When the conversation with Henry ended, Julie sat quietly at her desk, intrigued, trying to puzzle out everything they’d just talked about. As a child, Julie could spend hours on a rainy day fitting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. She loved the features in the Saturday newspaper that invited her to find the monkey hidden in the picture, or presented stories that required her to create the correct ending. In school, she couldn’t wait for assignments that took her to the library to track down obscure facts. So becoming a historian wasn’t exactly a surprising move. Not that it prepared her to solve a murder so much as it honed her sense of putting together pieces to explain a picture. In fact, Julie was strongly visual and tended to convert abstract and verbal problems to pictures. Making doodles and notes on a pad was her preferred method of working through a problem. So she took out a yellow pad from her desk and began to jot her thoughts on it.
The first thought she had was how incredibly naive Henry seemed, especially for a lawyer. That was because Julie saw two huge matters that Henry didn’t—or, if he did, he at least wasn’t letting on that he did. One was that because Mary Ellen died on the third of July, she could not exercise her right to cancel the land sale to Nilsson and Dyer. Lucky them! The second was that if Mary Ellen hadn’t died on the third of July, Steven and Elizabeth might have lost one-third of a very large estate. So lucky them, too! But not so lucky Mary Ellen.
On her pad Julie wrote “Steven” and put a large dollar sign beside it. She did the same with “Elizabeth.” Then she bracketed the two names and put a question mark beside the bracket. Motive seemed obvious enough for Mary Ellen’s son and his wife, singly or together. Of course Steven merely had to wait to get his, but Henry’s news meant Steven risked losing a third of it. Still, Julie found it hard to imagine a son killing his mother, especially so brutally, and in her conversation with Steven after the concert she had gotten the distinct impression that he was truly mourning Mary Ellen’s death. Although she didn’t know him well, Julie couldn’t avoid the conclusion that Steven was a nice guy but somewhat weak, and that wasn’t exactly surprising since his mother was so domineering.
As was Elizabeth, too, Julie thought, though she knew her even less than she knew Steven. Julie had met her once or twice and sensed she was stronger than her husband, more self-possessed. About Julie’s own age? Maybe a few years older. Slim and good-looking. Her career seemed to be flourishing. Henry said she was not maternal. But how well did he really know her? And, well, Julie wouldn’t have exactly rejected that description of herself. But Henry and Howard Townsend had both seemed vaguely negative about Elizabeth, and both had made it clear that Mary Ellen was not a fan of her daughter-in-law, either. Certainly Mrs. Detweiller had more than hinted at the same thing. But that was hardly unique in the history of family relations. So what did Julie know about Elizabeth? Not nearly enough to make any further notes beside her name.
Julie looked at her watch and saw it was noon. She should probably have lunch before her tour at one, but instead she returned to her yellow pad. She flipped to a new page and made another large dollar sign and beside it wrote “Nilsson” and “Dyer” and gave them a bracket and question mark, too. Since Mary Ellen had till today to back out of the land sale, getting rid of her before would have some kind of financial value to the two developers. How much? Julie had no idea of the magnitude of the project, but everyone who talked about it implied it was a big deal. Who was at risk if it didn’t go through? Apparently both Nilsson and Dyer, but Howard had said Dyer had a small part of it, except of course for the construction. Okay, both men would gain something by making sure Mary Ellen didn’t cancel the sale. That was motive.
Julie wrote “Find out,” underlined it, and then wrote “value of Birch Brook,” and “Nilsson share” and “Dyer share.” She really didn’t know much about either man, let alone about the condo project they were involved in. She had talked to Nilsson yesterday and remembered meeting him sometime in the past year. Dyer she had been dealing with over the excavation but didn’t know much beyond her impression that he was abrupt and not particularly warm. Oh, there also was the matter of the land itself—Howard had said Dyer’s father had sold it to Dan Swanson. Julie noted that next to Dyer’s name.
The yogurt she had brought for lunch was in her drawer, and though she still didn’t feel hungry she knew she should have something now since the tour would occupy her until after two. As she was taking small spoonfuls of it, a thought struck: I can find out more about Frank Nilsson because I have his résumé! She jumped up and went to Mrs. Detweiller’s office and found the file labeled TRUSTEES—PROSPECTIVE. Howard had asked her to start a file last summer, when Worth’s death left the Ryland Historical Society’s board short of members. Howard had asked other trustees to suggest names of potential new members, and someone had suggested Nilsson. It was Mary Ellen! She had proposed his name and had asked him for a résumé. And there it was in the file. Thank heavens Mrs. Detweiller is organized, Julie said to herself when she returned to her desk with the résumé.
It wasn’t long. He had probably put together the one-page summary in response to Mary Ellen’s request because it emphasized his community involvement: former president of the Ryland Chamber of Commerce, chair of Rotary’s Christmas appeal for children, board member of Community Hospital, founding member of Western Maine Scandinavian Heritage Society. Under “Education” he had listed a high school in southern Maine and Bowdoin College, though without a degree or dates of attendance. Occupation was simple: developer. Married with two children.
There was nothing revealing in the résumé about the man, nothing that would help her figure out if he were capable of murder to prevent Mary Ellen from canceling the land sale. But then, Julie thought as she laughed out loud, you wouldn’t exactly expect someone to include a line on his résumé like “capable of murder under the right circumstances.” She would have to find another way to learn more about Nilsson.
“They’re here, Dr. Williamson.” Julie jumped when Mrs. Detweiller issued her statement from the door separating their offices. “The bus tour. I saw them pull up when I was coming from lunch. You have a one o’clock tour, you know,” the secretary said sternly.
“Polyester,” Julie said to herself as she hustled across the lawn toward Holder House. The bus tour was a quilting group from New Jersey, making a summer tour across northern New England in search of inspiration for their hobby. Three-quarters were women, all but one in hooded sweats, and the rest were bored husbands. Julie sometimes worried that her easy labeling of visitors led her to do canned presentations, pulling out the sentences and ordering them in a certain way more in response to the label she had placed on the participants than to their reality. On the other hand, she often found that stereotypes were useful, offering shortcuts that made her comments appropriate if not precisely fresh. About quilts she was a rank amateur, but given their importance to visitors to history museums she had diligently read quilting books and talked with volunteer guides who themselves quilted. As a result, she could sling the lingo—Grandmother’s Flower Basket, Hands of God, Weeping Willows—that impressed tour groups a lot more than such modest knowledge warranted.
But it usually worked, and today it did, too. The seniors were delighted with her, asked soft-pitch questions that she returned with force and grace, expressed appropriate wonder at the collections, and—Julie was especially pleased to see—headed back to the gift shop before boarding their bus.
Returning to her office in Swanson House, Julie cut behind the crafts shed to see how the digging was progressing. The yellow backhoe that had sat quietly the last several days was anything but quiet now. Like some prehistoric animal, the machine extended its long proboscis straight out, then brought it down with a thud and scooped and dropped a load of soil beside the lengthening gash that would eventually be filled with concrete to form the foundation. Julie was pleasantly surprised to see that one of the long trenches was complete and that the machine now was attacking the second. When that was done, the two would be connected with short trenches at both ends to form the rectangular outline of the Swanson Center. Amazing! Julie said to herself. Only yesterday she feared the whole project would be delayed, and now the excavation was almost half done. She stood there for a few minutes to observe the work.
“Coming right along,” a voice said from behind. Julie turned to see Luke Dyer, incongruously enough carrying a leather briefcase.
“It sure is,” Julie agreed. “I’m surprised how fast you work.”
“Not me,” he said with what Julie thought was a first-time occurrence: a friendly laugh. “That’s Benny, my best backhoe man. I put him on this because I know you were getting antsy. Don’t see no problem now getting the foundation dug by tomorrow.”
“That’s terrific. Thank you so much. And I suppose now you’ll be able to get your other project started.”
“Should start on Monday, soon as we close.”
“I understand it’s quite a big project—lots of condos?”
“Biggest development around here.”
“And a beautiful site, I hear.”
“Gorgeous. Ever seen it?”
“No. It’s called Birch Brook, right?”
“Yeah, Birch Brook runs right smack through it, down to the river. You should come out and take a look. Maybe you’d be interested in a condo.”
“Thanks, but I’m living in Worth Harding’s house here now. He gave it to the historical society.”
“Oh, right. I heard that. Well, it’s a nice place, and the condos will have every convenience and great views. Maybe you know someone who’d be interested. Anyway, come out and have a look sometime.”
“I’ll do that.” Looking at his briefcase, she wondered if he had come to see her about business. “Are we all in order here, Mr. Dyer, about the project? Any more paperwork?”
“You can call me Luke. All set for now. We’ll send an invoice.” He noticed Julie’s gaze still on the leather briefcase. “Oh, you thought I was looking for you, I see. No, I was just over to your library. Pretty crowded place. I can see why you need this new building.”
“It’s going to really help us a lot. The library can expand and all the papers will get the special care they need,” she said, forgoing the nearly automatic line she could deliver about humidity control, spacious surroundings for researchers, proper lighting, and all the benefits the new Swanson Center would offer. She was too intrigued by Dyer’s visiting the society’s library. “Hope you found what you wanted,” she said.
“Still looking. But I’ll be back. Good to see you,” he added and walked toward the backhoe, the briefcase swinging at his side an odd accessory to his flannel shirt and work pants.