Mr. P. shook his head. “I don’t think so, Elizabeth. If Mac waited until his wife inherited from the trust, at best he’d end up with half of the money if their marriage ended and that would only be if the courts decided it was joint property—which I doubt they would have. On the other hand, if she were incapacitated, he’d have control of the current payout and if she were to die after her thirty-fifth birthday he’d get all of her share.” He looked over at Mac. “Not that I think for a moment you’d do anything like that.”
“Could Leila’s cousin have been behind what happened to her?” Rose asked as she got up to get the teapot. “If Leila had died, all the money would have been his.”
“Hers,” Mac said. “Stevie is short for Stephanie, and I don’t believe that she would have hurt Leila. They were close.”
Rose refilled my cup and patted my arm as she moved past me.
“Why are you here in North Harbor and not with your wife?” Liz said. She looked at Mac across the table and I saw no recrimination in her gaze, just curiosity.
Rose shot her a withering look but Liz ignored it, deliberately or possibly because she hadn’t seen it. I wasn’t sure, but I suspected the former.
Mac explained about his in-laws and the lawsuit.
“Why are you and Leila still married?” Liz asked.
“You don’t have to answer that,” Rose said sharply.
“I’m sorry. But it’s a valid question,” Charlotte said. It was the first time she’d spoken.
Tall, with the posture and focused gaze of the high school principal she used to be, Charlotte was often the voice of reason in the group. Like Nick, she was one of the first people to step up when there was a problem, but unlike her son she was a lot more easygoing.
Mac looked at Rose. “It’s okay. Charlotte’s right.” He put both hands flat on the table and shifted his attention back to Liz. “I promised for better or for worse when I married Leila. And even though I agreed to her parents being in charge of her care for now”—he put extra emphasis on the last two words—“I didn’t give up the right to change my mind. As long as I’m her husband, I have the option to change things if I feel that’s what she needs. And I didn’t stop loving her, just because the person I knew is . . . gone.”
Liz nodded. Taking care of the people you cared about was important to Liz, to all of them. I knew they’d understand Mac’s reasoning.
“Mac, may I ask what Leila did for a living?” Mr. P. said as he added a little sugar to his tea.
“She has an MBA from Northwestern and an undergraduate degree in chemistry before that. She actually did two years of art history before she changed her major.” I saw the beginning of a smile on his face. “She ran her own organic beauty products company, du Mer. She bought seaweed and sea salt produced here in Maine. In fact, the first time I saw North Harbor was on a trip to Maine with Leila to source sea salt for a body scrub she wanted to add to her line.”
“Who’s running the company now?” Rose asked as she sat down again.
“Leila has a half sister, Natalie Welland, who’s ten years younger. She’s the result of an affair that their father had. Natalie worked summers with Leila while she was in college and she’s been running the company since . . . since Leila’s accident. Leila’s share of the profits goes into the trust that helps fund her care.” Mac shifted in his seat again. I knew him well enough to know the conversation was making him restless. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said to Rose, sending her a sideways glance. “Leila and Natalie didn’t grow up together but they were very close and I just don’t believe Natalie had anything to do with what happened.”
He studied his hands for a moment. “I can’t think of anyone who would have wanted to hurt Leila. Even though she hadn’t made art her career she never lost her love for it. She was warm and creative. Everyone loved her. She was that kind of person.” He looked up, looked around the table and then focused his attention on Mr. P. “Alfred, go ahead and dig into my life and Leila’s. I don’t think you’re going to find anything. I still think what happened to her was a horrible accident. I’ve told you everything. There are no secrets to uncover, so go ahead and look.”
Even though it was a warm evening I felt goose bumps rise on my arms at Mac’s words, that feeling my father called “A goose just walked over my grave.” I didn’t believe in omens or signs, good or bad, but if I had, this wouldn’t have been a good one.
Chapter 5
The next morning I dropped Rose, Elvis and Mr. P. off at the shop and went to pick up Charlotte. We were going out to Clayton McNamara’s house to begin an inventory in the house itself on the things we were going to sell for him. His daughter, Beth, had come for a visit earlier in the summer and convinced her father that it was time to declutter his small story-and-a-half house and the other buildings on the property. It hadn’t taken much persuading after Elvis had cornered and dispatched a very large and furry squatter in a second-floor closet.
“I’m not gettin’ any younger,” Clayton had said to me on my last visit. “I might just sell up, move into that seniors’ place in town and let all the widows fight over who’s gonna make me dinner every night.” He’d given me a mischievous grin. “I’m a catch, you know. I’ve got my own car, my own teeth and all of my parts are still in good working order.” With that he’d headed back to his woodpile.
Beside me, Glenn, his nephew, had started to laugh. “I could have gone pretty much the rest of my life without having that information,” he’d said as we turned toward the house.
“We’ve cleared out several places that belonged to older people,” I’d said with a sly grin. “I could tell you stories about some of the things we’ve found.”
Glenn had made a face.
I’d bumped him with my hip. “C’mon, when you’re Clayton’s age don’t you want to have your own teeth and all your parts in working order?”
“I absolutely do,” he’d said, holding the back door of the little house open for me. “Including my mouth, which I hope I’ll have the good sense to keep shut.”
“What are you smiling at?” Charlotte asked now from the passenger seat of the SUV.
“I was thinking about the last time I was out at Clayton’s with Glenn. Clayton told me that maybe he’d sell the house and move into Legacy Place and let the ladies chase him.” I shot her a sideways look. She was smiling now.
“They would, you know,” she said. “Clayton McNamara is a charmer and as your grandmother would say, he cleans up well.”
“Is that your way of reminding me that he could have been my grandfather?”
“Roads not taken, Sarah,” Charlotte teased. “Roads not taken.”
She and Liz had been teasing me about my grandmother and Clayton’s very short-lived romance since Clayton had told me about it.
“You were quiet last night,” I said, as much to change the subject as because I was curious about her reaction to Mac’s revelations.
“So were you.”
“I knew most of the story already.”
“You didn’t know Mac had a wife, though, did you?”
I shook my head, slowing down as the car in front of me turned. “Not before he told me, no.” I had suspected that Mac had been married at one time, but it had never entered my mind that he still was. I looked in her direction again. She was watching me, her brown eyes thoughtful. “But you knew,” I said.