Fort Point (Maine Justice Book 2)

by Davis, Susan Page

  “No.”

  “And at lunch, Blake said something that upset Murphy?”

  “I can’t think what.”

  “Secrets. He knew Murphy’s secrets.”

  Nadeau raised his eyebrows. “A metaphor, I thought.”

  “Really? I talked to David Murphy, and he seemed uneasy about that.”

  “Politician. They never want anyone to know their secrets.”

  “Does Murphy have secrets? Other than high school pranks, I mean?”

  “I’m not the right person to ask,” Nadeau said.

  “But Frederick was healthy when you left him and Murphy.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Nothing.”

  Nadeau looked at him belligerently. “Yes, he was healthy.”

  *****

  They finished the interviews by 6:15. Most of the people weren’t happy, although a few were mildly excited to be part of the investigation. The detectives conferred again when the last of them had gone.

  Mike said the lawyer, Dawes, had been polite, but not much help. “He’s done some minor legal work for Murphy in the past, but he’s not his main lawyer.”

  “He made that up to rattle me,” Harvey said.

  “Well, Dawes claims he didn’t go down to the beach. It was too steep. He talked to Murphy, Nadeau, and Blake, but didn’t remember seeing Frederick.”

  “None of mine went to the beach,” said Pete. “They’re getting older, and apparently the path was almost vertical.”

  “Guess that’s why Murphy and Nadeau took the long way around to get back up,” Harvey said. “I wonder how far it is around to the lighthouse.” He had looked at a map, but at that scale, he couldn’t tell where the picnic area and the beach were.

  “We can measure it Saturday,” said Eddie.

  Mike arched his eyebrows at Harvey.

  “We’re going up to Fort Point. Recreation for Jennifer and Leeanne and me. Eddie’s going along.”

  “Good,” said Mike. “Seeing it should help you.”

  They all started getting ready to go, and Harvey called Jennifer’s house.

  “Hi! Where you been?” she asked.

  “I got stuck at the office interviewing the Class from the Black Lagoon.”

  “You’d better come over here for some leftovers. We’re eating now, but I’ll save you some lasagna.”

  Eddie was watching him and listening.

  “How about Eddie?” Harvey asked. “He’s hungry, too.” Eddie grinned at him.

  “Sure, bring him along.”

  *****

  Jennifer prepared plates for the men, and Harvey beamed as she waited on him and Eddie. They tucked into the lasagna and salad.

  “This is great.” Harvey closed his eyes for an instant. “Tell me my future wife made this.”

  “Sorry,” Jennifer said. “Beth and Leeanne had it all made when I got home from work.”

  “Can you make lasagna like this?” he asked hopefully.

  “I’ll give her the recipe,” said Beth. They had held dessert, and everyone settled down in the living room for the chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting.

  “You should have Patricia Lundquist put peanut butter frosting on the wedding cake,” Eddie said. No one else seemed to like the idea. Jennifer refilled their milk glasses.

  “How’d it go at the fire station?” Harvey asked Jeff.

  “Pretty well, I think. I’m supposed to go back in the morning.”

  “When will you know?”

  “They said they’d call me by next Wednesday.”

  “So, are we playing Trivial Pursuit?” asked Beth.

  “Oh, let’s.” Leeanne jumped up.

  Jennifer hated to put a damper on things, but she knew she had to take advantage of the available labor. “Guys, that’s great, but we have to address the invitations first.”

  Groans all around.

  “Oh, come on. With six people, it won’t take long. Of course, Jeff’s handwriting is so bad he can’t do any addressing, but he can stuff the envelopes.”

  Harvey smiled in resignation. “Let’s get to it, gorgeous.”

  She got the box and the address lists, and they all started working.

  “Why do wedding invitations need two envelopes?” Jeff asked.

  “Don’t ask me,” said Eddie.

  “Then there’s this stupid little card and envelope. What are they for?” Jeff held one up.

  “That’s the response card,” Jennifer said. “It’s vital.”

  “You coulda told me.”

  She gritted her teeth. “How many envelopes did you seal without one inside, Jeffrey?”

  “Oh, I’m supposed to seal them, too?”

  She picked up a patchwork throw pillow and stuffed it over Jeff’s face.

  Beth snatched the pillow away. “Easy, Jennifer. The mania will be over in twenty-three days.”

  “It’s going to cost you a fortune to mail all these,” Harvey said. “I’d better give you some cash.”

  “Daddy’s paying. He sent a generous check down with Leeanne.”

  Harvey frowned, and Jennifer could read the signs of guilt. When something wasn’t perfect, Harvey felt responsible. He was stewing about the money her family was spending on the wedding, for sure.

  Jeff came to the rescue. He grinned at Harvey. “Hey, don’t worry about it. Dad’s so glad to finally unload Jennifer, he can’t write the checks fast enough.”

  Leeanne grimaced. “Knock it off, Jeff. Mom and Dad want to do this for Jennifer.”

  “And you and Abby someday, I suppose,” Jeff said.

  “I don’t think I could stand having two hundred people stare at me,” Leeanne said. “When I get married, I’m eloping.”

  “I hope not.” Jennifer frowned at her in dismay. “I want to be at your wedding.”

  They finished the job in about forty-five minutes, with only two spoiled envelopes. Jennifer gave Harvey one invitation to take home for Marcia Towne, because he didn’t have the address with him, and one to post at the police station.

  The Trivial Pursuit board came out a little after eight. They played men against women. Jennifer wished she could be on Harvey’s team. No one could possibly stand a chance against him, with his encyclopedic knowledge.

  Jeff sat beside Beth and handed her the dice with great care. Eddie was splitting his attention between Beth and Leeanne. Leeanne’s eyes glowed and she began bantering a little with him. Jennifer wasn’t sure the way she watched Eddie was good. Beth was cool as always, and impartial in her attentions to Jeff and Eddie, and to Harvey, too, as far as that went.

  “So, you guys are looking for a house,” Eddie said between questions, while Leeanne was trying to ‘roll again,’ until she could get the girls’ token on a spot that wasn’t orange for sports. The men were killing them in sports.

  “Haven’t really started,” Harvey said.

  Beth looked up. “Ask Pastor Rowland.”

  Leeanne moved the women’s token. “Pink.”

  “Does he know someone?” Harvey asked.

  Jeff pulled a card out of the box.

  Beth said, “I think Mr. Bailey is putting his house up for sale.”

  “He’s the older man whose wife died?” said Jennifer. “Back pew on the right?”

  She and Harvey had met the homeowner in question, a polite man in his seventies, quiet but intelligent, a retired engineer. He’d been widowed about six months.

  “Okay, here’s the question.” Jeff held up a card. “In 1952, Gary Cooper starred with Grace Kelly in what western?”

  Jennifer stared at Harvey, trying to read his mind. She was positive he knew the answer. He seemed to cache information about old movies in the far corners of his mind. He also liked Grace Kelly, to whom he’d said Jennifer bore a slight resemblance, but Jennifer couldn’t see it.

  “High Noon,” said Beth.

  “Is that your final answer?” Jeff teased.

  “You sure you girls don’t want to netwo
rk a little?” Harvey asked.

  “No, we trust Beth,” Jennifer said gravely.

  “Well?” Beth grinned at Jeff.

  He sighed. “Get your little piece of pink pie.”

  The women won in the end, mostly because Jeff couldn’t get the men’s token to land on the spot for literature, but Jennifer didn’t care. Eddie made a big fuss, saying they’d have to have a rematch sometime.

  Harvey’s fatigue was showing, and the men left soon after the game ended. Jennifer, Leeanne and Beth cleaned up a little and headed for bed.

  Jennifer had just turned off her bedside lamp when her cell phone rang.

  “Hey, gorgeous. Did I wake you up?”

  “Almost.”

  “Jeff was just telling me you were a pyromaniac in pigtails nineteen years ago,” Harvey said. “Almost burned the family home to the ground, he said.”

  Jennifer laughed. “Oh, he’ll never let me forget that. I put something in the stove, and it fell out on the hearth. Mom came and stomped on it. It was no big deal, but I’ll never live it down.”

  Harvey chuckled. “Maybe that’s why he wanted to be a fireman. Hey, I suggested Jeff might want to take the lease on my apartment if he gets the job down here.”

  “That would be great.” She snuggled down beneath the quilt her mother made.

  “All right, kiddo, you sound tired. Just wanted to say goodnight, and I love you.”

  Chapter 7

  Friday, June 25

  Jeff dragged out of bed at six and ran with Harvey and Eddie. Harvey ran the three miles with only a little pain.

  “You going home today, Jeff?” Eddie asked as they went up to the apartment for breakfast.

  “Yeah, after my interview.”

  “Let me give you a key before you leave,” Harvey said. “And call me when you know about the job.”

  Ryan Toothaker was at the front desk checking the police log when Harvey and Eddie entered the station, and he followed them upstairs. He sat beside Harvey’s desk and took his notebook out.

  “What can you give me?”

  “We interviewed most of Blake’s high school classmates who came to the funeral yesterday,” Harvey said.

  “Any suspects yet?”

  “Not that I can tell you about.”

  “Can you tell me what those divers found in the river?”

  Harvey hesitated. Would it hurt the case at all to tell him about the knife? “Let me think about that.”

  “The second dead guy—Frederick,” Toothaker said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, he was at the reunion, too. Is there a connection between the two deaths?”

  “Not that we can prove.”

  “All right,” Ryan said. “But you’ll tell me when you have something I can use?”

  “Sure. Hey, let me ask you a question or two.”

  “Shoot.”

  “What was Blake working on for the paper?” Harvey asked.

  “Oh, some big story.”

  “Hadn’t run yet?”

  “No, he was writing it, I think.”

  “Did he do his writing for the paper at home?”

  “No, I’d see him at a computer in the newsroom lots. He didn’t keep regular hours like the other reporters, though. I heard he pretty much came up with his own story ideas. They were so glad to keep him, they let him write about whatever he wanted to, whenever he wanted.”

  “And this big story was something he came up with?”

  “I guess.”

  “Who could tell me?”

  “The managing editor, John Russell.”

  “Was he at the funeral?”

  “Oh, sure,” Ryan said. “You got a paper?”

  “Eddie, we got a paper?” Harvey called.

  Eddie went to Arnie’s desk and came back with that morning’s Press Herald. The funeral story started on page one, with a photo of the family going out of the church. On the first page of the second section was a photo essay on the funeral.

  “There,” said Ryan, pointing to one of the pallbearers. “That’s Russell.”

  “Got a number?”

  Ryan gave Harvey the phone number and Russell’s extension. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

  Harvey hesitated. “Hold on.” Mike had come in. Harvey went to meet him outside the locker room for a quick consultation then went back to his desk.

  “This is your lucky day, Ryan. The divers found a knife in the water, a little downstream from the bridge. A hunting knife.”

  “Wow.” Ryan stared at him for a second then scribbled in his notebook. “Do you know whose it was?”

  “Nope. Don’t know yet if it was used to stab Blake, either.”

  “Did you check to see if anyone bought a new one last week?”

  “That only works on TV. This was an old knife, Buck brand.”

  “So, do any of your suspects go hunting?”

  “Probably eighty percent. This is Maine, Ryan.”

  “Yeah, I suppose. So, what else can you tell me?”

  Harvey scratched his jaw, thinking. “Check back with me after the weekend.”

  “For sure. Thanks!” Ryan hurried toward the elevator.

  It was Mike’s last day on the job before vacation, and he had cleared his schedule so he could help with the Blake case. The whole unit would man the phones that morning, contacting reunion guests who hadn’t attended the funeral, asking if they knew of any connections between Blake, Murphy, Frederick, and Nadeau. Harvey was almost sure Luke Frederick was killed during the reunion, and he’d been seen with Thomas Nadeau and David Murphy. Martin Blake was murdered that night. He had to find out why.

  He called Mrs. Blake for an appointment, then drove Eddie’s truck to her home. Marty had left, but Ellen Trainor was still there, and she sat in on their session in her mother’s sitting room.

  “What was your husband working on last?” Harvey asked.

  “The book about Mexico, Border Feud,” Thelma said.

  “How about for the paper?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. He didn’t usually discuss his news stories with me. He did all that at the office.”

  “Kept it separate from his fiction books?”

  “Yes. He filed his clippings here and did some research, but he would go in to the office and work on their computer system.”

  “We interviewed his classmates from the funeral yesterday.”

  “I heard. Some of them were upset.”

  “Are you making any progress?” asked Ellen.

  “I think so. It takes time. This isn’t public knowledge yet, but it soon will be. We found a knife in the water.”

  “Was that what killed him?” Tears glistened in Thelma’s eyes.

  “The medical examiners said he drowned, Mom,” Ellen reminded her.

  “I’m sure the knife wound contributed,” Harvey said. “It could be the weapon that wounded him. I’m sending it to the medical examiner. Mrs. Blake, your husband didn’t own a hunting knife, did he?”

  “Yes, he did. Now, where would it be?” Thelma left the room for a minute and returned with a knife. Harvey pulled it from its leather scabbard. It was a Schrade, with a bone handle.

  “That’s a nice knife.” He handed it back to her, glad Blake’s own knife was accounted for. “Better give it to Marty. I wanted to ask you, Mrs. Blake, you’re certain it was Luke Frederick you saw talking to David Murphy on the beach?”

  “Now I am, but I didn’t recognize him that day.”

  “What was your husband’s attitude toward Frederick?”

  “I didn’t ever see them together, so I don’t know. He didn’t say anything about him.”

  Harvey nodded. “And the will was read yesterday afternoon?”

  “Yes. Martin made some donations and settled a million dollars on each of our children, leaving the rest of his estate to me. Satisfactory all around, I think.”

  Harvey would have called forty million dollars something beyond satisfactory.

 
; “We were wondering about Daddy’s things,” said Ellen.

  “We returned his ring and watch.”

  “I know, but the other things. We never got his clothes back, for instance.”

  “I’ll have someone call the medical examiner. The clothing should have come back before this.” Harvey thought about the small items that had been in Blake’s pocket. The pocketknife, key ring, and wallet seemed like the only things worth having. Maybe his notebook.

  He sat very still and pictured the notebook, damp and disintegrating, and the inked runes, ‘M confronts TN—TN is defiant.’ He inhaled sharply, and Ellen Trainor said, “What is it, Mr. Larson?”

  “Mrs. Blake, after you and Martin saw the men down on the shore, did you both leave that area and go to where you couldn’t see the shore anymore?”

  “I went to help set up the lunch buffet. It was pot luck, and we used one picnic table to hold all the dishes.”

  “Where was Martin during that time?”

  “Let me see … He may have stayed where he was for a few minutes. Then he came over and helped Patricia and me with the tablecloth. We couldn’t make the little clips stay on the edges. After that, he went back over near the head of the beach path. I think he actually started down, but when we called that lunch was ready, he came back up.”

  “He didn’t go all the way down?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s a steep path there. I think he started down to see David, then thought better of it when the lunch call was given.”

  *****

  Harvey went around to see John Russell at the Press Herald office.

  “Martin’s latest work? He’d started an article on corruption in government. We were going to run it next week.”

  “Corruption in local government?” Harvey asked.

  “No, it concerned a member of Maine’s delegation to Washington.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Very. It was going to be great. I’ve got his rough draft, and I may still run it. It’s a huge story. He was trying to verify everything. Sources are cagey on something like that. You have to have them nailed, or you get accused of libel.”

  “So this story was in that category? Someone might call it libelous?”

  Russell shrugged. “I told Martin, ‘If you can’t prove it, I won’t print it.’ We’ve had lawsuits before. Even if you win them, they’re expensive, in cash and reputation.”