The Bay at Midnight

“We need to talk to you about Isabel’s death,” Lucy said.

“Are the police ready to interview me?” I asked.

“No,” Julie said, “but Lucy and I made a discovery we thought you should know about. We wanted you to hear about it from us first, rather than from the police.”

I was quiet and calm on the outside, but my hands began working at one another in my lap.

Julie reached into her pocketbook and pulled out some kind of toy.

“What’s that?” I leaned forward, and Julie held the toy in the air so I could see it better. “Is it a giraffe?” I asked.

“Yes.” Julie lowered the red and purple toy to her knees. “Lucy and I stayed at Ethan’s house last night, and we talked to the people who now live in our bungalow.”

I felt a sharp blow to my solar plexus at the mention of our old summer home.

“Do you remember my Nancy Drew box?” Julie asked. “The bread box where I used to put any clues I found?”

Bread box? I didn’t know what she was talking about.

“I remember you used to collect clues,” I said. “You did that when we lived here in Westfield. Did you collect them down the shore, too?”

“Yes,” Julie said. “Grandpop found an old bread box for me to keep the clues in, and he buried it for me in the yard.”

“I don’t remember that,” I said.

“Well, it was something I kept secret,” Julie said. “But anyway, when we visited the people who live in the house now, I asked if I could dig up the bread box. When I did, we found this giraffe inside it. But I don’t think I ever put it there myself.”

I felt as though I was struggling to make sense of a riddle. “So?” I asked.

“Well, this comes apart.” Julie did something with the giraffe’s tail and the toy broke into two pieces. “Ned and Isabel used to pass it back and forth, with notes inside it.”

“Oh,” I said, more to myself than to them. I had tried so hard to keep those two children apart, and until the very end, I’d thought I’d succeeded.

“We found a note inside it,” Julie said. She removed a folded piece of paper from inside the back end of the giraffe. “Should I read it to you or do you want to see it for yourself?” she asked me.

I reached out a hand. “I want to see it,” I said.

She looked reluctant to turn the piece of paper over to me, but after a moment’s hesitation, she stood up and dropped it into my hand. I unfolded it and flattened it on my lap, adjusting my glasses so that I could read the faded writing.

“Oh,” I said again, this time with some distress as I saw Isabel’s girlish handwriting. Then I read the words and was filled with horror. Oh, my God.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Julie said. “I know it’s painful to read.”

“Our best guess is that this was Isabel’s last note to Ned,” Lucy said. “Maybe Ned put the note in Julie’s Nancy Drew box, expecting her to look in there before we left the shore. He had to know she’d take it to the police, who would then realize that Isabel had been angry at him, and that he probably did meet her on the—”

“Hush,” I said, shutting my eyes.

The room grew so still I could hear my own breathing.

“Would you rather not talk about this, Mom?” Julie asked softly. Neither she nor Lucy could possibly understand the reason for my distress. I was going to have to tell them things I’d never wanted known.

I opened my eyes again and looked first at Julie, then Lucy.

“I am as certain as I can be that this note was not meant for Ned Chapman,” I said.

“Oh, Mom,” Julie said, “I’m sure it was. I’m sure—”

I held up my hand to stop her. “I have to tell you girls something. It’s…I’d hoped I’d never have to tell anyone about it. It’s something I regret. But it needs to come out.You need to know.”

“What are you talking about?” Lucy asked.

I looked down at the note in my lap, touching the paper my Isabel had once touched, and I knew my eyes were glassy when I raised my eyes to my daughters again.

“I wasn’t just friends with Mr…with Ross Chapman when we were kids,” I said. “We dated as teenagers, as well.”

“You did?” Julie asked.

“We did,” I said. “But his family didn’t approve of me because I was half Italian, so we had to see each other on the sly for years.”

“Like Ned and Isabel,” Lucy said.

“Were you in love with him?” Julie asked.

I nodded. “For a while, yes. And I was always…I was attracted to him.” I felt uncomfortable. I’d never talked to Julie or Lucy about this sort of thing before. “But I knew he was shallow because he let his parents dictate who he could or could not see,” I said. For a moment, I got lost in my memory, and the girls were patient as they waited for