Safe Harbor (14 page)

He and Eden had been living in
Westport
; they'd been married for less than a year. Sam had returned home from a four-day trip aboard a fishing trawler, where he'd been documenting the abysmal decline of the cod industry. He was tired, salty, dirty, and reasonably drunk after hitting a waterfront bar with some of the crew. When he pulled up to his rented house, he found a squad car parked in front of it.

Forget the fishermen; it was the cops in that squad car who'd truly lifted the scales from Sam's eyes. He learned from them that his wife—his gorgeous, vivacious, sexy, smart, kind-hearted wife—had fleeced an old woman of her life's savings, which the woman had foolishly invested in diamonds that she kept hidden in a can of Gold's Foot Powder. Diamonds in Gold's.
Eden
had probably got a kick out of that.

Eden had been a great one for volunteering her company to shut-ins. Sam, naive jerk that he was, used to marvel that someone with so many talents could spend long afternoons sitting on dusty sofas in dimly lit parlors, listening to sad and lonely widows repeating their memories.

And widowers, too, of course. Statistically speaking, there were fewer of those, but
Eden
had been available to all. She gave unstintingly of her time, her charm, and God only knew what else. Sam used to marvel at it, and he loved her the more for it. Until
the cops came that afternoon.

After they left, he found the note—in the drawer next to her birth control pills.

I love you, Sam. Please believe that. I'll never love anyone else. I can't stay on to explain; I wish I could. Just know that I love you. Someday we'll meet again.

But not soon. He couldn't find her, and neither could the investigators he'd hired.

Somewhere in his heart of hearts, Sam blamed himself. If he had done a better job of being married to her... if he had given her wealth enough so that she hadn't felt obliged to go out and shake every tree for more...
if he had—who knows?—
satisfied
her on some level that went deeper than sex, deeper than commitment, deeper than emotion itself. Then maybe she wouldn't be the way she was, and he wouldn't be panting three steps behind her the way he was.

Steadman, you self-centered bastard. You really think that you could've changed
Eden
?

The answer to that was still yes.

From some peripheral nook in his brain he had a sudden image of Holly Anderson in a pale green sundress, bent over double in stitches over his arrogance. Her good-humored laughter was infectious. Alone at the bar, he found himself joining in with a snort of self-mockery.

The bartender took Sam's grunt as a signal to top off his lager. Sam nodded his thanks, willing and wishing to be carried away on a soft wave of melancholy. He was feeling hollow and empty, and he wasn't sure how to fill the void. For now, beer would have to do.

U
nder a setting sun, Holly and her mother sat in
Adirondack
chairs on the upper deck, sipping strong rum punches and murmuring melancholy phrases about the frailty of men.

"Look at the harbor. Isn't it lovely tonight?"
Charlotte
mused. She added with a sigh, "Your father and I bought the house for this view. I always assumed that we would die here. Now
I
guess I'll be doing that on my own."

Weary of her mother's mood, Holly said, "Oh, Mom, nobody's dying."

Charlotte
rubbed her elbow. "Lately, everything hurts," she insisted. "I'm getting old. No wonder he left me."

"No,
he's
getting old, and that's why he left you."

Smiling gratefully,
Charlotte
said, "Ivy called last night. She's so preoccupied," she added.

"Don't tell me she's not coming," Holly said, offended in advance by her sister's selfishness. "House or no house
..."

Her mother gave
her a look more sharp than con
fused. "Is that what she told you, that she can't come? And you resent it, is that it?"

"I didn't say that."

"Because you're afraid that you're going to be the one who ends up the caregiver in the family—aren't you," her mother said.

It was true. "No!"

"Holly, you're a wonderful daughter but a terrible liar. Don't worry, honey: I would check myself into a nursing home before I'd move in with you."

"But I'd never let you," Holly said, realizing it for the first time. She smiled and added, "We can be sad and single together."

"You'll
never have to worry about being single. What about Sam? You sound as if you have a number-one crush on the man."

"Oh—Sam," Holly said, dismissing him. "I'd never elevate the feeling I have for him to the level of crush. He's just a thorn in my side, that's all. It's hard not to think about a thorn in your
side. Trust me, there is noth
ing, absolutely nothing, between us."

Her mother was about to reply to that when she interrupted herself. "That's a car arriving!" She jumped up from her
Adirondack
chair—with amazing alacrity for an old woman in pain—and peered expectantly over the balustrade.

"Hell. It's Marjory Betson," she whispered, stepping back quickly. "Hide."

"Mom.
What if she's seen you?"

"Oh, all right,"
Charlotte
muttered. She yelled down, "Yoohoo! Marjory—up here."

Below them, the island gossip stood with her head bent back, an eager expression on her face. "
Charlotte
! I have hideous news!"

Holly's mother gasped and said, "Oh, no—about what?"

"Eric
!"

****

They
ran down
to let her inside and then listened to news more stupefying than drink could ever be: Eden Walker had gone missing, and an all-day search by the Coast Guard had so far failed to recover her body.

"Body! What do you mean, body?" asked
Charlotte
, clearly in shock.

Marjory Betson—blond, tall, tanned and fit—crossed her legs and leaned forward from the waist for emphasis as she said, "Supposedly Eden was sailboarding while the
Vixen
lay anchored in
La
ck
eys
Bay
. That in itself was unusual, don't you think?" she added. "Boats never anchor there. The wind was from the southwest as usual and—oh, but you're not that fond of sailing, are you, so perhaps you wouldn't know. But take my word for it: the roll there would be just awful on a weak stomach like yours. And uncomfortable for anyone. I can't imagine why Eric would anchor there. Except that they'd be alone,
I
suppose."

"What about
Eden
? Tell us about
Eden
," said Holly, cutting impatiently through the woman's innuendo.

"I'm getting to that, dear. After a while when
Eden
didn't return, Eric supposedly got into his inflatable and searched for her. He became alarmed—apparently—after he couldn't find her, and he called the Coast Guard. They sent out one of their big inflatables to search the area, and that's when they found the bloody windsurfer washed up on a beach."

"Bloody
windsurfer—?"

"Oh-h-h, yes," said Marjory through pruned lips. "They found blood, long stra
n
ds of hair, and a silver wrist bangle caught in the rigging." She let that sink in for effect while she sipped her Evian.

The three women were seated in the tile-floored conservatory, surrounded by towering houseplants and tender exotics. The room, a favorite, also happened to be the one farthest from Eric Anderson's ransacked study. While her mother waited in horror to hear what Marjory had to say, Holly jumped up and switched on more lamps. She wanted to ward off what she knew was going to be a long, black night.

Marjory set her icy glass carefully on a stone coaster and then continued. "After the beached windsurfer was reported, the Coast Guard sent out one of their utility boats, and then a helicopter," she explained. "How odd that you never heard anything about it all day. The Coast Guard even put out an Urgent Marine Broadcast."

Holly remembered Billy's tip of the wings in salute to the Coast Guard chopper that they passed on their way back to Vineyard Haven. The seaplane must have been flying right over the search area.

Holly said, "I can see how you might have heard the broadcast, Mrs. Betson; you practically live aboard your boat. But how did you know about the blood and the hair and all the rest of it? They don't go into that kind of detail in the broadcast, surely?"

Marjory Betson was making an effort not to be smug. "
I
know about the Coast Guard involvement because my niece is married to a petty officer. As for the police involvement—"

"The police?" asked
Charlotte
in a voice too high. "What have the police got to do with an accidental drowning?"

"Was
it an accidental drowning?" asked Marjory. "That's what they're trying to find out."

God, the woman was insufferable. Holly wanted to grab her by her Ralph Lauren collar and toss her out of the house, but she felt as spellbound as her mother, and just as filled with dread.

"How did you find out that the police are involved?"

It was exactly the question that Marjory Betson had been waiting for them to ask.
Her lips flattened in vic
tory. Her look became serene. "They questioned me."

"You! About what?"

"They were poking around the marina a little while ago. Since the
Vixen's
slip is next to ours, and since Mark and I spend every minute we can together aboard our
MarMar
—naturally the police turned to us. They were very polite about it, but you could see that they had an agenda."

"What kind of agenda?"
Charlotte
asked, her voice faint.

Marjory locked her hands across her tanned, bony knee and stared at the bronze-and-glass table in front of her wicker chair. "At least,
I
think
it was an agenda. I could be wrong, of course. But the questions went along the lines of, 'Did you see them together? Were they very demonstrative?' You set the drift. Through it all, they kept coming back to ask things like, 'Did you ever witness an argument between them? Did Eden Walker seem to have a volatile temper? Did Eric Anderson?' That sort of thing."

She took another sip of her water, as if she'd been on the witness stand too long. "
I
had to tell the truth, of course. There
was
that terrible argument we saw when they were anchored nearby that one time, although I—"

"What argument? You never said anything about an argument. You told me that they were all over one another in the cockpit,"
Charlotte
said angrily. "Those were your exact words."

"And they were—but that was later, after the argument. I told the police how completely out of character both displays of emotion were for Eric. We all know how quiet and discreet he is—or was, up until all this horrible business started."

Holly sat in rigid silence through the insinuating monologue. She saw that her mother was melting in place, like a flickering candle about to go out. She had to do something, so she stood up abruptly and said, "It was
so
kind of you to bring us up to speed. It would have been awful not to have lost sleep over this."

"Well, yes, that's exactly what I—oh! Oh, my, I've gone and done the wrong thing, haven't I?"

What do you think, you silly cow?

Holly turned to her devastated mother and said, "Don't get up, Mom; I'll see Mrs. Betson to the door."

But
Charlotte
did get up, and let herself be kissed by Marjory, and let herself seem grateful for Marjory's words of comfort: "You're well rid of him, Charlotte, honestly. Get down on your knees and thank God. That woman had him under an evil spell."

Holly's mother turned away and left the room with tears in her eyes, and Holly led cruel Marjory straight to the front door. She swung it open and resisted the urge to shove the harpy through it, confining herself to a simple "Good night."

But Marjory wasn't quite done. "I didn't want to go into too many details with your mother," she whispered in a funereal tone. "But I got the impression that they found evidence of violence on the
Vixen,
too. There was
blood. Everywhere."

"Good night," Holly said again, but this time her voice was shaking.

She locked the door and ran back to her mother, expecting to find her in a new round of hysterics, but
Charlotte
was nowhere to be seen. After a quick circuit of the house, Holly climbed back onto the darkness of the upper deck. All she found were two empty chaises; her mother had vanished as mysteriously as
Eden
. Alarmed, Holly scrambled back down the attic steps, shouting her mother's name as she descended to the main floor.