I passed out at some point, then woke up enough to put my computer on the ground and take off my glasses. I slept, but I didn’t rest. Too much going on. In my brain, in my life. At one point I had a dream I was working on a big puzzle with vertical stripes that were green, white, blue, and yellow. I’d been working for hours, putting the pieces together, making it all up in perfect lines. Gus walked up and swept his hand across the table, breaking the puzzle apart, putting me back to square one. “You’re doing it the wrong way. They’re squares, not stripes!” he said. I woke up and had a hard time falling back asleep. Squares, not stripes. What the hell did that mean?
Was I looking at everything the wrong way? I’d promised Toni that I would step back, and I intended to. I didn’t want to get in the way of the cops. But then I thought about Gus, and rethought my strategy. I was going to step back but not out. I needed to find him.
These were the questions that plagued me throughout the night. I would fall asleep, wake up, my mind would automatically start worrying until it wore me out, and then I fell back asleep. I could never quite wake up enough to get up, wash my face, brush my teeth, and go to bed properly. So when I finally did stop fighting it and decided to get up, I felt and looked like ten miles of bad road. Worse, I had fallen asleep with my cell phone in my hand, and it lost its charge. I plugged it in and went in to take a shower. I let the warm water work its magic, renewing me for the day ahead. I washed my hair, something I only did twice a week with my thick and curly locks. I got out of the shower and wrapped my hair in one towel, my body in another. I lathered on lotion and put a little makeup on. My mother had taught me from a young age that the worse you feel, the more you try. Mascara wasn’t a cure-all, but it did make me feel a little bit better. I put some product through my hair and clamped it back in a clip.
I went back into my room and checked the phone. It was only ten percent charged, but three text messages had come in, all in the last twenty minutes. I checked the time. Seven thirty. Who would text me before eight o’clock?
One text was from Emma, telling me she was on her way with some breakfast sandwiches. She asked me to put coffee on. I checked my watch. She must be here already.
The next two messages were from Holly.
Huge favor to ask. I need somebody to take a road trip down the Cape. The company won’t deliver, and I think I found cloth for the set. Any chance you’re free today? She’d sent that text fifteen minutes prior.
The final text had just come in. Got a call from Dimitri. So glad you’re going to go, and help us. I owe you one. Couldn’t pull this off without you. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you.
From Dimitri? What the—?
I finished getting dressed and walked into the kitchen area. Emma and Stewart were futzing around, pulling out plates and napkins, unloading bags of goodies. They both had spots of pink on their cheeks, indicating that they’d been outside. Together? Curiouser and curiouser.
Dimitri was lining up coffee cups. He poured coffee into three of them and then looked up, saw me, and poured a fourth.
“I hear I’m heading down to the Cape,” I said, accepting the offered cup of coffee.
“You are indeed,” Dimitri said, taking a seat at the table. “You told me to be nice to Holly. She sent me texts, several of them, telling me that she needed to drive down to the Cape to pick up some sailcloth for the set. I’ve got to hand it to her, she’s industrious. She was going to go herself, but we’ve got three meetings set up this morning before rehearsal. One with a board member who’s concerned about Babs’s absence. Holly can’t miss that meeting. I suggested she send you down to pick up the cloth. It doesn’t have to be this morning. I understand they’re open until six.”
“What makes you think I don’t have other things to do today?” I asked.
“Well, for one thing, I believe the police have asked you to stop investigating. They gave Emma a courtesy call requesting the same thing. Not that I expect that this alone would stop you, but I was up half the night thinking about it. It isn’t safe for you, my friend. I hate to sound like your—your—”
“Friend?” Stewart said. “Sully, sit down. We got some sandwiches from the breakfast place down the street. I also got a cinnamon roll, thought we could split it. Emma’s too healthy for that, so don’t bother to cut her a piece.”
“I didn’t say I was too healthy,” Emma said. “I just find it ironic that we both decided to take a run this morning, and then you ended it with a sugar bomb.”
“Well, honestly, I thought my secret would be safe. Who knew there was somebody else who saw a thirty-five degree morning as an invitation to get a run in?” Stewart asked.
“Not me, that’s for damn straight,” I said. “Did you go together?”
“Not intentionally,” Stewart said. “First of all, true confessions. It was less of a run, more of a walk. I was leaving out the front door, and took a right, thinking I’d go to the Esplanade. Emma came out on the next block. To tell you the truth, I didn’t recognize her at first.”
“I left out the alleyway. We ended up just walking over the Longfellow Bridge, turning around, and coming back,” Emma said.
“It was icy,” Stewart said. “Next time—”
“We can discuss exercise routines in a second,” I said. I broke a piece off my breakfast sandwich. It was so, so good. The biscuit alone would have been perfect: light, flaky, with layers. But then fluffy scrambled eggs, perfectly crisped bacon, and unbelievably sharp cheddar. Perfect. “Back to Dimitri scheduling my day.” I took another bite and looked over at Dimitri.
“More like, keeping you safe and out of harm’s way,” Dimitri said. “At least for the day. I know you, Sully. If you don’t have something to do today you’re just going to get into trouble.”
“I am not going to get into trouble—”
“Please. One of the best things about you is that you don’t hesitate to put yourself in harm’s way to help other people. I admire that. But it seems to me, with two women killed within a week, that harm’s way is a bit too close right now.”
“So you want to send me on some wild goose chase picking up sailcloth?”
“Hardly a wild goose chase. We don’t have rehearsal tomorrow, so the scenic crew is going to spend the day doing what they can to salvage the set. It’s the last window of time we have to make changes. Without the cloth? Without the cloth we’re stuck with the shiny iceberg from hell. Do it for me, Sully. Please.”
Dimitri and I had a brief staring contest, but I blinked first. “Oh, all right. I’ll go pick it up,” I said.
Stewart slid a piece of cinnamon roll at me and gave me one of his most dazzling smiles. “Thanks, babe,” he said.
“Let me drive you,” Emma said, shooting Stewart a look. “I need the distraction, at least for a couple of hours. It’s a nice bright day for a trip down the Cape. We can drive by my house there, make sure it’s locked up tight. Last winter the plumber didn’t latch the side door and it was flapping for four months. I’ve been meaning to drive down for a few weeks now.”
“You have a house on the Cape?” I said. There are a few rules in life—one is that folks who live on the North Shore of Massachusetts are North Shore people. Folks who live on the South Shore, and the Cape is on the South Shore, are South Shore people. Emma had a house in Trevorton, on the North Shore. But she also had a house on the Cape?
“Not a big one. More of a cottage, really. Hal Maxwell told us about the house one day over lunch, that his neighbor was moving. It was Terry’s idea to go look at it. A place we could go to get away from my family. Next thing I knew, Terry had put an offer down, and we owned the house. He’d been down there several times, golfing with Hal—”
“Don’t you have a meeting this afternoon with Jerry?” I asked.
“If we leave in the next hour or so, we’ll be back in plenty of time for the meeting. As I said, I’m getting squirrelly. Eric has made it clear he doesn’t want me around for a couple of hours. I’m driving him nuts.”
“Are Eric and Harry still asleep?” I asked.
“No, they went out for breakfast,” Dimitri said.
“This apartment’s like Grand Central Station and they wanted some alone-time,” Emma said. “Serves him right. It’s the nicest place for folks to gather in the entire building.”
“Dimitri, did you sleep on Stewart’s couch again last night?” I asked.
“I did. Honestly, that couch is a lot more comfortable than the bed I’ve been sleeping on. I’m half inclined to move in.”
“You’re more than welcome to,” Stewart said. “Of course, it really isn’t my place to offer, but—”
“The apartment’s yours for as long as you need it,” Emma said.
“Maybe they’ll take you running with them tomorrow morning, Dimitri,” I said. I smirked, and took another piece of cinnamon roll.
We decided to take Emma’s car down the Cape. Though the Mini-Cooper had less room inside then my car did, it was a more comfortable ride. Besides, I was too distracted to drive and I suspected Emma knew that.
We’d been driving for a few minutes when she looked over at me. “Hard to believe that last night was only last night. You know?”
“You mean Kate?”
“Yes. Poor Kate. She wasn’t always my favorite person, but no one deserves—”
“You’re right, Emma. No one deserves to die like that. We’ll make sure she gets justice, I promise you that.”
“What do you mean? I thought you were off the case.”
“Taking a bit of a break, letting the police do their thing. Clearing my head. But I’m not convinced they’re going to necessarily do right by Gus. Dimitri was right last night when he said Gus was the perfect suspect in all of this. Mind you, I don’t want them to stop looking for him. But I can’t help but think it would be better if we found him first.”
“Are we going to look for Gus? Or are we going to pick up some sailcloth?
“Right now, we’re going to pick up some sailcloth. Get some fresh air, see the ocean—”
“Let’s have a nice lunch somewhere that has decent seafood and some good beer,” Emma said. “Then we’ll head back and meet with Jerry. Hopefully we’ll have a clearer picture about questions to ask. Who knows, maybe Jerry will be down here too.”
“Too?” I said.
“I keep forgetting, you don’t know the area. My house is in one of the Cunninghams’ first gated community projects, Century Cape. I’m not sure if you remember a few years ago, when there was a plot of land on the Cape that was rezoned for property use? On top of a landfill.”
“That must have been a hard sell,” I said.
“Not this kind of development. This included a nine-hole golf course, some townhouses, small cottages, a few more upscale houses. All developed around a man-made lake in the middle of the neighborhood. Ocean views for a few houses. A limited number of housing units. The golf club and course were private, for residents only. Manufactured Cape Cod charm.”
“Sounds a little awful,” I said.
“Doesn’t it? I was skeptical. But after Terry spent several weekends down there golfing, I came down with him one weekend and saw the house. I fell in love. The entire neighborhood feels like it’s been here forever, but it’s less than ten years old.”
“So you and Terry bought the place.”
“We did. It’s how we started doing business with the Cunning-hams. Terry figured if they could create Shangri-La on a dump, maybe they had something. Anyway, I own a small three-bedroom cottage, Cape style. It has a great porch that oversees the ocean in the distance. The Cunninghams’ house is grander, right on the water. Bigger but not ostentatious. It’s a little more like those small Victorian summer cottages up in Trevorton. Two floors. Basements. Widow’s walks.”
“How did the town like the project?” I asked.
“The project really turned the area around. Because of the increased tax base, the town built a new elementary school. An arts center was built as part of the work the Century Foundation. I think the Century Foundation was originally created just to help that arts center get off the ground and get staffed. But then the Cunninghams’ charitable work took off too.”
“All this was just ten years ago?” I asked. “What did the Cunninghams do before they built things?”
“They lived in California up until they moved east a few years ago. Remember when I mentioned that Eric was starting to do some research? He’s got a couple of people sending him reports, and he’s passing them to me. I was up half the night reading. Seems like the Cunninghams lived out in California for about fifteen years, in different towns. Same sort of legacy, huge projects that were done with partners. Then one of them, the Elements Tower I think it was called, started running into construction issues. There were design flaws that required more investment. Everyone was surprised when their business declared bankruptcy. A lot of folks were left holding the bag. The Cunninghams blamed their partners.”
“Wow,” I said. “Why hasn’t this story been told publicly?”
“According to everything I read, mostly last night, mind you, nobody blamed the Cunninghams per se. But it seemed as if the business environment became more hostile to them, a little less likely to give them resources or the benefit of the doubt. So they moved here.”
“What do you mean by ‘benefit of the doubt’?” I asked.
“What do I mean by ‘benefit of the doubt’? You know, when you’re just starting out you need to have money to do anything. At first, businesses really need to see that cash, or evidence of that cash, before they’ll go into business with you. But then after a while, trust and reputation kick in. Folks assume that you’re good for the cash. You always have been. In the trust phase you can have access to a lot of cash without any collateral.”
We were making good time out of the city, whizzing down 93, heading toward Route 24. “Works the same with funders,” I said. “You need money to get money. You only saw the reports last night?”
“Eric and Gus were doing research for a while. They kept me out of it, but after Kate was killed, Eric thought I should know everything. Last night he emailed me a couple of the reports that Gus sent him on Monday. According to everything Gus could find, the Cunninghams were, and are, flat broke.”
“Broke?”
“Broke.”
“What does broke mean in your world?” I asked. “They were down to their last million?”
“At the minimum, the Cunninghams were in over their heads,” Emma said, ignoring my jab. “They could come out of it, but it would take some new partnerships, or investors with cash to add.”
“What got Gus wondering about all of this?”
“He started to hear rumors that bills weren’t getting paid on Century Projects, so he started checking on the finances. He was building a case—”
“Building a case was in his DA blood.”
“Well, given what I was going through, he and Eric decided to leave me out of it until they had proof.”
“Proof ? Of what?”
“I guess to Gus’s far more cynical mind, the Cunninghams were running a slow con. Gus was doing his best to untangle the Whitehall company from them, and to make sure that when and if the Cunningham Corporation went down, the Whitehall reputation didn’t suffer. Well, didn’t suffer any more than it already has. After last Christmas, the old family name is a bit tarnished.”
“Can you forward me these reports you’ve been reading?” I asked.
“Once we stop. Five miles to the bridge. Whoosh. That always makes me so happy, seeing that sign. We’re heading down to one of my favorite places on earth. Or it was. Terry and I were happiest here, away from my family and the business. But I think I may want to sell the house, my secret hideaway.”
“Secret? What do you mean by that?”
“It’s a tight-knit community. You have to sign guests in; you can’t rent out your house. When Terry and I were down here, I was almost convinced we could be happy. Eric knows how I feel about this place, and how I feel about the Cunninghams. He told me Gus has been working on building this case against them for a while.”
“When did he loop Eric in?”
“The last week or so. Gus wanted to be sure, I guess. But apparently the feds have caught on to the scam somehow. A friend of Eric’s tipped him off to this last night. That’s why Eric sent me the reports, to get me up to speed so we could legally get ahead of it.” Emma’s eyes were focused on the road, which was just as well. I would have hated for her to see the irritation on my face.
“Anything else you haven’t told me?” I asked.
“No, that’s it,” she said, looking over at me. A tear rolled down her face. “I’m sorry. I should have woken you up last night, but I wanted to go through the reports on my own. Process them.”
“Eric isn’t trying to handle this himself, is he? The legal stuff, I mean.”
“No, that’s why he called his friend to get some recommendations on forensic accountants. His friend is also a lawyer. Eric’s immersing himself in the numbers, and in the files we shared with him. He’s going to meet with his friend tomorrow, in case we need legal advice and we don’t find Gus in time to get him up to speed.”
The silence hung.
“Like I said, as soon as we stop, I’ll forward you the reports,” Emma said. “Can you read while you’re riding in the car?”
“Yes. One of the side effects of being a cop for so long.”
“Then you’ll know what I know. We’ll go get this sailcloth, then we’ll get some fresh air and a nice lunch. After that we’ll head back, meet with Eric, go to our meeting with Jerry, get in touch with your friend Toni, and get back to work looking for Gus.”
“Full day,” I said.
Turns out, enough fabric to cover a set is a lot of fabric. A lot. The two guys who were loading the sailcloth laughed really hard when they saw the Mini-Cooper.
“Do you have another car coming?” they asked.
“Nope, just the one. Don’t worry, it will fit,” Emma said.
She climbed into the back of the car to move some things around, lower seats, and perform other magic acts. The guys brought out bolts and bolts of fabric, but they all fit. It was like a clown car for sailcloth.
“And this is all fire retardant?” I asked. I was used to some of the rules around fabric when it’s used onstage, and I’d learned it’s better to be safe than sorry.
“Ay yup. Here’s the certificate in case anyone has any questions.”
I looked inside the envelope the man handed me and pulled out the legal certification about the fabric itself. “Terrific, thanks. You need me to sign anything?” I asked.
“Yes, if you can just initial this sheet here, that we gave you all the fabric, that would be great,” he said. “What are you going to do with it?”
“I’m not exactly sure, but I think your cloth is going to save the set of Romeo and Juliet.”
“My wife loves that play,” he said. “She drags me to every production of it she hears about.”
“Well, tell you what. Give me your name, and you can bring your wife to see it at Bay Rep.”
“She’d love that. Much appreciated. Ed, Ed Shea,” he said, shaking my hand.
“Sully Sullivan. Great to meet you.”
“Sully?”
“Born Edwina,” I said. “My father gave me the nickname. Ed, I hate to be a pain, but could I get a copy of the receipt I just signed?” I had no idea what Babs or Holly required for paperwork but I wanted to make sure everything was all set. Given all that was going on, the last thing they needed was to have to track down a receipt.
“Sure, come on in.”
I followed Ed into the shop. He walked over to a copier and turned it on. I lagged behind to take a look at the room. The open space was both a workroom and a showroom. Pictures of beautiful boats were everywhere. Samples of wood and sailcloth were displayed on one wall. A big book of paint colors was strewn across one of the desks. There was no pretension in this room, but there was a lot of quality. Quality that likely cost a lot of money, but I admired that the room said much more about quality than show. I walked over to one of the walls and looked at a series of photos of beautiful sailboats racing in the harbor.
“You in the market?” Ed asked.
“In the market?”
“For a boat,” he said. “I’ve been watching you look around, take it in. Even caught you running your hand along that twenty-seven footer out in the yard.”
“It reminded me of a boat my dad had when I was growing up. We used to have wonderful adventures on that boat. I miss it. I miss him.”
Ed nodded. “No boat of your own?” he asked gently.
“Not yet. I live up in Trevorton, and occasionally I’ll lease a boat and take her out for sail. But I haven’t taken the plunge myself. It’s a big step. You need to have time to take care of her.”
“I wish more folks thought like you,” he said. “Nothing sadder than to see a boat somebody bought as a trophy sitting out in its mooring, never used. A lot of that going on these days.” Ed was a true New Englander. Part cranky Yankee, part old salt, part big softy.
As I was leaving the office, I happened to look to the wall on the right. There was an architectural drawing of a dock with several boats tied up to it, and a small open bar that went over the edge of the water.
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“I should take it down. That, friend, was a pipe dream of mine I honestly thought I would see become a reality. An old man’s foolishness. What made me think a big operation like the Century Project would be interested in my idea? Just wish they hadn’t dragged so many people into the whole thing.”
“The Century Project? Jerry and Mimi Cunningham’s project?”
“The same. ’Course, I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but they sure had us going for a while. Promised they’d fund my bar, expand the boatyard, and support a couple of other projects. Gave us enough money to get started, but checks started to bounce. We had to stop work two weeks ago. They’re not in any rush to come down here. And now with everything that’s happened back in Boston—you hear about that?”
“I’ve heard about it, yes,” I said.
“Like I said, I’m not wanting to speak ill of the dead, but Jerry Cunningham sure won’t get a lot of sympathy down here. Broke a lot of folks’ hearts, he did. Including mine.”