Remembrance Read online

  Janet Martin, the apparent ringleader, spoke up first, stating her name, followed by Martha Riggs, Susan Clark and Jessica Sanford. A few people came up the steps and passed into the store or on the way out, a couple of glances cast their way, but no one interfered.

  “Are you talking about the Brewster murder?” Janet asked, eyes brightening. It was clear that gossip was her stock in trade, and she leaned forward, radiating the excitement related to speaking about the worst thing to happen in their little coastal town in decades. “I spoke to Camille a few times when she was out shopping or walking with that beautiful baby of hers. It’s a real shame what happened to them.”

  “Actually, yes, Mrs. Martin, that is why I’m here. It’s coming up on twenty years since the murder and I’m doing a piece about it.”

  A gust of wind swirled by and the sweet scent of vanilla musk was so strong, Emlen could almost taste it, her eyes drifting closed for a moment at the fragments of memory it stirred. A quick breath and Emlen slapped the smile back on her face, looking at the women in front of her. “So, were all of you residents of Muckle Cove at the time of the murder?”

  They all nodded.

  After a sip of her coffee, Jessica Sanford sighed. “My husband, Eddie and I moved here about three days after it happened. I wanted to move right back out, but we couldn’t afford it.”

  Martha reached over and rested a hand over Jessica’s. “That’s how we met. I lived two houses down from Jess and Eddie. We’d stay at her house or mine, together with the kids, while the guys went out. Commercial fishing. They would have to leave at three in the morning to get out on the water. We just felt better being together instead of a woman alone with little ones in the house.”

  Wrapping her fingers around her bright red mug, Emlen took a sip of coffee and let the women talk. Another one of those trade secrets she learned early. Get the ball rolling and let them spill. Nudge the ball back on track if it went too far off course, yet you never knew what kind of info that ‘off course’ might bring out. Truth, for her, was easy to spot. It was in the words spoken, the expressions on a face, the body language and gestures. One of her friends had said that it was uncanny how accurate Emlen was when it came to sussing out liars. Big lies, little lies, it didn’t matter. She could tell. Eh, some people were good at math, Em was good at reading people.

  Susan had been quiet the longest, picking at the Danish remains on her plate. Emlen turned her gaze to the tiny woman. Once dark hair, liberally streaked with gray, cut in a short style that was both youthful and flattering. A crisp peach cotton top and a pair of olive-green capris with matching slip on canvas shoes - her look spoke of both comfort and style. Small gold hoops in her ears, gold chain with a pendant that had slipped inside her shirt, a bangle bracelet, slim gold watch and three or four rings on her hands completed the picture.

  The weight of Emlen’s stare must have finally registered because Susan’s gaze lifted to meet hers.

  “It was my fault,” she finally whispered softly as the other women fell silent.

  Eyes widening, Emlen set down her cup and blinked at the woman. “Your fault? How do you figure?”

  “I was supposed to go by the night it happened. I had some books Cami wanted to borrow, and she had some for me - but it was so stormy, I called to reschedule for a few days later. If I had been there…” Susan’s voice caught and she pressed her fingers to her lips, looking down.

  Janet reached over and rested a hand on Susan’s shoulder. “If you had been there, he might have killed you too. This is not on you, Susie - it’s on him, the murdering bastard who killed her and ruined that little girl’s life.”

  It took Emlen a few moments to process what had been said before she murmured, “The little girl went to her aunt and uncle and was okay.” No, not a great life, but a tolerable one. Mostly. She shook her head as if clearing a fog and smiled at Susan. “Janet is right. He probably would have killed you too. None of it is on you.” The words sounded perfectly sincere, but Em couldn’t help but agree with Susan - that if she had been there, then maybe her mother wouldn’t have been murdered after all.

  A softly whispered, “Maybe…” came from Susan as she dug in her purse for a tissue and wiped her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, I should go.” She rose from her seat and hurried away before the others could get more than a “…no, don’t…” out of their mouths.

  Janet’s shoulders sagged. “She’s been carrying that for twenty years, poor thing.” She fiddled with her coffee cup. “This whole town changed a bit that day. Oh, sure, other ‘bad things’ have happened over the years, but that one shook the foundations of the community. People still talk about it, now and again. I guess that’s because it’s still unsolved. A cold case is what they call it, right?” Janet glanced up at Emlen and gave her a faint smile.

  “Yes, that’s correct. It is still an open case, but inactive at this point. No one expects to find new evidence or clues at this stage of the game,” Em replied, starting to gather her things. “I’m sorry my questions upset Susan. I hope the rest of you didn’t mind too much?”

  She pasted the perfectly professional smile back on her face. Personally? She really didn’t care that Susan had become upset. It gave her so much information and opportunity. Clearly there was more going on there. Susan was lying about something related to her mother, and with her being so upset, Em could stop by Susan’s house later with the excuse of ‘checking on her’ and ‘apologizing for upsetting her’ while actually getting an opportunity to speak with the woman alone. Without the scrutiny or support of her friends, Susan might be a bit more forthcoming.

  A few head shakes from the remaining ladies and Jessica excused herself. “I should make sure Susan gets home okay. Lovely to meet you, Ms. Baldwin.” She hurried off, leaving Martha and Janet to stack up the cups and serving plate and leave a tip for the counter girl who cleaned up.

  Emlen checked her notes and phone, tucking them away before pulling out cards she’d printed up with her name, cell number and email address. “If you think of anything else or if the others do and want to share, please call or email me?” Again, Em felt that perfect smile grace her lips. She lay the cards on the table before heading back to her car.

  Climbing in, bag on the passenger’s seat floor, Emlen set her phone in the holder and leaned back, taking a couple of slow breaths and processing what she’d heard. Again, that scent of vanilla musk swirled past and she sat up, looking around to see if someone was standing near. No one was remotely close to her parking spot and she couldn’t quite place that scent. It was familiar…and comforting…but where was it coming from? Taking a breath to clear her head, Emlen started the vehicle and headed out. She’d stopped earlier to drop her bags, but it was time to head to the cottage and settle in. She’d worry about Susan later. Maybe.

  Chapter Two

  After so many years, it surprised Emlen how much felt familiar as she drove through Muckle Cove. She’d lived here with her mother for less than a year when she was a toddler. She’d only been back maybe two other times for day trips with her uncle, to handle paperwork or business related to the cottage property. A typical New England coastal town that hugged the inner harbor of Cape Cod. Widow’s walks and fanciful weathervanes topped the weathered shingle houses and brick antiquities.

  She’d always wondered why her mother came here, of all places. The only thing Emlen could think of was that it was as close to her roots she could get. Camille Eugenie Brewster, great-great however-many granddaughter of Elder William Brewster from the Mayflower, had run from Boston and New York and that lifestyle to find her settling here with a baby in the middle of nowhere.

  Pulling up in front of the cottage, Emlen shut off the vehicle, gathering her things before climbing out and taking a moment to just look at the place. Stone foundation topped with a gray weathered clapboard house of a story and a half. Modest, as far as her family’s other homes were concerned, but perfect for her. Two bedrooms and a bath, a large eat-
in kitchen and a living room with a fireplace that was split with glass doors so one half could be used as a study. Trimmed in white with a colonial blue door, stone steps leading up to the door had enough room on either side for potted plants. Once inside, the hallway led to the back of the house where the kitchen and living room shared a wall of glass, framing a view of the back deck and the harbor beyond. Off the kitchen, narrow stairs led to a locked door to the attic with windows on either end and dormer windows on front and back. Sea roses climbed a trellis outside the window over the kitchen sink, a blush pink with a scent that could fill the house with the slightest breeze. For years, the cottage had been rented to summer tenants. No one stayed there long.

  No one could.

  Families that rented the pretty beach cottage often reported the desperate crying of a child that seemed to come at different times. The poor vacationers rarely shared the stories of a panicked woman’s screams that would shatter the sunny afternoons, ending with them grabbing their belongings and tearing down the dirt road, dust flying.

  The last group left just two days before, saving Em the trouble of having to evict them. She hadn’t planned on coming to Muckle Cove at all, really. Not consciously, anyway. Subconsciously, oh, she probably knew she was coming here for the last six months, maybe a year.

  Crouching about a foot from the bottom of the stone steps, Emlen found a pretty scallop shell that some seeker of beach treasures must’ve dropped. Rubbing the sand from the pale peach interior, she watched the high tide hiss and grasp at the shore about a hundred yards away and wondered just why she was really here.

  Why does anyone seek roots? Why would they want to look back into the past before stepping forward into the future? Emlen had little to nothing to say in regard to that. She’d left Brad holding the ring and climbed in her car.

  Bradley Wallingford Smith, V. The fifth. Four others with the same pretentious name…and the same propensity for making money as if it were collecting shells on the beach.

  Her Aunt Cassie bemoaned the potentially ‘lost’ marriage as if it were a winning lottery ticket someone misplaced. Uncle Nelson thought Emlen was doing the right thing and taking a moment to make sure this was what she wanted. Before. Before she got married. Before she made those choices. Before she sealed her fate.

  Shrugging her shoulders, Emlen rose and tucked the shell into her pocket, stepping up to the Victorian style wooden screen door that slapped resoundingly behind her as she entered the shadowed cottage. Not much had changed. Well, the sofa and chairs were new. The kitchen set replaced. Paint. Paper. It had been twenty years, give or take a few months, and upkeep and updating must be done. Ownership of the cottage, and her trust fund, had been transferred to her upon her eighteenth birthday. Emlen had dutifully paid her uncle’s management company to keep up with the needed repairs and maintenance. She had planned on selling it – but never quite could. Perhaps, somehow, she had known she would need it some day?

  Fumbling with the keys in her pocket, Emlen moved toward the door near the back, off the kitchen. The attic was kept locked to keep tenants from poking into the things stored up there. The stiff lock screeched as Emlen turned it. No one had been in it since workmen had replaced the roof ten years ago.

  Opening the door, a haze of dust drifted past, bringing a series of sneezes and coughs before she could stare up the stairs through tearing eyes. Light streamed through the window in the back peak of the roof and for a moment, Emlen could swear she saw someone pass by, the shadow sliding halfway down the stairs. She shivered and stepped back, closing the door. “Maybe tomorrow,” Emlen whispered, locking it once more.

  The place felt smaller than she remembered – that oddity that happens to all who go back to somewhere they only have childhood memories of, that skews our sense of perception. Turning on lights and drawing the curtains back, opening the windows wide to let in the smell of salt and sea and chase the aroma of dust and suntan lotion away. The tasks of mundane processing that are the first steps to making a space one’s own. Cleansing the room of scents that were not one’s own. Setting out a favored mug on the counter for coffee. Rearranging the utensils in the drawers so they were familiar. Convenient.

  She placed the little shell from her pocket on the counter between the kitchen island and the living room, beside a stone and a bit of sea glass someone else had collected and displayed. Emlen smiled at the glint of sunlight on the opaque green bit of treasure and started humming a bright tune as she tugged her duffel into the larger bedroom, drawing her slippers and bathrobe out of it to place by the bed and on the hook on the bathroom door. She arranged her toiletries neatly on the shelves over the sink. Slowly, she was making this hers, although right now there was nothing that felt of home to her. No more than her dormitory or any number of hotel rooms had been over the years. If any place was going to be home to her, this one should be it – as this is where she lived the longest with family. Granted, the dorm at Emerson Preparatory had been her residence for nearly seven years – one failed roommate experience before a series of private rooms, it had been where she spent most of her time. But how much ‘home’ could one make out of a public facility? The four years at Harvard hadn’t done it for her either. There had been three different apartments before finding a studio on her own.

  Lining the drawers of the Shaker style wooden dresser with lavender paper, Emlen laid her clothes inside and finally emptied the duffel bag. “Might as well go all the way. In for a penny…” her voice trailed off as she slid the last drawer closed and looked around the room. More comfortable than any dorm room, more personable than any hotel room, and slowly starting to feel like hers.

  A plaintive meowing startled her out of her thoughts and Emlen headed into the main room to see a small gray cat at the back screen door. “Well, that helps. I’d rather be thought strange for talking to a pet than to myself.” Opening the door, she clucked her tongue and urged the cat inside. “Come on in, shadow-cat. I think I saw a can of cat food here somewhere.” Padding into the kitchen, Emlen followed the cat who seemed to know as well as she did, if not better, where a can of cat food was stored.

  “I see you’re familiar with the territory. Fine. I’ll do the can opener for you this time though, all right? You guys ever figure them out, we humans are toast.” Laughing at herself, Emlen dumped the food out onto a chipped saucer and set it down for the feline. “No collar. Everyone has to have a name, eh, shadow-cat?” Emlen continued her discourse with her aloof dining companion as she heated up a can of soup and opened a package of crackers, leaning against the granite countertops and sipping the soup from an oversized mug, watching the cat devour the food. “You look like a Barnabas.” The cat paused to look up at her and lick his whiskers clean. “You like that name? Barnabas? Fine. Then Barnabas it is.” Emlen decreed and laughed as the cat sneezed and returned to eating. “No editorial comments from the peanut gallery, m’friend.”

  The discourse with her new ‘roommate’ was interrupted by a tap on the door. The golden wash of afternoon sunshine was behind the person standing there, so, once again, all Emlen saw was a shadow at her door. A flicker of a memory skittered in the deep recesses of her mind before she shook it off and set the soup down on the counter.

  “Pardon, ma’am, but Jake up at the store said you had an order to be delivered and while you might not be expecting it until tomorrow, I told him I’d bring it by on my way.” The voice was a near-purr of a baritone and the shadowy form slowly coalesced into a rather prime example of American male; the closer Emlen walked to the door. Prime male, holding a large cardboard box piled high with grocery bags. “Well, talk about service!” Emlen smiled, unlocking the screen, letting the man in. As he passed, she couldn’t help but notice he also smelled…male. That faintly spicy whiff of after shave layered over a touch of sweat and the laundry soap used on his clothes. The curl of his dark hair where it brushed the collar of his shirt, the way the blue of the chamois brought out the color of his eyes…the way his jeans t
ightened as he bent to set the box on the table. With a little shake, Emlen stopped staring and grinned wryly, holding out her hand as soon as his are empty. “Emmy B…Baldwin. Thank you, Mister….” Her voice trailed off and his obligingly filled in.

  “Cullen O’Brien, Miz Baldwin.” He answered as his hand wrapped around hers and shook it firmly. “But you can call me Cullen.” His eyes traced over her form and then settled again on her face. “Might I say, Miz Baldwin, you’ve got the most unusual eyes I’ve ever seen.”

  Emlen’s heart froze for a moment, then she realized she still had the contact lenses in and let out a slow breath. “Thank you.” The gray-hued lenses did give her unusual eyes. “Good genetics.”

  Cullen gave her a slow smile, apparently doing his best to keep the once-over a touch more subtle than obvious. “Yes, ma’am. Very good genetics.”

  Even white teeth. Gods, he even had a dimple in his cheek. Emlen once again caught herself staring and pressed a hand to her belly to quiet the slowly coiling heat that had started up there. “Well…” Emlen reached for her purse on the counter and began to pull out her wallet, nearly knocking over the radio. Do I have any cash? I can’t let him see my license. Five bucks…

  “No, ma’am, I don’t need any money. It was on my way. I live in the next house down the beach. You can see it from your porch if you lean out a bit, or just look out the windows on that side and…” Cullen’s voice trailed off and he shrugged, a shy grin teasing that dimple out of his cheek. “If you need anything, I’d be more than happy to stop by. I helped the maintenance crew do some of the repairs last summer.”

  I bet he looks great in a tool belt. And nothing else. “Umm, sure. I’ve noticed a couple of things I’d like to get seen to. I’ll give you a call in a few days, once I get settled. Do you have a card?” Emlen asked, when what she wanted to ask was ‘Do you have a girlfriend or wife?’.