by Lea Wait
“You’ve been working on this for a while, then.”
“A couple of months. I started it late last fall, but then had other assignments with shorter deadlines, so I put this project aside. The client was going to Florida for the winter and wouldn’t need the seat cover until she got back in June. I’ll have it finished before then.”
I nodded.
“Can I get you some coffee?” he asked.
“That would be great. Black, please.”
“Coming up. Make yourself at home.”
I walked around the room, admiring Dave’s collection of old framed maps and a framed needlepoint of breaking waves. Dave Percy had good taste. And was an expert needlepointer. A bay window looked out into his backyard, where his garden was already tilled and weeded. I couldn’t see what was growing, but green was returning and he’d left a large space for new plants or seeds. Another needlepoint project—a simpler one, a skiff with the name Peace on its stern—lay on the window seat.
Returning, Dave handed me a steaming mug. Strong, the way I liked it. I took the mug and sat on the couch. “You make good coffee. And needlepoint. Gram said you learned it when you were in the navy?”
“Sounds a little strange, but, yes, I was assigned to submarine service. When you’re off duty, there’s not a lot to do on a sub, and not much space to do it in. One of the guys got a lot of hazing from the others because he was doing needlepoint. But he did beautiful work. Pillows, wall hangings, you name it. He usually worked from a kit. He got me and one other fellow interested, and he taught us.” Dave shrugged. “A good way to pass long hours.” He pointed at the wave on the wall. “That’s one I did at sea.”
“I’m impressed. How long were you in the navy?”
“Ten years. I’d planned to be career navy. But when I was home on leave, I had a bad fall on the ice.” He had a crooked smile. “Leg broke in several places, so I went on medical leave. While I was in the VA hospital having physical therapy, I had time to think about my life. I decided I wanted to change direction. I left the navy, went back to school on the GI Bill, and became a high-school science teacher.”
“Have you always taught here?”
“Taught in Williamstown, Massachusetts, for a couple of years, but missed the sea. So when I heard of an opening at Haven Harbor High, I applied. I’ve been teaching biology here for several years now.”
“And you’re happy?” I asked.
“I am.”
“Not married?”
“That’s a personal question,” he said. “But, of course, everyone in town knows the answer. Nope. Guess I haven’t found the right person yet. But I keep my eyes open. You?”
“I’ve given that same answer to too-curious people maybe a million times.”
We exchanged smiles.
“What brings you here today? You didn’t know until you got here how good my coffee was.”
“This,” I said, pulling his envelope out of my pocketbook. “I brought your share of the money we got from Jacques Lattimore. Sorry it’s not more.”
He took the envelope without looking. “You did your best. I’m appreciative. And I’ll be looking forward to working with you from now on.” He glanced over at the project he was working on. “I have to finish the cushion cover, and then I’ll be into final projects and exams at school. I can’t take on any more work until the end of June. But by then, I’ll be ready. No school in summer means more time for needlepoint. It really is addicting.”
“And more time for your garden,” I said. “I saw you have one out back. Vegetables or flowers?”
He grinned. “Better stay friends with me, Angie. That’s my poison garden.”
“What?” He couldn’t have said what I thought I’d heard.
“I grow poisonous plants. I’d read about people doing that, and it sounded like fun. Plus, I can take examples of the plants into my classes and make sure my students know them. Believe it or not, a lot of those kids spend days outdoors, camping, hunting . . . and they don’t even recognize poison ivy or poison oak. One September a student brought me a fistful of flowers he thought were a different variety of Queen Anne’s lace. Turned out he’d picked water hemlock, one of the deadliest plants there is. If he’d put them in water, and, say, a pet had drunk the water, or a child, it would have killed them. Same with lilies of the valley. ‘Don’t drink the water,’ as the song says.” He paused and sipped his coffee. “That’s why I have my yard fenced in. I don’t want any pet dogs or cats checking out my garden. My neighbors know what’s in it, and they keep their children away.”
“I didn’t know there were poisonous plants in Maine,” I said. “Except poison ivy. I learned about that as a child once. The hard way.” I looked down at my hands. “My hands and arms were covered.” Lattimore had been poisoned. I hadn’t thought about poisoned plants. But the state police might be even more interested in Dave’s garden than I was. Although I couldn’t imagine Dave walking around with a vial of poison just in case he ran into someone he wanted to kill.
“A lot of plants in Maine can do damage,” Dave was saying. “Some to people, and some to animals. Some poisonous plants are wild, like bittersweet nightshade and sumac. Yellow dock, which is safe for some uses when prepared properly, can also have serious side effects and be a skin irritant. Others, like the white lilies you see at Easter, grow here, but later in the season. They’re toxic to cats. And another Queen Anne’s look-alike, giant hogweed, can grow up to fourteen feet tall. It’s new to Maine, and I don’t grow it. Its sap can cause blistering and even blindness. I tend my garden with gloves on.”
“I’m going to beware of any Queen Anne’s lace after this,” I said. “I used to pick bouquets of it when I was little and was always disappointed it wilted so quickly inside. Now I’ll be afraid to pick any at all.”
“You do need to be careful,” he said, “although the Queen Anne’s lace you picked was probably fine. The Maine Department of Agriculture has found that giant hogweed in Sebago, Northport, Lisbon Falls, and a few other places so far. Not in Haven Harbor, at least not yet. The state is trying to eradicate it. And water hemlock is usually found around freshwater, not salt.”
“Now I know who to go to if I have any questions about plants,” I said. “Your students must think it’s very cool to learn about plants like that.”
“They do.” He grinned. “And who knows? What they learn might someday save their lives. Or at least save them a lot of discomfort.”
I finished my coffee, said good-bye, and looked at the next name on my list: Ruth Hopkins.
Ruth lived farther up the hill, in a small white house in the shade of the church steeple.
After I rang the doorbell, I heard the sound of her walker clomping toward the door before it opened. “Welcome, Angie. Come on in.”
I moved past her into her little living room. The chair with the high seat was for her, I figured. Easier to get up and down.
“Sit down, sit down. Tea?”
“No, thanks, Ruth. I just came from Dave Percy’s house and had coffee there. I’m caffeined-out for the moment.”
“I understand, dear. If I have too many cups of either of them, I tax my kidneys. Such a nuisance. Part of old age, I’m afraid.”
“Speaking of which . . . could I use your bathroom?”
“Down the hall on your right. You’ll find it.”
It was a small half bath. The medicine cabinet door was partially open. I couldn’t resist peeking. A large bottle of low-dose aspirin. Arthritis-strength Tylenol. High-blood-pressure medicine. Bandages. Antibiotic cream. Anti-itch cream. (It was almost blackfly season—one part of Maine that I hadn’t missed.) Small cakes of soap in the shapes of flower blossoms. Your basic half bath. I closed the cabinet door, then did what I’d come in for.
On my way back to the living room, I noticed that Ruth’s dining room included several large, filled bookcases, and a computer with a large screen on a wide desk covered with papers. Why did Ruth need an office?
“Thank you, dear. My share won’t be a lot.” She held up her gnarled, swollen hands. “The arthritis got me bad this past winter. Couldn’t hold a needle to save my soul. I’m hoping my hands get better when temperatures are warmer and I can sit out in the sun a bit.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, looking at her distended hands and swollen knuckles. “Your hands must hurt.”
“I have pills to take for the pain and inflammation.” She nodded. “Sometimes they help. Sometimes they don’t. I have salves, too. But when my hands get as bad as this, my doctor tells me I shouldn’t hope they’ll get a lot better. It’s the way arthritis progresses.” She shook her head. “It’s no fun, I can tell you.”
“I happened to look in the dining room when I was in the hall. I saw all the papers on your desk. Are you still able to use your computer?”
“Oh, yes. That I do.” Ruth looked down at her hands. “I’ve been using a keyboard for so many years, my fingers know where to go without my telling them, swollen or not.”
“Were you a secretary?” I asked.
Ruth’s smile was quick and her words firm. “That’s a stereotype, young woman. Just because I could type didn’t mean I was someone’s secretary.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“But then, why did you do so much typing?”
“Your grandmother has never told you, then? About me?”
I quickly thought through everything I’d ever heard about Ruth Hopkins, recently or in the past. She was a widow. She lived alone. My thoughts ended. “No, she’s never said anything about you,” I said. “Nothing about typing.”
“Well, then, if you can keep it under your hat. . . .” Ruth looked at me slyly. “Your grandma is one of the few people who know.”
“Of course,” I answered, curious to know her secret. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“I’m a writer. That’s what I do at my computer. I write.”
Why should writing be a secret? Maybe she doesn’t want anyone laughing at her work? “What do you write?” Maybe she wrote a journal. Or was working on a memoir.
“Books, dear. Books.”
Now I was confused. “You’re published?”
“Oh, my, yes. Have been for over forty years now. Forty-seven books and counting. Only one out this year, though. I’m slowing down.”
“Forty-seven books! I had no idea. I’d like to read one of them someday, Ruth.”
There was a definite glint in her eye. “Well, nowadays, best way to read ’em would be as an e-book. My early ones are out of print in paper, but I made sure they were up electronically.”
How had Gram never mentioned Ruth’s writing?
“I’ll look, then. I will.”
“Well, then, I should tell you. Don’t look for the name Ruth Hopkins on ’em. Oh, no. I started writing years ago, when my husband was still alive, and he said he’d be dead and buried before he wanted anyone to know what I was writing. So I used other names.” She almost giggled. “Of course, now he is dead and buried, so it probably doesn’t make a difference. But I do have a reputation to uphold here in town, and my fans know me by the other names. It seemed easier to just keep using ’em.”
“What names do you write under, then?”
“The two I use most frequently are ‘S.M. Bond’ and ‘Chastity Falls.’”
I wasn’t sure. Had I heard those names correctly?
“Dear, I write erotica.”
I shook my head. “Really?” I’d never thought about who might write erotica. But I certainly never visualized a little old lady who used a walker. Someone who wrote erotica should be tall and blond and leggy. And young. Gram had certainly created an interesting group of needlepointers.
“Really. And my books sell quite well, especially now that no one has to hide the book covers when they use an e-reader. Now, aren’t you going to ask me whether I poisoned those cookies I brought to the needlepointers’ meeting?”
It might be worth buying an e-reader to check up on Ruth. Or maybe I’d download one of her books to a computer, once I had one of my own. I couldn’t see using Gram’s for that. Had Gram read any of Ruth’s books? That possibility was vaguely horrifying.
But Ruth was now talking cookies. “Right. You brought a plate of molasses cookies to the last needlepointers’ meeting. The one with Jacques Lattimore.”
“I did. But I mixed those up way last fall, and just had to take them out of the freezer. I don’t have the energy to make cookies now. It’s good I can still read. I’ve gone through just about every large-print book at the library. The librarian says she’ll try to get me more on interlibrary loan.”
“That’s good,” I said, being careful not to ask what books she read. I didn’t think I wanted to know. “Do you watch much television?”
“I can’t take those reality shows they have on now. I do watch the horse races, though, when they’re on. And I don’t miss a Sox game.” She raised her hand and I realized she was trying to make a fist, but her fingers wouldn’t touch her palm. “Go Sox!”
“If I get in any more orders for needlepoint, I’ll check with you to see if your hands will let you do any more,” I said, standing up.
“You do that, Angie. But don’t count on me.” She started to get up. “I’ve got my writing to do. At this point in life typing’s about all I can do with these hands.”
“That’s all right. You sit. I can see myself to the door,” I said.
“Thank you for coming by. Anytime you’re nearby, you stop in. You can tell me all about your time out west. It’d be more interesting than watching that CNN all day.”
“I will. Thank you.” I closed the door and headed to the next house on my list. How would it feel to live alone, and not be able to control what your body could do? Ruth Hopkins’s mind was fine, but how long would she be able to live in her house safely? I resolved to stop in to see her often for as long as I was in Haven Harbor.
The Titicombs lived on Elm Street, the street where ships’ owners and bankers and other well-to-do nineteenth-century Haven Harbor residents had built homes. Houses there were three stories tall instead of two. The earlier ones were Colonial or Federal styles built in the early nineteenth century; the later ones were rambling Victorians built after the Civil War.
The Titicombs’ wide yard was littered with sturdy plastic toddler-sized bicycles, a Hula-hoop, two balls, and one small pink rubber boot. As I walked up the granite walk to the front door, a small child dressed only in Pampers zoomed around the house. I ran to catch her before she reached the street and almost collided with her mother, who was also in pursuit.
“Cindy!” I said, recognizing my old grammar-school friend as she scooped up the giggling red-haired runaway. She’d put on a bit of weight, most of it concealed by her loose sweatpants and long-sleeved T-shirt, but her hair was still curly and her smile was more relaxed than I’d remembered.
It took a moment before she connected.
“Angie! How are you? I was looking forward to seeing you for lunch. Clem told me you were back in town. And I’d heard about your mother. Sorry. How are you coping?”
“I’m all right.” Not really, but you couldn’t say exactly how you felt to anyone except a close friend. Since I hadn’t seen Cindy in more than fifteen years, she didn’t qualify. “I heard you have children.”
“Guilty!” she answered. “The others are in the backyard. Come around!”
I walked with her. “You live in Blue Hill now?”
She nodded. “We came for a little visit with Grampa and Gramma. Didn’t we, April?” She tickled that young lady’s tummy and put her down. April grinned and started back for the front yard. This time she didn’t escape.
“I actually came to see your mother. But I’m glad to see you! You look good.”
Cindy
shrugged and grinned. “I know I’m no fashion plate. My husband says I look maternal. Three kids in five years? I’d better look maternal. I’d feel better if I got to the gym more often. Chasing the little ones is exhausting, but doesn’t usually get your heart rate up. But how could I miss being with this angel?” She switched April to her other hip. “Mom’s back here.”
We’d reached the backyard, where Katie Titicomb was sitting in one of four Adirondack chairs, holding a baby on her lap. Near her a boy of maybe five was playing in a plastic sandbox.
“You’d better get some clothes on that one, Cindy. She’ll catch her death of cold,” said Katie.
“We have company, Mom,” said Cindy. “It’s Angie Curtis.”
“So it is,” said Mrs. Titicomb. “Good to see you, Angie.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Titicomb. I came by to give you your share of the money we got from Lattimore.” I handed her the envelope. She slipped it into the diaper bag next to her chair.
“Thank you for bringing it over. Truth be told, I haven’t missed the money or the work as much as the others. The doctor and I took a cruise this spring, and I’ve been redoing our living room. I haven’t had much time for needlework recently.”
“She also worked four beautiful pillows for me,” said Cindy. “And a piece to reupholster a footstool I loved, but it had been feeling its age.”
“Falling apart, you might even say,” agreed Mrs. Titicomb. “But I’m out of projects at the moment. If you get in any more orders, I’m ready.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I haven’t contacted any of our customers yet. That’s next on my list.”
After I’m sure who killed Mama, I thought.
“You’ll be staying in Haven Harbor for a while then?” Cindy asked.
“Six months, anyway,” I said. “Maybe more. I haven’t decided.” How ever long it would take to get the needlework business back on a schedule and making money for these people. “I’d love to sit and get caught up, but I have two other people to visit this afternoon.”