Whiskey Beach

Chapter Four

HE ENJOYED THE WALK ON THE SNOWY BEACH MORE THAN he’d anticipated. The winter-white sun blasted down, bounced off the sea, the snow, sent them both sparkling. Others had walked before him, so he followed the paths they’d cut down to the wet and chilly strip of sand the sweep of waves had uncovered.

Shore birds landed on the verge to strut or scurry, leaving their shallow stamps imprinted before water foamed over and erased them. They called, cried, chattered, made him remember the advance of spring despite the winterscape around him.

He followed a trio of what he thought might be some sort of tern, stopped, took a couple more pictures and sent them home. Walking on, he checked the time, calculated the schedule back in Boston before he tried his parents’ house line.

“And what are you up to?”

“Gran.” He hadn’t expected her to answer. “I’m taking a walk on Whiskey Beach. We’ve got a couple feet of snow. It looks a lot like it did that Christmas back when I was, I don’t know, about twelve?”

“You and your cousins and the Grady boys built a snow castle on the beach. And you took my good red cashmere scarf and used it as a flag.”

“I forgot that part. The flag part.”

“I didn’t.”

“How are you?”

“Coming along. Annoyed with people who won’t let me take two steps without that damn walker. I’ll do fine with a cane.”

As he’d had an e-mail from his mother detailing the battle of the walker, he’d come prepared. “It’s smarter to be careful, and not risk another fall. You’ve always been smart.”

“That roundabout won’t work with me, Eli Andrew Landon.”

“You haven’t always been smart?”

He made her laugh, considered it a small victory. “I have, and intend to continue. My brain’s working just fine, thank you, even if it can’t pull out how I fell in the first place. I don’t even remember getting out of bed. But no matter. I’m healing, and I will be done with this old-lady-invalid walker. What about you?”

“I’m doing okay. Writing every day, and making what seems like real progress on the book. I feel good about that. And it’s good to be here. Gran, I want to thank you again for—”

“Don’t.” Her voice held the hard edge of New England granite. “Bluff House is as much yours as mine. It’s family. You know there’s firewood in the shed, but if you need more you talk to Digby Pierce. His number’s in my book, in the desk in the little office, and in the far right drawer in the kitchen. Abra has it if you can’t find it.”

“Okay. No problem.”

“Are you eating properly, Eli? I don’t want to see skin and bones the next time I lay eyes on you.”

“I just had pancakes.”

“Ah! Did you go into Cafe Beach in the village?”

“No . . . actually, Abra made them. Listen, about that—”

“She’s a good girl.” Hester rolled right over him. “A fine cook, too. If you have any questions or run into any problems, you just ask her. If she doesn’t have the answer, she’ll find it. She’s a smart girl, and a very pretty one, as I hope you noticed unless you’ve gone blind as well as skinny.”

He felt a warning tingle at the back of his neck. “Gran, you’re not trying to fix me up with her, are you?”

“Why would I have to do something like that? Can’t you think for yourself? When have I ever interfered in your love life, Eli?”

“Okay, you’re right. I apologize. It’s just . . . You know her a lot better than I do. I don’t want her to feel obliged to cook for me, and I don’t seem to be able to get that across to her.”

“Did you eat the pancakes?”

“Yes, but—”

“Because you felt obliged to?”

“Point taken.”

“Over and above that, Abra does what she likes, I can promise you. That’s something I admire about her. She enjoys life and lives it. You could use a bit of that.”

That warning tingle resounded. “But you’re not trying to fix me up?”

“I trust you to know your own mind, heart and physical needs.”

“Okay, let’s move on from there. Or move laterally from there. I don’t want to offend your friend, especially when she’s doing my laundry. So, as I said, you know her best. How do I, diplomatically, convince her I don’t want or need a massage?”

“She offered you a massage?”

“Yes, ma’am. Or she informed me she’d be back at five-thirty with her table. My ‘No, thanks’ didn’t make a dent.”

“You’re in for a treat. That girl has magic hands. Before she started giving me weekly massages, and talking me into doing yoga, I lived with lower back pain, and an ache right between my shoulder blades. Old age, I decided, and accepted. Until Abra.”

He realized he’d walked farther than he intended when he spotted the steps leading up to the village. The few seconds it took him to shift direction, decide to go up, gave Hester an opening.

“You’re a bundle of stress, boy. Do you think I can’t hear it in your voice? Your life went to hell in a handbasket, and that’s not right. It’s not fair. Life too often isn’t either. So it’s what we do about it. What you’ve got to do now is the same as everybody’s telling me I have to do. Get healthy, get strong, get back on your feet. I don’t like hearing it either, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the simple truth.”

“And a massage from your pancake-making neighbor’s the answer?”

“It’s one of them. Listen to you, huffing and puffing like an old man.”

Insulted—mortified—he pivoted to the defensive. “I walked all the way to the village—and some of that through this damn snow. And I’m climbing steps.”

“And these excuses from a former Harvard basketball star.”

“I wasn’t a star,” he muttered.

“You were to me. You are to me.”

He paused at the top of the steps—yeah, to catch his breath, and to wait for the heart she’d managed to stir to settle.

“Did you see my new gym?” she asked him.

“I did. Very nice. How much can you bench-press, Hester?”

She laughed. “You think you’re smart and sassy. I’m not going out scrawny and used up, I’ll tell you that. You make use of that gym, Eli.”

“I did—once already. I got your memo. I’m standing across from The Lobster Shack.”

“The best lobster rolls on the North Shore.”

“Things haven’t changed much.”

“Here and there, but the foundation’s what counts. I expect you to remember yours. You’re a Landon, and you’ve got the grit of Hawkin blood that comes down through me. Nobody holds us down, not for long. You take care of Bluff House for me.”

“I will.”

“And remember. Sometimes a pancake is just a pancake.”

She made him laugh. The sound might’ve been rusty, but it was there. “Okay, Gran. Use the walker.”

“I’ll use the damn walker—for now—if you get that massage.”

“All right. Check your e-mail for some pictures. I’ll call you in a couple days.”

He passed places he remembered—Cones ’N Scoops, Maria’s Pizza—and new enterprises like Surf’s Up with its beach-pink clapboard. The white spire of the Methodist church, the simple box of the Unitarian, the dignified edifice of the North Shore Hotel, and the charm of the scattering of B&Bs that would welcome tourists through the season.

Light traffic chugged by, then petered out almost completely as he made his way home.

Maybe he’d go back to the village on the next clear afternoon, pick up some postcards, write quick notes to make his parents—and the couple of friends he could still claim—smile.

It couldn’t hurt.

And it couldn’t hurt to check out some of the shops, old and new, get a feel for the place again.

Remembering his foundation, so to speak.

But right now he was tired, and cold, and wanted home.

His car sat alone in the driveway, and that was a relief. He’d stalled long enough for Abra to finish. He wouldn’t have to make conversation, or avoid it. Considering the state of his boots, he circled around, let himself in through the laundry room/mudroom.

His shoulder felt fine now, he decided as he took off his gear. Or close enough. He could text Abra, tell her the walk had worked out the kinks.

Except for that deal he’d made with his grandmother. So he’d keep the deal—but he could put it off for a few days. He had a couple hours to work that out, he thought. He was a lawyer, for Christ’s sake—practicing or not—and a writer. He could compose a clear and reasonable communication.

He stepped out into the kitchen, spotted the sticky note on the counter.

Chicken and potato casserole in the freezer.

Fireboxes restocked.

Eat an apple, and don’t forget to hydrate after your walk. See you at 5:30ish.

Abra

“What are you, my mother? Maybe I don’t want an apple.”

And the only reason he got water out of the fridge was that he was thirsty. He didn’t want or need somebody telling him when to eat, when to drink. The next thing, she’d tell him to remember to floss or wash behind his ears.

He’d go up, dig into some research, then compose that text.

He started out, cursed, circled back and grabbed an apple out of the bamboo bowl because, damn it, now he wanted one.

He knew his irritation was irrational. She was being kind, considerate. But at the base of it he just wanted to be left alone. He wanted space and time to find his footing again, not a helping hand.

There’d been plenty of those hands at the outset, then fewer and fewer as friends, colleagues, neighbors had started to distance themselves from a man suspected of killing his wife. Of smashing in her skull because she’d cheated on him, or because a divorce would cost him a great deal of money.

Or a combination thereof.

He didn’t intend to reach out for those hands again.

In his stocking feet, still a bit chilled from the long walk, he detoured to the bedroom for shoes.

He stopped, the apple halfway to his mouth, and frowned at the bed. Moving closer, he peered down and choked out his second laugh of the day—a definite record.

She’d folded, twisted, curved a hand towel into what looked like some strange bird squatting on the duvet. It wore sunglasses with a little flower tucked between the cloth and the earpiece.

Silly, he thought—and sweet.

He sat on the edge of the bed, nodded at the bird. “I guess I’m getting a massage.”

He left the bird where it was, went into the office.

He’d do some research, maybe fiddle around with the next scene, just get that springboard.

But out of habit he checked his e-mail first. Among the spam, a post from his father, another from his grandmother in response to the photos he’d sent her, he found one from his lawyer.

Rather not, he thought. Rather not click on it. But then it would just be there, waiting, waiting.

With the muscles in his shoulders twisting into fists, he opened the e-mail.

He cut through the legalese, set aside the assurances, even the questions of approach, and focused on the ugly center.

Lindsay’s parents were, once again, making noises about filing a wrongful death suit against him.

It was never going to end, he thought. Never going to be over. Unless and until the police caught whoever was responsible for Lindsay’s death, he was the default.

Lindsay’s parents despised him, absolutely and without a sliver of doubt believed he murdered their only child. If they went forward with this—and the longer he remained the default, the more likely they’d do just that—everything would be dredged up again, swirled into the media hot box to cook and bloat. And spill over not only him but his family.

Again.

Assurances the case was unlikely to go forward now, or to gain much traction if and when, didn’t help. They would beat that drum, for sure, righteous in their certainty that they sought the only justice available to them.

He thought of the publicity, all those talking heads discussing, analyzing, speculating. The private investigators the Piedmonts would hire—likely already had—who would come here to Whiskey Beach and bring that speculation, that doubt, those questions with them to the only place he had left.

He wondered if Boston PD’s Detective Wolfe had any part in their decision. On bad days, Eli considered Wolfe his personal Javert—doggedly, obsessively pursuing him for a crime he didn’t commit. On better ones, he thought of Wolfe as stubborn and wrongheaded, a cop who refused to consider that the lack of evidence might equal innocence.

Wolfe hadn’t been able to put a case together that convinced the prosecutor to file. But that hadn’t stopped the man from trying, from edging over the line of harassment until his superiors had warned him off.

At least officially.

No, he wouldn’t put it past Wolfe to encourage and abet the Piedmonts in their quest.

Braced on his elbows, Eli rubbed his hands over his face. He’d known this was coming, he’d known this other shoe would drop. So maybe, in a horrible way, it was better to get it done.

Agreeing with the last line of Neal’s e-mail, We need to talk, Eli picked up the phone.

The headache was a tantrum inside his skull, kicking, punching, screaming. Reassurances from his lawyer did little to alleviate it. The Piedmonts made noises about a suit to increase pressure, to keep the media interested, to float the idea of a settlement.

None of those opinions, even though he agreed with them, reassured.

The suggestions to keep a low profile, not to discuss the investigation, to reengage his own private investigator hardly helped. He already intended to keep a low profile. Any lower, he’d be interred. Who the hell would he discuss anything with? And the idea of pumping money and hope into private investigation, which hadn’t turned up anything genuinely helpful the first time around, just added a layer of depression.

He knew, as his lawyer knew, as the police knew, that the more time that passed, the less likely they’d find solid evidence.

The most likely endgame? He’d remain in limbo, not charged, not cleared, and shadowed by suspicion for the rest of his life.

So he had to learn to live with it.

He had to learn to live.

He heard the knock at the door, but didn’t fully register the sound, the reason, until the door opened. He watched Abra muscling in a huge padded case, a bulging tote.

“Hi. Don’t mind me. You just stand there while I drag all this in by myself. No, no problem at all.”

She’d nearly managed it by the time he crossed over. “I’m sorry. I meant to get in touch, to tell you this just isn’t a good time.”

She leaned back against the door to close it, let out an audible whew. “Too late,” she began, then her easy smile faded when she focused on his face. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Nothing.” Not much more than usual, he thought. “This just isn’t a good time.”

“Do you have another appointment? Are you going out dancing? Do you have a naked woman upstairs waiting for hot sex? No?” she answered before he could. “Then it’s as good a time as any.”

Depression spun into annoyance on a finger snap. “How about this? No means no.”

Now she blew out a breath. “That’s an excellent argument, and I know I’m being pushy, even obnoxious. Chalk it up to keeping my promise to Hester to help, and the fact that I can’t stand seeing anyone—anything—in pain. Let’s make a deal.”

And damn it, that reminded him of his earlier one with his grandmother. “What are the terms?”

“Give me fifteen minutes. If after fifteen minutes on the table you don’t feel better, I’ll pack it up, get out and never bring up the subject again.”

“Ten minutes.”

“Ten,” she agreed. “Where do you want me to set up? There’s plenty of room up in your bedroom.”

“Here’s fine.” Stuck, he gestured toward the main parlor. He could push her out of the house faster from there.

“All right. Why don’t you start a fire while I set up? I’d like the room warm.”

He’d intended to light a fire. He’d gotten distracted, lost track of time. He could start a fire, give her ten minutes—in exchange for her leaving him the hell alone.

But it still pissed him off.

He hunkered down by the hearth to stack kindling. “Aren’t you worried about being here?” he demanded. “Alone with me?”

Abra unzipped the cover on her portable table. “Why would I be?”

“A lot of people think I killed my wife.”

“A lot of people think global warming is a hoax. I don’t happen to agree.”

“You don’t know me. You don’t know what I might do under any given set of circumstances.”

She set up her table, folded away the cover, movements precise and practiced—and unhurried. “I don’t know what you’d do under any given set of circumstances, but I know you didn’t kill your wife.”

The calm, conversational tone of her voice infuriated him. “Why? Because my grandmother doesn’t think I’m a murderer?”

“That would be one reason.” She smoothed a fleece cover on the table, covered it with a sheet. “Hester’s a smart, self-aware woman—and one who cares about me. If she had even the smallest doubt, she would have told me to stay away from you. But that’s just one reason. I have several others.”

As she spoke she set a few candles around the room, lit them. “I work for your grandmother, and have a personal friendship with her. I live in Whiskey Beach, which is Landon territory. So I followed the story.”

The lurking black cloud of depression rolled back in. “I’m sure everybody did around here.”

“That’s natural, and human. Just as disliking, and resenting, the fact that people are talking about you, reaching conclusions about you, is natural and human. I reached my own conclusion. I saw you, on TV, in the paper, on the Internet. And what I saw was shock, sadness. Not guilt. What I see now? Stress, anger, frustration. Not guilt.”

As she spoke she took a band from around her wrist and, with a few flicks, secured her hair in a tail. “I don’t think the guilty lose much sleep. One other—though as I said I have several—you’re not stupid. Why would you kill her the same day you argued with her in public? The same day you learned you had a lever to dump some dirt on her in the divorce?”

“First degree wasn’t on the table. I was pissed. Crime of passion.”

“Well, that’s bullshit,” she said as she retrieved her massage oil. “You were so passionate you went into your own house and prepared to take three items—arguably your property? The case against you didn’t stand, Eli, because it was, and is, weak. They proved the time you entered because you switched off the house alarm, and have the time of your nine-one-one call, and because people know the time you left your office that evening. So you were in the house for less than twenty minutes. But in that small window of time you went upstairs, into the safe—taking only your great-grandmother’s ring—came down, took the painting you’d bought off the wall, wrapped it in bathroom towels, killed your wife in a fit of passion, then called the police. All in under twenty minutes?”

“The police reconstruction proved it was possible.”

“But not probable,” she countered. “Now we can stand here debating the case against you, or you can just take my word that I’m not worried you’re going to kill me because you don’t like hospital corners on your bed or the way I fold your socks.”

“Things aren’t as simple as you make them.”

“Things are rarely as simple or as complicated as anyone makes them. I’m going to use the powder room to wash up. Go ahead and undress, get on the table. I’ll start you faceup.”

In the powder room Abra shut her eyes, did a full minute of yoga breathing. She understood perfectly well he’d lashed out at her to push her out, scare her off. But all he’d done was annoy her.

In order to expel stress, dark thoughts, frustrations with massage, she couldn’t hold on to any of her own. She continued to clear her mind as she washed her hands.

When she stepped back in, she saw him on the table, under the top sheet—and board stiff. Didn’t he understand that even that weighed on his innocence for her? He’d made a bargain, and though he was angry, he’d keep it.

Saying nothing, she dimmed the lights, walked over to turn on her iPod to soothing music. “Close your eyes,” she murmured, “and take a deep breath. In . . . out. Another,” she said as she poured the oil into her hands. “One more.”

As he obeyed, she pressed her hands on his shoulders. They didn’t even touch the table, she noted. So stiff, so knotted.

She stroked, pressed, kneaded, then slid her hands up along the column of his throat before she began a light facial massage.

She knew a headache when she saw one. Maybe if she could bring him some relief there, he’d relax a little before she began the heavy work.

It was hardly his first massage. Before his life had shattered he’d used a masseuse named Katrina, a solidly built, muscular blonde whose strong, wide hands had worked out tensions built up from work, strains generated from sports.

With his eyes closed, he could almost imagine he was back in the quiet treatment room of his club, having his muscles soothed after a day in court, or a couple hours’ competing on one.

Besides, in a few minutes, the deal would be met, and the woman who wasn’t the sturdy Katrina would be gone.

Her fingers stroked along his jaw and pressed under his eyes.

And the screaming violence of the headache quieted.

“Try another breath. Long in, long out.” Her voice melted into the music, just as fluid and soft.

“That’s good. Just in, then out.”

She turned his head, worked those fingers up one side of his neck, then the other, before she lifted his head.

Here, the firm, deep press of her thumbs brought a quick, stunning pain. Before he could tense against it, it released, like a cork from a bottle.

Like breaking up concrete, Abra thought, an inch at a time. So she closed her eyes as she worked, visualized that concrete softening, crumbling under her hands. When she moved to his shoulders, she increased the pressure, degree by degree.

She felt him relax—a little. Not enough, but even that slight yield equaled a victory.

Down his arm, kneading the tired muscles all the way down to his fingertips. Part of her mind might have smiled smugly when that ten-minute deadline went by unnoticed, but she focused the rest on doing the job.

By the time she lifted the face rest, she knew he wouldn’t argue.

“I want you to turn over, scoot up and lower your face into the rest. Let me know if you need me to adjust it. Take your time.”

Zoned, half asleep, he simply did as he was told.

When the heels of her hands pressed into his shoulder blades, he nearly moaned from the glorious mix of pain and release.

Strong hands, he thought. She didn’t look strong. But as they pushed, rubbed, pressed, as her fists dug into his back, aches he’d grown used to carrying rose to the surface, and lifted out.

She used her forearms, slick with oil, her body weight, knuckles, thumbs, fists. Every time the pressure hovered on the edge of too much, something broke free.

Then she stroked, stroked, stroked, firm, rhythmic, constant.

And he drifted away.

When he surfaced, floating back to consciousness like a leaf on a river, it took him a moment to realize he wasn’t in bed. He remained stretched out on the padded table, modestly covered by a sheet. The fire simmered; candles glowed. Music continued to murmur in the air.

He nearly closed his eyes and went under again.

Then he remembered.

Eli pushed himself up on his elbows to look around the room. He saw her coat, her boots, her bag. He could smell her, he realized, that subtle, earthy fragrance that mixed with the candle wax, the oil. Cautious, he pulled the sheet around him as he sat up.

He needed his pants. First things first.

Holding the sheet, he eased off the table. When he reached for his jeans, he saw the damn sticky note.

Drink the water. I’m in the kitchen.

He kept a wary eye out as he pulled on his pants, then picked up the water bottle she’d left beside them. As he shrugged on his shirt he realized nothing hurt. No headache, no toothy clamps on the back of his neck, none of those twinges that dogged him after his attempts to get some exercise.

He stood, drinking the water in the room soft with candlelight and firelight and music, and realized he felt something he barely recognized.

He felt good.

And foolish. He’d given her grief, deliberately. Her answer had been to help him—despite him.

Chastised, he made his way through the house to the kitchen.

She stood at the stove in a room redolent with scent. He didn’t know what she stirred on the stove, but it awakened another rare sensation.

Genuine hunger.

She’d chosen grinding rock for her kitchen music, turned it down low. Now he felt a twinge—of guilt. No one should be forced to play good, hard rock at a whisper.

“Abra.”

She jolted a little this time, which reassured him. She was human after all.

When she turned, she narrowed her eyes, held up a finger before he could speak. Stepping closer, she gave him a long study. Then she smiled.

“Good. You look better. Rested and more relaxed.”

“I feel good. First, I want to apologize. I was rude and argumentative.”

“We can agree there. Stubborn?”

“Maybe. All right, I can concede stubborn.”

“Then, clean slate.” She picked up a glass of wine, lifted it. “I hope you don’t mind, I helped myself.”

“No, I don’t mind. Second, thank you. When I said I felt good . . . I don’t remember the last time I did.”

Her eyes softened. Pity might have made him tense again, but sympathy was a different matter.

“Oh, Eli. Life sure can suck, can’t it? You need the rest of that water. To hydrate, and for flushing out the toxins. You may feel some soreness tomorrow. I really had to dig down. Do you want a glass of wine?”

“Yeah, actually. I’ll get it.”

“Just sit,” she told him. “You should stay relaxed, absorb that for a while. You should consider booking a massage twice a week until we really conquer that stress. Then weekly would do, or even every other week if that doesn’t work for you.”

“It’s hard to argue when I’m half buzzed.”

“Good. I’ll write the appointments down on your calendar. I’ll come to you for now. We’ll see how that goes.”

He sat, took his first sip of wine. It tasted like heaven on his tongue. “Who are you?”

“Oh, such a long story. I’ll tell you one day, if we get to be friends.”

“You’ve washed my underwear and had me naked on your table. That’s pretty friendly.”

“That’s business.”

“You keep cooking for me.” He angled his chin toward the stove. “What is that?”

“Which?”

“The thing, on the stove.”

“The thing on the stove is a good hearty soup—vegetables, beans, ham. I gave it a mild kick as I wasn’t sure how spicy you can handle. And this?” She turned, opened the oven. More scent poured out and stirred that burgeoning appetite. “Is meat loaf.”

“You made a meat loaf?”

“With potatoes and carrots and green beans. Very manly.” She set it on the stove. “You were out over two hours. I had to do something.”

“Two . . . two hours.”

She gestured absently at the clock as she got down plates. “Are you going to ask me to dinner?”

“Sure.” He stared at the clock, then back at Abra. “You made meat loaf.”

“Hester gave me a list. Meat loaf was in the top three. Plus I think you could use some red meat.” She began to plate the meal. “Oh, by the way. If you ask for ketchup to put on this, I’ll hurt you.”

“So noted, and accepted.”

“One more stipulation.” She held the plate just out of reach.

“If it’s legal, I can almost guarantee agreement in exchange for meat loaf.”

“We can talk about books, movies, art, fashion, hobbies and anything in that general area. Nothing personal, not tonight.”

“That works.”

“Then let’s eat.”