by Amy Pershing
“I’m not worried,” Miles said. “He’s a man of his word.” He put a beefy arm around my shoulders. “Really, I just wanted to come by and see how you’re doing. I mean, after finding a dead lady floating in Alden Pond and all.”
I was touched by his concern but didn’t know how to explain the whole sorry mess to him without getting into the Jason thing, which I totally didn’t want to do.
“I’m as well as can be expected,” I hedged.
Miles looked at me doubtfully but didn’t push it. He threw the grimy work gloves he’d been using into the back of his truck. “I’ve got a snake back at the farm. I’ll go pick it up and then we’ll see what you and I can do about that drainpipe. Shouldn’t take me long.”
I didn’t actually know what a snake was, but I didn’t like the sound of it. Nor did I really look forward to cleaning out a clogged drainpipe filled with rodent remains. But Miles, bless his heart, wanted to help me and I thought it would be churlish to refuse to participate in the drainpipe de-constipating process.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be here. I’ll hold the ladder for you.”
“You might want to change out of the Mother Superior drag.”
I looked down at my prim navy shirtwaist. “Right. I’ll do that.”
I stood by the door to the ell as Miles drove off. I was alone. Helene, I knew, was at the library and two acres of dense pitch pine and scrub oak lay between me and my other neighbor. The house across the lane was a summer cottage and still closed up as tight as a drum. I was surrounded by silence except for a crow cawing harshly overhead and the rustle of a rabbit in the underbrush. Normally, I would have found the quiet and the isolation soothing, but today it was unsettling.
Diogi seemed to sense my unease and leaned against my leg, whining slightly. The clear weather of the past few days was changing, and a cloud slid over the sun, bringing a chilling wind that worried the tops of the locust trees. I wrapped my arms around myself against the cold, but I didn’t go inside. Instead, I waited.
I wasn’t surprised when the black SUV slid into the drive. Nor was I surprised to see Trey Gorman step out of it.
Had I recognized the car subliminally when Trey had followed me to Shawme Manor and then back to Aunt Ida’s house? Because I was certain that it had been Trey following me. And that he had waited until Miles left and he knew I was alone to make this little visit.
I stiffened, and Diogi’s whine turned into a low growl.
“Sam!” Trey called, raising his hand in greeting. “I’m so glad I found you home!”
He started across the grass to the ell, wearing that smile that I’d known since childhood.
Maybe I’d been wrong. One black SUV looks much like another. Maybe that hadn’t been his car at Shawme Manor. Maybe he hadn’t followed me. Or even if he had, maybe his interest was just, well, romantic. Not that there is anything romantic about being stalked. Nonetheless, he certainly didn’t look like he had anything nefarious on his mind.
But, still, he had a lot of explaining to do. His cute little crooked grin wasn’t going to get him out of this. One may smile, and smile, and be a villain, as the Bard says.
“Trey,” I said as neutrally as possible.
He stopped in his tracks. His golden eyes grew downcast. “Uh-oh, you’re mad at me.”
I said nothing, and he walked toward me, smiling again. A lock of golden hair fell fetchingly onto his brow, and he brushed it back almost unconsciously. Almost but not quite. I realized it was the same gesture he’d used at the town meeting, when he’d so effortlessly mesmerized his audience. That lock-of-hair-falling-in-my-eyes routine was just one of the many weapons in Trey’s charm offensive.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to say goodbye yesterday. That guy kept asking questions, and by the time I got out to the parking lot, you had gone.”
He stepped closer, his hands outstretched in appeal, and Diogi’s growl got louder. I put my hand on his collar, saying, “It’s okay, boy.” He turned the growl down a decibel or two.
Trey looked nervously at Diogi and stopped again a few feet from us.
“Look, Sam,” he said. “Is this about the notebook? If so, I’m really sorry. I picked it up by mistake and meant to return it to you, but”—here he paused and the smile went all sexy—“then I had other things on my mind.”
He gave me a significant look, reminding me that we had shared . . . what? A moment?
It was very skillful, but I wasn’t going to fall for it.
“I find it hard to believe,” I said evenly, “that you were so overwhelmed by my mere presence that over the course of four hours you forgot to mention that you not only had my journalist mother’s confidential notebook but that you had, in fact, read it.”
Trey’s smile disappeared as if it had never existed. His mouth went from crooked to twisted. He looked like a different person. A different, weird person.
“Believe whatever you want,” he said. “But you need to get over yourself. I didn’t read your mother’s precious notebook. Why would I? It has nothing to do with me.”
Now I was angry. He was lying, and I knew it.
“Well, you were certainly interested in what she wrote about you and Estelle Kobolt.”
Trey’s eyes narrowed and two ugly red splotches bloomed on his cheekbones.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” he said. “Anyway, nobody could read that garbage if they tried. It’s in some kind of crazy code or something.”
“So you did try to read it.”
Trey’s hands clenched, and a muscle by his left eye began to twitch. Suddenly I was frightened. Dr. Jekyll had turned into Mr. Hyde.
He took another step closer, close enough that I could smell his sour breath. I felt the fur rise on Diogi’s neck as I held his collar. The low growl got louder.
“Where is that notebook anyway?” Trey asked. “In your purse?”
In fact, I’d never taken the notebook out of my shoulder bag after my meeting with Krista. I knew that if Trey got his hands on it, I’d never see it again. But I also knew I didn’t stand a chance against him. This was a guy who had been lifting weights since he was a teenager. All I had ever lifted was fork to mouth.
Nonetheless, when Trey grabbed for the shoulder bag, I clutched it with the hand that wasn’t holding Diogi’s collar. If Trey wanted it, he was going to have to fight me for it.
Trey pulled roughly at the leather strap, which dug into my shoulder. I cried out, more with surprise than pain, and Diogi’s growl turned into a volley of shrill barks. I let go of his collar to hang on to the bag with both hands and Diogi, suddenly free from restraint, leaped on Trey, his paws against the man’s chest, barking wildly into his face. Had Diogi been older and more experienced, Trey might have been in some danger, but as it was, Diogi was literally more bark than bite. Indeed, he didn’t even seem to consider biting, which in retrospect I found disappointing. But his clumsy attack was enough to knock Trey off balance, and he let go of the bag to fend the dog off.
I used the moment to throw the purse back through the open door of the ell and pull the door shut. I turned back to face Trey. It was probably just the adrenaline pumping, but I was no longer afraid. And I certainly wasn’t going to leave Diogi out there alone with that man.
Diogi, for his part, had backed off once the Bad Man was no longer actually fighting with his human. But he kept himself between me and my attacker, still growling, the hair on his back standing up in a ridge. My hand closed on his collar again.
“You need to leave, Trey,” I said as evenly as I could, trying to turn the temperature down.
But Trey was way past that.
“Happy to,” he hissed, leaning forward until his face was only inches from mine. “But just so you know, this is not finished.”
And that’s when he kicked my dog
.
That shithead kicked my dog.
Diogi yelped with confusion and pain. I knelt down and held him close, trying to soothe him, but my eyes never left Trey’s face. I was filled with a cold, hard anger. I stood up slowly.
“Do yourself a favor, Trey,” I said very, very quietly. “Go home and google Samantha Barnes on YouTube. Watch what I can do with a knife to any man who threatens me.”
Trey’s face drained of all color.
“And then,” I added, “stop and consider if you really want to come back and finish this.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
I was sitting on the ground next to Diogi, running my hands along his ribs to reassure myself that no permanent damage had been done when Miles wheeled back into the driveway.
Jumping out of the truck, he took one look at my face and asked, “What’s wrong? Is it Diogi? Is he okay?”
Diogi answered that himself by running over and giving Miles a big sloppy kiss and then dashing over to water the forsythia bush.
“Looks that way,” I said, standing up and brushing sand and dirt off my dress.
“Are you okay?” Miles asked, his face concerned.
And suddenly the girl who had very effectively faced off against a very nasty guy—the kind of creep who would kick a dog—suddenly that girl burst into tears.
Miles gathered me into his arms and patted my back until the storm was over. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a clean red bandana.
“Blow your nose,” he said. “You’ll feel better.”
Which reminded me so much of my father that I fell apart all over again. But when I finally did pull myself together and did blow my nose (noisily), I definitely did feel better.
“You want to tell me what this hullabaloo is all about?” Miles asked, deliberately trying to keep the tone light lest I dissolve again into a puddle of tears and snot. “I mean aside from me being all insulting about your Mother Superior outfit?”
“It’s not a Mother Superior outfit,” I said, still sniffling a little but also kind of smiling. Miles does that to you. “It’s a visiting-the-nursing-home outfit.”
“Of course it is,” Miles said. “That was my next guess. Now, how about we go inside and you tell me what it was about that nasty nursing home that made you all boo-hooey.”
Miles tried to open the door to the ell, which, of course, had locked itself when I’d thrown my bag in and pulled it shut. This made me feel even more sorry for myself.
“It’s locked,” I wailed. “And my bag is in there and my keys are in my bag.”
Miles raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. “You’re crying because you locked yourself out?”
“Not exactly,” I said.
Miles shook the spare key out of the conch shell. “I’m glad to hear it. Because that’s why God invented spare keys.”
But before we got inside, Helene’s unmistakable yoo-hoo sounded and we turned to see her apparating through the yew hedge. She was a vision, even by Helene standards. Her hair was wrapped in a turban of African wax cloth in a brown and orange print of a vibrancy eclipsed only by her bright yellow jumpsuit and red high-top Converse.
Miles considered her critically as she approached. “The turban is fantastic,” he said finally. “Also the kicks. The jumpsuit not so much.”
“Who are you, Tim Gunn?” Helene said dismissively.
She turned back to me. “I stopped at Snyder’s Fish Market on the way home from work and picked up a couple of their steamed lobsters and corn on the cob.” Only Helene would consider Snyder’s justly famed steamed lobster and corn a quick takeout meal. “I thought you might want to join me for an early dinner.”
Then she took a closer look at my face, which was, I was sure, all puffy and blotchy.
“And,” she said, “we can catch up on . . . events.”
She turned to Miles. “You, too, if you can stand the fashion statement.”
But Miles, who was clearly relieved that someone was willing to take the crying female off his hands, demurred.
“I’d love to,” he lied, “but there’s only about an hour of daylight left and I’ve got a nasty drainpipe to snake.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Helene said, “but have at it.”
I reached into the ell and grabbed my shoulder bag with the notebook in it off the floor. This wasn’t leaving my sight.
Helene headed back through the yews with me following gratefully. For one thing, I was really looking forward to a lobby dinner. And for another, I knew that Helene, whose good sense I now trusted absolutely, would sift through my story and calmly help me decide what to do next.
Helene insisted that I settle my obviously unsettled nerves with a nice glass of chardonnay on the deck, and I gratefully complied, letting the wine and the view over Bower’s Pond do their magic. While I was following the doctor’s orders, she brought out two platters, each bearing a bright-red lobster, an ear of corn, and a bowl of melted butter, and set them on the table in front of us. We clinked glasses, and as I dunked the sweet meat into the drawn butter, I told her about Trey’s little visit.
Helene’s first reaction was to go all librarian and scold me. “I thought I told you to be careful.”
“Actually, you told me to be very, very careful,” I admitted.
“And were you? Very, very careful?”
“Well, I was until that maniac kicked my dog.”
“No,” Helene said, “I don’t think you were.”
As I excavated a claw with my lobster pick, I waited for her to list my sins.
“First of all,” she said, “you let him know that you have the notebook. Before that, he couldn’t be sure that he hadn’t just lost it.”
I nodded. She was right.
“Second, you acknowledged that you knew there was something in the notebook, some circumstantial evidence, connecting him and Estelle Kobolt.”
I felt obliged to break in here.
“Circumstantial evidence of what though?” I asked. “That he was wiping out plover nests? Estelle told my mother that she’d made that up.”
“True,” Helene said thoughtfully, waiting for me to take the next step.
I knew what she was thinking. I was thinking it myself. But I didn’t like it. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“But what if that was the lie?” I said. “Maybe there are piping plovers on that dune.” Why did I think that? And then the memory surfaced that had been tugging at me ever since that Sunday dinner when everyone was talking about environmental roadblocks to Trey’s development: Those cookouts at Skaket Camp when I was a kid. I’d found a piping plover’s nest in the dune sloping down to the beach. In my mind’s eye, I could still see that fuzzball chick looking up at me, peeping like mad.
I put down my half-eaten ear of corn. “Wait. There were piping plovers nesting there twenty years ago. Maybe there still are. What if Estelle did see Trey killing chicks on that dune two years ago, took a photo, and tried to blackmail him with it?”
“But she told your mother she didn’t know how to send pictures from her phone,” Helene pointed out.
“Yeah,” I said. “That didn’t actually surprise me when my mom said that. You’re about Estelle’s age,” I said (with not a whole lot of sensitivity). “Do you know how to do that?”
Helene took no offense. She just snorted and said, “I can use the camera on my phone for taking photos for myself, but that sharing business is beyond me.”
“Exactly,” I said. “So Estelle had Trey come to the cocktail lounge where she showed him the photo and in the process made it obvious that it was only on her cell and nowhere else.”
“Nowhere else like where?”
I sighed. “Like on a personal computer or laptop or something.”
“Oh,” Helene said thoughtfully. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
“And then when he didn’t immediately agree to pay up, she called my mother. And then told him she’d talked to my mom, just to let him know that she meant business,” I continued. “And that if he came through with the money, she would tell my mom that she’d made everything up in a fit of temper. So he paid up and she called off the dogs, so to speak. Jenny said Estelle retired shortly after that and that she lived pretty well. Maybe it was Trey’s payoffs bankrolling her.”
Helene just sat silent for a moment, then asked, “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying Trey Gorman may have killed Estelle Kobolt to get that cell phone,” I whispered.
TWENTY-NINE
Helene reached over and placed a hand on my arm. “Sam, I’m not saying you’re right about this. That’s neither of our roles. But I do think that you need to go to the authorities with what you know, let them investigate where Trey was that night, see if he has an alibi.”
I shook my head. “McCauley’s a meathead. He’ll just blow me off.”
“I wasn’t talking about Chief McCauley,” Helene said. “I was talking about Jason Captiva, who, for some reason, you don’t seem to want to put into the picture.”
“I’ve been busy,” I muttered.
But she knew and I knew that I was well and truly trapped.
“Okay.” I sulked. “I’ll talk to Jason. First thing tomorrow, I promise.”
I have to admit though, just saying the words considerably lightened my mood. Murderer or not, Trey’s behavior that day had frightened me. I could tell Jason what I’d discovered and I would be safe. I should have listened to Jason in the first place. I should have let him handle it.
On the other hand, a little voice in my head said, if you’d been a good girl and let him handle it, you wouldn’t know what you know now about Trey Gorman. And neither would Jason. I felt better. Sometimes I really like that little voice in my head.
On the other side of the hedge, Miles sounded his horn, and I jumped up. “He’ll have fixed that drainpipe. I should go thank him. Just let me clear the table.”