I heard her exhale softly. “Not for sure,” she admitted. “I suspected there was someone in his past—Mac has always kept pretty much to himself—but I had no idea the truth was this complicated.”
Neither had I. Mac was a very private person and I hadn’t asked any questions. Truth be told, maybe I hadn’t wanted to hear the answers.
“I’m hoping to kill two birds with one stone this morning,” Charlotte said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I think it might help if we knew a little more about the company Mac’s wife owns, the one her sister is running now.”
“And for some reason you think that Clayton gets his body wash and moisturizer from them?”
Charlotte laughed. “Well, as I said, according to Isabel, he cleans up well.”
I tried to get a mental image of big, burly Clayton dabbing moisturizer on his face but my mind seemed to reject the idea.
“Several years ago—quite a few years ago, actually—Clayton worked for a seaweed harvester in Steuben,” Charlotte continued. “Mac said his wife’s company bought both sea salt and seaweed here in Maine. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to understand a little more about the process before we went out asking questions.”
“Good idea,” I said, putting on my blinker and turning into Clayton McNamara’s driveway. We both got out of the SUV. I could smell the ocean on the breeze and the sun was warm on the back of my neck. Somehow I couldn’t see him leaving this place for a seniors’ apartment in town anytime soon.
“Charlotte, why is it that Gram is the only one who had a romance with Clayton back in the day?” I asked with a teasing smile. “What about you?”
Charlotte shook her head. “It was pretty much a love-at-first-sight thing with them. The first time he laid eyes on her he was hit over the head.” She clapped her hands together. “Like that.”
I frowned at her. “Are you trying to say that it was love at first sight for a couple of first graders?”
“No,” she said. “I’m saying the first time Clayton saw Isabel he tried to look up her dress on the swings and she hit him over the head with her book bag.” She cocked her own head to one side. “Now that I think about it didn’t she meet John when she hit him over the head with something?”
“Gram knocked a library book off a shelf and it hit him in the head, so technically, yes.”
“I’m starting to see a pattern,” Charlotte said with a grin.
I laughed as we started up the driveway. “Me, too. I’m so glad Gram is finally coming home. I have a lot of questions to ask her.”
We found Clayton in the backyard, working on his never-ending woodpile. He was a big man like his nephew Glenn, with a barrel chest and beefy arms in his blue plaid shirt. Now that Clayton had shaved his beard the two men looked even more alike.
“Charlotte Elliot, it’s damn good to see you,” he said, taking both of her hands in his. “You’re as pretty as ever.”
“And you’re as full of it as ever,” she replied, but she was smiling.
Clayton must have been a charmer when he was a younger man. Heck, he was a charmer now. He turned his smile on me. “Sarah, how are you? It’s good to see you, too.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Charlotte and I are planning to start an inventory of the upstairs this morning. No second thoughts?”
“Not a one. I won’t live long enough to use half the stuff that’s in that house and I’ll be damned if I’ll leave it all to be dealt with by Beth and Glenn.”
“That’s what we’re here for.” I smiled at him. I couldn’t imagine Clayton getting steamrollered into giving up his stuff by anyone but I’d wanted to ask, just to be sure.
“Clayton, could I pick your brain for a minute before we get started?” Charlotte asked.
“I figure the pickin’s are pretty slim,” he said, “but go ahead.”
“Years ago you worked down in Steuben, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did. Raking seaweed for the Lawrence brothers.” He shook his head. “Good money but hard work.” Two frown lines formed between his bushy eyebrows. “Now, Charlotte, don’t tell me that you’ve been taken in by that damn fool commercial that runs during Elmyra’s House of Horrors Midnight Movie?”
“What commercial?” I said. Somehow we’d gone from seaweed harvesting to late-night TV and I wasn’t sure how we’d gotten there.
“Dr. Ho’s Miracle Moisturizer with Botwilla,” Charlotte said, as though that should clear up my confusion.
“They claim their secret wrinkle-reducing ingredient is seaweed,” Clayton said in a voice heavily laden with skepticism. He looked at Charlotte. “You’re a damn fine-looking woman and you don’t need any so-called wrinkle-reducing cream for twenty-eight ninety-five plus shipping and handling.”
Charlotte smiled at him. “Thank you and don’t worry. I wasn’t planning on ordering any of Dr. Ho’s products but I will admit to a little curiosity about them. Do you think there’s actually any seaweed in that skin cream?”
“I think there’s a pretty good chance that there’s a little. Back in the day the Lawrence brothers were selling most of what we harvested to some spa in New York that used the seaweed for some sorta body wrap. They claimed it restored mineral levels in the body.”
“Okay, that has to be some sort of scam,” I said.
“Not so fast,” Clayton said. He held up one finger. “How much do you know about seaweed?”
“I’ve had dulse,” I said, pushing my bangs back off my face. I’d been eating the dried red seaweed since I was a kid.
“So pretty much nothing,” he said with a laugh.
I nodded. “Pretty much.”
“Seaweed’s story really starts on land. Minerals leach into surface water and get washed down to the sea. They end up as part of the seaweed and people believe that eating it has all kinds of health benefits. Look at the Japanese. They live a lot longer than most of the rest of us do, and their diet has a lot more seaweed in it. Course they eat a lot less fast-food crap, too.”
“Okay,” I said. “I can see how eating seaweed could be a good thing, but a wrinkle cream? Really?” I made a face.
“Hold your horses,” Clayton said. He smoothed a hand over his bald head, brown as a nut from all the time he spent working outside without his hat. “The idea’s not as far off the bubble as you might think. I told you there are minerals in seaweed—iodine, iron and copper among others. Well, it’s the copper that gets people excited.”
Beside me Charlotte nodded. “Copper peptides help with tissue regeneration. Wounds heal faster and cleaner.”
“So why couldn’t it do the same for wrinkles?” Clayton said.
“So does it?” I asked.
He laughed, a warm, booming sound that seemed to echo around the yard. “Damned if I know, but my guess is no.”
“Why no?” Charlotte said.
Clayton held out his gnarled, wrinkled hands. “These mitts of mine handled a heck of a lot of seaweed back in the day and they don’t exactly have that youthful glow, now, do they?”
“They look like they’ve done plenty of hard work and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Charlotte said.
That sly grin stretched across the old man’s face again. “Flattery,” he said, a teasing edge to his voice. “For the record, it works on me.” He winked and Charlotte’s cheeks flushed.
I made a gesture toward the house. “Well, these hands should probably go in and get started.”
“I’ll give you a yell in a while when I put the coffee on,” Clayton said. He turned back to his woodpile and Charlotte and I headed inside.
“Have you been taking lessons from Liz?” I asked as we started up the narrow staircase to the second floor of the house.
“Lessons? What kind of lessons?” A frown furrowed Charlotte’s forehead.