Living back at Mom’s house in Busman’s Harbor, without a meaningful winter job, I’d felt like a failure. Then Zoey, Jamie, and I had started hanging out, seeing movies, eating out in Damariscotta or Wiscasset, traveling to Portland to visit museums and attend concerts. Their friendship had kept me sane.
Not that it had escaped my notice when the two of them had become more than friends. I was genuinely happy for them, and they never treated me like a third wheel.
“How is it living on the island?” Zoey leaned forward in the booth, her thick, curly brown hair falling over her shoulders. She was dressed in a tank top and denim overalls, dabbed with clay. She had obviously been at the potter’s wheel already this morning.
“I love living on Morrow,” I answered. “It’s great. My apartment is fantastic. I don’t have to come and go on the boat, so as soon as the Clambake ends and the guests leave, I fall into bed. But it’s being on the island that’s the best part—waking up to the sun on the water, falling asleep to the waves slapping the dock. I feel differently out there. It brings back my childhood summers in such a strong way. Even though we’re working like dogs, I have the same school’s-out feeling I had as a kid.”
Zoey grinned back at me. “Just don’t love it so much you don’t come back in the fall. I need you. Lupine Design needs you.”
“Never fear. I can’t wait.”
Zoey had grown Lupine Design into a highly successful business pretty much by herself. Now, she was overwhelmed by the dual demands of being responsible for the creative direction of the company, designing new lines and pieces, and running the business side. In the fall, I would take over the newly created position of CEO, dealing with retailers and the online business, seeing to the finances, and managing the employees and the shop. It was very like the work I’d done in venture capital, helping businesses to grow, before I’d returned to run the Clambake. Even better, the Snowden Family Clambake’s busy season was Zoey’s slowest, so I could continue working for my family. And Livvie worked at Lupine as a potter in the off-season. She’d been the one to introduce me to Zoey in the first place.
Gus turned up at our booth, pad in hand, the stub of a pencil behind his ear. “What’ll ya have?”
As Jamie had told me, Zoey had taken the precaution of ordering breakfast before we got there to be sure to get in under the wire. Jamie ordered a BLT and French fries. After due consideration, I did the same. Gus makes the best French fries in the entire world. “And coffee,” I said.
“Yes!” Zoey pushed her empty mug forward. “Coffee, coffee, coffee.”
“Me, too.” Jamie yawned to underline his need.
Gus went off mumbling about the heathen practice of people eating breakfast and lunch at the same table. There was a time not too long ago when Zoey, as a newcomer in town, would have been intimidated by him. She wasn’t intimidated by much, but Gus had that effect on people. Now, she knew him well enough not to let him bother her. More important, she knew Gus accepted her. Against all laws of capitalism and the hospitality industry, you didn’t eat at Gus’s unless he knew and liked you.
Gus came back with Zoey’s hash, runny eggs, and toast. The restaurant was nearly empty and Jamie’s food and mine followed shortly after. Over our meals, we talked about everything. How Zoey’s business was going. How the newest hire was making out at the PD. When the chief might finally retire. The strong summer start at the Clambake.
When he cleared our plates away, Gus came back with the coffee carafe one more time. We thanked him as he filled our cups. He grunted and was gone.
“Why were you two meeting this morning?” Zoey asked, looking across the table from Jamie to me. “I totally forgot to ask.”
“A friend of Julia’s mom died in a drowning accident five years ago,” Jamie said without looking up. “She was just declared dead, and it’s brought up some stuff for Jacqueline.” He looked at me then. “Is that right?”
“Pretty much,” I agreed. I wasn’t going to tell them about the email to Mom. She felt badly enough about it without anybody else knowing.
“That’s sad,” Zoey said. “Tell your mom I’m sorry.”
We paid the bill, “cash on the barrelhead,” as Gus insisted. Outside, we hugged and promised to be in touch.
“I’m so glad for you,” Zoey said, squeezing me tight. “The business is doing well and you love your new apartment. And you’ll be coming to Lupine in the fall.”
“I am really happy,” I told her, which certainly hadn’t been the case when she’d first gotten to know me. “Things are going so great; I can’t even think about it. I’m afraid I’ll jinx it.”
* * *
It was time for family meal at the Clambake before I was able to sit down with my mother. It had been a busy lunch service, a capacity seating of tourists full of questions about everything from life on the island to how to eat a lobster.
Livvie had put out a gorgeous meal of gazpacho, baked haddock, and pasta salad. I filled a plate and sat at the end of one of the picnic tables the staff had pushed together on the lawn, motioning for Mom to sit opposite. Down the table from us, employees laughed and gossiped, their chatter filling the air.
It didn’t take long to relay what Jamie had told me. As I’d expected, Mom resisted the notion that everything had been done to find Ginny. She brought up her cousin Hugh before I had time to tell her about the other three files.
“Of course, Hugh wasn’t missing,” she said. “Well, he was. But only to us. Not to himself.”
“I wouldn’t let that give you false hope about Ginny,” I warned her.
“It doesn’t, I assure you.” Mom tucked into her haddock with vigor. I followed her lead. I was hungry, too. The fish was lightly breaded and perfectly cooked, even for our large staff. My sister was a wonder.
“The files Jamie shared besides Hugh’s were a Lena Farber and a Robert Denison. Jamie feels that the success in finding Denison’s body led the search team to focus too narrowly on Westclaw Point when they were looking for Ginny.”
Mom looked up from her plate. “It would have, I suppose. Since Bob Denison went into the water near Chipmunk Island.”
Her use of the nickname gave me a start. “Did you know Robert Denison?”
“I never met him. He died the summer before I started visiting Ginny and her friends on Chipmunk. He was Dianne and Amy’s dad.”
Her answer stunned me momentarily. “What! Dianne and Amy had a dad who disappeared off the island and then the same thing happened to a good friend of theirs? That’s creepy.” I couldn’t believe no one had mentioned him to this point. Amy didn’t reference him in her eulogy, and Dianne hadn’t spoken.
Mom relaxed visibly. “Not as creepy as it sounds. The cases were very different. It was well known that Mr. Denison had a fight with his wife and either stormed off to sleep in his boat or she asked him to remove himself. That never was clear. While he was asleep in the cabin, the lines came loose and the boat—it was a smallish sailboat—floated out into the harbor. At some point, he must have woken up and stumbled overboard. No one ever said it to us kids directly, but it was assumed he was drunk. A lobsterman found the boat the next morning, floating near the mouth of the harbor with no one aboard, the dinghy gone. Denison’s body was found several days later.”