Say No to Murder

by Nancy Pickard

  I let him hang up first.

  Immediately, the phone buzzed again. I let it ring, I looked into the outer office where my staff was pretending to work on grants, investments and applications. Then I punched another outside line, first to let Ted Sullivan know where I’d taken his boat, then to call the First City Bank.

  “Jack Fenton, please,” I said to the switchboard.

  His secretary put me through immediately, her voice so tactfully devoid of expression that it told me hundreds of things I didn’t want to hear about how the average citizen was reacting to the news of my father’s arrest and release.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jack said as soon as he came on the line. “What can I do to help you, Jennifer?”

  “He didn’t do it, Jack. He didn’t do anything but play James Bond for a night.”

  “I know that, my dear.”

  “Oh,” I said, and leaned my forehead into my open palm. “Thank you for that, I’ll tell you what else you can do for me if you would: you can assume the authority for giving me an early vacation, and clear it later with the rest of the board.”

  He clucked sympathetically. “Yes, it’s probably hell trying to work through all this.”

  “It’s not that,” I said. “Well, yes, it is hell. And as long as this continues, and as long as I continue to hang around the office, this Foundation will suffer from lack of work and concentration. But that’s not the only reason I want the time off, Jack.” I was beginning to feel clear-headed for the first time that morning. “My father didn’t do any of the things people are assuming he did. You and I both know that as well as we know there’s no Santa Claus. But somebody did it, Jack. Somebody killed Reich. Somebody killed McGee. Somebody shot those burning arrows into Webster’s shack and somebody got to Shattuck’s vehicles. Maybe it’s one and the same person, maybe it’s not. But finding out who it is may be the only way I’ll ever clear my father in the mind and heart of this city.”

  “Jennifer, the police . . .”

  “Are having a tough enough time as it is,” I said bluntly, “because of the conflict of interest charges that are arising out of my relationship with Geof Bushfield.”

  “A crusade is a lonely and dangerous undertaking,” he said slowly. “Sometimes crusaders don’t come home at all. And sometimes they find their holy pail is made of brass, and tarnished.”

  I laughed softly. “My father would be so insulted, Jack, to think you considered him anything less than twenty-four-karat gold.”

  The old banker chuckled, and I knew I’d won. “All right,” he said, giving me the feeling I’d just passed muster for a loan, “you do what you have to do. I’ll clear the road for you with the other trustees.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You be careful, young lady.”

  “I will. Bless you.”

  Next, I called the police station with every intention of informing Geof about what it was I intended to do. I was even going to ask his advice and enlist his aid in my quest.

  “I’m taking a few days off,” I said, “until this thing gets straightened out or blows over.” And then I opened my mouth to tell him the rest of it. And couldn’t do it. At any rate, didn’t do it. “Geof,” I should have said, “I’m going to launch a little private investigation of my own to try to clear my father. Yes, I know it sounds like another vigilante committee—a group of one, in this case—but I’m, more personally involved than Web and his cohort. There’s not much left to my family name in the way of honor, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let them besmirch it falsely, I have to do this in the same way that I have to eat and sleep.”

  That’s what I should have, might have, didn’t say.

  Instead, I added lamely, “I’d better stay close to my dad to keep him out of trouble.”

  “I agree,” Geof said, so understandingly he doubled my guilt factor to an eight point five on a ten-point scale. “You know, this may not be what you want to hear, but I kind of liked him, Jenny. It’s not as if he wants to be a failure as a father or a husband. Or a businessman. I mean, the crazy irresponsible things he does only make it appear that way. The truth is, he wants approval and success as much as anybody. If there ever was a man whose actions belie the true motives of his heart, it’s your dad.”

  “I don’t think,” I said evenly, “that an acquaintance of a few hours gives you lecturing privileges. May I respectfully point out that you haven’t known him as long or as well as I have.”

  “You may,” he said quickly, apologetically. “And God knows you should. Listen, keep in regular touch with me, all right? I promise not to preach, and I’ll keep you informed about what’s going on with our various and multitudinous investigations.” He sighed wearily, having not had much more sleep than I. My guilt factor rose to an even nine points.

  But if I were to make an ass of myself, it seemed better, kinder, to do it alone. Better to do my searching and probing and questioning without burdening him with the need to give me an official “No,” or an unofficial “Okay, but I wish you wouldn’t.” Life was complicated enough for him now, with his connection to the Calamity Cains; better to leave him out of my activities as much as possible.

  That was the good news part of my rationale; the bad news part was that the night’s crises had left me feeling allied with my father in an us-against-the-world sort of way, that world unfortunately including policemen. Maybe it was only the effect of exhaustion, but I felt separated from Geof by a fog of suspicion, accusation, conflict of interest and doubt.

  “Jenny,” he was saying, “there’s one thing I want you to remember while you’re lying out there in the sun on that boat.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I love you.”

  Bingo: ten.

  Saying good-bye to him depressed me. But then I put it out of my mind, clicked my briefcase and purse closed, grabbed both of them and walked over to Faye’s desk. After a few words of explanation and instruction, I said, “Tell whoever calls that I am on vacation and cannot be reached. I’ll call you every day to check on things. But basically it’s in your hands, yours and Derek’s and Marvin’s. Frankly, I think you’ll get more done without me.”

  She looked at me sadly, without arguing the point.

  I left the Foundation, wondering if my bosses, the trustees, could any longer afford to keep as director someone whose name was so frequently associated with scandal. “Good-bye,” I said, looking back. I felt depressed all over again.

  chapter

  22

  The taxi took me back to Geof’s house. With a running meter to encourage speed, I changed into a cool cotton skirt and blouse, then packed sufficient clothes to last, with frequent washings, a couple of weeks. Then the taxi returned me to my car at Liberty Harbor. From there I drove up to the old lover’s leap that overlooked the bay.

  I was trying to carve a niche of time to think, relax, gain some perspective. A trip to the mountains accomplishes that end for some people, but it’s always the sea that refreshes me. I don’t have to be on it or in it. I only require a warm rock from which I can watch waves.

  After I pulled off the highway, I parked the car and walked over to the edge of the low cliff. I leaned cautiously against the dilapidated wood fence that separated me from a long fall into the filthy lobster pound directly below. I made a mental note to remind the committee to try to prod the city into refurbishing this future tourist attraction. Then I smiled to myself when I recognized the track of familiar routine along which my mind was running: check on this, push for that, meet with them, read it, say it, do it. Ail of which assumed a life in which routine was made possible by the security of employment, position, relationship. And it was those examples of life’s little predictable regularities on which I suddenly had only the most tenuous hold.

  I released my hold on the top of the fence, hoping that didn’t symbolize anything profound. At a gap in the fence there was a not-very-clean, not-very-grassy verge. I kicked away a few pieces of litter of recent vintage
, sat down on the ragged piece of green and pulled a small notebook out of my skirt pocket. Ailey Mason would have approved. Regulation rookie equipment: one blank notebook. I would have preferred to use my home computer, but it was there at Geof’s and I was here. Below me, Goose Shattuck’s men labored on the mall, unimpeded by death or destruction. Drills roared, hammers fell, saws rasped, trucks rolled along the dirt, men crawled Eke cautious crabs along the high horizontal beams. Neither murder nor vandalism had stopped, or even slowed down, this renovation we all wanted so badly.

  I took a ballpoint pen from my other skirt pocket.

  First heading: Sequence of (Known) Main Events—Saturday, June 12, Ansen Reich killed. Sunday, June 13, vandalism and arson. Sunday, June 20, Atheneum McGee killed. I did not list my father’s foray as a main event.

  Second heading: Subsidiary, possibly pertinent events—Friday, June 11, Ansen Reich threatens project. Monday, June 14, Citizens’ Watch Committee formed; Unmarked Grave approved; Cain and Eberhardt receive racist phone calls. Sunday, June 20, Mrs. Reich reveals scheme to get percentage of Atheneum McGee’s inheritance; James Cain apprehended while trespassing at project.

  Third heading: Suggested Motives—1) Sabotage: A person or persons are trying to harm the project for reasons unknown. 2) Conspiracy: James Cain is trying to harm the project as part of an overall plan to damage Port Frederick. 3) Racism: Somebody is trying to harm the project as a protest against minority involvement.

  Fourth heading: Supporting Data—1) The idea of a racist motive is supported by the phone calls to Jenny and Hardy; by the use of the cross of the Unmarked Grave as a murder weapon; by . . .

  I quickly ran out of steam on that one. I put down my pencil.

  The idea of a conspiracy motive on the part of my father was supported by his sudden appearance in town just at the time of the main events; by his history of causing economic problems for the town, although that was through mismanagement and not through malfeasance; and by his act of trespassing on the project while in possession of potentially deadly weapons.

  But the conspiracy motive came smack up against the man himself who couldn’t organize a trip to the grocery store, much less a conspiracy. That teakettle wouldn’t boil, either.

  As for the sabotage . . . what was the actual damage to the project? The foreman died, but he was quickly replaced, so the work continued unabated. The arson destroyed a shack and a pier, but the pier was due for demolition anyway, and the shack was quickly rebuilt, so the work continued unabated. . . .

  I frowned and gazed out to sea again, my notes forgotten.

  The damage to Goose Shattuck’s vehicles was personally aggravating for him, but he probably had them fixed by Monday morning so that he could make it to work on time. And work continued unab—

  A sailboat, two-masted, was rounding the bend into the bay. I focused on it until it rounded the first buoy, when my vision blurred with the intensity of my thinking.

  As for the death of Atheneum McGee, which was the next main event after Reich’s murder and the arson and vandalism, it had no effect on the project at all. He was already thought to be dead, so his share of the estate had already been split among the other heirs. Thus, work at the project continued unabated.

  Below me, work continued.

  Unabated.

  Geof had never seemed to commit himself to an acceptance of the sabotage theory that Web so enthusiastically endorsed from the beginning. Now why was that, I asked myself, why was an experienced cop so loath to grab the nearest handy motive?

  I pulled my back up straighter.

  Because, I realized, there had only been an appearance of sabotage, but no real damage, nothing to impede the orderly progress of construction. “I’ll believe it,” Geof had said of the sabotage theory, “when I see specific evidence to prove it.”

  Something else he’d said to me that morning came unbidden into my head: “Your father doesn’t want to fail. The things he does only make it seem that way. His actions belie the true motives of his heart.”

  Below, work on the project continued.

  Unabated.

  The events of the past ten days seemed on the surface to suggest a violent antipathy to Liberty Harbor. But the net result was no damage at all, at least not sufficient to stop the work. And that would seem to suggest that someone’s actions belied the motives of his heart.

  If I was right, the person or persons who were causing the trouble did not intend to harm the project at all! Could I then logically infer the reverse? Did they desperately want it to succeed? And so their acts were somehow intended to further that goal? But how would Ansen Reich’s death advance the project? Or Atheneum’s murder? How could arson and vandalism be interpreted as positive acts?

  Keep your eye on the ball, Geof always told Ailey.

  The ball is murder, Ailey had suggested.

  If Reich and McGee were murdered to advance the project in some way, the violent acts might only be camouflage to entice the authorities into looking for other motives, ergo other suspects. Arson and vandalism were the spit on that ball that caused it to swerve deceptively toward the batter so he couldn’t keep his eye on it.

  New heading: Who Needs Project to Succeed?—Ruthlessly, I made my list of familiar names. Then I stood, brushed off the dirt and grass, stuck my pencil and notepad in my pockets and returned to my car.

  First I would force down some lunch.

  Then I would ask my questions.

  chapter

  23

  The lunch rush was long over by the time I stepped into the cool, shaded welcome of The Buoy. There was nobody out front in the long dim hall that served as a coatroom and lobby, and I heard only a low murmur punctuated by occasional clatters of silver and dishes from within. I thought I’d get a quick sandwich and be gone before the afterwork crowd arrived for their wine coolers and light beers.

  But first I slipped into the old-fashioned phone booth in the hall, pulled the folding door shut, flipped down the wooden seat and sat on it, pulled the phonebook on its chain toward me and thumbed to the section with U.S. government phone numbers. I dialed in my credit card number for a long-distance call.

  “Federal Reserve Bank,” said the switchboard.

  I gave the name of an attorney I knew and was channeled through her secretary before I heard the memorable voice, a throbbing contralto that ought to have been thrilling juries in courtrooms instead of bankers in boardrooms.

  “Jennifer Cain.” She made my name sound like a late-breaking news bulletin. “As I live and breathe. It’s not time for our college reunion yet, is it? I’m not that old yet, am I?”

  “Sandra,” I replied, “the years will never show on that face. Even at our fiftieth reunion, the bartender will demand to see your driver’s license before he’ll serve you a drink.”

  “Whatever it is you want,” she said dryly, “it’s yours. And as I recall, I owe you one from that time you lifted that drunken and rapacious law clerk off my body and heaved him singlehanded out of your date’s car onto his bare butt.”

  “It’s gracious of you to recall that,” I said, “so that I don’t have to crudely remind you. I need information, Sandra. I have some crazy cousins who are thinking of making a try for majority ownership of the First City Bank in this town. It’s none of my business, except they want our family’s stock, too. I’d like your unofficial, absolutely off-the-record feeling in regard to the general well-being of that bank. Its loan picture, management, reputation, you know.”

  “Fenton’s First? My heavens, it’s as old as the Republic and a hell of a lot better managed. Why that bank is a paragon on which every other bank in this state could model itself, and Jack Fenton is a saint among bankers. Why that man makes George Washington look like a liar and Abe Lincoln look like a cheat. To impugn his banking wisdom is to deny God. Worse, it’s a communist plot. Jenny,” she said suspiciously, “these cousins of yours, are they Democrats?”

  “Sandra, the First has out a lot of
big loans to various people for a project that we call Liberty Harbor.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” the Bostonian said condescendingly.

  “Well, what do you hear in regard to their loans vis-à-vis their equity? Could they have overextended themselves on this one?”

  “Don’t,” said the throbbing contralto, “be silly.”

  Before she hung up, she added, “Jenny, my advice to you is to tell your cousins to go fish in another pond. This one is frozen so solid they couldn’t break into it with a crowbar.”

  “I doubt,” I said, “that you’ll hear any more about them. Thanks, Sandra. Good-bye.”

  I squeezed out of the phone booth and followed my nose toward the restaurant which was in an oak-planked room off the bar. “Jenny!” called the bartender, a member of the latest generation of the same family that had owned The Buoy for generations. But when I looked up, I could see flooding into his broad, open face a sudden recollection of the latest scandal involving my father. He flushed for lack of anything to say, then bent his head to apply himself furiously to polishing the brass rail along his bar. I found myself smiling at the top of his head. There was a bald spot there, the size of a silver dollar. I said hello to it, then forced myself to stroll into the restaurant at a pace that implied no cares in the world, but mentally I braced myself for the familiar faces I might find there.

  But there were only strangers, except for a corner table where it looked as if a hooker and her pimp were negotiating with a Baptist deacon. It was Betty Tower, in ruffles and pink spike heels, Pete Tower, looking beefy and middle-aged in a black suit, and Webster Helms. They seemed to be arguing about something, and were hunched over their cups of coffee like gnomes over gold. They didn’t see me. I walked steadily toward them until they did.

  “Jenny!” Betty said brightly. “Look Pete, Web. It’s Jenny.”

  The men looked up at me with large smiles to show how delighted they were to see me. They were so delighted they were speechless. I eased myself down into the empty fourth chair at their table and smiled back at them.