CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Tom called me a month later. We'd talked on the phone every day, but I could tell from the moment I said hello that this call was different.

"Can you come to town between lunch and dinner service? I'm on my way to meet with Zoey. Jamie's on duty. He's talking to the chief to see if he can get off, but it's the middle of summer, and there's no one to take his shift. I'd like you to be there, just in case."

My stomach formed into a tight ball. "Just in case of what?"

"Zoey's DNA results came back today. Just in case she needs you."

"I'll take the Jacquie II to town after lunch and meet you outside her place at 3:00. Can you tell me what the results show?"

"That information's confidential," he answered. "If Zoey says it's okay for you to be there, then it's okay."

The summer had been magnificent so far, day after day of the kind of weather that made people say, "This is why we live in Maine." Lunch service had been sold out and flawless, at least as far as any of the guests sitting at the picnic tables could tell. As I walked to the boat, dozens of people told me how much they loved the meal and the island, the boat tour, and the people they'd met along the way. That's why we called it a "dining experience."

I paused to watch Jack, who was running around the great lawn like a loon. When the lunch customers departed, he owned the place until the dinner guests arrived, king of all he surveyed. An island was a wonderful place for a child, a place without cars or school, a place where everyone knew him and watched out for him.

My heart constricted. This is what I want. Island children, like Livvie and me, like my mother and her mother.

I had loved spending the summer at Windsholme, where I woke up each morning to the smell of the ocean, the sound of gulls screeching, and my family all around me. The problem was, I was waking up alone.

Watching my nephew, I daydreamed for so long about a future that might never be that Captain George had to blow the Jacquie II's horn a second time to attract my attention. I ran to the dock and up the gangway.

* * *

I walked rapidly from the town pier to Lupine Design. In mid-summer, Busman's Harbor's sidewalks were crowded with tourists. "Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me," I called as I strode by. To friends and townspeople who recognized me, I gave a hasty wave.

Tom's unmarked state car was parked in the lot behind the studio. As I looked down the drive, I saw him climb out. He'd called ahead. Zoey met us both at the door at the back of the building, then hustled us quickly upstairs.

In the last month, she'd popped, her pregnancy going from invisible to unmistakable. I hadn't seen her in that time, and neither had Tom. She must have noticed our surprise because she said, "I know. Baby Dawes." Her arms encircled her belly, she smiled and some of the tension went out of the room.

We sat in her living room. She no longer lived at the apartment. Some of her furniture and a great deal of her artwork had been moved to Jamie's big house right after they'd returned from their honeymoon. As a result, the formerly warm apartment had an abandoned look, as if the tenants had run into the street with whatever they could carry during an apocalyptic event. I hoped we weren't about to witness one.

"Is it okay that I'm here?" I asked her.

"I want you here."

"Zoey, as I told you on the phone, we have your DNA results, along with Kendall Clarkson's." Tom leaned forward in his seat on the low couch. Zoey was in the mid-century chair across from us, a slightly higher seat it was easier for her to get in and out of.

All month, I'd been unsure what I wanted the DNA to show. Was it worse to have a father who was a con man and a murder victim, or to have a father you had never met at all? The former, I thought, but I'd had a close and loving relationship with my father, even though I'd lost him young. It wasn't for me to say how Zoey should feel.

"Yes?" She was alert but not alarmed, curious but not anxious. I marveled at her calm. But then, nothing could change the past, a lesson life had taught Zoey again and again.

"You are not related to Kendall Clarkson," Tom said, "whose real name was Kenneth Clark."

I let out a long breath.

"Oh, I . . ." Zoey groped for words. She was disappointed, that was clear. I moved to the chair next to her and took one of her hands. The other remained cradling Baby Dawes. Zoey swallowed. "What about Amelia? Is she related to him? Are we related to each other?"

Tom cleared his throat. "Amelia Gerhart was not, ultimately, a subject of this investigation. We had no reason to have her DNA analyzed or to examine her relationship to Clark, who is dead. However, if that's something you and Amelia want to pursue on your own, you should certainly do so."

"I see." Zoey shifted in her chair, already uncomfortable with the weight she was bearing. "How did Clark know all those details about how my father and mother fell in love, where they lived, the portraits they painted of each other?"

"There was a close familial match for you in a database," Tom said. I squeezed Zoey's hand, and she squeezed back. "You have a probable parental match with a California inmate named Ezekiel Curran. He died in prison in 2012."

Zoey's face crumpled. I moved to the arm of her chair and took her in my arms. I couldn't see her face, but I felt her tears fall on my bare arm. "I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Clarkson's convictions were mostly for fraud, and stealing—not victimless, but never violent crimes. Zeke Curran, on the other hand, was convicted of armed robbery and murder. He robbed a bank with four other men. The bank manager and a security guard were killed. In neither case did Curran pull the trigger, but it was what we call a ‘joint enterprise,' which made him as guilty as the rest.

"Ordinarily, Clark and Curran would have been kept in very different facilities. But sentenced to life, Curran turned on his coconspirators and helped put them and even some of the people they were beholden to in jail. A part of his deal was that he would be in a better prison, and he would never be in one where any of the people he had informed on was housed. As a result, Curran and Clark spent a year as bunkmates in the same facility. Plenty of time to swap stories."

"Curran," Zoey hesitated. "My dad must have told Clark my full name. Otherwise, how would Clark have found me? Which means—" She couldn't go on, choked with sobs.

"That your dad knew about you," I finished.

Zoey cried for a good long time, while Tom and I waited. It felt impossible to know what to do or say. He got her water. I held her and petted her. Every gesture seemed inadequate.

Eventually, Zoey calmed. "He never left prison, so he couldn't be Amelia's—" She couldn't go on.

"He may have had conjugal visits," Tom said. "They'll be a record somewhere if he did."

Zoey nodded. "What did he die of?"

"Lung cancer," Tom handed over a slim folder. "I don't have much information. He was neither a suspect nor the victim in this investigation, so we had no official reason to request more. Since Curran died in prison, there'll be a record of what happened with his remains. If they were released to a family member, that might help you track down your relatives."

"Thank you." Zoey sniffed again, but the flood was over.

Hard-soled shoes bounded up the stairs to the apartment. "What's going on?" Jamie burst into the room.

Tom rose from his seat on the couch, and I disentangled myself from Zoey and stood, too.

"Not a match for Clarkson," Tom said briefly, and he gestured Jamie toward Zoey's side. Jamie went to her immediately, taking her in his arms.

"Call me if you have any questions," Tom said to Jamie, who nodded an acknowledgment.

Tom and I went down the stairs, though the retail store, and out to the busy sidewalk. He put an arm around my shoulder and hugged me to his side. "Are you okay?"

I answered the question with a request. "Stay on Morrow Island tonight."

Tom's arm dropped to his side. "I have to be in Paris in the morning."

Paris, Maine, he meant, of course. Still the name made me smile.

He kissed me and murmured, "Sorry," and walked toward his car.

I turned toward the town pier. I'd have to hustle if I was going to catch the Jacquie II's dinner trip. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tom stop and turn abruptly. "The heck with it," he called. "Will you give me a boat ride back to the harbor in the morning?"

"Of course," I said. "With pleasure."