Chapter Five
Ted’s carefully crafted news budget, and Lucy’s plans to research conditions at Heritage House, as well as the police search for Agnes were all victims of breaking news on Friday when a helicopter carrying famous hi-tech billionaire Josh Hartman crashed into the sea near Quissett Point, the rocky peninsula that sheltered the town harbor. Lucy spent the entire day out on the point, watching the massive rescue attempt involving everyone from the US Coast Guard down to the local harbormaster. Bits of wreckage were spotted floating in the distance, and rescuers plied the water and air searching for survivors but none were found. Rescue eventually became recovery and the crowd of national and local reporters disbanded, seeking warmth and a hot meal. Lucy headed home, where she went straight into a hot shower, then tucked herself in bed and cranked the electric blanket up to maximum. She was still shivering when Bill brought her a bowl of steaming chowder and a hot toddy.
“It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d been dressed for it,” said Lucy, sipping the hot drink. “I didn’t expect to be outside all day, and once I was there I didn’t dare leave for fear of missing something.”
“They closed off the road to the lighthouse, they wouldn’t have let you back,” said Bill, sitting on the side of the bed and rubbing her legs. “I tried to bring you warm clothes but they wouldn’t let me through.”
“Thanks for trying,” said Lucy, spooning up some chowder with a shaky hand. “Any news about Josh Hartman?”
“Nope.” Bill shook his head. “You could say he was a victim of his own success. If he wasn’t the richest man in the world, and wasn’t flying around in a helicopter, he might still be alive instead of somewhere down in Davy Jones’s locker.”
“There were other people, too,” said Lucy. “The pilot and a group of company hotshots. They were supposedly looking at possible sites for a new company headquarters.”
“They must’ve flown too close to the sun,” said Bill philosophically, stroking his beard.
“So true. It’s better to be poor,” offered Lucy, “with both feet on the ground.”
“You said it.” Bill stood up. “When you warm up, do you think you’ll come down? Do you want me to save some dinner for you?”
Lucy yawned. “I think I’ll finish this and have a little nap.”
He smiled and kissed the top of her head. “Sleep tight.”
When Lucy woke up the tray was gone and the bedside clock read five o’clock, which meant she’d slept for an incredible ten hours. It was definitely time to get up, with a much-needed stop in the luxurious en suite bath Bill had installed when he renovated their master bedroom, turning it into a genuine master suite.
Much relieved, Lucy headed downstairs to start the coffeepot but was surprised to discover Zoe was already up and pouring herself a cup. “My goodness, you’re up early,” said Lucy.
“Don’t you remember? I’m going on a spring ski trip with the college ski club.”
“Right,” said Lucy, who dimly remembered something of the sort. She filled a mug for herself and sat down at the golden oak kitchen table. “Are you sure about this? Don’t you have that Sea Dogs interview on Monday?”
“Yeah. It’s in the afternoon. I’ll have plenty of time to get there.”
“Don’t you want to prepare?” Lucy took a long swallow of coffee. “Research the team, study their present PR effort . . . you should praise it but offer some constructive new ideas.” Another swig of coffee went down and Lucy was shifting into high gear. “You know what would be really valuable? Do some practice interviews. I could come up with some typical interview questions. You know, like where do you see yourself in five years? That sort of thing.”
“Five years!” Zoe laughed. “I haven’t got a clue about this summer!”
“Well, maybe you should give it some thought,” said Lucy, sensing she wasn’t making any headway with her daughter, who was already zipping up her ski pants.
“You know what I have been thinking about? Maybe you and Dad could give me an airplane ticket to Paris for a graduation present? It would be a nice break before I start working and I could stay with Elizabeth, she could show me around. . . .”
Lucy wasn’t convinced that her oldest daughter, Elizabeth, who lived in Paris and worked as a concierge at the tony Cavendish Hotel, would actually welcome a visit from her younger sibling. Furthermore, she wasn’t at all sure the family checking account was going to cover the mortgage payment this month, much less stretch to an expensive plane ticket. “We’ll see,” she said, employing the reliable parental response that had become automatic.
“See you later,” said Zoe, hoisting her skis over her shoulder and opening the door, letting in a gust of cold air. “Brrr,” she said, shivering. “I don’t think the weather got the memo, it’s supposed to be delightfully mild on the slopes.”
“Not too late to change your mind,” said Lucy, but Zoe was already gone and Lucy’s phone was already announcing a call. It was Ted, sending her back out to Quissett Point. This time she was going to dress for the weather, and bring along a thermos of hot soup.
* * *
On Monday morning, Lucy again watched her daughter depart, this time heading to Portland for the job interview. Zoe had only returned home five hours before; Lucy’s bedside clock read two-fifteen when she was wakened by Zoe thumping around in the kitchen. So much for her motherly admonition to be sure to get a good night’s sleep before her interview, she thought, rolling onto her other side and pulling the covers tighter around her shoulders. Zoe, however, was bright as a button and dressed for success at seven a.m., while Lucy was still groggy when she started on her second cup of coffee. “Good luck,” she said, when Zoe waved good-bye, thinking that her carefree daughter would need a lot more than luck to land the job.
The helicopter crash was still dominating the radio news when Lucy drove to work, dressed once again in thermal underwear. She learned with a sense of relief that the helicopter had been recovered, along with the bodies of Josh Hartman and the other occupants still strapped into their seats, which meant she would not have to spend another day freezing out on Quissett Point. Hartman himself was lauded as a technology pioneer, a philanthropist, and a visionary CEO, information that she could use to write up an obit while roasting in her long underwear in the toasty office. Listening to the accolades, she thought briefly of Agnes Neal but assumed she had most likely returned to Heritage House, safe and sound and wondering why anyone had been worried about her. But when she got to the office, Phyllis told her that Ted wanted her to go straight to Blueberry Pond where the police were dragging the icy water for Agnes’s body.
“She’s still missing?” asked a very surprised Lucy. “How come it wasn’t on the news?”
“It’s all Josh Hartman, all the time,” said Phyllis. Today she was a human daffodil, togged out in green pants and a yellow shirt, and had brought a couple of bunches of supermarket daffs which she set in a vase on the reception counter. “Poor Agnes got lost in the shuffle.”
“And I’m going to spend another day out in the cold,” said Lucy, sighing as she put her gloves back on.
“Hopefully it won’t be all day,” said Phyllis.
When Lucy arrived at the pond, there were several police cruisers in the parking lot and an aluminum boat was out on the water. The heads of a couple of divers could be seen bobbing about near the boat, in between dives. The very thought of immersing oneself in the cold water, where bits of ice were still floating here and there, made her shiver.
“Any progress?” she asked Police Chief Jim Kirwan, who was standing by along with Barney Culpepper and a couple of other officers. They were all dressed for the weather in official police cold-weather gear, which reminded Lucy of the one-piece snowsuits she used to zip the kids into when they were small. Neither officer could be called small, however, especially Barney, who was well over six feet tall and whose girth had been steadily expanding through the years. His jumpsuit was definitely showing signs of strain.
“Not yet, probably never. We’ve got to do it but I don’t expect to find anything except somebody’s old washing machine,” said the chief.
“One year we found a bunch of stolen bicycles,” offered Barney, loosening the zipper that was pinching his three chins.
“Why steal the bikes if you’re only going to toss them in the pond?” asked Lucy.
“A reasonable question,” said Kirwan, “but then again, Lucy, you’re not fourteen years old.”
“Point taken,” said Lucy, watching as one of the divers disappeared beneath the surface of the pond. “How long do you think this will take?”
“Not long, I hope. The visibility is usually pretty good in this pond, especially now since nobody’s been swimming or boating and roiling up the bottom.”
“I guess since you’re dragging the pond there’s been no sign of Agnes. No reports of sightings, anything like that?”
Kirwan sighed and Barney shifted his considerable weight from one foot to the other and back again. “No sign of her at all,” said Kirwan.
“Phone and credit cards?” asked Lucy.
Barney shook his head, then produced a large cotton handkerchief from one of the suit’s many pockets and gave his nose a good blow. “My nose always runs in the cold,” he explained. “Maybe I’m allergic or something. Can you be allergic to the cold?”
“I sure am,” agreed Lucy, shivering and stamping her feet. “So if you don’t find Agnes in the pond, what next?”
Kirwan shrugged. “I’m out of options. We do our best to get the word out but there’s a lot of missing persons, and most of them are doing their best to stay that way.”
In response to Lucy’s puzzled expression, he explained. “A lot of these folks are escaping a bad situation, like crushing debts, or starting a new life. Getting a fresh start, maybe with a lover.”
“Somehow I don’t think that applies to Agnes,” said Lucy.
“No. Folks like her are the most frustrating cases of all. She was a keen naturalist and bird-watcher, and there’s a whole lotta nature around here. We’ve done a foot search of the conservation areas, the places bird-watchers frequent, but if she went farther afield, well, I just don’t have the resources to search every bit of woods around here. If she spotted a pileated woodpecker or some such and started following it, she could have twisted an ankle or broke a leg or got lost. She could have had a stroke, or heart attack, something like that, and chances are that if she went far enough, we’ll never know what happened.”
Lucy thought of the thousands of acres of fields and forests, all undeveloped land, in Tinker’s Cove alone. “You mean you might never recover her body?”
The two officers looked at the ground, then Barney spoke up. “Hunting season, in the fall, that’s our best chance.”
Out on the pond, Lucy noticed the divers were climbing into the boat, which then motored toward shore. The search had come up empty.
Lucy couldn’t shake the image of all that emptiness as she drove back to town, keeping an eye out along the road for any sign of Agnes: a scrap of blue windbreaker, the fluttering pages of a bird book, a glint of light reflected from a binocular lens. She thought of the possible mishaps that could have felled her: a broken bone, a twisted ankle, a stroke. How awful it would be to suddenly become helpless and to lie alone in the cold, waiting for help that never came. She hoped that wasn’t the case, but feared it was the most likely scenario.
At the office, Lucy was greeted by a fishy aroma. “Sorry about the smell,” said Phyllis, who was eating a fish sandwich. “I reheated my lunch in the microwave, I didn’t realize it would be so stinky.”
“It’s not stinky, it’s making me hungry,” said Lucy, shrugging out of her parka. She had also brought her lunch, a pot of yogurt and a handful of mini carrots, which had seemed a good idea at seven o’clock but wasn’t very appealing now, compared to Phyllis’s fragrant sandwich. She considered the various options offered on Main Street, which were limited to the high-priced gourmet sandwich shop, the pizzeria, and the pre-wrapped days-old salads and sandwiches at the Quik-Stop, and decided to stick with her yogurt and carrots. She was spooning up the last of the yogurt when her phone rang. The caller was Geri Mazzone.
“Any news?” asked Lucy.
“They dragged the pond.”
“I know. I was out there.”
“Mom didn’t fall into a pond, and if she twisted an ankle or something, believe me, she’d make herself a splint or a crutch and get herself some help. She was a survivor, she was a war correspondent, for Pete’s sake. She was shot at, bombed, strafed, you name it, she survived it. She never went out without her survival kit. . . .”
“Survival kit?” asked Lucy.
“Yeah. Bandages, a tourniquet, a knife, stuff like that. And she kept her phone charged. And really, what could happen in these woods the chief keeps telling me about? There’s a lot of woods, sure, but most of them aren’t actually that far from a house, right? And as for a stroke or heart attack, well, I wish I had my mom’s blood pressure.” She paused. “Or her energy. I don’t know how she did it but I couldn’t keep up with her at the mall.”
“So what do you think happened?” asked Lucy.
“Foul play, for lack of a better term. She probably got wind of some injustice, something not right, and started investigating, and—” Geri’s voice broke, and she struggled a few minutes before continuing, “I have a bad feeling about Heritage House. I think there’s something rotten there and Mom found out about it.”
In all the years she’d been a reporter Lucy had learned to listen carefully to sources, but not to always believe them. Some people thought they could manipulate the news for their own ends, some people outright lied because they didn’t want the truth to be known, and some people wanted to shame or hurt others. “Do you have any proof of this?” she asked.
“Not a shred,” admitted Geri. “I just have a bad feeling about the place.”
“Well, I’ll keep your concerns in mind,” said Lucy. “And I hope your mom turns up safe and sound.”
“Me too, but I don’t think she will,” said Geri, sniffing. Her voice broke as she added, “I’ve pretty much given up hope.”
Lucy was thoughtful as she tossed the empty yogurt container into the trash and uploaded the photos she’d taken at the pond onto her computer. They offered a bleak scene of bare trees, gray sky, and slate-gray water that served as a backdrop to the dark silhouettes of the rescue boat and divers. Lucy scrolled through them, picked the best ones, and sent them to Ted.
That chore done, she considered calling one of the selectmen to get a preview of the agenda for the upcoming meeting, or perhaps call the school superintendent, or maybe one of the members of the school board to get a quote about that controversial budget increase, but knew her heart wasn’t in it. She impulsively stood up, grabbed her parka and bag, and headed for the door. “Where to?” asked Phyllis.
“Miss Tilley,” said Lucy, zipping up her parka.
“Is she okay?” asked Phyllis, concerned.
“Far as I know she’s fine and dandy, and I have a job for her.”
Lucy found Miss Tilley seated in a comfy recliner in her room, hidden behind the latest edition of the New York Review of Books.
“That’s pretty heavy reading,” said Lucy, announcing her arrival.
Two bright blue eyes peered at her over the Review. “Interesting article deconstructing Norman Mailer’s postmodern macho persona in light of the Me Too movement.”
“Can’t wait to read it,” said Lucy somewhat sarcastically.
“It’s dry as dust,” said Miss Tilley, dropping the publication in her lap. “You can imagine how bored I am if I’m reading this.” She slapped the paper for emphasis. “There’s absolutely nothing for me to do here except my PT exercises.”
Lucy perched herself on the side of the hospital bed. “Now, now, that’s an exaggeration. There’s plenty to do.”
Miss Tilley rolled her eyes. “It’s like kindergarten. Make an Easter bonnet out of a paper plate. Play bingo. Or how about Scrabble? Some of these poor old dears can’t even spell simple words.” She let out a big sigh. “I put in ‘xiphias’ yesterday and got a triple word score, too, but the idiots I was playing with wouldn’t accept it.” She snorted disdainfully. “Made me take it out.”
“And what, pray tell, is a xiphias?”
Miss Tilley looked at her with great disappointment. “A fish, of course.”
“Ah, right,” replied Lucy. “You know I might have a solution for your problem. Something you could do for me.”
Miss Tilley lowered her eyelids and gave her a suspicious glance. “Will it get me in trouble?” she asked somewhat eagerly.
“Not if you do it right,” said Lucy, smiling. “Geri Mazzone, Agnes Neal’s daughter . . . you know, the woman . . .”
“The lady who vanished.”
“Right. Well, Geri keeps calling me and claiming there are problems here at Heritage House. She won’t say exactly what, just that there’s something not quite right going on.”
“I’ll say!” exclaimed Miss Tilley. “They’re trying to bore us to death.”
“Something more than that, I imagine, though Geri wouldn’t say exactly what. She did say that she thought her mother had uncovered something amiss.”
“And you want me to risk vanishing like poor Agnes in order to find out what’s going on?”
“No! Just keep your eyes and ears open, that sort of thing. Let me know if anything catches your attention.”
“I suppose I could,” agreed Miss Tilley somewhat grudgingly. “Would there be something in it for me?”
“Well, I suppose so.” Lucy’s thoughts ran to a new book, perhaps along with a box of Fern’s Famous Fudge. “What would you like?”
Miss Tilley promptly replied, “A couple of bottles of sherry? The dry cocktail kind, of course. Not that disgusting sweet stuff.”
“I suppose that sort of thing is strictly forbidden?”
“Not if no one finds out about it.”
Lucy smiled. “You got it, I’ll bring it next time I come.”
“Just call me Miss Marple,” said Miss Tilley, with a naughty smile.
Lucy was still shaking her head over her old friend’s feisty attitude when she reached the lobby and encountered Howard and his fan club of three.
“Ah, Lucy,” exclaimed Howard, greeting her with a warm smile. “Just the person we need.” He lowered his voice, and the three women leaned in closer. “I suppose you have the inside scoop on Agnes’s disappearance?”
“Isn’t that the strangest thing?” asked Bitsy, her eyes huge. “How does a person just disappear? Here one minute and gone the next . . .”
“And in this day and age,” added Bev. “We’ve got astronauts in space, we know where they are, but we can’t keep track of people here on planet Earth.”
“Two entirely different things, Bev,” said Dorothy. “You really can’t compare them.”
“Of course I can,” insisted Bev. “If they can track astronauts, why can’t they find Agnes?”
“Because there’s no tracking devices on Agnes,” fumed Dorothy. “Why would there be? She’s not zooming around in space, she’s presumed to be safe here on earth in Tinker’s Cove.”
“Ladies, ladies,” said Howard, stepping in to referee. “Maybe Lucy, our intrepid reporter, has some news for us.”
“I wish I did,” said Lucy. “But as far as I know Agnes is still missing. Her daughter is very worried.”
“I’m sure she is,” said Bitsy. “She’s such a good daughter. She visits every week.”
“It must be absolutely awful for her,” added Bev.
“On the other hand, she’s an only child and I imagine she will inherit a tidy sum from Agnes. . . .” offered Dorothy.
“Shame on you, Dorothy!” exclaimed Bitsy.
“The last thing on her mind, I’m sure,” exclaimed Bev.
“Now, now,” said Howard, “I’ve heard that Florida Dawkins has come up with a very exciting Easter bonnet idea. . . .”
This did not go over well with the group.
“Are you sure?”
“Who told you that?”
“She must be getting advice from outside,” speculated Dorothy. “Isn’t her daughter a fashion designer?”
“Oh, my!” exclaimed Bitsy, shocked to her core. “Isn’t that cheating?”
Howard didn’t answer, he was studying his cell phone. After tucking it away in his pocket, he turned to the group. “Well, I’m sure you will all want to get to work planning your bonnets, and I have been summoned elsewhere, so I’m afraid I must bid you all adieu.” He gave Lucy a nod and a smile, turned, and marched off stiffly down the hallway toward the skilled nursing section.
“She sends him a text and off he goes,” sniffed Bitsy, linking arms with her friends.
“Honestly, I don’t see the appeal. She’s well over ninety if she’s a day and, like my mother used to say, she’s too smart for her own good,” observed Bev, as the group started off down the hall, arm in arm. “And we all know that men don’t like smarty-pants women.”
“And she certainly hasn’t taken care of her appearance,” said Bitsy, pausing before offering an even more shocking allegation. “I don’t think she’s ever had a facial, or even uses moisturizer. She doesn’t even bother with lipstick.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter, at his age,” said Dorothy. “He probably doesn’t see all that well. I think what Howard finds attractive is her mind, he likes talking about current events and politics.”
Lucy watched, amused, as the group moved away, certain that they were gossiping about Howard’s new flame, Miss Tilley.