Chapter
20
I was in the parlor setting up for breakfast when Lee arrived. She, too, was early. Just covering for Vicki, she explained, though from the way she kept glancing out the window when she thought I wasn’t looking, I suspected she felt safest here.
Between the two of us, we handled things surprisingly well, though it certainly helped that Tuesdays were always quiet. After brief instruction from Rob, I was able to process the checkouts, and when it came to housekeeping, the girl who normally helped Vicki brought a friend to work with her. All I had to do was tell them which guests were staying and which were leaving.
“You’re having fun,” Amelia said, observing me while Rob finished dressing Charlotte.
I was at the computer in the front hall, checking for guests who were due to arrive. The program was amazingly easy—and smart. Type in a name and you had a guest’s history at the Red Fox, including anything else Vicki or Rob had picked up in conversation. For instance, a woman arriving tomorrow had adopted two cats during her last visit; asking how the cats were doing would blow her away.
“And you’re good at this. I’m offering you a job.”
I laughed, then realized she was serious. “Omigosh no, Amelia. I’m just visiting. I can’t stay. Besides, Vicki’s going to be fine.”
“Is she? They’re sending her home today, but I just talked with the doctor. They don’t want her on her feet more than thirty minutes at a stretch. She’s going to need help.”
“Let Lee do more,” I suggested. “If she were busier, she wouldn’t worry so much.”
“I’m busier, and still I worry. Lee’s a sitting duck, what with her complaints public now, an arsonist at large, and two brothers and a team of lawyers out to get her.”
With a glance at the kitchen, I put a silencing finger to my mouth.
Amelia snorted. “I’m not saying anything she doesn’t already know.”
“But your saying it confirms it,” I whispered.
“And that right there is why the Red Fox needs you. Not only are you having fun working here, not only can you use a computer, but you are sensitive to people’s feelings.”
“Not selfish anymore?” I couldn’t resist.
She waved a hand. “Ach, I was upset when I said that. You brought back thoughts of Jude, who, by the way, is in Hanover again. Honestly, I don’t know what the appeal is there, because the idea that anyone at Dartmouth would be interested in my academically challenged son is laughable.”
“Sex appeal is universal.”
“No. He’s there because I want him here. You won’t let me down that way.”
The woman was nothing if not wily, but I wasn’t being sucked in. “I’ll stay for a day or two,” I offered, “but Vicki needs long-term help, and I can’t be an innkeeper. I’m a lawyer.”
“Who hasn’t worked in three weeks.”
“I’m a lawyer,” I insisted.
The conversation stayed with me, particularly my insistence that I was a lawyer. A knee-jerk reaction? Possibly. Being a lawyer had been my sole identity for the last ten years. It had taken precedence over being a wife, a daughter, a friend. When you were trying to build a career in a highly competitive field, single-mindedness was a plus.
My needs had changed, though. On the ladder of important things in my life, being a lawyer had dropped several rungs. Personal matters were higher now, which was why, as soon as Vicki was settled back home, I left the Red Fox and drove to the Refuge.
Burials always took place on Tuesdays, typically at noon when the sun was highest and most hopeful. Last night’s rain had cleared, and though smoky clouds lingered around the highest of the mountains, the cemetery was bright. My kitten’s ashes weren’t the only ones being buried, but they were the ones that had drawn me here. Each little canister had a name. While the groundsman buried two others, I held the one that read Precious to my heart. When it was time, he let me place it in the ground myself.
This was therapeutic. There were no tears today, just a pervasive sense of peace.
I remained after the men left, sitting on the ground studying the freshly turned earth, and it struck me that every life needed a turning now and then. Part of it was burying the bad, like a cerebellum that was too small and an oppressive job. Part was bringing up the good, like a kitten’s spirit and my own need for life.
Sitting at my kitten’s grave, I forgave myself for the last ten years. Wrong turns? No. I had acted in good faith, doing what I thought was right. But what was right, now, was seeing that my needs had changed.
One of those new needs had just surfaced. I wanted a pet. I didn’t care what kind; James could choose. Or not. He would argue against it, but when I thought of my baby and the world I wanted it to have, this was a must. A home was different when it had a pet. It wasn’t as clean and tidy, and, like balsam at Christmas, the scent was distinct. I had known this growing up, but had lost the thought. Only now, sitting in the peace of the cemetery, did it come again. A pet was a living, breathing thing with very basic needs and an unlimited capacity to love.
As analogies went, turning the earth to bring up fresh soil was a good one. Same with reordering the rungs on a ladder. A third came to me now, though. It was the idea of painting the canvas of a new life, one brush stroke at a time. Sitting here remembering a little kitten that had wobbled to me each time I’d come to visit, I added a furry stroke.
I didn’t tell James about it when he called that night. He’d had a bad day at work. This wasn’t the time to argue about a pet. And though his voice remained tired when he called Wednesday, he did have other news.
“We have a suspect.”
My eyes flew to Lee. We were all in the kitchen—Lee, Vicki, Amelia, and I, even Charlotte, who had refused to nap in her room, lest her mother disappear again, and had fallen asleep on Amelia’s lap. It was nearly as improbable a sight as Vicki with her feet up, but, stubborn as her daughter, she too refused to be in her room. Rather, she had been instructing me on the proper way to cut fresh roses—diagonally, under lukewarm water—when my cell rang.
We have a suspect. We. Manchester-by-the-Sea. Arson.
Excited, I repeated the news aloud as I dried my hands. Grasping the phone more firmly, I asked, “In custody?”
“Yeah.” I was nodding to the others as he went on. “One good thing about a small town—people notice who comes and goes. Add buzz about arson, and they start calling the police. They were all mentioning seeing a white van on the day of the fire. No one had ever seen it before. The driver actually sat in the coffee shop for a while, either really hungry or just trying to look nonchalant, like he was on a local job and—and taking a break.”
“Letting people get a fix on his face?” I asked in amazement.
“Oh yeah. Talking with the server, buying cigarettes at the drugstore. It’s a new approach.”
Giving a thumbs-up to the others, I asked James, “Can anyone place him on Lee’s street?”
“A neighbor can. He was coming back from dinner Thursday night and saw the van in her driveway. He didn’t think anything of it at first. A house like that needs maintenance, so he sees trucks there all the time. He took a second look, though, because the van was from a window company, and he needs window work done himself. He wrote down the information.”
“Don’t tell me,” I said. I was beginning to enjoy myself. “The neighbor tried to call, and it was a bogus company.”
“Oh, the company was real. But the van was stolen from the factory, which is in …” He paused for a silent drum roll.
“Connecticut,” I put in, smiling.
“Yup. Home of Lee’s brothers-in-law. It was the Connecticut tags on the van that raised red flags.”
“One of the brothers hired him, then?”
“That’s to be determined. Turns out, the window company knew who’d stolen the van. His name is Rocco Fleming, and he’s done it before, but the owners never had the heart to go to the police. Fleming used to work for them. His uncle still does. Besides, he always returns the van. This time it had an empty tank and enough extra mileage on it to account for a trip to Manchester and back. They’re holding him in Hartford.”
I repeated that for the others. Lee was pressing her chest, looking like she was afraid to believe.
“Can they keep him in jail?” Amelia asked.
“At least until they return him to Massachusetts and a judge rules on it.” Into the phone, I said, “Extradition?”
“He’s fighting it. But at least he’s locked up now.”
I repeated the last.
“Am I safe, then?” Lee asked.
Amelia, never tactful, declared, “Assuming he’s the only one involved.”
“I doubt he was,” James said. “I can’t picture either Albert Meeme or those brothers being dumb enough to use only one not-so-bright guy. Whoever was in Bell Valley covered his tracks pretty well. Besides, Bell Valley is as tight-knit as Manchester. Someone would have noticed a window company van with Connecticut plates.”
I didn’t repeat this. Lee looked frightened enough.
“It’s a first step,” I tried to reassure her. “They’ll question him about where he’s been, what he’s done, who he’s worked with. And they’ll get a photo to the Bell Valley police, who’ll show it around town to see if anyone here recognizes his face.”
“But what if there is a second person?” she asked. “What if he tries to burn me out here?”
“Anyone creeping around will set off cameras and lights.”
“I’m going to be afraid to fall asleep.”
Amelia said, “Jude will keep watch.”
Vicki must have believed that about as much as I did, because she said, “You can sleep here. We always have room.”
That would do double service, I was thinking—hide Lee and give Vicki a live-in helper.
“But I like my place,” Lee insisted.
“We can move things faster if Amelia’s willing to pay for an investigator,” James suggested. “My firm has a good one. He’ll get answers sooner than the police.”
“The firm won’t appreciate that,” I warned. Large firms—like James’s and Lane Lavash—kept the best investigators on retainer for their use alone. Competition was fierce, with the most highly sought bidding themselves up.
“It’ll be fine,” he said with such curtness that what I heard was I don’t care if the firm likes it or not, which gave me pause.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
There was too long a silence, then a reluctant “Nah. I’m off the Bryant case.”
“What?” When everyone in the kitchen grew alert, I waved a dismissive hand and headed for the front hall. “Why?”
“Mark says the firm can’t afford it. They want me working on—on cases where—where I’m billing full price. So they’ll give the pro bono case to a new associate whose hourly is lower, and I—and I lose the most interesting case I’ve had this year.”
I had been ambivalent about that case—doubting Mark’s motives, wanting James to hate everything about his firm. But I couldn’t not feel his pain now.
“I’m sorry,” I said, letting the screen door slam behind me as I crossed the porch. “When did you hear?”
“This morning. Barely had a foot in the door, when Mark was in my office.”
“You should have called me then.”
“You’d have only said I told you so. But you’re wrong, Emily. This was—was an economic decision. Mark had no choice.”
Startled that he could still defend the firm, I said, “Of course he did. A lower associate may charge less per hour, but he won’t be as efficient as you. He’ll either do a lousy job or spend twice as long at it, leaving the firm short on resources. Besides, Mark knew how much you wanted this. He could have lobbied for you.”
“It’s about the bottom line. Hey, I’m not the only one in this boat.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
His pause wasn’t as long this time. “Why did I know you’d say that?”
“Because it’s the truth.”
There was another pause, then a caustic, “Where are you now?”
“On the front steps of the inn.”
“What do you see?”
“The town green. Trees, benches.”
“My view is different. I see the tops of dozens of buildings, each of them filled with companies doing the exact same belt-tightening as my firm.”
“That doesn’t make it right,” I repeated.
“So what should I do?” he asked in a frustrated voice. “Go door to door complaining to every partner? Organize a grassroots protest among associates? You tell me, babe. What should I do?”