Death and a Pot of Chowder Read online

  Death and a Pot of Chowder

  A MAINE MURDER MYSTERY

  Cornelia Kidd

  For Bob, who believed in me. And still does.

  Acknowledgments

  With bows and applause to Anne Brewer of Crooked Lane Books, and my agent, John Talbot, who made Anna, Izzie, and this new series possible.

  To Jen Donovan, who did an initial edit; Jenny Chen, who had my back with marketing and cover art; Russ Sirois, who tried to keep my maritime information correct; retired homicide detective Bruce Coffin, who did the same for guns and jails; and Jean Kerrigan and Rick Hirsch, owners of my favorite restaurant, Damariscotta River Grill, who advised me about opening a restaurant.

  All remaining errors are mine.

  To Nancy Cantwell, Anne Marie Nolin, Bob Adler, and my husband, Bob Thomas, my first readers.

  To my writing friends, all wonderful writers, listeners, and kibitzers. And to my fellow mystery writers at www.mainecrimewriters.com.

  To my daughters, Caroline, Ali, Becky, and Liz, who watched the Anne of Green Gables movies so many times we wore out our VHS (and then DVD) copy.

  To my husband, Bob Thomas. Every day we have together I’m thankful for his support and love, and for the life of words and art we’ve created together on the coast of Maine.

  To my neighbors, JD and Barbara Neeson, who listen to plot rants, taste test recipes, and are wonderful porch sitters and Patriots watchers, and, most of all, care.

  To mystery fan Carmela Heedles, who loaned her name to a detective, courtesy of her daughter-in-law, Mo Heedles.

  To every one of my readers who are surely “kindred spirits,” especially those who’ve followed me from one series to another … and now to a new name. Your support, enthusiasm, recommendations, and reviews have made this book possible.

  And a special thank you to the grandmother I never knew, Cornelia Kidd Wait, who was killed in 1911 when a train hit her car stalled on a railroad track, and whose name I’ve borrowed for this series, in memory.

  If you’ve enjoyed Death and a Pot of Chowder, please like my Lea Wait / Cornelia Kidd page on Facebook, friend me on Goodreads, and, to hear about the next book in this series, write to me at [email protected] so I can add you to my mailing list.

  Read on!

  Cornelia Kidd / Lea Wait

  Chapter One

  “Hospitality is a most excellent virtue; but care must be taken that the love of company, for its own sake, does not become a prevailing passion; for then the habit is no longer hospitality, but dissipation.”

  —The Book of Household Management

  by Mrs. Isabella Beeton, London:

  Ward, Lock, and Tyler, 1861

  I never got letters.

  Until now.

  Oh, sure, electric and fuel bills addressed to “Mr. and Mrs. Burt Winslow, Island Road, Quarry Island, Maine” arrived regularly. Too many of those. But they hardly count as personal.

  And no one I know writes letters with pens anymore. They call, or text, or e-mail.

  So when Jake dropped the day’s usual pile of hunting magazines and seed catalogs on our kitchen table, I didn’t even glance through them.

  “The school bus was late again. They should get a new driver. Mrs. Sage is too old.” At fourteen, Jake was taller than me, borrowing his dad’s razor, and full of opinions. He poured himself a bowl of sweet cereal and drowned it with milk. “I’m starving. And I’m going to be late getting to Maine Chance.”

  After school and weekends Jake had been helping Luc Burnham get Maine Chance Books, the secondhand bookstore Luc ran out of his ell and barn, ready for summer customers. The two of them spent hours sorting and shelving the hundreds of used books Luc bought at library sales and auctions during the winter. Jake earned enough to buy the video games he preferred to books. He was saving for a new, more powerful, rifle, too, hoping to be a winner in Maine’s Moose Permit Lottery this year.

  “Don’t eat so fast. You’ll upset your stomach,” I automatically advised him, as I had thousands of times.

  “Are you talking to me, or Blue?” Jake grinned and pointed at our old Maine Coon cat, who was scarfing up his dry food as if he were starving.

  “Both of you,” I answered.

  At least Jake didn’t choke up hair balls.

  On school days, I packed two sandwiches for Jake and two for Burt. Jake ate one of his sandwiches (always bologna and cheese) and an apple on the morning school bus. The only day he stuck around for breakfast was Sunday, when I made blueberry pancakes.

  I watched as he gulped his cereal. “Much homework tonight?”

  “Nah. Did Algebra in school and read History on the bus. I’m good.” He hugged me quickly, too old to do that anywhere but in the privacy of our kitchen.

  “Be home for supper.”

  The door slammed after him.

  Jake got decent grades without much effort. Maybe that would change next year, when he’d take the other school bus, the one that picked up Quarry Island kids and took them over the bridge to the regional high school on the mainland.

  I secretly hoped he’d get more interested in books after working with Luc. Jake talked of lobstering, as most island boys did, but I didn’t see him taking up the family trade. He’d been in and around boats all his life, but he didn’t have the same addiction to the sea that some island boys, like his friend Matt, did.

  That was just as well. The Gulf of Maine was warming, driving lobsters into deeper waters farther north. I had nightmares about what would happen if lobstering no longer brought in a profit.

  Despite the climate changes, life for most of us on Quarry Island was defined by the sea, as it had been for generations. People joked that islanders had salt water in their veins. We were different, separate, and wary of off-islanders who commented on the beauty of the island, wondered at our isolation, and then left.

  Although I’d grown up here, and my husband lobstered, I also had ties to the land. For nine years, I’d kept the books for my stepfather Seth’s roofing business and made sure his office ran smoothly. I’d enjoyed working with the roofers, doing the accounts, and generally keeping the office in order. Plus, my paycheck had helped our heads stay above water and provided health insurance. But since Seth’s death last year I’d stayed close to home. No other office management jobs were on the island, and I didn’t want to be far from home in case Jake or Burt needed me. Occasionally one of the baby quilts or placemats or pillow covers I stitched sold at a craft show or church fair, but quilting didn’t seem to be my destiny.

  I hadn’t had any special training, like Cynthia Snowe, who was a nurse, or her sister, Rose, who was a nurse’s assistant. Burt’s younger brother, Carl, had dated both Cynthia and Rose (as well as probably every other eligible woman on the island), but in the past year had seemed to settle on Rose, the younger, more eager of the sisters. Both of them had steady incomes. I hoped he’d settle down with Rose. His erratic lifestyle was a constant worry to both Burt and me.

  For now, I put all those thoughts aside. I assumed the rest of my day would be like every other day. At six tonight we’d eat the macaroni and cheese casserole I’d made this morning. Then I’d clean the kitchen, Burt would turn on the television to hear the weather forecast and fall asleep watching the evening news, and Jake would disappear to his room to study or, more likely, to play video games.

  I bent to stroke Blue, who napped most of the time, but checked in with me occasionally to make sure his Giver of Food didn’t forget him. On my dark days, I wondered if Burt and Jake also thought of me as their cook and housekeeper. Some moments I felt that way about myself.

  But, don’t get me wrong, I loved my husband and son and living on Quarry Island in M
aine. Dark days didn’t come often. My life was comfortable. Predictable.

  We took for granted the smells of pine and wild blueberries and beach roses. The irregular cliffs, sharp ledges leading into the sea, and rounded sea stones. The wildness of nor’easters, and the calm of low tide. Cooking s’mores over fireplaces in the winter and at lobster bakes in summer. Collecting blue and green sea glass and sea pebbles that were pure black or pure white. Hold one in each hand and you got a wish. Every island child knew that, just as everyone on the island knew everyone else, knew where they’d come from, and could probably predict their futures pretty accurately. We weren’t all close friends, but we were neighbors. No secret remained hidden for long on Quarry Island.

  My family was part of a line of hardy New Englanders who’d sailed here from England or Scotland in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, pushed roots down through the granite core of the island, and remained, held by those roots and by the sea. Sometimes its fierce waves gave. Sometimes they took. Tides ebbed and flowed. They marked the rhythm of our lives, of our ancestors’ lives, and, we hoped, the lives of generations following us.

  I’d never thought of doing anything but marrying Burt and staying right here.

  Mom had told the teenaged me that I lacked imagination; that I should fly away for a while before settling down and lining a nest with my feathers, like a female eider duck. But I was young and stubborn, and then I was pregnant. Burt and I were married when we were both eighteen. Jake came along four months later. No regrets.

  Mom had seldom left the island for long, either, so I’d taken her advice with a handful of salt.

  I moved the day’s mail to the table next to Burt’s chair in the living room. The thin blue envelope postmarked in Connecticut and addressed to me, Mrs. Anna Winslow, by hand, slipped from between a hunting supply catalog and this week’s Granite Gazette.

  A birthday card? My thirty-third birthday wasn’t for another two months.

  I didn’t recognize the handwriting. Did any Quarry Island summer folks live in Connecticut? None I could think of. Could someone have heard about my quilting and want to order something? If I sold a whole quilt, I could buy Burt a new chair. The upholstery on his favorite recliner was thin and patched. Even the quilt covering it was beginning to wear through.

  I held the envelope. It was fun to dream.

  Then I sat at our round pine kitchen table and opened the letter that changed my life.

  Chapter Two

  “The beginning of love may be compared to the uncorking of champagne. When the great outburst does come, it is tremendous; but if the effervescence which causes it is very great indeed, it soon exhausts itself.”

  —Echoes from the (London) Clubs, March 1868

  The note inside wasn’t long, but raised a deep-sea of questions.

  Dear Anna,

  This letter may come as a surprise. I didn’t know about you until last week, and you may not know about me.

  I’m sorry to write that our father, Peter Jordan, died in an accident on the Merritt Parkway three weeks ago, on March 6. I learned he had another daughter when I read his will last week.

  If you knew Dad, you know he spent most of his money, but we’re to divide what’s left. His lawyer’s going to contact you, but I wanted to write first.

  I’ve never had a sister, and I’ve always wanted to see Maine. I Googled Quarry Island and it doesn’t look far from Portland. Could we meet there? Soon? I’m hoping you’re as curious about me as I am about you. And I think we have a lot to talk about.

  Your sister, Izzie (Isabel Jordan)

  I read the letter again. And again.

  Then I headed for the secret stash of chocolates I kept in an oatmeal box in the pantry. Some days I craved sweetness. If I didn’t hide my supply, Jake and Burt would devour them.

  I took two. No. Three.

  Of course, I knew I’d had a biological father. I remembered Mom and Seth sitting on my bed one night when I was in kindergarten. I’d expected them to read one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books. Instead, they told me a story about myself.

  “Anna, once upon a time you had another father. He was a good person, but he went away before you were even born. The dad you have now loves you very much.”

  That night I stopped calling Seth “Dad.” He’d winced at first, but told me to call him whatever I was comfortable with. He probably thought I’d change my mind and call him Dad again, but I never did.

  I never stopped wondering about my real father.

  I didn’t even know his name. After a while I stopped asking.

  Was he Peter Jordan?

  Did I have a sister?

  Why hadn’t Mom told me?

  Or was this letter one of those hoaxes they talked about on the news—someone promising money if you sent them some first?

  It had to be a hoax.

  But she wasn’t asking for money.

  I read the note over again. Could I really have a sister named Izzie?

  I had to know. Now.

  I popped another piece of chocolate in my mouth, pulled on my low mud boots and old red cardigan, slipped the letter into my pocket, and headed for the house I’d grown up in, just down the street.

  We lived inland, but nowhere on Quarry Island was far from the sea. Today the salt breeze and smell of mudflats at low tide was comforting. My life might have changed, but the island hadn’t; the air smelled like home.

  Island Road circled Quarry Island. I’d always lived here, in the cluster of homes near the Congregational church, not far from the town wharf where Burt, Carl, and the other lobstermen kept their boats.

  Beyond the wharf was the drawbridge connecting us to the mainland. Leaving the island in July or August meant sitting for ten minutes while the bridge opened for sailboats or sightseeing boats. If you needed the bridge to open between November and April you had to call Silas Bean, the bridge tender, at his home and ask him ahead of time. Calling before noon was smartest, before he’d started drinking.

  North of the bridge was a small restaurant that closed a few years back.

  Only two houses were between mine and the one where I’d grown up.

  Dolan and Lucy Martin and their son, Matt, now lived next door in a small colonial cottage with red shutters. Dolan, Burt, and I had been close friends since junior high, and our sons, Matt and Jake, had been inseparable since they were toddlers. On Quarry Island, most people stayed around after they’d grown up.

  Rob Erickson, in the next house, had grown up on the island, but left to become a detective with the Portland Police Department. After his divorce and then his mother’s death two years ago, he’d retired and moved home to take care of his father, Gus, whose stroke kept him in a wheelchair. “Born an islander, die an islander,” Rob sometimes joked.

  The church, Luc Burnham’s bookstore, Martha Decker’s general store, and Willis Tarbox’s gallery and home were across the street. Summer folks gaped at the faded purple paint Willis had used on his house, and the wind-tattered American flag he’d painted on his barn door, but the rest of us hardly noticed. Willis, like us, was part of Quarry Island.

  I sniffed the wood smoke pouring out of his chimney. Willis depended on a woodstove to heat his home. We’d converted to oil, but I still loved the smell of a wood fire, and early April temperatures were chilly.

  The slate path to my childhood home was damp with melted snow. Bare branches and thorns covered the trellis around the doorway. In late June it would be covered with the fragrant pink sea roses Mom planted years ago.

  I walked in without knocking. Only a few summer people locked their doors.

  Mom was sitting on the old flowered couch in the living room where she hand-sewed her quilt pieces. The couch was faded, and she kept threatening to make a slipcover for it, but the yellow and green upholstery I’d known as a child was still there. Mom sitting on that couch said “home” to me as much as the scent of apple cranberry pudding wafting from the kitchen. Mom patted the space next to h
er. “What’s wrong, Anna?”

  She’d always been able to tell when I was upset.

  I blurted out my question. “Who’s Peter Jordan, Mom? Is he my father?”

  “What did you say?” she asked carefully, putting down the baby blanket she was stitching in the deep blues and greens of Maine’s waters and forests.

  Mom had always been straight with me, through good times and bad, except on one subject. I’d stopped asking about my father years ago.

  The clatter of dishes meant Mamie, my grandmother, was in the kitchen. She’d always lived with Mom, Seth, and me in this small house. I’d asked her, too, about my father. She’d told me he wasn’t an islander. He was from away. He wasn’t part of our lives, so he wasn’t important.

  Over the years I’d accepted that he hadn’t wanted me, although I’d never understood why. As an adult I’d wondered if it was Mom he was rejecting, not me.

  Seth had taken me to father-daughter picnics and dances. He and Mom had both walked me down the aisle when I’d married Burt, the man I’d loved since we’d built a treehouse together when we were in sixth grade.

  Islanders married islanders often enough to be joked about. The headstones in the island graveyard almost all belonged to members of six or seven different families. Go back enough years and most islanders were cousins.

  Mom and Seth lost two babies when I was young. Maybe because of that, she and I’d always been close. She’d even been the one holding my hand when the midwife delivered Jake. Burt had been too young and too nervous to stay by my side.

  I sat next to her and repeated, “Peter Jordan. Was he my father?”

  For a moment she didn’t say anything. Then she touched my arm gently. “Yes.” Her dark blue eyes reminded me of the sea in winter storms. “I never told you because I didn’t want you looking for someone who didn’t want to be found. I didn’t want you to be hurt. I wouldn’t even have told you Seth wasn’t your real father, but he said too many people on the island knew, and one day someone would tell you. He wanted you to hear it from us.”