Remember Me (25 page)

“Why did she think it belonged to Mehitabel?” Menley asked Jan.

“Phoebe told me that a memoir she read mentioned that after her husband took her baby from her, Mehitabel could be observed standing on the widow's walk, holding a doll.”

S
cott Covey spent most of Friday on the boat. He packed a picnic lunch, brought along his fishing rods and passed the most peaceful day he had enjoyed in weeks. The golden warmth of August had returned in full measure, replacing the chill that had dominated yesterday. The ocean breeze was balmy again. His lobster pots were full.

After lunch he stretched out on the deck, clasped his hands under his head and rehearsed the testimony he would give at the inquest. He tried to remember all the negatives Adam Nichols had warned him about and how he could refute every single one.

His involvement with Tina last winter was going to be his biggest problem. Without seeming like a louse and a cad, how could he let the judge understand that she had been the one pursuing him?

And then something Vivian had told him came into his mind. In late June, when he had talked her through one of her periodic fits of tearful insecurity, she had sighed, “Scott, you're the kind of great-looking guy women naturally fall for. I try to understand that. I know other people instinctively understand it too. It's not your fault; you can't help it.”

“Vivy,” he said aloud, “I'm going to have you to thank for getting me through this inquest.”

Looking up at the sky, he put his fingers to his lips and blew her a kiss.

A
ll little ducks in a row, Nat Coogan thought as he went over the list of witnesses they had subpoenaed for the inquest. He was in the district attorney's office in Barnstable.

The DA, Robert Shore, was sitting behind his desk, going over his own notes. He had scheduled a conference at noon to coordinate final preparations for the inquest. “All right. We're going to get some bitching that we haven't given much notice to the people we've subpoenaed, but that's the way it goes. This is a high-profile case, and we can't let it drag on. Any problems?”

The meeting lasted an hour and a half. By then the two men were in agreement that they had a good case to present to the judge. But Nat felt he had to issue some words of warning: “Listen, I've seen this guy in action. He can cry on cue. He may not have made it as an actor on stage, but trust me—he might be able to earn his Tony in district court.”

O
n Friday morning, Adam left Remember House as soon as Amy arrived. “I have to interview the waitresses who might balance any testimony about Tina visiting Scott in Florida,” he explained to Menley.

“Jan is picking me up at ten,” she said mechanically. “I should be back around two or two-thirty. Carrie Bell will be cleaning today, so she and Amy will both be in the house with Hannah. Is that satisfactory?”

“Menley!” He went to put his arms around her, but she turned and walked away from him.

*   *   *

“Do you want to tell me what's wrong?” Jan asked Menley as they drove over the bridge from Morris Island to the road that led to the lighthouse and Route 28.

“What's wrong is that my husband and my psychiatrist seem to agree that I belong in a padded cell.”

“That's ridiculous.”

“Yes, it is. And I'm not going to let it happen. Let's leave it at that. But, Jan, I have the feeling that Phoebe is trying to communicate something to me. The other day when she was at the house and saw her files, she
looked at them, and I think she really understood what they were.”

“It's possible,” Jan agreed. “There are times when Phoebe does seem to have breakthroughs of memory.”

“Her tone of voice was so urgent. She said that Mehitabel was innocent. Then she said something like, ‘Tobias Knight. Answer in Mooncusser file.' Does that mean anything to you?”

“Not really. We know Tobias built Remember House, and that's about it. But when I was thinking of places to take you today I learned that he also built one of the oldest houses in Eastham. If you have time, we could swing by and take a look at it. It's run by the Eastham Historical Society, and they may have collected some information on him.”

“T
ina met Scott Covey in here,” Liz Murphy told Adam. “He came in for dinner with some of the people from the playhouse, and she played up to him like crazy. And nobody knows how to play up to a guy better than Tina.”

Adam was interviewing the young waitress in the office of the Daniel Webster Inn in Sandwich. “That was in July of last year?”

“Early July. Tina was going around with Fred at the time. What a nice guy he is. But boy, she put the skids on him when Scott came into the picture.”

“Did you think Scott was serious about Tina?”

“Heck no. We all agreed that Scott had big plans for himself. He wasn't going to ever settle down with someone who worked for a living. We told her she was crazy to dump Fred for him.”

“As far as you know, did Tina see Scott over the winter?”

“She knew he was in Boca Raton, and she wanted to get a job there. But I guess he told her that if things worked out, he'd be back up on the Cape.”

“And she knew he was going around with Vivian Carpenter?”

“She knew it and she didn't care.”

Exactly what Scott told me, Adam thought. “Did Vivian know about Tina?”

“Unless Scott told her, I don't know how she would know.”

“Do you know why Tina quit her job here?”

“She told me that Scott had gotten married and she was starting to see Fred again and wanted to be free evenings to be with him. She said that Fred gets up so early for work that he's in bed at ten o'clock at night. She wanted a job where she worked breakfast and lunch, but that wasn't available here.”

“Liz, you're going to be subpoenaed as a witness at the inquest. Don't worry about it. The district attorney will ask you pretty much the same questions I've just asked.”

*   *   *

The other waitress, Alice Regan, came on at eleven, so Adam waited to see her. Her story verified what Liz Murphy had told him. He knew the district attorney would hit Tina hard on choosing to work in Chatham,
at a restaurant frequented by an ex-lover, but that would make Tina look bad, not Scott.

*   *   *

Adam drove down Route 6A and stopped at the Courthouse. In the district attorney's office, he submitted the names of Liz Murphy and Alice Regan to be added to the list of witnesses he wanted subpoenaed. “I may have one or two more,” he told an assistant DA.

His next stop was in Orleans, to interview a fisherman whose boat had been swamped in the same squall that took Vivian Carpenter's life.

C
arrie Bell bustled around the keeping room, dusting the inside of the cabinets as she chatted with Amy. “That is one adorable baby,” she said. “And so good.”

Amy was feeding Hannah her lunch.

As though she understood the compliment, Hannah turned a dazzling smile on Carrie and put her fist in the jar of peaches.

“Hannah!” Amy protested, laughing.

“And she's going to look a lot like her brother,” Carrie announced.

“I think so too,” Amy agreed. “That picture on Mrs. Nichols' dresser shows a real resemblance.”

“It shows up even more in the video of Bobby that Mr. Nichols had up here last year.” Carrie lowered her voice. “You know, I used to clean that little cottage he rented near Elaine's house. Well, one time I went in, and Mr. Nichols was watching a video of Bobby running to his mother. I swear, the look on his face almost broke my heart.”

She picked up the antique doll. “You don't want to be taking this in and out of the high chair, Amy. Why don't I just put it in that old cradle in the baby's room? It kind of looks as though it belongs there.”

B
y one o'clock, a dozen pages of Menley's notebook were filled, and she had two hours of interviews on her tape recorder.

As Jan drove down Route 6 toward Eastham, Menley mused on the similarities in the experiences she had heard. “Everyone we talked to seems to feel that if there is something unexplainable in their house, it's a benevolent presence,” she said. “But your friend in Brewster, Sarah, has never had any manifestation except that first one.”

Jan looked at her. “Meaning?”

“Sarah told us that early one morning when she and her husband were asleep in bed, the sound of someone
coming up the stairs awakened her. Then the door opened and she saw the imprint of footsteps on the carpet.”

“That's right.”

Menley flipped through her notebook. “Sarah said she felt a sense of comfort. Here's how she put it, ‘It was like when you're a small child, and your mother comes into the room and covers you.' “

“Yes, that was the way she expressed it.”

“And then she said she felt a pat on her shoulder, and it was as though someone were speaking, but she was hearing with her mind, not her ears. She knew it was Abigail Harding, the lady for whom the house had been built, and Abigail was telling her how happy she was that her home had been restored to its original beauty.”

“That's always been the way Sarah described that experience.”

“My point,” Menley continued, “is that there was a reason for Abigail to contact Sarah. She had something to tell her. Sarah says she's never experienced anything specific again, and that when she has that feeling of a benevolent presence now, she may be simply sensing a tranquil atmosphere in the house. I think what I'm trying to say is that maybe some kind of unfinished business keeps a presence anchored to earth.”

“It's possible,” Jan agreed.

They stopped for a quick lunch at a small waterfront restaurant in Eastham, then went to see the house Tobias Knight had built in that town. It was on Route 6, surrounded by restaurants and shops.

“The location can't compare with Remember House,” Menley remarked.

“Most of the captains' houses were set back from the water. The early settlers respected those nor'easters. But the house is similar to Remember House, if
not quite as fancy. This one dates back to 1699. As you can see, there's no fanlight.”

“The captain and Mehitabel brought the fanlight from England,” Menley said.

“I didn't know that. You must have found that bit of information in Phoebe's material.”

Menley did not answer. They went inside, stopped at the reception desk, picked up the literature on the house and then walked through the rooms. The beautifully restored mansion was similar in layout to Remember House. “The rooms are larger here,” Jan observed, “but Remember House has finer detail.”

Menley was silent on the drive back to Chatham. Something was bothering her, but she wasn't sure what it was. Now she was anxious to get home and have a chance to talk to Carrie Bell before she left.

F
red Hendin worked on a carpentry crew with a small builder in Dennis who specialized in renovations. Fred liked the work, especially enjoying the feel of wood in his hands. Wood had a mind of its own as well as an inherent dignity. He viewed himself in much the same way.

Now that waterfront property was worth a fortune, it paid to renovate the budget homes that were situated
on prime lots. The waterfront house they were working on was one of those. It was about forty years old, and they were practically rebuilding it. Part of the project was to gut the kitchen, replacing those press-board cabinets that builders used in cheap housing with custom cherrywood units.

Fred actually had his eye on a house opposite the one where he was working, a real handyman's special, with beach rights and a terrific view. He'd been watching the local real estate agents bring prospective buyers to see it, but none of them stayed long. They didn't look past the fact that the place was a mess. Fred knew that if he bought it and put in six months of hard work, he'd end up with one of the nicest homes anyone could want, plus he would have a good investment.

Only two weeks more till the end of August, he thought. Then the price would drop. Real estate activity pretty much died on the Cape during the winter.

Fred sat with the other guys in the crew, having lunch. They worked well together, and at breaks they shared a few laughs.

They began talking about the inquest into Vivian Carpenter Covey's death. Matt, the electrician, had done some work for Vivian in May, shortly after she was married. “Not an easy lady,” he reported. “The day I was there her husband went to the store and stayed out a while. She sailed into him when he got back, said he wasn't going to make a fool of her. Told him to go pack his bags. Then she started crying and falling all over him when he reminded her she'd asked him to stop at the cleaners and that's what held him up. Believe me, that woman was a problem.”

Sam, a recent addition to the crew asked, “Isn't there talk that Covey has a girlfriend, a waitress from around here who's a real hot number?”

“Forget it.” Matt scowled as he glanced sideways at Fred.

Fred stuffed the napkin into his coffee container. “That's right. Forget it,” he snapped, his previous good humor instantly gone. He pushed his chair back and left the table.

When he went back to work, it took him time to settle down. A lot of things were sticking in his craw. Last night after the detective left, Tina admitted that she'd been seeing Covey all last winter, making several trips down to Florida.

Does it matter? Fred asked himself as he hung the cabinets. As Tina had pointed out, she and Fred had not been dating then. But why did she have to lie about it? he asked himself. Then he wondered if she was also lying about seeing Covey after he was married. And what about in the past month since his wife died?