Luanne Rice (10 page)

Chapter 9

M
aeve Jameson sat in her garden, on the ancient
wrought-iron bench, under the shade of the sea oaks. The smell of roses filled
the salt air, and the warmth of summer lifted from the rocky earth. A soft
breeze blew, rustling the leaves overhead. Her eyes were closed, and to anyone
who might happen to pass by, she looked as if she were resting, at peace. That
was far from the truth.

Down by the
rocks, the tide was rising. She heard the waves splashing higher and higher. It
was impossible to not think back, see that young girl playing in the water,
swimming like a seal with her brown hair so sleek and smooth. She loved to
dive, as deep as she could go, and come up with handfuls of shells and seaweed.
Maeve had sat on this very bench, watching her dive and swim for hours on end.

When she
heard the car door slam, she felt she could take a breath. She’d been waiting
for this visit. It had to happen—it did every year. But this year, it felt
different. Maeve’s heart felt heavy, as if another layer of hope had been torn
off.

“Top of the
morning, Maeve,”
came
the voice. She could barely open
her eyes to look at him. But when she did, she smiled. Couldn’t help
herself
. He still looked as young and handsome and eager as
the young cop who had stood on her doorstep so many years ago. His dog, a black
Lab, ran straight past Maeve, down to the water’s edge.

“It’s not
morning,” she said. “It’s three in the afternoon.”

“
You going
to start busting me before I even walk through
your garden gates?”

“Darling,
those garden gates were taken down years ago. Come on, enter the hallowed
ground.” She watched him walk past the wishing well—with its curved,
wrought-iron
arch,
emblazoned with
Sea Garden
—the name Mara had given the
house when she was just a little girl. Patrick stole a glance at the
letters—spidery now, after all these years of salt air wearing away the iron.

“Hallowed
ground,” he said, standing before her.

“Sea
Garden,” she said.
“Still waiting for the young maid to
return.”

“Maeve …”

“Darling—you’re
going to tell me to be realistic, aren’t you? I can hear it in your tone. Nine
years have passed
… .”

“It does no
good to hold out hope when we both know …”

“Both know
what, dear? What do we actually know? That she lived here, that she
disappeared, that her baby would be nine years old today—or yesterday, or
tomorrow … I don’t know her exact birthday.”

“We don’t
know that she had a birthday,” Patrick said. “It’s most likely she didn’t.”

“Then why
do you come to see me every year? Why do you keep asking questions, as if you
still expect to find her?”

Patrick
blushed, his freckled skin turning as red as sunburn. His blue eyes glinted in
the sun. Sometimes Maeve thought he regretted telling her about aspects of his
investigation, his sleepless nights,
the
way his
marriage had broken up over his obsession with the case. Maeve had tried, as
gently as possible, to impress upon him the craziness—there was no other word
for it—of trying, even though he was now retired, to solve the case of a
missing woman he honestly, deep in his heart, believed to be dead.

Maeve just
didn’t find it credible.

“What does
Angelo have to say about this?” she asked.

He let out
a low whistle, shaking his head till the red hair fell right into his blue
eyes. “Low blow, Maeve,” he said.

“Didn’t you
tell me that Angelo was your friend, the one who tries to convince you you’re
chasing rainbows, still looking for my granddaughter?”

“First of
all, I’m not looking for her. The case is closed, and besides—I’m retired.
Second of all, Angelo is an asshole.”

“Really?
I thought he was your best friend.”

Patrick
nodded. He was standing directly in front of Maeve, and she angled her position
so his head would block the sun from shining in her eyes.

“Yeah, he
is,” he said. “But when it comes to solving cases, he doesn’t know shit. Flora!
Get away from that goddamned seaweed! You know she’s going to have my car
smelling like low tide, don’t you?”

Maeve
beamed. She didn’t know why it tickled her so much, to have Patrick Murphy
swear like this. Normally she didn’t go in much for profanity. She supposed she
liked it because it seemed to reflect the passion he felt for keeping the dream
of Mara alive—in spite of what he was telling her out of one side of his mouth.

“Dogs love
my rocks.
Now, back to Angelo.”

“He doesn’t
know squat about my cases.”

“Well, he’s
not in law enforcement, is he?
What would he know, when you
get right down to it?”

“Not much,”
Patrick said. “What’ve you got there?”

“These?”
she asked, holding up her hot-pink garden gloves. But he was shaking his head,
pointing.

“That,” he
said.

“Oh,” Maeve
said. “I was just watering the roses.”

“That’s one
old watering can,” Patrick said. “Yellow.
Kind of unusual.”

“Hmm,” Maeve
said, pushing her dark glasses down from the top of her head, where they had
been resting. She thought now would be a good time. The last thing she wanted
was for this young man to see any eyes filling up with tears. She coughed, for
good measure, kicking the yellow boots under the bench. Choosing her moments,
Flora abandoned the tidal pools and sea wrack to come over for a pat. She nosed
the boots while she was at it.

“What are
those?” he asked, watching his dog lick the rubber boots.

“Enough,”
she said—to Patrick, not Flora.

“Maeve.”

“Does the
expression ‘keep the home fires burning’ mean nothing to you? What kind of
sentimental Irishman are you, anyway?”

“A realistic one.”

“Ah, yes.
You gritty Irish cops would never understand anything like hoping a long-lost
granddaughter and great-grandchild would come home again. You’re too busy
chasing after ghosts.”

“She was
wearing those boots and using that watering can the day she disappeared,” he
said, and he’d lost every speck of color from his face.

“She was.”

“I should
never have brought them back to you from the evidence room. Get rid of them,
Maeve, for your own sake.”

“Never.”

“Maeve, we
found flecks of blood on the toe. You want to live with those boots, and what
happened to make Mara walk away from them?”

“Mara
pricked her thumb on a thorn,” Maeve said sharply. She couldn’t stand to think
about blood and Mara—or any hurt, any pain, any of the terrible scenarios
imagined by the police at the time. She couldn’t bear it. She set her jaw,
letting Patrick know the subject was closed.

“Any word from what’s-his-face?”
Patrick
asked.

“Mr.
Wonderful,” Maeve said.

“Why is it
neither of us can stand to say his name?”

Maeve just
gave Patrick her best deadpan gaze. Words couldn’t express the depth of hatred
she harbored for Edward Hunter; even thinking his name caused her stomach to
tighten and her face to wizen. She let her left hand trail down beneath the
seat, her fingers closing around the top of one of the yellow boots. It
comforted her, to hold on to something Mara had once worn.
Made
Mara feel real and alive.

“He writes
or calls on the big occasions. Holidays, her birthday …”

“What do
you say to him?”

“I act,
darling. I thank him and ask about his career, his ‘family.’ ” She had to
put the word—such a precious word at that, “family,” in invisible quotation
marks when using it in conjunction with Edward and his latest victims—he had
had Mara declared dead, so that he could marry one of his brokerage clients. “I’ve
learned to keep my enemy close. One never knows what he might reveal. He’s
living in …”

“Boston.”

Maeve
blinked with surprise. “No—he’s been living in Weston, with his new wife.”

“She left
him last spring,” Patrick said, enjoying giving her the news. “They had their
house on the market, and as soon as it sold, she took off on him. Didn’t get
much of the money, from what I hear. Most of it was in escrow, but she just cut
her losses, took her kid, and went away. He’ll end up with all her money—what
he hasn’t already taken from her. Women do that with Edward. They give up
everything they have to escape him.”

Maeve had
no retort to that. She just let her fingers trail around and around the rim of
the boot. Oh, if only Mara would choose today as the day … to return from
wherever she was hiding, just walk through the garden gate that Maeve had torn
down so many years ago now … just walk in, carrying her baby.

The reality
shocked her—the child wouldn’t be a baby now, but a nine-year-old child.

“So much
lost time,” Maeve said. “When I think about the years I’ve spent without her. I
raised her, you know.”

“I know,
Maeve.
After her parents died in the ferry accident.”

“In Ireland.
Such a poetic place and
poetic way to die.
That’s what I told myself at the time. But then I’d
hold Mara, crying herself to sleep every night, and I realized—there’s no
poetic way to die.”

“Nope.”

“That’s
right. I’m talking to an old homicide cop, aren’t I?”

“Major
Crime Squad,” he said.

“Did I ever
tell you that you remind me of a darling old friend of mine, an Irish poet,
Johnny Moore?”

“Every time I see you.
I still can’t figure out why.”

“Because
you write letters to a girl you believe to be dead,” Maeve said. “That’s why.
Come on. Come inside, and I’ll pour us some iced tea. Clara might stop by with
some of her sugar cookies, if I tell her you’re here.”

“Sugar
cookies,” Patrick said, holding out his hand to pull Maeve up. As he did, his
eyes fell upon the old bench. Made of wrought iron by the same person who’d
done the wishing-well arch, it was weathering only slightly better—it was
forged of thicker iron, and Maeve had been more fastidious, painting it every
year with Rustoleum. She followed Patrick’s gaze, looking at the bench.

There was
room for four people to sit on it. The slatted seat sagged slightly in the
middle; the arms and legs were ornate, decorated with Victorian curlicues. But
it was the back that was the great work of art. There were four scenes
depicted—of a boy and girl sitting beneath the same tree.

“Your
four-seasons
bench,” he said.
“Winter,
spring, summer, and fall.”

“Yes,”
Maeve said, lifting the yellow boots even as he took hold of the watering can,
then linking her arm with his and walking down the narrow stone path that led
to her front door. “My father had it made for my mother, by the same ironworker
who made the
Sea Garden
arch. It
symbolizes the passage of time.”

The passage
of time: since Mara’s disappearance, since Patrick had started looking for her.
Young people these days were always amazed by things that lasted. And she
certainly included Patrick—who was probably about forty-five—in the category of
“young.” This was a throwaway society; Maeve and Clara said it to each other
all the time. They were both dismayed by all the plastic wrapping everything
came in. Not to mention the way rich young people would buy up lovely, gracious
cottages, tear them down, and build the most unspeakable monstrosities. Even
here in Hubbard’s Point, the practice was rampant.

“Do you
want to hear my theory?” Maeve asked.

“Of
course,” he said as she opened the front door and led him inside. The kitchen
was cooled by shade and the sea breeze blowing through all the open windows.