“I thought it was funny the expiration date was so soon,” he said.
“Last week was the short week with the Thanksgiving holiday, and we didn’t make it to your place,” Caroline added. “But when we got home from our daughter’s and there was no food in the house, your restaurant seemed like the perfect solution. We really had a lovely meal. You’re doing a great job. Of course, I would have been happy to have left a little earlier.”
“Do you know any of the other diners who were there Monday night? I noticed you all talking in the bar.”
“I don’t really know any of those people,” Caroline answered. “We were trapped together, and it seemed polite to chat a little, but I don’t remember the conversation getting more intimate than the weather.” Beside her, Henry nodded his agreement.
That was my memory too. There didn’t seem to be much more to say. My next stop was going to be the Bennetts way out on Eastclaw Point. “Do you mind if I use your bathroom?” I asked.
“Surely, come along. The powder room is right through there.” Caroline directed me to an area off the kitchen where a long hallway led to a guest room, study, and a full guest bath. I used the facilities quickly and started back up the hall when something in the study caught my eye. Over the desk was a framed diploma for Henry Caswell from the Yale School of Medicine. So the women at the Sit’n’Knit had been right. He was a doctor. Yet I was sure I’d heard people address him as “Mr. Caswell.” I had even done it myself, and he never corrected me.
I thought about remarking on the diploma, but I’d sort of been snooping and couldn’t figure out how to bring it up. I went back to the great room, where Caroline met me and walked me to the front door. I pulled on my coat, thanked her, and went on my way.
Chapter 11
It was a bit of a drive back down the peninsula toward town and then on out onto Eastclaw Point. Busman’s Harbor was shaped like the top portion of a lobster lounging in the sea. The head of the lobster formed the town, and the claws, called Eastclaw and Westclaw Point, reached out to embrace the big harbor, leaving just enough of a channel for sizable boats to enter and exit.
When I was little, all the houses on the points were summer homes. A few were kept open until Christmas or New Year’s for family gatherings, but they were exceptions. Most of the imposing “cottages” were unheated. In the old days, the town didn’t even bother to plow the road. But slowly, over the course of my lifetime, more than a few homes were converted to year-round residences. There were still long stretches of road where the houses, set off on little lanes or down long driveways, were obviously empty. I thought it would be a tough life, alone out here through a Maine winter, without the comforts and companionship of town.
Toward the end of Eastclaw Point, the road split, each spur going off to one of the spits of land that gave the point its clawlike shape. Just past the fork, I spotted a sign that said BENNETT and turned into a pea gravel drive. I was aware of a house looming off to the left as I pulled in, but it was the view in front of me that grabbed my attention. Waves crashed on boulders at the end of a big lawn, sending spray into the air. Across the water, two islands rose up—tiny uninhabited Craigie Island and Dinkum’s Light beyond. The sea smoke off the water made them look like mirages. I stood, captivated for a moment, and then approached the front door.
Deborah Bennett opened it before I knocked. She must have heard the Caprice come up the drive. When she greeted me, her tone was a bit overeager, confirming my suspicion that it must be lonely out here at the end of the road.
“Ms. Snowden, so nice to see you again so soon.”
“Please, it’s Julia.”
“And I’m Deborah.” She put a hand on my elbow and drew me inside. “Let me take your coat.”
The mask of her plastic surgery always threw me. Her face wasn’t ugly, but it wasn’t human, either, and that alone was enough to repel. She hung my coat in a closet off the big entrance hallway and led me into the living room. Walking ahead of me, she was a lean, fit figure in black slacks and a pearl gray sweater. Whatever she’d looked like before the surgery, I guessed she’d been pretty.
The living room was gorgeously decorated, formal as the large room demanded but in the colors of the beach. French doors opened onto a stone porch that faced the view I’d just been amazed by. Deborah was a fabulous decorator, as the room attested, but her interiors couldn’t compete with the exterior, and didn’t try.
She offered me coffee or tea. I asked for water, and she led me through the high-ceilinged formal dining room into an enormous, brand-new kitchen.
“This place is beautiful,” I said.