Breaking Ground (7 page)

“Thank you, Ben. That makes me feel better.”

“Better not show it, though,” he said and winked, and they both laughed. “Well, I've got to go find my New Jersey bride now. Take care of yourself; see you around.”

Marston's comments made Julie feel so good that she found herself eager to talk to others, but, as she was moving toward the
table with the treats, she was stopped by a burly man wearing a red flannel shirt and rough corduroy jeans. “We need to talk,” he said brusquely.

“Oh, Mr. Dyer,” Julie said. “Did you enjoy the concert?”

“Sure. Look, I've got to get my crew to Birch Brook. You find out from the cops if we can do the excavation by the weekend?”

“I talked to Chief Barlow, but he says it's up to the State Police. I'll check again today.”

“If we can't do it tomorrow, I've got to pull that backhoe out. You let me know.”

Luke walked away. Julie wanted to find Mike but knew she should work the crowd first. She passed among the people lining up for lemonade and cookies and introduced herself and welcomed them to the Ryland Historical Society. It was the kind of work she enjoyed, putting a public face on the society, but she cut it short when out of the corner of her eye she saw Mike and Henry talking.

“Nice concert, Julie,” the attorney said when she approached them.

“Thanks.”

Mike nodded but didn't speak. Julie realized she had interrupted them, but Luke's threat to abandon the site excavation troubled her, and she asked again when the site would be available. Mike said he'd check with the State Police that afternoon and let her know. Julie sensed the two men would prefer her to leave them to their conversation, but she decided to wait them out. Finally Mike said to the attorney: “I'll get back to you about that, Henry. You home later today?”

Henry said he would be. He looked over to the refreshment table. “Better go keep a closer eye on my kids,” he added. “They'll wipe out those cookies if I don't.”

When Henry left, Mike said to Julie: “I see you were talking to Steven Swanson.”

“I hadn't seen him to express my sympathy before,” Julie said.

“He say any more about that meeting you and his mother were supposed to have?”

“He brought it up. He admitted that Mary Ellen sometimes didn't bother to tell people that she had an appointment with them. That's just the way she was.”

“Did he tell you what his mother wanted to talk to you about?”

“Her ‘contribution to the society.' I don't exactly know what that means—if she meant in general or something in particular.”

“That's what he told me, too. Henry's the one who knows about all this, but I wasn't able to finish my talk with him just now.”

“Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. Don't let me keep you if you want to talk to him now.”

“Better to see him in private anyway.”

As the police chief turned and walked off, Julie was tempted to yell out again that she was sorry about the interruption. She
was
sorry she had annoyed Mike, whom she both trusted and liked. At least he didn't seem to be making so much of Steven's statement that his mother had planned to meet Julie at the tent before the groundbreaking. But then he didn't say anything about checking her alibi.

“We've met, Dr. Williamson,” the man who interrupted her thoughts said as he extended his hand. “Frank Nilsson,” he added.

“Yes, of course, Mr. Nilsson. Good to see you again. Hope you enjoyed the concert.”

“Always do. Glad you folks decided to dedicate it to Mary Ellen. God, what a tragedy! She was quite a woman.”

“Yes, we'll miss her, and we're all so grateful to her.”

“Very community-spirited. Generous. Especially to the historical society. I was just saying to her son this morning that we should try to wrap things up fast so you'll get Mary Ellen's gift as
soon as possible. Don't know how Steven's going to handle it, but then I imagine his wife will have something to say about that.”

Julie looked at him blankly.

“Mary Ellen's half-million, I mean. She really wanted to give it to you this summer, as soon as we closed. Fine with me. I'm eager to get it done, and I don't see any problems now.”

“Sorry. I'm still a little confused.”

“The land deal. Thought everyone knew. Mary Ellen was selling me the land Dan owned out at Birch Brook. For a condo development.”

“I did hear something about that,” Julie said.

“She wanted to give the rest of her contribution as soon as possible, so you could get the new building up. So she was going to use the proceeds from the sale to do that. But then, well, you know Mary Ellen, always changing her mind, back and forth and back again. But the deal should go through now, if Steven cooperates, don't know why he wouldn't, and the money will be available right away. Might be a good idea if you let Steven know how important this is to the society, how much his mother wanted it. A word from you might help,” he said, and then excused himself.

The rest of the day was such a blur that Julie didn't have time to consider Frank Nilsson's comments. Although the tours for the day had been assigned to volunteers, Julie was busy right up to closing time at four o'clock, strolling around to chat with visitors, answering questions, and encouraging the volunteer guides. When the crowds dispersed she pitched in with the volunteers to clear the tables and restore order to the historical society's grounds.

After dinner with Rich they talked about the day's events, and Julie told him what Ben Marston had said. “It was so sweet of him, Rich. I was beginning to think no one really cared about Mary Ellen—for herself, I mean; they certainly care about her money. But I'm sure what Ben said is true—they're just keeping their emotions in control, just being New Englanders.”

“Could be,” Rich replied. “I wouldn't know.”

“But
you're
a New Englander.”

“You think so because I'm so cold, but remember I'm from Boston.”

“That's what I meant.”

“You haven't figured it out yet, have you? I wonder how long you'll have to live in Maine before you understand New England starts at the Portsmouth-Kittery Bridge? Anyway, I think you've had enough emotion—for a non–New Englander—to last you a few days. How about bed?”

“You'll check the locks, won't you?” were her last words as she climbed the stairs, and Rich wasn't certain she even heard his answer. But he was careful to see the house was safely locked—as safely, he said to himself as he made his way upward to the bedroom, as an old house can be.

Tours! When Julie took the job of director of the Ryland Historical Society, she thought she knew how demanding the work of a small museum would be. For the most part she had been right, but she hadn't known just how much of her time would be taken up by giving guided tours. To be fair to herself, that part of the job had grown in the past year, following the resignation of the assistant director, whose main responsibility had been to organize and conduct tours of the buildings for school groups, senior citizens on bus tours, and the other visitors who showed up to see the period rooms, costumes, displays of artifacts, and crafts shed. She had decided not to hire a new assistant immediately, waiting instead to complete the planning for the new Swanson Center so she could evaluate what kind of work the expanded facilities would require. In the meantime, she had taken upon herself most of the work, and she had to admit that she was beginning to tire of the relentless pace of tour-giving.

Especially today. With the emotions of Mary Ellen's violent death so raw, the hard work of organizing and carrying off yesterday's successful Fourth of July concert behind her, and the need to follow up on so many details, this was a day Julie would have preferred to spend quietly at work in her office. She was still amazed at how much paperwork the job required: correspondence, budgets, bill paying, volunteer scheduling. But she had a tour organized for ten o'clock and another at one, and if the enthusiasm of the summer crowds following yesterday's concert was meaningful, she would probably have to slip in at least one more to accommodate people staying on in Ryland for the long holiday.

A little before ten she took a call from Mike. “The state guys say they've done what they can to the site,” he told her. “They'll
remove the tapes this morning, so you can tell Luke Dyer it's okay to start digging.”

“That's great! Did they find … ?”

“The missing shovel? No. And I've been through the woods with a fine-tooth comb, but then I never expected it to be there anyway. It'll turn up.”

“So you think it was the murder weapon?”

“Did I say I thought so?”

“No, but you're looking for it.”

“Let's just say I'd be happy to find the shovel. Meantime, you can tell Luke to get started.”

“Thanks, Mike. And I'm not pushing or anything, but did you have a chance to check at the inn?”

“At the inn? Oh, your alibi. Sorry. Yeah, Brian Handley says you were there giving him a hard time. So I'm satisfied.”

“I'm not a suspect?”

“Never said you were, but you know I have to tie up all the loose ends.”

Of course she knew he hadn't suspected her, but Julie was relieved to hear that her alibi was confirmed. And relieved to hear him joke about her giving Brian Handley a hard time. She called Luke Dyer's office and left a message. Mrs. Detweiller came to the office door to remind Julie that it was time for her tour. She headed to Holder House, the building farthest down Main Street and the one containing the gift shop, as well as the historical displays in the large room where she did the welcome and orientation.

Over the past year, Julie had developed labels to describe tour groups. “Polyester” meant senior citizens, the women in pantsuits and the men in golf shirts, almost always on bus tours of northern New England and looking for a rest stop where the bathrooms were clean and the tour content inoffensive. “Backward caps” were the teenagers herded by middle- and high-school teachers,
happy to be out of class but rarely interested in the history of Ryland. “Cuties” referred to the elementary students who, though as much prisoners as the teenagers, showed genuine excitement in how people lived in older times. “Buffs” were the self-styled experts on local history, those who couldn't resist correcting or amplifying Julie's comments. The “Triple A” crowd consisted of travelers—retirees during the fall, families in the summer—who were passing through Ryland or spending a weekend there and had read the description of the museum in the Maine edition of the AAA guide. They were the most mixed: gangling teenagers clearly embarrassed to be with their parents or grandparents, little children entranced by history, bored husbands accompanying their wives with a passionate interest in painted furniture, slow-moving seniors with time on their hands, the occasional buff who used to live in town before retiring to Florida and eager to point out that the old pair of ice skates on display looked exactly like the ones he had lost at the pond thirty years ago. Because of the challenge they represented—the need they created for Julie to range widely and find interesting things to say to people with such varied interests, or lack of interests—she actually liked them best.

Today's ten o'clock group was definitely “Triple A” material: several grandmothers, two middle-aged couples, one young couple with an unruly four-year-old, and two boys with their caps reversed whose age Julie placed at thirteen or fourteen. Tickets for the tours were sold in the society's gift shop at the front of Holder House, an example of shameless commerce Julie strongly supported since it meant the gathering group had time to examine possible purchases in the shop while they waited for the tour to begin. She assembled them there and led them to the orientation room, where glass displays and wall hangings illustrated periods of Ryland's past. After welcoming them, Julie followed her custom of asking where they were from—all, in this case, were what Julie, adopting local custom, had already come to label “from
away”—not from Maine. She gave an overview of the society, previewed what they would see in each building, and did an abbreviated town history. She liked to conclude the orientation by asking if anyone had a special interest so she could make a point of satisfying it as they proceeded through the buildings. One of the grandmothers, not unexpectedly, mentioned quilts, and one of the middle-aged men, also not unexpectedly, said “guns.” Julie knew exactly how she would address their interests. But when one of the adolescents asked to see the murder site, Julie was momentarily flustered.

“You know,” he prodded, “where the lady was killed. Can we see that?” The boy was quickly muffled by his embarrassed father, but Julie realized she was going to have to have a line of patter to address the issue.

“We did have a very unfortunate accident here on Tuesday,” she said, “but the area is being excavated this morning to begin the construction of our new building. I'll point it out when we go over to the crafts shed.”

“Accident?” she heard the boy say to his peer. “They chopped her up, that's what I heard.” Julie was happy to see the father step forward again and place a strong arm around the two boys and speak sternly to them.

Despite the inauspicious beginning, the tour was a success, something Julie gauged by the way she held people's attention during the tour and by the number and quality of questions both during and afterwards. In this case, what was planned as a fifty-minute tour extended to over an hour and a quarter, and at the end the group was generous in its thanks. The two adolescents had been held in check by the father; the middle-aged man's interest in guns and the grandmother's in quilts had been satisfied; and the four-year-old had actually stopped running and babbling when Julie had shown him the collection of antique toys—his surprise that there were no Tonkas amused her.