The Summer Guests

The Martini Club goes to the ravine to search for clues. It is a difficult hike along the Stony Creek Trail. They wonder why, if Zoe was taken from the pond, the abductor did not try to get rid of her body in the water. Declan spots Zoe’s goggles dangling from a tree and climbs up to retrieve them. However, the tree branch breaks, and he falls.

As Susan sits by Zoe’s bedside in the hospital, Elizabeth asks to sit with her. Susan tells Elizabeth that the doctors have put Zoe into a medical coma while she heals. Elizabeth tells Susan that Kit was often in the hospital when he was young. She says he “improved for a bit, after they hired a nanny” but that after Anna left his health declined again (203). She notes that Brooke is overprotective of Kit. 

Elizabeth eventually takes Susan home for food and a change of clothes. While at the house, Susan sees another excerpt of Ethan’s manuscript and realizes that he is writing about a girl who disappeared. She is horrified, thinking that he is writing about Zoe, and confronts him. He tells her that they are his notes from his interview with Hannah Greene about the disappearance of Vivian Stillwater. He explains that Vivian worked for Dr. Greene, Hannah’s father. He tears up his notes to show that “what [he] wrote had nothing to do with Zoe” (207), but Susan feels skeptical of his claims.

Declan stays at Maggie’s house while his leg, which broke when he fell from the tree, heals. They have been friends for 40 years and are comfortable flirting, but Maggie is wary of committing to a relationship after the death of her husband, Danny. Nevertheless, they kiss on the couch.

Then, Jo arrives. They discuss the case. Jo notes that one of Zoe’s gold stud earrings was missing when they found her. Lloyd and Ingrid also come over and report that Ben is setting up security cameras at the hospital. Over dinner, Maggie tells Jo that the backpack was likely planted on the highway to lead investigators to believe that the abductor had left town. She suspects the criminal was trying to lead them away from Maiden Pond to prevent the discovery of the skeletal remains. Jo says she found Vivian Stillwater’s case file but that it was closed because Vivian had been found. Nevertheless, Maggie requests that Jo send her the case file. Ingrid recommends that Jo review Zoe’s Facebook page again. The Martini Club believes that the Conovers, the Greenes, Arthur Fox, and Vivan Stillwater all came to Maiden Pond for the same reason, as they all arrived “within a year of each other” (218).

Jo and her brother, Finn, eat dinner at their father, Owen’s, house. Jo tells Finn that Zoe wrote about training in apnea diving on her Facebook. Finn explains that apnea diving is a form of free diving where a person dives without breathing equipment, fins, or weights. Finn says that it is likely that, if she was training, Zoe could have dived to the bottom of the 21-foot-deep pond without problems. Jo thinks that Zoe found the skeleton and that someone tried to silence her about the discovery.

Jo visits Susan and Zoe in the hospital, and Susan confirms that Zoe could dive up to 30 feet in salt water. Jo tells Susan her theory of the case. Susan advises Jo to contact Elizabeth Conover, her mother-in-law, about the disappearance of Vivan Stillwater, Hannah Greene’s father’s “secretary.”

Elizabeth is incensed that Susan has “dragg[ed]” her into a murder investigation. She is also furious to learn that Ethan is writing a novel based on Vivian’s disappearance. Elizabeth accuses them of not having sufficient loyalty to the family. Angry, Susan walks out of the house as a summer storm kicks up. 

Susan is standing at the boat ramp when Arthur Fox pulls up and offers her a ride to the hospital, which she accepts. Arthur tells Susan that the topic of Vivian is sensitive for Elizabeth because George Conover, Elizabeth’s late husband, had an affair with Vivian. After Elizabeth discovered the affair, Mrs. Greene had her husband fire Vivian. Vivian packed up and left soon after, never to be seen again. Arthur advises Susan that “some family secrets are best left buried” (234).

Maggie and Declan go to see Vivian’s sister, Catherine Wedge (née Stillwater). Cathy is an elderly woman living in a retirement community in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Cathy tells them that at the time Vivian went missing, she was planning to drive to Boston to spend a few days with Catherine; she would then go on to Washington, DC, for a new job. However, Vivian never arrived in Boston. Two days later, Cathy learned that Vivan was in a coma in a New Hampshire hospital. She died three years later without ever regaining consciousness.

Maggie and Declan realize that the remains from the lake are not Vivian’s. Cathy explains that Vivian ended up in the hospital under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Her car was found in a ditch, and Vivian herself was wandering barefoot a few miles away when a car hit her. She had no identification on her. Cathy says Vivian worked for “some government research institute in Washington” as a neurochemist (244). Her work in Maine had “something to do with testing pharmaceuticals” (245).

On the drive home, Maggie tells Declan that Vivian’s records were deliberately erased, which is why they could not find anything about her. She now knows for whom Vivian, the Conovers, the Greenes, and Arthur Fox worked.

After interviewing Betty Jones, a local realtor, Declan has learned that Hannah Greene’s parents bought the house on Maiden Pond in 1968 and that the Conovers moved next door nine months later. The very fit, if elderly, Arthur Fox has never married. He worked in US Army Intelligence and “energy consulting” before retirement.

Maggie and Declan go to interview Reuben Tarkin to learn more about his feud with the Conovers. Reuben takes Maggie to an abandoned property surrounded by “No Trespassing” signs. He tells her that “they” would pay people $50 to visit “The Lodge,” where they would be given drugs as part of experiments. Elizabeth Conover recruited Sam Tarkin, Reuben’s father, to the project. Later, Dr. Greene agreed to cover the Tarkins’ basic needs as long as they did not report the fact that it was the drugs the Conovers and Dr. Greene had given Sam that caused him to have a “psychotic break.” Maggie warns Reuben that if they go public with this information, he could lose his settlement money. However, Reuben says that after 53 years, he is ready to go public.