Night Scents (31 page)

"I was raised to get along on my own."

Pursing her lips, she gave a tight, confident shake of the head. "No. Someone taught you proper manners. You know what to do, what to say, even if your baser instincts are to be less polite." Her green eyes sparkled with insight, understanding. "And you often have been."

Clate pulled open the creaking front door and held it for her. "Certain of yourself, aren't you?"

"Almost always."

"I have a feeling, Mrs. Frye," he laid on the southern drawl, "that you're just a real good guesser."

"An excellent guesser," she said, unoffended, "but I don't need to guess when I already know, do I?"

Clate let that one go. She led the way to the formal front parlor, which, thus far, he hadn't so much as sat in. With her old-fashioned dress and white hair, she looked as if she belonged amidst the antique furnishings. He could imagine her waiting for a sea captain to return from the Far East, bringing home the china plates displayed on the mantel, the intricately carved chest off to one side of the prim, uncomfortable sofa, the ivory statue, the chess set made of whalebone.

She settled on the edge of a Queen Anne chair. He offered her something to drink. She declined. Her eyes leveled on his as he remained standing next to the cold fireplace. "It was my husband."

"What?"

"The man I saw that night."

Clate didn't move. "The night your parents died?"

"Yes. I had no memory of it until I moved out of here." She glanced around the musty room, but her expression didn't change. She was eerily calm for a woman who'd just accused her husband of killing her parents. "And even then, it came to me in a dream. A clear dream. There's no doubt. Jason Frye lured my parents onto a sandbar, robbed them, and left them. He took their treasure and buried it that same night out here, in his own back yard."

"Why?"

"So he wouldn't get caught." She spoke without hesitation or bitterness. "It would have ruined him, his family name. That was important to him. The Fryes don't have the scoundrels in their family tree that the Macintoshes do. I'm sure he was terribly sorry about what he'd done. It was probably a prank, something he did to make himself feel courageous and daring. Jason always wanted to feel courageous and daring. I expect he had no idea my parents would actually die."

"But if your parents recognized him when he robbed them—"

"He could have been wearing a mask."

Clate said nothing, trying to imagine the horror Hannah must have felt when she realized her husband of seven years had caused her parents' death, even if unintentionally.

Provided her memory of that night so long ago was reliable.

"He tried to make it up to me," she went on with conviction. "I can see that now, in hindsight. He helped my brother and me find housing, helped first him and then me find work, was always there if we needed anything. He supported me in all my arguments with the board of selectmen over the direction the town was taking. Eventually he even married me." She shut her eyes briefly. "It all makes sense now."

Clate edged toward the sofa. A breeze lifted the soft, faded white curtain, brought with it the smell of the Frye gardens. How had she lived here for twenty-five years, knowing yet not knowing? Had her subconscious not permitted her to remember? Or was she just nuts? "Mrs. Frye—"

"It all must seem so far-fetched to you." Her tone was patient, her expression still unchanged. "I understand. You're so young."

"Memory can be a tricky thing."

She smiled placidly. "I'm eighty-seven, Clate. I know just how tricky memory can be. But I do remember."

"Eighty years later, in a dream."

"Yes. Eighty years later, in a dream."

He swallowed. He could hear the old grandfather clock in the library ticking, and a boat out on the water, big from the sound of it. The wind rustled in the tall marsh grasses. Hannah Macintosh Frye believed she had watched the man she would marry more than five decades later dig a hole in his back yard the night her parents died. She had lived in this house, amidst its quiet sounds and fragrances, for twenty-five years. And only now, after she'd sold it, did she remember.

She was eyeing him. "I knew it would be difficult with you. This winter, when I decided to put this place on the market and expected you would come, I knew."

"Mrs. Frye, you're welcome to your fantasies, but I—"

"But it's even more difficult than I imagined."

He bit off a sigh. "Do you really believe you summoned me here?"

She smiled. "Does it matter?" She didn't wait for him to answer. She leaned over, touched his hand. "Thank you for making me tell you. I feel better now that someone else knows."

Clate didn't feel very good at all. Before she left, he took her out to her witch's garden. She frowned at the missing herbs, mystified. "You have no use for these plants, Clate. You don't have the knowledge—" She stopped, gasping, her voice hoarse as she stared wide eyed at the chopped area. "Burn them. Burn them all.
Promise me!"

Piper came round to the front of her house, only to find Sally Shepherd standing in her driveway. Sally jumped back in surprise. "I'd just given up on you."

"Sorry. I was talking a walk on the beach. I needed to clear my head."

"I understand. It's been hectic for you, I'm sure. At least Hannah seems to be doing well. I stopped in earlier, and she's looking quite fit and spry."

"She's amazing. Would you like to come in?"

Sally glanced around, as if someone might pop out from the roses. She was unusually nervous, clasping and unclasping her hands; she kept her nails blunt-cut and wore only a thin gold wedding band. Today's outfit was straight out of the Talbot's catalogue: a striped top and walking shorts in white and primary red. "If I'm not disturbing you."

"Not at all. I don't have any classes coming in today."

She relaxed somewhat. "I've been wanting to sign up for your scented candles class. I'd never put candles in the rooms at the inn, of course, but I'd like to make some for myself. They're wonderful. I especially love the smell of strawberry in the winter. Strawberry candles and a hot bath." She gave a small, almost embarrassed laugh as she followed Piper through the rose-embroiled fence and up her front walk. "Decadent."

Piper laughed. "So long as you have warm apple cobbler to go with it."

"No. Warm chocolate-pudding cake."

They exclaimed over desserts and fragrances until they reached the kitchen, where Piper offered iced tea to drink. "It's all I have, except for water, of course." She grinned. "No chocolate cake."

"Well, I suppose tea is safe here." She blanched. "I'm sorry. I meant that as a joke, but the timing—"

"It's okay, Sally. I say the same thing about Hannah and her teas. At best, most of them taste lousy. I'm surprised Stan Carlucci managed to drink enough to make him sick." Piper opened her refrigerator, withdrew a glass pitcher of tea. Her walk on the beach had left her thirsty, if not clearheaded about poisons, treasures, and her next-door neighbor. "He and Paul haven't mentioned the tincture episode to anyone?"

Sally accepted the glass of tea. The temperatures had fallen dramatically since morning, the air feeling more like early spring than the onset of summer. She lowered her eyes, spooning in sugar as she sat at Piper's kitchen table. "That's one of the reasons I stopped by. They're thinking about it. Stan—well, you know how he is. He has it in his head that Hannah passed out because of some tea or infusion or whatever she drank."

Hannah had the same thing in her head, with the difference that it had been slipped to her, not that she'd slipped it to herself. Piper shrugged, trying not to seem disturbed at what Sally was saying. "Who would he tell? I already know what he thinks, and my father and Andrew and Benjamin lost patience with her potions ages ago."

"I think he might tell her doctors." She tried her tea, then added another quarter teaspoon of sugar. Her eyes didn't meet Piper's. "And perhaps the police."

"You think he might, or the plan's in the works?"

"I think it might already be in the works."

Piper gritted her teeth. "Sally—"

Sally breathed out, looking older than her thirty-eight years. Piper felt a stab of sympathy. It couldn't be easy coming to her with this news. Sally swallowed hard, visibly, then blurted, "He told Paul he's going to her doctor, then to the police, first thing in the morning."

"And he has the best of intentions, I'm sure," Piper said sarcastically.

"That's what he says."

"Oh, Sally. Hannah didn't leave him that tincture, and she didn't poison herself. Stan's just going to end up looking like an even bigger ass."

Sally didn't answer, but simply stared out the window at the gusting wind and gathering dusk. "When I was growing up, Hannah was always so wonderful to me. We didn't come here that often, but once, I remember, we got caught in a hurricane. I was ten. I wanted to leave, I was so scared, but my grandfather didn't think it would be that bad on this side of the Cape. And I suppose it wasn't." She drank more of her tea. "I remember everything about those two days."

"Jason stayed put, of course."

"Oh, yes. We rode it out. Hannah had me help her set aside water, food, candles, matches. She tried to get me to think of it as a grand adventure, but I only remember feeling terrified. I didn't think so much of Cape Cod after that."

"You tend to remember your first hurricane." Piper sat across from her, welcoming the cold air blowing in through her open windows. Not a hurricane-force wind by any stretch of the imagination. "I've no illusions. The right hurricane comes along, my little strip of coast'll be rearranged."

"They say in five or six thousand years Cape Cod will be entirely underwater. Geologically, that's tomorrow."

Piper nodded. She'd heard the same predictions. They were common knowledge along the precarious, windswept, sandy shores of the peninsula that jutted out into the Atlantic. "Our ancestors' cutting down all the trees didn't help."

"I guess they were thinking about getting through the winter, not the next few millennia." Sally set her glass down with an unexpectedly sharp thud. "Or their profit margin."

"Either way, what's done is done."

"After that first hurricane, I never had any fantasies about the Frye house. I never wanted it, even as a child. My friends didn't understand. I'm not sure Paul did, at first. Cape Cod's so romantic to everyone, so beautiful. But all I could think of was crouching down in the dark with Hannah and my grandfather while the wind howled and the rain lashed at the windows and the roof and walls creaked, and there was no one in walking distance who could help us. No one." She turned to Piper. "I like living in town. I don't know how Hannah stood it out here by herself after Grandfather died. Then you came, but I guess I still didn't understand."

Piper drank more of her iced tea, seeing a side of Sally Shepherd she'd never seen before. "I never thought of us being out here alone. Pop and my brothers were within calling distance—"

"Not if the power lines were down."

"Trust me, if the lines were down, they'd come hunting for us. And with the sophistication of hurricane warnings, there's no reason to stick around if a Category Five's charging up the coast."

"Unless you're Jason Frye," Sally said, not with bitterness, not with affection, but a sort of studied neutrality.

"Or a few other diehards. Most of us have been through enough hurricanes that we batten down the hatches as best we can and clear out when the evacuation orders come. So, Sally, if you're not much on the Cape, why did you buy the inn?"

She smiled, looking more relaxed. "Because it was just impossible to resist. Paul and I both fell in love with it. He wasn't happy practicing law, and we both knew immediately that this was our chance. The location in the heart of the village is perfect, we get to be around people, and it's as well protected as any spot on the Cape can be. It's not ostentatious, it's just a pretty, tasteful New England inn."

That would be important to Sally. "No regrets, then?"

"None." There wasn't a flicker of hesitation. She went on, more subdued, "And I want you to know I have no regrets about Hannah having sold the Frye house to Clate Jackson. If I'd wanted it or any of the furnishings I'd have said something. But I didn't, and in any case, I wouldn't have felt it was right to lay claim to anything."

"Why not?"

"That would have been so crass. If Hannah wanted to sell every last teacup, that was entirely her right as my grandfather's widow. Piper—" Sally jumped suddenly to her feet and put her glass in the sink. Whirling back around, her intensity, rare for so self-contained a woman, was palpable. "Piper, do you think she's happy?"

"Who, Hannah?"

"Yes. When I was a little girl I always just wanted that reassurance that she was truly happy. I don't know why. My grandfather wasn't a bad man. Frugal, a bit of a perfectionist, something of a stick-in-the-mud, but he was reliable and pragmatic. I think she could count on him. Anyway." She seemed to catch herself, and smiled, embarrassed by her own intensity. "I suppose at eighty-seven one doesn't worry too much about happiness."

Piper sensed the older woman's embarrassment. "I think we all want to be happy, Sally, no matter our age. It's nice of you to care about Hannah this way. I'm sure she'd be touched."

"Yes, I suppose." She'd retreated into the composed, dignified, rather plain woman who'd married a Boston attorney and bought a country inn in a Cape Cod village named after her family. "I'm sure I've taken up enough of your time, Piper. By the way, thank you for your advice on the inn. Paul and I both are thrilled with the results so far. We've done more work since you were there last. Please stop by, and I'll give you the updated grand tour."

"I'd like that."

Piper saw her out, and they agreed that Sally would encourage Stan Carlucci to wait another day or two, at least to give Hannah a chance to fully recover, before he ratted her out to her doctors and the police. In the meantime, Piper promised herself she'd try to find the damned water jugs. Maybe she should talk to her father about Hannah's poison theory. He'd brought her the springwater and might remember what the jugs looked like, who might have had access to them.