Say No to Murder

by Nancy Pickard

  “Hello,” I said. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Love it! We’d simply love it!”

  “Why of course we wouldn’t mind, Jenny!”

  “Have you ordered? No? Waitress, a menu . . .”

  They were all over themselves in their eagerness to display their broadmindedness. While they babbled on to each other about what a lovely day it was and did anyone think it might rain?, I ordered a glass of light ale and a crab sandwich. When the waitress departed, I clasped my hands on the table in front of me, and smiled back at the trio.

  “Dad’s doing fine,” I said as if they’d asked.

  “Great!” Pete Tower said, as fervently as if I’d told him he would live forever. “That’s just great!”

  Webster Helms looked daggers at him. The architect then turned on me his most forthright gaze. “I’m sorry this sad business with your’ father affects you, Jennifer,” he said somberly. “But it’s nothing personal, you understand. We have to think of the good of this city.”

  “Well,” I said, “the renovation is important to us all.”

  He looked surprised at the mildness of my response, and seemed visibly to relax.

  “Important,” Pete pronounced, “the very word for it. Important, yes.”

  His wife gave him a look that would steam clams. I turned toward her with my most winning, humble smile. “I guess every one of us has a stake in the project, don’t you think, Betty? I mean, the Foundation has invested quite a bit of money in it, at my urging, so it’s important . . .”—I smiled in a kindly way at Pete—“to me for it to succeed. I want to look good with my bosses, you know!” I gave a little laugh that I hoped was convincing. “And there you are, the two of you, with that wonderful café about to open. I do hope this business with my father has not delayed your opening in any way?”

  “It better not,” she snapped, and pushed her coffee away. Under her makeup, the little red veins that splayed out from her nose were blazing. Her husband turned pink above his white collar and stirred his own coffee vigorously. Betty said, “I don’t mind telling you that we’ve got ourselves in hock up to our eyeballs on this, Jenny. It’s no secret. If we don’t make our balloon payment on time this fall, the bank will have our ass in a sling.”

  “Now, Betty,” her husband remonstrated weakly. “Jenny doesn’t want to know our problems.”

  “I don’t see why not,” she snapped back. “Her crazy father could have ruined us, same as he ruined all those employees when their plant went belly up.” She glared defiantly at me, daring me to deny it. The men shifted uneasily in their chairs.

  Instead, I smiled sadly. “And you, Web,” I murmured, “an architect in a town this size doesn’t get many opportunities of this magnitude. You’ve probably had to turn down other jobs to get it completed, or did you add more employees?”

  “Both,” he said grandly. “When one wins a job like this over the bids of competitors from larger metropolitan areas, one wants to do one’s best to prove one’s worth, you know. For the pride of one’s city, you know.”

  “I know.” I nodded slowly. “One does, indeed.”

  Pete smiled agreeably, as he did to most things Webster said, but his wife eyed me suspiciously. Before she could open her frosted-pink lips, I said, “Goose probably feels as you do, Webster. I mean, this is a grand project on which to retire in full glory. I’ll bet its success means as much to him as any job he’s ever won.”

  “More,” Betty informed me, then laughed. “He’s got to keep those young turks at bay. They’ve been getting all his jobs because everybody thinks Goose is too old to hack it anymore. Why d’ya think he bid it so low?”

  “He’s only sixty,” I protested.

  She shrugged her pink, ruffled shoulders, obviously bored with talk of anyone but herself, and any interests but her own.

  “You see, Jennifer,” Webster Helms bore down on me as I’d hoped he would, “this renovation is vitally important to any number of us. Just take the members of our committee, for instance.” He ticked off names and, unknowingly, motives on his fingers. “Frankly, it will boost my firm’s reputation to a national level, it will help us win bids for major developments outside of this state. And you’ve already heard how important it is to Betty and Pete. Why their whole future is riding on that pretty little café that I’ve designed for them.”

  “Well,” Pete demurred hesitantly, “we do have one or two other little interests that . . .”

  “And Goose,” Web rolled implacably on, “well, Betty’s right about Goose needing this one to prove he can still cut the mustard. You take the rest of our committee—there isn’t one person who won’t stand to gain from this business. I mean, Ted Sullivan will sell more houses because more people will be employed . . .”

  “More?” Betty laughed explosively. “He should sell one house and be lucky . . .”

  “. . . and if they’re making money they’ll be able to move up in the world, to better houses. And the First City Bank will get rich on interest payments, so Jack Fenton will be a happy man.”

  “He could retire on our interest.” Betty’s makeup creased between her eyes when she frowned.

  “. . . Hardy and Mary Eberhardt will cement their position as leaders of the black community because of all those jobs we’re giving them . . .”

  I bit my tongue viciously and managed to keep smiling through Web’s lecture on the trickle-down theory of Economics 101.

  “. . . and Barbara could probably get reelected solely on the strength of the goodwill this project will generate for her administration once it’s completed. And you, Jennifer . . .” Webster smiled, his thin lips almost disappearing into his mouth. “You’ll get a raise for being the smart girl who recommended the harbor to your trustees for funding.”

  Smiling was becoming increasingly more difficult, what with my jaws clenched so tight I thought my teeth would break.

  “As if she needed the money,” Betty muttered.

  “So you see . . .” Web rolled on to his grand finale, spreading his hands wide in candor and fellowship. He had on a short-sleeve shirt and I could see the blue veins on the inside of his forearms. “We’re all depending on this project to be completed successfully and right on time.” Suddenly his face was pinched. “If that does not happen, it will be the death of this town!”

  “Crab?”

  We looked as one at the waitress.

  “Who’s got the crab?” she asked. “And the brew?”

  Webster looked nonplussed, his dramatic moment ruined.

  I ate quickly, gulped my ale so fast I was dizzy when the glass was empty, and excused myself, content in the knowledge that I was leaving with a fistful of possible motives, all obligingly supplied by some of the suspects.

  “Au revoir,” I said to Betty and Pete Tower. To the head of the Port Frederick Citizens’ Watch Committee, I said, “Heigh-o Silver, away.”

  I was aware of the silence that reigned behind me as I made my way to the door. At the entrance to the bar, I glanced back; the gnomes were counting their gold again.

  On the way out, I passed the mayor coming in.

  “Jenny!” She smiled that bright, false smile I had seen on the faces of her three pals and the bartender. I doubled the wattage and gave it right back to her. She said, “I’m so sorry to hear about your father, Jenny. You know I don’t believe a word of it, not a word of it, you know that.”

  “Thank you, Barbara. Perhaps you’ll call the judge and put in a good word for my dad?”

  “Gosh.” She looked at her watch. “Is it that late? I’m so hungry I could eat chicken at a political banquet. Good to see you, Jenny, Keep in touch!”

  “I’m not going on vacation, Barbara.”

  But she was gone, sweeping through the door into the bar.

  When I pulled out of the parking lot in my car, I passed Goose Shattuck driving into it in his black Cadillac. I waved, but he didn’t see me. I honked, but he didn’t turn his head. He was either preoccupied,
or purposely avoiding me.

  I was beginning to get a feeling for who my friends were, and they weren’t gathering at The Buoy that afternoon. “The hell with them,” I said aloud to the windshield, and pretended it didn’t hurt.

  Then I drove to the bank.

  chapter

  24

  “You have a friend at the First,” declared the poster in the bank window, I hoped it was true.

  “No, I don’t have an appointment, Mrs. Alonzo,” I admitted to Jack Fenton’s white-haired secretary. She tried not to frown at the news. She picked up a ruler from her desk; I hid my knuckles behind my back, Mrs. Alonzo—I’d never heard her first name, even the brass plate on her desk said MRS. ALONZO—sat in lone, regal splendor, like the Queen Mother, at a mahogany desk at the rear of the nineteenth-century building. Behind her, the intricately carved wooden door to Jack’s office was pointedly closed to drop-in visitors like me. I smiled winningly, and said, “But I wouldn’t ask to see him if it weren’t important. Could you get me a few minutes with him?”

  She pressed a button on her old-fashioned intercom.

  “Mr. Fenton,” she said when he answered, “I know how busy you are, and I’m sorry to bother you, but Miss Cain, who does not have an appointment, is here to see you.” Those were her words. Her tone said, “Miss Cain, who is in the first infectious stages of a dread disease, is here to see you.”

  “Jennifer? Here?” crackled the familiar voice. “Send her in! I’m not doing a damn thing. That’s the trouble with being good at delegating authority: pretty soon you wind up with nothing at all to do. Send her in, please, Mrs. Alonzo.”

  Mrs. Alonzo sighed, as must the Queen Mother when one of her grandchildren acts up, and waved me into the chairman’s office.

  Jack was waiting for me on the other side of the door. He was trim and distinguished in banker’s gray with black pinstripes. “A banker,” he’d been known to crack, “must never appear in the red.” He took my arm and escorted me to a wood and brown leather chair opposite his desk, which was not as massive as Mrs. Alonzo’s. Instead of returning to his swivel chair behind the desk, Jack pulled up a chair to sit near me. It looked as if I did indeed have a friend at the First, although if he’d known that I was checking up on him, with an eye to pinning motives for murder, he might have thrown me out on my assets.

  “How’s your father?”

  “I haven’t actually been in touch with him since the early morning hours, Jack. I left him on Ted’s boat, anchored in the middle of Pirate’s Cove, with a stern note commanding him to remain on board, out of sight.”

  “Will he do that?”

  “I also took the Boston whaler to shore with me.”

  “Ah.” The seventy-seven-year-old face creased into a grin. “And your father has never been a strong swimmer, as I recall. He tried to wear a life jacket at a diving competition at the club when he was a child. It took some convincing by the volunteer swim coach, who happened to be me, to persuade him that diving with a life preserver on was a bit like diving headfirst into a wall of wet cement. Well, enough of your dad.” He smiled. “Heaven knows, we’ve all had enough of your dad. How are you, my dear?”

  “I’m grateful for your intercession with the other trustees, so I could have these days off.” When his eyes narrowed slightly, I leaned forward to say, before he could beat me to it, “Jack, I know. The trustees have to think of the good of the Foundation; you can only afford to be understanding for a limited amount of time. If I’d taken a loan from this bank, you’d expect me to pay it back, and if I couldn’t, I’d expect you to foreclose. Well, when I became the director of the Foundation, you trustees expected me to fulfill my obligations, my father notwithstanding. If I can’t do that, I’ll expect you to . . . foreclose.”

  His mouth pulled downward in distress.

  “Jack, don’t worry, don’t apologize. Besides, I fully intend to get this business cleared up and to be back on the job soon. I may suffer from guilt through association with him, but I’ll be damned if either of us will suffer from undeserved guilt. My father’s not guilty, but somebody else is. Will you help me find out who that is?”

  He looked surprised, but didn’t refuse.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the murders, Jack, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re all looking in the wrong direction for a motive. Forget sabotage, forget racial motivations. Consider the possibility that rather than wishing to destroy the project, somebody desperately wants it to succeed.”

  His look of surprise grew.

  “Explain,” he commanded.

  I outlined my thoughts for him.

  But when I finished, he was shaking his head. “I can’t argue with the logic of your hypothesis, Jennifer,” he said, “but I can’t think of anyone associated with the project who is that desperate for it to succeed. It’s true that Betty and Pete Tower have a lot riding on their café, but Pete is not the total fool he seems. Actually, he’s rather savvy about money. Quite apart from the property they put up as collateral for their construction loan, they have a couple of rental properties that produce a steady income. If the harbor fails, they’ll be down, but they won’t be out, Jenny.”

  “Oh.” I couldn’t keep the disappointment out of my voice. “But at church Sunday, Betty sounded frantic about opening their café on time and making their loan.”

  “Betty always sounds frantic.”

  “Yes,” I said regretfully. “But what about Web, Goose?”

  “Oh, them!” Jack waved a slim hand as if those two men were negligible concerns. “Have you stopped to think that Port Frederick is not exactly awash in architects and contractors, especially good, experienced ones? Web talks a big game, but he’s too conservative to venture far outside of town. Hell, he doesn’t have any competition, to speak of! He’ll be happy and successful right here in town.”

  “That’s what you say.”

  “In the privacy of his banker’s office, that’s what he says, too. Take my word for it, Webster Helms will bask in the local glory of Liberty Harbor, but he won’t use it to catapult himself to national fame. There’s more than enough work for him here, and he knows it better than anybody.”

  “But what if the harbor fails?”

  “He’s still the only game in town.”

  “I guess so.” I straightened my shoulders to keep them from drooping with disappointment. “And Goose? Isn’t he desperate to prove he can still handle the big jobs?”

  Jack shook his head at me. “As my old grandmother used to say, Pshaw! Jennifer, Goose is just going through a midlife crisis a little late; that’s all that’s wrong with him. Besides, he has insurance, you know, and the developers can’t hold him responsible for delays that are clearly not his fault.”

  I sighed. “I guess it’s pretty ridiculous to think that Barbara Schneider would do anything more than metaphorically kill to get reelected.”

  “She’s ambitious, but not that ambitious.”

  “Ted Sullivan?” I ventured. “Hardy, Mary Eberhardt?”

  “Are you looking for a murderer? Or a sacrificial lamb?”

  I threw up my hands in exasperation. “I know it’s awful of me to suspect these nice people. But damn it, Jack, they do stand to gain from the development of Liberty Harbor!”

  “You mean Ted’s going to make more money because renewed prosperity will improve the real-estate market? As motives go, Jennifer, that strikes me as a cousin thrice removed. And I have to tell you that I’m ashamed of you for impugning the motives of the Eberhardts. They are seeking the welfare of their black brothers and sisters, they are not seeking self-aggrandizement. And you ought to apologize for thinking otherwise.”

  I looked at him, startled.

  Then I put my head briefly in my hands.

  “Oh God,” I said miserably, “you’re absolutely right. What am I doing? These people are decent, upstanding citizens of this city. How can I even think of them as murder suspects?”

  His stern
expression relaxed. “You’re trying to keep your father from being lynched by the decent, upstanding citizens of this town who are still so angry at him for going bankrupt and putting them out of work that they would seek revenge by pinning on him a crime he did not commit. I understand.”

  I rose from the chair to shake his hand. “Thank you for putting things in perspective for me, Jack. Thanks for setting me straight before I inflicted lasting damage to some good reputations.”

  He waved away my gratitude.

  “Don’t let them ruin your reputation, Jennifer,” he said strongly. “Or what little is left of your father’s.”

  He escorted me to the door.

  “By the way, Jennifer, just in case you’re wondering; if Liberty Harbor should fail, God forbid, this bank will not follow it down the tubes. We are delighted to be sponsoring so many loans to the people involved with it, but we are not dependent on that project for the continued health, wealth and happiness of our stockholders.”

  I flushed.

  He winked.

  I fled.

  chapter

  25

  It was one thing to follow Geof around the police station, passively experiencing a murder investigation, almost enjoying it, in fact, since it was a fascinating process and the victims were nobody I mourned. How different it felt to be aggressively involved. With every question I asked, I ran the risk of losing friends and making enemies, and of combining all the answers to those questions into wrong, even hateful and potentially harmful conclusions. Who did I think I was, anyway?

  I was my father’s daughter, a fact that could have been interpreted in less than flattering ways which I chose to overlook.

  Nevertheless, I drove away from the bank feeling tired, discouraged, humbled, depressed. Which was more or less how Geof had described himself as feeling during the low moments of an investigation when all roads were cul-de-sacs that led back to the beginning.

  I returned to the shoreline where I had moored the dinghy, I hauled the rest of my gear to the little boat, locked my car and rowed back to the Amy Denise. Halfway there, I remembered that I had neglected to stop at a grocery for supplies, I could only hope that my father had not already consumed the contents of the grocery sacks I’d helped him load the night he moved onto the boat. It seemed doubtful that he could have eaten all of it already: caviar, two pounds of Brie, imported pâté, biscuits in tins from England, fresh blueberries, raspberries and strawberries, chocolates, macadamia nuts, beef tenderloin, veal cutlets, new potatoes, Belgian ham, Spanish olives, Greek bread and Russian vodka. He’d been disappointed when we couldn’t locate any imported French butter; but I’d assured him there was margarine aboard, left over from the lobster feast that Geof and I had enjoyed. “Oh well,” my father said, followed by one of the few parental homilies he’d ever uttered: “We can’t have everything we want in life, Jennifer. Sometimes we must make do with what the fates provide.” To which he’d added thoughtfully, “That’s a good lesson to remember, my dear.”