By The Howling (6 page)

As Brenda expertly turned the laser and set its sails to take her back to the dock at her house, as imposing a view from the river from this distance as it was from the street, Charlotte couldn’t help but note that her spirits had lifted a mile following this little accident. Brenda Boynton conveyed contentment and had a pleasant effect on her that all of the art and literary activities Charlotte had engaged in since moving to Hopewell hadn’t managed.

* * * *

Easton, almost due north of Hopewell on the Choptank, and itself located on the Tred Avon with access to the Chesapeake Bay, was the county seat and the nearest town of any size. An eighteenth-century fishing village, it now was one of the gateways to the bayside resorts and a cultural center for the well-heeled Eastern Shore crowd. The Tidewater Inn, big and square and plopped down right in the middle of town, had been a high-pamper getaway target for travelers for nearly two hundred and fifty years.

The cozy, warm-wood paneling and low ceiling of the inn’s Hunter’s Tavern proved a perfect spot for Charlotte and Brenda to let their hair down and become better acquainted. As they talked, they each spoke with some intimacy about their quite disparate careers and the conversation was maintained at a comfortable pace, aided by each showing more interest in the work of the other than in trumpeting their own success and importance, to the point that they were delving more deeply into their personal lives than either probably realized they were doing.

“That’s how I often felt too,” Brenda was saying, “in the center of a scene shoot, all lights and cameras and attention on me, but feeling alone, so totally alone.”

“Alone?” Charlotte said with a bit of shock in her voice. “Alone in a crowd of adoring fans.”

“Yes, just like you were just saying about your own work.”

“Was I? Did I say I was lonely even while in the center of the action? Yes, yes, I guess I did. I’m sorry, I’ve rambled so, and I’m sure I’ve bored you to death with my work stories.”

“Oh, no. I’m finding them fascinating. As you’ve talked I’ve compared how we movie people portray people like you, and I find our attempts pitiful and far less exciting than reality. You should consult for the movies.” And when Charlotte chuckled at that suggestion, Brenda laid her hand on Charlotte’s forearm as it rested on the table top and, not seeing Charlotte blush at that small intimacy, reiterated. “You really should. I know of several producers who would snap your services up in an instant.”

Charlotte was discombobulated at this suggestion, never in her wildest dreams ever considering doing such a thing, and she strove to move the spotlight back on Brenda. She felt she was getting very close to monopolizing the discussion, and, aware of the balance that had made their lunch so pleasant and the exchange so free flowing, she fought to hang onto that mood. This was the best time she’d had since moving to Hopewell.

“Your work sounds so rewarding that I’m surprised you could pull yourself away from it. You obviously are in demand—one of the few women box office guarantees, according to the smattering of articles I’ve read on the movies—and you’ve had no trouble moving to mature roles—not that you’re old of course.”

Brenda laughed. “Old is certainly preferable to sweet sixteen—and I’m sure you agree,” she said. Her laugh had sounded a bit hollow, though, and Charlotte looked sharply at her and was able to discern the flash of pain in her eyes.

“I’m sorry. Did I tread too hard on your privacy?”

“No, no, not at all.” There was a pause and then Brenda continued. “No, you haven’t. It’s good to be able to talk about these things with someone. I left because of the isolation and loneliness. I’m not sure why I thought it would be any better in Hopewell, which isn’t exactly the center of the universe. But it’s home—or was at one time. I didn’t really think. I guess I was in retreat.”

“In retreat?” Charlotte asked.

“Yes, if I’m honest, I guess that’s a good thing to call it. I had a friend . . . the one person who could make me forget the isolation and loneliness of center stage.”

“Such a friend is a godsend,” Charlotte said, feeling envious, as she had never had such a friend—at least, maybe, not until now. “That friend is gone from you now?”

“Yes, yes she is. Have you ever heard of Helga Lund, the costume designer?”

“Helga Lund? Yes, I’ve heard of her in some context. Movies, of course, but there was something . . . else.” Charlotte’s musings ground to a halt as she remembered the something else. “Wasn’t she . . . didn’t she die some months back. A questionable death. Found hanging from a chandelier, wasn’t it?”

Then Charlotte looked up and saw the sudden devastation in Brenda’s face. Suddenly Brenda was no longer young and effervescent. And it was time for Charlotte to say “I’m sorry” again, something that she was painfully aware that she’d had to say to Brenda too many times already today.

“Yes, she died. In my . . . in our . . . home. I stayed around until all hope was gone to continue believing that she hadn’t done that to herself. And then the house, Hollywood, all of California—the whole West Coast culture—was too fake, too cloying, too much for me to bear, and I came . . . home.”

“If I’d known, I wouldn’t have . . .”

“No, it’s all right, really it is. She died . . . that way. That cannot be erased or denied. I just don’t know why. We’d been so happy. If she took her own life, I cannot understand. . . . And if she didn’t, if someone else took it, I am angry . . . but equally in the dark and powerless. But. . . . Well, that’s that, and so I came home—retreated to Hopewell—to the familiar.”

“The familiar? But surely there isn’t anything in Hopewell that’s familiar to you anymore—other than most of the buildings and the memories.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised. Hopewell is a small town. Some things never change. And some people stay and some, like me, come back.”

“There are some long-term residents in the town?” Charlotte asked. This was a revelation to her. “I thought we were all retreads from the city—come there in search of the idyllic waterside life and artistic inspiration—and to escape someplace—something—else.”

“Well, those needn’t be mutually exclusive,” Brenda answered, her million-dollar smile back in place now. “Some, like Joyce Purcell, came back—and did so because of the pull of the idyllic life you mentioned, and . . .”

“Joyce Purcell? You don’t mean . . . ?”

“Ah, yes, I guess you only know her as Joyce Vale. She was Joyce Purcell when we grew up together in Hopewell. That B&B she’s running with her husband is the old Purcell place. She inherited it and she and her husband turned it into that small hotel.”

“Interesting. But the name Purcell. Susan Purcell, the arts center curator. She isn’t . . . ?”

“Yes, she’s Joyce’s daughter. But then I assumed you’d sleuthed all of that out already . . . with your background and all. I had no idea you didn’t know.”

“No I didn’t,” Charlotte said somewhat in amazement. She must have been slipping more than she thought, was what was racing through her mind. Not more than six months off the job and she was missing little details like that.

“Yes, it was quite a scandal at the time,” Brenda was continuing on. “Susan wasn’t married—and never did marry the father—both of which were the stuff that real scandals were made of in this part of the Eastern Shore at the time. Her father was mayor and ran the only insurance agency around, and they were supposed to be the standard setters. And yet Susan made no bones that she was going to go it alone and be a single mother. And that with the father, one of the school’s new, young school teachers—a scandal in its own right—Grady, living right across town.”

“Grady? Now you are losing me.”

“Grady. Grady Tarbell. The baby’s father. Grady’s one who just stayed here—in spite of all of the tongue wagging. So some just stay put and some come back. And . . . why are you looking so perplexed, Charlotte? You didn’t know? But then I guess you wouldn’t know about Grady if you didn’t know about Joyce and Susan either.”

Charlotte’s head was spinning, and she remembered little of the rest of the conversation, except that they were still chattering amiably when they had been launched out of the tavern door and Brenda was snatching familiar landmarks in Easton from her memory banks and taking Charlotte’s arm comfortably in hers and guiding her to the head of Goldsborough Street for their leisurely prowl down the row of antique shops they found lining that street.

It was in the third shop they entered that Charlotte discovered that her powers of observation and remembrance hadn’t atrophied as much as she was beginning to think they had.

“Interested in stamps?” the proprietor asked as he noticed Charlotte closely examining the pages of a stamp album she’d found resting on his counter. She had taken a pad of paper and a pen out of her purse and was taking some notes.

“Umm mmm,” she murmured as the man hovered over her.

“Those there are particularly rare. Interwar German stamps. You can see where zeros were added after the stamp was cast—and then more added again. Inflation was so rampant in Europe at the time that prices changed astronomically even before goods could get to market. Not really in keeping with the theme of my store. But I just couldn’t resist acquiring it.”

“And can you tell me how you acquired it?” Charlotte said, lifting her head and looking at him and trying not to convey the question as being as important as it was.

“Well, I got it from Stan King over at King’s Antiques. It really wasn’t in keeping with his store at all, and he didn’t fully understand the worth of the stamps. He said he’d gotten it fairly recently—not from someone living in Easton, though.”

“King’s Antiques?” Charlotte asked. She was looking beyond the window of the shop, trying to locate the other store.

“Yes, but he’s closed today. Has gone to an auction over near the Delaware shore I think. If you’re interested in the stamps—”

“I’m more interested in the engraved initials stamped on the cover of the album, I think,” Charlotte said. “That does look like a G and a T to you, doesn’t it?”

Charlotte was ever delighted and surprised at the serendipitous nature of life. She and Brenda had just been talking about Grady Tarbell at lunch. And here, if Charlotte’s keen sense of detection hadn’t gone awry, very likely was the stamp album that Grady had recently said was missing from the desk in his study.

* * * *

As they entered the realm of Hopewell on their return from Easton Charlotte and Brenda, were still bantering back and forth on whether Brenda, who had driven them in her sports car and even argued with Charlotte over the luncheon check, was going to give Charlotte curb delivery at her cottage even though Charlotte lived only steps beyond Brenda, when the argument became moot. There were three police cars and a rescue squad vehicle parked in front of Brenda’s house and a gaggle of townspeople gathered around in a semicircle almost in the center of the street. Brenda parked at the curb by the wooded vacant lot next to her house and they both climbed out of the low-riding convertible with their eyes on the approaching deputy sheriff, David Burch. There was an older, and slightly more heavy set uniformed officer limping along behind him.

“Hello, Ms. Diamond,” David said respectfully and took off his hat to emphasize his good manners. “And would you be Brenda Brandon?” he asked as his eyes shifted to Brenda.

“Brenda Boynton. I go by my given name here,” Brenda said, as she put out a hand to welcome him. “What seems to be the problem here, Officer? I hope nothing’s wrong with the house.”

Charlotte had taken the moment of this introduction to look beyond the two officers at the semicircle of gathered residents. Her antenna for something dreadfully wrong was up, and her quick mind flashed back to this morning when Sam was sitting at her front door attached to his leash and she hadn’t been able to locate Susan Purcell even at a meeting Susan herself had scheduled.

The townspeople were in three general clusters, with two outriders, both of who looked quite nervous and reluctant to be there. Jane Cranford and Rachel Sharp were standing near the center of the group and almost on the other side of the street. The town clerk, Mary Miller and her husband, Walt, were standing with Jane and Rachel. Jane looked like she was quaking, and Rachel, stalwart town doctor, had her arms around the slighter woman. The Vales were standing right next to the curb and closest to where Brenda had parked. Joyce was almost in hysterics and Todd was holding her tight, preventing her from plunging into the woods of the vacant lot. Grady Tarbell was the farthest away, nearly beyond Brenda’s house. He looked extremely uncomfortable, and Charlotte’s heart went out to him if this tableau represented what she was afraid it did. He was as isolated and spurned from his daughter’s life now as he ever had been.

There were a few other village residents in yet another grouping, and Charlotte was surprised at how many were in town on the afternoon of a weekday. It struck her once again how much of a retirement village this was. The pastor of the Episcopal chapel, the only church in town, Don Dunkel, was moving from group to group, doing what pastors always seemed to be doing in these circumstances.

The greatest surprise was seeing a woman standing across the street and closer to the entry to the town than where Brenda had parked. She was a tall, unusually severe-looking woman in a plain cotton frock and what looked like muddy combat boots. The shock, though, was that Charlotte seemed to recognize her—and although Charlotte didn’t know who she was and didn’t remember seeing her around in town, for some reason the association she surfaced in Charlotte’s mind was not just distasteful—it was evil. Charlotte couldn’t place her, but she had every confidence that at some point the woman would click in her mind—and that Charlotte wouldn’t be pleased when she remembered the connection.

“Not at the house, Ms. Boynton,” David Burch was saying when Charlotte’s attention returned to the two uniformed men standing in front of her. “This here’s the Talbot County sheriff, Haws Wainwright. Haws, the owner of the house here, Ms. Boynton, . . . and Ms. Charlotte Diamond.”