them insured, I guess.” She looked over at the large painting of the lighthouse I’d seen on my previous visit. “I may not have much of a family, but I do have two great paintings.”
“And you have friends in Haven Harbor,” I told her.
“You have me. And Jeremy and Patrick, too. And Gram.”
“All the Mainely Needlepointers,” she agreed.
“So you’re going to stay?” I wondered. “After all, you could se
ll one of your paintings and go back to Australia in style. Or anywhere else you’d like to go.”
“Where else would that be? I’m staying here. Haven Harbor’s my home now,” Sarah said, gazing at her painting. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Chapter Forty-five
“Sweet’s the scene of recollection
Soft it lulls our cares to rest
When we dwell with fond reflection
On the joys that once had blest.”
—Sampler stitched in Ohio by Elizabeth Mendenhall, twenty-five years old, in 1832. Elizabeth was a teacher; she may have made this sampler (which also pictures a shepherd and his sheep and dog) as an example for her students. When she married, at the age of forty-three, she moved to Randolph County, Indiana.
“I’d like to think Ted died of an accidental poisoning, and Silas drowned, probably because he’d had too much to drink,” I said. “But since the police are investigating, and Luke’s hired me, I’m trying to figure out why anyone would have had a reason to kill either of them.”
“That’s what you do,” said Sarah. “Motive, opportunity, means.”
“Exactly. I thought you might have some ideas. You knew everyone better than I did.”
Sarah hesitated.
“I only want to brainstorm a little. But there were only nine of us at The Point this past weekend. Two are now dead. I didn’t kill anyone. I don’t think you did, either.”
Sarah looked amazed that I’d even suggested it. “You don’t think I killed anyone?”
I put up my hand. “I know you didn’t kill anyone. But I’m trying to put myself in the shoes of the police. To be logical. Ted’s death meant you didn’t inherit millions of dollars of paintings, and you lost your newly found uncle.”
Sarah raised her eyebrows. “And Silas?”
“You had nothing to gain or lose from Silas’s death. So that leaves Ted’s three—no, four—children, since now we know Jeremy’s his son, too. And Patrick.”
Sarah shook her head. “Patrick? I can’t see that. No motivation—he’s already rich and he wouldn’t gain anything from either of Ted’s wills. Ted’s death only meant he’d lose his job at the gallery, which he didn’t need, financially. And he didn’t know much about lobster bakes. How would he even know how to poison anyone there?”