The Widow by Carla Neggers Page A

robbed and Chris was killed. Someone had burglarized them and a handful of their friends that summer, although whether it was the same person who attacked her and stole her necklace remained an open question.
    “The timing’s right,” Grace continued. “Linc and I aren’t children anymore. My father can only get away for a few weeks in the summer. Keeping two houses here just doesn’t make as much sense these days.”
    “Why not sell your place on Somes Sound?”
    She shrugged, moving past sprays of coral bells and painted daisies. “It’s right on the water, and it’s really the family place more than this is. Ellis agrees. I think he wants to buy his own place. He’s so much younger than my father—he didn’t have the money when my father bought this property from the Garrisons.”
    “Won’t Ellis miss his gardens, especially?”
    “I imagine so, but he’s become quite the amateur landscape designer—I’m sure he’d love to get his fingers into something new. And there’s not much more he can do here.”
    “But it wasn’t his idea to put the home on the market?”
    “He trusts my father on these matters.” Grace paused, then smiled as she moved on to a sun-filled garden “room” of peonies. “We all trust my father.”
    “He’s a smart man,” Abigail said.
    “That he is. And you—why are you here?”
    “In Maine? I’m painting.” She and Lou Beeler had agreed to limit the number of people they told about the anonymous call. “I’ve already been to the hardware store this morning.”
    “Good for you. I hope you’ll join us for lunch one day while you’re here. I’m sure my father would love to see you. And Linc’s here—”
    “I saw him on the steps while Mattie had a cigarette.”
    Grace rolled her eyes. “Mattie knows Ellis doesn’t allow smoking on the grounds. Well, Linc won’t tell.”
    “Neither will I. I’m not here to stir up trouble.”
    “Aren’t you?” But she added quickly, “I have to go. I have calls to make. Take all the time you want looking at the gardens. Ellis will be flattered.”
    “Congratulations on your appointment.”
    She brightened. “Thank you. I’m thrilled. It’s a tremendous honor, and I look forward to the work.” She started back to her uncle’s house, then stopped and glanced back. “It’s good to see you, Abigail. I mean that.”
    With Grace’s departure, Abigail walked over to a small garden shed at the far end of the yard. Mature herbs and tall wildflowers grew to its small, four-paned windows. As a young bride, new to Maine, new to Garrison wealth, Polly Garrison supposedly had insisted on keeping chickens.
    Abigail peeked behind the shed—sure enough, there was a boarded-up, chicken-sized door.
    Mattie Young dragged a hose toward the shed. “Hey, Abigail, how’s it going?”
    “Great. Beautiful day. You?”
    “Paying the bills.”
    “I was just talking to Grace. I hadn’t realized the Coopers were putting this place on the market.”
    “Not the Coopers. Daddy Jason.”
    “But Ellis—”
    “He goes along. Can’t afford to piss off big brother, you know?” Mattie coiled the hose into a heap under a water line at a corner of the shed. “Makes no difference to me. New owners will need a yardman.”
    Abigail didn’t respond. She’d lost patience with Mattie’s chronic bitterness and cynicism a long time ago. Even Chris, who’d stood by his childhood friend through one self-indulgent, self-destructive screwup after another, had finally written Mattie off after he didn’t show up for their wedding.
    “I hadn’t realized Linc was up here,” she said. “I saw you two talking—”
    “We’re allowed to talk.” He caught himself, stepping back from the house. “Sorry. It’s just—you’re a cop. Every time you ask a question, I think I’m being interrogated.”
    “That’s understandable,” she said, neutral.
    He picked at a mosquito bite on his wrist. “Linc’s at a loose end this summer. I think