Breaking Ground (25 page)

January 7th, 1933

My dear brother Lemuel,

I wish you the very warmest greetings for the New Year. Although I know you did not wish to see Governor Roosevelt go to Washington, let us hope he can work the miracle that those of us who did vote for him earnestly pray for.

I read that another bank failed in Hartford last week. I hope it was not one where you keep your money! Things are quite bad here in rural Maine, too. Just this week one of my patients told me he must sell some land that has been in his family for decades because he needs the money to keep his family and business above water. As he is probably the richest man in Ryland, his news was very distressing. If someone like Mr. Swanson is in trouble, what of the little people? Of course in his case there is another layer, as there always seems to be in these small towns. I understand there has been very bad blood between Mr. Swanson and the man he sold to, going back to some longago dispute about the very land he now has to sell.

The letter continued, with comments on Ryland's weather and some sharp observations about a town selectmen's meeting. Julie rushed through those parts to be sure there were no further
references to the Swanson land sale and then reread the opening paragraphs. “Amazing!” she said out loud. It wasn't that the letter told her anymore than she'd already guessed about the sale from Swanson to Dyer in the Depression. Rather, it was the coincidence—right here on her desk was a letter from 1933 referring to the very matter she had noted in her chronology of the land's ownership. As a historian, she shouldn't be surprised when pieces of evidence came together, but in this case she took delight in it.

And it did seem like two pieces of evidence were coming together; it's just that the other one—the 1997 letter from Dan Swanson—was missing. No, stolen! But Julie was sure she remembered its reference to the nineteenth-century survey, not some dispute during the Depression. Had it said anything specific about that, about the sale between Dan Swanson's grandfather and Luke's grandfather? No, she didn't think so. But the reference in Dr. Tabor's letter to “very bad blood” between the families going back to the old dispute surely pointed in the same direction as the words in the now-missing letter.

Julie returned to the green folder and flipped quickly through some newspaper clippings—worth reading for her project, she told herself, but not immediately relevant. She came to another letter:

April 25th, 1933

My dear brother Lemuel,

I am so glad to see our President taking action on the banks. Both of ours have now reopened and are taking deposits again, though I doubt they will be loaning out that money anytime soon. Who can afford debt these days?

You asked about the business I mentioned at the New Year—the land sale by one of my patients. Your interest in such a small-town transaction doesn't surprise me. I know you love a good story. So here is what I know.

Back before the turn of the century, the land—it is a beautiful parcel west of town on the Androscoggin River—was the subject of legal action because the two families who owned land on either side of it disputed who owned the middle parcel. There was a survey, but I do not know more about what it determined. I do know, from my patient, Mr. Swanson, that his family ended up with the parcel in question. He says he had to sell it now—back to the family who earlier claimed it—because he needs the money. But that's not how our Town Gossips see it! I hear that the man who bought it, Mr. Dyer, threatened Mr. Swanson with another lawsuit because of something he found. But then that may just be the talk of the flibbertigibbets!

“The Oakes survey!” Julie practically screamed. This confirmed it: Something fishy about it must have surfaced and caused the one man to sell to the other. But in 1933? Or 1997? Or both?

She glanced at her watch and saw that she should be starting off to Dalton's. After losing the original and the copy of the 1997 letter, she wasn't about to expose these two to a similar risk, even though she couldn't imagine who besides Tabby knew of them. (Had Tabby read them? she wondered.) The Tabor letters belonged upstairs, in the safe.

As she drove out of town toward the Black Crow Inn, Julie felt pleased that the few breathing exercises she had forced herself to do before and after entering the safe and placing the letters there had had the intended effect. She was also feeling a kind of high about what she had found; it was the very same feeling she got when she clicked the last piece of a difficult jigsaw puzzle into place or entered the Latin name for raccoon in a crossword. But then, she asked herself, what had she actually learned? That the ownership of the Birch Brook property was contested, tangled in family feuds and perhaps more, was hardly fresh news. Nothing in Dr. Tabor's reports to his distant brother explained exactly what had gone on between the Swansons and the Dyers.

So what had she learned, she asked herself again as she pulled off the highway and entered the drive up the hill toward Dalton's. And more to the point, she reminded herself, what did it all have to do with Mary Ellen's murder? That was the trouble with historical research, she thought as she parked her car: it's so much fun, but a lot of the time you have no idea where it's going. If anywhere.

Dinner was good. Running the Black Crow Inn had turned Dalton Scott into a very respectable cook, another example of Julie's belief that men were taking over in the kitchen. Conversation over dinner was led by Nickie, whose current obsession was what she considered the high-handed approach of Ryland's planning board in the implementation of the town's new sign ordinance.

“It's a good approach,” Nickie said. “Dalton was on the committee that developed it, and it's very reasonable. But the way the planning board is handling these cases is just crazy. They're letting
the motels put up all sorts of crap—really ugly signs—but then when I present my request they turn it down flat. Too big, wrong colors, too close to the road. I mean, Dalton designed the sign, and he knows the standards better than anyone.”

“But you did make some changes in my design,” Dalton interjected.

“A few, but still. I just think the planning board is a bunch of idiots.”

Neither Dalton nor Julie had a good counter to that observation, and Nickie seemed to realize that her interest in the topic far outpaced theirs. “So you're having the house painted?” she asked Julie, whose blank stare promoted a refinement in the question. “Did you say that, Dalton, or did I dream it up?”

“I think I guessed that,” Dalton replied before turning to Julie: “You didn't say, but since you needed a place for the night I assumed you were having some work done at Harding House.”

“I didn't want to get into it on the phone,” Julie said, and then explained to them about the break-in.

“My God!” was Dalton's response when Julie finished.

“Holy shit!” was Nickie's. “You must have been terrified. You poor thing! What did they take? Do you have antiques or something?”

“Well, that's another story, and sort of a long one.”

“To the deck!” Nickie commanded. “Leave these dishes and I'll clean up later, Dalton. And bring us some brandy; I think we're going to need it.”

On the deck overlooking the woods behind the inn, Julie told them about the missing letter and her guess that whoever broke into the house took her copy. Although she had talked before to Dalton about her suspicions, she had to go back a bit and bring Nickie up-to-speed. It was a longer story than she meant it to be, but the brandy helped. She didn't mention the two Tabor letters because she still didn't know what they proved.

“So you think Nilsson or Dyer or maybe both of them killed Mary Ellen to stop her from backing out of the land deal,” Nickie summarized. “And then one of them, or again, maybe both, found out that the deed to the property was in question anyway. And then that you had a copy of the letter that proved that. Wow!”

“I guess that's it in a nutshell, but there are too many loose ends here. Like whether Nilsson and Dyer have alibis for last night or for the morning Mary Ellen was killed.”

“I assume Mike's checking on that,” Dalton said. Until now he had listened quietly to Julie's recounting of the incidents.

“He said he was going to, but I haven't heard. I hate to keep bothering him.”

“Hell, it was your house that was broken into,” Nickie said. “You have a right to know.”

“But Mike doesn't want you involved in the murder investigation, does he?” Dalton said.

“Obviously not.”

“Which doesn't stop you, of course.”

“If the break-in and the murder are connected—and I'm sure they are—well, then, of course I'm involved. I have to be.”

“Mike would say you don't
have
to be involved, Julie. And he'd be right.”

“And Rich says the same.”

“Then there you are,” Dalton said.

“Did I tell you Frank Nilsson invited Rich and me to dinner tomorrow night?” Dalton shook his head. “Oh, and about the diary. I didn't tell you that, either.” So she filled them in.

“This really is bizarre,” Nickie said when Julie finished this new portion of the story. “Fights over land, murder, missing letters, a break-in. Sounds like a TV show.”

“Or life in a small Maine town,” Dalton said. “Anyway, folks, it's getting late, the mosquitoes are starting to bite even though it's cooling down, and I need to clean up in the kitchen. So …”

“I said I'd do that, Dalton. You and Julie can go inside and continue this.”

Sitting in the lounge, Dalton repeated that he thought Mike and Rich were right, and that Julie should stop trying to do the policeman's job. “And why would you even want to go to the Nilssons' for dinner when you suspect him as a murderer and as someone who broke into your house?”

“Rich will be there. And you know how I love puzzles, Dalton,” she replied. “Besides, this really does involve me.”

“I don't know …” he said, adding, “Hey, what's happening about the missing shovel? I always heard that you can't solve a murder without the weapon.”

Julie smiled. “See, you like puzzles, too. I think you can solve a case without the weapon, but it sure would help to locate that shovel. Mike and the state cops came up empty there. There's got to be a simple explanation. A shovel just can't disappear.”

“But the person who used it to kill Mary Ellen—assuming that's what happened—could have taken it. And then hid it or got rid of it somewhere. That seems pretty logical to me: If you just bashed someone with a shovel, you wouldn't exactly place it beside the body, would you?”

“Of course not, but then walking around Ryland with a bloodcovered shovel might attract a little attention.”

“It might. Then again, Ryland's a funny town.”

“Not
that
funny, Dalton,” Nickie said as she came in from the kitchen to join them in the lounge.

“Except for the planning board,” Dalton pointed out.

“True. Maybe the planning board killed Mary Ellen!”

“I think it's time for bed, Nickie,” Dalton said. “Let me show you your room, Julie, but don't feel you have to turn in now just because we are. Stay here if you want to read or something. How about some more brandy?”

It had not been a good idea to accept that offer, Julie thought when she looked at her watch and saw it was after midnight. Instead of easing her into sleep as she had hoped, the brandy left her feeling both sluggish and restless. But then she couldn't blame it all on brandy. She was exhausted after a very short and very frightening night and a busy day. And she kept thinking about that missing diary. Surely Thaddeus Oakes had done the survey that settled the dispute over Birch Brook back in the 1880s. Dr. Tabor's letters confirmed at least the dispute. And if there had been some hanky-panky, Oakes's diary might prove it. How convenient that it was missing! Like the Swanson letter. Patty Nilsson was certainly surprised. Was Frank?

That was hard to figure out, Julie said to herself as she shifted once more in the unfamiliar bed. Frank had certainly shown interest in the fact that Julie and Patty had been discussing the diary. But she really couldn't read his reaction to Patty's comments. At least she didn't remember anything particularly revealing. So, she considered as she rolled to her left side, what I should focus on is whether Frank had a reason to be glad the Oakes diary wasn't going to end up at the Ryland Historical Society. And he did: If there was a problem in the ownership of Birch Brook that Frank aimed to suppress by taking Dan Swanson's letter and Julie's copy of it, then information in Thaddeus Oakes's diary had to be suppressed, too.

That thought taking firm shape in her mind, Julie rolled out of bed and stood at the window of the guest room. Though only half full, the moon was bright enough to illuminate the woods behind the inn. Julie thought of what effect the light was having on the view from her bedroom in Harding House. The sooner the
break-in was solved and the criminal arrested, the sooner she could go back. Tomorrow Rich would be there, so that would be fine. But when he returned to Orono on Sunday she would face the choice of having to stay on in the house by herself or continuing to seek refuge at the Black Crow Inn until someone was arrested for the break-in.

She pulled the wicker chair beside the bed to just in front of the window and sat down to think this through. So much depended on what Mike found out about where Frank and Luke had been last night. Wait a minute, she told herself: I do know where Frank was last night. He had gone to Boothbay Harbor to check on one of his projects and had stayed at the Nilsson camp near there. He got back just as Julie and Patty were finishing up with the papers. If he was there, he couldn't have broken into Harding House this morning. Then it must have been Luke. Mike had greeted that possibility with obvious skepticism, but then he knew Luke a lot better than Julie did. Besides, as both Dalton and Mike had pointed out, Luke had good reason for the truth about the ownership of Birch Brook to be exposed, not hidden. So if the Oakes diary shed some light on the question, wouldn't he want it, too, to become public? Even if for some reason he didn't, Julie couldn't imagine any simple way for Luke to steal the diary if it had been among the Oakes papers that Patty reviewed at her house.