Do i know you, p.10
Do I Know You?, page 10
The beaded curtains tinkle and Serena emerges, streaks of gray in her curly dark hair the only indication she’s aged since I last saw her. I’d forgotten how tall she is—that Ethiopian heritage—and how curvy, the contribution of her Italian mother, owner of her own fish market in Boston’s North End, who taught her how to cook fruits de mer. Kit told me Serena bragged that she knew how to hook, gut, and filet a fish while she was still in diapers. She could poach a sea bass with dill and arugula while other kids were playing with Legos.
Serena is about to rattle off the specials when she shuts her mouth and widens her eyes. I give her a big smile. I even consider dropping my pack and opening my arms for a hug, but my Yankee sense of restraint kicks in and I hang back.
“Jane?” She brings a hand to the white bib of her apron, splattered with fish blood. “Oh, baby. You’re back!”
“Just for a week.” Inexplicably, the warmth in her voice makes me choke up a bit and I have to fixate on the cracks in the floor for a minute to keep from getting emotional. “Erik—that’s my boyfriend—he and I are renting down in Shoreham.”
“How’re you doing?” And then she waves her question away. “No, you don’t have to explain. I read about what happened. Twitter.”
This takes me for a loop, I’ll admit. I’ve always thought of my hometown as a protected bubble immune to the invasion of social media. I don’t know if that speaks more to my naïveté or how things have changed since I left. “Don’t believe everything you read.”
“Pffff. No worries. I don’t trust anything anymore . . . Or anyone.”
Ditto. Checking to make sure no one’s coming from outside to interrupt us, I move closer. “Look, I’m here to pick up food—but can I also ask you a couple of questions?”
She glances at the clock behind her. “Yeah, of course, but I’m closing in a few minutes. I have people coming to the house. Dinner guests.”
“Cool. What’re you serving?”
“Fresh tuna with capers and olives, probably. I put aside a couple of steaks.” She snaps her metal tongs, eager to move on to the business at hand. “Now, what can I get you?”
It’s been a little over a decade since we’ve seen each other, when we shared the loss of my closest friend and someone she adored, and yet I get the sense Serena is rolling up the welcome mat. Whatever. I try not to take it personally.
“How about a dozen oysters?”
“Gladly.” She pulls a plastic glove from a cardboard box on the wall and slides it over her long fingers. “What’s on your mind?”
“So, thinking back to those parties you catered at Heron’s Neck the summer Kit worked for you, do you remember running into one of the Pease kids, an adopted one? She may or may not have gone by the last name Valencia at the time.”
Serena reaches into the oyster bin and grabs a handful of the gray shells. “Are you talking about the woman you accused—” She’s about to add “of murder” and catches herself. “. . . At the airport?”
“Mm-hmm. Long black hair, big brown eyes. She would have stood out from the other Peases, as she’s originally from Colombia.”
“You’re talking about Will’s fiancée. His adopted sister, Bella.”
“That’s right.” I stifle a bubble of hope that her quick answer means Serena’s been thinking about Bella’s connection to Kit, too. But either Serena didn’t hear me or she’s crafting her response because she slowly counts out three oysters—one, two, three—and goes back for more.
“Would she and Kit have known each other back then?” I prod.
“I don’t know. I try not to get involved in my staff’s social life.” She doesn’t make eye contact when she says this, still concentrating on counting out oysters—like she couldn’t do that in her sleep. Okay, now I can’t help but be hurt.
I move to the next topic on my mental list. “By the way, Jake Pease was surf casting down at Coast Guard Beach today. Is that unusual for him?”
“I have no idea.” She tips the scale of oysters into the plastic bag, rolling open the edges so they can breathe. “He fishes all over the ocean side. Maybe the snappers are running.”
“Are they? I’m not sure he even had bait on his hook.”
Finally, she meets my gaze. “What’re you getting at, hon?”
“This might sound nuts, but I think he tried to drown me this afternoon.”
She doesn’t show surprise—or concern. In the passing of a second, she reassembles her response and gives me a blasé laugh. “Jake? You’ve got to be kidding. He’s a big ol’ puppy dog.”
“I am not. I saw him up close and personal. Or, to be more accurate, his fist.”
Her hand is still clutching the bag. “This, I wanna hear.”
“It was after hours. The guards had left and I saw a swimmer struggling way past the sandbar. So I kicked into action and went out with a towel. Once a lifeguard, always a lifeguard, right?”
Serena seems to have stopped breathing. She’s not even moving. Just standing posed like a statue, one hand on her hip, one on the bag.
“Jake paddled out on a surfboard soon after. While the lifeguards were rescuing the drowning woman, he came over to me and offered a hand. Except, instead of pulling me out, he punched me down. Literally.” I swipe back my hair and show her the bruise. “This is what he did to me.”
She blinks, whether stunned or skeptical, I can’t tell.
“Swear to God.” I cross my chest. “On my mother’s grave.”
Her body shifts and, along with it, the atmosphere of the tiny shop, and I can’t help but fear I’ve made a mistake.
“That’s quite a story, but I don’t think so.” She places the oysters on the counter. “I know Jake well, very, very well. He and his family are excellent customers. If it weren’t for them, I’d have gone under long ago.”
I could kick myself for being so stupid. Of course, Serena, like a lot of small business owners, is in debt to the Peases. That family throws around cash like confetti, especially when it suits their interests. Apparently, it pays off, considering Serena’s mild reproof of my allegation.
“And I can’t imagine him actually hitting someone, not Jake,” she continues. “He’s such a stand-up guy, holding fundraisers for the fire department and police. They’re all about creating community connections, those Peases. Exactly like you see on their website. I mean, I might not go for their New Age, tune-into-your-chakra mumbo jumbo, but from what I’ve seen, they really do try to walk the talk.”
Well, this is disappointing. A person I once respected as a self-made, independent woman with a moral code is such a sellout she is willing to put her allegiance to a bunch of zillionaires above the life of my sister. Time to cut my losses and move on.
“Oh, okay. Yeah, that’s what I figured,” I say, brushing off my prior gravity with a shrug. “I must have hallucinated him when I bumped my head.”
“Uh-huh.” But she doesn’t seem that convinced. And now she’s gone ice cold. “Is that all?” She shoots another glance at the clock, which reads eight fifteen p.m., way past closing time.
There’s a clash of dishes in a sink coming from the back, and it occurs to me that perhaps Serena fears someone might be eavesdropping.
Snatching an order slip, I jot down my number with the pen attached to the counter by a piece of dirty string. “This is my cell. Text or call when you get a chance. It’d be really . . .” I search for a more meaningful word than helpful “. . . therapeutic if I could discuss that night with you. There’s a lot I have to put to bed.”
She slips the paper with my number into her apron pocket. “That’ll be thirty-seven fifty-five with tax.”
We cash out and she swipes my credit card, before passing over the bag of oysters. “Thank you for coming in,” she says stiffly. Then, softening slightly, adds, “I loved Kit like one of my own, Jane. It’s good to see you again. Come back soon.”
I thank her and step outside to the parking lot, where I check the receipt in the dimming light as Serena switches the sign behind me from OPEN to CLOSED. Thirty-eight bucks for a dozen unshucked oysters. Tourist prices. Must not be that good to see me.
“Whoa!” a voice says and I nearly walk head-on into a middle-aged man wearing a Mets cap and a pair of Oakleys, though it’s way too dark to be wearing sunglasses. “Didn’t see you there.”
You would have, I think, if you took those off. “Sorry,” I say, stepping to the side. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Aww, shit. They’re closed?” He scratches his head, gawping at the sign. “I thought she was open ’til nine.”
“Me, too. She has guests coming for dinner. She seemed to be in some sort of a rush.”
But I misjudged. For as soon as the words leave my lips, Serena undoes the lock and pushes open the screen. “Hey, you. Long time, no see,” she coos, ushering him in. Then, catching sight of me, she smiles weakly before shutting the door and turning the lock.
And that’s when I realize my other big mistake. I should have told Serena that if she runs into Bob, please, under no circumstances mention I’m in town. Because if there’s one thing I know about Serena, she likes to talk.
Except, apparently, to me.
Thirteen
JANE
It’s not like I’m trying to avoid Bob. Well, actually, I am. For now.
I’d simply prefer to stay off his radar until I’ve had a chance to jostle the memories of those who knew Kit and what she might have been up to the days before she went missing. If I can find even a scintilla of evidence that Bella Valencia was in the area that night and not on a plane to LA as she claimed to be, then I can present that morsel to Bob on a silver platter and he’ll have to reopen the case. He’ll simply have no other choice.
The problem with Bob is he’s way too protective, especially after what happened to Kit. If it gets back to him that I’m in his jurisdiction, he’ll assign his lackeys to twenty-four-hour surveillance to make sure no hired Pease goon runs me off the road or whatever harm Bob in his cop paranoia imagines they can inflict. I often replay our last serious conversation about Bella and his line that the Peases could get away with walking out of Tiffany with a hundred grand in diamonds. What comes through is that Bob’s chicken-shit scared of bringing them to justice, probably scared of how they might destroy his reputation, and, more important, scared of how they might come after me.
To all that I say, bring it.
* * *
By the time I’ve loaded up my pack with locally brewed craft beer and cheeses, crackers, kale, cherry tomatoes and basil, frozen cauliflower (nonorganic, sorry, Sheila), batteries, coffee, half-and-half, and cocktail sauce—along with the oysters—it’s pitch dark and a good hour after I should have returned to the cottage.
Erik has sent me a couple of texts: What’s taking so long? and You’re missing all the fun. We’re really having a blast! followed by an update that the kids are in bed FYI.
Out of oysters in Shoreham so I had to go to Wellfleet, my thumbs lie. On my way!
Even though I have to get back ASAP, on impulse I decide to make a quick detour to the town graveyard. The historic cemetery is tucked behind the Shoreham Police Department on a slight hill surrounded by a locked wrought-iron fence thick with multiple coats of glossy black paint. If I’m going to visit, it’s got to be now: Bob’s office, in a new addition to the Town Hall, has a clear view of the graveyard, and if I go there during the day, he’ll have a clear view of me.
Some of the graves go all the way back to the 1600s, when Miles Standish was running around the area stealing winter corn from the Wampanoag. Why the Standish family, the scions of Shoreham, seem so proud to share his homicidal DNA is beyond me. But, as they funded the graveyard I’m about to break into, who am I to object?
I lean my bike against the gate, drop my pack, and sneak in the way we used to in high school, through a bent pair of bars at the corner. At least that much hasn’t changed.
The atmosphere is quiet and spooky, with the fog rolling in over the ancient stones marked with dulled indentations of skulls and crossbones. The boughs of stunted oaks could be ghouls in the encroaching darkness. I feel a growing sense of trepidation as my Tevas crunch across the yard to my destination.
The hardest thing about coming home is making this visit. Swallowing a lump of grief, I weave through the ancient headstones toward the newer section, fighting off the old waves of guilt. Mom isn’t here because of what I didn’t do or didn’t say, I try to assure myself. But this is a lie.
The truth is, I could have saved my sister. I had a chance and I squandered it.
The night began with the ominous ping of a Facebook message.
I’d fallen asleep with my laptop open and was awakened by the notification of a message from Cobb Cooper, a guy I’d only exchanged a “hi” or “hey” with, whose parents, Barb and Harry, owned Camp Pekky.
The last session of camp had ended the day before and I was in total relaxation mode, staying up late texting with my lifeguard buddies, going online to watch stupid videos, and eating tons of junk food. When I saw Cobb’s message, I sat up in alarm, checking the clock on my screen. It was fifteen minutes after midnight.
Right away, I knew there was trouble and I knew it involved Kit.
Hey, if this is Jane who guards at Pekky you should know your sister’s partying with a bunch of townies at the cove. I heard my parents calling the cops and went down there to warn everyone. She’s totally out of it and needs to get the fuck out before the cops arrive. She can’t get busted again.
Even in the moment, it struck me that Cobb’s message was hardly altruistic, since he had a personal interest in making sure Kit didn’t get arrested. He’d been her dealer for everything from pot to coke to oxy and, while she’d refused to rat him out the first time she got arrested, there was no guarantee she’d do the same the next time.
On it, I wrote back. Then I pulled on a pair of sweats and zipped up my hoodie, sneaking downstairs to grab the car keys out of the bowl in the foyer, doing my best not to wake my mother as Cobb’s message rolled around and around in my mind. She’s totally out of it.
“Goddammit,” I cursed as I started up my mother’s Honda Civic and slowly backed out of the driveway. “You promised, Kit. You promised!”
In her plea bargain, the charge against Kit was downgraded to possession, but she had had to promise to complete an outpatient treatment program, perform five hundred hours of community service, and stay alcohol- and drug-free for two years. On top of that, the judge temporarily suspended her driver’s license and imposed a ten p.m. curfew. However, he did allow her to keep her catering job, provided she headed straight home after her shift.
This meant I was often tasked with the duty of being her chauffeur, schlepping her back and forth to appointments with her probation officer/therapist/doctor. Usually, though, if Kit had to stay overtime to clean up after an event, Serena would drop her off.
At least, that was what she told our mother.
Toward the end of that summer, she started getting rides home from Will Pease, which was the long and short of what she’d tell me about their relationship. If I asked what was up with him, she’d reply with a bored shrug or “We’re just friends,” though, obviously, that was an understatement. Kit would stay out so late with Will some nights she had to hoist herself onto our outdoor shower and climb through my open window to avoid waking Mom. Once, I spotted her coming in with her shirt half unbuttoned, her hair a tangled mess, and her eye makeup smeared. She didn’t offer one word of explanation on her way out my door except for a terse, “Don’t start.”
So, in a way, I was already programmed to rush to Kit’s rescue. As I drove down a deserted Route 6 and turned toward the bay side, praying I’d beaten the cops, I kept thinking what a relief it would be to have Kit out of my hair the following week when she returned to UMass, because I was pissed. And rightly so.
She promised.
I parked the Honda in the public beach lot on the other side of the camp, where it wouldn’t attract the attention of law enforcement, then hiked up the beach to the so-called party cove, a protected area near the marsh buffeted by tall grass and scrub pines.
Even in the pitch-black, I could make out the small bridge to Heron’s Neck, where a mysterious black Suburban was permanently stationed by the wooden railings. There was a camp legend that during very low tide you could cross the mud flats to the marshy side of the Peases’ private island, provided you could survive the sulfurous quicksand muck. Every summer, like clockwork, some cocky kid would attempt it on a dare and return slimed to his thighs with rich loam, stinking of rotten eggs and cursing the thousands of pinching fiddler crabs.
The bonfire was smoldering when I got to the cove and half-empty beer bottles had been tossed about, indicating a rushed exit. The stale funk of marijuana still hung heavy in the air and the sand was pocked with footprints. Perhaps the cops had come and gone. If so, had they nabbed Kit?
“You!” a man called from the darkness. “Stop!”
Instantly, I broke out in a sweat. A cop, I thought, preparing for my own dash into the woods. In my sneakers, dark jeans, and a navy hoodie, the odds were in my favor that I’d escape undetected. Cops didn’t like to run if they didn’t have to—another helpful tip from Bob.
No sooner did I pivot, however, when I tripped on a stray log and fell face forward into the sand. I rolled over, attempting to get up, and found a male figure looming over me.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“My sister,” I said, stumbling as I stood. “I came to pick her up.”
“Sister, huh?” He switched on the flashlight of his phone. For a moment, I caught a brief glance of his tanned, leathery face crisscrossed with wrinkles and graying hair at the temples. Judging from his heavy platinum watch and pricey windbreaker, I figured he was one of the neighboring summer people.
