by Carrie Doyle
“Oh no!”
“Tell me what you have on her.”
Joseph retrieved a folder from the basket of his scooter. He opened it and flipped through the pages. Finding the one that interested him, he handed Antonia the sheet. It was a copy of an article from Women’s Wear Daily. There was a picture of a much younger Alida Jenkins alongside the headline: fabricant fragrance chooses new face. The accompanying article was about how an “unknown young seventeen-year-old model” had been chosen to be the exclusive spokesmodel for the venerable makeup company.
“I’m not following,” Antonia said. “We knew Alida was famous.”
“Do you know who owns Fabricant Fragrance?”
“No.”
“Framingham Industries.”
“Really!”
“Yes. And look at the date of the article—it’s two days after Susie’s murder.”
“You think they gave her the contract in order to shut her up?”
“I think it’s possible.”
“But Alida is a beautiful girl. She even had you swooning. Surely she would have received a contract on her own.”
“Perhaps. But there are a lot of beautiful girls out there. And while I don’t want to diminish her exquisiteness, there is something of luck involved with attaining a career like she has.”
“This deal could have been in the works for a while.”
“It’s possible. But I think the timeline is too coincidental. And, in fact, I researched other similar announcements of fragrance spokesmodels around the same time. They were done with much more fanfare than this—there were launch parties and television interviews. A mention in a trade paper, while important, seems a bit hasty and under the radar. Especially considering how prominent a role she played in the advertising campaign over the next few decades. I believe, to date, she is still the face of Fabricant Fragrance. Which is awfully rare. And one can intimate that she received her contract because of her close friendship with Pauline Framingham, but let’s be realistic. Friendship can only do so much for so long.”
Antonia paused, thinking. “Do you think she blackmailed them for it? Maybe she knew Pauline did it and, to keep her quiet, they offered her this? Or do you think they just handed it to her as a reward for silence?”
“A very good question. I have not had the opportunity to talk to Ms. Jenkins. Did she appear to be a devious person? It would take some gumption to blackmail someone at age seventeen.”
“True.”
“Then you’ll have to believe it was used to silence her.”
“And maybe she could be bought off, but Susie couldn’t . . .” Antonia trailed off. She took the opportunity to tuck into another cookie. One absolutely could not be expected to only sample one cookie off a cookie plate. That was absurd. She pushed the tray toward Joseph.
“I can’t,” he demurred.
“You have more willpower than I do.”
“It’s not that. Soyla told me that strawberry shortcake was on the menu. That is something I simply cannot refuse, so I will abstain from ingesting any more of those dollops of paradise.”
Antonia smiled. “They are so good, aren’t they?”
“The ratio of caramel to peanuts is heavenly. But I digress. Let me show you something else I discovered as I perused back issues of the East Hampton Star.”
Joseph selected another printout from his folder and handed it to Antonia. It was a large spread on the Hampton Classic, one of the leading horse shows in the world, not to mention one of the largest. It had been held for the past three decades in Bridgehampton and attracted serious horsemen and women from around the globe. This current article dated back approximately ten years. Antonia scanned the pictures and found two of Pauline Framingham. In one, she was atop a chestnut-colored horse named Jasper, jumping over a large white fence. They had apparently leapt to victory because the notation under the picture said that she had placed first in the open jumper class.
It took Antonia longer to find the second picture of Pauline, but she located it on the bottom right corner. In a blurred photo, Pauline was sitting in the bleachers of the Classic, chatting with a dapper-looking older man with a mustache. He was standing next to her, looking very regal in a suit. Pauline was gazing up at him with a friendly grin.
“I don’t recognize him. Should I?” Antonia asked.
“Who?”
Antonia pointed at the man with the mustache.
“Him? Oh, Redmond something or other. But that’s not important. I wanted you to look at the man sitting next to her.”
Antonia’s eyes swiveled toward the other side of Pauline. Sitting ever-so-close to her was none other than Kevin Powers. He also wore a smile on his face and appeared quite at ease despite the class warfare that had plagued them years prior.
“I don’t understand. I thought she hated Kevin Powers. Called him trash.”
“If you read the article, it mentions that Powers’ Garden Center was awarded the contract to provide flowers to the VIP tents at the Classic. Per the suggestion of executive board member Pauline Framingham.”
“But this makes no sense . . .”
“Another payoff, my dear. Pauline put her ducks in a row.”
“But why would she have waited ten years? Susie was killed way before this picture.”
“Didn’t you tell me that Kevin had a substance abuse problem? I think his sister-in-law Sylvia—who is not known for her discretion, I might add—once told me that Kevin had been in and out of rehabilitation centers for years and just when they had finally given up on him, he became sober. Became sober, somehow opened the garden center, and very quickly landed the contract with the Classic.”
Antonia put down the paper. “She really owns these people, doesn’t she?”
“It would appear that way . . . although, perhaps they own her?”
21
The bright sun flooded Antonia’s room at six the next morning, leaving her no choice but to haul herself to the beach for her morning walk. She grumpily pulled on sweatpants and Crocs and ran a brush through her tangled mop of hair. Her eyes were puffy from sleep, and the coffee she guzzled did little to rouse her from her drowsiness. In her mind she asked why it mattered for her to walk along the beach when a few more hours of sleep would be more beneficial. It was always a negotiation and usually a coin toss as to whether laziness or fitness prevailed. With the added work of an investigation, Antonia felt she was entitled to a little extra lounging. Especially since Nick Darrow was in the city for the next couple of days and she had no chance of running into him there.
Yet as soon as Antonia pulled her car into the Georgica Beach parking lot, a wave of joy washed over her and she was so glad she had come. Why was it that the idea of exercise was so much worse than the actual exercise? And to be honest, a walk on the beach was hardly a jog or a run. All she had to do was walk down to the jetty and back, and as it was a glorious golden morning with the sun’s rays bouncing off the water it could not have been a more pleasurable foray. She waved to passing joggers and dog walkers with the type of enthusiasm usually reserved for residents and neighbors on Sesame Street.
The sand was already warm under Antonia’s feet and she found herself walking briskly, reveling in the soft breeze coming in off the ocean. She passed Pauline’s house with nary a glance, determined to focus on the other aspects of her life besides murder. When she was young, her mother told her to take time every week to count her blessings. This week, the top blessing on her list would be that Nick Darrow was back in town. (She decided to remove the circumstances from her mind—focus on the positive.) Other blessings were that the inn was fully booked for the summer, her restaurant was doing well, she had her health as did the people closest to her, and the weather was nice.
In the distance, Antonia thought she saw that jogger who approached her on the beach and told her that Pauline was evil.
Was it a coincidence? Did the woman just know Pauline’s reputation? Or was she legitimately warning her? Antonia set off briskly trying to catch up with her to find out. But after about a minute of running, Antonia found herself heaving and collapsing from the exertion. Note to self, Antonia: get in shape. She glanced at her watch and realized that she was running late to assist with breakfast service so she quickly veered around to change directions. Just as she did so, she heard a light snap in her damaged knee.
“Sugar!” Antonia exclaimed. Her knee suddenly felt hot. She was still able to walk—but it was more of a hobble—toward her car. When she plopped herself in the driver’s seat, she yanked up her pants to stare at her pale knee. It appeared slightly swollen to her untrained eye, but nothing very serious. She knew she should probably rest it, but hopefully an ice pack would help alleviate the swelling. She had to confess, she had been remiss in doing the exercises that Matt Powers, her physical therapist, had prescribed her. She was also due to visit him. Maybe now was the best time, since she could probe him about his uncle Kevin. She dialed his number.
Fortunately Matt had a cancellation, so at ten o’clock that morning, Antonia found herself at his office at East Hampton Sports Medicine, which was located in a large aluminum-sided building just off Route 114 toward the airport. Antonia had an innate aversion to the place as she did to any location that had a whiff of sports equipment and exertion. The athletic paraphernalia scattered around the windowless space—stairmasters, free weights, treadmills, and jump ropes—coupled with the scent of sweat and hardy determination conjured up vomit in Antonia’s throat. To her knee’s detriment, she avoided the place like the plague. But today, she sucked it up and allowed Matt to manipulate her leg into positions he must have learned about in some medieval torture manual, while she focused on eliciting information about Kevin.
“I just saw your uncle the other day,” Antonia said with feigned casualness.
“Frank?”
“No—who’s Frank?”
“My uncle,” Matt said flatly. He was a stunningly attractive man in his late twenties who was as humorless and conceited as he was good-looking. Antonia believed that the only reason he was still single was that the girls who were pretty enough to secure him were quickly bored by him. He was what one would call a hot nerd.
“I meant your other uncle. Kevin.”
“Oh, yeah. He’s my father’s half-brother. Does this hurt?” he asked as he twisted Antonia’s leg to the left.
She found herself sinking into the thin, plastic-covered mattress on the table. “Yes,” she was able to warble. “I didn’t realize they’re half-brothers. It explains why they don’t look that much alike.”
“Are you doing your exercises? Because there should be way more mobility by now.”
“Sort of,” admitted Antonia. “When I have time.”
Matt frowned, then rubbed his hands together before pulling down on Antonia’s leg. “It’s really important that you do your strengthening . . .”
Antonia zoned out while Matt lectured her. She watched his mouth move, but the words flooded over her without any meaning. She noticed that he had perfectly straight teeth, and she wondered if they were capped. It was so funny how his features were so dainty when his parents had such thick and fleshy faces and bodies. She waited for him to finish before she returned to her desired topic.
“Are you and Kevin close?”
“Not really. He wasn’t around much when I was young.”
“Oh really? I thought he always lived here.”
Matt shrugged. “Technically.”
“What does that mean?”
Matt was pressing down on Antonia’s leg so hard tears sprang into her eyes. She had to bite her lip to keep from scream-crying.
“Kevin had some issues so he went away for a while.”
“Oh, right. He told me all about that.”
“Really? I didn’t think he talked about it.”
“Drug and alcohol addiction is a serious disease. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. The more we talk about it, the more awareness there is.”
A strange look came across Matt’s face. “Oh that. Right . . .”
Antonia sat up. “What were you referring to?”
Matt shook his head. “Nothing.”
“We’re probably talking about the same thing. He was extremely candid with me,” fibbed Antonia. She was going straight to hell in a handbasket.
“You mean you talked about Kimberly?”
“Of course we talked about Kimberly. He told me all about her. What ever happened to her?”
“I’m not sure. I think she moved away. I see her mom from time to time when I’m at Hampton Market Place. She still works there.”
“Right, what’s her name again?”
“Sally.”
“Right.” Antonia could not believe how much she was bluffing. Could Matt really not tell? “So what was your take on what happened with Kimberly and Kevin?”
“I was pretty young. I just remember my parents looking really worried. There was a lot of whispering, and even as a kid I could sense something was wrong. But it was a he-said-she-said thing, according to them. I remember my step-grandmother—Kevin’s mom—saying, ‘If you have a toxic relationship, things escalate. It’s both people’s fault.’ But my parents never really bought that. That’s sort of why I didn’t see much of Kevin. They were wary of him and they didn’t trust him. But his mother would hear none of it; he could do no wrong in her eyes. He was always mixed up with bad things.”
Antonia sat bolt upright. “Wait, what? He was physically abusive to Kimberly?”
Kevin gave her an odd look. “The fight . . . you said you knew.”
“I didn’t realize he hit her.” Antonia felt sick.
“He threw a bottle at her. That’s why he went to prison.”
“Prison?” sputtered Antonia.
Matt squinted at her. “I thought that’s what we were talking about.”
“It is, it is,” she said, not wanting to let on that she didn’t know. “I just . . . I don’t refer to it as ‘prison.’ That seems so . . . pejorative. I like to call it the Big House. In a Big House, people are awarded second chances.”
“Sometimes they don’t deserve them.”
“Agreed. What did Kevin do exactly?”
“From what I understand, he messed Kimberly up pretty bad. He claims that he didn’t mean for the bottle to hit her, but it did. Who throws a bottle at a woman, no matter how drugged out or drunk you are? Their fighting was apparently legendary. But maybe they just brought out the devil in each other. There are people who do that. They bring out the devil in each other—the worst possible version of themselves. Have you ever come across that?”
“Yes.” Antonia nodded, distaste and contempt growing inside her. “Unfortunately, I have.”
22
As it was on her way back to the inn, Antonia made a detour to stop by Hampton Market Place to ask Sally about her daughter and Kevin Powers. Antonia had pretended to Matt that she knew Sally but, to the best of her knowledge, she had never laid eyes on the woman. Antonia was truly shocked by the idea of Kevin as a violent person. He had acknowledged his past transgressions, but Antonia had never assumed that they included violence toward women. This was disgusting and changed everything, and she needed to know more. Her case might have just solved itself.
Antonia chided herself for having been too quick to exonerate Kevin in Susie’s murder. Maybe it did have something to do with him being a local and the fact that she knew his family? Could that have been what persuaded the police to look the other way too? And although it was disgusting to admit—there was something more . . . well, exciting was the wrong word, but interesting? Intoxicating? Righteous? Whatever the word—something better about believing that Susie’s murderer was one of the rich and famous folk that she kept company
with.
And if Antonia were to be perfectly honest with herself, it had been there all along for her to see—Susie dated men who her friends thought were unfit for her. Antonia had assumed Susie’s friends were snobs, and that they disapproved of the men because they were from the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak. But perhaps the friends disapproved because the men were dangerous.
She was mad at herself for her own biases (pro-local, pro-underdog, pro-cute guy!), and she was mad at herself for not seeing the real Kevin. He had seemed so mild and soft-spoken. No one else had indicated that he could be violent. He even had a yoga mat in his office! Could a man who does yoga be violent? Of course it was a stereotype that yogis were peaceniks, but still. Antonia had to wrap her head around it. Darn it, Bingham! she scolded herself. Wake up and do your job!
Hampton Market Place wasn’t far from the train station and housed in a building that had undergone many metamorphoses in recent decades. For years it was called the Chicken House, and it was where everyone in town procured beer kegs and the tastiest fried chicken around, according to those who had sampled it. But that was before Antonia’s time. It was Schmidt’s for a while, and then after a fire, it had reemerged as Hampton Market Place, with a deli counter that was in strong demand as well as a salad bar and then a variety of Irish packaged snacks and expensive organic foods that didn’t seem to jibe with the clientele. A young woman at the counter directed Antonia to Sally who agreed, somewhat nervously, to take a break and chat with Antonia outside.
Sally was a hefty woman in her early sixties with a messy mop of dirty blond hair held together with bobby pins. She had a warm smile but was meek and tentative, and Antonia couldn’t help but feel as if she was a teacher leading an errant student to the principal’s office.
“What’s this about, can I ask?” Sally inquired nervously. She had the gravelly voice of a smoker.
“No, nothing bad. Well, bad, but long ago bad . . . I’ve been asked to look into the murder of Susie Whitaker.”