* * *
Adam was surprised to find Menley and Hannah waiting for him in the car. “I’m afraid I upset Phoebe,” Menley told him. “I should never have mentioned Mehitabel to her. For some reason she got terribly agitated.”
“There’s no explaining what brings on those spells,” Adam said.
“I don’t know about that. Mine are triggered by stimulus, aren’t they?”
“It’s not the same.” Adam put the key in the ignition.
Mommy, Mommy. Such a joyous sound. The night she thought she’d heard Bobby calling her. Had she been dreaming of the way he’d sounded that day in East Hampton? Had she attached a happy memory to a flashback? “When do you have to go to New York again?” she asked.
“We should hear the judge’s decision either late tomorrow or Tuesday. I’ll go down overnight Tuesday and stay until Thursday morning. But I swear that will be it on working this month, Men.”
“I want you to bring up the tape of Bobby at East Hampton.”
“I told you I would, honey.” As Adam steered the car away from the curb, he wondered, what is that all about?
79
Fred Hendin took Tina out for dinner on Sunday evening. She had said she had a headache when he called her in the morning, but agreed that fish and chips and a couple of drinks at Clancey’s that evening would pick up her spirits.
They had a gin and tonic at the bar and Fred was surprised at how vivacious and animated Tina was. She knew the bartender and some of the patrons and kidded with them.
Fred thought she looked terrific in her red miniskirt and red-and-white top, and he could see that a number of other guys at the bar were giving her the eye. There was no doubt about it. Tina attracted men. She was the kind of woman a man could lose his head over.
Last year when they had been dating, she kept telling him that he was a real gentleman. Sometimes he wondered if that was a compliment. Then she dropped him like a hot potato when Covey came into the picture. Last winter when he tried to get back with her, she hadn’t given him the time of day. Then suddenly in April she had called him. “Fred, why don’t you drop around?” she had said as though nothing had happened.
Was she ready to settle for me only when she couldn’t get Covey? he wondered, as Tina burst out laughing at a joke the bartender told.
He hadn’t heard her laugh like that for a while. She seemed really happy tonight.
That’s what it was, he realized suddenly. Even though she was nervous about testifying at the inquest, she seemed happy.
Over dinner, she asked him about the ring. “Fred, I would like to wear the engagement ring when I testify. Did you bring it?”
“Now you’re trying to spoil what’s left of the surprise. I’ll give it to you when we get to your place.”
* * *
Tina lived in a furnished apartment over a garage in Yarmouth. She wasn’t much of a housekeeper and hadn’t done much to personalize the place, but the minute they walked in, Fred noticed there was something different about the small sitting room. Some things were missing. She had a pretty good collection of rock music, but almost all the cassettes and CDs were gone. And so was the picture of her skiing with her brother’s family in Colorado.
Was she planning a trip and not telling him about it? Fred wondered. And if so, was she going alone?
August 15th
80
Menley awakened at dawn to the faint sound of sobbing. She pulled herself up on one elbow and strained to listen. No, it must be a seagull, she thought. The curtains were moving restlessly, and the good scent of the ocean was in the room.
She settled back on the pillow. Adam was in a deep sleep, snoring lightly. Menley remembered something her mother had said years ago. She’d been reading an advice column, probably Ann Landers or Dear Abby, and a woman had written in to complain that her husband’s snoring kept her awake. The response was that to some women a husband’s snoring would be the most welcome sound in the world. Ask any widow.
Her mother had commented, “Isn’t that the truth?”
Mom raised us alone, Menley thought. I never experienced firsthand the interaction between happily married people. I never knew what it was like to see married people face problems and get through them.
Why think about that now? she wondered. Is it because I’m beginning to see a vulnerability in Adam that I didn’t know existed? In a way I’ve always handled him with kid gloves. He’s the attractive, successful, sought-after man who could have had anyone, but it was me he asked to marry him.
She realized there was no use trying to go back to sleep. She slipped out of bed, picked up her robe and slippers and tiptoed out of the room.
Hannah showed no signs of awakening, so Menley went down the stairs noiselessly and entered the library. With luck she might have two quiet hours before Adam and Hannah got up. She opened the new file.
Halfway through it, she found a group of papers clipped together that dealt with shipwrecks. Some of them she had already read about, such as the 1717 wreck of the pirate ship Whidaw. The mooncussers had picked its cargo clean.
And then she saw a reference to Tobias Knight: “The biggest house-to-house search for booty before the Whidaw was when the Thankful was lost in 1704 off Monomoy.” Phoebe noted, “Tobias Knight was brought to Boston for questioning. He was developing an unsavory reputation and was suspected of being a mooncusser.”
The next page was an account of the wreck of Captain Andrew Freeman’s Godspeed. It was the copy of a letter to Governor Shute written by Jonathan Weekes, a selectman. The letter informed His Excellency that “ ‘on the thirty-first of August, in ye year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seven,’ Captain Andrew Freeman set sail against all advice, ‘there being a northeast breeze which was certain indication of an approaching storm.’ The one survivor, Ezekiel Snow, a cabin boy, ‘tells us the captain was distraught and much deranged, shouting he must return his daughter-babe to her mother’s arms. All knew the baby’s mother was dead and became much alarmed. The Godspeed, driven to the shoals, there broke up with a grievous loss of life.’
“Captain Freeman’s body washed into Monomoil and he was buried alongside his wife, Mehitabel, since, in the testimony of the cabin boy, he went to his Maker crying out his love for her.”
Something happened to make him change his mind, Menley thought. What was it? He was trying to bring the baby back to a mother already dead. He went to his Maker crying out his love for her.
81
Even though it was obviously going to be a hot day, Scott Covey chose to wear a navy summer-weight suit, long-sleeved white shirt and subdued navy-and-gray tie to the inquest. He had debated about wearing his green jacket, khakis and a sports shirt but realized they would not convey the impression he wanted to make on the judge.
He was uncertain about wearing his wedding ring. Would it look as though he were grandstanding? Probably not. He slipped it on.
When he was ready to go, he studied himself in the mirror. Vivian had told him that she was jealous of his ability to tan. “I burn and peel, burn and peel,” she had sighed. “You just get this gorgeous tan, and your eyes look greener and your hair blonder and that many more girls turn their heads to look at you.”
“And I’m looking at you,” he had teased.
He surveyed his reflection from head to toe and frowned. He was wearing a new pair of Gucci loafers. Somehow they looked too picture perfect. He went to the closet and got out his old well-polished pair. Better, he thought, as he checked the mirror again.
His mouth suddenly dry, he said aloud, “This is it.”
* * *
Jan Paley arrived to stay with Phoebe while Henry went to the inquest. “She was upset yesterday afternoon,” Henry warned. “Something Menley said about Remember House disturbed her. I get the feeling she’s trying to convey something to us and can’t find the words.”
“Maybe if I just talk about the house to her, it will come out,” Jan suggested.
&nb
sp; * * *
Amy arrived at Remember House at eight o’clock. It was the first time she had seen Mr. Nichols in a business suit, and she looked at him admiringly. He has a kind of elegance about him, she thought. He makes you feel that anything he does will be done well.
He seemed preoccupied, checking the papers in his briefcase, but he glanced up at her and smiled. “Hi, Amy. Menley’s getting dressed and the baby is with her. Why don’t you go upstairs and take over Hannah? We’re starting to run late.”
He was such a nice man, Amy thought. She hated to think that he was going to be wasting his time looking for the tape of little Bobby in New York when it was a few minutes away in Elaine’s house. In a burst of confidence she said, “Mr. Nichols, can I tell you something, but don’t let on you heard it from me?”
She thought he looked worried, but then he said, “Of course.”
She explained about the tape, how she had noticed it, taken it home and put it back. “I didn’t tell Elaine I had borrowed it, so she might get mad if she found out. It was just that I wanted to see what your little boy was like,” she said almost apologetically.
“Amy, you’ve saved me a lot of trouble. We don’t have any other copies, and my wife would have been really upset if that one disappeared. I left the Cape last year in a hurry, and Elaine had to ship a couple of things down to me. It will be easy to ask her to look for it without involving you.”
He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to get moving. Oh, here they come.”
Amy could hear footsteps on the staircase, then Mrs. Nichols came hurrying in, Hannah in her arms. “I’m all ready, Adam, or at least I think I am. This kid kept wiggling to the edge of the bed. She’s all yours, Amy.”
Amy reached for Hannah as Mrs. Nichols smilingly added, “Temporarily, of course.”
82
At 9:00 A.M. the courtroom in Orleans was filled to capacity. The media was out in full force. The extensive publicity around Vivian Carpenter Covey’s death had attracted the sensation seekers who vied with friends and townspeople for the limited seating.
“It’s like a tennis match,” Nat heard one reporter whisper to another just before lunch.
It has to do with murder, not games, Nat thought, but we don’t have enough to prove it today. The district attorney had presented the evidence well. Point by point he had built up his case: Covey’s involvement with Tina until a week before he married Vivian; the bruised finger and missing ring; the failure to turn on the radio for the weather report; the fact that Vivian’s body should not have washed in where it had been found.
The judge frequently had his own questions for the witnesses. With meticulous attention, he studied the charts and autopsy reports.
Tina made a discouragingly good witness for Covey. She readily admitted that he had warned her he was seeing Vivian, that she had gone to visit him in Boca Raton, hoping that he’d become interested in her again. “I was crazy about him,” she said, “but I knew it was over when he married Vivian. He really was in love with her. I’m engaged to someone else now.” From the witness chair, she smiled brilliantly at Fred.
During recess Nat saw the eyes of the spectators shift from Scott Covey, with his movie-star looks and poise, to Fred Hendin, squat and stolid with thinning hair and an air of profound embarrassment. You could read their minds. She had settled for Fred Hendin when she couldn’t snare Covey from Vivian.
The testimony of Conner Marcus, the sixty-five-year-old resident of Eastham who had almost lost his grandson in the squall, might have clinched it even without Covey’s testimony. “No one who wasn’t out there can possibly understand how suddenly it came up,” he said, his voice shaking with emotion. “One minute Terry, my little grandson, and I were fishing. Then the current got rough. Less than ten minutes later the waves were washing over the boat, and Terry was almost pulled into the water. I get down on my knees every night and thank God that I’m not in the boots of that young fellow.” Tears in his eyes, he pointed at Covey.
With quiet authority, Elaine Atkins described the change in Vivian Carpenter when she met Scott Covey, and the marital happiness she witnessed. “The day they looked at Remember House, they talked about buying it. They wanted a large family. But Vivian said she would have to sell the other house first.”
Nat had never heard that before. And it gave credence to Covey’s story that he had been kept in the dark about the extent of Vivian’s inheritance.
They recessed for lunch. In the afternoon, Vivian’s lawyer from Hyannis was called and proved to be a dryly credible witness for Covey. Henry Sprague came through solidly as a next-door neighbor who testified to the mutual devotion of the newlyweds. The insurance investigator could only confirm what Tina had already admitted: She had visited Covey in Boca Raton.
Both Carpenters testified. They admitted that their daughter had always had emotional problems and had great difficulty in keeping friends. They pointed out that at an imagined slight she would sever a relationship, and they introduced the possibility that something had happened to make Vivian turn on Scott and threaten to disinherit him.
Anne Carpenter talked about the emerald ring. “It never was too tight,” she said emphatically. “Besides, Vivy was superstitious about it. She’d sworn to her grandmother that she’d never take it off. She used to hold it to the light and admire it.” Asked to describe the ring, she said, “It was a beautiful, five-and-a-half carat Colombian stone with a large diamond on each side, and it was mounted in platinum.”
And then Covey got on the stand. He began his testimony in a composed voice. He smiled when he talked about the early days of dating Vivian. “ ‘Getting to Know You,’ was our favorite song,” he said.
He talked about the emerald ring: “It was bothering her. She kept tugging at it that last morning. But I’m absolutely sure she was wearing it on the boat. She must have switched it to her left hand.”
And finally the description of losing her in the squall. Tears came to his eyes, welled there, his voice broke, and when he shook his head and said, “I can’t stand thinking about how scared she must have been,” there were many moist eyes in the courtroom.
“I have nightmares where I’m searching through the water for her and I can’t find her,” he said. “I wake up calling out to her.” Then he began to sob.
* * *
The judge’s finding was that there was no evidence of negligence and no evidence of foul play was almost anticlimatic.
The media asked Adam to make a statement.
“This has been a terrible ordeal for Scott Covey,” he said. “Not only has he lost his young wife but he has been subjected to scandalous rumors and accusations. I hope this public airing has not only served to present the true circumstances surrounding this tragedy but will also allow this young man the peace and privacy he desperately needs.”
Scott was asked his plans. “My father isn’t well which is why he and my stepmother can’t be here. I’m going to drive across the country to California to visit them. I’ll stop in some of the cities where I’ve toured with shows and have friends, but mostly I just want time alone to decide what to do with the rest of my life.”
“Will you stay on the Cape?” a reporter asked.
“I don’t know,” he said simply. “It holds a lot of heartache for me.”
* * *
Menley was standing to the side, listening. You’ve done it again, Adam, she thought with pride. You’re wonderful.
She felt a light touch on her arm. A woman in her late sixties said, “I wanted to introduce myself. I’m Norma Chambers. My grandchildren love your books and were so disappointed when you withdrew from renting my house for August.”
“Renting your house? Oh, of course, you mean the first house Elaine arranged for us to take. But when there was a problem with the pipes, she switched us to Remember House,” Menley said.
Chambers looked astonished. “ ‘There was no problem. I had the house rented the day after you gave it up. Wherever did you get
that idea?”
83
After he testified, Henry Sprague phoned his house to see how Phoebe was doing. Jan urged him to stay until the end of the proceedings. “We’re doing fine,” she insisted.
It had not, however, been an easy day. Phoebe lost her balance going down the two steps to the backyard, and Jan barely managed to keep her from falling. At lunchtime, Phoebe picked up a knife and tried to eat the soup with it.
As Jan placed the spoon in her hand, she thought sadly of the many times she and Tom had dined here with the Spragues. In those days, Phoebe had been a gracious, witty hostess, presiding over a table bright with placemats and matching napkins and candles and a centerpiece she had created from flowers from her garden.
It was heartbreaking to realize that this woman who flashed her a look of pathetic gratitude for understanding that she hadn’t known which utensil to use was the same person.
Phoebe napped after lunch, and when she awoke in mid-afternoon, she seemed more alert. Jan decided to try to find out what she might have been trying to convey about Remember House.
“The other day, Adam’s wife and I went to talk to other people who have old houses,” she began. “Adam’s wife is writing an article about houses with legends attached to them. I think Remember House is the most interesting of all. Then we drove to Eastham and saw another house Tobias Knight had built. It’s very much like Remember House but not as fancy, and the rooms are larger.”
The rooms. Remember House. A musty smell came into Phoebe’s nostrils. It smelled like a tomb. It was a tomb. She was at the top of a narrow ladder. There were piles of junk everywhere. She started to go through them, and her hands touched the skull. And the voices came from below, talking about Adam’s wife.
“Inside the house,” she managed to say.