“I believe you,” I said. “I think.”
“Are you playing Thursday night?” Jess asked. In the off-season the house band—Sam’s band—played most Thursday nights with whoever was around and wanted to sit in.
He nodded. “Are you two coming?”
Jess looked at me.
“I think so,” I said.
“We’ll be here,” Jess said.
“What if I have a date Thursday night?”
“You on a date.” Jess tipped her head to one side, a thoughtful expression on her face as she studied me. After a moment she turned back to Sam. “Not likely. We’ll be here,” she repeated, reaching for a biscuit.
“Good,” Sam said. He turned to me again. “Mac said you might have an old fiddle you’re going to need an estimate on in a few days.”
“Looks like it,” I said.
“Okay, well Vincent knows a guy up in Limestone. So let me know and I’ll set something up.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I need to get back to the kitchen. There’s rhubarb-strawberry pie, if you’re interested.”
Jess’s eyes lit up. “I may possibly love you, Sam.”
Sam laughed and headed back to the kitchen.
I was just spooning up the last bit of creamy broth from the bottom of my bowl when Katie, our waitress, appeared with pie and coffee for both Jess and me.
“Mmmm,” Jess moaned after her first bite. “Why doesn’t my pie ever turn out this good?”
I took a sip from my cup. “I can tell you, but you aren’t going to like the answer.”
She licked flakes of pastry from the back of her fork. “It’s not going to be something corny, like Sam makes it with a song on his lips and love in his heart, is it?”
“Uh, no,” I said, taking another bite and wondering if I could taste a hint of vanilla in the filling. “It’s lard.”
“Lard?” Jess frowned, her mouth twisted to one side.
“Uh-huh.”
I could almost see the gears and cogs turning in her head. “Lard is animal fat,” she said.
I nodded.
Her expression cleared. “Okay. Animal fat means ‘meat.’ Meat is a source of protein. Protein is part of a healthy diet. I’m good.” She used her fork to spear another bite.
I reached for my coffee cup again. “You can rationalize pie but you couldn’t rationalize a corn chip?”
“Yeah, the human mind is a funny thing, isn’t it?” she said, around a mouthful of berries and rhubarb.
“Did you know Nick Elliot is working for the medical examiner’s office?” I asked, deliberately changing the subject.
Jess looked up from her plate. “Seriously?”
I nodded.
“I thought he was taking a job teaching an EMT course.”
I shrugged. “I guess he changed his mind.”
“So how does Nick look these days?” Jess asked teasingly.
“Fine,” I replied, maybe a little too quickly.
She smirked at me over her mug. “Only fine?”
“Well, maybe . . . very fine,” I admitted, feeling my cheeks redden.
“I knew it,” Jess crowed, waving her fork in the air almost as though she were conducting an imaginary symphony orchestra.
“Okay, so Nick is a very good-looking man. The fact that I noticed it doesn’t mean anything. I can appreciate that just the way I’d appreciate a beautiful sunset over the harbor or a well-made guitar.
Jess leaned back against the padded vinyl. “Good thing I wore my boots,” she said.
I narrowed my eyes at her across the table. “What are you talking about?” I said.
“Good thing I wore my boots,” she repeated, “because all that bull crap you’re spreading would have ruined my new shoes.”
I made a face and she laughed.
“Getting involved with Nick Elliot. Now, there would be a bad idea,” I said, wrapping my hands around my coffee cup.
Jess shrugged. “What’s so bad about it?”
“Well, he just started a new job; that’s going to be pretty stressful. I’m trying to get a business off the ground, and, as you like to point out, all I do these days is work.” I held up a hand because I could tell from Jess’s face that she was about to mount an argument to try to refute my objections. “And don’t forget, Nick’s mother works for me.” I raised my eyebrows at her.
Jess pressed her lips together and after a moment she sighed. “Okay, you win. I don’t have anything.”
“How about you and Nick?” I said.
She shook her head. “He is not my type.”
“Oh, really?” I set my cup back on the table and folded my arms across my chest. “And your type would be?”
She tilted her head back and looked up at the hammered-tin ceiling, putting one hand to her throat. “I like the sensitive, artistic type, the kind of man with the soul of a poet.”
“Good thing I wore my boots,” I said dryly.
Jess laughed.
I was so glad Jess was still in North Harbor. She was always bugging me about spending too much time working, but the truth was that without her dragging me out with the three-dimensional people, as she put it, I would have spent all of my time at the shop, working on the house or looking for new business.
We spent the next ten minutes or so with Jess catching me up on town gossip. Her sewing space and the little shop where she sold her repurposed clothing were right down on the waterfront and, like Sam, she knew everything that was happening in North Harbor.
As we got up to leave, Jess glanced at the woman in the booth behind us. She was still wearing the Red Sox baseball cap with bits of flaming red hair poking out from underneath, but she’d taken off the sunglasses for a moment and was rubbing the bridge of her nose with her thumb and index finger.
Jess tipped her head in the woman’s direction. “If I can get tickets, do you want to drive down to Portland for a Sea Dogs playoff game?”
“Yes,” I said.
“You mean you’d actually take an entire day off?”
“I would,” I said as we walked over to the bar to pay our bills.
She gave me a self-satisfied smile. “You taking the day off. My work on this planet is pretty much done.”
Jess and I walked up to Maple Street together. She rented a little cottage at the back of a much larger Federal-style house partway up the hill.
“If Charlotte or Rose needs some time off to be with Maddie, call me,” she said. “I can come and help out.”
“Thanks, Jess,” I said. “And I’ll let you know about Thursday.”
She nodded. “Tell Mac I’ll be up to get those boxes. Maybe after lunch tomorrow.”
I hugged her and turned right while she went left.
• • •
Arthur Fenety’s death was front-page news in the morning paper. They’d managed to dig up a lot of information about the man in less than twenty-four hours. A lot.
My eyes got wider and wider as I read the article. As Liz would have put it, Fenety had been a very, very bad boy during his time in New England. It turns out that Maddie hadn’t been the only woman he’d been involved with. He also had a girlfriend in Portland, and four different wives—at least that they’d found so far. And it appeared he’d done more than break hearts: apparently he’d taken money and jewelry from several of the women.
Arthur Fenety was an old-fashioned con artist who used his charm, his manners and his distinguished demeanor to take advantage of women.
“Poor Maddie,” I said to Elvis. He’d jumped onto my lap after he’d finished his breakfast. My breakfast had been coffee because I still didn’t have any more food in the fridge than I’d had the night before.
The cat craned his neck forward as though he were studying the wedding photos of Fenety with his four wives.
I looked at the pictures myself. I could see why all the women had been scammed. It didn’t mean they were stupid or gullible, just lonely. Arthur Fenety had been well-spoken, I remembered. Even though I’d thought he was a little too smooth, I hadn’t suspected what he was really up to. In each of the photos he was well dressed, his white hair freshly barbered, mustache clipped. He looked exactly like what he’d said he was: an educated, affluent, former financial advisor.