The Perfect Couple
T H E C H I E F
A phone call before six on a Saturday morning is never a good thing, although it’s not unheard of on a holiday weekend. Too many times to count, Chief Ed Kapenash of the Nantucket Police Department has seen the Fourth of July go sideways. The most common accident is a person blowing off a finger while lighting fireworks. Sometimes things are more serious. One year, they lost a swimmer to the riptide; another year, a young woman did a backflip off the bow of a speedboat and hit the water in a way that left her paralyzed. There are generally enough drunk-and-disorderlies to fill a sightseeing bus, as well as dozens of fistfights, a handful of which are so serious that the police have to get involved.
When the call comes in, Andrea and the kids are fast asleep. Chloe and Finn are sixteen, an age the Chief escaped easily with his own children, he now realizes. Chloe and Finn — who are properly the children of Andrea’s cousin Tess and Tess’s husband, Greg, who died in a boating accident nine years ago — are proving to be more of a challenge. Finn has a girlfriend named Lola Budd, and their young love is turning the household upside down. Finn’s twin sister, Chloe, has a summer job working for Siobhan Crispin at Island Fare, Nantucket’s busiest catering company.
The Chief and Andrea have divided their concerns about the twins neatly down the middle. Andrea worries about Finn getting Lola Budd pregnant (though the Chief, awkwardly, presented Finn with a giant box of condoms and a rather stern directive: Use these. Every single time). The Chief worries about Chloe getting into drugs and alcohol. The Chief has seen again and again the way the food-and-beverage industry leads its unsuspecting employees into temptation. The island of Nantucket has over a hundred liquor licenses; other, similar- size towns in Massachusetts have an average of twelve. As a summertime resort, the island has a culture of celebration, frivolity, excess. It’s the Chief’s job to give the annual substance- abuse talk the week before the high school prom; this year, both Finn and Chloe had been in attendance, and afterward, neither of them would so much as look at him.
He often feels he’s too old for the enormous responsibility of raising teenagers. And impressing them is most certainly beyond him.
The Chief takes his phone out onto the back deck, which looks west over protected wetlands; his conversations here are private, overheard only by the redwing blackbirds and the field mice. The house has a great view of sunsets but not, unfortunately, of the water.
The call is from Sergeant Dickson, one of the best in the department.
“Ed,” he says. “We have a floater.”
The Chief closes his eyes. Dickson had been the one to tell the Chief that Tess and Greg were dead. Sergeant Dickson has no problem delivering disturbing news; in fact, he seems to relish it.
“Go ahead,” the Chief says.
“Caucasian female by the name of Merritt Monaco. Twenty-nine years old, from New York City, here on Nantucket for a wedding. She was found floating facedown just off the shore in front of three-three-three Monomoy Road, where the wed- ding is being held. The cause of death appears to be drowning. Roger Pelton called it in. You know Roger, the guy who does the expensive weddings?”
“I do,” the Chief says. The Chief is in Rotary Club with Roger Pelton.
“Roger told me it’s his MO to check on each wedding site first thing in the morning,” Dickson says. “When he got here, he said he heard screaming. Turns out, the bride had just pulled the body out of the water. Roger tried CPR but the girl was dead, he said. He seemed to think she’d been dead for a few hours.”
“That’s for the ME to determine,” the Chief says. “Three- three-three Monomoy Road, you said?”
“It’s a compound,” Dickson says. “Main house, two guest cottages, and a pool house. The name of the property is Summerland.”
Summerland. The Chief has seen the sign, though he has never been to the house. That stretch of Monomoy Road is the stratospherically high-rent district. The people who live on that road generally don’t have problems that require the police. The houses have sophisticated security systems, and the residents use discretion to keep any issues under wraps.
“Has everyone else been notified?” the Chief asks. “The state police? The ME?”
“Affirmative,” Dickson says. “The Greek is on his way to the address now. He was here on island last night, lucky for us. But both Cash and Elsonhurst are on vacay until Monday and
I’m at the end of a double, so I don’t know who else you want to call in. The other guys are kind of green —”
“I’ll worry about that in a minute,” the Chief says. “Does the girl have family to notify?”
“I’m not sure,” Dickson says. “The bride was so upset that I told the EMTs to take her to the hospital. She needed a Xanax, and badly. She could barely breathe, much less speak.” “The paper will have to leave this alone until we notify next of kin,” the Chief says. Which is one small piece of good news; the last thing the Chief wants is Jordan Randolph from the Nantucket Standard sniffing around his crime scene. The Chief can’t believe he missed the 911 call on the scanner. Over the years he has developed an uncanny filter where the scanner is concerned; he knows, even in his sleep, what deserves his attention and what he can let pass. But now he has a dead body.
They have to assume foul play by law, although here on Nantucket, violent crime is rare. The Chief has been working on this island for nearly thirty years and in all that time, he has seen only three homicides. One per decade.
Roger Pelton called it in. The Chief has heard Roger’s name recently. Really recently, at some point in the past couple of days. And a compound in Monomoy — that rings a bell too. But why?
He hears a light tap on the window, and through the glass slider, he sees Andrea in her nightshirt, holding up a cup of coffee. Chloe is moving around the kitchen behind her, dressed in her catering uniform of white shirt and black pants.
Chloe is awake already? the Chief thinks. At six o’clock in the morning? Or did she get home so late last night that she fell asleep in her clothes?
Yes, he thinks. She worked a rehearsal dinner the night before. Then it clicks: Chloe told the Chief that the rehearsal dinner and the wedding were being held in Monomoy and that Roger was the wedding coordinator. It’s the same wed- ding. The Chief shakes his head, even though he knows better than anyone that this is a small island.
“Was the woman you found staying at the compound where the wedding is taking place today?” the Chief asks.
“Affirmative,” Dickson says. “She was the maid of honor, Chief. I don’t think there’s going to be any wedding.”
Andrea, possibly recognizing the expression on the Chief’s face, steps out to the deck, hands Ed his coffee, and disappears inside. Chloe has vanished. She has probably headed upstairs to shower for work, which will now be canceled. News like this travels fast; the Chief expects that Siobhan Crispin will be calling at any moment.
What else did Chloe say about that wedding? One of the families is British, the mother famous somehow — an actress? A theater actress? A playwright? Something.
The Chief takes the first sip of his coffee. “You’re still on-site, correct, Dickson? Have you talked to anyone other than the bride and Roger?”
“Yeah, I talked to the groom,” Dickson says. “He wanted to go with the bride to the hospital. But first he went inside one of the guest cottages to grab his wallet and his phone and he came right back out to tell me the best man is missing.”
“Missing?” the Chief says. “Is it possible we have two people dead?”
“I checked the water, down the beach, and out a few hundred yards in both directions with my field glasses,” Dickson says. “It was all clear. But at this point, I’d say anything is possible.”
“Tell the Greek to wait for me, please,” the Chief says. “I’m on my way.”
G R E E R
Greer Garrison Winbury thrives on tradition, protocol, and decorum but on the occasion of her younger son’s wedding, she is happy to toss all three out the window. It’s customary for the bride’s parents to host and pay for their daughter’s nup- tials, but if that were the case with Benji and Celeste, the wedding would be taking place in a church at the mall with a reception following at TGI Fridays.
You’re a terrific snob, Greer, her husband, Tag, is fond of saying. Greer fears that this is true. But where Benji’s wedding was concerned, she had to intervene. Look what she’d endured when Thomas married Abigail Freeman: a Texas wedding, with all of Mr. Freeman’s oil money on grand, grotesque dis- play. There had been three hundred people at the “welcome party” at the Salt Lick BBQ — Greer had hoped to live her whole life without ever patronizing a place called the Salt Lick BBQ — where the suggested dress code was “hill-country casual,” and when Greer asked Thomas what that could pos- sibly mean, he’d said, Wear jeans, Mom.
Wear jeans to her elder son’s wedding celebration? Greer had opted for wide-legged ivory trousers and stacked Ferragamo heels. Ivory had turned out to be a poor choice, as the guests of this welcome party had all been expected to eat pork ribs with their fingers. Shrieks of joy had gone up when there had been a surprise appearance by a country singer named George Strait, whom everyone called “the King of Country.” Greer still can’t imagine how much it must have cost Mr. Freeman to hire the King of Country — and for an event that wasn’t even part of the usual nuptial schedule.
As Greer drives the Defender 90 (Tag had it rebuilt and shipped over from England) down to the Hy-Line ferry to pick up Celeste’s parents, Bruce and Karen Otis, she sings along to the radio. It’s B. J. Thomas’s “Hooked on a Feeling.”
This weekend, Greer is effectively the bride’s mother as well as the groom’s, for she is 100 percent in charge. She hasn’t encountered one iota of resistance from anyone, including Celeste herself; the girl responds to all of Greer’s suggestions with the exact same text: Sounds good. (Greer despises texting, but if one wants to communicate with Millennials, one must abandon old-fashioned notions like expecting to speak on the phone.) Greer has to admit, it has been far easier to get her way with the color scheme, the invitations, the flowers, and the caterer than she ever anticipated. It’s as if this were her own wedding, thirty-two years later . . . minus her overbearing mother and grandmother, who insisted on an afternoon reception in the sweltering garden of Swallowcroft, and minus a fiancé who insisted on a stag party the night before the wedding. Tag had gotten home at seven o’clock in the morning smelling of Bushmills and Chanel No. 9. When Greer had started weeping and demanding to know if he’d actually had the gall to sleep with another woman the night before his wedding, Greer’s mother took her aside and told her that the most important skill required in marriage was picking one’s battles.
Make sure they’re ones you can win, her mother had said.
Greer has tried to remain vigilant where Tag’s fidelity is concerned, although it has been exhausting with a man as charismatic as her husband. Greer has never found hard evidence of any indiscretions, but she has certainly had her suspicions. She has them right up to this very minute about a woman named Featherleigh Dale, who will be arriving on Nantucket from London in a few short hours. If Featherleigh is silly and careless enough to wear the silver-lace ring with the pink, yellow, and blue sapphires — Greer knows exactly what the ring looks like because Jessica Hicks, the jeweler, showed her a picture! — then Greer’s hunch will be confirmed.
Greer encounters traffic on Union Street. She should have left more time; she cannot be late for the Otises. Greer has yet to meet either of Celeste’s parents in person and she would like to make a good impression and not leave them to wander forlornly around Straight Wharf on this, their first trip to the island. Greer had worried about hosting a wedding so close to the Fourth of July, but it was the only weekend that worked over the course of the entire summer and they couldn’t put it off until autumn because Karen, Celeste’s mother, has stage 4 breast cancer. No one knows how much time she has left.
The song ends, traffic comes to a dead stop, and the sense of foreboding that Greer has successfully held at bay until now fills the car like a foul smell. Usually, Greer feels unsettled about only two things: her husband and her writing, and the writing always sorts itself out in the end (declining book sales aside, although, really, it’s Greer’s job to write the mysteries, not sell them). But now she worries about . . . well, if she has to pinpoint the exact locus of her dismay she would say it is Celeste. The ease with which Greer has been able to take control of this wedding suddenly seems suspect. As Greer’s mother used to say, Things that seem too good to be true usually are.
It’s as if Celeste doesn’t care about the wedding. At all. How had Greer ignored this possibility for four months? She had reasoned that Celeste was (wisely) deferring to — or placing extreme confidence in — Greer’s impeccable taste. Or that Celeste’s only agenda was getting the wedding planned as expediently as possible because of her mother’s illness.
But now, other factors come into focus, such as the stutter Celeste developed shortly after the date was set. The stutter began with Celeste repeating certain words or short phrases, but it has become something more serious, even debilitating — Celeste trips over her r’s and m’s and p’s until she grows pink in the face.
Greer asked Benji if the stutter was creating problems for Celeste at work. Celeste is the assistant director at the Bronx Zoo and she is occasionally called upon to give lectures to the zoo’s visitors — mostly schoolchildren during the week and foreigners on the weekends — so Celeste has to speak slowly and clearly. Benji replied that Celeste rarely stuttered at work. Mostly just at home and when she was out socially.
This gave Greer pause. Developing a stutter at twenty-eight could be attributed to . . . what? It was a tell of some kind. Greer had immediately used the detail in the novel she was writing: the murderer develops a stutter as a result of his guilt, which grabs the attention of Miss Dolly Hardaway, the spinster detective who is the protagonist of all twenty-one of Greer’s murder mysteries. This is well and fine for Greer, who tends to mine every new encounter and experience in her fiction, but what about in real life, for Celeste? What is going on? Greer has the feeling that the stutter is somehow connected to Celeste’s imminent marriage to Benji.
There’s no time to think any further because suddenly traffic surges forward and not only does Greer move swiftly into town, she also finds a parking spot right in front of the ferry dock. She still has two minutes to spare. What magnificent luck! Her doubts fade. This wedding, this union of two families on the most festive of summer weekends, is clearly something that’s meant to be.
K A R E N
Viewed from a distance, Nantucket Island is everything Karen Otis dreamed it would be: tasteful, charming, nautical, classic. The ferry passes inside a stone jetty, and Karen squeezes Bruce’s hand to let him know she would like to stand and walk the few feet to the railing now. Bruce places an arm across Karen’s back and eases her up out of her seat. He’s not a big man but he’s strong. He was the Pennsylvania state champion wrestler at 142 pounds in 1984. Karen first set eyes on him sitting in the Easton Area High School pool balcony. She was swimming the butterfly leg for the varsity relay team, which routinely practiced during lunch, and when she climbed out of the water, she spied Bruce, dressed in sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt, staring at an orange he held in his hands. “What is that guy doing?” Karen had wondered aloud.
“That’s Bruce Otis,” Tracy, the backstroker, had said. “He’s captain of the wrestling team. They have a meet this afternoon and he’s trying to make weight.”
Karen had wrapped a towel around her waist and marched up the stairs to introduce herself. She had been well endowed even as a high-school sophomore and was pretty sure the sight of her in her tank suit would take Bruce Otis’s mind off the orange and his weight and anything else.
Bruce holds Karen steady and together they approach the railing. People see them coming, take note of the scarf wrapped around Karen’s head — she can’t bring herself to do wigs — and back up a few steps to make a respectful space.
Karen grips the railing with both hands. Even that is an effort but she wants a good view for their approach. The houses that line the water are all enormous, ten times the size of Karen and Bruce’s ranch on Derhammer Street in Forks Township, Pennsylvania, and these houses all have gray cedar shingles and crisp white trim. Some of the homes have curved decks; some have stacked decks at nifty angles like a Jenga game. Some have lush green lawns that roll right up to stone walls before a thin strip of beach. Every home flies the American flag, and all are impeccably maintained; there isn’t a dumpy or disheveled renegade in the bunch.
Money, Karen thinks. Where does all the money come from? She is seasoned enough to know that money can’t buy happiness — and it certainly can’t buy health — but it’s still intriguing to contemplate just how much money the people who own these houses must have. First off, these are second homes, so one must account for the first home — a brownstone in Manhattan or a brick mansion in Georgetown, an estate on the Main Line or a horse farm in Virginia — and then factor in the price of waterfront property here on this prestigious island. Next, Karen considers all of the furnishings such houses must contain: the rugs, the sofas, the tables and chairs, the lamps, the pencil-post beds, the nine-thousand-thread-count Belgian sheets, the decorative pillows, the Jacuzzi bathtubs, the scented candles next to the Jacuzzi bathtubs. (Celeste has educated Karen beyond the world of Yankee Candle; there are apparently candles that sell for over four hundred dollars. Celeste’s future sister-in-law, Abby, gave Celeste such a candle as an engagement present, and when Celeste told Karen that a Jo Malone pine-and-eucalyptus candle sold for $470, Karen hooted. That was nearly as much as Bruce had paid for his first car, a 1969 Chevy Nova!)
Then, of course, there’s the staff to pay: landscapers, house cleaners, caretakers, nannies for the children. There are the cars — Range Rovers, Jaguars, BMWs. There must be sailing and tennis lessons, monogrammed seersucker dresses, grosgrain ribbons for the hair, a new pair of Topsiders each season. And what about the food such houses must contain? Bowls of peaches and plums, cartons of strawberries and blueberries, freshly baked bread, quinoa salad, ripe avocados, organic eggs, fat-marbled steaks, and steaming, scarlet lobsters. And butter. Lots and lots of butter.
Karen also factors in all of the dull stuff that no one likes to think about: insurance, taxes, electricity, cable TV, attorneys. These families must have fifty million dollars each, Karen decides. At least. And how does someone, anyone, make that much money? She would ask Bruce but she doesn’t want to make him feel self-conscious. Meaning she doesn’t want to make him feel any more self-conscious; she knows he’s already sensitive about money — because they don’t have any. Despite this, Bruce will be the best-dressed man at the wedding, Karen is certain. Bruce works in the suit department at Neiman Marcus in the King of Prussia Mall. He gets a 30 percent discount on clothes plus free alterations. He has managed to keep his wrestler’s physique — strong shoulders, tapered waist (no beer belly for him!) — and so he cuts an impressive silhouette. If he were two inches taller, a store vice president once told him, he
could work as a model.
Bruce is almost like a woman in the way he loves fine clothes. When he brings home something new (which is fairly often, a fact that used to confuse Karen, as they don’t really have the money for new clothes or the money to go anywhere he might wear them), he likes to give Karen a fashion show. She sits on the edge of the bed — lately, she lies in the bed — while Bruce gets dressed in the bathroom and then emerges, one hand on hip, and sashays around the room like it’s a fashion runway. It cracks Karen up every time. She has come to understand that this is why he buys new suits, shirts, ties, trousers, and socks — to give Karen joy.
And because he likes to look good. Today, for their arrival, he’s wearing a pair of pressed black G-Star jeans and a black- and-turquoise paisley Robert Graham shirt with contrasting grasshopper-green cuffs, a pair of zebra-striped socks, and black suede Gucci loafers. It’s hot in the sun. Even Karen, who is always cold now thanks to the chemo, is warm. Bruce must be roasting.
A lighthouse swathed in an American flag comes into view, and then Karen sees two church steeples, one a white spire, one a clock tower with a gold dome. The harbor is filled with sailboats of all sizes, power yachts with tiered tuna towers, cigarette boats, cabin cruisers.
“It’s like a movie set,” Karen says, but her words get carried away on the sea breeze and Bruce doesn’t hear her. She can see from the expression on his face that he’s as mesmerized as she is. He’s probably thinking that they haven’t been anywhere this enchanting since their honeymoon thirty-two years earlier. She was eighteen years old then, just out of high school, and after the cost of the wedding clothes and a ceremony at the courthouse, they had $280 left for a weeklong getaway. They bought a case of wine coolers (they’re out of fashion now but, oh, how Karen had loved a cold raspberry Bartles and Jaymes back then) and a bunch of snack food — Bugles, Cool Ranch Doritos, Funyuns — and they’d climbed into Bruce’s Chevy Nova, popped in his Bat Out of Hell eight-track, and taken off for the coast, both of them singing at the top of their lungs.
They had reached the Jersey Shore points early on but neither of them had felt compelled to stop. The shore had been the beach of their youth — class trips, a family vacation to Wildwood every summer — and so they had continued going north to New England.
New England, Karen remembers now, had sounded very exotic.
They ran low on gas in a town called Madison, Connecti- cut, exit 61 off I-95, that had a leafy main street lined with shops, like something out of a 1950s sitcom. When Karen got out of the car to stretch her legs at the filling station, she had smelled salt in the air.
She said, “I think we’re near the water.”
They had asked the gas station attendant what there was to see in Madison, Connecticut, and he directed them to a restaurant called the Lobster Deck, which had an uninterrupted view of the Long Island Sound. Down the street from the Lobster Deck, across from a state park with a beach, was the Sandbar Motel and Lodge; a room cost $105 for the week.
Karen knows she’s not worldly. She has never been to Paris, Bermuda, or even the West Coast. She and Bruce used to take Celeste to the Pocono Mountains on vacation. They skied at Camelback in the winter and went to the Great Wolf Lodge water park in the summer. The rest of their money they saved for Celeste to go to college. She had shown an interest in animals at an early age, and both Bruce and Karen had hoped she would become a veterinarian. When Celeste’s interests had instead run toward zoology, that had been fine too. She had been offered a partial scholarship at Miami University of Ohio, which had the best zoology department in the country. “Partial scholarship” still left a lot to pay for — some tuition, room, board, books, spending money, bus tickets home — and so there had been precious little left over for travel.
Hence, that one trip to New England remained sacred to both Karen and Bruce. They are even further in the hole now — nearly a hundred thousand dollars in debt, thanks to Karen’s medical bills — but there was no way they were going to miss making the trip to Nantucket. On their way home, once Celeste and Benji are safely on their honeymoon in Greece, they will stop in Madison, Connecticut, for what Karen is privately calling the Grand Finale. The Sandbar Motel and Lodge is long gone, so instead, Bruce has booked an oceanfront suite at the Madison Beach Hotel. It’s a Hilton property. Bruce told Karen he got it for free by accepting Hil- ton Honors points offered to him by the store’s general manager, Mr. Allen. Karen knows that all of Bruce’s co-workers have wondered how to help out their favorite sales associate, Bruce in Suits, whose wife has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and while this is slightly mortifying, she does appreciate the concern and, especially, Mr. Allen’s generous offer to pay for their hotel. Madison, Connecticut, has taken on the paradisiacal qualities of a Shangri-la. Karen wants to eat lobster — with butter, lots and lots of butter — and she wants to watch the honey lozenge of the sun drop into the Long Island Sound. She wants to fall asleep in Bruce’s arms as she listens to waves lap the shore, their daughter successfully married.
The Grand Finale.
Last August, Karen learned that she had a tumor on her L3 vertebra. The breast cancer, which she’d believed she’d beaten, had metastasized to her bones. Her oncologist, Dr. Edman, has given her a year to eighteen months. Karen figures she has until at least the end of the summer, which is an enormous blessing, especially when you consider all the people throughout history who have died without warning. Why, Karen could be crossing Northampton Street to the circle in downtown Easton and get hit by a car, making the cancer diagnosis irrelevant.
Celeste had been gutted by the news. She had just gotten engaged to Benji but she said she wanted to postpone the wedding, leave New York, and move back to Easton to take care of Karen. This was the exact opposite of what Karen wanted. Karen encouraged Celeste to move up the wedding, rather than postpone it.
Celeste, always obedient, did just that.
When Dr. Edman called last week to say it appeared the cancer had spread to Karen’s stomach and liver, Karen and Bruce decided to keep the news from Celeste entirely. When Karen leaves on Monday morning, she will say goodbye to Celeste as if everything is just fine.
All she has to do is make it through the next three days.
Karen can still walk with a cane but Bruce has arranged for a wheelchair to glide her gracefully down the ramp and onto the wharf. Greer Garrison Winbury — or, rather, Greer Garrison; people rarely call her by her married name, according to Celeste — is supposed to be waiting. Neither Karen nor Bruce has met Greer, but Karen has read two of her books: her most recent, Death in Dubai, as well as the novel that launched
Greer to fame in the early nineties, The Killer on Khao San Road. Karen isn’t much of a book critic — she has dropped out of three book groups because the novels they choose are so grim and depressing — but she can say that The Killer on Khao San Road was fast-paced and entertaining. (Karen had no idea where Khao San Road was; turned out it was in Bangkok, and there were all kinds of elaborate details about that city — the temples, the flower market, the green papaya salad with toasted peanuts — that made the book just as transporting as watching the travel channel on TV.) Death in Dubai, however, was formulaic and predictable. Karen figured out who the killer was on page fourteen: the hairless guy with the tattooed mustache. Karen could have written a more suspenseful novel herself with just CSI: Miami as background. Karen wonders if Greer Garrison, the esteemed mystery writer who is always named in the same breath as Sue Grafton and Louise Penny, is coasting now, in her middle age.
Karen has carefully studied Greer’s author photo; both of the books Karen read featured the same photo, despite a nearly twenty-five-year span between publication dates. Greer wears a straw picture hat, and there is a lush English garden in the background. Greer is maybe thirty in the photo. She has pale blond hair and flawless pale skin. Greer’s eyes are a beautiful deep brown and she has a long, lovely neck. She isn’t an overtly beautiful woman, but she conveys class, elegance, regality even, and Karen can see why she never chose to update the picture. Who wants to see age descend on a woman? No one. So it’s up to Karen to imagine how Greer might look now, with wrinkles, some tension in the neck, possibly some gray in the part of her hair.
There is a crush of people on the wharf — those disembarking, those picking up houseguests, tourists wandering the shops, hungry couples in search of lunch. Because the cancer has invaded Karen’s stomach, she rarely feels hungry, but her appetite is piqued now by the prospect of lobster. Will there be lobster served over the wedding weekend? she had asked Celeste.
Yes, Betty, Celeste had said, and the nickname had made Karen smile. There will be plenty of lobster.
“Karen?” a voice calls out. “Bruce?”
Karen searches through the crowd and sees a woman — blond, thin, maniacally smiling, or maybe the smile only looks maniacal because of the face-lift — moving toward them with her arms wide open.
Greer Garrison. Yes, there she is. Her hair is the same pale blond, and expensive-looking sunglasses — Tom Ford? — are perched on the top of her head. She’s wearing white capri pants and a white linen tunic, which Karen supposes is very chic and summery although she herself always prefers color, a result of having worked in the gift shop at the Crayola factory in Easton for so many years. In Karen’s opinion, Greer’s look would be more interesting if the tunic were magenta or goldenrod.
Greer swoops down to hug Karen in her wheelchair without confirmation that she is, in fact, Karen Otis, which gives Karen the uncomfortable feeling that she and Bruce stick out so badly that there can be no mistaking them. Or maybe Celeste has shown Greer pictures.
“So wonderful to meet you finally,” Greer says. “And on such a happy occasion. I’m thrilled you could make the trip.”
Karen realizes that she is prepared to dislike Greer Garri- son and take offense at everything she says. Of course Karen and Bruce made the trip! Their only daughter, their pride and joy, is getting married!
Karen needs to adjust her attitude, and fast. She needs to abandon her petty jealousy, her feelings of inferiority, her embarrassment because she and Bruce aren’t wealthy or sophisticated. Mostly, Karen needs to abandon the anger she feels. This anger isn’t caused by Greer specifically, by any means. Karen is angry at everyone who isn’t sick. Everyone except Bruce. And Celeste, of course.
“Greer,” Karen says. “It’s so nice to meet you. Thank you for having us. Thank you for . . . everything.”
Bruce steps forward and offers Greer his hand. “Bruce Otis,” he says. “It’s a pleasure, ma’am.”
“Ma’am?” Greer says. She laughs with her head thrown back, her neck — still lovely but indisputably aged — exposed. “Please don’t call me that, you make me feel a thousand years old. Call me Greer, and my husband is Tag, like the game. After all, we’re going to be family!”
Family, Karen thinks as Bruce helps her into the backseat of Greer’s car, which looks exactly like what people drive in across the savannas of Africa on the Travel Channel. They head up a cobblestoned street. Each cobblestone the car goes over is a punch to the gut for Karen, but she grits her teeth and bears it. Bruce, sensing her pain as if it’s his own, reaches a hand between the seats to comfort her. The comment about family might have been a throwaway, but it holds undeniable appeal. Karen and Bruce are low on family. Karen’s father died of a heart attack when Karen was pregnant with Celeste; her mother put the house in Tatamy on the market and ended up marrying Gordon, the listing real estate broker. Then, when Celeste was in kindergarten, Karen’s mother was diagnosed with a rare myeloma and died six months later. Gordon
is still a real estate agent in the area but they hardly ever hear from him. Bruce’s younger brother, Bryan, was a state trooper in New Jersey; he was killed in a high-speed chase. After Bry- an’s funeral, Bruce’s parents moved to a retirement community in Bethlehem, where they both died of old age. Karen and Bruce have always clung to each other and Celeste; they are a small, insular cluster of three. Karen somehow never imagined that Celeste would provide them with a whole new family, and certainly not one as esteemed as the Winburys, who not only have a summer estate on Nantucket but also an apartment on Park Avenue in New York City and a flat they keep in London for when Tag takes business trips or Greer misses “home.” Karen can’t help but feel a secret thrill at the thought of a new family, even though she won’t be around to enjoy it.
Greer points out Main Street, a certain restaurant she likes
that serves an organic beet salad, a store that sells the red pants that all of the gentlemen will be wearing tomorrow. They’ve ordered a pair for Bruce, Greer says, tailored precisely to the measurements he sent them (this is news to Karen). Greer points out the boutique where she bought a clutch purse that matches her mother-of-the-groom dress (though the dress itself she bought in New York, of course, she says, and Karen nearly says that of course she bought her mother-of-the-bride dress at Neiman Marcus in the King of Prussia Mall using Bruce’s discount but decides this will sound pathetic) and a shop that specializes in nautical antiques where Greer always buys Tag’s Father’s Day presents.
Bruce says, “Do you have a boat, then?”
Greer laughs like this is a silly question, and maybe it is a silly question. Maybe everyone on this island has a boat; maybe it’s a practical necessity, like having a sturdy snow shovel for Easton winters.
“We have three,” she says. “A thirty-seven-foot Hinckley picnic boat named Ella for puttering over to Tuckernuck, a thirty-two-foot Grady-White that we take to Great Point to fish for stripers, and a thirteen-foot Whaler, which we bought so the kids could get back and forth to Coatue with their girlfriends.”
Bruce nods like he approves and Karen wonders if he has any earthly idea what Greer is talking about. Karen certainly doesn’t; the woman might as well be speaking Swahili.
How will Karen and Greer be related once the kids are married? Karen wonders. Each will be the mother-in-law of the other’s child but no relation to each other, or at least not a relation that has a name. In many instances, she suspects, the mothers of two people getting married dislike each other, or worse. Karen would like to think that she and Greer could get to know each other and find kinship and become as close as sisters, but that would only happen in the fantasy world where Karen doesn’t die.
“We also have kayaks, both one-person and two-person,” Greer says. “Tag loves the kayaks more than the boats, I think. He may love the kayaks more than the boys!”
Bruce laughs like this is the funniest thing he’s ever heard. Karen scowls. Who would joke about something like that? She needs a pain pill. She rummages through her wine-colored Tory Burch hobo bag, which was a present from Bruce when she finished her first chemo protocol, back when they were still filled with hope. She pulls out her bottle of oxycodone. She is very careful to pick out a small round pill and not one of the three pearlescent ovoids, and she throws it back without water. The oxy makes her heart race, but it’s the only thing that works against the pain.
Karen wants to admire the scenery but she has to close her
eyes. After a while, Greer says, “We’ll be there in a jiffy.” Her British accent reminds Karen of Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins. Jiff-jiff-jiffy, Karen thinks. Greer drives around a traffic circle, then puts on her blinker and turns left. With the sudden movement of the car, the oxy kicks in. Karen’s pain subsides and a sense of well-being washes over her like a golden wave. It’s by far the best part of the oxy, this initial rush when the pain is absorbed like a spill by a sponge. Karen is most certainly on her way to becoming addicted if she isn’t already, but Dr. Edman is generous with medication. What does addiction matter at this point?
“Here we are!” Greer announces as she pulls into a white-shell driveway.
SUMMERLAND, a sign says. PRIVATE. Karen peers out the window. There’s a row of hydrangea bushes on either side of the driveway, alternately fuchsia and periwinkle, and then they drive under a boxwood arch into what Karen can only think of as some kind of waterfront utopia. There’s a main house, stately and grand with crisp white-and-green awnings over the windows. Opposite the main house are two smaller cottages set amid landscaped gardens with gurgling stone fountains and flagstone paths and lavish flower beds. And all of this is only yards away from the water. The harbor is right there, and across the flat blue expanse of the harbor is town. Karen can pick out the church towers she saw from the ferry. The Nantucket skyline.
Karen has a hard time finding air, much less words. This is the most beautiful place she has ever been. It’s so beautiful it hurts.
Today is Friday. The rehearsal at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church is scheduled for six o’clock and will be followed by a clambake for sixty people that will include a raw bar and live music, a cover band that plays the Beach Boys and Jimmy
Buffett. There will be a “small tent” set up on the beach to shelter the band and four rectangular tables of fifteen. And there will be lobster.
The wedding is Saturday at four o’clock, and it will be followed by a sit-down dinner under the “big tent,” which has a clear plastic roof so that the guests can see the sky. There will be a dance floor, an eighteen-piece orchestra, and seventeen round tables that seat ten guests each. On Sunday, the Winburys are hosting a brunch at their golf club; this will be followed by a nap, at least for herself, Karen thinks. On Monday morning, Karen and Bruce will leave on the ferry, and Celeste and Benji will fly from Boston to Athens and from there to Santorini.
Stop time, Karen thinks. She doesn’t want to get out of the car. She wants to stay right here, with all of those sumptuous plans still in front of her, forever.
Bruce helps Karen down out of the car and hands over her cane, and in the time it takes for this to happen, people pop out of the main house and appear from the cottages as though Bruce and Karen are visiting dignitaries. Well, they are, Karen thinks. They are the mother and father of the bride.
She knows they are also something of a curiosity because they are poor and because Karen is sick, and she hopes all of them will be gentle with their appraisals.
“Hello,” Karen says to the assembled group. “I’m Karen Otis.” She looks for someone she recognizes, but Greer has vanished and Celeste is nowhere to be found. Karen squints into the sun. She has met Benji, Celeste’s betrothed, only three times, and all she can remember of him, thanks to chemo brain, is the cowlick that she had to keep herself from smoothing down
every ten seconds. There are two young, good-looking men in front of her, and Karen knows that neither of them is Benji. One is in a snappy cornflower-blue polo and Karen smiles at him. This young man steps forward, hand extended.
“I’m Thomas Winbury, Mrs. Otis,” he says. “Benji’s brother.”
Karen shakes Thomas’s hand; his grip is nearly enough to turn Karen’s bones to powder. “Please, call me Karen.”
“And I’m Bruce, Bruce Otis.” Bruce shakes Thomas’s hand and then the hand of the young man standing next to Thomas. He has very dark hair and crystalline-blue eyes. He’s so striking that Karen can hardly keep from staring.
“Shooter Uxley,” the young man says. “Benji’s best man.”
Shooter, yes! Celeste has mentioned Shooter. It isn’t a name one forgets, and Celeste had tried to explain why Shooter was the best man instead of Benji’s brother, Thomas, but the story was puzzling to Karen, as though Celeste were describing characters on a TV series Karen had never seen.
Bruce then shakes the hands of two young ladies, one with chestnut hair and freckles and one a dangerous-looking brunette who is wearing a formfitting jersey dress in a color that Karen would call scarlet, like the letter.
“Aren’t you hot?” the Scarlet Letter asks Bruce. With a slightly different inflection, it would sound as though the girl were hitting on Bruce, but Karen realizes she’s talking about Bruce’s outfit, the black jeans, the black-and-turquoise shirt, the loafers, the socks. He looks sharp but he doesn’t exactly fit in. Everyone else is in casual summer clothes — the men in shorts and polo shirts, the ladies in bright cotton sundresses. Celeste had told Karen no less than half a dozen times to remind Bruce that the Winburys were preppy. Preppy, that was the word Celeste insisted on using, and it sounded quaint to Karen. Didn’t that term go out of style decades ago, right
along with Yuppie? Celeste had said: Tell MacGyver, blue blazers and no socks. When Karen had passed on this message, Bruce had laughed, but not happily.
I know how to dress myself, Bruce had said. That’s my job.
A tall, silver-haired gentleman strides across the lawn and walks down the three stone steps into the driveway. He’s dripping wet and wearing a pair of bathing trunks and a neoprene rash guard.
“Welcome!” he calls out. “I’d open my arms to you but let’s wait until I dry off for those familiarities.”
“Did you capsize again, Tag?” the Scarlet Letter teases. The gentleman ignores the comment and approaches Karen.
When she offers her hand, he kisses it, a gesture that catches her off guard. She’s not sure anyone has ever kissed her hand before. There’s a first time for everything, she thinks, even for a dying woman. “Madame,” he says. His accent is English enough to be charming but not so much that it’s obnoxious. “I’m Tag Winbury. Thank you for coming all this way, thank you for indulging my wife in all her planning, and thank you, most of all, for your beautiful, intelligent, and enchanting daughter, our celestial Celeste. We are absolutely enamored of her and tickled pink about this impending union.”
“Oh,” Karen says. She feels the roses rising to her cheeks, which was how her father always described her blushing. This man is divine! He has managed to set Karen at ease while at the same time making her feel like a queen.
There’s a tap on Karen’s shoulder and she turns carefully, planting her cane in the shells of the driveway.
“B-B-Betty!”
It’s Celeste. She’s wearing a white sundress and a pair of
barely there sandals; her hair is braided. She has gotten a sun- tan, and her blue eyes look wide and sad in her face.
Sad? Karen thinks. This should be the happiest day of her life, or the second-happiest. Karen knows Celeste is worried about her, but Karen is determined to forget she’s sick— at least for the next three days — and she wants everyone else to do the same.
“Darling!” Karen says, kissing Celeste on the cheek. “Betty, you’re here,” Celeste says, without a trace of stutter.
“Can you believe it? You’re here.”
“Yes,” Karen says, and she reminds herself that she is the reason that the whole wedding is being held now, during the busiest week of the summer. “I’m here.”
T H E C H I E F
He pulls up to 333 Monomoy Road right behind state police detective Nicholas Diamantopoulos, otherwise known as the Greek. Nick’s father is Greek and his mother is Cape Verdean; Nick has brown skin, a shaved head, and a jet-black goatee. He’s so good-looking that people joke he should quit the job and play a cop on TV — better hours and more money — but Nick is content being a damn good detective and a notorious ladies’ man.
Nick and the Chief worked together on the last homicide, a drug-related murder on Cato Lane. Nick spent the first fifteen years of his career in New Bedford, where the streets were dangerous and the criminals hardened, but Nick doesn’t subscribe to the tough-guy shtick; he doesn’t use any of the strong-arming tactics you see in the movies. When Nick is questioning persons of interest, he is encouraging and empathetic; he sometimes tells stories about his ya-ya back in Thes- saloníki who wore an ugly black dress and uglier black shoes every day after his grandfather passed. And the results he gets! He says the word ya-ya and people confess to everything. The guy’s a magician.
“Nicky,” the Chief says.
“Chief,” Nick says. He nods at the house. “This is sad, huh? The maid of honor.”
“Tragic,” the Chief says. He’s dreading what he’s going to find inside. Not only is a twenty-nine-year-old woman dead, but the family and guests have to be questioned, and all of the complicated, costly wedding preparations have to be undone without destroying the integrity of the crime scene.
Before the Chief left his house, he went upstairs to find Chloe to see if she had heard the news. She had been in the bathroom. Through the closed door, the Chief had heard the sound of her vomiting.
He’d knocked. “You okay?” “Yeah,” she said. “I’m fine.”
Fine, the Chief thought. Meaning she’d spent her postshift hours on the beach drinking Bud Light and doing shots of Fireball.
He had kissed Andrea goodbye in the kitchen and said, “I think Chloe was drinking last night.”
Andrea sighed. “I’ll talk to her.”
Talking to Chloe wasn’t going to help, the Chief thought. She needed a new job — shelving books at the children’s library or counting plover eggs out on Smith’s Point. Something that would keep her out of trouble, not lead her right to it.
The Chief and Nick walk past the left side of the main house onto the lawn, where an enormous tent has been erected. They find the guys from forensics inside the tent, one bagging, one photographing. Nick heads down to the beach to check out the body; the Chief sees that the girl has been left just shy of the waterline but she’ll need to be moved to the hospital
morgue as soon as possible on this hot a day. Inside the tent, there is one round table surrounded by four white banquet chairs. In the middle of the table is a nearly empty bottle of Mount Gay Black Barrel rum and four shot glasses, two of them on their sides. There’s half a quahog shell that served as an ashtray for someone’s cigar. A Romeo y Julieta. Cuban.
One of the forensics guys, Randy, is bagging a pair of silver sandals.
“Where did you find those?” the Chief asks.
“Under that chair,” Randy says, pointing. “Connor has a picture of them. Size eight Mystique sandals. I’m no shoe salesman, but I’m guessing they belonged to the deceased. We’ll confirm.”
Nick returns. “The girl has a nasty gash on her foot,” he says. “And I noticed there’s a trail of blood in the sand.”
“Any blood on the sandals?” the Chief asks Randy. “No, sir,” Randy says.
“Took off her shoes, cut her foot on a shell, maybe,” Nick says.
“Well, she didn’t die of a cut on her foot,” the Chief says. “Unless she swam out too far and couldn’t get back in because of the foot?”
“That doesn’t sound right,” Nick says. “There’s also a two-person kayak overturned on the beach, one paddle a few yards away lying in the sand. No blood on the kayak.”
The Chief takes a breath. The day is still; there’s no breeze off the water. It’s going to be hot and buggy. They need to get the body out of here, pronto. They need to start their questioning, try to figure out what happened. He remembers what Dickson said about the best man being missing. Hopefully that situation has resolved itself. “Let’s go up to the house,” he says.
“Should we divide and conquer?” the Greek asks.
“I’ll take the men, you take the women,” the Chief says.
Nick works wonders with the women.
Nick nods. “Deal.”
As they’re approaching the steps of the front porch, Bob from Old Salt Taxi pulls up in the driveway and a kid in his twenties climbs out. He’s wearing Nantucket Reds shorts, a blue oxford, a navy blazer, and loafers; he has a large duffel in one hand and a garment bag in the other. His hair is mussed and he needs a shave.
“Who is this guy?” Nick asks under his breath.
“Late to the party,” the Chief says. He waves to Bob as Bob reverses out of the driveway.
The kid gives the Chief and Nick an uneasy smile. “What’s going on?” he asks.
Nick says, “You part of the wedding?”
“Best man,” the kid says. “Shooter Uxley. Did something happen?”
Nick looks to the Chief. The Chief nods ever so slightly and tries not to let the relief show on his face. One mystery is solved.
“The maid of honor is dead,” Nick says.
The bags hit the ground, and the kid — Shooter Uxley; what a name — goes pale. “What?” he says. “Wait . . . what?”
Initial questioning, Roger Pelton, Saturday, July 7, 7:00 a.m.
The Chief meets Roger Pelton in the driveway. The two men shake hands, and the Chief grips Roger’s arm in a show of friendship and support. Roger has been married to Rita since the Bronze Age, and they have five kids, all grown. Roger has been running his wedding business for over ten years; before that, he was a successful general contractor. Roger Pelton is as solid a human being as God has ever put on this earth. He was in Vietnam too, the Chief remembers, where he received a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. He’s an unlikely candidate to be Nantucket’s most in-demand wedding planner, but he has a gift for it that has resulted in a booming business.
Right now, Roger looks shaken. His face is pale and sweaty; his shoulders are drooping.
“I’m sorry about this, Roger,” the Chief says. “It must have come as a terrible shock.”
“I thought I’d seen it all,” Roger says. “I’ve had brides turn around halfway down the aisle; I’ve had grooms not show up; I’ve caught couples having sex in church bathrooms. I’ve had mothers of brides slapping mothers of grooms. I’ve had fathers who refused to pay my bills and fathers who tipped me five grand. I’ve had hurricanes, thunderstorms, heat waves, fog, and, once, hail. I’ve had brides vomit and faint; I even had a groomsman eat a mussel and go into anaphylactic shock. But I’ve never had anyone die. I met the maid of honor only briefly so I can’t give you any information other than that she was Celeste’s best friend.”
“Celeste?” the Chief says.
“Celeste Otis is the bride,” Roger says. “She’s pretty and smart, but on this island I see a lot of pretty and smart. More notably, Celeste loves her parents and she’s kind and patient with her future in-laws. She’s humble. Any idea how rare humility is when you’re dealing with Nantucket brides?”
“Rare?” the Chief asks.
“Rare,” Roger says. “I hate that this happened on her wedding day. She was a complete mess.”
“Let’s try to figure out what happened,” the Chief says. “I’m starting with you because I know you have work to do.”
The Chief leads Roger over to a white wrought-iron bench tucked under an arbor that is dripping with New Dawn roses and they both sit down.
“Tell me what you saw when you got here,” the Chief says. “From the beginning.”
“I pulled in about quarter to six,” Roger says. “The rental company was supposed to leave seventeen rounds and a hundred and seventy-five folding chairs. I wanted to double-check the numbers, see how the dance floor settled, make sure there hadn’t been any after-hours partying. Standard stuff.”
“Understood,” the Chief says.
“As soon as I got out of my car, I heard screaming,” Roger says. “And I realized right away that it was Celeste. I thought something had happened to her mother.” Roger pauses. “Celeste’s mother, Karen Otis, is very sick — cancer. Anyway, I could tell just from the kind of scream that someone was dead. It had that urgency. So I go charging out to the front of the house and there’s poor Celeste trying to pull her friend out of the water by the arms. One look at her, I knew the girl was dead, but I helped Celeste drag her up onto the beach and then I tried to revive her.”
“CPR?”
“I tried,” Roger says. “I . . . tried. But she was dead when I found her, Ed. That much I know.”
“So why bother with CPR, then?”
“I thought maybe. I had to try something. Celeste was begging me to save her. You have to save her, she said. You have to save her!” Roger drops his head in his hands. “She was dead. There was no bringing her back.”
“Then you called 911?”
“I had dropped my phone in the driveway so I used Celeste’s phone,” Roger says. “The paramedics came in six minutes. They tried CPR as well. Then the police came. Sergeant Dickson. Together, he and I knocked on the front door of the house.”
“And who answered? Who did you tell?”
“Greer Garrison, the groom’s mother. She and her husband, Tag Winbury, own the house. Greer was already awake. She was holding a cup of coffee.”
“She was? You’re sure about that?” the Chief says. “She was awake but didn’t hear Celeste screaming and didn’t notice you pulling a body out of the water in front of her house? With all of those giant windows, she didn’t notice? She didn’t hear the sirens or see the lights when the paramedics arrived?”
“Apparently not. She had no idea anything was wrong when I knocked.”
“When you told her, what did she do?”
“She started to shake,” Roger says. “Her coffee spilled.
Dickson had to take it from her.”
“So it’s fair to say she seemed shocked and upset?” the Chief says.
“Oh yes,” Roger says. “Mr. Winbury came to see what the ruckus was and I told him as well. He thought we were kidding.”
“Kidding,” the Chief says.
“Everyone reacts differently, but the first emotion is, of course, shock and disbelief. Celeste was still screaming. She went into one of the guest cottages to wake up Benji — he’s the groom — and he tried to calm Celeste down but she was beyond helping. She was . . . well. Sergeant Dickson told the EMTs to take her to the ER.” Roger shakes his head. “I feel for her. It’s supposed to be the happiest day of her life and instead . . . her best friend . . .”
The Chief flashes back to the day he found out Tess and
Greg were dead. He had gone right to the beach to find Andrea. Sometimes, in the dark of night, he can still hear the sound Andrea made when he told her that Tess was gone.
“There is nothing worse than the sudden, unexpected death of a young person,” the Chief says.
“Amen,” Roger says. “Anyway, while the family gathered inside, I made phone calls — the caterers, the church, the musicians, the Steamship Authority, the photographer, the chauffeur. I called everyone.” Roger looks at his watch. “And I hate to say this, but I have two other weddings today.”
The Chief nods. “We’ll get you out of here. I just wanted to ask if you noticed anything odd or peculiar or suspicious or noteworthy about the bride or the groom or the family or any of the guests. Did anything or anyone strike you?”
“Just one thing,” Roger says. “And it’s probably nothing.” Probably nothing is usually something, the Chief thinks. “What’s that?” he asks.
“Celeste . . .” Roger says. “She had her purse and her over- night bag out on the beach. And she was fully dressed. She was wearing her going-away outfit, the one she was supposed to wear on Sunday.”
“And you’re wondering . . .”
“I’m wondering why she was wearing it this morning. I’m wondering why she had her purse and her overnight bag. I’m wondering why she was awake at quarter to six in the morning, dressed that way, on the beach.”
“We’ll ask her,” the Chief says. “It does seem odd.” He thinks about what Roger is telling him. “Maybe she and the groom had decided to elope at the last minute?”
“I thought that too, but her parents are here… her mother… something about that doesn’t feel right to me. But she’s such a
good kid, Ed. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation. It’s probably nothing.”
Initial questioning, Abigail Freeman Winbury, Saturday, July 7, 7:15 a.m.
Nick’s choices with the women are sparse. The bride, Celeste, has gone to the hospital; the mother of the groom, Greer Garrison, is busy on the phone contacting guests to relay the tragic news; and the mother of the bride, who is quite sick, is still in bed. It’s unclear if she has even learned what’s happened.
This leaves Abigail Freeman Winbury — Abby — who is the bridesmaid and the wife of the groom’s brother.
Abby is short with auburn hair cut bluntly at the shoulders. She has brown eyes and freckles. She is cute, Nick thinks, but not beautiful. When she walks into the formal living room where Nick is doing the questioning — it has glass doors that close, sealing it off from the hallway, the stairs, and the rest of the house — she is holding her breasts up with her hands. Nick blinks. It’s okay; he has seen stranger things.
“Hi, Abby, I’m Nick Diamantopoulos, a detective with the Massachusetts State Police. Thank you for talking with me.”
Abby lets go of her breasts to shake his hand. “Just so you know, I’m pregnant. Fifteen weeks along. I had an amnio a few days ago, and the baby’s fine. It’s a boy.”
“Oh,” Nick says. That, at least, explains why she was holding her breasts. Right? Nick doesn’t have children, and he has never been married, but his sister, Helena, has three kids and what Nick remembers from Helena’s pregnancies is that a certain amount of personal dignity goes out the window. Helena, who had always been rather private and discreet about her
body and its functions, had complained about her aching (and then leaking) breasts as well as the frequency with which she had to pee. “Well, congratulations.”
Abby gives Nick a tired but victorious smile. “Thank you,” she says. “It’ll be the first Winbury heir. That’s important, I guess, to British people.”
Nick says, “I have some water here, if you’d like any. I’m sure you must be pretty shaken up.”
Abby takes a seat on the sofa and Nick sits in a chair opposite her so he can face her. “My stomach has been funny for weeks,” she says. “And this news is so terrible. I can’t believe it’s real. This feels like a movie, you know? Or a dream. Mer- ritt is dead. She’s dead.” She pours herself a glass of water but doesn’t drink. “So do we know . . . is the wedding canceled?”
Nick says, “Yes, I believe so.” That’s what he overheard Greer saying on the phone, he’s pretty sure. That they’re canceling the wedding.
“Okay,” Abby says, but she sounds a little deflated. “I figured. I mean, Merritt is Celeste’s best friend, her only friend, really, and she’s dead.” Abby shakes her head as if to clear it. “Obviously the wedding is canceled. I don’t know why I even asked. You must think I’m some kind of monster.”
“Not at all,” Nick says. “I’m sure it’s come as a shock.” “Shock,” Abby says. “The wedding is a big deal — very expensive, you know, for Tag and Greer — and Celeste’s mother isn’t well and I just wasn’t sure if . . . if maybe they would just go through with it anyway. But of course not. Of course not. Please don’t tell anyone I asked.”
“I won’t,” Nick says.
“So . . . what happened?” Abby asks. “You’re a detective? Do you think someone killed Merritt? Like a murder?”
“By law, with unattended deaths, we have to rule out foul play,” Nick says. “So I’m going to ask you some questions. Easy questions. Just answer as honestly as you can.”
“Of course, of course. I just . . . I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this is happening. I mean, intellectually my mind knows it’s happening, but my heart is resisting. She’s dead.”
Nick says, “Tell me what you know about Merritt.”
“I’m not really the best person to ask,” Abby says. “I only just met her in May. We had a little bachelorette weekend here and it was the three of us — me, Celeste, and Merritt.”
“That’s all?” Nick says. “Nobody else?”
“Well, Tag and Greer were here. Greer kind of arranged it, just like she arranged the rest of the wedding. So my in-laws were here, but, like . . . no other women. It’s kind of weird? Celeste doesn’t have a lot of close female friends. When I got married, I had eleven bridesmaids. Some from St. Stephen’s, some from UT. I was president of the Tri Delts, that was my sorority. I could have had thirty bridesmaids. But Celeste had only Merritt, who was a friend she met in New York. Merritt does PR for the zoo where Celeste works.”
“Merritt worked in public relations,” Nick says. “And Celeste, the bride, works at a zoo, you say?”
“Celeste is the assistant director of the Bronx Zoo,” Abby says. “She knows a ton about animals, like genus and species and mating rituals and migration patterns.”
“Impressive.”
“And she’s only twenty-eight, which I guess is unusual in that world. Merritt discovered her, in a sense. She chose Celeste as the face of the entire Wildlife Conservation Society. Celeste’s picture is in the zoo brochure, and Merritt’s big dream was to get Celeste’s face on a billboard, but Celeste said no to that. Celeste is pretty conservative. They’re a funny match, actually — Celeste and Merritt — like the Odd Couple.Were a funny match. Sorry.” Abby mists up and waves a hand in front of her face. “I can’t let myself get worked up about this because of the baby. I’ve had four miscarriages . . .”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Nick says.
“But poor Celeste. She must be devastated.”
Nick leans forward to make eye contact with Abby. “The best way we can help Celeste now is to figure out what happened to her friend. When you say that Celeste and Merritt were like the Odd Couple, what do you mean?”
“Oh, just that they were opposites. Like, complete opposites.”
“How so?”
“Well, start with their looks. Celeste is blond and fair, and Merritt had dark hair and olive skin. Celeste goes to bed early and Merritt likes to stay up late. Merritt has a second job — had, sorry — a second job as an influencer.”
“Influencer?” Nick says.
“On social media?” Abby says. “She has something like eighty thousand Instagram followers who are all just like her — beautiful urban Millennials — and so Merritt gets perks for building brand awareness with her posts. She gets free clothes, free bags, free makeup; she eats at all of these hot new restaurants, goes to velvet-rope clubs, and works out at La Palestra for free, all because she features them on her Instagram account.”
“Nice work if you can get it,” Nick says.
“I know, right?” Abby says. “Merritt is . . . was a social media goddess. But Celeste doesn’t even have a Facebook account. When I heard that, I couldn’t believe it. I thought everyone had a Facebook account. I thought people were, like, given one at birth.”
“I’m with Celeste,” Nick says. He once dated a woman who
tried to get him to set up a Facebook profile but the idea of reporting his whereabouts, his activities, and, worst of all, the company he was keeping didn’t appeal to him. Nick is a confirmed bachelor; he plays the field. Facebook would be a liability. Speaking of which . . . “What about boyfriends? Did Merritt have a boyfriend that you know of?”
Abby gives him an uneasy look. One of the reasons Nick is so successful with women is that he has learned to listen not only to what they are saying but also to what they’re not saying. It’s a talent taught to him by his mother, his ya-ya, and his sister. Abby sustains eye contact long enough that he thinks she’s trying to tell him something, but then she shakes her head. “I couldn’t say for sure. You’d have to ask Celeste.”
“Abby?” Nick says. “Do you know something you’re not telling me?”
Abby takes a sip of water, then looks around the room as though she’s never been there before. It’s not a room that appears to get much use. The walls and trim are impeccably white, as are the half-moon sofa and modern egg-shaped chairs. There are three paintings on the wall, bright rainbow stripes — one diamond, one circle, one hexagon — and there are sculptures that look like Tinkertoys made out of steel and wooden spheres. There’s a black grand piano; the top is covered with framed photographs. On a low glass table sits a coffee table book about Nantucket, which seems redundant to Nick. If you want to see Nantucket, go outside. You’re here.
“She came to the wedding alone,” Abby says. “Which tells me that either she didn’t want to be tied down or she had set her sights on someone who would already be at the wedding.” Ahhh, Nick thinks. Now they’re getting somewhere. “Someone like who?”
“That’s another way they’re opposite!” Abby says. “Benji is Celeste’s first real boyfriend. And Merritt . . . well, she’s been with a bunch of people, I’m pretty sure.”
“But no one seriously?” Nick asks. He senses Abby trying to change the subject. “If you ladies went out on the town for a bachelorette party, you must have shared some confidences, right?”
“And also?” Abby says. “Their parents. Celeste is super- close to her parents. Like, abnormally close. Well, that might be unfair to say because her mother has cancer. Let me restate: Celeste is very close to her parents, whereas Merritt hasn’t talked to her parents in six or seven years, I think she said.”
This does succeed in capturing Nick’s attention because of the next-of-kin issue. “Do you know where her parents live?” “No clue,” Abby says. “She’s from Long Island but not one of the fashionable parts, not the Hamptons or anything. She has a brother, I think she said. Again, you’d have to ask Celeste.”
“Let’s go back to your previous statement,” Nick says. “Do you think maybe Merritt was involved with someone who was attending the wedding and that’s why she didn’t bring a date?”
“Can I please use the ladies’ room?” Abby asks.
“Excuse me?” Nick says. He’s pretty sure she’s using the bathroom break to wiggle out of answering the question — but then he remembers Helena. “Oh, yes. Certainly.”
It’s Nantucket wedding season, also known as summer-the sight of a bride racing down Main Street is as common as the sun setting at Madaket Beach. The Otis-Winbury wedding promises to be an event to remember: the groom’s wealthy parents have spared no expense to host a lavish ceremony at their oceanfront estate.