Charlie’s car was noticeably absent when Nell finally drove into her driveway just before dinner. A meeting in Gloucester had blessedly taken her a few miles away from the pall settling over Sea Harbor like a suffocating storm cloud. But now she was home—and there was still a murderer roaming free, and the cloud still hovered.
She realized when she saw the empty space that she was unexpectedly relieved. She wanted to see Ben first before she saw Charlie. Ben was her sounding board, the person who grounded her. Someone who would ease the anxiousness that had traveled with her to Esther’s and to Coffee’s, to Gloucester, and back.
She wanted to talk to him about seeing Andy Risso with Amber. And a hug that sent Charlie off in a huff so angry he nearly broke his hand on a granite boulder.
And Birdie’s conversation with Amber had rained even more confusion into their thoughts.
She climbed out of her car, her thoughts as heavy as the bag of groceries she’d picked up on the way home, and glanced at a car parked at the curb in front of the house. Danny? She tried to read a mental calendar. Monday night. Was there something going on she’d forgotten about?
She hurried inside the house, the day’s anxiety weighing her down with irrational worry. Danny was in and out of their house all the time; there was no need to be apprehensive.
He was sitting at the kitchen island, his long legs wrapped around a stool, a laptop open in front of him. A half-empty bottle of beer sat next to the computer.
Nell dropped her purse on the couch and hurried across the room. “What’s up, Danny?” she asked, trying to hide the concern shadowing her face.
Danny looked up, pushing his glasses into a thick mess of sandy hair. “No worries, Nell. Ben took his car into the shop. I gave him a lift back. He’ll be down in a minute.”
From the floor above, she heard Ben in the bathroom, the sound of water in the sink, the familiar footsteps stomping across the bedroom and toward the back stairway.
Nell shrugged out of her coat. “I’m sorry for seeming fretful, Danny. I’m a little on edge.” She walked around the island and gave him a good squeeze. “How are you doing? The past few days haven’t exactly been a picnic for you.”
“I’m okay.”
“What have you been up to?” Nell set the bag of groceries down and poured herself a glass of wine.
Danny closed the lid of his computer and took a long swig of beer. “I worked in the bookstore some today, walked around town, then wrote in the library for a while. The peripatetic and oh-so-glamorous life of a writer,” he said, trying to draw a smile.
Nell missed the cue and pulled out another stool, her face serious. “It’s good to have this day over with,” she said. “Get the news out there. Let people digest it. Then try to deal with it and move on.”
Danny agreed. “You can feel the town tightening up, people looking at each other differently. Suddenly Amber Harper, a person lots of people around here had never heard of or seen before, is a bigger-than-life figure. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who knows her. And everyone seems to have seen her somewhere in the past week—at the Gull or in the bookstore or library or over at Cummings Northshore Nurseries—or hanging out with Izzy Chambers’s brother.”
And the last was the one most people would find most significant. “Each sighting is significant, true or otherwise,” Nell said softly.
“People just trying to understand it all,” Ben said, walking into the room.
He kissed Nell on the cheek. “I don’t like what conjectures do to people, but I get it,” he said, taking a beer from the refrigerator and snapping off the top. “It’s self-protection against the ugly unknown enemy. People are relieved that Amber is an outsider. That way whoever did this is an outsider, too.”
“And that means we’re all safe,” Danny said.
Ben’s point, exactly. But Amber wasn’t an outsider, not really—and the mind’s way of making us feel safe was wrought with flaws. Nell moved the conversation on. “Izzy told us about your talk with Jerry.”
“It was sobering,” Ben said. “They waited until Charlie had finished at the clinic and then they called him in again. He’s down at the station now. I offered to go along, but he’d already called Sam.”
“More questions,” Nell said, the fact obvious.
“Apparently Amber’s phone was packed with texts to and from Charlie. The police needed a few answers. Especially about the ones he sent to her on Saturday night.”
“We all know he was drinking that night,” Danny said. “Cass and I saw him as we were headed to the Gull to meet Sam and Izzy and the rest. He seemed pretty serious about it, too.”
“About?”
“The drinking. He had a beer in each hand. We tried to get him to come with us, but he said he had things to do and he wandered back toward the tent. Slightly wobbly but he seemed okay.”
“Was he alone?”
Danny nodded. “That surprised us, too. He had come with Amber, but she wasn’t with him. At least not at that moment.”
“I wonder how many other people saw him,” Ben said.
“And how many comments like that he made, words that could be twisted and turned to mean almost anything.”
Ben looked down at his vibrating phone. “It’s from Sam,” he said. He stepped aside to read the text.
Nell was peering in the refrigerator with hopes of spotting leftovers. Lots of condiments. Cheese and half-and-half. She closed the door.
“It seems people are scattered all over tonight,” Ben said.
“Who? Scattered where?” Danny finished off his beer.
“Cass and Birdie went to pick up some yarn at the shop and kidnapped Izzy on their way out. Birdie was lusting for one of the Gull’s burgers, so they’re indulging her and heading over to Jake’s. Janie Levin is babysitting Abby, so Sam and Charlie are heading that way, too. He said Charlie handled his latest inquisition okay.”
“Let me make a wild guess. There’s a game tonight?” Nell asked.
Danny laughed. “Pats are playing KC. Sam is probably looking for a distraction for Charlie. It’s not a bad idea.”
“So, shall the three of us eat here in quiet and peace?” Ben asked, checking game time on his cell phone.
Danny looked at him. “You’re a decent guy after all, Ben. Trying to save Nell from the greasy fries and leftover smoke in Jake’s place.”
“But I love Jake Risso,” Nell said, getting up. “Even more than the delicious pickles and cabbage and half-and-half in my refrigerator, begging to be eaten. Please warm your car, Danny. I’m going to put on some lipstick.”
• • •
The bar was only half-full, a relief to Nell. The noise was usually so loud its sheer force propelled her and Ben to the roof deck, not a comfortable place to be in December.
She smiled at Jake’s unique and familiar holiday decorations—a corner tree strung with blue lights and hung with miniature blue suede shoes, sparkling guitars, and dozens of tiny figurines of the king himself in white jumpsuits, gold lamé jumpsuits, and a shiny Jailhouse Rock costume. Each year customers added to the collection and the tree got bigger and bigger. More crowded. And more interesting.
Tonight a swirling ball played “Blue Christmas.” Over and over and over again.
Above them, Jake had hung a million colored icicle lights, the rows extending the entire length and width of the ceiling, all waving in the breeze of the ceiling fan. “Don’t look up,” Danny whispered as they walked in. “You’ll fall over.”
A round table near the bar offered a full view of three different television sets. Their group was already there, and the table filled with baskets of calamari and fried clams and pitchers of beer.
Nell looked over at the bar and met Jake Risso’s tired eyes. He was taking orders and pouring drinks, a towel hanging over one arm, but he looked between the bodies at the bar, seemed to cheer up a little when he saw Ben and Nell, and waved. Later, he mouthed, and turned back to the customers, limping a bit as he made his way up and down the bar.
Nell looked around, her eyes adjusting to the dim light.
“Who’re you missing?” Danny asked, catching her look.
“Andy Risso. I wanted to ask him something.”
“Out of luck. Pete tried to talk me into taking Andy’s place at a late-afternoon wedding reception gig they had today. Me. Who hasn’t touched a drum since I was fourteen. I guess Andy was doing double shifts at a place where he volunteers and he couldn’t make it. So Pete and Merry were handling the gig themselves, worrying about what a drumless Fractured Fish would sound like. I told them it had all the makings of a divorce for the poor couple paying them.”
Nell chuckled. It was just as well he wasn’t here. She wanted to talk with him, but the Gull might not be quite the right place, especially with Charlie sitting a few seats down the table from her, looking ten years older than he did last week.
She pulled her attention back to the group, to the chatter around her that expressed little of what was on anyone’s mind. Ben had settled down next to Charlie and the two were discussing quarterback matchups and whether Tom Brady would play till he was forty. And every few minutes they’d lapse into silence, eyes glued to the screen as they watched a Brady throw, a Gronkowski catch. A fumble. A touchdown.
When Nell got up to use the restroom, Jake maneuvered his way out from behind the bar and stopped her with a hug.
“There’s no joy in Mudville,” he muttered, then shook his head in slow motion, his chest heaving slowly in and out and strands of thinning white hair falling across his sweaty forehead.
“Are you doing all right? Esther told us about your kindnesses to Amber. And to her mother before her. You knew Ellie?”
“Like a daughter. That’s how my Marie felt about her, too. A daughter we never had.” He glanced at the bar to make sure the other bartender was taking care of his customers and then grabbed Nell’s arm. “Come ova here, Nellie,” he said, and pulled her into the narrow hallway that led to the restrooms. “I bet you never noticed my rogues gallery in here, huh?” He raised bushy eyebrows at her, then gestured with both hands to the walls. They were lined with rows of framed photographs.
She’d seen the pictures over the years but had never paid much attention. The light was dim in the hallway and she didn’t think they pictured anyone she would know.
“These go way back, all the way back to when Marie and I opened this place all those long years ago when Andy was just a twinkle in our eyes. Look here.”
He pointed a stubby finger at a black-and-white photo in a gold frame.
The figures were blurry, but there was Jake himself, a young man then with a full head of dark hair, his smile familiar, his wide crooked nose unmistakable. His face was clean shaven and smooth. Well-muscled arms were wrapped around a woman about his same height, with blond hair the exact color and length of Andy’s, with the same oval face and narrow nose, the same warm eyes and gentle demeanor. She and Jake were both laughing, the exuberance of youth wrapping them together in a hug so warm Nell had to look away for a minute, feeling the moment was intimate and should be private.
Behind the couple was the familiar green awning and gold marquee: THE GULL TAVERN.
Jake stared at it as if he had never seen it before—or perhaps because a long look would bring that day back, and along with it the woman he loved.
“Esther Gibson has told me wonderful stories about Marie. Your wife was well loved,” Nell said, her eyes lingering on the young couple, then on Jake’s face. “I wish I had lived here when she was alive.”
“You’da loved her. Marie was a saint. Absolute saint. You ask Esther, Father Northcutt. Mary Halloran. You ask anyone. Damn good thing Andy took after her, not me. And they were so close, those two. You know what my boy does? He volunteers at the place that cared for her when she was in hospice. My boy, he does that. Makes him feel close to her, he says.” Jake wiped the dampness from his eye with the back of his hand and hid his emotion behind a raspy laugh.
“Come on,” he said gruffly, and turned Nell to another line of photos on the opposite wall. Again he pointed one out for her attention. This one was also in black and white, but taken with a better camera, with inside light. The figures were distinct.
Lined up behind the same walnut bar was Jake, a couple of other bartenders and waitstaff, and right in the middle of the group, next to Jake, a young woman with a sweet smile, her face tilted up in pleasure, as if working at the Gull Tavern was the most amazing job in the world. Her auburn hair was pulled back into a ponytail.
“That’s her. That’s our Ellie girl, as we used to call her. She was a prize, that one. Never without a smile or nice word for anyone, even for some of these weather-beaten fishermen who come in here, loud and rowdy, the whole bunch of ’em. They all fell in love with her, every single one.”
Nell took a step closer and squinted at the image, looking for a resemblance to the young woman who had entered their lives this week, then so abruptly left. It was there in shades and nuances. Amber had her mother’s finely chiseled face, her eyebrows and brown hair. It was clearly there, the mother-daughter connection.
But she realized with sudden sadness that what transformed Ellie Harper from a nice-looking woman into a beautiful one—and what her daughter had lacked—was a joyful, magnificent smile, one that seemed to embrace all of life’s hopes and dreams.
She looked over at Jake and he mirrored her expression.
“Yeah, sometimes life serves up a pile of you-know-what. That little Amber, it was stacked up against her from day one. It ain’t fair. Never was.
“When she was just a kid, barely knee-high to a grasshopper with these long brown pigtails, she discovered her mom had worked here. She’d sneak in here like she was invisible and I’d find her in this hallway, right here, staring up at this picture. Just staring at it, like memorizing it, or maybe trying to replace her mind’s image of the woman in the nursing home who could never as much as give her a hug with this beautiful happy lady here. So I’d come stand beside her, tell her stories of that lovely lady who gave birth to her.”
Jake sighed, then took hold of Nell’s arm and walked with her back to the bar.
“I heard you might have introduced Patrick and Ellie?”
“Me? Nah. But it happened here. Patrick’s brother, Stu, was a regular from the day he was legal. Not anymore so much, but when he was starting out, feeling his oats. Helen didn’t like it much—she was more into martinis—so he’d come alone. Stu knew everyone, that one, quite a talker, just like he is now. And Ellie was as patient as a saint with him. Listened to his stories as if he were the only one in the bar. Then he brought Patrick in on his birthday to buy him a drink.”
“And he met Ellie.”
Jake nodded. “And worlds collided, as they say.”
It was a romantic story. With a tragic ending that Jake was replaying as he talked. Nell watched the deep sadness fill Jake’s eyes.
“Who could have done this to Amber, Jake?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been thinking and thinking.” He knocked on the side of his head. “But nothing comes to me. Nothing. Amber didn’t hurt anyone, didn’t do nothing.” He looked over at the round table where the others were sitting and talking, watching the game. He nodded toward Charlie. “He’s a nice guy, Izzy’s brother. I thought maybe, hey, maybe something is going on there, something good. And now—look at him. Miserable.”
“Yes, he is, Jake. He’s having a rough time with this—on all accounts, if you know what I mean.”
“I know, I know. It’s like they go for the husband or wife or lover first, like on the TV shows. People saw ’em together, so sure, they’re going to poke at him. But Thompson is a good cop. A fair one. He’ll figure it out.”
“She was asked to come to Sea Harbor for the will, Jake, but why do you think she came? Was it for closure?”
Jake gave the question serious thought. Finally he said, “I think it depends on which day.”
“Day?”
“It was like something was unfolding inside her last week, little by little. That night she came to town—she ended up in here, y’know. Maybe to see the photo, I dunno. Maybe because this was kinda her mom’s place. So that miserable cold night after Charlie dropped her off, this is where she came, to Jake’s.”
He said it as a point of pride, that Amber had somehow sought comfort at the Gull Tavern. A place where she felt safe.
“But anyways, we talked late that night before I called Esther and said I was bringing her over for dry clothes and a good night’s sleep. She told me she finally decided she needed to come back. She wanted to pick up her mom’s few things. Sign the damn papers for whatever Lady Lydia was leaving her—those were her words, not mine. And then disappear.
“But then things seemed to change, day by day, and I’m not sure why. Charlie brought her in here almost every night last week. Sometimes it was real late, her looking like she’d been studying for some awful dreaded test. Charlie being attentive. Getting her a beer, a hamburger. I liked that she had someone who seemed to be taking care of her.”
“But then her focus changed, like she was on a mission. Something happened, but I don’t know what. Like she was putting pieces of her mom’s life together, and she didn’t want to leave town until the picture was complete. She was hell-bent on figuring out the company, her company, I suppose you could say, or something. But there was more to it. She started asking me lots of questions about Ellie—like she’d discovered something about her when she was rummaging through Cummings files, something that turned her attention more to her mother. She focused on those last years when I’d visit Ellie now and then. Who cared for her? How much did it cost? Who came to see her? What was it like, the day that she died? All kinds of questions, most of which didn’t have answers, at least not from me.”
Nell listened carefully, trying to imagine Amber’s path those last days. Trying to make the questions fit together.
But the one image that stayed in her mind long after the others floated to the background was that of a young girl, a pigtailed little girl sneaking into a bar to stand in a back hallway, staring up at her mother.