Murder on the Bluffs, page 8
“Can you tell me anything about when Daddy went missing? I don’t know if you remember, but I was in my first year at Wellesley and I was pretty absorbed in that.”
Dorothy shook her head. She folded her hands in her lap. “I don’t really know any details, Lauren. But why do you feel you must bring it all out into the light now? After all this time?”
“I’m curious, Dorothy. Something seems hidden. There’s a darkness about his death that makes me uncomfortable, and I want to open it, know it, bring it into this world.”
Dorothy continued to hold my green eyes with her own pale blue ones. “You’re still hurt because he left you.” Dorothy reached for my cheek and laid her hand against it for a moment.
At the uncharacteristic gesture as much as from hearing the truth, my eyes filled. My throat thickened. I nodded instead of speaking.
“Let’s hold that in the Light together.” Dorothy took both of my hands in her own and closed her eyes.
I closed mine, as well. The social chat swirled around us. Small feet ran by, and a child giggled from across the room. Coffee cups clinked. A chair scraped on the floor. Dorothy wasn’t going to tell me anything, that was clear. For the moment, it didn’t matter.
• • •
I tried to dodge the rain as I dashed from my truck into my mother’s cottage on Plum Island. I’d been drenched enough for a month on my wet and windy bicycle ride home from Millsbury. Everything I’d worn was soaked by the time I arrived at my condo. Once a day was plenty.
“Hey, Mom,” I called. I shook out my hair and hung my raincoat on a hook.
Miriam Rousseau emerged from the back and gave me a hug.
“Lunch is all ready, sweetheart. Hungry?”
I nodded. I followed my mother through a hallway crowded with bookshelves and souvenirs from her travels.
The kitchen faced the back of the property, which nestled on a sandy hill behind the beach. A wall of glass doors showed the rain falling on a disheveled garden of beach plants, potted herbs, and bird feeders. A statue of a peaceful Buddha gazed across the yard to a wickedly grinning gargoyle. A small St. Francis of Assisi with a bird perched on his shoulder stood in the bowl of a birdbath.
Mom set bowls of chunky lentil soup on colorful Indian place mats. “Sit down, honey.” She brought a board with a loaf of fresh bread to the table with a bread knife. “Here, slice that while I pour the wine.”
“Thanks. This is really nice.” I sank into my chair, suddenly ravenous.
“We don’t spend much time together lately, just the two of us. Luke’s off on one of his junkets, so I thought we should seize the moment.” She set a juice glass of red wine next to each place and sat.
I didn’t mind that my mother’s boyfriend was away. I reached my hand out to my mom’s. I closed my eyes and savored the moment of blessing. The jewel of quiet extended until my stomach rumbled. I squeezed her hand and laughed as I opened my eyes.
We chatted as we ate. Buttering my second piece of bread, I said, “Mommy? Can I ask you something?”
My mother put her spoon down. “You haven’t called me ‘Mommy’ since you were twelve. Unless you want something.” She raised dark eyebrows.
“It’s Daddy’s birthday. Will you tell me one more time about when he disappeared?” My voice shook. Was this cruel? Would my mother be willing to dive back into a painful past? “Please?”
She sank her face into her hands, elbows on the table. When she looked up, her brown eyes sagged. “Why?”
“Because it doesn’t feel clear to me. Because I was away at school. Because when I heard about it, all those emotions of grief and confusion scrambled up my memories. Because nobody will talk about it! Not you, not Jackie, not even Dorothy at Meeting.” I sipped my wine, then continued. “And mostly because something feels cloudy about those events, like I’m looking through frosted glass when I think about it. You know? You can see someone moving, you make out colors, but details are obscured. Like in a dream.”
Mom took a deep breath. She stood and looked out at the garden, arms crossed. When she turned, her eyes blazed. “Don’t you think maybe there’s a reason you don’t know? You put me in an impossible position, Lauren. You were close to your father. You went to Meeting together. He took you sailing. Jackie always got seasick, so she hated it. Alma and Gwen were too little. You had a special bond with Harold.”
She took a small framed picture from a shelf over the door and handed it to me. “Look at this.”
I held it in both hands. I remembered that sunny day. I was about fifteen in the photo. My father and I had returned from an afternoon of sailing. We smiled for the camera, ruddy, windblown, the same auburn hair, the same green eyes. My throat tightened.
“Do you think I wanted to destroy that?” Her voice shook. Her face flushed. She paced the small room like an animal seeking escape. “Are you sure you want to know what happened?”
I looked up. She was scaring me now. But I had to know. I nodded.
“Lauren, your father left me. He didn’t vanish. He didn’t disappear. He told me he was leaving. That he had to. And it wasn’t for some bimbo, or for his rediscovered first love. He left me for a man.” Mom sank into her chair. Her eyes welled with tears. “Satisfied?”
If I’d been knocked into a wall, I couldn’t have felt more stunned. Everything I’d ever known now stood on its head. People—my mother, news reports, Friends—had always said my father’s disappearance was a mystery. His subsequent death, an accident. My head felt light, unsubstantial. I stared at my mother. What if the accident wasn’t true, either?
“How did Daddy die?” I separated each word as if each were a story unto itself.
She stared at the table and shook her head. “That part? As far as we know, he died in an accident. He was found floating with his safety line attached to the boat. It looked like he’d had a heart attack. Truth? I hadn’t seen him in a week. I don’t know who his lover was. I don’t know if he went out on the water alone.” A tear edged down her cheek.
I reached over and wiped it. Her skin burned under my cool fingers. Then an even worse thought beset me. A possibility I never would have conceived of before now. “He didn’t kill himself, did he?”
“Oh, honey. I surely don’t think so. That man had a George Fox spirit. ‘Then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one.’ Your father walked cheerfully if anyone ever has. Except when he told me. And even then he was answering a call to be true to himself.”
“Aw, Mom.” I reached my arms around my mother and held tight. “I wish you had told me at the time. You’re right, it would have made me see him as a real person and not my perfect father. But I was nineteen. I could have handled it. And I could have helped you maybe.”
“I would have been grateful for that.” She nodded. “Jackie was furious with him.”
“Jackie knew? You told Jackie but not me!” I felt like I’d been whacked again.
“I thought she’d understand.” Mom implored me with sad eyes. “You know. Even then I could see she preferred girlfriends to boyfriends. But she was a daughter first. She said she could have killed him for leaving us. And because of her fury she couldn’t see how sad I was to lose Dad. I mean, even before the accident. I knew how much I would miss him.”
I sat in silence. I watched a goldfinch in bright summer plumage nibble on black thistle seed in the narrow feeder on the other side of the glass. The bright little body did nothing to lighten my heavy heart.
“I’m sorry. I haven’t even been thinking about you. You thought you were going to grow old with your soul mate, I bet. Play with your grandkids together.”
She examined her hands as if they were strangers. “We had grown apart a little in those last couple of years. But I didn’t know I’d never see him again,” she whispered.
Chapter Seven
I checked my watch as I parked several blocks from the All Angels Episcopal Church. I’d stayed at my mother’s too long, and now I was almost late for the funeral. Judging by the number of cars, it looked like it was going to be full, too. At least the downpour had ended. I hurried to the stone church and ran up the stairs. A man in a dark suit entered the open red pointed-arch doors ahead of me. I slowed as the somber strains of organ music invited me in.
A black-coated usher extended his arm toward the pews on the left. I slid into the end of one in the back. The church was indeed full. On a sunny day the tall windows featuring saints in colored glass would no doubt beam inspiration to the worshippers. Today the overcast sky outside made the ornate windows almost threatening and cast a sobering atmosphere for the mourners. The rest of the church was equally ornate. Gilded carvings and deep red velvet drapes hung behind the altar. The contrast with the simple Millsbury Friends Meetinghouse was sharp.
I closed my eyes. Despite the music and now the voice of a priest in the front of the sanctuary, I took a moment to be silent. I held Charles in the Light, along with his sister Mary. I held my mother and the memory of my father in prayer, too. Sitting in worship calmed me, even when disturbing events swirled around me like angry wasps.
As the priest intoned a prayer, I felt someone staring at me. I glanced across the aisle. Walter Colby, in the dark suit that had preceded me into the church, twisted sideways in his seat. His eyes burned into mine. I whipped my head back to the front. Why was he looking at me like that? What had I done to garner such attention? It occurred to me that it was also curious that he sat in the back. He’d been a Trustee with Charles. I would have thought Walter would have taken a seat in the front with special friends and family. Maybe it was because he’d arrived as late as I had. Maybe the Trustees weren’t necessarily friends with each other. Or maybe he’d been the one who had ended Charles’s life.
The service was a busy one. Silence did not seem to be a part of the Episcopalian ritual. The congregation participated in a communal call-and-response. Everyone present seemed to know when to speak and what to say, when to stand, when to kneel, the words to the hymns. When the priest spoke, finally, about Charles, it was in generalities, as if he hadn’t actually known the deceased personally, although he gestured repeatedly toward the coffin draped in white at the head of the center aisle.
I had attended several Quaker memorial services, including the Memorial Meeting held for my father. Friends gathered in silence, as usual, and then in turn rose and shared memories of the person whose life they celebrated. No one spoke who hadn’t known the person. I far preferred that kind of funeral.
At last the service ended. The coffin was wheeled by a somber Mary and several men in black down the aisle. The priest swung a metal sphere on a cord, the ball emitting puffs of incense, as he followed the coffin. Several acolytes trailed behind him. I tried to avoid looking directly at Walter Colby, but I noticed that he joined the procession right at the beginning. I waited until the end of the line of mourners was in sight before I rose and joined them. I didn’t need an encounter with someone who felt the need to glare at a funeral.
At the door, Mary and the priest stood together in greeting. Mary’s eyebrows went up as she spied me, and then she smiled. It was a small sad smile, but a smile nonetheless.
“Thank you for coming, Lauren.” Mary took both of my hands. “Won’t you join us in the hall for something to eat and drink?” She gestured to a building to the side of the church. The sun had emerged and was casting long shadows behind them.
“Oh, I couldn’t. You’ll want to spend time with your friends, and—”
“Please, Lauren. As a favor to me?”
I wondered what kind of favor I would be doing Mary. The only reason to stay was to see who else showed up, and maybe to overhear a bit of information that might give me a clue about who killed Charles. I guessed that was a good enough reason.
“Yes, I will. Thank you. I’ll see you over there.”
Mary nodded as she turned her attention to the next person in line.
I spent several minutes strolling the grounds of the churchyard. A black iron fence enclosed a small cemetery. Rays of late-day sunshine sparkled through the remaining raindrops on shrubs and trees. A bed of bleeding heart bloomed next to several clumps of a silvery foliage. Grassy areas were neatly edged, and the flowering plants were trim. Someone had devoted serious attention to the grounds.
As I examined an ancient gravestone, I heard voices behind a hedge. I listened more closely. They were speaking in the Quebec dialect of French.
“I told you not to go blabbing about the plan. Can’t you keep quiet?” A male voice spit out the words in a pitch so deep I thought I could almost hear the individual beats of his laryngeal folds.
A female answered him in a husky voice that sounded smoke-damaged. “Listen, chéri. I’m talking to whoever I want to talk to. Got it? Where’s it written you can tell me what to do?”
The male voice lowered to a fierce whisper so I couldn’t make out the words, then the female barked out a laugh.
I decided it was time to head into the reception. As much as I wanted to see who was speaking—and about what plan—I thought it more prudent to clear out of there. The two must have thought they were using their secret code language. Too bad French was one of my languages, too. I turned and nearly bumped into Bobby Spirokis.
“Oh! Excuse me.” I wondered if he’d been trying to catch the hidden conversation, too. Or was he spying on me? And if so, why?
The look of alarm on Bobby’s face became a blank visage as he backed off a few paces. “Pardon. You looking for the reception? It’s over in the hall.” He pointed to a stone path. The full key ring that hung from his belt jingled as he moved his arm back to rest on the handle of a rake.
A rake. “Is this your artistry? The grounds are lovely.”
A beam spread over Bobby’s face. “That it is. The plants sorta speak to me. I’m glad you appreciate it, ma’am.”
“It creates a peaceful atmosphere. Thank you.” I waved as I headed down the path. Curious. He must supplement his lobstering income with maintaining the church gardens and the Holt mansion.
I pushed open the heavy door of the hall at the end of the path. Warm air and fragrant smells mixed with the buzz of low conversation. Several townspeople held coffee cups and saucers, but most seemed to be hitting the wine instead, balancing plastic glasses with their small plates of hot appetizers and tiny sandwiches.
I found the drinks table and selected a glass of Chardonnay. A young woman in a white shirt offered a platter of small meatballs in sauce. I toothpicked several and laid them on a proffered plate. I surveyed the crowd, not seeing anyone I knew well enough to chat with.
“Hey, Dr. Roo!” Joey materialized at my side sporting a wide smile. He wore the white shirt of the serving crew and carried a mostly empty platter of tiny quiches. “How about some pie?”
“Hi, Joey. You work for a caterer now?” I was fond of the lanky young man.
“Yeah. I’m saving up for a car. And Mom says it keeps me out of trouble.”
I took two of the quiches and thanked him. I watched as he skillfully slipped among the crowd, holding the tray level, smiling again, and offering as he went. He was the only young person I was close to. It had been a real delight watching him grow up into this cheerful, motivated teenager.
As I popped a quiche in my mouth, I looked for Mary and finally spied her in a group near the sliding doors at the back. Dan Talbot’s head stuck up from the assortment of mourners around her. Well, he was a Trustee, and so had been Charles. Walter Colby walked by me but either didn’t notice me or chose to ignore me. Chief Flaherty stood talking with someone, looking ill at ease in his dark suit and tie. His eyes roamed constantly over the crowd. He was probably working, watching for suspicious behavior.
By the time I emptied my plate as well as my wineglass, people were drifting toward the door. I didn’t know if I should try to maneuver closer to Mary, if only to say goodbye, or if I should leave. I certainly hadn’t overheard any juicy conversations beyond the unknown speakers behind the hedge or picked up any new pieces of information, other than that Bobby was the church gardener.
I felt a tug on my elbow. A thin woman stood there looking angst-ridden.
“We have to go now.” The woman’s voice made it sound urgent.
“Hello, Mrs. Wojinski. Where’s your husband?” I smiled at her and looked around the room. I waved at Mr. Wojinski as he made his way toward us. I looked at his wife, whose hands shook and whose brows were knit over eyes wide at some unseen danger.
“It’s not safe here.” Mrs. Wojinski darted her eyes around the room.
“Your husband is coming, Mrs. Wojinski. He’ll be right here.”
James Wojinski looked to have been waylaid by a man in a well-cut gray suit. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but from the shaking fist of one and the red face of the other, it didn’t look like a friendly conversation.
Mr. Wojinski finally broke away and strode over to where his wife and I were standing. “Vincent Waters threatened me! He’s the one at fault, him, his precious Bluffs, and their rotten Trustees.”
“We should call the authorities, James.” His wife glared in the direction of Waters.
Mr. Wojinski seemed to finally realize who he was talking to. His voiced calmed as he said, “Don’t worry, Fiona. Everything is fine.”
Fiona shook her head. “We need to go home. Right now. It’s not safe here.”
Mr. Wojinski took her elbow. He turned toward me. “I’d watch out for that slime lawyer Waters, if I were you. He’s evil and he’s dangerous.” His eyes beamed into mine. “We all need to be vigilant against people like that.”
I watched them walk toward the door. I gazed back at the group around Mary, which the man in the suit had now joined. I decided to take Mr. Wojinski’s advice and leave well enough alone. I could catch up with Mary later. This day had been long enough.
• • •
Glancing down at the last remaining noodle on my plate a couple of hours later, I shook my head. I’d been so absorbed in my book I hadn’t even realized I’d finished the entire plateful of take-out pad thai. And the Bangkok Palace container on the counter was still half full.
