Murder in Merino Read online

  Nell knocked, then opened the door. Inside, all was bright and airy, skylights painting rectangles of light on the old pine floor. A white slipcovered chair near the corner windows held an open book, and the light beside the high four-poster bed was still on, signs of life. The guesthouse was a cozy, welcoming haven, a quiet spot away from the noisy Endicott clan, who had gathered there for decades each summer. And it continued to be exactly that. Nell suspected it had been the perfect place for Jules to be last night.

  Jules’s note was gracious, written on the thick stationery Nell left in the desk for guests to use. Tiny embossed shells decorated the corner. She’d gone for a very early run with a friend—her therapy, she wrote in parentheses. But she would be back to properly thank them for their generous hospitality and the best night’s sleep she had had in many days.

  It was signed Affectionately, Jules.

  • • •

  It wasn’t until she met up with Izzy, Birdie, and Cass on Merry Jackson’s deck later that morning that Nell wondered who Jules was meeting. She was happy that friends had already become a part of Jules’s days in Sea Harbor. It was what the town was all about and something Jules could certainly use right now.

  “How is she?” Izzy asked as she made room for Nell on the bench beside her. Birdie echoed concern and even Cass threw out a caring comment. She understood probably better than any of them what Jules was going through.

  Nell repeated Jules’s message and said they’d talked little after everyone left the night before. Jules was exhausted. They were in a wait-and-see mode, according to Ben, but he would be getting in touch with attorney friends who might be able to represent Jules if she was formally charged.

  “Murder, geesh,” Cass said. “This is a mess. It’s gone on too long.”

  Nell agreed. She looked around the deck to see who might be sitting nearby. They often met at Merry’s place on Saturday mornings when the weather was nice. Usually the deck was nearly empty at this time of day, one thing they liked about it. At noon it would be filled with people craving Merry’s burgers and at night it rocked, with area bands performing and Merry’s wall of beer bottles meeting everyone’s taste.

  But in the morning hours, the owner didn’t mind if people just came and sat, watching the fog burn off the harbor. Sit, gossip, work on laptops, knit. Merry was fine with any agenda, even those that didn’t include coffee and her homemade granola. Today Izzy and Cass had claimed a table beneath one of the trees that grew up through carved-out holes in the old wooden deck.

  But it was always good practice to check out the other tables, a practice that often dictated the flow of the conversation—what to say or not to say, when to keep some things to a whisper. Nell spotted Danny Brandley, and realized with a start that she was happy he was there, and not the friend who was running with Jules. He was sitting at his usual table, tucked away in a corner on the ocean side, right beside the back stairs that led down to an uneven dock that the artists claimed as their own. The coffee break dock, Ham Brewster called it.

  Danny was staring at his laptop screen, a large mug of coffee next to it. His writer’s expression was intense behind his glasses. She waved at him, but suspected he wasn’t aware of other living people as he hammered out another chapter or played with a plot.

  Several artists waved at them as they gulped down coffee and picked up Merry’s granola-to-go, then hurried back to their galleries to prepare for serious Saturday business. Merry appeared, one blond braid swinging between her narrow shoulder blades. Four coffee mugs hung from the fingers of one hand, and in the other the spirited owner carried a carafe of hot coffee. “Here you go, friends. I’ll be back for gossip later. Have to take a new batch of granola from the oven.” She waved and was off across the deck before they had a chance to say hello.

  Izzy took the carafe and filled their mugs with coffee, then pulled out a skein of orange yarn and the beginnings of a pumpkin hat she was making for Abby. She looked at Birdie. “What do you think of Jules?” she asked. The sudden question startled them all to attention.

  “That’s a layered question,” Birdie said carefully. “Are you asking me if I believe her when she says she didn’t kill Jeffrey Meara and that someone planted that garden glove in her car?” She reached down and took a half-finished pair of socks from her bag. Her purse project, she called it—soft and completely portable. These were for her granddaughter Gabby, stripes of orange and green and pink in soft sock yarn.

  “I guess that’s one of the layers.” Izzy looked around at the others. “It’s the one question that floated around in the air last night. I think each of us was trying to read one another’s mind. Did we buy her story? And if so, why? That glove was probably worn by the murderer. That’s serious stuff.”

  “I believe her,” Birdie said. She looked at Izzy. “I believe that’s layer number two.”

  Izzy nodded. “I believe her, too. I’m not sure why. But I do.”

  Cass thrummed her fingers on the table. She looked across the deck at Danny, then back again.

  Nell watched her thoughtful face. Cass was honest through and through, a trait that sometimes caused her great grief in a business where poachers were plentiful and lobster traps pilfered, where lines might be cut one day and the truth clouded over easily.

  “Yeah,” Cass said finally. “I don’t think she did it. She might be guilty of other things, but not murdering Jeffrey Meara. I’m not sure why I believe her, either, but there it is, for what it’s worth.”

  “If we knew more about her, we might not only believe her but be more sympathetic,” Nell said. “And if we’re going to help her out of this mess, maybe that’s the first thing we need to do.”

  Cass cleared her throat to get attention and Nell looked up.

  Jules Ainsley and Rebecca Early were walking up the steps to the deck, both in running gear and hair held back with wide headbands. Together, they were striking—the flyaway, dark-haired Jules, oblivious to her looks, and Rebecca Early, her platinum hair smooth as glass and nearly blinding in the morning sunlight. She looked around and spotted the table littered with yarn, nudged Jules and pointed, and together they headed toward the table.

  The blown-glass artist had come to Sea Harbor several years before and had barely set up Lampworks Gallery when she began winning awards for her amazing pieces. It was Nell’s favorite place to shop for birthday and holiday gifts, and over the years she had become fond of the platinum-haired woman, too, even though her temperament sometimes put her at odds with others working in Canary Cove. She was simply opinionated, Ben said. And certainly nice to look at.

  Today, in running shorts and a bright pink Lululemon Bitty Bracer, Rebecca was turning heads. And, unlike the woman beside her wiping away the perspiration from her forehead, she was enjoying the attention.

  “It’s time for Jules to try Merry’s homemade granola,” Rebecca announced. “She needs to eat better.” Her words came out in starts and stops as she caught her breath. She looked at Jules. “Okay, I’m off to shower and open the gallery. The granola is on its way—you need the protein right now.” She paused, then said softly, “You’ll call me if you need anything?”

  Nell heard the concern in her voice and watched Jules nod as Rebecca headed across the deck. Though younger than Jules by a few years, Rebecca had clearly taken charge, and her concern for Jules’s plight was nice to see.

  “How did you sleep?” Nell scooted over on the bench so Jules could sit down.

  Before she could answer, Merry appeared with granola, a spoon, and another cup of coffee. “You’ll love it, Jules,” she said, and hurried off.

  “I didn’t think I would sleep much. But that breeze off the water and the most amazing bed I’ve ever slept in were pure tonic. Images of police warrants and garden gloves flew out the window the instant I hit those down pillows.”

  “That’s good—and not a surprise,” Birdie sa
id. “Nell’s little cottage has magical powers.”

  Jules’s smile was weak, and the sleep she claimed to have gotten didn’t erase the exhaustion in her eyes. “I need some magic,” she said, fiddling with her necklace chain. The tiny embossed seashell on the charm would be rubbed smooth soon if things didn’t settle down. The confident woman who had jogged the streets of Sea Harbor and put strangers under the spell of her smile had been swallowed whole in less than a day. Even finding Jeffrey’s dead body hadn’t done to her what a garden glove had accomplished.

  They heard Danny’s voice before they saw him. “Any coffee left in that carafe?” An empty mug appeared next to Birdie’s shoulder.

  She patted the bench beside her. “Sit with us, Danny.” She filled his mug while he swung one long leg over the bench, straddling it. He dropped his backpack on the floor and looked across the table at Jules. “How are you feeling today?”

  “Unraveled,” she said quietly, her dark brows lifting with her words.

  “Sure,” Danny said. “Stands to reason.”

  “I came here with such good intentions, and now here I am, a mess. So that’s how I feel, as if my life has become a messy ball of yarn.”

  “What were those good intentions?” Nell asked. Her voice was soft, unthreatening, but holding a question they’d all been reluctant to ask. “Most people come to Sea Harbor to relax, to enjoy the beaches, the ocean, the sea air. Why did you come?”

  Danny’s eyes remained on Jules’s, holding her to Nell’s question. She returned his gaze, almost as if asking his opinion. Then she nodded, as if it were time she took charge of her own intentions—especially with people who had offered her support.

  “I came here to find out who I really am. I came here to find my father,” she said.

  Chapter 22

  A brief silence met Jules’s reply. It wasn’t what any of them had expected, but it wasn’t a completely startling story. People wanted to know who brought them into the world, from whom they’d come. Even Sam Perry had once journeyed back to Colorado and Kansas to find his roots. But nevertheless, it wasn’t what they were expecting. Not today.

  Birdie broke the silence. “That’s interesting. Have you found him? Does he live here?”

  Jules looked over at Danny again, as if the answer would come from him. He straddled the bench, listening, but offered no comment.

  “No,” Jules said. “I haven’t found him yet. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. I told Danny why I came here, but I asked him not to tell anyone.”

  “Why?” Izzy asked. “Wouldn’t telling people make it easier to find whomever you’re looking for?”

  “I thought the same thing,” Danny said. “Especially since the time I was spending with Jules was raising eyebrows.”

  Jules looked genuinely puzzled. “What do you mean, raising eyebrows? Why?”

  Nell swallowed her surprise. Jules clearly didn’t know how her behavior was interpreted. “Because you are a very nice-looking woman and Danny is a handsome guy,” she said. “And suddenly you were asking him to meet you for drinks or talks or walks. Danny’s right. It raised eyebrows.”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” Jules said. The words came out forcefully. She stared at Danny. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  He shrugged. “I am a well-trained secret keeper. Years of investigative reporting will do that to a person. And frankly, I thought I did explain it as well as it needed to be explained. You asked me for help, and I was trying to give it to you. That was what I told people.”

  Nell listened to the exchange, and then watched the others listening to it. Cass’s eyes were on her coffee, her face unreadable. His comment was pointed at all of them, of course. That was the explanation Danny had given each of them in one way or another. And none of them had believed him. At least not entirely or with great assurance.

  “Izzy has a good point,” Birdie said, shifting the conversation. “Why were you keeping it a secret? People on Cape Ann know each other. Some have lived here all their lives. If your father was from around here, someone probably knows him or at the least could lead you to someone else who might be able to help you find him.”

  Jules was quiet for a minute, as if wondering how much of her life she wanted to pour out on the table. Finally she said, “I think my father might have done something bad. He might have been a criminal. That’s not something you readily tell people, especially people you don’t know. And I don’t even know his name. So asking for help when the information I have to start with is so scanty would definitely make people wonder about me.”

  “But you told Danny,” Izzy said.

  “Because I didn’t have a clue where to start. I was messing around in the bookstore, looking for something that might help me, and his dad told me that Danny had done investigative reporting and that he was an expert at tracking things down. Danny agreed to meet with me, and he’s been giving me a list of places to start—court records, mapping dates, checking old newspapers. My hope is something will pop out at me. I was beginning to do that when this . . . when the murder happened. And then the glove.”

  Nell watched Cass’s face as Jules talked. She was listening carefully.

  “What did your mother tell you about your father?” Cass asked.

  “Not much at all. She had a terrible time talking about it, as if she was the one who had done something wrong. I think whatever happened crushed her. My mother was always a religious person, a good person with very high standards. Her church was very important to her, and she saw the world in black and white. When I’d try to bring up my father, she would insist that my life began when Gordon Ainsley adopted me and gave both of us his name. My father was dead to her.”

  “Why do you think your father did something wrong?”

  “It was always there, lurking beneath her words—what few there were—that this man she had conceived a child with had done something shameful, and she didn’t want me touched by it. Sometimes I had the feeling she didn’t really believe it herself, but was repeating what she had to repeat to live with herself. And maybe to protect me.

  “Because she was so reluctant to talk about it over the years, I settled for reading emotions, expressions, innuendos, storing them all away. I am fairly sure he isn’t alive, but even that wasn’t made clear to me.”

  “What name is on your birth certificate?” Izzy asked.

  “My mother’s name. Johnson. Father unknown.”

  “The second most common name in the United States,” Danny said. “A needle in a haystack, especially if he wasn’t a resident of Sea Harbor. It was summer. He could have been vacationing here.”

  “So they met here one summer, do you think? Where was your mother from?” Izzy asked.

  “She was raised in the Chicago area. I don’t even know if my father was from here—like Danny said, he could have come up for a job, like she did. I found some old papers in a box after she died, things from her college years—she went to Bryn Mawr. And apparently one summer she got a job on Cape Ann. She worked at a resort that burned down a few years later.”

  “Lots of us did that,” Izzy said. “We got jobs at ocean resorts during summer breaks, waitressing or lifeguarding or whatever.” She laughed. “Especially those of us who didn’t want to go back to the sizzling Midwest, where there was no ocean in sight.”

  “But my mother didn’t just wait tables or whatever it was she was paid to do that summer. She got pregnant.”

  They all listened, thinking back to their own summer college breaks. Summer meant freedom. Fun. Parties. Crazy times when falling in love was as easy as skinny-dipping on a hot summer night. They wondered where Jules’s story was going and exactly how it had brought her here to Sea Harbor, all these years later.

  “So you know your father was here that summer, at least,” Birdie said.

  She nodded. “Yes. I have been living with my
imaginings of what happened that summer for a long time, wondering, wanting answers, piecing things together. And then, when my mother was dying, I realized that any answers would be up to me to find. So much of it didn’t make sense, knowing my mother as well as I did. Like I said, she was a good person; she always did the right thing. Not like her daughter—” Jules managed a short laugh. “And I know that she wouldn’t have hopped in bed with just anyone. So whatever happened that summer, I feel sure that my mother loved the man who fathered me.”

  Izzy leaned forward. “Would she have fallen in love with a criminal or someone who had done something bad?” She spoke gently, the voice she might have used as a lawyer preparing a client for trial, guiding her through any inconsistencies in her testimony. Helping her understand clearly what she was saying.

  Jules toyed with the flaw in her own reasoning. “No. And that’s a contradiction, I know. It’s one of the things that has baffled me. Her parents were very powerful, strict people. They took over her life. And whenever I would ask about the past, my mother left me with few answers, but always with the impression that trying to revisit the past would only leave me with heartache.” She stirred her coffee, then looked up, her brown eyes thoughtful. “But somehow I don’t think that’s what I’ll find.”

  “What do you think you will find?” Birdie asked.

  “I think I will find a love story.”

  She spoke softly, but in her words they sensed the hope that had brought Jules Ainsley to Sea Harbor. Birdie leaned forward, reaching across the table and placing her blue-veined hand on top of Jules’s. “I’m all for love stories. If it’s there, we will help you find it, my dear,” she said.

  Danny sat quietly, tracing a line in the weathered picnic table with the end of his finger.