Clammed Up: A Maine Clambake Mystery Part 20

I could have said a lot of things. That Sonny had worked his a.s.s off driving the business into the ground. That I hadn't set the conditions, Etienne had. That I could think of no other way to keep Morrow Island in the family. But Sonny spoke instead.

"Babe, you don't look too good. What's wrong?"

Livvie's voice, hot with anger just seconds before, quavered as she said, "Marie Halsey just called. Sarah turned herself in to the police. They're charging her with Ray Wilson's murder."

Sonny came out from behind the desk like a shot and took Livvie in his arms. "I am so sorry, babe."

"I don't understand," Livvie said. "How could she have murdered him? How could she have hung him from that staircase?"

I cleared my throat. "They think Chris Durand helped her."

Livvie leaned against Sonny for support. "Oh, no."

Sonny hugged her tight. "Chris Durand. Still spreading trouble wherever he goes."

"They think he helped her because he and Sarah are lovers. Why didn't you tell me?" I demanded of Livvie.

"They-" Livvie started to deny it. But then she saw the look on my face and decided not to lie. "You had a harmless crush. I didn't see how it could hurt anyone. I did warn you he came with baggage."

A harmless crush? My eyes stung with the idea that my baby sister had seen me like a schoolgirl. The way she would see Page in just a couple years. She'd begged me to upend my life and return to town to save the business. Then she'd patronized and lied to me and sided with her husband at every turn. It was all too much for me.

I tried to squeeze past where she and Sonny stood in the doorway. "Get out of my way."

"Where are you going now?"

"To New York City to meet with Tony Poitras and negotiate the sale of Morrow Island. I've had as much of this as I can take. I'm out."

I pushed into the hallway and sped down the backstairs. Behind me I could hear Sonny yelling. "Leave, Julia! Leave like you always do!"

Chapter 48.

I ran through the driving rain to the garage and backed my mother's car out, my heart pumping with fury. I couldn't abide this. I couldn't abide it one more minute. Family. Responsibility. The endless arguments with Sonny. No home of my own. No privacy, and as I'd just been made savagely aware, no social life. Not a single thing that was mine.

The only way out was Tony Poitras. I'd exhausted every other avenue I could think of. If I could speak to him in person, perhaps I could get a better deal for my mother. I could use the information Quentin Tupper had given me to strengthen my negotiating position. That was the only thing left to salvage. I had just enough time to get to New York to see Tony before the deadline on the offer expired.

The stop sign at the bottom of the hill on Main Street had been there all my life. My school bus had stopped there every day. My mother had stopped there every time she took Livvie and me to the grocery store. When my dad taught me to drive, we'd gone down the hill and stopped at that corner dozens of times.

But somehow, with my windshield wipers working at top speed in the gloom of the day, rehearsing my speech to Tony in my head, somehow, I drove right through it, and . . .

Bam!

A pickup truck flew out of nowhere on my right and crashed into my car, causing it to slip into a spin. The airbag punched me in the chest, took my breath away, and slapped my hands from the steering wheel. I closed my eyes, helpless, as the world continued to turn.

When I opened my eyes, I was on the opposite corner, facing backwards. My chest stung and I moved my arms gingerly, anxious to see if they worked. Still in sopping wet clothes, I honestly couldn't tell if I'd peed my pants.

A dark green pickup sat in the intersection, its front end caved in, hood open like a hungry maw. The poor driver, a kid of not more than nineteen or twenty, was already out of the cab and running toward me.

"Oh my G.o.d! Are you all right?"

I shook my hands out and took a deep breath. "I think so."

"I didn't see you. I'm so sorry!"

For a moment, I thought he might cry.

"It was all my fault," I said. And it was. All of it.

It was Officer Howland, Sonny's friend, who came to the scene, adding to my humiliation, if that was even possible. At least it wasn't Jamie. I explained that I'd run the stop sign, that the kid was in the right. The side of my mother's Buick was unrecognizable as anything resembling a motor vehicle. We started the ritual exchange of information.

Howland explained that we'd have quite a wait for tow trucks. It was a Friday evening in the summer season and raining. After he'd filled out some paperwork, he and the kid pushed the disabled truck out of the intersection. I leaned against the driver's side door of my mother's car in the rain and watched.

When who should drive up in his ancient Ford pickup, sitting straight up in his seat and peering over the steering wheel? Gus. Would the horrors of this day never end?

He pulled up behind Howland's cruiser and got out, spoke briefly to Howland, and then crossed the street toward me. "You're drenched."

I looked down at the clothes clinging to my body, the sweatshirt, jeans, and work boots I'd been in all day. I was so sick of these clothes. "I was wet when I left my house," I said stupidly.

Gus didn't ask what that meant. He only said, "Howland says the tow trucks will still be awhile. You wait in my truck."

I shook my head. The last thing I wanted was to be in a confined s.p.a.ce with Gus.

But he was having none of it. "I've got the heater running. C'mon. You'll catch your death."

I finally agreed. Not because I was afraid I'd catch my death, but because I was afraid he would. n.o.body except maybe Mrs. Gus knew how old he was, but he wore only a thin jacket against the rain. On top of all my oh-so-many disastrous activities that day, I didn't want to be responsible for killing a town icon.

We crossed the street and I got in his truck. He turned up the heater.

"You want to tell me what happened?"

"No." I stared at my lap, fearful of looking anywhere else. But it was useless to fight it. Tears slid down my nose and soon I was telling Gus everything. About the call from Ditzy and Tony's offer and Etienne's offer with its terrible condition. I told him about how I'd screwed up the business plan and doomed the Snowden Family Clambake before the season even started. I confessed about my epic battles with Sonny and how Livvie was on his side. I even told him about Quentin Tupper's refusal to bid on our property and that Jean-Jacques might be back.

Gus listened to it all with a nod of his head. There might be no crying in Gus's restaurant, but there was plenty of crying in Gus's truck that evening. I told him about Sarah and Chris's arrests. I even told about the kiss from Jamie and the terrible mistake I had made, misunderstanding Chris's friendship and thinking it meant more.

In the end, I pulled myself to a shuddering stop and told Gus the only way out I could see was to sell the island to Tony. At least then I could salvage something for my mother.

Gus didn't say anything for a long time. Then he turned to me and said, "Are you sure you want to do that? You have something more than a business there."

"Please, Gus," I cried. "I just can't hear about how much I owe the town or our employees right now."

"I don't mean that. I meant you have more than a business. You have a family."

Then he got out of the truck and left me alone.

Chapter 49.

I cried for quite a while in Gus's truck. The heater steamed up the windows and it was like my own private cave where I could wallow in self-pity and remorse.

My family. I wasn't just leaving a business, I was leaving my family. It had taken a long time for me to see it, but I knew in my heart that everything Sonny had said was true. At some point over the last ten years, my irresponsible, rebellious younger sister had become the mature one. She'd become the one who went over almost every night to make sure my grieving mother ate dinner. She took care of Page and took care of my parents. I was the one who was absent. I had stayed away.

Sonny was the one who had given up his life for the Snowden Family Clambake, not me. Whatever dreams he might have had he'd let go of long ago, laboring for my father every day and night. He'd spent the money he'd borrowed on the same things I would have, repairs to the dock and buildings, getting our ticket sales online. All things that were necessary. All things my father would have done had he lived. Sonny had just gotten caught in a terrible economy.

It hurt me to think that I hadn't recognized Sonny's grief. Of course he missed my father, a man he had spent almost every single day with since he was a teenager. Who'd shaped him as much as anyone and taught him how to be a man and a father, and how to run a business. I'd spent so much time since Dad's death worrying-Was Mom okay? Was Page okay? Was Livvie okay? Was I okay? I had never even thought about Sonny, who in the last ten years had spent more time with my father than anyone, except Mom.

And now, what was I doing? Where would I go when this was over and the business was sold? Back to New York City?

Venture capital had been great fun when I started. I was good at it-good at helping my bosses pick winners, good at nurturing the baby businesses we backed. But I was always working. I spent my life in airports. My apartment was like a closet where I stored my stuff. My business school friends had drifted away after too many turned-down invitations, too many get-togethers canceled at the last moment. Every time a relationship with a guy seemed like it might turn into something, I was off on another trip-which was probably why I'd gotten things so wrong about Chris.

What he'd seen as a casual friendship, I'd turned into so much more. I'd never been to his house. We'd never been on a date, or even seen each other outside of Gus's. We'd never kissed, and that moment on his boat when he'd taken my hands in his and told me I'd misunderstood our relationship was the first time he'd ever touched me. What a total fool I was.

The night before Livvie had called me to come home and save the clambake, I'd been in an airport, as usual. I was exhausted from the travel and the time zones and the stress. With an hour between flights, I'd gone to the gate before my second flight started boarding, sat directly across from the counter, and thought I'd just close my eyes.

I woke up hours later. My plane was gone. In fact, all the planes were gone. The area of the terminal where I sat was half in darkness. Half a football field away, a cleaner polished the floor with a machine. He was the only other human I could see.

I grabbed the phone to check the time. It was after midnight. On my birthday. No one had missed me. Not a living soul on the earth knew where I was, and I knew then that I had to change my life. But I didn't have a clue how or to what.

Livvie's call came the next day.

Until that very moment sitting in Gus's truck, I thought I'd come home to rescue them. Instead, without even intending it, they had rescued me.

The tow truck finally came and took Mom's car away. Gus dropped me at home. Livvie and Sonny's vehicles were still in the driveway. It seemed like every light in the house was on.

You haven't lived until you've had to tell your mother you borrowed her car without permission and wrecked it. When you are thirty years old. Mom took one look at my splotchy, red-nosed face and took me in her arms. I thought I was all cried out, but apparently, I wasn't.

We gathered on the comfy furniture on the porch while the rain pelted down outside the screens. Sonny apologized to me, and I apologized to him. Livvie hugged me and said she was sorry, she knew I'd worked hard and done my best. I said I knew she and Sonny had done the same. I was sorry about all the harsh words Page had overheard over the long, rough spring, but I was glad she was there to see the grown-ups in her life at last behaving like grown-ups.

Though everything seemed changed to me, in fact nothing was. The clambake was still closed. The bank still planned to call our loan. The deadline still loomed on Tony's offer. Etienne's conditions still stood. Chris and Sarah were still in jail. Ray Wilson was still dead.

Sonny cleared his throat. "Livvie and I have talked it over, and we think you should take Etienne's offer. I'll bow out and find some other work."

"No. I won't do that."

"It's the only way to save the island. You said so yourself."

"But it's not our way. This is the Snowden Family Clambake. This is about our family." I stood. "I need to get out of these wet clothes. Then I'll go out to the island and convince Etienne to change the terms of his offer. He can still have a third of the business. But Sonny stays."

"I'll go with you," Sonny volunteered.

"No. I don't think you can be there for this particular discussion. I need to go alone. And I need to do it now, so we know where Etienne stands before Tony's offer expires."

Chapter 50.

The rain stopped as I ran to the marina to collect Chris's dinghy, but the sky was still steel gray and the clouds hung low. I jumped into the boat, grateful I hadn't returned the key, and started the motor. The lightweight boat hesitated, fighting the current as I headed out to sea.

Before I reached the outer harbor I was wet to the skin. Changing my clothes had been a completely ridiculous exercise. My teeth ached from the boat rising up and slamming down with the chop. I shivered as the force of the wind hit my wet clothes. Maine water was always cold.

At the mouth of the harbor, I briefly considered turning back. The waves would be even higher once I hit the open ocean, and I was already tired from fighting the tiller. But I had to know if Etienne was in or out before Tony's offer expired. I wasn't sure whether Tony was bluffing, but with so much on the line I didn't want to test it.

I thought I had good leverage with Etienne. I would explain, calmly, that he had a choice. He could accept Sonny as a part of the package and own a third of the Snowden Family Clambake. Or my family could accept Tony's offer, which meant the island would no longer be ours and Etienne and Gabrielle would have to move away.

I was glad to see the island up ahead. Perhaps gladder than I've ever been. I tied up the little boat behind the Whaler. Its presence meant Etienne and Gabrielle were home.

The dinghy's little motor would have been hard to hear over the rhythmic crash of the waves against the rocks, so I called from the dock, not wanting to take them by surprise. "h.e.l.lo! It's Julia!" The door to their house was closed and, in spite of the gloomy day, no lights shone. A drenched Le Roi ran up beside me and scratched at the door, meowing. He wanted to get inside, too.

I knocked and called a couple times. I turned the k.n.o.b and pushed. It was locked. Strange. Through the window in the door, in the fading light, I could see into Gabrielle's kitchen. It had been ransacked. Pots strewn across the floor, drawers of flatware emptied on the spotless linoleum. The shelves of her china cupboard stood empty, the shards of her dishes on the floor.

The scene in the kitchen panicked me. Had the mad man who'd killed Ray returned to the island? I was sure Sarah and Chris weren't killers. Was it Jean-Jacques?

I banged on the door again hard and shouted, but there was no sign of Etienne or Gabrielle.

I returned to the dock, at a loss as to what to do next. Despite the long June days, night was going to fall soon. It would be a cloudy night, with no moon to guide me home. Something was terribly wrong.

I looked up at Windsholme. It stood silent as it always did. But it seemed like there was an eerie light in the center window on the top floor, the room where Binder and I had discovered the neatly folded clothes. But there wasn't any working electricity in that part of the mansion, only in the two rooms on the first floor I'd had newly wired.

I took off up the hill. As I ran, I considered the alternatives. My cell phone? Useless. The radio? Locked in Etienne and Gabrielle's house. I reached the front porch of Windsholme and threw open the double doors.

I considered for a moment what I might be rushing into. Jean-Jacques most likely . . . in the room he used when he was on the island . . . with some sort of lantern. Was he dangerous? He was a fugitive, someone who'd lived outside society for six years. What would happen if I cornered him?

I had to consider Etienne and Gabrielle. By the look of things at their house, there'd been a terrible struggle. What if Jean-Jacques was holding them, harming them? I had to help. No one is coming, I thought. There's no one to do anything but me.

I started up the staircase, my heart pounding like the waves on the rocks outside. Not a panic attack, the product of an overactive mind, but real panic. I stood on the landing, breathing carefully, willing myself not to run away.

I climbed to the top floor and paused again, trying to stay in control. From where I stood, I could see the door across from the landing was ajar, light escaping onto the hallway floor. From inside the room came a terrible keening. Gabrielle! What was happening to her?

Keeping flat against the hallway wall, I slid forward in the shadows. I didn't think Jean-Jacques would hear me over the racket his mother was making. About the only thing on my side was the element of surprise. I rushed past the partially opened door to the other side of the hall and peered in.

Gabrielle sat on the floor in the center of the room surrounded by a circle of lit candles. She cradled a grown man in her arms and moaned. "Mon p't.i.t chou, mon p't.i.t chou, mon p't.i.t chou."

She'd called Jean-Jacques by that endearment when he was young and he'd hated it. But now, far from fighting her, far from the evidence of confrontation and mayhem I'd seen at their house, he was lying in her arms and allowing her to comfort him.

I took the chance of peering around the door frame, so I could see the other side of the room. What I saw made me clasp my hand to my mouth to keep from crying out. Etienne was tied to the bed, a gag in his mouth and a terrified expression in his eyes. He saw me in the candlelight and raised his great eyebrows at me, showing me the whites of his eyes.