So this morning he quickly had prepared answers to questions that he anticipated Brower would ask about his reaction to the canceled sale. He would not let his emotions show again. And he was glad he had thought the situation through thoroughly, because, in fact, the officer asked a number of questions, probing for details of the proposed sale.

“Must have been a bit of a letdown,” Brower mused, “but on the other hand, every realtor in town has a house like Nuala Moore’s, just begging to be bought.”

Meaning, why did I want this one? Norton thought.

“Sometimes people can really want a house just because it grabs them. It says ‘Buy me, I’m yours,’” the chief continued.

Norton waited.

“You and Mrs. Norton must have really fallen in love with it,” Brower conjectured. “Word is, you mortgaged your own house to pay for it.”

Now Brower was leaning back, his eyes half closed, his fingers locked together.

“Anybody who wants a house that badly would hate to know that a relative of sorts was about to arrive on the scene and maybe mess things up. Only one way to prevent that. Stop the relative, or at least find a way to keep the relative from influencing the owner of the house.”

Brower stood up. “It’s been a pleasure talking to you, Mr. Norton,” he said. “Now, before I go, do you mind if I have a word with your secretary, Mrs. Hoffman?”

Barbara Hoffman did not enjoy dissembling. She had stayed home last Friday, pleading a cold, but actually what she had wanted was a quiet day to think things through. To placate her conscience, she had brought home a stack of files from the office, which she intended to clean up; she wanted them to be in good order if she decided to tell Malcolm she was leaving.

Oddly enough, he had inadvertently helped her to make her decision. He almost never came to her house, but then unexpectedly he had dropped by on Friday evening to see how she was feeling. He, of course, did not realize that her neighbor Dora Holt had stopped in. When Barbara had opened the door, he had bent to kiss her, then at her negative look, had stepped back.

“Oh, Mr. Norton,” she had said quickly, “I have that file on the Moore closing that you wanted to pick up.”

She had introduced him to Dora Holt and then made a show of going through the files and picking out one to hand him. But she hadn’t missed the knowing smirk and the lively curiosity in the eyes of the other woman. And that was the moment when she knew the situation was intolerable.

Now, as she sat facing Chief Brower, Barbara Hoffman felt sneaky and very uncomfortable telling him the lame story about why her employer had come to her home.

“Then Mr. Norton only stayed a moment?”

She relaxed a bit; at least here she could be entirely truthful. “Yes, he took the file and left immediately.”

“What file was it, Mrs. Hoffman?”

Another lie she had to tell. “I… I’m… actually, it was the file on the Moore closing.” She cringed inwardly at the stammered apology in her voice.

“Just one more thing. What time did Mr. Norton get to your house?”

“A little after six, I believe,” she replied honestly.

Brower got up and nodded at the intercom on her desk. “Would you tell Mr. Norton that I’d like another moment with him, please.”

When Chief Brower returned to the lawyer’s office, he didn’t waste words. “Mr. Norton, I understand the file you picked up from Mrs. Hoffman last Friday evening was one concerning Mrs. Moore’s closing. When exactly was the closing scheduled?”

“On Monday morning, at eleven,” Norton told him. “I wanted to be sure everything was in order.”

“You were the purchaser, but Mrs. Moore didn’t have a separate lawyer representing her? Isn’t that rather unusual?”

“Not really. But actually it was her idea. Nuala felt it was absolutely unnecessary to involve another attorney. I was paying a fair price and was handing the money over to her in the form of a certified check. She also had the right to stay there until the first of the year if she desired.”

Chief Brower stared silently at Malcolm Norton for a few moments. Finally he stood to leave. “Just one more thing, Mr. Norton,” he said. “The drive from Mrs. Hoffman’s house to your home shouldn’t have taken more than twenty minutes. That would have gotten you home by a few minutes past six-thirty. Yet you say it was nearly seven. Did you go anywhere else?”

“No. Perhaps I was mistaken about the time I arrived home.”

Why is he asking all these questions? Norton wondered. What does he suspect?

43

When Neil Stephens got back to Portsmouth, his mother knew immediately from the look on his face that he had not been successful in locating the young woman from New York.

“You only had a piece of toast earlier,” she reminded him. “Let me fix you breakfast. After all,” she added, “I don’t get much chance to fuss over you anymore.”

Neil sank into a chair at the kitchen table. “I should think fussing over Dad is a full-time job.”

“It is. But I like it.”

“Where is Dad?”

“In his office. Cora Gebhart, the lady whose table we stopped at last night, called and asked if she could come over and talk to him.”

“I see,” Neil said distractedly, jiggling the cutlery his mother had set in front of him.

Dolores stopped her preparations and turned and looked at him. “When you start fiddling like that, it means you’re worried,” she said.

“I am. If I had called Maggie as I intended last Friday, I would have had her phone number, I would have called, and I would have found out what happened. And I would have been here to help her.” He paused. “Mom, you just don’t know how hungry she was to spend this time with her stepmother. You’d never guess if you met her, but Maggie’s had a pretty bad time of it.”

Over waffles and bacon, he told her all he knew about Maggie. What he didn’t tell her was how angry he was at himself for not knowing more.

“She really does sound lovely,” Dolores Stephens said. “I’m anxious to meet her. But listen, you’ve got to stop driving yourself crazy. She is staying in Newport, and you’ve left her a note, and you have the phone number. You’ll surely reach her or hear from her today. So just relax.”

“I know. It’s just that I have this rotten feeling that there have been times when she needed me and I wasn’t there for her.”

“Afraid of getting involved, right?”

Neil put his fork down. “That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it? You know, Neil, a lot of the smart, successful young men of your generation who didn’t marry in their twenties decided they could play the field indefinitely. And some of them will-they really don’t want to get involved. But some of them also never seem to know when to grow up. I just wonder if this concern on your part doesn’t reflect a sudden realization that you care a lot about Maggie Holloway, something you wouldn’t admit to yourself earlier because you didn’t want to get involved.”

Neil stared at his mother for a long moment. “And I thought Dad was tough.”

Dolores Stephens folded her arms and smiled. “My grandmother had a saying: “‘The husband is the head of the family; the wife is the neck.’” She paused. “‘And the neck turns the head.’”

Seeing Neil’s startled expression, she laughed. “Trust me, I don’t agree with that particular piece of down-home wisdom. I think of a husband and wife as equals, not game players. But sometimes, as in our case, what seems to be is not necessarily what is. Your father’s fussing and complaining is his way of showing concern. I’ve known that since our first date.”

“Speak of the devil,” Neil said, as, through the window, he spotted his father walking down the path from his office.