A Familiar Tail (22 page)

32

I PROBABLY SHOULD
have waited for Mrs. Maitland to come back. I'm sure Nancy Drew would have waited. But I couldn't remember Nancy ever suddenly finding out she'd been lied to by her new friend, who incidentally was trying to talk her into becoming a witch.

Unfortunately, given the nature of our recent conversation, I couldn't exactly trust Elizabeth Maitland as a source of information either. Especially since it turned out she was spying on me in a particularly spooky way.

So, instead, I found Marisol and asked her to give Mrs. Maitland my apologies, but I was called away to deal with an urgent matter for an important client, and I got the heck out of the house. I did glance back as I was unlocking the Jeep, and saw Mrs. Maitland's shadow in one of the upstairs windows. She was gesturing to thin air and talking into the phone. I wondered if it was her son she was arguing with on the other end of the line, or somebody else.

I'd worry about that later. In fact, I probably wouldn't be able to avoid it.

Back in Portsmouth, I found a parking spot right across from Midnight Reads, which was stronger proof than anything I'd seen yet that magic does happen. Unfortunately, the bookstore was doing a brisk business today. Even from where I sat I could see it was full of happy, browsing customers. I fished out my phone and considered calling. No. I put it back. This was not a conversation anybody wanted to have where customers might overhear.

So, if I wasn't going to talk to Julia yet, what should I do? I drummed my palms against the steering wheel. No matter which way I looked, all the roads to actual answers led back to Dorothy, the house and the missing documents. Which meant they also led to Brad Thompson.

“Back to Plan A, I guess,” I said to myself as I threw the Jeep into gear. “Laurie Thompson. Then Julia. After that . . .”

Well, after that, there was nothing on the schedule except dinner with Frank Hawthorne.

This was turning out to be one heck of a day.

•   •   •

THE THOMPSON HOUSE
was the kind of place that gets described as “modest.” In this case that meant it was small with a plain peaked roof and white aluminum siding that was starting to peel in a couple of places. The lawn was mowed but weedy. Everything had the air of not quite enough time and not quite enough money.

I parked my Jeep and walked up to the door, wondering if I should have called first. Well, I was here now. I stepped up onto the plain concrete porch, pushed the bell and waited.

The door flew open, and there stood Laurie Thompson, pale and out of breath. When she saw me, her whole body sagged.

“I . . . I'm sorry . . . ,” I said.

“No, no,” she answered, rallying quickly. “Hi, Anna.
Sorry. I was . . . expecting someone else. I . . .” She glanced behind her. “Would you like to come in?”

I would, but I hesitated. Laurie was a stranger. I had no business intruding, but at the same time, I didn't like to leave her alone when something was so clearly going wrong. “If you're sure? I mean, this doesn't look like it's actually a good time for you. I . . .”

“No, no.” Laurie looked behind her again. “Sorry. I need to get that.”

She hurried into the house. I pushed back my rising doubt and stepped over the threshold.

The inside of the Thompson house was a match for the outside—small, plain and straining at the edges of its resources. I walked past the small but tidy living room and through the kitchen, which opened into the family room that was clearly the center of the Thompson life.

As I came in, Laurie was flipping her cell phone closed.

“Please, have a seat.” She gestured toward the worn leather sofa. She also cleared a slanting stack of mail off the coffee table, in that self-conscious way you do when unexpected visitors show up. “Would you like something to drink?”

“No, I'm good. Thanks.” I sat and pulled my purse onto my knees. “Are you sure this is an okay time?”

“Oh, yes. It's all fine,” she answered as she tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ears.

“I actually was hoping I might get a look at some more of your paintings,” I said. “The one you showed me the other day was really lovely.”

“Oh. Oh. Well. That's very nice of you. I . . . just a moment . . .” She got up and went into a side room that I suspected served as her studio space. I waited, looking around, not sure what I was looking for exactly. Books, papers, toys and game systems were scattered across the various surfaces. The walls were decorated with family photographs down several generations: weddings;
graduations; smiling young men in the uniforms of at least three different branches and eras of service; boys and girls grinning and hoisting sports trophies into the air. It all looked breathtakingly normal, and it should have been happy, except it wasn't.

Footsteps thumped down the stairs. A girl, maybe ten years old, darted around the corner into the kitchen, a book clutched in one hand. She stopped dead when she saw me.

“Hi,” I said, demonstrating the full extent of my way with children.

“Hi,” she said back. “Mom?” she called.

“Yes, honey?” Laurie answered from her studio.

“Can I go over to Margot's?”

“Oh, yes. Go ahead, but nowhere else, okay? I . . . just, you stay with Margot.”

“Okay.” The girl gave me another point-blank stare and then slammed out the door.

Kids these days. They hadn't changed much.

Laurie came back out; she was carrying a portfolio. “This is really nice of you,” she said, laying it on the coffee table. “I mean, I'm mostly self-taught, and, well . . .”

She undid the tie and opened the portfolio.

I looked through the pages. Laurie's work was heavy on the local landscapes, but not panoramas. She did mostly small studies: a single stone on the riverbank, one gull on a broken piling, a man in his overalls and waders sitting and staring out across the waters, his tired face rendered simply but with individuality. I would recognize this person if I met him on the street.

“These are really good,” I said. “I mean that.”

“Thank you.” She rubbed her hands together as if she was cold, even though it was warm in the room. I sympathized. It's always nerve-racking to watch someone looking over your work. “I've tried to sell some,” she said. “But, honestly, it's so hard to know how to start. I mean, my
daughter Jeannie wants me to set up an online store, and there are art fairs and everything, but . . .”

“Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said. “I might be able to help.” I told her about Nadia and her gallery. “Would you mind if I took some snaps of these to send her?”

“I . . . that would be wonderful! Thank you!”

“I can't promise anything, but . . . well, there's a possibility.” I pulled my phone out. The snaps wouldn't be great, but they'd be enough to give Nadia an idea of Laurie's range.

“I really can't thank you enough for this, Anna,” said Laurie when I tucked my phone away. “Are you sure I can't get you something? Some coffee?”

“No, no, really. I just stopped by for a minute.” I hesitated again. There really was no good way to work around to this. “Listen, Laurie, you're sure everything's okay?”

“Yes. Fine. Especially now.” She wasn't looking at me as she said it, though. She was picking up her paintings and sliding them carefully into her portfolio.

“I'm really glad. Because I was up talking to Elizabeth Maitland and . . .”

“Mrs. Maitland!” A sketch of the pier slid out of her fingers and fluttered to the floor. We both bent down to grab it, but Laurie got to it first. “I didn't realize you two knew each other.”

“She was a friend of my grandmother Blessingsound, back when Gran still lived in Portsmouth.”

Laurie closed the portfolio. When she looked up again, her expression, which had been so welcoming and hopeful a minute before, was closed off and cool. “You're a Blessingsound? I didn't realize.”

“My father's mother is Annabelle Mercy Blessingsound,” I told her. “She and Mrs. Maitland grew up together. And Mrs. Maitland seemed to think there might be a problem, between Brad and Frank.”

Laurie picked up the portfolio and turned away. The
speed of her movement sent another stray lock of hair drifting down from her braid. “Is this what Brad wanted to talk with you about at the restaurant the other day?”

Now it was my turn to be distinctly uncomfortable. “Oh. You heard about that?”

“I heard Brad ran into you. I didn't hear what you talked about.”

I hesitated. I really hadn't planned this far ahead. “We talked about the house, and how I liked it.”

Laurie wasn't buying it. “And Dorothy?” she prompted.

“A little. I didn't know her, of course.”

“Of course,” she answered. “She really was a wonderful person. She recommended Brad for his job with Maitland and Associates.”

“Yeah, Mrs. Maitland mentioned that.” I paused again. Maybe there was a community college course I could take in asking leading questions. Until then, I was just going to have to shove my way through this. “Laurie, I need to ask you something, and it's not a good question. It's also probably not my business.”

“Okay.” She attempted a smile. “Now I'm concerned.”

“Is it possible Dorothy was blackmailing Brad?”

My brief acquaintance with Laurie Thompson had gotten me thinking of her as an essentially nervous person. Now her head snapped up and her spine stiffened. “Who told you that?”

“Somebody showed me a letter. They said it had come from you and that it was a blackmail note.”

Laurie was silent for a long moment. I watched her expression shift as she tried to get hold of her anger and failed. “Was it Frank Hawthorne?” she asked at last.

“Laurie, I can't . . .”

“But it was, wasn't it? I swear, he's never going to let go!”

Well, she was talking. She wasn't happy about it, but you can't have everything. “What happened between them? I thought they were friends.”

“The newspaper, that's what happened. Frank lost his mind over it. Completely obsessed with the idea. Who opens a paper nowadays?” Laurie threw out her hands, looking around the family room and the world at large for an answer. “At least, not without really deep pockets.”

I nodded in agreement. There's an old joke I'd heard from a friend of mine who illustrates kids' books: How do you make a small fortune in publishing? Answer: Start with a large fortune.

“Brad tried to get Frank to see some sense,” Laurie went on. “He thought maybe Frank should start small and work his way up. When he heard about how short the money really was, he got worried enough that he tried to talk to Dorothy about it.”

“And that didn't go well?”

“Frank accused Brad of trying to take advantage of Dorothy.”

“What? How?”

She shook her head. “At the time, Brad was coming home late some nights. He was very tired. He didn't want to tell me what was wrong, but eventually he did. He told me Dorothy was looking to sell the house, to raise money for Frank and his business. He tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn't budge. Oh, she was a good woman, but she could be absolutely blind where her nephew was concerned. If anyone was taking advantage . . .” Laurie's clamped her mouth shut, but I didn't need to hear her say it. In her considered opinion, if anyone was taking advantage of Dorothy, it was Frank.

“Anyway. Dorothy didn't want Frank to find out she was
thinking of selling. They'd already starting arguing about her finances, so whatever she did had to be done very, very quietly, or Frank would never accept the money. Brad told me he'd agreed to help, although it was difficult. They couldn't put anything online, because Frank publishes the real estate deals in the paper, so he watches the sites for interesting bids and buyers.”