by Lea Wait
“Bringing them together will only help if it happens soon. Every hour makes a difference. They could be building a defensive wall right now.”
Ethan looked at me and then at his phone. “How fast can you pick up Sarah and Patrick and meet us at The Point?”
“They may be asleep,” I pointed out.
“Then wake them up.” Ethan looked at Pete. “We’ll get Jeremy. I want everyone together who was at The Point last weekend. Angie’s right. Reconvening Ted Lawrence’s birthday guests may be the only way to get the whole story out.”
“I’ll get Patrick and Sarah to The Point in thirty minutes,” I promised.
I called both Patrick and Sarah, put on a clean sweater, and picked up my gun.
I probably wouldn’t need it. After all—Ethan and Pete would be there. Real detectives, with real guns.
But I didn’t want to take any chances. Maybe tonight would be when the fireworks Ted had planned for his birthday would explode.
Chapter Forty-eight
“Promise Little.
Do much.”
—Needlepointed motto, c. 1880. Framed, but not signed or dated.
Fifteen minutes later I picked Sarah up at her apartment.
“I hope the police don’t expect us to look our best,” she grumbled, combing her short streaked hair with her fingers as we headed out of town to pick up Patrick.
“I don’t think they’ll be paying attention to how we look.”
Patrick was waiting for us outside his carriage house on his mother’s estate. He climbed into the backseat. “I know law enforcement is a twenty-four/seven operation, but couldn’t this have waited for the morning? And what about Jeremy? He was at The Point last weekend.”
“Ethan and Pete are picking up Jeremy. The sooner this gets solved the better for everyone. Glad I was able to get through to both of you.” I hadn’t seen Patrick since that morning, when he’d been wearing only a towel. This was awkward.
“What would you have done otherwise?” asked Sarah, bringing me back to our mission. “Pounded on our doors?”
“Possibly,” I said. “Or thrown stones at your windows or . . .”
“Got it,” said Patrick. “Hope this doesn’t take too long, though. I’m exhausted.”
We all were.
Ethan’s cruiser was at The Point when I pulled my car in next to it. Thank goodness, I thought, they arrived before we did. They were in charge. I didn’t want the challenge of waking one of the Lawrences to interview them again.
We knocked on the back kitchen door we’d been using all weekend. I heard Ethan yell, “Com’on in!”
Sarah went in. She held the door for Patrick and me.
“We’ll be there in a minute,” I said, touching Patrick’s arm.
The door closed behind Sarah. I took a deep breath. “This morning. Sarah told me what happened, why you were . . . dressed . . . the way you were. I was an ass to jump to conclusions.”
Patrick shook his head. “A very pretty ass, then.”
“I was jealous,” I admitted. “I thought you and I. . . .”
Patrick bent down and kissed me, soundly and sweetly. “You and I. Yes. I’m sorry about this morning. I should have run after you.”
I grinned. “Not such a good idea in what you were wearing. But we’re okay, then?”
He kissed me again, lightly. “Very okay.”
“Then I guess we’d better go help solve a murder.”
Dinner must have been sandwiches; bread and cold-cut wrappers littered the kitchen table. I was relieved to see at least a couple of bottles of soda. Not everyone had been drinking alcohol.
We joined an unhappy-looking crew in the living room. Abbie and Luke were sitting on the couch; Jeremy and Michael had claimed armchairs. Patrick and Sarah sat in straight chairs near a mahogany card table that seemed permanently set up for a never-occurring game of chess. Pete and Ethan had pulled in chairs from the kitchen. I did the same, staying close to the door.
I might have suggested the idea, but Ethan, with Pete as backup, was in charge. I didn’t want to get in the line of fire—verbal or physical. This was a police operation.
“Okay. Everyone’s here,” said Ethan. “I want to go over exactly what happened this weekend. Who talked to whom, where everyone was, and when.”
Michael slumped down in his chair. “We’ve already answered your questions. And Angie’s. How’s this going to help?”
“Each of you remembered last weekend slightly differently; you saw and heard different things. We’re hoping getting all that out on the table will help explain what happened to your father Saturday afternoon. And to Silas Reed on Sunday.”
Michael shrugged. “Do your thing. I can’t see it’ll be any use, but the sooner we get this over, the sooner we can get some sleep.”
Ethan turned to Abbie. “You and Silas drove here Friday afternoon. You were the first of his children to arrive.”
“I’d been here earlier,” Jeremy put in. “But I was picking Luke and Michael up at the airport.”
“Right,” said Ethan, gesturing to Pete, who’d taken out both a tape recorder and a notebook. “You and Sarah and Angie and Patrick were all here by early in the afternoon.”
“Technically,” Patrick pointed out, “Angie and Sarah and I’d been here since first thing in the morning. Jeremy picked up orders at the patisserie after he closed the gallery at noon.”
Ethan turned to Abbie. “Late Friday afternoon you and your father went for a walk, Abbie. Am I right?”
“We walked to the barn, and then down the drive. I wanted to talk to Dad in private.”
“You asked him for money.”
“We needed a new tractor,” she said. “Yes, I asked him for money. He hadn’t helped us in years. I thought he might have mellowed.”
“But he hadn’t,” said Pete.
Abbie shook her head. “No way. He was as stubborn as always.”
“Was the money you asked for really for a tractor?” asked Pete, looking at his notes. “Because later that evening you told Sarah you’d leave Aroostook County in a heartbeat if you had money.”
Abbie looked at Sarah. “Someone’s got a big mouth. I might have said something like that. We talked about a lot of things.”
“So,” Ethan continued, “Friday afternoon your father told you he wouldn’t give you any money. And, of course, later that evening he told all of you he was planning to leave the Robert Lawrence paintings to Sarah Byrne. I’d guess you were pretty angry about that. After all, even if Sarah was a relative, she was only his niece. You were his daughter.”
“I wasn’t thrilled,” said Abbie. “Sure, I was angry. We all were.” She looked at her brothers. They didn’t look back.
“You took his rejection personally,” said Pete.
“Wouldn’t you have?” she spat back.
“Abbie, you live on a farm, right?”
She sighed. “You know I do.”
“So you know about poisons. The kind of poisons used to get rid of mice and rats.”
“We have an organic farm. We don’t use poisons.”
“But you know what they are, and what they’re used for,” said Ethan.
“I suppose so. But what has that to do with anything? Dad ate a bad clam. I don’t understand why you’re grilling me about my life!”
“Your father had poisons in his barn,” said Ethan. “Poisons similar to those people use on farms. You were in that barn several times Friday afternoon and Saturday.”
“I was,” Abbie agreed. “So was everyone else. The clamming rakes and boots were in the barn; so were the wagons we used to cart food down to the beach, the tarps and garbage bags, and the shovels used to dig the pit.”
Ethan nodded. “Noted. When we talked with you this morning, Abbie, you had a headache.”
“We all were hung over to some degree,” Luke interrupted. “Why are you drilling Abbie? She lost her husband as well as her father.”
“I suggested to Abbi
e that she take something for her headache before she talked with us,” Ethan continued. “She said she didn’t have any painkillers, and there weren’t any in her dad’s medicine cabinet that she could take.”
Right. She’d said the same thing to me later that morning. Ethan was really focusing in on Abbie. Her back was getting straighter and she was clutching the arm of the couch.
“So, Abbie. You’d checked out your father’s medicine cabinet,” Ethan said. “The cabinet where he kept his Percocet. The Percocet we found remnants of in a bottle of Bradley’s Coffee Brandy. And in your husband.”
Michael sat up. Everyone looked at Abbie. We all knew who’d been drinking Bradley’s all weekend.
“Why, Abbie?” asked Luke. “Why? We all could use some money. But killing Silas would just leave you with a farm to work. You told us he didn’t even have life insurance.”
“Why? Because that bastard thought I killed Dad,” Abbie blurted.
Sarah gasped.
“I hated Dad. I hated his paying more attention to you boys than he ever did to me. I hated looking so much like our mother than he didn’t want to look at me. I hated being sent away to school and I hated his throwing me out of the house. For years I didn’t ask him for anything. But Silas and I’ve had our problems, and this time I was desperate. I needed to get out. To find a man who could give me children. To be something more than a farm wife drudge who wiped the noses of other moms’ kids. Sarah was right. Friday afternoon I didn’t ask Dad for money for a tractor. That’s what Silas wanted me to do. I asked Dad for enough money to start over. I told him I wouldn’t bother him. I just needed to get out. Get away.”
Michael looked at her. “I didn’t know your life was that awful. I thought you were living the way you wanted to live.”
She sniffed. “No one ever asked. I figured no one cared. And when I finally got up enough courage to ask Dad for help, he refused. Said I wasn’t a little girl anymore. I was grown up, and would have to figure out my own life. Silas knew I’d asked for money and that I was hurt when Dad refused to give me any. And then Dad announced he was leaving all Grandpa’s paintings to someone we didn’t even know!”
“So you were upset.” Luke looked at Michael. “We were all upset. That was understandable.”
“Friday night, before he passed out, Silas said we should leave. Go home. We hadn’t gotten what we’d come to Haven Harbor for, and we should get out. I convinced him we should stay until Sunday.” Abbie looked around the room. “I wanted to talk with you guys. Talk to people who remembered the same things from our childhood. Maybe I was a little like Dad. I wanted our lobster bake—the bake we all knew by then would be our last together—to be perfect.”
“You were a big help in organizing it,” Sarah assured her quietly.
“We worked well together, didn’t we?” said Abbie, her eyes filling with tears. “I made sure I sat next to Dad at the bake. I kept thinking this was probably the last time I’d sit next to him.” She started crying. “And, of course, it was.”
Luke picked up a box of tissues from the table next to him and handed it to Abbie.
“Anyway, after we got back from the hospital Saturday night Silas accused me of poisoning Dad. He said he didn’t believe Dad had been poisoned by any sick clam, the way Angie’s friend said. He said he didn’t know what I’d done, but he was sure I’d added something to Dad’s dinner.”
Abbie blew her nose, loudly. “I told him I’d never do such a thing. Never! Dad and I weren’t close, and I was angry—but I’d swallowed that. Dad was going to die. Why would I poison him? But Silas kept saying he was sure it was me. That I had a mean streak, and I was jealous of Sarah, and if Dad died before he made out a new will we’d inherit, the way we’d hoped. I kept telling him he was crazy. He’d had too much to drink. He didn’t know what he was saying.” She looked over at Luke. “You heard him, Luke. You told him I’d never hurt Dad. I really appreciated your standing up for me. I hoped Silas would forget his crazy idea by the next morning.”
“But he didn’t?” Michael asked.
“He said if I didn’t call the police he was going to call them Monday morning. Tell them his wife was a murderer.” Abbie looked around the room. “He thought I’d killed Dad, and now you all think I killed Silas. How can you think that? I didn’t know what to do. But I didn’t kill my husband or my father!”
No one answered at first.
Then Luke spoke. “I overheard him talking to you, Abbie. I couldn’t let him turn you in, whether or not you’d killed Dad. You’re still my sister.” He turned to Pete and Ethan. “I thought it would be easy. He was the only one drinking Bradley’s. Everyone knows you’re not supposed to mix alcohol with painkillers. I figured Silas would just go to sleep, and it would be the end of his crazy idea that Abbie’d killed Dad. But then, Michael, you asked him to go swimming, and the idiot decided to go.”
“He did,” said Michael, slowly. “He even had a final drink of Bradley’s before we went down to the beach.”
“Luke?” said Abbie, the truth dawning.
“At first I thought it would be all right. People drown, especially if they drink. Everyone knew Silas was drinking. But then you police got involved, and started asking questions. I didn’t kill Dad. I don’t know who or what did. But yes. I put the Percocet in Silas’s brandy.”
Abbie put her head in her hands.
“Someone had to stand up for my sister.”
Chapter Forty-nine
“’Tis true twas long ere I began to seek to live forever
But now I run as fast as I can, ’tis better late than never.”
—Verse on 1814 sampler stitched by Mary Burden (born February 25, 1801), which included a queen and a cat in stem and cross-stitch with a strawberry border, an inn, and a three-storied house.
The living room was silent, except for Abbie’s sobs.
Then my phone vibrated. Who could be calling now?
I pulled it out of my pocket and glanced down.
Anna Winslow had sent me the photographs she’d taken at Mackerel Point Saturday. With all that was happening, I’d almost forgotten she’d said she’d do that.
While Ethan was reading Luke his rights, I scrolled through the pictures. One after another showed birds, or water, or sky, or mud. Perhaps places a bird had been seconds before. Then I saw something else.
“Pete,” I said quietly, “Anna Winslow just sent me a group of photographs she took out at Mackerel Point Saturday morning.”
Pete looked at me. “And?”
“They’re time stamped. I assumed they might show Michael Lawrence trying, or failing, to dig for clams. But there’s more.”
He glanced over at Ethan and Luke. Abbie was still sobbing. “Kitchen?” he mouthed toward me.
I nodded.
At the kitchen table I handed him my phone. “Anna’s not a professional wildlife photographer. But look at the mud flat.”
Pete held the phone close to his face so he could see the details. “I see the time and date stamp on each photo.”
“All the pictures were taken Saturday morning, within the time period we know Michael, Jeremy, and Luke were clamming. “Jeremy said he’d dropped Michael at Mackerel Point.”
Pete nodded, clicking through quickly. Then, “Wait! Let me go back a shot.” He paused and looked even closer. “This picture’s focused on the water, but someone’s been digging there,” Pete pointed out.
“Whoever was digging wasn’t a professional, for sure,” I said, looking over his shoulder. “They dig in lines; that clammer was wandering.”
“No professional would have been at Mackerel Point,” Pete agreed. “It’s been posted for the past two weeks. All the local clammers know that.”
He clicked to the next photo. And the next, focusing in on the mud flat.
We both peered at the screen.
Finally . . . “There!” I pointed. “There’s a man with a rake and bucket.” The figure was standing up, not digging. I enla
rged him as much as my phone would allow.
“Didn’t you say Jeremy dropped Michael off at Mackerel Point?” asked Pete.
I nodded. “He said he went on to Eagle Rock.” I peered at the time stamp on the photo—“11:50.”
“By that time,” said Pete, skimming through his notebook, “Abbie had picked Michael and Luke up and taken them home.”
“Leaving Jeremy free to go back to Mackerel Point and dig more clams.”
Neither of us had any doubt. The clammer in the photo wasn’t Michael. It was Jeremy.
Chapter Fifty
“While you, my dear,
Your needlework attend,
Observe the command of a faithful friend
Silence the inward arguments to stain
Or all your needlework will be in vain.”
—Dated September 22, 1803. English sampler by Armison, age ten. She also stitched a heart, an apple tree, and a mounted hunter chasing a rabbit.
Pete and I walked back into the living room. “Jeremy,” I said, looking at him. “Jeremy, you killed Ted.”
Everyone turned toward the corner where Jeremy was sitting.
Jeremy got up and ran. But with Pete and Ethan after him, he didn’t even get as far as the kitchen door.
Each of them held one of Jeremy’s arms. They pulled him back to the living room and sat him in the chair where he’d been sitting.
“Why do you think that, Angie?” asked Ethan, looking from Jeremy to me.
“I have pictures,” I said. “Photographs that show Jeremy digging clams at Mackerel Point—a mud flat closed because of Red Tide—after Abbie drove Michael and Luke back to The Point.”
“So—I was digging clams. So were the others. How does that prove I murdered Ted?” asked Jeremy. “Ted was my father just as much as he was Abbie’s and Luke’s and Michael’s, and I knew him better than any of his other children did.” He glanced from side to side. “Besides, even if I dug some bad clams, how could I have made sure Ted ate one?”