Harper had been amazed that Pony had been able to regain her composure so shortly after being slapped. Her cheek was a hot, blazing red. It was one benefit of spending so many years with Eleanor, Harper reasoned. Tabitha knew how to take a hit.
Despite Harper’s mortification, she had the wherewithal to take the crowd’s temperature. The friends and neighbors assembled to mourn the passing of Billy Frost seemed aghast—not at Harper or Tabitha mistaken for Harper—but rather at Sadie Zimmer. The island girl who had made such a success of her mother’s pie business was revealed to be a raging psychopath! She had slapped one of Billy Frost’s daughters—the wrong daughter, as it turned out, the one who lived on Nantucket. As distressing as the matter had been thirty seconds earlier, now that Mrs. Zimmer had been restrained, people became titillated rather than alarmed.
Billy’s friend Smitty turned to Roger Door, who was standing next to him, and said, “This has to be the greatest story from any memorial reception ever.”
Roger Door raised a glass. “Leave it to Billy,” he said.
But it was Eleanor who had the final word. Oh, how Harper disliked her mother at times, yet she couldn’t dispute the fact that Eleanor had the countenance of a queen, a regal bearing, an unassailable authority. She had been raised a Brahmin and remained one to her core. Eleanor approached Sadie and said, “I don’t know who you are, but showing up at an event like this to air your personal grievances is nothing short of disgraceful. A man has died and deserves to be remembered fondly and cheerfully, so please take your petty drama elsewhere.”
Sadie’s bulging eyes narrowed with this reprimand. “Your daughter is a tramp,” she said.
“I don’t care,” Eleanor said. “Please go.”
Sadie allowed herself to be escorted from the tent by Reed and Drew. A waiter brought Tabitha an ice pack for her face. Some genius in the clubhouse found a way to pipe in music, and immediately Mozart restored civility to the proceedings. Harper, for a second believing she had survived the worst-case scenario unscathed, helped herself to another glass of champagne.
The slap must have knocked Tabitha into a state of shock, but no sooner did she set her ice pack down on one of the high-tops than she returned to her usual self. She glared at Harper. “What the hell was that?”
Harper regarded her sister. “I liked you better when you were a pony,” she said. “Remember how I used to ride on your back?”
“Who was she, Harper?”
Harper debated: lie or tell the truth? Eleanor and Ainsley were both waiting for an answer as well. Could Harper get away with saying she had no idea?
Suddenly they were approached by Ken Doll, the general manager of Farm Neck. “I’m sorry about that little scene with Mrs. Zimmer,” he said. “None of us had any idea she was so agitated. Dr. Zimmer is a member in good standing here. We had no reason to expect any trouble.”
“Of course not,” Harper said. “It’s not your fault.”
“Is this your sister?” Ken Doll asked. He offered his hand to Tabitha. “So nice to meet you. Please accept my condolences about your father. The entire staff here at Farm Neck were big Billy Frost fans.”
Tabitha gave Ken Doll a patient smile. “My father was one of a kind.”
“He was a rapscallion,” Eleanor murmured. “An incorrigible hooligan.”
“Mommy,” Harper said, then she remembered that Eleanor had always been a disaster when drinking champagne.
“Well, anyway, it’s a pleasure to meet you…”
“Tabitha,” Tabitha said.
Ken Doll gave her a little geisha bow, and Harper thought maybe he was flirting with Tabitha. Would that be such a terrible match? Ken Doll—properly Kenneth Dawe—was recently divorced from Penny Dawe, who worked at the Dukes County courthouse, in Edgartown. Ken Doll was as handsome as his namesake but so fastidious that many Vineyarders thought Ken Doll and Penny had divorced because Ken Doll was gay. But he wasn’t gay—he was merely particular about how he looked and presented himself, which was appropriate for the GM of an exclusive golf club. And it also made him a potential match for Tabitha.
But no further words were exchanged. Ken Doll moved off to chat with Smitty, and Tabitha got her verbal machete out and held it to Harper’s neck.
“Mrs. Zimmer? Dr. Zimmer? Were you sleeping with Billy’s doctor? His married doctor?”
Harper said, “I think you’d better go.”
“Yes,” Eleanor said. “For once, Pony, I agree with your sister.”
At six o’clock that evening, when Harper pulls her Bronco up to her duplex and unloads the bakery boxes filled with leftover tea sandwiches, she understands that there will be backlash.
Drew is sitting on her front step in street clothes—jeans, a blue chambray shirt, and navy espadrilles that he wears despite the ribbing he receives from the other officers and from Harper. He is also wearing the face of dejection.
“You were sleeping with Dr. Zimmer?” he asks.
“No,” Harper says automatically.
“Dr. Zimmer is such a great guy. I love that guy. I look up to that guy. He’s a hero of mine. He wanted to work with me on a drug awareness program in the middle school because he agreed with me that we have to reach kids while they’re at their most impressionable.”
“Drew,” Harper says. She steps around him, opens her front door, and carries the bakery boxes to the kitchen, with Fish in hot pursuit. Fish has never met a bakery box he didn’t like; Billy used to buy a dozen doughnuts and give a third of them to the dog. The white powdered-sugar variety is his favorite.
“These are sandwiches,” Harper says. She tosses Fish one made from egg salad and watercress, which he devours, then a radish-and-butter sandwich, which he sniffs, then leaves on the floor. “Yeah. I don’t blame you.”
Drew stays on the front porch.
No, Harper thinks. Whatever is going to transpire here will not happen in full view of the street.
“Come in, please,” she says.
“I tried calling your cell phone,” he says. “I called seventeen times and left eleven messages because I want to know if what Mrs. Zimmer was accusing Dr. Zimmer of is true.”
Harper’s mind wanders, as it tends to do when she is hearing something unpleasant. She sings off-key, “I saw her today at the reception, a glass of wine in her hand…”
Drew says, “She said you were having an affair with Dr. Zimmer. She said she has proof.”
Harper’s insides freeze with fear. Proof?
Harper pulls Drew by the arm back to the front door. There’s no sign of a vehicle.
“How did you get here?” she asks.
“I had the chief drop me off.”
“The chief?” Harper says. “Chief Oberg?”
Drew nods. “When we started dating, he tried to warn me about you. He told me you used to be a coke dealer.”
Harper shakes her head. “Not even close.”
“But you did something wrong.”
“If I had, Drew, the last person I would admit it to is you.”
“I want you to confess that you were having an affair with Dr. Zimmer.”
“No,” Harper says. “There was a misunderstanding.”
“That’s crap.”