by Amy Pershing
“It’s okay,” he shouted up to us. “They got him. No resistance. He didn’t even have a gun.” He actually sounded disappointed. What, would you have felt better if he’d started shooting?
Back at the municipal pier, two of my not-so-favorite people were waiting for me—Chief McCauley and Jenny’s husband, Roland. McCauley I could understand, but Roland?
“What’s he doing here?” I hissed at Jenny.
“I texted him,” she hissed back. “Once we got back into cell range, I texted him. You are going to need a lawyer.”
I was going to need a lawyer?
Apparently so. Roland took me aside and patiently explained the situation to me. “You are going to have to make a statement to Chief McCauley,” he said in his most lawyerly voice. “And he, I have already determined through our little chat before you arrived, does not like you. Not at all.”
At this point he did something that changed my opinion of Roland Singleton forever. He smiled and said, “Which, in my estimation, speaks very well of you.”
I choked back a laugh, and Roland turned back into a lawyer again. “He considers that you have obstructed the course of an investigation and withheld valuable information.”
“Only because he wouldn’t listen to me,” I sputtered.
“Be that as it may, I believe you should retain me as your lawyer. In that way, I can advise you as you answer his questions and depose your statement.”
I nodded. This sounded good to me. Roland, I realized, was someone you could depend on. Roland would have my back.
And then, still with his lawyer face on, Roland added, “After which, you and I will go out and get lit.”
* * *
* * *
Which is exactly what we did. Well, not immediately. First Helene insisted on taking me home, but not before herself taking on Chief McCauley, who wanted me down at the station immediately to give my statement.
“This young woman has just helped to apprehend a suspect in a murder case,” she said in her best I-am-the-town-librarian voice. “That suspect tried twice to kill her. If she is not in shock yet, she soon will be. I am taking her home to recover from her ordeal.”
Truly, until that moment I had not thought of it as an ordeal, but now it seemed like exactly the right description. Trust a librarian. They work with words.
McCauley still looked like he wanted to clap me into irons, but he let us go.
Helene shooed the rest of the gang away as we got into her car. “She needs a bath and a nap and her dog. Not you lot.”
She was right. The bath was amazing. The nap was amazing. And Diogi was amazing. As Helene pushed the door to the ell open, he jumped off the bed (which he now clearly believed was his). I dropped to my knees to hug him. He rushed at me and then, sensing something, stopped short. He sat (Diogi sat!) in front of me, looked at my face, and very carefully and very deliberately raised one paw and gently put it to my cheek.
I gathered my dog into my arms and I cried.
When I was all cried out, Helene ran me a bath, and then ordered me into bed. Diogi settled himself at my feet and Helene settled herself on the couch with what looked like the new Scottoline mystery.
“Hey,” I protested sleepily, “I thought I was supposed to get the new Scottoline.” And then I conked out.
I slept for what seemed like days, though when I finally opened my eyes and looked at the bedside clock, it was only four in the afternoon. Damn. There was still time for that little talk with McCauley.
“Did I wake you?” Helene asked when she saw me stirring.
I’d been dimly aware as I’d come back to consciousness that Helene had been speaking softly into her cell.
“No,” I said. “I’m not much of a napper.” Which was true. I don’t think I’ve napped since I was two years old. Apparently, it took an ordeal to get me to sleep during the day. “What’s going on?”
“Miles wants to know how you are doing. Jenny wants to know how you are doing. Even Krista wants to know how you are doing.”
I laughed at that.
“McCauley wants to know when you’re coming in to make your statement.”
I groaned.
“And the harbormaster wants you to call him and sends you his love.”
I sat straight up in bed. “Wait. What?”
Helene smiled. “And I quote, ‘Give her my love.’”
Whoa. Where did that come from?
To cover my confusion, I got up, began pulling clothes out of my minuscule closet and throwing them on my bed. There was no time, I told myself, to call Jason. I’ll do it later, I told myself.
“What do you wear to a deposition?” I asked Helene.
“That one,” Helene said, pointing to the dress I’d worn for my visit to the nursing home. “The one that makes you look like a nun.”
Okay, that settles it. Tomorrow that dress goes to the Salvation Army.
* * *
* * *
Roland was amazing. He was like some kind of intellectual bodyguard. Every time McCauley tried to insinuate that I’d been impeding his investigation, Roland was in there, calmly pointing out that I had indeed reported my findings to law enforcement, that is, the Harbor Patrol, just not his branch of law enforcement.
In no time at all, McCauley had learned his lesson and simply shut up while I told my story. And to give him credit (some, not a lot), even his big red face got a little pale when I got to the part about almost being run down by the Mad Max.
Roland was true to his word (because a good lawyer is always true to his word) and squired me over to the best bar in Fair Harbor, the Windward. The Windward is notable for several things. First is its fine selection of scotches. The second is its decor—the walls are literally plastered with license plates from all fifty states and going back decades. The third is its fish and chips with homemade tartar sauce (the secret ingredient of which I am sure is Tabasco sauce. Lots of Tabasco sauce). The place was bustling when we got there, but we managed to snag a booth and Roland ordered us some fish and chips with the famous tartar sauce. He also ordered a Johnnie Walker Red for himself and, without asking, a brandy for me.
“You know,” I said, “I don’t actually like brandy.”
“You’ve had a shock, Samantha,” he said firmly. “Brandy it is.”
I gave in. I kind of wanted to ask Mr. Bossy to order me a blanket, too, but refrained. He had his good points—most notably a remarkable ability to keep Chief McCauley in line—but Roland was Roland.
However, by our second round, Roland was no longer Roland. Roland was Rolly. It turns out, Rolly was a pretty fun guy. He told good stories about his early career as a public prosecutor back in the day when the most serious crime on the docket was shell fishermen misrepresenting Fair Harbor oysters as Wellfleets.
“Not that I am minimizing the offense, you understand,” he said in a solemn parody of his usual demeanor. “It is equivalent to calling any sparkling wine true champagne.” He considered this statement for a moment and then added, “Indeed, it is far worse.”
When I snorted with laughter, he consented to smile, admitting in his own way to a sense of humor.
“You are full of surprises, Roland,” I said.
“Rolly, please,” he said with grave, and slightly tipsy, courtesy.
“Rolly,” I said and added—since we were talking like something out of Downton Abbey—“and please do call me Sam.”
“Sam it is.”
We clinked glasses.
By the time Jenny found us, Rolly and I were firm friends. He’d solidified my warm feelings for him when he said, quite out of the blue, in the way one does when one is on their third Johnnie Walker Red, “She’s an amazing woman, you know.”
It took me a minute. “Jenny, you mean?”
“Of course, Jenny. What other amazing woman do I know
?” He paused, aware of his gaffe. “My apologies. Other than present company, of course.” The man could out-Grantham Lord Grantham.
“She’s incredibly intelligent,” he said. “Did you know that she does all the accounting for my law practice?”
“She works for you?” I was surprised. And then I felt guilty that I was surprised. When was the last time I had asked Jenny anything about her life?
“Well, she does it for free, of course,” he said in his old Rolandy way. As if wives were expected to work for their husbands for free. I was on my way to not liking him very much again, when Rolly came back.
“And she also has that amazing—what do they call it?—emotional IQ,” Rolly said. “This extraordinary ability to see below the surface, to understand why people do what they do. She knows, for instance, why you came back to the Cape.”
“She does, does she?” Because I would really like to know that.
“Absolutely,” Rolly said. “For one thing, she says you’ve never been able to fill what she calls the Cape-shaped hole in your heart.”
I thought about that for a moment. It was true that everything had changed for me when my parents traded in their L.L.Bean boots for flip-flops. My visits to Florida were spent trying to keep up with their healthy lifestyle, which meant hours of yoga and swimming and jogging and tennis and eating nothing but tofu and what my mother insisted on calling “veggies.” Steamed. With no butter. Also, it was very hot in Florida. The sun was always shining. That can get on your nerves after a while. My parents had friends, but nobody who really knew them. Or me. We had no history there, no connection to the land, the place itself. After a few trips, I had been amazed to find that I missed the Cape, maybe even missed mud season a little. I’d tried to talk my parents into moving back to the Cape until it occurred to me that maybe I wanted them to move back so that I would have a home again.
Of course, I could have come home all by myself. But no. Did I listen to my heart? I did not. What I did was read a bunch of self-help books that told me to look forward, to stop living in the past, to get a life in the big city, a real life, get on with my work, my career. And when work didn’t fill the Cape-shaped hole in my heart, I now realized, I’d tried to do it by marrying a total creep.
And look how that turned out.
“Okay, Jenny may be right about that,” I admitted. “What else does Jenny say?”
“She says you have unfinished business here. She wouldn’t tell me what it is, but she’s sure that’s partly why you’re back.”
“Well, um, gee,” I sputtered.
But Roland wasn’t really interested in my unfinished business, thank goodness. He just wanted to keep talking about his amazing wife.
“And she always gives people the benefit of the doubt. She says that if someone disappoints her, she asks herself if that person is doing the best they can. And if she thinks they are, then she appreciates them for that effort, no matter how flawed or awkward they might be.” He paused and I knew he was thinking of his own flawed, awkward self. “Which is why I love her,” he added.
“And do you tell her that?” I asked.
“Well, it goes without saying,” Roland replied with surprise.
“Actually, Rolly, I don’t think it does,” I said gently. “I think it needs saying a lot.”
He looked thoughtful. “Perhaps you’re right.” He placed his glass carefully on the varnished tabletop. “I will take it under advisement.” He gestured to our server for another round.
It was perhaps a good thing that Jenny showed up before the bartender, suddenly moving very slowly, was able to grant his request.
As his young wife pushed through the door, Roland’s face lit up.
“Jenny!” he cried, standing up with just a little bit of a wobble. “What are you doing here?”
“Michael called me,” she said, nodding over at the bartender. “He thought maybe you guys could use a ride home.”
“How enormously considerate of the fellow,” Rolly said, all Lord Granthamy again.
“Yes,” Jenny agreed, adding dryly, “he thought it would look—unseemly I think was the word he used—for the town’s most respected lawyer to have a DUI on his record.”
“Quite right,” M’lord agreed. “Good man, that Michael.”
“And I wanted to talk to you, away from the house, away from the kids,” Jenny added, suddenly serious. “So I asked Miles to watch the boys for a while.”
Uh-oh.
“I’ll go finish my drink at the bar,” I said. I tried to get up from my seat, but Jenny pushed me back down unceremoniously.
“Sit.”
I sat.
“Rolly, I . . .” Jenny paused, and I was filled with dread for Roland. What? I’m leaving you? What?
Roland, I noticed, was simply waiting for whatever his beloved wife was going to tell him, smiling and sipping the last of his drink. I thought my heart would break.
“I’m renting some space in town, starting my own videography studio,” Jenny said with a rush.
You could have knocked me over with a feather.
Roland, too, apparently.
“What’s videography?” he asked blankly.
“Making videos,” Jenny explained patiently. “You know, of weddings, bar and bas mitzvahs, sweet sixteens, quinceañeras, first Communions, class plays. You know, like the one I made of Evan’s play?”
“You can make movies of class plays for recompense?” Roland asked, still trying to get his head around what he was hearing.
“The doting parents of the twenty-five kids in that class each paid me twenty-five bucks for that video,” Jenny said. “I put exactly six hours, including the actual shooting, into it. You do the math. That’s my hourly wage.”
I tried to do the math in my head but I couldn’t. Apparently Roland could.
He whistled. “What a wonderful idea!”
Jenny looked at him in disbelief. “You think so?”
“Of course I do,” Rolly said. “I was just telling Sam here how talented you are at really seeing people.”
Jenny looked at me doubtfully. “He was?”
“He was indeed.”
“Oh, Rolly,” Jenny breathed.
Roland reached for her, and I made a quick escape to the ladies’ room.
When I returned, Jenny pulled away from her husband, who was looking rather flushed. “Okay, you two,” she said, “time to get you home.”
Taking each of us firmly by the arm, she escorted us out to her car like a Keystone Cop with two fumbling felons.
As she was pouring Roland into the front passenger seat, he turned to her and said, “I do love you, you know. I may not say it with sufficient regularity.”
She turned to me in astonishment. “Who is this man and what have you done with my husband?” she asked. But she was pink with pleasure.
Rolly gave me a big wink.
* * *
* * *
It was still early but Jenny wouldn’t leave until I’d changed into my jammies and climbed into bed. Diogi commandeered what had become his usual spot on my feet. I looked at him and realized that not only had I lost that battle, I’d lost the war. I wuved Diogi.
“Have you called your parents?” Jenny asked as she turned to leave.
“Um, no,” I said guiltily. I looked at the bedside clock. “And it’s past nine. Too late to call them.” Which was not true.
“In the morning then,” she said firmly.
“In the morning,” I promised.
Once she’d left, I turned off the light, but I couldn’t settle. It had been another very long day and that large snifter of brandy, rather than serving as a soporific, seemed to have put my brain into overdrive.
I kept hearing Helene’s voice in my head, repeating Jason’s message. “Give her my love . . .” What did that a
ctually mean?
People say that all the time. I used to say it about Aunt Ida when I called my parents. “Give Aunt Ida my love.” It didn’t actually mean anything. I didn’t actually love Aunt Ida. She was too starchy to love. I liked her, but I didn’t love her. So Jason was probably just saying what people say, not really meaning it.
So why hadn’t I returned his call? What was I afraid of?
Was I afraid that Jason could actually love me? Even if I decided to stay in Fair Harbor to fill that Cape-shaped hole, was I ready for a relationship with Jason? Wouldn’t I always wonder if I was just trying to make up for hurting him? And what if I hurt him again? How could I trust myself? How could he trust me, for that matter?
Or maybe I was afraid that Jason could never love me. Maybe he just liked me. I reminded myself that only a week ago, his friendship was all I was looking for. But now, if friendship was all he was offering, could I live in the same town with him? Just be his friend? Watch him find someone else, maybe even Krista?
I knew the answer to that. I reached for my phone.
“Hi, is this Plum and Pear? Could I speak to Caitlin Summerhill, please?”
FORTY-TWO
I got every single player in this little drama wrong,” I said to Helene, “and in one case disastrously, murderously wrong.”
It was mid-morning the next day. Helene and I were walking along the long, golden sickle of Shawme Beach, leaning hard against the wind, as Diogi played an endless game of keep-away with the rollers breaking along the shore.
It was another chilly, gray, gusty day. We had the beach to ourselves except for the sandpipers scuttling along the wet sand at the water’s edge and the gulls wheeling and crying overhead. It was beautiful. It was paradise.
I was wearing my red hoodie and wishing I had something warmer. Helene was wearing her huge camel hair overcoat and Wellington boots. Turquoise Wellington boots. Of course. We were taking turns sipping from a thermos of hot tea. That’s how you know when you’re really friends. When you don’t mind swapping thermos germs.