“Then the informal rooms aren’t informal to her.”
One corner of Cabot’s mouth turned up. “That’s the question I’ve never been able to answer. She either sanctions them or she’s being worked around. I haven’t been able to tell which.”
He tried to explain further.
“At the large gatherings, there’s a rotation. The staff expands. It’s delegated to event coordinators from a firm in the South End that’s done their work for thirty years. People come in andout for setup, service, and breakdown. There’s a lot of noise and faces no one in the family knows by name. Someone could blend in if they understood the rhythm.”
“What about the private events?” I asked.
“It’s a smaller staff with familiar faces. Tighter circle, at least in theory.”
“But not in practice?”
He glanced at the shuttered window, then back at me. “There’s a gathering every August on Martha’s Vineyard, Edgartown side. No public announcements. It’s at the family compound on a private road off Katama.”
“Who attends?”
“Family plus a handful of long-standing associates. They are mostly people Eleanor has known since she was twenty-five and Pierce was alive. A few of the younger generation will bring spouses.”
“Who’s on staff?”
“It’s the core team. Maria, who runs the kitchen in Brookline, goes down with them. Her son, Thomas, sorts the logistics of arrivals. A woman from Quincy coordinates food prep on event days. Her name is Eileen.”
“It’s a controlled environment,” I said.
“It should be.”
“Was it?”
He didn’t answer right away. The radiator in the corner ticked and began to hiss.
“That’s where it felt off,” Cabot said.
“How?”
He shook his head. “I can’t point to one thing.”
“Try anyway.”
“Nobody was out of place. I didn’t see anyone I didn’t recognize from previous summers, except those I’d expected not to recognize: the new boyfriend of one of the cousins and thefreshman roommate of one of the kids attending Princeton.” He stopped and then started again. “People were moving differently.”
“Define differently.”
“Conversations were less chaotic than usual. Senior family members deferred to younger ones. Some conversations froze when certain people entered the room.”
“That’s not nothing,” I said.
“But it’s too vague to prove anything.”
“We don’t need proof to keep you alive. We need patterns.”
I pulled my notebook from my inside pocket, opened it to a clean page, and clicked my pen.
“Walk me through the August gathering. Where you were and where they were.”
“The terrace runs along the water side of the main house. Most of the gathering moves through there during the cocktail hour. The French doors are open. People drift between the terrace, the long room, and the kitchen hall.”
I sketched a rough floor plan as he spoke.