Death of a Wharf Rat

by Francine Mathews

  Cindy pulled a pen out of her elaborate French knot of brown hair and scribbled down the words. “Got a warrant to search our database?”

  “Not on Saturday.”

  “Okay, then.” Cindy smiled widely. “I’ll let you know in an unofficial capacity by tomorrow. If you need it official, come back Tuesday with the right piece of paper.”

  Chapter Nine

  David put his arm around his father’s shoulders as the two of them walked slowly down the hall to his bedroom after dinner. Andre had cooked for all of them that evening—swordfish on the grill, with a marinade he said had come down through his grandmother from Haiti. He’d served a curried rice salad with it and peach salsa he incongruously dressed with champagne vinegar and bacon. They had opened several bottles of crisp white wine—a white Bordeaux and a pinot gris from Oregon. Everyone except David seemed to be enjoying themselves.

  Andre, he thought, had completely infiltrated the family. Laney had talked more today than she had in months. Her pale skin was flushed with sun and she smiled easily. Kate sat at Andre’s end of the table, occasionally touching his arm as she cracked a joke or made a point. They didn’t seem to feel the awkwardness he did around his brother’s partner. But then, they hadn’t grown up with a guy who’d made them see, at twenty, that they had never really known him at all. By now, David recognized that the casually homophobic comments he’d made all his life had been unwittingly devastating to his relationship with Elliot. He was fairly confident that his brother had shared every one of them with Andre. Who was trained to analyze people. Was it any wonder David could barely look him in the eye?

  It was left to David to entertain his father at dinner. When Spence asked him several times how his work was going—and then betrayed that he thought David was a reporter, not a lawyer—he decided he was done. Elliot was serving his contribution to the meal—a blueberry crumble—but David pushed back his chair and tossed his napkin on his placemat. “Dad’s tired,” he said. “I’m going to walk him back to his room.”

  Now Spence sat on the edge of his bed and looked up at David through filmy eyes. It crossed his mind that his father probably suffered from cataracts on top of everything else, but it could hardly matter. “Do you need help getting into your pajamas?” he asked.

  Spence frowned. “Are you kidding me?”

  But he had trouble bending over to untie his shoelaces, so David knelt at his feet and did it for him. “We should get you slip-on shoes.”

  “Slip-ons tend to fall off.”

  David went to a drawer and pulled it open. “Dad. Do you remember the coffeemaker I gave you at Christmas?”

  “I perk all my coffee.”

  “I know. Do you remember the coffeemaker?”

  “No.”

  “I left some coffee beans in the cupboard. In a bag. It was open, because I used the coffeemaker at Christmas.”

  “What coffeemaker?”

  David handed Spence his pajamas. Spence stared at them, as though uncertain what they were for. “Do you remember the dried apricot seeds Laney gave to Mom, when she was sick?”

  “Your mother’s sick?”

  David closed his eyes. “Do you need any help, Dad?”

  “No. But I think I’ll take a little rest. I’m awfully tired. That interview today wore me out.”

  The interview, David realized, had been with Meredith Folger. He doubted she had learned anything more from Spence than he had.

  “That’s a good idea,” he agreed. “Just lie down.”

  He would have given anything to leave the rest of them playing board games in the living room, and creep upstairs to read through some documents in bed for the next several hours, but there were decisions to be made. He couldn’t stay absent from his office forever. There were too many critical matters pending on his desk. So he forced himself to walk back to the main part of the house, and found it empty except for Andre. The others must be doing the dishes. Andre was sitting with a laptop on his legs, a slight frown between his eyes, scrolling through email.

  “Thanks for dinner,” David said, and reached for a copy of the Boston Globe lying on a table.

  “You’re welcome. Nothing beats harpooned sword.”

  “I can’t really cook.”

  Andre flashed his contagious smile. “You should try it, Dave. It’s a wonderful way of exploring different cultures without leaving the house.”

  “I don’t really care about food. If I could take a pill in place of each meal, I would.”

  “Except for coffee, right?”

  David accordioned the paper. “What does that mean?”

  Andre’s eyebrows rose. “Your machine. It’s fabulous. El and I have really loved using it this weekend. We’re talking about buying one when we get back to New York.”

  “Be glad it didn’t kill you,” David said.

  Andre frowned, but then his gaze shifted to the room’s arched doorway. “Hey, girls. Thanks for dish-duty.”

  “That’s a deal I’ll make anytime,” Kate said. “But tomorrow Laney and I will handle dinner, okay?”

  “I thought you were leaving tomorrow,” David said.

  She looked at him. “Before the funeral?”

  “It can’t matter to you. You’re not part of this family.”

  Kate sighed and sank down into an ancient wing chair. “Do we have to have this conversation again, David? Were you waiting until Spence went to bed to order me off the property? He doesn’t want me to leave. He said so.”

  “By this time, Kate, he doesn’t even remember you’re here.”

  David glanced around the room. Elliot was sitting next to Andre with his hand on his thigh. Laney was still standing in the doorway, her happiness fled, as though she was thinking of going straight up the stairs.

  “Sit down, Laney.”

  She hesitated an instant, then huddled on the floor at the foot of Kate’s chair. David pretended not to notice she was taking sides. He had always known she lived with him solely because her room and board were free.

  “We couldn’t talk about any of this at the dinner table because of Dad. But we should discuss it now,” he said. “Detective Folger informed me this afternoon that Nora was poisoned, probably by the bitter apricot seeds we found mixed into the coffee beans. Those seeds apparently contain cyanide. Laney didn’t know that, of course, when she gave them to Nana Barb as a cancer treatment.”

  “Are you suggesting Laney’s responsible?” Kate objected. Her hand went to her daughter’s head, smoothing her hair.

  “Of course not. Somebody mixed up the two bags—one of seeds and one of coffee beans. It can’t have been Nana, because I only brought the coffeemaker and bag of beans here at Christmas, after she passed away. That leaves Laney and me—which is unlikely, as Laney doesn’t drink coffee and I never looked at the seeds.”

  “Or Dad and Roseline,” Elliot interjected. “It must have been an accident.”

  “The police seem to think so.”

  “Could Nora have done it herself—on purpose?”

  “That’s what I thought, Uncle El.” Laney’s voice was practically a whisper.

  “Suicide is a possibility,” David conceded, “except that Nora didn’t leave a note. She made it hard to find her body. And she would have known that Dad might be blamed. I doubt she’d leave him open to police suspicion like that. Me or Elliot, sure, but not Dad. She actually cared about him.”

  Elliot’s brow crinkled. “Suspicion? The police aren’t suggesting . . . They don’t think that—”

  “Roseline or Dad murdered Nora? I doubt they can find a motive.” David surveyed their blank faces. “Roseline seems to have liked her, and we know Dad was crazy about her. But I would expect the idea has crossed the detective’s mind.”

  “Poor Spence,” Kate murmured. “He’ll be beside himself if he hears it was those se
eds that killed Nora. Particularly if he mixed up the bags.”

  “He’ll forget about it,” David retorted. “Which is what we really need to talk about tonight—what are we going to do about him?”

  There was a silence. Laney studied her fingers.

  “He obviously can’t live here alone any longer,” David persisted. “He’s too confused. He’s a danger to himself and other people.”

  “We could find a care facility,” Kate suggested.

  “Not on the island.” David’s voice was like a slap. “I’ve checked. There are no available beds.”

  “Boston, then.”

  “Care facilities are incredibly expensive.” He went on as though Kate hadn’t spoken. “As Dad’s executor, I have no desire to drain his estate paying for twenty-four/seven memory care.”

  “Dave,” Elliot protested. “Dad can afford it.”

  “He could live for years. Run out of funds. We should put off that transition as long as possible.”

  “What about hiring a nurse?” Elliot suggested.

  “On top of Roseline’s salary? It’d be as much as the care facility.”

  “Roseline already works long hours,” Andre said. “And she’s a housekeeper, not a caregiver.”

  “I wanted her here when we discussed the future. But her grandkids were arriving and there was no opportune time with Dad underfoot. I think Roseline will be open to whatever we ask. It’s in her interest to keep her job.”

  “But she’s getting older, too,” Andre said quietly. “Spence is a big guy, and if he starts wandering, he could be difficult to restrain. Two people are probably necessary. And one of them ought to be a nurse.”

  “Even a nurse won’t solve your problem at night,” Kate added. “You’re going to have to hire multiple people, David. Instead of this patchwork of care, I’d go with a licensed facility, or even a group house on the mainland—”

  “Dad won’t want to leave Nantucket,” David said. “This is his home. His friends are here, down at the Wharf Rats. Mom is buried here. I’m asking you to think about this creatively.”

  Elliot held up his hands in supplication. “By all means. I’ve never heard you ask such a thing before.”

  David ignored the barb. “Laney’s underemployed these days. She doesn’t like living with me. There’s plenty of room here, on the other hand. She could move in and be responsible for Dad at night.”

  His daughter stared at him. “Are you serious?”

  “You always say you love this place.”

  “I do, but—”

  “And you claim to love your grandfather.”

  “Of course. But—”

  “You could help us all out by actually earning your keep. Which you’re not doing now.”

  “David,” Kate said warningly.

  Laney looked wildly between them. “He has to be kidding! Grandpa killed somebody, and he wants me to live with him? Are you crazy?”

  “It won’t happen again,” David insisted. “He’s more likely to kill himself than anyone else. But you and Roseline between you can keep him safe.”

  “Mom,” Laney said, “make him stop!”

  “You could at least think about it.” David felt increasingly angry. “Give a little back, instead of constantly take, take, take.”

  “David,” Kate said more firmly. “We’ll talk about this later, Lane. You’re not going to be forced to do anything you don’t like.”

  “Maybe if she had been, once in a while,” David retorted, “she wouldn’t lie around the house like a failed princess!”

  Kate rose from her chair. “We’re going up to bed, David. When you can listen to reason about Spence, tell me. I’m a nurse, remember.”

  “You haven’t worked in years.”

  She stalked out of the room.

  Laney followed her.

  David thrust back his seat and went after them.

  But he didn’t get far.

  His ex-wife and daughter were standing stock-still in the hallway.

  Spence was seated in one of the Windsor chairs that flanked the drop-leaf table. He still hadn’t put on his pajamas.

  His father’s head was in his hands. It was clear he’d overheard everything David said.

  “Do you think it’s murder?”

  Merry set aside her dinner plate and stroked Ney’s head. The dog was sitting alertly between her and Peter, nose twitching at the odor of pulled pork that rose from their plates. She had brought home takeout from the barbecue place down on Straight Wharf, whose food they’d discovered during the off-season. The bar was inviting, the playlist was blues, and on weekends they offered live bands. Summer crowds made getting a table impossible, but her seat on Peter’s back deck was idyllic enough. With the added advantage that they could talk in peace.

  “In any other circumstances, absolutely,” Merry replied. “Cyanide latte doesn’t come along every day.” She found a stray French fry and slipped it to Ney. “But it doesn’t add up, Peter. The woman’s father doted on her. The housekeeper barely knew her. What possible reason could either of them have to kill her?”

  “Maybe the housekeeper was afraid Nora wanted to move in and take her job. Does Roseline have any other source of income?”

  “No,” Merry said. “But she’s employed by David Murphy, who handles her salary—I checked. He’s the only one in the family who can fire her. All Roseline had to do was inform him that Nora was in the house, and he’d probably have flown over immediately from Boston to kick his sister out. There was no love lost between them.”

  “Really.” Peter rose with the plates. “So mine isn’t the only dysfunctional family in the world?”

  “Not in the slightest. Is there any more red wine?”

  “An entire cellarful.”

  “You pick.”

  He brought back a fresh bottle of zinfandel and proceeded to uncork it. “How are you going to crack the victim’s secrets?”

  Nora Murphy’s laptop was resting on the far side of the table, awaiting Merry’s attention. But for Bob Pocock and his ultimatum—charges and a case on his desk in thirty-six hours—she’d be relaxing tonight.

  “Already done. Phil Potts turns out to be a computer geek. He hacked her security controls.”

  Peter’s brows rose. “Unplumbed depths.”

  “That phrase always makes me think of sewers.”

  “Mind if I sit here with you?”

  “Not at all,” she said gratefully.

  He passed her a glass of wine, flipped open his tablet, and began to read.

  Merry took a sip of zinfandel, turned on Nora Murphy’s laptop, and scanned the icons on the screen. Email, various documents, an accounting program—probably for tracking expenses. A search engine icon. Facebook. And a document titled Truth.

  She should check the email for Nora’s contacts—some of them might prove useful—but first, she clicked curiously on Truth.

  The opening page was headed Chapter One.

  I was born in the season of the monsoon, in the time of fitful sun, when the known world is drowned and nothing is as it seems.

  Half an hour later, the summer heat had dropped.

  “It’s getting chilly,” Peter said. “Want to move inside?”

  Utterly absorbed, Merry didn’t respond.

  He kissed her platinum hair gently.

  “Peter,” she said. “Nora’s book? It’s about Spencer Murphy and his time in Laos. And from the first few chapters—it looks pretty explosive.”

  Chapter Ten

  My parents met in the valley of Long Tieng. It is a special place, rising more than three thousand feet above sea level, and ringed by mountains on three sides—challenging terrain for planes and runways. And yet, by the late 1960s, this area the Lao call “the Most Secret Place on Earth” was one of the busiest ai
rports in the world. A valley so empty it was unmarked on maps was home to nearly forty thousand people. There were Hmong tribesmen and South Vietnamese soldiers and Thai mercenaries. There were American Special Forces and men who worked for something called the Special Activities Division, which is part of the CIA, and pilots who flew the agency’s planes for Air America. There were women who set up shop in the mud streets of the sprawling encampment that lined the runway, cooking noodles and tailoring clothes and taking in laundry and sometimes the men themselves. The unofficial mayor of Long Tieng was a CIA officer named Jerry Daniels, who had founded the pop-up town as a base camp for the Americans’ chosen Lao ally, Major General Vang Po, of the Royal Lao Army. Long Tieng existed so that US forces could penetrate the Ho Chi Minh Trail that ran along the North Vietnamese border with Laos. It had no other reason for being. When the CIA left, everyone else would leave, too.

  My mother, Paj, was the wife of Thaiv Haam, who had been educated in Vientiane and spoke fluent French. He also spoke some English. He worked as a translator for the Americans, but later traveled to Vientiane, where there were reporters, he knew, who wanted information about the Most Secret Place on Earth. That was where he met Spencer Murphy, a grinning journalism veteran of the chaos in Southeast Asia who was tracking the dominoes—South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos—as they fell to Communist insurgencies one by one. Murphy bought Haam a Harvey Wallbanger at a Western-only bar. Haam agreed to show him Long Tieng and hire on as his interpreter. It seemed a simple bargain. A deal between allies.

  Thaiv, in Hmong, means “to shield.” My mother’s name, Paj, means “Flower.”

  My name is Nora. From the Latin Honora—or honor.

  There is Destiny in all the ways others choose to name us.

  “It feels like revenge to me,” Elliot said.

  He and David were sitting under an umbrella at a table near the tennis courts at the Nantucket Yacht Club. It was a private club founded over a hundred years before. Their father had been a member in good standing for nearly four decades, skippering a classic 1930s wood-hulled boat designed by John Alden. He’d discovered it one summer at an islander’s yard sale and meticulously restored it. Over the years, he’d competed in the Opera House Cup each August with a hand-picked crew of cronies. His sons had learned to sail in a Beetle Cat, which was known as a Rainbow on Nantucket, because each catboat had a different solid-colored sail. The Yacht Club had come up with the idea so that parents could recognize their kids’ boats from a distance during weekend races. The Rainbow Fleet, as it came to be called, had been a familiar sight around the island since 1926. The boats were as iconic as a Wianno Senior off Hyannis Port.