Death of a Wharf Rat

by Francine Mathews

  “Nobadeer Beach,” Hughes said. “I gather it’s pretty epic.”

  “That’s one word. A sand-coated symphony of blood, urine, and vomit describes it best. We’ve hired backup from the mainland this year, and we’re going to try to pinch off alcohol supplies at checkpoints, but it’s a problem of sheer numbers. Even fifty of us can’t control seven thousand of them.”

  “I thought it was against the law to drink on the beach.”

  “It is,” Merry agreed. “But oddly enough, it’s legal to carry unopened containers onto the beach. Go figure. I’m so sorry Fairborn left you holding the bag.”

  “As it were.” The doctor glanced through the open front door; it offered a view of the EMTs as they loaded their black-covered burden into the ambulance. “At least we got this out of the way before the holiday really hit.”

  “Yes. Thank you for responding. Are you in private practice, or . . . ?”

  “I’m on a yearlong rotation. I’ve been here since January. I’m actually an oncologist with Mass Gen.”

  Merry knew that Massachusetts General had an oncology program at Cottage Hospital. She’d never had a reason to consult it. “Any thoughts on cause of death?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Summer’s dark eyes widened. “I wouldn’t know where to begin. I’ve never seen a corpse that decomposed.”

  “Neither have I.”

  “I’m sure you noticed that there’s no obvious wound or sign of violence,” she added. “I’m tempted to call it natural causes—but that doesn’t tell us much. We’ll have to wait for the autopsy and pathology reports. Toxicology. It could always be an overdose.”

  “No drugs on the scene,” Merry said. “Or in the bedroom.”

  “Clarence hasn’t searched the entire house yet. And by this time, we won’t be able to find needle marks on the skin. But the stomach contents may tell us something.” Summer lifted the bag in her hands. “I’m sending this mug to Bourne with the body. There’s a residue in the bottom that’s probably coffee, but it can’t hurt to analyze it.”

  “Right. Thanks.”

  Bourne, just over the Sagamore Bridge on Cape Cod, was the nearest coroner’s office. The corpse would have to be flown there by helicopter. Then it could take weeks to get the toxicology reports from the state crime lab.

  Merry gave the doctor her card. “I really appreciate you showing up. Call me if there’s anything you need.”

  “I will.” Summer looked from the card to Merry. “I’d love to have coffee sometime, actually. Hear about your work.”

  “You would?”

  “It’s been a little hard to meet people on the island. It’s so isolated during the winter. And now that it’s high season—”

  “There are too many people.” Merry laughed. “I get it. For the next three months you won’t have a minute to sit down at Cottage Hospital.”

  How long had it been since she’d taken the time to get to know a stranger? Half the people on Nantucket were familiar from childhood—and the other half viewed her as an authority figure, best given a wide berth. It would be nice, Merry thought, to spend an hour with another professional woman. Make a friend.

  She followed Summer out the door to the drive. The doctor climbed into the ambulance; she would accompany the body to the Cottage Hospital morgue, where it would lie until its transfer to Bourne. Merry made a mental note to call ahead and request that the medevac flight be delayed until Spencer Murphy was found. He might want to see his daughter’s body.

  “You missed the staff meeting, Detective.”

  Bob Pocock’s voice caught Meredith just before she reached her office. She’d been hoping he’d have his door closed—he usually did—but she realized he’d been waiting for her. Meetings were Pocock’s passion. Missing them was insubordination.

  She pulled up in front of his desk. “I’m sorry, sir. I was dispatched to a suspicious death an hour and a half ago.”

  “And?”

  “Forty-year-old woman found in her family home, no sign of violence, could be overdose, could be natural causes. We’ll have to await the autopsy.”

  “Strangerfield show up?”

  “Yes, sir. He and his team are still engaged in evidence collection at the scene.”

  “I want your report by the end of the day.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pocock looked back at his computer screen; this was all the dismissal Merry could expect. She turned away.

  “And, Detective?”

  He loved to wait until she’d assumed she could leave, then throw something else at her.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “From now on, I expect you to take lunch at your desk. No more hours wandering around the island on your own brief. That kind of slack may have been tolerated when your father was chief, but no longer. Understood?”

  All too well. “Yes, sir.”

  “And notify me when you plan to miss a meeting. That’s a common courtesy I’m surprised you haven’t mastered by now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She stared straight at his bowed head for the next twenty-eight seconds. Finally, without bothering to make eye contact, Pocock said, “You can go.”

  The Nantucket town manager had issued a job description for chief of police when the search for John Folger’s successor began more than six months before.

  Candidate must have received a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice or business management. Graduation from a police academy is required. A master’s degree in police or public administration, criminal justice, or a related field is preferred. Ten years of experience as a certified police officer, five of which have been in a supervisory capacity, are mandatory.

  The notice concluded with instructions for online submission of résumés and references, along with salary information. But Meredith hadn’t read that far. Gone were the days when the Folgers handed down the post of chief from generation to generation. When John had succeeded Ralph Waldo two decades before, the townspeople had been comforted by the promise of family continuity and tradition. But Merry knew that the Nantucket Police Department was a different force from the one her father had inherited—partly because of the effort he’d made to modernize its training and facilities. It was as shiny as its new station out on Fairgrounds Road; and Merry figured it was time for new blood at the top. Off­-island blood.

  She volunteered her opinion defiantly one winter night in her childhood kitchen, although neither Ralph nor John had asked why she failed to apply for her father’s vacancy. Merry wanted to nip their speculation in the bud. She would never get the job anyway. She wasn’t qualified.

  Although she had spent nearly ten years in police work on and off the island, she had too little experience as a supervisor. Howie Seitz was more of a friend than a subordinate. Clarence Strangerfield was a surrogate uncle who’d taught her more than she would ever teach him. And she had no B.A., much less a master's—just an associate degree in criminal justice from Cape Cod Community College. She’d promised herself she’d try to earn a bachelor’s online through UMass during the off-season, but planning her wedding had taken precedence.

  And if she were brutally honest, she was having doubts about her career altogether. The prospect of relaxing into Peter Mason’s life—of raising children on his farm instead of fingerprints at a crime scene—was bewitching. Never since the age of sixteen had she been offered the choice not to work.

  What would she do with herself if she were free?

  Travel, she thought. See the world. Learn a language. Sleep late on a weekday. Try to cook something edible.

  That might be enough to fill her first six months of marriage. But what then? Would she grow bored? Or worse yet . . . boring?

  You could go back to school full time. said a voice in her head. At a four-year college.

  The idea was so disruptive and dangerous�
�would she really leave Nantucket and Peter for school?—that she thrust it immediately out of her mind.

  She had a report for Pocock to draft, before the chief left for the day.

  Merry’s new boss was the result of several months’ intensive search on the part of the town manager, who had interviewed more than a dozen candidates. Many were officers who had risen through the ranks in various police departments around New England, who were looking for a capstone to modest careers. They ranged in age from mid-forties to mid-fifties. Pocock was forty-eight years old. But that was where any similarities to his rivals ended. Pocock was a rising law enforcement star. His last job title had been Deputy Chief of the Special Investigative Group of the Bureau of Detectives of the Chicago Police Department.

  Merry had pulled up an organizational chart of the CPD when the new chief’s hiring was announced, wondering what exactly that series of titles on his résumé meant. She understood immediately that he was a manager and shaper of hundreds of lives. The Special Investigative Group was a huge umbrella unit within the Chicago Police Department. It governed all investigations throughout the city’s precincts: property crimes, violent crimes, arson, financial crimes, fugitive apprehension, youth intervention. It supervised a joint task force with the FBI, crime scene processing, and forensics. And Pocock had been second in command.

  “What the hell is he doing here?” Merry murmured, as she read the Inky Mirror’s profile of the new chief. The newspaper provided few clues. And three months after Bob Pocock was sworn in on a blustery March afternoon, Merry was still no wiser. He was vastly overqualified for, and under-utilized in, his new position. The Nantucket Police Department offered no scope for the sort of ambition and success his career suggested. Setting the budget limits and workday culture of a small group of employees, responsible for the safety of roughly ten thousand year-round residents, with a brief spike up to seventy thousand in July and August, could hardly equal the challenge and vicious survival politics of policing a city of three million.

  Pocock, Merry suspected, was on the run from something. He had gone to ground on an island thirty miles out at sea to keep from killing himself.

  She had no proof of this, of course. The new chief never fraternized with his subordinates. He only spoke to impose his orders or solicit intelligence regarding ongoing police matters. He never inquired about his officers’ or detectives’ personal lives. He never asked where he could get a good beer. If he had family or friends from the past, no one knew about them.

  Pocock made it clear he thought the department had been poorly managed and that its personnel could improve considerably in their professionalism. He never praised anyone’s performance. They were all on notice, Merry knew. Nobody’s job was secure. Particularly that of his predecessor’s daughter. Maybe if she missed a few more meetings—and neglected to inform her chief—he’d pack her off to a life of leisure at Mason Farms.

  Before she could consider this, Howie Seitz stuck his head in her doorway.

  “Hey, Mer,” he said. “They’ve found the old guy’s car.”

  Chapter Five

  Spencer Murphy’s Volvo was in fairly good condition for a car that had been exposed to salt air for fifteen years. Merry walked around it, noting scratches along both the driver and passenger sides—probably from the untrimmed hedges that lined the entry to Step Above—and a shallow impression in the bumper near the tailpipe. He’d backed into something fairly recently. The car was parked in a shaded spot along New Whale Street and there was a ticket on the windshield. It was a two-hour zone, and Murphy’s car had overstayed its welcome by about six. Murphy himself was nowhere to be seen.

  “This is a good place to dump your car if you’re catching a ferry to the mainland,” Howie pointed out.

  “If you want a parking ticket on July Fourth weekend.” Merry pulled on a latex glove and tried the door handle; unlocked. She glanced inside. A stained coffee mug, a couple of used tissues wadded in the cupholder, and a yellow reporter’s notebook tucked on the passenger seat. She flipped it open carefully in case Murphy had left a note. But in page after page of jottings, there was a common thread: he recorded bird sightings, some of them with charming pencil sketches; and he wrote careful instructions to himself, organized by day. Lists of things he needed from the store. Reminders to call people, meet people, remember their names. She had stumbled on Spencer Murphy’s vast cheat sheet. He knew he was losing his memory, and he was fighting it.

  Under today’s date there was only one notation:

  Wharf Rats, noon.

  “You think he realized we’d figured out he killed his daughter and skipped town?” Howie asked.

  “No. I think he’s old and lost. Go back to my car and put out a second APB—with just Murphy’s description this time. He’s probably wandering on foot. Unless he somehow made it home.”

  She drew her cell phone from her purse and called Clarence Strangerfield. She buzzed him twice before he picked up.

  “Hey. Are you done at the house?”

  “Half an hour ago,” Clarence said cautiously. There was the sound of laughter and a shrieking child in the background.

  “Where are you?”

  “Something Natural. I was a bit puckish, Marradith, and the cheese-and-chutney on whole grain was calling me.”

  “Pocock will be calling you next. He wants us to eat at our desks. Find anything after I left?”

  “Lots. There are over a dozen rooms in that house. And only one woman to clean them. You don’t want to know what’s undah the beds.”

  “Controlled substances, Clare,” she said patiently. “Prescription or non. Did you get anything?”

  “Just a hahf-empty bottle of a common statin med. Spencer Murphy has high cholesterol, appahrently.”

  “Is that something we should ask the coroner to test for?”

  “It wouldn’t kill the girl, Marradith, unless she’d eaten the whole bottle. And even then, it would take a while. She’d die of livah failure over a period of days. Not while she was watching the sunrise.”

  “Tell the folks in Bourne about it, just the same.”

  “Ahready did,” Clarence said comfortably. “Did you find her father?”

  “No. He didn’t wander home on foot?”

  “He did naht.”

  “How much of your sandwich is left?”

  “I only got a hahf. You know how large they are.”

  “Can you meet me on New Whale Street, Clarence?”

  Andre lifted the glasses from the living room table and carried them across the center hall to the side passage that led to the kitchen. Like those in most old, unrenovated houses, it was a small galley space with few windows, a dark linoleum floor, and wood cabinets scuffed with use. The few pots and pans Roseline used to cook the simple meals she gave Spencer Murphy were shining and clean, but they dated to the 1970s. So did the dishes. Even the pot holders by the electric range were gray with time and use.

  Andre knew that if Elliot had his way, the room would be tripled in size by folding it into the connecting passage and adjacent study. It would be opened to the rear terrace and filled with light. The cabinets would be white, the floors flagged with limestone, which suited a house by the sea. Elliot would dot the room with his collection of sea-colored glass vessels, handblown by artist friends. He would cook healthy food on a gas stove under a vent hood encased in stainless steel. The room would strike a razor-edge balance between comforting nostalgia and hip modernity.

  Andre was less obsessed with places and things than his partner. He spent his days with people who had so little that his own life seemed inordinately blessed. He was a psychologist who worked with homeless children at shelters in the Bronx. He and Elliot had met at a Designer Show House in Brooklyn; proceeds from the event benefited Andre’s organization. Elliot had toured him through the place, his enthusiasm for design infectious; it was a wind
ow on his skills as a high-end Manhattan realtor. Andre had turned the tables, however, by asking Elliot to help find low-cost buildings in fringe areas that his organization could refurbish and lease. In the past seven years, he and Andre had turned around eight buildings as fresh new shelters for abused women and homeless kids. In the process, they had become friends, lovers, and partners in every sense of the word. Their condo perched above the High Line was an oasis of calm from the stress of both their lives.

  He rinsed the empty glasses, soaped them carefully—they were Elliot’s mother’s old Waterford highballs—and upended them in a rack to dry. He knew Elliot was outside, standing in the long grass at the end of the garden, staring at the darkening Sound.

  Roseline had gone home. Spencer Murphy had not returned. They were alone in the house. With Nora’s ghost.

  He walked through the hazy, unlit rooms to the French doors and strode across the lawn.

  “They found the car,” Elliot said. “But not Dad. I just heard.”

  “They’re still looking?”

  “Oh, yeah. What if he got on a boat? And ended up in Hyannis? With no idea why he was there—or where there was—or how to get back?”

  “He’d ask somebody,” Andre said. He put his arms around Elliot’s waist and drew him close. Elliot’s head came up to his chin, no higher, like a child’s. Elliot sighed, also like a child, and leaned into Andre.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “That this happened. It’s ruined our holiday.”

  “We could go eat,” Andre suggested reasonably.

  “How can I eat, when my father’s . . . out there, somewhere, and Nora’s . . .”

  “You’re not helping Spence by standing here.”

  Elliot gazed out over the moor shrubs and wild brush that tangled the gulley between the cliff and the farther dunes. “What if he’s . . . down there, Andre? A corpse like Nora? Covered by the leaves and the vines and the rugosa canes . . . lying under the stairs . . .”

  “MacTavish would have found him.” Andre released Elliot. “Tav didn’t smell a thing but seaweed and dead crabs. And he’s already had his dinner and gone to sleep on our bed. Now, come on, El. You’re making yourself crazy here.”