A Month at the Shore (35 page)

The rose was big and blowsy and bold: a lively coral, fading to a bright gold center and bursting with red stamens. Summer Wine. Even the name fit. Laura found it easily,
though it was
dark. She took her secateurs from the patch pocket of her chenille robe and cut off a single opened rose, then inhaled its alluring, heavy scent. Yes. Sylvia would have approved of Summer Wine.

Continuing on her impulsive mission, she made her way to the yellow tape that surrounded the dregs of the original compost pile.

What might she have been?

For a long, sad moment, Laura pondered the multitude of odd twists and quirks of fate that had her standing in her nightgown next to a crime scene in the place she once had no choice but to call home.

"Rest in peace," she whispered into the stillness of the soft May night.

Leaning over the tape, she pitched the rose. It landed on a low mound of loose soil, its frilly, scalloped petals as flirty and feminine as an old-fashioned Gibson girl.

"Amen," she murmured, and then she retraced her steps to her room in the darkened farmhouse and tried again to sleep.

The Chepaquit Police Station was located back-to-back with the Chepaquit Savings Bank, but Ken saw far more of Andy Mellon when they were on their boats at Creasey's Marina than he did when they were at their desks at their respective jobs. Maybe it was because the bank and the police station fronted on two different streets. Maybe it was simply because, for Ken, business and pleasure didn't mix.

Today he was all business. At eight
a.m
. he cut across both parking lots and greeted the dispatcher at the police desk with the same friendly smile that he'd given her at Belle's Cafe when they stood in line at seven, waiting to buy the still-warm chocolate-covered doughnuts that (if Belle was to be believed) were famous for miles around.

"Hey, again. Chief Mellon around?" he asked, glancing at the empty cells behind her. Empty. Good. Snack was still
allowed to be
at large.

Cindy leaned back in her swivel chair and threw her head back. "Chief?" she called out over her shoulder.

"What now
?"

She lifted her eyebrows above a smile. "He's in," she said to Ken, and she went back to pecking her keyboard, leaving him to fend for himself.

He walked around the corner to an office that had been decorated by the art class of Chepaquit High in honor of Chief Mellon's silver jubilee: in front of his desk on the gray-painted floorboards, the students had painted and then varnished a replica of the chief's badge, complete with his badge number.

The chief did not look pleased.
 
"I wondered how the hell long it was gonna take you," he growled.

"How'd you find out?" Ken asked, dropping into the nearest of three chairs.

"Billy told Helen Jennings who told Agnes Ritter who told our very own Cindy. He's coming over in half an hour to make a statement."

"Then I'd better beat it," said Ken, rising.

The chief waved him back down. "He's down at the Laundromat, watching his clothes dry. One of the loads is a down blanket. You've got time."

Ken nodded. Everyone knew Billy did things according to a schedule. Try to rush or change it, and Billy would be too agitated to be even remotely helpful.

"You're lucky your daddy gave Beth and me a mortgage back when we had zip credit, or so help me, I'd have you up on charges," the chief added. "What the hell's the matter with you, not coming here directly? Are you so besotted by her?"

"Yes. Snack didn't do it, Andy."

"So she tells you. It was a long time ago. Kids do dumb things."

"Have you notified Sylvia's parents?" Ken asked, because he knew how much his own mother would want to know.

"We're trying to locate the next of kin right now—in northern Saskatchewan, no less. Her parents should still be alive."

"Obviously your people will try to get hold of her dental records?"

"Obviously."

If no employment records existed at Shore Gardens, as Laura had claimed, then they must have found something in the satchel—a wallet, an ID—that told them Sylvia had hailed from Saskatchewan.

The phone rang. The chief picked it up, listened, and then said, "Which brought it to? Wait, let me grab a pencil. Nine nine eight zero. Got it. Thanks."

He hung up and Ken began to ask him point-blank what exactly they'd found of Snack's, but the phone rang again.

This time the call was even briefer and the chief was not so calm after he hung up. "Son of a bitch, when it rains it pours," he growled. "Beezee just torched the refreshment stand on the beach, can you believe it?
Damned juggling. 
He couldn't have waited until
after
the closing ceremonies?"

He grabbed a key ring from the top drawer and said, "We'll talk about this some more. I'm not done with you yet."

Out he went, leaving Ken a precious few seconds to poke through the crisp new folder that sat front and center on the desk. If he got caught—well, he didn't think about getting caught; he only thought about finding something he could use to get the Shores off the hook.

Right on top: the ME's report, a copy of which Laura was convinced he had in his glove compartment. Ken didn't much care how Sylvia Mendan had been murdered, and unless a bullet, a knife, or a blunt instrument had left a deep impression on the partly decomposed bones, the examiner wouldn't have been able to figure it out anyway.

He passed over the report and fastened his attention on the list of the finds from an examination of the crime site.

Bingo
, he thought. An account of the buckle was there, exactly as the chief had described it
... and also one of a knife. A knife engraved with the initials O.T.S.

Shit!
Father, or son?

He scanned the rest of the list quickly. Sneakers, some fabric, scraps of a bra. What might have been a lipstick case. Assuming that the chief would have the most pertinent stuff at the top, Ken resisted the urge to look further and closed the file, carefully returning it to its original position. He pivoted around and was standing on the chief's jubilee floor badge when Cindy appeared at the door.

"Something I can still do for you?" she asked him pointedly.

Ken himself had approved the loan for
her
mortgage, and he was hoping that he looked like someone severe enough to call it in if she pissed him off.

"Nope," he said. "Had to retie my shoes. New laces. See ya."

He made a hurried exit, and by the time he got home, he had managed to convince himself that losing a knife in a compost pile was practically inevitable if you worked in a nursery.

****

Laura wasn't all that anxious to have Miss Widdich open her door.

She was thrown back to that foggy, scary time when she had waited on the same porch to deliver a box of white, fragrant roses on the night of the summer solstice. This time the evening was golden, she had no roses, and it wasn't the solstice—but she felt as jumpy as she had been on that long-ago night when she was seventeen.

The door opened a crack. Laura was surprised to see that a chain had been engaged on the other side of it. The room beyond was dark; clearly the blinds were all closed. Miss Widdich's hawkish nose and penetrating eyes filled the gap, and her hair seemed to glow whiter than ever. All that was missing was the flash of lightning and the crackle of thunder.

"Miss Widdich
... please," Laura begged softly. "Can I come in for just a few minutes? I desperately need to talk to you."

"About what?" she asked, narrowing the gap another inch.

"About Sylvia. You
know
I'm here about Sylvia."

"I don't know anything—least of all, why you're harassing me."

"But I'm not! I'm just trying to do the right thing for my brother. He's going to be blamed for this, you know he will. You heard Billy."

"How can your brother be blamed? They don't even know who it is," she said, easing the door closed millimeter by millimeter.

"They do know. It's been confirmed. Well, not through DNA yet, obviously. But all signs point to the bones being Sylvia's. There's really not much doubt," Laura added, trying to prod a reaction, any reaction, out of the older woman. Horror, fear, disbelief, she didn't care.

Instead, what she got for her effort was a hissed, "Why don't you just go back to Portland, you evil child!"

And a door shut firmly in her face.

Well, this is rich
, she thought, blinking at the gargoyle doorstop.
Ordered out of town by the resident witch.

She lifted the ring in the gargoyle's nose and rapped sharply. No answer. "Fine!" she said loudly. "If my brother gets tried for this, it'll be on your conscience. Think you can live with that?
"

No answer. 
"You're the one who's evil,"
Laura
muttered. She turned and stamped down the stairs, determined to return by stealth the next time. With any luck, she'd surprise Miss Widdich in her garden. Even the evil had weak spots.

She got in the pickup and backed out angrily, sending stones kicking into the azalea hedge. What on earth did Corinne see in the woman, anyway? All Laura saw was a selfish, secretive, demanding old maid. And worse.

She arrived home to find her sister ironing a pair of valences for the two kitchen windows. Perky and cheerful, the damned curtains seemed too optimistic by half. And so did Corinne.

"Where did you get lost? I thought you were just going out for bread," Corinne said, smoothing the fabric with long, easy strokes. Clearly, ironing was therapy for her.

"I detoured to Miss Widdich's."

Corinne
looked
up. "Why?"

"Too many things about her don't add up, and I wanted to shake her
... her
...
arrogance,
damn it. Where does she get off?"

"Oh, not the Sylvia cultivars again," Corinne groaned.

"Not only that. One minute the woman's too crippled to walk without a cane, and the next, she's digging holes like a convict in a chain gang. That limping-along-with-a-cane thing is all an act
, you know
."

Corinne was more amused than surprised. "Don't be silly," she said. "She finally broke down and got a cortisone shot, that's all, and it's worked wonders for her knee. That's why she's been able to dig again."

"Then why did she fake needing a cane
after
I saw her digging? I caught her doing it twice. What was the point?"

"I imagine that she was just too embarrassed to admit that she felt better, that's all," Corinne said, laying the crisp, smooth valence over the back of a chair to dry. "Her herbal remedies turned out not to be as good as modern science."

She tore open the cellophane wrapper of her second valence and shook it out. Holding the length of it against herself, she said, "Wouldn't this make a beautiful dress?"

"If you don't mind looking like a bowl of fruit," Laura groused. Truly, her mood was vile. "Corinne, how can you be so serene? Don't you see where this investigation is going? They're going to accuse Snack of murdering Sylvia!"

"No they're not. Snack is innocent, so we have nothing to worry about." She shook out the valence and laid it on the ironing board, then pumped spray starch onto the first section. The iron let out a satisfying hiss as she slid it over the dampened cloth. "You know how I know that?" she
added
.

Laura simply shook her head, unnerved by her sister's serenity.

"Reverend Knowles dropped by while you were gone. I've missed services two weeks in a row now, and he wondered why. Wasn't that nice of him? He didn't have to do that. I told him how afraid we all were, and he said, 'If Snack didn't do it, you have nothing to fear.' Snack didn't, so I don't."

As simple as that. Laura smiled wanly. Was Corinne in total denial?

She was about to suggest it when she heard a truck with a noisy muffler pull up
.  She
ran to a window to see who it was. If it were anyone who had anything to do with the investigation, Laura had every intention of running him off with the family shotgun. She was so very sick of them all.

The lettering
on the side of the van
read
:
MISTER FIXER, APPLIANCE REPAIR.
Suspicious that someone would be gung ho enough to show up on a Sunday, she went back to her sister and said, "Were you expecting someone to come look at the dryer?"

"That must be George. He said he'd try to stop in and get a number for the broken belt, if that's what it is. I hope Snack's right, because it wouldn't be an expensive repair, George said."

"I'm getting paranoid," Laura mutter
ed, and she went back to let him in
.