“Thank you. It was a long, hard slog to get here. Phil and I have owned the house for more than thirty years, but a little over a year ago we started a major overhaul so we could live here full-time when he retired.”
“Maine can be tough in the winter,” I said. It had been sixteen years since I’d spent a full winter in Maine. When I’d arrived back the previous March, it had been still more than technically winter. As a result, I’d suffered some of the inconvenience, but not the sheer duration, of month after month of too short days, long dark nights, low temperatures, and a variety of pelting precipitations.
“We’re going to get out for a couple of months in Palm Beach,” she answered, like she’d heard remarks about the challenges of Maine winters many times before. “Would you like a tour?”
I replied enthusiastically. She walked me through room after room. Since the house had water on three sides, every one of the six large bedrooms had a sea view, along with a private bath. On the landing, she pointed upstairs to the third floor. “Phil’s studio. We won’t disturb him.”
I nodded to show I understood, and we walked down the grand staircase.
“This was an old family summer house when we bought it, and we left it that way for years,” Deborah said. “We wanted a place where the whole family could gather, our sons and their friends, and later, their wives and the grandchildren.” We returned to the kitchen, where my glass of water still sat on the big island. Deborah and I perched on stools, and she asked, “Tell me, Julia, why are you here?”
I’d been expecting the question. In fact, I’d been expecting it sooner. “I’m concerned about the man who died in our refrigerator,” I said. “As far as I know, the police still haven’t identified him. I came to see if you or your husband remembered anything about him at all. Anything that would help.”
“The police were here yesterday. We told them all we knew.” She put me off, but her body language was open and inviting. I found it easier to read her body than her mask of a face.
I tried again. “I feel so badly for his family.”
She glanced at the digital clock on the microwave. “Phil will be coming down any minute for his lunch. Perhaps you’ll stay and we’ll talk?”
No sooner had she finished the sentence than we heard Phil’s footsteps on the stairs, descending from the third floor. When he entered the kitchen, his shirt was dabbled with colorful flecks of paint and he smelled vaguely of paint thinner.
I rose from my stool. “Mr. Bennett, Julia Snowden.”
“You must call him Phil,” Deborah said.
“I didn’t know you painted, Phil.”
“You must have seen his work throughout the house,” Deborah said. “The oils.”
I had seen them. And wondered about them, because they weren’t the dramatic seascapes I would have expected in a house like this. They were portraits. Portraits of ordinary people—farmers, cleaners, lobstermen. They were somehow hyperrealistic, so that I could see every whisker and wrinkle, every darker fleck of color in the iris of an eye. But mostly they seemed to speak through the canvas with a kind of truth, not merely about the subject’s profession or circumstances but about his or her character.
Deborah put bowls of chopped radicchio, tomatoes, scallions, and fresh jalape?os on the island, along with a plate of corn tortillas. Then she deftly cooked a piece of white fish on the professional range.
While she worked, I asked Phil about his trek to visit the accident scene with Chris and Barry Walker. “Did the man at the bar leave the restaurant before you, Chris, and Barry went out to see the wreck?”
Phil leaned back on his stool, his brow wiggling behind his glasses with the effort to recall. “I think so. Yes, he left before us.”
“Did you see him out on the street, maybe gawking at the accident?” I tried to think of reasons, on a cold, icy night, why the stranger hadn’t gone right back to the Snuggles. The corner of Main and Main was just down the hill from the inn, and maybe the bright lights from the emergency vehicles had attracted his attention.
“No, nothing like that. Barry Walker fell and slid down the hill. There was a lot of commotion, and I’m not certain I would have noticed if the poor man had been there, but I certainly didn’t see him.”
“Do you know any of the other couples who were at the restaurant Monday night?” I asked.
Phil looked over at Deborah, who stood with her back to us, in the sound cocoon created by the stove vent and sizzling fish. “I’ve been in Barry Walker’s art supplies store a few times.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
Deborah put the fish on the table and pulled a bowl of creamy white sauce from the refrigerator. She handed each of us a cloth napkin and sat down to eat. I copied their motions as they wordlessly layered the fish, veggies, and sauce on the tortilla. As soon as Deborah took a bite, I rolled mine up and dug in.
“This is fantastic,” I said. And it was. The crunch of the veggies, the light taste of the fish, and the savory sauce combined to make a delicious meal.