Clammed Up: A Maine Clambake Mystery Part 2

"Lobster mac and cheese." Mom indicated the contents of the heavy gla.s.s pan bubbling away in the oven.

"Oh-"

"Livvie made it this morning before she went to work."

Thank goodness. My mother was a terrible cook. Livvie, on the other hand, was world-cla.s.s, and lobster mac and cheese was one of her specialties.

"Why don't you let Page and I finish up?" Mom said.

The rich aroma of sweet lobster meat and sharp cheese filled the room. My tummy rumbled in response, reminding me I'd eaten next to nothing all day.

I grabbed a Sea Dog ale from the fridge and joined Livvie and Sonny on our wide front porch. The heavy, wood-framed windows were still up and I looked through the wavy gla.s.s out toward the harbor and its six tiny islands. Morrow Island was farther out, beyond the harbor's mouth. My mother claimed she could see it from the cupola at the top of our house. Sonny, Livvie, and I knew that was impossible, but in the years since my father's death, we'd given up arguing with her.

"I'll take these porch windows down tomorrow, put up the screens," Sonny said. "Might as well. No work."

"So what do we think?" Livvie asked from her seat on the porch swing. "Who did it?" Like most Mainers, Livvie was nothing if not direct.

"From the questions the cops asked you, sounds like they think it's trouble Wilson brought with him from New York," Sonny answered. He turned toward me. "Were these people into something shady there?"

"I don't know. I barely know Tony and I'd never met Ray." I flashed on the body hanging from the grand staircase at Windsholme.

"So that's it then," Livvie was as eager as I was to pin the murder on outsiders.

"But why on the island?" I asked them the question that had bugged me from the beginning.

When no one had an answer, Sonny offered an alternative. "Chris Durand was the last to person in the harbor to see the dead guy."

"I'm sure Chris had nothing to do with it," I responded, a little too vehemently.

"Julia, I know you and Chris have this thing," Sonny said. "But that doesn't mean he couldn't have done it."

"What thing?" I glared at Livvie. Betrayer.

"That thing where you eat lunch with him at Gus's three times a week," Sonny answered.

Oh, that thing. I remembered what I hated about living in a small town.

Sonny continued relentlessly. "I know you have a big blind spot where Chris Durand is concerned, but that doesn't mean he isn't involved."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You do," Sonny insisted. "He's been in and out of trouble since high school."

I looked at Livvie to see if she was going to give me any help, but she sat on the swing, apparently in agreement with her husband.

"Chris is a respected citizen of Busman's Harbor." My voice rose. "He owns three businesses in this town. G.o.d forbid if we were all judged by the things we did in high school. You especially, Sonny."

"You don't live here, Julia," Sonny raised his voice to meet my own. "I do. I hear stuff. Current stuff."

"What stuff?" I demanded. I'd been arguing with Sonny so long and hard all spring, it was reflexive. I yelled, he yelled. Such a well-worn road.

"Dinner."

The three of us had been so caught up, we hadn't heard Page open the front door. "What are you guys fighting about?"

"Nothing important, honey," Livvie jumped off the swing and moved toward her daughter. "You know how Daddy and Aunt Julia are."

"Always yelling," Page grumbled.

Livvie put an arm around Page and escorted her into the house, followed by Sonny. I brought up the rear. Pa.s.sing him on the way into the dining room, driven, as always, to have the last word, I hissed, "Even if Chris had something to do with it, which I totally discount, it still doesn't answer the question why on the island?"

Chapter 8.

Livvie's mac and cheese was the perfect comfort food at the end of a long, horrible day. I ate heartily, savoring the rich tanginess of the cheese combined with the sweetness of the lobster. The tastes and textures perfectly complimented one another-the springy noodles and toothsome lobster along with the crunchy panko breadcrumb topping. People asked if I ever got tired of lobster. I'd discussed this with the family who owned the ice cream parlor in town, who fielded similar questions. The simple answer was no. If you loved something, you loved it.

After dinner was cleared up and Livvie, Sonny, and Page finally went home, I climbed the back stairs to my room and fell exhausted onto my bed. I wanted nothing more than to sleep. But once I was cleaned up and properly tucked in, sleep didn't come. I couldn't stop worrying about the clambake.

In the clambake business, when a day was lost, it was lost forever. The income projected for this weekend was gone, our ability to make it up later severely hampered by the short Maine summer season. I knew if we were still closed on Monday I'd have to have a conversation with our banker. And I knew it wouldn't be pleasant.

I lay awake, doing calculations in my head. What if we were still closed on Monday? On Tuesday? Wednesday? Being shut down through the next weekend would be catastrophic. I was certain if that happened, the bank would call our loan. I tossed and turned and started calculating again.

Eventually, counting our potential losses had the same effect as counting sheep, and I nodded off. But then, in that split second of twilight between conscious and unconscious, a vision of that awful, inert body hanging from the stairs leaped into my brain. My eyes flew open and I was wide-awake again. I couldn't stop picturing how dead Ray Wilson was. Even in the few moments I'd stared at his body, I'd known there was no spark of life.

I started the counting again, and the cycle repeated-the nodding off, the awful vision, the wide-awakeness, then back to the counting. I don't know how many times it happened, but it felt like most of the night. I must have slept some, but even those periods were disturbed by a dream where I ran from place to disconnected place- Manhattan, Busman's Harbor and towns I didn't recognize-struggling to tell people a man was about to be killed, but unable to produce a sound.

At dawn, I gave up and climbed out of my girlhood bed. Sunrise came early in coastal Maine. I looked longingly at the door connecting my room to Livvie's old bedroom, wis.h.i.+ng she were there so I'd have someone to talk to. I dressed quickly, though I had nowhere to go.

I considering putting on coffee and making breakfast, but the house felt like a cage. I had too much energy to be indoors. I headed out, not thinking about where I was walking, but somehow making a beeline for Gus's.

The restaurant was packed with lobstermen, fishermen, the crew who ran the whale watch, and the ferrymen who took people to the summer colony on Chipmunk Island. Was it my imagination or did the noise level fall when I walked into the place? The murder on Morrow Island was the biggest news to hit Busman's Harbor in years. It had to be the main topic of conversation, but no one came up to ask questions. No one spoke to me at all, a benefit of that famous Maine reticence.

I looked around hopefully for Chris Durand, but he wasn't there.

Jamie Dawes was, however, sitting at a round table with the officer who'd taken him out to the island. They were in uniform, which I thought was a hopeful sign, ready to get to work nice and early. I briefly debated whether it would be weirder if I walked over to their table, or weirder if I didn't. I decided on weirder if I didn't and approached.

"Hey, Jamie."

"Julia. This is Officer Howland. I'm not sure if you met yesterday."

"Not properly. h.e.l.lo, Officer. I think you were in my brother-in-law Sonny's cla.s.s at Busman High."

Howland grunted in my direction around a mouthful of eggs.

"Are you going out to Morrow today?"

Jamie gestured toward the empty chairs at their table. "Yep. Waiting for the state police detectives and the crime scene team to get here from Augusta."

"Thanks."

As I walked back toward the counter, I was grateful for Gus's "no strangers" policy. At least I wouldn't run into any of the wedding guests, though I had to admit that was unlikely so early in the morning. I grabbed a stool at one end of the C-shaped counter.

Behind it, Gus unhurriedly fried bacon and made pancakes, despite the size of the crowd. He didn't vary his pace for anyone. "You're up early," he said as he poured my coffee.

"Couldn't sleep."

"Ayup. Clam hash?"

Among the cognoscenti, which is to say the locals, Gus's clam hash was famous. Like any hash, it's made with lots of onions and potatoes, but he uses clams instead of beef or corned beef. The fresh, diced clams give the hash a salty-sweet taste that cannot be beat. And if you ask for it, he will top the hash with one or two perfectly poached eggs.

"Yes, please. With one egg."

"Because one egg is un oeuf." Gus repeated the oldest joke in the world.

Sitting diagonally across from me on the long side of the counter was a man dressed differently from everyone else in the place. He had on a tweed sports coat and a tailored blue s.h.i.+rt, and was reading, my heart went pit-a-pat the New York Times. He was one of my people.

Suddenly, I was homesick for Manhattan. It was all I could do to keep from hiking out to the highway and sticking out my thumb. Back to the land of fresh bagels, high salaries and, best of all, no family responsibilities.

I stared at the backside of the man's newspaper. It had to be yesterday's. It would be hours before the Sunday Times made it to our end of the peninsula. But no, he was reading the wedding notices from the Times "Sunday Styles" section. My favorite part of the weekend. Where had he gotten hold of it?

"Do you two know each other?" Gus asked.

"Quentin here's from New York City, too."

"Not everyone in New York knows everyone else," I said more grumpily than Gus deserved. I knew he didn't think that.

He put my order down in front of me. I cut into the egg and watched its exquisitely cooked yolk run onto my hash. I put a fork full into my mouth and felt my mood lift.

The man waved at me across the counter. He was pleasant looking, somewhere in his mid-forties, with dark blond hair, expensively cut. "Quentin Tupper."

Tupper. That explained his presence at Gus's. Like me, he was a legacy. The Tuppers were an old Maine family with many branches. If my father had been alive, he could have given me a complete genealogy and told me whose son Quentin was. But I'd never be able to ask my dad those kinds of questions again.

I leaned across the counter and stuck out my hand. "Julia." I left off my last name in case he'd already heard about the murder at the Snowden Family Clambake. It was the last subject I wanted to talk about.

Quentin asked me where I lived in the city, and I told him. As was so often the case when Manhattanites were out of town, we discovered we lived four blocks from one another and shopped at the same delis, lingered in the same coffee shops. While I sopped up the end of my egg with a piece of toast, we had a long chat about our neighborhood. I even forgot for one brief moment about the events of the previous day.

Gus's was all but empty by the time I finished eating. The harbor workers had places to go and it would be a couple hours before the after-church crowd arrived. Quentin Tupper finished his coffee and paid his bill. "Lovely to meet you," he said.

I said the same and he took off, leaving me alone at the counter with Gus.

The only people still in the dining room were Jamie and Officer Howland. I couldn't help myself. I approached them again. "Still waiting, huh?"

Jamie nodded. "They called. They were too late to have breakfast with us, but they're here now. We're meeting them at the station house."

"You know it's really important to me to be up and running again as soon as possible, right?" I tried to keep any hint of whine out of my voice, though I'm not sure I succeeded. Officer Howland gathered up his trash and stomped off toward the barrel.

"Julia, I get it." Jamie stood to leave. "I told you yesterday, you can't rush this."

"Well, if you think I can open tomorrow, can you try to let me know in time for me to place food orders?"

"I'll make sure the state police are aware of your time constraints," Jamie answered formally. Then, in a friendlier tone, he added, "Honestly, that's the best I can do."

What could I say to that? I thanked him, returned to the counter, and asked Gus for my check.

Chapter 9.

Just as I was about to say good-bye to Gus, a familiar pair of legs came galumphing down the restaurant stairs. "Hey, beautiful," Chris Durand called.

The place was empty except for the two of us. And Gus, of course. I looked down at my new uniform-Snowden Family Clambake sweats.h.i.+rt, jeans, and work boots. Clearly, "hey, beautiful," was a meaningless greeting as far as Chris was concerned.

"Keep me company while I eat breakfast?" he asked.

"It's the middle of the day for you."

"The cops want to see me again at nine. I figure I better get something in my stomach. Might be there for a while. My day is shot, anyhow."

While Chris placed his order, I went to the dining room and sat down in the booth that, somehow over the last couple months, I'd come to think of as "ours."

Chris came in and sat across from me. He was so handsome that even all those years past my seventh grade crush, he took my breath away. He had light brown hair worn a little too long and the most astonis.h.i.+ng pair of green eyes. His strong chin, covered with a day's growth of beard, had at its center, G.o.d help me, a dimple. At thirty-four, his face had weathered from outdoor work, but that only added to his charm.

"How are you doing?" I asked.

"Moved down to my boat on Sat.u.r.day." Chris owned a beautiful wooden sailboat, the Dark Lady, a thirty-three foot Maine-made Hinckley he kept in the marina just around the bend from Gus's place. He also owned a lakeside cabin he'd purchased from his parents when they couldn't take the winters anymore and fled south. Every summer, he rented out the lake house for the season and moved onto the Dark Lady. Even with three jobs, it was the only way to afford both.

"That's not what I meant." I could tell he hadn't misunderstood. He was deliberately avoiding the topic of the murder.

"I know," he admitted.

I'd discovered Ray Wilson's body on Morrow Island, and Chris had, apparently, been the last person known to see him on the mainland. The two events were separated by time and geography, but it still felt to me like we'd shared a traumatic experience. My sense was we needed to talk about it.

"Okay," Chris said as if reading my thoughts. "You first."

I walked him through that morning. Waiting for Ray on the Jacquie II. Tony leaving to search for him. Michaela's nervousness on the boat. The moment when I opened the doors at Windsholme and saw what I saw.

"So he was just hanging there? That's tough."

The sympathy in his voice brought tears to my eyes. It was the first time, awake and fully conscious, I allowed myself to feel the horror of what had happened . . . because I felt so safe when I was with Chris.