The Widow - Carla Neggers [20]
“Abigail—my apologies for not greeting you sooner. I wanted to finish in the garden and wash up before saying hello.” He put out a hand and shook hers warmly. “Wonderful to see you.”
“You, too, Ellis. I don’t think I’ve ever seen your gardens this gorgeous.”
“We had a cool spring. Everything seems to have blossomed at once. Did Grace give you the grand tour?”
“She did. I should let you all get back to your day. Is Linc still here? I haven’t had a chance to say hello—”
“He took off a few minutes ago,” Mattie said.
Ellis seemed faintly irritated at his yardman’s interruption, but he hooked his arm into Abigail’s, smiling at her. “I’ll walk with you. You came up the steps, didn’t you? I was worried the fog would settle in for a few days, but it blew out almost as fast as it blew in.”
When they reached the front of the house, he unhooked his arm from Abigail’s, and she grinned at him. “You’d have made a good bouncer in another life.”
He laughed. “I’m just a political consultant and gardener.”
“I don’t know how good a consultant you are, but you’re obviously quite the gardener.”
“Grace told you we’re selling the place? I could continue here forever, but I have to admit I’m excited about the prospect of a fresh start somewhere. Keeping up five acres of gardens is a huge responsibility. I’ve naturalized more and more in recent years, but it’s still a lot of work.”
“You and Mattie manage everything yourselves?”
“I bring in specialists from time to time. Mattie—well, you know what he’s like. He’s just reliable enough and just hardworking enough that I can’t fire him. I don’t think he’s drinking, not right now. The truth is, I feel sorry for him.” Ellis’s expression softened. “Chris’s death shattered him. He’s never been the same.”
“He’d started drinking again before Chris was killed.”
“True, but he was starting to turn himself around that summer—or so most of us thought. Hard to believe it’s been seven years. Jason thinks it’s been long enough not to affect prospective buyers. Even if Chris wasn’t killed on the property, it was close—” He stopped himself, looked stricken. “Oh, Abigail. I’m so sorry. I know it must seem like yesterday to you. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay, Ellis. Forget it.”
Abigail was accustomed to people getting tongue-tied around her. She wondered if it’d be different if she’d remarried, if she’d been older when she was widowed.
She said goodbye to Ellis and followed a shaded stone path surrounded by thyme to the steps. Abigail imagined Owen’s eccentric great-grandfather taking the time, the money and the energy to have the steps carved into the granite hillside—all to get to a teahouse. He wasn’t in the same league as his superrich Maine neighbors like the Rockefellers, but he’d had vision and optimism, a trait most people said his great-grandson shared, although Abigail doubted Edgar Garrison’d had a two-inch scar under his eye from a bar fight.
As she descended the zigzag of steps, a slight breeze stirring, Abigail wondered if she should give serious thought to selling her own Mt. Desert Island house. With Lou Beeler’s retirement in the fall, would the dozens of state and local detectives who’d worked on her husband’s seven-year-old murder continue? Who would have his dedication, his interest?
Was it time to give up Maine?
She pushed back the thought, jumping down the last stone step to the narrow, well-kept private road. Owen and the Coopers paid for upkeep. They’d never sent her a bill for so much as a dime. They could afford not to rent out their houses. Abigail couldn’t. Without the money from renting to cop friends, she wouldn’t have been able to afford the taxes, utilities, the occasional repair job.
Chris had never cared about money or social status. Before his death, everyone knew her father was slated to become the next director of the FBI. It hadn’t fazed Chris—he just didn’t think that way.
But other people did, and she