Death in the Off-Season

by Francine Mathews

  Merry glanced at her watch. Eleven-thirty. It was just enough: Tess could have sent out the last meals, hopped in the Rover parked outside, and made it to Mason Farms by nine forty-five. On the off chance that someone from the farm noticed the car’s arrival, she would look like Rafe heading for bed. A quick trip into the barn for the gun and then a brief wait in darkness, alone under the pine trees, as Peter and Ney took their bed­time walk. She could have been back in the kitchen by ten-fifteen.

  “Did they order anything else?” she asked, nodding toward the last table.

  Sammy looked at her curiously. “Yeah, they had dessert,” he said. “And coffee. Why?”

  “So you’d have gone back into the kitchen around what time?”

  “Geez, I dunno.”

  “Try to think.”

  “Nine forty-five, or thereabouts,” a voice said behind them. Merry turned and saw a girl in her late teens, her long blonde hair braided into a coil around her head.

  “You’re Regina?”

  The waitress nodded. “I know it was nine forty-five because my boyfriend stopped by to see if I was ready to go. The kitchen technically stays open until ten, but weeknights after Labor Day we’re usually cleaning up by nine-thirty. Tonight there were still two tables—re­member, Sammy? You called me in to help with the dessert plates. You couldn’t find the rum cheesecake.”

  “That’s right, I did,” he said. “Tess had stepped upstairs.”

  “You know she was upstairs?” Merry said swiftly.

  Sammy shrugged. “Where else would she be? Probably took Will some pie. Hey, you’re not moonlighting for the Board of Health, are you? The place is clean as a whistle, believe me.”

  “Could I say hello to Tess?” Merry asked.

  “Come on back.”

  “I’ll take her, Sammy,” Regina said. “You clear the last table.” For a girl of her age, she had a commanding air. Sammy didn’t argue.

  Regina led Merry back through the bar to the kitchen. Rafe had left his seat by the fire.

  “You’re Chief Folger’s daughter, aren’t you?” Regina said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Must be nice to have your dad for a boss.”

  “That’s not the first word that comes to mind.”

  “You working on the Mason murder?”

  “You guessed it.”

  “It’s not a guess. My boyfriend’s a cop, too.” Regina turned and held open the kitchen’s swinging door, waiting for Merry to pass in front of her. “Matt Bailey. You know him?”

  The malice in the girl’s eyes was so blatant that Merry shivered slightly as she walked past her. “Yeah. He strikes out with women his age,” she said.

  Tess was alone in the kitchen, a slim figure struggling with a towering mass of dirty pots and empty plates. She wore heavy pink rubber gloves, and her auburn hair was beaded from the cloud of steam sent up by her spray nozzle. She brushed back a wisp from her face with one gloved hand, and her shoulders slumped. Any twinge of jealousy Merry felt died away. It was clear that the elegant rooms beyond the kitchen were purchased at great cost: Tess Starbuck was bone-tired. At that moment she turned to place a cleaned pan on a dish rack and saw Merry. She smiled. The lines of weariness disappeared suddenly and she looked as she must have when Dan Starbuck married her—as Rafe must see her, Merry thought. Then the smile faded and with it the illusion of youth.

  “Should I grab a towel?”

  “Nah, don’t bother. These can drain. We use them too often to bother putting them away. How’re you doing, Detective? Making any headway?”

  “Only backwards,” Merry said. “I stopped in to tell you Peter Mason was shot tonight. Don’t worry,” she added quickly, as Tess’s face went white, “he’s fine. Just nicked in the arm. But I didn’t want Will to hear about it in school.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Tess said. Her words were barely audible over the running water. She shut off the tap, pulled her hands out of the gloves, and reached for a towel. But instead of drying her hands she rested them on the edge of the sink, staring at the tile wall in front of her. “This gets worse and worse, doesn’t it?”

  “Seems like it,” Merry said. “Did you do a lot of business tonight?”

  Tess seemed to hear her from a great distance. She sat down in a chair and put her head in her hands. Merry thought of Will, and knew where he got his brittle strength, his intelligence—and his vulnerabil­ity. His mother raised her head and met Merry’s eyes. “Yes, thank God. But I’ll be glad to get to bed. I’ve been standing in this ten-foot-square area for eight hours.”

  “Where’s Will?”

  Tess motioned toward the back stairs that led from one corner of the kitchen to the second and third floors. “Homework. Rafe’s with him now.”

  So Rafe would break the news. He was becoming the boy’s surro­gate father “Well, at least you got out to see the moon,” Merry said. “You’ve got some sand on your shoes.”

  Tess stared at her as if she had spoken gibberish. Then she looked down at her cuffed, narrow-heeled ankle boots and ran one finger over the clay-colored smears just above the sole. “I’ve got to stop smoking,” she said, and laughed. “I’ve tried and tried and can’t quit. I have a no-cigarettes rule in the kitchen—think it’s dirty. So I duck out every half hour to take a drag by the back door. Stupid, isn’t it? For a woman my age. I’d almost kicked it. And then Dan died.”

  “Some habits are hard to break, Tess,” Merry said gently. “Say hello to Will.”

  As she backed down the drive, Merry could see Rafe’s shaggy head silhouetted in the window of a third-floor room. Standing guard until she was safely gone. Will’s was the only window lit that high up in the house. She imagined the yellow light spilling over the desk, and the boy with the long, dark bangs pretending to study, while he stared at nothing. Not even Rafe’s strong presence could keep fear from that room tonight. She wished, very hard, for evidence that would clear Rafe and Tess com­pletely. And wondered how much money they could expect from Peter Mason’s death.

  Chapter 18

  “So the name Jose Luis Ribeiro doesn’t mean anything to you?” Merry asked. She was sitting in Peter Mason’s brightly lit study, the hum of an overactive bee slightly distracting from beyond the open window.

  “I think in Portuguese it’s about as common as Joe Smith, Detec­tive. Sorry.”

  “Your brother was traveling under that name on a Brazilian pass­port. Or so we assume. His picture’s in it, and there’s no other travel document in the bag, so we’re fairly confident it’s the passport he used. I suppose that’s why his border entry—there’s a Miami control stamp in the passport—didn’t ring any bells in the federal computer system. The sealed indictment would have guaranteed him a wel­coming party if he’d used his real name and documentation.”

  “You’re very chatty today,” Peter said. He was stretched out on the sofa in a patch of morning sunlight, and looked as though he were feeling a lazy sense of well-being, probably born of light-headedness and a good breakfast. Unlike Rusty, he had escaped death.

  She studied him. “Is that a polite way of saying your arm is throbbing and you wish I’d shut up?”

  “No. It’s merely an aside.”

  “I see. I talk a lot when I’ve got a lot on my mind. Or when I’m nervous. I’m both, today.”

  “I fall deathly silent when I’m nervous. Habit of childhood—I hoped I’d turn invisible before my mother found out.”

  “Found out what?”

  “Whatever evil I’d done that day. Do you live alone, Detective?” Peter asked suddenly.

  “No,” she said. “I live with my family. And if you’re going to ask whether I’ve had it easy because my dad is my boss, don’t bother. I’ve answered that question ad nauseam. You didn’t know I knew that term, did you?”

  “What an inte
resting pronunciation,” Peter replied. “Do you have bookshelves?”

  “Last time I checked.”

  “What do they have on them?” Peter persisted.

  “Potted plants. Among other things. At my house, everything from Great-Aunt Mitchell’s underwear to back issues of nineteenth-century feed catalogues are piled on the shelves.” She gave up discussing the case. “You’re pretty chatty yourself.”

  “And I’ve got nothing on my mind at all, as it happens. Too little blood has gone to the brain in the past twelve hours. What exactly is making you jumpy? Afraid they won’t miss, next time? Concerned for your career? Wondering whether Dad’s beginning to think you take after Mom’s side of the—” He broke off at the sight of her face, which had frozen, gone white, and then red. “Whoa, I’m sorry,” he said, sitting upright. “What did I say?”

  “What have you heard about my mother?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Has Rafe talked about her?”

  “Why would he? It was just—”

  “—an aside. Right. Please keep your asides to yourself, Mr. Mason.”

  “From now on, I will.” The laziness had vanished. “If I trespassed on private ground, I’m sorry.”

  Merry could not immediately answer him. She was fighting an unexpected urge to cry and a desire to run far away from Mason Farms. She had lost sleep the past few nights—tossing and turning with a cloud of bickering voices in her brain. She had intended to be at her most rational this morning, and instead she was a morass of feeling—fear that Peter Mason might be killed, and that it would be her fault; anxiety about whether she could solve this case; foreboding about Rafe’s involvement in it; and a longing for his lost warmth and affection that had become acute since their encounter in the barn. Near-exhaustion and tension had her close to snapping.

  “My mother killed herself, Mr. Mason,” she said. “After my brother came home from Iraq in a body bag.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t say that,” she burst out furiously. “It always sounds so inade­quate. She was an artist, you know—painted portraits. One night after dinner—she wouldn’t have left us without a meal on the table for any­thing in the world—she filled my grandfather’s waders with stones and walked into Madaket Harbor. With my dad being police chief, he basically organized the hunt for the body. It was pretty public when they found her the next day. He handled it really well, actually. I probably didn’t.”

  “Why is that a failing?”

  “I’m over thirty years old and I’m still trying to show my father that I’m not going to crack under pressure.”

  “Again, I’m sorry. And as you said, that always sounds inadequate. But I know something about trying to please fathers. It’s a useless exercise.”

  “You know nothing about my dad. Could we just deal with the evidence, please, and leave each other’s personal life out of this?”

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  Merry turned to a pile of evidence sealed in plastic that she had brought with her. She set her face in an efficient mask.

  “These are some of the contents of your brother’s luggage, which was found last night near Siasconset.”

  “’Sconset?”

  “On Low Beach. I had to sign out these items from our Evidence department because of your injury—I didn’t want to ask you to come over to the station.”

  “Thanks. I was in no shape to get there.”

  “We found this picture,” Meredith said, “along with several letters we think were signed by Rusty—the handwriting seems to match the signature on his fake passport. All of them are pretty water-damaged and they have to remain in the plastic, I’m afraid. Please look at the photograph first. Do you recog­nize anyone?”

  Peter studied the faded black-and-white figures. “The man in the car is my father.”

  “And the woman?”

  “Is not my mother.”

  “You’re sure? She’s wearing shades, after all.”

  “I can pick out my mother at five hundred feet by the way she carries her head,” he said. “I’m certain this isn’t her.”

  “No idea who it might be?”

  “None.”

  Merry nodded briefly. “We think it may be important, since Rusty chose to bring it with him.” She flipped through some sealed sheets of paper. “These letters may be copies, or drafts he never sent. Or maybe he was waiting until he got to the US to deliver them. Regard­less, they’re all remarkably similar. I’d say they represent blackmail.”

  Peter looked up from the photograph with sudden interest. “You think Rusty came back here to extort some cash?”

  “Maybe. Maybe he’s been doing that for a while. Who knows? He had a very good reason for needing it, Mr. Mason.” She paused, debat­ing how to tell him, and decided that to be blunt was best. “According to the coroner, your brother had both hepatitis C and HIV. He had a lot of pretty pricey health care ahead of him, the kind that’s harder to get in Brazil. Probably the kind he couldn’t pay for, although we can’t swear to that yet. We’ve cabled the Brazilian police to search for bank accounts under this name, or under his own, using the address on the passport.”

  Peter picked up Rusty’s passport and stared at the face. “Jesus,” he muttered. “How far along was he?”

  “Not very,” Merry said. “He had the virus but not the dis­ease. And having learned a bit about your brother, I’d say he intended to fight it every step of the way.” She passed him the letters.

  Peter scanned the first sheet. “This is to Sky.”

  Merry nodded. “We figured that meant Tate-Jackson. Nobody else with that name. You should see the next one.”

  Peter flipped to the second page. “Sundance?”

  “Sounds like a Woodstock reunion, doesn’t it? All we need is an Aragorn or a Galadriel. Or somebody named Love. The third one could be anyone—a guy named George.”

  “That’s my sister.”

  “We’ve typed up copies of all three for you to keep. The actual letters I’ll have to return to Evidence. I want you to read through them, think about what they mean, and get back to me if you’ve any ideas. With you getting shot last night, it looks like Rusty’s death was an accident. But blackmail is a pretty strong motive for knocking him off. Money in any form, if it comes to that. Much more solid motive than love.”

  “How sad.”

  “Is it? You’d rather be killed by someone you love? Or loved once? I don’t know. If it’s going to be ugly, I’d rather it be about dollars and cents than about my place in the universe. Which reminds me: I’ve got to ask you a nasty question.”

  “Shoot.”

  She paused in mid-speech, and looked at him. “You’ve got a weird sense of humor, Mr. Mason.”

  “Chalk it up to the loss of blood.”

  “Or that heady feeling of having beaten death.”

  “That too.”

  “What are the terms of your will?”

  The question brought Peter up short. Sky had asked nearly the same thing, and he’d dismissed the thought as irrelevant, so convinced was he that Rusty had been the intended victim. He leaned back in the sofa cushions and raised one hand to his brow. Merry watched him closely.

  “I leave my books and belongings to George, for her four kids; ex­cept for the collection of nautical architectural drawings—they go to Sky.” He paused. “It felt morbid to write a will. Talking about it is fucking awful.”

  “Go on.”

  “I leave Mason Farms to the Nantucket Conservation Founda­tion—I’m hoping they’ll run it in conjunction with the neighboring co-op. At the very least, it won’t be developed, and that’s something.”

  Merry walked over to the study window and gazed out at the bog. Still flooded for harvesting, it stretched like red porridge to the edge of the moor. Fifty acres in the mi
ddle of Nantucket—even if part of it was classified as wetlands—represented a fortune in real estate. “What’s this place worth, anyway?”

  He smiled faintly. “More than it looks. The land is obviously highly valuable, but it was expensive to establish the cranberry bogs. I’ve sunk about five million into the farm’s infrastructure. The place didn’t make a nickel for four years—it takes that long for the vines to bear. Then there’s the routine maintenance, Rafe’s salary, the seasonal workers, the equipment—it adds up. Technically, I haven’t even earned back the cost of my ini­tial investment. But I’m in it for the long term.”

  “And you’ve left all this to the NCF,” she said woodenly.

  “I hate the thought of these moors being bulldozed.”

  “You realize the scarcity of buildable lots on Nantucket means that housing prices just get higher, right?” Merry sat down in the chair opposite Peter. “Most of the families I grew up with have left for the mainland because they can’t afford to live here. People like firemen, and teachers, and . . .”

  “Cops,” Peter agreed. “I know. The island is a privileged enclave. A gated community whose gate is the sea. Conservation isn’t perfect. But would you rather this became a golf course when I die?”

  The conversation was getting personal again. She picked up her laptop and tried to focus. “So much for the land. What about money?”

  Peter shifted, and jarred his arm uncomfortably. “You want to see my assets?”

  “I want to know what your life is worth to somebody who’s desper­ate,” she said.

  “I didn’t leave anything to Rusty, if that’s what you’re asking. I’d written him out of my life—and my death. The bulk of the fortune—what a grandiose word for stock and trust-fund income—goes to George’s children, in trust once again. The Mason family trusts have always been handled by our New York lawyers and bankers. That part of it was pretty automatic.”

  “I’m going to have to ask you for a ballpark figure.”

  “My net worth?”