Father’s Day Murder

by Leslie Meier

  “But how can we find out for sure?” asked Lucy. “Pioneer is a privately owned company. They don’t even have to make their annual report public.”

  “Didn’t you say Luther played tennis with the bank president?”

  “Yeah. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tinker’s Cove Five Cents Savings Bank has invested in Pioneer Press.”

  “Neither would I.” Ted scratched his chin. “I think I’ll give Fred Ames a call. He’s probably got those annual reports neatly filed away.”

  “Meanwhile, kemosabe, what’s happening with Junior?”

  “Nothing. There’s a bail hearing this afternoon, so I guess he’ll be getting out of jail soon, but the DA is convinced he’s got the right man and wants to take it to trial. He’s making lots of noise about no plea bargains.”

  “Junior wouldn’t cop a plea.”

  “You seem awfully sure,” said Ted.

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I’m keeping an open mind. And an open line with his wife. I want to get an interview for Thursday’s paper.”

  “His lawyer probably won’t let him talk.”

  “We’ll see,” said Ted, getting to his feet. “Listen, a bunch of us are going out to eat tonight at Durgin Park. Want to come?”

  Durgin Park, Lucy discovered, was a venerable institution where the patrons did not get their own tables, but sat instead at long communal tables covered with snowy white cloths. The group from the convention was so large, however, that it didn’t matter, because they took up an entire table anyway. They were also noisy enough for the whole restaurant.

  “So where’re you merrymakers from?” asked the waitress, pulling her pencil from her unnaturally red hair. Like all the waitresses, she was a heavyset woman who was getting on in years. She dropped her Rs, speaking with a broad Boston accent.

  “New Hampshire!” proclaimed Fred Easton, Ted’s longtime friend, who published the Franconia Mountain News, a weekly much like the Pennysaver.

  “Live free or die!” exclaimed Bob Hunsaker, who also published a weekly. His proclamation of the state motto was greeted with rousing cheers by the rest of the group, except for Ted.

  “Remember Maine!” he yelled, inspiring a chorus of boos.

  “Sam Adams all ’round?” It wasn’t so much a question as a statement of fact.

  “Sure,” agreed Fred.

  “Have you got any light beer?” asked Lucy.

  “Not for you, honey. You’re too skinny as is.”

  “Well, I never,” began Lucy, staring at the waitress’s back as she crossed the room.

  “The waitresses here are known for their rudeness,” said Bob. “It’s one of the things that makes the place so popular.”

  It didn’t make much sense to Lucy, but she figured she was just going along for the ride. She opened her menu.

  The waitress returned, easily carrying an overloaded tray filled with beers for the entire group. As soon as she’d finished distributing them she opened her pad, licked her pencil, and asked, “What’ll you have? We’ll start with the lady.”

  “I’ll begin with salad.”

  “Don’t recommend it.”

  Lucy figured arguing wouldn’t do any good. “Okay. How about chowder?”

  “Good.”

  Lucy felt as if she’d answered the question correctly. Buoyed with confidence, she ventured to choose an entrée. “Broiled scrod.”

  Wrong. No buzzers went off; no red lights flashed. The waitress simply overrode her choice. “Most people have the prime rib. Do you want beans?”

  “Green?”

  “Baked.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “You’ve gotta try the beans,” said Bob, assisted by a chorus of encouragement from the others.

  “This is Boston, the land of the bean and the cod,” said Fred, and everybody cheered.

  “What’ll you tell the kids when they ask if you had Boston baked beans?” asked Ted.

  Such an eventuality seemed extremely remote to Lucy, but she didn’t want to be a party pooper. “Okay,” she said.

  “And for dessert?”

  “Just coffee.”

  “No way!” exclaimed Fred. “She’s got to try the Indian pudding.”

  “Can’t miss the Indian pudding,” agreed Bob. “It’s the house specialty. Baked all day in a brick oven.”

  “You’ll want that à la mode, right?”

  Lucy sighed. “Sure.”

  The waitress moved on to Ted and Lucy took a sip of her beer. It was delicious, but filling. She vowed she’d sip slowly and make it last.

  “Another round?”

  The group cheered noisily.

  It wasn’t until the group was well into their second round of drinks that their high spirits began to subside and the conversation grew more serious.

  “Who ever thought Luther Read would end up like this?” mused Fred. “Him, of all people. The man who had everything. I figured he’d grab the cash and live to a ripe old age, mummifying himself on some Arizona golf course.”

  “I guess Junior had different plans for him,” said Bob.

  “I don’t buy it,” said a man with a crew cut whose name Lucy hadn’t been able to catch. “He’s too smart. He’d know he’d never get away with it. I think he was framed.”

  Lucy nodded in agreement.

  “If he did it, he must’ve known he was taking an awful risk,” said Fred.

  “A stupid risk,” said Bob. “If he’d just let nature take its course he would have inherited his father’s shares. Now it’ll probably all go to Harold.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Lucy. “I thought he left everything to Junior.”

  “He can’t benefit from a crime,” said Fred. “The chain will go to Harold, unless by some miracle Junior manages to get off.”

  “Harold doesn’t seem very happy about it,” said Lucy, wondering if his grim demeanor was an act.

  “He lost his brother….”

  “It’s a big responsibility. Plus, the chain’s not in good shape.”

  “What would you do if you were in his shoes?”

  “Me?” The guy with the crew cut scratched his head. “For starters, I’d sell off the losers and keep the money-makers, try to grow them.”

  “I heard he’s considering launching a chain of weeklies….”

  “That’d be a smart move,” said Fred. “All it would cost him is the paper and ink, since he’s already got the writers and editors, and he’d pick up plenty of advertisers who can’t afford the dailies.”

  “It’d be the end of independent weeklies in New Hampshire,” said Bob.

  The group fell silent, considering his grim prediction.

  “Why so glum?” asked the waitress, arriving with the chowder. Another round?”

  “Another round!” said Fred.

  Everybody cheered.

  Lucy was glassy-eyed when she finally got back to her room, where she immediately unbuckled her belt and unbuttoned her slacks. She had never in her life eaten—or drunk—so much. The chowder and beer had pretty much filled her up, and she hadn’t been prepared for Durgin Park’s prime rib, which was two inches thick and so large that it hung over the sides of the plate. She’d left most of it, much to the derision of the waitress, but she still felt as if she might explode at any moment.

  She really didn’t know why she’d eaten the Indian pudding. She’d intended to have a taste, just a bite, but when she tasted the heady mix of corn meal and spices, a perfect foil for the cool, creamy vanilla ice cream, she’d been unable to resist eating the whole thing. Not that the waitress had been impressed. “Seconds, honey?” she’d asked.

  Slowly, Lucy eased herself onto the bed and slipped off her shoes. Then she snaked her hand up her back and unhooked her bra. That felt better. She rubbed her taut tummy. She hated to admit it, but she felt great. Like a lioness who’d just finished off a tasty gazelle snack. All she wanted to do now was sleep. But first she had to call home. Sighing, she reached for
the phone.

  Bill answered.

  “Hi.”

  “Long time, no hear. How’s the convention?”

  Lucy didn’t like his tone of voice. It was casual. Too casual, considering everything that had been going on.

  “The convention’s fine and I’m fine,” she snapped, “which is more than you can say.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, come on. You fired Toby, the dog ran away, the girls are at each other’s throats and Elizabeth’s running around town practically naked with some guy with a tattoo….”

  “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but it’s not as bad as it sounds.”

  Lucy didn’t want excuses.

  “You’ve been lying to me! Why do you keep pretending everything’s okay when it’s not?”

  “I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “Don’t you see? I worry more because I don’t know what’s really going on. Now, what are you going to do about Toby? You’re not really going to kick him out of the house, are you?”

  There was a long silence. When Bill spoke, his voice was dead serious.

  “Listen, Lucy, you’re not here and I am. I have to handle this my own way.”

  “Oh, Bill,” she began, protesting, but Bill wasn’t listening. He’d hung up.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Despite her tiredness, it took Lucy a long time to fall asleep. She stretched out between the clean sheets, alone in the dark room, and closed her eyes, but her usual defense system failed her. Instead of filtering out the sounds of people coming and going in the hallway, the thunk of the elevator and the sirens in the streets outside, she found herself straining to hear what was going on. What were the people outside her door talking about? Who was in the elevator? Were they ambulance or police sirens? Had she fastened the safety chain on her door?

  Her mind wouldn’t rest but went around and around, chasing scraps of thought, tattered sentences and fleeting expressions. Harold’s stare: had it really been directed at her or had he turned away in anger from Inez? She had only a kaleidoscope of impressions about Inez: hair like straw, a Barbie-doll face, pretty but was anybody home? Pointy bloodred nails, sharp little teeth, spike heels.

  Then there was Harold’s cat. A fluffy white Persian, claws well hidden. It had a woman’s face. Inez’s face. Suddenly the cat pounced on something, neatly pinning it with a single talon. The thing squirmed. It was Sam Syrjala, more concerned with recovering the bottle that was rolling away from him than with his own danger. The bottle spun around, and when it stopped it was pointing at Junior.

  Who, me? mouthed Junior; then he smiled, revealing a shark’s mouth full of triangular teeth. Luther and Junior were in the elevator, which had become a glass-sided aquarium. They were swimming back and forth, endlessly chasing each other like the sharks in the giant tank at the New England Aquarium. A diver was bringing them food, big slabs of raw fish in a net bag. The bag was empty but the sharks were still hungry, circling the diver. She tried to swim away, but she couldn’t. The sharks were now Bill and Toby. They kept nudging the diver with their snouts, forcing her down. She was on the bottom of the tank, on her back, face upward with hair swirling loosely around her mask. The face in the mask was her own.

  Then she was awake, caught in a tangle of sheets, breathing heavily and damp with perspiration. It took her a moment to remember that she wasn’t home; she was in the Park Plaza hotel because she was attending the Northeast Newspaper Association conference. What time was it anyway? She looked at the clock. Only four. She could go back to sleep. Maybe.

  Lucy was sitting in the coffee shop, mulling over her dream and wondering if it had any significance apart from indicating her own tangled emotions, when Morgan Dodd plunked herself down in the seat on the opposite side of the table.

  “Big news,” said Morgan.

  Lucy doubted it, but she was willing to play along. “What?”

  “Junior’s out on bail.”

  “That’s good.”

  Morgan narrowed her eyes. “I want to interview him.”

  “You and everybody else,” said Lucy. “But his lawyer will never allow it. The most you can hope for is a carefully worded, prepared statement. He’s probably ‘eager to prove his innocence at the trial,’ or maybe even ‘willing to do everything he can to catch the real murderer, who is still at large.’ They might even offer a reward, but maybe not, since PPG isn’t doing all that well.”

  “Whoa, Sally. Maybe, just maybe, he’d appreciate an opportunity to talk to a sympathetic local reporter who’ll give him a chance to tell his side of the story.”

  “What’s that got to do with you?” asked Lucy.

  “I was thinking I could go along with you, to set up the tape recorder or take a picture. Kind of be your assistant.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Lucy, amused. “Besides, why should I share my story with you? What’s in it for me?”

  Morgan smiled slyly. “I might be willing to share some information. I’ve been investigating on my own, you know, and I’ve uncovered some interesting facts.”

  Did she really have something, or was she bluffing? Lucy was trying to decide when Junior suddenly appeared beside her, in the flesh. He wasn’t the hale and hearty fellow she remembered, but seemed diminished in size somehow. Almost fragile.

  “Hi, stranger,” she said softly. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m Morgan Dodd.” Morgan stood up and grabbed his hand, pumping it energetically. “With the Framingham Trib.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “It must feel pretty good getting out of jail,” continued Morgan.

  “You bet.” He grinned at Lucy. “I can’t wait to get back to Tinker’s Cove.”

  “Have you and your lawyer decided on a defense strategy?” Morgan asked.

  Junior’s eyes met Lucy’s; then he turned to Morgan. “I can’t comment on the case, except to say that I welcome the opportunity to prove my innocence, and I have complete faith in the American system of justice.”

  Lucy mouthed the words I told you so to Morgan.

  “I’m awfully sorry about your father,” said Lucy. “He’s really going to be missed in Tinker’s Cove. I often used to see him around town. He had a smile for everyone.”

  Lucy could see Morgan rolling her eyes behind Junior’s back but ignored her, allowing Junior to clasp her hand.

  “That means a lot to me, Lucy,” said Junior, his voice thick with emotion.

  “Will the funeral be in Tinker’s Cove?”

  “I don’t know what’s been decided.” He shrugged. “I’ve been out of the loop. I just want to go home and take some time to absorb what’s happened.”

  “That’s understandable. I hope things work out for you.” The enormity of his situation loomed ominously between them. “I really do,” she added.

  “Maybe you should consider granting some interviews to sympathetic reporters,” said Morgan in a helpful tone of voice, as if the idea had just occurred to her. “Like Lucy. Or me.”

  “Thanks for the advice. Actually, I’m meeting with Ted tomorrow.” Someone outside caught his eye. Lucy followed his glance and recognized his lawyer from his picture in the Globe, standing in the doorway with Catherine. “Well, I’ve got to go. I just wanted to say hi. See you around, Lucy.”

  As soon as he was out the door, Morgan grabbed Lucy’s arm. “Who’s this Ted?”

  “My boss.”

  Morgan wasn’t one to miss an opportunity. “Is he here at the convention? Can you point him out to me?”

  “I think he’s gone. He was leaving first thing today.”

  “Damn.”

  “Are you going to the workshop this morning?” asked Lucy, checking her watch.

  “Are you kidding? This is the story of a lifetime and I intend to get it.” She shook her head. “I mean, what’s the point of all these workshops if you don’t have anything to write about? The story’s the important thing.”

  She had a point,
Lucy supposed, but did she know what a dangerous game she was playing?

  “You know,” said Lucy slowly, recalling the frightening, toothy images of her dream, “if Junior isn’t the murderer, that means there’s somebody out there who doesn’t want to be discovered. Somebody who’s already killed once.”

  “Are you telling me to be careful?” Morgan was defiant. “Because if you are, I already have a mother, thank you very much.”

  Good point, thought Lucy. “Does your mother know what you’re doing?”

  Morgan didn’t answer, but whirled around and strode out of the coffee shop. Lucy sighed and picked up her bag. She had a workshop to attend.

  The creative writing workshop was better than she expected, and Lucy was both elated and depleted when it was over. She was too keyed up to consider returning to the confining meeting room for the afternoon session. Ted was gone; there was no one to chide her if she took some time for herself. She had always wanted to visit the famous Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and this was her chance.

  The doorman advised taking the Green Line, and Lucy followed his directions, soon finding herself gazing at the museum’s glass-enclosed courtyard, where live green plants and flowering orchids mingled with fragments of ancient Roman sculpture and mosaics. The air was moist and heavy with the scent of earth and flowers.

  A sign pointed the way to the café, and Lucy realized she was hungry. The tiny restaurant was crowded, so she followed the example of some others and purchased a bottled drink and a sandwich to eat outside in the sculpture garden. As she sat in the peaceful garden, she resolutely emptied her mind and concentrated on enjoying the moment. She studied the beads of moisture condensing on her bottle of iced tea, and concentrated on the chewy texture of the bread in her sandwich.

  Refreshed by her little Zen exercise, she returned to the museum through the Chinese Gallery, pausing at John Singer Sargent’s masterpiece El Jaleo. The subject was a flamenco dancer, famous in her day, and Sargent caught her in the midst of her dance with one arm cocked awkwardly and her head thrown back. It was full of life and light, and Lucy was saddened to think that Sargent would never lift another brush, the dancer would never again twitch her skirt, and the musicians and singers pictured in the background would be forever silent.