Safe Harbor A Murder in Nantucket

Chapter One Tom Lochtefeld stood on the Forty-second Street side of the New York Public Library and glanced at his watch. It was late October, and the first of the huge golden leaves from the London plane trees that line Bryant Park gently swirled to the ground. Rush hour had started to wane. It was nearly six. The last of New York City's daytime workforce rushed past him, some disappearing into the subway station, others hurrying down the street toward Grand Central Terminal and trains to the suburbs. He looked again at his watch. His sister was running a little late. Tom hadn't seen Beth in about six months. Not really that long, considering their circumstances. Tom worked for a Japanese bank in midtown. His was the harried life of a Metro North rail commuter with a family in Connecticut. Beth had no such parental duties. In fact, she had very few attachments at all. It had been a year and a half since she sold her architectural consulting business. She was subletting the apartment she owned in Greenwich Village and renting a cottage on Nantucket. But she was traveling a lot, to California and Europe. She sponsored a chair at the Allen Room, Jazz at Lincoln Center, but, just recently, a trip to Seville, Spain, to see an open-air performance of Carmen had fallen through. She was also trying to sell a book project containing her father's artwork, a book for which she had written the accompanying text. And then there was romance. At forty-four, Beth was still single, but, finally, that status looked as though it might change. More than at any other time in her life, a life that she had lived as though she were in a hurry, a life that was by turns joyously brimming and hauntingly lonely, Beth was available for marriage. Tom Lochtefeld saw her rushing toward him along the crowded sidewalk. She was smiling that thousand-watt smile of hers that always made him feel like a little brother: safe and comfortable. Beth looks great, he thought to himself. She did look good, in the best shape of her adult life. She had been taking classes in aikido, a martial arts discipline, for a year, and had lost over twenty pounds. Her hair was cut short and blond, a color that suited her. The sea air, California's and Nantucket's, gave her a healthy hue. Some of Beth's friends thought it was love Beth radiated. Brother Tom wasn't so sure. Beth had called her younger brother several times over the previous month or so about Tom Toolan. At first, his sister's tone was enthusiastic. She bubbled about the relationship. "He's so honest," she had said to her brother. "So forthright." But Toolan's honesty might have been part of a carefully crafted persona. Toolan was a man of acquaintances by design. He liked his secrets. No one, it seemed, knew the whole story of Tom Toolan. He did tell Beth about embarrassing moments from his past, like the time he was arrested for stealing a sixty-pound sculpture from an art show. Toolan, drinking heavily that evening, had slipped the sculpture under his coat and tried to walk out the door. He was spotted by a guard and arrested. In court, his lawyer's defense was that it was a drunken prank. Maybe. But the statue was worth eighty thousand dollars. The story became part of an affected repertoire, delivered with just the right amount of self-deprecation, humility, or humor, depending on the audience. He'd bragged about stealing the sculpture in a bar called the Dublin House, a place where he was a regular. He told the story humbly in group therapy, knowing full well the attention and sympathy he would garner. Toolan used honesty as a device. uuu In subsequent phone calls to her brother, Beth was less enthusiastic about tMcDonald, Brian is the author of 'Safe Harbor A Murder in Nantucket', published 2006 under ISBN 9780312358754 and ISBN 031235875X.