Murder in Merino (26 page)

Birdie leaned forward, carefully balancing her coffee cup in her palm. “Maeve, we think maybe Jeffrey was going to talk to Jules about her father the day he was killed.” They all knew they were making assumptions about Jimmy fathering Jules. But it fit such a big hole in their puzzle that none of them doubted it. Maeve Meara didn’t, either.

“Do you think he was going to tell her that her father committed suicide?”

“Maybe more than that,” Nell said. “I think he was going to tell her what you just told us. That Jimmy Brogan was a very nice person who probably loved Penelope very much. And that he would never have driven the second love of his life—that car in your garage—while drinking. And that he couldn’t possibly have been the person who killed that old man. He might have told her that she had a wonderful father.”

Maeve was quiet for so long that they wondered whether she had stopped listening or fallen asleep. Her eyes were on her teacup, her small fingers gripping it tightly. Finally she lifted her head, her eyes moist.

“Did you know Jeffrey never drank a drop of alcohol in this house? He told me alcohol had killed one best friend and killed a friendship with another man. Imagine that—a bartender who didn’t drink.”

Nell smiled. Ben had told her once that Jeffrey didn’t drink. A little taste now and then to be sure his concoctions at the bar were palatable. But not much more. Customers sometimes teased him about it, but he’d just laugh and say, “Each to his own.”

“The day Jeffrey died we had breakfast together,” Maeve continued, wiping away the moisture in her eyes with a small cloth napkin. “I made his favorite French toast and café au lait. It was lovely. And he was lovely, too. The way I will always remember him. The tension that had been building that week was disappearing. It was going to be a good day, he told me. He was going to right some wrongs.”

She put down her cup and stood up, looking at the four women eating her petits fours. “Now tell me, ladies,” she said, “what can we do to make Jeffrey’s good day happen?”

Maeve’s energy and awareness surprised them all. Maeve Meara was proving to be a wise woman, one who knew there was a time for everything, a time to be silent, and a time to speak—just as her husband had.

They stood in the garage, the Sprite in front of them, its shine lighting up the space. Maeve pointed to a ladder that pulled down from the ceiling. “That will take you up to the rafters, where Jeffrey kept his treasures.”

Cass was elected to do the climbing, and in minutes she was handing down several boxes to waiting hands.

Maeve ignored the dust that fell with them and suggested they line them up on the floor and dig in.

“That’s it,” Cass said, climbing back down. “There’s not much else up here, just some old skis and a kayak that looks like it has a hole in it.”

“Jeffrey had trouble getting rid of some things. He was always going to fix that kayak and take me out for a moonlight ride. Imagine that,” Maeve said, smiling.

The boxes proved to be filled with more things of little consequence—bike helmets, more books, old winter jackets, hiking boots that had long before outlived their usefulness.

Izzy sat cross-legged on the floor and shook her head. “I don’t think there’s anything here.”

One by one they replaced the covers on the boxes. Maeve suggested they put them back up on the rafters for now. She’d deal with them another day. “The odd thing,” she said, “is that none of these boxes was the one Jeffrey held in his lap the day I found him sitting in the car. It was small, not much bigger than a shoe box.”

Nell stood beside the Sprite, her hands on her hips, staring at it, as if begging it to talk to them. “Maybe in the trunk of the car?” she said.

Izzy’s eyes lit up. “My smart Aunt Nell.” She walked behind the car and smoothed her hand over it, feeling for a latch. “There isn’t a trunk,” she said, and shook her head in disappointment.

Birdie walked over and looked at the back of the car. She frowned, repeated Izzy’s movements, then suddenly threw both hands up in the air. “So silly of me,” she said, startling the others.

She walked around to the door and reached inside to open it, then motioned to the others to watch. “Sonny loved this.” She pushed the seat backs forward and gestured to a dark open space behind the seats and under the body of the car. “Voilà. The trunk. It’s right here, right in front of our eyes. This is the only way to get to it.”

And Birdie was right. There it was, complete with the spare wheel in pristine condition—and a small brown box. Just a bit bigger than a shoe box.

Birdie leaned over and carefully lifted it out.

The box was light. But when they took it inside and opened it at the dining room table, the contents seemed profound.

First they removed old photographs covered with dust. They blew it off, then smoothed them out on the table.

The largest photo was of the Sprite with Jimmy Brogan at the wheel. And sitting next to him was a beautiful woman with dark brown hair floating around her shoulders and an enormous smile filling her face. A familiar smile.

“It’s hard to see,” Maeve said. She opened a drawer in the sideboard and took out a magnifying glass. “My constant companion these days,” she said, handing it to Nell.

Under the lens, the figures took on new life. The green Sprite was faded, but the people in it were alive and exuberant. Had they not known better, they would have sworn it was Jules Ainsley sitting in the beautiful car.

The next photo was a close-up of the woman alone, with a blue sky in the background. The familiar smile was there. And something else. Nell held the photo up and looked closely, holding the lens over a spot just below the woman’s neck.

A gold chain and a charm. And on it, a small seashell, brighter than it was now, not yet worn down by fingers caressing it.

The letter to Jeffrey had been folded and unfolded so often the creases had been taped together. It was dated the day before Jimmy Brogan died.

In it he thanked Jeffrey for never missing a week of visiting him in jail. For giving him the news, as best he could. For sharing his joy when he and Penny discovered they were going to be parents. For sharing his anguish when the joyful celebration turned into the worst night of his life. The night of the hit-and-run. For comforting him when he learned from the Johnsons’ lawyer that his Penny was gone, swept away by parents who convinced their daughter that raising a child whose father was a criminal was a terrible thing to do for that daughter. Jimmy would never see Penny again, the lawyer promised him.

And in the same letter Jimmy asked Jeffrey to take his car. To keep it for him. The keys were on the hook in the house where they were always kept, the registration papers in the glove compartment, along with a couple of other things Jeffrey should hang on to. A small box. Some photos.

Keep it for me,
Jeffo,
he wrote.

The letter was a testimony to friendship.

A testimony to his love for Penny and their unborn child.

A testimony to his sadness over knowing he’d never see Penny again—nor the baby she carried.

A testimony to his innocence.

And then he added one favor. He charged his best friend with someday letting his child know how much he loved him or her.
Tell my child that I am not that man in jail. Tell her I was a good man who loved deeply and wanted nothing more than to be her father.

And an innocent man.
You’ll fine the proof, Jeffo,
he wrote.
Somewhere in that car, you’ll find the proof.

And he had. The day after Jimmy took his life.

Too late to matter. It would have simply brought up a horrible accident, and ruined even more people’s lives. But Jeffrey had kept everything safe in an old shoe box—the single earring, the coin purse small enough to be hidden in the crease of the car seat—and had hidden it away in the trunk of the car Jimmy Brogan loved. Along with a small velvet box holding the diamond ring that was to go on Penny Johnson’s finger.

Safe for all the years, even from someone tearing Jeffrey’s den apart all those years later.

I
t was a cell phone call from Ben that turned their day in another direction completely.

“Did you forget?” he asked Nell.

The political debate that Beatrice Scaglia had plotted and planned and that they had all promised to attend was to begin in a few hours.

Nell moved into the other room to talk and filled Ben in, as best she could, on the events of their day. The articles that had matched their suspicions, the things they’d found in the car.

He suggested they meet at home before the event. He’d be there soon. Also, Mary Pisano had left a message earlier that she was dropping off the information Nell had asked her for.

“A slight detour in our plans,” she said to the others when she hung up. There was enough time to shower and change and collect themselves before the evening event. Time to decompress . . . and think, refreshed.

“Perhaps it’s fortuitous. We need to move cautiously. ‘Knowing’ is one thing, but being able to prove it definitively is another.” They needed Mary’s information to confirm what they were beginning to accept. But none of their discoveries was bringing joy, only a hopeful relief that justice would be done and an end put to innocent people’s suffering under the cloud of suspicion.

Everyone would be at the debate. Beatrice Scaglia had seen to that. Yes, it was fate.

Cass offered to come back and give Maeve a ride to the event, but she said she was tired. And politics tired her even more. Besides, it seemed to be a day of weeding things out, and she had a garden in back that needed some attention.

The drive back into town was quiet, although now and then a question would be thrown out and they’d think through the night that Jeffrey died. And the night Jimmy Brogan’s car was involved in a hit-and-run. A wild party.

One of the articles had indicated it wasn’t a stag party, but they already knew that to be the case. Women were there. But had Penny been one of them?

No. They were sure she wouldn’t have been.

Jules had portrayed her mother to be a careful, well-ordered woman, even when she was very young and pregnant. She would have been back in her room at the resort where she worked, allowing her Jimmy to celebrate with his friends that one time. She would probably have been sound asleep while across town her future was being torn apart.

They found only one newspaper article in the box Jimmy had given to Jeffrey—something Jeffrey had probably torn out of the paper and dropped in the box himself. It was a letter to the editor that had somehow slipped by the newspaper censors and been published in its entirety. Its headline read:

TEN REASONS WHY JIMMY BROGAN IS INNOCENT

Several items in the article addressed his character, scholarly awards, and class leadership honors. But others were facts, two about his car keys:

• Car keys were always kept on the brass hook in the kitchen, never in his pocket.
  
• Jimmy was right-handed; the keys were found in his left pocket.
  
• Jimmy fell asleep against the wall in the den, with friends lined up between him and the door—and that’s where he was in the morning when he woke up. He couldn’t have left the room in a drunken state without tripping over people.
  
• Jimmy drove his car with reverence, never carelessly, always cautiously.
  

The letter wasn’t signed.

All good, sound facts. And none that the police would particularly care about. Plenty of good people did bad things.

•   •   •

Ben wasn’t home when Nell got there. She put Jeffrey’s box and the articles they’d printed out on the kitchen island and went upstairs. She was secretly grateful to be alone, to have time for a quiet shower. A chance to clear her head before revisiting it all over again. The week had been a roller-coaster ride, and today, especially, had allowed little time to process feelings. It hadn’t allowed the time to imagine real people in front of the runaway train.

The fact that she knew those people filled her with an enormous sadness. She turned her face to the shower, its hot spray washing over her.

When Ben’s car pulled up, she was almost ready. And then she heard another car. They weren’t expecting anyone. They had all arranged to meet at the community center.

She dressed quickly, slacks and a blouse, a dab of blush.

She recognized the voice before she reached the bottom step and walked into the kitchen. Ben and Chief Jerry Thompson were standing near the island, examining the contents of Jeffrey’s box, now lined up in a row. Jewelry, a small monogrammed change purse. A simple, elegant engagement ring in a velvet box. Old items that had spent nearly forty years undisturbed in the back of a well-cared-for Austin-Healey Sprite.

They greeted her with somber expressions. Ben held up a manila envelope tied with a string. “Uncle Petey came through. Mary dropped this off and not ten minutes later I got a call from Jerry.”

“Petey Pisano is a character,” Jerry said. “I’ve known him for years, ever since I came on the force.” He shook his head. “Pete wants to be just like old man Enzo, though he hasn’t quite made it. That being said, he’s a font of information, and in a magnanimous gesture he sent me copies of everything he sent you. He just wants me to know he’s always willing to help the ‘coppers,’ as he put it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he sent it to a couple of others, too.”

“This makes things more urgent,” Ben said.

Jerry agreed, then excused himself to call Tommy Porter.

Ben opened the envelope and pulled out the papers Petey Pisano had provided. “As Mary so aptly put it, ‘Uncle Petey got into the story with lots of gory details. All now documented.’ Mary said he made it clear he’s only willing to part with this information because lots of these people are dead.”

“Hopefully not by his hand,” Nell said, putting on her glasses and looking at the papers. Some of the people may be dead, she thought, but they weren’t all dead. And this would change their lives forever, just like an inept driver in a careless hit-and-run had done all those years before.

Ben stood beside her, reading along with her. “You were right. The Pisanos made some money by keeping that story out of the public eye. Apparently, it wasn’t that uncommon. Money spoke.”

Then he ran one blunt fingertip beneath the name of the signature on the checks.

Nell took a deep breath as all their suspicions fell into place with a painful clang that must have been heard all the way down on Harbor Road . . . and as far away as the little house at 27 Ridge Road. And it wasn’t James Brogan III, nor his wealthy family, who had kept some of the facts quiet.

•   •   •

The community center parking lot was nearly full when they arrived for the debate. Beatrice Scaglia, true to her word, had brought out a crowd. She’d timed it carefully so it wouldn’t interrupt people’s lives too severely. Dinner and evening plans could still be intact.

Nell walked in, her eyes peeled for Birdie, Izzy, and Cass. They’d agreed to meet in the lobby of the center, which was now teeming with people.

“They’re over there,” Ben said, pointing to a corner of the lobby. “I’ll find Sam and Danny.”

Mary Pisano reached the small group of women at the same time as Nell did and immediately began talking, trying to be heard over the noise of the crowd.

“You were right, ladies.” Her voice was animated and she pulled them close in a huddle, keeping her words private. “The hit-and-run story was pulled and censored from the paper.”

She repeated to the others the story that was already ingrained in Nell’s head.

Without knowing names or details that would add tragic weight to her information, Mary was free to enjoy the excitement of it—and the flush of success. “I feel like a young reporter again,” she said. Then tilted her head to the side and chuckled. “Mary Elizabeth Margaret Pisano Ambrose at your service.”

“Thank you, Mary,” Birdie began, but Mary was already off, having spotted Rachel and Don Wooten standing with a group of longtime Sea Harbor residents near the door.

Nell watched her walk toward the group of friends, people they’d all known forever.

Friends
. The room was filled with them.

Mary was unaware that she had helped them in a profound way in discovering who murdered Jeffrey Meara. It wasn’t proof . . . but the next best thing. Helping connect those final dots. She made a mental note to call Mary the next day and make sure she understood that they couldn’t tell her more at the time. But knowing Mary Pisano, she wouldn’t feel taken advantage of. Not if she was helping remove a murderer from the streets of the town she loved—even if the murderer was someone she knew.

As Mary disappeared from sight, Stan Hanson came into view, walking through the front doors of the building. He moved slowly through the crowd, shaking some hands, greeting people, speaking softly. Next to him, Karen stood straight and composed, one hand on Stan’s tailored suit sleeve, directing him toward the community room. She wore a tailored gray dress and pearls, diamond stud earrings that caught the light, and her hair smooth and curled under at the ends. Nell thought of yearbook pictures from another era, where all the girls looked alike—identical smiles, the same sweater, the shoulder-length pageboy cuts. Conservative jewelry. Easier times.

She didn’t realize she was still looking at the couple until Stan’s eyes met hers and held her there. Startled, Nell met his gaze. It seemed to last for minutes, although it was probably just a few seconds. She couldn’t read his look but was sure she read sadness in it.

Finally Stan released her, looked away, and continued on into the crowded debate room.

Nell couldn’t spot Ben in the crowd, and suspected he, Danny, and Sam had gone on in. She saw Tommy Porter, in uniform tonight, standing in the back of the room.

“A sold-out crowd,” she whispered.

Tommy’s smile was halfhearted, one that told Nell he had talked to the chief. She patted him on the sleeve and followed Birdie to a cleared space near the door.

“I would rather stand than be squished,” she said, and the others agreed, lining up next to her. A breeze coming in from the lobby offered some relief in the overcrowded room.

Once they were settled, their backs to the wall, Birdie whispered to Nell. “There’s something not quite right about all this.”

Nell had sensed it, too. The setup was normal—two podiums on the stage, a small table for the moderator. Chairs neatly arranged. Stan in his handsome blue suit, Beatrice looking stylish in a pink silk jacket dress, slightly nervous, but confident and smiling, talking at the side of the stage. Waiting to be introduced.

But there was a feeling, visceral and disturbing, traveling through the room. Birdie shivered.

The green stillness before a tornado swoops down and destroys.

It was as if the entire town had been privy to their day, watching them on some giant television screen as they had prodded and pulled apart and pieced together lives . . . and deaths. As if they, too, were aware that something ominous was hanging over the wood-beamed room in their beautiful community center. As if they were aware . . . that a murderer sat in their midst.

But of course that was foolish. Nell pressed one hand against her heart, calming the painful feelings.

The shrill buzz of the microphone being tested hushed the crowd.

Lily Virgilio, Izzy’s obstetrician and director of the community center’s free health clinic, was the moderator. A wise choice, Nell thought.

Lily stepped up to the microphone and smiled warmly at the crowd. She thanked them for coming and explained the event’s format: a brief statement by each candidate, followed by questions that had been gathered from e-mails and a library collection box. Lily would be the timekeeper, and if there was time, there’d be questions from the audience at the end.

First, the moderator introduced Beatrice, who stepped up to the microphone and launched into an impressive and brief presentation, just as Lily had requested, of her hopes for the town. She ended with sincere compliments to Stan Hanson for the wonderful things he’d done for the city over the past years. “And now,” she said with a beguiling smile, “it’s my turn.”

The crowd laughed and clapped and Beatrice took it all in. Then she sat back down, folded her hands on her lap, and waited for Stan to take his turn.

The room grew quiet as the respected mayor stood before them. For a long moment, Stan didn’t speak. He looked out over the audience as if seeing some of them for the very first time. His head turned, looking from one side of the room to the other.

Karen Hanson sat on the far side of the stage, where a few chairs had been set up for family members. She edged forward in her seat, her eyes glued to her husband, her body tight.

Nell watched her, sensing her concern. She looked for Ben and spotted him at the end of an aisle halfway down. He was watching Karen, too.

Bodies shifted on wooden chairs.

On the stage, Lily Virgilio started to stand up to check the microphone and make sure Stan had water. But before she could take a step, Stan began to speak.

After a gracious thank you to friends and supporters, he took a drink of water, then removed the microphone from its stand and walked informally to the edge of the stage. Again, he stood still for a minute and looked out at the crowd. And then he began.

“This is an unusual night for me, folks. I know you came out expecting a rousing debate between my worthy opponent and me—” He looked over at Beatrice and smiled, and then he began clapping for her until the crowd, unsure of his gesture, joined in. When the applause died down, he looked back at the sea of faces and the people who had put him back in office term after term.

“Well, you’re not going to get that rousing debate.” His eyes turned to his wife briefly, then back to the crowd.

Nell looked over at Karen. The color had drained from her face but her eyes remained focused on her husband. Even from where she stood, Nell could feel the intensity in her look, powerful and commanding. Without averting her gaze, she stood and moved to the far wall of the stage, into the shadows near the fire exit, and away from the glare of the crowd.