Uprooting Ernie (Jane Delaney Mysteries Book 2)

by Pamela Burford

  Porter raked his fingers through his wet black hair. “I don’t believe you. Why would this come out now?”

  It was my turn to shrug. “Ernie’s been on Sophie’s mind lately. She was going through some of his stuff and there it was.”

  “I want to see this notebook.”

  “Maybe if you ask Sophie nicely, she’ll show it to you. Or not,” I said. “You’re not her favorite person at the moment, as you can imagine.”

  I watched Porter digest this, watched as resignation replaced kneejerk denial. He leaned back wearily. “I was a kid. Kids do stupid things. No good can come of making this public now.”

  “You weren’t a kid,” I said, “you were a senior in college, a legal adult. Was it hard persuading Ernie to take the blame for Tim’s death?”

  Porter looked bleak. “Not really. You’d think it would have been, but he was a true friend, like you said.”

  “He was in love with you.”

  Porter jerked as if stung. “I’m not gay.”

  “I didn’t say you are. It’s not a tough leap to make,” I said. “The sacrifice he made for you? The risk he took? He was in love with you, and you took advantage of that fact.”

  He sighed. “It wasn’t that big a risk for him. We both knew his mother would make it all right, that there’d be no serious repercussions for him.”

  “By handing out payoffs, you mean. Buying the silence of everyone who knew what happened. Or thought they knew.”

  “My folks would never have done that for me,” he sneered. “They were all about self-reliance. Taking responsibility for your own actions.”

  “Wow,” Dom said, his tone flat. “What a concept.”

  “There’s no ballad, by the way,” I said. “Ernie never wrote about what really happened that night, as far as I know.”

  His expression was part outrage, part grudging respect for my successful ploy. “Then Sophie doesn’t know.”

  “No. It’s just us three,” I said. “Why? Are you hoping we’ll keep quiet about it?”

  He leaned forward. “Lacey must never find out. It would kill her.”

  “To learn that the man she’s been married to for thirty-five years is the same man who left her beloved Tim out there to drown?” I said. “The father of her child? Yeah, I can see how that wouldn’t go over well.”

  “I’m serious,” he said, with vehemence. “I’ll do anything to keep her from finding out.”

  Dom leaned forward and folded his arms on the table, looking steadily at Porter. It was a subtle warning, but one not lost on the other man. Porter leaned back and took a deep breath.

  “So what made you suspect it was me and not Ernie on his boat that night?” he asked.

  “First of all, I discovered that you’re my anonymous client,” I said, “and don’t ask how. Then I remembered something Maxine mentioned the other day at Murray’s. She said Ernie always showed up for work at the campus coffeehouse senior year, without fail. He had the same shift as you, eight to midnight, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.” I could tell by Porter’s expression he’d figured out where I was heading with this. “September twenty-fifth, the night Tim died, was a Wednesday. A witness reported seeing Ernie’s boat in the ocean off Montauk at around ten p.m.”

  “Only, Ernie was at work,” Porter said. “Or so you assumed from a casual remark made decades later by a bartender.”

  “By the student manager of the coffeehouse,” I reminded him. “And you often skipped work.”

  “Not much to base your assumption on.” He folded his arms over his chest. “That it was me and not Ernie on that boat.”

  “Until you obligingly confirmed my suspicion,” I gave him a frigid smile. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

  Dom nudged my foot under the table. Message received: I was coming on too strong. Porter was liable to shut down just when I needed him to open up. And okay, so Dom was right. About this. Not about the getting-remarried thing. Maybe. I sat back and took a silent, calming breath.

  “Listen man, it’s just us three here,” Dom said. “We know you didn’t intend for Tim to die. No one would think that. It was a horrible accident. And like you said, you were a dumb kid back then. Not exactly an exclusive club, by the way.” He raised his hand as if to say, I was a card-carrying member. “Plus you were probably drunk as hell that night, am I right?”

  Porter scrubbed his hands over his face. “Wasted. I’d liberated a bottle of twenty-five-year-old single-malt from my dad’s liquor cabinet. Tim brought a case of beer. I think we went through most of it.”

  Dom grinned. “You don’t fool around. Was it just you two on the boat?”

  Porter nodded. “I wanted to scare up a couple of girls, make a real party of it, but Tim said he had this girlfriend back home in Jersey and he didn’t cheat. It wasn’t a party if we both weren’t getting some, so that idea got canned.”

  “Did Ernie know you were borrowing his boat?” I asked.

  “Sure.” He frowned. “You think I’d take it out without asking him?” As if that were the serious ethical issue here, and leaving a drunk kid to fend for himself in the cold, dark ocean merely a sidenote.

  Here came Dom’s foot again, a preemptive strike. The guy had always been able to read my mind. I kicked him back.

  “So you and Tim just, what, drank and fished?” Dom asked.

  Porter snorted. “We were going to fish, we’d brought bait and tackle—I’d caught a twelve-pound bonito the week before. But we went through the first six-pack before we even set foot on the boat, so in the end, we never even dropped a line. Mostly we just talked. Drank and talked.”

  “About what?” I said.

  Porter had that faraway look again. “He told me about his girlfriend.”

  “Lacey, right?” Dom said.

  “Lacey Borelli.” His expression softened. “I remember thinking what a musical name that was. They’d been going together four years. Imagine that. At the age we were then. He took out his wallet and showed me her picture. Sweet little dark-haired Lacey. No great beauty, but she had the smile of an angel. I think I fell for her right then, just looking at that smile.”

  I looked over his shoulder, past the pool and deck to the house. The object of Porter’s adoration stood behind the sliding doors, a dark silhouette against the glowing backdrop of their family room. I couldn’t tell whether the angelic smile was in place. Somehow I doubted it.

  “Were you both drinking about the same amount?” Dom asked.

  “Yep. Tim was bigger than me, this big, tall, blond kid, but he wasn’t used to booze. I had a lot more tolerance, but I think it was a point of pride with him to match me shot for shot, beer for beer. He was... wow, he was polluted. I guess that’s why he told me his secret. No one else knew.”

  Dom and I looked at each other. “What’s that?” I asked.

  “He told me Lacey was pregnant. Her family didn’t know, no one knew but the two of them.”

  “And you,” I said. “So when you told me that Lacey confided in you the day of Tim’s funeral...”

  Porter shrugged. “I already knew. I kind of worked my way around to the subject, let her know she could trust me.”

  He’d manipulated her, in other words.

  “She must have been panicked,” I said. “There she was, an unmarried pregnant girl from a religious family, like you said. And now the baby’s father is dead.”

  “He was going to pick out a ring the next weekend.” Porter looked solemn. “Have a quickie wedding before she started showing. That’s what he told me.”

  “I’m surprised the police never made the connection,” Dom said. “About Ernie being at work when this happened.”

  “Why would they?” Porter said. “Ernie confessed to it right away, so there was no need to investigate. I, um, I asked him for this favor the next morning, as soon as I realized what happened.”

  A favor. It was just a favor for a pal. Ernie seems to have done a lot of favors for Porter. Lending him his boat.
Saving his job. And finally, this biggie. I had to wonder what, if anything, Porter had done for his friend in return, aside from capitalize on Ernie’s doomed crush on him.

  “One thing I don’t get,” Dom said. “Why did Tim go into the water in the first place? As drunk as he was?”

  “Why else? To sober up.” Porter closed his eyes briefly. “Seemed like a sensible idea at the time. The guy was on the swim team. I must’ve figured... well, I didn’t doubt he’d make it to shore okay. I remember laughing as I headed back to the marina, thinking how pissed he’d be the next day.”

  At last I allowed myself to look past Porter to the woman standing a few feet away. Lacey had padded out barefoot a couple of minutes earlier, wearing a chiffon swimsuit cover-up and carrying a tray laden with snack bowls, glasses, and a pitcher of iced tea. As she’d approached, the gist of what we were discussing had appeared to sink it. I was the only one who’d known she was there.

  The men noted the direction of my gaze and turned to see her standing as if paralyzed, her face drained of color.

  Porter leapt up and started toward her. “Lacey. Sweetheart, I—”

  She jerked back, dropping the tray. Glassware shattered on the teak decking amid a shower of iced tea and lemon slices. Nuts and olives went flying. Porter seemed not to notice. He advanced, halting only when a large glass shard pierced his foot, causing him to stumble. Dom and I were on our feet now, grim witnesses to a domestic meltdown long in the making.

  “Don’t you come near me.” Her voice was a near growl, her expression one of stunned horror.

  “Please listen to me,” he begged, balancing on one foot to yank out the glass. Blood ran from the cut, smearing his fingers and dripping onto the deck. “I love you, Lacey. I love you so much. You must know that.”

  “How could you?” It was a hoarse whisper, nearly inaudible. “How could you do it? And then to keep it from me all these years?”

  “I—I was afraid.” He took a couple of bloody steps toward her. She shuffled backward. “Afraid of losing you. The instant I met you, I knew you were meant to be mine.”

  Fury transformed her plain features, now flooded with hot color. “How dare you! I was never meant to be yours. I was Tim’s and he was mine and you destroyed that. You took him from me. You took him from Colin. Then you made your best friend take the blame. And you never owned up to any of it. Coward!”

  “Lacey.” Porter dropped to his knees in front of her, weeping openly. “Please understand. Please give me a chance to explain. I can’t lose you.”

  She stared down at her husband in disgust, her own face wet with tears. “And all this time, I never told a soul what you did to Ernie. You did it for me, that’s what I thought. You did it for Tim. To even the score. To give me peace. What a laugh. It was to keep him quiet about who really killed Tim, wasn’t it? The only one you cared about was yourself.”

  Her husband shook his head, uncomprehendingly. “I don’t—”

  “He killed Ernie.” She directed this statement to Dom and me.

  It took me a moment to find my voice. “Are you saying that Porter—”

  “I saw,” she hissed. “He doesn’t know I was there that afternoon, parked out of sight. I saw him put Ernie’s body in the trunk of the car—Ernie’s car—and drive away.”

  “Lacey.” Porter groaned, stumbling to his feet. “Sweetheart, why are you doing this? Don’t do this.”

  “You’ll pay!” She launched herself at him, pounding his head with her fists while he just stood there and took it. I sprang at her, glass crunching under my sandals, and tried to pull her off him. She was surprisingly strong. I’d expected someone as well padded as Lacey to be weak and out of shape, but there was substantial muscle under the layer of flab. I recalled Porter telling me she used to play tennis and ski. Maybe she still did. Or maybe raw fury had lent her strength.

  Dom stepped in then. Even he had to struggle to haul her off her husband, but he managed. Porter bled from his mouth and nose. I’d never seen anyone look so sad and forsaken.

  “You’ll pay for Tim,” she screamed as Dom held her back. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll see that you pay.”

  11

  The Quick Brown Fox Murdered the Lazy Yellow Dog

  Theodora Augusta Waterfield answered the door promptly. The first thing I noticed about Ernie’s mother was the bib apron that protected her khaki crop pants and short-sleeved, patterned blouse. The oft-mended apron was made of yellow and white gingham decorated with ruffles, faded red rickrack, and an appliquéd basket of red apples. It appeared to be from another century—the midpoint of the previous century, to be precise. Her hands were encased in yellow rubber cleaning gloves, her veiny feet in well-worn blue scuffs. Her thick, white hair was pulled back into a short ponytail. She wore no makeup.

  “Why, it’s Jane!” she said, in a resonant, authoritative voice that belied her eighty-something years. She stood aside to let me enter her single-story, cedar-shake ranch home. “Come in, come in, the air conditioning’s on. I usually keep it off,” she continued, striding away with the air of one who’s confident she’s being followed, “but it’s beastly out today, don’t you think? Don’t you think it’s beastly out?” When I didn’t answer, she stopped and turned to peer at me from over her rimless reading glasses. I almost plowed into her.

  “Um, yes, it’s well over ninety,” I said. Beastly indeed, and noon was more than two hours away. I had been unable to phone her in advance of my visit, not that my sudden presence at her door appeared to disturb her. Her number was unlisted and no one I asked could provide it. Some even speculated the reclusive old woman didn’t possess a phone.

  Not true, I discovered as she led the way through the labyrinthine house to the big country kitchen, which smelled faintly of pine cleaner. I spied an avocado-colored wall phone with its twisted curly cord. I almost expected to see a rotary dial, but it had buttons, the numbers all but worn away. The antique stove and refrigerator were also avocado. There was no dishwasher, I noticed.

  This woman was reputed to be a multimillionaire. At the moment I saw no evidence of it—aside from the size of the old, sprawling house, tucked well off the beaten path on what had to be at least fifteen acres of wooded land.

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Waterfield,” I said, “but how do you know who I am?”

  “Well, that’s an inane question.” Teddy stripped off the rubber gloves and draped them over the side of the sink, which bore the faintest residue of powdered cleanser. “I recognize you from that absurd television program, of course. You’ll excuse my appearance. Wednesdays are cleaning days. It’s awfully helpful to keep to a firm schedule, don’t you think, dear? Lemonade?” She untied her apron and hung it on a hook next to a key ring and a wide-brimmed straw hat.

  “I’d love some lemonade. So you saw the show?” I grimaced. “I’m embarrassed.”

  “Sit, sit.” She tossed her hand toward the kitchen table, covered in a floral-printed plastic tablecloth. I sat. “Good heavens, you certainly ought to be embarrassed. What a perfect ass you made of yourself. Cookies? They’re chocolate chip.”

  Well, gee, lady, don’t hold back. All my friends—and yeah, my mom and dad, too—had reassured me that my TV appearance hadn’t been that bad and it wasn’t my fault and all that. Deep down I knew that Teddy’s ruthless assessment was closer to the truth.

  I said yes to the cookies. The woman Sophie had referred to sarcastically as “mother of the freakin’ year” produced two glasses and a can of powdered drink mix, which she dispensed with a generous hand. I guess I’d been expecting something made from, well, lemons. She ripped open a bag of hard little store-bought cookies and shook some onto a plate.

  The first sip of the neon yellow liquid made my teeth ache. Sure, I enjoy my orange soda and sweet cereal, but holy sugar rush, Batman, this stuff was off the charts.

  “So you watch Ramrod News?” I asked, trying to get a bead on this woman.

  “Another inane question,” T
eddy said, in a perfectly agreeable tone that somehow stung more than if she’d spoken with icy derision. She joined me at the table and drank deeply from her glass. “Of course, there must be millions of nitwits who tune in to that foolishness or it wouldn’t be on the air. No, I read about it on the Times and Newsday sites and caught the show on Hulu.”

  Okay, what? The woman with the antique appliances and fat-fruit wallpaper read her morning news—and watched TV shows—on a computer? In my head a mechanical voice chanted, Does not compute.

  “First of all,” I said, “I want to extend my sympathy. I know it’s been decades since you lost your son, but all this... the discovery of his, um, remains... I’m sure it’s opened old wounds.”

  “I never did believe that suicide business.” Teddy looked at me levelly. “It must have been quite a shock for you, finding his bones in the roots of that tree.”

  “To put it mildly,” I said. “Do you have any idea who might have murdered Ernie?”

  She gave me a canny look as she lifted a cookie. “You are no doubt well aware of whom I suspected at the time. I was quite vocal about it, and you are, after all, a close friend of my former daughter-in-law’s. I cannot imagine she failed to mention it.”

  “I apologize. Yes, of course she did.” This woman tolerated nothing less than what she herself offered: unsentimental honesty. “The police didn’t take you seriously.”

  “No, they did not. And now, well, so much time has passed, I doubt the killer can be brought to justice.”

  “There’s no statute of limitations on murder,” I said, “and Detective Hernandez is actively investigating.”

  “Please don’t misunderstand me,” Teddy said. “I would like nothing more than to see Ernest’s murderer behind bars. But I’m a realist. Even if a viable suspect emerges, any defense attorney worth his salt will cast doubt on witnesses’ memories from so long ago, stale evidence...” She sighed deeply. “I suspect I shall not live to see justice for my son.”