Lethal Dose of Love (32 page)

“Don’t then.”

They found a table near the window where they could see the street.

“Tell me about your plan to reopen Sean’s café.”

“I’ve been doing a lot of research, looking for French recipes and all that.”

“Maybe he left some cookbooks in the restaurant.”

“Helen didn’t find any when she cleaned out the place.”

“I didn’t see any at his house either. Ask MaryAnn when we get back to the shop. Maybe she knows where they are. Did you try a search on the internet?”

“I don’t have a computer. Well, I do, but it’s broken. I’m so excited about this.”

Broken? It was working a couple of nights ago.

“I’m hoping to open the first of August. I, er…gave the library director my notice.”

“Claire, are you sure this is what you want to do?”

“You aren’t going to try and talk me out of it too, are you?”

“No, of course not. I’m just worried you’re getting in over your head.”

“And at my age…”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Mamie did. She said I should be thinking about retiring and not bogging myself down with a career that’s known for its pressures and—oh, Payton, it is the right thing to do, isn’t it?”

“Only you would know that. I’m just worried about your health. Since Sean’s death, you’ve been different.”

Claire said softly, “We’ve all been different. I think someone should carry on for Sean. We owe him that.”

Payton didn’t think any of them—most of all MaryAnn—owed him anything. But Claire was right about one thing; Sean’s death had changed them all. Payton ordered a chef’s salad, realizing she hadn’t eaten since stealing the frosting off MaryAnn’s cake last night.

“What are you laughing about?” Claire asked.

“I was just remembering the last thing I ate. I was at MaryAnn’s helping clear out Sean’s things. There was this slice of chocolate cake on the counter. I stole some of the frosting. Claire, I swear it was the best frosting I’ve ever had.”

Claire rocketed to her feet and raced from the restaurant. Payton stood up and groped in her purse. She tossed some bills on the table but Claire was already running up the sidewalk. By the time Payton made it to the curb, Claire had climbed into her car and sped away, tires squealing. Payton went back inside and asked the waitress for the meals to go.

“Well, that’s about the wildest thing I’ve ever heard,” MaryAnn said between bites of Claire’s chicken salad.

The sergeant came out of Mamie’s gallery then drove two hundred feet down Main Street and turned into Sylvie’s real estate parking lot. Payton let out the breath she’d been holding because she’d just figured out what Espinoza was doing—following up on the leads she’d given him in the wee hours of the morning. The thought gave her a heavy feeling, and Payton pushed the half-eaten lunch away. “Will you be all right for a while? I think I’ll go for a walk.”

“Sure. While you were gone earlier, I thought I’d learn a little more about plants, but I couldn’t find the book you gave me. Did you take it home?”

“The police have it. Anything you can’t find around here, they probably have.” Payton donned her raincoat, turned left out of the store and walked down the hill. Sergeant Espinoza was still at Sylvie’s. Rain had begun, first as a gentle mist as she passed Sylvie’s real estate office. It became heavier as she walked by the Information office. Payton pulled up her hood and ducked her face to the wind that had picked up off the harbor. As she crossed the battlefield, rain pummeled the treetops, rattling the new leaves and sending some to earth, fluttering and dipping like monarch butterflies in July.

She stood on the stone wall at the spot where
MaryAnn
ran aground. Directly below, etched into the manmade rock barrier, was a permanent reminder of the incident. Maybe someday the white paint would fade, but the disruption to the evenly stacked stones would remain. The water washed over Payton’s memory—Sean’s face, paralyzed from the effects of the poison, rose up, pushed on the waves. The vision was so real she couldn’t stop herself from flinching away. This time Payton didn’t try to stop the images. Maybe if they played themselves out, she’d be able to rid herself of the nightmares. That’s what her analyst had told her. “Confront the trouble head on. Let the memory come, over and over so that your mind gets used to it. Become familiar with the images, like a coroner steels himself against death. That’s what you’ve got to do with Cameron. Let him come to you.”

Unable to bear the pain and horrific waste of a wonderful human being, Payton had been unable to do this. But she wasn’t emotionally involved with Sean. The images didn’t propel her into the same emotional state as Cameron’s. So she stood atop the wall with her eyes closed. And let it come:
MaryAnn
off course. Sean and Frank toppling into the water. Her stiff form poised on
Zephyr’s
starboard rail. As she leaped a swell pushed
MaryAnn
up. She missed the deck and went under. And didn’t come up. Not for a long time. When she did, the sight of her own bloated face made Payton gasp.

Finally she turned and headed back up the hill, feeling rejuvenated and determined to find Sean and Franks’ murderer.

Payton walked home, grateful not to see a police car waiting. It had stopped raining, but the clouds remained. She hung her raincoat in the closet, giving a pat of reassurance to Sean’s wallet inside the tan cashmere winter coat. Checking that Mamie wasn’t there, she pulled up the crinkly cleaners’ bag, slipped out the wallet and took it to her office.

The leather creaked as it unfolded. She took out his license and social security card and set them on the desk. The photo of MaryAnn was the square Polaroid type with wide white border and age-crackled face. It must have been taken soon after their wedding, maybe on their honeymoon; the background was some sort of carnival. In the picture MaryAnn was youthful, at ease, without the tense lines around her mouth or the extra pounds she wore today.

The credit cards, Visa, MasterCard, and Exxon gasoline, were in Sean’s name. None appeared too well used, no scratches on the laminated surfaces, not even a signature on the gas card. There were two twenties, three tens and two ones. Payton poked into the wallet’s nooks and crannies but found nothing besides a 1905 dime tucked under a flap.

The social security card must have been the original; the heavyweight paper was dirty and worn. He hadn’t bothered to laminate it. His assigned number was 210-72-2891. She leaned back in her chair. Something she’d read recently nagged at her. Something about social security numbers being issued in a particular order. Each state had a specific code. On the computer, she located a website telling her that the first three of Sean’s social security numbers, 210, originated in the state of Pennsylvania, which brought a frown. She’d assumed he was born right here in Sackets Harbor, which would make the first numbers somewhere between 050 and 134.

Things were certainly getting interesting.

Chapter 37

Most of the gang already gathered under the white tent in the marina parking lot. But something was wrong; the voices were too loud, too forced. Payton nearly turned in her tracks and ran back up the hill. Conflict she didn’t need today, especially when it was delivered by none other than Felicia Featherstone. She stood out from them a bit. Wearing a red top and creased white capris, she pointed a red-lacquered fingernail at the group. “Don’t tell me you’re not all wondering what she’s doing here in Sackets Harbor—”

“Felicia, we expect this sort of behavior from Sylvie,” Helen said, “certainly not from you.”

Felicia was undaunted. “She doesn’t fit in with this small-town atmosphere—”

“Any more than you.”

Felicia sputtered a little but kept on. “Didn’t you see the way they acted around each other? You can bet there was something going on.” Still, no one did more than stand open-mouthed. “Don’t any of you think it’s at all strange that she no sooner moves to town and Sean dies?”

“Sean was a worm,” Amanda said. “Sooner or later he was bound to be killed.”

They all spotted Payton about the same time. Most had the grace to blush or look away. She didn’t wait for embarrassed explanations. She couldn’t
grin and bear it
as Granny used to recommend when her brothers taunted her. She turned and ran up the hill, past her store.
This little piggy went to market. This little piggy ran all the way home.

Payton startled Mamie and a customer as she burst in the front door. “I’m not here,” was all she said. She raced upstairs and shut herself in the bedroom. She didn’t fling herself on the bed as she used to back in childhood Virginia. She opened the sliders and went out on the deck, shutting the door to close out sounds of life from below. Face still hot with betrayal, she leaned her elbows on the railing and lowered her head. The cool breeze did nothing to alleviate the pain. She’d thought Felicia had accepted her as one of them. They hadn’t become friends as such. There was that wall they’d each built around themselves.

Mamie wasn’t a big enough bouncer to keep the determined Helen away. She came out on the deck as if she owned it, sidled next to Payton and put arm around her waist.

“How can she think I killed Sean?”

“She doesn’t…not really. The police were at her house for a long time yesterday. Brighton walked in while they were discussing
Sunset
and there was a huge row. She’s feeling a mite overwrought. You should have stayed around to see how Edward blasted her. Brought waves of delight to these old bones, I can tell you that.”

Payton spun around, realized her knees were wobbly and leaned against the rail. Helen’s face looked flushed. “Felicia was in tears when I left.”

Payton went back to looking at the harbor, now alight with afternoon sunshine. Blue instead of gray. She laughed. “I was wondering where the storm clouds went. Then I realized I swallowed them.”

Helen laughed too, and all at once they were giggling, unable to catch their breaths. Tears rolled down Payton’s cheeks, her breath came in staccato bursts. “How come no one’s racing?” she finally managed to ask.

Helen managed a semblance of seriousness. “I don’t know.”

There wasn’t much else to say. They leaned elbows on the railing watching for activity in the harbor. It wasn’t hard to convince Helen to go home; the woman was itchy for more gossip.

Payton tiptoed down to her office. Mamie tapped timidly on the door to say that Amanda had arrived. One by one, the rest of the Sackets Harbor Yacht Club members came—all but Felicia—voicing regret for what happened. Payton half-heartedly accepted all apologies.

Once the gallery closed, Payton sat in her love seat with a glass of chardonnay and suddenly couldn’t stop thinking about Sean’s social security number. What difference did it make where he was born?

She dialed Helen’s number.

“Can I bring you something to eat, dear?”

“No thanks, Helen. I’ve eaten,” Payton lied. “What do you remember about Sean’s birth?”

“Not much, really. In those days, Carter and I were struggling financially. He worked for a Watertown construction company, and I worked for an attorney in Watertown. Most nights I brought work home and there wasn’t time for socializing. The point is, it seemed as though all of a sudden Edna had herself a baby. Payton, I honestly don’t remember the woman being pregnant.”

“Uh-huh,” was all Payton could think to say. Her mind was going a million miles an hour.

“Is this important?”

“I don’t know. It might be. Thanks.” Payton hung up.

She was finishing bookwork when the doorbell rang. She dragged herself to the hallway, hoping it wasn’t Felicia. But Sylvie stood on the stoop, cuddling a longhaired white kitten. As soon as Payton’s eyes spotted the little feline, Sylvie stuffed it into her arms. “I thought you might need a friend.”

Payton stifled a groan of dismay. What was she going to do with a kitten? Its untroubled blue eyes gazed out beneath long silky whiskers. The kitten’s tiny body trembled with its purrs and Payton couldn’t help clutching it to her chest. “What’s his name?”

“
She
doesn’t have one yet.” Payton stepped back to invite Sylvie in but she waggled a finger. “I’ll be right back, I have to get something in the car.”

“I hope it’s not another cat.” Payton laughed, meaning it.

Sylvie returned, dropping a box on the hall floor. “It’s a litter box and food.”

“Gee, Sylvie, I really can’t keep a kitten.”

“Why not?”

How could she say, I just don’t want the responsibility, and make it sound like she wasn’t completely heartless? “Would you like a glass of sherry?”

“Love one.”

They went to the kitchen where Sylvie gaped in all directions. “I heard it was nice but this beats all the rumors.”

“Thanks.” Payton handed the kitten to Sylvie and got glasses from the cabinet. Settled in chairs on the patio, the two women and the kitten sat in companionable silence watching the lights twinkling on the bay.

“Why didn’t they race today?”

“Everyone was arguing. They all left.”

After another minute, Payton asked, “Sylvie, do you remember when Sean was born?”

“Not really, why?”