I told him I didn’t, and climbed the narrow stairwell to the second floor. The view from my room was a narrow slice of ocean past a cluster of huddled trees on the bluff across the road, but the room was nice, with dark blue walls, Shaker-style furniture, and a four-poster bed with an actual red-white-and-blue quilt on it. I wondered, of course, if this were a room that Ted and Miranda had stayed in. Had they slept together in this bed?
I unpacked my bag. I had told John at the front desk that I would be staying for two nights, but I had packed clothes for more than that. I would play it by ear. The room was too warm, the radiator clicking and hissing, and I opened the window, standing there while the cold air spilled over me. The low clouds were thinning as the afternoon wore on, and I could make out the lengthening shadow of the inn as it stretched across the road. It would be dark in less than an hour. I had planned on walking the cliff walk but decided that I could do that the following day. I left the window cracked and lay down on the soft bed. The ceiling was crossed with dark beams, and I imagined Miranda in this room staring at the same view. I pictured her alone, naked under the sheets, thinking about the two men in her life—her husband and her lover—and plotting murder. I tried to think of Ted, but my mind kept slipping toward Miranda. Was it possible that I was wrong about her, and that Ted had really been killed by a surprised burglar? I didn’t think so but knew it was a possibility. It was the first thing I needed to find out, and the reason why I needed to meet Brad as soon as possible.
Miranda flooded my thoughts. I remembered her from years ago, staring into my eyes that drunken night at St. Dunstan’s. She had wanted to study them, she said, and I’d let her. I could smell the sweet trace of vodka on her breath, and one of her hands was touching my wrist. She told me all the colors she could see in my eyes. I wondered at the time what she was up to. I thought that it had to do with Eric, that she was trying to spook me, since I was now going out with her ex-boyfriend, but now I wonder if it had something to do with me. What had she seen in my eyes? Had she seen Chet at the bottom of that well? A commonality that went beyond Eric Washburn?
Some guy whose name I’ve forgotten had yelled, “Kiss, already,” from across the room and we broke eye contact, but I’ve never forgotten that moment. I wondered if she remembered it, too.
I stayed in the room until a little after five, then changed into my tightest jeans. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, and put on more makeup than I normally used, including dark eyeliner. After dinner at the Livery, I was planning on checking out Cooley’s on the beach, and I needed to look the part.
The Livery was quiet when I took a seat at the bar. The bartender, a dyspeptic-looking giant in suspenders and a tie, was cutting lemons and limes, and a waitress was wiping down tables. The bar area was long and narrow. At one end was an unlit fireplace, and at the other, a man with long gray hair was unpacking an acoustic guitar, and setting up an amplifier. I hung my purse from a hook beneath the oak bar and ordered a bottle of light beer. Football highlights were playing on the TV mounted above the bottles, and I pretended to be interested. I wondered if anyone would show up on a Sunday night, but by six o’clock, as I was nursing my second beer, at least fifteen customers had arrived, most of them taking seats at the bar, and the man with the acoustic guitar had already sung two Eagles songs. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and ordered a turkey burger with sweet potato fries. Just as it was arriving, John, the hotel concierge who had checked me in, sat down two stools over and ordered a Grey Goose martini.
“Hello, there,” I said, swiveling my barstool fractionally in his direction.
I watched his eyes hunt my face. I knew I looked quite a bit different from when I had checked in. After a long second, he said, “Hello, guest with no reservation. How’d you like your room?”
“It’s lovely. You were right.”
“Didn’t bump your head going through the door?”
“Almost.”
His drink arrived, the vodka forming a trembling meniscus at the brim of the glass. “Now, how do you expect me to drink this?” he said to the bartender, who, without a word, plucked up a small black bar straw and dropped it into his martini. John lowered the level of the vodka a quarter inch, then flicked the straw back toward the bartender, who let it bounce off his chest and fall to the floor.
“Nice to leave your job and be able to go less than a hundred yards to get a martini,” I said.
“I wasn’t kidding when I said how good this place was. See what a great advertisement I am, drinking at my own place of work.” His laugh was almost like a giggle, his shoulders hitching up and down.
We chatted while I ate my burger, and he worked his way through the martini, adding ice as he drank it. I was about to give up any hope that I would stumble into gossip about Ted and Miranda, but when John’s second martini arrived, he asked, “You said you were from Boston?”
“No, but Massachusetts. Winslow, about twenty miles west.”
“Did you read about the murder in the South End? Ted Severson.”