Death in the Off-Season

by Francine Mathews

  “If you believe Rusty died in the early hours of Monday morning,” Merry said. She set down her napkin and willed herself to think. Was Ralph onto something?

  “You’re going round and round with the folks you know,” Ralph said. “Try the ones you don’t.”

  The helicopter with Will’s gurney, Tess beside him, lifted from the helipad at six o’clock that morning. Peter and Rafe stood with the wind from the blades whipping their hair about their heads until the glass bubble beat its way into the air and out to sea. Neither of them said anything for several long moments. Then they turned and walked to the Rover.

  “I’ll drop you at the farm before I fly over to Boston,” Rafe said. “You get some sleep, okay?”

  Peter shook his head. “I’ve got a date with the detective. Bacon and eggs at my place, seven sharp.”

  He had several voicemail messages on his cell. He listened to them as he moved around the kitchen, throwing open the refrigerator door and rummaging through Rebecca’s carefully organized stores. Sunday was her Quaker day of rest, and he was on his own for Merry Folger’s breakfast.

  George’s voice, tentative and filled with affection, asking after his safe arrival. Walt Sargent, at the Ocean Spray depot, confirming receipt of the flatbed filled with cranberries from Tuesday’s harvest. Peter pulled out half a loaf of Rebecca’s oatmeal bread and set it on the counter, found some of her raspberry jam, and then went for the eggs. Someone had ended a call without a word. He’d do a Southwestern ome­let with some of the salsa and cheese, throw a couple of sausages on the fire, add some of the last of the green peppers from the garden. He listened to hesitant breathing and more dead air. He stood up, sud­denly alert to the silence on his phone. Lucy Jacoby shot into his brain, a sudden reminder of her fear. Then he heard the voice.

  “And now what do I say?”

  He froze.

  “It’s so odd to hear you, Peter, even on voicemail, after all this time.”

  She was amused, distant, like a fund-raiser for the Boston Symphony. He closed his eyes and turned toward the counter, gripping the edge painfully.

  “You sound so much like yourself. Never mind. I suppose I should say hello. It’s Alison. Sky Tate-Jackson, whom it seems you now pay to be your friend—or is it your lawyer?—tracked me down here in San Francisco.” A short laugh. “Couldn’t you have called the Alumni Office if you needed to reach me? At any rate, he told me about—your brother.” A pause, as she cast about for something appropriate to say in sympathy, and abandoned the attempt. “Your lawyer asked me to come back East to discuss the whole thing. I’m not sure why that can’t be done over the phone, but he’s good at arguing otherwise.” Peter imagined her fighting to keep down her irritation. “I arrive tomorrow night at seven thirty-five. Cape Air.” There was an instant of uncomfortable silence, then: “Oh, Peter, I’m sorry for sounding so—It’s just been—rather dif­ficult. Until tomorrow—”

  Automatically, he hit the “save” button on his phone and re­played that voice—her voice, like the current of a cool, dark river, a voice drowned in calm. He listened for the trace of New York that lingered metallically in her vowels, and found it. A shakiness in his gut that was part euphoria and part terror: He would talk to Alison again.

  He listened a third time to the message and half willingly, uncer­tainly, copied down the time of her arrival. He glanced at his watch. Tomorrow meant today, and he had less than twelve hours to wait. She hadn’t asked him to meet the plane; probably hadn’t known whether he’d want to. For an agonized instant he wondered if she hoped he would skip it, then reminded himself she’d given him the information. And the choice. Very like Alison.

  San Francisco. She’d gone almost as far away from him as she could go. He ran one fingertip over the trailing numbers and wrote Alison above them. Alison in San Francisco. The city—its moody weather and jagged seas, the plunges and peaks of its streets, the very shaking foundations—would suit her perfectly.

  He looked up as the sound of tires on gravel filtered into the kitchen through the open back door. Merry Folger had arrived.

  Chapter 29

  “It’s a shame you don’t write for television,” Merry said. “Because this stuff about your family is great material.”

  She was staring out the kitchen window at the dog Ney, who sat under a young maple tree in the yard. He snapped periodically at the green horseflies that came in off the marshland and targeted his thin, short-haired skin. Presently Peter would whistle him inside for the remainder of a steak bone coated in sausage grease; for now, he seemed content to sit in a last pool of summertime warmth. Merry had never owned a dog. She yearned, suddenly, for something warm and con­tented to hold in her lap, something to put her arms around; or perhaps she yearned to be held herself. She winced, and shifted away from the window. She was too tired, and she needed all her intelligence right now. “So it was Hale who told Max what Rusty was doing.”

  “Yes.”

  “But he has no idea who gave Rusty the details of Max’s merger plans.”

  “No.”

  “You trust this guy? You really think he’s got nothing to do with Rusty’s murder?”

  “By the way he acted, I’d say Rusty’s blackmail threats had less im­pact on him than they did on Sky. His career is only so important to him. And besides, I have George’s word he was with her in Greenwich the night Rusty died.”

  “A wife’s word isn’t worth much,” Merry said. “I knew I should have gone to Greenwich. I’d know better if I’d seen and talked to them myself.”

  “Can’t be everywhere at once,” Peter said. “You’re just going to have to trust me.”

  “I wish that were easy.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the cool panes of glass that separated her from Ney’s summer idyll. “We found the car, Peter.”

  “What car?”

  She saw that he was startled by her admission that she couldn’t trust him. Trust was a tenet of Peter Mason’s. He didn’t seem to understand it had no place in a murder investigation.

  “Rusty’s Jeep,” she said.

  “Rusty had a Jeep?”

  “He had a credit card. With a credit card, apparently, you can have anything.”

  “So it was rented.”

  “From Over Sand Vehicles. Under the name of Ribeiro, of course.”

  “Where’d you find it?”

  “Wondered when you’d ask that. In Gibbs Pond.”

  There was a silence. “In Gibbs Pond?”

  “Well, even a Jeep can’t walk on water.”

  “What made you look there?”

  “It seemed the closest place to deep-six something that weighs a ton. Particularly if you know the area well.”

  She turned to face him. The chumminess of the flight over water and the Westchester drive seemed a distant memory.

  “Let’s talk about your family,” she said. “The woman in the photo­graph. Why would she be with your dad?”

  “A secretary, maybe.”

  “Uh-huh. Could be.”

  “Or a business associate.”

  “How about we try lunch date. Or steady date. Or call girl. Or mistress.”

  “That’s enough.” The words were sharp and bitten, like a lash across her cheek.

  “Is it? You call me here to make a clean breast of the family history, but you’re still trying to keep the dirty socks in the closet.”

  Involuntarily, his lips twitched at her mixed metaphors. “I didn’t call you here. You came.”

  “You know what I mean. You’re not helping. You’re obstructing. Look at the facts. Look at the picture, for God’s sake.” She picked up her reading glasses, cast aside on the breakfast table, and settled them on her nose. “This is a very expensive broad we’ve got here. Leggy, too.” She heard the tartness in her voice and despised herself for it, knowing he would
hear feminine spite and dismiss what she was saying. “Your brother brought it for a reason. He was coming to see you. Put two and two together—he thought he had something to tell you about the woman in this picture.”

  “Perhaps. Or maybe he loved her, and kept the picture for old times’ sake. How can I say?”

  “He sure didn’t carry this out of affection for your dad.”

  “Granted.”

  “Taken with everything you’ve told me about your family, I’d say the odds are even she’s the famous source you’re looking for. She knew Max; Rusty apparently knew something about her. So I suggest we figure out who she is.”

  He considered this a moment, the brows furrowed over his gray eyes. “Malcolm didn’t know her.”

  “So Malcolm said. I wonder.” She paused, and looked at him speculatively. “Another thing. I’d like to find out what Lucy Jacoby’s real name is, and why she wants you to believe she was married to an Italian count.”

  Peter, in the act of opening the back door for Ney, stopped in his tracks. “Her real name?”

  “Well, it’s not the one she’s using, that’s for sure.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Unless she’s managed to get to Italy and back without showing a passport.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Called the Department of State a couple of days ago. Asked if they’d ever issued a passport in that name. They said no.”

  “Maybe it was under her maiden name.”

  “So Jacoby’s the last name of the Italian count?”

  Peter paused, and then smiled, grudgingly.

  “Not bloody likely, as they say,” Merry said with satisfaction. “There’s a driver’s license under Lucy Jacoby in the Massachusetts sys­tem, issued five years ago.”

  “The year she came around the Point.”

  “Could be perfectly normal, as you say, because she moved here then; or it could mean she changed her name. For a lot of reasons.”

  “Like?”

  “Say Jacoby is her name: maybe there never was an Italian count. She never went to Italy, and so she never needed a passport. Or say Jacoby’s a name she just adopted: maybe her husband—if she has one—is such a creep she’s trying to keep him off everybody’s screen by making up exotic stories and alternate personalities,” Merry said.

  “None of that has anything to do with Rusty,” Peter countered. “Don’t you think you’re losing your focus? Whatever the nature of her marriage, if Lucy changed her address, why wouldn’t she change her name? It’s probably a grandmother’s, or a middle name.”

  “I’d be obliged, all the same, if you’d ask. She’ll tell you if she’ll tell anybody.”

  “I’ll find out what I can.”

  “Good. Look, I’ve got to get some sleep. Thanks for breakfast.” She pulled off her glasses, picked up her decrepit bag, cast one last look out of the window at Ney under his tree, and turned to go.

  Peter was studying the photograph of his father. “You’re right, you know,” he said. “Rusty brought this for a reason.”

  “Once or twice a week, I’m right about something,” Merry said, “but lately I’ve been hoping I’m wrong. Like today.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The idea that you know something about that woman has been driving me crazy. I keep thinking maybe Rusty actually got to the farm, and showed you the picture, and it made you mad enough to kill him. You worry about the car being traced, so you dump it in the pond, throw his stuff in the sea, and hightail it back to bed.”

  There, she’d come out with it. She waited for him to react.

  For a moment, Peter seemed stunned. Then the warmth faded from his face and his expression grew remote. “And what about this?” he said, tapping his left shoulder.

  “Maybe you got somebody to do it for you,” Merry said carefully. “To confuse me. I have to think of every possibility, Peter. You under­stand.”

  “No,” he said, “I don’t. I thought we were working together.”

  She picked up the photograph. “Tell me the truth. Is this a picture of Alison?”

  He threw back his head and laughed at that. “No,” he said. “Alison was a pretty woman, no doubt about it, but she’s never looked like this in her life. This takes a lot of money, Merry, and that’s something she never had. You can see her yourself—she ar­rives on a plane tonight.”

  “Sky’s work?”

  He nodded. “He hopes Alison can identify the source. You can show her the picture when you meet her tomorrow.”

  When merry had left, Peter dragged himself upstairs and settled himself carefully on his bed, favoring his left arm. He was exhausted, but the detective’s words were reeling in his head. He picked up Rusty’s photograph and studied the image of his father. He recognized the expression on Max’s face; he had been happy, and amused. But whether he knew the woman well or had met her for the first time, Peter couldn’t say.

  He studied the leggy broad, as Merry had dubbed her, and, not for the first time, wondered what it was that he found familiar. Her form in the breathlessly tailored dress? The sleek helmet of chin-length hair? Per­haps she tugged at his memory simply because he thought that she ought to. But when he tried to define the indefinable, it shifted away from him like a half-remembered name. He thrust the picture aside and closed his eyes. He needed sleep almost as much as Merry. He had Ali­son to face, tonight.

  He had reached the semi-drowsing state where thoughts enter the mind and depart ungrasped when suddenly he shot upright in bed. Mayling Stern. Merry had found a Jeep in the pond, but she hadn’t said whether the bumper was damaged. What had Mayling’s Mercedes hit—and where?

  The wind off the Atlantic blew Mayling’s glossy black hair against the grain, a faint but inexorable tug that annoyed her. She was stretched out on a wrought-iron chaise this Sunday morning, reading the Times, and her garden was filled with the white noise of surf, punctuated by occasional birdsong and the muffled roar of private jets departing every three seconds for the mainland. They made her think of Sky, and she looked up at the arch of blue above her head whenever they passed.

  She had spent a good part of the past hour studying a fall fashion supplement that had arrived that morning with photo spreads of her latest collection. Towering, wraith-like girls strode across desolate landscapes with identical expressions of solitude on their faces. There was even a picture of Mayling, aloof and unsmiling, amidst a covey of models; her eyes were opaque, unfocused, but only she would see that. And Sky.

  Sky saw everything.

  The unoiled gate in the white picket fence swung open, breaking her peace, and she looked over her shoulder, her heart racing uncontrollably. She composed her face, waiting for Sky to turn the corner of the house and break upon her. But it wasn’t him.

  “Detective Folger!” She rose from her chaise. “I thought you were Sky, surprising me.”

  “He’s still in New York?”

  “Yes. I’m going back myself in another few days.”

  Merry’s lithe frame crossed the lawn. As she held out her hand, Mayling half-consciously compared the detective to the women stalking through her clothes in the Times supplement. The effect of sunlight on Merry’s blonde hair was almost blind­ing; against her dark skin and brows, it gave the effect of a photographic negative. She should wear sage-colored linen, May­ling thought, but she never does. Then she came out of her dream and remembered why the woman was in her yard.

  “More trouble,” she said.

  “May I sit down?”

  “Of course.”

  Merry settled on the chaise opposite Mayling’s and glanced at the Times spread. She knit her brows. “None of those clothes looks real, except yours.”

  “I wish the people who count thought so. The reviews were faint in their praise.”

  “Then igno
re them. What women buy is more important than what critics say.”

  “Money always counts, unfortunately. But you didn’t come here to talk about the rag trade.”

  “I don’t know enough to sound intelligent, anyway.” Merry met her eyes. “On the subject of your life here on Nantucket, however, I can hold up my end.”

  “You saw Sky Friday.”

  “Mr. Tate-Jackson is concerned about the mangled front end of your car.”

  “Your evidence people have already dealt with that. They showed me a warrant yesterday.”

  “He’s also worried about the button you lost from your sweater. The hours you can’t remember, the night Rusty died. And the letter you were reading when Peter walked into your studio the next day. Did you know Rusty was blackmailing Sky before his body was found?”

  “No!” Mayling said. “You’re all wrong! I had no reason to kill Rusty, even if everything else you know is true.”

  “The button, the bumper, the letter—all of it?”

  “I didn’t read the letter from Rusty until Labor Day. He was already dead.”

  “Peter caught you reading something, and said you looked like you’d seen a ghost. Did you mistake him, at first glance, for his brother? Insufficiently dead and back for revenge?”

  “I wasn’t reading the blackmail note when Peter arrived,” Mayling said. “Sky didn’t show it to me until that night. When he knew it didn’t matter anymore.”

  “Because Rusty was dead.”

  “That’s when I began to be afraid, Detective.”

  “That Sky had killed him?” Merry asked.

  “Yes. He was late getting here, you see, the night before.”

  Merry frowned involuntarily. “The air­line attendant remembers him arriving at eight. And Sky says you failed to pick him up. He had to take a taxi home.”

  “He may have,” Mayling said. “I don’t remember. He told you about my health issues?”

  “The blackouts.”

  She nodded. “I showed up here around eleven-thirty, and Sky helped me to bed. He gave me a sleeping pill and said he was going out for a walk on the beach. I woke up around eight-thirty the next morning and realized he’d never come to bed at all.”