It’s the talk of the town the next afternoon. I first hear about it when I’m buying groceries at the Village Food Mart, a shop so small you have to use a handbasket to collect your items because no shopping cart will make it down the narrow aisles. I stand at the vegetable section, perusing the pitiful choices of lettuce (iceberg or romaine), tomatoes (beefsteak or cherry), and parsley (curly or nothing). Tucker Cove may be a summer paradise but it’s at the end of the grocery supply line, and since I missed shopping at yesterday’s weekly farmer’s market, I’m forced to take what I can get at the Food Mart. As I’m bending down to scavenge some red potatoes from the bin, I hear two women gossiping in the next aisle.

“…and the police showed up at his house with a search warrant, can you believe it? Nancy saw three police cars parked out in front.”

“Oh my god. You don’t really think he killed her?”

“They haven’t arrested him yet, but I think it’s just a matter of time. After all, there was the thing that happened to that other girl. At the time, everyone thought it had to be him.”

    I crane my neck around the end of the display case to see two silver-haired women, their shopping baskets still empty, clearly more engaged in gossip than in groceries.

“Nothing was ever proved.”

“But now it seems more likely, doesn’t it? Since the police are taking such an interest in him. And there’s that old woman he worked for years ago, up on the hill. I always wondered what she really died of…”

As they move away toward the paper goods, I can’t help but trail after them, just to catch more of the conversation. I pause in front of the toilet tissue, pretending to mull over which brand to choose. There’s a total of two options—how ever shall I decide?

“You just never know, do you?” one of the women says. “He always seemed so nice. And to think our minister hired him last year, to install the new pews. All those sharp tools he works with.”

They are definitely talking about Ned Haskell.

I pay for the groceries and walk out to my car, disturbed by what I’ve just heard. Surely the police have their reasons to focus on Ned. The women in the store had talked about another girl. Was she too a murder victim?

Right down the street is Branca Property Sales and Management. If anyone has their finger on the pulse of a community, it’s a Realtor. Donna will know.

As usual, she’s sitting at her desk, the phone pressed to her ear. She glances up and quickly ducks her head, avoiding my gaze.

“No, of course I had no idea,” she murmurs into the phone. “He’s always been perfectly reliable. I’ve never had any complaints. Look, can I call you back? I have someone in the office.” She hangs up and reluctantly turns to face me.

“Is it true?” I ask. “About Ned?”

“Who told you?”

    “I heard two women talking about it at the grocery store. They said the police searched his house this morning.”

Donna sighs. “There are too many damn gossips in this town.”

“So it is true.”

“He hasn’t been arrested. It’s not fair to assume he’s guilty of anything.”

“I’m not assuming anything, Donna. I like Ned. But I heard them say there was another girl. Before Charlotte.”

“That was just a rumor.”

“Who was the girl?”

“It was never proved.”

I rock forward until I’m practically face-to-face with her. “You rented me the house. For weeks, he was working right above my bedroom. I deserve to know if he’s dangerous. Who was the girl?”

Donna’s lips tighten. Her friendly Realtor mask is gone and in its place is the worried face of a woman who withheld the vital detail that a killer might have been working inside my house.

“She was just a tourist,” says Donna. As if that made the victim less worthy of consideration. “And it happened six, seven years ago. She was renting a cottage on Cinnamon Beach when she vanished.”

“The way Charlotte vanished.”

“Except they never found Laurel’s body. Most of us assumed she went swimming and drowned, but there was always a question. Always these whispers.”

“About Ned?”

She nods. “He was working in the cottage next door to hers, renovating a bathroom.”

“That’s hardly a reason to be considered a suspect.”

“He had her house keys.”

I stare at her. “What?”

“Ned claimed he found them on Cinnamon Beach, where he scavenges driftwood for his sculptures. Laurel’s rental agent spotted the keys on the dashboard of Ned’s truck, and she recognized her agency key ring. That’s all the police had on him, just the missing woman’s keys, and the fact he was working right next door to her cottage. They never found her body. There was no evidence of violence in the cottage. They weren’t sure any crime at all was committed.”

    “Now there has been a murder. Charlotte’s. And Ned was working right there, in her house. In my house.”

“But I didn’t hire him. Arthur Sherbrooke did. He insisted Ned had to do the renovations.”

“Why Ned?”

“Because he knows the house better than anyone. Ned used to work for Mr. Sherbrooke’s aunt, when she was still living there.”

“That’s the other gossip I heard today. Is there some question about how the aunt died?”

“Aurora Sherbrooke? None at all. She was old.”

“These women seemed to think Ned had something to do with the aunt’s death.”

“Jesus. The goddamn gossip in this town never ends!” The starch suddenly seems to go out of Donna and she slumps back in her chair. “Ava, I’ve known Ned Haskell all my life. Yes, I’ve heard the rumors about him. I know there are people who simply refuse to hire him. But I never thought he was dangerous. And I still don’t believe he is.”

Neither do I, but as I leave Donna’s office, I wonder how close I came to being another Charlotte, another Laurel. I think of him swinging a hammer in my turret, his clothes powdery with wood dust. He is powerful enough to strangle a woman, but could such a killer have also created those sweetly whimsical birds? Perhaps I missed something darker about them, some disturbing clue to a monster lurking inside the artist. Are there not monsters inside each and every one of us? I am all too well-acquainted with my own.

    I climb into my car and have just buckled the seatbelt when my cellphone rings.

It’s Maeve. “I need to see you,” she says.

“Can we meet next week?”

“This afternoon. I’m on my way to Tucker Cove now.”

“What is this all about?”

“It’s about Brodie’s Watch. You need to move out, Ava. As soon as possible.”

* * *

—

Maeve hesitates on my front porch, as if summoning the courage to enter the house. Nervously she scans the foyer behind me and finally steps inside, but as we walk into the sea room she keeps glancing around like a frightened doe, on the alert for attacking teeth and claws. Even after she settles into a wingback chair, she still looks uneasy, a visitor in hostile territory.

From her shoulder bag she pulls out a thick folder and sets it on the coffee table. “This is what I’ve been able to track down so far. But there may be more.”

“About Captain Brodie?”

“About the women who’ve lived in this house before you.”

I open the folder. The top page is an obituary, photocopied from a newspaper dated January 3, 1901. Miss Eugenia Hollander, age 58, dies at home after falling on stairs.

“She died here. In this house,” says Maeve.

“This article says it was an accident.”

“That would be the logical conclusion, wouldn’t it? It was a winter’s night, cold. Dark. And those turret steps were probably only dimly lit.”

That last detail makes me glance up. “It happened on the turret staircase?”

“Read the police report.”

I turn to the next page and find a handwritten report by Officer Edward K. Billings of the Tucker Cove Police. His handwriting is exquisite, thanks to an era when schools demanded perfect penmanship. Despite the poor-quality photocopy, his report is readable.

The deceased is a fifty-eight-year-old lady, never married, who lived alone. Prior to this incident she was in excellent health, according to her niece Mrs. Helen Colcord. Mrs. Colcord last saw her aunt alive yesterday evening, when Miss Hollander seemed in good spirits and had eaten a hearty supper.

At approximately seven-fifteen the next morning, the housemaid Miss Jane Steuben arrived and was puzzled that Miss Hollander was not downstairs, as was her habit. Upon climbing to the second floor, Miss Steuben discovered the door to the turret stairs open, and she found the body of Miss Hollander crumpled at the foot of the staircase.

I pause, remembering the nights Captain Brodie led me up those same stairs by flickering candlelight. I think of how steep and narrow that stairway is, and how easily a headlong tumble can snap a neck. On the night Eugenia Hollander died, what was she doing on those stairs?

Had something—someone—lured her to the turret, just as I have been lured?

I focus once again on Officer Billings’s precise handwriting. Of course, he would conclude her death was merely an accident. What else could it be? The deceased woman lived alone, nothing was stolen, and there were no signs of an intruder.

I look at Maeve. “There’s nothing suspicious about this death. That’s what the police believed. Why did you show me this?”

“I was looking for more information about the dead woman when I found a photo of her.”

I turn to the next page in the folder. It’s a black-and-white portrait of a pretty young woman with arching eyebrows and a cascade of dark hair.

    “That photo was taken when she was nineteen years old. A beautiful girl, wasn’t she?” says Maeve.