A Crime of a Different Stripe, page 23
“That’s what having a baby seemed like a while ago,” Cass said. “Far in the future. But it’s not. So I hope at least one of you shows up at Danny’s talk, just in case baby Brandley needs a ride to the hospital in the middle of a juicy part of the book.”
Danny walked over and gave his unborn baby and his wife a hug. “Fat chance I’d miss out on that,” he said, his voice with a strange catch in it.
“This baby won’t come during his father’s talk,” Birdie said. “Our newest baby has good sense. This baby wants the town back on its axis before she or he makes an appearance. Once that’s done, once Sea Harbor is a safe harbor again, we’ll start the welcome festivities.”
Danny moved from Cass to Birdie and gave her a hug, too. Then quickly followed Ben outside to check the grill embers.
Birdie’s prediction had quieted the room. Safe harbor. Every baby deserved one.
Then Cass, as if Birdie’s words were a call to action, walked over to Sam’s box, sitting on the bookcase.
“Let’s look again,” she said, picking it up and carrying it back to the kitchen island. Izzy and Nell cleaned off a space.
“Speaking of photographs,” Nell said, “remember the man we saw with Harmony today?”
Cass looked up. “Frank, right?”
“Yes. I ran into him later. He’s not a photographer.”
“Sure he is,” Cass said.
“Well, he doesn’t admit to it.” Nell repeated her conversation.
“That’s weird,” Cass said. “Harmony said that’s why he was there that day, to take photos for her brochure.” She frowned.
“Maybe she didn’t want to pay for a professional one,” Nell said.
“For a brochure?” Izzy said. “That wouldn’t make good sense.”
Nell looked at Cass. “I agree, Cass. It’s strange. But maybe there’s an easy explanation.” Maybe, she thought to herself, it was just another example of ordinary things becoming ominous when a murderer was in their thoughts and lives and neighborhoods. Nothing seemed quite what it was. Or what it should be.
Sam came down the back steps and into the kitchen and changed the subject by announcing that Abby was making “dream” sounds.
“Happy giggles and sounds,” he said. “Mostly, words like ‘swing,’ ‘push,’ ‘higher,’ and of course, the usual ‘I love my dad very, very much.’”
“And we do, too,” Nell said.
Sam glanced at the box. “I hope that thing isn’t just a boondoggle, isn’t causing more trouble.”
“I think it’s the opposite,” Cass said. “I’m not even sure the things in here we assumed were meant for the trash are really trash.”
“What do you mean?” Izzy said.
Cass thought for a minute, then shrugged. “I don’t have the faintest idea. But there’s only one way to find out.”
Sam stood watching for a minute, seeing some of his photos from the long-ago workshop being pulled out and lined up along the island.
“So what’s with the dates on the back of these?” Cass asked him, flapping one in the air.
“That was a Grant thing. Assignment dates, student initials, workshop name or number. It’s how things were kept straight.”
Sam picked one photograph up and looked at it closely. He turned it over, then back, a crooked smile softening his face.
“Does it bring back memories?” Nell asked.
“Yep. And some good ones. It was the beginning of a life that turned out to be a great one. If I hadn’t decided to really give this profession my all, hadn’t had some success at it, hadn’t been invited by Jane, here, to visit Canary Cove a few years ago . . . If all those things hadn’t happened—even that infamous workshop—then I might never have met all you pretty terrific folks, and then met, again, this quite amazing woman here. In this very house.” He moved over to Izzy’s side and pulled her close, then rubbed his cheek against her hair.
Nell could feel the emotion in his voice—for the little girl a floor above, for this woman he loved deeply—and she also heard his message.
It’s going to be okay, Izzy, he was telling her. Life is good. We’re good. And this man from my past is not going to change our life in the slightest. We won’t allow it.
“Aww,” Izzy said, taking the photo from his hand and looking at it again, hiding the feelings that shadowed her face.
“Hey,” Sam said, lightening the mood. “Here’s something about Grant we used to laugh about.”
Jane looked up from the sink, her lower arms deep in suds. “Laughter is good,” she said. “Lay it on us.”
“You probably know this fact, Jane. Portraitists—painters, I mean—sign their works either on the front or the back, but more frequently on the back. Either a full name or initials.”
Jane concurred.
“But usually photographers doing portraits don’t do that. I’m not sure why. Maybe the clients don’t want it. When I did a few family photos, I never considered putting my name on them. It’d be a little bit like inserting myself in that family’s life. But, anyway, Grant did. Always signed them somewhere. He used to tell us it was for the family’s benefit. The portraits would be more valuable that way. His ego was intact, a giant-sized one, even back then.”
They laughed, but not heartily. Harrison Grant wasn’t generating many laughs. The man had done something bad. To someone. Something that was bad enough that someone had murdered him for it. And now it was messing up the lives of people they all cared about.
“So it went okay today, Sam?” Jane asked. “With the police, I mean.”
“Sure. They’re good guys doing their job.” He chuckled again, gave the kind of half laugh Izzy knew he used when he wanted to make other people feel better. And he was concerned that Jane was putting too much blame on herself for unintentionally getting her closest friends involved in a murder.
“But here’s another thing that shows I’m not always living in the present. I realized as the police were asking me things that I had screwed up one thing. Unintentionally. They wanted to know when I’d seen Grant last, before I picked him up for the reception.”
“It was a few years ago, right? At some conference you told me about?” Izzy said.
“Right. That’s what I told them. But later today I was thinking about it and remembered that I had seen him more recently. Last week, that night we went to dinner in Gloucester?” He looked at Cass and Izzy. “I left you guys at the Franklin and went to get the car. I’m pretty sure—no, I’m positive—I saw Grant near the parking lot, talking to someone in a doorway.”
“You didn’t say anything about that when you picked us up,” Izzy said.
“I know. I’d been bothering you guys enough about the moon and the man coming to town. You were tired of my talk and besides, it didn’t seem important. So he’d come to town a day or two early, but that was his business. Right?”
“Who was he talking to?” Cass asked.
“I don’t know. A stranger, maybe. Someone who lived in those condos above that new coffee place. He looked like he was asking directions. Next time I looked, he was heading back to the Beauport Hotel. No big deal.”
Sam shrugged, confirming to himself that it wasn’t anything, then grabbed his jacket and a mug of coffee and headed toward the deck doors. “Man talk time,” he said with a pretend tip of a pretend hat.
“Maybe we were all seeing Harrison Grant in odd places, especially Sam,” Izzy said. “If I remember right, Sam was also seeing things in the moon that night.”
They laughed, and the mood lifted briefly. Jane went back to the dishes, and Birdie poured more coffee.
Nell looked over at Cass. She was already digging around, looking for more in the box, for those secret clues that she was sure Harrison Grant had left for them. Every now and then, her body would stiffen, as if she’d felt a bump or a kick, and her hand would move from the box to her belly, which she would pat gently, then let her hand rest there a bit.
Nell felt dampness in her eyes and grabbed a tissue. In the middle of the mess, there was joy. And she reminded herself not to forget it.
Izzy helped herself to a glass of wine, then moved back to Cass’s side and watched her check the notes and photos in the box. “You won’t find that photography journal or Sam’s Three Men and a Mine photo in there,” Izzy said, trying to sound nonchalant. “The police kept them.”
“Kept them?” Nell said, her brows lifting. “Sam’s photo? Why?”
“Jerry promised he’d keep the photos safe,” Izzy assured her aunt quickly. “We’ll get the photo back. The chief even talked to Sam about an app that can help restore old photos. Did you know Jerry Thompson’s an amateur photographer in his spare time?”
Nell managed a smile, feeling that the roles had changed. She should be keeping Izzy feeling safe, and telling her that everything would be fine. Now Izzy was talking too fast, trying to put her mind at ease. And not about photos. About lives. “I know, Izzy,” she said, tucking her own worry away. “It will be okay.”
They began passing around some of the photos again, ones familiar to them now, the search lacking the surprise of the night before. And the clues they were seeking hidden somewhere out of sight in the now familiar plastic box.
Cass picked up a black and white photo, another pose of the young woman they’d seen the night before. She held it up, her eyes squinting to see the features more clearly, wondering if it looked familiar because they’d looked at it the night before.
Beside her, Nell was hiding a yawn behind her hand, and Jane had folded up the dish towel and was checking her messages. Ham was back from the gallery show, she said. It was time for her to head home.
Outside, the wind was picking up, slapping branches against the kitchen windows.
As if on cue, the French doors opened, bringing in a gust of cold air, along with Danny, his collar up and his car keys in hand. Sam and Ben followed, carrying in the grilling tools.
“The witching hour,” Danny said to Cass and Birdie. “I’m getting you two ladies home before they come out.”
While Nell and Ben walked friends to the door, Sam went upstairs to bundle up a sleeping Abby, leaving Izzy sitting on an island stool, picking through the box, resenting its presence in her life.
Mindlessly, she pushed aside photos and papers with the tip of her finger, as if pushing them out of her life and back to the past where they belonged. Enough, she said to herself and reached for the lid. A small photo sat beside it, one Cass had been holding earlier. Izzy picked it up and recognized the young woman they’d noticed the night before. It was faded like the other, slightly yellowed and cracked. Not clear, but familiar.
Izzy held it up to the low-hanging island lights and looked at it more closely. Then she squinted, trying to bring the image into focus.
It was then, as Ben was calling to her, telling her that her family was waiting in the car, that her breath caught tightly in her chest.
But it wasn’t the woman in the photo that held her in a painful grip.
It was what was behind the woman.
She slipped the photo into her purse, grabbed her jacket, and followed Ben’s voice out to the waiting car.
Chapter 31
The meteorologist was right. Saturday brought a chilly rain to Sea Harbor, plastering fallen leaves to the gutters and sidewalks. Causing traffic in town to slow down. A lazy indoor Saturday.
“Not a good day to run, Izzy,” Sam announced as Izzy came into the kitchen. He was standing barefoot at the stove, flipping pancakes. Abby was already at the table, begging Sam to make her next pancake look like Wilbur, her favorite pig.
Izzy stood near the cupboard for a minute, looking at them. Loving them.
And then she announced she was going out anyway. Errands. A whole slew of them. And she’d never once melted when she got wet. She kissed Abby on the top of her head, gave Sam a hug, and headed out into the wet morning.
* * *
Rico’s house was dark, as always, and the gate hung loose. Leaves were scattered across the drive and sidewalk, and wet windblown piles had formed beneath the trees and along the fence. The familiarity brought her a small amount of comfort, even if she was finding it in Rico’s messy yard. She sat in the car for a minute, the only sound that of the wipers swishing back and forth. Finally, she pulled up the hood of her rain jacket, got out, and ran for the front door.
She wasn’t surprised or bothered when Rico kept her waiting, the rain pouring over her hood and streaming down her face. It wasn’t as cold as she’d expected, and the rain was almost refreshing in a peculiar way. She lifted her head and breathed in deeply through her nose, then released the air slowly through her mouth. “Ha,” she breathed. Her yoga “ha.” Then she closed her eyes and her mouth and inhaled again.
“What are you? Wicked crazy?” Rico yelled.
Izzy’s eyes shot open.
Rico stood beside the partially opened door, the gap just wide enough for him to stare at his drenched visitor. “You’re a drowned rat, you crazy woman,” he said.
Frodo stood on the doormat behind his master. His tail was welcoming, and he ignored his master’s rant.
Izzy felt water running down her nose, onto her jacket, soaking her jeans, and gathering around her boots. But the door didn’t close. Finally, she squeezed through the opening, then stood still on the mat beside Frodo.
Rico stared at her, then watched her carefully as she leaned over and tugged off her rain boots, trying to keep the water off the hardwood floor.
Izzy felt his look, but he wasn’t pushing her out. That was a good sign.
“You’re a damn pest, you know that?” Rico said.
Izzy nodded, standing up straight now, staring back at him. She glanced over at the closed doors to the living room. Then she looked back at Rico. Finally, she pulled out the photo that she’d protected in a plastic sandwich bag, and handed it to him.
Rico stared at it, every inch of his face frozen except for his eyes.
“I knew you went in there when you were here before,” he said finally, his voice so low and unfamiliar that Frodo looked up, his head cocked to one side.
Then Rico, still holding the photo in his hand, walked over to the heavy wooden doors and opened them.
Izzy followed.
The room was dark, like the day outside, gray and unwelcoming. At first, all Izzy could see were shadows. Once Rico flipped a switch beside the door, small ceiling lights near the sitting area turned on.
Above the fireplace, against the distinctive hand-carved granite wall, which was visible in the black-and-white photo, a single light illuminated a woman. It made her almost as real as if she were sitting there in front of them. They walked over, stood before her. The woman’s eyes seemed to focus directly on Rico.
“It looks like she’s looking at me. But she’s not, you know. She was looking at him,” he said.
Izzy felt sure he was right. It was an intimate gaze looking directly at the camera. With Harrison Grant behind it.
Izzy scanned the whole photo, down to a black smudge, no bigger than a thumbprint, in the right-hand corner. A name erased, nearly hidden in the shadows. The date still visible. One of the dates Izzy had found in Charlotte’s email to her. Harrison’s travel dates.
She had awakened in the middle of the night and hadn’t been able to get back to sleep, so she’d checked the email again. Looking for Harrison’s trips to Sea Harbor. And there they were, just as Liz Santos had said.
She looked up into the large dark eyes and thought of Charlotte’s files. Of Harrison’s life in numbers. But it wasn’t numbers she saw when she looked at Rico and then at the photograph. It was people.
Rico followed her gaze to the corner of the frame. “He put himself in the photo. I took him out.”
I took him out.
Izzy took in a sharp breath, then let it out slowly. The connection between her and this man standing next to her, shorter by a foot, was an unexplainable bond. Strange, but real. And whether Rico wanted her to or not, needed her or not, she’d be there for him. Even if he yelled at her and ordered her to go away.
“Martina wanted her portrait painted. And she wanted it hung right up there, above the fireplace. I was happy about it. It was so permanent, you know? But I wanted it to be of her, not something a painter would paint, bringing his own ideas to it, painting his interpretation of her, all those tones and things they add and subtract. Instead, I wanted a photograph, something that would catch her spirit, those incredible eyes exactly as they were. Depict what was there. I checked it out and found a photographer who had won some big award in Europe. I figured he must be good, so I offered him big bucks if he’d come to Sea Harbor and paint my wife. The money was big, so he agreed.”
Izzy was surprised, although she wasn’t sure why. But the fact that Rico himself had brought Harrison Grant into his wife’s life added a terrible irony to it all.
“That photo you have there, that little one . . . I was here in this room when he took it. A bunch of them. ‘Testing the light and angles,’ he said. And testing her. I could tell. That very first day, I could tell.”
Rico was rambling some, but Izzy listened as carefully as she could, pulling out the time frame, the few days it took for his wife to fall in love with her photographer.
“While he was in Sea Harbor, Grant picked up a few other high-paying jobs,” Rico said, “which brought him back to town.”
“So you knew about his affair?”
“I never saw them together, if that’s what you’re getting at. No one did. Jake would have told me if he suspected it. But I knew Martina. I knew. Grant came to Cape Ann, and they met somewhere. Who knows where? She musta had a friend around here somewhere, a place she could go. Once or twice a buddy would think he saw her around Cape Ann, Gloucester, maybe over in Rockport, times when she’d told me she was looking for antiques or meeting her friend for some shopping spree. It didn’t matter. I’d hear the guy was around, and I suspected something. But I thought it’d all go away. ‘Some spouses stray,’ my tavern buddies would say. But they knew where their homes were, where their real life was, and it was just a passing thing. ‘A woman like Martina?’ they’d say. ‘She has everything. Don’t worry about her. If there’s anything there, it’ll pass.’ ”
