Murder in Merino (17 page)

There were plenty of framed photos of Jeffrey holding giant fish down on the pier, of his bartender licenses right alongside an old National Honor Society membership certificate, and a photo of him on his first day on the job at the Ocean’s Edge. Maeve had even put his high school graduation diploma in the mix. It was on a top shelf so he couldn’t get it down easily and pitch it, she explained smugly.

Next to it was his senior photo in cap and gown with “Class Valedictorian” written below it in gold script. A collage of black-and-white photos was also on the top shelf, one with the words “Cool Cods” written in block letters in the center of the picture with an array of black-and-white photos displayed around it—the kind of page kids put together for a yearbook ad.

“Cool Cods,” Nell murmured. “I’ve heard that recently.”

“It used to be the high school motto—even back when I was a student at Sea Harbor High a millennium ago.”

Birdie smiled. “No, dear. Millennium history is mine.”

Maeve chuckled.

“I remember now where I heard it,” Nell said. “We were talking with Jeffrey at the Edge one night and Stan Hanson came in.”

“Our mayor. A very nice man,” Maeve said.

“He and Jeffrey greeted each other with nicknames that night,” Nell said, trying to remember what they were. “Yes, I remember now. Jeffo and Sage. Apparently they were old high school friends?”

Maeve mulled over the nicknames. “Now that’s interesting, isn’t it? I never heard Jeffrey called that. As for the mayor, I suppose it fits—he appears to be a wise man. Those names must have been left behind when they all grew up. But then, I was far enough ahead of Jeffrey in school that I wouldn’t have paid much attention to his friends or nicknames. You know how those things go. Underclassmen were so
irrelevant
.” She laughed.

“So you think Jeffrey and the mayor’s friendship wasn’t one that lasted into adulthood?”

“That happens. But sometimes the affection lasts even when the friendship doesn’t survive maturity. They were good friends a long time ago, Jeffrey told me once. And Mayor Hanson was clearly moved at Jeffrey’s funeral.” Maeve frowned as she explored the relationship between the two men. “Yes, good friends, I think. Yes. But in later years, not so much. But then, Jeffrey and I were a bit odd in our social life. Together, in this little house, we were somewhat cloistered. When we stepped outside these doors, we entered into our almost separate worlds; when we came back together we brought with us the best of where we had been and simply enjoyed each other. It worked for us. Jeffrey did so much socializing at the Ocean’s Edge that I think he was happy to put it all behind him when he got home and settle in with me and with his books. It worked for me, too. I had my Altar Society and the women’s guild. Helping at the soup kitchen downtown. My bridge group. And at home I had Jeffrey. A long answer for a rather easy question, isn’t it? Sometimes I ramble.” Maeve’s smile was apologetic, but she was clearly enjoying herself and her chance to share.

Nell thought back to the day she’d walked Abby over the bridge and spotted Stan and Jeffrey down below, sitting on a bench in an out-of-the-way place, deep in conversation, the way friends would do. It was a serious conversation, not a casual catch-up—that much she had been sure of. And Stan’s emotional reaction at the funeral. Perhaps old memories, old friendships ran deep. Or perhaps Nell had misread the encounter entirely. So much had happened since that day.

Birdie and Maeve were looking up at a framed article about the Ocean’s Edge that had been printed in a travel magazine.

“The Ocean’s Edge has become a destination for people. Jeffrey must have been proud of it, and deservedly so,” Birdie said. “There have been a lot of changes over there since he signed on all those years ago. And I’ve eaten my way through every one of them.”

“Not all the changes have been good ones, I’m afraid. Jeffrey was an excellent bartender and did a fine job keeping track of things for the precious owner, who lived in Boston and wasn’t around often. Jeffrey enjoyed that—not having the responsibility of an owner but being able to make decisions. When he bought into the restaurant, the responsibility grew more onerous and I think it ceased to be fun for him. He worried about it all the time. And the worry was making him cranky, even with the staff. Another problem was with his partner. He and Don Wooten have known each other a long time—Jeffrey and Don’s wife, Rachel, were friends since high school. But Jeffrey and Don were cut from different cloths. They didn’t agree on much when it came to business, and Jeffrey spent long hours in this very den, poring over numbers and trying to figure out how he could buy Don out. He’d had it, he told me, but I wasn’t sure what he meant by that.

“Then late one night Don called here. It was on a Sunday night, shortly before Jeffrey passed away,” she said. “He turned the tables on him and suggested that
he
buy
Jeffrey
out. He said he’d give him a fair offer and it made good sense. It was the only way it would work, Don said.”

“And what did Jeffrey say?”

“He said . . .” Maeve looked at each of them, a slow blush creeping into her cheeks. “I don’t choose to repeat all the words he used—I’m not even sure I’d pronounce them right. But the last one, the important one, was ‘no.’ And he made it very final by hanging up on Don. I remember it clearly because I was irritated with Jeffrey for his rudeness. It wasn’t necessary.”

“But the restaurant was like a child to him,” Birdie murmured.

Maeve nodded. “The truth is, I would have been all for him selling out to Don—I didn’t like seeing him come home weary and frustrated. When he became an owner, he refused to give up his old job: the world’s finest bartender. And he wouldn’t admit he was no longer twenty-nine. It was taking a toll on him. But I wouldn’t have wanted him to sell unless he found another passion he could wrap himself up in. He would have failed completely at sitting in a recliner and watching football. And he couldn’t quite abide my bridge club. But he had his books . . . and, of course, polishing his Sprite.” She laughed softly and sat down on the love seat.

It was near Jeffrey’s old desk, and Nell could imagine the two of them in this room, Jeffrey in the swivel chair behind the desk working on his numbers or reading Proust or some obscure philosopher, and Maeve cuddled up on the couch reading or doing crossword puzzles. Together.

“That last week, especially, made me think Jeffrey should sell. Or I should say, ‘we.’ He always insisted we both owned the restaurant, though I would have preferred a new stove or maybe an Alaskan cruise.”

“What happened that last week?”

“He was anxious, concerned about something. But he didn’t want to talk about it. Jeffrey was like that, keeping anything he thought would upset me locked up somewhere inside him. Usually I was able to get to the heart of the problem by simply being patient and waiting for the right moment, the right words. Sometimes making his favorite lobster macaroni and cheese would loosen him up. But it wasn’t so easy to find the key to what was bothering him this time.”

She tucked her short legs up beneath her with an agility that defied her age, and urged Nell and Birdie to sit in the two chairs facing the small couch. She was feeling the need to talk, she said, and they complied.

“This time it was different somehow. I could feel the tension in his body. He wouldn’t talk about it. But Jeffrey had developed a habit as he got older of talking to himself when he’d shower or shave. Or when he thought he was alone outside or in the garage polishing his car. Sometimes it was simply cussing, using words I wouldn’t let him use in the house. And sometimes he’d just mumble on about this or that. I heard him one day talking about righting wrongs, and I thought at first that maybe it was a religious thing. Maybe he was going to start going to church with me. But it wasn’t that, and I knew it immediately when I saw his face. It was a sad face, weary and worn. I knew it was one of those things he had to work out by himself. But his eyes held a resolve. He was going to do something.”

“For someone? To someone?” Nell asked.

“For himself, I think.”

N
ell and Ben drove the long way around to get to the Sweet Petunia Restaurant Sunday morning.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Ben assured her, but Nell suspected it was his stomach speaking. And the desire for Annabelle’s special omelet. And his quest to curb her tendency to worry.

“I’m sure she is, too, but imagining her in that house alone, not knowing the neighbors. With a murderer on the loose. It’s unsettling. Driving by the house certainly can’t hurt.”

Ben slowed and turned onto Ridge Road.

The green-shuttered house had new life today. Windows were open wide and somewhere in the background music filled the air.

Sitting in the driveway was Jules’s car.

Nell looked at it, then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “You got Jules’s car back for her. Thank you,” she said.

Ben smiled. “Not a biggie. The police had finished going through the car and had neglected to return it.”

On the side of the house, beyond the car, a clothesline held several small rugs and curtains. The gauzy fabric waved in the breeze.

“It’s beginning to look loved again, just like when Izzy lived here,” Nell said.

“Maybe Jules would like to go to Annabelle’s with us,” Ben said, turning the car around at the end of the cul-de-sac and driving slowly back down the street.

As they approached the house, Rebecca Early appeared from around the back with a mop in her hand and began beating one of the rugs with great vigor. The music grew louder and her body rocked to the lyrics of “Safe and Sound” as she pounded a thick flurry of dust motes into the air.

Nell laughed, straining to see through the gray cloud.

Ben laughed at the scene. “On second thought, I don’t think even Annabelle’s amazing omelets would entice a cease-fire.”

Nell agreed. “Jules wants nothing more right now than a clean and well-lighted place, as Hemingway would say. And I’m so happy she has friends to help her get it. Brunch is probably the last thing on her mind.”

Ben drove on, stopping at the corner to allow a stream of traffic to pass by.

Nell turned and looked back at the house again. She frowned. “Ben, look—”

A figure was emerging from behind the house next door to Jules’s—a tall man with a muscular build and dark hair. Nell stared at Garrett Barros as he edged his way close to a copse of pine trees that separated the two properties.

She looked at Ben. He’d shifted in the seat, his hands on the steering wheel but his eyes on the pine trees.

Garrett moved into the dense shadow of the trees, then stood as still as the trunk in front of him—a dark statue.

“He’s spying on them,” Nell said. “We should go back. Or call Jerry.”

Ben shook his head. “Your nerves are getting the better of you. He lives in that house, Nell. It’s rude, but he’s not doing anything wrong—at least not legally. It wouldn’t hurt to let Jules know she has a nosy neighbor. Maybe send her a text later?” Ben looked back again.

He was still there, still not moving. One large hand was gripping a pair of binoculars that he raised to his eyes, and with his free hand he pushed aside a branch, finding just the right spot to see clearly through the trees.
And into the house,
Nell thought,
if he so pleased.

•   •   •

The Endicotts’ usual table at Annabelle’s had grown. Stella Palazola, helping her mother out by filling in for an ill waitress, had pushed two tables together. “Somehow it seemed like a two-table Sunday,” she explained as she led Nell and Ben through the restaurant and out to the deck.

Annabelle’s Sweet Petunia Restaurant was built into the side of a hill, and the deck off the back of the restaurant hung right over the trees. At the bottom of the hill was Canary Cove, with its bustling galleries, the Artist’s Palate Bar and Grill, boutiques, and a tea shop. But up in the trees Annabelle’s was removed from it all—and filled with the amazing aromas of eggs and butter, cinnamon and freshly baked dough, bacon and sausages, and strong Colombian coffee. It was Ben’s favorite place to spend a Sunday morning.

“Voilà,” Stella said, waving her arm toward the end table on the narrow porch.

Stella was right: it was a two-table Sunday. Birdie, Sam, Izzy, and Cass were already there, mugs of hot coffee and a basket of bite-size cinnamon rolls in front of them. Abby was happy in her carrier, seated next to Sam.

“Where’s Danny?” Nell asked Cass.

“I haven’t talked to him,” she said, and took a cinnamon roll from the basket.

Although they’d all been diplomatic and not asked, Izzy, Nell, and Birdie had assumed yesterday’s conversation with Jules should have gone a long way in mending fences between Danny and Cass. Now Nell wasn’t so sure.

“Here he comes,” Sam said.

Danny walked over with his usual grin and slightly disheveled look, his hair curling slightly around his collar. He pulled out a chair next to Sam and sat down, his long legs finding room beneath the table. He nodded toward Cass, sending a smile along with it. Cass looked slightly uncomfortable but smiled back.

“We couldn’t wait for the slowpokes,” Izzy said, biting into a buttery roll and looking over at her aunt and uncle. “What kept you two?”

Nell and Ben sat back while Stella filled their mugs, and then told them about their patrolling duties that morning. “I just wanted to be sure she was okay before we came over,” Nell said. “It was a long day yesterday. And I think pouring her heart out to us the way she did took a lot out of her.”

“Izzy told me about your conversation,” said Sam.

And Nell had told Ben.

But the two men hadn’t heard the story from Jules herself the way Danny had. They hadn’t been privy to the expressions that had flitted across her face as she had talked or to the emotion that coated her words, which made it easier for them now to concentrate on the practical—and poke holes in her story.

“So . . . she thought her biological father lived in Sea Harbor because her mother worked at a resort around here? Why not Gloucester or Rockport or Manchester-by-the-Sea?” Ben asked.

“And how does she think she can find anyone with such sketchy information?” Sam wondered.

“O ye of little faith,” Danny chided. “There are ways and there are ways. And when you’re as determined as Jules is, those ways will bear fruit. She’ll find some answers. I’d bet my life on it.”

“Danny’s right,” Izzy said. “She knows there’s more to the story than her mother told her, and she has good reasons for thinking so.” Her voice held a note of defensiveness and she held back from launching into Jules’s description of her mother, of what she would and wouldn’t have done, of how she’d never have gotten involved in a relationship just for the fun of it. Of the emotions and intuition driving her journey. The women understood that immediately, but it might not carry much weight to the more practical men sitting around the table. Except for Danny.

And then Sam surprised them. “I understand the need to find your roots. And I think it becomes more important as you get older. I felt that way before marrying Izzy.” He smiled at her, then looked down at Abby, her fingers clutching a tiny wooden rattle and her eyes closed. “I didn’t want to bring any surprises to our marriage. “But I had a little more to go on. I think Jules is going to have a harder time.”

“Maybe,” Nell said. “But Danny gave her some direction, and Birdie knows a lot about Sea Harbor history. We’ll all pitch in. We’ll find her father—or at least we’ll find out who he was. Jules is assuming he’s not alive.”

“I’m assuming from what you’ve said that all of you are convinced Jules Ainsley did not murder Jeffrey Meara,” Ben said.

“Of course she didn’t,” Nell said without a pause. “And I think in his heart Jerry Thompson believes in her innocence, too. He’s simply doing his job.”

Stella came back to the table carrying an enormous tray. She settled it on a folding stand and began filling the table with plates of creamy omelets. Flecks of chervil, tarragon, and spinach poked out of the cheesy eggs. Chunks of fruit, strips of crisp country bacon, and tiny roasted potatoes circled the plates.

“Stella, tell your mother she is amazing,” Ben said, tilting his chair back and looking up.

Stella grinned. “I do. Often.”

“And I bet she tells you the same,” Nell said. “Here you are with your first house sold within a month after getting your license.”

“Twenty-three days,” she said, and laughed. Then she sobered up quickly and looked over at Izzy. “So do you think she’s okay, Iz? Jules, I mean. Do you think she’ll be okay in the house?”

“She’s going to be okay,” Izzy said. “What about you, Stella? This was awful for you, too. It’s not easy to erase those images.”

Stella nodded and they could see in her expression that the images still visited her. Probably in the middle of the night. “But at least I have all of you and my family. I get hugs at every turn.” She looked down at the tray, then back at the faces around the table. “And you know, I have another edge. No one looks at me and wonders if I had anything to do with Jeffrey Meara’s murder.”

“You’re absolutely right. It’s not easy being Jules Ainsley right now,” Nell said. “But I know for a fact having a new house to make her own is going to help her a lot.”

“So you think she’s really, like, going to live here?”

Nell looked at Danny. He shrugged.

“Well, whatever she does, she’s a nice lady. She can be pushy, but I don’t think she murdered Mr. Meara. When I got there that day, she was kneeling down next to him, trying to pull—well, to pull the knife out of him. He must have staggered out of the little shed and fallen. He was just lying there. And I think she was trying to help him, not kill him.”

A waving hand from a few tables down pulled Stella back to her job and coffee mugs that needed refilling. “Oops, gotta go.”

Nell watched her walk down the row of tables lining the railing. She stopped at the Wootens’ table, where Rachel and Don were eating alone, talking in serious tones. They stopped talking briefly while Stella filled their cups, then went back to their conversation, their heads nearly touching over the small table.

“I wonder what they’ll do about the restaurant now,” Ben said, following her gaze.

“They’re doing plenty already, from all reports,” Cass said. “I hear via the docks’ grapevine that Don is painting, hiring, changing menus. And he’s reversed some of the decisions Jeffrey Meara made in the past couple weeks, some of the firings. Jeffrey would be turning over in his grave.”

“I wonder if he checks with Maeve first,” Birdie said, more to herself than to the others.

Ben caught her words and nodded. “That’s a good point, Birdie. Maeve owns half the restaurant now.”

“Don is nothing if not a businessman,” Nell said. “I’m sure he’s covered all his bases.” But deep down she wondered the same. Maeve hadn’t talked about the restaurant’s future—only its past.

Birdie looked at Ben. “Has Jerry said anything about the investigation?” She kept her voice low, and Ben answered in like manner. Although they were seated at the end of the porch, sometimes the breeze picked up and carried voices down the row.

“I talked to him yesterday when I went in to check on Jules’s car. He said they had asked Jules to come in for some more questioning—it must have been after all of you met over in Canary Cove. This time Jules told them why she had come to Sea Harbor in the first place, making it clear she had never met Jeffrey before coming to town and he had nothing to do with her coming here. It cleared up one mystery for the police, anyway, and I think that was a good thing. Her presence around here was a real curiosity, and in the light of what’s going on, it made her appear suspicious from the very beginning, even before Jeffrey was killed. Tourists don’t ordinarily act the way she did. And that made it even more difficult to believe her when she was found kneeling over the body, and now there’s this whole glove thing. I don’t know how much her explanation for being here will help in the long haul, but at least it cleared up some of the mystery over why she’s in Sea Harbor.”

“Except . . .” Nell said.

Ben looked over at her.

“Except, what if there is a connection? Looking for her father—and then meeting Jeffrey at the house that day.”

“I asked Jerry about that.”

“And?”

“He wondered, too. But it didn’t really go anywhere. If Jules is telling the truth, she didn’t know Jeffrey—and that probably is the truth. How would she? She’s never been here before, and Jeffrey never left. The police toyed with the idea that Jeffrey was wanting to buy the house. I guess he and Maeve had played with the idea of moving to a smaller place, and Jeffrey sometimes moved ahead with things without telling Maeve.”

Birdie and Nell nodded. Maeve had said as much to them.

“But murdering him because he wanted the same house? A little outlandish—and those were Jerry’s words, not mine.”

“I don’t think it’s leaked out yet about the glove they found in Jules’s car,” Cass said. “I’d have heard—that would be something that would get bounced around and chewed to pieces in the rumor mill. Have the police decided that’s not important?”

“No. It’s still important. Jerry said he’s keeping it from the press. It wouldn’t help the investigation any and it could make Jules’s life miserable in the short term. He’s a believer of the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ dictum.”

“As he should be,” Nell said. “Good for Jerry.”

“I wonder how closely the police are looking at the people Jeffrey fired,” Birdie said. “And the business dealings going on over at the Edge.”

Ben looked at her, wondering what she was getting at, but before he could ask, a shadow fell over the table and they looked up into the smiling face of Don Wooten—a longtime friend—and the same person Birdie was about to shed suspicion on.

A second later Rachel walked up beside her husband. “Look at all of you—you aren’t having a secret anniversary party here without us, are you?”

“Not on your life,” Ben said. “And miss the fireworks Mary Pisano is probably planning?”

Rachel chuckled and looked over at Izzy. “I hear your house sold, Izzy. To Jules Ainsley? What’s that about? A vacation home?”