Big Summer(96)

Abigay shook her head. “Probably a long list of people she wronged.”

“Could it have had to do with the Cavanaugh Corporation? We’ve heard stories that the company’s in trouble.”

She nodded. “I’ve heard the same. But to kill a young woman on her wedding day? That doesn’t feel like business to me. That feels personal.”

I said, “We’re also hearing that her father may have been unfaithful. And that he might have had other children.”

Abigay sighed unhappily. In a low voice, she said, “He brought a few of them home. When the missus was away, at that yoga place in the Berkshires.” She smoothed her paper napkin with her fingers. “Now, if someone had killed the mister, I’d be looking at a wronged woman. But why would one of them kill Drue?”

“Did you meet any of Drue’s boyfriends?” asked Nick.

Abigay looked at him, widening her eyes. “Ooh! He talks!”

Nick smiled. “He even sings, if he’s got enough beer in him.”

“Hmm,” she said, folding and refolding her napkin. I expected an immediate denial. It didn’t come. Instead, Abigay said, “You understand, this is going back a few years. I came in on a Saturday when I wasn’t scheduled to work because I needed my good cast-iron pan, and I’d left it at the Cavanaughs’. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be there. The mister was traveling, the missus was doing her yoga, Trip was married by then, and Drue should have been at school. So up I go, and there’s Miss Drue with a fellow.”

“Not Stuart Lowe,” I said.

“No, not him,” Abigay confirmed. “I never met him. This was a foreign-looking fellow. Dark skin, dark hair. A few years older than Drue. I walked into the kitchen, and there they were. Cooking.” She sounded amused at the memory. “Or, at least, he was cooking. And she was helping.”

“So he was a boyfriend?” I asked.

“She introduced him to me as her friend. But, from the way they were looking at each other, I would say boyfriend, mm-hmm. Boyfriend, for sure. Don’t ask me his name,” she said, holding up one smooth palm in warning before I could do just that. “I don’t remember. And I’ve tried.” She sipped her latte, then made her I can do better face again. “What I remember is that she looked happy with him. She was glowing. All smiles. ‘Abigay, this is my friend!’?” Abigay shook her head. “She helped me find my pan. Put it in a bag for me and everything.”

“How did she seem with him?” I asked.

“Comfortable,” Abigay answered after a brief silence. “I remember that I felt like she was finally starting to grow up. Like I could see the outlines of who she was going to be. If everything went right. Sometimes a twig can unbend itself, right? It’s never too late.”

Until it is, I thought.

Abigay patted her lips with a paper napkin and got to her feet. “I should get on the good foot.”

“Thank you for your help.”

“Did I help?” She cocked her head and looked at me. “I hope so.” I asked her to promise to call if she remembered anything else. She said that she would, and hugged me, whispering, “You be careful now.” When I pulled back, she was looking at me. “I should let you know, the police were asking me about you, too.”

I felt my stomach sink and my knees start to quiver.

“What did they ask?”

“Did you and Drue fight. Had you ever been angry at her. How did she treat her classmates at Lathrop.” Abigay shook her head. “I told them that Drue wasn’t very kind, but that I couldn’t imagine any of the girls I’d met ever hurting her that way.” She brushed a crumb off her skirt. “I can’t imagine it,” she said softly. “But someone did.”

The door’s bell jingled as she left. Nick and I sat, thinking. Or at least, I assume he was thinking. I was trying not to start screaming as I sat there, terrified, imagining myself in jail for a crime I didn’t commit.

“Here.” Nick pushed my cup toward me. “Drink. Stay hydrated.” I nodded glumly and took a bite of a kouign-amann filled with raspberry jam, thinking that they probably didn’t have pastry like this in jail.

“We need to find this guy,” I said. “The mystery chef.”

“Right,” said Nick. “Any ideas?”

“No,” I said, and got to my feet. “But don’t give up on me yet.”





Chapter Twenty-One


Back at my parents’ place, my mother had gone to work—she taught an afternoon sculpting class three days a week—and my father had made a quick trip to the fish market and was in the kitchen, assembling his famous cioppino. “Fish is brain food!” he called as he zested a lemon, filling the rooms with the citrus tang. In the living room, Darshi had borrowed one of my mom’s easels, and had propped a piece of white cardboard up for us to see. On the top, in large purple letters, she’d written OPERATION FIND DRUE’S SECRET BOYFRIEND.

“Nick filled me in,” she said. “So how are we going to find this guy? Do we just keep going through Drue’s social?”

“The problem is, if this guy is an ex-boyfriend, they might not be friends anymore.”

“If she was never really going to stay married to Stuart, she never had to really break up with the Mystery Man,” said Nick.