Chapter 11
It was a bit of a drive back down the peninsula toward town and then on out onto Eastclaw Point. Busman’s Harbor was shaped like the top portion of a lobster lounging in the sea. The head of the lobster formed the town, and the claws, called Eastclaw and Westclaw Point, reached out to embrace the big harbor, leaving just enough of a channel for sizable boats to enter and exit.
When I was little, all the houses on the points were summer homes. A few were kept open until Christmas or New Year’s for family gatherings, but they were exceptions. Most of the imposing “cottages” were unheated. In the old days, the town didn’t even bother to plow the road. But slowly, over the course of my lifetime, more than a few homes were converted to year-round residences. There were still long stretches of road where the houses, set off on little lanes or down long driveways, were obviously empty. I thought it would be a tough life, alone out here through a Maine winter, without the comforts and companionship of town.
Toward the end of Eastclaw Point, the road split, each spur going off to one of the spits of land that gave the point its clawlike shape. Just past the fork, I spotted a sign that said BENNETT and turned into a pea gravel drive. I was aware of a house looming off to the left as I pulled in, but it was the view in front of me that grabbed my attention. Waves crashed on boulders at the end of a big lawn, sending spray into the air. Across the water, two islands rose up—tiny uninhabited Craigie Island and Dinkum’s Light beyond. The sea smoke off the water made them look like mirages. I stood, captivated for a moment, and then approached the front door.
Deborah Bennett opened it before I knocked. She must have heard the Caprice come up the drive. When she greeted me, her tone was a bit overeager, confirming my suspicion that it must be lonely out here at the end of the road.
“Ms. Snowden, so nice to see you again so soon.”
“Please, it’s Julia.”
“And I’m Deborah.” She put a hand on my elbow and drew me inside. “Let me take your coat.”
The mask of her plastic surgery always threw me. Her face wasn’t ugly, but it wasn’t human, either, and that alone was enough to repel. She hung my coat in a closet off the big entrance hallway and led me into the living room. Walking ahead of me, she was a lean, fit figure in black slacks and a pearl gray sweater. Whatever she’d looked like before the surgery, I guessed she’d been pretty.
The living room was gorgeously decorated, formal as the large room demanded but in the colors of the beach. French doors opened onto a stone porch that faced the view I’d just been amazed by. Deborah was a fabulous decorator, as the room attested, but her interiors couldn’t compete with the exterior, and didn’t try.
She offered me coffee or tea. I asked for water, and she led me through the high-ceilinged formal dining room into an enormous, brand-new kitchen.
“This place is beautiful,” I said.
“Thank you. It was a long, hard slog to get here. Phil and I have owned the house for more than thirty years, but a little over a year ago we started a major overhaul so we could live here full-time when he retired.”
“Maine can be tough in the winter,” I said. It had been sixteen years since I’d spent a full winter in Maine. When I’d arrived back the previous March, it had been still more than technically winter. As a result, I’d suffered some of the inconvenience, but not the sheer duration, of month after month of too short days, long dark nights, low temperatures, and a variety of pelting precipitations.
“We’re going to get out for a couple of months in Palm Beach,” she answered, like she’d heard remarks about the challenges of Maine winters many times before. “Would you like a tour?”
I replied enthusiastically. She walked me through room after room. Since the house had water on three sides, every one of the six large bedrooms had a sea view, along with a private bath. On the landing, she pointed upstairs to the third floor. “Phil’s studio. We won’t disturb him.”
I nodded to show I understood, and we walked down the grand staircase.
“This was an old family summer house when we bought it, and we left it that way for years,” Deborah said. “We wanted a place where the whole family could gather, our sons and their friends, and later, their wives and the grandchildren.” We returned to the kitchen, where my glass of water still sat on the big island. Deborah and I perched on stools, and she asked, “Tell me, Julia, why are you here?”
I’d been expecting the question. In fact, I’d been expecting it sooner. “I’m concerned about the man who died in our refrigerator,” I said. “As far as I know, the police still haven’t identified him. I came to see if you or your husband remembered anything about him at all. Anything that would help.”
“The police were here yesterday. We told them all we knew.” She put me off, but her body language was open and inviting. I found it easier to read her body than her mask of a face.
I tried again. “I feel so badly for his family.”
She glanced at the digital clock on the microwave. “Phil will be coming down any minute for his lunch. Perhaps you’ll stay and we’ll talk?”
No sooner had she finished the sentence than we heard Phil’s footsteps on the stairs, descending from the third floor. When he entered the kitchen, his shirt was dabbled with colorful flecks of paint and he smelled vaguely of paint thinner.
I rose from my stool. “Mr. Bennett, Julia Snowden.”
“You must call him Phil,” Deborah said.
“I didn’t know you painted, Phil.”
“You must have seen his work throughout the house,” Deborah said. “The oils.”
I had seen them. And wondered about them, because they weren’t the dramatic seascapes I would have expected in a house like this. They were portraits. Portraits of ordinary people—farmers, cleaners, lobstermen. They were somehow hyperrealistic, so that I could see every whisker and wrinkle, every darker fleck of color in the iris of an eye. But mostly they seemed to speak through the canvas with a kind of truth, not merely about the subject’s profession or circumstances but about his or her character.
Deborah put bowls of chopped radicchio, tomatoes, scallions, and fresh jalapeños on the island, along with a plate of corn tortillas. Then she deftly cooked a piece of white fish on the professional range.
While she worked, I asked Phil about his trek to visit the accident scene with Chris and Barry Walker. “Did the man at the bar leave the restaurant before you, Chris, and Barry went out to see the wreck?”
Phil leaned back on his stool, his brow wiggling behind his glasses with the effort to recall. “I think so. Yes, he left before us.”
“Did you see him out on the street, maybe gawking at the accident?” I tried to think of reasons, on a cold, icy night, why the stranger hadn’t gone right back to the Snuggles. The corner of Main and Main was just down the hill from the inn, and maybe the bright lights from the emergency vehicles had attracted his attention.
“No, nothing like that. Barry Walker fell and slid down the hill. There was a lot of commotion, and I’m not certain I would have noticed if the poor man had been there, but I certainly didn’t see him.”
“Do you know any of the other couples who were at the restaurant Monday night?” I asked.
Phil looked over at Deborah, who stood with her back to us, in the sound cocoon created by the stove vent and sizzling fish. “I’ve been in Barry Walker’s art supplies store a few times.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
Deborah put the fish on the table and pulled a bowl of creamy white sauce from the refrigerator. She handed each of us a cloth napkin and sat down to eat. I copied their motions as they wordlessly layered the fish, veggies, and sauce on the tortilla. As soon as Deborah took a bite, I rolled mine up and dug in.
“This is fantastic,” I said. And it was. The crunch of the veggies, the light taste of the fish, and the savory sauce combined to make a delicious meal.
“It’s hard to get fresh vegetables here in the winter,” Deborah said.
I nodded, my mouth full.
It’s only December. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
“Phil likes a proper lunch,” Deborah added. Phil Bennett showed none of his wife’s friendly manner. He’d answered my questions fully yet formally. Deborah was warmer. Anxious to be helpful, she dredged up every detail she could from that night, and frequently punctuated her conversation with remarks like “That poor man” and “It’s awful that his family may be looking for him, not knowing what’s happened.” As lunch went on, I found myself less distracted by her face.
As to the gift certificate, it had come in the mail, just as the Caswells’ had. “I was surprised by how soon the expiration date was,” Phil said, “but I figured you wanted people to try out the restaurant sooner than later because it was new.” A business rationale made sense to a former Big Pharma executive like Phil.
“Do you still have the envelope?” I asked. “Was there anything else in it?”
Phil knit his eyebrows together over his spectacles. “You mean you didn’t send it?”
“I haven’t done any sort of promotion like that.”
Behind the mask, the color drained from Deborah’s face. “That’s unsettling.”
“I’m sure there’s a logical explanation,” Phil reassured her. He turned to me. “I think the envelope and insert might be in the wastebasket in my study. It’s on the way out. I’ll walk you. We’ve spent enough time on this.”
Phil had dismissed me as if I were a bothersome employee. I didn’t like it, but I had to admit I’d gotten what I came for.
They got off their bar stools and stood side by side. Despite Phil’s spare tire, they were both tall and straight-backed, with a regal bearing. If the Caswells were pixies, the Bennetts reminded me of a pair of Afghan hounds.
I said good-bye to Deborah, and Phil led me to his study, which was off the front hall. The room was as formal and as lovely as the rest of the house. He fished a number ten envelope out of the trash and handed it to me, then walked me to the door.
“Julia, I understand your concern about the man who died in your restaurant, but I have to ask you not to come bothering Deborah again. She’s not as strong as she looks. She’s suffered from panic attacks for years. We have them under control with medication, but stress is the worst thing for her.”
I said, “Of course, I understand,” as he firmly guided me out the front door and closed it behind me.
Chapter 12
I sat in the Caprice while I examined the envelope Phil had given me and the card I found inside it. The envelope was handwritten, addressed to “Mr. and Mrs. Bennett.” No return address. The stamp said, “Pre-sorted First Class,” which I knew from doing commercial mailings for the Snowden Family Clambake Company required no postmark. Whether the person who had mailed the gift certificates used the pre-sorted service to disguise the mailing location or simply to keep up the ruse of it being a part of a mass mailing, I couldn’t know.
The insert was an envelope-sized card with a description of the restaurant and our limited, ever-changing menu, along with an address, hours, phone number, and e-mail. I had designed these cards and always included them when I mailed out gift certificates. When I’d sent the certificates to the unknown purchaser, I’d undoubtedly included five of these cards.
It seemed clear that the sender had deliberately enticed the Bennetts and the Caswells to the restaurant, and probably the Walkers and Smiths as well. But why? I knew of no connection between them, and though they’d chatted politely about the weather, nothing indicated the couples were any more than acquaintances. Phil said he’d been in the Walkers’ art supplies store “a couple of times,” which made sense given he was a painter.
Did any of this connect the couples to the dead man? And what about the fifth gift certificate? Was another party supposed to be there who hadn’t taken the bait?
I wondered about Phil Bennett’s caution not to disturb Deborah again. I was familiar with panic attacks. I’d suffered from them since my teens, though it had been five months since I’d had one. Mine were brought on by conflicts between duty and emotion, when my head insisted I do something my heart resisted, or vice versa. Somewhere, buried deep in a drawer, I had an amber vial of Valium pills, prescribed by a doctor, to be taken if I was in a situation that might bring on an attack. I assumed this was what Phil meant when he said Deborah’s attacks were controlled by medication. I was sure this strategy worked well for people whose triggers were airplanes or heights or tight spaces—things that could be anticipated—but my attacks had never been predictable. Five months was the longest I’d gone without one in years. Staying in Busman’s Harbor and loving Chris must have agreed with me on some biological level.
I turned these thoughts over as I bumped back to town along already-potholed Eastclaw Point Road. It was barely December and my teeth rattled as the Caprice, with its complete lack of shock absorption, found every nook and cranny. The heater continued to balk. By the time I got to town, I was freezing and my jaw hurt.
I cruised by our ugly brick fire-department-town-offices-police-complex. If Binder’s official car was there, I would stop and tell him about the gift certificates. There were no state police vehicles in the parking lot, so I kept going.
I pulled my car into my mother’s garage and took a brisk walk down the hill toward the center of town. Walker’s Art Supplies and Frame Shop was in the first block past the corner of Main and Main, right next to Gleason’s Hardware.
I had loved the place when I was a child. The Walkers kept a full supply of children’s craft items like pipe cleaners, tongue depressors, and potholder loops, along with the adult offerings of oil paint, watercolors, and canvases. On Morrow Island, where my family lived in the summer, there was no TV, movies, video games or indoor diversions other than books. My parents were eager to keep Livvie and me occupied, especially on rainy days. Every year before we moved out to the island, we stopped at Walker’s and loaded up on the marvelous craft items in the store. It was like Christmas in June.
A bell over the door jingled as I entered. Barry was bent over his worktable, which occupied a central position in the double storefront. He was cutting a mat to frame a watercolor painting of vibrant spring flowers in a blue vase. He didn’t look up when I entered, which didn’t surprise me. Barry was a little deaf.
I cleared my throat loudly and called, “Hello!”
Barry straightened up slowly, like he was still hurting from his tumble down the hill two nights ago, as Chris had predicted. “Julia Snowden, as I live and breathe. Thinking of taking up art as a hobby now that you’re home? There are some great classes at the Y. Mine, for example.”
I shook my head. “No, not today.”
“Then what brings you to my fine establishment?”
“I want to ask you something about the other night in the restaurant.”
Barry put down his X-acto knife and looked at me. He was a tall man, heavy and jowly. As always, the hair that ringed his bald head stuck out as if he’d had slight contact with an electrical socket. His clothes were baggy and wrinkled, his shoes worn and paint spattered. There was no way around it—Barry Walker was a slob, and in his later years had given up any pretense otherwise.
“Is Fran here?” She usually worked alongside her husband, running the retail side of the business while he cut the frames.
“Nope. Too slow in the winter to keep two of us busy. Last couple winters, she’s worked over at the Cranberry Convalescent Home.”
So once again, my informants at the Sit’n’Knit had been right. I looked around the store. It had always been charmingly disheveled, like its proprietor, but now it seemed dusty and dingy, missing Fran’s touch. The big plate glass windows needed washing and filtered the weak December afternoon light through a haze of dirt. I thought of the store as successful. Artists were the first tourists ever to come to Maine, drawn by the dramatic vistas and bright, flat light. In the summer, it was normal for me to come out of my mom’s and practically stumble over someone sitting on the sidewalk, painting a picture of the house. In fact, if a few days went by and no one set up an easel out front, we began to feel a little neglected. Barry cheerfully met the artists’ needs. In the summer, the store was crowded, but there’d always been enough business for him to stay open all winter. Artists who’d moved permanently to Maine and retirees like Phil Bennett kept it busy. I wondered why things had changed.
Barry’s own paintings lined the back wall. They were abstract, dramatic. Thick applications of acrylic piled on wood in slashes of color. I’d loved his work since I was a child. The paintings never made me think, but they always made me feel. For the first time, as an adult, I wondered about them. They weren’t the kind of art that would be bought by vacationing tourists. Did Barry make his life harder by persisting in this form? If he’d painted lighthouses and waves crashing on rocks, surely he would have sold more.
“I hear Quinn’s home,” I said.
Barry nodded his shaggy head. “She is indeed. Husband trouble, I’m afraid. Still, it’s great to have her and the grandchildren in the house.”
“I want to ask a few questions about the other night,” I said, getting down to business.
“The police were here yesterday. I told them all I could.” Barry sat on a stool beside his workbench and gestured for me to take another. “But fire away.”
“When you went out with Chris and Phil Bennett to look at the wreck, did you happen to see the stranger then?”
“Nope.” Barry told the same story about their little adventure that Chris and Phil Bennett had, though he left out the part about sliding down the hill on his backside. “It was slippery out as the dickens,” was all he said about it.
I asked another question, even though I knew the probable answer. “You paid that night with a gift certificate. Where did you get it?”
“No idea. The Mrs. had it. I can ask her if you want me to.”
“No, that’s okay.” I’d have to make a point to talk to Fran later. “Can you think of some reason or some person who would want to gather you and Fran, the Caswells, the Bennetts, and the Smiths at the restaurant on the same evening?”
Barry answered easily, without a sign of worry or stress. “Why would someone do that? I don’t really know any of those people. Phil Bennett’s been in the store buying canvases a couple of times recently, but other than that . . .” His voice trailed off. “Julia, what’s this about? When Fran and I talked to the police yesterday, they didn’t seem particularly interested in what we had to say. I had the impression they were checking us off a list of obligatory interviews.”
I didn’t want to tell Barry I thought someone had lured him and his wife to the restaurant on the same night there’d been a murder there. I wasn’t sure, for one thing, and there were too many open questions—who, why, and was it in any way connected to the stranger and his death, for a few. So instead, I told a different kind of truth.
“I’ve been uncomfortable about what happened that night. Someone was murdered right downstairs while I was sleeping, and the police have no idea who did it. It’s taken a bit of the wind out of my sails. I was so excited about running the restaurant, but now . . .”
Barry put one of his big, paint-flecked hands over mine on the worktable. “I’m sorry, Julia, this has upset you. I’m sure the police will figure it out soon.”
“Thanks, Barry. I appreciate it.”
“Sure you don’t need any art supplies before you go?”
* * *
I managed to get out of Walker’s without buying anything. A failed knitting project was all the crafting I could handle. I stood for a moment on the sidewalk in the fading late afternoon light, squared my shoulders and continued about a half a mile down Main Street toward the imposing Victorian facade of the Fogged Inn.
Twice I almost turned around and went back to my apartment. I’d left visiting the Smiths until last, because of all the couples, I knew them the least. Which is to say I didn’t know them at all.
I climbed onto the Fogged Inn’s wide front porch. It was empty of furniture because of the season, but I imagined it was a delightful place to sit and read or simply stare at the boats in the harbor. A sign beside the front door said,
WELCOME
, and below that a list:
NO CHILDREN. NO PETS. NO CHECKS. NO SOLICITATION. NO ACCOMMODATION WITHOUT PRIOR RESERVATION
.
For a place meant to be welcoming, the long list of “no’s” had the opposite effect. I took a deep breath and rang the bell. Footsteps echoed inside and the door opened.
“Hullo.” It was Mr. Smith, looking a little fuzzy, like I’d woken him from a nap.
“Whoizzit?”
A female voice bellowed from upstairs.
“Why it’s . . .”
“Julia Snowden,” I supplied.
“Julia Snowden,” he shouted back. “You know, from the restaurant.”
“Whazhewant?”
He peered at me expectantly. He was a strikingly handsome older man with long white hair that reminded me of a lion’s mane. He wore gray slacks and a blue shirt with a black belt around his trim waist.
“To talk about the night before last,” I supplied.
He turned to yell this, but there was a creaking on the stairs and Mrs. Smith appeared behind him. “The police have already been here.”
“I understand. This is more something I’m doing on my own.”
“Well then, you better come in.” Mrs. Smith gestured me inside.
Mr. Smith moved away from the door so I could enter, inadvertently backing into his wife.
“Watchwhereyergoing!”
she barked.
As the three of us stood in the front hallway, I looked through the broad archway into the living room. It was filled with heavy antiques—ponderous chairs, Tiffany lamps, and an uncomfortable-looking sofa. This wasn’t the Old Family Money Beach House Charm that Deborah Bennett had so successfully achieved at her place, or the comfortable, lived-in use of family pieces at the Snuggles. This was in-your-face antiquey-ness.
In the hallway hung another list of prohibitions.
GAME ROOM CLOSES AT 9:00. NO NOISE AFTER 10:00. BREAKFAST SERVED PROMPTLY AT 8:00, NO EXCEPTIONS. NO WIFI, NO TV, NO FOOD SERVED AFTER BREAKFAST
. Well, that would certainly make you feel at home.
“Sit down. You’ll have some tea,” Sheila Smith said, leaving no room for argument. “Michael, get us some tea. And cookies. The shortbreads. From the tin by the stove.” She pointed me toward one of the deep, mahogany-trimmed chairs and settled herself in the other. She wasn’t as attractive as her husband. Her mousy gray hair was worn in an old-fashioned pageboy. She was thin, even a little frail looking. I wondered if she was older than her handsome spouse.
“So, how long have you run the restaurant?” she asked. “Is the hunky chef your husband?”
I shrank from the questions, especially since to the extent I’d envisioned the conversation, I was the one doing the asking. Figuring it was better to give a little to get a little, I answered. “Five weeks. Chris is my boyfriend.”
“How long have you been together? Do you live together? How did you meet?”
“Since the summer. Not officially. We actually met when I was in seventh grade and he was a junior in high school, but I hadn’t seen him for years until I moved back to town last March.” I recited my answer with a “Just the facts, ma’am” delivery, hoping she’d get the hint and move off my personal life. Ironic, I understood, because I was there to probe into hers.
She leaned in confidentially, though she didn’t lower her voice. “So hard to work with loved ones, isn’t it?”
Michael Smith chose that moment to enter with the tea things. It was awkward timing but saved me having to answer. Sheila fixed me a cup and handed it to me. She’d evidently decided I took cream, no sugar. She did the same for Michael and finally for herself. Then she passed the shortbreads in my direction. In the interests of appearing cooperative, I took one.
“We order these from Scotland,” she said. “So expensive. That cookie you’re eating costs more than a dollar. So enjoy it.” She put the plate back down without taking a cookie or offering one to Michael.
It was too late to put it back, so I did as she commanded. “Delicious,” I said, which it was. Though I would have said so regardless of how it tasted. Then I seized the initiative, figuring maybe that way I could change the dynamic of the conversation. “How long have you run the inn?”