Fogged Inn (21 page)

“You don't have to tell her this,” Phil said from across the room. But he didn't go to her.

“My two little boys were in the backseat when I was thrown through the windshield. Child car seats were not as good then as they are now, but they were good enough. Neither boy was seriously hurt.” She wiped tears away with the back of her hand. “Julia, I had been drinking. Alone, at home, before I went off to the nursery school to pick them up.”

She let that sink in. It wasn't my story, yet I could barely breathe.

“After I got out of the hospital, I went straight to rehab, with my face still a horror. I had to get better, for my boys. And I did, though my younger son had nightmares for years after the accident. Thank God we've all left it behind us.” She turned to face me head-on. “So I'm glad for my ruined face. I'm alive. My boys are alive. My new face reminds me every day of the person I had to become. Not looking like I did then has helped me move past all that happened. Excuse me.”

Deborah went off in search of a tissue while Phil stared daggers at me. I felt terrible. The events that had rippled out from that single New Year's Eve were staggering. So many lives profoundly changed.

“Now look what you've done,” Phil snarled. “I asked you to leave her alone.”

Deborah returned from the powder room holding a box of tissues. “It's okay,” she said to Phil. “I wanted to tell Julia what happened. Why did you go to Connecticut?” she asked me.

“Because that was where the woman from the accident at Main and Main was from. I've believed for a while that the accident and the body in our walk-in are related.”

“And are they? What do they have to do with us?” Deborah asked.

By plan, I'd told none of the other couples what the police had discovered in Connecticut, but none had asked as directly as Deborah Bennett. I hated to inflict more pain, but she had been honest with me at great personal cost. I decided I owed an answer. “The accident victim was Enid Sparks. The murder victim was her nephew, Austin Lowe.”

The words were no sooner out of my mouth than Deborah grasped her chest, took a deep breath but didn't exhale, and crumpled onto the hard kitchen floor.

Phil beat me around to the other side of the island. “Dammit, Julia! I begged you not to upset her!” He cradled Deborah's head in his arms as she gasped for breath. “Get her medication from the shelf in the pantry!” He turned his attention back to his wife. “Slow, deep breaths, Deborah. Help is on the way.” I returned to Phil with her medication, a Valium prescription, and a glass of water. Since I'd had panic attacks myself, I felt awful for Deborah, and guilty about what I'd done to her. Unless she was an Oscar-worthy actress, she'd had no idea of either Enid or Austin's identity. And, clearly, she hadn't put the past as much in the past as she thought she had.

Phil helped Deborah to her feet, then looked at me. “Go,” he ordered.

But I had to fulfill my mission. “Okay,” I said, loud enough for both of them to hear, though I doubted I had either's attention. “I have to go anyway. While I was in Connecticut, I visited the Lowes' old insurance agent. He gave me the report from the fire. It's in a manila envelope on the coffee table in a tote bag in my apartment. When Lieutenant Binder gets back into town tomorrow, I'll give it to him.”

Phil muttered, “Go away, Julia,” but his attention was clearly on his distressed wife. I let myself out the front door.

I put the Caprice in my mother's garage and fast-walked back to the restaurant. Gus would be winding down for the day. I had just enough time to grab a late lunch and help Chris get set for the evening.

I sat at the end of the counter, the only customer in the place. Gus served me one of his famous grilled cheese sandwiches and I chowed down. I savored the sharp tang of the cheese, the perfect crunch of the bread. It was the taste of my childhood and my current existence. My life had come full circle, the past united with the present.

That couldn't happen for the surviving members of the Rabble Point set. Caroline had been the one to use the words “cast out of Eden,” but they all had lived for years in a state of exile. Their lives had been varied and rich. Some had successful professional lives, some loving families, some both. All had been in long-standing marriages that were, to all appearances, loving and supportive. But when they'd had the opportunity, they'd returned to the place where they'd felt they belonged. As Caroline had articulated it, where they'd felt
known
.

One of those people, I was convinced, was willing to kill to keep the past in the past and prevent it from destroying the now. And maybe, I was beginning to believe, not to cover up their own culpability but that of a beloved spouse.

But which one? I'd spread a lot of misery today. I'd forced people to tell me things they didn't want to talk about, remember times they'd tried to forget. I'd made grown-up humans cry. It didn't feel good. I hoped the guilty party would take the bait I had so carefully laid out at a high cost to everyone else.

Chris arrived as I took my last bite of sandwich. Gus finished cleaning and turned the place over. Because the restaurant had been so busy the night before, I set every table in the dining room, cut up extra fruit for behind the bar, washed more lettuce for the salad station. Livvie came by at four and dropped off the evening's desserts—blueberry cheesecake and chocolate mousse. “We're coming for dinner tonight,” she said. “And bringing Mom.”

I ran up to my apartment and changed. While I was there, I fed Le Roi, who tried to feign indifference but at the last minute couldn't hold out and ran for his bowl. Then I headed back downstairs.

The restaurant was busy again that night. In addition to the couples and foursomes, there were families. For the first time, I seriously considered a children's menu.

Mom, Sonny, Livvie, and Page arrived around seven. Forewarned, I'd kept a big booth in the dining room open for them. Page greeted Chris with her usual enthusiasm, calling from across the counter.

“Hey, squirt,” he responded, but didn't have time for much more because we were slammed.

Kendra Carter was there with her husband and their two kids. “I hope we'll see you Tuesday night at the Sit'n'Knit,” she said.

“I don't know. I'm such a terrible knitter.”

Kendra leaned in close. “It's not about the knitting,” she whispered.

Exactly what Livvie had said. Maybe they had a point.

By seven thirty the place was full, and a couple of tables had even turned over. I finally found my way back to the bar, where I attempted to tidy up before I had to rush off again. The restaurant was noisy from the people and their chatter. In the center of it all were the members of my own family. Mom's face was animated, the tiredness of the long shifts at Linens and Pantries washed away. She, Livvie, and Page laughed at some story Sonny told.

I walked across the room to where Chris stood, momentarily caught up with the cooking. I put my arm through his and turned him toward the room full of people enjoying the food and celebrating the weekend. “We did this,” I whispered to him. “We did all of this.”

“Thanks to Gus,” he said.

“Yes, thanks to Gus. And to us. We've worked hard. We need to enjoy it.”

“Yes, we do.” His lips grazed my cheek.

I spotted a table that needed to be cleared, a dessert order to be taken. Another group signaled for their check. I was off and running again.

The crowd around the bar lingered, and it was after midnight when the last couple left. I cleaned up and checked on the state of the restrooms. Chris finished battening down the kitchen. I heard the walk-in door open and rumble shut, though the food had been put away hours before. I knew Chris was making a final check of the premises, just as I was.

“Going upstairs!” he called to me. “You coming?”

“One minute.” I made one last circuit of the restaurant to make sure it was shipshape for Gus in the morning, dousing the lights as I moved around. I shot the shiny, new deadbolt across apartment door at the bottom of the stairs.

“Everything okay?” Chris glanced at me as I came up the stairs. He was on his way into the shower after a sweaty night of cooking.

“Fine.”

“Because you seem a little distracted.”

“Do I? Sorry. Long day.”

While Chris was in the shower, I tried a variety of activities—book, TV, computer, but none held my interest. I changed into the old Snowden Family Clambake T-shirt I slept in, pulled the covers up, and put my head down on the pillow. Not long after, Chris climbed into bed and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

As soon as I was sure he was asleep, I slipped out of bed.

* * *

I pulled on my jeans and sweater, stuffed my feet into my sneakers, grabbed my phone, and crept quietly down the stairs, undoing the deadbolt at the bottom. In the restaurant, I took Gus's hammer and the big flashlight out of his toolkit under the lunch counter and then pried off both two-by-fours that Chris had nailed over the trapdoor behind the bar. The boards screeched as I pulled them up. Between that and the grunting and the swearing, I worried Chris would appear. I waited a few moments, heart pounding, but he didn't. I positioned a chair opposite the bar, by the wall under the light switch. And waited.

And waited. Waiting in the dark for something that might not happen turned out to be stupendously boring. I shifted on the wooden restaurant chair, stiff and cold.

And waited.

The harbor was quiet in the dead of the night. Quiet in a way my apartment in New York never was or could have been. The streetlight on the other side of the parking lot threw a tiny sliver of light into the room, but not enough to see much of anything.

In spite of my best intentions, I dozed.

“Julia?”

“Aieee!” My eyes sprang open, but I couldn't see a thing. I flailed at the intruder, who grabbed both my wrists and held on.

“It's me, Chris! I woke up and you weren't in bed, so I came to find you. Good grief, Julia. What is going on?”

I sagged against him. “Shhh. Quiet. I'm hunting wabbits.”

Chris found a chair and pulled it next to mine. “Seriously, what in the world are you doing?”

“I told everyone who was in the restaurant the night Austin Lowe was murdered that I had the only copy of an insurance report that named the person who left the cigarette that started the fire at the Lowes' house. I figure that'll cause whoever's been breaking into the apartment to show up one last time.”

Beside me in the dark, I heard Chris open his mouth several times, but he produced only sputtery noises. Finally, he spoke. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I worried you'd think I was insane.”

“Well then, mission accomplished.”

We sat for a moment, then he said, “Julia, we have to talk about this. I'm serious. This is the second time you've tried to brain me. And the second time you've put yourself in danger without telling me. I think, after all this time, after all we've been through, I'm owed a heads-up on your intentions.” His voice had an edge to it I'd rarely heard. He was angry.

I felt my face flush. “You're right. You are. You are owed that, and so much more.”

“We'll talk in the morning,” he said. “When we've had some sleep.”

“Maybe we should go to bed. It looks like my plan hasn't worked. I've been sitting here for hours.”

“It's still dark.”

“Then we should quiet down. Just in case.”

Chris took my hand and we sat in silence. In a few minutes, his chin dropped slowly to his chest.

I was about to drop off again myself when I heard a creaking noise from behind the bar. I shook Chris and then elbowed him. He jerked awake with a “Wha?”

“Shhh!”

The trapdoor banged as it fell open. I put my hand on the light switch. Soft footsteps made their way around the bar. Whoever it was wore a headlamp like bicyclists wear but didn't shine it in our direction. Instead, the person made straight for the apartment stairs.

When I judged the intruder was in the middle of the room, I flipped on the lights.

“You!” I shouted, pointing at Phil Bennett, who stood in the center of the room.

“You!” he yelled simultaneously, pointing at Chris and me. Then he turned and, with surprising agility, fled back the way he'd come.

I thrust my phone into Chris's hands. “Call nine-one-one,” I shouted, and ran after Phil. He jumped down through the trapdoor, grunting as he hit the rock not far below. I jumped after him, hit the rock, and aimed the flashlight just in time to see him slip through the opening to the cave.

I followed, pointing the flashlight ahead of me. Bennett ran on, apparently sure of the way. I'd been in the tunnel only once before and moved more cautiously than he did, worried about running headlong into a wall of packed dirt despite my flashlight. I pushed myself to go faster. If he made it to the ladder and pulled it up behind him, I'd have to turn around and go back, and he could easily get away.

Behind me, I heard the slap of bare feet on the tunnel floor. I assumed it was Chris. I had to believe it was Chris. If someone else was pursuing me, it was too scary to think about.

Ahead of me, I saw the ladder in the light of Phil's headlamp and heard the creak as he stepped on the bottom rung. I aimed my flashlight and caught Phil's back as he vanished upward. I leapt toward the ladder, grabbing the sides as he thundered to the top and began to pull it up. “Oh, no, you don't!” I stepped down forcibly on the bottom rung.

I thought for a moment I might bring him tumbling down on top of me. But he released the ladder. As I clambered up, I heard him slam the door of locker 10B. I was afraid he might have locked it, and I threw myself against it as hard as I could when I reached the top. It sprang open, my own momentum propelling me to the floor. I scrambled to my feet. I could hear Bennett running toward the front door. I jumped for him, bringing him down. I landed on his back, my knees on either side of his ribs. I heard a distinct crack that might have been bone breaking.

“Oof.”

There was a thump and a bump and the sound of someone patting a wall. The overhead lights blazed on. Chris stood by the switch, barefoot and blinking. Jamie and Officer Howland broke down the front door seconds later.

“What's going on here?” Howland demanded.

“Phil Bennett broke into my apartment to steal evidence three times, trying to cover up that he murdered Austin Lowe and Enid Sparks!”

“Mrgh, mrgh, mrgh, mrgh!” Bennett protested from beneath me.

Jamie shook his head. “No, Julia. He didn't kill anyone.” Then he added, “Get off him. You're hurting him.”

So I did.