Death in the Off-Season

by Francine Mathews

Peter hooked one hip-booted leg over the side of the flatbed truck, reached his hand into the shifting mass of cranberries, and let the wet beads run through his fingers. A day’s harvest, he thought, a piling up of summer’s wealth, and with it a certain sadness. The crop was a good one, a relief after the tough winter, and he felt lucky. But the flatbed truck, bound for the ferry and an Ocean Spray depot, represented the end of the grow­ing season. It was a need for rebirth that had driven him into farming in the first place; now the promise of spring, the chance to witness a yearly renewal, kept him in the business. In a few months, the tight mat of red-black vines running over acre after acre of his land would settle into a protective layer of ice; he and the farm would endure a winter vigil that always seemed to last too long. He shook off his hands and jumped down to the ground.

  Rafe sat on the running board of the truck’s cab, a beer resting on one bent knee. A spreading map of sweat stained the shirt under his heavy overalls. The dog Ney was sprawled on the wet turf next to him, muzzle on forepaws, his clear, light eyes following every movement the two men made. A yellow metal wet-harvesting machine—called a beater because of the egg-beating effect of its blades in the water—was propped at rest where the waterlogged vines began, just beyond the truck. When propelled through the flooded fields, the whirling blades knocked the berries off their vines and sent them bobbing in a blood-red tide to the surface. The beaters were large and awkward, like early forms of the velocipede, or nightmarish insects; but they were simple improvements on a harvesting process that had changed little through the first century of cranberry cultivation.

  That morning, Peter had summoned the crew of harvesters and, avoiding the acreage where Rusty had died, moved to the land on the other side of the driveway. They had opened the sluice gates of the channels that ran from Gibbs Pond to the farm and flooded the bog for a wet harvest. Peter liked to start the season that way: taking the fruit intended for processing first, and leaving berries bound for the grocer to be dry-harvested last. Striding with the beaters through thigh-high water had given them all a sense of purpose and shifted some of the weight of Monday’s violence.

  “I think we’ve made us some money, Pete,” Rafe said.

  “Yeah, we’ll survive the winter.” He sat down next to Rafe and reached for the foreman’s beer. It cost roughly twenty dollars to produce a one-hundred pound barrel of cranberries. In recent years, Ocean Spray had paid him up to fifty dollars per barrel, but oversupply in the market was driving prices down. The Ocean Spray cooperative had been sued in recent years for price-fixing. Peter’s lawyer, Sky Tate-Jackson, kept an eye on the litigation so Peter could harvest his berries, a luxury other growers didn’t always have. Mason Farms yielded an aver­age of 190 barrels per acre. They had harvested five acres to date, and had forty-five more to go. The revenues for the year might be several hundred thousand dollars.

  Peter tipped back Rafe’s bottle and took a long draft, then wiped his face with his T-shirt and sighed deeply. The suspenders of his hip boots hung down to his knees. “I understand why nobody ran triathlons fifty years ago,” he said, fondling Ney’s ruff. “No farmhand in his right mind would move if he had the option of sitting for an hour. Much less taking a nap. I feel like an old man.”

  “You are an old man” Rafe said, and slapped him on the shoulder. “Just can’t face it. All that training of yours is one pathetic denial. You’ll run tonight and you won’t be able to move tomorrow. But I’ll be out here working.”

  “It’s Wednesday, Rafe. Can’t disappoint Lucy.”

  Rafe snorted and took back his beer. “Yeah, well, don’t come whin­ing when you can’t pedal home, you hear? Because I’m already gone. Taking the Rover with me.”

  “No ride, no sympathy. Got it. How’s Tess?”

  “Same as always, pretty much. She won’t relax until the kid starts to look normal and acts more like it. He’s too peaky, too quiet, keeps too much to himself. He’s lost that kid look.”

  “The unself-conscious immersion in his world.”

  “I s’pose.”

  Peter braced himself on Rafe’s knee and stood up. As if on cue, Ney sprang up and waited, tail wagging, for his master to choose a direction. “Should Will be coming out here all the time after what hap­pened Monday?”

  “Can’t keep avoiding places. Rate the kid’s going, he won’t be able to leave the house.” Rafe shielded his eyes with his hand. Peter was backlit in the slanting rays of late afternoon, his dark hair a bright helmet. “Besides, he’s happy when he’s here. Doesn’t matter if he’s harvesting, like yesterday, or sitting with a book in the house, he’s doing something other than moping, and that’s all to the good.”

  “If Tess thinks there’s anything that might help . . .”

  “She’ll tell you. The woman’s proud, but where her kid’s concerned, she isn’t shy.”

  Lucy jacoby stood with her hands braced against the goalpost, one Lycra-clad leg bent and the other stretched firmly behind her. She was lost in thought. Occasionally a passing member of the track team would wave and smile at the English teacher, but she didn’t notice. Shifting from one leg to the other, she went through her pre-run warm-up with the mechanical precision of long familiarity. She was thinking of Will Starbuck. There was something too casual and studied in his questions about Madame Bovary, the book she had assigned the advanced sophomores. He was intensely interested in Emma’s suicide, and doing a poor job of hid­ing it.

  A sixth sense compelled Lucy to scan the high school parking lot. She was rewarded with the sight of Peter turning his racing bike in from the Surfside Road. As he rolled to a halt, he clicked his right shoe out of the bike’s clip and swung off the saddle. Lucy raised one arm in greeting.

  She set off at a slow trot toward the parking lot, cutting across the track and the field, while Peter changed from bike to running shoes. Her sweatshirt would be too warm, she decided. The day had started cool, with a hint of fog, but the sun had burned through by noon.

  “Hey,” she said. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

  Peter looked up from locking his bike and smiled at her. “Training. My substitute for God.”

  “I thought that was me.”

  “You just keep me honest.” He stood up and bounced from one leg to the other, unaware that her face had drained of color. “I wouldn’t be here today if you weren’t waiting. Turn around.”

  Lucy obediently presented her back. Peter braced himself against her shoulders and stretched his calves. “Thanks for the flowers, by the way.”

  Lucy was thankful he couldn’t see her. “Not at all.”

  Peter released her and stood up. “Ready?”

  “I mean, no, forget not at all.” Lucy faced him. “That’s a stupid convention. I’ve been feeling so inadequate. Your brother dies—is murdered—and I don’t even hear about it for two days. And then I send flowers. It’s so ridiculous! I feel like such an idiot! I’ve never known how to deal with death.”

  “It’s okay,” Peter said. “The flowers were nice.”

  “Nice. Nice is not what you need when you’re facing a funeral. Why do we do these things? Why couldn’t I just come over to your house and talk to you?”

  “Because the car was in the shop?”

  “I was even afraid to call you, Peter. I’m such a jerk.”

  “You’re not a jerk,” he said, awkwardly reaching one hand to her elbow. She stiffened at his touch, and he remembered they were at the school. He looked around. No one seemed remotely interested in them.

  “I should have called you,” he said. “I’m sorry. You said Friday you were going to the Cape to shop, and then when everything happened Monday I completely forgot about running. Yesterday I wanted to get the harvest started—”

  “I’ve just been wondering why it’s so hard for us to convey emotion to each another. We’re both so bad at it.”

  “Are we?
” Peter said, surprised. “I suppose we are.”

  Lucy looked down at her shoes. “Anyway, I’m sorry it had to be something as trite as flowers. I could have called and asked if you were okay.”

  “I’m okay,” Peter said. “Really. There’s no question that something as brutal and unexpected as a drowning in the front yard is disturbing. But it’s over.”

  “I am a rock, huh?”

  “I am an island,” he agreed. “And as the man said, an island feels no pain.”

  Lucy sighed. “Look, could we skip the sprints today and just take a long, slow run? I’ve been cooped up for a couple of days and I’d really like to get off this track.”

  Peter studied her for an instant. Her cheekbones stood out prominently under the cloud of auburn curls. “Are you eating enough?”

  She nodded impatiently. “I was out sick yesterday, that’s all.”

  “Sick?”

  “Under the weather.”

  It was unusual for Lucy to indulge her moods on a weekday. She rarely missed school. “What happened on the Cape?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” She stirred the asphalt dust with her toe. “Really. The Cape was fine. Got a terrific dress, saw a movie, bought four boxes of seconds at the Cape Cod Candle factory—”

  “Lucy,” Peter said, reaching for her shoulders and shaking her slightly. “Don’t do this. What happened?”

  “I saw someone I used to know,” she said, straining away from him. “On the ferry.”

  “From Italy? From the old days?”

  She nodded.

  “Did he speak to you?”

  “What do you think? It’s a goddamn ferry, you can’t get off!” she burst out. “I thought I’d go insane. I kept moving, I kept changing my seat, but he kept following me around the boat. I swear, Peter, I was this close to jumping over the side.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I ducked into the women’s room and stayed there until the boat docked.”

  “For forty-five minutes? Is this guy on the island?”

  “I guess so. I didn’t see him when I got off. But I’ve wanted to hide ever since. I keep thinking I’ll run into him in town. What’s he doing here, Peter? What else could he be doing but looking for me? I keep waiting for something to happen. I keep expecting a knock on the door.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Lucy did not reply. Peter pulled her into a rough embrace. Lucy’s de­mons were too real, and even an island couldn’t protect her.

  “I think we should tell the police,” he said. “Call it harassment, call it anything you like, and get the guy picked up for questioning. If he’s who you think he is, he won’t be able to get off the island fast enough.”

  “No!” Lucy said, rearing back. “Promise me you won’t talk to that woman!”

  “Meredith Folger?” he frowned. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Nothing. Just don’t tell her anything about me, do you understand? I’ll deal with this myself. I’ve got to, sooner or later.”

  Peter made as if to speak, then nodded. “Okay. Just do me a favor. If anything comes up, call me. Promise?”

  Lucy gave him a watery smile. “I really am a head-case, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah. But it’s a nice head,” Peter said. “Now. Can we run?”

  It was a relatively quiet afternoon at the station. John Folger’s tanned forehead had a slight wrinkle in it, and his left thumb moved backward and forward across his salt-and-pepper mustache. He was re­viewing the Mason murder scene summary for the third time. His eyes flicked up from the folder on his desk and focused on Merry, seated beyond the glass wall of his office in her cubicle, engrossed in an online legal database. She was reviewing federal securities regulations and case law. His daughter’s expression was obscured by the fall of tow-colored hair down one cheekbone, but from the set of her head he knew she was confused and near exhaustion. The chief sighed and slapped the folder shut. Time for him to go home. Much as he wanted to help, the last thing she needed was her dad looking over her shoulder. He would wait another few days before he asked his questions.

  Merry pulled off her reading glasses and thrust her arms up over her head, stretching painfully. She had been plowing through the database and found none of it riveting. She was con­vinced that somewhere in the legalese lay the clue to Rusty Mason’s sealed indictment, but she was beginning to feel intimidated by the mass of material on securities convictions. A quiet cloud of gloom, familiar from her days at Cape Cod Community, had settled over her desk. “There’s got to be a video somewhere that explains this stuff,” she muttered out loud. “Too many white-collar types have made too much money for it to be this dull.”

  “Hey, just what the world needs. Another lawyer. You looking for a new career, hotshot?”

  She looked up and met Matt Bailey’s eyes, cold and hard above an unfriendly grin. He was leaning on the edge of her desk, his face thrust forward, challenging her. No forgiveness or goodwill there; he was gun­ning for her to blow the case. She resisted the impulse to slam a reply down his throat and smiled at him. “It never hurts to have a fallback.”

  “Or Daddy looking out for you,” he said. He pushed himself away from her desk before she could answer, and she felt the anger in the trembling wood. Bailey was vicious. She should never have refused a date with him six months back; he’d taken it too personally. Then again, she hadn’t been groped and bored, which gave her a slight sense of victory.

  Bailey turned and stopped dead as he found himself face to face with Chief Folger, on the point of exiting his of­fice.

  “Do I pay you to work, Bailey?” John asked, “or run your mouth?”

  Matt turned toward his cubicle without a word.

  The chief looked around. The few heads still present bent immediately to their paperwork. He nodded, to no one in particular, and turned out the light in his office. He said nothing to Merry as he left the station. But she smiled at his disappearing back.

  Half an hour later, she was the only one still at her desk. The quiet in the station was so absolute, and her concentration so deep, that she jumped several inches off her chair when the phone rang. The receiver clattered out of her hand and over the end of the desk. She could hear the caller squawking incomprehen­sibly from his disembodied position on the floor, and for an instant she thought about leaving him there. Then she reached over the sickly Sansevieria plant dying slowly under the lamp and put the receiver to her ear.

  “Meredith Folger.”

  “Ah, Detective Folger. Just the woman I need. You seem to have dropped me.”

  “Yeah, well, people were beginning to talk,” Merry said.

  A puzzled silence filled her ear. She thrust her forehead into her free hand and closed her eyes. “What can I do for you?”

  Her caller seized on normalcy with relief. “Dr. Whitlow, state crime lab. Your medical examiner sent over a body two days ago. Number 37552.”

  Whitlow. She imagined a balding, pasty-faced guy with a nose that twitched like a rabbit’s and a white lab coat smelling perpetually of formaldehyde. “Yes, that’s right. Rusty Mason.”

  There was another pained silence. Apparently the coroner’s office preferred to avoid names. “The autopsy was witnessed by Clarence Strangerfield,” he said, “but I’m emailing a copy of the report for your files. Mr. Strangerfield was exceedingly unhelpful in the matter of the body’s disposition. What do you want done with it?”

  “I’ll have to get back to you on that after I talk to the next of kin.”

  “So Mr. Strangerfield said. It’s so much more helpful if the final disposition of the corpse is noted on the committal form.”

  “I thought the state crime lab felt fortunate when it had a next of kin, Dr. Whitlow,” Merry said briskly. “Is there anything unusual in the report I should know before you send it?”


  Another silence. A rustling sound came over the line, as though Whitlow were fumbling in a paper hospital gown. She shut out the image and decided he was flipping the pages on a clipboard chart. “Rigor was just coming on at the time of the body’s discovery, accord­ing to the medical examiner at the scene, making it likely that death occurred six to twelve hours previous. There were abrasions on the rear of the calves—bruising occurred prior to death, of course—suggesting a forceful blow; further bruising on back of head and shoulders indicating victim somersaulted when struck. Cranium fractured, presumably when victim fell backward following the blow from the lower rear, but inadequate to cause death. Grains of sand driven into the back of the skull and surface clotting of blood, somewhat reduced because of the water in which victim was immersed. Death was by drowning. Impossi­ble to set the exact hour due to the immersion of the body, which would affect the onset of rigor; probably within eight hours of discov­ery. Tissues of the nasal passages inflamed and cartilage partially eroded from repeated exposure to a chemical agent, presumably cocaine. Traces of cocaine found in the follicles of deceased’s hair and in the sinus passages. Deceased carried antibodies for the hepatitis C and HIV viruses—”

  “What?” Merry said, startled.

  Silence. Whitlow disliked interruptions. “I’m sending you the re­port,” he said.

  “Whoa, whoa—just a minute, here. You’re telling me Rusty Mason was HIV-positive?”

  “Over a million Americans are, Detective.”

  “Yeah, well, they’re not getting killed in my backyard. How ad­vanced was he?”

  Whitlow cleared his throat. “It’s hard to say. The effects of autoim­mune deficiency vary from case to case, you know.”

  “I’m sure you can do better than that.”

  “His T-cell count suggests he was in the early to middle stages of the disease,” the coroner said grudgingly.

  “Think he knew he had it?”

  “Absolutely. He was treating it. Lab sampling turned up antiretrovirals in his system.”

  “Dr. Whitlow,” Merry said, “there’s no way this guy could have bonked his head, gotten a little confused, and dragged himself to the bog, is there?”