Rafferty smiled. “No, seriously. I’m curious about how you got in.”
“If anything was still being smuggled when I started working for the Whitings—and that’s a big if—I imagine the crew, which was certainly not my own crew of merry, law-abiding pirates, would have used the back entrance,” Mickey said, pointing over the side of the cliff. “There’s a small beach about fifty feet below us. You can only get in when the tide is high enough to tie up. Or so they tell me.”
Rafferty had to laugh. “What did you just call them, your merry, law-abiding pirates?”
“I did.”
“That’s a bit of an oxymoron, don’t you think?”
Everyone laughed.
“I challenge you to name one of your crew who is law-abiding.”
It took Mickey a moment. “Jake O’Brien?”
“Jake O’Brien died six years ago,” Rafferty said.
“That doesn’t mean he isn’t law-abiding, that just means he’s dead.”
“Doesn’t count.”
“Okay, okay, give me a minute,” Mickey said, really concentrating, “Patch Willis!”
Rafferty cocked an eyebrow. “You’re trying to tell me that Patch Willis doesn’t have a record?”
“Misdemeanors. And that was a long time ago. Patch Willis has been a respectable citizen for the last ten years.”
The fact was that Rafferty hadn’t seen Willis for just about that long.
“Doing what?”
“He’s been the caretaker at Greenlawn Cemetery. He just retired.”
Bingo, Rafferty thought. He was already considering Finn his key suspect, but he didn’t have enough to go on. The connection between Willis and Finn, as well as Willis’s abrupt retirement as Greenlawn’s caretaker last December, had certainly given him more. Today might be a celebration, Rafferty thought, but tomorrow morning was going to be something else entirely. He had a lot of unanswered questions for Finn Whiting.
Mickey turned to Ann. “What are we drinking anyway?”
“This is Bordeaux,” she said, pouring him a glass. “But I hear we’re doing the wedding toast with the port.”
“No more of that phony stuff…” Mickey said.
“The real thing,” Ann said. “The blend that sells for a thousand dollars a bottle.”
Mickey looked impressed. Everyone at the table knew he had been part of a group that had poured barrels of phony port into Beverly Harbor, the scandal that had started with a bad business deal allegedly made by Marta’s father. Mickey was not much more than a kid when it happened, straight off the boat from Ireland. Costumed as pirates, the group—with the approval of Finn’s father—had dumped ten full barrels. The event was as famous in the area as the Boston Tea Party, and had given Mickey license to play the role of pirate ever after.
“There is evidently quite a lot to toasting,” Towner said. “No toasting with water, for instance. And you don’t toast when someone is toasting you. Marta taught us that the night of the Yellow Dog Shelter benefit.”
“I hear that’s bad luck,” Ann said.
“And never, under any circumstances, should anyone clink glasses.”
“Aren’t you Miss Manners today.” Ann laughed.
“I’m just letting you all know the proper decorum, so we don’t embarrass ourselves.”
“Who is giving the toast?” asked Zee.
“I hope it isn’t Paul,” said Mickey. “Look at him—he looks like he’s had a few too many already.”
Music started playing, and a hundred little girls all bedecked in flowers emerged from the orangerie. They wore long pastel flowered sundresses and daisies in their hair. Each had a corsage of yellow rosebuds on her wrist and carried a plate of food.
All the guests oohed and aahed at the adorable children. The girls were serving the main course, lobster risotto adorned with flowers.
“The flowers are from Marta’s new garden,” Ann told Towner. “Yellow roses, orange nasturtiums, violet pansies. And for all you cynics and snobs, yes, this adorable procession of young girls assures coverage by The Boston Globe and Vanity Fair.”
“Are we supposed to eat the flowers?” Mickey squinted at the plate of risotto one little girl had carefully placed in front of him.
“Oh yes,” Callie said, appearing at their table. She was still wearing the rosary Rafferty had returned to her, and she had on a long lavender sundress. Her hair was loose and adorned with flowers, like that of a hippie princess. “Lately we’ve been feasting on the bounty of Marta’s new kitchen garden: pansies with our pancakes, squash blossoms with arugula in our salads, and basil flowers in our pasta.”
“Hello, Callie,” Ann said.
Callie nodded. She knew Ann had helped Marta with the flowers and had done her best not to run into her. Paul had taken no notice of Ann’s presence on the property, which would have made her happy if she hadn’t been so worried about him. He couldn’t let go of his anger, and it was changing him.
Ann had made no move to speak with Paul earlier, but now she was looking in his direction. She asked quietly, “Is he okay?”
“He’s just fine,” Callie lied, turning to Rafferty.
Rafferty thought Callie looked precisely like her late mother. She’d dyed her hair back to its natural color. All she needed were bare feet and some patchouli oil.
Seeing Rafferty’s eyes move to her feet, Callie looked down, too.
The gaping hole in the lawn was now completely covered by a metal plate, the sod expertly patchworked over it, to be reopened after the wedding so the grounds crew could finish the repair job. It was so perfectly woven that she could barely see the damage the root removal had caused in the otherwise perfect lawn.
“I hear you’re responsible for all this pageantry,” Rafferty said to Ann.
“Only partly,” Ann said. “They hired a professional music director. And the girls chose their own flowers.”
Callie had watched from her window this morning as the little girls had picked flowers to garnish each plate. They’d flitted through the maze of midsummer blossoms, stopping briefly to pluck things and place them in the baskets they carried. From the perspective of the boathouse, the children had looked like butterflies or the tiny fairies Rose had described in her stories about Ireland. Not the ones trapped in trees, but the beautiful ones who lived in the fairy mounds, performing magic for deserving passersby. The sight had calmed Callie’s nerves and seemed to have had the same effect on Paul, smoothing over the most recent argument they’d had, one that had lasted most of the previous evening. They’d made peace before they went to bed, but they hadn’t touched each other. Callie had tossed and turned, and finally decided to just get up.