Jim nodded. “His car went by mine.”
“Probably over the speed limit. He couldn’t wait to get out of here. He says he’s providing protection for them and for the house, but I don’t see it. They’re really upset, Jim. And, truthfully, so am I. Attempting to burn a house down is a pretty nasty game.”
“You’re right. Do either of them have any idea who would have done this?”
“No clues. Cordelia didn’t see anything helpful, and Diana was upstairs asleep. Neither of them can think of anything in the house someone might want to destroy, or a reason anyone might want to hurt them.”
Jim shook his head. “I don’t have a magic solution, Maggie. I’ll be moving out of my house in a couple of days, and I could have them both come and stay there, but that would leave this house unprotected. I don’t think they’d want that, either.”
“I suggested something like that to Ike. He didn’t seem impressed.”
Diana and Cordelia looked up as Maggie and Jim walked into the kitchen. From the look that passed between them, Maggie wondered what they’d been doing—or communicating. Did they look guilty?
Chapter 20
Harvard College.Cover of Appleton’s Journal of Literature, Science and Art for Saturday, March 5, 1870, and following seven pages, which are devoted to a history and current view of Harvard, including wood engravings of Harvard Square (which shows men driving cows away from the area), Harvard Church, the Library Building, Appleton Chapel, the Divinity School, Law School, Lawrence Scientific School, The Observatory, and the Class Tree. Special treasure for any Harvard graduate. Page size 7.5 x 11 inches. $75.
Maggie left Jim with Diana and Cordelia, hoping perhaps his advice and male calm could provide a different sort of comfort than her hot chocolate and Danish had.
Although the hot chocolate had certainly not been refused.
She headed toward the new Aunt Augusta’s Attic. If the schedule was on target, Gussie should be there, and the painters and carpenters should be finished. This morning they’d planned to unpack before, if she remembered correctly, a last-minute wedding cake check at the bakery.
Gussie’s van was the only vehicle in back of the new shop; there were no painting or construction trucks there. That seemed a positive sign. Maybe the work was complete.
Maggie walked up the ramp to the back door, knocked, and went in.
“There you are!” Gussie called from the front room. “How are Diana and Cordelia?”
“Physically, fine. But scared and confused. They have no idea who would try to set their house on fire.”
“I can’t imagine too many things more frightening than fire,” said Gussie. “Jim and I’ve put ramps at three entrances to our house, and fire alarms everywhere we could think of.”
Getting out of a burning house would be so much more complicated for Gussie than for someone who wasn’t disabled, Maggie realized. She hadn’t ever thought of that. And now that she had, the pictures in her mind were horrific.
“If Cordelia hadn’t happened to be downstairs in the kitchen so early in the morning, who knows what might have happened,” Maggie said. “She wouldn’t have heard anything. But thank goodness she saw a light. Whoever it was had a flashlight.”
“She probably has visual fire alarms connected to her heat and smoke detectors, but depending on how well she sleeps, she might not have noticed them.” Gussie shuddered. “I’m just glad they’re both safe.”
“Jim’s at the house with them now,” Maggie added.
“Good,” said Gussie. “And, before I forget or die of curiosity—as that movie said, ‘You’ve Got Mail!’”
“What?” said Maggie.
“When I got here there was an envelope on the floor near the front door. It must have been pushed through the mail slot. At first I thought the carpenter had dropped off a bill, but it’s for you. Over on the counter.”
Maggie picked up the envelope. It was addressed in penciled block letters to MAGGIE FROM NEW JERSEY.
“Who’d be sending you mash notes here?” Gussie asked, only half in jest.
Maggie started opening the envelope. “Yesterday, while you were resting, I stopped and had a beer at the tavern where Jim’d said Dan Jeffrey drank. The Lazy Lobster. I thought someone there would have an idea of what happened to him.”
“Maggie! That’s not exactly a social high spot in Winslow. If you felt you had to go, why didn’t you ask Jim to take you?”
“Because he wouldn’t have. And, besides, no one would have said anything if he’d been with me. I wanted to go on my own.” She ripped open the envelope. “I told the men there that if anyone had something to tell me about Dan they could leave a note here. I figured the shop would be a neutral place.” She read what was on the sheet of paper inside.
“So? What does it say?”
“‘Stay away from bars and balls. Let sand cover sin.’” Maggie shivered. “That’s hideously poetic.”
“Not poetic to me. Scary, and downright weird!” said Gussie. “Sounds like you made a real fan in that bar. Which someone is definitely telling you to stay away from.” She reached inside a carton and pulled out the ringmaster for a Schoenhut Humpty Dumpty Circus, a popular set of toys made in the early twentieth century.
“‘Bars and balls. And sand,’” mused Maggie as she paced the front of the shop. “Did you know Dan Jeffrey was involved with a baseball team here in town?”
“Where did you hear that?” Gussie arranged a wooden clown and a glass-eyed lion next to the mustached ringmaster on the shelf.
“From Diana. He’d told her. Cordelia confirmed it. He didn’t coach. He kept track of equipment. But his working with the team might connect him to the boy who died last spring.”
“Tony Silva. Bob Silva’s son. Bob’s a widower. He thought the world of that boy. Went to pieces after he died,” said Gussie. “Horrible situation. Jim said everyone knew there were drugs in the school. Ike’d been looking for the dealer for months. Thought someone was picking drugs up in Boston and selling them locally. But none of the kids would talk. You know kids. And after Tony died, they closed down even more. Bob accused anyone who had contact with the kids.”
“I heard he’d blamed Dan Jeffrey.”
“Could be. I didn’t hear that, but then, I don’t have a child in the school, so I don’t have a pipeline into those circles. But it makes sense. Dan was a ‘wash-ashore,’ someone relatively new in town, and as far as anyone knew he was a bachelor. Parents these days are nervous about single men being around their children.” Gussie paused. “Winslow’s an old town, Maggie. Most of us year ’round people have known each other since we were kids. My family’s been here a couple of hundred years. There are still divisions. Families that were Portuguese fishermen a couple of generations back may still be fishing, but now they’re just as likely to own restaurants, or run tour boats for summer people, or be professionals. A few who summered here as children have found a way, with telecommuting and all, to live here full time today. Times change. But a lot of the same families are still here. Jim’s one of the few newcomers. He went to Harvard Law and decided to move to the Cape and practice here instead of going into a big firm, or returning South.”
“What about Cordelia West?”
“I’m pretty sure she’s from Martha’s Vineyard, which is considered ‘in the neighborhood.’ There used to be a deaf community on the Vineyard, back, oh, a couple of hundred years ago.”
Maggie smiled. “I read a study about it once. People there didn’t think of deafness as a disability; it was just a characteristic some people were born with, like red hair. Everyone, deaf or not, learned sign language, so not being able to hear wasn’t a handicap. Fascinating.”
“That’s right. But as the world changed, people traveled more, and intermarried, and by the middle of the twentieth century that sign language was gone. If there are any deaf people on the Vineyard today they’re not part of that genetic cluster, as they now call it.”