Threads of Evidence (3 page)

The house was over a hundred years old. I'd never thought of nineteenth-century “rusticators,” as summer visitors to Maine were called then, searching beaches for the same treasures I'd looked for as a child. But perhaps they had.

“Your idea that we should walk through the house first to get an overview was a good one,” said Skye, stepping over a hole in the floor and heading out of the living room toward the room across the hall. “Why don't you wait to take notes and pictures until after I've shown you the whole place? That way you'll have an idea of how much work you'll have to do. The dining room is this way.”

Aurora's long mahogany dining table could have seated fourteen people easily, and I suspected a wall-length sideboard would contain treasures. But what I saw first were the three mounted heads hanging over the marble mantel: one moose, complete with antlers, one bear, and a five-point buck. Displaying hunters' trophies wasn't unheard of in Haven Harbor, but it was much more common in hunting lodges and homes farther Down East. Based on the condition of the heads, some Gardener from a while back must have been a hunter. When I was able to take my eyes off the animal heads, I realized there also were two large fish displayed over the sideboard: a cod, of a size not often seen off the coast of Maine today, and a striped bass. None of the preserved creatures were in good condition; the bedraggled animals were missing patches of hair, and one fish was missing a tail.

I wouldn't have chosen them for my dining room.

On the other hand, on the long outside wall, a series of framed needlepoint panels was hanging between the windows.

Sarah and I both moved toward them.

Chapter 5

 

—Sampler embroidered by Nabby Kollock Ide (1790–1813), Wrentham, Massachusetts, 1804

 

 

 

I walked over to look at one of the large needlepoint panels more closely. “This is Haven Harbor Lighthouse,” I said.

Skye nodded. “All the needlework panels in this room are places here at Aurora, or close by, in Haven Harbor.” She pointed at the one closest to her. “That's the main staircase in the house. And I love the one of a moose in a field of flowers, over near the door to the kitchen.”

Sarah walked to the other side of the room, looking carefully at each panel in turn. “Is this the fountain that used to be in front of the house?”

“Yes,” said Skye.

The fountain Mrs. Gardener had destroyed after Jasmine's death in 1970—I'd never seen a picture of it. Just as Ob had described it, the statue of a naked woman, partially concealed by a cape, was surrounded by plumes of water. The pool looked shallow—too shallow to have drowned someone. Maybe Jasmine had stumbled on the stone border and had hit her head.

“In old photos of Aurora, the fountain is beautiful,” Skye went on. “And Millie Gardener did all this needlework. More of her stitching is upstairs, but these pieces are her best. Because she'd had them framed, they were better protected than a lot of her pillows and wall hangings. I'd like them restored, if possible.”

I was still staring at the needlepointed panel of the fountain. Why had Mrs. Gardener chosen to stitch a picture of the place her daughter died?

“We can restore these,” I said, focusing back on Skye's question. I took mental notes: a picture of Second Sister Island, one of the three islands in Haven Harbor; the Haven Harbor Town Pier; an eagle flying over the yacht club building; the Congregational Church building; a wide view of Haven Harbor itself, filled with small sailboats and lobster boats. Sarah didn't say anything, but pointed to mildewing in the stitching of some, to be sure I noticed it. Several of the pictures were also water-stained. I lifted one of those off the wall. The wall was stained, too. Strong winds must have driven heavy rain or snow through the clapboards onto the inside walls of the house.

“These panels are special, and were made for this house. They should stay here,” I agreed. “We won't know how much work conservation and restoration will take until we remove the panels from their frames. We'll need to remove the backings and replace them with acid-free cloth. Some are mildewed, some have water damage, and the yarn in several has faded or broken. The work is lovely, but the panels aren't old enough to have value as antiques. If you'd agree, we could reinforce some of the stitching and perhaps replace some. Restore them so they'd look close to their original state.” I hoped I was right. I was still learning about needlepoint restoration.

I must have sounded authoritative. Skye looked around the room and added, “And they should all be reframed with acid-free materials and sun-resistant glass. Can you do all that?”

Sarah and I looked at each other.

“We can,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. “We could have these back to you within a month, unless we find major problems when we take them apart.”

“You'll let me know about that,” Skye said. “Take them all when you leave today so they won't get mixed in with the items we're going to sell. I love these pictures. And if they take you a little longer than you think to fix, that's all right. The house won't be finished for more than a month or two.”

A month or two?
It looked to me as though the place would takes years of work. “We'll need you to choose new frames when the stitching is finished.”

“I'll be here all summer,” said Skye. “I'll be reading scripts, but I don't have any projects lined up until late in the fall. Restoring Aurora is my priority now.”

We moved on.

The kitchen pipes had broken at some point; the floor there was so rotten we didn't dare examine the cabinets or their contents. I suspected Mrs. Gardener hadn't done much cooking in the years she'd lived here alone. Either she'd had a cook, or she'd eaten out a lot. When the family had been here, the cook probably had an assistant or two. The kitchen was as large as a small diner. Now it was unusable. And it looked as though it had been that way more than the almost-twenty-years since Mrs. Gardener had died.

Everywhere I looked, the house needed serious repairs requiring even more serious money.

I hoped Skye had some blockbuster scripts to read. Did she have any idea how much it would cost to restore this place? It would be cheaper to paper it with dollar bills.

“We have to be careful where we step on the second floor,” said Skye, leading the way up the front stairway. “Patrick and I found rotten boards in several rooms. Some are under the carpeting.”

I sniffed. Mildewed carpets. They would all have to go.

The only furniture in the second-floor hallway was a built-in window seat overlooking Haven Harbor. The clear glass windows were outlined in green-and-blue stained glass. Unfortunately, two sections of the glass were missing, so rain and snow had blown in. Ocean breezes filled the hallway.

“I can hardly wait to have this sitting area repaired,” said Skye, looking at the damp seat cushion and the several needlepoint cushions on it. “I don't think these pillows are worth trying to save.”

I agreed. The pillows were water-stained and mildewed; their threads faded. One had been torn apart. By a bird in the house? A squirrel? “They must have been lovely once,” I said, looking at one of a puffin and another that might have been a laughing gull. “But I agree. I don't think we could reclaim them. What do you think, Sarah?”

She shook her head. “No. They're gone. Sadly.” She picked up one of a chickadee. “We could reproduce them, though, if you were interested.”

Good for Sarah! I hadn't thought of that.

“I like that idea,” Skye said. “Let me think about it. In the meantime let's not throw them out.”

Sarah followed her into the room on the right side of the hall. I stared at the window seat for a few more moments before following them. Had Jasmine Gardener sat on that window seat, looking out at the harbor? It would have been a perch hard to resist. If she'd been a reader, maybe she'd curled up with a book and leaned against those pillows. Or maybe the pillows had been done after Jasmine died, and her mother had sat here, watching the harbor, thinking of what might have been. The world the Gardeners lived in had been far from the Haven Harbor I knew. And yet they'd chosen to summer here. To look down at the harbor, instead of staying in what I assumed was a palatial New York City home.

What had it been like for Jasmine? Had she loved Maine? Had she missed her friends in the city? Nineteen seventy was so long ago. And why had Mrs. Gardener chosen to stay here after her daughter's death? Why hadn't she left this place and returned to her husband and life in New York? I looked down into the front hall. This might have been a beautiful home, but it also must have felt empty for one person living here alone.

I forced myself to come back to the present time and followed Sarah and Skye into the first bedroom. “This was the Gardeners' bedroom,” Skye was saying. “Mrs. Gardener spent most of her last years in this room.”

The bedroom was in better condition than the kitchen, but it, too, had been invaded by the mildew that seemed to have infected the entire house. A row of windows looked out over the harbor, as the window seat had. A high bed and several comfortable-looking chairs were arranged to face a small television set. One wall was covered by framed photographs, some of them stained by dampness or faded by time.

What images of her life had Mrs. Gardener chosen to highlight and revisit?

Sarah was looking at the large floor-to-ceiling bookcase that filled the far wall. The bookends were rocks that could have come from Pocket Cove Beach. “These are all books on needlepoint,” she pointed out. “History of needlepoint, pattern books. It's an amazing collection.”

“Are any of them worth anything?” asked Skye.

“I'd have to check their condition individually and their copyrights,” said Sarah. “They might be. Because they're on an inside wall, I'm hoping they're not as damaged as the pictures and embroideries on the outside walls. They'll take a while to appraise.”

“We don't have time for you to do a thorough appraisal of each book and magazine. Since you're both involved with Mainely Needlepoint, why don't you take all that stuff? Examine everything on your own time, save it, sell it, toss it out—whatever you decide is best. They're now all yours.”

Sarah and I looked at each other. “Thank you very much,” I said. “That's generous of you.”

She shrugged. “I admire Mrs. Gardener's work, but I don't plan to take up needlepoint myself. I'd like to see her collection go to people who could use it.”

“We could,” Sarah confirmed. “Thank you.”

Skye nodded. The subject was closed.

“I suspect Mrs. Gardener spent a lot of time in here stitching,” I said.
And thinking,
I added silently to myself.

“Her wardrobe room is next. You'll see.”

A bathroom, smaller than those in many homes today, but with marble walls and a large Victorian claw-foot bathtub, was connected to Mrs. Gardener's room. The room next to it held a dressing table and wide gold-framed mirror, a closet rod hung with clothing, and stacks of cardboard boxes.

“The boxes are full of embroidery yarns and floss and canvas and other materials,” said Skye. “They may still be usable, but you'd know that better than I. Her clothing, unfortunately, is not in good condition. I hoped some of it would be wearable, because I love vintage clothing. But after Jasmine's death Mrs. Gardener must not have replenished her wardrobe often. Some of her sweaters and slippers are worn through, and the fabrics of her blouses and dresses are too fragile to be worn.”

“Would you like me to check through them, anyway?” asked Sarah, making a note.

“Please. But if you find anything that won't go directly into the dumpster, put it aside and let me look at it before we decide to sell it.”

We left Mrs. Gardener's rooms and crossed the hall to another large room. Jasmine's room was a time capsule of 1970.

Peter Max posters covered the walls.
WAR IS NOT HEALTHY FOR CHILDREN AND OTHER LIVING THINGS. LOVE.
Beatles posters. (She'd circled Paul in what might once have been red lipstick.)

Skye stared at the room. “She was only seventeen, you know. So young.”

“‘Left in immortal Youth On that low Plain That hath nor Retrospection Nor again—Ransomed from years— Sequestered from Decay Canceled like Dawn In comprehensive Day.'”

Sarah's words were appropriate, but Skye looked at her questioningly.

“Emily Dickinson,” Sarah explained, for a second time. Her frequent quoting did take getting used to.

Skye nodded uncertainly.

Had Jasmine been an antiwar activist? I was pretty sure U.S. soldiers were still in Vietnam in 1970. Curling posters of the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, and the Beach Boys were thumbtacked to the wall. Like all teenagers, Jasmine must have loved music. A stack of LP records—33's—was next to a record player with detachable speakers: Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and the Broadway cast album of
Hair.
Eclectic music. Unfortunately, the albums had been stored on top of each other rather than vertically. Most were bent.

Damp stuffed animals were piled on both beds in the room.

“Twin beds,” Sarah pointed out. “Did she have a sister?”

“I'm told the second bed was so she could invite a friend to visit,” said Skye.

Who had told her? But that made sense. Haven Harbor was a long way from the friends Jasmine must have had in New York. And with a house this large, it would have been easy for her to entertain friends from the city.

Her bureau was covered with bottles of long-evaporated scents, a box of loose powder, a few lipsticks, and a hairbrush with a few pieces of long brown hair still woven through the bristles. Interesting. Today the police investigating her death might have taken that hair, as a record of DNA. But, then, she'd died in 1970; before DNA had been important. And they'd known who she was, so they weren't concerned with identifying her body. I shuddered a bit, thinking of what this room must have meant to Jasmine's mother, since she'd never changed it.

Faded photographs of teenagers, maybe her New York school friends, were stuck in the mirror frame. I leaned over to look at them. Was one of the young men in the pictures her boyfriend? Had Jasmine been planning to go to college? All I knew about her was that she'd been young and she'd died.

This room was a museum about her. A shrine. I picked up one of the lipsticks. Tangee Natural. Makeup from the past.

“Two other bedrooms are on this floor. Guest rooms. The third-floor rooms are a total loss. They were for staff or other guests. You don't need to worry about those. I'll get someone to clean them out.” Skye walked to the door. “Is there anything more you need to know from me now? I should check with Patrick about the Dumpsters and the construction crew.”

“One question,” said Sarah. “Are you planning to sell everything in the house that has any value?”

Skye hesitated. “I'd like to see your inventory list and appraisal before I decide. A few things, like the needlepoint panels, I know I'd like to keep. After I look at the inventory, I'll select anything else I want to keep before we fill the Dumpsters. Then I'll have a lawn sale. Invite everyone in town to come.”