Husbands And Lap Dogs Breathe Their Last (18 page)

“I hope you’ll forgive me for stopping by. I know I was a bit of an eager beaver when we last met. Sometimes my curiosity gets the better of me.”

“What exactly do you want?”

“As you know, I’m looking into Therese’s death for the Mathers Society. I’m not working with the police or an insurance company or anyone else. There’s nothing tangible for anyone at Mathers to gain here, just closure. Everyone loved Therese.”

“And you think I know something useful?”

“I was hoping you might confirm some information. To begin, I’m just curious — did Therese dislike bees?”

“Yes. She hated them. Why do you ask?”

“A guess. What was the cause?”

“She ate some poison honey when she was a child. She was very sick.”

“Who poisoned it?”

“No one. It was naturally occurring. The bees made the honey from poisonous plants.”

“I see. And what did Cosima die of?”

“A car accident.”

“May I ask what happened?”

“What usually happens around here: an icy road during the winter. She lost control and careened into a tree.”

“Only one more question. Can you confirm that Therese and Chess were married?”

“Yes, briefly. They remained friends. Therese had an MBA. Chess didn’t. Sometimes she gave him business advice.”

“This is a really beautiful garden.”

“Is there anything else?”

“No. Thank you so much. I appreciate this. Thanks again!”

“Very well then,” Samson said, returning to work.

On the way back to the car, while he was congratulating himself on his display of interpersonal sensitivity, something occurred to Cummings. He reached for his cell phone.

“Rockland?”

“Cummings. Aren’t you in Maine?”

“I am. I have a toxicology question for you.”

“Excellent! I do enjoy toxins before lunch.”

“Generally speaking, how prevalent are toxic species among common garden plants?”

“Many common varieties are poisonous in whole or in part,” Rockland responded. “
Colchicum autumnale
— that’s the autumn crocus. Multiple species of rhododendron, barberry, gaillardia, dicentra, eucalyptus, buckthorn, bougainvillea, asclepias — that’s the butterfly weed — lobelia, agave, cestrum, clematis, clivia, iris, euonymus, gladiolus, philodendron, juniperus, euphorbia, narcissus, cyclamen, chrysanthemum, delphinium, dieffenbachia and hydrangea. Did I mention
kalmia latisfolio
, mountain laurel, and
lantana camera?
Let’s not overlook the leaves and stems of the nightshades, such as tomatoes. Of course, there are many other examples.”

“I’m surprised gardening hasn’t been banned,” Cummings said, a bit stunned.

“Why? It’s safe as long as one wears gloves and doesn’t munch one’s way through one’s flower beds. How are things going in New England?”

“All right, I suppose. No breakthroughs. And in Chicago?

“The same. Nothing to report.”

“I’ll phone in a few days.”

Cummings made another call, this time the promised call to his father. He dutifully made arrangements to visit that evening. That done, he had no other action items for the day. He decided to take a walk around Samaria.

The village looked much the same as it had when he lived in Maine. Maine changed slowly. Over a number of years one might notice fewer farms and less wooded land, more cheap and ugly houses and, in the coastal communities, more and better restaurants. But otherwise, Maine was Maine.

A farmers market was in progress in the town common, and Cummings wandered through it. The produce was hearty, and the crafts were perfunctory, though his attention was drawn to one vendor selling elegant candles.

“My mother and I make these the way our family’s done for more than two hundred years,” the vendor explained. He was a portly, middle-aged man with a beard. Apparently he had typed Cummings as a tourist from Boston or New York who might be impressed by such homespun salesmanship.

“Doesn’t that make it difficult to turn a profit?” Cummings responded.

“You know what they say, anything worth doing ...” the man responded. “Besides, it’s more of a hobby than anything else.”

“What do you do the rest of the time?”

“I work in a factory.”

Cummings bought several pairs of candles and moved on.

At the end of the farmers market, he saw that a crafts shop featuring the work of local artisans had opened. He browsed through it, perusing its crocheted oven mitts, corn husk dolls, wooden lobsters, dried soup mixes and scarves knitted from the wool of local sheep. Nothing caught his fancy. He returned to Horeb and took a long nap.

Coastal Maine is characterized by many inlets and peninsulas. Orchid and George, Cummings’s father and stepmother, lived at the end of one in a village called Shiloh. Shiloh was about an hour’s drive from Horeb along the corkscrew-shaped Shiloh Road. This wound through forest and pasture for about thirty miles south from Route 1, the main coastal highway. The only other way in was by the sea.

Shiloh was one of the many quaint, charming Maine villages with a mix of eighteenth century homes and twenty-first century gift shops. It was rumored that the Vikings may have landed nearby in the tenth century, and tourists have been spending their summers there for many of the years since.

Orchid had bought the house many decades and husbands ago, when coastal cottages with seaside acreage could be had cheap. The house was not impressive. It was a cedar-shingled fisherman’s saltbox, built at some point in the nineteenth century and modernized over time. It was small: a kitchen, dining room, living room, two baths and three bedrooms, two of which were tiny.

However, the house sat on almost ten waterfront acres facing the Sheepscot Bay at the edge of an inlet known as Discord Harbor. The lot was a very long rectangle, only about three hundred feet wide. The house was reached by a very long, steep driveway off a leafy byway that forked off Shiloh Road. This had once led to a dairy farm and was called Whey Way. Who says New Englanders don’t have a sense of humor?

There was a long, grassy decline that led from the house to a crag on the sea, a rocky cliff perhaps thirty feet above the waterline, which ran the width of the property. Worn wooden steps led from the edge of the grass down to a boat dock. This was not presently in use, as Orchid and George weren’t particularly aquatic. Old stands of trees on both sides of the property separated the land from its neighbors.

Large flower and vegetable beds adorned each side of the house. Behind the house about half an acre was fenced. This area, reached through a gate near the end of the driveway, contained a small strip of lawn and a larger wooden deck. This was connected to the kitchen via sliders. These sliders served as the back door, and thus primary entrance, to the house.

Cummings walked through the gate and knocked on the sliders. George appeared and opened the door. George looked just as he always did: short, gaunt, crumpled and chaotic. In this respect he looked something like Albert Einstein, at least a thinner Albert Einstein. Also, there was George’s madras.

George never wore anything but a madras bow tie over a wrinkled, white button-down shirt, with short or long madras pants and a madras blazer. Naturally, all of the madras patterns clashed. This blazer was one of George’s three coats, the lightest in weight and often worn during the summer. He also owned an ancient, ill-fitting Harris Tweed, which he wore when colder temperatures prevailed and often when they didn’t. Finally, he possessed a frayed herringbone sports jacket that dated to the 1970s.

“How are you, Dad?”

“Zesty.”

“I’m glad, Dad. Are you and Orchid hungry? I thought I might take you out to dinner,” Cummings asked, “or we could get some lobsters.”

“Doesn’t that require a boat?”

“I meant at the supermarket.”

“Do you find me odd?” George asked suddenly but with his usual dispassion.

“What?” Cummings said, not expecting that question.

“Do you find me odd? Orchid says I’m odd.”

“I think it’s all relative,” Cummings said tactfully. “One has to find individuals who share one’s worldview.”

“
Weltanschauung
. Fourteen letters. German.”

“Exactly.”

They headed toward the kitchen. As they did so George said, “Did you know Maine has thirty-three thousand, two hundred fifteen square miles; six thousand lakes and ponds; thirty-five hundred miles of coastline and seventeen million acres of forest?”

“No, I didn’t,” Cummings replied.

Orchid, Cummings’s eighty-year-old stepmother, stood in the kitchen, sifting a large quantity of flour. She was small but taut, the probable result of a lifetime of physical vigor and intellectual athleticism. When Cummings had first met her years earlier, she’d had a long white ponytail. For reasons Cummings did not understand, and he didn’t understand much about her, she had shaved her head for her wedding to his father. Her hair had grown back to haphazardly trimmed chaos. She wore jeans, a flannel shirt and slippers.

“Well, well, Cummings Flynn, Mister Repartee Rapier,” Orchid said, looking up.

Cummings was surprised. Usually, she referred to him as “buddy” or “buddy boy.”

“Hello, Orchid. How are you?”

“
Sain pour quelqu’un chancelant dans la tombe
.”

“Orchid, as you know, I don’t speak French.”

“I said I’m healthy for someone tottering into the grave. You should speak French. As my father used to say, if everyone spoke two or three languages, supper would have more discourses. I have studied nine different languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Urdu, Tamil, Chinese and Chichewa.”

“I know, Orchid.”

“Where is Chichewa spoken?”

“I don’t have any idea.”

“South Central Africa. I didn’t think you’d know that. Where is Tamil spoken?”

“It’s an Indian language, isn’t it?” Cummings replied.

“Very good. There may be hope for you. I am making pies for the church bake sale.
Gehen Sie die Tortekrusten bilden!
I put the flour and the butter out on the counter. There are aprons over there in the broom closet.”

“I don’t know how to make
Tortekrusten
,” Cummings, who did manage a little German in high school, replied.

“Nothing to it! I’ll instruct you.”

Some time later fifteen baked pie shells cooled on racks, waiting for filling. Chocolate cream, banana cream and custard cream fillings had been prepared, and blueberry filling heated on the stove. While Cummings stirred, Orchid lectured on various topics, such as the flora and fauna of Maine, the etymology of the word “goat,” and the penis size of male nudes in Etruscan pottery. George sat nearby, working on puzzles, occasionally lifting his head to ask Cummings for assistance.

“I made up the guest room for you,” Orchid announced as she finally transitioned from pies to dinner. Cummings checked the time on his phone. It was almost nine-thirty.

“Thank you, but I don’t need it. I’m staying with Ernestine Cutter.”

“Very well. Did I read something in the newspaper about a murder on her land?”

“Yes, but she had nothing to do with it.”

“I assumed that, or you wouldn’t be staying with her. If I remember correctly, a body was found in her boat.”

“It wasn’t her boat. She was just storing it for a friend, Deuteronomy Smelt.”

“I don’t know that name.”

“He’s a writer. Spy novels.”

“That’s right. I remember now. The Greek woman keeps house for him.”

“You know them?”

“No. She’s a friend of a friend of someone in our congregation. A few months ago the Greek woman came to our church and gave a little talk during coffee hour.”

“About what?”

“She wants to open a Greek restaurant in Portland. She’s looking for investors.”

“How was the presentation?”

“Poorly conceived. She’s a cook, not a businesswoman.”

“Did anyone invest?”

“How should I know?”

Dinner was eventually cooked and eaten. Cummings helped to wash the dishes and left. By this time it was after midnight.

The next morning Cummings did not get up early. Late in the morning he returned to the old brick warehouse that housed Chess’s orgone box factory. This time the factory was open for business, and he walked in the door.

Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, Cummings circumnavigated the space, observing what he could. The main work area looked much the same as it had by flashlight, though it was easier now to take in its totality. The factory was busy, noisy and crowded. Workers in protective gear worked with concentration at the various machines, while their colleagues used hand tools to finish elements of the orgone boxes or to construct the final product. At one end completed orgone boxes, which looked something like small outhouses, were being crated for shipping.

He moved toward the office. The door was shut, and he knocked on it.

“Come right in,” a cheerful male voice said from behind the door. Cummings opened it and entered.

The office remained in circumstances similar to Cummings’s previous visit. The orderly section of the office remained tidy, and the section containing Chess’s personal items seemed to have been untouched.

A man in his early thirties, wearing horn-rim glasses and a smart suit, white shirt and bow tie, sat behind the desk. He was reading a stack of papers as Cummings entered.

“It’s as if two people inhabit this office,” Cummings said playfully, referring to the mix of order and chaos.

The man laughed nervously. “I’m afraid the owner of our company died unexpectedly. We thought it best not to disturb his belongings, but, of course, work must go on.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Cummings said.

“I’m Henry Nicholas,” the man replied, rising and extending his hand. He smiled with the smooth ebullience of a successful salesman.

“Cummings Flynn Wanamaker.”

“What can I do for you, Mister Wanamaker? Please sit down.”

“I’m interested in purchasing an orgone box,” Cummings said, sitting. “Are you the acting CEO, Mister Nicholas?”