"I'm sorry!" snapped Laura Kincaid irritably. "Now I told you I do not have a maid! I have never had one! Is that clear?"
"Sorry ma'am, you're not Mrs. Kincaid?"
"Yes, but I do not-"
"Mrs. Robert Kincaid, 309 Bullfinch-"
"No. No, you have the wrong Kincaid. Good-bye!"
And a quick ring off, almost a slam.
I went in and told Mary she was perfection. Of course Laura could always look up cleaners, or uniforms, in the Yellow Pages and see there was no Trelawney and Hoopes, but we'd hoped that the name would slip from her mind in the interim or, even more likely, she would assume it was a routine foul-up and pay it no further notice.
"So no maid, Mary. I thought as much. Then who-pray tell me-was that person who opened the front door while Laura Kincaid and I were yakking on the terrace out back, hmmmm?"
"A good question, Charlie. It seems to me that the Kincaid household is fairly well secured. Intercoms and all. Exclusive area. It seems they value their property and privacy and go to great lengths to protect both. It certainly was not a casual stroller. I think she has a boyfriend?
"I agree. It's not a maid. It wouldn't be a lady friend. Why would she give the front door key to a friend? No, it's somebody she's intimate with. Someone she trusts even with the front door key. Yes, a boyfriend. But then why didn't she introduce him to me?"
"Because maybe it's none of your goddamn business."
I had to admit Mary had a point.
"From what you told me earlier, it doesn't seem that her marriage was that hot. Why not have a boyfriend? And now that her husband's dead, why not live with him?"
I nodded.
"But then why-since she was open with me about here so-so marriage-wouldn't she tell me about him?"
"Because maybe it's none of your goddamn business."
CHAPTER EIGHT
I sat on the porch and smoked and thought. I had the strange feeling that every line of questioning and research I undertook had a curious wrinkle in it-a strange bend in the stream that was totally unexpected and hard to explain. "Curiouser and curiouser," as the British are fond of saying. I considered doing a bit of further research on Mr. James Schilling. Something that Mrs. Haskell told me was knocking around in the old gray matter and wouldn't leave…
I thought about it off and on for almost an hour, then decided to go ahead with it, even knowing that it might possibly upset poor Sarah Hart again, just as she might be starting to recover. But she was so perfectly situated in Pasadena. I called her for a chat to see which way the wind was blowing. If she seemed at all upset I wouldn't push it. She was not upset so much as resigned and bitter-even vengeful. I told her what I wanted her to do and she instantly agreed. "Doc, is this what you call a lead?"
"Probably not, Sarah. I just want to check it out is all. The best paper would be the Los Angeles Times. Schilling died sometime around November or December of 'seventy-eight. If you find anything, would you mind photocopying the article and mailing it to me. If the newspapers are on microfilm you'll have to get assistance from the librarian…"
She agreed and said she'd have it in the mail the next day. Mary and I were due to return to The Breakers on Thursday a evening. It was now past Labor Day, and the Cape would begin to settle down a bit. The traffic on Route 28 would only be terrible, not horrendous. Late September/early October is far and away the best time on Cape Cod. The tourists are (mostly) gone, the water is still warm, the bluefish are beginning to liven up, and the colors of the foliage are beginning to change. So I couldn't wait.
But on Thursday morning I got a call at the office from my old friend Jim DeGroot, the semiretired real estate developer. He owns Whimsea, a thirty-foot Lyman cruiser that he keeps moored up in Gloucester. He was calling to inform me that the bluefish were rushing the season a bit; people were tying into them off Rockport and Halibut Point. The day before some lucky lass had snared twelve of them.
"Twelve?" I asked incredulously.
"Twelve. The paper said it was her first time fishing, ever."
"Ah. Beginner's luck. I have a patient at three, but it's only to remove stitches from a third molar extraction. I can get out of here before four, and meet you at the marina shortly after five."
Jim had also invited Tom Costello, a stockbroker friend of his I'd met several times before. The three of us sat up on the flying bridge as we left Cape Ann Marina northward up the Annisquam River and entered Ipswich Bay. Whimsea rocked and swayed beneath us in the big water, and her motion was exaggerated by our high perch. We sipped beer and took in the ocean. The tide was turning-coming in-which would bring the blues with it. The horizon was invisible in the haze, and boats of all sizes dotted the water. The air was cool, as it always is on the ocean even in midsummer, but as fall approaches, the cold intensifies, especially in the evening. As we rounded the tip of Cape Ann and began to head south, I hopped down and began to rig the big hooks with squid and mullet. We fished the Rockport breakwater for a while. No luck. Not even a hit. We crawled by trolling, watching lobstermen hauling up their traps. I thought again of the Windhover and, as I sat in the chair looking over the stern at the wake that churned and hissed behind us, told Tom about my visits to the Kincaid home and his corporation. He seemed interested. In between fiddling with his reel and tackle box, he asked me questions relating to Walter Kincaid.
"I'm kind of interested," he said, because his company, Wheel-Lock, is about to go into receivership."
I was stunned. "Why" I asked, "when the company even supports a foundation? Besides, I have just been to the headquarters, and it reeks of affluence."
"Well it's a funny thing, Doc… sometimes the companies that appear to be doing best are actually on the skids. Now I take Wheel-Lock. Five years ago, maybe six, it was doing very well. Privately owned. Nice profitability. A lot of Kincaid's business was with the government, supplying them with locks and security systems for military installations, arsenals, armories, bureau offices, and such. But then the contracts ran out-or at least diminished considerably as the Vietnam thing dwindled-and profits shrank. The foundation I know about, but hell, it's tiny. It's just a tax write-off, nothing more…"
"What's going to happen to Wheel-Lock now that the founder and owner is dead?"
As we talked, we reeled in the lines and switched to Rapala and Rebel plugs, put a strip of squid on the rear treble hooks and let them out again. We had Jim rev up a wee bit so the lipped plugs would wiggle and dance in the wake.
Tom Costello shrugged his shoulders and gave his Penn reel a few cranks. He sipped his beer and put it down.
"Dunno. I don't know of the arrangements he would have made in the event of his death. Surely he made some…"
"And you say the corporation is privately owned, or by a limited number of shareholders?"
"Right. I don't know how many but I can check. Anyway, rumor has it that when the board meets next they're going to file for bankruptcy unless some giant conglomerate will bail them out and take Wheel-Lock under it wings. But it's a little company. Only loose change, you understand? The only reason a bunch of us were talking about it is because of the story of Kincaid's death."
"Tom, if Kincaid saw his company was going under, would feigning his death make sense?"
"Not usually, unless he had some hidden angle. The best thing to check would be corporate cash flow. Was any large sum drawn from company funds-for any stated purpose within the last few months or so that looks suspicious? If so, your theory could hold some water. I think though that-hey! wait… oh shit, I thought-hey, there it is again!"