CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER SEVEN

Dan Dawes was waiting by the steps that led up to the dining pavilion. "That was great tonight." He gave me a broad smile.

"I'm so glad you had fun."

"I'm sorry I missed the rehearsal. I was enjoying myself with my parents and grandparents and lost track of the time."

"You didn't miss much," I assured him. "Just stand at the front and look happy." He sounded sincerely sorry, but was he? Would a man like Dan, who'd grown and run a hugely successful company, lose track of the time?

We walked along in silence, crossing the great lawn toward Windsholme. The Jacquie II had left at quarter to nine. It was a bit of a bum's rush for the guests, many of whom would have liked to have stayed to party longer, but they'd all taken the move to the boat with good grace.

"That man who was next to you at dinner—" I started.

"The one who had the attack?" Dan's smile disappeared. "Is he all right?"

"No. He's not." There was no point in lying about it. I'd fended off several inquiries from guests as they boarded the boat. In those cases, I'd obfuscated. There would be more questions tomorrow, and we had to be prepared to respond to them. Truthfully. For the members of the wedding party, staying overnight, the truth telling started now.

"I haven't seen any sign of a rescue squad." Dan clearly understood what that meant.

So did I. "The Coast Guard is on the way to pick up the body."

He stopped walking and turned to me. "That must have been quite a shock for you."

"And for you, too." I was touched that his concern was for me. "You sat next to him at dinner."

We began to walk again. "It is a shock," Dan said. "It's hard to believe I was talking to the guy a couple of hours ago, and, boom, he's gone."

"Do you know who he is or who we should notify?"

Dan shook his head. "No idea. Nobody at our table knew him. He was the last one to sit down. There was one spot left." Dan smiled, but more tentatively this time. "Because I'm single and plus-one-less. I figured he had no one to sit with, so he grabbed the seat."

"Did he tell you his name?"

"He told us his name was Kendall Clarkson," Dan's smile turned apologetic. "I'm pretty sure. It was loud."

"Where was he from?"

"That I do know," Dan answered quickly. "LA— we have that in common. That's what we chatted about, him and me, and my dad. The Dodgers and the Lakers."

"Do you know why the man was here? Was he a friend of Zoey's?" Given that Jamie and Dan didn't know him, and given the California connection, that was the most likely explanation.

"No idea."

Constance Marshall had talked to the dead man before sitting down to dinner. As had Bill Lascelle. They might know more. And I could ask Zoey, though I dreaded telling her the man was dead, if that unhappy task fell to me.

Dan and I walked the rest of the way to Windsholme in silence, each thinking our own thoughts. Mine were about the dead man and how fleeting life could be. I guessed Dan's ran along similar lines. The sun had gone down completely, and the rolling clouds had made quick work of the twilight. It was fully dark, but welcoming lights shone from the mansion's many windows, beckoning us inside.

* * *

I showed Dan to his room, one of three connected rooms that ran across the front of the second floor, appropriately known in its day as "the bachelors' quarters." In the late 1800s, when Windsholme was built, the unmarried men in the family and single, male guests were given those rooms. Jamie and Pete were also staying in that part of the house, and I was sure there would be some drinking and sentimental reminiscing this evening.

When I came back down the stairs, Jordan was in the big foyer, swinging his gym bag by the handles in front of his knees like a metronome. "Ms. Snowden!" He seemed happy to see me. "Livvie said you would tell me where my room is."

"Of course. Call me Julia." I was slightly embarrassed I hadn't got around to it before now. Jordan's presence meant that, back at the dining pavilion, cleanup was complete and everything stowed for the next day. Livvie would cook breakfast for our guests in the morning. She and her family were staying overnight in the little yellow house by the dock, where they lived in the summer.

I led Jordan to the third floor. It felt ironic to give him a room in the old servant's quarters, but it also made the most sense. There was only one finished washroom on this floor, but he wouldn't be sharing it with anyone.

"Is that man all right?" he asked. "The one who had the attack?"

I hadn't intended to bring the man up if Jordan didn't, but I'd told Dan and would be telling others soon. Jordan would hear it soon enough. "I'm sorry to tell you he's not. He died."

Jordan halted halfway up the stairs and stared at me. "He's dead? You're sure?"

I put a hand on his arm, though I barely knew him. He was really upset. "You waited on him, didn't you?"

Jordan gulped and wet his lips, as if trying to move some saliva back into a dry mouth. "I did. I brought him a drink from the bar just before it happened."

"Did he tell you his name? Or anything about himself?" Dan had said he thought the man's name was Kendall Clarkson. It would be nice to confirm it.

Jordan shook his head. "No. There wasn't time. It was really busy."

I smiled at that, trying to put him more at ease. "Yes, it was. Did you notice, did he eat his clam chowder?" The man's table had barely sat down from getting their lobsters when he'd fallen over. I doubted very much if he'd touched the lobster or the steamers. The swiftness of the attack puzzled me. Either he was allergic to all shellfish, and it was a slow reaction to the clams in the chowder, or it was an immediate reaction to the lobsters and clams on his plate. That was possible. Some people were so allergic they couldn't even touch shellfish. But if he had an allergy that severe, how could he not know about it?

"He ate the chowder." Jordan didn't have any trouble remembering. "It was when I cleared his bowl away that he asked me to go to the bar for him. He didn't eat his lobster. He didn't have time."

When we reached Jordan's room, I turned on the lights and showed him the way to the bathroom. I didn't want to leave him, but he'd calmed down considerably, and I had a lot of things to do.

Still puzzled about what had happened with the man, and the chowder, and the lobsters, I said goodnight to Jordan and made my way down one flight of stairs.

* * *

On the second floor, I followed the long hallway to my apartment, a feeling of dread pressing down on my stomach. It was past time to check in on Zoey. I was her maid of honor and should be with her.

I found her on the couch in my apartment, her ex-boyfriend Derek holding her hand. His plus-one, Amelia, sat on the window seat across from them, not even trying to hide her irritation.

I stopped in the doorway as soon as I saw them. I hadn't realized those two were still on the island. Normally, we would have counted the guests as they boarded the Jacquie II to make sure everyone was present. In the rush to get the guests off the island, evidently that hadn't happened. "Hello?"

All three of them looked at me as if I was the last person they expected to see in my own apartment. It was Derek who spoke. "We stayed to be with Zoey. She's had a stressful evening."

Was it my guilty conscience about my maid-of-honor duties that read criticism in his tone, or was it really there?

"You'll have to stay the night," I said. "The sea is much too rough for anyone to run you back." As if to punctuate my remark, there was a tap-tap of rain against the windows, followed at once by a wind-driven deluge.

"But my dress for the wedding," Amelia protested.

"My brother-in-law can run you back to town in the morning when he goes to pick up our employees. You can get changed and take the tour boat back here with the rest of the guests. For tonight, we'll find you a room."

I started mentally sorting out room assignments. There was another unexpected guest, Tom, who was, at that moment, presumably standing watch over the corpse. Tom had been scheduled to go home tonight. He'd said it was because I'd be spending my time with Zoey, which was true. But he was also reluctant to stay overnight on the island at any time, even when he was off duty. In conditions better than tonight's, you could travel from Morrow Island to Busman's Harbor in fifteen minutes if you knew the most direct route. But then, as Tom pointed out, when you got to town, you were at the end of one of Maine's long peninsulas, more than an hour from his office. And hours, potentially, from wherever he needed to be.

"What happened to that man, the one who had the attack?" Zoey's trembling voice brought me back to the moment.

No one had told her yet. I squared my shoulders, mentally giving Jamie a good talking to. Surely this was his job. I wasn't crazy about the fact that Derek and Amelia were in the room, but I couldn't figure out how to ask them to leave, especially since they couldn't retire to their room until I gave them one. "I'm sorry, but he's dead." I moved to stand by Zoey's side, the side away from Derek.

"What!" Amelia shouted.

I didn't repeat it. They had all heard me.

Zoey froze for a moment, as the information penetrated, and then burst into sudden, noisy sobs. Who wouldn't in her situation? She'd been planning for this day for months. She'd been dreaming of it even longer. All her life, it seemed to me. And now, awash in the hormones of early pregnancy, she faced a death at her rehearsal dinner. All brides wanted everything to be perfect. I patted her shoulder. She wiped her face with a tissue Derek handed her. "Where is he now?"

"In the billiards room. The Coast Guard is on the way to pick him up." I wanted to reassure her that the corpse wouldn't be there in the morning.

"Do you think the wedding is ruined?" Zoey asked. "Does everyone know?"

"Of course not." Derek was vehement, and at the moment, he wasn't wrong.

But I couldn't imagine that the man's fate hadn't been a subject of speculation for many guests on the boat ride home. People would ask direct questions when they arrived the next day. Since the man wasn't a member of Jamie's family and seemed unconnected to Zoey's other friends, I held out the faint hope that his death wouldn't cast too much of a pall over the wedding day. Which reminded me . . . "Zoey, what is the man's name? Is there someone we should notify?"

Zoey blinked away her tears and shook her head. "I don't know him at all."