“No,” I said. “That’s wonderful.”
“Do you want to come here?”
“No,” I said, nearly choking on the word in my rush to get it out. There was no way I was going to Bay Head Shores. “Maybe we could meet halfway.”
“Well,” he said. “I have to be in Spring Lake Friday. If you want to meet me there for lunch, we can do that.”
It was more than halfway, but that was all right. I needed to see him face-to-face to persuade him to take Ned’s letter to the police.
A man carrying a soft-sided briefcase walked through the door of the restaurant and I looked up expectantly, but the red hair and glasses were missing and I gazed out the window again.
“Julie?” I turned to see the man standing next to my table.
“Ethan?” I queried back.
He nodded, his smile subdued, and held out his hand. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “I got stuck in beach traffic.”
“That’s okay.” I shook his hand, and he sat down across from me.
“I would never have recognized you,” I said, then wondered if that sounded rude. The truth was, age had done him many favors. His red hair was now a gray-tinged auburn, thin at his temples. He wore no glasses. The freckled skin of his youth had weathered into something kinder and he’d put on weight in the form of muscle. He was wearing a cobalt-blue short-sleeved shirt and his arms were lean and tight. The nerdiness from his childhood was gone. Completely. “You look great,” I added.
“And you look wonderful,” he said. “I would have recognized you anywhere. But of course, your face used to be all over our house on the back of your books.”
“Used to be?” I asked.
“We both read them, but my wife got custody of the books,” he said. He glanced down at my bare ring finger. “You’re married, right?” he asked. “I recall something like ‘the author lives with her husband in New Jersey’ or something like that from one of your book jackets.”
The waitress appeared at our table, pad at the ready. “How’re you two doing?” she asked.
I looked up at her sunburned face. “He hasn’t had a chance to look at the menu,” I said.
Ethan handed the waitress his unopened menu. “Just a burger, medium well,” he said. “And lemonade, please.”
I ordered the shrimp salad, then returned my attention to Ethan. “I’m divorced,” I said. “Two years.”
“Children?”
“A daughter. Shannon. She’s seventeen. She just graduated high school.”
“College plans?”
“The Oberlin Conservatory of Music,” I said. “She’s a cellist.”
He looked impressed. “Wow,” he said.
“What kind of work do you do?” I asked, then held up my hand. “Wait. Let me guess,” I said. “You teach marine biology.”
He laughed. “I’m a carpenter,” he said.
“Oh.” I nodded. That was not what I’d expected. If anyone had told me skinny little Ethan Chapman would end up working with his hands instead of his head, I never would have believed it. I thought of his ambitious father, Rosswell Chapman III or whatever he had been. The summer I was twelve, he was chief justice on the New Jersey Supreme Court and he later ran unsuccessfully for governor. I wondered if he’d been disappointed to see his sons turn out to be an accountant and a carpenter rather than follow him into law or politics.
“I wasn’t the least bit surprised you turned out to be a writer,” Ethan said.
“No?”
“Your family was so artsy. Your mother painted, right?”
“That’s right. She was a teacher, but she painted as a hobby.” I’d almost forgotten how my mother loved to set up her easel on the bungalow porch.
“And your father was a doctor, but wasn’t he a writer, too?”
“A columnist for a magazine,” I said.
“You’ve got a daughter who plays the cello,” he continued. “And your little sister, Lucy, used to play that plastic violin.”
“What?” I laughed. “I don’t remember that at all, but you’re probably right because she does play the violin now. She’s in a band called the ZydaChicks.”
He smiled. “There you go,” he said.
I took a sip of my iced tea, wondering if Isabel would have shown any special talent if she’d been given the chance to grow up.
Ethan was still smiling at me, his head cocked to one side.
“What?” I asked.
“You really, really look terrific,” he said.
I felt myself blush. “Thanks,” I said.
“I mean it,” he said, then leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Well, I guess we’d better talk about what we came here to talk about.” He lifted the briefcase from the floor and pulled out an envelope. “Abby told me she showed you a copy of the letter,” he said, handing it to me.
I studied the envelope. Unlike the typed letter, the address of the police department was handwritten, printed in precise, slanted letters.
“Why haven’t you taken it to the police?” I asked, shifting my focus from the envelope to his eyes. They were a clear, deep blue. I’d never noticed their color behind the Coke-bottle glasses he used to wear. “I mean, it’s obvious that Ned wanted them to have it.”
“No, he obviously had second thoughts,” Ethan corrected me. His voice might have been gentle, but the words carried their own force and, although I didn’t agree with him, I liked how he stood up for himself. Glen always allowed people to steamroll right over him. “The letter was dated a couple of months before he died,” Ethan added.
“But he didn’t throw it away,” I said.
Ethan sighed. “Julie, if I take it to the police, they’re going to assume Ned did it. They’re going to start asking questions. I don’t care what they ask me, but my father is elderly. I don’t want his last years to be spent thinking that his son murdered someone. I have a buddy at the police department and I ran this by him, in a hypothetical sort of way. He said they’d open the case up again. They didn’t do much with forensics back then, so they’d be looking at the evidence from a new perspective now. But they’d almost certainly want to talk with my father. I don’t want to put him through it.”
I saw genuine concern in his face and couldn’t help but be touched by his reasoning. I hoped I could protect my mother from ever knowing anything at all about the letter, no matter what the outcome. I wasn’t sure I would be able to, though. I knew from the sort of books I wrote that Ethan’s friend at the police department was right. It didn’t matter how old the case was, the police would reopen it. Start fresh. I just prayed they could leave my mother out of it. Ross Chapman, though, would certainly be questioned, since he was the person who’d confirmed Ned’s alibi. “Is your mother also still alive?” I asked.
The waitress arrived with our food before he could answer, and we fell into small talk with her about her sunburn. She’d fallen asleep on the beach, she said, pressing her hands to her crimson cheeks once she’d set our plates on the table.
“I’m in agony,” she said, with a flair for drama.
Ethan reached into his briefcase again and pulled out a tube of lotion. “Here,” he said, handing it to her. “Put this on the burn. It takes the sting away instantly.”
She looked surprised. “Thank you,” she said.
“You can keep it,” Ethan added.
“That’s so nice of you,” she said, slipping the tube into her apron pocket. “Don’t worry about a tip.”
Once she’d left our table, I turned to him. “Do you always carry sunburn cream with you?” I asked. I liked that he’d talked so easily to the waitress. Glen would have looked right through her. Why did I keep comparing him to Glen?
Ethan shrugged. “I love being outdoors,”he said, “but two minutes in the sun and I’m burned. I have to work up to it gradually.”
I smiled. I could still see the delicate little kid in him, hiding behind a much manlier facade. I watched the muscles in his forearms shift as he l
ifted the hamburger to his mouth. The triangle of skin in the open collar of his shirt was the same ruddy tan as the rest of him, and for a moment, I got lost in the shallow valley at the base of his throat. The muscles low in my belly suddenly contracted. It had been so long since I’d experienced that sensation that it took me a moment to recognize it as desire.
Oh, I thought, this is very strange.
“I was asking about your mother,” I said, returning to the relative safety of our conversation.
“Right,” he said, swallowing a bite of his hamburger. “She died last year. And that’s part of why I’m concerned about my father. He was broken up about Mom, and Ned’s death really hit him hard. I’m trying to get him to see a counselor, someone who works with the elderly, but he won’t accept help any more than Ned would.” He lifted a French fry to his mouth, then set it down again. “I actually think he wants to die at this point.”
“Is he ill?” I asked.
“Not ill. Just old. Just old and very sad. He lives in an independent-living residence in Lakewood. I mentioned that I was having lunch with you today, just to test his reaction. He seemed surprised, but that was all. It’s like he didn’t really get it. Didn’t understand who you were.” He ate the French fry. “Are your parents still living?” he asked.
“My father died of a heart attack two years after Isabel was killed,” I said. I didn’t need to add that the stress of losing his favorite daughter had taken a terrible toll on my father. “My mother still lives alone and is doing very well. She works at McDonald’s.”
He managed a laugh. “She always was a pistol,” he said.
I nibbled at my shrimp salad. “I think,” I said slowly, “that in addition to your father and my mother, we also need to consider George Lewis’s family, don’t you?”
He pressed his napkin to his lips. “Of course,” he said. “And I don’t feel good about that. But Lewis is dead and—”
“That makes me so unbelievably sad,” I interrupted him, shaking my head. “I always knew he was innocent and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.”
Ethan fell silent. Slowly he lifted his hamburger and took another bite.
“Did Ned ever say anything to you that might make you think he knew more than he was letting on?” I asked.
Ethan shook his head as he swallowed. “We never talked about it. Early on, I remember my parents attributing the change in him to what had happened to Isabel, but he and I never spoke about it at all.” He moved the straw from one side of his lemonade glass to the other. His fingernails were clean and short, his hands nicely shaped. “Ned and I were really different,” he continued. “Our interests were different, and…our philosophies on life. I tend to see the glass as half-full, while Ned was usually pretty down.”
“How about your father?” I asked. “Did he ever change his story on where Ned was that night?”
Ethan leaned back in his chair again, narrowing his eyes at me. “Julie, please don’t play Nancy Drew with this,” he said. “Don’t think about this as a plot in one of your books. This is real life. You’re talking about my father and my brother.”
His words took me by surprise and I felt anger rise up in me. “What about my family?” I asked, trying to keep my voice as calm as his. I recognized the power in his quiet demeanor. “I don’t want to deal with this either, Ethan. Do you think I want to relive Isabel’s death all over again? I don’t. The idea terrifies me. But we need to know what really happened. All of us. And if you don’t take the letter to the police, I have no choice but to send them the copy Abby gave me.”
Other diners were staring at me, forks halfway to their mouths, and I knew my voice had not been as quiet as I’d thought.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right. Both our families are mired in this mess. And you’re also right that the authorities need to know about this. But would waiting a bit longer matter that much? Please.”
“I don’t want to wait, Ethan,” I said. “Your father could live another decade.” I felt cruel, but my family had lived with Isabel’s loss for forty-one years. George Lewis and his family had endured his unjust imprisonment. I hated to think that he might still be alive if he hadn’t served time for a murder he didn’t commit. If a terrible mistake had been made, it needed to be set right.
“You think Ned did it,” Ethan said.
Slowly I nodded.
Ethan closed his eyes and let out his breath. “All right,” he said, opening his eyes again. He looked out the window instead of at me. “I’ll take the letter to the police.”
“Why?” I asked, mystified by his change of heart.
“Because,” he said, looking me squarely in the face, “I need to know that you’re wrong.”
CHAPTER 6
Lucy
I lived in Plainfield, a ten-minute drive from my hometown of Westfield and only two blocks from the high school, so I always walked to and from my teaching job. Today, the air-conditioning in the school broke down during the first ten minutes of my summer-school class. I had a hard time focusing on my lesson plan, and the kids, never happy to be there in the first place, wanted to be anywhere but cooped up in that building. There we sat, twenty grumpy kids and me. I was as glad as they were when the bell rang.
Walking home, I wondered how Julie’s lunch with Ethan was going. As much as I’d tried to talk her out of it, I knew she was right to want the police to know about the letter. I just hated for her to have to go through something so emotionally taxing, and I wished she’d at least waited to meet Ethan until a day I could go with her. She’d been anxious about it. I called her during my break to give her moral support. She was on the parkway headed for Spring Lake and wouldn’t talk to me on her cell phone while she was driving. That was Julie. Always, always careful. Always afraid of making a mistake.
I lived in one of Plainfield’s painted ladies, the huge, beautifully restored Victorians on West Eighth Street. The house was divided into three spacious apartments, and mine was on the top floor, where I used the turret as my sunny music room. My neighbors were the gay couple who’d renovated the house and an African-American couple who also taught at the high school. Sometimes, in the evening, the five of us would sit on the porch and exchange stories. Everyone was tolerant of my violin practice, which was fortunate. I loved living there.
I knew Shannon was in my apartment even before I reached the house, spotting her in the turret window. Most likely, she’d been watching for me. I waved and she waved back, and I wondered what was wrong. Shannon had a key to my apartment and could come and go as she pleased, but she hadn’t stopped by unannounced in months.
I crossed the marble-floored foyer, and had started climbing the broad, circular staircase when I heard her voice from above.
“How was school?” she called down to me.
I tipped my head back to see her leaning over the railing of the top level, high above me.
“Hot,” I said. “Air conditioner broke.”
“Ugh,” Shannon said. “You poor thing.”
“And aren’t you supposed to be working?” I asked once I reached the landing. I gave her a hug.
“I’m going in late,” she said. “I have to talk to you.” She had the most beautiful brown eyes. I imagined guys melting into puddles at her feet. Were her eyes a bit bloodshot today, though? I tried not to stare.
I put my arm around her as we walked into the apartment. “What’s the problem, kiddo?” I asked.
She circled my waist with her own arm. “Only everything,” she said.
I dropped my briefcase on the dining-room chair. “Do you want something to drink?” I lifted the hem of my green tank top and waved it back and forth with my hands, trying to let some cool air reach my damp skin. “Soda? Iced tea.”
She shook her head. “I helped myself,” she said, pointing to the coffee table in the living room. I saw a glass of iced tea on a coaster. It was nearly empty; she’d been there awhile.
“It’s mango,” I said.
“Good, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“Let me get some and then we’ll talk, okay?”
She sat on my old floral camelback sofa in the living room, looking like a model, her white shirt and capris in stark contrast to the mauve and cranberry tones of the upholstery. I poured my iced tea in the kitchen, planning my end of the conversation in my mind. Certainly, she was here to talk about Julie’s reaction to her living with Glen for the summer. I’d told her I would support her in that, and I would.
She shifted to the very edge of the sofa when I came back into the room, as if preparing for a job interview. I sat down sideways in my favorite overstuffed chair and threw my legs over one of the arms, kicking off my sandals and letting them fall to the floor.
“I know your mom didn’t react well to you wanting to move in with your dad,” I said, lifting the glass to my lips.
She shook her head, dropping her gaze quickly to her hands where they were knotted in her lap. “No,” she said. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
“No?” I prompted.
She looked at me. Her eyes were red.
“I’m pregnant,” she said, catching me completely off guard. My jaw dropped open, but no words came out.
“I’m sorry,” she said, as though she’d hurt me.
“But you’re on the pill,” I said.
“I missed one.” She played with the fringe of the beige afghan lying over the arm of the sofa. “But I took it the next day, the second I remembered. I guess I was too late with it or something.”
“How far along are you?” I asked.
“Sixteen weeks,” she said. “Almost exactly.”
“Sixteen weeks!” I looked at her belly, masked by the loose white top she was wearing. Suddenly it made sense. Her weight gain, her deadened spirit, the lack of life in her face.
“I’m due December twentieth,” she said.
“Due?” I asked. “You mean…you plan to have this baby?”