Big Summer(80)

“Well, the good news is that the police are talking to someone,” Darshi said, her voice bluff and hearty, too loud in the close, stuffy room. “At least we’ll know the truth about what happened to Drue.”

Mrs. Cavanaugh opened her eyes. In a not terribly curious voice, she asked, “Who?”

“A woman named Emma Vincent,” Darshi said. “She was on the catering crew.”

I saw Lily Cavanaugh flinch. “Oh, God,” she murmured, and croaked out a choked-sounding laugh as she shut her eyes again. “These cops. My goodness. Emma didn’t do it.”

I blinked. “You know her?”

Lily Cavanaugh gave a brief nod.

“And you don’t think she did it?”

Opening her eyes, she gave me the saddest smile. “Emma had no reason to hurt Drue.”

“One of the guys at the party heard Emma talking to Mr. Cavanaugh the night Drue was killed. She was talking about how she was done waiting; how she’d waited long enough.”

Mrs. Cavanaugh nodded, looking unsurprised. Another tear slid down her cheek, but she didn’t speak.

“Did Drue know…” How was I going to ask this? “Did Drue know that her father and Emma Vincent were together?”

Lily Cavanaugh gave me a curious look before she shook her head. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, honey, no. Emma wasn’t Robert’s girlfriend.” She closed her eyes as a nurse came bustling into the room, frowning as she saw the three of us. “Emma was Robert’s daughter.”





Chapter Eighteen


According to the Internet, there were two Vincents who lived nearby on the Cape: one an E. Vincent, in an apartment in Hyannis; the other a B. Vincent, in a ranch-style house about a mile away from the ocean in Brewster. Nick had offered to stay with us, and Darshi and I had been happy to have him along, navigating and filling us in on Cape Cod geography and socioeconomics. Or at least, I’d been happy about his company, and Darshi had been willing to tolerate it. We had banged on the door of E. Vincent’s apartment, gotten no answer, and moved along.

“The E. Vincent was Emma, so the B. has to be her mom.” I was googling to confirm that the B. Vincent’s house we’d found matched the one that TMZ had described as the place where Emma had grown up with her single mother.

“This must be it,” Darshi said. She’d turned onto a side street, where three vans from three different TV stations, each with a satellite dish on its roof, were parked along the curb. A knot of men and women, casually dressed in shorts or jeans or sundresses, leaned against the center van’s sun-warmed sides, talking or drinking coffee or looking at their phones, while a young woman with wavy blond hair, wearing a snug teal dress with an incongruous pair of running shoes, was using her phone in selfie mode to inspect her makeup. I could feel their stares as we walked up the redbrick path. “Friends of the family?” one of them called. We kept quiet. Darshi knocked on the door. A moment later, a short, gray-haired woman peeked through the window.

I gave what I hoped was a reassuring wave and a friendly smile. “We’re not reporters!” I called. The woman stared at us, then cracked the door open. She wore a zipped-up hoodie and jeans. Her hair was short and gray, cut in a no-nonsense feathered style. A pair of terriers with oversized ears jumped and yapped at her small, bare feet. A basset hound stood behind them, stately as an ocean liner, regarding us with dolorous, red-rimmed eyes as its ears trailed along the floor.

“Mrs. Vincent?” I said, talking fast before she could shut the door. “My name is Daphne Berg. I’m a friend of Drue Cavanaugh’s, the woman who died in Truro last night. These are my friends Darshini and Nick. We were hoping to speak with you.”

Mrs. Vincent did not seem to have heard me. She was looking past me, over my shoulder, her gaze focused on Nick. As I watched, she raised her hands to her face. Her lips began to tremble, and her eyes filled with tears.

“You’re Christina’s boy, aren’t you?” she asked, her voice low.

Beside me, I heard Nick sigh, and remembered what he’d said about going by his middle name. People here remember what happened. And they talk.

He gave a curt nod. I decided to try to get the conversation back on track. “We’re sorry to bother you. We’re just hoping to talk to your daughter.”

“Oh,” the woman breathed, pressing her hands to her chest. She was still looking at Nick, as if I hadn’t even spoken. “Oh, look at you!”

Darshi and I exchanged a glance. When Darshi widened her eyes, as if to ask What’s going on here?, I gave a small I have no idea shrug.

“Come in,” she said, and swung the door open. The dogs had gone quiet. All three of them were looking up at Nick just as raptly as their owner. Mrs. Vincent’s voice was breathless. “I knew this day would come, but I guess there’s no getting ready for a thing like this. Come in,” she repeated. The three of us crowded into her small foyer, where a mirror hung on the wall above a vase of dried seagrass. I thought she’d launch right into a defense of her daughter’s innocence, that she’d offer an alibi, or excuses, or some rationale: Emma couldn’t possibly have killed her own half sister. Instead, she seemed oblivious to the matter of her daughter’s arrest. She only had eyes for Nick. Her hands fluttered at her chest before she reached up, smoothing Nick’s eyebrows with her thumb, first the left one, then the right.