Murder in Merino Page 10

  Jeffery was a man who had never left his hometown for longer than a honeymoon trip to Nantucket, a fishing trip in the White Mountains, and infrequent errands in the city—certainly not places or events where one went out of his way to make enemies—so his murderer was likely a resident of Sea Harbor, Massachusetts. Someone they knew. Perhaps someone seated in Gracie’s lobster shack that very night, listening to the Fractured Fish play a medley of old Beatles tunes.

  Ben looked over the papers Izzy handed him while Sam flagged down a waitress and ordered Gracie’s lobster special for the table.

  “Did you see this, Sam?” Ben asked. He pointed to a line in the offer.

  Sam’s eyes widened. “I missed that.”

  “It’s a cash offer,” Ben explained to the others. “Not unheard of, but a little surprising.” He moved aside several water glasses so the waitress could fit a plate of crab-stuffed mushrooms and a pitcher of beer on the table.

  “Especially for someone who has never seen the house,” Izzy said. “The offer is more than generous. In fact, it seems wrong to sell it for that price. I can’t imagine how Jules can afford it. Mary Pisano got the impression money might be tight for her.”

  “The offer looks legitimate. Earnest money and all, and it doesn’t sound like Jules cares much what an inspection might turn up,” Sam said.

  Ham Brewster stroked his beard. “I dunno. It somehow seems disrespectful. Not that it makes a lot of logical sense, I suppose. But the property is a crime scene right now. A man died there. Can’t she wait until we’ve gotten through these next few days?”

  Izzy nodded. “I’m with you, Ham.”

  “I am, too,” Ben said. “Let’s get through the next few days, do what we can for Maeve. Try to deal with the rumors that will surely begin to fly with Monday’s paper and the workweek beginning.” He looked at Sam and Izzy. “It’s something you don’t need to deal with this weekend.”

  “Wednesday,” Sam said. “Jules had Stella write in that the offer was good until Wednesday.”

  “Geesh,” Cass said, then hid her own thoughts behind a frosty mug of beer.

  Two waitresses appeared with the lobster special served family style—bright red lobsters, baked potatoes with sour cream, coleslaw, and Gracie’s famous garlic bread. A pile of lobster utensils sitting on top of plastic bibs filled a basket at the end of the table.

  Nell sat at the one end, her back to the wall, listening to the hum of conversation around her but only tuning in to bits and pieces. Concentration didn’t come easily and she finally gave up, letting the Fractured Fish music take over.

  She was surprised at the number of people filing into Gracie’s tonight. Perhaps it was the same need she and Ben had felt. Not a desire to go out for fun or food, really. But to be in the gentle embrace of friends.

  She looked around and spotted the mayor at a table near the deck, sitting with his wife and the Pisanos—Mary and her husband, Ed. A mayor, his wealthy wife, a bed-and-breakfast owner, a fisherman. It was one of the things Nell loved about Sea Harbor: the blurred lines of social standing.

  Stan looked tired, Nell thought. The campaign was getting to him. Karen rested a hand on his sleeve, a sweet gesture, even from where Nell sat. Stan was exceedingly handsome, she thought, realizing she rarely had the opportunity to observe him like this—quietly, discreetly. Next to him, Karen’s pleasant appearance was almost diminished, but her presence always carried a certain control. A helpmate, a perfect first lady—roles she seemed to cherish.

  Izzy followed her aunt’s look. “Do you suppose Beatrice is here?” And then they both spotted the councilwoman at the same time. Her bright green dress was difficult to miss. She was sitting with Rachel and Don Wooten and another councilman Nell knew only slightly. Their conversation looked to be engaging, though somber, to all except for Don, who sat slightly removed from the others, nursing a beer.

  Thinking of his partner, Nell thought. This would be a difficult time for Don. The angry exchange she had overheard came back to her as she watched a range of emotion wash across his face—sadness, frustration, weariness. The unpleasant encounter he’d had with Jeffrey would make this all even more difficult for him, to have had such unpleasant words with Jeffrey and then have him gone so tragically.

  She didn’t see Jules Ainsley in the small café and felt a momentary twinge at forgetting about her. No matter what she and Birdie had seen that morning, one didn’t easily erase the image of finding a murdered body. Nell knew firsthand what that was like, about the haunting images that appeared at the least-expected moment. Jules couldn’t be immune to that, however it might have seemed. And unlike those sitting around Nell’s table, unlike Stella Palazola and others so intimately connected to this crime, Jules had no one to comfort her.

  Nell pivoted toward Cass, sitting next to her, her chair slightly turned. She, too, had removed herself from the conversation and seemed to be wrapping herself up in the music, her meal untouched. Not a usual scenario for Cass.

  Nell leaned over and asked softly, “Where’s Danny tonight?”

  “He said he’d stop in later. He had something to do first.” Cass’s eyes remained on the band, her fingers strumming on the table along with her brother’s guitar. Finally she scooted her chair closer to Nell’s and looked at her, her palms flat on the table. “He went over to Mary’s B and B. He said it was the right thing to do—Jules doesn’t know a lot of people in town.”

  “Maybe it was the right thing to do.”

  Cass’s fingers began their light tapping again. “Maybe.”

  “It had to be awful for her, finding the body like that.”

  “If that’s what happened,” Cass said.

  “What do you mean?” Nell picked a piece of lobster meat from the shell and dipped it in a pot of lemon butter.

  “I don’t know what I mean. But why would Jeffrey call her and insist she meet with him like that? It doesn’t make sense. It sounds . . . it sounds made up.”

  Nell had played with the same thought, but excused it by admitting that Jeffrey was looking strangely at Jules that night at the Ocean’s Edge. Izzy said she’d noticed the same thing. It could have been for the same reason a lot of people looked at Jules—she was striking looking, attractive in an unusual way. She turned heads. But when she replayed the scene, she realized it was a different kind of look the bartender had sent Jules’s way. It’s why Jules thought the bartender was odd. It was as if he had seen her before and was trying to figure out where. “There are certainly missing pieces,” Nell admitted. “And it’s true we don’t know Jules very well, but she certainly seems like a straight shooter, even when it might not be to her advantage. I can’t imagine why she’d lie about this. Besides, all the police have to do is check Jeffrey’s cell phone.”

  Danny Brandley’s long shadow fell over the table. “Mind if I sit?” He squeezed a chair in next to Cass, greeted the others at the table, and then turned toward Nell and Cass. His face was somber. “I caught the end of your conversation. You’re talking about Jules.”

  “Cass said you went to see her. How is she?” Nell asked.

  “She’s a survivor, that’s for sure. And it’s a good thing, I guess. She sure didn’t plan on all this when she came to Sea Harbor.”

  “What did she plan on?” Cass asked. Her layered message was carried in the hard tone of her voice.

  Danny took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He ignored the tone in Cass’s voice. “That’s the question, isn’t it? I don’t know for sure. Originally she just wanted my help finding out how to access old records, that sort of thing. She wanted to know more about the town, she said, and she figured since I was an investigative reporter I should know how to do those things.”

  “What was she looking for?”

  “Just things about the town, its history, maybe some genealogy stuff, she said.” He took a pair of tongs
and transferred a lobster from the platter to his plate. “And she asked me not to talk about it, so I didn’t.”

  “But why?” Nell asked.

  “At first I thought it was because she was on a wild goose chase and didn’t see any reason for the whole town to know it.”

  “And now?”

  “I don’t pretend to understand Jules. But . . .”

  “But?” Nell said.

  Danny took a long swig of beer before he answered. “But now I think she’s afraid of what she might find.”

  Chapter 14

  Monday. That was the day that Ben predicted the rumor rock would start to roll down the mountain, gathering moss. The weekend was for absorbing the sad news that Jeffrey Meara was dead. The beginning of a new week would bring out other things.

  And so it did—the harsh, relentless dissection of a crime that rocked a town, by folks desperate for it to be solved.

  The first thing Monday’s Sea Harbor Gazette did was give the murderer a name:

  POTTING SHED MURDERER LEAVES FEW CLUES

  Nell folded the paper to the article and smoothed it out on the yacht club dining table.

  “Potting shed murderer?” Nell said, looking up from the paper. She stared again at the headline. “That’s ridiculous.”

  A couple sitting at the next table looked over, then quickly went back to their tuna salad.

  “Read on,” Ben said. His voice was controlled, but the set to his jaw told Nell exactly how he felt about the press coverage so far.

  It was the tagline that would give legs to a rash of rumors and that caused Ben to swear, something he rarely did in public.

  UNREST AT THE OCEAN’S EDGE: FACT OR FICTION?

  The article itself contained little that related to the tagline, except for innuendos, things culled from an ambitious young reporter’s interviews with a few friends who worked at the restaurant. Seeds that would soon grow wings.

  “What does Jerry Thompson think about this?” Nell asked Ben. “He was at your meeting this morning, right?”

  At first, Ben didn’t answer. He finished off his glass of iced tea and pushed away his plate, empty now except for a few remnants of lettuce. He looked out over the ocean, peaceful and calm, the waves lapping up on the club’s carefully tended beach. All around them, yacht club diners lunched on lobster rolls and salads, fish and chips, while waiters scurried about the flagstone patio refreshing drinks and pushing the dessert cart from table to table.

  It was an idyllic setting, masking a cloud of fear.

  “No,” Ben finally said. “He was invited, but brainstorming programs for Sea Harbor at-risk youth—as important as it is—was probably not high on his to-do list today. But Don Wooten was there. He asked if I’d have coffee with him afterward. He was upset.”

  “Because of the article?”

  Ben nodded. “But it was more than that. Even though the reporter did a mediocre reporting job, there’s some truth to it.”

  “Unrest at Jeffrey and Don’s restaurant? What does that mean?” Birdie asked. She nibbled on a sliver of pretzel bread.

  Nell’s thoughts turned to that recent Sunday night when an argument had trapped her in the restaurant’s back hallway.

  “Partnerships can be tricky,” Ben said. “Even when you know your partner well.”

  “But as you yourself said, tricky partnerships are a part of business. They don’t merit a tagline in an article about a murder investigation.” Birdie motioned to the waitress that they were ready for dessert. “I feel a need for sweetness,” she said.

  Ben allowed a half smile and pointed to the fruit cup for himself. Birdie and Nell would split an enormous slice of lemon cake.

  “They were friends,” Nell said.

  Ben agreed. “But the previous owner of the Edge was an absent landlord for the most part. He lived in Boston and rarely came up here. He let Jeffrey pretty much run the show, making big decisions, signing supplier contracts, hiring people, the whole shebang. When he and Don bought the old man out, it changed things. They’re cut from different molds. Don, with his Harvard MBA and business successes, and Jeffrey, the longtime bartender who knows everyone and everything, and who pretty much considered the restaurant as his own. Don said they’ve had some heated exchanges about major things, like vendors and accounting practices.”

  “But what difference does any of that make? It certainly doesn’t fit in an article about a murder,” Nell said.

  “You’re right. It shouldn’t be there—at least not until there’s something concrete to say about it. But when there’s been a murder, everyone who has ever had anything to do with Jeffrey will be in the limelight. His partner would be among the first, I’d guess.”

  “I suppose that makes sense, awful as it is,” Birdie said.

  “The police are already exploring it. They told Don to come down to headquarters for questioning today. I tried to convince him that it’s routine, but it’s still damn unnerving. I think he just needed someone to talk to, to hear himself think it through.”

  Nell knew that was an understatement. Ben Endicott had many friends, and the chief of police just happened to be one of them. It also didn’t hurt that he had both a law degree and a business degree and was fair and honest to the core. His strength was in his kindness, and he had helped many friends in matters from negotiating contracts and deeds and wills to listening to personal issues and offering wise moral support.

  “Poor Rachel. How upsetting for her,” Birdie said. She moved her glass as the waitress brought dessert plates to the table.

  “I don’t think he’s told her yet. He’ll get the questioning over with first. I told him I’d go over with him this afternoon.”

  “Not much escapes her, working in City Hall,” Nell said. “She’ll know soon.” She cut into the rich lemon cake.

  “Well, she’s a smart attorney. She’ll see it for what it is.” Ben speared a strawberry out of the parfait dish. “She’s known Jeffrey since childhood. His death will be hard for her.”

  “It makes me wonder how many of our friends will be touched by this. Mourning Jeffrey or being suspects. It’s insidious,” Birdie said. “And entirely too close to home. A good friend, murdered. Our dear Izzy and Sam’s house sullied in such a terrible way. Don Wooten being called into the police station and questioned. And imagine what Jules and Stella are going through. Who is next?”

  It was a rhetorical question, of course. Who would be affected next by this senseless crime? It was a question Birdie really didn’t want an answer to—unless that answer was no one.

  It would all go away, and they’d wake up and have their ordinary lives back in place again.

  Chapter 15

  The church service was set for Wednesday.

  Maeve Meara wanted it to be held as soon as possible. There were no out-of-town relatives to wait for, and she wanted her Jeffrey’s spirit at peace, wanted the blessings Father Northcutt’s service would bring to his soul.

  It would have to be a memorial service, the priest explained, because it would take a while to get the body released, and that was fine with Maeve.

  So Mary Halloran, the parish secretary, managed to move schedules, contact florists, undertakers, and cemetery folks, and made sure the Altar Society ladies would have plenty of food at the church hall reception afterward. It would be something Jeffrey would have been proud was held in his memory. “You know my helper won’t settle for anything but the best,” Father Larry told Maeve, then added in a whisper, “Sometimes I think Mary Halloran only keeps me around for comic relief.” And then he kissed her gently on the top of her head.

  They all knew it to be true. Cass’s ma was truly the power behind keeping Our Lady of Safe Seas functional and efficient, and she left no detail to chance for her friends Maeve and Jeffrey Meara.

  Don Wooten had offered to have a reception after the memo
rial at the Ocean’s Edge, but Maeve thought that was an inappropriate venue, no matter how much her Jeffrey loved his bar, his beer, and his signature drinks. The church meant prayers and comfort. That was where it should be. That was where he should be, she’d added with some emphasis.

  “This is Maeve’s big chance to get him into the church,” Father Northcutt said with a hint of a smile.

  Wednesday dawned bright and glorious, a day that brought out nearly the whole town to listen to the priest’s kind words and humorous anecdotes. Close friends mixed with the curious, the well intentioned, and some who didn’t want to miss out on the bountiful reception in the basement of the church.

  Father Larry closed his eulogy with words that Maeve herself had handed him that morning, handwritten on a piece of linen stationery. They were words that would serve the devout woman well in the days to come:

  My dear Jeffrey loved life, loved all of you here today, and loved me with his whole heart. He lived a wonderful, full life, filled with good friends. He wanted for nothing. He did what he loved doing: watching the sun come up out of the ocean, making me popcorn and watching every single Star Trek movie six times, reading his favorite philosophers in front of a roaring fire. He enjoyed beating our police chief at poker and working at his bar, where he knew every single customer’s name. He did what he loved—all those things that filled his life with happiness.

  How many people live much longer than my darling Jeffrey did and yet never experience that kind of love and joy? Jeffrey’s life was glorious—and for that we cannot be sad. We can only be grateful.

  Thanks be to the good Lord.

  With that Father Northcutt completed his prayers and walked with Jeffrey’s widow down the long aisle to the hall below.