Murder in Merino

by Sally Goldenbaum

  Jules took a sip of the wine, then plunged in.

  “The police searched my car today.”

  “Why would they do that?” Danny sat opposite Cass and adjacent to Jules. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, listening intently.

  Jules looked at him and smiled slightly, as if grateful to have a question asked, helping her story to come out. Or perhaps grateful for Danny’s presence?

  “At first they wouldn’t tell me, only that they had a warrant. Then Tommy Porter showed up and he explained that someone called the police station and said they might find something in my car that would be important to Jeffrey Meara’s murder. They’re following all the leads they get, so of course they would follow this one. They looked for me, equipped with a warrant. They had trouble finding me at first, which probably made them even more suspicious, thinking maybe I was hiding or had left town.” She looked down at her upturned palm, tracing her lifelines with the tip of one finger, crossing and turning and twisting across her hand.

  “You were hiding in plain sight, then, for heaven’s sake,” Jane Brewster said, a motherly tone coating her words. “You were having lunch with me—which I thoroughly enjoyed.”

  Jules looked at Jane’s kind face. “Thank you. You don’t know me very well, none of you. And yet you say things like that. Such very nice things.” For the first time her voice broke, a slight crack that she quickly tried to hide by clearing her throat. She took another drink of wine.

  “What did they find in the car?” Ben asked. In all the messages he’d received that afternoon, none of them went any further than to say “incriminating evidence” had been found.

  “A garden glove.”

  Ben nodded. One of the few pieces of evidence uncovered so far were some threads, presumably from a garden glove, that had stuck to the murder weapon, fibers glued to the knife with blood. The garden glove itself hadn’t been found. “It matched the threads on the knife?”

  “I don’t know. They’re testing it to be sure.”

  “Where did they find it?”

  “They wouldn’t tell me. Just somewhere in my car.”

  “Who called it in?” Danny asked.

  Ben answered the question. Jerry Thompson had told him how they knew to look in the car. And he also made it clear to Ben that, although he didn’t like this kind of lead, he had to follow it. “It was an anonymous caller,” he said.

  For a moment there was relieved silence. Anonymous callers were cowards, after all. Why hide your identity if you’re doing something good, like helping the police solve a murder case?

  And then the realization that there were plenty of reasons someone might not want to identify himself intruded on their short-lived relief. Especially in a small town, especially with a killer on the loose. Fear of retaliation, fear of a mistake. Ugly, ubiquitous fear.

  “When?” Ham broke the silence.

  “Last night. In fact, Jerry must have found out about the call when talking to Nell and me at the concert.”

  Jules agreed. “I had moved my things from the bed-and-breakfast last night—my car was full. I emptied some of it before I went for an evening run. So someone could have put the glove there anytime last night—while I was running or sleeping.”

  She said the words definitively—put the glove there. As mysterious as Jules had been about why she had come to Sea Harbor, about who she was, there was no mystery about how she thought this all happened. Someone, for whatever reason, had planted incriminating evidence in her car. Someone wanted Jules Ainsley to be arrested for murder.

  If Jules’s story was the truth.

  She was forthright in answering the questions that followed, relieved that there were people who cared enough to get to the truth. She had absolutely no idea why anyone would think she killed Jeffrey Meara, she said. She had met him at the Ocean’s Edge a couple of times and that was the sum total of their relationship.

  Until she got his phone call.

  “You have no idea why he wanted to talk to you?” Izzy asked. “The police are going to need to come up with some kind of a motive, and they may zero in on that.”

  Jules shook her head. “It was strange. A part of me thought maybe he was interested in buying the house and wanted to talk me out of it. An even crazier thought was that he knew something about the house that he wanted to warn me about. But, Izzy, you lived there—and I heard you lived there, too, Cass. Clearly one of you would have known if there was some kind of ghost in residence?” She pushed a weak smile into place.

  Cass hesitated, then managed a smile back—or half of one, at least. “The only ghost I remember was definitely not the see-through kind. It was that creepy Garrett Barros, who spent an inordinate amount of time outside with binoculars around his neck. Bird-watching, he claimed. He was spooky.”

  “Garrett. I’d forgotten all about him,” Nell said. “He works at the Ocean’s Edge. I wonder if the police have talked to him. Maybe he saw something—”

  “Or did something. He knew Jeffrey, he lived next door to where the man was killed. I wonder what his relationship with him was,” Cass said. “Some of the staff liked Jeffrey, but he was pretty rough on some others.”

  Without a word to Nell, Ben had slipped away and ordered several of Garozzo’s biggest pizzas, one with five different cheeses, alive with green and red roasted vegetables, and another with Italian sausage, cheese, and Harry’s special sauce. Food for thinking.

  Then he stood at the side bar, listening carefully to the conversation while he mixed a batch of his famous martinis.

  “Did the police take your car?” Sam asked.

  Jules nodded. “They were at the house when I got home this afternoon. Fortunately, I’d unloaded most of my things in the morning before jogging over to Canary Cove for lunch. So my paintings and photos and clothes are at least safe—I think all that was left in the car were some sheets and pillows. Tommy Porter showed me the warrant, asked me to wait inside, and they did a search right there. Apparently the caller hadn’t told them where the glove would be, so it took a while. I didn’t see anything when I was packing or unpacking. But then, I wasn’t looking for a garden glove.”

  And the anonymous person probably knew that, Nell thought. Then she realized with a start that she was believing everything Jules was telling them. She looked around at the others. The questions they were asking indicated they believed her, too, but whether it was out of politeness or something else, she couldn’t tell.

  “Was your car locked, dear?” Birdie asked.

  Jules looked up at the question. Then she looked surprised, but more at herself than at the question. “I used to lock my car. I even had one of those awful-looking steering wheel locks for a while. My mother insisted. But somehow, Sea Harbor doesn’t seem to be the kind of place where people do that. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone lock a car since I’ve been here. Besides, my car is old. I can’t imagine anyone wanting it. And if they do, maybe they need it more than I do.”

  “How long was your car parked at the house?” Sam asked.

  “Since yesterday. I packed my stuff up at the bed-and-breakfast, then drove over to the house and unpacked some of the things until it got dark. I spent the night over there in a sleeping bag. The car was pulled up in the driveway the whole time, close to the back.”

  “So someone could have done it anytime during the night,” Ham said.

  “Or during the evening, I guess. I ran along the beach for about an hour before I went to bed. The moon was full and that always relaxes me.”

  Nell looked over at Cass. She was listening carefully, but Nell wasn’t sure whether she was making the same connection she was: Danny had been alone last night. Nell guessed right.

  “Chief Thompson is a decent guy.” Jules looked over at Ben. “He certainly thinks a lot of you, enough to share your phone number with a person that some of the guys over
there probably think is a murderer.”

  “Yes, he is a decent, fair man.” He looked down at his phone, seeing a message ping into view. He frowned, read the note, then looked up.

  “The chief isn’t going to release this new information, Jules. He’d like it if we would be discreet as well.”

  Relief washed over her face. “He is a good man,” she whispered.

  “And he didn’t arrest you,” Izzy said. “So the evidence is circumstantial right now.”

  “No, he didn’t. Not yet . . .” Jules’s voice dropped off.

  The determined look, the smiles that usually flashed so quickly and took over her whole face were gone. She looked smaller. Vulnerable.

  Cass was watching Jules closely, listening to everything she said. Her face registered little, but Nell knew that Cass Halloran was fair and smart and flexible. And she wondered how those traits were faring in her friend right now.

  Danny was listening, too, with glances at Cass now and then when he didn’t think she would notice. He was taking in Jules’s story with his author’s sensitivity and curiosity. His face reflected empathy as one would show for a friend—but not necessarily for a lover. At least that was the way Nell interpreted it.

  Danny knew Jules a little better than the rest of them did. Nell could see in his eyes that he believed her. And he seemed upset with the injustice being heaped on her. He’d do what he could to right it, because that’s who Danny was. But what she didn’t see was a man attracted to a woman, at least not in a sexual way.

  Ben and Sam began passing out martinis to any takers, and Ben announced to everyone that the best pizza on the North Shore would be delivered soon.

  “Perfect,” Jane said. “Pizza and my peanut coleslaw—I can’t imagine a better combination.” Throaty laughter followed her words. “I think this will be a Friday-night dinner to remember.”

  Everyone agreed it would be perfect, and would be topped off memorably with Birdie’s apple pie. Nell urged them all to take advantage of the late September breeze and move outside—it was Friday night on the deck, after all—and though the grill was idle, the martinis and music were not.

  Ben and Jules went into the den and Izzy switched the iPod to more body-moving music. She waltzed out onto the deck, urged along by Justin Timberlake beating out the rhythm to “Take Back the Night.”

  “Yes,” she answered the singer. “We will do exactly that.”

  Sam gave his wife a hug, gyrating around her, with Abby squealing from the baby pack he’d strapped to his back.

  Music, friends. They’d do it, even if not in the way the singer meant. They would take back the night, the day, and the whole town, too.

  Nell watched from the sidelines as Danny took over for Ben, filling drink orders, then giving in to Birdie’s charms as she showed him what a longtime tap dancer could do with a good partner and some jazzy music.

  Nell laughed and then noticed Pete and Willow rocking their bodies up the back deck stairs. A nice surprise on an evening that was slowly filling up with the unexpected. Willow scurried across the porch to wrap Nell in a hug. Nell loved the waiflike artist who had wormed her way into their hearts the summer she lived in Ben and Nell’s backyard guesthouse—she’d been a part of the family ever since.

  Nell looked down at the guesthouse now. The high bed that Izzy used to love as a child was still there, made up with fresh linens. The little step stool in place beside it. The place was aired out and ready to be used. The bathroom was always stocked for unexpected guests—toiletries, thick towels, and nightclothes. Of course—it was a perfect place for Jules to spend the night, she thought suddenly. It had been a harrowing day, and being alone in a house with the knowledge that there were people in this town, perhaps even neighbors on Ridge Road, who thought of Jules as a murderer might not be conducive to—or safe for—sleeping.

  She’d invite her to stay the night, or until she could get her own house in order. Get her life in order. Something, Nell realized, that would take more than a night to accomplish.

  Ben and Jules emerged a short time later, just in time to take the pizzas from the arms of Harry Garozzo’s son, Harry Junior.

  The enticing aroma of warm homemade crust, fresh tomatoes, garlic and basil, and grilled vegetables wound all the way out to the deck and pulled Nell inside, where she met Ben, Jules, and the pizzas in the kitchen. Nell repeated her thought out loud, that Jules spend the night in the most comfortable bed on Cape Ann. Ben seconded it.

  Jules paused for a moment, her face registering first surprise, then gratitude. “It would beat that old sleeping bag—at least until I can get my car and my sheets back. You’re very kind—both of you. Thank you.”

  Jules Ainsley didn’t accept help easily, Nell suspected. She was beginning to trust them. The next piece that hadn’t yet fallen into place completely was a huge one: could they trust her?

  She looked over at Ben, who was explaining to Jules the secret recipes for Italian cooking that Harry Garozzo had extracted from his grandmother on her deathbed. “For pizza dough, you must always, always, always use doppio-zero flour,” Ben quoted in his best Italian accent.

  Nell began pulling plates and napkins from the cupboard. Jules looked better after talking with Ben, calmer. There were traces of tears on her cheeks, but that was a good thing. Too much bottled-up emotion wouldn’t help anything, especially the hurdles that lay in her path in the days ahead. And Ben was very good at handling a tear or two. Patiently. Kindly. And with enormous respect.

  Jane appeared beside her, her long skirt creating a breeze. “Coleslaw time,” she announced, and took the heavy bowl from the refrigerator. Nell turned the oven on to low.

  Time to warm up the apple pie.

  In minutes the outdoor table was lined with pizza and plates and bowls for Jane’s juicy slaw. Nell lit a row of hurricane lamps while Birdie uncorked more wine. It was going to be buffet, Nell declared. Although most Friday nights were spent sitting around the old deck table, shoulders touching, voices overlapping and tangling and layered on top of one another, tonight called for moving around. There were too many emotions hovering in the night air and she didn’t want anyone to feel trapped. A comfortable chaise or overstuffed wicker chair with room to spread out would be fine.

  The pizza was as good as Harry claimed, and Jane’s coleslaw a perfect match, much to nearly everyone’s surprise. The jalapeno and fresh ginger added the perfect tang to the dressing; the radishes, carrots, and scallions gave a nice crunch to the slivered cabbage. “A success,” Birdie declared, and Jane said, “Of course.”

  Nell was in and out, slicing additional pizzas, refilling wineglasses.

  She paused at the doorway, taking in the activity around the deck.

  Willow and Pete seemed to have adopted Jules, pulling her into a conversation with Ham Brewster about his and Jane’s early years as Berkeley hippies.

  Jules was quieter than Nell had seen her be in the preceding days, the days before her life had changed. The days when she happily met strangers on Harbor Road, charmed shopkeepers with her smile, jogged through town in the early morning, unaware of the male admirers watching her from behind the windows of the deli or coffee shop. When she seemed to have her life under control.

  Nell wondered what she was thinking now that she’d lost at least some of that control. Sometimes even people proclaiming their innocence were sent to prison.

  How would Jules weather this storm?

  On another side of the deck, close to where Nell stood, Ben and Izzy were doing the unthinkable: asking Danny how his next book was coming along. Danny’s good nature took the question all writers dread hearing in stride, and then he told Ben he owed him another martini. “Immediately would be good,” he added.

  There was laughter and serious talk. And the quiet swaying of shoulders on the deck when Aretha Franklin’s unstoppable voice took over their sense
s with her “Soul Serenade.”

  From everything Nell could see, Jules had been accepted into their gathering. Even Cass’s chill had warmed a degree, although she kept her distance from the newcomer, and from Danny, too.

  By the time Birdie brought out the warm pie, the night sky was studded with stars and the mood was as mellow as the breeze.

  Nell looked around at the candlelit faces of the people she trusted and loved and walked over to Ben’s side. He stood at the portable bar, handing out brandies or coffee, water or small glasses of juice.

  “A nice evening,” she murmured.

  “An unexpected one,” he said, watching her watch the others.

  “The lull before the storm?” Nell’s eyes went from group to group, reading their faces, their eyes, trying to see into their souls. “Do they believe Jules?”

  His arm went up around her shoulders and she could feel Ben’s heart, the gentle beat, the deep breathing.

  Jules was slightly removed from the others, sitting off to the side, her face unreadable.

  “Do you?” Ben asked.

  Around the deck a few people got up from their chairs and began collecting pie plates and coffee mugs.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes,” Ben agreed, reading her face. “Yes, but . . .”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it? Yes, but if she didn’t do it, who did?”

  Chapter 21

  Nell carried a carafe of coffee and a plate of cinnamon toast across the backyard to the guesthouse. The cottage faced what the locals called the Endicott Woods—a thick acre of pine, birch, and maple trees that separated the back of the property from the beach road. A path, worn smooth by generations of children and neighbors taking a shortcut to the beach, wound through the woods.

  Although Jules had mentioned that she was usually up with the birds, it was only the sound of birds that greeted Nell as she walked around to the front of the cottage. The front window was open a crack with the curtains pulled back, and she looked in. On the small table beneath the window, a white card was propped up against a vase of flowers on the dining table.