“Thanks, Dre.”
They had reached the back deck. Merry turned. “One last thing. You said your father checked on your grandfather last night, after the fireworks. How do you know that?”
“I saw him walk down the hall to Spence’s room as I went upstairs to bed. There’s nothing else on that hall.”
“You didn’t talk to him?”
“Why would I? Dad’s not my favorite person in the world.” Comprehension dawned suddenly in her gray eyes. “Was he the last person to see Spence alive?”
“It’s possible,” Merry said carefully. She had no intention of sharing her suspicions with Laney. “Thank you. That’s all I wanted to know.”
The girl hurried into the house.
“Blood in the closet?” Andre said to Merry in an undertone. “What is she talking about?”
“It looks like Mr. Murphy was deliberately clubbed in his bedroom,” Merry said, “hidden until after the rest of the house had gone to bed, then placed on the beach during the early hours of morning. We found blood that is probably Spencer Murphy’s in his closet.”
“You think this happened after dinner? Maybe during the fireworks?”
“That’s what I’m trying to establish. You don’t seem surprised.”
“I’m not.” Andre sat down on the brief steps that led from the back deck to the lawn. “Spence was too much of a survivor to commit suicide. But he was exactly the kind of guy to walk out into the dark on his own and accidentally die trying to reach the sea. I never considered murder.”
“Would you answer a few questions, Mr. Henrissaint?”
“Of course. But please just call me Andre. Everyone does.” He patted the step beside him. “Let’s stay out here for a while. Neither of us is family. And a whole lot of shit is about to hit the Murphy fan.”
Merry perched next to him. “Besides this murder investigation?”
“Oh, yes. Elliot and I brought a local lawyer home with us. She claims to have drafted Spence’s will. Except that as far as we know, Spence’s will was drafted by David, years ago. He’s not going to be happy.”
“I see. Did the woman say when she did this for Mr. Murphy?”
“In May. While Nora was here. Alice—that’s her name, Alice Abernathy—actually met Nora.”
Merry digested this in silence. There could be only one reason for Spencer Murphy to go behind his son’s back and draft a new final testament: because he had changed the provisions of his will, and had no desire for David to know.
“How can I help you?” Andre asked.
She glanced at him. He looked, she thought, more strained than at any time in their brief acquaintance. It was probably a full-time job, managing Elliot Murphy’s emotions.
“Could you run through your movements last night?”
“Starting when?”
“The end of dinner.”
“Okay.” He pressed his right forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose, as though resetting an internal switch. “The girls grilled burgers. It was a pretty quick meal—bread, salad, ice cream. Everybody was a little tense yesterday.”
“Why?”
“Because of what happened Saturday night. Nobody wanted a repeat.”
“When Mr. Murphy overheard his son discussing his daughter’s death?”
“Spence was supposed to be in bed. So David was a little unguarded. He basically laid out for us what you’d told him and Laney Saturday afternoon—that Nora died because the apricot seeds were mixed up in her coffee beans. He said that Spence had probably confused the two bags and was responsible. It wasn’t a good thing for his dad to overhear.”
“What was Spence’s reaction?”
“He was furious. Agonized. He almost attacked Dave, who wasn’t the real problem—Spence was angry at himself. But it took a while to calm him down.”
“I heard. Brandy and Benadryl.”
“Right,” Andre agreed. “Anyway—he never brought it up yesterday. Neither did anybody else. We were all out and about. But at dinner . . . Spence wasn’t talking. He insisted on having a pre-dinner drink when all of us fixed them, which isn’t the best thing for a guy with dementia, but hey—he was technically the weekend host and we were in his house. I gave him a weak G&T to keep him happy. But it definitely made him drowsy.”
“You’re a psychologist. How would you characterize his state of mind yesterday? Was he depressed, in your opinion?”
“Yes and no.” Andre steepled his fingers like an academic. “Dementia of the Alzheimer’s type usually begins in the hippocampus, which is also where geriatric insomnia and depression start. In fact, much of the research suggests that insomnia in the elderly—a byproduct of advanced age—triggers depression and, eventually, dementia. The moodiness is part of the decline. But was Spence unusually morose last night? No. That’s why I didn’t buy the idea of suicide. Particularly in response to a specific catalyst, such as guilt over Nora’s accidental death. I think Spence forgot whatever he heard David say in the hall Saturday night.”
Merry said nothing of her own interview with the dead man; for now, the explosive outline on Nora’s laptop would be known only to David Murphy and herself.
“So in your opinion, his memory problems were real?” she asked Andre. “Not just a convenient dodge by a clever man who didn’t want to answer too many questions?”
It was the first time she’d put the question so bluntly to a member of the Murphy household.
“Oh, it was real,” Andre assured her. “I watched his decline. I noticed a plunge in memory and mastery of life skills at least three months ago.”
Three months ago. If Andre was correct, the decline predated Nora’s arrival—and death. Long before Spencer Murphy had any need for a dementia alibi.
“Did it ever occur to you to suggest that Mr. Murphy be cognitively assessed?”
“All the time,” Andre said. “But I’m not a medical doctor. I’m a PhD. David had his father’s power of attorney—that was his decision to make. I’m not family.”
As he had emphasized once before.
“Okay,” Merry said. “So dinner ended. What did you do then?”
“The dishes,” Andre said. “That’s the deal. When the women cook, El and I clear and clean.”
“Not David?”
“David doesn’t do anything for Kate if he can help it. Or with Kate, for that matter. Which means he does nothing to contribute to the household. Except hold grim and threatening family meetings. As he’s probably doing right now.”
“You don’t like him,” Merry said.
“He takes after Barbara. So no, I can’t say I love David. I’m pleasant to him. I make a point of being pleasant to assholes. It gives me a sense of moral superiority.”
“Barbara,” Merry mused. “She comes up a lot in people’s stories about this family. And yet never with a great deal of affection.”
“Laney loved her. She must have been a good grandmother.” Andre tore some brown grass from the untidy turf at his feet and shredded it between his fingers. “But I don’t know that she was a great parent. Right up to her death, she was convinced that Elliot wasn’t gay. That he was a good boy who’d somehow been corrupted. By New York. Or people like me—brown immigrant outsiders who have nothing to do with the real America. I was the degenerate in El’s life. Barbara hated me for it.”
“Did that create a rift between Elliot and his mother?”
“He was constantly trying to make her happy. Which I think she secretly liked. Disapproval gave her a hold over El. But if you asked him honestly—he knew she was a throwback to a different age. And something of a bigot.”
“Yet she adopted a child from Southeast Asia.”
“Spence did that.” Andre looked at her directly. “Spence was totally different from his wife. That’s why the boys are such opposites. Elliot is all
feeling and empathy. David lives in a cage.”
“You really don’t like him.”
“I’ve heard too much about the emotional and psychological damage Barbara did to Elliot. David wasn’t much better.” Andre smiled sadly. “It’s an old story. A bad marriage that hurts all the kids, no matter how successful they look to the world. I have no idea why Spence and Barbara ever stayed together. She resented him, resented the entire adventurous life he lived without her, and she nursed a monumental grudge. That’s what really killed her. Cancer was just a name the doctors finally gave to something that had been eating away at her for years.”
Merry nodded once. This was not a description of her childhood—but she recognized something of Peter’s family in Andre’s words.
“How long did the dishes take?”
“Maybe fifteen minutes. After that El and I took MacTavish for his evening walk—straight down Lincoln Circle toward town. There were a lot of parties going on behind the hedges. Cars everywhere. People had parked up here earlier in the day and walked down Cobblestone Hill to Jetties.”
Merry understood; most of the streets leading directly into Jetties Beach were barricaded off on the Fourth of July, to encourage people to walk or take the public shuttle to the fireworks.
“We went as far as Cobblestone and stood at the top of the hill, staring out over the crowds for a little while. There was a band—we could hear it in the distance—and the light was fading in that lovely, gradual way it has in summer. A wind picked up. There were kids shrieking from the swings in the dunes. It was a relief just to see something normal, you know?”
“Yes,” Merry said. “I do.”
“But then it was getting dark and Elliot said, ‘We should go back. We should watch the show from the back lawn.”
“A family activity,” Merry suggested.
“Right. He’s big on that. Elliot cares more about the idea of family than any other Murphy. Which is kind of ironic. Because to have a family of his own—”
“He needs you,” Merry said.
Andre looked at her wordlessly.
“Laney told me you’re engaged to be married.”
“That’s true,” he said.
“I’m getting married at the end of September.”
“Congratulations,” he said. “You’re doing it here?”
“Yes. In the Congregational church on Centre Street. With a reception to follow in a family house on Cliff Road.”
“To die for. We’re thinking we may just go to City Hall.”
Merry had a sudden vision of a tent with sea-blue flags and a parquet dance floor, Ralph waltzing down its center. “Don’t,” she urged. “It will mean so much to you later. If you honor your choices. Despite whatever Barbara may have said.”
Andre’s expression was questioning.
“I’m telling you this because the man I’m marrying has a mother who regards me as an interloper. Half of me wanted to run away rather than face her down and claim my prize. It doesn’t matter. Honor the person you love. That takes courage—but so does life. You’ll never regret going forward, instead of back, when it mattered.”
“Okay,” Andre said.
“Now.” Merry recovered her impersonal tone. “What time was it when you got back to this house with your dog?”
Chapter Eighteen
Peter was crossing the lawn from the barn to the house when Merry drove in to Mason Farms. He grinned at her and waved. His expression was carefree, his long legs darkly tanned, and his movements loose with exercise and good health. Just looking at him, she felt a sharp sense of relief. Bob Pocock might expect charges and a case to back them up on his desk tomorrow morning, but for the next hour she was going to think only about herself.
He waited while she stepped out of her SUV, then leaned in to kiss her. His hand came up to cradle the back of her head, smooth her blonde hair. “You never changed your clothes. You’ve been at the Murphys all this time?”
“Yes. What did you do today?”
“I went fishing with John.”
“No way!”
He laughed. “You sound so aggrieved!”
“I’d have given anything to be out on the water. Where did he take you?”
“Great Point Light.”
This was the most isolated of Nantucket’s three lighthouses, a white tower that punctuated the far-flung barrier beach that formed the northern arm of the island. Tourists hired guides to drive them out over the sand to Great Point, which was a nature preserve; at the barrier beach’s farthest tip, the waters of Nantucket Sound met the Atlantic in a cross-current rip that was treacherous to swimmers. It was also attractive to bluefish, however, which made it a good spot for throwing in a line. Merry was green with envy. The solitude at Great Point was unparalleled.
She walked with Peter into the house. She still kept her apartment over a garage in town, and spent most of her weeknights there, but this was supposed to be a holiday—and she had missed Peter. “You had a much better time than I did.”
“And we’re having bluefish for dinner.”
“You actually caught something?”
He glanced at her witheringly. “I’m not that hopeless. Besides, your dad’s a good teacher. And his boat is sweet.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“We’ll get you out there.” He handed her a glass of wine. “Now relax while I grill the fish.”
Bluefish confounded most cooks who lived beyond the Atlantic coast. They were fierce ocean predators that fought hard for freedom once hooked on the line, and they yielded dark gray-brown fillets that had a distinctly oily smell and taste. They were best eaten the day they were caught. As a result, blues were only rarely shipped across country, where they sold poorly in markets. Locals knew that the fillets should be skinned, slathered with a mix of mayonnaise and lemon juice, and grilled over hot coals. Alternatively, they were wonderful smoked—and mixed with cream cheese and cognac to form pâté.
Peter didn’t have to be told how to cook his fish. John had filleted and skinned it on board his boat. Peter added minced shallots and fennel seeds to the lemon juice and mayonnaise mixture, spread it on the fillets, and draped them with thick slices of his own farm tomatoes. He wrapped the fillets in packets of tinfoil and set them on his grill rack. About ten minutes later, they would be ready to eat. He was serving them with potato salad and green beans.
Merry took a quick shower and threw on some loose summer pajamas.
Peter assessed her damp hair, clean skin, and comfortable clothing and said: “Your day was that bad?”
“It’s definitely murder,” Merry replied. “Could I have another glass of wine?”
She didn’t talk about anything to do with Step Above while the two of them ate. The light faded over the cranberry bogs, Peter lit the candles in his deck lanterns, and they lingered as the night sounds of the moors crowded in with dusk.
“I have to write a report tonight,” she said sadly.
“That is a tragedy.” Peter lifted her plate. “You already know, then, who killed Spencer Murphy?”
She shook her head. “I have a good idea. But I have no proof. I’ll make that clear when I hand Pocock my summary of the investigation to date. He asked for charges by tomorrow morning—but not even Pocock can order the impossible. I only realized I was dealing with murder this afternoon.”
“The man’s a little Hitler.”
She glanced at Peter’s face; it was carefully expressionless. “I know you think I should quit—”
“Not at all. I think you should have his job.”
He disappeared into the kitchen. Merry stared after him, surprised. “I’m not qualified.”
“That’s bullshit, darling.”
He was running water over the dishes, his attention entirely focused on the task at hand. She could see his silhouette through
the kitchen window, neat and economic. He had never quite been so unequivocal in his support for her work before.
Peter reappeared with a mug of chamomile tea and handed it to Merry. “Want to tell me about it?”
“I’m struggling with the question of whether it’s two murders or one,” she said.
For now, her laptop was unnecessary. She would write it up more clearly once she had organized her thoughts.
“The other murder being Nora?” he said.
Merry nodded. “Spencer Murphy was definitely killed last night by someone staying in his house—most of whom are close family. He was bludgeoned in his bedroom sometime after dinner, temporarily stowed until the household was asleep, then carried out to be found near the foot of his beach steps this morning as though he’d accidentally or deliberately fallen to his death during the night, cracking his skull in the process.”
“Which seems plausible enough. However—”
“We found blood on his closet floor. It’s a safe assumption, pending lab reports, that it’s Spence’s.”
“A careless mistake,” Peter said.
“Correct. But here’s the question: What if Spence was the intended victim all along? What if Nora’s death—from coffee beans mistakenly mixed with poisonous dried apricot seeds—was a random error?”
“You mean, the self-grinding coffeemaker was deliberately set up to kill Spence? The first time he used it?”
“I can’t discount that possibility. The alternative is that Nora died by mistake. Spence’s family blamed him for the error—the mix-up between the two bags of beans and seeds. That theory made sense if the man was so lost in dementia that he walked off his own back cliff last night, or so consumed with guilt over his carelessness in Nora’s death that he killed himself. But now that Spencer Murphy is a victim, too, I have to question everything.”
“Starting with Nora’s death.”
“Exactly. If Spence was the intended victim when she died in May—and remember, none of the Murphy family admits to knowing Nora was even in the United States, so it’s improbable she was deliberately murdered by one of them—it narrows the field.”
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