Remember Me Page 10

Amy looked unconvinced, but she shook her head and said, “Well, the sun was in my eyes when I looked up, and I had to squint. I guess I just thought I saw you.”

  Later, while Amy was feeding Hannah, Menley slipped upstairs. A folding staircase in a second-floor closet led to the widow’s walk. She opened the closet door and felt a blast of cold air. Where’s that draft coming from? she wondered.

  She pulled the ladder down, climbed the rungs, unlocked and pushed up the trapdoor, then stepped out. Cautiously, she tapped the flooring. It was secure. She walked a few steps and put her hand on the railing. It was almost as high as her waist. That too was secure.

  What did Amy see when she thought I was up here? she asked herself. The walk was about ten feet square and nestled between the two massive chimneys. She crossed it and looked out at the spot more than one hundred feet away where Amy had been sitting. Then she turned to examine the space behind her.

  Was the metal strip on the corner of the left chimney what had caught Amy’s eye? The sunbeams were dancing off the metal, creating moving shadows.

  I still don’t know how she could make a mistake like that, Menley thought as she went back down the ladder. God, it’s clammy in here. She shivered at the deepening chill within the narrow closet.

  At the bottom of the steps she became immobilized as a sudden thought leapt into her mind. Was it possible that Amy was right? When I was picturing Mehitabel watching for her captain from the widow’s walk, was the image so vivid because I came up here myself? Menley wondered.

  Could I really be losing touch like that? The possibility filled her with despair.

  31

  Adam left his car at the Wayside Inn and walked the two blocks to Elaine’s real estate office. Through the window he could see her sitting at her desk. He was in luck. She was alone.

  The window was filled with pictures of available properties. As he turned toward the door the aerial photo of Remember House caught his eye and he studied it. Good picture, he thought. It had captured the panorama of the view from the house; the ocean, sandbar, beach, cliff, a fishing boat, all depicted with remarkable clarity. He read the card attached to the picture: REMEMBER HOUSE, FOR SALE. No way, he thought.

  When the door opened, Elaine glanced up, then pushed back her chair and hurried into the reception area. “Adam, what a nice surprise.” She kissed him lightly.

  He followed her back into her office and settled in a comfortable chair. “Hey, what are you trying to do, sell my house from under me?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware you were buying it.”

  “Let’s call it a definite maybe. I just haven’t told you yet. Menley loves it, but I don’t want to rush her into making a commitment. We have an option till September, don’t we?”

  “Yes, and I was sure you’d want it.”

  “Then why the picture in the window?”

  She laughed. “It brings in business. People inquire and I say it’s optioned and steer them onto someplace else.”

  “You always were a smart cookie.”

  “I had to be. Poor Mother never could hold a job. She always picked a fight with someone and got fired.”

  Adam’s eyes softened. “You didn’t have it easy, growing up, ’Laine. I hate to be paying too many compliments, but I have to tell you that you look great all the time these days.”

  Elaine made a face at him. “You’re just getting mellow.”

  “No, not really,” Adam said quietly. “Maybe just a little less dense. I don’t know if I ever thanked you for being so terrific when I came up here last year.”

  “Between losing Bobby and separating from Menley you were in pretty bad shape. I was glad to be around for you.”

  “I’m going to ask for more help now.”

  “Is anything wrong?” she asked quickly.

  “No, not really. It’s just that I’ll have to go back and forth to New York more than I expected. I’m not happy about leaving Menley alone so much. I think she’s having more episodes of that post-traumatic stress than she’s letting on. I think she feels she has to tough it out by herself, and maybe she does.”

  “Would it help if Amy stayed over?”

  “Menley doesn’t want that. My thought was that some nights when I’m away, Amy could stay with Hannah, and you, or you and John, might invite Menley out for dinner. When I’m home it’s good for us to spend most of the time together. We’re still . . . Well, never mind.”

  “Adam, what is it?”

  “Nothing.”

  Elaine knew enough not to urge Adam to finish whatever he had been about to say. Instead she said, “Let me know when you’re going to New York again.”

  “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I’ll call late today, invite both of you to dinner tomorrow, then insist that Menley come alone.”

  “And I’ll insist from my end.” Adam smiled. “That’s a relief. Incidentally I had breakfast with Scott Covey.”

  “And?” Elaine’s eyes opened wide.

  “Nothing I can talk about now. Attorney-client privilege.”

  “I always end up on the outside,” she said, then sighed. “Oh, that reminds me. Big news. Circle your calendar for the Saturday after Thanksgiving. John and I are getting married.”

  “Terrific. When did you set the date?”

  “Last night. We had a barbecue, and Scott Covey was there. He talked with Amy about his stepmother, and later Amy told her father that she was happy for us. John called me at midnight. Scott really made the difference.”

  “Well you keep telling me Covey’s a nice guy.” Adam got up. “Walk me to the door.”

  In the reception area he put his arm over Elaine’s shoulders. “So will John get mad if I come running to you with a problem after you’re hitched?”

  “Of course not.”

  At the door he hugged her and kissed her cheek. “You used to do better than that,” she laughed. In a sudden move, she turned his face and pressed her lips firmly on his.

  Adam stepped back and shook his head. “That’s called long-term memory, ’Laine.”

  32

  The breakfast service was virtually over. Only a few stray diners lingered over coffee. The manager had told Tina to sit at one of the tables at the far end of the room and talk to the detective. She brought coffee for both of them. Then she lit a cigarette.

  “I’m trying to stop,” she told Nat after the first puff. “And I only lapse once in a while.”

  “Like when you’re nervous?” Nat suggested.

  Tina’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not nervous,” she snapped. “Why should I be?”

  “You tell me,” Nat suggested. “One reason I could give is like maybe if you were running around with a newly married man whose rich wife died suddenly. And if that death turned out to be a homicide, a lot of people might wonder how much you knew about the bereaved husband’s plans. Hypothetical case, of course.”

  “Listen, Mr. Coogan,” Tina said, “I dated Scott last year. He always said that at the end of the summer he’d be on his way. I’m sure you’ve heard of summer romances.”

  “And I’ve heard of some that didn’t end when summer was over,” Nat said.

  “This one did. It was only when I saw him with his wife, right in this room, and asked around and found out he’d been seeing her last August that I got mad. I had a guy who was crazy about me, even wanted to get married, and I dumped him for Scott.”

  “And that’s why a month ago you met Scott in that pub?”

  “Like I just told Mr. Nichols—”

  “Mr. Nichols?”

  “He’s Scott’s lawyer. He was here with Scott this morning. I explained to him that it was me who called Scott, not the other way around. He didn’t want to see me, but I insisted. Then when I got to the pub, some man was talking to Scott and I could tell Scott didn’t want it to look like I was meeting him, so I didn’t hang around.”

  “But you did see him another time?”

  “I called him. He asked
me to say what I had to say over the phone. So I told him off.”

  “Told him off?”

  “I told him I wished he’d never come around, that if he’d just left me alone I’d have married Fred and I’d be in great shape now. Fred was crazy about me, and he had money.”

  “But you said you knew all along that Scott intended to take off after the season at the playhouse was over.”

  Tina took a long drag on the cigarette and sighed. “Listen, Mr. Coogan, when a guy like Scott rushes you and tells you he’s crazy about you, you think to yourself that maybe you’re the one who can hang on to him. Lots of girls have landed guys who swore they’d never get married.”

  “I suppose that’s true. So your beef with Scott was that he was probably pulling the same line on Vivian at the same time.”

  “But he wasn’t. She met him the last week he was here. She wrote to him. She visited him when he got a job at the theater in Boca Raton. She chased him. At least that made me feel a little better.”

  “Scott told you that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And then you paid a consolation call after his wife disappeared. Maybe you hoped he’d turn to you in his hour of need.”

  “Well, he didn’t.” Tina pushed back the chair. “And it wouldn’t have done him a bit of good if he had. I’m seeing Fred again, so you see, there’s no reason for you to be bothering me. It’s been nice meeting you, Mr. Coogan. My coffee break’s over.”

  * * *

  On his way out, Nat stopped at the business office of the Wayside Inn and asked to see the application Tina had filled out when she applied for the waitressing job. From it he learned that she was from New Bedford, had been on the Cape for five years, and her last job was at the Daniel Webster Inn in Sandwich.

  In the references she’d supplied, he found the name he was looking for. Fred Hendin, a carpenter in Barnstable. Barnstable was the next town over from Sandwich. He’d bet anything that Fred Hendin was the big spender Tina had dropped last year and then taken up with again. He hadn’t wanted to ask Tina too much about him. He didn’t want her to warn him that he’d be questioned.

  It would be interesting to talk to Tina’s patient suitor and to her fellow employees at the Daniel Webster Inn.

  A brazen young lady, Nat thought as he handed back Tina’s job application. And pretty smug. She thinks she’s handled me pretty well. We’ll see.

  33

  Anne and Graham Carpenter had enjoyed house guests for the weekend; their daughters Emily and Barbara had visited with their families. They all went sailing, then the adults golfed while the three teenage grandchildren were at the beach with friends. Saturday night they had dinner at the club. That there was none of the discord and contention that Vivian had brought to such family gatherings served in a perverse way to make Anne all the more aware of her absence.

  None of us loved her the way she needed to be loved, she said to herself. That thought and the question of the emerald ring lurked constantly in the back of her mind. The ring was the one object that Vivian had sincerely treasured. Had it been ripped from her finger by the only person who had made her feel loved? The question plagued Anne Carpenter all weekend.

  On Monday morning over breakfast, she brought up the subject of the ring. “Graham, I think Emily had a good idea about the emerald.”

  “What’s that, dear?”

  “She pointed out that it’s still on our insurance policy. She feels we should report it as missing. In a situation like this, wouldn’t we be covered?”

  “We might be. But we’d be giving the money to Scott as Vivian’s heir.”

  “I know. But that ring was valued at $250,000. Don’t you think that if we hinted to the insurance company that we question Scott’s version of how it got lost, they might put an investigator on him?”

  “Detective Coogan is conducting an investigation. You know that, Anne.”

  “Would it hurt if the insurance company got involved?”

  “I suppose not.”

  Anne nodded as the housekeeper came to the table with the coffeepot. “I will have a little more, Mrs. Dillon, thank you.”

  She sipped in silence for a few minutes, then said, “Emily reminded me that Vivy had complained about the ring being tight when she took it off to clean it. Remember? She broke that finger when she was little and the knuckle was enlarged. But the ring fit fine once it was in place, so Scott’s story about her moving it to her other hand doesn’t make sense.”

  Her eyes glistened with tears as she said, “I remember the stories my grandmother told me about emeralds. One story was that it’s very bad luck to lose an emerald. The other is that emeralds have the reputation of finding their way back home.”

  34

  Jan Paley had spent a quiet Sunday. For her it was the most difficult day of the week. There were too many memories of pleasant Sundays when she and her husband, Tom, read the papers, shared the crossword puzzle, walked on the beach.

  She lived on Lower Road in Brewster, in the same house they’d bought thirty years ago. They’d planned to sell it when the renovations to Remember House were completed. Now she was extremely grateful that they hadn’t already moved when she lost Tom.

  Jan was always relieved when Monday came and her weekday activities resumed. Recently she had become a volunteer at the Brewster Ladies Library, working there on Monday afternoons. It was a pleasant and useful pastime, and she enjoyed the company of the other women.

  Today as she drove to the library she thought about Menley Nichols. She had taken an instant liking to the young woman, which was gratifying since she admired her books enormously. She was also glad that the next book in the David series was going to be set on the Cape. On Saturday night, when she and Menley had talked about Remember House, Menley had indicated that she might use Captain Andrew Freeman as the model for the story of a young boy growing up and going to sea.

  Jan wondered if Menley had acted on her suggestion to ask Henry Sprague about Phoebe’s research files, but as she drove down the tree-lined highway, another thought occurred to her. At the beginning of the eighteenth century it was common practice for a sea captain to take his wife and even his children with him on a long voyage. Some of those wives had kept journals that were now in the collection of the Brewster Ladies Library. She hadn’t gotten around to reading them yet, but it would be interesting to browse through them now and see if by any chance Captain Freeman’s wife had been one of the contributors.

  It was a beautiful day, and predictably the only car in the parking lot belonged to Alana Martin, the other Monday volunteer. I’ll have plenty of time to read this afternoon, Jan thought.

  “Those gals got around,” she murmured to Alana an hour later as she sat at one of the long tables with a dozen handwritten journals stacked around her. “One of them wrote that she ‘was two years on board.’ Went to China and India, had a baby born during an Atlantic storm and came home ‘refreshed and tranquil of spirit despite some hardships along the way.’ This is the jet age, but I’ve never been to China.”

  The journals made fascinating reading, but she could find no reference to Captain Andrew Freeman’s wife. Finally she gave up. “I guess Captain Freeman’s wife didn’t take pen in hand, or if she did, we don’t have her memoirs here.”

  Alana was checking the shelves for out-of-order books. She paused and took off her glasses, a habit she had when she was trying to remember something. “Captain Freeman,” she mused. “I remember finding some stuff on him years ago for Phoebe Sprague. It seems to me we even have a sketch of him somewhere. He grew up in Brewster.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Jan said. “I thought he was from Chatham.”

  Alana put her glasses back on. “Let me take a look.”

  A few minutes later, Jan was reading through the annals of Brewster and jotting notes. She culled from the book the fact that Andrew’s mother was Elizabeth Nickerson, daughter of William Nickerson of Yarmouth, who in 1653 married Samuel Freeman, a fa
rmer. As a wedding gift, she received from her father a grant of forty acres of upland and ten acres in Monomoil, as Chatham was then known.

  I wonder if the Chatham property was where Remember House was eventually built, Jan thought.

  Samuel and Elizabeth Freeman had three sons, Caleb, Samuel and Andrew. Only Andrew lived past babyhood, and at age ten he went to sea in the Mary Lou, a sloop under the command of Captain Nathaniel Baker.

  In 1702 Andrew, age thirty-eight, now the captain of his own ship, the Godspeed, married Mehitabel Winslow, age sixteen, daughter of the Reverend Jonathan Winslow of Boston.

  I can’t wait to tell Menley Nichols I found all this, Jan exulted. Of course she may have Phoebe’s files and already have come across it.

  “Want to take a peek at Captain Andrew Freeman?”

  Jan looked up. Alana was at her elbow, smiling triumphantly. “I knew I’d seen a sketch of him. It must have been drawn by someone on his ship. Isn’t he impressive?”

  The pen-and-ink drawing depicted Captain Andrew Freeman at the helm of the Godspeed. A large man, broad and tall, with a short dark beard, strong features, a firm mouth, eyes that were narrowed as though he was looking into the sun. There was an air of confidence and command about him.

  “He had the reputation of being fearless, and he looks the part, doesn’t he?” Alana commented. “I tell you, I wouldn’t want to be the wife who cheated on him and got caught.”

  “Do you think it’s all right if I make a copy of this?” Jan asked. “I’ll be careful.”

  “Sure.”

  When she went home later that afternoon, Jan called Menley and told her that she had some interesting material for her. “One find is really special,” she promised. “I’ll drop everything off for you tomorrow. Will you be home around four o’clock?”

  “That would be fine,” Menley agreed. “I’ve been doing some sketching today for the illustrations, and of course Mrs. Sprague’s files are glorious. Thank you for suggesting them.” She hesitated, then asked, “Do you think there’s any chance there might be a picture of Mehitabel anywhere?”