“Chip didn’t have anything to do with her death. None of us did.” Up until then Bill had been so quiet that I had almost forgotten about him. His mouth opened to elaborate, or so I thought, but nothing came out. I noticed he was looking over my left shoulder, a curious expression on his face. I turned and attempted to follow his gaze but could see only Connie and Dennis and Hal’s broad back as he strode over to greet them, a wineglass in each hand. I wondered if it was the unexpected presence of a police officer that had made Bill clam up.
“No, I don’t suppose you did.” A door had slammed shut. I could see it in the rigid set of his jaw. I tried to come up with a graceful exit line. I glanced at my watch. “Well, I’d better go pay my respects to the Dunbars. Sorry to be meeting you all under such circumstances.” As I walked away, I kicked myself for such stunning originality.
“Mrs. Ives?”
I halted in mid-stride and turned to see Chip leaving his friends, hurrying to catch up with me. David Wilson stared after Chip, his face set in a scowl, his eyes almost supernaturally blue in contrast with his white eyebrows. He gave me the creeps. It was a relief when Chip’s handsome face blocked my view of David.
Chip hadn’t changed much since that homecoming picture was taken. His broad brow, prominent nose, and high cheekbones were a photographer’s dream, evidence of German blood somewhere in his family tree. I wanted to trust him but was wary. Emily’s boyfriends had never been particularly trustworthy, despite their well-brushed hair and clean-scrubbed faces.
I smiled. “Yes, Chip?”
“I really mean what I said back there. The thank-you, that is.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, although it seemed singularly inappropriate under the circumstances.
“I hope I didn’t give you the wrong impression, is all. Katie and I were still going together the night she disappeared. But it was kind of an up-and-down thing with Katie and me. Three weeks before the dance she was barely speaking to me. When I called, Liz said she’d gone away for the weekend. To tell you the truth, I suspected she was seeing somebody else. A college guy, maybe.”
I couldn’t imagine any girl dumping a hunk like Chip. “So what happened to get you back together?”
“It’s a mystery to me. The week before the dance she was all lovey-dovey again.” He shrugged. “Women! Begging your pardon, ma’am, but today they’d probably chalk it all up to PMS.”
When I finally rejoined the group surrounding Connie, puzzling over Katie’s odd behavior in the months before her death, Hal handed me a fresh glass of wine.
Dennis raised his wineglass in my direction, as if offering a toast. “Hello, Hannah.” His smile was dazzling, like a light turned on in a dark room. “Even though it’s officially my day off, I’ve got to stick around here for an hour or two, check out the guests, but after that, Connie and Hal have cooked up a sail for us. Connie tells us you’ve had a rough week and could use a break.”
I glared at Connie and didn’t care if anyone noticed. “I don’t really feel much like sailing, Dennis.”
“What else is there to do? Sit around the house? Watch TV? Or”-he smiled at Connie-“I understand you’ve been helping Connie with her books.” Dennis was being exasperatingly reasonable.
I looked down at my open-toed shoes. Before Memorial Day. Mother would have had a fit. “I’m not exactly dressed for sailing, either.”
Connie looked at Dennis. “We’ll have to go home and change first.”
I was half listening, still wondering what was eating Bill and David and their close-mouthed Wildcat pals. “I think those guys know more about Chip and Katie than they’re saying, don’t you, Dennis?”
Dennis ignored this remark and turned his persuasive moss-green eyes on me. “Meet you at the marina around two?”
I couldn’t think of a single good reason to refuse so, with the hope of coaxing more information out of him, I caved in. “Okay, around two.”
Connie and I eventually found the Dunbars receiving condolences in the kitchen. I suspect Mrs. Dunbar had wandered in there to escape the crowd, only to become trapped in a corner next to the stove by a chain of sympathizers. When we finally worked our way to the front of the line, Mrs. Dunbar still wore the haunted look I had seen on her face at the Nichols farm, as if nobody were home behind the eyes.
“We thank you so much for coming.” Mrs. Dunbar had said exactly the same thing to the last twelve people. Mr. Dunbar simply shook our hands and said nothing. I was relieved that they didn’t recognize my name.
We had nearly escaped out the front door when Liz, appearing suddenly from the dining room, chirped, “Don’t forget to sign the book!” She scooped up a guest book from where it lay on the table in the hallway and thrust it and a ballpoint pen into Connie’s hands. Connie signed for both of us while I stood there tongue-tied, smiling stiffly at Katie’s older sister. Liz was acting more like a funeral consultant than a grieving sister, I thought.
As we walked back to Connie’s car, I noticed the 1990 championship Wildcats heading off together in the opposite direction, sauntering up High Street toward the high school. Maybe they were planning to shoot a few baskets. As I watched, a car sped by close to the shoulder, and to avoid it, one of the men was forced to step sideways out of the friendly huddle. Suddenly I could see they were not alone. Angie was in front, between Chip and David, almost running in her struggle to keep up with her long-legged companions. I saw Angie grab Chip by the arm, as if to attract his full attention. He shook loose from her grip and kept walking. She followed, clearly angry. I could see her mouth working overtime. Not basketball then. Something very different must be on their agenda, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Angie and find out what.
8
It was twenty minutes past two and Dennis’s Taurus was already parked in the shade next to the icehouse when Connie and I finally made it to the marina. It was my fault we were late. I spent ages looking for my jeans, the ones I had come close to ruining the day I discovered Katie’s body, until I remembered they were still in the dryer. Connie had dressed in a bathing suit and had thrown on over it the white shorts and striped top that made her look disgustingly like a twenty-year-old model for a mail-order catalog. Me? I pulled a Dive BVI T-shirt over my jeans. I wasn’t ready for swimsuits yet, even if the Chesapeake Bay had been warm enough for swimming in May, which since I was not a polar bear, in my opinion it wasn’t. I had nightmares of diving overboard and resurfacing only to discover that the little latex foam pad I used for a breast had come bobbing up to the surface like a discarded shoulder pad.
Sea Song lay in slip number thirty-two at the end of a long wooden pier hinged every five feet or so and floating comfortably on sturdy pontoons. It undulated slightly as we walked, and with or without the wine I’d consumed, I reeled down it like a drunk. We found Dennis waiting in the cockpit, feet propped up on a small ice chest. He was dressed in a navy blue T-shirt tucked into khaki shorts and wore Dock-Siders with no socks. He removed his sunglasses and smiled at us, and I saw once more what Connie might have found so attractive about the man. One could easily be mesmerized by those Mel Gibson eyes! Dennis unlatched a section of the lifeline and helped me aboard while Connie fussed with something on the dock.
Hal’s head popped out of the main hatch. “Hello, ladies.” He pointed to the cooler. “The drinks are on ice, and I picked up a half dozen submarine sandwiches at Ellie’s.”
“Sounds good, Hal.” I was starving. Despite the elegant catering, I had got hardly anything to eat at the Dunbars’. Hal moved aside in the companion way, so I could step below and stow my jacket. While I wolfed down half a chicken sandwich, I noticed someone had opened up the hatches so that a fresh breeze flowed through the boat, chasing out the musty, mildewed odor of its having been shut up for weeks.