Death in Rough Water

by Francine Mathews

  “I decided to forgo vacation,” she said.

  “So I see.”

  “Time off would just leave me thinking, without any distraction, and that wouldn’t be good for me right now.”

  “Probably not,” he said gently. “How’s Sara doing?”

  “She was asleep when I stopped by the house. No nightmares.”

  “Good.” He waited.

  “I talked to Bill Carmichael,” she began again. “Nothing much has developed in the arson investigation. They’ve tracked the plastic explo­sive by its residue, and can say that it’s American-made, probably construction-grade. They should have the manufacturer and batch pinned down soon.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Nothing can be traced to Field.”

  “Have you talked to Tom Baldwin?”

  “Not yet. I’m planning to.”

  “Good. I’d like your sense of how he reacts to questioning. Maybe he knows more than he’d like us to believe.”

  “Maybe. Carmichael thinks Mitch Davis was shot by an enraged boat owner. Completely random.”

  “Could be.” Not our jurisdiction, his tone implied.

  “Dad—”

  “Yeah?”

  “Bailey told me he’s planning to arrest Jackie Alcantrara.”

  “Really,” he said, raising one eyebrow. “Feeling good about it, was he? Spreading the joyful news?”

  “He called it an open-and-shut case,” Merry said, meeting her father’s bright blue eyes.

  “And it’s not.”

  “You know it’s not.”

  John Folger sighed and tipped his chair back against the wall, legs dangling like a child’s. “No, it’s not, Mer. I’ll be honest. I don’t know what to do.” His chin lifted and he studied her a moment. “I thought you’d be pleased to hear Jackie was being f itted for handcuffs.”

  “Not if it means the case is blown,” she said.

  “Ah.”

  “He’s got an alibi, Dad. He hasn’t been in port for three days. And he has a crewmember who’ll say the same thing. That doesn’t mean he’s innocent—just that Bailey hasn’t done his homework. No attempt to match f ibers found at the scene to f ibers in Jackie’s closet. Or his wife’s, although his wife has no alibi at all and is panting to adopt Sara and her future income.”

  Her father’s face looked suddenly guarded. “You’ve talked to Jackie’s wife?”

  Too late, Merry caught herself.

  “Isn’t that Bailey’s job?”

  “Felix Harper told me the Alcantraras might contest Sara’s adoption,” she said, stretching the truth. “I thought I’d better check Connie out. You did tell me to take care of Del’s affairs.”

  John Folger didn’t answer.

  She rushed on. “Bailey hasn’t bothered to f ind out what the other two members of Joe Duarte’s crew were doing on the night in question. They might have been at a pizza party with seventy witnesses. Or they might have been shoving a harpoon into Del’s stomach.”

  “You sure you’re working on arson, Meredith?”

  Her eyes dropped to her lap. “I know it sounds like I’m ratting to Daddy about a fellow detective. I know how it looks. But Dad, he’s screwing this up! And I can’t stand it.”

  “I know,” her father said. “And I know you came in here expecting me to be angry because you’re walking around the margins of Del’s case. Normally, I would be.”

  Merry didn’t say anything.

  “But I’m actually relieved you’re asking these questions. I’ve been asking them, too.”

  “So does Bailey arrest Jackie?”

  “I don’t think so.” The chief tapped his f ingers on the desk in a rough approximation of chopsticks, his face abstracted. “What if we do this? I tell Bailey he hasn’t got enough to support an arrest. I send him out to Alcantrara’s to collect samples. I have him hit the Cape to interview the remaining crew members.”

  “You have him get everybody’s f ingerprints,” Merry said.

  “I have him get f ingerprints.”

  “And search the trash,” Merry said.

  “The trash?”

  “Del received threatening letters. Three of them, in fact, before she died. They were made up of clipped newsprint, magazines—the usual thing from a f irst-time poison penman. Maybe the shreds are out back of Alcantrara’s.”

  “You think Jackie would bother with that?”

  “No, but it sounds just like his wife.”

  “Will that satisfy you?” her father said.

  “It’s a start.” She hesitated, then plunged on. “You could always have me take over the case.”

  There was a silence. John Folger looked at his hands. “I can’t do that, Meredith.”

  “Dad—I’m not going to fall apart just because it’s Del.”

  “I know you believe that,” he said.

  “It’s not just belief. I’m f ine.”

  “You don’t look f ine.”

  She rolled her eyes. “So maybe I haven’t been sleeping well. Neither have you, if it comes to that.”

  He grunted assent. “Bailey needs to win or lose this one, Meredith. It’s his last chance.”

  “Does he know that?”

  “He should. But he probably doesn’t. Judging by this report”—he f lipped one edge of the manila folder contemptuously—“he thinks he’s done a dandy job just by stating the obvious. He’ll bullshit his way right off the force.”

  Merry stood up, walked toward the door with her hands in her pock­ets, and turned. Her face was expressionless. “So f inding Del’s murderer is less important than f inding a reason to f ire Bailey?”

  “You know that’s not true.”

  “That’s what I hear you saying.”

  “Meredith—” he said, and drew a breath. She was right, he’d had too little sleep, and his temper—volatile at the best of times—was hair-trigger right now. “I’m not going to tell you to keep away from this case, okay? If it makes you feel better to skulk around on the side, making sure you turn over every stone Bailey misses, go ahead. But trust me to do the same. I’m not going to let him arrest Jackie because he inherits under Joe’s will. Give me some credit, Detective. We’ll f ind Del’s mur­derer.”

  Merry looked at him, her green eyes hard. “I won’t meddle directly. But if I f ind evidence or information—”

  “Just get it to me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “When’s Jackie due?” he asked, thinking about the f ingerprints.

  “His wife f igured this evening. He and the Swede left port the day before Del died, and with only two men working the tiller and the nets, they’ll take a while to get a full hold.”

  “The Swede? Isn’t that the guy who was careless with a winch?”

  “So Jackie says. The Swede tells a different story. The winch was jammed, he says, and couldn’t be slowed.”

  “Maybe they’ll f ight it out on the high seas.”

  “Dad—”

  “Yeah?”

  “Send Howie to f ind the other two guys who crewed for Joe Duarte. He’s a better interviewer after one summer than Bailey is after ten years.”

  “That’s because you trained him, Meredith,” John Folger said.

  Rafe da Silva already had a seat at the counter in Black Eyed Susan’s. His blunt f ingers were clasped around a bottle of Michelob. At the sight of him, Merry immediately thought of Peter.

  “Hey, Girl Scout,” Rafe said, standing up to greet her. “You were great to come by.”

  “Anything’s better than sitting at home.”

  “I hear ya. How’s Sara?”

  “Actually, better than I’d have expected.”

  “Good. I was worried when I saw her sitting there next to Del. Seeing that kind of thing can’t be good f
or a kid.”

  “No,” Merry said. “I’ll have a glass of wine. Some Pinot Noir.”

  “Been hanging around Pete too much,” he said, grinning.

  “Oh, and Tess hasn’t converted you?”

  Rafe’s smile faded.

  “Judging by your face, things are still bad.”

  “Bad to worse.”

  “I’d have thought Del’s death—I mean, you’re not going to f ish any­more, right? That hasn’t helped?”

  “Well—that’s why I wanted to see you tonight, Mer,” Rafe said.

  The waitress set a glass before Merry’s nose. She thanked her and took a sip. “Tell me about Tess.”

  “She went a little crazy the other day. Thing is, I don’t know whether it happened after Del died, when I saw her—or before.”

  Merry’s green eyes slid up from the rim of her mug and studied Rafe. “Crazy how?” she said.

  He shrugged. “She’s sedated, right now. Dr. John’s orders. I can’t get any response from her when I visit. Neither can Will. You can imagine what that does for the kid.”

  “How’s she running the restaurant?”

  “It’s closed.”

  “Whew.” Merry ran a f ingertip down the side of Rafe’s mug, tracing a pattern in the condensation. “And before she was sedated?”

  “After I left Del’s the other day I went by the Greengage to tell her the news. She went into some kind of f it, Mer, laughing and crying, like she’d won the lottery or something.”

  He paused, the air between them f illed with the clatter of other people’s cutlery and conversation.

  “So she’s glad Del’s dead,” Merry said slowly. “I don’t like that, but I can’t say it’s crazy. I’ve hated people out of jealousy before. It can make your reactions a little—extreme.”

  “Right,” Rafe said. “I f igured that’s all it was. I mean, it’s not like she must’ve killed Del—right?”

  “Right. Are you seriously worried about that?”

  “Yes. The way she was acting freaked me out. I wondered if . . . you could f ind out, once and for all.”

  “Whether Tess killed Del?”

  He nodded, unable to put it into words.

  “That’s a hell of a job to hand me, Rafe. Find out whether one friend killed another.”

  “But it is your job, Merry,” he said suddenly. “When you’re a cop on an island this small, it’s always going to be people you know doing things you don’t want to know about.”

  “And you’d rather I did this than Matt Bailey.”

  “That stupid son of a bitch? He couldn’t f ind his own mother in broad daylight,” Rafe said. “I can’t believe your dad put him in charge of Del’s case.”

  “Well, there’s a story about that. You don’t have time for it, believe me.”

  “I don’t know why this had to happen,” Rafe said wistfully.

  “Del’s death?”

  “That too.”

  When she’d left Rafe, Merry walked the few blocks to Brotherhood of Thieves and slung a leg over a stool in the downstairs bar.

  “What’ll it be?” the barmaid said.

  “Can I have a glass of water?”

  The woman slammed a dripping glass on the bar, where it settled into a pool of wet.

  “Thanks,” Merry said. “Is Dave Grizutto on tonight?”

  “He comes in at seven.”

  Merry looked at her watch. “Ten minutes. Do you know if he’s here?”

  The barmaid sighed and shoved her way through the half-door toward the kitchen. Merry watched her lean through the service entrance, her throat working. The kitchen door swung closed and the barmaid re­turned.

  “He’s coming,” she said. “Want some chips?”

  “Sure.”

  She recognized him immediately, walking with easy grace through the low-ceilinged room, head slightly bent to accommodate the space. Dave was tall, tanned, blond, and good-looking, with a casual dimple in his resting expression that widened to dazzling charm when he smiled. It was a manner that served him well tending bar. He could defuse a drunken argument, calm a harried waitress, mollify the recipient of a late order. College-age girls hung on his stools and left sizable tips in their disappointed wake. He belonged on a beefcake calendar, bare-chested and lazy-eyed for the camera, but Merry sensed he would be profoundly uncomfortable there. Dave’s looks were an accident his personality had not quite caught up with.

  “Merry Folger,” he said, extending a hand. At close range, she saw the strain around his eyes, the hollows beneath them. Two lines ran from the corners of his mouth to his nose. He’d been keeping late nights, or broken ones.

  “Hi, Dave. I hoped I’d f ind you here.”

  “Am I ever anywhere else?” A trace of bitterness in the words. He had to be about her own age, Merry thought, and he’d been tending bar at the Brotherhood for years.

  “Do you have a few moments to talk before you go on? Somewhere less—public?”

  “Sure. Let’s head for the back. If I take a table, the manager’ll kill me. Not that there’s one to take.”

  She followed Dave through the service door to a small room off the kitchen. “The chef’s off ice,” he said. “He orders everything from here. The rest of us use it for phone calls.” He sat down in a straight-backed wooden chair and motioned Merry toward its mate. The room barely contained them both, but it had a door that closed, and when Dave shut it, the silence fell welcomingly on her ears.

  “You’re here to talk about Del,” he said quietly.

  “Yes.”

  “As a cop or a friend?”

  “I have to be both.”

  “I can understand that.” He looked at her once, looked away. “It might almost be a relief, I suppose. To have something off icial to do. A distraction.”

  “I’m sorry, Dave.”

  “Coming from you, that word almost has meaning.” His voice broke, and he rubbed at the bridge of his nose with a thumb and foref inger.

  “Dave,” Merry said, aware that time was short, “did you get to see Del while she was back on the island?”

  A deep, shaky breath, and nothing.

  “I only ask because she said something about dropping by here the night she died,” Merry said. A white lie, but so what. “I wondered if she’d seemed nervy. Or frightened. Anything out of the ordinary that might give us a clue to what happened.”

  His hand came away from his face, and she was struck by the grief in his eyes. “How’s Sara, Merry?” he said. “What’s going to happen to her?”

  “She’s staying with us. Del’s lawyer is working out the adoption.”

  “So you’re taking her?”

  Merry shook her head. “I’d love to, but Del’s cousins are f irst in line. And there’s some chance that a clause in Joe Duarte’s will may foul things up. He named Jackie Alcantrara Sara’s guardian in the event of Del’s death. It’s not clear whether that’s enforceable, but there’s a chance Jackie will try for it.”

  “No way!” Dave burst out. “Why would that guy want Sara?”

  “For her money. That’s pretty crass, but it’s what I’m guessing.”

  Why do you care, Dave? Merry studied the bartender’s angry face and compared it to the baby’s waiting at home. There was not the slightest resemblance between them. Where Sara’s features were slight and delicate, Dave’s were large and blunt, much as Del’s had been. Where Sara’s eyes were green, Dave’s were bright blue. She was petite for her age, he was enormous. And her auburn hair bore no compar­ison to his blond.

  Blond hair had been found on the f loor, however, near Del’s body.

  “As if Del had money to leave,” Dave muttered.

  So the hundred thousand dollars hadn’t come from him. “There’s the Milk Street house,” Merry said. “It’s wort
h quite a lot.”

  “That asshole Alcantrara.” Dave stood up and reached for the door, as though he intended to hunt Jackie down that very minute. “He gets Sara over my dead body.”

  “Dave—”

  “She’s mine, Merry,” he said, turning and stabbing at his chest with a stiff f inger. “Sara is mine. And the last person who should have her is Jackie Alcantrara. If the bastard goes to court, he’ll run into me.”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “Sit down.”

  The bartender sighed, then slumped back into his chair.

  “Did Del say you were Sara’s father?” Merry asked.

  He shook his head. “She denied everything.”

  “Then why are you so convinced?”

  “Who else could it have been?” he burst out. “I was always with her, Merry. I loved her. I wanted her, for God’s sake. I wanted to marry her. Even after she told me she was pregnant, and that she was leaving. I tried everything I could think of to make her stay. I even followed her to New Bedford, did you know that? For three months. I worked at a bar down near the seaport, just so I could see her, try to talk some sense into her.”

  “But you f inally came home.”

  “What else could I do? There’s only so long a guy can feel like an ass.”

  “And she never admitted you were the father?”

  “No. Even I began to wonder, after a while. I mean, why wouldn’t she tell me the truth?”

  “Maybe because the truth would hurt.”

  “There was no one else,” he said in a small voice.

  “Dave,” Merry began, and stopped, searching for the words. “Del and I grew apart over the past few years. She never told me who the father was. But I did think she’d ended her relationship with you several months before Sara was conceived.”

  His eyes slid to hers, slid away. He shrugged, nodded assent. “She decided to stop seeing me. That’s true.”

  “Do you know why?”

  He laughed shortly. “Because Del was always threatened by commitment. I asked her to marry me, Merry, and she told me not to call her again. You explain that.”

  Maybe she couldn’t marry someone she didn’t love, Merry thought. And maybe she’d met someone she did. “When would this have been?”