THIRTY-SIX

The key hit with a tiny ping and bounced off the hardwood floor. Payton dropped on the sofa and cried until she felt staggered by exhaustion. All energy drained, she couldn’t even raise her head from the cushion. As the hall clock struck 9 a.m., even the realization she would be late opening her shop didn’t produce enough adrenaline to do more than wipe hair from her face. Strands of it clung to wet cheeks and eyelashes. One strand had even found its way into her mouth. She felt the tickle of it in her throat and plucked it away. Still she couldn’t move from the sofa. She didn’t care about the shop. She didn’t even care which friend was a murderer.

She also didn’t care that someone was banging on the sliders. But as the sound grew louder, Payton realized whoever was outside could see her lying there, arms outstretched, legs crunched up to fit her height into the small space. If she didn’t move, whoever relentlessly pounded on the double-glazed glass would eventually feel the need to break in. So Payton moved, first her right arm, to push the hair from her face, then the left, pins and needles striking like barbs as she raised it from its dangling position off the edge. The tingling burst into her brain, shocking her awake.

Helen stood with her nose pressed to the glass, hands cupped around her face giving it a ghoulish look that in the dark might have startled Payton. But right now, she was incapable of feeling anything more than simple annoyance at being disturbed. She inched off the couch, muscles and nerves screaming in indignation. Helen lowered her arms as Payton staggered to the door and unlocked it. She didn’t open the door, just went back to the couch, sitting instead of lying down.

“Dear, do you know what time it is?”

Payton’s brain told her to say it was nine o’clock. So she did.

“Are you going to open your store?”

“No.”

Helen joggled Payton’s shoulder. She rubbed the spot and stood up. “No,” she said more succinctly than before. “I didn’t forget. I just…” Payton started for the stairs, and a shower. Late or not, she needed the bracing hot needles to bring her senses to life. She turned. “Did you come for something in particular?”

“No dear. I didn’t see you leave and wondered if you’d overslept. Give me your keys. I’ll go down and man the ship so you don’t have to hurry.”

Payton’s brain wasn’t functioning well enough to tell her where she’d left the keys. Helen found Payton’s handbag and brought it to her. Payton fumbled around inside.

“Are you sure you’re all right, dear?”

“I had a rough night.” Payton came up with something jingly and handed it to Helen. “Thank you, you’re a lifesaver.”

“What kind?”

“Peppermint,” Payton muttered and shuffled upstairs, still wearing her wet sneakers.

An hour and a half later, Payton sat on the stool behind the counter in the shop. She’d absorbed two cups of coffee—which Helen had been thoughtful enough to make—and sent Helen on her way, thanking her several times for her kindness, and somehow managing not to give a plausible explanation for her behavior. Helen knew of Payton’s insomnia and probably assumed it finally caught up with her. That was partly it, but at Aden’s, she’d had a re-realization of where she stood in the grand scheme of the world. It was a sobering thought to know that if you disappeared from the earth, few people would notice.

Payton thumbed through the phone book and dialed Claire’s number. “Hi, it’s Payton. I wondered if you’d like to get together for lunch today. MaryAnn’s due here at one, want to meet me here? We can go to the Galley.” Payton set down the phone and laughed. If MaryAnn was in any condition to show up. Well, if she didn’t, she and Claire would just order in.

The sky threatened rain. The streets were quiet. Even the tourists seemed to be sleeping late. Payton wondered if the sergeant finally got to sleep, or if visions of Sackets Harbor’s women carrying buckets loaded with monkshood paste down to the dock kept him awake.

Why hadn’t the investigation resulted in MaryAnn’s past coming to light? Being illegal, she couldn’t have a birth certificate, social security card or even a driver’s license. That explained her not owning a car. It wasn’t because she couldn’t afford one, as she’d said.

MaryAnn did arrive, and on time. She looked bright and ready to face the day.

“How come you look so good?” Payton asked.

“Don’t know.”

“Question: why didn’t the cops arrest you for being illegal?”

MaryAnn looked at Payton for several seconds, her dark eyes vacant, as though she’d forgotten she’d divulged her deepest secret. She sighed. “About six months after we got married, Sean paid a guy to make me all the official papers. As far as the government is concerned, I am legal.”

So MaryAnn really did owe him. Payton understood the gratitude of such a situation, but couldn’t believe MaryAnn would swallow every last ounce of her pride to pay back a man who cheated, lied and stole.

“When I got home that sergeant was waiting. They figured out how the poison was given to Sean. It was made into a paste and painted it on the rigging lines. When the ropes went through Sean and Frank’s hands, the poison got onto their skin.”

MaryAnn paled.

“It’s awful isn’t it?” Payton said.

“They must have suffered.” She rose and shook herself like a dog coming out of the lake. “You should go home and rest.”

“Can’t. Claire and I are going for lunch. I will fix my face though.”

When Payton returned, Claire and MaryAnn were seated in the patio area. Claire stood up, looking as disheveled as Payton felt.

“We’ll be back soon.”

“Have fun.”

They stepped out onto the sidewalk. Sergeant Espinoza’s car was parked in front of Sean’s cafe. No one was in sight. Payton picked up her pace.

“You still want to go to the Galley?”

“Sure. Did you remember there’s a race today?” Claire asked.

“God, I don’t feel like sailing today.”

“Don’t then.”

They found a table near the window where they could see the street.

“Tell me about your plan to reopen Sean’s café.”

“I’ve been doing a lot of research, looking for French recipes and all that.”

“Maybe he left some cookbooks in the restaurant.”

“Helen said she didn’t find any when she cleaned out the place.”

“I didn’t see any at his house either. Ask MaryAnn when we get back to the shop. Maybe she knows where they are. Did you try a search on the Internet?”

“I don’t have a computer. Well, I do, but it’s broken. I’m so excited about this.”

Broken? It was working a couple of nights ago.

“I’m hoping to open the first of August. I, er, gave the library director my notice.”

“Claire, are you sure this is what you want to do?”

“You aren’t going to try and talk me out of it too, are you?”

“No, of course not. I’m just worried you’re getting in over your head.”

“And at my age…”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Mamie did. She said I should be thinking about retiring and not bogging myself down with a career that’s known for its pressures and—oh, Payton, it is the right thing to do, isn’t it?”

“Only you would know that. I’m just worried about your health. Since Sean’s death, you’ve been different.”

Claire said softly, “We’ve all been different. I think someone should carry on for Sean. We owe him that.”

Payton didn’t think any of them—most of all MaryAnn—owed him anything. But Claire was right about one thing, Sean’s death had changed them all. Payton ordered a chef’s salad, realizing she hadn’t eaten since stealing the frosting off MaryAnn’s cake last night.

“What are you laughing about?” Claire asked.

“I was just remembering the last thing I ate. I was at MaryAnn’s helping clear out Sean’s things. There was this slice of chocolate cake on the counter. I stole some of the frosting. Claire, I swear it was the best frosting I’ve ever had.”

Claire rocketed to her feet and raced from the restaurant. Payton stood up and groped in her purse. She tossed some bills on the table but Claire was already running up the sidewalk. By the time Payton made it to the curb, she’d climbed into her car and sped away, squealing the tires. Payton went back inside and asked the waitress for the meals to go.

“Well, that’s about the wildest thing I’ve ever heard,” MaryAnn said between bites of Claire’s chicken salad.

The sergeant came out of Mamie’s gallery then drove two hundred feet down Main Street and turned into Sylvie’s parking lot. Payton let out the breath she’d been holding because she’d just figured out what Espinoza was doing—following up on the leads she’d given him in the wee hours of the morning. The thought gave her a heavy feeling, and Payton pushed the half eaten lunch away. “Will you be all right for a while? I think I’ll go for a walk.”

“Sure. While you were gone earlier, I thought I’d learn a little more about plants, but I couldn’t find the book. Did you take it home?”

“The cops have it. Anything you can’t find around here, they probably have.” Payton donned her raincoat, turned left out of the store and walked down the hill. Sergeant Espinoza was still at Sylvie’s. Rain had begun, first as a gentle mist as she passed Sylvie’s real estate office. It became heavier as she passed the Information office. Payton pulled up her hood and ducked her face to the wind that had picked up off the harbor. As she crossed the battlefield, rain pummeled the treetops above, rattling the new leaves and sending some to earth, fluttering and dipping like monarch butterflies in July.

She stood on the stonewall, at the spot where MaryAnn ran aground. Directly below, etched into the man-made rock barrier, was a permanent reminder of the incident. Maybe someday the white paint would fade, but the disruption to the evenly stacked stones would remain. The water washed over Payton’s memory—Sean’s face, paralyzed from the effects of the poison, rose up, pushed on the waves. The vision was so real she couldn’t stop herself from flinching away. This time Payton didn’t try to stop the images. Maybe if they played themselves out, she’d be able to rid herself of the nightmares. That’s what her analyst had told her. “Face the trouble head on. Let the memory come, over and over so that your mind gets used to it. Become familiar with the images, like a coroner steels himself against death. That’s what you’ve got to do with Cameron. Let him come to you.”

Unable to face the pain and horrific waste of a wonderful human being, Payton had been unable to do this. But she wasn’t emotionally involved with Sean. The images didn’t propel her into the same emotional state as Cameron’s. So she stood atop the wall with her eyes closed. And let it come: MaryAnn off course. Sean and Frank toppling into the water. Her stiff form poised on Zephyr’s starboard rail. As she leaped a swell pushed MaryAnn up. She missed the deck and went under. And didn’t come up. Not for a long time. When she did, the sight of her own bloated face made Payton gasp.

Finally she turned and headed back up the hill, feeling rejuvenated and determined to find Sean and Franks’ murderer.

Payton walked home, grateful not to see a police car waiting. It had stopped raining, but the clouds remained. She hung her raincoat in the closet, giving a pat of reassurance to Sean’s wallet inside the tan cashmere winter coat. Checking that neither Mamie nor any customer was in sight, she pulled up the crinkly cleaners’ bag, slipped out the wallet and took it to her office.

The leather creaked as it unfolded. She took out his license and social security card and set them on the desk. The photo of MaryAnn was the square Polaroid type with wide white border and age-crackled face. It must have been taken soon after their wedding, maybe on their honeymoon; the background was some sort of carnival. In the picture MaryAnn was youthful, at ease, without the tense lines around her mouth or the extra pounds she wore today.

The credit cards, Visa, Mastercard and Exxon gasoline, were in Sean’s name. None appeared too well used, no scratches on the laminated surfaces, not even a signature on the gas card. There were two twenties, three tens and two ones. Payton poked into the wallet’s nooks and crannies but found nothing besides a 1905 dime tucked under a flap.

The social security card must have been the original; the heavy-weight paper was dirty and worn. He hadn’t bothered to laminate it. His assigned number was 210-72-2891. She leaned back in her chair. Something she’d read recently nagged at her. Something about social security numbers being issued in a particular order. Each state had a specific code. On the computer, she located a Website telling her that the first three of Sean’s social security numbers, 210, originated in the state of Pennsylvania, which brought a frown. She’d assumed he was born right here in Sackets Harbor, which would make the first numbers somewhere between 050 and 134.

Things were certainly getting interesting.