Threads of Evidence (18 page)

Chapter 38

 

—Sampler worked by Fanny Abrams, age ten, Monhegan Island, Maine, 1821

 

 

 

Jed Fitch. His name kept coming up. Gram and Skye had said Jasmine spent a lot of time with him that summer. Skye thought he might be the father of Jasmine's child. Jed had been with Jasmine at the party, at least some of the time. And Ob was the second person who'd said Jed was the one who found her in the fountain.

I‘d planned to go to the elementary school this afternoon to see Miss Beth Fitch, sister of Elsa and Jed. School wouldn't be out until two-thirty.

But I had time before then. I headed for the real estate office where Jed Fitch worked.

I was lucky; he was there.

“Angie!” he said, coming around the desk and shaking my hand with both of his. “I heard you were back in town. So good to see you!”

Although I knew who Jed Fitch was, I was pretty sure I'd never spoken to him before.

He was a big man. But the muscles he might have had as a young man had turned to fat, and the stomach hanging above his belt was only partially covered by his suit jacket.

“I got back about a month ago,” I answered. “It's good to be home.”

“No place like Haven Harbor,” he agreed. “So, what can I do for you today? Thinking of buying a place of your own? We've got some great deals on homes right here. Some even have ocean views.”

He was smart enough to know I could never afford shore frontage. “Ocean view” was the second most expensive category of home on the Maine coast. “Not at the moment, no,” I said. “Although if I'm ever in the market, I'll be sure to call you.”

“That's all I can ask,” Jed said, handing me his card. “Keep this for your files. Just on the chance.”

I slipped his card into my pocket. “Actually, I'm here doing a little research.”

“‘Research'?” He frowned and ran his hand through the little hair he still had. “About what? Maine real estate?”

“Indirectly,” I said. “I've been doing some work for Skye West. You were the one who handled her purchase of the old Gardener estate.”

“True. Lovely lady, Ms. West.”

And I bet a lovely commission for Jed Fitch.

“She's asked me to take on a project for her. She'd like to have a history of Aurora, which, of course, means a history of the Gardener family. I wondered if you could help me fill in some details.”

“Me? Why not check the library? I'm no expert on the Gardeners.” Jed's smile stiffened.

“Several people in town said you were a close friend of Jasmine Gardener's. I hoped you wouldn't mind telling me a little bit about her.” I pulled a notebook out of my bag. “For Ms. West's project. She told me how wonderfully you were handling the sale. She said she'd recommend you to any of her friends interested in Maine real estate. She was sure you could help me.”

Jed leaned back in his chair. “I knew Jasmine, yes. We were about the same age. But that was a long time ago.”

“I'll bet you knew her better than about anyone else in Haven Harbor. That's what people have said. They've said she had a real crush on you back then.”

Jed sat up and straightened his tie. “We were close that last summer, yes. Who knows what might have come of it if Jasmine hadn't died so tragically?” He looked into my eyes. “Her death was devastating. Just devastating. It took me years to get over. I kept blaming myself, wondering what I could have done differently that day.”

“People say Jasmine was drinking at the party. Did you think she was drunk?”

“Drinking? Sure. We'd all had a few. No one was paying attention, and it was the last party of the season. But— drunk? I didn't think she was drunk. But she must have been. How else would she have stumbled into the fountain and hit her head and drowned?”

“Ob Winslow mentioned you were the one who found her.”

“Ob said that?” Jed hesitated. “I suppose it's part of the police record, too. Yeah. The fireworks were almost over. Jasmine said she didn't feel well. Maybe what people said later was true, and she'd had too much to drink. But I didn't notice. She headed for the house. When she hadn't come back in a few minutes, I followed her. She wasn't inside. One of the maids said she'd seen Jasmine heading for the driveway. I found her, lying in the fountain, her head under the water. I pulled her out, shouted for help, and started CPR.” He sat back again. “I'd been a lifeguard at the YMCA pool in the winter. I had my certificate. All I could think was ‘Thank goodness I know what to do.'”

“So you gave her CPR. That might have saved her life.”

“All I wanted was to get her to breathe again.”

“Someone called an ambulance then?”

He nodded. “One of the cops the Gardeners had hired to direct traffic and check for drunken drivers wasn't far from the front gate. I yelled for help. He ran toward us, saw what I was doing, and radioed for an ambulance.”

“Lucky he was nearby.”

“It was. I was on top of her, giving her mouth-to-mouth, you know, the way they used to recommend. The sky was all lit up with the last firework display—the gold one that was always the biggest. It seemed to take forever for the ambulance to get there, but it must have been only a few minutes. The paramedics whisked her away.”

“What did you do then?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Gardener went with Jasmine in the ambulance. Everyone was leaving the party. The word was spreading about Jasmine's being taken to the hospital. I didn't know what to do. I just stood there. Finally my friends found me and Carole drove me home.” He stopped. “Mr. Gardener called me the next morning to thank me for trying to save Jasmine. He's the one told me she hadn't made it.”

“You said you sometimes blamed yourself.”

“I shouldn't have let her drink. She was little. Only about five feet tall, maybe a hundred pounds. She shouldn't have been drinking as much as the rest of us. And I should have gone with her when she said she didn't feel well.”

“How had you and Jasmine been getting along that summer?”

“We were close. Really close.” He hesitated. “I'd even asked her to marry me.” He hesitated, as though deciding how much he'd tell me. “She hadn't given me an answer. I'd thought she would that night. I asked her again during the party, but some little kids interrupted us. We were never alone. Never had a chance to talk.”

“So if she'd said ‘yes,' you wouldn't have gone to college?”

“Jasmine was more important to me than college.”

Jed sounded sincere. I decided not to ask him whether he'd known Jasmine was pregnant. It would explain why he'd asked her to marry him. But she hadn't agreed. Was she waiting to hear from Sam Gould, the other young man Skye suggested was also a possible father-to-be?

“Did you know Sam Gould?”

Jed hesitated. “Sam Gould. That name's familiar. He may have a shipbuilding business up the coast. Years ago, Sam was a friend of Jasmine's.”

“Then you did know him.”

“Met him once or twice that summer. Jasmine and I tried not to talk about people we'd dated in the past. Now I see his ads in
Down East.
”

“So you knew he and Jasmine had been dating in New York City.”

“Sure. Like she knew I'd dated Carole.”

“Carole Simpson.”

“Right.”

It was my turn to hesitate. I looked at the picture on the wall, near Jed's computer, of Jed and his wife and their two sons. “When did you and Carole marry?”

“Several years later. It had nothing to do with Jasmine or the Gardeners.” He stood up. “I've told you everything you need to know, everything I remember about back then.” He hitched up his pants. “It was a long time ago. Life went on after Jasmine Gardener died. I went on.”

Chapter 39

Virtue and wit, with science join'd
        
Refine the manners, form the mind,
        
And when with industry they meet
        
The female character's complete.”

 

—Sampler stitched by Sophia Catherine Bier, 1810

 

 

 

I stopped at home for a light lunch and checked my messages. Several questions had come in about Gram's shower, and there were two inquiries about Mainely Needlepoint. I answered them all and nibbled a sandwich of fresh lettuce and an imported tomato. Local tomatoes would be ripe in about a month. They'd taste better.

A little after two-thirty I pulled into the driveway of Haven Harbor Elementary School. My elementary school.

Yellow school buses were lined up and about a dozen parents were there to pick up students headed for Little League practices, music lessons, orthodontia appointments, or going to Grandma's for the afternoon.

I hadn't ridden the school bus until high school. I'd only lived seven blocks from the school. Most days, in fall, winter, and spring, I'd walked those blocks, often in snow or mud boots. But sometimes, if the weather was bad and she wasn't working the afternoon shift, Mama had been in one of those cars waiting to take students home. It hadn't happened often, but I'd always looked to see if she was there. Just in case.

I remembered one January afternoon I'd walked home. I must have been in third grade, because it was before Mama disappeared. Snow had been heavy all day. Haven Harbor schools rarely closed. That day blowing snow and sleet made it hard to see, and my boots were full of melted snow before I'd gotten two blocks. My feet were numb, and the wet boots rubbed against my bare legs beneath the dress I'd insisted on wearing that morning. But despite the cold I'd felt hot—so hot I'd taken off my hat and scarf and stuffed them in my book bag. And my head hurt. My ten- or fifteen-minute walk seemed to take forever.

When I finally reached home, Gram took one look at me and insisted on giving me a warm bath and putting me to bed. By the time the doctor arrived to announce I had a bad case of the flu, Gram already had lowered the shades and moved her radio into my room, tuned to soothing music.

When Mama got home, late that night, Gram hadn't let her see me. I was contagious, she said.

Mama called in to me, and then went to bed. Gram sat next to me all night, and all the next day, putting cold cloths on my forehead, reading
Little Women
and
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
out loud, and bringing me bowls of chicken noodle soup and Jell-O with whipped cream.

I remembered thinking I was too old to be taken care of like that. I remembered luxuriating in the attention.

Were those old snow boots still in the attic?

Probably not.

The closing school bell brought me back to today. Dozens of boys and girls rushed out the front door, just as I had twenty years ago, heading for school buses or cars. Then there were the “walkers,” as I'd been, running in various directions away from the school. Did any of them have single parents? Fathers who were absent or abusive? Mothers who drank too much? Childhood wasn't always a time of innocence. I hoped they all survived it.

As the stream of students became a trickle, I walked in the front door.

“I'd like to see Miss Fitch,” I said to the school clerk.

“Sign in here. Miss Fitch is in Room 201.”

Miss Fitch had always been in Room 201. I knew where it was without looking at the map of the school the clerk handed me.

Her straight back was to me. Miss Fitch (she'd never be “Beth Fitch” to me) was erasing the whiteboard at the front of her classroom. It had been a blackboard when I'd spent a year sitting at one of the small desks evenly lined up to face the front of this room.

“Miss Fitch?”

She turned around. She had a few more lines around her mouth and eyes, and the brown hair I remembered as long and straight was now short and streaked with gray, but she still favored sweater sets, slacks, and loafers. She was still Miss Fitch.

“May I help you?” She stared at me a moment longer, as though searching her mind's index to identify and label me correctly. “Angela Curtis?”

I nodded.

“I was so sorry to hear about your mother's death. I would have come to the funeral, but it was during school hours. Come in. I'm so glad you stopped in.”

She'd recognized me, after all these years. She'd seen me in the hallways of this building until I went to high school, but not after that. I'd changed a lot since then. But maybe not as much as I'd thought.

She hadn't.

“What can I do for you, Angela? Or is this just a friendly visit?”

A visit after twenty years?

“I'm doing some work for Skye West.”

“The actress who bought the Gardener place?”

I nodded. I felt like the second grader I'd been in this room. Nervous. Afraid to make a mistake.

“How does that bring you to Haven Harbor Elementary?”

“You knew Jasmine Gardener.”

Miss Fitch sat down at her desk, and gestured that I should sit down, too. The student desks were obviously too small. I perched awkwardly on top of one, feeling as though I'd been kept after school.

“Your brother, Jed, dated her the summer that she died.”

“He did. But I only knew her slightly. That summer I was taking a course required for Peace Corps volunteers. I was assigned Guatemala. I had to learn Spanish quickly, and study the country and culture I'd be working in. The course was in Rhode Island. I was only home a couple of weeks, maybe a month, at the end of the summer.”

“So you didn't know Jasmine well.”

“I met her a couple of times. But I wasn't pleased Jed was so involved with her. Jasmine seemed flighty and childish and demanding. When I got home, I'd expected Jed to be practicing with the high-school football team. If he had any chance at a football scholarship at a good school, he should have been working out on his own all summer, and then attending early football practices. Instead, he was hanging around the Gardener estate, mooning over that girl. I told him he was making a big mistake. He was going to be a senior in high school and he had to grow up. Plan for his future.”

“What was his reaction to that?”

“He laughed. Said I'd been away, that I didn't know him anymore. That being with Jasmine Gardener would get him further than any football scholarship.” She paused. “I was furious.”

“He meant . . . because she had money?”

“That's what I assumed. He told me her father had gone to Yale. Jed was planning to ask him for a recommendation.”

“Would that have worked?”

Miss Fitch shrugged. “I suspect not. Jed's grades weren't as good as his football plays. I knew how hard it was to go through college on scholarships and grants. I'd done it. And Jed wasn't heading in the right direction, so far as I could tell. I told him he should be more like Elsa, our little sister. She was working like mad, studying, working on science projects. She was going to be president of the math club at the high school in the fall.”

“How did he react to that?”

“He said Elsa was a boring brain. He'd never be like her.” Miss Fitch shook her head. “I was worried about him. And then, of course, Jasmine died, and took all his high hopes with her.”

“How did he react then?”

“I left for Latin America a few days after her death, so I don't know. He didn't write often. When he did, it was about school or problems with our parents.”

“What problems?”

“Our mother wasn't well, and our father wasn't much help with her. I don't think Jed was, either.”

“And you were thousands of miles away.”

“As I think back, everything fell on Elsa. But at the time I was proud to be the first in our family to graduate from college. I was excited about being in the Peace Corps. I thought if I'd been able to leave and go to college, Jed and Elsa could, too. But they didn't. By the time I got back here, Elsa was going to beauty school. Jed had flunked out of U Maine and was married and picking up odd jobs around town. We'd all changed.”

“That night . . . the night Jasmine died, do you remember what she was doing? Who she was with?”

“She was flitting about. Drinking. They all were. She'd be with her parents' friends for a while, and then with Jed and Carole and her little nebbish of a friend from New York. She spent a lot of time playing with children, as I remember. Jed wandered about, watching her, like he was her puppy. I couldn't take it anymore, watching him make a fool of himself. I left the party with a high-school friend I hadn't seen in years and went down to Pocket Cove Beach to watch the fireworks and talk. By the time I got home Jed and Elsa were in bed. I learned what had happened to Jasmine the next morning. Horrible, no matter what I thought about her. Just dreadful.”

“Jed tried to save her. He gave her CPR.”

“He told me that. It didn't surprise me. He'd have done anything for Jasmine that summer.”

I got up. “Thank you, Miss Fitch. I appreciate your honesty. And your memories.”

“Nothing I said couldn't have been said by someone else,” she said. “How are you doing, Angela?”

“I'm fine. I'm back, for at least six months. I'm now the director of my grandmother's Mainely Needlepoint business.”

“I mean, how are you
really
doing? Not what are you doing.”

“I'm all right,” I answered, standing a little straighter. “Doing well.”

“You were always a tough little girl,” said Miss Fitch. “Too brave, I thought sometimes. You don't always have to be brave, you know.”

I felt tears well up at the back of my eyes. I blinked quickly. “I know, Miss Fitch. Thank you.”

I was back in my car within a few minutes. I started the few blocks toward home, and then changed direction.

I headed out of town. Toward Aurora.