Breaking Ground (2 page)

As for work, after a year in the job she had no regrets, despite her tumultuous start that involved discovering that a number of precious artifacts were missing from the historical society and then, soon after, finding the murdered body of the former director. She was working to put all that behind her, however, and truly was enjoying the job. The position was a great fit with her doctorate in museum studies, and she felt she was mastering the job and learning the ways of small-town New England life. Julie would have been happier if Mary Ellen hadn't been so difficult, but she knew she'd meet Mary Ellens everywhere she went in her line of work. So she remained calm and suffered in silence at the endless meetings in which the benefactor bobbed and weaved and kept plans up in the air. But now it looked like actual work would begin. The ceremonial groundbreaking tomorrow would signal the start. Julie was more than ready. She just wasn't sure how many shovels they would end up needing.

It could have been the sunrise, dazzling already at just a little after five o'clock. Or it could have been the plaintive moaning of the doves that, like a search party in pursuit of a body, fanned out across Julie's new backyard to see what seeds or bugs the grass would yield. Or it could have been the excitement the day promised: July third at last, and groundbreaking for the Swanson Center.

Whatever the reason, Julie was awake and ready to go. But Rich was still sleeping. She turned to face him, partly hoping her gaze would stir him, partly just happy to look at his handsome face and hairless but muscular chest exposed above the sheet. He extracted his arm and reached down to pull the sheet higher.

“Awake?” Julie asked.

“I guess I am now. What time is it?”

“Five-fifteen. But the sun's been up for a while.”

“God.”

“I just don't want to miss such a beautiful time of day. Want to take a run before breakfast?”

Rich was by far the faster one, and Julie liked to run with him because his pace made her push herself. They left the house through the back door and after stretching headed across the garden and out to the street toward the historical society, passing her office in Swanson House, a straightforward three-story structure built in 1865. Below it were Ting House and then Holder House, both Greek Revival structures painted pale yellow. Ting was maintained as a period house, its rooms furnished in the style of the 1840s and open for guided tours. Holder was the society's welcome center and museum, with galleries for rotating exhibits and
the gift shop. Behind them was a long shed, covered with rough siding boards, divided into rooms where volunteers gave demonstrations of nineteenth-century crafts—spinning, weaving, blacksmithing, cooking. The new Swanson Center would stand at the end of the crafts shed and directly behind Swanson House. She gestured for Rich to turn right, and they cut through the parking area and toward the open space where the new building would be. A yellow backhoe was waiting, as was the dark green tent erected yesterday at the site of the groundbreaking.

“Through the woods,” she shouted to him, and he led them toward an opening in the trees at the back of the construction site and into the wooded area that separated the historical society's campus from the street behind it. They followed the street down to the bottom of the hill and cut across the park and onto the paved walk beside the river. The view of the water was dazzling, with the early sun glancing off it and illuminating the birches on the opposite bank. At the end of the pavement they turned left and headed back up Main Street toward the Town Common. The town's shops were grouped on lower Main, but as the street rose to the Common they gave way to well-kept residences: Victorian and classic-revival houses mixing in a pattern produced by changing tastes and the vagaries of land ownership. The lack of uniformity in styles created the overall impression of a very dense, rich architectural treasure trove. It was not for nothing that Ryland was called “Maine's loveliest mountain village.”

At the entrance to the Common, Rich paused. “Enough?” he asked.

“Maybe ten minutes more,” Julie replied. “Let's go up past the inn.”

Beyond the Ryland Inn—a stately structure in white—lay its golf course and along its eastern side several dozen townhouse condominiums. They jogged along the edge of the golf course and
into another wood above the townhouses. Rich jogged in place till Julie caught up.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Home. Keep to the left, back toward the street.”

When they were a few blocks above her house, Rich cut back onto the Common and came to a stop by the gazebo. “Walk now,” he said and put his left hand on his right to check his pulse. “Let's get the old heart rate back to normal.”

“God, it's a beautiful town,” he said as they walked down the Common and then turned back toward her house.

“It is, isn't it? I feel so at home here now. It really is a great place.”

“And this?” he asked, pointing to the three buildings of the Ryland Historical Society.

“The job? Yeah, I love that, too, even though there have been times this past year when I wondered if we'd ever be able to build the new center.”

“Because of Mary Ellen Swanson?”

“Of course! She can be such a pain in the butt. But when the groundbreaking is over today, she won't be able to keep second-guessing everything. And I shouldn't complain: Mary Ellen's been good to me—and to the society.”

“Must be nice to be rich.”

“And generous. You have to say that for her. Anyway, to answer your question: Yes, I love my job. It's taken a little longer than I thought to feel at home here because, well, you know, and everyone knows everyone else and knows what's going on, but I've really gotten to like that. Maybe someday I'll even be accepted.”

“Don't count on it. You'll always be ‘from away.' This is Maine.”

“But that's part of its charm!”

They were standing in front of her house now, and Julie was almost tempted to stride up the walk, take the four steps up to the
long porch, and enter through the front door. If she had, it would have been the first time. But she headed for the side. “Still not ready?” Rich asked.

“Getting there. Maybe in a day or so. Before you have to leave.” Julie led the way around to the garden, and they entered via the back door.

Julie had only lived in the house for a month. The Ryland Historical Society owned it, and Julie got free use of it as part of her job. For the last year, however, she had been living in a condo at Ryland Skiway, the resort just north of town, because when she had started work the house's former owner, Worth Harding, was still in it. Founder of the historical society and its director until he retired and Julie was hired, Harding intended to donate the house as a director's residence and to extend the society's land holdings farther up Main Street. But before he moved out, he was murdered—in the house. Julie had been the one to find his body in the front parlor, and she had helped identify the murderer and solve the series of thefts at the historical society that she had uncovered right after she arrived. That was just a little over a year ago, but Julie couldn't shake the memory of finding the elderly Harding, his head smashed by an iron skillet, lying on the floor by the sofa in the front room. It turned out that another historical society trustee, Martha Preston, had been the murderer.

For a time Julie had doubted whether she could ever take up residence in Worth's house, but the appeal of it was too powerful. She loved Victorian architecture, and Harding House, as it was now called, was a classic. Since finally moving in, she avoided the front parlor as much as possible, and hadn't entered from the front door because that had been the route she had taken when she had discovered Harding's body.

While Rich fixed breakfast, Julie showered and then dressed in the outfit she had laid out earlier. She didn't usually dress with such care. After hearing that Julie wanted to do graduate work in
museum studies, her mother had said she'd have to stock up on twin sets and pearls. Julie laughed at the time, not fully understanding; but she subsequently came to appreciate her mother's comment after seeing so many women in museum jobs wearing an unbuttoned sweater over a jumper, topped off with a string of pearls. Julie didn't own pearls; indeed, she had few pieces of jewelry. And though she owned plenty of sweaters and turtlenecks that could have been combined into a respectable twin set, that was not her style. Her style, she realized, was almost no style: slacks or skirt and a turtleneck, or sometimes a cotton blouse, plain or at most striped, never patterned. She kept her light-red hair carefully clipped and groomed to mid-ear length, complementing her pale, oval face and blue eyes.

She checked herself in the mirror. At five-foot-six, she was tall enough to command attention but not tall enough to be regarded as looming. She was slender and well-proportioned, attractive, but not so much that men other than Rich would do a double-take on the street. She looked professional and pleasant in her tan skirt and blue blazer over a pink silk blouse. Not quite a twin set, she told herself, smiling, but a little different from her usual uniform. When she entered the kitchen, Rich, handing her a cup of coffee, noticed her attire and said, “Very nice. Big day.”

“Two days, actually,” she said. “Don't forget about the Fourth of July concert on the Town Common tomorrow. We sponsor it, and it's a big deal for the society.”

“Right. What time should I show up today?”

“The ceremony is at eleven-thirty. Are you sure you want to come?”

“I wouldn't miss it for anything. Like I said, it's going to be a big day!”

“They want a check today,” Mrs. Detweiller said in the general direction of Julie's office.

Working at her desk for more than an hour, Julie hadn't heard her secretary enter Swanson House, but now that she was here Julie knew without looking at her watch that it was nine o'clock. Not 8:55 or 9:08. What Mrs. Detweiller lacked in interpersonal skills—like plain old friendliness—she made up for in punctuality and every other secretarial competency. So she endured Mrs. Detweiller—and after a year of working with her still called her
Mrs
. Detweiller, since she insisted on referring to Julie as
Dr
. Williamson. In her early days on the job, Julie had more than once implored the woman to call her Julie, but the secretary's response was always the same: “Oh, I couldn't do
that
,” suggesting by the emphasis that Julie might be suborning her to, at the very least, a criminal misdemeanor. The “doctor” title Mrs. Detweiller insisted on, Julie had come to understand, was less a term of respect than one of distancing. She had earned her doctorate, but included in the local use of the title was, Julie felt, an implicit “but not a
real
one.”

“What check, Mrs. Detweiller? And who's
they?
” Julie answered as she walked out to where her secretary stood in the main office.

“For the tent. They want the check today. It certainly seems like a lot of money for nothing—we haven't had rain for weeks.”

“Here,” Julie said, reaching for the paper Mrs. Detweiller was waving in front of her. “I'll sign that and you can write the check for them right away. Are they still here?”

“On their way. They called and asked if they could pick up the check when they remove the tent, after the ceremony. Such a short time for so much money.”

“Well, it was good insurance, though. If we hadn't had it, it might have rained and spoiled things. And, the way the sun is shining out there, we might be glad we have it for the shade, don't you think?”

“I suppose it is a special day.” And then from the door as she was withdrawing, Mrs. Detweiller added, “And you're dressed for it, Dr. Williamson. Very nice.”

Was it possible, Julie wondered, that Mrs. Detweiller had actually complimented her? Or was she being sarcastic? And was it so obvious that Julie's style of dress today was so different from her everyday? She sat down at the table she used as a desk and smiled, not at the comment about how she looked but at the remark about the tent. Mrs. Detweiller hadn't been alone in criticizing Julie for renting the fifteen-by-thirty-two-foot tent. Several trustees had questioned her decision, too, but she was determined that nothing would spoil—or delay—the ceremony.

She jotted some notes for the toast she planned to make to the Swanson family at the luncheon. Then, glancing up, she noticed the four gleaming shovels leaning against her bookcase by the window. She decided to take them over to the tent. It was still two hours until the ceremony, but she was antsy. She tied a bright red ribbon on each shovel and then, with some degree of difficulty because it was a clumsy load, walked over to the site. She lined the shovels up on the table at the end of the tent, wondering if Mary Ellen would decide to use all four after all.

“I can't see the harm in chicken,” Mrs. Detweiller said to Julie when she returned to the office from the construction site.

“Well, I can't either, but what's the problem?”

“Elizabeth Swanson! She called the inn this morning to request a vegetarian meal. They phoned to see if anyone else wanted
something other than chicken. I told them no. At least no one said anything to me. That Elizabeth—just like her to call the inn directly instead of going through me.”

“Oh, well. We certainly don't want to make Mary Ellen's daughter-in-law unhappy.”

“There's not much you or I can do to prevent
that
, Dr. Williamson. Mrs. Swanson—the younger Mrs. Swanson—wouldn't be happy if she weren't unhappy. It's easy to see why our Mrs. Swanson doesn't care for her son's wife.”

“Lots of people prefer vegetarian food, Mrs. Detweiller,” Julie said in an attempt to distract the woman from further comments on the topic of Mary Ellen Swanson's family relations. “I'm just glad she called ahead of time instead of waiting until we got there. Is everything else okay at the inn?”