“Fine. Bill’s got everything in hand. Not much news on the prosecution front.” She glanced at him, the green eyes softening. “You don’t have to remind me, Ralph Waldo. I’m not on Del’s case. I’ll behave.”
“Never occurred to me you wouldn’t,” he f ibbed.
Chapter 17
Felix Harper’s off ice was in a Federal-style shingled house on South Beach, with roses growing up both sides of the door and a miniature brass lightship basket for a knocker. Other than the discreet wooden sign at the foot of the slate walk that read felix harper, attorney, it might have been any other island home—of a wealthy off-islander resident for a month, Merry thought. The place had the carefully tended perennial borders lining its picket fence, the fresh paint trim, and the clipped expanse of lawn that characterized the retreats maintained in absentia for the fashionable seasonals of New York and Connecticut. Felix was doing well.
Merry lifted the handle of the lightship-basket knocker and let it fall with a thud.
Del’s cell phone calendar showed several appointments with the lawyer, one reason Merry wanted to talk to him. Other entries were equally interesting. Del had lunched with Tom Baldwin a few days after his nephew had thrown f ish guts over Merry’s head—looking for her old job, perhaps? She had also seen Dave Grizutto—or so Merry assumed. The notation said only “Dave, 7:30”; but it sent a chill through her nonetheless. Del talked to him the very night of her murder.
It was Mrs. Harper who opened the door, a small, sparrowlike woman with white hair the texture of cotton candy and bright blue eyes. Faded pink lipstick was smeared in the crevices of her lips, and her skin had softened into well-worn suede the color of parchment. She wore a Fair Isle sweater and vivid pink linen shorts, and she held a trowel in her hand.
“The peonies,” she announced. “Just readying them for the show. And how can I help you, dear?”
“Detective Meredith Folger,” Merry said. “Nantucket police. I was hoping to see Mr. Harper.”
“Fil!” she called over her shoulder. “Are you engaged? There’s a lady to see you.”
A low murmur from within, and the sky-blue door opened wider. “Through to the left, dear, and Fil will show you out. Mind you make him ask if you’d like some lemonade. It’s sitting on the counter.”
Merry worked her way past the dining room’s Chippendale side chairs with their needlepointed seats to the study off the hallway beyond. A dim circle of light cast on a desk piled with papers illuminated a pair of hands, the left one holding a pen, and the right braced against a yellow legal pad. At her appearance, Felix Harper ducked into view and stood up, pulling his reading glasses from the bridge of his nose. Tall, gaunt, and distracted, with dark hair just beginning to feather into gray, he was a good thirty years younger than the woman who’d answered the door.
“Yes?” he said. “How can I help you?”
“I’m Meredith Folger, Mr. Harper. With the Nantucket police.”
“Ah, yes. Is this a follow-up, then, to that fellow who came by yesterday?”
“Detective Bailey?”
“That was the name.”
“Only sort of,” Merry said. “I’ll be honest. I’m not assigned to Adelia Duarte’s case. I was just an old friend of hers, and I wanted to talk to you.”
A faint wrinkle on the pale skin, and he raised a hand to his brow. “Please sit down,” he said. “I’m not sure I can help you, but perhaps—” He paused. “Mother did make some lemonade. Would you like some?”
“She’ll be so pleased you remembered,” Merry said, smiling. “I’ll have a glass.”
He tucked his height under the doorframe and disappeared down the hall. Merry looked around the study. Black-and-white photographs of a much younger Felix, racing a Swan in turbulent seas, were tacked to the walls. Floor-to-ceiling shelves held a motley collection of books, some leather-bound, some paperbacks, all of them carefully dusted. Mother, Merry thought. Mother probably had arranged for the framing of the two diplomas—one from Harvard College, one from Harvard Law—positioned over Felix’s desk in full view of any client’s chair.
An ice-cold glass of lemonade descended from the heavens.
“Thank you,” she said, and smiled up at Harper. He looked uncomfortable, and hastened to put the desk between them.
“In what way might I be helpful?”
Merry took a long draft of her drink, sighed, and set it down carefully beside her chair. “My family is taking care of Sara Duarte at the moment.”
Recognition and comprehension dawned on his spare face.
“I understand you’ve been discussing Sara’s future with Del’s relatives,” Merry continued, “and I wondered whether you’ve reached any conclusions. Also whether the house will be sold, and how the funds from the sale will be disposed of, and so forth. My father, Police Chief John Folger, has asked me to help settle Adelia’s estate.”
The lawyer f iddled with a signet ring on his f inger “Miss Duarte died intestate, as no doubt you know,” he said. “In Massachusetts, that’s not really a problem—her property will go to her daughter, once the estate is probated and the death duties are paid. I don’t think the child will have much to live on unless the house is sold, and its proceeds retained in trust by her guardians.”
“That’s the question,” Merry said. “Who are likely to be Sara’s guardians?”
“I’ve been debating that with Adelia’s cousins, Yolanda and Manny Duarte. They’re roughly the same age as the deceased, they’re quite fond of young Sara, and they have two children of their own. They would be logical adoptive parents.”
“But? Don’t they want the responsibility?”
“They may not be allowed the chance,” Felix said. “There is the issue of Joe Duarte’s will to be considered.”
“Joe’s will?”
“Indeed. It may have some force and effect in the matter—although not in the way he envisioned.” The lawyer leaned forward and cupped his hands. “Mr. Duarte’s will provided for his granddaughter’s care in the event that his daughter predeceased him.”
“Wait a minute,” Merry said. “Joe Duarte dealt with the issue of Sara in his will? He’d never even seen her.”
“So I understand. Nevertheless, his will states that if Adelia Duarte predeceases him, his granddaughter’s f inancial affairs are to be placed under the guardianship of Jackie Alcantrara, one of the legatees of his estate. Apparently Mr. Alcantrara was someone Mr. Duarte trusted.”
“No way,” Merry said, f labbergasted. “That’s insane. Did Del know about this?”
“She was informed at the reading of the will. At the time, the provision seemed meaningless.”
“Because she was alive. She hadn’t predeceased him.”
“Exactly. However, her death makes the will’s provision an interesting one. Had Miss Duarte found time to draft a will of her own, assigning the child a guardian, it would, of course, have superseded this. Unfortunately she did not, and Sara Duarte is”—he hesitated before the colloquialism—“up for grabs.”
“Along with her inheritance,” Merry mused.
“The provision is not, strictly speaking, enforceable. Miss Duarte did not predecease her father. But there remains the possibility that Mr. Alcantrara will attempt to have it enforced, as the sole legal provision for Sara Duarte’s future. I have informed Yolanda and Manny Duarte of that fact. If they proceed with their plans for the child, they may face a court battle.”
“What a mess,” Merry said. Connie Alcantrara’s avid face and purposeful questions rose in her mind. She understood better now the woman’s willingness to talk; her morning chatter was anything but idle. Had Jackie, who witnessed Joe’s will, told her about the guardianship provision? Was this added incentive to murder—or a suggestion that the Alcantraras were innocent? For if monetary gain had been their primary object, wouldn�
�t Adelia have predeceased Joe—and not the other way around?
“That would be too obvious. They’d be afraid someone would put two and two together. Better to get the boats and hope for the kid.”
“I’m sorry?” Felix Harper said.
She looked up and realized she’d spoken aloud.
“Nothing,” she said. “Just thinking too much. Mr. Harper—Del stopped by to see you twice in the week she was on the island. Did she come to talk about the will?”
“Yes,” he said hesitantly. “About the house, and renting the smaller of the two boats. And some other—matters.”
“Could you give me some idea what those matters were? It could be helpful in determining her state of mind before she died—what concerned her, and so forth. That might shed some light on her activities, and possibly on the identity of her murderer.”
“I understand,” he said.
“Was she thinking of writing a will herself?”
“I don’t know.”
Merry waited.
“She was certainly concerned about her daughter, however,” he f inally said, relenting. “She wanted to discuss the nature of trust funds—how they were administered, how funds were safeguarded, the appointment of trustees, and so forth. Almost prophetic, when one considers it.”
“Right,” Merry said thoughtfully. “But she never got to set anything up.”
“No,” he assented. “Which means that the hundred thousand dollars is just sitting there, waiting to be drained for death duties. It’s a crying shame. A trust would have protected all of it.”
“Hundred thousand what?”
“Dollars,” Felix Harper said. “The amount she wanted to place in trust.”
“Did Joe leave that much to Sara?”
“No, Detective,” the lawyer said. “I don’t know where Miss Duarte came by the money. She wouldn’t say.”
“Del had a hundred thousand dollars?”
“She still does, I suppose. In an account in the Pacif ic National Bank.”
“So the way I see it,” Matt Bailey said, kicking his chair back and putting his feet up on Merry’s desk, “this Alcantrara guy and his wife had everything to gain and nothing to lose. It’s an open-and-shut case.”
“Based on what evidence?”
He shrugged. “According to your dad, Del thought her father was bumped off, right? And then she’s bumped off. Who benef its? Jackie Alcantrara. Both times.”
“Right,” Merry said. “But besides that, what evidence have you got, Bailey?”
“That’s conf idential until the arrest is made,” he said, pulling his heels to the f loor.
Merry rolled her eyes. “Get out of my off ice, will you?”
He stood up, his expression injured. “I didn’t think you’d let a little thing like envy ruin your judgment,” he said.
“Believe me, I haven’t.”
When he had slouched off to his own cubicle, Merry put her head in her hands. The chump would arrest Jackie Alcantrara on the basis of a hunch. She wondered what John Folger would think when he read Bailey’s report. She was fairly certain Bailey knew nothing about Del’s hundred thousand dollars, but he had latched onto two facts: Jackie’d gotten the boats, and Jackie might get the house if he won custody of Sara. John Folger, however, would be looking for more than just motive—he’d expect to f ind opportunity and means in Matt Bailey’s report. And Merry doubted they were there.
She called Clarence Strangerf ield. The crime scene chief was off-duty today, but he might answer his cell.
He did.
A few minutes later, she was driving toward his Sconset home.
“Come on, Clare,” she said. “Quit holding out on me.”
“I would nevah hold out on you, Marradith. But yar not on this case.”
All she could see of Clarence Strangerf ield was his hindquarters—considerable when viewed from the best of angles, but truly formidable in his current position in the rose bed. He had an insecticide pump f irmly in hand and was sending clouds of something noxious billowing about the leafy canes.
“Neither is Matt Bailey,” Merry said. “He signed off about twenty-four hours after he signed on.”
“Now, Marradith. Bailey may lack yar interest in f inding Miss Duarte’s murderah—”
“The jerk’s going to arrest Jackie Alcantrara.”
Clarence sat up so quickly he stabbed his forehead on a thorn and swore under his breath.
“I know he can’t have talked to the guy—Jackie’s been at sea for the past several days, and isn’t due in until tonight. Never mind that he was supposed to be on the Georges Bank when Del was killed. I f igure Bailey thinks he was lying, and that the coordinates he gave to his wife were pulled out of the air. I haven’t had time to check whether he radioed them to the Coast Guard as well. I can understand skepticism about the alibi—I was thinking up ways Jackie could’ve gotten in and out of port long enough to kill Del myself. What I want to know is whether Bailey’s even bothered with the evidence.”
“O’ carse not,” Clarence said. “Have you been doin’ a bit of investigatin’ on the side, Marradith?”
“I’ve just talked to a few people,” she said evasively. “Dad told me to settle Del’s affairs. I’ve been settling.”
“And you wouldn’t have peeked at my reparht, now would you?”
“Maybe peeked.”
Clarence set down his spray gun deliberately and pulled off his gloves. “You’ll get yarself f ired one o’ these days, Detective. And you’ll still be pokin’ yar nose in othah people’s business.”
“Clare, she was an old friend.”
“I know.”
“And I let her down.”
“Ow, come off it.”
“I did. She tried to tell me there was something wrong with her father’s death, and I dismissed it. If I’d taken her seriously, she might not be in a refrigerated locker in Boston.”
“Don’t think about that paht, Marradith.” He turned one knee to the earth and raised the other for support, grunting as he thrust himself to his feet. “Yar not responsible.”
“If I’m not, no one is.”
He looked at her, eyes narrowed. “Whaddya want to know?”
“If, as seems obvious, Del was killed because she’d discovered something incriminating about Joe’s death, then Bailey’s right to look for suspects among Joe’s crew—Jackie chief among them, since he benef ited under the will. I would be doing the same. But I’d hate to see Bailey blow the case by arresting Jackie too early. If he can’t make the charges stick, Jackie’ll be free a few hours later and covering his tracks with a vengeance.”
“Ayeh,” Clarence said grimly.
“Jackie took only one crew member with him on this f ishing trip. The Swede—the guy who operated the winch that accidentally killed Joe. But their stories differ. Jackie says the Swede brought the doors in too fast because he was careless. The Swede says he had no choice; the winch was jammed. Interesting that they’re out on the Atlantic together when Del dies, isn’t it? That way, the Swede can say Jackie was on the Georges Bank the whole time, and vice versa.”
“You think they were conspirin’?”
“I’d like to know where the other two crew members were while Jackie and the Swede set up their alibis. Scuttlebutt has it they’ve taken jobs on the mainland—but that doesn’t mean they weren’t on Nantucket Wednesday night. Bailey isn’t even bothering to think beyond his feet—which he’d prefer to leave propped up on the desk in front of him.”
“Now, Marradith.”
“Has Bailey checked Jackie’s closets for linen or silk clothes?”
“Nothin’s come to me for analysis, far’s I know.”
“Nothing from his wife’s closets, either? Her alibi is nonexistent.”
Clarence shook
his head.
“What about f ingerprints?”
“He may plan to get ’em aftah he arrests the fellah.”
“Oh, that’s brilliant.”
“If you’ve seen the repaht, you’ll know about the two different blood types,” Clarence said carefully. “Guess they’ll be drawin’ blood, too.”
“Clare, you’ve got to talk to the chief before Bailey does anything.”
“He’s yar fathah, Marradith.”
Chapter 18
John Folger was pulling at his salt-and-pepper mustache as he read over Matt Bailey’s report. The detective prided himself on his intuitive leaps, as he called them. John’s preferred words were less f lattering. While Bailey saw himself as an intellectual path-blazer who cut investigation time in half, his chief considered him lazy. His failure to do the scut work of investigation too often resulted in a false arrest or an unresolved case.
John had given Bailey Del Duarte’s murder in the hope that it might galvanize him. But as he read the cursory paragraphs, the chief admitted that handing Bailey responsibility was rather like giving pen and paper to a dog—you hope he’ll learn to write, but more often than not, he’ll chew the pen and urinate happily on the paper. Once Del Duarte’s death was behind them, John decided, Bailey was going to be counseled. He’d been counseled before, of course, by the training off icer; he’d done his forty hours of mandatory, in-line training the state expected every year; and nothing had changed. It was time he was counseled into another career.
The chief slapped the f ile closed in irritation and reached for his intercom buzzer, intending to call Bailey into the off ice; but he stopped in mid-reach. His daughter was leaning against the doorframe silently, watching him, and he didn’t like the look in her green eyes. She was both wary and intent, which meant she was going to say something she was sure would make him angry.
“What is it, Detective Folger?”
“Do you have a minute, Chief?”
He nodded toward the captain’s chair opposite his desk. She closed the door behind her and sat down, tucking her hands between her knees and drawing breath.
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