Murder in Merino

by Sally Goldenbaum

  “Thank you for not saying ‘young ladies,’ Ty,” Birdie said, her expression one of mock sternness. “I don’t despise many things in my very fine life, but that’s one of them. I am not young and don’t want to be.”

  Ty laughed. “May I call you ageless? You’re definitely that.”

  “That’s fine, dear. Now we need some information from you. Do you have a minute?”

  “For you? Is the moon made of butter?”

  Tyler’s malapropos remark was met with affectionate smiles—such remarks were one of the many things that endeared the lanky bartender to all of them. As his own grandmother often said, he wasn’t the brightest puppy in the litter, but definitely the most lovable. And certainly the best looking.

  Nell scribbled down the date they were interested in on a piece of paper, and Birdie suggested to Ty where he might find the answer to their question. The young man dutifully went to the computer at the hostess station and began punching keys.

  Nell could tell that the date hadn’t registered with Tyler. To him, it was a Friday. Any Friday, and that was fine. There was no need for Tyler to make inferences.

  Schedule, he typed in. Garrett Barros. He looked up at them while the computer was pulling up pages. “Garrett’s an okay guy. Don’t know him too well. He doesn’t hang with us. Mostly keeps to himself. But he’s cool.”

  And he watches birds? Nell wanted to ask, but instead she waited for the computer to answer their question.

  “Do the owners put their schedules in the computer?” Birdie asked.

  “Nah. No need. Jeffrey was always here, except when he wasn’t. And then he’d call out to someone where he was going, when he’d be back. And Don Wooten? I guess he probably put it in his own calendar—he’s really organized like that. Wants to be sure we know where he is if we need him. They both were like that in fact—made sure we could get ahold of them.”

  He looked back to the computer. “Okay,” he said, pleased with himself. “I have it right here. It was Friday you wanted, right?”

  Nell nodded.

  “Yeah, I got it. Garrett was here that Friday morning helping to stock the meat delivery in the freezer—sometimes Jeffrey gave him crappo jobs like that, but Garrett seemed okay with it. Things like emptying garbage, cleaning out the ovens and wait stations. And it looks like he was on garbage detail after he finished with the meat.”

  “And the afternoon?”

  Tyler looked back at the computer. “Hmm. Looks like he left here about two. Odd time. That shift usually goes till four. But maybe Jeffrey let him go early. Sometimes he did that if we weren’t busy.”

  Nell’s heart sank, and only then did she realize how much she wanted Garrett to have been safely collecting garbage or cleaning kitchen sinks or lugging beef carcasses into the freezer that whole long afternoon.

  The afternoon Jeffrey Meara was killed.

  • • •

  A quick call to Izzy revealed that she was starving and would give away her very special Signature needles for a taste of the Edge’s seafood salad. Well, maybe not really. But would they please pick her up in five minutes?

  Nell drove down Ridge Road and parked in front of Jules’s house. A minute later Jane Brewster pulled up behind her. They piled out of their cars and stood on the sidewalk for a moment, looking at the house.

  “It looks different by day,” Nell said. “I swear, each time I see this house, it is more a home.”

  “Where was Jules when I bought it?” Izzy wondered aloud. “I could have used her magic touch.”

  A giant pot of autumn-colored mums graced the front stoop. The flagstone pathway that wound around the house had been swept clean, and debris around the Knock Out roses cleared away. Newly planted holly bushes replaced the dead evergreen shrubs and the garden was tilled with rich dark mulch.

  The small mailbox was now painted a deep verdant green, matching a fresh coat on the front door and shutters. It was simple and clean and had the look an artist might bring to brightening up a home.

  “I love what she’s done,” Izzy said. “Jules was right. It was an omen that she buy this house.”

  Jules opened the front door. “Come in, come in, come in.” She stepped out and hugged them as they walked up the steps.

  Nell and Birdie were surprised; spontaneous warmth wasn’t what they’d come to expect from Jules Ainsley. Something about this house was bringing out her softer side.

  Instead of analyzing it, Jane Brewster and Izzy simply responded in kind, hugging her back. Jane looped one arm around Jules’s waist and walked into the house with her, a barrage of questions matching their footsteps.

  Jane’s first request was a tour. “I’m the latecomer to all that you’ve done here. We had some great times in this house when Izzy and Cass took turns living in it,” she said, “but not since. I love getting to know people through their living spaces. Come, let me get to know you.”

  Jules was only too happy to comply. She suggested they start outside and work their way in. She’d done some clearing in the back that the others hadn’t seen, either, opening the yard.

  “Some clearing” proved to be a panorama. They stepped out the back door onto the porch, and looked out in amazement.

  “Good grief,” Izzy said. “You must have had one powerful weed-whacker.”

  “His name is Garrett, believe it or not.”

  “Garrett Barros?” Nell asked. She forced a judgmental tone out of her voice. Right now, at this moment and until they knew more, Garrett Barros was the last person who should be spending time in Jules’s backyard.

  Jules nodded. “He saw me out here trying to clear a view of the sea and he offered to do it for me. And voilà—isn’t it grand?”

  It was grand, and then some. How he did it was a mystery, but trash trees had been pulled out, bushes pruned, the winding path that went down the hill defined and tended, roots dug out and discarded. The result was breathtaking. A million-dollar view.

  The hill had just enough of a rise to provide a window to the sea. From her spot on the swing, Jules could watch sunrises and the darkening of the evening sky, the incoming tide and the rush of the water moving back out to sea.

  “Stella told me the land wasn’t really a part of the property, but no one would care if I wanted to tame it.”

  Izzy laughed. “For me, not owning it was a nice excuse not to spend time on it, unfortunately. I asked the city a couple times to clean it up, but they had more pressing things to spend money on, and so did I, opening up the new shop. But I never imagined how beautiful the view would be.”

  “Garrett’s one strong brute of a guy and he seemed to know the land well. Where the path was, how to avoid the poison ivy.”

  Nell listened carefully, but without the gratitude Jules was feeling. She looked over at Birdie and saw that she was storing the information away, hoping it meant absolutely nothing.

  Jules was moving off the porch and along a stone path to the potting shed. The Knock Out roses and small shrubs hugging the sides of the building had been neatly trimmed but left in place, keeping the shed in the background.

  “I haven’t done much in here,” Jules was saying, opening the door to the dank-smelling shed. “But someone used it a lot, apparently, and even put her own version of a skylight in.” They looked up to a crudely opened roof with a piece of scratched Plexiglas covering the hole. “But at least it brings in light.”

  A workbench spanned one side with a pegboard above it. A smattering of garden tools hung from metal hooks and several more were scattered on the workbench. Stacks of seedling flats were piled against a wall and an old wheelbarrow and several hoses hung next to rakes and spades and shovels. There was a larger door on the other end, one big enough for a lawnmower. It hung slightly open on a broken hinge.

  Izzy looked around. “The last renter left all her tools behind. She was in a hurr
y to get out before the rent came due.”

  Nell remembered. It had been the last straw for Sam and Izzy. One too many renters skipping out on their rent and leaving a mess behind.

  “Well, I’ll clean everything up and use the shed while I’m here. I love to plant.” She picked a trowel off the workbench and hung it on the pegboard.

  Nell looked around. Ben had told her Jeffrey was killed inside the shed, then stumbled outside, where Jules found him. The inside area was small—a place to go for a private talk, she supposed, if that’s what Jeffrey was doing inside. It was hard to imagine any other reason, but all Jules had said was that he’d wanted to meet at the house. Why the potting shed? She looked over at the empty flats, at the tools and a garbage bin near the door. It didn’t make sense.

  She turned around and watched Jules absently straightening things, piling small seed pots together and stacking several dirty gardening gloves.

  Izzy looked over at the gloves. “Those orange ones were mine. They probably should be tossed.”

  Jules held them up. Dried dirt fell out of the holes in the palms. “You’re right.” She dropped them in the trash bin. “That leaves three. Looks like one got lost, like socks.” She lined them up on the work surface. A pair of denim gloves and one striped one. They were all dirty, with mud and grass stuck to the cloth.

  Jules shuddered.

  Nell looked over. And then she remembered and knew what caused Jules to wrap her arms around herself and look away. The glove found in Jules’s car was a patterned glove, described in the article leaked to the press as a purple-and-orange-striped glove. Its mate now sat alone.

  They all stared at the work top, imagining that inclement afternoon when the sky was dark with storm clouds, the makeshift skylight rattling.

  The afternoon someone grabbed a glove and a garden knife from the workbench and stabbed Jeffrey Meara to death.

  Jules walked quickly out of the shed and the others followed. They gathered on the porch, welcoming the cool breeze and fresh air.

  Nell took a deep, cleansing breath and looked out over the sea, erasing the disturbing images. “Jules, I know remembering that day is awful for you, something you don’t want to do, but—”

  “I think about it all the time, Nell. There’s only one way to get it out of my mind.”

  Of course there was. Jules was right. Find the person who did this. And put them where they couldn’t hurt anyone else. It was the one thing the whole town agreed on.

  “Here’s something that’s been bothering me . . .” Nell began. She hesitated for a minute, and then went on. “I know the police have asked you a zillion questions, but are you up for one more?”

  “From you, yes. I’m not sure there are any new questions, but maybe you can find something in my answers that the police might have missed. I think . . . I think it’s difficult to interpret what I say without the glove in my car somehow creeping into the picture and coloring it shades of ‘she’s guilty.’ Tommy Porter tries to see beyond it, I can tell. Tries to listen. But even for him it’s difficult. That glove grows larger than life.”

  Izzy frowned. “The glove. Wait a minute.” She was in and out of the shed in a split second, holding the striped glove in her hand. “This is the right-hand glove.”

  For a second her comment fell on deaf ears. Then Jules raised her hand and stared at it. “I’m right-handed.”

  Nell looked at Jules, then the glove in Izzy’s hand. “And whoever used the other glove probably wasn’t.”

  Another thought followed immediately and Nell pushed it to the back of her mind, to a dark corner, along with the hope that she wouldn’t have to bring it out again.

  Garrett Barros used only binoculars with a modified controller for lefties.

  “The glove they found was dirty, messy. I suppose they could say a right-handed person could have grabbed it, forced it on.”

  “But it wouldn’t give the person a good grip on a knife. It would have been clumsy,” Jane said. “The Kevlar gloves I use when firing in the raku kiln are larger than garden gloves, but even so I have to have them on the correct hand or my fingers would be twisted and I could drop a pot.”

  Jules looked over at the glove, as if it were somehow her friend. “I don’t know if the police have thought about the glove thing—no one asked me if I was right- or left-handed. But it doesn’t matter—I know the truth. And I think the glove does, too.” She forced a smile. “Was that your question, Nell?”

  “No, but I’d like to pass the glove along to the police. Maybe have Ben take it over.” She took it from Izzy and dropped it into her bag. “I think all these things will add up to a whole. And the whole will lead us to the right person.”

  Birdie had been standing at the edge of the incline, listening and looking out over the sea. She turned and walked back to the edge of the porch. “Jules, I’m wondering about the phone call you got from Jeffrey that day. Did you talk about where you’d meet?”

  Jules turned the question over in her mind. “I don’t think we were specific,” she said finally. “He knew I was going to an open house on Ridge Road, but didn’t even ask the address. He said he knew the house.”

  “He knew this house?” Nell asked.

  Jules nodded. “I didn’t think much about it at the time, but . . .”

  “But . . . ?” Birdie said. “Did he say anything else?”

  “Now that I think back over the conversation, he didn’t ‘know’ the house because he’d driven past it or anything like that. He made it sound more intimate. Like he knew the house well. I wonder if he ever lived here?”

  Izzy looked around. “It’s possible. But I bought it from a young couple, not the Mearas.”

  “Did Jeffrey say he’d meet you in the backyard?” Nell asked.

  Jules frowned. “I think he just said ‘at the house.’ But the one thing we were very clear on was the time. Twenty minutes before the open house. I was adamant about it because I’d told Stella I’d be here as it started.” She looked slightly embarrassed. “I wanted to challenge any competition, I guess. I don’t know how, maybe point out the house’s failings, pretend I saw rats.” She laughed. “I was determined this house would be mine.”

  “Why was that odd—about the time, I mean?” Izzy asked.

  “He didn’t need much time, he said, but he wanted to get it off his mind. And it was something I should know. He could sneak away from work for twenty minutes, which was all he needed. So that was how I set the time. Twenty minutes before the open house.

  “But then I decided I’d get here earlier and look around the house by myself, the back, the view of the water, the porch. I hadn’t had a chance to really get a good look, and I wanted some time alone before the open house. Strange, I know. But you can’t always explain emotion . . . and that’s what was driving me. So I got here a full half hour before Jeffrey was supposed to show up.”

  “And he was already here,” Nell said.

  “And already dead,” Birdie finished.

  The silence that followed was uncomfortable, and completely devoid of answers.

  Finally Jane said, “I think we need something lovely to cleanse our palates.”

  Jules brightened. “Like my mother’s painting.”

  “Exactly.”

  They went through the cheery kitchen and into the den, where Jules had done some more decorating. Cheerful geometric-patterned pillows filled the leather couch, and a new piece of furniture had been added. The chair, upholstered in a bright green, yellow, and rose print, filled a corner of the room. Beside it, a reading lamp and small table invited a cup of tea, a book, and a warm body.

  Jane immediately went over to the painting. She got as close as she could, then stepped away, to take in the watery nuances, the play of light and shadow. “Your mother was talented,” she said softly. “This is lovely. Ham will want to see it, too—h
e’s the watercolor expert. But I know enough.” She looked back at the painting. “It was probably midday when she painted it, I think. And late summer, from the way she painted the light. You mentioned that you had others?”

  “Two. I got them out when I knew you were coming, but I had forgotten the terrible shape they were in. My mother hadn’t framed them.” She untied a brown portfolio case leaning against the desk and pulled out two more paintings, the same size as the one on the wall, and placed them on the desk.

  They all gathered around and peered at the hazy images that shined through decades of dust and grime.

  “I think both paintings are of the house, but it’s hard to tell. I was afraid to touch them. I thought water would probably ruin them.”

  Jane was quick to agree. “Absolutely don’t touch them. Ham can clean these. He’s magnificent at many things, and restoring old watercolor paintings is one of them.”

  They looked carefully at both paintings. Glimpses of color came through, the same blues and greens.

  Light came through.

  Jules’s mother had been happy.

  Chapter 31

  If she hadn’t run into Stella Palazola the next day, Nell might have completely forgotten about the odd comment Jeffrey Meara had made to Jules about her new house. And Izzy’s house. And Cass’s, too, for a while, anyway. A small home that melted into the Sea Harbor terrain as easily as sand castles.

  A simple house that might have remained simple, if Jeffrey Meara hadn’t been murdered in its backyard.

  A house, Jeffrey had said, that he knew well.

  Seeing Stella brought Jeffrey’s comment to mind, and when Nell spotted her walking toward her office, she motioned for her to wait, then hurried across the street, narrowly avoiding Tommy Porter’s cruiser.

  “I have a favor to ask of you.”

  Stella’s smile was contagious, matched only by her renewed enthusiasm for her job. When she heard what Nell wanted to know, she nearly puffed up with pleasure. “Absolutely. I know exactly what to do. Sometimes the info is available online, but I might have to go to the courthouse—we learned all about it in school. I will find you everything you want to know, and maybe more. I’m on it.”