“Four days, Jamie said.”
“Yes, four. He had a proper funeral. He’s buried in Busman’s Harbor Cemetery. Not the same as Ginny, or even similar.”
“Tragically coincidental, maybe,” I suggested.
Mom shrugged, uninterested. “The key word being coincidental.”
It was hard to see Bob Denison’s death as anything like Ginny’s. She hadn’t been in a boat. There’d never been a whisper that she was in any way impaired. And her body had never been found.
“What will you do next?” Mom asked, in the most matter-of-fact tone possible.
Next? I considered I’d done my duty. However, one look at Mom convinced me otherwise. She’d sat back from her plate, even though her food was only half gone, and was, quite literally, wringing her hands. I’d always envied those hands. Mom was petite, like me, but her fingers were long, proportionally, and slender. The silver wedding band and simple diamond engagement ring she still wore were loose on her fingers. The diamond spun around with every pass over it of her right hand.
I wasn’t sure what else I could do. Mom kept up the hand-wringing while I thought.
“I’ll go out to Chipmunk Island to see if there’s any gossip there,” I offered. She gave me a sharp look. “The kind of gossip that might point us in the right direction,” I clarified. Of course there was gossip. “But it’ll have to wait until I can take a shift off. If Emmy covers for me, I need to have a server to fill in for her.”
Mom nodded. She knew the requirements for running the Clambake even better than I did. She’d done it long before me. “Thank you,” she said.
CHAPTER FIVE
As it worked out, it was July 1, two weeks after the memorial, before I was able to return to Chipmunk Island. The Fourth and the days around it were among the Clambake’s busiest times and this year was no exception. We were fully booked for both lunch and dinner every day. But school had let out in Busman’s Harbor the week before, and several experienced employees who were teachers were now able and eager to work weekdays as well as weekends. We also had a full complement of JOATs, Jacks-of-all-trades, the high school students who served as runners, bussers, and fill-ins, the lowest level in the Clambake employee hierarchy. I had backup and my backup had backup. I decided to go to Chipmunk while I could. Mom had taken care not to nag me, but she had asked several times, in quiet, unnaggy tones, when I intended to go.
I took the Whaler from Morrow Island through the mouth of the harbor to Chipmunk. “Marina” was a generous name for the couple of docks off the island. Large boats were forbidden by the association charter. Those island families with bigger boats moored them at the Busman’s Harbor Yacht Club, a relatively short launch ride away.
There appeared to be nowhere to tie up. The uptick in visitors and activity on the island for the holiday was palpable, even at first glance. The island’s little sand beach, the access to the water for most of the island homes, was filled with people sitting on towels while children splashed and laughed in the water and teenagers in bathing suits threw a Frisbee on the grass behind a row of picnic tables.
Chris was on the dock, in a T-shirt and worn jeans, unloading packages and luggage from the mailboat. He waved and indicated by gesture that I should wait until the mailboat was gone and then dock in one of the two spaces it occupied. When the big boat finally left, he helped me secure the lines and offered a hand as I climbed out of the Whaler.
“What brings you back?” he asked, smiling. “The Clambake must be busy today, no?”
What indeed? “Ginny Merrill was a good friend of Mom’s. She’s been,” I searched for the right word, “unsettled by her death.” It was a poor explanation for why I was there, though true as far as it went.
Chris raised an eyebrow over a bright green eye. “You’re here to nose around,” he concluded. He did know me well.
“At Mom’s request,” I emphasized. There was very little Chris wouldn’t do for my mother, even now.
He nodded. He knew exactly what I was doing. “Where are you going to start?”
I’d thought about this a great deal in the intervening days. There were three courses of action open to me. I could hang around the island, wherever people gathered, and try to pick up what gossip I could about Ginny. I had rejected that one. I was a stranger, and I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome. No place on the island was truly open to the public. Every bit of land that didn’t belong to the individual homeowners belonged to the Island Association. Alternatively, I could speak to the members of the Wednesday Club. But I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to ask them. They didn’t know me, and I wasn’t sure how open they would be. Or I could go directly to Ginny’s house. I thought that was the best approach. Mom had seemed so disturbed by the state of the house, I wanted to spend time there and see the rest of it. “I want to go out to the Merrill house,” I said.
Chris pointed at the golf cart sitting at the end of the wooden boardwalk, loaded with bags of groceries, suitcases, and Amazon packages. “I’m headed that way. I can give you a lift if you don’t mind making a few stops.”
I agreed readily. Whatever lingering feelings of discomfort I had about spending extended time in Chris’s presence, he was offering me two birds with one stone. A tour of the island with someone who by this point in the season would know every resident and a lift to Ginny’s house. Perhaps, as the superintendent, he would even have a key. I climbed in beside him.
Our first stop was the general store. It stood at the edge of the green field at the center of the island next to the community center. A lively game of softball involving participants of all ages and genders was taking place on one of the ball fields. People sat in the wooden stands, providing much shouted advice and teasing to the players on the field. Diagonally across the green, in a far corner, eight people were using the tennis courts. I thought I spotted Marian’s distinctive square figure returning volleys forcefully.
The general store and community center were being decorated with red, white, and blue bunting for the holiday. Chris got out of the cart and pulled a box from the pile. I followed him, and he indicated with a dip of his broad shoulder which box I should bring. I picked it up. It was heavier than I expected and as it shifted, I heard the metallic clang of canned goods. I followed Chris inside.
“ ’Lo, Tom!” Chris called to the man behind the counter. He was bald and round and wore a white apron like an old-timey butcher, except that it was spotless.
“ ’Lo, Chris,” the man called back.
Chris knew where to go, and I followed him into a back room lined with inventory. It was exactly the sort of stuff you’d expect at a general store—sugar and flour, salt and spices, soups and tuna. Stuff people might run out of and have to replenish before their next grocery order arrived from town on the mailboat. Out front there were glass-fronted refrigerators with milk, cream, butter, and eggs. Glass jars holding penny candy lined the front counter. Fresh fruit and vegetables filled other bins. I stopped for a moment, enjoying the sights and smells of well-trod wood floors, fresh strawberries, licorice, and washing soap all mingled together.
Back outside, there was a loud crack, and the crowd in the stands at the ball field cheered as a spry woman raced around the bases while a young guy chased a ball. In the golf cart, I sat back against the seat, taking it all in. Aside from the clothes they wore, the people on the green might have been playing baseball or tennis in 1890. I said as much to Chris. “It’s like the olden days here.”