by Amy Pershing
“Shut up!” I shouted at Diogi. Diogi shut up.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” the voice said.
Krista. What was Krista doing at my house at the ungodly hour of—I squinted at the clock by the bed—eleven in the morning. Eleven in the morning?
My existential crisis, or whatever you wanted to call it (self-pity, maybe, Sam?) had kept me up until the wee small hours, at which point I’d finally fallen into a feverish sleep. Now my brain felt like Jell-O.
I slid out of bed and padded over to open the door. Diogi went into paroxysms of joy at the sight of our visitor. Krista was having none of it.
“Call off the hound,” she said, fending him off with one hand.
“I wish I could,” I muttered as I pulled Diogi away. “Go do your business,” I said, and pointed him toward a forsythia bush that I’d noticed he loved to water.
He bounded away happily, and I stood back to let Krista in. It was only then that I noticed the cardboard boxes at her feet.
“What’re those?”
“Your parents’ notebooks. They left them in the office archives when they went to Florida, and I need the space.”
“I don’t have any space,” I said.
Krista waved vaguely toward the door that led to the rest of Aunt Ida’s house. “You got nothin’ but space, girl.” Why did everyone assume I was keeping Aunt Ida’s house?
But I knew from experience that there was no arguing with Krista, so I stooped and picked up one of the boxes. It was heavy, but I managed to get it over to my little table. Krista followed me with the other. I left the door open for Diogi’s return. The morning was almost balmy, and it was nice to feel the soft spring breeze coming up from the salt pond.
I turned back to the boxes and lifted the cardboard top of the one I had brought in. Neatly stacked inside were dozens of reporters’ notebooks, those steno pads beloved by journalists everywhere for their stiff cardboard covers joined at the top by a wire spiral. This made them easy to hold with one hand while taking notes with the other. For most of my life, these notebooks had been like extensions of my parents’ hands. Each would be carefully labeled on the front cover with a start and finish date, each would be crammed, I knew, with notes from meetings, interviews, and research.
“They’re in chronological order, the most current on top,” Krista said. “They go back about fifteen years.”
I opened the top notebook in the box I’d brought in and flipped through pages filled with my father’s neat handwriting until I got to his last day at work, about a month after his heart attack:
8:35 am/phone call from Rowena Myers, complaint re editorial re town dump expansion
9 am/front pg meeting/top story, park service to close Outer Beach during plover season/front pg photo, birds
2:30/editorial due, supporting park service
4:00/“surprise” retirement party god save me
Now you know where I get my snark.
This was kind of fun. I opened the other box and picked up the last notebook my mother had used before she gave it all up to ensure that my dad would live forever. Unlike his notebooks, this one was neither neat nor methodical, the pages covered with a kind of shorthand that only my mother could fully decipher. My mom had a history of leaving her stuff all over the place, so on the front of every notebook she’d write in black Sharpie: CONFIDENTIAL PROPERTY OF VERONICA BARNES. PLEASE RETURN. Once a notebook was filled, she’d use that same Sharpie to record the first and last dates of the notes it contained. This notebook, I saw from the cover, was from two years ago, running from mid-March to mid-May, ending abruptly on the day of my father’s heart attack. I flipped the cover back and opened to a page at random.
pnd colish agnst cdr pd culvt
clms wil blk tdl flw
twn sys frsh wtr stm bttr re nitrgn
Well, I wasn’t going to get much out of that. I flipped the cover closed again and set the steno pad back on the table.
“You don’t need to hold on to these?” I asked Krista.
“I went through most of them,” she said, “and flagged anything that looked like it might be relevant to later inquiries or possible lawsuits, had those pages digitized by the intern.”
Then she did something that Krista almost never does. She admitted just a teeny bit of uncertainty. “But I’m new to this biz, really, and I’m not sure what else might be relevant.” She paused and swallowed hard. “So I thought you could keep them for me, just in case? We really don’t have the room at the office.”
“Of course,” I said. “Not a problem. Good idea.”
Her face cleared, and Krista sat down on one of the chairs at the table. “So, what are your thoughts on your next piece? I’m thinking a feature this time, rather than a review. Any ideas?”
Truthfully, I’d completely forgotten about my temporary job writing about food for the Clarion. At the moment, I was still reeling from Caitlin Summerhill’s offer. Also, I was completely obsessed with Estelle’s death and how I could find out more about her without tipping off McCauley, Jason, or Krista. So I definitely didn’t want to talk to Krista about that.
So what I said to Krista was, “Um.”
“Um? That’s your idea?”
I needed to come up with something else fast. Nobody can say I can’t think on my feet. Suddenly I knew how I could kill two birds with one stone.
“No, I do have an idea,” I said. “Jenny mentioned Mr. Logan is opening a new place, very different from the Inn by all accounts. It might be interesting to do an interview with him, you know, ‘how things have changed in the Cape’s restaurant scene’ kind of thing.” And, I didn’t say, pump him, as Estelle’s employer for at least two decades, for information about Estelle and any enemies she might have had.
“Good idea,” Krista said, nodding. “Mr. Logan likes you. Always has.” She grinned and added mischievously, “I think he kind of saw himself as playing Cupid between you and Jason Captiva.”
I was mortified. “Really? I was that obvious?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Hard to miss the way you looked at him that summer. The way you searched him out every chance you got. Girl, you were so gone on that dude.”
I tried to play it down.
“Yeah, well, my first crush, you know. Live and learn. It never went anywhere. Estelle saw us one night, kissing. Well, not kissing really. Just one kiss. She was nasty about it though. Made it sound like we were, you know, doing it. She said we’d pay for it. Jason avoided me like the plague after that.”
“Aha!” Krista exclaimed. “That explains it.” She began to dig through my father’s box until she found the notebook she was looking for. The dates on the cover included the summer we’d worked together at the Inn.
“I wondered about this,” she said, busily flipping through the pages. “Yeah, here it is. ‘August eighth, ten thirty-five in the morning, phone call from EK, said had proof S ‘doing it’ with JC.’”
Krista looked up at me. “I assume EK is Estelle, JC is Jason Captiva, and S would be you?”
I nodded, a little stunned by what I was hearing. Estelle had called my father?
Krista continued reading. “‘Said would consider keeping quiet re ‘skank’ for a ‘retainer.’”
“Skank?” I yelped. “She called me a skank? Let me see that!”
I grabbed for the notebook, but Krista was too fast for me. She yanked it out of my reach.
“Not done yet,” she said calmly and continued to read aloud. “‘EK hung up when pointed out blackmail a crime.’”
Good for you, Dad, I thought.
And then it hit me. Estelle was a blackmailer. And if she’d had the nerve to try to extort my father, who else had she tried this little trick on? And for how much? Enough so that someone finally got fed up? Fed up enough to kill her?
I tried to keep my
face neutral. I really didn’t want to alert Krista to my suspicions. That was something I would follow up on my own, starting with Mr. Logan.
So when she said, “And that’s not all,” I was actually relieved that she was changing the subject.
Silly me. I’d forgotten about that Krista thing that she does, the way she saves the worst for last.
SIXTEEN
There’s more?” I asked.
Krista flipped a few more pages. “Oh yeah, here we are. ‘Three p.m. meeting with JC. Pointed out S underage. JC said had been drinking after bad news about mother’s illness, only kissed S, but regretted it. Agreed would not see her again.’”
I was gutted. Bad news about mother’s illness. I’d known something was wrong with Jason that night. Why hadn’t I asked him what was bothering him? Because all you wanted was for him to kiss you. Some friend you were.
Krista shut the notebook. “Looks like your dad scared off Jason Captiva.”
I suppose I could have been angry at my father in retrospect. Angry at him for not talking to me at the time, not trusting me. And, yes, I could have been angry at him for warning off Jason like some Victorian father dismissing a chauffeur who’d gotten above his station with the daughter of the house.
But I couldn’t be angry with my father for dismissing Jason. Because I’d done the same thing when I’d ignored his real need that night so long ago. I’d done the same thing when I’d pulled my hand out of his, when I’d stepped away from him and chosen my reputation as a good girl from a fine upstanding family over my friendship with a troubled young man with a difficult home life who’d allowed himself to open up to me. I was ashamed of myself then, and I was still ashamed of myself.
“No,” I said, more to myself than to Krista. “My father didn’t scare off Jason. He only finished what I started.”
We were mercifully interrupted by a knock on the still open door to the ell.
“Hello,” a man’s voice said hesitantly. “Ms. Baker?”
We turned, and standing there, framed in the doorway, was Apollo. Or at least a guy who literally looked like Apollo—golden hair, golden skin, golden brown eyes. The face was saved from classical perfection by a slightly crooked nose and a too-wide mouth.
At this vision, Diogi erupted into his usual crescendo of barking.
“Diogi,” I shouted over him. “Shut up!” Diogi shut up.
In the sudden silence, Krista said to our visitor, “Yes. I’m Krista Baker.” She added coolly, “And you are?”
“Tyler Gorman,” the Apollo said. “The third, that is. Not my dad, he’s Tyler Gorman, Junior.” As if the distinction was important somehow. “Everybody calls me Trey, you know, because I’m the third generation with the same name.”
I stared at the man in the doorway. This was Tyler Gorman III?
I vaguely remembered Trey Gorman. His grandmother had lived next door to us, and Trey and I had played together when his family had come on their annual pilgrimage to Grandma’s house for two weeks in August. He’d been a plump boy about my age, with a fluttering mother who thought he could do no wrong and a coldly distant father who thought he could do no right. Despite the mother’s protests, Trey’s father had bundled him off to boarding school as soon as he possibly could.
But really? This long, lean hunk of yummy was the beta version of the pudgy, awkward boy who used to mope around in his grandma’s backyard? I had felt sorry for Trey. But it seemed he had grown up into quite the hottie.
I was suddenly very aware of my gray flannel pajamas and the fact that I hadn’t yet brushed my teeth.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Trey said to Krista. I probably shouldn’t have worried about my jammies. I was invisible next to Krista. “Your assistant said I could find you here. In advance of tonight’s town meeting, I wanted to leave you some of the specs for Skaket Acres.”
He opened a neat brown accordion file and pulled out a carefully folded blueprint and a surprisingly tasteful brochure, all tan and green and very, well, organic looking.
Suddenly aware of my duties as a hostess, and, let’s face it, tired of being invisible, I said, “Trey! Hi! It’s me, Sam. Samantha Barnes. I used to live next door to your grandmother.”
The wide mouth broke into a smile.
“Sam! Of course! How great to see you. I thought you lived in New York. What are you doing back in Fair Harbor?”
“It’s a long story,” I said. And hopefully you will never hear it. “But come in, please. I’ll make some coffee for us all, while you and Krista go over your papers.”
Which will also give me a chance to get dressed and brush my teeth, I didn’t add.
Trey moved into the room, shutting the door behind him.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” he said, gesturing toward the cardboard boxes.
I flipped my mom’s notebook shut and dropped it on the table.
“No, no,” I said. “We were just looking at some of my mother’s old notes. Krista thought I’d like to have them.”
Trey reached over and picked up the notebook idly. “Anything interesting?”
“There might be,” I said with a laugh, “if it was possible to read her shorthand.”
“I liked your mom,” Trey said, replacing the steno pad on the table. “She was nice.” Said nobody ever about my mom. He turned back to Krista.
“This is the blueprint that we’ll be sharing tonight at the town meeting,” he said. “I thought it would be helpful for you to have an advance look.”
“Thanks, that’s useful,” Krista said. I pushed my parents’ stuff aside to make more room on the table.
Krista and Trey bent over the materials, while I bustled away to make the coffee (and slip into the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face and pull on a pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt).
When the coffee had been brewed and drunk and Trey had answered Krista’s many questions to her satisfaction, he finally got up to leave, gathering his materials and carefully stowing them in the accordion file.
“If you want another look anytime, just let me know. These are my only copies, so I’ll just keep these in my car. It’s kind of my office when I’m out on the Cape. Most of my real work is done in my dad’s Boston office.”
He tucked the file under one arm. “It was really great to see you again, Sam,” he said, giving me his hand (his warm, strong hand) and another one of those smiles. “I’d love to catch up sometime, if you’re free.”
“Um, sure, well, sure,” I spluttered.
Krista took pity on me and walked Trey out to his car while I regained my composure.
When she came back in, she looked at me with utter contempt.
“That’s the best you could come up with? ‘Um, sure, well, sure’?”
“He threw me,” I said in weak defense. “I have to say, he’s totally not what I expected. I mean for a real estate developer and all. He seems so . . . nice.”
Krista looked at me thoughtfully.
“Girl,” she said after a pause, “you are still a fool for love.”
I punched her lightly on the shoulder.
“Nope,” I said, grinning. “I’m like you. I reject love as a fanciful invention of lady novelists.”
Then we smiled at each other.
“Badass,” I said.
“Or just emotionally unavailable,” Krista said.
“Same thing,” I said, “but badass sounds cooler.”
In our little moment of female bonding, neither of us noticed that my mother’s notebook was no longer on the table.
SEVENTEEN
Somehow Jenny managed to talk me into going to that night’s town meeting with her for “moral support.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be a good friend. But a town meeting is not my idea of how to spend a Monday night. Or any night, for that matter. Do not
listen to people who tell you that the New England town meeting is the world’s purest, most direct form of democracy. What they neglect to mention is that it is also the dullest. Plus, I was hoping to spend the evening working out how I could subtly prompt Mr. Logan into telling me who Estelle might have been blackmailing.
“Why can’t Roland give you moral support?” I whined.
“Rolly is taking the night shift,” Jenny pointed out. “Dinner, dishes, homework, baths, bedtime. Unless you want to stay with my kids . . .”
“No, no,” I said hastily. “Not my strength. I’ll go to the meeting.”
And so we made our way with two hundred other concerned citizens into the already stifling auditorium of the Fair Harbor Middle School and settled into our unbelievably uncomfortable folding chairs.
Three rows in front of us, I could see the back of Krista’s perfectly coiffed head. Next to it I saw, with an odd sinking sensation, Jason’s hot mess. The man desperately needed a haircut. They seemed to be getting on well, so I distracted myself by actually trying to pay attention to the meeting.
This was not easy. After several riveting (read irony here) yea or nay votes ranging from a proposed $450,000 annual tax levy to pay down the town’s unfunded pension liabilities (yea) to the advisability of a $75,000 survey of Beach Road for potential construction of a sidewalk (nay), I hissed to Jenny, “I am going to want these past two hours back on my deathbed.”
“Just wait,” she whispered back, pointing to Article 37: Medical and Recreational Marijuana Dispensaries. “The laughing grass fight comes next.”
We both enjoyed the ensuing brief but entertaining skirmish over whether to allow the newly legalized weed stores within the Fair Harbor town limits. There was some concern about the “town character” (whatever that might be). But when it was pointed out that such emporiums would bring in some pretty nice tax revenue, the resolution was passed unanimously.
“At least we know we want the money,” Tom Wylie, the selectman moderating the meeting, had noted dryly.