A Side of Murder Read online

  “Apparently some of them were in a real financial hole, so when Trey came to them with an offer they couldn’t refuse . . .” Jenny shrugged. “Well, they couldn’t refuse.”

  I nodded. This made me sad, but with the downturn in the fishing industry and ten years of construction drought during the Great Recession, a lot of Cape Codders were still barely making ends meet. If selling valuable waterfront land was the only choice, it was the only choice.

  But I remembered the Skaket camp fondly, particularly the annual summer regattas between the campers and my own ragtag Nauset Sailing Club. The best part was the cookout that followed on the beach, essentially hot dogs charred over a driftwood fire and a kind of Kool-Aid concoction that for some reason we called bug juice.

  The camp sat on a beautiful stretch of waterfront culminating in Skaket Point, a spit of land sticking out into the bay that marked the separation of Little Crystal Bay from Big Crystal. Except for the clearing that housed the cabins and dining hall, it was almost completely wild. In my day, quail and the occasional deer still wandered freely through the beach plum, pin oak, and pines, and once I’d even found a rare piping plover’s nest in the high dune sloping down to the beach.

  “So what’s being voted on?” I asked. “This ‘gated community’ idea?”

  “It’s certainly distasteful,” Helene put in. “I mean, whom exactly are they putting up a gate against? Me?”

  “If they’re smart, they are,” Miles said dryly.

  Helene looked at him and discreetly rubbed the middle finger of her right hand against her nose. There were children in the room, after all.

  “I don’t suppose it’s actually illegal,” Sebastian said, turning to Roland for confirmation.

  Roland shook his head. “No, it’s not illegal.”

  His voice was studiously neutral. Roland’s voice was always studiously neutral. But in my heart of hearts, I suspected he liked the idea of gated communities. That made me feel disloyal to Jenny. I reminded myself that at their wedding, Roland had been so choked up he’d barely made it through the “to have and to hold” part.

  The discussion had continued around me, and Jason was pointing out that the proposed project might face some obstacles.

  “But the development itself might well be illegal,” he said. “At least as it’s currently planned.”

  There is something about the person at the table who sits quietly listening, and then, once everyone else has finished blathering, actually says something substantive. It kind of gets your attention. Even the Three Things looked up from surreptitiously feeding Diogi choice morsels of my very expensive lamb.

  “The shoreline along the property is an important shellfish habitat,” Jason explained, “which, because shellfish are filter feeders, is critical to keeping the bay waters clean. Gorman plans to build four docks along that stretch, with heavy pilings for large pleasure boats. That could be contested on environmental grounds.”

  Jenny’s oldest boy, Thing One (Eli?), stared at Jason. “Is he a teacher or something?” he asked no one in particular.

  “No, Ethan (Ethan!),” his mother replied. “He’s the harbormaster.”

  Ethan/Thing One was awestruck.

  “Really?” he asked Jason. “You’re the harbormaster?”

  Jason smiled at him, completely blowing his advantage. “Not on Sundays,” he said.

  Ethan/Thing One sat back, half-reassured, half-disappointed.

  “Actually, it was your mom who first pointed out that the plans might be in violation there,” Jason added.

  Roland looked at his wife in astonishment, his fork stalled halfway to his mouth. “How did you know that?”

  “I can read, you know, Roland,” Jenny said. “Just slowly.”

  Uh-oh.

  Jason, in that clueless manner particular to so many men who don’t understand the signs, didn’t help matters by saying, “It’s going to be an important argument for the Friends of Crystal Bay when she presents their case.”

  Roland put his fork down and looked at Jenny as if he’d never seen her before. “Presents their case? You’re a member of the Friends of Crystal Bay?”

  “You say that like it’s the Communist Party,” Jenny shot back. “It’s just a group of concerned citizens who want to be sure that any development that touches the bay is sustainable and environmentally sound.”

  “Bunch of hippies,” Roland muttered into his lamb.

  Whoa. I could see where this was going. And so I did what any good hostess would do.

  “Who’d like some more wine?” I asked brightly.

  * * *

  * * *

  Well, that was awkward.”

  Helene and I were tidying up after the other guests had left. To be sure, the apricot tart and another bottle of wine had put my little dinner party back on its feet and Jenny and Roland had departed literally holding hands, but, still, I was worried.

  Helene didn’t have to ask what I meant.

  “It’s just growing pains,” she said matter-of-factly as she dried a plate and set it on the counter next to her.

  I looked at her quizzically.

  “Marriages grow and change just like people,” she said. “What works at one stage might not work for the next. It’s growth, and it’s painful. But if the marriage is strong and based on love, trust, communication, and a certain amount of practicality, the couple finds their way through. If it’s not,” she added, shrugging, “they don’t.”

  This wasn’t particularly comforting, but I was beginning to see that Helene wasn’t particularly interested in being comforting. She was interested in telling the truth as she saw it.

  “I just wish it wasn’t happening now,” I said. “I’ve got too much change going on already. I can’t deal with Jenny’s, too.” That’s right, Sam, make this all about you.

  “You don’t get to choose when change happens or how much hits you at once,” Helene said mildly.

  “You got that right,” I said ruefully. “It’s like I won the change booby prize.” I took a scrubber to the roasting pan with a vigor that it did not deserve.

  Helene merely said, “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  Apparently I did.

  FOURTEEN

  The common wisdom,” I said to Helene, “is that Cape Cod is paradise. Rolling ocean breakers on long stretches of golden sand. Tidal pools and spectacular sunsets. Lobster rolls, ice cream stands, silver-shingled B and Bs . . . all paradise.”

  “Which is true,” Helene pointed out.

  “Unless you grow up here,” I countered.

  What I explained to her, Helene being a newbie and all, was that if you are born and raised here, the truth is somewhat different. What Cape Codders know is that the Cape has only two seasons—tourist season and mud season. And autumn, of course, which is lovely, but even that only lasts for a month or two. But from November until well into June is mud season. Cold and gray and wet and unending.

  And then, overnight it seems, it’s tourist season. Hot and sunny. Roads choked with summer people and weekly renters and day-trippers. Beaches wall to wall with screaming kids. About mid-June, the mosquitoes arrive. About mid-July, the big biting flies known as greenheads join the party. Both leave with the tourists on Labor Day weekend.

  Then September sashays in—crisp and cool, all greens and blues and golds. September on the Cape is paradise, that I will admit.

  When I’d left the Cape to pursue my wonderful life (read irony there), I’d been mystified that my friends had not done the same. They didn’t want to go anywhere. They actually thought the Cape was paradise. They loved it, even during tourist season. They loved it even during mud season. In fact, they seemed to love it more during mud season.

  Jenny, for instance, adores walking the long empty curve of Shawme Beach with Sadie, particularly when a blow is coming and the oce
an is gray and angry. When nor’easters throw rain against the windows of her house and the wind moans and whips the tops of the locust trees, Jenny happily retreats inside, where she sets bread dough to rise, drinks tea, and plays Monopoly (at which she cheats, I might add) with the Three Things. On the rare sunny day, she takes them on the nature walk around Trout’s Point to look for ospreys diving for fish or for a seal playing with a banner of kelp. They love the Cape.

  As a kid, I’d loved the Cape, too. I’d been sailing the waters of Crystal Bay in my Sunfish, the Two Bits, since I was ten. Jenny and I spent a lot of our childhood gunk-holing in our kayaks, looking for hidey-holes back in the marshes, breathing in deep, funky drafts of mud and clams and salt water. “Eau de low tide,” we called it. Then we’d ride our bikes over to the spring-fed waters of Mirror Lake, where we’d wash off the mud and salt and practice our synchronized swimming. We called ourselves the Aqua Maids.

  “I loved synchronized swimming,” I said to Helene.

  “I’m sure you did,” she murmured, as if she implicitly understood how in the water, I was graceful in a way I’d never known on land.

  “But more than anything, I loved food and cooking,” I continued. This was true. My tattered copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking was my closest companion. I read it the way my friends were reading Harry Potter, over and over again. But back then, Fair Harbor was no place for a budding foodie. Outside of the dubious French food to be had at the Logan Inn, the offerings in Fair Harbor were definitely, almost defiantly, unsophisticated.

  Which is not to say that there wasn’t some great food to be had. There were the fried clams and onion rings at Mayo’s, for example. And Nellie’s Kitchen, great for tall stacks of buttermilk pancakes and crusty rounds of hash browns. But Cap’n Tom’s was a total loss with its soggy fish and chips and overcooked hamburgers, and a slice of pizza from DeLorenzo’s drooped in your hands like the neck of a dying swan.

  Then there was Ling’s Kitchen, a Chinese takeout that—except for really good spareribs and dumplings—basically gave you Americanized glop. That is unless you, like my twelve-year-old self, expressed some real interest, in which case you walked out with plastic containers of whatever Mr. Ling was cooking for his family for dinner.

  For me, these delicious, mysterious meals of sautéed bok choy with sliced fresh ginger or chicken stir-fried with chili paste opened a window to other tastes, other ways of cooking that I knew I’d never find on the Cape. And so, to my parents’ grave disappointment, instead of going to college I took myself off to the Culinary Institute of America.

  “I had loved the Cape,” I told Helene. “And then, almost overnight it seemed, I didn’t.”

  “Because it didn’t have fine cuisine?” Helene asked, the doubt clear in her voice.

  Somehow I couldn’t find it in myself to tell her about what had happened with Jason. How he’d made sure we were never alone together those last few weeks of the summer. How his coldness had hurt, but I’d thought I understood. He’d been right all along. I was a child, a selfish child, more concerned about my parents’ disapproval than standing up for a friend. I’d spent my senior year of high school in a fog of heartbreak.

  And so I left paradise for the big wide world. And, as is the way when you are young, things got better.

  “I had dreams,” I told Helene. “I was going to be a famous chef with my own famous restaurant in famous New York City. I was planning to call it Sam’s Place. I was planning to live in a glamorous glass box in the sky with views of the Empire State Building. And then for some reason, I married Stefan.”

  “You might want to consider those reasons at some point,” Helene said meaningfully, “but go on for now.”

  “Suddenly I was a notorious YouTube star. Suffice it to say, the publicity cost me my job. Stefan and I agreed not to press charges against each other, but the subsequent divorce proceedings cost me my savings. None of this was part of the plan.”

  “Life,” Helene said dryly, “is what happens when you’re busy making plans.”

  I gave her what I’m sure was a twisted, bitter smile. “So what happened was I ended up writing restaurant reviews for a local paper no one outside the Cape has ever heard of, living in a ramshackle old house with a view of a briar patch, and finding a dead body that nobody but me seems to care about.”

  “Well, we do need to go into that dead body bit more thoroughly,” Helene said, “but for now let’s just think about what all this has taught you. Because, my dear, no problem goes away until you have learned all it means to teach you.”

  I snorted. “All it’s taught me,” I said, “is that I’ve wasted the last ten years of my life.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Helene said briskly as she dried her hands on a kitchen towel. She gave me a level look. “You did not waste the last ten years of your life. You honed your craft and built a career. You learned about life and you learned about love. You are a better, wiser, more compassionate person for the challenges you’ve faced. You are exactly where you should be, when you should be.”

  * * *

  * * *

  That evening, as I walked Diogi around the quiet, sandy roads of Bayberry Point and the sun dipped below the tops of the locust trees, my cell rang. The number was unfamiliar, but it was a New York City area code, so I answered it.

  “Hello,” I said.

  Diogi, of course, chose this moment to warn off a clearly suspicious squirrel with a volley of barking.

  “Shut up,” I hissed at him. Diogi shut up.

  “Excuse me?” said an unfamiliar voice.

  “Oh, sorry!” I said. “I was talking to my dog. ‘Shut up’ is the only command he understands. And sometimes ‘sit.’”

  “Well, that’s a start, I guess,” the voice replied. “Is this Samantha Barnes, by the way?”

  “Yes,” I replied cautiously. I hadn’t gotten a call from one of my crazy YouTube fans in a while, but you never knew.

  “This is Caitlin Summerhill,” the voice said as if I should know who Caitlin Summerhill was. Which I should and did.

  Caitlin Summerhill was the chef-owner of Plum and Pear, one of the most revered restaurants in New York City, and justly so. Caitlin Summerhill had bet her life savings that New Yorkers were ready for a fusion of Asian simplicity with American tastes. Who knew that a dab of slow-roasted pulled pork on a perfect, almost translucent round of radish would become the appetizer of choice for the city’s elites? Caitlin Summerhill knew, apparently.

  “Are you there?” Caitlin asked, with more than just a touch of impatience.

  “Um, yeah,” I said. “I mean, um, of course. How are you, Caitlin?” We’d met once at a James Beard Awards dinner, so I felt I could be that familiar at least.

  “I’m great,” she said briskly. “But I’m losing a sous-chef de cuisine soon, and I thought you might be available.”

  Sous-chef de cuisine to Caitlin Summerhill’s executive chef. Second-in-command at Pear and Plum. Jump at this, you idiot.

  But I didn’t jump at it.

  “Yes, I’m available,” I admitted slowly. “And you probably know why.” Because if she didn’t, now was the time to get it on the table. So to speak.

  “Sure,” she said. “I know why. That guy was an asshole. Him and his jerk friends are why I’m not a big fan of men in my kitchen.”

  Ah, I thought, a kitchen without angry men with knives in it. Hmmm.

  “Well, I like the sound of that,” I said.

  “Good. When can you start?”

  Whoa. This was going a little fast for me. I wasn’t worried about pay or hours. I knew the pay would be good, I knew the hours would be terrible. I could live with both. So why was I reluctant to make the commitment?

  “Actually, can I have some time to think about it?” Did I just say that?

  “Seriously?” Caitlin Summerhill was not g
oing to pretend that any chef worth her Maldon sea salt wouldn’t die to get into Pear and Plum.

  “I’m actually not in the city at the moment,” I said. “I’ve got some, um, stuff to take care of, some, um, family stuff.” Not to mention a murder to solve. “It’s, um, difficult for me to make a decision right now. . . .” I trailed off miserably.

  “Well, I need to know in a week,” Caitlin said. “Call me by next Sunday. After that, the deal’s off.”

  “Thanks, Caitlin,” I said. “I really appreciate the offer. And the time to consider it.” Finally I was talking like a professional. Unfortunately, Caitlin Summerhill had already hung up.

  I started walking again, scuffing my feet in the sand, hardly seeing where I was going, just letting Diogi lead me. A few cars crawled by us, and I did not even notice them or give the obligatory little neighborly wave. My head was elsewhere. Why hadn’t I jumped at Caitlin’s job offer? There was no decision to make. I was being offered the chance of a lifetime.

  I should have been excited. I didn’t have to retreat to the Cape. I could go back to New York with my head held high. Back to the high-stakes, high-excitement, high-reward life I’d left behind.

  But all I could hear was Helene’s calm, certain voice. “You are exactly where you should be, when you should be.”

  If that was true, the next question surely was, Why? Why was I here? Not to find myself. I’d always known who I was. Not to find love. If my experience had taught me anything, it was that you don’t find love, love finds you.

  And then the answer came to me.

  To find Estelle’s killer.

  I was exactly where I should be, when I should be so that I could find Estelle’s killer.

  FIFTEEN

  Girl! You awake in there?”

  I sat straight up in my Aunt Ida’s bed, unsure for a moment where I was until Diogi’s hysterical response to the voice outside brought me back to reality.