Chapter 7

 

Monica spent the rest of the morning—what was left of it at least—in the farm kitchen with Kit finishing up the baking and taking inventory of their supplies.

By one o’clock, she was famished and decided to head back to her cottage to make a sandwich. She was about to open a can of tuna when the phone rang.

It was Andrea, and she sounded rather distraught. She insisted that Monica come to lunch, and Monica reluctantly agreed.

She hung up the phone and sighed. She’d been looking forward to a quick and quiet lunch and then back to work in the farm kitchen. But Andrea had her concerned, and she felt she owed it to her friend to sit with her for a bit.

Mittens rubbed up against Monica’s leg and purred loudly.

“Sorry, Kitty,” Monica said. “We won’t be having the tuna after all.”

She knew she was imagining it, but she could have sworn that Mittens actually looked disappointed, as if she’d understood every word Monica had said.

Monica slipped on a light jacket and headed out the door.

The trip to Andrea’s didn’t take long and soon she was pulling into the circular drive in front of the Laszlos’ house.

It was a lovely home with gray shingles and white trim—the sort of house Monica imagined might have been built by a ship’s captain. The garden was still in bloom with late perennials that lined the flagstone walk to the front door.

Andrea answered the bell almost immediately. She was wearing a casual—and casually expensive—pair of cream-colored slacks and a black cashmere short-sleeved sweater. Her short hair was sleek and shiny, as if she’d actually polished it until it actually shone.

Monica immediately felt underdressed in her jeans and flannel shirt, which she realized still had flour on it. She wiped her feet carefully and followed Andrea into the house and down the hall to the kitchen.

Monica looked around. The room was stunning with white cabinets, granite countertops and a bay window offering views of the lake.

Monica noticed a wineglass sitting on the counter—half empty—with lipstick on the rim that matched Andrea’s.

“I hope you don’t mind if we eat in the kitchen?” Andrea said. “The dining room is so large and formal, I thought we’d be more comfortable in here.”

“This is lovely,” Monica said, eyeing the carefully set table with its blue and white flowered placemats and matching napkins.

“It’s nothing fancy,” Andrea said as she pulled open the door to the enormous stainless steel refrigerator and removed two lunch plates. She set them on the table. “Why don’t you sit there,” she said, pointing to one of the seats. “You’ll be able to see the view then.”

Monica took the seat Andrea indicated and put her napkin in her lap.

“Would you care for a glass of wine?” Andrea asked. She opened a cupboard and took out a wineglass.

“No, thanks. Water is fine.”

Andrea shrugged, retrieved a chilled bottle of white wine from the refrigerator and topped up the glass Monica had noticed sitting on the counter. She filled another glass with water and ice and handed it to Monica.

Andrea had prepared shrimp salad in lettuce cups along with sliced tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Monica was starved and really enjoyed the meal. She noticed that Andrea, though, made a pretense of eating by pushing her food around on her plate, barely taking more than a tiny nibble of her shrimp salad.

“I hope you’re not still letting the fact that you were questioned by the police bother you,” Monica said when she’d finished eating.

“It’s hard not to,” Andrea admitted, dabbing her lips with her napkin. “If Bruce were alive, he’d tell me to stop worrying. He always said I worried too much.” She frowned. “But it’s difficult not to under the circumstances.”

“Of course,” Monica said. “I can understand.”

“And there’s so much to do.” Andrea ran a hand through her hair, leaving it unusually rumpled. “Not just the funeral arrangements—that’s all been taken care of. But going through Bruce’s things, our accounts, his desk . . .” She sighed. “It’s a huge amount of work.”

“I understand,” Monica said again. “It’s also very emotional work.”

“Yes, it is. And I think that’s what’s really getting to me. There were good times, too, you know.”

Andrea drained the last bit of wine from her glass, pushed back her chair and got up.

She opened the refrigerator and took out the bottle of chardonnay again.

“Are you sure you don’t care for some?” She held the bottle up toward Monica.

“No, thanks.”

Andrea refilled her own glass, returned the wine to the refrigerator and sat down again.

“Bruce took care of our finances. After all, that was what he was good at. I never asked any questions, and if I did, he would tell me not to bother myself about it.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve been going over everything trying to familiarize myself with it, although in the end, I suppose I shall let our accountant deal with it. The strange thing is . . .” She ran her finger around and around the base of her wineglass. “There’s plenty of money in our accounts—checking, savings, CDs and all that. But . . .” Again, she hesitated. “Bruce’s investments weren’t doing well. Stocks on the decline, that sort of thing.”

Andrea took a sip of her wine. “I don’t pretend to understand it all but . . .” She shrugged and pushed her chair back. “Can I show you something?”

“Yes.”

Monica stood also and followed her into a room off the central hall that was obviously Bruce’s study. The study was comfortably but nicely furnished with a large antique wooden partner’s desk with a very modern-looking computer on top. The sofa and chairs were upholstered in white duck and the walls and the tops of the end tables were covered in framed photographs, mostly sailing pictures: the Laszlos’ boat; Laszlo at the helm on the open water, his curly blond hair blowing in the breeze; Laszlo proudly holding up a fish he’d caught.

Monica went up to one picture to examine it more closely. In it, Laszlo was holding a silver cup and grinning broadly.

“That’s when Bruce won the Cranberry Cove–to-Chicago challenge,” Andrea said, coming up in back of Monica. “He was very proud of that trophy. He had a special case built for it. It’s in the living room. He would be devastated to know that it’s been stolen.”

“The police still haven’t found it?”

Andrea made a face. “No. Frankly, I don’t think it’s much of a priority. Not with Bruce’s murder that still needs solving.”

Andrea walked toward Laszlo’s desk. She opened a drawer and took something out.

“This is what I wanted you to see.” She handed Monica what turned out to be a photograph.

It was a picture of Laszlo with his arm around a woman—a pretty woman, fairly young, with long dark hair and large dark eyes.

Monica frowned and turned to Andrea, her eyebrows raised.

“I found it in Bruce’s desk under some papers,” Andrea said. “I knew he’d been dating someone before we met. I think that’s the woman.”

Monica looked at the picture again. The woman was certainly attractive, although in a completely different way from Andrea.

“Who is she? Do you know?”

Andrea shook her head. “No. Bruce never told me her name, just that there had been someone else. He said he ended it with her when he met me.”

“Oh?”

“I believed him,” Andrea said. “Although he never showed me that picture.”

Monica handed the photograph back to Andrea.

“He did say the breakup was messy though, that it was a nightmare—she cried and carried on and even tried to hit him. He knew she owned a gun. He was afraid for his life.”

“That is frightening.”

“Do you think it’s significant though? Maybe that woman”—Andrea held up the photograph—“maybe she still wanted revenge. Maybe she was the one who killed Bruce.”

“It’s possible,” Monica said. “He never mentioned her name?”

Andrea shook her head. “No. Never.”

“Not even a first name?”

“I’m afraid not. I asked him, but he said it was water under the bridge.”

“Can I see the photograph again?”

Monica studied it closely. “If we could figure out where it was taken, perhaps that would give us a clue. Maybe someone would recognize her.”

Andrea peered at the photograph with Monica.

“You can’t see much of the background, but there is something familiar about it.”

There was the very edge of a framed picture behind the couple and the woman had her hand on the back of a navy-blue-and-white-striped chair. It was tantalizingly familiar to Monica, but the answer eluded her—like a puff of smoke blown about on the wind.

Suddenly it came to her.

“That’s the Cranberry Cove Yacht Club, isn’t it?” She pointed to the chair. “That’s one of the chairs in the lobby.”

“I think you’re right,” Andrea said, taking the photo from Monica and peering more closely at it. “I wonder if anyone there would recognize the woman?”

“It’s possible.”

Andrea held the photograph out to Monica.

“Would you mind showing this around at the yacht club? I’d do it, but it might cause a fuss seeing as how we’re members and all . . .”

Monica groaned inwardly. She didn’t want to get any more involved in this than she had to. But she didn’t want to let Andrea down.

“All right. I can’t make any promises though.”

“Thank you,” Andrea said, giving Monica a quick hug.

Monica tucked the photograph into her purse. She hoped she wasn’t going to regret agreeing to this. If this woman had a gun as Laszlo had claimed, and she discovered that Monica was going around asking questions about her, there was no telling what she might do.

 

• • •

 

The sun had ducked behind a mass of dark clouds, leaving the landscape in shadows when Monica left Andrea’s house. She’d parked her car at the end of the driveway and thought she felt a drop of rain as she was walking toward it.

She glanced up at the sky. She thought of Jeff and his crew and hoped the weather would hold for the rest of the afternoon. Harvesting cranberries was wet enough work without rain rolling in.

Monica was almost to her car when she heard a rustling noise and turned to see an enormous Great Dane rushing toward her. She barely had time to feel fear before the animal was upon her, its massive paws on her shoulders and its huge pink tongue licking her face.

“Good dog,” Monica said reassuringly. “Good dog. Down now.”

Suddenly she heard someone calling in the distance. “Duchess, come back here, you naughty girl.”

The dog stopped licking Monica’s face and turned its head to listen.

A woman came into view. She was wearing white jeans, a black zip-up sweatshirt and the sort of colorful and expensive sneakers that were currently in vogue.

“I’m so terribly sorry,” she said breathlessly when she caught up to Monica. She grabbed the Great Dane by the collar. “Down, Duchess, down. Naughty girl.”

She managed to drag Duchess’s paws from Monica’s shoulders.

“Sit,” she commanded.

Duchess looked at her for several seconds and then slowly lowered herself into a sitting position.

“She’s a real sweetheart,” the woman said. “And she loves everybody. I hope she didn’t scare you too badly.” The woman held out her hand. “I’m Philippa Wentworth. And this is Duchess.” She pointed to the dog, who had decided to lie down in the grass. “We live just down the street.”

Philippa had silver hair cut short and pale blue eyes. Monica liked her instinctively.

“Are you friends with the new Mrs. Laszlo?” she said.

“Yes. We were in college together, although we hadn’t seen each other since until this summer.”

“I don’t know the new Mrs. Laszlo well at all. I heard about her husband’s death. How is she taking things, the poor dear?”

“As well as can be expected.”

Philippa nodded. “It must be a terrible shock.” She glanced at Duchess, who had gotten up and was sniffing around the base of a tree. “We were surprised when Bruce married again so soon after the death of his first wife.”

“His first wife died?” Monica said. “For some reason, I thought they were divorced.”

“Oh, no. It was a tragic accident,” Philippa said. “Or so Bruce would have had us believe. There were people who . . . well, never mind about that. It was only gossip. You know how people love to talk.”

Especially in Cranberry Cove, Monica thought.

“Gayle was dreadfully timid. And Bruce was so . . . so forceful, if you know what I mean. The poor thing was terribly intimidated by him.”

“Was she afraid of him?” Monica said.

Philippa froze. She didn’t answer for several long seconds. “I suppose she might have been.”

“How did she die?”

“Gayle? She drowned. It was terribly unfortunate.”

Monica raised an eyebrow.

“Gayle never did like the water. And she certainly didn’t want to go out that day with a storm obviously brewing.”

“Was this in that motorboat of Laszlo’s?”

Philippa gave a bark of a laugh. “Oh, no. That was just for running around. The Money Maker slept six people.”

“Money Maker?”

“Tacky, isn’t it? But then Laszlo wasn’t exactly known for his class. More like his crass.”

Monica laughed dutifully.

“He invested money for people and presumably made them money, hence the name of the boat.”

“It must have been quite big to sleep six people.”

“Oh, it was. He told Gayle he’d promised an investor and his wife that he’d take them on an overnight trip to Sleeping Bear Dunes up the coast. The funny thing is, when Laszlo came back to shore after the accident—the Coast Guard was still out looking for poor Gayle’s body—he was alone on the boat.”

“Alone?”

Philippa nodded. “Yes. So either he lied to get Gayle to go out with him or his investor canceled at the last minute.”

“That’s odd.”

“It certainly is. Everyone thought it was terribly fishy—no pun intended. It reminded me of that actress who fell overboard decades ago. Her husband was an actor. They never proved anything, but at the time, people wondered.”

“And people wondered about Laszlo?”

“They certainly did. Not that anyone said anything. They didn’t dare. Laszlo was the sort to have an attorney on speed dial, if you know what I mean.”